Air New Zealand Ltd (AIZ):
Thousands of airline passengers were stranded in Auckland after a pipeline leak cut jet fuel supplies to New Zealand’s largest airport, forcing planes to remain grounded, authorities said. The pipeline operator, Refining NZ, said repairs would take at least a week, possibly two, raising the prospect of ongoing major disruption. Air New Zealand said 2000 passengers were affected by flight cancellations today alone as it attempted to minimize fuel usage. It said the leak meant fuel supplies at Auckland airport were down to 30 per cent of normal capacity and some long-haul flights were having to make additional refuelling stops in Brisbane and Fiji. “Aviation is a critical transport industry and the lifeblood for tourism. We are naturally extremely disappointed with this infrastructure failure,” the airline said.
AGL Ltd (AGL):
The under-pressure board of AGL Energy looks set to avoid an embarrassing "second strike" at next week's annual shareholders meeting after two powerful proxy advisers recommended investors back the remuneration report. But the proxy firms, ISS and CGI Glass Lewis, still voiced concerns about chief executive Andy Vesey's high pay, which has also been the subject of criticism in Canberra amid intense scrutiny of the utility's plans to close its Liddell power station in NSW. Mr Vesey has been the subject of extraordinary attacks by politicians including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who have let fly at his $6.9 million salary in 2016-17 at a time when bills are shooting up for customers.
Evolution Mining Ltd (EVN):
Evolution Mining has offloaded its Edna May gold mine to Ramelius Resources for $90 million as it works to improve the quality of it asset portfolio. Edna May is Evolution's worst-performing mine and the decision to sell the miner will lower its all-in sustaining cost by about $30 an ounce in the 2018 financial year and between $40 an ounce and $50 an ounce on an annual basis. Evolution will take $40 million in cash with the balance in royalties, cash or Ramelius shares.
NextDC Ltd (NXT):
Data Centre operator NextDC has asked for two seats on the board of its takeover target and landlord, Asia Pacific Data Centres. The request comes after NextDC lifted its stake in the target to 29.2 per cent while its $1.87 per security bid for APDC was live. The Craig Scroggieled NextDC has now allowed its offer to lapse, as flagged in The Australian’s DataRoom column today. A sweetened proposal is on offer from rival suitor Tony Pitt’s 360 Capital, in the form of $1.95 in cash per security. The APDC board expects to recommend the higher offer but needs to see the bidder’s statement first, which is expected to be published in less than a fortnight.
National Australia Bank(NAB):
National Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Thorburn has returned from a soul-searching tour of the country to find the bank’s ‘‘North Star’’ purpose as it joins Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ Banking Group in shaking up its culture to get bad news to travel up to help avoid another banking scandal. Mr Thorburn has joined ANZ’s CEO Shayne Elliott in hitting the radio airwaves and visiting local branches to emphasise the importance of ‘‘visible leaders’’.Mr Thorburn took its question of purpose back to first principles and over the last month he and 60 of his senior executives visited 200 offices around the country and spoke to more than 13,000 staff.
Suncorp Group Ltd (SUN):
Suncorp, one of the nation's largest banks, and Connective, a major mortgage broking network, are changing their credit policies to better identity the best property borrowers and increase loans for some investors by up to 38 basis points. Both lenders claim the tightening is in response to regulatory pressure to boost scrutiny of borrowers to ensure they can comfortably make repayments for the term of the loan. Suncorp, a financial conglomerate that also offers wealth management and insurance, is introducing new pricing analysis for interest-only home loans that will result in 38 basis point increase for investors. At present, it calculates interest-only rates based on the purpose of the loan, whether it is a owner occupier or investment. Under the new arrangement, it will take into account the type of loan repayment, allowing differentiation between borrowers repaying interest-only and principal and interest.
