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Business news from Australia and around the world: companies, deals, earnings, regulation and the people running them.
1825 articles · page 20 of 39
Fitness entrepreneur Tammy Hembrow, 32, has spoken about building her $50 million fitness empire from a social media account documenting her post-pregnancy recovery, and about tuning out years of public scrutiny as she prepares for the next stage of her career.
· 3 sourcesPetra Power, a startup founded in 2017, is developing solid oxide fuel cells that convert natural gas into electricity without combustion, aiming to provide efficient and lower-emission power for AI data centers and military vehicles. Founder Aaron Goodman said the technology offers significant fuel cost savings and a smaller physical footprint. The company is working with neoclouds and other infrastructure providers, with a target for first deployment in 2028 and full-scale production planned for 2029.
· 2 sourcesDistroKid has confirmed it is removing songs from streaming services in response to copyright claims from Universal Music Group, after musicians complained that their work was being deleted without warning. The takedowns follow a lawsuit UMG filed in September accusing the distribution service of running an "AI-slop pipeline."
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved Friday to assert regulatory authority over prediction markets, issuing a proposed rule that would formally define event contracts as swaps under federal law while carving out casino-style gambling products as outside its jurisdiction.
The cost of 13 years of independent education in Australia is projected to reach $800,000 by the end of the next decade, with The King's School in North Parramatta becoming the first high-fee school to release its 2027 fees, where year 12 tuition surpassed $50,000 before extra lunch fees and technology levies.
· 4 sourcesThe federal government has extended a decades-old exemption that allows cruise ships to circumvent Australian labour law, pushing the deadline from the end of this year to 2028. While new conditions require operators to permit collective bargaining and report complaints to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the Maritime Union of Australia warns that exploitation will become embedded in the industry.
· 2 sourcesA new documentary, ‘Jebediah: Are we OK?’, directed by Arlo Dean Cook and produced by Brooke Silcox, traces 30 years of Australian alternative rock through the eyes of Perth band Jebediah, offering both nostalgia for nineties kids and a window into an era for younger audiences.
· 3 sourcesTing-Wei "Willy" Sun, a third-party broker charged alongside Super Micro co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw and sales manager Ruei-Tsang "Steven" Chang, has pleaded guilty to conspiring to unlawfully divert Nvidia AI chips to China, according to Bloomberg. Sun entered the plea as part of an agreement with prosecutors and is expected to be sentenced on Sept. 8, 2027.
After 31 years in New York City's emergency medical services, Oren Barzilay retired at a salary of $59,000 and now warns young New Yorkers away from the job: "Don't come here. You are only going to hurt yourself." His warning comes as the city's more than 4,500 EMS workers remain locked in a years-long fight over wages and pay parity that has become an early test of Mayor Mamdani's young administration.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments this week in a case concerning Intel's 401(k) plan that could shape how employers evaluate private investments in retirement plans. The key question is whether employees must provide a specific benchmark to prove a plan sponsor breached its fiduciary duty through underperformance.
Nvidia GPUs, the most sought-after processors in AI, are now available through a widening range of channels, from the big cloud providers to hundreds of so-called neoclouds, as demand pushes the chipmaker's market capitalisation close to $6 trillion and drives expectations of an 89% year-over-year jump in quarterly revenue.
· 2 sourcesAxel Springer, the German media company that bought the Telegraph for £575m earlier this year, is preparing to cut between 50 and 100 jobs in the newsroom, according to sources familiar with the plans, raising questions about its pledge to invest in the newspaper.
Opal Tower in Sydney's west has been officially declared defect-free at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, ending a saga of nearly eight years that began with cracks appearing on level 10 on Christmas Eve 2018 and forced thousands to evacuate.
· 2 sourcesSmall business owners across Sydney are reintroducing minimum amounts for card payments and posting signs urging customers to pay cash, as they absorb thousands of dollars in electronic payment costs following the Reserve Bank of Australia's ban on card surcharges from October 1.
· 5 sourcesMicrosoft is reducing the total OneDrive storage available to subscribers of its 365 Family, Premium, and Pro tiers, replacing the existing per-user 1TB limit with a single shared pool that slashes maximum capacity by as much as 4TB for the highest-tier plans. New subscribers are affected immediately; existing users will see the change upon renewal after May 2, 2027.
Tesla has renamed its driver assistance package in Europe, replacing "Full Self-Driving (Supervised)" with "Assisted Driving" after German transport regulators said the FSD brand name was "somewhat misleading." The system keeps its American branding, where it is sold as a $99 per month subscription.
· 2 sourcesTom Cruise's new film 'Digger', a climate-change satire from Oscar-winning director Alejandro González Iñárritu, has opened to dismal box office numbers in Australia and the United States, putting it on track to become one of the biggest financial disasters in decades.
· 3 sourcesAn investigation by Nine newspapers has detailed how hundreds of armed police and soldiers cleared Ecuadorian villagers who spent more than 100 days blocking access to gold and copper concessions held by Hanrine Ecuadorian Exploration and Mining, a subsidiary wholly owned by Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting.
· 3 sourcesSydney'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.
· 3 sourcesSpaceX 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.
· 3 sourcesAI 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.
· 3 sourcesFormer 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.
· 3 sourcesThe 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.
· 3 sourcesA 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.
· 2 sourcesMargin 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.
· 2 sourcesTax 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'.
· 3 sourcesShein, 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.
· 2 sourcesDelta 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.
· 2 sourcesBermuda-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.
· 2 sourcesTom 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.
· 2 sourcesElon 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.
· 2 sourcesOpenAI 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.
· 2 sourcesThe 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.
· 2 sourcesThe 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.
· 3 sourcesA 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.
· 2 sourcesAdidas 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.
· 3 sourcesFirmus 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.
· 2 sourcesVirgin 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.
· 3 sourcesThe 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.
· 2 sourcesSen. 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.
· 3 sourcesAI 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.
· 2 sourcesAustralian 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.
· 2 sources