Bellamy's Australia Limited (BAL):
Bellamy’s Australia will formally invite retail shareholders to withdraw from a $45.5 million capital raising after the Chinese authorities suspended the key licence of its newly purchased baby formula canning plant, throwing the company into further disarray. The infant formula brand has been locked in talks with the corporate regulator over the timing of the event, which has been deemed a ‘‘material change’’ and will allow interested investors to give back the shares for which they subscribed at $4.75 apiece. Issues such as a new structure of a rights issue and timing are still being worked out. It is anticipated that chairman and major shareholder John Ho’s Janchor Partners will be one of the subunderwriters of any new issue; he was a sub-underwriter the first time. It is not clear if major shareholder Delta Partners would also be a sub-underwriter. Meanwhile, Bellamy’s lawyers MinterEllison hope for a speedy reply to questions from the Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA), which suspended Camperdown Powder’s licence when it received a third-party complaint. Bellamy’s answers were submitted via the Department of Agriculture of Water and Resources on Saturday. The Launceston-based company’s shares remain suspended from trade.
WAM Leaders Limited (WLE):
Central banks are likely to hold the key to the direction of equities in the 2018 financial year, according to the portfolio manager of blue chip-focused listed investment company WAM Leaders. WAM will announce on Monday that it will pay a maiden final dividend of 2¢ a share, fully franked, double its interim dividend. Since the LIC became fully invested in August 2016 its portfolio has increased 8.5 per cent, compared with a 7.3 per cent rise in the ASX 200 accumulation index. Portfolio manager Matthew Haupt said investors had had a year of ‘‘noise’’ from geopolitical events in 2016-17, including the Brexit vote in Britain, the election of US President Donald Trump, and various European elections. But the election of Mr Trump also hastened a switch from small caps to large caps, as the US economy picked up and bond yields rose.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ); Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA); National Australia Bank Limited (NAB); Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC): Banks could be forced to raise tens of billions of dollars in fresh equity if the banking regulator takes a hard line on defining the concept of ‘‘unquestionably strong’’, with the market expecting the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to clarify its thinking on the concept this week. APRA on Sunday declined to confirm the timing for publication of its highly anticipated work on ‘‘unquestionably strong’’ – a standard set down by the 2014 financial system inquiry – with banking sources saying they are braced for its release as early as Tuesday. The paper is expected to provide a new target for banks’ common equity tier1 (CET1)capital– a buffer the FSI said was crucial to ensure offshore investors supported banks in a crisis – and to set down APRA’s expectations for other measures of bank strength, including liquidity, funding and culture. The average CET1 ratio of the major banks has risen from 8.9 per cent in the 2014 financial year to 9.85 per cent in FY16 and is expected to continue to strengthen; Morgan Stanley’s forecasts point to CET1 ratios of 10.2 per cent in FY17 and 10.4 per cent in FY18.
Australian Foundation Investment Company Limited (AFI); BHP Billiton Limited (BHP); WAM Capital Limited (WAM): Big shareholders in BHP Billiton believe Elliott Management’s campaign for change to the miner’s structure and petroleum division is justified on the back of the US hedge fund’s latest visits to Australia. Australian Foundation Investment Company and Wilson Asset Management (WAM) met with Elliott and both believe the activist’s aggressive campaign has been positive. ‘‘I actually think they have been helpful in the sense that they have brought into the public focus the fact that BHP has actually underperformed over the last three, five to 10 years and nobody can deny that is true and management and the board aren’t denying that either,’’ said AFIC managing director Ross Barker. Big shareholders in BHP Billiton have welcomed Elliott Management’s campaign for change to the miner’s structure and petroleum division on the back of the US hedge fund’s latest visits to Australia. Elliott representatives visited Sydney last week and Melbourne in recent weeks as part of an ongoing engagement campaign with BHP’s institutional investors.
