Tabcorp, Tatts hunt goes global
A combined Tabcorp and Tatts Group $11.3 billion wagering giant will have the firepower to hunt for acquisitions and bid aggressively for lotteries and wagering contracts overseas, and take on the international bookmakers who have wreaked havoc in the Australian market in recent years. The Fin
Household debt a threat to AAA: Fraser
Soaring household and government debt are increasingly leaving the country exposed to economic shocks and are becoming a key threat to the AAA credit rating, said Treasury secretary John Fraser. The Fin
Family Kidman bidders descend on Canberra
Some of Australia’s largest grazing families are today set to trump a bid by Gina Rinehart and a Chinese investor for S. Kidman & Co by going to Canberra to announce their $375 million unconditional bid, renewing political pressure over foreign investment rules. The Fin
Slow start means BHP will have to step on it
BHP Billiton is banking on a big second half of the year to meet its full-year production targets, after posting disappointing copper production and weaker-than-expected coal figures for the September quarter. The Fin
Revolt over performance rights repressed as King’s reign ends
The former managing director of Origin Energy, Grant King, was hit by a small protest vote about performance rights at his final annual general meeting in Sydney yesterday. The Aus
Vodafone ‘has headstart’ on its NBN rivals
Vodafone Australia boss Inaki Berroeta is confident that the telco has a leg up on the likes of TPG Telecom and Optus in the fixed line market as it gets ready to deliver services over the National Broadband Network. The Aus
Fix milk crisis, Joyce tells WA
Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce is pressuring the WA Government to come up with a long-term solution for the crisis building in the WA dairy industry, amid revelations Canberra and the State Government considered a plan to use taxpayer funds to sell excess milk to Asia. The West
New deal extends refinery operation
BP has struck a deal with the State Government that extends the life of its Kwinana oil refinery by at least 30 years. The State Agreement for WA’s only oil refinery and Australia’s biggest will ensure operations continue until 2050. The West
The Australian Financial Review
Page 1: A combined Tabcorp and Tatts Group $11.3 billion wagering giant will have the firepower to hunt for acquisitions and bid aggressively for lotteries and wagering contracts overseas, and take on the international bookmakers who have wreaked havoc in the Australian market in recent years.
The federal government facilitated the flow of big-spending Chinese gamblers to Australia by introducing an ‘‘express visa’’ seven months ago, after lobbying from Crown Resorts and other casino operators.
Page 2: Brian Fitzpatrick, an organiser in the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union for 25 years, said the union was able to drive up wages because most workers were more loyal to it than their employers. ‘‘It will completely nullify the power of the union,’’ he said. A new construction industry regulator – one of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s top priorities – would end the corrupt union’s stranglehold over labour and reshape the entire industry, a union veteran says.
Page 3: A deal giving two superannuation funds an inside track to buy NSW’s $10 billion Ausgrid electricity network appears to breach the state government’s own guidelines.
Page 5: The Business Council of Australia has warned senator Nick Xenophon that his home state of South Australia needs investment and could not survive on handouts and welfare.
Page 6: Soaring household and government debt are increasingly leaving the country exposed to economic shocks and are becoming a key threat to the AAA credit rating, said Treasury secretary John Fraser.
The head of the corporate regulator has used a parliamentary appearance to challenge the main defence put forward by the big banks for not passing on interest rate cuts in full.
Page 8: Some of Australia’s largest grazing families are today set to trump a bid by Gina Rinehart and a Chinese investor for S. Kidman & Co by going to Canberra to announce their $375 million unconditional bid, renewing political pressure over foreign investment rules.
Page 9: Residential property was the best performing asset class between 2005 and 2015 but more recent data suggests that the tide may be turning as property prices in Perth and Darwin head south and the froth shows tentative signs of coming out of the Melbourne and Sydney markets.
Page 10: The outgoing chief executive of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Oliver Yates, says there needs to be a major overhaul of the national electricity rules to deal with the influx of renewable energy into the grid.
Page 11: Sydney investment banker Oliver Curtis has been wrongly convicted of insider trading because the tip-offs he had may not have moved the price of contracts for difference, a court has heard.
Page 12: A resurgent property market and fast-growing services sector has delivered the Chinese economy its third straight quarter of 6.7 per cent growth, a result hailed as a return to stability by government officials.
Page 15: BHP Billiton is banking on a big second half of the year to meet its full-year production targets, after posting disappointing copper production and weaker-than-expected coal figures for the September quarter.
Coles has upped the ante on rival Woolworths, rejigging its customer loyalty program to enable shoppers to earn air miles and travel perks with the country’s second largest full-service airline, Virgin Australia.
James Packer’s Crown Resorts could be forced by Australian casino regulators to operate under more restrictive licence conditions or stand down staff to satisfy probity concerns if its employees are found guilty of breaking Chinese gambling laws.
Page 17: Gas pipeline owners are reaping "super-profits" from assets that have long since delivered their investors a reasonable return, preventing the higher prices being seen for gas from encouraging new supply, according to junior producer Central Petroleum.
Retiring Origin Energy chief executive Grant King has acknowledged the company had ‘‘overly stretched’’ its resources with its investment in its $25 billion LNG project in Queensland but insisted it was now well placed to face a future driven by renewable energy and gas.
CIMIC has elevated deputy chief executive Adolfo Valderas to CEO as the Spanish-run construction group reported an 11 per cent rise in third-quarter net profit to $148.5 million.
Page 18: The national broadband network and fast-approaching 5G technology will be key pillars for Vodafone Hutchison Australia’s next stage of growth in areas such as agriculture and medicine, chief executive Inaki Berroeta says.
