NZ stocks end lower while Eroad tanks

New Zealand stocks followed overseas trends to end lower, but the major talking point of the day was a major sell-off in tech firm Eroad after it lost a US customer.

Friday, October 17th 2025, 6:31PM

by BusinessDesk

The S&P/NZX 50 Index dropped 99.89 points, or 0.75%, to 13,289.21, with 40.6 million shares worth $169.6m trading.

There were 56 rises and 88 falls on the main board.

Across the Tasman, the S&P/ASX200 was down by 0.8% at 8,995.30 in late trading after recently setting a new 52-week high.

In the US, the main indices were all down on renewed US-China trade tensions.

Fisher & Paykel slips

Locally, market leader Fisher & Paykel Healthcare (FPH) dropped $1.02, or 2.8%, to $35.45, on turnover worth $14.7m.

Salt Funds managing director Matt Goodson said the decline in FPH appeared to be driven by investment flows rather than concerns about the changing face of America’s tariff regime, which has plagued the stock in the past.

“It may be part of a massive Australian sell portfolio that’s been doing the rounds for a couple of weeks,” Goodson said.

The talk of the day was Eroad, which specialises in technology used for the electronic automation of systems for collecting Road User Charges (RUC), among other things.

The stock dropped by $1.00, or 34.7%, to $1.88 after the company made several announcements, including the departure of co-chief executive David Kenneson.

Shift of focus

Eroad said it would shift its focus towards Australia and NZ, away from a “challenging” North American market.

The company expects to record an impairment to the carrying value of intangible assets related to the North American region of up to $150m.

Goodson said growth-oriented money had been invested in Eroad during its journey from $0.91 in May this year to $2.90 this week.

“But now it’s going the other way.”

The company said North America remained an important market for Eroad; “however, due to a variety of market conditions elongating enterprise sales cycles, growth activity in the region has not delivered within expected timeframes”.

Robotics firm Scott Technology, which rallied sharply this week after securing $44m in new contracts in the US and Brazil, returned to earth, dropping 40c to $2.54.

Comvita sticky

Takeover target manuka honey exporter Comvita fell 4c to 75.5c.

A company called Florenz has put together a scheme of arrangement for the manuka honey exporter at 80c/share.

Comvita said that it had become aware of media reports indicating that its founder, Alan Bougen, was representing a syndicate of shareholders who wished to veto the scheme.

However, Comvita stated that no information on the supposed veto had been forthcoming.

“Clearly, one of the parties isn’t particularly happy with the bid.

“The [manuka honey] industry is a bit more optimistic than the current harsh reality, which is that there is a vast surplus of honey,” Goodson said.

“What we’ve seen in the past is that when the returns are good, you can get those returns for a period of time, but then there’s just an absolute torrent of new entry.”

Tags: Market Close