Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA):
Commonwealth Bank will raise up to $1.25 billion in its latest hybrid securities issue as the bank works towards maintaining the higher capital levels required by the domestic regulator. CBA, Australia’s largest bank by market capitalisation and lending book, said at the weekend the funds would be raised at a price of 3.4 per cent above the 90-day bank bill raise. A bookbuild will be carried out on Wednesday for allocations to be made to the eligible investors who participate in the issue. The CBA transaction follows a similar move by Westpac last week when the bank raised $1.5bn at 3.2 per cent. That issuance, known as Capital Notes 5, will start trading on the ASX on Wednesday.
HT&E Ltd (HT1):
Radio and outdoor advertising company HT&E has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary and out-of-home media company Adshel has managed to extend its Sydney Trains contract. The contract covers premium and metropolitan concourse and platform assets across Sydney’s rail network, and includes 186 digital screens. HT&E, which recently rebranded to Here, There & Everywhere from APN News & Media, acquired the remaining half of outdoor ad company Adshel for $268.4m last year. The company booked a statutory net loss after tax of $117.5 million for 12 months to December 31, compared to a loss of $6 million in 2016, impacted by the Adshel acquisition and a 0.6 per cent decline in radio revenue. Adshel booked a 7.5 per cent revenue increase for the period across Australia and New Zealand.
Image Resources NL (IMA):
Image Resources has launched a $25 million placement through Euroz Securities to fund its Boonanarring mineral sands project in the North Perth Basin. The company (IMA) is offering about 250 million shares representing about 41 per cent of existing shares on issue. Shares are being sold as part of the placement at 10c each, which is a 9.1 per cent discount to the last traded price on Friday. Cornerstone investors include Vestpro International, which will subscribe to 10.1 per cent of Image’s total number of shares on issue and will be entitled to a board seat. Million Up will underwrite a number of placement shares. The funds are being raised to provide the equity component for the construction and development of the Boonanarring Project, corporate and financing costs and working capital.
Immutep Ltd (IMM):
Australian biotech Immutep has signed a deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck to test the junior’s cancer drug. Merck, fresh from its $500 million takeover of Australian cancer drug start up Viralytics, has agreed to conduct a clinical trial with Immutep on the combination of their immunotherapy drugs in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancer, or ovarian cancer. At 12.10pm (AEDT) shares in Immutep, which was previously chaired by Lucy Turnbull, were 6.25 per cent higher on the news after spiking more than 8 per cent earlier in the session.
Mcgrath Ltd (MEA):
John McGrath’s troubled listed real estate agency has today issued another profit downgrade. The group has generated earnings of just $720,000 in the financial year to the end of February. The company expects to generate underlying earnings of between $5 million and $5.5m this financial year. This will see if report actual earnings of $1m to $1.5m, after about $4m of one-off costs is taken into account. McGrath said that new management team under the guidance of chief executive Geoff Lucas was starting to produce dividends. Mr Lucas said that the impact of softer sales volumes had hit the company more than expected previously.
Metgasco Limited (MEL):
A showdown is on the cards at coal-seam gas hopeful Metgasco, with shareholders being asked to eject one of the company’s directors and its biggest investor, Andrew Purcell, as a bitter boardroom dispute shows no signs of ending. In a letter to investors last week, Metgasco chairman Alexander Lang said the board no longer had confidence in Mr Purcell, who joined the board nearly two years ago. Mr Lang said he would quit the board if his fellow director was not removed by shareholders at a general meeting next month. Mr Purcell’s company, M&A Advisory, owns 19.2 per cent of the oil and gas explorer. He became a Metgasco director, controversially, in September 2016. Last month M&A Advisory wrote to the remaining Metgasco directors and said it would seek their dismissal from the board. Relations between Mr Purcell and the Metgasco board have been fractured since he was appointed nearly two years ago.
Myob Group Ltd (MYO):
Listed accounting technology company MYOB is adding more AI credentials to its products, as part of its ongoing battle with Xero to lure bookkeepers and small businesses to its software, saying its tools will now enable accountants to begin offering advisory services. MYOB will launch a free artificial intelligence powered tool called Advisor this week, which it says outstrips rival products from Xero and Intuit by using machine learning and natural language generation technologies to mine the data in a company's books, giving accountants more insights into their client's finances.
Newcrest Mining Limited (NCM):
Newcrest Mining said it expects to downgrade annual production and cost targets after suspending its Cadia gold operation in eastern Australia because part of a tailings dam wall collapsed. Newcrest said there was “a limited breakthrough of tailings material,” a slurry of finely ground rock, water and some benign processing reagents, when the northern tailings dam embankment burst at Cadia on Friday. The spillover was contained in the southern tailings dam, said the miner, which added there were no injuries and that it hasn’t seen any environmental damage as a result of the collapse. Newcrest by Saturday had fully suspended all mining and processing at the operation, 250 kilometres west of Sydney.
