Experience Co shares plunge after fatal NZ skydive accident
Shares in Experience Co have plunged following a fatal NZ skydiving accident, three months after a Queensland tragedy.
Shares in an Australian adventure tourism company have fallen sharply following a fatal skydiving accident in New Zealand, three months after three died jumping in north Queensland.
Experience Co, which recently changed its name from Skydive The Beach Group, has resumed trading after going into a halt on Wednesday, when a tandem skydive customer went missing in the incident in Queenstown, New Zealand.
The company’s shares were today down 8.8 per cent, or 7.5 cents, to 77.5 cents.
A man from the US is missing, presumed drowned, after he and an instructor landed in Lake Wakatipu in Queenstown during Wednesday’s tandem skydive.
Experience Co (EXP) says authorities are continuing to search for the man, while the skydiving instructor was rescued from the lake and is recovering.
The accident at the company’s NZ business NZONE Skydive follows a mid-air collision in October that killed two instructors and a customer at the group’s Mission Beach operation in far north Queensland.
Killed were Mission Beach woman Kerri Pike and two skydiving instructors, Toby Turner and Peter Dawson.
Experience Co chief executive Anthony Ritter said the group was working with Queenstown’s police, the Transport Accident Investigation Commission and the Civil Aviation Authority in regards to the latest incident.
“The company voluntarily suspended local operations immediately after the incident,” Mr Ritter said in a statement.
“A decision on when jumping will recommence will be made in due course after consultation with the staff, crew, regulators and the wider Queenstown community.
“On behalf of the company, I would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the missing man,” Mr Ritter.
Experience Co bought Queenstown’s NZONE Skydive in 2015 for $NZ17 million to tap into New Zealand’s booming tourism sector.
NZONE, set up in 1990, employs 65 staff and has taken more than 300,000 passengers tandem skydiving.
The Australian company expanded its New Zealand footprint with the $NZ10.4m purchase of Skydive Wanaka in 2016.
AAP, Scoop
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