As Senior Editor at Business News, Mark Beyer has a wide-ranging brief to research, analyse and report on the issues, trends and personalities affecting the business community in Western Australia.
Mr Beyer has 35 years' career experience, primarily in business journalism. He joined Business News in 2002 and previously worked for The Australian Financial Review and The West Australian, and also has public relations and corporate affairs experience.
Before becoming a journalist, he was an economist with the Commonwealth Treasury in Canberra.
A RECENT Macquarie Equities report on SME banking was titled Small Business: River of Gold. It's a title that should send a chill down the spines of small business operators.Macquarie estimated that SME banking would generate at least $2.8 billion in...
A SWOT analysis is a ‘tried and true' business planning tool, but business advisers believe many organisations fail to use this tool properly.The process of preparing a SWOT analysis is relatively straightforward. The hard part is the next step. How ...
THE lure of opening a popular new cafe or restaurant continues to attract many aspiring business operators.And despite the two-year-old ‘tech wreck' on the stock market, computing and the Internet are also growth areas for new business operators.The..
THE business banking market in WA is dominated by five institutions – Perth-based BankWest plus the four major national banks.These banks are the main financial institution for 99 per cent of WA businesses, according to a Yellow Pages Small Business ...
WA business icon Clough Limited is officially a public company but retains the character of a family company, according to broking analysts.This harsh assessment follows Clough's shock profit warning earlier this week, which analysts believe reveals ...
THE banking industry is looking to business lending to take up the slack following an expected drop in housing lending.Business lending increased by just 4.3 per cent in the year to September 2002, according to the Reserve Bank.This compares with 19..
AUSTRALIAN investors can expect to hear a lot more about absolute return funds in future.Absolute return is the increasingly common, and more illuminating, name for hedge funds.
AMP has kicked along the rapid growth of Australia's ‘hybrid' securities market with its offer of up to $1.15 billion of ‘reset preferred securities' (RPS).
TWO very different – and in one case groundbreaking – competitors have entered the corporate superannuation market this month.The groundbreaker is REST, one of Australia's largest ‘industry' super funds. It has become the first industry fund to esta...
AUSTRALIAN investors can select from a small but growing number of ‘index' funds.Vanguard Investments, the global pioneer of index funds, offers an Australian Share Fund, which aims to track the S&P/ASX 300 index, before fees and expenses.
THE growing popularity of master funds and wrap accounts has been one of the main themes of the managed funds industry over recent years.Westpac CEO David Morgan acknowledged as much when he announced the purchase of BT Financial Group last month.
CENTRAL bankers are renowned for making obscure comments that market watchers struggle to un-ravel.Australia's Reserve Bank may be trying to break the mould judging by the relative clarity of its recent pronouncements.
ASSISTANT Treasurer Helen Coonan has dismissed concerns that Australia's superannuation system will leave many people with inadequate retirement incomes.
AUSTRALIAN superannuation funds produced their worst returns on record in 2001-02 and have a “higher than normal” probability of posting negative returns again this year, according to consulting group InTech.