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The ASX closed lower today, with another busy week for earnings kicking off on a sour note amid some heavy losses for reporting companies.
The benchmark ASX 200 index declined 21 points, or 0.4 per cent, to end the day at 5725.90, after a steep slide for shares of steelmaker BlueScope, down 21.8 per cent, and for telecom Vocus, down 14.6 per cent.
It wasn't all doom and gloom, however, with Beach Energy gaining 10.5 per cent after updating investors. G8 Education was another standout performer on the plus side of the index. ending the session up 8.9 per cent following its results.
With little on the macro front to excite investors who appear to be waiting for an annual meeting of global economic leaders to kick off at the end of week, the focus was squarely on corporate results.
JPMorgan analysts were relatively gloomy, calling the recent run of earnings "disappointing" while noting that earnings surprises have dipped "worryingly" into negative territory.
However, Citi analysts were a bit more upbeat saying that NPAT growth of 6.7 per cent for industrial stocks ex financials is the best since the GFC.
"There are some signs that capex is back on the agenda with some cancelling buybacks and lowering dividends in favour of investment again, however the share prices suggest this has not been taken well by investors," they noted.
Citi's take is that more capex spend indicated that "there may also be some signs at the margin of stirring animal spirits," and suggested investorss should "hang in there" while the week plays out.
The best performer in percentage terms in today's session is G8 Education, with the stock rising 8.9 per cent to $4.06 at last check.
The company said that sluggish wages growth and the federal government's cap on benefits has seen fewer children going to childcare centres.
The Gold Coast-based childcare centre operator says the supply of long-day care centres across the country has exceeded demand in the past year.
The group's like-for-like centres, which strips out newly acquired venues, saw a $10.3 million fall in revenue in the six months to June 30 compared to a year ago.
But savings in its own wages bill and contributions from the centres it acquired in 2016 helped it lift profit 23 per cent to $30.5 million. Revenue was up three per cent at $368 million.
"From a market perspective, affordability has been impacted by continued sluggish wage growth as well as current industry settings such as the $7,500 rebate cap," the company said along with its half year results.
"This is expected to be mitigated by the jobs for families package in July 2018."
Increased supply contributed to a 3.4 per cent fall in its rolling 12-month occupancy, it said. However, G8 said occupancy momentum had been improving in the second quarter compared to the same time a year ago.
G8 maintained its forecast of mid-$170 million full-year underlying earnings before interest and tax, and said it plans to complete eight acquisitions in the second half with earnings from acquisitions estimated to add $3 million to its results.
It also said that from January next year it will pay dividends on a semi-annual basis and transition paying 70- 80% of underlying NPAT in dividends.
The Australian dollar traded at US79.24¢ against the greenback on Monday afternoon, drifting slightly lower through the session.
The US dollar was putting in a similarly steady performance against major rivals, as investors turned their focus from political turmoil in Washington to the Federal Reserve's annual central banking conference in Wyoming.
The greenback largely shrugged off the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which improved to its strongest in seven months, reflecting confidence in the outlook for the economy and in personal finances as the US stock market holds near record highs.
Reports of the impending departure of senior White House adviser Stephen Bannon, known for his economic nationalist views, were confirmed on Friday. Trump's decision to fire Bannon could undermine his support from far-right voters but might ease tensions within the White House and with party leaders.
"In the end, the yen made 'buy-the-rumour, sell-the-fact' moves on Bannon's departure, and the net effect might be neutral as the market has already moved on and is focusing on Jackson Hole," said Mitsuo Imaizumi, chief FX strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
"But as the positive economic data apparently had little effect on the dollar, it is possible that no market-moving factors will emerge from the Fed conference," he added.
Brokers are circling a block of Inghams shares set to come out of escrow on Tuesday when the chicken producer hands down full year earnings, Street Talk reports.
It is understood equity capital markets teams have started testing investor interest in the potential block, which comprises TPG Capital's 47 per cent shareholding worth about $622 million.
