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Business news from Australia and around the world: companies, deals, earnings, regulation and the people running them.
1807 articles · page 20 of 38
Sydney's rental market is still extremely tight even as vacancy rates tick up to their highest level in more than four years, leaving renters competing for properties that can disappear from listings within minutes, according to Domain's September quarter Rent Report.
SpaceX announced an agreement to purchase a nationwide spectrum portfolio from Grain Management, aiming to expand its Starlink internet into mobile service, triggering a sharp sell-off in telecom stocks on Friday. Verizon fell roughly 7 percent, heading for its worst day since 2002. T-Mobile dropped 12 percent and AT&T shed around 10 percent, while SpaceX stock edged up about 1 percent.
AI data centre company Firmus Technologies has cancelled its planned $7 billion float on the Australian Securities Exchange, scrapping what would have been the biggest IPO since Telstra listed in 1997. The Sydney-based company, which was seeking a $43.7 billion market capitalisation, said it would instead pursue private funding and attempt to list on the Nasdaq next year.
Former City trader Christian Bittar has become the eighth person to have a conviction for rigging interest rates quashed, after the court overturned his 2018 conspiracy to defraud conviction on Friday. The ruling follows the acquittal of five former Barclays traders on Wednesday and comes just over a year after the UK Supreme Court overturned convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo.
The European Union has reached a landmark agreement with China to halve the country's hybrid car exports to the bloc, in what officials are calling a first-of-its-kind deal to defuse mounting trade tensions without triggering a trade war. EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič announced the deal in Beijing on Friday, saying it would cut Chinese hybrid exports by "several millions" over the next four years.
A new Federal Reserve survey reveals that the ability of American families to stay current on their debts has deteriorated to levels not seen since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, with the share of families behind on payments soaring from about 12% to nearly 20% between 2022 and 2025.
Meta has banned ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, from advertising across its platforms in the United States and several other countries, escalating the rivalry between the two social media giants. The ban, which took effect on Thursday, restricts paid marketing messages from ByteDance as well as third-party ads that link to TikTok.
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries announced Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Weltruza, a once-monthly injectable formulation of the antipsychotic olanzapine for adults with schizophrenia. The Israel-based company expects to launch the drug in the United States in the coming weeks.
Wall Street’s push to package data center investments as a mainstream real estate bet is facing headwinds. Blackstone’s Digital Infrastructure Trust, a newly formed real estate investment trust that debuted on the NYSE in May, has fallen roughly 16% from its IPO price, with shares closing below $17 on Thursday. The fund’s performance reflects growing risks from public backlash and state-level moratoriums on data center construction, even as financial firms pitch AI infrastructure as a portfolio diversifier.
Margin borrowing by retail investors has reached record levels, with brokerages reporting surging demand as individual traders borrow against their portfolios to buy more stocks. A 29-year-old engineering consultant in Houston who lives with his mother has amassed more than $156,000 in margin debt trading Tesla options, illustrating both the potential rewards and dangers of the practice.
Tax cuts for Britain's biggest banks have deprived the government of £6bn in revenue since 2023, according to analysis by the Trades Union Congress, which is urging Chancellor John Healey to increase the bank surcharge in the forthcoming budget and force lenders to pay their 'fair share'.
Shein, the online fast-fashion retailer founded in China, increased UK sales by just over a quarter last year to £2.58bn, overtaking British rival Asos, according to accounts filed at Companies House. Pre-tax profits rose 18% to £45.2m and the company paid £11.2m in current tax, up from £9.6m a year earlier.
Delta Air Lines on Friday cut its full-year 2026 profit forecast and missed earnings estimates for the first time in two years, after a fuel price surge linked to the Iran war pushed up costs. Chief executive Ed Bastian said travel demand remains strong despite rising fares.
Bermuda-based bitcoin life insurer Meanwhile has raised $37.5 million from existing investors in a round led by Bain Capital Crypto, bringing its total funding past $180 million as it expands beyond the US with products aimed at wealthy families in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.
Tom Watson, the former Labour deputy leader who recently joined US tech firm Palantir as a senior vice-president, has warned that UK ministers must not let 'mob rule' dictate how public contracts are awarded, as the company faces mounting political backlash over its deepening involvement in British public services.
