NZ stocks: Fletcher Forest news helps lift market

12.00pm

Surprise news that Fletcher Forests and its estranged partner Citic had kissed and made up helped send the New Zealand top 40 index over to 2100 briefly this morning.

The market was helped by Wall Street's strong tone on Friday where both the Dow and the Nasdaq rose 0.6 per cent.

Forsyth Barr Frater Williams broker Richard Burton said Wall Street could well fall back on profit-taking after its good run last week.

"But the market here certainly looks better supported. Telecom seems to be on the front foot for a change and that's good for the overall tone of the market. With a firming currency most investors feel more comfortable putting some money here," he said.

By mid-morning the NZSE-40 Capital Index was up 12.76 points at 2097.65 after earlier clearing the 2100-mark for the first time in two months.

Fletcher Forests was up 25 per cent, 5c, to 25c after a deal was announced that Citic would pump in US$200 million ($NZ439 million) of new equity to Fletcher Forests at 37c per share. Citic would own 35 per cent of Forests after its capital restructure.

Fletcher Forests said it was also negotiating with Rubicon to buy back most of Rubicon's 17.6 per cent holding in Forests in return for Rubicon buying part of Forests' forestry estate.

Rubicon shares piled on 9c to 66c.

The capital injection would enable Fletcher Forests to fund a bid of the CNI should the current sale agreement between the receivers and Vela Forestry not proceed, the company said.

There were 7.5 million Fletcher Forests shares worth $1.93 million and 7.48 million Fletcher preference shares for $1.82 million by mid-morning. Total market turnover was 27.91 million worth $27.91 million, quite solid for a Monday morning.

Of the leaders that posted gains, Telecom was up 3c at 508, Fletcher Building, 2c to 288, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, 10c at 900, F&P Appliances also up 10c, at 970, Independent Newspapers, 4c to 384 and Telstra 6c to 578.

Baycorp Advantage recovered some more from its big slide, with a 14c gain to 460.

Guinness Peat regained ground --up 0.4c to 184 -- after earlier falling 19c to 183 following a one for 10 bonus issue.

Restaurant Brands lost 8c to 200, Sky City Casino was down 2c at 640, and The Warehouse lost 5c to 725.

There were 41 rises and 22 falls among the 106 stocks traded.

- NZPA