Hallenstein cheers strength of dollar

Hallenstein executives and directors reflect on a happy year at the annual meeting yesterday. Picture / Mark Mitchell

While exporters queue to jeer the dollar's strength, clothing retailer Hallenstein Glasson is cheering it.

At yesterday's annual meeting in Wellington, chairman Warren Bell said the dollar's strength helped the company as it could buy goods, particularly from China, more cheaply.

The dollar was trading at 70.9USc yesterday, slightly down on last week's 16-year high of 72.68USc.

Bell said Hallenstein Glasson's same store NZ sales for the half-year to December 12 rose 5.3 per cent. He hoped pre-election spending next year would help offset weakening consumer demand thanks to higher fuel costs and interest rates.

Hallenstein Glasson is taking an "aggressive" stance on growth in Australia and is also mulling growth opportunities here. Bell said nothing was in the pipeline, but if the retailer saw something it liked that stacked up "we will give it a go".

Shareholders, who received 88 per cent of earnings in dividends, rubber stamped an increase in the retailer's five non-executive directors' collective fees to $174,000 from $155,000.

Meanwhile, Statistics New Zealand sales growth figures for October beat economists forecasts.

They had predicted seasonally adjusted growth of 0.2 per cent but it came out at 0.4 per cent. Excluding car sales the sales growth was 0.3 per cent.