Deal day in NZ as Heartland buys TSB, Green Cross sells The Doctors

New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 index came back from the long King’s Birthday weekend on the backfoot, with Infratil weighing on the bourse as the hot artificial intelligence trade cooled in the wake of Anthropic’s plans to go public and as oil prices remained elevated in the face of an elusive peace in the Middle East.

Heartland Group Holdings neared a three-month high after agreeing to buy New Plymouth-based lender TSB for $620 million in a vendor-financed deal that will see the Toi Foundation end up with a near-18% stake of the enlarged group if it gets over the line.

Meanwhile, Green Cross Health surged by more than a third after it agreed to sell its medical arm, The Doctors, to iwi-backed digital-first health firm Tend Health for $270 million.

And Spark New Zealand sank to a 15-year low after the National Business Review reported on the telco’s protracted underperformance.