(Source: AIMS)
Bellamy’s Australia will formally invite retail shareholders to withdraw from a $45.5 million capital raising after the Chinese authorities suspended the key licence of its newly purchased baby formula canning plant, throwing the company into further disarray. The infant formula brand has been locked in talks with the corporate regulator over the timing of the event, which has been deemed a ‘‘material change’’ and will allow interested investors to give back the shares for which they subscribed at $4.75 apiece. Issues such as a new structure of a rights issue and timing are still being worked out. It is anticipated that chairman and major shareholder John Ho’s Janchor Partners will be one of the subunderwriters of any new issue; he was a sub-underwriter the first time. It is not clear if major shareholder Delta Partners would also be a sub-underwriter. Meanwhile, Bellamy’s lawyers MinterEllison hope for a speedy reply to questions from the Certification and Accreditation Administration of the People’s Republic of China (CNCA), which suspended Camperdown Powder’s licence when it received a third-party complaint. Bellamy’s answers were submitted via the Department of Agriculture of Water and Resources on Saturday. The Launceston-based company’s shares remain suspended from trade.
WAM Leaders Limited (WLE):
Central banks are likely to hold the key to the direction of equities in the 2018 financial year, according to the portfolio manager of blue chip-focused listed investment company WAM Leaders. WAM will announce on Monday that it will pay a maiden final dividend of 2¢ a share, fully franked, double its interim dividend. Since the LIC became fully invested in August 2016 its portfolio has increased 8.5 per cent, compared with a 7.3 per cent rise in the ASX 200 accumulation index. Portfolio manager Matthew Haupt said investors had had a year of ‘‘noise’’ from geopolitical events in 2016-17, including the Brexit vote in Britain, the election of US President Donald Trump, and various European elections. But the election of Mr Trump also hastened a switch from small caps to large caps, as the US economy picked up and bond yields rose.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ); Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA); National Australia Bank Limited (NAB); Westpac Banking Corporation (WBC): Banks could be forced to raise tens of billions of dollars in fresh equity if the banking regulator takes a hard line on defining the concept of ‘‘unquestionably strong’’, with the market expecting the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority to clarify its thinking on the concept this week. APRA on Sunday declined to confirm the timing for publication of its highly anticipated work on ‘‘unquestionably strong’’ – a standard set down by the 2014 financial system inquiry – with banking sources saying they are braced for its release as early as Tuesday. The paper is expected to provide a new target for banks’ common equity tier1 (CET1)capital– a buffer the FSI said was crucial to ensure offshore investors supported banks in a crisis – and to set down APRA’s expectations for other measures of bank strength, including liquidity, funding and culture. The average CET1 ratio of the major banks has risen from 8.9 per cent in the 2014 financial year to 9.85 per cent in FY16 and is expected to continue to strengthen; Morgan Stanley’s forecasts point to CET1 ratios of 10.2 per cent in FY17 and 10.4 per cent in FY18.
Australian Foundation Investment Company Limited (AFI); BHP Billiton Limited (BHP); WAM Capital Limited (WAM): Big shareholders in BHP Billiton believe Elliott Management’s campaign for change to the miner’s structure and petroleum division is justified on the back of the US hedge fund’s latest visits to Australia. Australian Foundation Investment Company and Wilson Asset Management (WAM) met with Elliott and both believe the activist’s aggressive campaign has been positive. ‘‘I actually think they have been helpful in the sense that they have brought into the public focus the fact that BHP has actually underperformed over the last three, five to 10 years and nobody can deny that is true and management and the board aren’t denying that either,’’ said AFIC managing director Ross Barker. Big shareholders in BHP Billiton have welcomed Elliott Management’s campaign for change to the miner’s structure and petroleum division on the back of the US hedge fund’s latest visits to Australia. Elliott representatives visited Sydney last week and Melbourne in recent weeks as part of an ongoing engagement campaign with BHP’s institutional investors.
(Source: AIMS)
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