QBE Insurance Group Ltd (QBE):
Morgan Stanley’s Daniel Toohey has undertaken a sum-of-parts valuation exercise on QBE “given heightened global M&A activity.” Its sum of parts valuation is around $12.75/share compared to Friday’s close at $9.95. “The late stages of the cycle saw increasing M&A activity however, the passage of US tax reform alongside the somewhat ‘disappointing’ 1 Jan renewals looks to be fueling renewed activity,” Toohey says. “In support of this we highlight AIG’s US$5.6bn acquisition of VR and AXA’s acquisition of XL.
Sundance Energy Australia Ltd (SEA):
Sundance Energy is raising $331 million through a placement and accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer to fund the acquisition of shale gas assets in the United States. Joint lead managers on the deal are Euroz Securities and Morgans and Aitken Murray Capital is co-lead manager. The raising includes a $257m two tranche placement and a $74m accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer. Shares (SEA) are being sold at 5.9c each, which is an 18.6 per cent discount to the last traded price. The funds will be used to fund the acquisition by Sundance of certain Eagle Ford Shale properties from Pioneer Natural Resources in the United States, Reliance Eagle Ford Upstream Holdings and Newpek. Sundance is also proposing to refinance debt including a new syndicated institutional second lien term loan to raise $250m and a new syndicated reserve based lending facility with$US75.5m of undrawn capacity.
Webster Limited Fully Paid Ord. Shrs (WAB):
Chris Corrigan-backed agricultural company Webster has -snapped up an almond farm west of Canberra for $16.8 million. The group bought the 934.7ha Sandy Valley almond property, which is near its walnut farm at Tabbita in the Riverina district of NSW. The almond property has 260ha planted with two and three-year-old trees, with potential for another 460ha. Stage one harvesting has started and stage two will first be harvested next year. The group plans to keep the Sandy Valley management team, which will work with the managers of Webster’s horticultural arm. The purchase will be funded from existing debt facilities at Webster, a group with operations including walnuts, cotton, livestock and irrigated water. Mr Corrigan remains as chairman of the ASX-listed group after stepping down as executive chairman at the start of this year and owns a 12.87 per cent stake in the agricultural play.
(Source: AIMS)
Commonwealth Bank will raise up to $1.25 billion in its latest hybrid securities issue as the bank works towards maintaining the higher capital levels required by the domestic regulator. CBA, Australia’s largest bank by market capitalisation and lending book, said at the weekend the funds would be raised at a price of 3.4 per cent above the 90-day bank bill raise. A bookbuild will be carried out on Wednesday for allocations to be made to the eligible investors who participate in the issue. The CBA transaction follows a similar move by Westpac last week when the bank raised $1.5bn at 3.2 per cent. That issuance, known as Capital Notes 5, will start trading on the ASX on Wednesday.
HT&E Ltd (HT1):
Radio and outdoor advertising company HT&E has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary and out-of-home media company Adshel has managed to extend its Sydney Trains contract. The contract covers premium and metropolitan concourse and platform assets across Sydney’s rail network, and includes 186 digital screens. HT&E, which recently rebranded to Here, There & Everywhere from APN News & Media, acquired the remaining half of outdoor ad company Adshel for $268.4m last year. The company booked a statutory net loss after tax of $117.5 million for 12 months to December 31, compared to a loss of $6 million in 2016, impacted by the Adshel acquisition and a 0.6 per cent decline in radio revenue. Adshel booked a 7.5 per cent revenue increase for the period across Australia and New Zealand.
Image Resources NL (IMA):
Image Resources has launched a $25 million placement through Euroz Securities to fund its Boonanarring mineral sands project in the North Perth Basin. The company (IMA) is offering about 250 million shares representing about 41 per cent of existing shares on issue. Shares are being sold as part of the placement at 10c each, which is a 9.1 per cent discount to the last traded price on Friday. Cornerstone investors include Vestpro International, which will subscribe to 10.1 per cent of Image’s total number of shares on issue and will be entitled to a board seat. Million Up will underwrite a number of placement shares. The funds are being raised to provide the equity component for the construction and development of the Boonanarring Project, corporate and financing costs and working capital.
Immutep Ltd (IMM):
Australian biotech Immutep has signed a deal with pharmaceutical giant Merck to test the junior’s cancer drug. Merck, fresh from its $500 million takeover of Australian cancer drug start up Viralytics, has agreed to conduct a clinical trial with Immutep on the combination of their immunotherapy drugs in patients with non-small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancer, or ovarian cancer. At 12.10pm (AEDT) shares in Immutep, which was previously chaired by Lucy Turnbull, were 6.25 per cent higher on the news after spiking more than 8 per cent earlier in the session.
