AUSTRALIA MARKET
Monday, May 15, 2017
Aurizon Holdings Ltd (AZJ):
The big logistics companies are used to scrapping over contracts. Now they are locked in battle for one of Aurizon Holdings’ business units. Street Talk can reveal the logistics players – along with some of the local private equity and infrastructure funds – lobbed first-round bids for Aurizon’s intermodal business on Friday. It is understood investment bank UBS is running a two-stage auction, designed to assess the intermodal unit’s value and give new Aurizon chief executive Andrew Harding the chance to cut it free after years of underperformance.
BHP Billiton Limited（BHP）:
In a $10 million rebranding, BHP is dumping its South African Billiton appendage, brandishing a new logo and going back to its Australian roots. Its new ‘Think Big’ slogan unveiled today is part of an attempt to rebuild community trust after a series of disasters and controversies. BHP Billiton will seek to reclaim its Australian identity through a major rebranding exercise after conceding that it and other big companies were losing the trust of communities around the world. The resources giant will today begin a $10 million advertising campaign that heralds the end of the ‘‘three blobs’’ logo and double-barrel name the company has used since the merger of BHP and Billiton in 2001. The campaign refers to the company simply as BHP rather than BHP Billiton, and will eventually be followed by a change of the company’s official registered name to ‘‘BHP Limited’’. The slim, lower-case letters in BHP’s existing logo will gradually be replaced by the bold, capital-letter logo BHP used prior to the merger.
Origin Energy Ltd (ORG); Santos Ltd (STO); Woodside Petroleum Limited (WPL):
Federal Resources Minister Matthew Canavan has dismissed warnings from the oil and gas sector that the government’s new LNG export controls represent an escalation of sovereign risk for the industry just as it is struggling with depressed prices and elevated costs. Speaking ahead of an address today to the major APPEA oil and gas industry conference in Perth, Senator Canavan rejected the idea that for Australia to look after its own domestic interests represented a new risk for the sector. ‘‘Every country in the world will ensure it takes care of its own energy resources itself before it exports overseas,’’ Mr Canavan told The Australian Financial Review . ‘‘That’s not some new risk.’’
Retail Food Group Limited (RFG):
Retail Food Group is perhaps best known as Queensland’s other pizza company. Though that’s a little unfair. Maybe it’s more accurate to say Queensland’s other big franchise player. The $980 million company owns brands including Crust Gourmet Pizza and Pizza Capers. Retail Food Group is perhaps best known as Queensland’s other pizza company. Though that’s a little unfair. Maybe it’s more accurate to say Queensland’s other big franchise player. The $980 million company owns brands including Crust Gourmet Pizza and Pizza Capers, as well as Donut King, Brumby’s Bakery, Michel’s Patisserie and Gloria Jeans, among others, and also operates in food services and manufacturing. Despite an impressive record of growing earnings and dividend payments since listing, the company tends to fly a little under the radar.
Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd (DMP):
The $170 billion franchise industry – and its lobbyists – will nervously watch a court case about to be unleashed in the Federal Court between Pizza Hut franchisees and their former franchisor, US-based fast food giant Yum! The appeal case, which begins today, comes as the relationship between franchisors and franchisees is being scrutinised by experts, regulators and politicians. It is a topic that has been doing the rounds of senators in the past few weeks after a Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill was introduced into Parliament earlier this year. The bill was designed to beef up penalties for wage fraud and make franchisors jointly responsible for workplace abuses if they have a ‘‘significant degree of influence or control’’ over the franchisee’s affair.
Tabcorp Holdings Limited (TAH); Tatts Group Limited (TTS):
Transport The Inland Rail project, first proposed in 1915, is forecast to cost around $10 billion to build but won’t become profitable until 2062, writes Aaron Patrick . Nine kilometres of rock and dirt stands between Malcolm Turnbull and a rail line from Melbourne to Brisbane. The construction of tunnels through the rolling hills of Toowoomba Range on the outskirts of Brisbane will be the most expensive part of the mega project. Railway tunnels used to be blasted out of mountains with TNT, a slow and incredibly dangerous process. Today, giant boring machines safely carve through the earth. Workers follow, installing pre-fabricated lining to make the tunnels safe and clean. The Toowoomba tunnels are likely to be the most complicated part of a project Australia’s railway industry has been looking forward to for decades. The process costs a lot less than it used to, but still isn’t cheap.
MG Unit Trust (MGC):
Parmalat Australia, which owns the big-selling milk brand Pauls, Vaalia yoghurt and Oak flavoured milk, produced a 9 per cent rise in annual revenues to $1.8 billion in 2016 in a fiercely competitive sector where large rival Murray Goulburn has been in turmoil. Parmalat, which is owned by French dairy giant Lactalis, has a resilient Australian business where Pauls is the No. 1 white milk brand, and has also increasingly been making inroads in Asia, where the UHT long-life version of Pauls is the No. 1 seller in Hong Kong. Parmalat Australia chief executive Craig Garvin said conditions were tough in Australia and the company was focusing on building up its brand and eyeing more exports to Asia.