Two landmark West Australian dairy brands, Mundella Foods and the Margaret River Dairy Company, have been rescued from liquidation through a sale to local processor Artisanal Market. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, will keep the brands on supermarket shelves and shift production to an export-approved facility near Margaret River, with the original Mundijong plant mothballed due to its poor condition.
Elon Musk has escalated his public attack on Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani, mockingly calling him the country's 'prime minister' and directly challenging him to allow Starlink to compete, as SpaceX's satellite internet service remains stuck in India's regulatory process.
OpenAI has told investors it expects to generate $50bn in revenue this year, about $20bn less than it had signaled just last month, a revelation that rattled US tech stocks and raised fresh questions about the pace of demand for artificial intelligence.
The Friedkin Group, the American owners of Everton, are exploring the sale of a controlling interest in the Premier League club, less than two years after completing a takeover believed to be worth in excess of £400m. In a statement on 9 October, the group said the time was right “to consider the next chapter” after stabilising the club and opening its new stadium.
The world's richest person, Elon Musk, has become a mixed blessing for Wall Street, generating lucrative fees from mega-financings while disrupting market dynamics in ways that may delay other blockbuster IPOs and burden bank balance sheets, according to a columnist.
A Sydney currency trader sacked for working from Singapore without approval has won an unfair dismissal case, but failed to be awarded compensation. The Fair Work Commission ruled on Wednesday that Charles Graham had been unfairly dismissed by HIFX Australia, trading as Xe, in December last year.
Adidas has launched legal action against Australian online retailer White Fox, accusing it of infringing its iconic three-stripe trademark by selling clothing with a four-stripe design. The case had its first mention in the Federal Court on Friday, October 9.
Firmus Technologies, the Australian AI datacentre startup, has withdrawn its plans for one of the country's biggest ever stock market listings, just five days after the offer was launched. The IPO had been set to raise more than $7bn at $11 a share, valuing the company at $44bn, before promised investor demand evaporated.
Virgin has unveiled a mock-up of its future cross-Channel train, pledging to create “something genuinely new” as it gears up to launch rail services from London to continental Europe in 2030, offering the first direct competition to Eurostar since the Channel tunnel opened. The group has ordered 12 trains from manufacturer Alstom and confirmed UK track access until at least 2040 through an agreement with the Office of Rail and Road.
The Royal College of Pharmacy has become the second major UK health body to cut ties with Israeli drug firm Teva UK, dropping the company as a sponsor and exhibitor at its annual conference next month after pressure from pro-Palestine campaigners.
Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) has written to Trump Mobile alleging the company failed to obtain necessary authorizations for its international calling service and did not submit a required plan for combating robocalls, according to a letter released today. The concerns come after reports that hackers stole personal data from 3,615 customers and a prior incident in which a vendor exposed customer information online.
UK water companies made more than £340m in revenue last year by accepting billions of litres of industrial and commercial wastewater into sewage treatment works not designed to remove most chemicals, leaving pollutants to pass into rivers, seas and farmland, a joint investigation has found.
AI data centre operator Firmus has withdrawn its application to list on the Australian Securities Exchange, scrapping what was set to be one of Australia's biggest share market floats, after citing recent market volatility and conditions that would not reflect its long-term growth prospects.
Australian data centre operator Firmus, backed by Nvidia and counting OpenAI as an anchor customer, is set to delay its planned initial public offering and is considering raising private capital instead, according to Bloomberg News. The move comes as sentiment towards AI has shifted sharply in recent weeks, with concerns over high valuations and whether massive spending on the technology will pay off.
Major supermarket coffee brands have quietly changed their marketing in response to bean prices surging to almost 50-year highs, with some products that were previously labelled '100 per cent arabica' now simply described as 'coffee' or as a blend that includes robusta, a more bitter variety.
A leading Australian telecommunications executive says connectivity has become as important as power or water for the nation's economy, as Infrastructure Australia formally recognises digital infrastructure alongside transport, energy and water in its national assessment. Chris Gilmore, senior director of enterprise business strategy at Optus, described the change as the biggest shift in recent years, as more of the economy depends on real-time digital operations from card payments to hospital records and logistics tracking.
SpaceX announced an agreement on Thursday to purchase a nationwide spectrum portfolio from Grain Management, sending shares of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile lower in extended trading. The deal, which requires Federal Communications Commission approval, involves up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum in the 800 MHz band.
