Here are the key things you need to know before you leave work today (or if you already work from home, before you shutdown your laptop).
MORTGAGE RATE CHANGES
There are no changes to report today.
TERM DEPOSIT RATE CHANGES
ICBC has raised rates through its entire offering, with short terms (under six months) hiked by 55-60 basis points, while longer terms have been tweaked by 5-15 bps.
Heretaunga Building Society has moved up its three-month rate.
DEATHS SPIKE BY 10% IN 2022
Stats NZ says the number of deaths registered during 2022 was 38,574, up 3,642 (10.4%) from the previous year. It says the increased number of deaths in 2022 was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and points to Covid-19 Trends and Insights, published by Manatū Hauora Ministry of Health, which states that just under 2,400 deaths in 2022 were identified as people who died with the cause of death being attributable to Covid-19. Separately Stats NZ says there were 58,887 live births registered last year, which was 228 (0.4%) more than in 2021. The latest figure results in a natural increase (live births minus deaths) of 20,313 for 2022. Annual births have been just below 60,000 since 2016. Stats NZ says based on death rates during 2020–2022, a newborn boy can expect to live, on average, 80.5 years, and a newborn girl 84.0 years.
RYMAN REAPS $542 MILLION CAPITAL AND COUNTING
Retirement village operator Ryman Healthcare [RYM], which is seeking $902 million from shareholders to repay debt, says it has successfully completed the institutional part of the offer, raising $542 million and is now moving on to the 'retail offer' part of the capital raising, which is set to open on Tuesday. The Ryman shares started trading again on Monday after being halted last week for the capital raising and they were, in afternoon trade, down 37c at $5.66 - still above the $5 capital raising offer price.
SUMMERSET LOOKS TO $175 MILLION DEBT
Ryman's looking for more capital to replace debt - but rival retirement village operator Summerset's [SUM] looking for more debt. It is considering (which means it will do it barring something very untoward happening) an offer of up to $125 million (with the ability to accept up to an additional $50 million of oversubscriptions at Summerset’s discretion) of six year, fixed-rate bonds to New Zealand investors. Full details and opening of the offer expected next Monday. ANZ Bank New Zealand Limited (ANZ) is Arranger, and ANZ, Craigs Investment Partners Limited, Forsyth Barr Limited and Jarden Securities Limited are Joint Lead Managers and Hobson Wealth Partners Limited is a Co-Manager in relation to the proposed offer.
a2 MILK PROFIT RISES, SHARE PRICE SINKS
The a2 Milk Company [ATM] has announced what it says is "a strong half-year performance in a very challenging market" along with "continued improvement in execution against its refreshed growth strategy". The company's looking to bounce back from disappointing results in recent years that have required a lot of reorganisation. In the latest half it said net profit rose 22.1% to $68.5 million on revenue that increased 18.6% to $783.3 million. The company highlighted a 43.5% increase to $271 million in sales of its China label infant milk formula - this in a country that saw continued decline in birth numbers and with the overall infant milk formula market sales shrinking by 12.5%. However, investors obviously wanted more. At time of writing the a2 share price was down 55c at $7.20 - though that's still nearly $2 up in the past 12 months.
FREIGHTWAYS DELIVERS 3.5% PROFIT RISE
Yes, profit reporting season is with us in earnest. Courier firm Freightways [FRE] was also reporting on Monday and it achieved a 3.5% rise in after-tax, half-year, profits to $45.2 million - after revenues had actually gained a touch under 25% to $552.1 million. Some big ticket costs, including an 18.6% rise in employee benefits and 46.1% rise in general and administrative expenses offset a fair portion of the revenue gain. "Freightways’ half year result benefited from its diversification across our four key pick up, process and delivery activities and tw0 geographies despite an environment of higher interest rates, slower growth and higher labour costs," the company said. Its price shed 10c to $9.74.
