By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor
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Friday 21st December 2001 |
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Applefields began the year worth just over 3 cents a share but dusted itself off in April when it announced it had cleared debt and was looking for acquisitions. It continued its climb in August after striking a deal to process ore concentrates in Nevada and closed on December 19 at 16 cents - a 416% increase from the start of the year.
Silver medal this year went to niche software marketer Software of Excellence (NZSE: SOE) which was rewarded for keeping its promises of growth, and then some. The company writes software for dentists and dental institutions and has been a smart operator in the UK. The market has also lapped up its sales wins in the US. SOE saw its shares rise 191% to $2.77 from 95 cents, putting on a surge at the finish line.
Another Christchurch-based company, PDL, was also high on the winners list thanks to a takeover by French electrical giant, Schneider. PDL began the year at $3.71 but bowed out of the market in August at $10.40 - a 180% improvement. The Stewart family did even better than that by selling their majority 60% holding at a whopping $12.00 a share, realising around $97 million. That's a lot of light switches.
Rural services company Wrightson (NZSE: WRI) gets a commendation prize for finishing at $1.19 compared with 63 cents a share at the start of the year, a rise of 112%. High prices for commodity stocks flowed through to Wrightson and a number of rural stocks throughout the year, with Tasman Agriculture up 90%, Dairy Brands up 56% and PGG (formerly Reid Farmers) higher by 53%.
The manufacturing sector rounds out the top five with steel company, Steel and Tube (NZSE: STU), taking a late run into fourth place after it sold its Canadian operation and as investors looked about for a dividend story. After floundering around for much of 2000, STU's share price was up 109% at December 19 at $2.57.
Like all the other shares mentioned in this article, STU's percentage change includes items like share splits, rights issues and dividend payouts. Only ordinary shares have been considered, leaving out such securities as rights and warrants. The prices for calculations are close of business on Wednesday, December 19, 2001
A couple of other stocks worth a creditable mention for coming in out of the cold include Beauty Direct & Online (NZSE: BDO) up 107%, Cedenco (NZSE: CED) improving by 75% and Restaurant Brands (NZSE: RBD) rising 60%.
Heading straight to the bottom of the table the obvious disaster is Air New Zealand (NZSE: AIRVA), which jettisoned its loss-making Ansett subsidiary and delivered the market a frightening full-year loss of $1.425 billion.
The airline was already hurting from last year's result when it traded at the start of 2001 at $1.58 however that seemed a princely sum compared to the year end price of 33 cents - a drop of 85% for the B shares and 77% for the A shares.
Once again though it's the troublesome techs that dominate the bottom of the ladder with Strathmore (NZSE: SMR) down 66% to 4.5 cents, Selector Group (NZSE: SEL) falling 79% to 2.8 cents, Chrome Global (NZSE: CGB) down 80% to 2 cents and E-cademy (NZSE: ECH) finishing up at half a cent, a drop of 83% from its opening price.
And the company that managed to jostle all the others out of the way for the bottom slot? The award goes to Australian-based communications software company, CommSoft (NZSE: CSG). After starting the year at $1.05 it ended down 93% at 7 cents. Yep, not getting paid for the stuff you sell definitely has its drawbacks.
Still, even CommSoft can take solace in the fact that it is at least it remains trading, unlike a number of tech companies overseas which simply don't exist anymore.
It may also be helped by the thought that when you're at the bottom, there's (usually) only one way to go.
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