Business

Prices have spiked this winter. Photo: 123rf The Electricity Authority (EA), under severe criticism over soaring wholesale power prices, says it is not "not comfortable" with power companies' explanations. Associate Energy Minister Shane Jones slammed the authority on Thursday as being useless in regulating the generator-retailers (gentailers), which are accused of profiteering. "Under the EA, sadly, that organisation has proven to be a chocolate teapot in regulating the excessive behaviour of the gentailers, who I feel are probably the most powerful economic institutions in New Zealand beyond the supermarkets and the Aussie banks." Energy Minister Simeon Brown also called for the Electricity Authority to publicly report power data to ensure there was no price-gouging in the sector. Who...

Electric Avenue is going from strength to strength, an organiser says, and will be expanded next year, for its tenth anniversary. Photo: Supplied / Electric Avenue The country's biggest one-day music festival will be a two day affair next year, organisers say. Electric Avenue will be held on 21 and 22 February when it returns to Christchurch's Hagley Park, to mark its ten year anniversary. Festival director Callam Mitchell is forecasting the event to be "the biggest party in Australasia ...Next year's festival will be the equivalent of this year's one on steroids." About 60,000 people are expected through the gates over two days, including 35,000 for the final day of the weekend, a Saturday. A post was shared on the event's social media channels on Wednesday, with an image displaying th...

Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook Insurer Tower has increased its full year underlying profit guidance to more than $45 million. Tower said efforts to address vehicle thefts, as well as improved weather conditions had improved business-as-usual claims. The company's previous guidance for the year ending September was for more than $40m in early June. It said gross written premium growth was expected to be at the top-end, or exceed guidance of between 10 and 15 percent. The absence of any unforeseen events would see underlying profit growth of $32m. Source link

Experts are warning that power prices are going to hit consumers hard. Photo: 123RF Households could feel the impact of high wholesale prices in as little as two months' time, it has been warned. As RNZ reported earlier, wholesale power prices have doubled in the past three weeks, in part because of New Zealand's hydro lakes storage, which is at about 47 percent of what it would normally be at this time of year. Some major users say soaring power prices are putting their viability at risk and two timber mills say they are considering closing. Electric Kiwi last month stopped taking new customers because of the high prices. Speaking to Morning Report on Thursday, associate energy minister Shane Jones accused the big power companies of profiteering. Jones said advice was being sought on p...

Photo: RNZ / Dan Cook Insurer Tower has increased its full year underlying profit guidance to more than $45 million. Tower said efforts to address vehicle thefts, as well as improved weather conditions had improved business-as-usual claims. The company's previous guidance for the year ending September was for more than $40m in early June. It said gross written premium growth was expected to be at the top-end, or exceed guidance of between 10 and 15 percent. The absence of any unforeseen events would see underlying profit growth of $32m. Source link

Photo: IRD/screenshot The value of KiwiSaver funds improved to the end of June, amid caution in financial markets and a mixed economic environment in New Zealand and around the world. Morningstar's survey for the three months ended June showed the value of savings rose $3.5 billion for the quarter to $110.8b, following a $4b increase in the first quarter. Average multi-sector category returns for the June quarter ranged between 0.3 percent and 0.8 percent, as most funds posted incremental gains. Morningstar data director Greg Bunkall said the second quarter was a cautious period for investors. "While global growth dynamics offered some positive signals, domestic challenges persisted. The equity market delivered moderate gains, primarily supported by international exposures, while fixed i...

Photo: Google Maps Foodstuffs North Island has been hit with a $3.25 million fine for deliberate and serious blocking of competitors. A High Court judge ruled the supermarket company, which runs the chains New World and Pak N Save, deliberately used covenants on land to hinder rivals. The practice came to light in a Commerce Commission market study in 2022. Justice Paul James Radich said the practice was to hinder rivals opening in three locations - Newtown and Petone in Wellington and Tamatea in South Napier. The Commerce Commission said the penalty shows the seriousness of the conduct. More to come. Source link

Photo: 123RF New Zealand was once a homeowner's dream, now just 60 percent of households own the house they live in - and that's on the slide, a housing advocate says. Now New Zealand has some of the least affordable housing in the OECD and is experiencing a "collapse of tenure," says Charles Waldegrave. Waldegrave is coordinator of the Family Centre Social Policy Research Unit, a former member of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group and recently authored a report for the Waitangi Tribunal on Māori home ownership. It wasn't always this way, Waldegrave told RNZ Nights. Up until the early 1990s there was bipartisan support for homeownership and secure social housing, he said. "Governments provided security for people by ensuring they could get into houses and pay for it over the course of t...

Air New Zealand has pulled the plug on its climate targets on 30 July saying the resources needed to meet them are unaffordable and unavailable. Photo: Supplied/ Air NZ Air New Zealand is unlikely to be the only major company that will renege on its near-term climate targets, experts say. The airline made global headlines last week with an announcement that it was pulling the plug on its 2030 emissions reduction target. It had committed in 2022 to reduce its carbon intensity by nearly 29 percent before 2030, compared to a 2019 baseline. Carbon intensity is a measure of greenhouse gas emissions relative to a certain activity. In Air New Zealand's case, that's emissions per revenue tonne kilometres - the total weight of revenue-generating passengers and freight multiplied by the distanc...

picture id="4KPW3T6_Matahina_Power_Station_jpg" crop="16x10" layout="full"] Electricity generator Manawa Energy has cut its earnings guidance after a key customer defaulted on its payment terms with the company. Manawa said it acted as a wholesale intermediary for an unnamed electricity retailer which has not kept up with payments. It said as a result, Manawa would set money aside for potential bad debt in its full-year results for the year ending March 2025. It comes as wholesale electricity prices soared on the back of low hydro lake levels. Manawa expected underlying earnings for the year to be in the range of $95 million to $115m, compared to the previous $130m to $150m. It said about half of the change in guidance was because of the money set aside for potential bad debt. Manawa confi...