While sources noted the private equity giant was still a long-term supporter of the company and in no rush to sell, that's unlikely to stop deal-hungry banks pitching ideas, including a partial selldown of the stake, to TPG county head Joel Thickins.
Certainly investors like the stock. One of the few private equity floats trading above water, Inghams share price is up just over 9 per cent this year, spiking 5 per cent over the past 10 days.
Fund managers are keen on the experienced management team and applauded the company's recent move to sign multi-year supply agreements with some of its biggest customers including Woolworths.
And with ECM issuance in the doldrums, it's the one block trade on every broker's wish list. It also helps that six equities desks are familiar with the story, having helped sell the float last year. Inghams was added to the top-300 index in March.
As always, it will come down to price. The buyout firm has partner Ricky Lau and former dealmaker Simon Harle on Inghams' board.
Morgans analyst Belinda Moore expects Inghams to report underlying net profit after tax in line with 2017 financial year prospectus forecasts.
"We expect a strong proforma result on the back of strong demand for BBQ birds and Project Accelerate benefits," she said.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims hit out at internet service providers today, saying they have three months to clean up their act over "terrible" National Broadband Network advertising.
Mr Sims said that if they don't start to change their ways then the ACCC will start publicly calling out those not living up to speed expectations.
In an unusual step for the competition watchdog, it is voluntarily creating standards it wants the industry to adopt in advertising so consumers understand the types of speeds they are signing up for.
Complaints from consumers being migrated over to the NBN are rising as the rollout of the super-fast broadband network starts hitting metropolitan areas in scale.
The NBN has 5.7 million premises ready for service and 2.4 million of those have signed up for products.
"The advertising standards we think at the moment are extremely poor," Mr Sims said, noting 30 per cent of NBN customers have been sold low-speed plans and have not been made aware their internet speeds may not be any better, or in some cases worse, than their existing ADSL connections.
High-speed plans were not living up to expectations during the peak periods of 7pm to 11pm, he added.
Mr Sims there was "frankly terrible" advertising going on with regards to ISPs and how they communicate what speeds consumers will get.
"We want to significantly change how that happens and we don't think we can solve it just by taking people to court," Mr Sims said.
Mr Sims added that the ACCC is conscious that the standards are voluntary but is confident telcos will comply, with the watchdog ready to publicly call out companies who continue with lax standards on advertising speeds.
The immediate impact of any trade war between the US and China would be worse for Beijing, according to a new analysis of multinational companies' exposure to the Chinese market that also found Australia has among the most to lose.
The export sectors of the US and other major developed countries would not be significantly affected by an economic slowdown in China, says a report by The Conference Board drawing on export data.
The New York-based corporate think tank found that US and EU value-added exports to China were equivalent to 0.7 per cent and 1.6 per cent respectively of national economic outputs. Even for neighbouring Japan, the figure was just 2.1 per cent.
China's value-added exports to the US, by contrast, were equivalent to roughly 3 per cent of its gross domestic product, suggesting that Beijing has more to lose in any trade showdown with the Trump administration.
"A trade war between the US and China, as seen through these data, doesn't appear to be a major threat to the US economy," said Erik Lundh, one of the report's authors who is a senior Conference Board economist.
Mr Lundh, however, warned that the collateral damage from all-out trade war between the world's two largest economies would be considerable for both sides.
"A trade war between the US and China would spill over into other important facets of the relationship that could be quite painful for the US," he said.
The report noted that "the world, by and large, bears low dependencies on China".
Notable exceptions include South Korea and big natural resource exporters such as Australia, whose value-added exports to China are equivalent to 6.8 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively of their annual economic output.
Worries about the impact of Amazon are never far away for the Australian retail sector, which is busy shoring itself up against the arrival of the online giant.
Super Retail Group's latest effort saw its auto accessories chain Supercheap Auto enter into a joint venture with Bosch to open full-service auto repair workshops.
The first 'Autocrew - powered by Supercheap Auto' pilot workshop - will open in Western Sydney in early 2018 and will offer drivers a full automotive service backed by Bosch's diagnostic technology and parts and equipment.
