Failing firms raise red flags for investors, Anti-nuclear KiwiSaver option offered, Fears for infant formula market, Showroom Spring issue

IN NBR Print today:

It’s been a long time since two NZX-listed companies collapsed in the same week. In fact, you’d have to go back to 1987 to trace similar carnage, Duncan Bridgeman writes. It’s not as if the demise of Wynyard Group and Pumpkin Patch came as any great surprise. But these two failures, and the struggling performance of several other growth-oriented companies, do raise serious questions about New Zealand’s corporate governance standards and whether some firms should even be publicly-listed at all.

Giant index fund provider Vanguard is to offer a new wholesale fund for Kiwi investors that screens out nuclear weapons, controversial weapons and tobacco. Tim Hunter says the move follows concerns that KiwiSaver investors using Vanguard funds tracking the MSCI World or S&P500 indexes could be inadvertently backing companies outlawed by New Zealand’s 2009 Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act.

Economic commentator Bernard Hickey argues that whatever government is propped up by New Zealand First in late 2017, it will face a devil of a time trying to turn off the immigration tap. The mechanics of cutting migration from 70,000 to the 15,000 that NZ First is talking about are fiendishly difficult, with two-thirds of current net migration effectively untouchable, he writes.

An ominous report on infant formula sales from Bega Cheese has caused a few ripples in the market, Jenny Ruth reports. A year ago, Australian supermarkets and international buyers were unable to keep up with demand; now, according to Bega chairman Barry Irvin, their shelves are over-stuffed with heavily discounted product. But is he trying to blame a particular problem his own venture with Blackmore is facing on a more general malaise that actually doesn’t exist?

Shortly after the 2001 launch of her talent agency, Imogen Johnson was politely advised by a top Hollywood agent to focus on the Australian market instead of LA, she tells Nick Grant. “That was advice I dutifully ignored,” she says, “because I thought New Zealanders could break into Hollywood directly.” Fifteen years of hard slog later, she’s proven her point.

NBR motoring editor Cameron Officer says he is hedging his bets “ but I’d suggest the copy of our Showroom publication you’re holding will be the last dominated by conventionally powered passenger vehicles.” He writes about a single plug-in hybrid model in this edition but says 2017 looks likely to bring about something of a sea change in, if not the immediate consumer take-up of electric vehicles (EVs), then certainly the choice available to new car buyers. “This time next year, the choice of EVs will double. Possibly triple even.
 All this and more in today’s NBR Print Edition. Out now.