Category: Business

Source: Radio New Zealand

US artificial intelligence company Anthropic is expanding its presence in Australia and New Zealand.

The company, which is in the midst of suing the US government over its retaliation for a dispute about safeguards in its AI technology, says it is opening an office in Sydney.

“The expansion reflects strong demand from businesses in Australia and New Zealand, and will help us better serve the country’s unique AI ecosystem,” says a company statement.

Anthropic says Australia and New Zealand rank 4th and 8th globally in Claude usage, relative to population, according to the company’s latest Economic Index.

It lists current Australia-based clients as Canva, Quantium, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

“We’re excited by the ways organizations in Australia and New Zealand are applying AI to areas of national importance-financial services, agricultural technology, clean energy innovation, healthcare delivery, cutting-edge deep tech and scientific research, along with AI transformation in the enterprise,” said Chris Ciauri, the company’s managing director of international.

Anthropic’s court action against the Pentagon comes after it labelled the company a supply chain risk, which affects how it does business with other firms working with the Department of Defense.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Major food company Heinz Wattie’s has proposed changes to discontinue some manufacturing operations in New Zealand.

The company, said the proposal would result in the closure of three manufacturing facilities in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. Packing would also cease at the associated frozen lines in King St, Hastings.

The company said about 350 jobs were expected to be affected.

It outlined plans to axe the sale and production of a number of its products and brands, including frozen vegetables and Gregg’s coffee.

It would also no longer produce dips sold under the Mediterranean, Just Hummus and Good Taste Company brands.

Heinz Wattie’s said it would consult with staff on the plan, which it said had come about because of increasingly difficult manufacturing conditions.

‘Huge blow to workers’

E tū Union director Finn O’Dwyer Cunliffe told Checkpoint the proposal was a huge blow to workers and a “grim time”.

“It’s not great – this has been dumped on them this afternoon at very short notice.

“It is a huge blow to workers….it is a tough evening.”

He said some people had worked for Heinz Wattie’s or its subsidiaries for several decades.

The union were given just 45 minutes notice of announcements across various sites, he said.

“It hasn’t been handled in the best way.”

It was a tough time across the country for workers in the industry, O’Dwyer-Cunliffe said, and there’d been many closures.

The union was pushing for more time for feedback on the proposal with Heinz Wattie’s.

“The period they’ve proposed is completely inadequate and I think pretty disrespectful really, on top of pulling workers in on such short notice.”

Last October, Wattie’s announced it would further reduce its fruit and vegetable crops it sourced from its home in Hawke’s Bay, citing an ongoing struggle against cheaper imports.

The month before, it announced it would reduce the production of canned peaches.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Major food company Heinz Wattie’s has proposed changes to discontinue some manufacturing operations in New Zealand.

The company, said the proposal would result in the closure of three manufacturing facilities in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. Packing would also cease at the associated frozen lines in King St, Hastings.

The company said about 350 jobs were expected to be affected.

It outlined plans to axe the sale and production of a number of its products and brands, including frozen vegetables and Gregg’s coffee.

It would also no longer produce dips sold under the Mediterranean, Just Hummus and Good Taste Company brands.

Heinz Wattie’s said it would consult with staff on the plan, which it said had come about because of increasingly difficult manufacturing conditions.

“Globally high inflation and various industry challenges have all placed ongoing pressure on the commercial performance of the business,” the company said.

Suppliers would also be affected with pea and other vegetable growers, specifically 220 growers in Canterbury supplying the Christchurch site, losing their contracts.

“The decision to start this process was not taken lightly,” Heinz Wattie’s Managing Director Andrew Donegan said.

“Numerous alternatives and options were explored before reaching this phase. It is a necessary step to position our company for the future.”

The proposal is subject to a two-week consultation period with staff, union representatives, growers, suppliers, retail partners and other local stakeholders.

Last October, Wattie’s announced it would further reduce its fruit and vegetable crops it sourced from its home in Hawke’s Bay, citing an ongoing struggle against cheaper imports.

The month before, it announced it would reduce the production of canned peaches.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Major food company Wattie’s has proposed changes to discontinue some manufacturing operations in New Zealand.

The company said the proposal would result in the closure of three manufacturing facilities in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin. Packing would also cease at the associated frozen lines in King St, Hastings.

The company said about 350 jobs were expected to be affected.

MORE TO COME…

– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

About 90 percent of homes in New Zealand are in need of immediate maintenance, with the total cost of the work thought to be $27 billion, research has found.

Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment (CRESA) – with Building Research Levy backing – is running a project aimed at helping owners keep their homes well cared for in an affordable way.

