Stocks to watch: Ecoya, Genesis Research, KMD, NZS, PGW

Monday 3rd May 2010

Ecoya, the scented candle business taken public in the first New Zealand IPO in six months, has its debut on the NZX today. Backers include the founders of the 42 Below vodka brand.

Ecoya (NZX: ECO ): The scented candle maker debuts today after concluding its $10 million equity raising. The firm’s backers and underwriters, the Bakery, had to take up a portion of the shares to meet the target. The shares were sold in the IPO at $1 apiece.

Genesis Research & Development (NZX: GEN ): The biotech researcher today announced it is suspended New Zealand operations because of a lack of funding and is in talks over several transactions that are “intended to maintain value for shareholders. Key to its future is to secure funding for its Solirna gene silencing research, with a Japanese investors still weighing whether to provide further funds. The stock was unchanged at 6 cents on Friday.

Kathmandu Holdings (NZX: KMD ): The outdoor equipment chain may get a sentiment boost from the announcement last week that Super Cheap Auto Group has agreed to buy Ray's Outdoors for A$54 million to expand in camping and outdoor leisure. The stock rose 0.9% to $2.37 on Friday.

OceanaGold Corp. (NZX: OGC ): The operator of the Macraes goldfield announced last week it would take a one-off C$73 million hit to its balance sheet to close "out of the money" forward hedge contracts that had begun to weigh substantially on its results. The shares rose 0.9% to $3.43 on Friday.

PGG Wrightson (NZX: PGW ): The nation’s biggest rural services company fell 5.4% to 53 cents on Friday after Rural Portfolio Investments, which owns just over 6% of the stock, said it can’t find the cash to prevent a breach of its preference share trust deed and may not be able to make more dividend payments. The RPI securities were suspended indefinitely today at the request of the company amid expectations it will be forced to put its Wrightson stake and its 10 million shares in NZ Farming Systems Uruguay (NZS) on the table. NZS was unchanged at 41 cents on Friday.

Economic themes of the day: Data this week includes employment and labour costs, with the jobless rate forecast to hold at 7.3%.

Businesswire.co.nz

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