Super Retail Group and Bosch will assess the response from customers before opening further workshops, some of which will be stand-alone and some attached to existing Supercheap Auto stores.
The average footprint of the workshops will be around 400 to 500 square metres, about half the size of a flagship Supercheap Auto store.
The workshops will be wholly owned by the joint venture, not franchised, as they are overseas.
The joint venture follows the launch in June of a new Supercheap Auto store format, which incorporates car clinics, 24 hour parcel collection, 60-minute click-and-collect, Tesla electric vehicle charging, nitrogen tyre inflation, windscreen chip repair and baby seat fitment.
Super Retail Group chief executive Peter Birtles says that the firm believes offering customers in-store services and experiences in addition to merchandise will be crucial in defending the auto accessories, sporting and leisure goods retailer's sales and market share from Amazon.
Analysts fear category killers such as Super Retail Group, which also owns Rebel Sport, Ray's and BCF, will be most exposed to Amazon when it launches its full retail offer to Australia next year.
Here's AFR Chanticleer columnist Tony Boyd on private equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Affinity Equity Partners walking away from bidding for Vocus:
Just because two private equity firms have walked away from bidding for diversified telecommunications outfit Vocus Group does not mean the company should be shunned.
But shareholders in Vocus must face up to the fact that without some extensive surgery to the business, including a series of asset sales, the outlook is for anaemic earnings growth.
Vocus is not a dog of a stock but it is facing a very different world to the one that propelled its revenue upwards by 29 times over four years and lifted profits by 20 times since 2013.
We don't know precisely why Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and Affinity Equity Partners walked away from Vocus but there are two possible explanations.
The most obvious is that they looked under the hood and saw a mess worse than the one described recently by chief executive Geoff Horth at the strategy day in June.
Alternatively, they were unwilling to pay the rumoured $3.80 a share takeover price favoured by management and the board.
The board will come under pressure from shareholders to realise value in the Vocus portfolio. The quickest way to do that would be through demergers, spin-offs and straight out asset sales.
The company's weak integration skills might actually be an advantage because it will make it easier to hive off businesses, such as New Zealand.
The ASX 200 is still weak at around the midday mark, trading down 29 points, or 0.5 per cent, at 5717.80.
Earnings are the main focus today, with BlueScope down a whopping 21 per cent and Vocus dropping 16 per cent at last check.
There's a bit of positive earnings reaction as well with Fortescue surging 6.4 per cent and Beach Energy advancing 7.3 per cent after updating investors.
JPMorgan analysts noted that the proportion of companies "missing" with their earnings rose to 26 per cent last week, outweighing the number of companies beating expectations which came in at 20 per cent.
"It's been a disappointing run of results thus far, with the beat ratio standing at a weak 20 per cent with just over a third of our coverage reporting," the analysts said.
Earnings surprises have dipped "worryingly" into negative territory and are running at -1.0 per cent, they added.
"Across the market as a whole, earnings revision trends reflect the paucity of positive results," they said. Only 8 per cent of the 86 companies that reported up to the end of last week had seen upgrades, they said.
Consumer discretionary stocks are the worst performers by sector in terms of earnings revisions, at negative 2.4 per cent, closely followed by consumer staples, on negative 2.3 per cent.
Utilities are the only sector with a positive reading, with earnings revisions up to the end of last week at plus 2.4 per cent after AGL's earnings were revised higher, the analysts noted.
Professional investors, financial planners and analysts are all pretty dark on Telstra after last week's bigger-than-expected dividend cut, which sent the stock to a five-year low.
There hasn't been any marked change of tune this week, and the shares are down another 0.8 per cent at $3.87.
Telstra was clearly an income stock for many if not most of its shareholders, and now that status has well and truly been shot to pieces. So where else to get income? Morgan Stanley telco analysts reckon Spark New Zealand is the best alternative in the sector.
"Spark is our preferred dividend yield play in Australia and New Zealand telcos," they wrote over the weekend. "Continuing capital management was confirmed in the guidance [on Friday] for a FY18 dividend-per-share of 25¢," they write.
