All eyes on Ebos, as investors await next move

The New Zealand sharemarket had a soft ending to the week, as investors waited to see what Ebos Group has up its sleeve.

The S&P/NZX 50 Index had its second successive fall and closed at 11,176.97, down 53.9 points or 0.48 per cent, though it had a late rise in the matching session. The index finished just ahead for the week and has fallen by 2.55 per cent this year.

There were 58 gainers and 63 decliners on the main board, with 43.29 million shares worth $117.1m changing hands.

ANZ Research has removed its prediction of a further official cash rate hike in February and is now expecting the Reserve Bank to keep its rate on hold for all of next year, with a cut in February 2025.

ANZ said recent economic data had been a little mixed but overall had gone the Reserve Bank’s way (particularly key labour market statistics).

“The market is itching to price in cuts more aggressively. But cuts remain a distant prospect; indeed, we’ve pushed out our estimate of when they will occur by one quarter,” said ANZ.

Shane Solly, portfolio manager with Harbour Asset Management, said there was some wariness on the local market, and investors may be getting ready for a capital raising from Ebos in the next week or so.

Ebos, the leading Australasian medical products distributor, is in a trading halt on speculation that it is lining up Australian petcare and veterinary company Greencross, which operates the Animates petcare chain in New Zealand and has a valuation of $3.5 billion.

Solly said, “clearly Ebos is working through something and we’ll have to wait and see. But investors are building up cash in case things need to be done.”

Dairy marketer a2 Milk was up a further 15c or 3.61 per cent to $4.30 on trade worth $13.05m after providing a positive trading outlook, saying it is launching an upgraded infant milk formula product in China backed by a strong marketing campaign in December and January.

Developer Winton Land rose 12c or 5.26 per cent to $2.40 after Macquarie increased its shareholding to 22.347 per cent, from 17.347 per cent.

Infratil declined 17c to $10. In its six-month result, the utilities investor said there were increased earnings at all key businesses it has invested in, particularly CDC Data Centres, which was experiencing unprecedented demand for cloud computing services and artificial intelligence. Online travel provider Serko fell 12c or 2.72 per cent to $4.29 after revising its fullyear revenue to $67m-$74m, from $63m-$70m. Auckland International Airport

was down 7c to $7.73. Total passenger numbers in October were 1.542m, an increase of 20 per cent compared with the same month last year and 86 per cent of pre-Covid levels.