Plenty of loyal Graeme Hart followers are bemoaning his departure from the public arena this week.
The comments floating around the market and share-trading chatrooms are reminiscent of football fans coming to terms with a great player leaving to join a foreign club or rock fans watching a lead singer depart for a solo career.
The inevitable sense of disappointment is tempered with a great deal of respect for past performances and enough solidarity to wish him well in his endeavours.
No doubt Burns Philp investors were hoping Hart's deal-making magic would push the value of its shares well past the A$1.10 he is offering to take the company private.
But the value of the company is pretty transparent. Any future value was tied explicitly to Hart's ability to work that magic. Trouble is - and always was really - the magic belongs to him. He is not required to work his talents in the public arena. And given the chance - which he now has - he would prefer not to.
Burns Philp shareholders who bought into the company after its near collapse in 1997 have all done well. It hit a low of A3.5c in 1998 but recovered to average about A50c through to 2003. Burns Philp shares closed at A$1.08 yesterday, just shy of Hart's offer price.
High hopes for wood, by gum
Peter Sigley, of Goldman Sachs JBWere, has had a crack at demystifying one of the complex biotechnology assets of listed investment company Rubicon.
Rubicon holds a 57 per cent stake in Tenon - which this week reported a profit of US$8 million.
Although a turnaround in the fortunes of the wood processor would be great for Rubicon, Tenon's result had no impact on its share price. The shares - which closed at 95c last night - have been pretty stable for several weeks blipping up only in relation to an ongoing share buy-back by the company.
The real upside lies in the success of biotech company Arborgen - in which Rubicon holds 33 per cent.
Arborgen is developing three forestry-related biotech products and is well advanced towards commercialisation, Sigley says. Based on the theory that it is the closest to market, he has assessed the value of Arborgen's "lignin-reduced" eucalypt in Brazil.
The short (relatively) unscientific explanation of the project is that Arborgen is genetically modifying eucalyptus trees to make the wood softer and more easily and cheaply processed into pulp and paper. Brazil is a good place to do this sort of thing because the Government there has a rather more adventurous attitude to GM than New Zealand's.
Brazil has seen rapid growth in its pulp and paper industry - now the biggest in the world - but it has lost its position as the lowest-cost globally and is looking to technology to help maintain its edge.
Field tests suggest the Arborgen technology works and the company has commercial partners in place - however, there is still the sometimes sticky issue of regulatory approval which could take three to four years.
Sigley concludes that more evidence is required before the market will price any Arborgen upside into Rubicon shares. But for investors with an appetite for a higher risk then Rubicon should be of interest.
He gives Rubicon a target price of $1.01.
Arborgen is also working on projects to make loblolly pine trees grow faster and eucalyptus grow better in cooler climates.
Energy sparks
The market will be looking for today's Contact Energy full-year result to lift the stock out of the regulatory doldrums. You have to feel sorry for Contact shareholders. They aren't even facing any explicit regulatory threat but the Vector fallout has hammered confidence in the stock at the worst possible time.
The shares have fallen from $7.18 on August 8 - before the Commerce Commission announcing its intent to take control of Vector pricing - to close at just $6.95 yesterday. The shares had been riding high on the back of the Origin merger proposal and hit a high of $8.10 in June.
Based on other results so far this reporting season, it will take a stunner to reignite investor enthusiasm.
This round of results has seen a few stocks - such as Sky City and Sky TV - get severely punished by investors for failing to match market expectations. This despite the fact that, in the case of the two Skys at least, the results weren't particularly horrible and even had some bright spots. Even Fletcher Building stock was largely unmoved after the company reported another record profit. The bear is still on the wander, it seems.
Dialling down
Now that Vector is the new Telecom, how is the old Telecom tracking. Not so well this week. Despite the Government's unbundling decision having been superseded on the media front by the energy regulation row, the stock went through a 13-year low on Monday indicating it is yet to break out of its downward trend. It closed at $3.95 on Monday before bouncing back to close at $4.10 yesterday.
It seems $4 no longer represents an immediate trigger for buyers and makes the stock extremely vulnerable to any bad news.
The most obvious contender for knocking Telecom stock down further is the Commerce Commission's review of the mobile market. If the commission decides that consumers deserve three national mobile players and decides to regulate a path for Telstra Clear, then we could see another anti-Telecom backlash.
The commission was due to release the results on the issue this week but that has been delayed - something that could be read as a positive sign for Telecom. The commission may be softening its view in the light of Vodafone's recent wholesale deal with three smaller operators and moves by Telstra to build a network in Tauranga. But, then again, the commission is an unpredictable beast these days.
To be confirmed
Meanwhile, over at Carter Holt Harvey, plenty of restructuring presumably is going on behind the scenes. The CHH website couldn't make it any clearer. Searching for some background in the company profile section of the site, a dead end is reached quickly at the headline: Company structure. Written in brackets underneath are the ominous words: (To be confirmed). We await the next update of the site with bated breath.
New arrivals
It's not exactly a new listing but there may be a new business of some sort trading on the NZAX within the next few weeks. Vistron, a shell company listed in June, has consolidated its shares to bring them into line with an undisclosed target company. Vistron - which is chaired by Jim Bracknell - told the NZX last Friday the step was taken "to facilitate discussions around a possible acquisition by the company". Majority owner Brett Wilkinson and Bracknell listed Vistron - and another shell called Holly Springs - as part of an NZX-backed initiative to provide a low-cost path to market for small and medium-sized businesses.
Rural round-up
The great PGG Wrightson merger is largely complete but rural conditions haven't exactly come to the party as far as cashing in on the "synergies" goes.
The company reported a net profit of $27 million this week - $3 million short of the forecast $30 million. Livestock prices have been down and, while the falling dollar will help boost farm-gate prices, there is a lag effect before the listed rural services company will benefit. Basically, the lower dollar needs to flow through into farmer pockets before they will be confident enough to start spending again. PGG Wrightson shares closed up 2c at $1.81 yesterday.
<i>Stock takes:</i> Hart for Hart's sake
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