I recently received my voting paper for the citizen’s referendum. The question posed in the referendum annoyed me and has moved me to write this blog post. The referendum is in result to an amendment to the law in 2007 that has been dubbed the ‘Anti-Smacking Law’. The law was put into place to try to minimize child abuse by removing the defense of ‘reasonable force’ from abusive parents. Unfortunately… …Read more »
I recently read Darren Rickard’s thoughts on pre-announcement trading of SKC. It is always difficult to know whether a share-price rise prior to an announcement is due to focus on that particular equity or other sentiment factors, or whether it is due to insider trading. …Read more »
I’ve just finished reading Michael Hill’s recently released book ‘Toughen Up’, which I really enjoyed. Michael Hill is the founder of the Michael Hill Jewellery chain which is a publically listed company on the NZSX. I had two motivations in reading his auto-biography. First, I have a share-holding in Michael Hill International (MHI), so I took a lot of interest in Michael Hill’s business philosophy. …Read more »
Xero announced today the appointment of a new managing director for the UK operation.
Reading through the announcement I reflected on a couple of things that have continued to impress me with Xero. One has been their clear vision and their ability to communicate that vision simply to employees, small businesses, accountants, banks, and other stakeholders. …Read more »
I have been very quiet on the blog front: there have been no posts on my blog for over a month. Four weeks ago to this day, our son Oliver was born. He is our first child and we’re finding parenthood to be an amazing experience. It can be quite demanding at times, but the smiles make it all worthwhile. …Read more »
Freightways recently raised $45,000,000 capital in a placement to institutions at a significant discount to the market price. They also offered non-institutional investors a Share Purchase Plan (SPP) at the same price, limited to an aggregate of $5,000,000. Each small investor was allowed to subscribe for a total of $12,500 worth of shares at the same placement price. …Read more »
Fisher & Paykel Appliances (FPA) have recently announced a capital raising involving both an issue of shares to a strategic partner (Haier) as well as a fully underwritten renounceable rights issue. When calculating the value of the right, it is important to note that there are three stages to the capital raising. …Read more »
I’ve just finished reading the ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ by Tim Ferriss. Actually, I sped read it skipping over some of the typical hype that these popular books tend to have. Being very selective of what we read is actually one of Tim’s recommendations, so I’m sure he won’t be upset to learn that I didn’t feel the need to read his entire book. …Read more »
