SkyCity's shares perk up but shareholders aren't happy

SkyCity’s shareholders weren’t pleased with the casino operator at its annual meeting but the share price still jumped almost 4% on the back of its first-quarter earnings lifting 10%.

Friday, October 28th 2022, 6:04PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index rose 29 points, or 0.26%, to 11,129.53. Turnover was a light $91.3 million.

Brad Gordon, an investment adviser at Hobson Wealth, told BusinessDesk that swap rates dipping from 5.1% to 4.6% today had given equities some “breathing space”.

He said SkyCity’s positive quarter was the big news of the day and investors had liked the earnings jump after battling difficulties that cut into its earnings last year.

Tourism would play a big role in the rest of SkyCity’s 2023 financial period, he said, which is something that chief executive Michael Ahearne was keen to press on shareholders as well.

SkyCity jumped almost 4% after its – virtual – annual meeting this afternoon. This was despite shareholders sending in unhappy questions which ranged from why the meeting was virtual instead of in person and the non-compliance and licensing probes facing SkyCity's Adelaide casino.

Ahearne said the casino’s domestic consumer environment had stayed robust, despite an “uncertain economic environment” and group earnings for its first quarter were up 10% above pre-covid levels.

By market close, its shares were up 3.3% to $2.79.

Gordon said Tourism Holdings was also having a good day – up 2.2% to $3.54 – and infrastructure company Infratil edged up 2.9% to $8.50.

Church management software company Pushpay entered a trading halt this morning, pending an announcement from the dual-listed software company.

Pushpay entered a trading halt in early October after BGH Capital – which has a 20% stake in Pushpay – was thought to have made a revised bid worth more than $1.2 billion. At today's price of $1.19, Pushpay is valued at $1.14b.

Pushpay said today's halt will last until it makes an announcement, or trading opens on Monday.

At Port of Tauranga’s annual meeting today, the company said it had spent $3m to date on the legal and consulting costs associated with its application to extend the wharf at its Sulphur Point container terminal and also add a berth.

Port of Tauranga reported a net profit of $111.3m in the 2022 financial year, up 8.7% on the previous period.

Its shares rose 0.2% to $6.29 by early evening.

South Port was down 2.8% to $8.07 and Napier Port fell 1.4% to $2.85.

New Zealand's largest kiwifruit grower, Seeka, had one of the biggest falls on the index today, down 4.7% to $3.69.

Currency 14th most traded

Today, the NZ dollar found itself tumbling out of the top 10 most traded currencies – falling to the number 14 spot.

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) showed the kiwi was overtaken by the Singapore dollar, Swedish krona, Korean won and Norwegian krone in its latest global survey.

“To the outside world, New Zealand has essentially been closed for two years,” said Mike Houlahan, director at foreign exchange consultancy Electus Financial. “Everyone has just moved on and is looking at other markets.”

“Just as the tourism sector is probably going to find over the next six to 12 months, it’s going to take a while to lure people back.”

Today, the kiwi was trading at 58.19 US cents at 3pm in Wellington, up from 58.34 cents yesterday.

The Bank of Japan also decided to keep its monetary policy settings unchanged – as widely expected, said SPI Asset Management’s Stephen Innes.

But he said this shouldn’t discount a change from the Bank of Japan when it came to “communication phrasing”.

With Japan's headline inflation at a 30-year high of 3%, the metrics the BoJ had set itself to monitor inflation expectations were at an all-time high.

Tags: Market Close