How hubris killed Melbourne broking icon EL&C Baillieu
One of Melbourne's oldest stockbrokers, established in 1889, couldn't survive the downfall of its rainmaking broker Stephen Macaw.
Star fund managers look beyond pandemic for enduring winners
This year's Sohn Hearts & Minds stock revealed the smart money is betting on the companies built to survive the pandemic will thrive once it passes.
ASIC to call out buy now, pay later 'harms that we continue to see'
ASIC commissioner Sean Hughes said "harms" to buy now, pay later users will feature in a report next week but future regulation is a matter for government.
WA relaxes hard border, SA opens to Victoria
WA lifts hard border after 222 days with NSW and Victorian arrivals to self-quarantine for 14 days; Qld dancing and stadium restrictions ease, SA-Vic borders to reopen, local clinical vaccine trials are on track to be rolled out by March. Follow updates here.
Savings 'war chest' will avoid fiscal cliff, CBA predicts
A 'war chest' of savings is expected to be unleashed on spending, driving economic growth out of the COVID-19 recession.
- Opinion
- Liberal Party
It's still a man's world in the Coalition's Canberra
Once again a woman's career is ended while blokes let themselves off on technicalities. But there is a deeper problem.
- Live
- US votes 2020
McCain daughter's brutal Trump takedown
Meghan McCain has mocked Donald Trump for losing the state her late father represented for 36 years. A pro-President ruling is not enough to turn the result in Pennsylvania. Follow live updates here.
EXECUTIVE EDUCATION
Directors count the cost of corporate failure
Many companies have been exposed for failing to meet community expectations, and some have paid the price for boards lacking key skills, writes Sally Patten.
- Opinion
- Executive education
Directors, the six questions you should be asking your CEO
Boards exist to hold CEOs and their leadership teams to account. They need to probe and question all aspects of a business, but the priority is strategy.
Director's job fraught with liabilities, risks and duties
Events of the past few years, including the Hayne royal commission, have been grim reminders of a director's weighty responsibilities.
Crisis of governance stands out in an ambiguous world
Boards have always had to work in volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous environments, but the pandemic has magnified the operational issues.
- Opinion
- Executive education
Industry insight: what kind of leader will you become?
Directors need foresight to understand how actions now might play out well into the future, making the trade-off between risk and reward.
Companies
Savers kicked again as banks slash rates
Commonwealth Bank has cut interest rates on some of its popular savings accounts for the eighth time this year as earnings pressure from super-low rates forces out the red pen on costs.
Where the retail daigou are now
Traditional personal shoppers who would empty supermarket shelves have moved online instead, according to a former Swisse vitamins executive who now helps run one of the biggest distributors to the daigou channel.
Business blueprint for healing 'bungled' China relationship
Alarmed by trade sanctions and China turning its back on a multibillion-dollar investment opportunity in LNG, Australian business leaders want the Morrison government to find a way to stop the bleeding.
Unions prevail over BHP in workplace spat
BHP's flagship industrial relations reform has been dealt a major and final blow by the Fair Work Commission.
'Some might be better closing up': NAB firm on SME loans
CEO Ross McEwan says NAB won’t automatically extend loan deferral arrangements with SME borrowers, saying tough conversations may be needed.
AGL ramps up broadband offer as Telstra encroaches
The electricity and gas supplier will offer broadband services under its own brand in an expansion of its move into the telco space.
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
The truth about Xero's accidental profit surge
Cloud-based accounting software company Xero surprised the market this week with a record half-year profit. But investors need to understand this was a pandemic-era aberration.
Markets
- Live
- Markets Live
ASX falls; Sohn conference tips CSL, Treasury Wines, Temple & Webster
The sharemarket closed 0.2 per cent lower on Friday. Sohn Hearts & Mind saw Paradice's David Moberley spy 'significant' opportunity in CSL. Regal said Temple & Webster can double and Tribeca was bullish on Treasury Wine. Milford liked Fisher & Paykel Healthcare.
- Opinion
- Chanticleer
Investors can learn from Bill and Gladys
Legendary investor Bill Ackman and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian have something in common - they were not afraid to do things no one else was doing during the COVID-19 crisis. There's a lesson there for investors.
Revealed: Australia's No.1 equity research team of 2020
Street Talk has its hands on the most important sell-side survey of the year.
RBA faces its big sell on QE
Economists think the Reserve Bank may have to start presenting its extraordinary monetary policy decisions in a new light. But what will the bank's priorities be?
Central bankers shy away from vaccine euphoria
The bosses of the Fed, the ECB and the Bank of England held to a simple theme: monetary policy is still being set in a climate of profound uncertainty.
Opinion
It's time to make political lies a stigma again
Donald Trump made lying normal. Now it's up to news organisations to pull the plug if politicians are telling flat-out lies.
Contributor
The vaccine results are good news but there's a way to go
Breakthroughs in the US and Russia this week suggest vaccines can work for COVID-19, but there are still many ethical, geopolitical and logistical issues to overcome.
Health editor
Melbourne house prices prove doomsayers wrong
The advent of tractable vaccines in 2020 coupled with RBA QE will help assure the post-pandemic recovery, which is being reflected in rising house prices in Australia's southern city.
