Market commentary
WELLINGTON: The New Zealand sharemarket struck its ninth successive daily rise, this time led by Contact Energy, and a renewed takeover offer for Abano Healthcare added life to trading late in the day.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index collected another 76.35 points, or 0.62%, to close at a recordbreaking 12,356.89. There were 86 gainers and 59 decliners across the whole market, with 46.28 million shares worth $174.55 million traded.
Energy stocks are flavour of the month; Contact surged a further 25c, or 3.18%, to $8.10 on strong volume of shares worth $20.5 million. Its high is $9.05 set on September 3 last year.
Salt Funds Management managing director Matt Goodson said Contact put out a strong monthly operating report that showed the firm was travelling well, and there was also the prospect of the stock joining seven other Kiwis in the MSCI World Index.
Its entry into the index would be decided on pricing during the last 10 days of this month, and Mr Goodson said the stock was at a high enough level at present and would attract additional global investor interest.
The world index of 1607 shares captures the large and midcap stocks across 23 developed markets in North America, Europe and Israel, and the Pacific (comprising Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Australia and New Zealand).
It covers 85% of the market capitalisation of each country. New Zealand is so far represented by Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, a2, Spark, Ryman Healthcare, Mercury, Meridian and Auckland International Airport.
Transtasman dental firm Abano Healthcare announced Bidco, a partnership between Australian BGH Capital and the Canadian Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, had increased its scheme of arrangement offer from $4.45 to $4.75 a share.
The takeover offer is backed by the Abano board, and in the final hour of trading the stock surged 50c, or 13.16%, to $4.30. Abano also reported unaudited group gross revenue was up 9% to $124.6 million for the first four months of the 2021 financial year. Operating earnings were $25.3 million, including Government wage subsidies of $10.6 million.
Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, up 15c to $34.70, and a2 Milk, which gained 18c to $15.75, had another good recovery day. Swiss multinational investment bank UBS Group AG disclosed it had reduced its stake in a2 Milk from 5.83% to 4.98%.
Value stocks Ebos Group increased 63c, or 2.54%, to $25.39, Mainfreight climbed 46c to $47.96, Ryman Healthcare rose 16c to $14.89, and Synlait Milk added 7c to $5.68.
The other two leading energy stocks also kept rising — Mercury gained 8.5c, or 2.8%, to $5.51, and Meridian picked up 6c, or 2.78%, to $5.55.
Two more movers were Enprise Group, up 9c or 8.91% to $1.10, and NZME, increasing 4c or 6.78% to 63c.
Auckland International Airport was down 15c to $7.47, and Chorus fell 7c to $8.75.