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Business news from Australia and around the world: companies, deals, earnings, regulation and the people running them.
1821 articles · page 15 of 38
Netflix said Thursday that Bela Bajaria will step down as chief content officer after nearly a decade at the company, with former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice taking over the role effective Oct. 26. The leadership change lands a day after the streaming giant eliminated approximately 6% of its workforce, about 1,000 jobs.
Hundreds of security screening staff at Sydney Airport walked off the job on Friday, staging two four-hour strikes in both domestic and international terminals after failed crisis talks with contractor Certis over pay, job security and working conditions.
· 5 sourcesDanika Mason has announced she is leaving the Today show, becoming the fourth high-profile presenter to depart the program since June. The sports presenter, who is going on maternity leave, said she had made the tough decision not to return when she comes back next year.
· 6 sourcesPorsche on Thursday unveiled the Mission S concept car, a midengine vehicle that previews a new design direction and a flagship model above its iconic 911. The debut is part of the 'Sportwagenschmiede '35' turnaround plan announced last week, which aims to restore profitability through higher-end products and lower sales volumes.
· 3 sourcesKFC's US restaurants will abandon PepsiCo and pour Coca-Cola beverages starting next year, the first time in decades the Yum Brands chain has changed its drink supplier. The company announced the move on Thursday as part of an effort to win back American diners from rivals such as Chick-fil-A and Popeyes.
· 2 sourcesThe first wave of redundancies has struck the Whyalla steelworks, with more than 250 workers finishing up this week following last month's announcement that hundreds of positions would be lost. Among them is 58-year-old Barry Drage, a furnace man who has worked at the plant for about two decades, who said he hopes to remain in Whyalla but may be forced to move to Adelaide.
· 2 sourcesAustralian motorists face another year of double-digit premium increases, with comprehensive car insurance costs rising almost 60% since 2023 and nearly doubling since 2020, according to a journalist's analysis that mirrors broader industry trends flagged by the corporate regulator.
· 2 sourcesA $48 LED ceiling light bought on Amazon Australia kept burning for more than 30 seconds after a laboratory flame was removed, and remained on sale months after Lighting Council Australia warned the retailer, before being pulled after media inquiries.
· 2 sourcesWithings has begun requiring new customers to pay for a subscription to sync health data from its smartwatches and scales to third-party apps, following an October 13 change that puts automatic syncing behind the paid Withings Plus tier.
RNZ has reported that petrol prices in New Zealand are rising even as global oil prices fall, though the article's full analysis is not available in the provided excerpt.
Sydney-based McKinsey partner Chris Bradley has resigned from the board of Opportunity International Australia, just days after the global consulting firm stripped him of his leadership role at the McKinsey Global Institute following online comments that questioned the workplace "glass cliff" phenomenon affecting female executives.
· 3 sourcesAnduril CEO Brian Schimpf has defended the defence technology company's record of winning large US government contracts, pushing back on ethics questions raised by co-founder Palmer Luckey's closeness to the Trump administration while Anduril competes for lucrative Pentagon work.
· 2 sourcesTesla unveiled its second-generation Roadster at a SpaceX test site near Waco, Texas, demonstrating a car that used cold gas thrusters to drive up an inverted ramp, spin in midair, and land. CEO Elon Musk said the vehicle will enter production in 2028, and the company's website opened reservations for three trims, with deposits starting at $50,000.
· 7 sourcesRamp, the expense management and financial operations platform, announced on Thursday that it has raised $1.85 billion in new funding, valuing the company at $60 billion just four months after a $44 billion valuation. The round was co-led by Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Sands Capital, and Avenir Growth, with participation from a lengthy list of other investors including Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Coatue, and General Catalyst.
SK Hynix's flash memory unit Solidigm is seeking US approval to send American chipmaking equipment to its factory in Dalian, China, as a condition for proceeding with plans to build a semiconductor factory in the United States, according to Reuters, citing anonymous sources.
