Today's News - Wednesday 23 December 2020
Today's News - Wednesday 23 December 2020
Our Backyard
Total household wealth increased to a record high of $11.4 trillion in the September quarter, driven by record growth in deposits and an increase in residential assets, according to the ABS.
According to the Australian National Accounts: Finance and Wealth, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), household wealth hit a new high in the three months to September 2020.
Household wealth – which comprises non-financial assets (such as land and dwellings), as well as financial assets (savings accounts, superannuation, shares etc) and liabilities (such as loans) – increased by 1.7 per cent, or $186.8 billion, in the September quarter, reaching a new record high of $11.4 trillion.
Increases in residential assets (1.2 per cent), deposits (5.4 per cent) and superannuation balances (1.1 per cent) were the main contributors to the growth in household wealth.
Average household wealth increased $6,850 (1.6 per cent) to $441,649 per person.
https://www.theadviser.com.au/breaking-news/41155-household-wealth-hits-new-high-as-property-surges
Australian retail turnover rose 7.0 per cent in November 2020, seasonally adjusted, according to preliminary retail trade figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Turnover rose 13.2 per cent when compared to November 2019.
By industry, household goods retailing (13 per cent) led the rises, as Black Friday sales combined with major product releases in the electrical subgroup, led to a spike in turnover across the country.
The rises in Victoria, and Black Friday purchases, also led to large national monthly rises in clothing, footwear and personal accessories, other retailing, and department stores.
Aussies were locked out of pubs throughout the year but they still managed to spend an extra $2 billion on booze this year.
On average, they spent $1,891 per year on household alcohol – an increase of $270 over last year, according to Finder’s analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
In the September quarter $6.18 billion was shelled out on alcohol, up by 17% year-on-year, and just shy of June’s record-breaking $6.21 billion figure.
One in five Australians increased their booze intake over the lockdown months, according to research from the Australian National University, while 28% of people were consuming three to four drinks extra.
The top reasons people were raiding the liquor cabinet were due to spending more time at home (66 per cent), boredom (44 per cent) and increased stress (38 per cent).
Consumers will also splash out for end of year celebrations with plans to spend $136 on alcohol on the period between Christmas and New Years, a Finder survey found.
The corporate regulator has launched a scathing assessment of Australia’s audit firms, saying they did not “obtain reasonable assurance that the financial reports were free from material misstatement”.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission released the results of its audit firm inspections for the 12 months to June 30 2020.
It found audit firms failed to ensure financial reports were free from material misstatement in 27 per cent of the 179 key audit areas that ASIC reviewed across 53 audit files. This compares with 26 per cent in the 12 months to 30 June 2019.
Judo Bank confirmed on Tuesday that it had raised $280m in new equity, with 60 per cent of the raising coming from new major institutional investors, most of whom are believed to be offshore.
Judo Bank has revealed it has secured more than $140m from new investors in its latest capital raising, valuing the challenger neobank for small- and medium-sized businesses at more than $1.6bn.
Seventy per cent of the bank’s largest current shareholders, which include the likes of Bain Capital Credit, Myer Family Investments, the Abu Dhabi Capital Group, Ironbridge, SPF Investment Management, OPTrust and Tikehau Capital, chose to resubscribe and increase their stakes in the issue.
The raising takes to $510m the value of equity raised by Judo Bank this year and gives the bank a post-money valuation exceeding $1.6bn, representing an increase of over 60 per cent in value over the last seven months during the COVID pandemic.
People should be careful to avoid a Christmas debt hangover, financial counsellors have warned, despite Australians reducing their credit card bills amid the uncertainty of 2020.
Credit card balances decreased by $11.7 billion this year whilst buy-now, pay-later services continue to increase in popularity.
Donald Trump has awarded Scott Morrison an honour for “leadership in addressing global challenges” a month before he leaves office.
The outgoing US president has awarded Mr Morrison the Legion of Merit, a prestigious military award bestowed to national leaders. Ambassador to the US Arthur Sinodinos was in Washington DC to accept the award on the prime minister’s behalf.
Mr Morrison was one of three leaders to receive the award after striking up a close relationship with Mr Trump, alongside former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe and Indian leader Narendra Modi.
A damaging exposé has revealed how international consulting firm McKinsey & Company tried to pump up sales of an addictive painkiller during the opioid epidemic.
Its advice included offering rebates for OxyContin overdoses.
After the news broke in The New York Times, the firm was in damage control and it sought to explain itself to its Australian workforce.
A McKinsey Australia spokesperson acknowledged a Zoom meeting was held after the revelations, saying it was part of a commitment to consider broader societal impacts of the firm's work.