Columnist
Where there's Joel Fitzgibbon, there's always fire
The rules established by Kevin Rudd to stop the leadership coups should comfort Anthony Albanese. That's unless the faceless men decide to ditch them.
Political editor
Telstra splits the difference
Andy Penn might have been stuck at home during COVID-19 but that hasn't stopped him from imagining a radically different structure and direction for Telstra.
Columnist
Only reform can water the shoots of recovery
Australia is sadly failing to get the most from costly fiscal and monetary policy stances if we do not remove structural obstacles to growth.
Editorial
Politics
Victoria's failed hotel quarantine 'cause for shake-up'
Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services is too big and should be broken up in the wake of failures in the state's hotel quarantine system, says Grattan Institute director of health Stephen Duckett.
Labor's climate truce ends in a storm
Climate change policy has been at the centre of a raging debate in Canberra for more than a decade, and it can still make or break careers.
Albanese backs Butler in climate change role
Labor frontbencher Mark Butler said he would be happy to move on from the climate change portfolio if it would resolve internal party tensions.
China accuses Australia of 'gross interference'
China's Foreign Ministry has lashed out, accusing Australians of slander and saying the onus is on Canberra to fix the bilateral relationship.
- Opinion
- Rear Window
Baird wins musical chairs for Business Growth Fund
Josh Frydenberg is set to make Mike Baird the new BGF chairman, but where is Will Hodgman headed?
SPONSORED
World
PNG turmoil leaves Morrison's visit in doubt
Defections from Prime Minister's James Marape's governing coalition threaten his grip on power.
Boris Johnson's top aide heads for Downing Street exit
Controversial high-profile aide Dominic Cummings has lost a power struggle that could reshape Johnson's premiership.
Mutiny shakes Marape's government
Several high profile members of Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape's government defected to the opposition and moved to suspend parliament just days before Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is due to visit.
US schools close again as infections surge
On Thursday public health officials announced 152,000 new coronavirus cases, a new daily record.
Turkey's Erdogan adjusts to life after Trump
The autocrat had a rapport with the US President but now he must rebalance, even as a tanking economy drags him down. Ousting his son-in-law was just the first step.
Property
Grand Sydney house expected to break suburb record
Medieval Italy meets the inner west in this two-title offering that was built in 1889 to house a huge family with 14 children.
S&P adds to Unibail's woes with rating cut
The downgrade, and 'negative outlook', increases pressure on the French shopping mall operator after a failed equity raising and board expansion.
Shoppers return to Vicinity malls as Melbourne lockdown ends
Along with other mall owners including Westfield operator Scentre, Vicinity's stock rode higher this week on news of a breakthrough in a vaccine for the coronavirus.
On trend: Charter Hall rides the logistics boom
Charter Hall has emerged as a big winner from the pandemic as demand for industrial and logistics space soars.
- Opinion
- Property investment
Why the next wave of housing investors will be different
Housing investors who have been off the radar will return, writes Robert Harley. But things are going to be different.
Wealth
Cheapest borrowing rates and how to make the most of them
Borrowers can save thousands of dollars a year in repayments by switching loans. What's on offer and how to avoid the traps.
- Opinion
- Flat Chat
How states are untangling the strata law jungle
It’s time there was a nationwide template for strata law in Australia, where laws that match other jurisdictions are the rule rather than the exception.
- Opinion
- Sharemarket
BAE Systems 'oversold' in pandemic and Biden fears
The UK-listed company has sufficient liquidity to see it through the crisis, while concerns about governments slashing defence budgets look overdone.
Technology
- Opinion
- Telecommunications
At last, a reason to upgrade your phone to 5G
Over the next few years, 5G will have more spectrum thrown at it than any mobile phone technology we've ever seen.
- Opinion
- US votes 2020
TikTok's dance with Washington stuck in legal limbo
Will TikTok devotees in the US have to eventually make do without their daily dose of viral dance challenges? That remains unclear. But China’s tech companies have no more friends in Washington.
COVID-19 proves to be a tailwind for Nearmap
While some of Nearmap's customers have been affected, overall chief executive Rob Newman says the shift to remote working has benefited the company.
Work & Careers
BCG appoints two new managing directors
The Boston Consulting Group has promoted two Melbourne-based consultants.
How to fail and still make a billion dollars
The rise and fall of WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann should be a morality tale – but it's far from that.
Life & Luxury
Ross McEwan's recipe for a simple life
The CEO's Kiwi upbringing informs his personal approach to money and the attitude of accountability he's trying to instill at NAB.
Why BMW's new electric SUV still has a huge grille
It has no need for an air intake for an internal combustion engine, so why does it sport the classic kidney-shaped feature? Think cameras and sensors.
Ferrari's first plug-in hybrid convertible packs a powerful punch
The SF90 Spider matches its coupe counterpart’s power and comes with a formidable price tag. When you want to be seen in it, its roof retracts in 14 seconds.
How to eat red meat without harming your health
Experts warn it increases your risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, but there are ways to consume it safely.
Cancer can't wait: the hidden cost of the pandemic
A new report found fewer cancers were diagnosed and treated in 2020 compared with 2019, showing cancer services are not dispensable and future pandemic planning must take this into account.