Mcgrath Ltd (MEA):
John McGrath’s troubled listed real estate agency has today issued another profit downgrade. The group has generated earnings of just $720,000 in the financial year to the end of February. The company expects to generate underlying earnings of between $5 million and $5.5m this financial year. This will see if report actual earnings of $1m to $1.5m, after about $4m of one-off costs is taken into account. McGrath said that new management team under the guidance of chief executive Geoff Lucas was starting to produce dividends. Mr Lucas said that the impact of softer sales volumes had hit the company more than expected previously.
Metgasco Limited (MEL):
A showdown is on the cards at coal-seam gas hopeful Metgasco, with shareholders being asked to eject one of the company’s directors and its biggest investor, Andrew Purcell, as a bitter boardroom dispute shows no signs of ending. In a letter to investors last week, Metgasco chairman Alexander Lang said the board no longer had confidence in Mr Purcell, who joined the board nearly two years ago. Mr Lang said he would quit the board if his fellow director was not removed by shareholders at a general meeting next month. Mr Purcell’s company, M&A Advisory, owns 19.2 per cent of the oil and gas explorer. He became a Metgasco director, controversially, in September 2016. Last month M&A Advisory wrote to the remaining Metgasco directors and said it would seek their dismissal from the board. Relations between Mr Purcell and the Metgasco board have been fractured since he was appointed nearly two years ago.
Myob Group Ltd (MYO):
Listed accounting technology company MYOB is adding more AI credentials to its products, as part of its ongoing battle with Xero to lure bookkeepers and small businesses to its software, saying its tools will now enable accountants to begin offering advisory services. MYOB will launch a free artificial intelligence powered tool called Advisor this week, which it says outstrips rival products from Xero and Intuit by using machine learning and natural language generation technologies to mine the data in a company's books, giving accountants more insights into their client's finances.
Newcrest Mining Limited (NCM):
Newcrest Mining said it expects to downgrade annual production and cost targets after suspending its Cadia gold operation in eastern Australia because part of a tailings dam wall collapsed. Newcrest said there was “a limited breakthrough of tailings material,” a slurry of finely ground rock, water and some benign processing reagents, when the northern tailings dam embankment burst at Cadia on Friday. The spillover was contained in the southern tailings dam, said the miner, which added there were no injuries and that it hasn’t seen any environmental damage as a result of the collapse. Newcrest by Saturday had fully suspended all mining and processing at the operation, 250 kilometres west of Sydney.
QBE Insurance Group Ltd (QBE):
Morgan Stanley’s Daniel Toohey has undertaken a sum-of-parts valuation exercise on QBE “given heightened global M&A activity.” Its sum of parts valuation is around $12.75/share compared to Friday’s close at $9.95. “The late stages of the cycle saw increasing M&A activity however, the passage of US tax reform alongside the somewhat ‘disappointing’ 1 Jan renewals looks to be fueling renewed activity,” Toohey says. “In support of this we highlight AIG’s US$5.6bn acquisition of VR and AXA’s acquisition of XL.
Sundance Energy Australia Ltd (SEA):
Sundance Energy is raising $331 million through a placement and accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer to fund the acquisition of shale gas assets in the United States. Joint lead managers on the deal are Euroz Securities and Morgans and Aitken Murray Capital is co-lead manager. The raising includes a $257m two tranche placement and a $74m accelerated non-renounceable entitlement offer. Shares (SEA) are being sold at 5.9c each, which is an 18.6 per cent discount to the last traded price. The funds will be used to fund the acquisition by Sundance of certain Eagle Ford Shale properties from Pioneer Natural Resources in the United States, Reliance Eagle Ford Upstream Holdings and Newpek. Sundance is also proposing to refinance debt including a new syndicated institutional second lien term loan to raise $250m and a new syndicated reserve based lending facility with$US75.5m of undrawn capacity.
Webster Limited Fully Paid Ord. Shrs (WAB):
Chris Corrigan-backed agricultural company Webster has -snapped up an almond farm west of Canberra for $16.8 million. The group bought the 934.7ha Sandy Valley almond property, which is near its walnut farm at Tabbita in the Riverina district of NSW. The almond property has 260ha planted with two and three-year-old trees, with potential for another 460ha. Stage one harvesting has started and stage two will first be harvested next year. The group plans to keep the Sandy Valley management team, which will work with the managers of Webster’s horticultural arm. The purchase will be funded from existing debt facilities at Webster, a group with operations including walnuts, cotton, livestock and irrigated water. Mr Corrigan remains as chairman of the ASX-listed group after stepping down as executive chairman at the start of this year and owns a 12.87 per cent stake in the agricultural play.
(Source: AIMS)
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