APN Outdoor Group Ltd (APO):
APN Outdoor has entered a trading halt as the out-of-home advertiser works to hash out a deal with French giant JCDecaux. JCDecaux and APN Outdoor started engaging overnight on Friday, as revealed by The Australian Financial Review on Saturday morning. It is understood APN Outdoor's management presented to the board of JCDecaux in the early hours of Saturday morning (Friday in France) and both parties, along with their advisers, have been working late into consecutive nights. On Monday morning, sources told the Financial Review the two parties were not over the line and there were still key issues to work through. "The company requests the trading halt pending an announcement in relation to an update on the proposal it has received from JCDecaux SA," APN Outdoor company secretary David Watkins said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange. JCDecaux offered $1.1 billion for APN Outdoor on Wednesday evening, but the Australian company's shareholders said the price was too low at $6.52 per share, an 11 per cent premium to Wednesday's close price of $5.85.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ):
ANZ has struck a deal to sell its retail, commercial and smaller-business banking operations in Papua New Guinea as it continues to scale back across the Asia-Pacific region. ANZ said it has entered an agreement to sell the assets to Kina Bank, an arm of Australia-listed Kina Securities. The move will see ANZ (ANZ) focus solely on institutional and large-corporate banking business in the Papua New Guinea market. It follows recent moves to sell retail and wealth operations in Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam. Kina said it was buying the assets for about $10 million, and would significantly increase its share of Papua New Guinea’s banking market share to 8.8 per cent from 5.8 per cent now. The sale includes 15 retail branches and businesses serving 85,000 retail and 6,000 commercial and small-to-medium-sized business customers, with about $150 million in lending assets and $450 million in deposits. ANZ said the decision to sell the assets was in line a simplification strategy that will see it continue to support customers with trade and capital flows in the region.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA):
The Commonwealth Bank will spin off its wealth management and mortgage broking business and said may also sell off its general insurance business, as it moves to focus on its core banking businesses in Australia and New Zealand. On Monday CBA said these actions would result in the creation of a "leading independent wealth management business". The announcement comes six months after ANZ divested much of its wealth management unit after selling its life insurance business for $2.85 billion to the local arm of Swiss giant Zurich. The demerged business, CFS Group, will include CBA's $135 billion Colonial First State, $207 billion Colonial First State Global Asset Management (CFSGAM), Count Financial, Financial Wisdom and Aussie Home Loans businesses. CFS Group will be listed separately, which means the previously announced initial public offering of CFSGAM will no longer go ahead the bank said in an announcement to the ASX on Monday morning. CBA said it did not intend to retain any shareholding in CFS Group following the demerger, while CBA shareholders will receive shares in CFS Group proportional to their existing CBA shareholding.
Domain Holdings Australia Ltd (DHG):
Domain’s acting executive chairman Nick Falloon has unveiled plans for another corporate shake-up of the real estate listings firm, including plans to cut jobs and shift some of its advertising sales operations to Fairfax Media. Six months after the surprise resignation of Antony Catalano as chief executive of Domain, Falloon has outlined plans to hand responsibility for parts of the company’s sales unit to Chris Janz, managing director of Fairfax’s newspaper division, Australian Metro Publishing. Between 24 and 26 redundancies at Domain Media Sales could occur, sources said. A Fairfax spokesman played down that figure, saying the company is working through a consultation process and that while some staff face compulsory redundancy, others will be redeployed. Job cuts will reduce Domain’s Melbourne office to about 80 staff from more than 100, despite Victoria accounting for more than 30 per cent of total national revenue. Under Mr Falloon’s plan, specialist print sales teams at Fairfax Media will now handle non-real estate and education advertising sales. These ads are carried by inserts in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Australian Financial Review.
Gateway Lifestyle Group (GTY):
The battle for low-cost housing company Gateway Lifestyle is stepping up, with US bidder Hometown increasing its intended offer to $2.32 a share, ahead of the $2.30 proposal on the table from Canadian giant Brookfield. The proposal is contingent on due diligence being granted. Last week Gateway chair Andrew Love opened the company’s books to Brookfield and it would seem he has no choice but to do likewise for Hometown. Gateway (GTY) was trading as low as $1.70 a share last month and now has a genuine battle on its hands. Hometown, which has pre-bid acceptances for 18 per cent of the stock, is likely to gain firm control of 9.5 per cent of Gateway, which puts it in the position of a blocking stake. The US-based company needs FIRB approval to move higher. Both proposals are subject to schemes of arrangement. The Brookfield offer valued the company at $635 million equity value or close to $900 million on an enterprise valuation. Mr Love is working through his options and the Brookfield agreement before granting access to due diligence.