CRESA’s research director Kay Saville-Smith, told Nine to Noon, the 90 percent figure came from a variety of resources including the latest condition survey done by the centre along with other research it had done.

Saville-Smith said any home that did not operate well, for example, losing heat or getting too warm counted as being in need of maintenance.

The risks associated with an unmaintained home were that it could become damaged during any adverse weather events.

Older homes were likely to be in need of repairs, Saville-Smith said, particularly if the home had not been well maintained on a regular basis.

She said while new builds were less likely to need immediate maintenance, they were not always suitable for the conditions and environment of where they had been built.

Old weatherboard homes for example with wooden window frames, were pretty straightforward to maintain, Saville-Smith said, but for many houses things were not so simple.

“Homeowners, particularly as they age, get less and less willing and sometimes less capable of some of the work.”

Over the years, there had been many design periods which used lots of different sorts of cladding and roof tiles, she said, and every different type of cladding on a home moved in a different way.

“The main thing consumers can do when choosing homes and designs is to understand and think about these things.

“You want a resilient home not one that just looks a bit flash.”

She said it was also important for homeowners to remember low maintenance did not mean no maintenance.

AUT Professor of Construction Management John Tookey, said a lot of general maintenance which needed to be done on homes was relatively small including clearing gutters, touching up paint, checking for gutter cracks and treating surfaces.

He said problems arose “when the outside gets inside.”

“If you don’t maintain, issues can become serious,” he said.

At this stage, Saville-Smith said she did not have data on how much people were paying to keep their homes maintained but they were working with housing providers to get a better idea of this.

She said CRESA wanted to work with designers and housing providers as well as the building industry on how to build better, more resilient homes.

Tookey said the biggest barrier for homeowners with maintaining their houses was finances. Everything from mowing grass to trimming trees came at a cost if someone was being hired to do it.

The next thing it came down to was skills and an ageing population, he said.

“We’ve become increasingly a victim of our sedentary lifestyle.”

His advice for homeowners who did not have access to a lot of funds was to “focus on the small stuff”.

That included using treatments on wood and touching up the house with paint.

He said by the time a problem was big enough to get someone in to fix it, it was going to be expensive.

“Deal with small problems before they become big problems and have a regular budget for maintenance.”

Tookey said it was good to try and set up one day each month where you can do maintenance around your home.

Coming into winter, Tookey said it was good to prepare your home by making sure there were curtains to keep in the heat, along with insulation under the floor and in the roof. He suggested purchasing a dehumidifier to take the moisture out of the air was also good.

Saville-Smith envisioned a checklist of home maintenance for a number of different styles of homes which could be given to homeowners.

She hoped the project would be able to get out the door within 18 months.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

What will the war in the Middle East mean for the average Kiwi’s finances? How far are fuel prices going to rise? What will happen to interest rates?

And what does it all mean for the price of food – haven’t we had enough increases there, already?

A special episode of the No Stupid Questions podcast out on Wednesday aims to answer these questions – and more.

If you have any questions of your own, send them to questions@rnz.co.nz

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Worried KiwiSaver members are asking: is this time different?

Markets have been volatile this week as they digest the impact of the war in the Middle East.

But some investors have been concerned the warnings of economic disruption could mean more pain to come for their KiwiSaver balances.

One woman who wrote to RNZ said she was 64 and worrying about her KiwiSaver balance falling.

“I am out of work due to illness and have no other income or support from the government … I am really counting on this money. I’m worried not much will be left.”

KiwiSaver managers say – as ever – the volatility is the price that investors pay for the returns they get on the other side, and for most people, sticking with their investment strategy is the best plan of action.

ASB chief investment officer Frank Jasper said the bank was fielding some inquiries.

“People obviously seeing headlines, especially [Monday] seeing some pretty dramatic market moves and asking questions around what’s going on.”

Jasper said, while riding it out was usually the best course of action, a downturn in markets could sometimes highlight a personality mismatch for investors.

“We do all of this risk profiling when we go into KiwiSaver and we get asked about our attitude to risk.

“And then we live through these experiences and they are visceral experiences, that really test your genuine attitude towards risk.

“I think for some people, it’s a learning opportunity … And they realise ‘when I actually experience it, I realise that it does affect me a bit more than I thought’ … every time there’s a dramatic market move, despite the fact the long-term evidence suggests the world gets through it and we do recover, there’s a scenario you can paint where things get worse.

“Sometimes people will lean heavily on that ‘things will get worse’ scenario. Sometimes they will be right, but most of the time the world returns to normal and things are okay.”

