egolinews.com

Ruralco Holdings Limited (RHL) said profit for the full year to 30 September slumped 47% to $8.5 million from the previous corresponding period. Despite the downturn, the company predicted better times ahead as trading conditions improve and strong winter rainfall boosts crops.

Looking at the current results, managing director, John Maher said the company’s results were within the previous guidance offered, while the underlying net profit after tax and before significant items was $11.2 million, down 32% though still ahead of expectations.

Mr Maher attributed the result to difficult growing conditions and a slump in demand for core products.

“A reduction in world dairy prices significantly impacted the Stock Feed, Seed and Grain operations and the profitability of its dairy customers resulting in decreased demand for its products and services,” Mr Maher said.

”Real estate markets were generally depressed and, while there has been some recent increase in activity across property markets, results are yet to return to the previous year’s levels.”

At 1058 AEDT, Ruralco shares were trading flat at $2.40.

The manager of Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA), Colonial First State Property Limited, announced the completion of a $100 million institutional equity placement. The company also announced that it had raised $200 million in convertible notes to fund the acquisition of 145 Ann Street, Brisbane and a 50% interest in 58 Mounts Bay Road, Perth.

Colonial First State said the placement of approximately 109.9 million ordinary units at a price of $0.91 per CPA unit was completed on 23 November 2009, with the price reflecting a 5.1% discount to close on 20 November 2009 and a 6.3% discount to the 5-day volume weighted average price.

The company said all existing eligible unitholders in Australia and New Zealand would have the opportunity to acquire units under a proposed Unit Purchase Plan (“UPP”), at the same price as the units offered under the institutional equity placement.

Colonial First State said the $200 million in Notes were sold overnight primarily into the European and Asian markets.

The notes are to be issued by CPA with a fixed coupon rate of 5.25% per annum for a term of seven years and will rank as senior unsecured obligations of the Fund and are intended to be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

Colonial First said prior to maturity, the notes are convertible into CPA units at a price of $1.1375 per unit, which reflects a premium of 25% to the Reference Price of $0.91.

As at 1035 AEDT, Commonwealth Property Office Fund shares were down 4c to 94.5c.

BHP Billiton Limited (BHP) announced that it has accepted the resignation of Dr David Morgan as a company director after Dr Morgan advised he had accepted an appointment as managing director, JC Flowers, Europe and Asia Pacific, based in London. Dr Morgan believed it necessary to relinquish all of his existing professional positions including his directorship of BHP Billiton due to the demands of his new position.

Iron Ore Holdings Limited (IOH) shares had jumped by around 20% after the junior iron ore producer said it had entered into a six month agreement with Rio Tinto Limited (RIO) to acquire ore from Phil’s Creek Project. JORC compliant resource estimate had increased by around 20% to 191 million tonnes.

Woodside Petroleum Limited (WPL) forecast its calendar year 2009 production would be within guidance of 81-86 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe), however would drop in 2010 due to the sale of its stake in the Otway gas project. The company said production would fall to 70-75 mmboe. Woodside forecast 2011 production to increase due to the Pluto Train 1 start-up.

Newmont Mining Corporation (NEM) announced its subsidiary, Newmont Indonesia Limited, together with Nusa Tenggara Mining Corporation, have agreed to sell an additional 14% of PT Newmont Nusa Tenggara to PT Multi Daerah Bersaing, a consortium comprised of regional and local governments near the Batu Hijau mine, and PT Multicapital, a private company. Newmont said proceeds would total approximately $494 million.

Toll Holdings Limited (TOL) announced the conclusion of negotiations for the supply of relocation services to the Australian Department of Defence. The provider of integrated logistics services said final contractual issues are being resolved and contract signing is expected in the near future.

Managing director, Paul Little, said the company’s specialist relocations business Toll Transitions has been notified they have successfully tendered for the contract with the Department of Defence for the provision of both Removal Services (RS) and Relocation Administration Services (RAS).

“This Defence contract is comprised of an initial five year period, followed by up to 4 one year extensions, which are at the discretion of Defence,” Mr Little said.

“The initial five year period is expected to generate revenues of more than $1 billion, and if the extensions are granted total revenue of around $2 billion would be expected.”

Toll has provided Removal Services to the Australian Department of Defence for the past 10 years.

“Defence require over 22,000 removals and 23,000 relocations to be managed each year under this contract which is the largest of its type in Australia,” Mr Little said.