Ten Network Holding Ltd (TEN):
Billionaire media mogul Bruce Gordon has lost a court bid aimed atthwarting the sale of Network Ten to America's CBS after the NSW Supreme Court threw out his case against administrators of the free-to-air broadcaster. Mr Gordon, through his companies WIN Corporation and Birketu, took urgent legal action on September 6 to prevent Ten's administrator, KordaMentha, from holding a second creditors' meeting last week to vote on the CBS proposal. The meeting was delayed until tomorrow. The administrator backs the sale of Ten to CBS. Mr Gordon's companies had also asked the court to make a range of orders and declarations, including that KordaMentha's second report to creditors failed to include adequate information about the bid for Ten made by Birketu and Lachlan Murdoch's Illyria Nominees.
The Reject Shop Ltd (TRS):
The Reject Shop is one ASX-listed retailer whose biggest problem isn't the looming entry of Amazon into Australia. The deep discount retailer, which sells up to 7,000 different items including stationery, metal birdhouses, soap, garden pots and pet care products from a network of 347 stores, simply doesn't have an online delivery business because the average spend of its customers is too low to justify the economics of having a delivery charge and transporting the goods to their home. The Reject Shop managing director Ross Sudano said the company had done extensive research in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom on the deep discount market, and while Amazon is a formidable force in retail generally, the low-priced items which the deep discount retailers have as their core business, mean they are largely immune. The price points of most of their goods are too low, for even the might of Amazon to make a meaningful dent, so the online giant largely steers clear.
Vocus Group Ltd (VOC):
Amid a flurry of insider sales, Vocus Group’s Vaughan Bowen has taken out his wallet and spent $249,705 to buy another 106,000 shares in the beleaguered company, lifting his holding to 8.9 million shares. Bowen, the long-time “brains” behind M2 and Vocus, is a key supporter of Geoff Horth as chief of the company. He acquired the stock at $2.35 a share, well down on the year ago high of $7.05 a share. Earlier this year, KKR and Affinity looked at the company with indicative bids of around the $3.50 a share mark but walked without lodging a formal bid.
(Source: AIMS)
Thousands of airline passengers were stranded in Auckland after a pipeline leak cut jet fuel supplies to New Zealand’s largest airport, forcing planes to remain grounded, authorities said. The pipeline operator, Refining NZ, said repairs would take at least a week, possibly two, raising the prospect of ongoing major disruption. Air New Zealand said 2000 passengers were affected by flight cancellations today alone as it attempted to minimize fuel usage. It said the leak meant fuel supplies at Auckland airport were down to 30 per cent of normal capacity and some long-haul flights were having to make additional refuelling stops in Brisbane and Fiji. “Aviation is a critical transport industry and the lifeblood for tourism. We are naturally extremely disappointed with this infrastructure failure,” the airline said.
AGL Ltd (AGL):
The under-pressure board of AGL Energy looks set to avoid an embarrassing "second strike" at next week's annual shareholders meeting after two powerful proxy advisers recommended investors back the remuneration report. But the proxy firms, ISS and CGI Glass Lewis, still voiced concerns about chief executive Andy Vesey's high pay, which has also been the subject of criticism in Canberra amid intense scrutiny of the utility's plans to close its Liddell power station in NSW. Mr Vesey has been the subject of extraordinary attacks by politicians including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who have let fly at his $6.9 million salary in 2016-17 at a time when bills are shooting up for customers.
Evolution Mining Ltd (EVN):
Evolution Mining has offloaded its Edna May gold mine to Ramelius Resources for $90 million as it works to improve the quality of it asset portfolio. Edna May is Evolution's worst-performing mine and the decision to sell the miner will lower its all-in sustaining cost by about $30 an ounce in the 2018 financial year and between $40 an ounce and $50 an ounce on an annual basis. Evolution will take $40 million in cash with the balance in royalties, cash or Ramelius shares.
