Renaissance shares hit high, prompt query

Shares in Renaissance Corporation, the sole distributor of Apple Inc's products in New Zealand, hit a record high yesterday - prompting a query from the stock exchange.

The New Zealand Exchange (NZX ) queried the 15c, or 10.7 per cent increase in Renaissance's shares yesterday, which took the stock to a record high of $1.55.

The stock was unchanged in early trading this morning, having roughly doubled in the past year from a low of 77c in April 2005.

Renaissance director Clive Lewis' letter in response to NZX's price query stated he thought the increase was driven by a press release issued by Apple in the United States earlier this week.

Renaissance is the sole distributor of Apple products such as iPods and iMacs in New Zealand, and has reaped the benefits of Apple's recent success.

On Tuesday Apple reported record global revenues of US$5.7 billion ($8.3 billion), with sales of 14 million iPods in the last quarter of 2005.

"We believe that this announcement by Apple Inc may well be the reason for the recent RNS (Renaissance) price rise," Mr Lewis said.

In October last year Renaissance said it expected its half year profit to the end of December to be "considerably ahead" of the profit reported for the first half of the year, when it posted a 150 per cent increase in profit to $1.94 million.

First NZ Capital rates Renaissance highly and called it a stock to watch this year, with the potential to hit as high as $1.70.

- NZPA