THE MARKET New high in busy trading

Press, 3 May 1985, Page 8

THE MARKET New high in busy trading

The New Zealand sharemarket reached new highs yesterday in very active trading as well-supported market leaders pushed up Barclay’s index of industrial shares to another record of 1555.55 points. Turnover was 5.7 million shares compared with 4.6 million on Wednesday for a total value of $B.B million. The main thrust came from Fletcher Challenge, which rose 4c to 356 c, and Brierley Investments, up 5c to 467 c. Fletchers touched a year’s high for the share. Other market leaders to firm were CPD, up 10c to 335 c, Lion Breweries, 5c to 265 c, NZ Forest Products, 3c to 312 c, DB 2c to 187 c, Progressive Enterprises, 5c to 415 c, and FTC 1c to 154 c. Crown at 154 c, Goodman at 352 c, and Fisher and Paykel at 355 c gained 2c Among the falls were NZI Corp down 4c to 162 c, ANZ Banking down 2c to 325 c, Carter Holt also down 2c to 310 c, and UEB down 1c to 190 c. Wattie Industries fell 3c after announcing a one-for-10 cash issue. The rights to Omnicorp, which began trading yesterday, were aggressively bought, starting higher than expected at 80c and finishing at 98c. The shares in one of the promoting companies, Rainbow, rose 10c to 150 c. The Wellington sharebroker, Francis Allison Symes and Company, had by the close bought 3,102,511 shares in R.

and W. Hellabv, which finished at 120 c, up Sc. Crown Corp subsidiary. Aotearoa Meats, is standing in the market for 20 per cent of the company. Interest in meat processors continued with the sale of 155,900 shares in Canterbury Frozen Meat at 350 c, finishing up 5c at 355 c. Brokers said people were buying up shares in CFM to gain “cheap entry" into Apex Group, which is taking over CFM. Apex is offering one Apex share plus 90c cash for each CFM share; Apex itself traded at 280 c, up Bc. Shares in Atlas Corp jumped another 22c to 290 c while the market speculated as to whether there was positiontaking in the stock. Skellerup shares were at 205 c with turnover at 98,000. Brokers said the big sale mav be the result of expectations o’f rewards when the company celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary in July. Second-liners to gain 10c were Otago Press and Produce at 540 c, Leyland Growth at 125 c, L. D. Nathan at 495 c, Intertasman at 495 c, CCL at 200 c. Others to firm were A. M. Bisley up 7c to 225 c, Leisureland up 5c to 90c and Chase up 5 to 350 c. Independent News, which announced that it will take over the rest of the “Timaru Herald,” gained 5c to 315 c. The Barclays mining index firmed 0.41 points to 85.55. L and Mining firmed 3c to 80c and NZOG firmed 2c to 41c. Brokers said there was interest shown in the latter, with the company about to start a new well in Westland within the next few weeks.