KEY POINTS:
Shares in Pumpkin Patch have defied the rising New Zealand dollar and difficult Christmas trading to rise nearly 20 per cent over the past two months.
Executive chairman Greg Muir attributes the rise to offshore funds buying into the company.
Shares in the children's wear retailer closed at
$4.94 yesterday, up 18 per cent on the $4.20 they were trading at in early December.
Muir said fund managers in the United States particularly, but also Asia, were starting to understand the stock better.
"They decided to get in and when they get in they buy in big volume. These guys have quite big holdings."
There were two spikes in activity on January 8 and 16 this year.
Muir stressed the fund manager buyers were not approaching the 5 per cent ownership threshold to report to the NZX.
"It has nothing to do with a takeover or anything like that,' he said.
The share price moves have followed upbeat annual results with Muir voicing good prospects from expansion in the United States.
Muir has been particularly upbeat about Pumpkin Patch expansion from Pacific states such as California and Oregon into Arizona and the United States' south west.
The rise in the Pumpkin Patch shares is at odds with some other apparel companies, which have reported patchy sales.
Hellaby Holdings last week forecast a 50 per cent decline in first half profits, in part due to poor sales at its No 1 Shoe Warehouse and Hannahs shoe chain.
The Warehouse Group has reported that sales for apparel in November and December were below expectations.
Also, the gain in the Pumpkin Patch shares came despite the resurgence in the New Zealand dollar over the past couple of months, which has seen it rise to over US70c this week.
As an exporter - the company earned just $60 million of its $271 million in sales in New Zealand - a rise in the currency is bad news for Pumpkin Patch.
Analysts said they had not seen evidence of activity from Asian or US investors but were not surprised by rising share prices.
Guy Hallwright of sharebrokers Forsyth Barr said that Pumpkin Patch prices had taken off in December after a period from April to October when investor interest had been diminished.
UBS director of investment research David Land said sharemarket activity through January was normally so light he treated figures cautiously.
But he said UBS was recommending buying the stock.
