Fonterra shareholders voted to re-elect incumbent directors John Wilson and Nicola Shadbolt to the Fonterra board. They will be joined by new director Blue Read, a former chairman of the Fonterra Shareholders’ Council from 2007 – 2010. Read, aged 57, lives and farms near Urenui in Northern Taranaki.? Blue is the current Chairman, New Zealand Co-operative Business Association, and has …

SAME OLD SAME OLD IN JAPAN .  According to exit polls the Liberal Democratic Party has won a large majority in Japan ’s parliamentary elections. The return of Shinzo Abe marks Japan ’s seventh PM in fewer than seven years. Watch for a potential increase in tensions with China as Abe has talked tough regarding the disputed islands. The LDP has …

REGIONAL publisher APN News & Media has spoilt the pre-Christmas party on the market for Australian publishing companies after unveiling a 10 per cent-plus profit downgrade yesterday. essay writer reviews That’s how The Australian headlined APN’s post market guidance last night that earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation would be $A150 million to $A155m. This figure is 11 per cent below …

New Zealand food prices fell for the third straight month in November, driven by seasonally low prices for vegetables such as tomatoes, broccoli and lettuce. Meat prices also fell. The food price index fell 0.8 percent last month, for an annual decline of 0.6 percent, according to Statistics New Zealand. Prices of vegetables dropped 11 percent while fruit rose by …

GLOBAL MARKETS:  This morning was all about the US Federal Reserve and it duly delivered. The big change was a shift in the Fed’s communication strategy for it’s zero-interest rate policy, which is now dependent on the US unemployment rate falling below 6.5% (while inflation remains below 2.5%); from the Fed’s earlier mid-2015 forward guidance. The Fed also announced it would …

Getting along to the Trans Pacific Partnership stakeholders’ day was rather like being involved in a mad-cap version of speed-dating with less-than-optimal results. There were close on 80 presentations in four separate streams. All these in just over five hours with stakeholders and media zooming off like a giant locust swarm whenever word got out (usually via text) that someone …

Restaurant Brands, the fast food operator which recently launched the Carl’s Jr brand in New Zealand, lifted third-quarter sales 0.5 percent as its Pizza Hut stores’ cheap deals came up trumps in a highly competitive market. Total same store sales increased to $72.2 million in the three months ended Dec. 3, from $71.9 million in the same period a year …

GLOBAL MARKETS:  Our London colleagues report that it was a quiet day in Europe . Most of the day’s focus was on the negative Italian headlines.  The weekend’s Italian political bombshell, along with some very weak industrial production data out of France and Italy , weighed on European equities, EUR and Italian sovereign bonds in early trading. However, most markets …

MONTI TO QUIT; BERLUSCONI BACK IN THE ARENA. Italian PM Mario Monti has told the head of state that he has lost support in Parliament and intends to resign. He has been in power 13 months and his unelected emergency term was due to conclude in April. Not coincidentally, earlier the same day, Silvio Berlusconi (76) announced plans to run for …

The Teamsters Union’s Mike Nolan has lashed out at Fonterra saying the NZ dairy giant’s “virtual monopoly” must be diminished if the TPP is to go ahead. Nolan – who touched base with the US Dairy Council in Washington DC before coming down to Auckland for the 15th round of TPP negotiations – claimed that there would be $US20 billion …