BHP Billiton Limited (BHP):
News that BHP Billiton is being urged by an activist US hedge fund to demerge its petroleum arm sent the miner’s shares soaring in late trade and pushed the benchmark index to a two year high. Elliot Management, which holds about 4.1 per cent of BHP’s London listed shares, proposed unifying BHP’s dual-listed company structure into a sole Australian entity and separately listing the miner’s US petroleum business on the New York stock exchange. BHP shares, which were already trading higher thanks to a rise in the oil price, surged in late trade to close 4.6 per cent higher at $25.73.
Blackmores Limited (BKL):
Christine Holgate, chief executive of Blackmores, says she is deeply frustrated by the failure of all levels of government to fully support trade with Asia, beyond the sale of resources. Ms Holgate, speaking at a GalKal forum on business and consumer trends, said there was deep hypocrisy on trade and the environment. Ms Holgate said a major Australian bank had rejected Blackmores’ application for a bank account in Iran because of US political opposition. ‘We say we are all about trade and an open country and we go to the bank and say can we please open a bank account and trade with Iran, [and they said] no you can’t, because Iran is Muslim and that’s very risky. And the US doesn’t like them, so we can’t. ‘It’s hypocritical and I struggle with this hypocrisy that’s going on. We are saying one thing when it suits us, then we are getting on and doing something else. ’At a forum last week in Adelaide, a succession of federal, state and local political leaders failed to attend scheduled events with ASEAN trade ministers and ambassadors.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA):
Commonwealth Bank of Australia will take a step into the future this week with the launch of a new simulator to enable it to mimic the experience of working on quantum computers that have not yet been invented, and start figuring out how they can revolutionise banking. The simulator will run on existing classical computers, hosted on infrastructure from cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services, and CBA chief information officer David Whiteing said the bank could develop applications well ahead of the first silicon based quantum computer being built. A quantum computer works in the mysterious realm of subatomic physics, which allows problems to be solved almost instantaneously and incalculable algorithms to run in a flash.
Downer EDI Limited (DOW); Spotless Group Holdings Limited (SPO) :
Downer EDI is planning to send a formal $1.2 billion takeover offer to Spotless shareholders as soon as possible after the Takeovers Panel said it would not halt the bid. Spotless had asked the panel to delay the dispatch of Downer’s Bidder’s Statement for the $1.15-a-share offer, arguing that the contractor had made ‘‘misleading and deceptive’’ assertions. But the panel said on Monday that it would not ‘‘conduct proceedings’’ on the matter. Downer, however, has agreed to provide additional disclosure in a replacement Bidder’s Statement, including clarifying how Spotless shareholders who accept the bid can withdraw their acceptance while the bid is still conditional. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission was involved in the discussions over how to clarify statements that concerned Spotless but declined to comment. Downer is not allowed to change the terms of its offer, but it is allowed to rewrite parts of the Bidder’s Statement. Spotless has some more time as it tries to find someone willing to pay more than the $1.15 per share now on the table, but it probably will not affect the outcome. Grant Fenn’s Downer EDI is now free to push ahead with its $1.2 billion bid for Spotless after the target company’s efforts to buy more time by taking the offer to the Takeovers Panel was knocked back. Depending on which way you look at it, this is good or bad news for Downer’s shareholders. There are growing expectations Fenn’s offer is going to get up and it is unlikely a white knight is going to emerge, although potential rival bidders are sniffing around. Downer cannot win as it has Spotless on one side arguing it has made an opportunistic bid when its share price was at a low point, while some shareholders accused Fenn of overpaying for the target. The one way Fenn can come out on top will be backing up his argument that the deal makes long-term strategic sense for his investors, but this will take a while.
