DFO outpacing regular malls, Doughnut Time returns after liquidation, and more top news

The news Australian professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation in the comments below.

Discount mall group DFO is growing at twice the rate of the national retail sector. Direct Factory Outlet tenants' sales grew by 5% last year across centres in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane while Australian Bureau of Statistic figures showed total retail spending grew 2.5% in May year-on-year. DFO general manager Justin Blumfield said it was no longer a “dumping ground for old stock” with retailers manufacturing stock especially for DFO bargain hunters.

Doughnut Time is making a comeback after closing all stores in March amid Fair Work disputes over unpaid wages. New owner Peter Andros told Broadsheet he planned to reopen stores in Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast with a focus on paleo, high protein and vegan options including a hemp protein doughnut. Andros said he encouraged any former staff underpaid by the chain to contact Fair Work Australia, saying he felt the business originally grew too big, too fast.

No bank-run super funds rank in the top 20 for return on investment. A report from superannuation research house Chant West showed the top 20 best funds were all not-for-profit with industry fund Hostplus achieving the best return of all balanced investment options for the last financial year, at 12.5%. Overall, industry funds returned 9.7% per annum, compared to 8.5% for retail funds including bank-run funds.

Afterpay Touch processed more than $2.18bn sales this year, amounting to a sales jump of 171%. The Australian fintech startup is a ‘buy now, pay later’ system (paywall) that lets people take an item home and pay it in several installments but interest is incurred after a timeframe. The number of businesses using Afterpay ballooned from 6000 at the end of 2017 financial year to 16,500 today. The announcement sent Afterpay’s shares up 25% yesterday afternoon.

In-house top Australian lawyers earn an average of $639,000 which makes them ‘underpaid’ by global standards. An international survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel (paywall) found the top 5% of in-house lawyers in Australia and New Zealand earned 39.4% less than their international counterparts. The countries paying the highest income for in-house lawyers were the Middle East and Afri-ca, the US, Europe and Canada. The study also revealed gender pay gaps were the most pronounced among more senior lawyers.

Idea of the Day: Answers are everywhere, says Martin Kemka, the founder of northraine, which designs bespoke machine learning systems and AI research.

“I can pinpoint [the] number of times when I was stuck and was not sure of how to move to the next stage of my education. Usually I would start thinking that I wish someone would appear and tell me what to do... After a while I quickly found out that answers are everywhere.”

What's your take? Join the conversations on today's stories in the comments.

— Cayla Dengate