By Pattrick Smellie May 3 (BusinessDesk) - Australian media reports suggesting New Zealand's third-placed mobile operator, Two Degrees, will seek to raise between $100 million and $150 million in a float on the ASX in the next few months have the implicit support of the compan...

By Pattrick Smellie May 2 (BusinessDesk) - A payment to any creditors of the Kea Petroleum group of companies "seems highly unlikely", and depends on the sale of Kea's Mauku-1 exploration permit, says the Deloitte liquidator for the onshore Taranaki oil and gas explorer, which...

By Pattrick Smellie May 2 (BusinessDesk) - Auckland-based electricity generator and retailer Mighty River Power is changing its name to Mercury Energy, in a move that underlines the increasing retail focus of the country's largest power companies. Known as MRP since it was...

By Pattrick Smellie April 29 (BusinessDesk) - Already locked out of a major farm and forestry purchase in New Zealand last year, an Australian arm of the Chinese Shanghai Pengxin global conglomerate has today been told it can't buy one of Australia's largest farms, covering ar...

By Pattrick Smellie April 29 (BusinessDesk) - Weak prices for wholesale electricity in New Zealand and higher marketing costs saw Tauranga-based integrated energy and telecommunications utility Trustpower's operating earnings fall 1 percent in the year to March 31 in what is l...

By Pattrick Smellie April 29 (BusinessDesk) - Z Energy is allowed to buy the Caltex and Challenge! petrol station chains but must sell 19 of its retail sites and one truck-stop, the Commerce Commission has ruled in a split decision that acknowledges possible retail price coord...

By Pattrick Smellie April 28 (BusinessDesk) - The Hawke's Bay Regional Council has amended its bid to reopen the railway between Napier and Wairoa by proposing that KiwiRail run the service as well as maintain the tracks under a proposal signed off in a closed-doors council me...

By Pattrick Smellie April 27 (BusinessDesk) - The Supreme Court has rejected an application by the operator of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter to challenge a High Court decision requiring it to stump up some $20 million in back-pay after a complaint from the smelter workers'...

By Pattrick Smellie April 27 (BusinessDesk) - Enough Hawke's Bay farmers have signed up for water from the proposed Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme for it to go ahead as long as a cornerstone institutional capital investor can be found to back it, its regional council promoter...

By Pattrick Smellie April 26 (BusinessDesk) -  KiwiRail is starting negotiations for a new funding package it hopes will run from 2017 to 2020 and is looking for a small number of rail upgrade projects that will demonstrate that there is a "value of rail" to New Zealand beyond...

By Pattrick Smellie April 26 (BusinessDesk) - Central government could buy assets for Auckland on the city council's behalf under a buy-back scheme to help accelerate the infrastructure required to ensure the fast-growing city's housing and population needs are met more urgent...

By Pattrick Smellie April 26 (BusinessDesk) - Climate Change Minister Paula Bennett is "taking advice" on whether to cancel some or all of the so-called 'dodgy' carbon credits bought mainly by power and petrol companies to cover New Zealand's future obligations to reduce emiss...

April 22 (BusinessDesk) - The government is pledging roading projects to ease congestion and improve freight links for Tauranga worth $520 million over the next decade. The largest project, starting construction in 2018, will be the $286 million Tauranga Northern Link, which w...

By Pattrick Smellie April 22 (BusinessDesk) - The government's freshwater management reforms need to be re-energised, lack ambitious timetables and avoid hard questions like pricing water, say submissions from a range of tourism and environmental groups on the proposed "next s...

By Pattrick Smellie April 19 (BusinessDesk) - Retiring Genesis Energy chief executive Albert Brantley is to be the chief executive of the newly created Crown company overseeing construction of Christchurch's so-called 'anchor' projects. An energy sector veteran, Brantley wi...

By Pattrick Smellie April 19 (BusinessDesk) - Private equity buyers would have an advantage over banks in bidding for ANZ Bank New Zealand's UDC Finance business because they would not be bound by capital adequacy ratio requirements, says First NZ Capital in analysis that sugg...

By Pattrick Smellie April 19 (BusinessDesk) - Labour Party leader Andrew Little has promoted Wellington MP and former broadcaster Kris Faafoi to the tourism portfolio to fill a gap left by departing MP Clayton Cosgrove, who nonetheless keeps the commerce portfolio and a new 'b...

By Pattrick Smellie April 14 (BusinessDesk) - Maori Affairs Minister Te Uruora Flavell has surprised political opponents by introducing a Te Ture Whenua Act reform bill to Parliament, arguing that drafting changes and consultation in recent months meets the concerns of last ye...

By Pattrick Smellie April 14 (BusinessDesk) - The copper and fibre-optic networks used for New Zealand telecommunications services will move to a simpler, more predictable form of regulation, similar to that used for regulating the monopoly parts of the electricity system, Com...

(Adds comments from Key, additional detail) By Pattrick Smellie April 13 (BusinessDesk) - Lumpy provisional tax payments and penalties caused by income miscalculation will become a thing of the past for small and medium-sized businesses under a business tax reform package a...

By Pattrick Smellie April 13 (BusinessDesk) - Lumpy provisional tax payments will become a thing of the past for small and medium sized businesses under a business tax reform package announced by Prime Minister John Key in the first major speech ahead of the May 28 Budget....

By Pattrick Smellie April 12 (BusinessDesk) - A long-awaited recommendation on how the cost of the national electricity grid should be shared in future is due on May 17. The Electricity Authority says it will release its transmission pricing methodology paper and run an eig...