F&P Healthcare drags NZX50 down

New Zealand shares were mixed but the benchmark index closed down half a percent as its biggest stock Fisher & Paykel Healthcare continued to slide.

Tuesday, September 14th 2021, 6:35PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 69.8 points, or 0.5%, to 13,108.61. Turnover was $169 million.

Global covid infections have been in decline for three consecutive weeks now, having hit the top of a recent wave in mid-August.

New Zealand’s biggest listed company, F&P Healthcare has declined to give earnings guidance throughout the pandemic as outbreaks and variants which dictate sales are hard to predict.

The company – which supplies hospital products used to treat covid-19 – has seen its share price fluctuate wildly this year as investors make their own predictions as to what will happen to earnings.

In the year-to-date, F&P Healthcare has traded as high as $37 and as low as $27.10 — that’s a more than 33% swing. During this time its average price has trended down from about $33 to closer to $32.

Today, shares in the company fell 3.5% to $31.55, below its average but not by much. The stock has dropped by almost 7% in the past five sessions but is constantly volatile.

Pushpay Holdings dropped 3.2% to $1.84 after the church management platform released an investor presentation introducing the company's latest acquisition and outlining its plans.

The company told investors it was hoping to diversify outside of the church market, as the video streaming business it acquired has some secular customers.

But Pushpay also reiterated it would focus on the Catholic market, which is large, but some analysts think customers will be harder to win and lower value than flashy evangelical churches.

Stride Property slid 0.8% to $2.64 as the market continued to digest its plan to spin out an office property business similar to Precinct Properties.

Precinct climbed 0.9% to $1.685 today, while Investore Property – which is also managed by Stride – rose 2.5% to $2.02.

Synlait Milk had the day’s biggest gain, up 3.2% at $3.16, rallying with a range of other stocks.

Infrastructure investor Infratil climbed 1% to $7.85 after Forsyth Barr’s research team reiterated its ‘outperfom’ rating after its investment in yet another renewable energy startup, Gurin Energy.

“The announcement itself is relatively minor, a modest capital commitment and outlines some ambitious plans,” the analyst wrote.

Infratil now owns three renewables development companies, across the US, Europe and now Asia, which each have the potential to become "a new Tilt" which recently sold for $3 billion, it said.

Shares in Seeka climbed 0.6% to $5.40 after it announced it had bought Northland kiwifruit business Orangewood for a total transaction value of $6.6m, paid in a combination of cash and equity as well as factoring in debt.

Briscoes Group shares rose 0.1% to $7.01 as it reported net profit soaring 69.6% to $47.5 million in the 26 weeks ended Aug 1.

The retailer has lifted its hourly wage 6.4% since May, outpacing the 4% annual pace of wage growth in the June quarter, and will pay a bigger dividend.

Tags: Market Close