Milk prices have dropped so dramatically that Fonterra Cooperative Group effectively overpaid farmers under an advance payments scheme last year, sapping funds available to pay out farmers at the end of the season and leaving them short of cash even before last week’s deep cut to the 2016 forecast payout. “Last year, Fonterra came out with a higher advance rate schedule during the year, …

The New Zealand dollar is heading for a 2.4 percent drop against the greenback this week after a slump in milk powder prices this week fuelled calls for the Reserve Bank to cut interest rates more aggressively to prop up the country’s biggest export sector. The kiwi fell to 65.37 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 71.29 cents on Friday …

Steel & Tube Holdings rose after the country’s biggest steel distribution company said it’s agreed to buy fastener distributor Manufacturing Suppliers for $32 million in a cash and scrip deal. The Petone-based company will pay $26 million in cash and $6 million in shares for Auckland-based MSL, which is best known for its Fortress Fasteners brand, which Steel & Tube will …

OceanaGold Corp, which is in the process of buying the Waihi Gold Mine, sees more life in the Macraes Goldfield in Otago as cheaper fuel and a weaker New Zealand dollar make the operation more attractive. The Melbourne-based company discovered a new zone of gold mineralisation which could increase the potential reserves of the Macraes mine after embarking on a …

The $18 million settlement reached between Hanover Finance’s directors and promoters and the Financial Markets Authority should be of some comfort to investors in what has become a “better regulated” market, Prime Minister John Key said. The FMA settled for just under half its $35 million civil claim, which was due to go to court later this year alleging misleading and …

The number of Auckland house sales were at the highest in 11 years for a June month, while falling from May as winter starts to slow activity, according to Barfoot & Thompson. The city’s biggest realtor sold 1,167 houses in June, down from 1,225 in May, though 13 percent more than the same month a year earlier, it said in a statement. New …

The New Zealand dollar is heading for a 1.8 percent weekly decline as financial markets remain volatile ahead of Greece’s referendum on whether to accept a bailout package from its European creditors, and as the wheels start coming off the local economy. The kiwi dropped to 67.18 US cents at 5pm in Wellington from 68.42 cents on Friday in New York …

British American Tobacco Holdings (New Zealand), the nation’s largest cigarette company, reported a 3.9 percent decline in annual profit as it absorbed the government’s latest hike in excise tax. The local arm of British American Tobacco, whose brands include Pall Mall, Benson & Hedges and Dunhill, reported net profit of $126.5 million in calendar 2014, down from $131.6 million a year …

Spark New Zealand, the country’s biggest telecommunications provider, has affirmed annual guidance after the Commerce Commission today said regulated pricing on Chorus’s copper line network would largely be unchanged. The Auckland-based company, which is Chorus’s biggest customer, said 2015 financial guidance for low single digit growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation and for a low single digit decline …

The Commerce Commission looks likely to settle on a price close to its original decision on what telecommunications network operator Chorus can charge its customers, though it probably won’t backdate any update. The regulator today released its draft determination for what Chorus can charge on its regulated copper lines in its final pricing principle – a more rigorous process to …