![]() It's Hunt the Analyst out there among the brokers at the moment, thanks to Monday's defection by Salomon Smith Barney banking analyst Craig Turton to Deutsche Bank Hong Kong. GPU didn't say a lot, but then they paid $2.55 billion for it back in 1997, and the exchange rate has gone the wrong way since. ![]() We don't know what the fee was but suspect it was a lot more exciting than poking about in this sharemarket at the moment. Singapore Power is a long-term client of Morgan Stanley via its Asian operations. Most of the focus in Tuesday's announcement was on Macquarie Bank, which handled the other side. Morgan Stanley are still small players in daily broking here, so they were cheering about having advised Singapore Power on its $2.1 billion acquisition of Victoria's high voltage grid from US utility GPU Inc. Qantas broke this week's 6 per cent fall after ABN Amro slapped a "sell" on the stock, firmimg 4c to $3.18 yesterday. Meanwhile, Qantas yesterday reported an 8.6 per cent rise in passenger numbers for April to 1.7 million compared with the same month last year, an 11.2 per cent increase in revenue passenger kilometres, and a 5.8 per cent increase in available seat kilometres. Meanwhile the Qantas board met yesterday amid growing speculation a touted special dividend could be off the agenda this year as the airline preserves its cash for a multi-billion-dollar fleet upgrade. Goldman's view is at odds with ABN Amro which this week slapped a sell on the stock suggesting a fall to $2.50 was not out of the question. Goldman said it considered Qantas to be "the most inexpensive airline stock in the global sector, even under a domestic meltdown scenario". Qantas Airways shares rose 4¢ yesterday to $3.18, breaking this week's 6 per cent fall, as investment bank Goldman Sachs Group released a bullish report putting a 12-month price target of $5.70 on the stock. It was issued originally at 30¢ in January. The stock closed unchanged at 30¢ yesterday, well up on a recent level of 16¢ but a long way from the $1.85 seen earlier this year. Assuming a very generous $10 a unit wholesale price, they appear to have taken $160,500 gross so far. The company noted that the $13 sale price per unit is retail, not wholesale. Hill and McLernon have retained a 30 per cent shareholding and have enough financial firepower to keep the business afloat for a while, since you would be pushed to say it is throwing off cash. The company's first quarter cash report stated that it had spent $2.3 million in the quarter and had $9.23 million left. The first story talked about "further and larger copy runs are expected to start soon", but there was nothing more on that this week, nearly three months later. Earlier this week the company said it "has invoiced for approximately 16,500 units of the initial 100,000 placed with the distributor", which is chalk and cheese. Max stated at the end of March that the initial run of 100,000 units had been "sold out to London retailers". The company markets collectable information about soccer players to fans, having started with Manchester United and Leeds United. Max Multimedia Ltd, the Perth-based plaything of veteran investor Danny Hill, appears to have been a victim of excess enthusiasm about how it is going with its Mini-CD-ROM business. The other pet topic will be companies that recognise revenue when a contract is struck rather than when it is actually earned.ĪSIC had a lively stoush with Media & Entertainment Group in late 1998 on that one, since when it looks as though MEG has been a model of corporate decorum. It sounds as though June 30 will bring guaranteed attention from the regulator to any company that got a talking-to last year for slackness in its 1998-9 reporting. "The law requires the amount of all emoluments to be disclosed, including the value of options," the regulator thundered yesterday. In many cases the companies merely report the number of options issued and the exercise price, rather than laying out the total value of remuneration as is required by the Companies Law Review Act that came into force on July 1, 1998. It wasn't.Īnother area that appears to send ASIC spare is the woolly detail supplied by companies on executive options schemes, many of them major corporates. In one case, for instance, a company provided a concise financial report but noted that the full version was available on the company's website. With June 30 imminent, ASIC has fired a broadside at companies that have been economical with the financial reporting facts, apparently confusing conciseness with obfuscation and minimal effort.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |