Sky suffers triple whammy

Friday 4th October 2002

After a strong run up until the middle of the year Sky Network Television shares have been clobbered by a trio of factors none of them related to the company's performance.

"In a global bear market, stocks that don't make money at the bottom line have fallen out of favour as people become more risk-averse," said UBS Warburg media analyst David Lane .

"There has also been some unhelpful media speculation about [11.9% shareholder] Telecom's intentions."

Mr Lane said it was also possible people had been pre-empting this week's announcement of changes to the way the NZSE40 index was calculated.

The Stock Exchange proposes the index move to a "free float" basis that will give less weighting to companies that have major shareholders. Telecom and Independent Newspapers own 78% of Sky between them.

Mr Lane said Sky was fundamentally in a strong position with 500,000 subscribers and a New Zealand pay television monopoly

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