APN presses ahead with plan for NZX listing

Herald publisher APN News & Media told shareholders at its annual meeting in Brisbane yesterday that it was pushing ahead with an earlier-announced intention to list its shares on the New Zealand stock exchange as well as in Australia.

APN chairman James Parkinson told the meeting the company would proceed with a secondary listing on the NZX, and was still investigating a full dual listing.

Chief executive Brendan Hopkins said after the meeting: "I think we're minded to do it [move to a dual listing] provided there are no last-minute issues.

"Half our business is in New Zealand. I think it's important to make a commitment to New Zealand, which we are happy to do. It enables us, in the future, to access capital markets in New Zealand as well as hopefully build a sizeable [New Zealand] shareholder base."

Parkinson told the meeting the company remained confident of achieving consensus analyst forecasts of its net profit after tax in the current year.

He said the first quarter of 2004 had continued to produce good results for the company.

"Given a continuation of good market conditions, the company remains confident of achieving the consensus net-profit-after-tax forecast of $A120 million for the current year."