Units of Fonterra Shareholders’ Fund were cut to ‘sell’ from ‘hold’ by brokerage Craigs Investment Partners because of the ongoing squeeze of rising raw material costs and weaker prices for value-added products such as casein and cheese. Fonterra’s 2014 normalised earnings before interest and tax may fall 24 percent to $764 million, Craigs analyst Arie Dekker said in a report. …

Air New Zealand, the national carrier, expects first half pre-tax earnings to rise 20 percent from the year earlier on optimism about its December bookings and on certainty about redundancy costs. The Auckland-based carrier said it expects earnings before tax to increase about 20 percent in the six months ending Dec. 31, including about $10 million of redundancy costs. Last …

The Reserve Bank's exemption of new home building from low-equity mortgage limits, just two months after they were introduced, shows the central bank isn't immune to lobbying and highlights the limitations of such policies, says the NZ Institute of Economic Research. The bank today amended its loan-to-value ratio speed limit policy, designed to limit the risk to the nation's financial …