CHORUS PROFITS DROP TO $9 MILLION
Joining the chorus of results was, er, Chorus [CNU], with a $33 million drop in interim net profit after tax to $9 million primarily due to increasing interest rates and some one-off costs associated with the refinancing of "a large tranche of debt". Revenue was static at $487 million. The company said the widespread community devastation caused by the recent cyclones means it is having to reprioritise some work so it can focus on restoration efforts. The share price dropped 11c to $8.26.
HEARTLAND GIVES ITSELF MORE TIME
Heartland Group's also reporting half-year earnings, just not quite when it said. The company had intended to report on February 23, but has shifted that to February 28. "Heartland’s employees have been personally impacted by the recent severe weather events in Auckland and the upper North Island. This has affected the completion of the internal processes required to finalise Heartland’s 1H2023 financial statements. The board considers that delaying the announcement date will provide the additional time needed to complete these processes," the company said. It added that there was no change to its guidance for statutory reported net profit after tax for the full 2023 year and expects this to be within the range of $109 million to $114 million.
SCALES WITHDRAWS GUIDANCE
Heartland have delayed - but agribusiness group Scales Corporation has withdrawn profit guidance altogether after cyclone damage to its operations in Hawkes Bay. "Of our Group operations, the material impact at this time is to Mr Apple’s orchards. The initial assessment is that this impact covers four of their 15 orchards (of the four damaged orchards, three have extensive damage and one moderate). Further limited crop damage is also anticipated to the remaining orchards from the effects of the cyclonic event. Scales does not hold crop insurance for this event," the company said.
NZIER 'SHADOW BOARD' RECOMMENDS 50-POINT OFFICIAL CASH RATE RISE
The economists, academics and business people that make up the NZIER's 'Shadow Board' are recommending that the Reserve Bank continue increasing the Official Cash Rate (OCR) on Wednesday, with a broad view that there should be a 50 basis-points increase in the OCR (taking it to 4.75%).
SWAP RATES LOOKING MIXED
Wholesale swap rates are likely fairly mixed. But the real action in swap rates comes near the close. Our chart will record the final positions. The 90 day bank bill rate is down 2 bps at 5.01%. The Australian 10 year bond yield is now at 3.82% and down 1 bp. The China 10 year bond rate is up 1 bp at 2.91%. The NZ Government 10 year bond rate is now at 4.39% and up 1 bps. The UST 10 year was at 3.82% over the weekend.
EQUITIES UP, NZ DOWN
The S&P500 ended down 0.3% on Wall Street over the weekend. Tokyo has opened very slightly higher in morning trade. Hong Kong is up 0.3% at its open. Shanghai is up 0.7% at its open. The ASX200 is up 0.1% so far in early afternoon trade. The NZX50 is faring much the worst thus far, down 1.6% on the back of some of the reported results and the cyclone damage updates.
GOLD FLAT
In early Asian trade, gold is at around US$1842, which is up on where it was going into the weekend, but about flat on Monday.
NZD SLIDES A LITTLE FURTHER
The Kiwi dollar is at 62.39 USc, down very slightly on where it was early Monday. Against the Aussie we are marginally softer at 90.62 AUc. Against the euro we are also slightly weaker at 58.4 euro cents. The TWI is now at just under 70.1 and down from 70.2 at the weekend.
BITCOIN VOLATILE
The bitcoin price is having a volatile afternoon. At time of writing it was at about $24,300, and staging something of a rally. However, it was still down around 1.6% in the past 24 hours. But, it's still up about 11% in the past seven days.
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66 Comments
Wow first Ryman and now Summerset. Proving the old adage
There is never one cockroach.
Has anybody noticed that largely the commercials on TV illustrate NZ’s multi culture by race, and my personal suggestion is that here the caucasian type is of a lesser percentage, but when it comes to the various rest home commercials the opposite applies. Ok fully admit my proneness for generalisations and cynicism, but just wondering.
...they shall sniff out the pot of gold whatever it takes.
