KEY POINTS:
New Zealand shares inched higher today, with the highlight a more than 20 per cent jump in debut stock Opus International Consultants.
The NZSX-50 benchmark closed up 3.89 points at 4219.8, on turnover totalling $130.6 million. Rises outnumbered falls 61 to 46.
Opus shares closed at 199, well above the listing price of 165, on $8.3m worth of shares traded. The shares traded between 191 and 205.
"It was well sought after by institutions, so I suspect there's a lot of retail clients that weren't able to get shares in the IPO that were supporting it today," said Suzanne Kinnaird of Forsyth Barr.
A total of 29 million existing and new shares were sold in the float, representing about 21 per cent of the shares on issue, and raising $48m.
The initial public offer (IPO) was only the third new listing this year, a record low number of IPOs for NZX.
"We've seen over the last few years many good quality businesses leave the New Zealand market, so I think there is support for them (IPOs), and the market's stabilised a bit from where it was a couple of months ago, so that's helped," Ms Kinnaird said.
Telecom shares were flat at 427, and Contact Energy fell 6c to 906. Fletcher Building rose 2c to 1210, ignoring an 8.3 per cent fall in September building consent data, mainly due to a large drop in apartment consents.
Sky City was down 2c at 536, Auckland Airport was up a cent at 308, Fisher & Paykel Healthcare rose a cent to 329, and F&P Appliances was up 2c at 353.
Air New Zealand gained 2c to 210, Freightways was up 6c at 385, PGG Wrightson jumped 10c to a 16-month high of 210 after yesterday's annual meeting, and jeweller Michael Hill rose 5c to 1050.
Rakon was up 17c at 540, Methven gained 6c to 246, retirement village operator Ryman was up 4c at 214, Ebos rose 14c to 535, and NZ Refining was up 15c at 755.
The Warehouse lost 2c to 565, Vector fell 4c to 232, Mainfreight was down 2c at 737, and Port of Tauranga fell 5c to 705.
NZX was flat at 945.
Among dual-listed stocks, ANZ fell 54c to 3536, Westpac rose 30c to 3590, AMP fell 3c to 1217, and Lion Nathan was down 3c at 1095.
- NZPA