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April 4th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
NEW Zealand shares rose on Thursday, as the market appeared to reward Restaurant Brands for the Carl’s Jr roll-out and 440,000 would-be Kiwi investors await the Mighty River Power offer documents.
The NZX 50 Index rose 17.31 points, or 0.39 per cent, to 4430.16. Among the top 50 stocks, 25 rose, 13 fell, and 12 were unchanged. Turnover was $150.21 million.
The finance and state-owned enterprises ministers on Friday will launch the offer documents for the first initial public offering of a government business since the Contact Energy IPO in 1999, the sale of up to 49 per cent of electricity company Mighty River Power.
Paul Harrison, who manages $620 million of funds at BT Funds Management in Auckland, said the prospectus would improve pricing calculations by providing “confirmation and better numbers”.
Comparison with its listed rival, Contact Energy, would improve.
Contact shares have fallen this week, amid concerns about the possible closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, which consumes about 15 per cent of New Zealand’s electricity.
However, Contact closed 1.1 per cent ahead at $5.45 on Thursday.
Smelter issues were “built in” already to the Contact share price, Mr Harrison said.
Meanwhile, Restaurant Brands was the star performer in the NZX 50, up 2.04 per cent to $2.83, despite a 4.5 per cent drop in annual earnings.
That was partly thanks to writing off costs associated with the successful launch of the Carl’s Jr fast food brand in New Zealand.
While the latest result “wasn’t entirely spectacular, the market is starting to price in the growth profile of that business (Carl Jr’s)” and the hope it could replicate the earnings achieved with the KFC brand, said Mr Harrison.
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