Yes, can be noticed when visiting them as well......
Its demographics. The increased diversity has not filtered up to advanced age-groups. Yet.
Other cultures have yet to embrace the almost total dissolution of the traditional family.
Less Maori and pacific islanders make it to retirement age, and even less in a position to afford a retirement village. Not sure about the Asian races , i would think they are more likely to be living with family.
Asian families are more likely to be multi generational households. It is not so common in NZ which maybe one reasons these retirement companies exist here. I have been a shareholder in some of them for many years.
Yes! They're unashamedly targeting a certain target market.
Are you suggesting they should be targeting a market that does not seem interested in their product?
Hey if honkies work hard, keep healthy, don't waste thier money on crap, and plan to be looked after in their old age... then don't moan if your nit included in the advertising...
Don't get bitter! Get better!
LQTM - priceless :)
One is raising capital to repay debts because it's too indebted, and one is considering issuing more debt. These are completely different situations.
A few months old, but the board policy of buying its own share is probably still why the shares are where they are. If they change that strategy, who knows where the share price will end up.
In the seven and a half years that it has traded... the infant formula A2 Milk company’s shares have never provided investors with a dividend....the company has launched a NZ$150 million on-market share buy-back. Which, as of its last update, has seen the company acquire and retire approximately 13.5 million shares. These shares currently have a market value of $90.7 million, which means there’s still plenty more buying to come.
But profile said there wouldn't be any excess deaths or anything from COVID because it was just a wee cold? Oh wait, it's the vaccine killing everyone right? Jeez, who to believe?
Jeez, who to believe?
Logic would dictate we should follow sources that claim to have all the answers, but can only develop a website that looks like it was made in the late 90s.
Better be quick , they'll be moving on to the next conspiracy theory soon.
I can't believe ZB can still be on the air after this. They have abrogated their responsibilities as journalists and possibly caused people to die as a result. It was heartbreaking to hear a number of people complain on RNZ that it was one of the only radio station available as others had gone down, and what did they hear? No actual news about what was happening and what they should do, just some shock jocks claiming the cyclone was some sort of fearmongering hoax. How many died or put themselves at severe risk by not evacuating when they should have or thinking it was going to be all over without any damage?
The absolute worst human garbage those individuals are and they won't apologize. They will only ramp up their anti authority/anti science bulldust until they are stopped. I think its time they were.
Disgraceful. Throw in NZ Herald etc and you see what a disgrace the Fourth Estate is in NZ in 2023
Yes the 3 crusty old Nats back to back in the morning on ZB made fools of themselves last week (as they repeatedly did during Covid). But they have their listeners who listen to what they want to hear.
I listened to a lot of TodayFM as had no power for 82 hours, its not that flash either. But in a different way.
Having been through the stations, the only decent one in NZ (not for music) is RNZ. Even then you have to be careful, they are quite left leaning. But as informative as you will get.
What about the BBC (broadcast by Auckland Radio Trust), or as I call it, Woke Wave? I only listen for the news and the non-woke history and science reports.
Be a decent chap blobbles and don't make stuff up.
by profile | 13th Jan 23, 10:41am
The sad thing is this was known very early on by anyone who bothered to look at the Diamond Princess data, Ioannidis analysis etc.
'The number of deaths from any cause among the 1,951,905 children in Sweden (as of December 31, 2019) who were 1 to 16 years of age was 65 during the pre–Covid-19 period of November 2019 through February 2020 and 69 during 4 months of exposure to Covid-19 (March through June 2020)
...No child with Covid-19 died."
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2026670
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001393512201982X
How about the UK data you provided claiming there was no excess mortality before this? Remember when I pointed out to you that the data ended prior to the full pandemic reporting coming through? I believe you were talking about 2020 data which, at the time of writing, was clearly incomplete.
Covid was 7% of deaths. Significant, but worth all the lockdowns etc?