Labor MP Bill Shorten has slammed the US consulate in Sydney for flying a group of American labourers to Australia to carry out construction works.
At least a dozen contractors were granted exemptions to travel to Australia on skilled worker visas over the past month, according to Nine News.
The US consulate argued the works had to be carried out by US citizens with appropriate security clearances, and that workers did undergo hotel quarantine.
Speaking on Today, Mr Shorten said tens of thousands of Australians who want to come home couldn’t due to limited space in hotel quarantine.
Aussie make-up giant Mecca is suing a celeb-endorsed US brand over a bid to terminate a contract because of coronavirus.
The cosmetic retailer launched court action against California-based Hourglass Cosmetics in Victoria’s Supreme Court this month.
The stoush started in May when Hourglass chief executive Carisa Janes sent a letter to the Australian company wanting to terminate their exclusive distribution contract, court documents state.
The letter stated Mecca had been unable to distribute their cosmetics for 28 days because of “the COVID-19 and associated governmental orders” in breach of a contractual clause and this immediately terminated the contract.
But the make-up retailer is arguing in court that it didn’t breach the contract and the attempt to terminate the agreement was unlawful.
The statement of claim said it distributed the brand’s products from retail stores from April 24, which meant their shops were closed for fewer than 28 days.
An Adelaide man suffering terminal cancer from breathing in asbestos dust has defeated an appeal against his compensation claim — but will receive $850,000 less than in the original judgement.
Father-of-three Mathew Werfel will receive $2.23 million in compensation from the company that used to be James Hardie, instead of the $3.08 million awarded by the South Australian Employment Tribunal last year.
In a judgement handed down yesterday, the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia upheld the tribunal's decision in favour of Mr Werfel that James Hardie owed a duty of care to people that used its products.
Mr Werfel, 44, said he hoped the Supreme Court's decision would force James Hardie — now known as Amaca Pty Ltd — to undertake a public health campaign to ensure all Australians were aware of the risks posed by asbestos products.
Minister Jaclyn Symes will replace Jill Hennessy as Victoria's Attorney-General, while another regional MP, Mary-Anne Thomas, will join the Andrews government cabinet.
Ms Symes, an upper house member for Northern Victoria, will become the state's first law officer and hand over her responsibilities for regional development and agriculture to Ms Thomas, the member for Macedon.
The NSW government is expanding three national parks by a thousand hectares in total to secure land for the state‘s vulnerable koala population.
The new land will add 912 hectares to Cataract National Park three hours west of Byron Bay, and 93 hectares combined to Maria National Park in Crescent Head near Kempsey and Bongil Bongil National Park south of Coffs Harbour.
Victorians are being urged not to swim at 36 beaches across the state as heavy rainfall is expected to cause poor water quality over the next three days.
The state’s environment watchdog issued the warning on Tuesday as the state braces for two days of downpours.
Swedish furniture giant IKEA has continued to rack up losses in Australia despite its sales for the 2020 financial year soaring to over $1.5 billion off the back of a COVID-induced boom.
Financial documents filed with the corporate regulator on Monday night reveal IKEA's revenue for the 12 months to the end of August grew 11.4 per cent to $1.55 billion, one of the retailer's most significant sales jumps in years.
This marks the retailer's fourth year of loss-making operations in Australia. The company operates 10 of its big-box stores across the country, along with an online offer.
The local entity paid a total of $48.7 million in franchise fees, and its 'other expenses' – which the company does not clarify – came in at $142.7 million, $10 million more than last year.
These increases were slightly offset by a more than halving of rent and occupancy costs, down to just $12.3 million, but they were not enough to pull the retailer into the black despite IKEA's gross profit amounting to over $580 million.
Debts owed to its parent company were also reduced in the 2020 financial year, totalling $492 million compared to $595 million last year.
Favourable growing conditions and steady rainfall has caused fruit prices to plummet, with Australian cherry, strawberry and grape growers delivering their “best summer harvest in many years”.
Cherries, an Aussie Christmas go-to, are 10 per cent cheaper than last year (from $11.90/kg) and according to growers are some of the “tastiest in recent years”.
Grapes have been the best fresh fruit deal this Christmas, with prices about 25 per cent lower than last year.
World News
The US Congress has passed a $US892 billion ($1.179 trillion) coronavirus aid package aimed at throwing a lifeline to the nation's pandemic-battered economy.
Another bipartisan vote also passed a $US1.4 trillion measure that will keep the US Government funded for another year.
The relief bill includes $US600 payments to most Americans as well as additional payments to the millions of people now out of work because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill is likely to be the final major piece of legislation for the 116th Congress that expires on January 3.
