Business

Ponsonby Road businesses say the amount of foot traffic is a fraction of what it once was. Photo: Google Maps Auckland's Ponsonby Road is the quietest it has been in decades, with a lack of foot traffic and high rents putting off new businesses, according to local retailers. One shop owner told First Up that turning a profit now was harder than it was through Covid, while another said if things did not change, he would have to shut shop as early as next year. Anna Lim had been running her Garden Party gift store on Ponsonby Rd for 30 years. She said retailers were not as busy as they used to be. "This is more severe for us than Covid. I think people are being really hard hit by the cost of living and then Covid. "We had very quiet times, but we had relief from landlords and we had rel...

A bid to take over The Warehouse Group could help rein in New Zealand's supermarket duopoly, the grocery commissioner says. The Warehouse has been approached by founder Sir Stephen Tindall and a private equity firm about a potential buyout that could position the company as a third player in the supermarket industry. Grocery Commissioner Pierre van Heerden says he's keeping a close eye on the proposal. "We are watching it with interest because we would welcome any competition in the market that increases competition at the moment." The grocery regime has been set up to ensure new players, or existing small players, can have a fair go at competition in the industry, van Heerden said. He said issues with suppliers would be dealt with quickly but the Commission needed to know where to look. G...

Investors say Elon Musk's company has worrying profit margins. Photo: SLAVEN VLASIC / AFP Tesla shares tumbled 12 percent on Wednesday local time, evaporating almost US$100 billion in stock market value after CEO Elon Musk's talk of humanoid robots and driverless taxis failed to comfort investors worried about the electric car maker's shrinking profit margins. Tesla posted its lowest quarterly profit margin in five years late on Tuesday local time, with earnings per share missing estimates for the fourth consecutive quarter. It was the biggest one-day percentage drop in Tesla's stock since 2020, and it left Tesla's market capitalization at just under US$700 billion, down from over US$1 trillion in 2021. Still the world's most valuable car maker, Tesla's valuation relies on investor expe...

File image. Photo: Getty / Bloomberg Creative / Simon Marks Gold mining company Santana Minerals has brought some lustre to a dull New Zealand stock exchange with a positive debut. The Australian-listed gold miner has joined the NZX with a foreign exempt status as it looks to develop a gold field in central Otago. Santana opened trading at $1.34 a share, hit a high of $1.38 before settling back around $1.36 on modest volumes. The broader NZX was down more than 100 points, about 0.8 percent, after a recent strong rally. Chief executive Damian Spring said the debut was "positive" and was a good sign of future support from New Zealand investors. "Our existing shareholder base has been up to 40 percent on the ASX, so well supported already, but truly this allows New Zealanders to invest if ...

(file image) Photo: 123RF Mortgage broking and investment firm Squirrel has been the target of a "security incident" which has exposed the passport or driver's licence details of 600 peer-to-peer investors. Squirrel told clients an authorised user had gained access to a third-party system, that was used as part of its investor registration process. That had allowed the person to extract personal information - specifically passport or driver's licence details - for customers who had registered in the 30 days leading up to 21 July. Protecting yourself after a data breach: What you need to know Squirrel founder John Bolton said the system held customer's identification details for 30 days, because sometimes the details were not accurately captured and had to be collected again. "It holds ...

The national median rental price is $645 a week. Photo: Unsplash / Tom Rumble Rental prices have fallen for the first time since 2022, figures from Trade Me show . Trade Me's latest Rental Price Index revealed a slight decrease in rents, with the national median dropping $5 month-on-month to $645 a week. Trade Me's property sales director Gavin Lloyd said it was the first monthly fall since September 2022. And he said rents may yet fall further. "We know that with the number of Kiwis leaving the country, there is less demand for rentals, particularly among young professionals. "As a result, we might see further drops in rental prices as we move further into the winter months, especially given that the latest inflation figures are falling faster than expected." However, rents in Northlan...

In a falling market, setting a price that is too high can mean that some sellers will end up worse off, says a property economist. File photo. Photo: 123RF Waikato woman Helen - whom RNZ has agreed not to identify - has recently spent six months trying to sell her home. While she received a couple of offers, they were well below what she was willing to consider, and eventually she decided to withdraw the property from the market. "It's really quiet, really frustrating. Anything in that slightly higher price point - we were trying to sell around $1.1 million - there's nothing [happening]. From my perspective, it's the fact that we worked really hard to get into this house and build our home - for us to turn around and get a couple of offers that were so low they weren't quite a joke but ...

It's been a tough year for NZ's EV market, with scrapped government subsidies for electric vehicles and the end of exemptions from road user charges. File photo. Photo: 123RF A New Zealand manufacturer of EV chargers says it is switching its focus to the Australian market, partly because of New Zealand's plunging EV sales. Evnex is a Christchurch-based manufacturer of EV chargers for homes and businesses. Founder Ed Harvey says with Australian sales on the rise, the company can raise capital more easily across the Tasman. He said Australian government subsidies have helped their EV sales overtake New Zealand's sales, which have fallen from 27 percent of new cars last year to 8 percent so far this year. So far Evnex has around 6000 chargers in New Zealand and 1000 in Australia, but Harve...

The Electricity Authority blames "tight supply conditions" for high prices. Photo: RNZ/befunky There is a warning that high wholesale power prices could push more small electricity retailers out of business - and hit businesses and households in the pocket. Electric Kiwi said this week it would not accept any new customers for the time being. Chief executive Luke Blincoe said the wholesale market had "completely blown up" and wholesale prices were now above retail prices. While the company had hedging - a sort of insurance against future price rises - that helped to spread the impact of that for its existing customers, it could not afford the cost of taking on new hedging arrangements for new customers. "When we made the decision a week ago the wholesale market had gone up 48 percent in...

Afterpay plans to introduce credit checks and credit reporting. File photo. Photo: Afterpay Shoppers may find it harder to borrow money from buy now pay later (BNPL) providers over the coming months, one banking expert is warning. From 2 September, BNPL providers will be required to credit check borrowers, and report to credit agencies. Afterpay said it would introduce credit checks from this week and credit reporting from next month. Head of international policy Michael Saadat said New Zealand would be the first country with BNPL regulations of that sort, but Afterpay hoped that other countries would follow. He said the "big change" for customers would be the credit check requirement. Instead of an automatic $600 limit for new borrowers, which was then adjusted as they developed a hist...