He said, since 2009, the S&P500 had fallen more than 5 percent 32 times and continued to record all-time highs through that period. “It’s just a feature of the market.”

He said it typically took 47 days for the market to recover from a shock.

‘And then within 12 months, about 68 percent of the time, the market is higher than it was 12 months ago.”

He said persistently negative markets would usually come only when a shock become a macroeconomic crisis.

But Jasper said it was a good opportunity for people to think about whether their fund was a match for their emotional ability to cope with risk, not just their investment time horizon.

“It’s very easy to think you are relaxed if there are drawdowns or relaxed if there are shocks in the markets. It’s only living through these experiences you get to actually genuinely test what your attitude to risk is. For some people, they will experience this and go ‘you know what? I don’t sleep well at night and I’m genuinely uncomfortable about this’.

“For those people, it may be very rational to think about a different risk profile over time. But for others they’ll go ‘I’ve got 20 years left, I know these things happen. I’m okay with it’.

“If you think about any other thing in our life, if the big screen TV was on special we’d be really happy about it. Or if you could dine at your favourite restaurant bit cheaper than normal, you’d be really happy about it. The minute shares go on sale, they fall a bit, we get the chance to buy more shares in good companies that we can own for the next 120 years, we kind of get nervous about it. It’s strange behaviour in the financial markets we don’t see in any other parts of our lives.”

ANZ, the country’s biggest KiwiSaver provider, said it had been contacted by a small number of people who wanted to switch to a more conservative fund.

“In April 2025, during another recent period of market volatility, we also noticed an increase in customers contacting us to switch into more conservative funds. However, the numbers were again low – a couple of hundred – and a fraction of what we saw in March 2020.

“We think this is a reflection of how ANZ Investments, alongside other KiwiSaver providers and industry participants, have made conscious efforts to remind KiwiSaver members to stay the course.”

At Milford, head of KiwiSaver Murray Harris said it had not received many calls or questions but was telling members that markets moved up and down and this was no different.

He said investors who stuck to their goals would do better than those who tried to time the markets and switch funds to avoid a downturn, because they would often turn out to have moved at the wrong time. That could mean locking in losses and missing out on the recovery.

Morningstar NZ spokesperson Greg Bunkall said the impact on funds would depend on the performance of equity markets from now.

“To date, the KiwiSaver balanced and growth indexes Morningstar uses to track KiwiSaver funds are flat, and that doesn’t include the bounce back [Tuesday] morning.”

So what can you do if you’re worried?

You should be in a KiwiSaver fund that matches your risk profile.

If you have a long time until you need your money, you can afford to take some more risk and should get through this disruption – and others – by not paying too much attention to your KiwiSaver balance.

If you need the money soon, you should already be in a conservative fund that hopefully isn’t moving around too much.

If you’ve realised you’ve got your settings wildly wrong, and you need money now, you’ll probably need to move your investments, even if it means locking in losses.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Nelson’s mayor says smaller centres are rattled by a warning from Air New Zealand it may have make changes to where it flies and how often.

The national carrier has suspended the earnings guidance it issued less than two weeks ago because of what it said was unprecedented volatility in jet fuel markets.

The airline expects a meaningful impact on its second half earnings.

Air New Zealand said it had put in place initial fare changes, but said it may need to hike prices and adjust its network and schedule “as required”.

Nelson mayor Nick Smith said there was a “huge amount of nervousness in regional New Zealand” over the possibility of Air New Zealand reviewing services.

“We get that they’re under enormous financial pressure with the big loss they announced a couple of weeks ago, as well as the heightened fuel prices, the hope will be that they maintain the set of destinations across New Zealand they do, albeit understanding the frequency of some of those services may be reduced,” he said.

“I’m advocating very strongly on behalf of Nelson, as other mayors will be doing, that if we are to rebuild the tourism industry, we don’t want to have it excessively focused on the Queenstowns and the Rotoruas that are already busy.”

Smith said he was due to meet with Air New Zealand in the next couple of weeks.

“I hope there will be some consultation with mayors and regional leaders as they try and work through how they can be economically viable while at the same time maintain these vital services to regions like Nelson.”

The Nelson mayor said flights were “so important” to regional New Zealand.

“The loss of an air service can have a body blow impact on regional centres,” he said.

Smith said Nelson was a busy airport.

“But even for us, maintaining the frequency and range of destinations is just so important for the future of the Nelson region.”

Timaru mayor Nigel Bowen told RNZ that as a smaller centre, Timaru valued its connection into Wellington.

“We have significant concerns when global events affect fuel prices,” he said.