· 2 sourcesCoreWeave’s credit default swaps have soared into distress territory, with the spread on five-year contracts jumping 33% in a week, as investors increasingly question the financial sustainability of the AI infrastructure buildout. The neocloud company’s stock extended losses on Thursday after a 15.5% plunge the previous day, while yields on its 2031 bonds reached 15.78%.
The International Energy Agency said Thursday that member countries will release more than 20 million barrels of diesel from stockpiles "as soon as possible" in response to a global surge in fuel prices.
Thames Water, the UK's largest water company, has asked its creditors for another £2.4bn, warning it will run out of cash by the end of 2026 or the start of 2027 before a longer-term recapitalisation deal can be completed.
· 3 sourcesTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has posted a record profit for the sixth straight quarter, but the results highlight an intensifying struggle: the company cannot make chips fast enough to satisfy the artificial intelligence industry's insatiable demand. With customers including Nvidia, AMD, Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta and OpenAI all competing for limited factory space, analysts warn that capacity constraints could soon become a bottleneck for the entire AI sector.
· 2 sourcesSenior banking executives expect the sector to be "on the menu" when Chancellor John Healey delivers his Budget on 28 October, with unions stepping up calls for a tax raid of at least £9 billion on bank profits.
· 6 sourcesThe cost of balancing Great Britain's power grid has surged to near-record highs of almost £50m a day, driven by payments to turn off windfarms in areas of oversupply and switch on gas plants where electricity is needed, with the expenses passed on to household energy bills.
· 2 sourcesTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) is sending personnel to assess the construction and power availability of US datacenters as it prepares to invest billions of dollars in additional chipmaking capacity, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said during the company's third-quarter earnings call. While AI demand remains strong enough to outstrip supply, Wei warned that consumer and price-sensitive market segments face pressure from rising component costs and macroeconomic uncertainty.
Southwest Airlines will scrap its A-List and A-List Preferred loyalty statuses on Jan. 1 and replace them with silver, gold and platinum tiers that mirror rival carriers, as the airline works to increase revenue and reward its biggest spenders. The move is the latest step in an overhaul that has already ended open seating and two free checked bags.
· 2 sourcesElon Musk has publicly criticized memory chip manufacturers for what he calls 'extortionate' pricing during an unprecedented shortage of DRAM and high-bandwidth memory, while singling out Micron for praise as a 'reasonable' supplier.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has told Sky and ITV she is 'minded to intervene' in the proposed £1.6bn acquisition of ITV's media and entertainment division, citing reasonable grounds to believe the deal could affect free expression in the media and the variety of Britain's news landscape.
· 2 sourcesOpenAI has accused a former employee of taking more than 100 confidential files about its unreleased hardware back to Apple, escalating a trade secrets dispute between the two companies that began with Apple's own lawsuit in July.
David Zervos, the newly appointed counselor to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, dismissed the IMF's warning about America's rising debt on Thursday, arguing the institution's own forecasting record is riddled with errors. His remarks came amid an ongoing debate over whether strong U.S. growth can resolve a $40 trillion debt burden.
ASML, the Dutch maker of advanced chipmaking equipment, said demand fuelled by the AI boom shows no sign of slowing, with customers already placing orders for tools to be delivered in 2029 and 2030. The company posted a net profit of €4.96 billion for the third quarter of 2026 and lifted its full-year sales forecast.
U.S. Treasury yields fell sharply on Thursday as investors sold off technology shares and rotated into government bonds, following fresh inflation data that came in hotter than economists had forecast.
Wholesale prices in the United States climbed 1.3% in September and 6.3% from a year earlier, the largest monthly and annual gains since 2022, as energy costs linked to the war with Iran drove inflation well above economist forecasts.
Chancellor John Healey has pledged to deliver a budget that gives British consumers and businesses a "breathing space" when he delivers his first tax and spending statement on 28 October, while insisting the government will stick to Labour's fiscal rules. Speaking in Bangkok after the International Monetary Fund annual meetings, Healey acknowledged rising costs but declined to be drawn on specific tax measures.