“The Tender win will entail substantial growth and opportunities for Toll Transitions with over 100 additional staff being recruited and a number of new offices being established around the country.”

At the close of trade Monday, Toll shares were trading at $8.24.

Leighton Holdings Limited (LEI) subsidiary Leighton Properties Pty Limited said it has entered an agreement to develop and sell a Brisbane CBD Tower to Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA) for $210 million. The company said the development is already more than 65% pre-leased and would commence construction immediately with completion scheduled for early 2012.

Leighton Properties managing director, Mark Gray, said the agreement suggests there is a renewed level of confidence in the Australian property market with it being the first major new commercial CBD development to commence construction in Australia since the onset of the global financial crisis.

“There are many commercial projects on hold at present with bank funding difficult to obtain, Mr Gray said.

“Unless developments can commence soon, in two to three years time there will again be a shortage of high quality office accommodation in Australia’s CBDs.”

He added that the development is also targeting world-class levels of sustainability practices.

”The average age of prime office building in Brisbane’s CBD is 25 years,” Mr Gray said.

“The major pre-committing tenancies in King George Central are coming out of older buildings with two of the tenants spread over multiple locations.”

Leighton said the development would be built by Thiess and also be the first in Australia to be publicly supported by the Heart Foundation.

At the close of trade Monday, Leighton shares were trading at $37.14, while CPA shares were trading at 98.5c.

iSOFT Group Limited (ISF) said it had inked two new agreements with UK health care trusts worth $5.4 million. The provision of new hospital information systems for the Wandsworth and Sheffield NHS Foundation Trusts represents the latest contract win for the Australian health care software provider.

The Sheffield contract was worth $3.7 million in software and six-years of support, while the Wandsworth contract would bring in around $1.7 million over three years. 

Managing director of iSOFT’s UK and Ireland business, Adrian Stevens, commented on the result.

“These contracts are further evidence of our commitment to our customers and to delivering solutions relevant to modern healthcare settings,” Mr Stevens said.

“The new hospital solutions provide new levels of resilience and performance, but also give customers a platform to build on applications that are highly valued.”

At the close Monday, iSoft’s shares were 77c.

Harvey Norman Holdings Limited (HVN), in an update to the market, said that sales for the period from 1 July 2009 to 22 November 2009 were $1.93 billion, up 7.7% from the previous corresponding period. The retailer said it was anticipating pre-tax profit would be 40% higher for the six months to 31 December over the previous corresponding period.

Like-for-like sales for the period 1 July 2009 to 22 November increased 5.9%.

Gerry Harvey, CEO of Harvey Norman, provided the bullish outlook on sales on Sunday to reporters, helping his company's stock climb 5.2% to $4.46 on Monday.

Other retailers benefited from the optimistic outlook, with JB Hi-Fi Limited (JBH) jumping 3.6% to break through the $23 per share mark for the first time, up from lows of around $6.87 this time last year.

 

Directors' Interest Notices
23 November 09

Symbol	Shareholder	+/-	Prior	Now
BLY	Bruce Brook		1,008,106	1,044,217*
BLY	Peter St. George		1,038,376	1,074,487
BKN	Nicholas Frank Hugo Greiner		410,203	360,203
DOM	Peter Alexander		199,182	165,000
DOM	Ross Alexander Coyle		55,739	295,739^
DOM	Ross Alexander Coyle		295,739	184,397
MCU	Harold Mitchell		86,854,245	86,967,431
TSE	Guido Belgiomo-Nettis AM		58,158,547	58,255,347

* Share Purchase Plan
^ Exercise of Options

 

Australia’s major indices closed 0.7% higher Monday despite a weak lead from Wall Street on Friday. Mining and industrial stocks led the rally, while financials and property stocks weighed.

In economic news, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported October 2009 seasonally adjusted figure for total sales of new motor vehicles increased by 3.7% when compared to September 2009.

Australians bought 81,122 new vehicles last month, while the October 2009 seasonally adjusted number for total new motor vehicle sales was 3.3% higher than for October 2008.

At the end of the day, the All Ords gained 32.5 to 4,739.2, while the ASX/200 put on 31.2 to 4,717.0. About 2.7 billion shares worth around $3.5 billion had changed hands. 

The Materials and Resources sector climbed 1.7%.