NextDC Ltd (NXT):
Data Centre operator NextDC has asked for two seats on the board of its takeover target and landlord, Asia Pacific Data Centres. The request comes after NextDC lifted its stake in the target to 29.2 per cent while its $1.87 per security bid for APDC was live. The Craig Scroggieled NextDC has now allowed its offer to lapse, as flagged in The Australian’s DataRoom column today. A sweetened proposal is on offer from rival suitor Tony Pitt’s 360 Capital, in the form of $1.95 in cash per security. The APDC board expects to recommend the higher offer but needs to see the bidder’s statement first, which is expected to be published in less than a fortnight.
National Australia Bank(NAB):
National Australia Bank chief executive Andrew Thorburn has returned from a soul-searching tour of the country to find the bank’s ‘‘North Star’’ purpose as it joins Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ Banking Group in shaking up its culture to get bad news to travel up to help avoid another banking scandal. Mr Thorburn has joined ANZ’s CEO Shayne Elliott in hitting the radio airwaves and visiting local branches to emphasise the importance of ‘‘visible leaders’’.Mr Thorburn took its question of purpose back to first principles and over the last month he and 60 of his senior executives visited 200 offices around the country and spoke to more than 13,000 staff.
Suncorp Group Ltd (SUN):
Suncorp, one of the nation's largest banks, and Connective, a major mortgage broking network, are changing their credit policies to better identity the best property borrowers and increase loans for some investors by up to 38 basis points. Both lenders claim the tightening is in response to regulatory pressure to boost scrutiny of borrowers to ensure they can comfortably make repayments for the term of the loan. Suncorp, a financial conglomerate that also offers wealth management and insurance, is introducing new pricing analysis for interest-only home loans that will result in 38 basis point increase for investors. At present, it calculates interest-only rates based on the purpose of the loan, whether it is a owner occupier or investment. Under the new arrangement, it will take into account the type of loan repayment, allowing differentiation between borrowers repaying interest-only and principal and interest.
Ten Network Holding Ltd (TEN):
Billionaire media mogul Bruce Gordon has lost a court bid aimed atthwarting the sale of Network Ten to America's CBS after the NSW Supreme Court threw out his case against administrators of the free-to-air broadcaster. Mr Gordon, through his companies WIN Corporation and Birketu, took urgent legal action on September 6 to prevent Ten's administrator, KordaMentha, from holding a second creditors' meeting last week to vote on the CBS proposal. The meeting was delayed until tomorrow. The administrator backs the sale of Ten to CBS. Mr Gordon's companies had also asked the court to make a range of orders and declarations, including that KordaMentha's second report to creditors failed to include adequate information about the bid for Ten made by Birketu and Lachlan Murdoch's Illyria Nominees.
The Reject Shop Ltd (TRS):
The Reject Shop is one ASX-listed retailer whose biggest problem isn't the looming entry of Amazon into Australia. The deep discount retailer, which sells up to 7,000 different items including stationery, metal birdhouses, soap, garden pots and pet care products from a network of 347 stores, simply doesn't have an online delivery business because the average spend of its customers is too low to justify the economics of having a delivery charge and transporting the goods to their home. The Reject Shop managing director Ross Sudano said the company had done extensive research in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom on the deep discount market, and while Amazon is a formidable force in retail generally, the low-priced items which the deep discount retailers have as their core business, mean they are largely immune. The price points of most of their goods are too low, for even the might of Amazon to make a meaningful dent, so the online giant largely steers clear.
Vocus Group Ltd (VOC):
Amid a flurry of insider sales, Vocus Group’s Vaughan Bowen has taken out his wallet and spent $249,705 to buy another 106,000 shares in the beleaguered company, lifting his holding to 8.9 million shares. Bowen, the long-time “brains” behind M2 and Vocus, is a key supporter of Geoff Horth as chief of the company. He acquired the stock at $2.35 a share, well down on the year ago high of $7.05 a share. Earlier this year, KKR and Affinity looked at the company with indicative bids of around the $3.50 a share mark but walked without lodging a formal bid.
(Source: AIMS)
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