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Dorchester Pacific has raised $4.1 million in a placement to institutions, with two major shareholders taking up an offer to sell down their own holdings in a secondary pool. At total of 35 million shares were sold at 25 cents apiece to institutional investors, the financial services company said in a statement. That was made up of 16.3 million of …

Air New Zealand, the national carrier, agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a long-running dispute with the antitrust regulator on alleged agreements with other airlines on fuel and security surcharges on air cargo. The Auckland-based airline is the last of 11 carriers to settle with the Commerce Commission on the air cargo cartel case, and faces the biggest penalty …

TeamTalk, the owner of the CityLink fibre-optic broadband service, cut earnings guidance for a second time and is reviewing its management structure to try to bed in its Farmside Group acquisition. The Wellington-based company expects second-half earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortisation a “little lower” than $5.14 million, having previously flagged a “modest lift,” it said in a statement. …

Cooks Food Group, a shell company whose shares haven’t traded the past four months, agreed to buy the franchise rights for Esquires Coffee Houses in many parts of the world. Cooks, which aims to become a global retail and supply chain business aligned with Esquires, agreed to pay Esquires founders Stuart and Lewis Deeks $300,000 in cash and an undisclosed …

Livestock Improvement Corp, which helped China’s Agria take control of PGG Wrightson in 2011 with a $10 million loan, is now providing its chief executive to run the New Zealand rural services company. Wrightson today named LIC’s Mark Dewdney as chief executive after George Gould resigned. He will take up the position starting on July 1. He ran LIC, a …

The official May US jobs report tomorrow is the key focus for Wall Street as the guessing game about the timing of a potential downward adjustment to the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program remains centre stage. With the next two-day Federal Open Market Committee meeting starting on June 18, tomorrow’s government payrolls data is expected to provide direction to the …

Air New Zealand has agreed to lift its holding in Virgin Australia to about 23 percent from 19.99 percent in a series of off-market transactions and indicated it may seek to hold as much as 26 percent. New Zealand’s state-controlled airline paid about A$72 million for the shares, with the largest purchase being for 77.4 million shares at 47.68 Australian …

Auckland house price growth stalled for a second month in May as buyers baulked at rising prices, according to Barfoot & Thompson, the city’s biggest realtor. The average sale price edged up 0.3 percent to $644,737 in May, following a 0.5 percent drop in April, the firm said. The median price advanced 0.7 percent to $570,000. “The Auckland property market …

The value of cash market trading on the NZX topped $5 billion last month with the value of equities changing hands almost doubling from a year earlier after state-controlled energy company MightyRiverPower joined the bourse. Total value traded jumped 92 percent in May for an average daily value of $218 million, according to NZX’s monthly shareholder metrics. That was off …

The New Zealand dollar fell to a nine-month low as investors concerned about global growth moved to the relative safety of US Treasuries. The kiwi dropped to as low as 79.25 US cents early this morning and recently traded at 79.48 cents, down from 80.46 cents at 5pm yesterday. The trade-weighted index slid to 74.64 from 75.45. Investors sold equities …