Guinness Peat Group has hired a London-based brokerage to promote Coats as a standalone business and begun the search for a chairman for what will be its remaining asset. GPG is exiting its portfolio of investments, apart from Coats, and will return capital to shareholders as it transforms into the thread-making business. GPG chairman Rob Campbell doesn’t plan to lead …

RBNZ Governor Graeme Wheeler yesterday laid out some home truths for markets. The NZD is not a one way bet. And markets looking for rate hikes in 2013 may be a step too far – unless the currency tanks that is. We come in this morning with the NZD/USD down a cent and the 2yr swap rate 6bps lower from …

Watching TPP in 2012 was watching a chess game in slow motion.  It was clear that a lot of thinking was going on, there was much jostling for position and it got a bit personal at times as people seemed to be plotting feverishly to get all the pieces they didn’t like off the board. The somewhat tedious nature of …

The shale oil boom might not be popular with everyone but its positive impact on the trade balance is starting to be demonstrated. In December, the US trade deficit narrowed sharply thanks largely to record petroleum exports, with the monthly trade deficit some USD7.5bn better than expected. The provisional GDP estimate of -0.1 percent assumed a larger trade deficit. Greater …

By Pam Graham Reserve Bank governor Graeme Wheeler has tax and regulation reforms on his wish-list to foster local savings and investment, saying they would help improve the nation’s economy. In his first public speech of the year, Wheeler told the Canterbury Employers’ Chamber of Commerce the first way to lift the country’s economic performance is through raising savings and …

By Pam Graham Multi-millionaire philanthropist Sir Owen Glenn was given the opportunity to bid for The New Zealand Herald last year but decided not to proceed. “I was approached at the beginning of last year and I did look at it as an investment but the numbers didn’t stack up,” Glenn told BusinessDesk. The former owner of OTS Logistics, who …

Ebos Group is progressing a couple of acquisition opportunities after indicating to shareholders last year that it was looking to follow up the successful purchase of Masterpet. Market observers have identified SVS, New Zealand’s leading full service provider of products to the veterinary industry, as a nice fit. Ebos chief executive Mark Waller told BusinessDesk that Ebos had talked to …

By Pam Graham Marlborough’s mayor is hoping meetings early this year will shed light on why the government is seriously considering a $422 million ferry terminal at Clifford Bay which will knock the economy of Picton. Marlborough District Council Mayor Alistair Sowman says a meeting he has on Thursday with Andrew Robertson, the management consultant running the Clifford Bay project …

GERMANY SUCCUMBING TO WEAKNESS IN THE EUROZONE? Preliminary data from the German Federal Statistics Office showed the economy to have contracted by as much as 0.5% in the December quarter, potentially signalling that the German economy joined a majority of other Eurozone nations in entering technical recession in 2012. Annual growth slowed to 0.7% in 2012 (from 3% in 2011) as the …

The former owners of Blue Star Group have swallowed a $173 million goodwill write-off and don’t look to be getting much from the sale of assets as the Australasian printing company is broken up. But the future of New Zealand’s largest commercial printer has been secured with the sale of the business to Australian private equity firm Mercury Capital and …