The New Zealand dollar rose to a four-and-a-half year high against its Australian counterpart amid diverging interest rate outlooks for the trans-Tasman neighbours. The kiwi rose as high as 87.43 Australian cents, the highest since November 2008, and traded at 87.14 cents at 5pm in Wellington from 86.01 cents yesterday. It climbed to 79.80 US cents at 5pm from 79.29 …

Livestock Improvement Corp., a farmer cooperative that sells bull semen and provides a dairy genetics database, posted a 3 percent drop in annual profit because its elite breeding bulls didn’t increase in value as much as the previous year. Profit fell to $23.7 million in the year ended May 31, from $24.4 million a year earlier, the Hamilton-based company said …

Z Energy, the petrol station chain, plans to raise up to $900 million in an initial public offering next month, allowing owners Infratil and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to crystallise some of their profits on the three-year investment. The chain’s indicative price range is between $3.25 and $3.75 a share, giving an implied market capitalisation of between $1.3 billion …