Active year for new listings on New Zealand Stock Exchange

Andrew Rooney.
Andrew Rooney.
The New Zealand Stock Exchange had an active year for new listings, with many companies holding off in 2013 as the Government sell-down of electricity companies continued.

Forsyth Barr broker Andrew Rooney said the year was dominated by the tech sector, with some new and some established businesses opting to go to the market.

The most noticeable omission was Hirepool, which was withdrawn close to the listing date.

Initial public offerings added $6.6 billion of new capital to the stockmarket this year and existing listed companies raised more than $1.7 billion through 165 capital raisings.

Investors were drawn to a market where the benchmark NZX 50 Index was heading for an 18% annual gain, the third straight year of double-digit growth.

''It's many, many, many more than we've had for many years, if not ever,'' Mark Lister, head of private wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners, said.

''So, lots of new companies coming to market and the market is performing very, very well.''

The performance of the new listings was mixed, with eight of the 16 up on the year, seven down and one unchanged.

The biggest gainer was mobile payment app developer Pushpay Holdings, which advanced 84% to $2.73 since listing in August, followed by a 49% gain in cinema software Vista Group International, up 49% to $3.80 since its August debut, and a 40% rise to 28c for NZAX-listed Lateral Corp, whose mobile technology directly charges services to a customer's phone bill rather than their credit card.

The worst performer of the new listings was accounting software reseller Enprise Group, whose shares have dropped 18c to 45c since its regulatory listing on the NZAX this month.

Utilities and airports software developer Gentrack's shares dropped 15% to $2.13 since its June listing, while remote measuring tool developer ikeGPS fell 13c to 86c.

Genesis Energy, the last of the Government's partly privatised power companies, was up 19% to $2.145 since its April listing.

Health software developer Orion Health Group was down 8.3% to $5.75 since its debut last month.

Mr Rooney said ikeGPS had some good news stories since listing, including expanded orders with a United States defence technology investor, signing a deal with Black & Decker to manufacture and distribute products, and hiring former Apple and Trimble staff.

However, the chief operating officer had left and would not be replaced.

Retirement village operator Arvida, which was associated with All Black Dan Carter, had an initial lift in trading but was now back at listing value of 95c.

''The big news seemed to be the high profile owners versus the company itself. The interest seems to be in whether returning a good yield can be sustained and how they expand and grow from here.''

South Island-based Scales continued to languish beneath listing price of $1.60, dropping as low as $1.35 before climbing back to $1.44, Mr Rooney said.

The report of a 22% first-half profit drop did not help the share price. However, that was put down to the lower apple prices and the one-off costs of listing.

After very strong public demand, Serko closed the retail offer nine days early and scaled back allocation. Initially, the price rose 2.7% but had subsequently traded as low as 85c and as high as $1.20.

Education group Inteuri was priced at the lower end of its price range but had climbed 16% since listing and had continued to perform well, tripling its first-half profit and acquiring additional providers, Mr Rooney said.

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