It has a net cost of roughly $350 billion for coronavirus relief.
The stimulus package is the first congressionally approved aid since April.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/us-house-passes-coronavirus-stimulus-aid-package/13007250
The US Justice Department has presented new charges against a Libyan bombmaker, Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, over the 1988 explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 above the Scottish town of Lockerbie.
He had announced an earlier set of charges against two other Libyan intelligence officials in his capacity as acting attorney general nearly 30 years ago, vowing that the investigation would continue.
Masud is now the third Libyan intelligence official charged in connection to the attack.
The case against the alleged bombmaker, Abu Agela Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, is for now more theoretical than practical since Masud is not in US custody and it is unclear if he ever will be, or if the evidence will be sufficient for conviction.
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said he had tricked a Russian secret agent into disclosing details of the botched plot to kill him and had been told that poison had been placed in his underwear.
Navalny, one of President Vladimir Putin's most outspoken critics, was airlifted to Germany for treatment in August after collapsing on a plane in Russia. Germany has said he was poisoned with a Soviet-style Novichok nerve agent in an attempt to murder him, an assertion many Western nations accept.
Navalny declared his poisoning case solved earlier this month when a joint media inquiry said it had identified a team of assassins from Russia's FSB security service.
Putin last week dismissed media reports about Navalny's poisoning, saying they were made up of information provided by US intelligence services and were an attempt to smear Putin himself and make Navalny seem more important than he really was.
Boris Johnson is hopeful French President Emmanuel Macron would lift a ban on British imports being trucked across the English Channel, as he urges Britons to look forward to a "very different world" by Easter as the country battles a new, highly infectious strain of COVID-19.
More than a dozen countries cancelled flights from the UK following the discovery on Friday of the new strain which is not thought to be any more lethal, even though it is more transmissible.
French President Emmanuel Macron closed the border and cancelled all human-driven trucks carrying goods across the Channel at 11pm on Sunday for 48 hours, affecting 20 per cent of truckers.
Toyota was due to unveil a working prototype of its new electric-car tech at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which was cancelled due to the pandemic. But according to Asian business publication, the Nikkei, this is now due some next year.
A solid state battery is a huge advancement over the current lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars.
Estimates put range at more than 800km and up to 1000km, with the ability to charge in under 10 minutes.
These advancements would enable electric cars to be more practical than most petrol- or diesel-powered cars.
The batteries provide other benefits such as a roomier cabin and greater efficiency due to a lower vehicle weight.
Toyota is aiming for its next-generation batteries to hold about 90 per cent of their charge for up to 30 years, much longer than lithium-ion examples.
The Japanese government has set up a special decarbonising fund worth about $25.5b to help develop the new batteries.
Next year promises to be a big year for Toyota as it prepares to show off its first fully-electric vehicle, which will be a RAV4-sized and built on a new scalable electric car platform. This EV will have standard lithium-ion batteries.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to promote “beautiful” federal buildings, attempting to do away with “ugly” modernist styles in favour of classical architecture.
Some have questioned the timing of the order and the President’s priorities, as the US continues to record more than 3000 deaths per day from COVID-19.
The executive order, a draft of which was leaked to the media in February, takes particular issue with Brutalist architecture – characterised by massive, block-like poured-concrete structures – that began to emerge in the 1950s after the federal government changed its official policy to discourage traditional designs in favour of contemporary ones.
In contrast with America’s “cherished” iconic landmarks like the White House and Capitol building, which were modelled on the architecture of ancient Athens and Rome, the order says many in the public found the newer buildings “unappealing”.
A Brazilian woman enslaved as a maid from the age of eight for almost four decades and forced into marriage has been rescued in a rare crackdown on domestic slavery, officials said.
The 46-year-old was found living in a small room in an apartment in Patos de Minas, in the south-eastern state of Minas Gerais. She had worked for the family for most of her life without pay or any time off, according to labour inspectors.
The victim was given up as a child by her destitute parents to the family of Dalton Cesar Milagres Rigueira, a professor at Unipam, a not-for-profit university, and raised by his mother, inspectors said.
Hawaii's Kilauea volcano on the Big Island has erupted, sending a massive steam and ash cloud into the atmosphere that lingered for around an hour.
The eruption began late Sunday local time within Kilauea's summit crater, the US Geological Survey said.
The crater, named Halemaumau, is located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and was home to a longstanding lava lake that was present for years before a 2018 eruption caused it to drain.
The steam cloud shot 9 kilometres up into the sky, authorities said. There are reports of lava fountains shooting around 50 metres high.
