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Meridian Energy says it’s ready for partial privatisation and expects a significant uplift in operating earnings in the second half after transmission outages and heavy rainfall knocked its performance in the six months to Dec. 31. The state-owned power company’s accounts also show a strong positive bounce in the unrealised value of its contracts to service the Bluff aluminium smelter, …

ew Zealand Post Group, the state-owned postal service, posted a 68 percent jump in first-half profit as stronger earnings from KiwiBank and Express Couriers made up for the continued slide at its core postal service. Profit rose to $59.6 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, from $35.4 million a year earlier, the Wellington-based company said in a statement. …

New Zealand equities stormed past 4,200 on the NZX50 Index, recovering ground lost since mid-January despite a mixed first full week of corporate earnings as Telecom Corp became the latest big corporate to announce big job cuts. The NZX50 index of leading stocks rose 44.175 points, or 1.1 percent to 4,214.603, a level not seen since Jan. 18, when there …

Ports of Auckland, whose operations have been disrupted by a drawn-out industrial dispute that scared off customers, posted a 17 percent decline in first-half profit on reduced container volumes and an absence of year-earlier one-time gains. Profit fell to $15.5 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, from $18.6 million a year earlier, the city-owned port company said in …

Sky Network Television, the pay-TV company that’s 44 percent owned by News Corp, reported a 9 percent gain in first-half profit as subscribers migrated to its My Sky premium service and spent more. Profit rose to $68.2 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, from $62.7 million a year earlier, the Auckland-based company said in a statement. Sales rose …

State-owned coal miner Solid Energy’s plans for a multi-billion dollar new industry based on turning low-grade Southland lignite coal into diesel, fertiliser and burnable briquettes has been abandoned as the company struggles with mounting debts and low world coal prices. The new chairman of Solid Energy, Mark Ford, told Radio New Zealand the company could be profitable again with an …

Telecom Corp’s annual earnings face a material impact from a major overhaul of the business to become a data-driven and mobile-focused telecommunications operator, stripping out more costs and getting away from its old structure. Chief executive Simon Moutter told an analysts’ briefing that Telecom’s structure is still based on its vertically integrated history as both network owner and retailer, before …

Vital Healthcare, which invests in medical and healthcare properties, lifted distributable profit by 44 percent after completing three add-on building projects at existing Australian sites, boosting rental income. Distributable profit, the earnings measure it uses for distributions to unitholders, rose to $13.9 million in the six months ended Dec. 31, from $9.6 million a year earlier. Net property income rose …

Retirement village operator and aged care provider Metlifecare says it’s on track to meet its primary guidance of $60 million full-year operating cashflow after reporting cashflow of $29.2 million excluding interest and acquisition costs in the six months to Dec. 31. The results are heavily influenced by five months’ revenue from the merger last July of Vision Senior Living and …

Telecom Corp, the country’s biggest phone company, eked out a 3.7 percent lift in first-half underlying earnings as revenue from its mobile business propped up otherwise disappointing sales. Stripping out one-off items from the Chorus demerger a year earlier, adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose to $506 million in in the six months ended Dec. 31 from …