Leaders discuss the future of wealth, superannuation and advice.
Bills on hold as Lib senators continue boycott
Legislation for class action funding reform is among the bills in limbo as rogue Coalition senators continue their anti-vaccine strike.
ASIC’s warning to crypto investors: you’re on your own
ASIC chairman Joe Longo has urged investors to be careful about investing in crypto assets, admitting the regulator is virtually powerless to intervene and consumers are “on their own”.
Spark shareholders approve $5.2 billion takeover
Spark Infrastructure shareholders have voted to approve a $5.2 billion takeover of the power grid operator by a consortium led by private equity giant KKR.
Rate rises threaten ‘remarkable’ period of super returns
Rising interest rates are set to disrupt the success of Australia’s superannuation system, according to Deloitte Access Economics.
- Opinion
- Super & Wealth Summit
Why Millennials have turned to investing and crypto
Financial advisers are struggling to meet new investor demands via outdated and expensive business models while consumers increasing turn to a DIY model.
Skills shortages will last another year despite border reopenings
Reopening Australia’s borders to visa holders will do little to alleviate skills shortages which will continue for at least another year, recruiters say.
APA buys seat at table in Basslink restructure
Gas pipeline owner APA Group has positioned itself to buy the bankrupt power interconnector that links Tasmania to Victoria by purchasing $99 million of the venture’s debt.
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Super & Wealth Summit
Soaring property prices force young savers into shares
Soaring property prices are helping to fuel the boom in share investing as Millennials and Generation Z seek to accumulate a deposit for a house.
Why Alexis George took the toughest gig in finance
Turning around the beleaguered AMP is one of the toughest jobs in Australian business, but Alexis George’s heart didn’t skip a beat when she was asked to be its CEO.
Hume threatens laws to stop bailouts using members money
Financial Services Minister Jane Hume threatened new laws to stop super funds from using members’ money to bail out badly behaving directors.
Zoom, digital signatures key to financial advice future
Wealth management experts say the advice sector is crying out for innovation to lower costs and increase access.
Banks’ wealth exit the right call: AMP CEO
AMP chief executive Alexis George has broken with her predecessors, backing the withdrawal of the major banks from superannuation and financial advice.
monday markets
How family offices are playing a return of inflation
Matt Rockman is debt-funding start-ups, the Flannery mining family has gone high tech - family offices are preparing for the end of the equity bull market in various ways.
Why this $6.1b fundie prefers climate stocks to Chinese megacaps
By May, Munro’s Nick Griffin had exited all of his Chinese positions. He’s now bullish on decarbonisation stocks, an opportunity equivalent to the internet.
- Analysis
- Bulls & bears
Aristocrat Leisure cleans up
As the pandemic ripped through the globe the $30 billion ASX company filed a patent in the United States for self-disinfecting poker machines.
- Analysis
- Due diligence
Beforepay goes for the broke with late-season IPO
The start-up’s brokers hope to pull off an end-of-year miracle by convincing clients to buy a loss-making payday lender facing a multitude of existential threats.
- Opinion
- Bonds
A liquidity drought is rattling the bond market
A swift draining of liquidity is happening globally and has hit home. But if the future is transitory inflation, it doesn’t look so bad.
Podcast | How Australia’s top entrepreneurs built their fortunes and what they learnt along the way.
Companies
ASIC’s Longo ready to pick his fights (except on crypto)
The new ASIC boss conceded he has no regulatory oversight of crypto assets, in large part because they cannot be classed as financial products.
Global tax negotiators got a deal – now to sell it
A key plank of the plan is a controversial move to create new rights for governments to tax a group of about 100 companies, almost half of them American.
APA buys seat at table in Basslink restructure
Gas pipeline owner APA Group has positioned itself to buy the bankrupt power interconnector that links Tasmania to Victoria by purchasing $99 million of the venture’s debt.