Incitec Pivot Ltd (IPL):
Incitec Pivot has averted the long-feared closure of its Gibson Island fertilisers plant in Queensland for at least 12 months, completing a deal to buy gas from Central Petroleum fields in the Northern Territory and one with APA Group for the transportation of the gas over more than 3000 kilometres. Under the deal with Central announced early on Monday, Incitec will buy at least 20 terajoules a day of gas, to be supplied from the Palm Valley and Mereenie fields near Alice Springs. The pipeline agreement with APA, which is the subject of a takeover offer from Hong Kong's CK Group, involves the transportation of the gas through about 3300 kilometres of pipelines, mostly on APA's east coast grid, but also through the new Northern Gas Pipeline being built to connect the NT to the east coast grid. The gas contracts will tide over the plant on gas feedstock for a year, starting up when Jemena's $800 million Northern Gas Pipeline is completed, expected in December this year. It confirms an initial agreement announced by Incitec Pivot in March. The Gibson Island plant employs about 1500 people at the plant on the outskirts of Brisbane.
Metcash Limited (MTS):
Grocery wholesaler Metcash will undertake a $125 million off-market share buyback but its core supermarkets operations have been feeling the pinch from fierce competition from heavyweights Coles and Woolworths, and discounter Aldi. Retail sales across the IGA retail network declined 0.9 per cent on a like-for-like basis for the 12 months ended April 30, 2018. But chief executive Jeff Adams, a former Tesco executive who took the helm in December from Ian Morrice, maintains he has the right recipe to start delivering growth although consumers are struggling with high petrol prices and energy bills. "People are feeling squeezed," he said on Monday. "I think consumers are under pressure". Metcash reported a bottomline loss of $149.5 million for the 12 months because of the impact of impairments of goodwill of $346 million on a post-tax basis, which had been previously announced and stemmed from the loss of a big contract to supply Drakes, a major South Australian independent supermarket chain. This compared with a net profit after tax of $171.9 million a year ago. Metcash shares have dropped 24 per cent since late May in the wake of revelations that Drakes planned to move to a self-supply arrangement from mid-2019. The shares were at $3.68 on May 25 and had fallen to $2.79 on June 22.
oOh!Media Ltd (OML):
oOh!Media has confirmed it is buying Adshel from Here There & Everywhere for $570 million cash, for an implied EV/EBITDA multiple of 11.6 times, before synergies. The takeover is being funded by new debt and a one for 2.3 pro-rata $329.9m entitlement offer. oOh! Media (OML) has arranged a new $450m debt facility. Shares are being sold at $4.60 each, which represents a 14 per cent discount to the last closing share price of $5.35 per share on Friday. HT & E said in a statement that the company would use the proceeds to pay down its debt, which currently stands at $195m, fund growth initiatives, launch a share buyback and offer investors a special dividend.
Smiles Inclusive Ltd (SIL):
ASX-listed Smiles Inclusive wants to use a fleet of five 14-metre trucks with mobile dental surgeries on board to tackle the corporate market and drive more customer growth. Smiles Inclusive chief executive Mike Timoney said on Monday that dentists operating three chairs on each of the five trucks branded Smiles Onsite were now seeing about 350 people a week in schools in Victoria and there were plans to expand into the corporate market using the same business model. He sees similarities with mobile blood banks in saving patients much more time by cutting out travel in Australia's increasingly gridlocked cities. "It's as if you are going into a dental surgery," he said. "These are fully functioning chairs." Smiles Inclusive, which operates the Totally Smiles brand in 52 traditional bricks and mortar surgeries, listed on the ASX in late April after raising $35 million in a public float where the shares were issued at $1 each. But the share price has been fading and now sits around the 96¢ mark.
(Source: AIMS)
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