Contact Energy shareholders have followed consumers, fleeing the electricity retailer's stocks as droves of customers sign up elsewhere.
Contact's shares slid from $5.28 to $5.23, a 1% decline, on Wednesday which was their lowest in seven years, but retraced some losses to trade up to $5.25 yesterday on relatively low trading volumes.
Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said Contact shares had lost more than 15% of value this year, partly because of the dilutionary effect of issuing more shares in a recent $350 million rights issue. They were now changing hands at 2004 prices.
Contact lost 7679 consumers during June, its market share of 464,000 consumers overtaken by Genesis, which picked up 3000 customers and a majority market share of 470,000 customers, according to the first month's figures released by WhatsMyNumber, an independent joint venture enabling consumers to compare electricity pricing.
Mr Timms said while the financial impact may be "flat" for Contact, he did not expect "massive implications" for its bottom line, as the underlying business of retail customers switching to, and from, Contact was generally "sound".
