| HVN | sales from the franchised “Harvey Norman” complexes, commercial divisions and other sales outlets in Australia, New Zealand, Slovenia, Croatia, Ireland and Northern Ireland (excluding Singapore) (“Global Sales”) totalled $1.33 billion for the three months ended 30 September 2012. When compared to Global Sales for the period ended 30 September 2011, the decrease was 10.0%. Like for like Global sales for the three months ended 30 September 2012 when compared to the same period ended 30 September 2011, decreased by 7.8%. Global sales have been negatively affected by a 10.6% deterioration in the Euro, a 0.9% deterioration in the UK Pound, and positively affected by a 0.05% appreciation in the NZ$, for the three months ended 30 September 2012 compared to the three months ended 30 September 2011 | Company report |
| YBR | Macquarie Group and financial services group Yellow Brick Road have teamed up to become a fifth force in the residential mortgage sector. | The Australian |
| PDN | announced it would cut expenditure by as much as $76 million over the next two years following a review of spending and production | SMH |
| TLS | is set to compete with the largest telco in the United States, after Verizon announced it would attempt to increase its market share in products targeted at small and medium-sized businesses in Asia. | Age |
| WHC | Whitehaven Coal has accepted an underwritten offer of a A$1.2 billion Senior Secured Bank Facility.The Facility has a four year tenor and provides Whitehaven with lines of credit up to A$1.2 billion including revolving, term and guarantee facilities. These new facilities will replace the company’s existing bank facilities and provide funding for general corporate purposes and capital expenditure. The new facilities are subject to documentation. “We are very pleased with the refinancing outcome, which provides the certainty and flexibility to execute our business plan, including the development of the Maules Creek project,” Whitehaven Managing Director Mr Tony Haggarty said. | Company report |
| CAB | The two contracts account for 270 buses out of CDC’s 1660 total fleet or 17% of volume. We expect, when taking into account Cabcharge’s 49% equity accounted stake in CDC, that CAB Group NPAT will be negatively impacted by 4% in FY14. The contracts will face a 11mth transition period through to September 2013. Although we have previously flagged the NSW contract tender process as a material risk to CDC’s operations, we are surprised by the decision given CDC own the bus depots, which was an assumed significant competitive advantage. We highlight that although these 2 contracts were the smallest out of the 3 Sydney regions, the third contract (Hills buses) is up for tender in July 2013 and accounts for >500 buses. Without any detail provided by the NSW Transport Minister on where the expected $18m in savings driven from the re-sign are coming from, we can only assume there is now a strong chance the third contract is also going to be a very competitive tender process. This is evidenced by the Minister‟s media release, “Simply renegotiating with existing operators would likely have resulted in contract cost increases”. We note the VIC bus contracts have another 6-9 years to run before going to tender | Macquarie |
| ORG | could be facing a multi-billion dollar funding shortage if S&P retrospectively changes the amount of equity credit assigned to so-called hybrid securities | AFR |
| STO | could be facing a multi-billion dollar funding shortage if S&P retrospectively changes the amount of equity credit assigned to so-called hybrid securities | AFR |
| LNC | Roman Abramovich is considering an investment deal with LNC’s UCG technology | AFR |
| LYC | Lynas is pleased to announce that the Kuantan High Court has denied an application by parties associated with the Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) group (Applicants) for an injunction against Lynas’ Temporary Operating Licence. The injunction application was referred to in Lynas’ ASX announcement dated October 10, 2012. Lynas is also pleased to announce that the Kuantan High Court has ordered that Lynas be added as a party to the application by the Applicants for a judicial review of the decision of the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation to dismiss an appeal under the Atomic Energy Licensing Act against the Atomic Energy Licensing Board’s decision to approve the TOL. The judicial review application was referred to in Lynas’ ASX announcement dated October 4, 2012. The hearing of the judicial review application is expected in a few months time. Both the Malaysian government and Lynas intend to strongly defend the process undertaken by the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation in dismissing the appeal under the Atomic Energy Licensing Act. There is no injunction or stay preventing Lynas from carrying out its operations at its Malaysian plant. | Company report |
| SVW | A Federal review of media ownership laws could see TV network owners such as SVW acquire regional affiliates such as PRT | AFR |
| PRT | A Federal review of media ownership laws could see TV network owners such as SVW acquire regional affiliates such as PRT | AFR |
| IMF | Australian court rules that S&P engaged in deceptive and misleading conduct in assigning AAA ratings to certain synthetic derivative products | The Australian |
| CCL | seeking to raise $100m through issuing 7yr bonds | The Australian |
| ILU | too much inventory of high grade feedstock, pigment and zircon | JB Were |
