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Wall Street rose, pushing the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to fresh record highs, as the International Monetary Fund said it plans to lift its outlook for the US economy. “Growth is picking up and unemployment is going down,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said yesterday on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’ “So all of …

New Zealand shares rallied as Australia & New Zealand Banking Group and Westpac Banking Corp shrugged off Australian regulatory requirements to hold more capital and offshore investors saw value in a market that has lagged global peers in recent days. The NZX 50 Index rose 41.444 points, or 0.9 percent, to 4722.635. Within the index, 33 stocks rose, 11 fell …

The New Zealand dollar held near its lowest in more than three weeks heading into the Christmas break and was weaker against the Australian dollar while not moving outside its recent trading range. The kiwi was at 81.97 US cents from 82.05 cents at the start of the day and from 82.09 cents in New York on Friday. The currency …

Summerset Group, the retirement village operator whose shares have gained 47 percent in the past 12 months, named Scott Scoullar as chief financial officer, filling a vacancy left by Julian Cook, who has been promoted to chief executive. Scoullar joins Summerset from Housing New Zealand, where he has been CFO since early 2012, after filling the same role at the …

GuocoLeisure, the diversified investment company once known as Brierley Investments, plans to delist from the NZX, meaning its dwindling New Zealand shareholder base will have to use the Singapore Exchange in future. The Singapore-based company said New Zealanders now own just 4.2 percent of total shares on issue. So far in 2013, daily turnover on the NZX has been 22,567 …

The statutory managers for the late Allan Hubbard’s Aorangi Securities have lost a bid to exclude an American widow who had some $5.8 million invested with the Timaru businessman. In the High Court in Christchurch, Justice Robert Dobson today struck down a bid by Grant Thornton’s Richard Simpson, Trevor Thornton and Graeme McGlinn to have Susan Jenks and her deceased …

Goodman Fielder, the biggest food company in Australia and New Zealand, agreed to sell its Biscuits unit to Green’s Food Holdings for about A$17 million and will take an impairment of more than three times that amount against the business. The sale is part of the Sydney-based company’s ongoing strategy to focus on profitable, market-leading categories and brands which has …

New Zealand Oil & Gas, the nation’s largest oil explorer, has taken a 36 percent stake in a consortium to explore onshore south Sumatra, Indonesia. The consortium won a permit to explore the Palmerah Baru 1,000 square kilometre block, the Wellington-based company said in a statement. The venture plans to undertake three years of exploration including 2D and 3D seismic …

New Zealand prices for a combined package of broadband and phone services have fallen over the past two years but remain higher than the OECD average. Prices for a bundle with 60GB of data have dropped 14 percent over the period but are still 30 percent higher than the OECD average, the Commerce Commission said in its latest benchmarking report. …

Guinness Peat Group, which has exited more than 50 investments to focus on UK threadmaker Coats, said the UK’s Pensions Regulator has issued warning notices over its pension plans. The regulator has found the Brunel Holdings Pension Scheme and the Staveley Scheme were insufficiently resourced and the warning notices say a ‘financial support direction’ (FSD) may be reasonable. “The board …