Firmus has withdrawn its $43.7 billion initial public offering from the ASX, citing market volatility and saying the terms on which the offer could proceed would not appropriately reflect the strength of its business and long-term growth outlook. The decision, announced Friday morning, ends what would have been the largest float on the Australian exchange since Telstra in 1997.
Shares of Nvidia, Oracle, CoreWeave and other AI stocks sank on Thursday after OpenAI disclosed it had reached roughly $50 billion in annualized revenue at the end of September, a figure significantly lower than the $68 billion that had been widely reported late last month. The discrepancy stems from whether partner gross revenue is included, a detail that affects how investors compare OpenAI with rival Anthropic.
The Trump administration has suspended Microsoft and other tech companies from a permanent residency immigration program, accusing the software giant of abusing a system designed to hire foreign workers only when sufficient US workers are not available. Vice President JD Vance announced the suspension at a press conference on Thursday.
New York state has accused TikTok of conducting an experiment in which thousands of users, including children and teenagers, were unknowingly given non-working ‘ghost’ versions of safety features, according to an updated, sealed version of the state's 2024 lawsuit that was later ordered unsealed by a judge.
Australia is on track for a sovereign debt crisis that will see combined federal, state and territory government debt reach $2.5 trillion by the end of the decade, with a Standard & Poor's report warning that rising interest costs will destroy fiscal flexibility for almost every jurisdiction except Western Australia.
Previously undisclosed documents released as part of a Massachusetts lawsuit against ExxonMobil reveal that the company's own scientists expressed doubts about the effectiveness of climate solutions the oil giant publicly promoted, including biofuels and carbon capture technology.
Newly public court documents from a long-running Massachusetts lawsuit against ExxonMobil reveal that the company's own scientists internally questioned the viability of the climate solutions the firm publicly promoted. The documents, reported this week by Ars Technica and Inside Climate News, include a 1988 internal memo and more recent internal skepticism about the company's biofuels and carbon capture promises.
Birmingham Airport has announced a £2 billion expansion plan that could more than double its annual passenger capacity and generate tens of thousands of jobs. The draft plan, subject to an eight-week public consultation starting this month, includes upgraded terminals, additional aircraft stands, and improved surface access, with the first phase of development possible as early as 2027.
Waymo, the autonomous vehicle company under Alphabet, has closed a $5 billion debt financing (its first) from a consortium led by Blackstone, PIMCO and Sixth Street. The company said the financing provides financial flexibility as it scales commercial robotaxi operations in the United States and prepares to enter international markets.
Asos has confirmed that hackers accessed the personal information of millions of customers, including names, contact details and recent search histories, after breaching a third-party service provider by impersonating a trusted contact. The online fashion retailer said payment card details and passwords were not compromised, but its shares fell sharply when the attack became public on Tuesday.
Medium-term borrowing costs for the UK government hit a fresh 19-year high on Thursday, with the yield on 10-year gilts jumping to 5.515 percent, as a global bond selloff driven by rising inflation and Middle East tensions erodes the Treasury's fiscal buffer ahead of the 28 October budget.
Ripple, the crypto company, is now earning fees by financing leveraged stock bets after its $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, according to a CoinDesk report published October 8, 2026. The deal gives the company a foothold in a corner of Wall Street long run by banks.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) reported September revenue of NT$511.86 billion ($16.03 billion), a 54.6% increase compared to the same month last year, driven by sustained demand for advanced artificial intelligence chips. The figure was 0.6% lower than August's result. The company's third-quarter revenue came in at approximately NT$1.49 trillion. TSMC shares closed 1.35% lower ahead of the announcement.
Linkforce Managed Services has filed a writ in the Western Australia Supreme Court accusing a former operations manager of breaching his contract by using confidential information to try to secure a senior role at a direct competitor, Mader Group.
Watermans, the two-hat Barangaroo restaurant launched by Bentley Restaurant Group less than a year ago, has lost executive chef Darryl Martin and shifted its culinary focus from eastern Mediterranean to modern Greek, according to the restaurant's website and a statement from the chef.
Andrew McConnell and Jo McGann's Trader House restaurant group has begun transforming the St Kilda dining landmark Stokehouse, closing the downstairs casual restaurant immediately to reopen it as Marea Beach House and Bar on October 26. The more formal upstairs restaurant will retain the Stokehouse name and close for renovations on October 18, reopening on November 3.