Basing it on the deaths isn't great logic.
There's only 500 road deaths a year, is that really worth the added costs of airbags?
Airbags are a bit different to lockdowns.
Anyway its all history now...
They're both mitigation/prevention mechanisms.
Yes, but much less obstructive to normal life.
Doesn't really change the problem in trying to measure a prevention strategy in terms of fatalities - you don't know how many deaths it prevents.
How many lives would it need to save to make it worthwhile? Hundreds of thousands I hope as it ruined so many lives particularly the young. Did it save that - no. But its all history now...
People tend to overlook the psychological damage, especially to many young people. Part of my livelihood is lecturing, the impact on the mental well-being of many University students was pretty bad to be honest, and some of that impact will have long term consequences.
I also know of some older people living by themselves who were also severely hit by the isolation of lockdowns.
I agree with you that the initial lockdowns were justified and the right decision, but not some of the later ones.
You mean you get time to lecture elsewhere and not just on interest.co.nz?
Good one
The impacts will be long lasting in the education sector.
A whole cohort started school, then effectively missed the next two years of key formative reading/writing and basic maths. The schools are struggling as it is, so have no hope bringing those that missed out up to speed.
Was lockdown an entirely negative experience for all children? Didn't some younger children find themselves at home with Mum and Dad for prolonged periods? Isn't this generally a good thing. I'm not saying the positives outweighed the negatives but for some maybe introverted kids it might have been good. Depending on the parents.
Gosh I tire of the nonsense that’s out there about introversion. Being introverted doesn’t mean you are a loner. Maybe some extreme introverts are.
some of the young people I saw struggle the most during the lockdown were introverts.
I am an introvert, I still like getting out, and seeing people! It’s just there are limits to how much I want to interact with people.
Except while they occupied the physical space with mum and dad, they were not getting the benefits of real parent/child time.
Either Mum and/or Dad were working from home so the kids played on devices all day, or Mum and/or Dad were not working and were significantly stressed about money as to have a somewhat less than ideal homelife.
Parents were expected to cover three jobs over lockdown (Paid employment, Parenting, and Teaching), speaking as a parent to two under 10s it was a nightmare.
You do realise that figure happened to be 7% predominantly because of lockdowns right and mass vaccination? Alcohol related road deaths are only (insert number here) for the 2022 year so lets all let people piss up and drive...
They basically used to do that 40 years ago. If the only choice was between lockdowns and letting pissed people drive, I'd choose the latter.
Delta was potentially a disease worth fighting, but once it was Omicron in 2022 it was all pointless. But as I say it's all history now...
Mortality rates were 0.7% for Delta, 0.4% for the original Omicron variant, and 0.3% for Omicron BA.2. After adjustments, the odds of death were more than 2-times higher for the Delta and the original Omicron variant compared with Omicron BA.2. Patients with Delta and original Omicron variants were also more likely to need hospitalizations, invasive ventilation, and intensive care admissions.
At 0.3% we would expect 15000 deaths in NZ if everyone got it. Shouldn’t we expect at least half that by now? Or is that 0.3% unvaccinated?
I’m interested in the facts of covid but I know any kind of web search will point me to some form of misinformation from both sides. For example the MoH state “However, the Pfizer vaccine still provides good protection from infection from the Omicron variant.”, yet almost all the vaccinated people I know have had covid (including our whole family) so this seems like an utter lie to me.
I think about 3.5mil kiwis have had it, not officially but I suspect about 30%+ never reported, my family did not bother. I think a lot of our most vulnerable have tried to avoid it, they are still vulnerable, even more so in many ways now that no one cares. Not many do a test now if they have a cold.
lets not forget that excess deaths will rise every year for the next 25 as the largest generation begins to pop their clogs.
if life expectancy is 80 years for men, and 85 for women then the average male born in 1943 should be hanging up his red bands for the great pastures in the sky. In reality its probably more likely to be the 1948 vintage as health care wasn't so good back then.
