It's looking like there will be a total of 16 NZX main board and NZAX listings in 2014, up from 10 last year.
While that's not a record -- there were a whopping 37 floats in 2004, for example, and 21 in 2003 -- it's still been a bumper year on the listing front.
Roll-up risk
Arvida and Evolve, which will be making coin from the care of human beings at either end of the generational spectrum, are also similar in that they are both roll-ups of businesses that haven't previously operated together.
In Evolve's case, the company's acquisitions of Lollipops Educare and home-based care provider Porse -- which are being bankrolled by its $132 million IPO -- won't be settled until December 4, the day before its NZX and ASX listing.
Arvida is a mega-merger of 17 previously privately-owned retirement villages located from the Bay of Plenty to Christchurch.
Roll-ups are inherently risky, with many challenges involved in integrating businesses under a single corporate structure. No matter how much due diligence is undertaken, surprises can still occur.
"When you're buying assets off entrepreneurs, who are quite clever, and jamming them into a listed vehicle -- that creates question marks," says one fund manager, who didn't want to be named.
None of this has put investors off the offers, of course. Evolve's IPO was well oversubscribed and early reports from Arvida's bookbuild, which kicked off yesterday, suggested demand was solid.
Pay case watch
Arvida is staying mum on the potential impact on the sector of an ongoing pay equity case involving another aged care provider, which is not part of its mega-merger.
In October the Court of Appeal upheld an earlier Employment Court decision that ruled employers in the female-dominated aged care space should pay wages equal to those received by workers in a similar, male-dominated industry.
The original case was brought by Lower Hutt rest home worker Kristine Bartlett, who successfully argued that the $14.32 an hour she receives from her employer, TerraNova Homes & Care, was a result of the high percentage of women in that company's workforce.
Bartlett's case is now back in the Employment Court.
During a media conference on Tuesday, Arvida chief financial officer Jeremy Nicoll said there were "a lot of considerations" for the sector in the Terra Nova case. But it was too early to discuss the potential business impact of the case, he said, which still had 12 to 24 months to play out.
"It would be entirely speculative for us to make a comment about that," said chairman Peter Wilson.
Nevertheless, pay rates are set to become an increasingly hot topic in the aged care sector, which argues that wage rises without a corresponding lift in government funding would cause a crisis.
However, the listed aged care players -- Arvida will join Ryman Healthcare, Summerset Group and Metlifecare on the NZX -- are profitable and very popular with investors, making the justification of low wages a tough task.
The Service and Food Workers' Union, which is backing Bartlett's case, told Stock Takes last month it was planning to increase its activism at listed aged care operators' annual meetings.
Investors scale China's Great Wall of capital controls
International investors piled into Chinese equities on Monday following the historic debut of a scheme that provides foreigners with previously unavailable access to the Shanghai stock market.
The Stock Connect programme allows trading in selected Shanghai-listed shares via the Hong Kong exchange. It also provides Mainland Chinese investors with access to the Hong Kong sharemarket.
The scheme is seen as a major development in the gradual dismantling of China's Great Wall of capital controls.
Northbound investment - funds flowing into Shanghai from Hong Kong - far outstripped trading coming in the opposite direction on Monday. The 13 billion yuan daily limit for foreign purchases of Mainland stocks was exhausted by mid-afternoon.
But after a strong start, international interest in Shanghai equities has reportedly subsided over the course of this week.
