Property For Industry, which increased its portfolio by two thirds after a merger with Direct Property Fund last year, said annual profit rose 50 percent as it benefited from an increased rental flow while keeping expenses in check. Net profit was $40.5 million for the year ended Dec. 31, from $26.9 million a year earlier, the Auckland-based company said in …

BlueScope Steel, Australia’s largest steelmaker and owner of the New Zealand Steel mill, has agreed to buy assets of Fletcher Building’s Pacific Steel in a $120 million deal that will lead to the closure of Fletcher’s steel mill at Otahuhu at the end of 2015. The transaction will leave BlueScope as the nation’s only steelmaker and requires approval from the …

Chorus, the telecommunications network operator spun out of Telecom in 2011, has put up an alternative proposal to the Commerce Commission on how its physical copper lines should be regulated in a bid to fast-track the process. The Wellington-based company says the regulator should use the existing network configuration as a hypothetical equivalent operator to determine the value of assets …