That payout estimate "implies a dividend yield of 6.4 per cent, the highest among peers in our coverage universe, for what we consider to be below-average risk," they write.
And this is a true income play: no growth here.
"To be clear up front, there is little or no earnings growth here," the analysts write. The company is guiding towards revenue growth of 0-3 per cent in this financial year, and EBITDA to only expand by 0-2 per cent.
"But that's OK, because Spark is not a growth story, it's a dividend yield story, its shares trade like a bond proxy," they add.
"Spark runs a very good telco business and is winning market share across most of its businesses, but like Australia, New Zealand is a mature telecommunications market, which is similarly facing greater competition in both broadband/fixed-line and mobiles.
"Industry prices are falling,and what modest earnings growth can be achieved is largely dependent on cost reductions."
The broker has an "overweight" rating on the stock with a 12-month price target of $4.05.
Spark NZ shares are off for the fourth straight session, falling 0.6 per cent at $3.60. The stock is up around 10 per cent this year.
Sydney's surging office market has propelled landlord Growthpoint Properties Australia to a bumper result after it reweighted its portfolio to take advantage of the conditions.
The office and industrial property owner booked an increase of 26.8 per cent in statutory profit for the 2017 financial year to $278.1 million
The result included funds from operations - the earnings figure employed in the property sector - of 25.5 cents per security, an increase of 11.4 per cent on the previous year.
"We set very clear objectives at the start of financial year 2017: increase exposure to the office sector and to the New South Wales and Victorian markets," managing director Tim Collyer said.
The strategy led to Growthpoint increasing its portfolio exposure to the office sector from 56 per cent to 66 per cent.
"We believe the office sector stands to benefit most from the current economic environment, however evidence suggests we will see a disparity in outcomes across the different states in Australia," Mr Collyer said.
"Industrial trends look to be stable across all states, with tenancy demand better than previously expected, supported by potential and new market entrants as the shift to online retail sales gathers momentum.
"Structural headwinds remain in the retail sector, with considerable uncertainty around the impact of online traders, and with household incomes burdened by a period of significant house price growth and subsequently higher indebtedness.
The property trust has paid out annual distributions of 21.5¢ per security, an increase of 4.9 per cent on the previous year.
The expectation is for distributions to rise slightly in the 2018 year, to 22¢.
Growthpoint expects funds from operations to fall slightly, to "at least 23.6¢ per security".
That more modest outlook is the result of an expected reduction in net property income after the sale of high yielding industrial assets and "the temporary use of higher gearing at cheaper cost of debt in financial year 2017", the company said in its results presentation.
Growthpoint shares are off 0.9 per cent at $3.21.
Westpac is "on track" to reduce new interest-only loans to below the regulatory cap of 30 per cent by the September deadline, as analysts expect its earnings will be hit harder than rivals from the shift to owner-occupier lending.
Westpac shares fell 0.7 per cent at $32.25 but it was performing better than the rest of the ASX 200 financial sector which was down 1.5 per cent.
Westpac was trading after releasing a third-quarter capital, funding and asset quality update - unlike the other major banks, Westpac does not provide quarterly profit figures.
Of the major banks, Westpac has the largest proportion of loans made on interest-only terms, reflecting a book weighted towards property investors who use interest-only loans to take advantage of negative gearing tax benefits.
Westpac said today it had cut the proportion of interest-only loans to 44 per cent in the third quarter, down from 52 per cent in the second quarter. It also said interest-only lending now represents 36 per cent of new loans, down from 47 per cent last quarter.
It is "on track to have flow of interest-only lending below 30 per cent in [the] September quarter 2017," Westpac said, a reference to the new macroprudential cap introduced by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority in March.
Westpac said investor lending growth is 5.9 per cent, well below the 10 per cent growth cap introduced by APRA in December 2014.
Here's AFR's Chanticleer columnist Michael Smith on the Brambles result:
Graham Chipchase shook things up early in his tenure as Brambles chief executive with a shock earnings downgrade, a shake-up of its under-performing US business and non-core asset sales.
