New Zealand stocks rose ahead of the Genesis Energy offer as investors sought to reweight their energy holdings in anticipation they won't be allocated as many shares in Genesis as they had hoped. Meridian Energy, MightyRiverPower and Vector advanced.
The NZX 50 Index rose 1.529 points, or 0.03 percent, to 5123.901. Within the index stocks were mixed as 16 rose, 21 fell and 13 were unchanged. Turnover was $113.7 million.
Genesis, New Zealand's largest electricity retailer by customer base, is the last on the block in the government's partial privatisation programme which saw it sell minority holdings in Meridian and MightyRiverPower. Genesis stock may be in demand because of its high dividend yield, with 40 percent set aside for institutional investors, and the remaining 9 percent for retail.
Meridian rose 2.2 percent to $1.15. MightyRiverPower gained 0.5 percent to $2.17, while Auckland lines company Vector climbed 1.2 percent to $2.50. Contact Energy declined 0.9 percent to $5.30.
Some investors "have had to get their weight up by buying some of the existing energy stocks on the market," said James Smalley, a broker at Hamilton Hindin Greene. "They'd been deliberately underweight anticipating to get proper weighting through Genesis but with the price and interest in Genesis a number of funds won't get anything near what they're after.