Retirement stocks fall on housing policy

New Zealand's main share index slipped as retirement stocks fell on the risk of lower house prices and Oceania Healthcare completing an $80 million capital raise.

Wednesday, March 24th 2021, 7:10PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index fell 35.46 points, or 0.3%, to 12,358.88. Within the index, 32 stocks fell, 13 rose, and 5 were unchanged. Turnover was $183m.

Oceania Healthcare dropped 4.3% to $1.33 after it completed the first phase of its $100m capital raise to fund the purchase of an existing retirement village and new land for development. Shares were sold in the offer at $1.30.

The aged care provider will also raise $20m in a retail offer that opens on Thursday.

Grant Davies, an investment advisor at Hamilton Hindin Greene, said other retirement village operators had drifted lower since the government announced a new housing policy to discourage property speculation.

“They are property developers by another name and are impacted by what their residents can sell their current house for, so if that is a little lower it flows through,” he said.

Arvida Group fell 2.4% to $1.66, Ryman Healthcare declined 1.3% to $15.21 and Summerset Holdings was down 1.2% at $12.08.

Cinema software firm Vista Group International led the market lower, dropping 5.9% to $2.08, after hitting a post-pandemic all-time high yesterday.

In an investor call, Spark NZ said it is confident of 5-10% annual growth in IT and managed services over the next three years despite the price pressure of public cloud competition.

The call did little to get investors excited, with the telecommunications firm's share price declining 0.8% to $4.42.

Mercury NZ saw the day’s biggest gain, climbing 4.6% to $6.59 for no clear reason. Davies said the power market was “all over the place right now”.

Serko said it has started transitioning Booking.com business customers to its new Zeno platform. While the move is not material for revenue this financial year, as it ends this month, it will be significant in the following year.

The online travel booking company’s share price rose 0.2% to $6.40.

Sky Network Television was up 1.2% to 17.6 cents as it rolled out a high-end broadband service to some customers in an effort to provide more value and compete with cheaper streaming services.

The NZ dollar continued to slide as the new policy measures to tackle excess house price inflation drove the currency lower.

The kiwi was trading 69.80 US cents at 5pm in Wellington, down from 70.94 cents yesterday.

The trade-weighted index was at 73.26 at 5pm, from 74.12 yesterday. The kiwi was at 91.76 Australian cents from 91.97 cents, 75.75 yen from 77.14 yen, 58.92 euro cents from 59.46 cents, 50.85 British pence from 51.23 pence, and 4.5530 Chinese yuan from 4.6180 yuan.

Tags: Market Close