Ryman capital raising surprises market amidst earnings season

Aged-care provider Ryman Healthcare surprised the market as it was getting into the flow of earnings season with the announcement of a $902 million capital raising.

Wednesday, February 15th 2023, 6:11PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 index rose just 8.7 points, or 0.0.7%, to 12,083.12. Turnover was $172.1m.

Ryman will sell 180.5m new shares, which will increase the shares on issue by more than a third. Investors will be entitled to buy one new share for every 2.81 shares held, priced at $5 per share, a 21.9% discount to Tuesday’s close at $6.40.

“It’s certainly good news for the market,” Hamilton Hindin Greene investment adviser Grant Davies said. “And one of the larger capital raises we've seen on the NZX.”

The capital raising is the biggest since Air NZ’s in March 2022 when the airline raised $1.2 billion of new equity.

Retirement village competitor Summerset Holdings said today that Cyclone Gabrielle had forced Summerset to evacuate its Te Awa village in Napier twice in the past 24 hours. The stock ended the day down 2.6% to $9.25.

Radius Residential Care also dipped 6.3% to 30 cents.

Ahead of its half-year earnings out next week, Tourism Holdings leapt 5.1% to $4.15 after revealing that its merger with Apollo Tourism & Leisure is expected to add to net profit for its full-year result.

Shares in The Warehouse were flat at $2.59 today. The retailer announced this afternoon that it was trialling a range of fresh produce in-store and had plans to expand the range and extend into more locations.

Fruit and vegetables will be available in six Warehouse stores across NZ "to see if this is what our customers want from us, and we’ll be guided by them as to whether we extend it,” chief product officer Tania Benyon said.

These stores are in Whangārei, Westgate, Lyall Bay, Riccarton, Timaru and Invercargill.

Agribusiness Scales told the market this morning that Cyclone Gabrielle continued to be of “immense concern” to the agribusiness and had resulted in some flooding of its Mr Apple’s Hawke’s Bay orchards.

The stock ended the day down 5.6% to $3.38.

Napier port edged up 1.8% to $2.81 after confirming this afternoon that the port, which had closed for all operations on Monday evening, would remain closed until at least until midday tomorrow.

Fletcher Building confirmed its first-half operating profit today as well after previously revealing its result earlier than expected on Monday.

Operating profit was still up 8.4% and Fletcher said it will pay a fully imputed first-half dividend of 18 cents per share, the same as in the previous first half. Fletcher Building had edged up by 0.4% to $5.07 by early evening.

Casino operator SkyCity jumped 4.9% to $2.57 after it revealed it had managed to jump back into the green over the past six months in its first-half results.

Net profit was $22.8m, up from a pandemic-inflicted loss of $33.7m for the comparable half-year to December 2021.

The NZ dollar was trading at 63.29 US cents at 3pm in Wellington today, up from 63.64 US cents at the same time yesterday.

Tags: Market Close