Finder’s new crypto product a warning to banks on deposits
Finder will offer users a 4 per cent return for pledging Aussie dollars to create ‘stablecoins’, which Finder will then borrow to invest in the blockchain economy.
- Exclusive
- Software
Afterpay-backed Touch piles in as Till’s round hits $125m
Touch Ventures has poured money into a previously closed funding round at Sydney-based fintech start-up Till Payments.
Fortescue fuels confusion over diesel rebate stance
Fortescue is preparing its business to cope without the diesel fuel rebate – but declined to say if it wants the rebate axed, or if it would cease claiming it.
- Analysis
- Platinum Year
How Australia’s financial gorilla was born
Wage restraint under the Hawke government came at the price of a national superannuation system, and became a crucial story for The Australian Financial Review.
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Markets
Virus redux claims travel sector, ASX falls 0.6pc
The S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.6 per cent on Monday to 7353.1 points. Flight Centre tumbled 7.1 per cent and Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield 5.1 per cent.
ASX carrying $200b of zero-profit market cap
There are 48 companies in the ASX 300 that do not earn a dollar of profit, about 30 per cent more than the index historically carries.
New virus battle in Europe revives bond rally
Rising COVID-19 infections in Europe rattled financial markets, adding to concerns about global growth.
ASX dips; travel shares hit hard; miners gain ground
Australian shares fall; Qantas, Flight Centre hit two-month lows; AMP buoyed on real estate fund news; miners follow iron ore higher.
Oil prices correct as Europe’s COVID-19 crisis threatens demand
The prospect of lockdowns across parts of Europe coinciding with major releases of strategic oil reserves pushed oil prices to six-week lows.
Opinion
Mandate vaccines to stop a fourth wave
Vaccines and boosters will need to become mandatory if we are to keep the borders open and lockdowns a thing of the past.
Contributor
Class action law reform rushed and seen as Orwellian gaslighting
The Morrison government wants to change the business model of litigation funders and lawyers but the rush to do so could have unintended consequences.
Investigative journalist and columnist
Lowe’s wages calculation complicated by the border question
Reserve Bank boss Philip Lowe will be closely watching whether loosening Australia’s international restrictions cuts pressure in some labour market ‘hot spots’.
Columnist
Central bankers take to the stage as tightening tensions flare up
Central bankers are casting off their old inhibitions, and are increasingly breaking rank to air their policy differences in public.
Columnist
Embrace Japan as most favoured partner to meet the China challenge
In a decarbonising world, the fossil fuel-based energy trade will no longer be enough to sustain the security relationship between Tokyo and Canberra.
Contributor
The seeds of Australia’s politicised industry super system
The history spelled out by Pamela Williams shows that business can’t say it wasn’t warned about union-influenced industry superannuation dominating Australia’s capital market.
Editorial
Politics
NT lockdown extended amid new COVID-19 cases
Chief Minister Michael Gunner says anyone who is anti-vaccine mandates is “absolutely anti-vax”.
Why COVID-free SA’s reopening will be ‘tricky’
Premier Steven Marshall, whose minority government is in strife, takes a risk reopening a COVID-free state four months from an election.
Religious freedom laws set for release
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce warned Coalition colleagues not to put at risk passage of legislation first promised in 2019.
- Exclusive
- Defence
Frigate builder confident 18-month delay can be shortened
The $45 billion warship program has issues with its weight but a key milestone has been met with design responsibility transferring to Australia.
WA, Qld will be left behind, business warns as migrants return
States which remain behind closed borders risk being shunned by international students and skilled workers and left behind as the rest of the nation opens up, key business groups have warned.
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World
KKR makes $51b buyout offer for Telecom Italia
The offer for the Italian group, whose market value has dwindled to €7.5 billion, is the latest sign of private equity interest in the European telecoms sector.
China’s central bank signals easing as recovery risks mount
The People’s Bank of China removed from its policy outlook a few key phrases cited in previous reports, including sticking with ‘normal monetary policy’.