| CAB | facing competitive pressures on several fronts: NSW bus contracts are being put out to competitive tender rather than reappointment through negotiation which will crimp margins for the contracts it manages to maintain, market share in taxis likely to wane as mobile technology lowers barriers to entry, government review likely to change taxi network structure | JB Were |
| CBA | Commonwealth Bank announced unaudited cash earnings of $1.85b for the first quarter of fiscal 2013, up 5.7% from $1.75b in the 1Q of fiscal 2012. Statutory net profit on an unaudited basis for the same quarter was approximately $1.8b. Revenue growth continued to reflect a combination of conservative business settings, relatively slower system credit growth and elevated funding costs, CBA said. Net interest margin was broadly in line with the 2H of fiscal 2012, with asset repricing impacts largely offset by continued deposit pricing pressure, it said. The bank also reported positive “jaws” – revenue growth that is ahead of expense growth – after costs continued to be well-managed, CBA said. Total impairment expense was broadly stable at 21 basis points of total average loans or $291 million in the quarter, the bank said. Asset growth remained largely deposit-funded, with deposits now accounting for 63% of total funding, it said. The bank also said its fully harmonised Basel III CET1 (Common Equity Tier 1) ratio was 9.7% as at September. CET1 is the highest quality of capital available to the bank and reflects the funds that are freely available to absorb losses. By division, CBA said Retail Banking performed “reasonably well” during the quarter, highlighted by improved lending margins, solid growth in deposits and good cost discipline. However, business lending remained subdued after elevated funding costs and a competitive environment continued to impact margins, the bank said. Within the Institutional Bank and Markets unit, sales and trading were trending at a similar run-rate to the second half of fiscal 2012, it said. The Wealth Management and Insurance unit saw solid volume growth in the quarter on the back of improved investment markets, CBA said. Funds under administration and funds under management grew by 6% and 4%, respectively. Insurance premiums grew by 3% as a result of improved penetration of the retail bank customer base for direct life and general insurance products, CBA said. In NZ, the ASB Bank unit experienced good growth in customer advances and deposits through the quarter, with business and commercial lending growing above system, CBA said. | Morningstar |
| HVN | Harvey Norman announced that sales from the franchised “Harvey Norman” complexes, commercial divisions and other sales outlets in Australia, NZ, Slovenia, Croatia, Ireland and Northern Ireland (excluding Singapore) totalled $1.33 billion for the three months ended 30 September 2012. When compared to global sales for the period ended 30 September 2011, the decrease was 10%. Like-for-like global sales for the three months ended 30 September 2012 when compared to the same period ended 30 September 2011, decreased by 7.8%. Global sales have been negatively affected by a 10.6% deterioration in the Euro, a 0.9% deterioration in the UK Pound, and positively affected by a 0.05% appreciation in the NZ$, for the three months ended 30 September 2012 compared to the three months ended 30 September 2011 | Morningstar |
| GMG | Goodman Group announces the launch of a $400m equity raising to fund identified long term growth opportunities in a sustainable manner. The announcement comes following Goodman’s strong operational performance across its key global markets and the continued expansion of its global platform. The Group also announces its entry into a joint venture (Joint Venture or JV) with WTORRE, one of Brazil’s leaders in the development and construction of industrial warehouse, logistics facilities and commercial real estate, to undertake development of prime logistics and industrial properties on a 50/50 basis in key markets throughout Brazil | Company report |
| TSE | TSE has been awarded a $200m contract to provide maintenance and operations services to QGC’s upstream CSG as assets in Queensland to add to its $11b order book. The contract is for five‐years, with a two‐year extension option. Revenue has the potential to increase through the life of the contract as project investment increases. The contract relates to QGC’s Curtis LNG Project and include processing plants, compression stations, ~2,000 operational gas wells and connecting infrastructure. | Shaw |
| SEK | The September SEK Employment Index shows increasing weakness in the Australian employment market. There are 3 components to the SEK employment index: 1. SEEK New job Ad Index (what the employers are doing). New jobs posted to SEK websites fell 2.8%. Weakness in all states including QLD and WA. The resources boom seems to be fading fast (QLD job ads posted down 3.6%). 2. SEEK Job Applications (what job hunters are doing). Job applications up 5.4%. More people are trying to find work. QLD up 4%, WA up 9%. Up over 5% in most states. 3. SEEK Employment Index (the ratio of new jobs placed : job applications) fell by 8.1% – meaning that while more people are trying to find work, those jobs are harder to find. The stronger work sectors in September were teachers, builders, fruit pickers and beauticians. The pickers would be a seasonal effect, while the builders is an interesting development – is this another early sign of housing recovery? Beauticians is a sign of our society – there are many hairdressers and nail beauticians that seem to be doing well at present from my walking the retail malls. SEK notes that WA and QLD have recently shown signs of weakness. The general weakness across Australia has continue into 2012 according to SEK. | Company report |
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