Westpac Banking Corp and Kiwibank led earnings growth among New Zealand’s banks in the second quarter, as increased lending and wider margins propped up profits. Net profit across New Zealand’s banks edged down to $1.125 billion in the three months ended June 30 from $1.15 billion in the March quarter, though stripping out a one-off insurance settlement by Australia & New …

The New Zealand dollar jumped against the European common currency overnight after a report signalled further weakness in the European economy, fuelling bets the European Central Bank may add further stimulus. The kiwi rose to 63.14 euro cents at 8am in Wellington, from 62.85 cents at 5pm yesterday. The local currency slipped to 80.73 US cents from 80.80 cents yesterday as the …

Hundreds of Auckland householders are receiving a financial boost of $335 today, in a record annual electricity dividend totalling $105 million from Auckland Energy Consumer Trust The trust is making its annual payment to more than 316,000 households, businesses, schools and community groups who are customers of power lines company Vector throughout central Auckland, Manukau and northern Papakura.  They receive the payments regardless of which power retailer they are …

The New Zealand dollar fell to a year-low after Fonterra Cooperative Group cut its forecast payout to farmers for the current season in the face of dwindling dairy prices. The decline was limited by reports Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is wary of weakness in the yen. The kiwi dollar fell as low as 80.40 US cents after the Fonterra announcement, trading …

Fonterra Cooperative Group has predicated its reduced milk price forecast for the 2014/2015 season on a recovery in dairy product prices of about 30 percent by March next year, chief executive Theo Speirings says.  The world’s biggest dairy exporter today cut its forecast 2015 milk price payout by about 12 percent to $5.30 per kilogram of milk solids from a previous …

Fonterra Cooperative Group cut its forecast 2015 milk price payout by about 12 percent, citing weaker global dairy prices and said there is a risk of further declines given strong global milk production. New Zealand’s biggest company revised its forecast payout to farmers while releasing its results for the year ended July 31, which showed sales climbed 19.5 percent to …

Chorus, the telecommunications network operator, will ask shareholders to hike the pool for directors’ fees 12 percent if it needs to bolster its board as it tries to limit the impact of regulation on its revenue streams. Shareholders will vote on Oct. 29 in Wellington on whether to increase the pool to $1.1 million from $980,000 set in 2012 after …

The New Zealand dollar fell to a year low as it declined along with other commodity currencies on concern about slowing growth in China and cemented that low after Fonterra Cooperative Group cut its forecast payout to farmers. The kiwi fell to 80.40 US cents after Fonterra’s 8.30am announcement, its lowest since September last year. The dairy exporter cut the …

Health-care stocks including Medtronic fell after the US Treasury Department said it plans to rein in corporate tax inversions. A corporate inversion is a transaction in which a US-based multinational restructures so that the US parent is replaced by a foreign parent, in order to avoid US taxes. In the US, shares of Medtronic fell 3.3 percent and shares of …

SLI Systems co-founders Geoff Brash and Steve Marder were two of the initial shareholders of the search engine developer who sold some 6.8 percent of the company at the end its 16-month lock-up period at 23 percent below last year’s offer price in a placement largely made up of institutional investors. Brash, vice president of SLI’s business intelligence, halved his stake to now hold 1.2 million …