- Breaking
- Crime
Horror scenes as car ploughs into Christmas parade in US
Police said “some” people had been killed, but they would not give an exact number. A person was in custody, as was the SUV.
- Opinion
- Biden's White House
Why Biden’s inflation pitch doesn’t pass the laugh test
The US President’s Build Back Better bill would be more likely to stoke inflationary pressures than ease them in the short term.
El Salvador plans ‘bitcoin city’ powered by volcano
President Nayib Bukele said the city would have no property, income or capital gains taxes. Its infrastructure and other costs will be funded by a sales tax and money raised by the bond issues.
Property
AMP Capital exits NZ mall, adding to investment war chest
The Christchurch sale is part of a broader divestment strategy being pursued the AMP Capital Shopping Centre Fund as builds its firepower to step up investment in destination-style malls.
City Tatts high-rise tower gets the green light
The approved development includes a 50-storey tower to be built above the heritage premises, including a hotel and luxury apartments.
Sydney house prices to drop 12pc in 2023
Sydney house prices are poised to drop by 12 per cent and Melbourne by 10 per cent by 2023, the Commonwealth Bank says.
Downsizing agent sells, but has to rent in tight market
A stock-starved property sector is forcing older people – even real estate professionals – who want to leave their family homes to take an unexpected step.
Online retailers aged 30 and 31 buy a $34m Sydney mansion
Millennials lead a market bonanza as White Fox Boutique’s co-founders buy a Vaucluse home and Young Rich Lister Stephen Dash purchases a $10.3 million terrace.
Wealth
- Opinion
- Investing
The two things guaranteed to grow your portfolio
Staying invested for the long term and a small increase in annual contributions can double your money over 25 years.
- Opinion
- Ethical investing
Tips to understand ethical investing screens
Managed funds and ETFs adopt four basic strategies to create an ESG portfolio.
Why John Wylie won’t hide his philanthropy
John Wylie manages a $2b investment house but he’s inspired by what “creative types” managed to do from their bedrooms during the pandemic.
Technology
- Opinion
- Shares
The small group who made more than $500m on Siteminder’s IPO
A couple of weeks ago, a small group of investors pocketed more than $500 million in the billion-dollar IPO of Siteminder, the company has a big challenge ahead, writes Adir Shiffman.
Start-up banks $6m to help aged care homes check-in visitors
Aged care providers including St Vincent’s, Regis and Estia have signed on with software start-up Zipline.io to prepare post-COVID digital check-in systems.
The ransomware threat no director will want to hear
The director was rattled, he hadn’t yet seen the emails and responded to the cyberattacker that was on the other end of the phone that Friday afternoon.
Work & Careers
- Exclusive
- Industrial relations
CBA sued after sacking of staffer who discussed pay
The Commonwealth Bank fired a newly recruited employee in part because he discussed his pay with colleagues in breach of the company’s controversial salary secrecy clauses.
Scholarships to tempt workers into the digital workforce
A private IT college is offering 1000 scholarships to encourage people to shift careers to data and digital jobs.
Life & Luxury
Ferrari reveals its ‘most aerodynamically efficient car ever’
The $3.1 million Daytona SP3, unveiled at a Formula One track near Florence, also contains the marque’s highest-powered engine and honours its 1960s racers.
Return of travel risks creating a bad summer flu season
Australians leaving for the northern winter should have had this year’s influenza jab while those stuck abroad, should also get vaccinated before returning.
Why this CEO likes to cycle and talk at the same time
Training for a triathlon? Leave time for coffee and don’t turn into the person to avoid at parties, says Darren Winterford.
Big Mac, Lego, Beyonce prove luxury doesn’t have to mean serious
Nadine Ghosn, the daughter of fugitive Nissan boss Carlos, has created a market in jewellery where decadence and novelty are comfortable companions.
Beauty products are ditching one of their biggest ingredients
Australian start-up Conserving Beauty has joined a slew of brands focused on creating skincare and make-up without water – to save the planet, and your face.
