Shares fall as Infratil flags equity raising
New Zealand shares fell as infrastructure investor Infratil flagged it will raise new equity to help fund its share of the $3.4 billion takeover of Vodafone New Zealand.
The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 56.48 points, or 0.6 per cent, to 10,070.35. Within the index, 29 stocks fell, 18 rose, and three were unchanged. Turnover was $155.6 million.
Infratil fell as much as 6.1 per cent, and ended the day at $4.48, down 2.6 per cent on a bigger volume than usual of 2.1 million shares. The investment firm will pay $1.03b, matched by partner Brookfield Asset Management, for Vodafone New Zealand, which will also take on $1.3b of debt. James Lindsay, a senior portfolio manager at Nikko Asset Management, said Vodafone chief Jason Paris was confident about rebasing costs in the
business. “It’s a reasonably easy and transparent playbook about what they need to do,” Lindsay said.
Paris also talked up Vodafone’s prospects of pushing into fixed wireless broadband, something rival telco Spark New Zealand has done to reduce its reliance on Chorus’s fixedline network. Lindsay said that may have weighed on Chorus, which was down 2.9 per cent at $6.10.
Spark rose 0.8 per cent to $3.715 on a volume of 3.8 million shares.
Infratil also noted the potential competition concerns the Commerce Commission may raise over its controlling stake in electricity generator retailer Trust power. Trust power led the market lower, down 3.5 per cent at $6.95 on a volume of 91,000 shares. Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund
units fell 1.2 per cent to $4.25 on a volume of 206,000 units. Exporters were among those sold off yesterday, with Vista Group International down 1.8 per cent $5.58. The cinema analytics firm was the most heavily traded stock on a volume of 4.9 million shares. Synlait Milk fell 1.9 per cent to $10, Air New Zealand declined 1.3 per cent to $2.715 and Pushpay Holdings dropped 1.3 per cent to $3.95.
Of other companies trading on volumes of more than a million shares, Z Energy slipped 0.3 per cent to $6.21, Fletcher Building fell 2.2 per cent to $4.95, Oceania Healthcare declined 1.9 per cent to $1.03, Meridian Energy decreased 0.4 per cent to $4.185, and Kiwi Property Group increased 0.3 per cent to $1.54.
Goodman Property Trust, which reports annual earnings today, rose 0.9 per cent $1.785. Vital Healthcare Property Trust
rose 2.2 per cent to $2.36 on a volume of 122,000 units, posting the biggest gain on the benchmark index.