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New Zealand’s expected pace of inflation over the coming two years has slowed down from the start of the year, though unemployment is still picked as staying relatively high, according to the latest central bank survey. Respondents to the Reserve Bank’s March survey of expectations don’t seen any sign of rising interest rates, with consumer price inflation seen at 1.67 …

Fisher Funds expects its customers to share the benefits of a larger business in the form of cheaper fees, having stitched up a deal to buy insurer Tower’s investment business for $79 million. Managing director Carmel Fisher told a media briefing in Auckland that funds management is a scalable business in that it doesn’t take much extra resource to manage …

Former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley stonewalled questions about her suitability to remain chair of state-owned power company Genesis Energy after resigning her chairmanship of Mainzeal companies just before the country’s largest construction group went into receivership. In her first public appearance since the Feb. 6 Mainzeal receivership, Shipley was fielding questions at the six month result briefing for Genesis, which …

The New Zealand dollar rose against the euro on signs of a hung parliament in Italy and tumbled against the yen as Japan’s currency broadly recovered from a sell-off sparked by speculation over the next Bank of Japan governor. The kiwi dollar rose to 63.81 euro cents from 63.40 cents at 5pm in Wellington yesterday and sank to 77.77 yen …

The New Zealand dollar pared losses against the euro in the local session as investors mull the make-up of Italy’s Parliament in the first election since the global financial crisis saw the installation of technocrat executive. The kiwi rose to 63.41 euro cents at 5pm in Wellington from 63.15 cents this morning, and little changed from 63.51 cents on Friday …

OceanaGold said transportation of copper-gold concentrate from its Didipio Mine in Luzon, the Philippines, has been temporarily suspended after authorities detained its trucks over a tax dispute. The company has delivered about 2,500 tonnes of concentrate to port since production began at the mine but more 2,500 tonnes has piled up at the mine site pending resolution of the dispute. …

Penny-dreadful stock Allied Farmers is teetering closer to the abyss after the Inland Revenue Department issued a statutory demand for $3.7 million in outstanding debt and adding another default event to the failed finance company. The tax department is requiring payment from Allied Farmers Rural within 15 working days of Feb. 14, when the company advised IRD it was in …

Heartland New Zealand’s Marac Finance unit, which was one of three lenders which merged to create Heartland, has refunded more than half a million dollars over unpaid loan repayment insurance rebates in a settlement with the antitrust regulator. The Heartland subsidiary refunded $567,000 to 1,000 customers who repaid auto-loans early between 2006 and 2010 but weren’t refunded the rebate on …

Summerset Group, the retirement village operator and developer, more than tripled its net profit, beating the forecast from its 2011 prospectus, and will pay a bigger dividend than what analysts were picking. Net profit climbed to $14.8 million, or 6.96 cents per share, in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, from $4.3 million, or 2.39 cents, a year earlier, the …

Shares in Chorus dropped 2 percent after the telecommunications network operator spun out of Telecom signalled the cost of building a nationwide ultrafast broadband network has increased by some $300 million. The Wellington-based company expects the total UFB build to be between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, from a previous range of $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion. It flagged capital …