Non-bank lender Liberty says mortgage originations soared over the past year after the prudential regulator forced banks to raise more capital and tighten lending standards, and it will compete more vigorously by lifting marketing and using digital technology to target new customers.
Australia’s newest bank, Tyro, has appointed the founder of National Australia Bank’s UBank and Telstra Digital, Gerd Schenkel, as its new chief executive officer, in a sign the payments disrupter plans to ramp up its attack on the big banks’ small business lending customers.
The Western Australia government is considering listing its Western Power utility, which could be the nation’s biggest float since Telstra.
Page 19: Billions of dollars of default superannuation savings managed by the banks and listed wealth companies are in legacy products, costing savers hundreds of millions of dollars in extra fees, a study has found.
Australia’s bank treasurers say they’ll be forced to increase their reliance on wholesale funding markets to meet new stable funding rules if they are penalised for taking deposits from superannuation funds.
Page 20: Tatts Group chief executive Robbie Cooke admitted to being ‘‘gutted’’ at the prospect of leaving the helm of the wagering and lotteries firm when its merger with Tabcorp is scheduled to be finalised in the middle of next year.
The head of Virgin Australia’s Velocity frequent-flyer program, Karl Schuster, says the airline is in talks with potential partners in the telecommunications and energy sectors as it seeks to cash in on consumers’ obsession with air miles and generate more income from the retail sector.
The Australian
Page 2: The Australian Bureau of Statistics last night admitted the bungle that shut the census website and delayed millions of people from completing the survey will cost taxpayers up to $30 million.
Page 5: Health insurance premiums will still rise in April but by less than they would have before the federal government moved to slash the price of medical devices available to private patients.
Page 6: South Australian businesses left without power could form a class action after it was revealed yesterday nine of the state’s 13 wind farms tripped or reduced output during last month’s storms because of a “software issue”.
Page 19: Company director Kathryn Fagg has worked in some male-dominated industries, including stints as a petroleum engineer for Esso and senior executive roles in logistics with BlueScope Steel and Linfox.
Page 21: The former managing director of Origin Energy, Grant King, was hit by a small protest vote about performance rights at his final annual general meeting in Sydney yesterday.
Ansell has upped its earnings guidance for the full year, helped by improving sales for its range of medical gloves after last year’s supply issues as well as a continuation of generally favourable economic conditions across its key regions.
Vacuum cleaner retailer Godfreys, which has seen nearly 75 per cent of its value stripped by investors since last year, will restructure its store portfolio into a majority franchise-led model as it struggles to eke out profit growth.
Page 22: Vodafone Australia boss Inaki Berroeta is confident that the telco has a leg up on the likes of TPG Telecom and Optus in the fixed line market as it gets ready to deliver services over the National Broadband Network.
Page 23: Commonwealth Bank’s disruptive play in emerging markets is starting to take shape. Built around its technology company TYME (take your money everywhere), the plan includes an application for a South African banking licence and an imminent rollout of TYME’s digital banking system in Indonesia.
The big banks must rely less on deep discounting of mortgages and instead target customers with selective pricing as part of efforts to protect dividends, according to a major report.
Australian Securities & Investments Commission chairman Greg Medcraft has provided his most detailed endorsement yet of tracker mortgages — loans that are pegged to movements in the Reserve Bank cash rate — that had suffered criticism from most of the local banking industry despite their popularity offshore.
The government’s revised life insurance remuneration reforms will clamp down on both advised and direct sales of life insurance products, representing a win for the Association of Financial Advisers that lobbied for laws treating advisers on the same level as direct distribution channels, such as comparison websites.
Page 24: Months before Salesforce.com considered buying Twitter, the company was looking at more than a dozen acquisition targets that didn’t include the social media giant, according to an internal presentation for its board members.
Chinese internet giant Alibaba is planning to raise about $US1 billion ($1.3bn) to fund the expansion of its local-services platform, Koubei, which could value the venture at nearly $US8bn.
Page 25: Charter Hall Group will look to rebound from deferring the listing of its $1.25 billion long-leased real estate investment trust by coming back to market with a recut fund that is more appealing in the harsher climate for yield stocks.
Shopping centre giant Westfield Corp has laid down its first concrete plans to develop apartments and hotels in the United States since it was formed two years ago.
Page 27: Macquarie Capital and major US real estate group Greystar are poised to revolutionise Australia’s residential rental housing market.
The West Australian
Page 4: Federal Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce is pressuring the WA Government to come up with a long-term solution for the crisis building in the WA dairy industry, amid revelations Canberra and the State Government considered a plan to use taxpayer funds to sell excess milk to Asia.
Page 7: Opposition Leader Mark McGowan has claimed the closure of an electrical transformer factory and loss of 80 jobs is the fault of the State Government “preparing Western Power for sale”.
Page 11: The well-heeled suburb of Applecross is at the centre of a big spike in the number of West Australians falling behind on their mortgages.
Page 14: WA’s biggest health fund says it will pass on all savings to premiums under modest Government plans to cut costs of medical prostheses.
Page 19: BHP Billiton has cautiously signalled an end to roller-coaster commodities prices, saying yesterday it could see “early signs of markets rebalancing”.
BP has struck a deal with the State Government that extends the life of its Kwinana oil refinery by at least 30 years. The State Agreement for WA’s only oil refinery and Australia’s biggest will ensure operations continue until 2050.
Page 20: WA needs to more effectively argue that a financially strong West is in the interests of the entire nation if the State is to get a better slice of GST.
Page 47: Shares in Carnarvon Petroleum surged by 30 per cent yesterday after the company reported better-than-expected results from flow testing at its Roc-2 well off the Pilbara coast, 160km north of Port Hedland.