National Australia Bank Limited (NAB):
NAB has appointed the country’s first ‘‘girl geek in residence’’, as the bank’s latest initiative to encourage more women to take on technology roles. Girl Geek Academy chief executive Sarah Moran will join the NAB technology team from April until December and throughout this time implement some of Girl Geek’s main programs within the big bank, such as the all-female hackathon #SheHacks and #SheMakes. NAB divisional chief information officer of technology support services and founder of the bank’s Connecting Women in Technology program, Dayle Stevens, said if the program was successful; it would look at continuing it next year. ‘The Girl Geek in Residence program is all about learning from each other, with the aim of getting more women into senior technology roles,’’ she said. ‘‘This is the first instance of a program like this happening anywhere in the world that we’re aware of, so we have nothing to base it on. It’s incredibly promising so far.’’ Since Ms Stevens created the Connecting Women in Technology program in 2014, NAB has increased its percentage of women in senior technology roles from 18 to 27 per cent. National Australia Bank is raising rates again, its fifth change in rates, policies and marketing in a month. NAB is making changes to fixed-rate mortgages by up to 40 basis points, which means it only applies to new loans. The changes were introduced on April 7. The one-year fixed rate for residential investment home loans is up by 30 basis points to 4.29 per cent for principal and interest. The one-year fixed rate for interest-only residential investment home loans is also rising by 40 basis points, to 4.39 per cent for interest-only repayments. Fixed rates for all other interest-only owner-occupier and interest-only residential investment loans are increased by 10 basis points.
Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC):
Westpac Banking Corp is the first bigfour Australian bank to enable Samsung Pay, the South Korean technology giant’s digital wallet that will compete with both Android Pay and the banks’ own smartphone applications as handset makers continue their push into payments. Westpac customers using a range of Samsung’s Galaxy devices will be able to load up their debit and credit cards to make contactless payments with their phones from 8am AEST on Tuesday. Discussions with the other big banks are continuing and Richard Fink, vice president in the mobile division at Samsung Australia, said he was hopeful they would also turn on Samsung Pay this year. The approach of Samsung and its main competitor, Apple, to smartphone payments differ fundamentally in that Samsung does not require banks to pay it any fee and also allows them to access the phone’s near-field communications (NFC) antenna. This allows banks’ own proprietary digital wallets to make contactless payments on Samsung phones; on iPhones, only Apple Pay can access the NFC. Each of the big four banks digital wallets can already be used to make payments through Samsung handsets.
（Source: AIMS）
News that BHP Billiton is being urged by an activist US hedge fund to demerge its petroleum arm sent the miner’s shares soaring in late trade and pushed the benchmark index to a two year high. Elliot Management, which holds about 4.1 per cent of BHP’s London listed shares, proposed unifying BHP’s dual-listed company structure into a sole Australian entity and separately listing the miner’s US petroleum business on the New York stock exchange. BHP shares, which were already trading higher thanks to a rise in the oil price, surged in late trade to close 4.6 per cent higher at $25.73.
Blackmores Limited (BKL):
Christine Holgate, chief executive of Blackmores, says she is deeply frustrated by the failure of all levels of government to fully support trade with Asia, beyond the sale of resources. Ms Holgate, speaking at a GalKal forum on business and consumer trends, said there was deep hypocrisy on trade and the environment. Ms Holgate said a major Australian bank had rejected Blackmores’ application for a bank account in Iran because of US political opposition. ‘We say we are all about trade and an open country and we go to the bank and say can we please open a bank account and trade with Iran, [and they said] no you can’t, because Iran is Muslim and that’s very risky. And the US doesn’t like them, so we can’t. ‘It’s hypocritical and I struggle with this hypocrisy that’s going on. We are saying one thing when it suits us, then we are getting on and doing something else. ’At a forum last week in Adelaide, a succession of federal, state and local political leaders failed to attend scheduled events with ASEAN trade ministers and ambassadors.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA):
Commonwealth Bank of Australia will take a step into the future this week with the launch of a new simulator to enable it to mimic the experience of working on quantum computers that have not yet been invented, and start figuring out how they can revolutionise banking. The simulator will run on existing classical computers, hosted on infrastructure from cloud computing provider Amazon Web Services, and CBA chief information officer David Whiteing said the bank could develop applications well ahead of the first silicon based quantum computer being built. A quantum computer works in the mysterious realm of subatomic physics, which allows problems to be solved almost instantaneously and incalculable algorithms to run in a flash.
