KEY POINTS:
Solid rises by takeover target Sky City and Fletcher Building lifted the benchmark index today, outweighing a 3 per cent slide in top stock Telecom.
Sky City said it has received an indicative and confidential approach from a party interested in acquiring all its shares at a premium to the market price, but there was no guarantee the bid would proceed.
The news boosted the casino company's stock to a record high of 556, before it closed up 22 per cent, or 95c, at 528 on turnover totalling $96.8m.
"It's a very odd announcement - it's highly conditional ... It's very much wait and see," said Macquarie Equities' NZ investment director Arthur Lim. He noted there had been rumours "for ever" about a Sky City takeover.
The NZSX-50 index ended the week up 0.6 per cent, or 24.28 points, at 4231.16 on turnover totalling $231.5 million.
"We're still reflecting to a certain extent what happens overseas, but there's a much stronger undertone of stability in the market than was prevailing right until recent times," Mr Lim said.
"The market has been vulnerable to takeover activity, and what's happened with Sky City reaffirms that. I would say those investors who are looking to exit the market or are negative on the New Zealand market will pause and wait."
No 2 stock Fletcher Building rose 3 per cent, or 40c, to 1280 after it successfully raised US$235m ($323m) in the US private placement debt market.
"That is a vote of confidence in the kind of markets that we've been in, where the market wrongly assumes that all companies are unable to raise funding in the market at the moment," Mr Lim said.
Top stock Telecom was down 13c, or nearly 3 per cent, at 429. Contact Energy fell a cent to 933, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare lost 4c to 345, F&P Appliances fell a cent to 357, and Auckland Airport lost a cent to 324.
Sky TV was up 4c at 552, Air New Zealand rose 3c to 222, The Warehouse gained 3c to 608, Infratil was down 2c at 298, and Hellaby was up 10c at 290.
Mainfreight was down 6c at 694, Freightways fell 2c to 368, Sanford rose 4c to 455, and Nuplex was up 7c at 702.
Guinness Peat Group shares fell 4c to 189 after the lifting of its trading suspension.
It had been suspended by NZX after its unit, British threadmaker Coats Group, was one of seven companies fined by European regulators for market collusion. GPG said it would appeal Coats' fine of $122m, equivalent to 18c a share for GPG.
GPG recently quit its 3.62 per cent stake in NZX at a market discount of 950. NZX shares closed down 10c today at 950.
Australia's benchmark index lost 0.6 per cent to 6358, while Japan's Nikkei average fell 0.8 per cent as the yen gained on the US dollar.
On Wall Street, stocks fell as a weakened dollar and a surge in oil prices kindled fresh concerns about inflation, snuffing out a two-day rally that followed the Federal Reserve's deep interest-rate cut.
- NZPA