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Fears the big power companies will stifle small competitors is prompting the Electricity Authority to mount an investigation into the practice of customer “saves” and “win-backs” to prevent customers switching provider. The regulator issued figures showing that some small retailers, particularly Pulse Utilities (Just Energy) and Hunet Energy, which targets Asian customers on Auckland’s North Shore, have been particularly hard …

Auckland International Airport, the nation’s busiest gateway, had its Standard & Poor’s outlook revised to ‘stable’ from ‘positive’ while its A-/A-2 credit rating was affirmed following plans to increase debt to return $454 million to shareholders. “The increase in debt will drive a relative weakening of the key financial metrics over the short term, in relation to our prior expectations, …

Fletcher Building, New Zealand’s largest building company, spent about $4 million and took almost two months to clean up and replace the roof of its Christchurch plasterboard factory that contained asbestos. The Winstone Wallboards factory, which manufactures GIB plasterboard, was reopened on Oct. 21 following its closure on Aug. 27 after traces of asbestos were found during preparations for the …

New Zealand commodity prices snapped four months of gains as aluminium and whole milk powder fell, though a weaker kiwi dollar shielded local producers from the decline. The ANZ Commodity Price Index fell 0.4 percent to 326.7 in November and have gained about 21 percent in the year. The index had been edging back toward its April record of 333.5 …

Wellington-based television and film production firm Gibson Group has bucked the recent trend of being snapped up by foreigners with a management buy-out underway as founder Dave Gibson departs to take over at the New Zealand Film Commission. Senior staffers including chief executive Victoria Spackman, director of exhibition projects Allan Smith, producer Bevin Linkhorn and exhibitions producer Brett Tompkins are …

The Commerce Commission has been urged not to sign off on the country’s dominant mobile phone operators buying the remaining 700 megahertz radio spectrum for fear of undermining burgeoning competition in the market. A Covec report, commissioned by new entrant Two Degrees Mobile, claims competition among mobile carriers would be “substantially enhanced” if the antitrust regulator declines clearance for Vodafone …

The New Zealand dollar rose above 90 Australian cents for the first time in five years as traders bet the Reserve Bank of Australia will attempt to talk its currency down at its policy review this afternoon. The kiwi touched a high of 90.03 Australian cents early this morning, a level not reached since October 2008. The local currency was …

Wall Street began the week flat as the start to the holiday sales season was mixed, leaving investors wary of placing too many fresh bets ahead of the November payrolls report on Friday. On a positive note, US manufacturing surprisingly picked up speed last month. The Institute for Supply Management’s index climbed to 57.3 in November, the highest since April …

Prime Minister John Key appears to be holding the door open to renegotiating the price at which Chorus undertakes its part of the national roll-out of fibre-optic cable under the government’s ultra-fast broadband project. Speaking after Cabinet, Key told journalists the government had “a number of options” for dealing with the billion dollar hole blown in Chorus’s earnings between now …

New Zealand shares fell as Chorus, fighting price controls, sank to a record low and other utilities at risk of regulation, including Meridian Energy, declined. The NZX 50 Index declined 2.621 points, or 0.1 percent, to 4792.329. Within the index, 21 stocks fell, 15 gained and 14 were unchanged. Turnover was $108 million. Chorus dropped 5.6 percent to $1.44, the …