Locals were warned to watch out for falling ash and hazardous gas.
Covid-19
A 70-year-old man who allegedly travelled from Sydney’s northern beaches hotspot into a regional community is being investigated and faces a hefty fine for flagrantly breaching strict coronavirus restrictions.
It’s believed the northern beaches man travelled more than three hours down the coast to Ulladulla in the Shoalhaven region and was busted trying to enter a leisure centre at about 4pm on Monday.
Staff confirmed the man had been in the hotspot zone during the time health authorities were concerned about community transmission, according to Shoalhaven City Council, meaning the man would have breached a strict public health order.
The incident was reported to police and the Ulladulla leisure centre will remain closed until officers have finished their investigation.
Anthony Albanese’s chief of staff has tested negative to COVID-19 after potentially being exposed to a carrier.
NSW authorities urged anyone who had been at Sydney’s 1 Bligh St on December 17 to get tested after revelations a COVID-positive person had been in the building.
The CBD building holds multiple office workplaces including the Commonwealth Parliament Offices.
It is used by ministers, opposition spokespeople and their staff while they are in the city for official business.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said a crisis Cabinet meeting is convening to review COVID restrictions before Christmas as health authorities record eight new cases.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said Christmas restrictions will be revealed [today].
There are concerns about the increasing number of venues under alert outside of the northern beaches.
Health authorities have called on residents in Sydney’s upper north shore to come forward for testing, after a sewage test found traces of the virus in the area.
NSW’s sewage surveillance program detected traces of COVID-19 at a treatment plant in Hornsby Heights, sparking concerns the virus may have spread further than what is currently being detected.
The virus fragments were detected in samples taken on Saturday, with that system services parts of Berowra, Cowan, Berowra Heights, Hornsby Heights, Mount Colah, Mount Kuring-Gai, Asquith and Hornsby.
NSW recorded another drop in cases on Tuesday, with just eight locally acquired infections confirmed to 8pm last night.
Seven of those cases have been linked to the Avalon cluster, which is now at 90 cases, and one case still under investigation.
More than 44,400 tests were conducted in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, with Premier Gladys Berejiklian praising residents for turning out in such high numbers to get tested.
Sydney’s virus outbreak has spread 280km to the city of Orange, in the state's central west, which has been added as a COVID-19 hotspot.
A close contact who caught the virus from an infected health worker based in western Sydney travelled through the area on Saturday, health authorities confirmed on Tuesday afternoon.
This person attended the city’s public hospital, Orange Health Service, and NSW Health said all close contacts had now been identified, were self-isolating and had returned negative results after being tested.
Woolworths is reimposing buying limits at around 200 of its supermarkets in the Greater Sydney area to prevent panic buying in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in the city’s northern beaches.
Woolworths announced on Tuesday morning that it had reinstated a two-pack purchase limit both in-store and online for toilet paper and paper towel across Greater Sydney.
The Queensland government has urged Sydneysiders barred from entering the state this Christmas to cancel their holiday bookings, so locals can snap up their rooms.
Residents who rely on crossing the NSW-Queensland border daily have vented their frustration as the checkpoint causes major delays and congestion.
Queensland Police say they have turned back more than 100 travellers attempting to enter the Sunshine State from the hotspots on Sydney’s northern beaches and the Harbour City more broadly amid an escalating coronavirus outbreak.
At 6am on Tuesday morning, fortress Queensland returned as police were forced to diligently check border passes to ensure the state remained safe from the deadly pandemic.
Victorian health authorities are monitoring hundreds of “close contacts” who returned from Sydney before the border cut off.
Health department testing commander Jeroen Weimar said they had identified about 300 Victorians who had been in either the red or amber zones in Sydney since December 11.
But Mr Weimar said he expected the number to grow as more returning travellers were identified in coming days.
Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said 17 people, including a family of five, had already been placed in hotel quarantine after returning from northern beaches “red zone” since Friday without being permitted to travel.
South Australia has recorded no new cases of coronavirus, despite an influx of arrivals from New South Wales prior to border restrictions coming into place on Monday.
Three cases reported on Sunday are still active, but all are staying in medi-hotels.
A US hospital temporarily halted the rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine after four staff members experienced unexpected side effects.
The Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, Illinois, put a stop to issuing the Pfizer jab after four employees experienced reactions, including one who had a severe allergic reaction but has now recovered.
The handful of reports about side-effects came as more than 250,000 people received the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine around the US on Saturday morning.
The hospital said it had resumed vaccines after a thorough investigation.
US president-elect Joe Biden has taken the first step towards COVID-19 immunity, receiving his first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at a hospital in Newark, Delaware.