· 3 sourcesTwo workers were killed and a third seriously injured in an explosion at Intel's Kiryat Gat plant in southern Israel on Wednesday, according to The Times of Israel. Police suspect a gas cylinder malfunction caused the blast, and fire crews said the fire involved nitrogen trifluoride, a toxic gas used to clean chipmaking equipment. Intel has not commented on the victims or on potential production impacts.
Aardman, the employee-owned British animation studio behind Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, has missed its target of returning to profit, recording a £1.1m loss for 2025 despite an 8% rise in revenue to £20.4m.
· 2 sourcesAustralia's trade remedies commission has found that Chinese aluminium windows and doors were dumped on the local market, causing material injury to Australian manufacturers, and has imposed financial securities on importers from today to prevent further harm.
· 2 sourcesFederal Court documents released on Thursday have laid out the Australian Securities and Investments Commission's detailed allegations against former Super Retail Group chief executive Anthony Heraghty. The statement of claim alleges Heraghty had a romantic relationship with the company's former HR boss Jane Kelly between February and at least July 2022, that the relationship resumed in 2023, and involved overseas trips and hotel stays. ASIC is suing Heraghty for allegedly breaching his directors' duties and providing misleading information to the board and the financial market about the relationship.
· 5 sourcesBlackRock CEO Larry Fink has warned that a moratorium on data center construction would push the United States into a recession, while sounding the alarm over the country's mounting national debt, which he described as having reached $40 trillion.
Global technology stocks tumbled again on Thursday as investors retreated from the artificial intelligence trade, dragging copper-exposed miner BHP Group down 4.7% on the ASX, while separate data showed UK growth beating forecasts and Australia's unemployment rate climbing to a five-year high.
· 3 sourcesUK households have paid almost £14,000 on average in additional costs for mortgages, loans, energy and water bills over the past five years, according to a Trades Union Congress report urging the chancellor to tackle soaring living costs at next month's budget.
· 2 sourcesTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) reported a record third-quarter profit on Thursday, beating analyst estimates as relentless demand for artificial intelligence chips continued to fuel the world's largest contract chipmaker's growth.
· 3 sourcesThe UK economy grew by 0.1% in August, official figures show, defying City forecasts of a contraction and giving the chancellor a surprise boost less than a fortnight before his first budget.
· 3 sourcesAustralia has been awarded its first Michelin stars, with 11 restaurants in South Australia receiving the distinction. Magill Estate Restaurant in Adelaide was the only venue to receive two stars, while 10 others were awarded one star each.
Bitcoin has dropped back below $81,000 as uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's next move weighs on risk appetite, with South Korea's Kospi index plunging 8% in the same session. Bets on an October rate hike briefly spiked to nearly 50% after Wednesday's inflation report before cooling, leaving traders on edge.
· 2 sourcesSouth Australian families will save hundreds of dollars a year under legislation to abolish materials and services charges at public schools from 2027, with the state government estimating combined savings of $64 million in the first year.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has launched legal action against Kmart in the Federal Court, alleging the retailer sold millions of bottles of OXX nail glue without adequate burn warnings and failed to test button-battery-powered watches for safety. Kmart expressed disappointment at the decision and said it regrets any injuries caused.
· 7 sourcesFour men have been charged with extortion after CCTV footage revealed them confronting the director of a property developer at a Flemington cafe in December 2024, a Melbourne court heard on October 14.
· 3 sourcesASX-listed Iron Bear Resources has regained full ownership of its namesake iron ore project in Canada's Labrador Trough after partner Vale walked away from a farm-in deal, leaving the junior miner in control of a deposit its prefeasibility study valued at US$9 billion on a conservative scenario.
· 3 sourcesJio Platforms, India's largest telecom operator backed by Meta and Google, is seeking to raise up to 302 billion rupees ($3.2 billion) in what would be the country's largest ever initial public offering in rupee terms. The company will sell 270 million shares priced between 1,065 and 1,119 rupees apiece, with the subscription period running from October 21 to October 23.
Locksley Resources has moved to strengthen its position in Australia's copper sector, securing an option over the Iron Duke project from Sky Metals and creating a 1000-square-kilometre copper-gold district in central New South Wales.
· 2 sources