“We have historically a good working relationship with Air New Zealand and would expect, with any potential changes, that we are brought into the conversation.”

Taupō mayor John Funnell said he would encourage Air New Zealand to keep its services there.

“The airport has been working with Air New Zealand to remind them that it is a popular destination,” he said.

In its market statement the national carrier said the difference in the crack spread price – the margin charged by refineries – had jumped from US$22 barrel to as high as US$115.

Airlines are charged for the Brent Crude price of a barrel of oil – hovering around $US100 – and the crack spread price.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday, with the benchmark Brent Crude down 6 percent to around US$87 a barrel, after rising above $115 on Monday (NZ time).

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

One of the country’s most prominent buyers’ agencies has complained to the Real Estate Authority about a rise in “property flippers” making six-figures from unwitting vendors.

Earlier, Cotality told RNZ that the number of contemporaneous sales had lifted significantly last year after a sharp fall in 2023.

“There was a lift in these types of transactions last year, almost double 2024, and even more than what we saw through the Covid boom times,” head of research Nick Goodall said.

In a contemporaneous settlement, a property flipper often makes an offer with a long settlement period, and then finds another buyer to purchase the property the same day they have to settle, making money on the transaction.

iFindProperty co-founder Maree Tassell said there was noticeably more of the activity happening.

“It’s quite common that there are some deals out there where people are making over $100,000-plus on contemporaneous settlements, getting a property under contract. The poor old vendor, and even often the vendor’s agents will think ‘oh this is a real purchaser’. This is what’s really pissing me off.

“You’re getting these people come along, they get the property under contract, they act like they are the buyer. They tie a property up to say 20 days’ due diligence and then they’re immediately sending it out to their database and putting a big margin on it trying to onsell the property… they will pretend they’re bringing a builder through or pretend they’re bringing a valuer through and it will be a potential buyer. It’s quite deceptive to the vendors and quite deceptive sometimes to the agents.”

She said people saw it as a quick way to make money.

“And you get a whole lot of people creating mentoring services… they’re charging people money to come and learn how to make money in property.

“It’s all very sexy and it’s called no money down deals so they’re teaching people who know [not much] about property and don’t have the money to buy property just basically how to tie property contacts up and sell the contract. There’s no protection for the consumer, there’s no protection often for the vendor. They don’t know what’s happening.”

Property law expert Joanna Pidgeon said traders who were finding properties, buying them personally and then onselling were excluded from having to comply with the Real Estate Agents Act because they were self representing.

“Companies that sell property owned by the company directly to consumers are not required to hold a real estate licence issued by REA. However, a company that engages a contractor or sales agent who does not hold an active real estate licence to act as their representative on property sales may be engaged in unlicensed trading.

“People who buy directly from property traders who are not licensed do not have the same protections as when buying from a licensed real estate agent. This is particularly important as there is a conflict of interest when a trader is onselling directly. A purchaser should be seeking advice in relation to this, and should have their deposit held in a trust account pending the vendor becoming the registered owner of the property. We have seen some purchasers lose their deposits when traders have got into financial difficulty and the deposit has been released but the vendor unable to settle to enable the onsale.”

Tassell said she had meetings with both the Real Estate Institute and Real Estate Authority about the issue, which were positive.

The Real Estate Authority said it received a range of inquiries about property related activity and whether activity is within its regulatory scope. “We are not able to comment on any recent enquiries while our enquiries are ongoing, particularly out of fairness to the parties and to preserve the integrity of the process.”

Tassell said her business would make it clear if it were onselling, “We have a clause saying we’re licensed buyers’ agents. We’re not buying the property. We’re looking for someone to buy it. It’s total transparency with the vendor, it’s total transparency with the vendor’s agent. And then with our clients, the purchasers, it’s total transparency what they pay us. We’re not putting $150,000 between contracts and just laughing all the way to the bank.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand

Source: Radio New Zealand

Air New Zealand has suspended its earning guidance amid what it calls unprecedented volatility in global jet fuel markets.

The airline expects a meaningful impact on its second half earnings.

After implementing initial fare changes, it says it may need to take further price action and adjust its network if the conflict leads to continued high jet fuel costs.

Air New Zealand shares had fallen nearly 8 percent on Monday.

Oil prices are up about 8 percent to US$99.90 a barrel, after climbing to a high of US$119.50 a barrel overnight, its biggest-ever absolute price jump in a single day.

Reuters reports that some jet fuel prices have doubled since the start of the conflict putting pressure on carriers already having to reroute to avoid the Middle East conflict and cater to thousands of stranded passengers trying to leave the region.

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand