In late September Commonwealth Bank announced both the sale of its life insurance business and that they were looking at floating the bank’s funds management business Colonial First State GAM on the share market. Based on the strong performance of recent spin-offs investors are likely to have a close look... Show More

As reporting season finished last week, we have been very busy over the month meeting with management teams from various companies and property trusts. In this piece, we are looking to shed some light on the role that these meetings play in the investment process. Show More

During the months of February and August every year, the majority of Australian listed companies reveal their profit results and most provide guidance as to how they expect their businesses to perform in the upcoming year. Whilst we regularly meet with companies between reporting periods to gauge how their businesses... Show More

Earlier this month casino operator Crown Resorts announced a buy-back of up to 4.2% of its outstanding shares, which builds on the $500 million of stock the company had already bought back over the past 12 months. Despite this prima facie positive announcement Crown has fallen 9% in August as... Show More

Two weeks ago, shopping centre owner Vicinity announced it would buy back up to 5% of its stock on market after it delivered its full-year results on August 15. This delivered investors an immediate 5% bounce in the trust’s share price, as the market anticipated over $500 million of Vicinity’s... Show More

Since mid-June the oil price is up 15%, which has breathed fresh hope into beleaguered energy companies globally. The catalyst for the recovery in the oil price was the announcement that Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest producer, will limit oil exports coinicidentally as the Saudi's begin to start marketing what is... Show More

The last six months have been stressful for Australian equity investors, despite the calm suggested by the ASX200 delivering a total return of +3.2% (capital appreciation plus dividends). December’s Santa Claus rally/Trump reflation tradewent a bit sour in January, similar to the feeling given by excessive consumption of four litre... Show More

In my experience, most professional fund managers and equity analysts are frequently given unsolicited stock ideas from clients and friends. Generally, these are small companies, with a great idea that is either going to turn them into the next Amazon or revolutionise a particular industry. Frequently these companies are difficult... Show More

The Australian listed property sector has performed solidly over the past five years, climbing its way out of the depths of despair reached in March 2009. As many investors clearly recall, that the sector fell 70% between September 2007 and March 2009 as many over-geared trusts struggled to refinance debt,... Show More

Over the last two weeks, investors had a wild ride following bank reporting season. In addition, in last night’s Budget a surprise levy of 0.06% on the liabilities of Australia's five largest banks was announced. This move sparked a big sell-off in the shares of the four major banks on... Show More

Seemingly solid and financially stable companies are not always as strong and permanent as they may appear. In this week’s piece, we are going to look at blue chips on the ASX over the last quarter century that blew up, the factors that caused them to decline and some thoughts... Show More

In this note we will look at what is going on in listed property, the key themes to emerge over the past month from the profit results and how we expect listed property to perform over the next year. Given the name of our firm it would be remiss not... Show More

This week saw the end of reporting season for 180 of the ASX200 companies and around 2,000 of the companies listed on the ASX. Over the past month these companies revealed their profit results for the last six months and provided guidance as to how they expect their businesses to... Show More

As a long-term participant in the Australian equity markets, one would have to look back to August 2007 or nineteen reporting seasons before the words “QBE Insurance” and “Result of the Week” had been uttered in the same sentence. Show More

In our opinion, the result of the week was from integrated funeral business operator Invocare. Despite a reduction in the population mortality rate, management were able to deliver 10% earnings per share growth and 12% growth in dividends by both controlling costs, success in selling higher margin funeral products and... Show More

In our opinion, the result of the week was biotherapeutics company CSL’s half year results. Whilst the headline numbers were pre-announced in January, the granular details provided the market with greater confidence that CSL’s growth story will continue to deliver in the medium term. Show More

In our opinion the result of the week was Rio Tinto’s full year results that came out on Wednesday afternoon, though we recognise that we may be in the minority given the share price has been flat since then. Underlying profit of US$5.1 billion was ahead of expectations, despite the... Show More

In finance, there is a vast industry of market experts that attempt to provide guidance as to future moves in share prices. Often their predictions are based on nebulous macroeconomic factors such as concerns about rising bond yields or market attitude to risk. These factors, however, rarely have a significant... Show More

Since the US election, the ASX has rallied +4%, but strong gains in financials, energy and materials have been offset by losses in the “bond proxy” sectors of listed property, utilities and telecoms. The biggest question facing equity investors now isn’t so much rising bond yields, but rather the trajectory... Show More

Over the last few weeks, it appears that Gina Rinehart’s Australian Outback Beef (67% Hancock Prospecting/ 33% China's Shanghai CRED) has won the bidding war for the Adelaide-based pastoral company S.Kidman & Co Ltd. If this $365 million deal is approved by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), the combined... Show More