NZ stocks: NGC gains on market after selling plants

12.00pm

Natural Gas Corp (NGC) rose on an otherwise dull sharemarket after NGC agreed to sell its Taranaki Combined Cycle power plant to Contact Energy.

The NZSE-40 capital index was up 3.91 points to 1934.55 at 11.30am. Turnover on market was light but it was boosted to $21.5 million thanks to a $9.5 million off-market transaction in National Australia Bank shares.

NGC rose 5c to 150 after the half billion dollar sale to Contact, which MacQuarie Equities broker David Cleal felt was a higher than expected price. Despite the high price, Contact initially rose 2c to 387 but eased back to 385 as it was considered a good purchase that would give it more flexibility.

TrustPower, which bought NGC's Cobb station in Marlborough for $92.5 million, rose 5c to 345.

In-play finance company Tower was up another 7c to 217 to add to Friday's 30c gain.

There is still no certainty who the mystery bidder was that picked up 3.5 per cent of the company on Thursday night and was reported to be after the maximum allowable stake of 10 per cent. Guinness Peat Group still heads the list of suspects.

Mr Cleal said Tower stock was hard to obtain with only 375,000 shares sold today. JB Were, the broker acting for the mystery bidder, was not in the market this morning.

Tower, which reported an annual loss of $75 million this month, said it was in the dark as to the identity of the buyer but confirmed someone was attempting to buy up to 10 per cent.

Telecom eased back 5c to 453 after losing ground on Friday following the announcement by the Telecommunications Commission that it was to review an unbundling of the physical phone network, the local loop, which Telecom has a monopoly on.

The two Fisher & Paykel stocks each gained 10c -- Appliances to 1000 and Healthcare to 910

Other moves of note included, Auckland Airport, up 6c to 545, Cavalier, up 15c to 385, Lion Nathan, up 9c to 599, Carter Holt Harvey, up 1c to 173, Fletcher Building, up 2c to 334, Hellaby, up 6c to 315, Vertex, down 7c to 130, The Warehouse, down 5c to 716 and Westpac NZ, up 13c to 1425.

There were 40 rises and 29 falls among the 108 stocks traded.

Wall Street on Friday broke a three-day losing streak with the Dow Jones industrial average soaring 1.75 per cent - 147 points - to 8512.

- NZPA