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By Jonathan Underhill Oct. 23 (BusinessDesk) – The Reserve Bank may keep the official cash rate unchanged next week to avoid inflaming Auckland’s housing market and to keep some capacity up its sleeve should global growth stumble, even though the kiwi dollar has gained when the bank had expected a decline. Governor Graeme Wheeler will keep the OCR at 2.75 …

By Paul McBeth Oct. 23 (BusinessDesk) – Vital Healthcare Property Trust, the listed hospital owner and developer, has bought two parcels of land which it plans to develop to expand Lingard Private Hospital and Toronto Private Hospital, both in New South Wales, Australia. The property investor spent A$7.8 million for a 2,700 square metre property next to its Lingard site …

By Jonathan Underhill Oct. 22 (BusinessDesk) – The Australian government’s response to the financial system inquiry could drive up interest rates at New Zealand’s biggest lenders as their Australian parent banks seek higher returns because of the requirement that they hold more capital. The Australian Federal Government has largely accepted the recommendations of the inquiry set up in late 2013 …

By Pattrick Smellie Oct. 23 (BusinessDesk) – The tax department is using big data analysis to “reliably predict customers who are highly unlikely to file GST returns on time” and try to help, while its investigators will be singling out “high-income individuals, in particular high-income new immigrants” for special attention in the year ahead. The Inland Revenue Department annual report …

 China’s state-owned Bright Food Group has provided a letter of comfort to Silver Fern Farms that it will vote its 38 percent stake in Shanghai Maling Aquarius in favour of acquiring 50 percent of New Zealand’s biggest meat company. Some 82.2 percent of votes were cast in favour of the transaction at a SFF shareholder meeting in Dunedin today, comfortably exceeding the 50 percent …

Shareholders of Silver Fern Farms have voted in favour of a proposal to sell 50 percent of New Zealand’s biggest meat company to Shanghai Maling Aquarius after the unit of China’s state-owned Bright Food Group offered $261 million of cash, a special dividend and money to bankroll the cooperative for seven years. Some 82.2 percent of votes were cast in favour of the transaction, …

Lisa Owen: Well, it reportedly came down to the wire, but after years of negotiations and a few dead rats, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was finally agreed this week in Atlanta. But the full text is still weeks away, and the only detail we have now is Government-released fact sheets. It’s trumpeting the 260 million we’ll save in duty and tariffs, …

It is common thought that the nature of work is changing, as technologies and social behaviour evolve. One aspect of this which has caused concern for some is that of casualisation. We see widespread commentary on the increasing proportion of lower paid jobs which are part time, casual, or even “zero hours” contracts. For those who are running businesses this …

New Zealand will still be able to make its foreign investment rules “more restrictive” under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade guidance note, opening up a way for the Labour Party to support the controversial trade and investment pact that it feared would breach the one of its five “bottom lines” relating to foreign …

Silver Fern Farms could be kept in cooperative ownership for as little as $25,000 per farmer and the meat company’s board would be irresponsible not to consider a “plan B” if it fails to garner support for its proposal to sell half the business to Shanghai Maling Aquarius, says an opponent of the deal. SFF shareholder John Cochrane this week circulated an …