Stocks to watch: Affco, Air NZ, Fletcher, Telecom

Friday 29th January 2010

The following stocks may be active on the New Zealand exchange after developments since the close of trading yesterday.

Themes of the day: Shares fell on Wall Street, led by tech stocks after Motorola and Qualcomm forecast earnings that lagged behind some forecasts. Reserve Bank Governor Alan Bollard is scheduled to give a speech today entitled: ‘The crisis and monetary policy: what we learned and where we are going.’ Data out today includes building consents and merchandise trade.

Affco Holdings (AFF): The company announced the appointment of Hamish Simson as chief executive and Rowan Ogg as general manager, effective February 12. The shares climbed 2.8% to 37 cents yesterday.

Air New Zealand (AIR): The airline’s stock jumped 3.3% to $1.24 yesterday when it released operating statistics for December. International yields are showing signs of improvement, falling 7.5% year-on-year last month, said the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. That compares to a 12.5% reduction in the second half of last year.

Fletcher Building (FBU): The nation’s biggest construction company will open its new cement bulk storage and distribution centre in Auckland next week. Golden Bay Cement's $45 million plant at Eastport on Wednesday. The new facility will double its storage capacity on Auckland’s CBD waterfront. The shares were unchanged yesterday at $8.07.

Telecom Corp. (TEL): The phone company shed 1.2% to $2.41 yesterday as chief executive Paul Reynolds was forced to apologise to customers for outages on its XT network that extended for a second day. Reynolds said compensation for customers may be considered.

Widespread Energy (WEN): The exploration said it raised $198,200 in a private placement of 1.65 million shares, raising funds to drill a stratigraphic bore near the Kotuku oil seeps. The shares were placed at 12 cents each, the last price they traded on January 18. The investors agreed to subscribe for a further 1.65 million shares should Crown Minerals grant a prospecting license over the Chatham Rise in the next twelve months, it said.

Businesswire.co.nz

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