Downer EDI Limited (DOW); Spotless Group Holdings Limited (SPO) :
Downer EDI is planning to send a formal $1.2 billion takeover offer to Spotless shareholders as soon as possible after the Takeovers Panel said it would not halt the bid. Spotless had asked the panel to delay the dispatch of Downer’s Bidder’s Statement for the $1.15-a-share offer, arguing that the contractor had made ‘‘misleading and deceptive’’ assertions. But the panel said on Monday that it would not ‘‘conduct proceedings’’ on the matter. Downer, however, has agreed to provide additional disclosure in a replacement Bidder’s Statement, including clarifying how Spotless shareholders who accept the bid can withdraw their acceptance while the bid is still conditional. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission was involved in the discussions over how to clarify statements that concerned Spotless but declined to comment. Downer is not allowed to change the terms of its offer, but it is allowed to rewrite parts of the Bidder’s Statement. Spotless has some more time as it tries to find someone willing to pay more than the $1.15 per share now on the table, but it probably will not affect the outcome. Grant Fenn’s Downer EDI is now free to push ahead with its $1.2 billion bid for Spotless after the target company’s efforts to buy more time by taking the offer to the Takeovers Panel was knocked back. Depending on which way you look at it, this is good or bad news for Downer’s shareholders. There are growing expectations Fenn’s offer is going to get up and it is unlikely a white knight is going to emerge, although potential rival bidders are sniffing around. Downer cannot win as it has Spotless on one side arguing it has made an opportunistic bid when its share price was at a low point, while some shareholders accused Fenn of overpaying for the target. The one way Fenn can come out on top will be backing up his argument that the deal makes long-term strategic sense for his investors, but this will take a while.
National Australia Bank Limited (NAB):
NAB has appointed the country’s first ‘‘girl geek in residence’’, as the bank’s latest initiative to encourage more women to take on technology roles. Girl Geek Academy chief executive Sarah Moran will join the NAB technology team from April until December and throughout this time implement some of Girl Geek’s main programs within the big bank, such as the all-female hackathon #SheHacks and #SheMakes. NAB divisional chief information officer of technology support services and founder of the bank’s Connecting Women in Technology program, Dayle Stevens, said if the program was successful; it would look at continuing it next year. ‘The Girl Geek in Residence program is all about learning from each other, with the aim of getting more women into senior technology roles,’’ she said. ‘‘This is the first instance of a program like this happening anywhere in the world that we’re aware of, so we have nothing to base it on. It’s incredibly promising so far.’’ Since Ms Stevens created the Connecting Women in Technology program in 2014, NAB has increased its percentage of women in senior technology roles from 18 to 27 per cent. National Australia Bank is raising rates again, its fifth change in rates, policies and marketing in a month. NAB is making changes to fixed-rate mortgages by up to 40 basis points, which means it only applies to new loans. The changes were introduced on April 7. The one-year fixed rate for residential investment home loans is up by 30 basis points to 4.29 per cent for principal and interest. The one-year fixed rate for interest-only residential investment home loans is also rising by 40 basis points, to 4.39 per cent for interest-only repayments. Fixed rates for all other interest-only owner-occupier and interest-only residential investment loans are increased by 10 basis points.
Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC):
Westpac Banking Corp is the first bigfour Australian bank to enable Samsung Pay, the South Korean technology giant’s digital wallet that will compete with both Android Pay and the banks’ own smartphone applications as handset makers continue their push into payments. Westpac customers using a range of Samsung’s Galaxy devices will be able to load up their debit and credit cards to make contactless payments with their phones from 8am AEST on Tuesday. Discussions with the other big banks are continuing and Richard Fink, vice president in the mobile division at Samsung Australia, said he was hopeful they would also turn on Samsung Pay this year. The approach of Samsung and its main competitor, Apple, to smartphone payments differ fundamentally in that Samsung does not require banks to pay it any fee and also allows them to access the phone’s near-field communications (NFC) antenna. This allows banks’ own proprietary digital wallets to make contactless payments on Samsung phones; on iPhones, only Apple Pay can access the NFC. Each of the big four banks digital wallets can already be used to make payments through Samsung handsets.
（Source: AIMS）
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