NZ stocks: Tower shares, Sky City rise on subdued market

12.00pm

Tower shares continued their rise today on speculation that Guinness Peat Group was having a bite at the fund insurer on an otherwise subdued sharemarket.

The NZSE-40 capital index was up 6.91 points at 1995.55 at 11.30am on turnover worth under $18.5 million. The tone from the US was positive, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising 0.6 per cent and the Nasdaq up 2.1 per cent.

Tower rose this morning as high as 217, having risen 12c, or 6 per cent, to 211 yesterday. By late morning it had subsided to 212, up 1c on yesterday's close .

First NZ Capital broker James Snell said it was mainly retail investors chasing the recently trouble-prone company.

There was speculation before Christmas that GPG was having a tilt at Tower and that speculation gathered further momentum this week in the media. Few institutions take an interest in Tower.

F&P Healthcare was steady on 978, but Mr Snell said he would expect it to get a boost from the result of result of rival US firm Respironics. Despite a fall in second quarter profit, shares in the maker of medical equipment zoomed ahead 9.4 per cent after it said it was comfortable with analysts' profit forecasts.

The rise and rise of Sky City continued, pushing up 8c to a new record of 880. The National Business Review today published a story about an insider trading probe into Sky City being undertaken by the Securities Commission at the request of the Stock Exchange.

Another strong performer, Scott Technology, rose another 12c to a fresh high of 285 after it said it had secured new large orders in the US and Mexico.

Richmond resurged 15c to 295 after its independent directors yesterday asked the Takeovers Panel to rule on a crucial waiver in the PPCS take-over offer.

They want to know if the clause giving PPCS the option of waiving the 90 per cent minimum acceptance condition breaches rule 25 of the code. If the waiver is allowed, then the 305/offer may yet have some life.

However, Owens Group, which has risen 12.6 per cent in the past two days on expectations it was close to selling Hirepool for around $50 million, fell back 1c to 97.

There were few other moves of note. Telecom was up 1c at 461, Fletcher Building was up 2c to 334, Auckland Airport was up 5c to 537, Air New Zealand was up 1c at 56, Carter Holt was up 1c at 181, and AMP was down 6c at 1055.

There were 41 rises and 19 falls among just 109 stocks traded.

- NZPA