Welcome to Today in Business - Powered by Spark for Business, an experimental AI podcast by the New Zealand Herald. Each weekday, we bring you five stories, the best of the New Zealand Herald business journalism, summarised and delivered by an AI voice as an easily digestible recap. It's Monday, August 18, 2025, and here are five stories you should know about. A2 Milk has announced major changes to its operations, including the sale of its 75 percent stake in Mataura Valley Milk to Open Country Dairy for 100 million dollars. At the same time, it will acquire Yashili New Zealand's Pōkeno plant for 282 million dollars, gaining access to two coveted Chinese formula registrations. The company posted a net profit of 202.9 million dollars, up 21 percent, and EBITDA of 274.3 million dollars. A2 Milk declared a 300 million dollar special dividend and reported record market share in China. Shares rose to 9 dollars 29 before easing to around 8 dollars 92. In other news, mānuka honey exporter Comvita has received a takeover offer from Florenz, a subsidiary of billionaire Mark Stewart's Masthead Limited. The offer, priced at 80 cents per share, values the deal at 56.4 million dollars. Comvita's board unanimously supports the proposal, which carries a 67 percent premium to the company's latest closing price. Major shareholders China Resources Enterprise and Li Wang, holding 18.3 percent, are also backing the deal. The transaction requires shareholder and High Court approval, along with an Independent Adviser's Report. Comvita reported a net loss before tax of 21.6 million dollars in 2024. Turning to monetary policy, the Reserve Bank is widely expected to lower the Official Cash Rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent at its next review. The move would follow earlier cuts totalling 225 basis points this cycle. Economists are divided on how far rates will eventually fall, with estimates ranging between 2 percent and 3 percent. The central bank's mandate requires inflation to remain between 1 and 3 percent in the medium term. Mortgage and deposit rates may see limited change after banks moved pre-emptively last week. Annual inflation stood at 2.7 percent in the June quarter. Meanwhile, New Zealand's total gross debt has climbed to 872.6 billion dollars in the year to May 31, up 5.4 percent from 827.3 billion a year earlier, according to the Herald's Nation of Debt investigation. That equals an average of 163,717 dollars in debt per person. Core Crown borrowing rose 11 percent to 238.8 billion dollars. Housing debt increased 4.7 percent, while business borrowing rose just 0.6 percent to 136.5 billion. Agricultural debt fell 1 percent to 62.8 billion as farmers used earnings to repay loans. Household net worth dropped 25.4 billion dollars to 2.42 trillion in the March 2025 quarter, reversing gains from the previous year. And finally, Airways New Zealand is investigating a major outage in its oceanic air traffic control system that caused delays and diversions over the weekend. The incident forced operations onto a backup system, with five flights affected and three diverted back to New Zealand. Aviation Industry Association chief executive Simon Wallace confirmed safety was never compromised but said operators deserve reassurance about reliability. Airways chief James Young says the issue involved data transfer errors. The Civil Aviation Authority will review technical findings this week. The outage comes after Airways announced average airline fee increases of 17.7 percent through 2028. That was Today in Business - Powered by Spark for Business - your NZ Herald daily business summary. For the best in business, subscribe to Herald Premium at nzherald.co.nz.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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