The giant pallet giant is still wounded after former management failed to address problems at its US operations which meant Chipchase had to take some tough decisions at the half-year when he wrote down the value of the business and flagged a more disciplined approach to managing the company's capital, costs and cashflow.
That pain was borne out in Chipchase's first set of full-year results as chief executive when net profit fell 69 per cent to $US182.9 million
The result was in line with forecasts after Chipchase was forced to brutally reset expectations in February. Brambles has confirmed growth will be muted going forward but the new chief executive is delivering on his promises.
His challenge now is generating cash while still trying to grow the business. His predecessors spent too much on capital and Chipchase has to stop funding dividends from debt.
The problem is that the economic environment remains tough, particularly for the US pallets business. The loss of a key Woolworths contract and lower automotive volumes in Australia also tarnished the result. Investors are also worried about the threat of Amazon.
His strategy is centred around achieving mid-single digit revenue growth and growing the bottom line faster than the top line through the cycle. This does not mean there will not be hiccups along the way.
"In some years you will get a dislocation around costs maybe and we have called out some of the things in 2018 that will be a drag on earnings this year," Chipchase told Chanticleer shortly after releasing the full-year results.
Vocus shares are back trading and have promptly plunged 16 per cent following this morning's news that a couple of private equity players are no longer interested in buying the company.
An earnings downgrade hasn't helped.
​The shares were halted until 11am, and last fetched $2.69.
Back to topThe structural disruption from the rise of big e-commerce businesses like Amazon is squeezing profit margins at traditional retailers and manufacturers which in turn is posing serious problems for pallets and logistic company Brambles.
Brambles chief executive Graham Chipchase has said that the fast pace of change in e-commerce and the shift to omni-channel strategies by traditional retailers had flowed right down through the supply chain and crimped margins at its United States operations. Those companies were facing more margin and cost pressure as e-commerce made more gains.
"Of course that gets passed down into the supply chain," Mr Chipchase said.
But he said investors had been placing too much focus on the potential damage to Brambles from Amazon and similar e-commerce business models and the changes to the way products were being delivered to end customers across retailing.
"Amazon gets raised all the time. I think it's overdone," Mr Chipchase said.
He said Brambles was working closely with Amazon in Europe on ways of making deliveries more efficient, and with other customers elsewhere on implementing the most efficient strategic platforms. E-commerce and omni-channel retailers were all pursuing the best way to transport goods from large fulfilment centres to end customers.
The company released annual earnings which showed a 69 per cent drop in full-year profit to $US182.9 million ($230.6 million) thanks to a $US243.8 million write-down of its North America recycled pallets business, which it is trying to offload.
The company said sales revenue for the 12 months to June 30 rose 4 per cent to $US5.1 billion, largely helped by new business growth in the European pallets division and continued momentum in the Latin America pallets unit.
It declared an unchanged final dividend of 14.5 Australian cents per share, partially franked, in line with 2016 final payout.
Brambles shares are off 0.9 per cent to $8.67.
Beach Energy says it's assessing "multiple" acquisition opportunities after reporting a bigger-than-expected bounce back into profit for the full year thanks to higher output and prices and lower costs.
Shares were up 5.7 per cent at 66 cents after Beach swung to a net profit of $388 million for 2016-17, from a loss of $589 million the previous year.
Core net profit surged to $162 million, with chief executive Matt Kay citing record production and sales volumes, higher oil prices and cost cutting as the reasons for the company's profit performance.
JPMorgan analyst Mark Busuttil described the underlying result as "strong", some 16 per cent ahead of his estimate and above consensus of $144 million.
Mr Kay underscored the mid-cap player's capacity for investment in growth.
"Beach is in a robust funding position with net cash of $198 million and available liquidity of $698 million," he said. "This will enable us to continue to invest in growth.".
Beach, whose biggest shareholder is Seven Group Holdings, would however need to raise significant equity and/or take on debt to fund an acquisition of Lattice, which has a book value of about $1.3 billion.