Might be time to buy a crematorium?
Japan making its move on CBDC.
Japan will start a pilot programme in April to test the use of a digital yen, its central bank said on Friday, joining a growing number of countries seeking to catch up with front-runner China in launching a central bank digital currency (CBDC).
The widely expected move follows two years of experiments that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) has been conducting to decide whether to issue a CBDC, and moves Japan closer to issuing a digital yen in several more years.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/boj-launch-pilot-programme-a…
It's coming.
We'll use climate change mitigation as the entry vector.
I think the point of the phalanx will be a few hungy CBDC tokens to try it out if you sign up RIGHT now.
Then, with the line breached, climate change, spend local, low sugar and every other political priority can broaden the salient.
An advantage of the monobank solution, where all banks disappear and all accounts are directly at the central bank (CBDC), is that the resulting Soviet-style central control can be used to "take money from people's accounts" easily.
Just brought some more Bitcoin, cheers!
10 percent increase in the number of registered deaths compared with 2021, when there were 34,932 deaths registered “The increased number of deaths in 2022 was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” population estimates and projections manager Michael MacAskill said.
Mmm . . . wonder what the Covid deniers make of that considering the increase in the number of deaths is consistent with the just under 2,400 deaths in 2022 identified as people who died with the cause of death being attributable to COVID-19 by Manatū Hauora Ministry of Health.
Deniers will deny. They will say the increase in deaths is because of vaccination.
Comparing one year to the year before? ...it would be of more value to compare an average over the last 5 years?
Up 10% is a lot, but a good percentage of the population was locked up in 2020 and 2021. So comparing the years is just a nonsense.
NZSX50 down 2% for the day.
countering the bullish views of some, I had warned several times about earnings.
Stop lecturing us
Don't you mean countering the bullish views of some?
Yes. Thank you. Corrected. Been a long day
yes Scales has taken a hammering lately, and A2 pulling back a bit after 50% rise in last 6 months. RYM and SUM showing a few cracks. But AIR doing well, they need to after billion dollar losses.
If we are correct in judging that, under Ueda’s watch, the BoJ will eventually tolerate a rise in benchmark yields towards this level, Japanese flight from foreign markets may accelerate. And a sustained reorientation in Japan’s portfolio allocations will have important implications for those markets where Japanese exposure is highest. It is tempting to assume this is most significant for the US Treasury market, where Japan is the largest single foreign holder.
To be sure, we would not push back against the view that the spillover from any disorderly exit from YCC could be most imminently reflected in higher US yields. But a longer-term retreat in Japanese flows could put pressure on other, smaller debt markets. Japanese investors hold market shares in the high-single to low-double digits in Australia, New Zealand and parts of western Europe. A shift in policy under Ueda will matter not just for Japan, but for pockets of global debt markets, too.
https://www.ft.com/content/64ddc873-0458-4df4-ad1e-cdee396c9dd3
Mrs Watanabe will seek to avoid any capital confiscation risk in the US market if local rates offer some return on savings.
Re A2 milk, I like the fact that they may get open access to China (just stick it in containers on boats to any buyer/outlet) rather than the restricted channels they have now includling travellers and students sticking a dozen tins in their suitcase. This company must be on the chinese radar for takeover.
A2 Milk is a marketing and ip company. They purchase their milk/formula supply off Synlait who is 40% owned by a Chinese company (and 20% is held by A2).
SML are only a processor, and A2 owns 20% of them (or they used to).
What you don't get is Chinese consumers don't trust milk products that are made or sold in China. This is why the daigou channel is so big, the products bought in the West with receipts from supermarkets etc to show that they were bought in the West ensures a large price premium. Add to that the health benefits of A2 and you are onto a winner.
I literally have family involved in it and have lived in China through their milk powerder scandals so understand the psyche.
Changing fast Blobs. Greater trust these days. Look at Yili.
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