NZ stocks: CanWest debut provides softer market with focus

1.00pm

The listing of media company CanWest MediaWorks provided the slightly softer New Zealand sharemarket with some focus this morning.

By 11.45am the NZSX-50 gross index was 3.76 points lower at 2764.41, while the NZSX all capital index was down 0.88 of a point at 931.28. Total turnover by late morning was worth $36.56 million and there were 28 rises and 30 falls among the 126 stocks traded.

A general feature of the morning's trade was a number of top stocks losing some their gains from yesterday when the market pushed to a fresh closing high.

But the market's big news today was CanWest MediaWorks' market debut at $1.65 -- a 7.8 per cent premium to its issue price of $1.53.

Canadian media giant CanWest Global Communications Corp floated off 30 per cent of its New Zealand television and radio assets including the flagship TV3 channel through the issue of 68 million shares at $1.53 each, raising $104 million.

Murray Rutherford, senior institutional adviser at Goldman Sachs JB Were which organised the float said the stock had been the focus on the market.

"It's opened very strongly which is what we'd expect. I think the economic environment that we're enjoying at the moment will be very good for this company and that's been recognised."

Another feature this morning was the weakness in Fletcher Building, which was down 8c to 490.

"That's probably off the back of some comments of a reasonably bearish outlook in terms of residential construction in the 05/06 year," Mr Rutherford said. His company did not share the bearish view yesterday expressed by Westpac Bank in commentary.

Elsewhere, the Reserve Bank's widely expected quarter of a per cent official cash rate hike to 6 per cent announced this morning appeared to have had little effect on trading which was quiet in terms of volume.

Telecom was unchanged at 613, Carter Holt Harvey up a cent to 212, and Contact Energy was down 4c to 596.

This morning the Takeovers Panel conditionally approved several exemptions for Australia's Origin Energy's takeover bid for Contact.

The principal exemption will enable Origin to acquire Edison Mission's controlling 51 per cent interest in Contact at an upstream, or holding company level, rather than at the direct Contact shareholder level.

Other stocks to move in morning trade included: Affco up a cent to 39, Auckland International Airport down 5c to 691, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare up 4c to 1330, Mooring Systems down 19c to 350, NGC Holdings up 4c to 274, NZX up 5c to 860, Sky City up 3c to 489, Telstra down 4c to 546, and The Warehouse down 3c to 443.

- NZPA