Dene Mackenzie

Jane Metcalfe wanted to meet men but was having little success. So she started a speed-dating business. She is still waiting to meet "Mr Right" but tells business editor Dene Mackenzie she does have some success stories to share.

Consumers appear to have started getting their wallets out and spending again, reinforcing suggestions that the economy is close to moving out of recession.

Slingshot and Orcon have been rated as the top broadband providers for the first six months of the year, with Telecom named as also performing strongly.

Contact Energy yesterday confirmed what everybody had already forecast - that it was a challenging period in which after-tax profit fell 50% in the year ended June.

Floating mortgage rates started falling yesterday but fixed rates, which cover about 85% of New Zealanders with mortgages, began to rise in line with earlier predictions.

The Otago-Southland Employers Association chief executive, John Scandrett, is calling for southern businesses to undertake a self-audit of their activities after another disappointing performance in manufacturing index result.

Low mortgage rates are set to drive up house prices by an expected 24% by June next year from the same month this year, a report out yesterday says.

Fletcher Building is picked to announce a "precipitous" decline in profits in its full-year result today, scoured out by abnormal writedowns.

Wyndham Vacation Resorts managing director Barry Robinson is confident he has hit on a winning formula for the company's Wanaka development which will be completed next month.

The appointment of Ian Lafferty as director of executive programmes at the University of Otago's School of Business signals a new direction for the internationally recognised school. Business Editor Dene Mackenzie looks at the changes.

Several prominent corporate bond funds have delivered negative returns for the first half of this year, something which has come as a surprise for some investors, Myles Wealth Management director Craig Myles said yesterday.

New Zealand's unemployment surged to a nine-year high of 6% in the three months ending June, but the increase needs to be looked at in light of the economic events of the past two years, Business New Zealand says.

The Otago and Shanghai "sister" museums have agreed to display symbolic jade items at the Shanghai expo, something that has excited New Zealand expo commissioner general Phillip Gibson, formerly of Dunedin.