(Source: AIMS)
Monday, May 15, 2017
Aurizon Holdings Ltd (AZJ):
The big logistics companies are used to scrapping over contracts. Now they are locked in battle for one of Aurizon Holdings’ business units. Street Talk can reveal the logistics players – along with some of the local private equity and infrastructure funds – lobbed first-round bids for Aurizon’s intermodal business on Friday. It is understood investment bank UBS is running a two-stage auction, designed to assess the intermodal unit’s value and give new Aurizon chief executive Andrew Harding the chance to cut it free after years of underperformance.
BHP Billiton Limited（BHP）:
In a $10 million rebranding, BHP is dumping its South African Billiton appendage, brandishing a new logo and going back to its Australian roots. Its new ‘Think Big’ slogan unveiled today is part of an attempt to rebuild community trust after a series of disasters and controversies. BHP Billiton will seek to reclaim its Australian identity through a major rebranding exercise after conceding that it and other big companies were losing the trust of communities around the world. The resources giant will today begin a $10 million advertising campaign that heralds the end of the ‘‘three blobs’’ logo and double-barrel name the company has used since the merger of BHP and Billiton in 2001. The campaign refers to the company simply as BHP rather than BHP Billiton, and will eventually be followed by a change of the company’s official registered name to ‘‘BHP Limited’’. The slim, lower-case letters in BHP’s existing logo will gradually be replaced by the bold, capital-letter logo BHP used prior to the merger.
Origin Energy Ltd (ORG); Santos Ltd (STO); Woodside Petroleum Limited (WPL):
Federal Resources Minister Matthew Canavan has dismissed warnings from the oil and gas sector that the government’s new LNG export controls represent an escalation of sovereign risk for the industry just as it is struggling with depressed prices and elevated costs. Speaking ahead of an address today to the major APPEA oil and gas industry conference in Perth, Senator Canavan rejected the idea that for Australia to look after its own domestic interests represented a new risk for the sector. ‘‘Every country in the world will ensure it takes care of its own energy resources itself before it exports overseas,’’ Mr Canavan told The Australian Financial Review . ‘‘That’s not some new risk.’’
Retail Food Group Limited (RFG):
Retail Food Group is perhaps best known as Queensland’s other pizza company. Though that’s a little unfair. Maybe it’s more accurate to say Queensland’s other big franchise player. The $980 million company owns brands including Crust Gourmet Pizza and Pizza Capers. Retail Food Group is perhaps best known as Queensland’s other pizza company. Though that’s a little unfair. Maybe it’s more accurate to say Queensland’s other big franchise player. The $980 million company owns brands including Crust Gourmet Pizza and Pizza Capers, as well as Donut King, Brumby’s Bakery, Michel’s Patisserie and Gloria Jeans, among others, and also operates in food services and manufacturing. Despite an impressive record of growing earnings and dividend payments since listing, the company tends to fly a little under the radar.
Domino's Pizza Enterprises Ltd (DMP):
The $170 billion franchise industry – and its lobbyists – will nervously watch a court case about to be unleashed in the Federal Court between Pizza Hut franchisees and their former franchisor, US-based fast food giant Yum! The appeal case, which begins today, comes as the relationship between franchisors and franchisees is being scrutinised by experts, regulators and politicians. It is a topic that has been doing the rounds of senators in the past few weeks after a Protecting Vulnerable Workers Bill was introduced into Parliament earlier this year. The bill was designed to beef up penalties for wage fraud and make franchisors jointly responsible for workplace abuses if they have a ‘‘significant degree of influence or control’’ over the franchisee’s affair.
Tabcorp Holdings Limited (TAH); Tatts Group Limited (TTS):
Transport The Inland Rail project, first proposed in 1915, is forecast to cost around $10 billion to build but won’t become profitable until 2062, writes Aaron Patrick . Nine kilometres of rock and dirt stands between Malcolm Turnbull and a rail line from Melbourne to Brisbane. The construction of tunnels through the rolling hills of Toowoomba Range on the outskirts of Brisbane will be the most expensive part of the mega project. Railway tunnels used to be blasted out of mountains with TNT, a slow and incredibly dangerous process. Today, giant boring machines safely carve through the earth. Workers follow, installing pre-fabricated lining to make the tunnels safe and clean. The Toowoomba tunnels are likely to be the most complicated part of a project Australia’s railway industry has been looking forward to for decades. The process costs a lot less than it used to, but still isn’t cheap.
MG Unit Trust (MGC):
Parmalat Australia, which owns the big-selling milk brand Pauls, Vaalia yoghurt and Oak flavoured milk, produced a 9 per cent rise in annual revenues to $1.8 billion in 2016 in a fiercely competitive sector where large rival Murray Goulburn has been in turmoil. Parmalat, which is owned by French dairy giant Lactalis, has a resilient Australian business where Pauls is the No. 1 white milk brand, and has also increasingly been making inroads in Asia, where the UHT long-life version of Pauls is the No. 1 seller in Hong Kong. Parmalat Australia chief executive Craig Garvin said conditions were tough in Australia and the company was focusing on building up its brand and eyeing more exports to Asia.
(Source: AIMS)
Latest comments