The money is required to keep the company solvent until June 2012, by which time it expects to have raised new capital.

Contact Energy plans to tap shareholders with a rights issue to help fund its $623 million Te Mihi geothermal power plant northwest of Taupo. 

DNZ Property Group shares have been placed in a trading halt ahead of the results of a special shareholders meeting to decide the company’s future.

The shares, which are thinly traded on the unregulated Unlisted platform, were last quoted at 79c.

The group’s 8200 shareholders will this week vote on resolutions including new directors and steps needed for a capital raising plan involving a possible sharemaket listing.

Pike River Coal has launched its $50 million capital raising plan – raising $10 million through a placement and the remainder in a rights issue.

The money will be used to fund the ramping up of the company’s hydro-mining operations, while also building up a cash buffer of $18 million.

Allan Hubbard’s Southbury Corporation has sunk another $152.5 million of equity into embattled finance company South Canterbury Finance, which has just reported a massive $154.9 million loss for the first half.

The unaudited, preliminary loss was largely due to the company increasing its provisions for losses on impaired or non-performing assets by $180.3 million.

A total of $229 million of losses on asset realisations and impairments were incorporated in the result.

The amount of capital raised on the NZX has soared to a new record high with $6.19 billion worth of capital generated in the year to date.

The figure is made up of $3.17 billion in equity and $3.02 billion of debt and is a 119% increase on the same time last year.

It is also a 33% rise on 2007, the last record year when $5.5 billion was raised.

During November alone, $490.89 million of new equity was generated by listed companies.