The vaccination happened live on television as part of a growing effort to convince the American public vaccines are safe.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/joe-biden-gets-pfizer-covid-jab/13006102
Antarctica can no longer lay claim to being the only continent free of coronavirus after 36 Chileans reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
Spanish-language media has reported up to 36 people connected with the Chilean Army base General Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme tested positive for the virus on Monday.
The research station, known colloquially as O'Higgins, is one of 13 active Chilean bases in Antarctica.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/coronavirus-cases-confirmed-in-antarctica/13007596
Taiwan on Tuesday reported its first locally transmitted case of COVID-19 since April 12, a friend of a New Zealand pilot who was confirmed to have been infected earlier this week.
Taiwan has kept the pandemic well under control thanks to early and effective prevention methods and widespread mask wearing, with all new cases for more than the last 250 days being diagnosed in travellers arriving on the island to quarantine.
But masks remain compulsory in some circumstances, including on transport services and in markets and restaurants.
Property
David Jones’ flagship store in central Sydney will change hands in a $510m deal, in the latest in a string of sell-offs by the retailer’s South African owners.
A consortium of funds managed by ASX-listed Charter Hall will scoop up the 12-level, 3560 sqm site in a leaseback arrangement that will see David Jones retain occupation of the site over the next 20 years.
The Australian understands the Charter Hall deal, following the sale of David Jones’ Menswear building on Bourke Street for $121m to Newmark Capital, extinguishes David Jones’ debts.
The $510m purchase price reflects an initial five per cent yield and comes with a locked-in 2.5 per cent annual rent increase, supplemented by an agreed turnover rent linked to sales performance.
Markets
Private equity firm TPG Capital has agreed to buy entertainment venue company Funlab for $250m.
The deal comes after Funlab is understood to have staged a strong recovery from trading disruptions this year linked to COVID-19.
Funlab owns Strike Bowling bars, Sky Zone indoor trampoline parks and Holy Moley mini-golf and last was in the cross hairs of rival private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners.
Funlab also expected its annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to increase by 62 per cent to $29m before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Analysts added that the two key drivers of earnings growth were the rollout of Holey Moley and Archie Brothers entertainment venues and sales growth driven by venue refurbishments and co-branding opportunities.
A string of high profile AFL and cricket stars as well as finance boss Magellan chairman Hamish Douglass have become backers in fast-growing burritos and tacos chain Guzman y Gomez.
Mr Douglass said Magellan was utilising its long-held expertise in the quick services restaurants space with the $86.8 million investment for a 10 per cent stake in Guzman y Gomez. The investment puts an enterprise value on Guzman y Gomez of over $800 million.
At the same time the Athletic Ventures investment fund founded by Greater Western Sydney Giants player Matt de Boer has also emerged with an undisclosed stake in the restaurant chain. Backers of the Athletic Ventures fund include NBA player Matthew Dellavedova, cricketer Mitchell Starc, Wallabies captain Michael Hooper, and GWS Giants player Toby Greene.
Transurban has poached ANZ's chief financial officer Michelle Jablko as the $38 billion toll road giant beds down a refreshed senior management team in anticipation of a big year of dealmaking in 2021.
Transurban said Ms Jablko, who has been the big four bank's CFO for four and a half years, would bring extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions and the reshaping of global portfolios to the infrastructure group, following a long career as an investment banker with UBS and Greenhill Australia.
Tuesday, losses from miners and major banks caused Australia's stock market to finish lower on Tuesday, after a reportedly new strain of COVID-19 in the UK hit European stocks and Sydney battles with its own resurgence of the virus.
The S&P/ASX200 finished 1.05 per cent lower on Tuesday at 6599.6.
BHP Group was down 1.8 per cent to $42.89, Rio Tinto fell 2.7 per cent to $115.41 and Fortescue Metals Group dropped 2.3 per cent to $23.48.
The bottom performing stocks at close were Silver Lake Resources down 6.79 per cent and Ramelius Resources down 5.97 per cent.
The Australian dollar was 0.1 per cent down to 75.75 US cents.
European shares fell on Monday in their worst session in almost two months.
The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 2.3 per cent, its lowest close since mid-November, after the UK imposed an effective lockdown and reversed plans to ease curbs over Christmas.
Over in the US, at one point during Monday trade, the Dow took a sharp fall, but financials have helped the blue-chip benchmark recover to finish just above its open (+0.1pc) at 30,216 points.
The S&P 500 shed 0.4 per cent after a rocky trade and the Nasdaq was down 0.1 per cent.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-22/asx-markets-22-december-falling-covid/13006016