Rio Tinto put on $2.56, or 3.6% to $73.78, while larger rival BHP Billiton gained 43c, or 1.1% to $40.46 as it reached a wage deal with union workers who have mounted a strike at its Spence deposit in Chile.

Aquarius Platinum stocks jumped 7.9% to $6.58. Shares in the African focused platinum producer have surged over 35% this month.

Metal recycler Sims Group fell 91c to $21.29 after its recently announced equity raising prompted price target cuts from brokers.

James Hardie stocks climbed 6.4% to $7.87 after saying that the outlook for the US and Australian home building market was looking more positive and earnings would be at the top of analysts’ range.

Boral added 34c to $5.91.

Gold miners Lihir Gold and Newcrest Mining jumped 3.4% and 3.2% respectively as the price of the precious metal reached new record levels.
 
Energy stocks were flat overall.

Most of the majors were trading just below the gain line. Woodside Petroleum edged 2c higher to $48.71.

Coal & Allied rose $3.70 to $82.00, while New Hope dropped 10c to $4.28.

The big four banks were mixed with ANZ the best performer, adding 15c to $21.90.

NAB lost 29c to $28.40.

Insurers were marginally higher as the flurry of activity associated with the sector begins to settle.
 
The Banks and Financial sector was down 0.1%.

The Property Trusts sector weakened 0.3% largely due to a 11c, or 0.9% decline in the price of Westfield shares to $12.24.

Stockland put on 6c to $4.07.

The Consumer Staple sector gained 1%. Wesfarmers rose 50c, or 1.7% to $29.75 as it continues to outperform Woolworths, which itself rose 8c to $28.08.
 
The retailers helped the Consumer Discretionary sector rise 0.7%.

Harvey Norman surged 22c, or 5.2% to $4.46. David Jones gained 13c to $5.78, while JB Hi-Fi climbed 80c to $23.00.

Of the media stocks Newscorp shed 1.6% $15.49 as reports surfaced it had been in discussions with Microsoft regarding the possibility of the tech giant paying the media company to eliminate its websites from search engine Google.

Gamer Aristocrat fell 1.4% to $4.20.

Most stocks in the Industrials were in favour with investors, with the sector up 1.2%.

Leighton rose 83c to $37.14, while Brambles added 12c to $6.64.

Bradken continues to surge from a low of 94.5c in March, climbing 20c, or 2.8% to $7.39.

Toll rose 14c to $8.24 and Qantas added 3c to $2.72 amid media reports of a possible merger with British Airways. 

Telstra put on 3c to $3.33 as the broader Telecommunications sector advanced 0.8%.

Around the region, the Nikkei 225 lost 51.8 to 9,497.7, while the Straits Times Index rose 13.1 to 2,774.6. Across the Tasman, the NZSE50 slid 0.7 to 3,113.0. The Hang Seng gained 122.8 to 22,578.6.

Spot gold was trading at US$1,163.17 per ounce, and the Aussie was buying US$0.9198. 

---

James Hardie swings to a US$97.5m loss
James Hardie reported a net loss for the six months to 30 September of US$97.5m, down from a US$154.9m profit for the previous corresponding period. Looking ahead James Hardie said that there were signs of a recovery in the US and Australian housing construction markets and that for the full year to 30 March 2010 the company would post a profit towards the upper end of analyst estimates of between US$77 million and US$115 million.

At the close, James Hardie shares were up 47c to $7.87.

Rio to obtain US$741m from Cloud Peak IPO
Rio Tinto said it would receive at least US$741m in connection with Cloud Peak Energy Inc’s initial public offering and related transactions. The mining giant said the proceeds include at least US$434 million from the sale of part of Rio Tinto’s interest in Cloud Peak Energy Resources LLC (CPER) in connection with Cloud Peak Energy Inc’s initial public offering (IPO) of common stock and a cash distribution by CPER of US$307 million from the proceeds of its debt offering of US$600 million.

By the end of the day, Rio Tinto shares were up $2.56 to $73.78.

ANZ completes RBS Philippines acquisition
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group announced the completion of its acquisition of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (RBS) business in the Philippines. ANZ said the acquisition includes RBS retail, wealth and commercial businesses in Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong, and the institutional businesses in Taiwan, the Philippines and Vietnam for approximately US$550 million.

At the finish, ANZ shares were up 15c to $21.90.