The company said in its investor presentation for the results that it is "assessing multiple opportunities in a disciplined manner", noting that increasing shareholder value is its prime objective.
Beach doubled its final dividend to 1¢ per share.
Beach reported an increase in reserves,a with proven and probable reserves climbing to 75 million barrels of oil equivalent, up 7 per cent on a year earlier.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Ben Wilson noted the reserves growth was driven by a number of factors including new discoveries, extensions of existing fields and operating cost savings.
Westpac has said its stressed assets edged slightly lower during the third quarter, despite a rise in mortgage delinquencies.
In a limited third-quarter update, Australia's second-biggest bank by market value said stressed assets slipped four basis points to 1.1 per cent of total lending, although repossessions increased due to prolonged weakness in the mining states of Western Australia and Queensland.
The fortunes of Australia's "Big Four" banks are closely tied to the performance of the housing market, with the group holding a combined market share of more than 80 per cent of the lending market.
The bank will report full-year results in November.
Housing prices in the most populated cities of Sydney and Melbourne have proven resilient, underpinning strong quarterly results across the banking sector.
Rivals CBA, ANZ and NAB all reported a decline in expenses related to bad debt earlier this month.
Westpac, which posted a record first-half cash profit of $4 billion in May, did not disclose profit or revenue numbers in its update.
Westpac's common equity Tier-1 capital ratio was steady at 10 per cent at the end of June.
Australia's second-biggest bank by market value's shares fell about 13 per cent during the quarter-ended June 30, hurt by a levy slapped on the country's biggest banks by the Australian government.
The shares are off 0.7 per cent at $32.
The Chinese government has officially put the brakes on Chinese companies pouring big money into overseas property development, issuing rules likely to have a significant impact in Australia.
China's State Council, or cabinet, issued the first rules on overseas investment by Chinese companies on Friday.
A new banned list includes casinos and defence technology, while overseas property development and hotels are classified as "restricted".
Chinese companies bought 38 per cent of all the residential property development sites sold in Australia last year, spending $2.4 billion, according to a Knight Frank report this year.
But China's National Development and Reform Commission declared on Friday that the property sector was "not the real economy" and companies investing overseas in real estate could be harming China's financial stability by increasing capital outflows.
The commission has labelled the overseas buying spree by China's biggest private companies in recent years as "irrational".
Companies that violate the foreign investment rules would be punished, the State Council statement said.
The average size of property development sites sold to Chinese companies in Australia last year was 21,045 square metres, an 18-fold increase from four years ago, according to Knight Frank's January report.
Chinese regulators had recently put the four biggest Chinese offshore private investors, HNA, Dalian Wanda, Fosun International and Anbang under greater scrutiny.
But Friday's rules signal for the first time the crackdown on overseas property development and hotel purchases would extend beyond these big four. Film industry, sports and entertainment investments are also now classified as "restricted" investments.
Dalian Wanda a fortnight ago began restructuring its business, which includes two $1 billion Australian apartment projects at Circular Quay in Sydney and the Gold Coast, plus the Hoyts cinema chain.
Shares are off to a rough start this week, with the ASX 200 down 29 points, or 0.5 per cent, to 5717.90 following a weak lead from Wall Street.
BlueScope shares are getting pounded, with the stock falling 15.7 per cent to $11.90 and it was by far the worst ASX 200 performer in percentage terms at the start of the session.
On the plus side, Fortescue shares rose 4.7 per cent to $5.76 a share in early trading after reporting its full year profit more than doubled on the back of higher iron ore prices and lower costs as it also doubled its final dividend payout.
Banks are weighing, with CBA down 1.4 per cent and the others also lower. Telstra can't catch a break, trading down another 0.6 per cent after last week's towelling.
A number of companies put out earnings this morning. Here's how they are being received so far:
- Brambles -1.1%
- Bellamy's -0.5%
- Goodman Group +0.1%
- Nib -6.6%
- Beach Energy +7.3%
- G8 +5.6%
- GWA Group -2.9%
- Growthpoint -0.6%
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