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Business news from Australia and around the world: companies, deals, earnings, regulation and the people running them.
1807 articles · page 5 of 38
Mining companies in Queensland's remote North West Minerals Province are adding jobs as drilling expands and former mines reopen, but a critical shortage of skilled workers threatens to stall the boom. Industry leaders warn they cannot fill positions across the region's many projects, with the national mining sector requiring an estimated 24,000 extra workers by 2027.
Chancellor John Healey is expected to announce a 3.9% increase to the UK minimum wage in Wednesday's Budget, with younger workers aged 18 to 20 receiving the same percentage rise as those over 21 for the first time, breaking from recent government efforts to narrow the age-based pay gap.
DoorDash announced on Thursday that it has agreed to acquire rival Instacart for $17 billion, bringing together two major players in on-demand delivery. The deal, approved by the boards of both companies, is expected to close toward the end of 2027 or in the first half of 2028.
A dispute between the Greater Melbourne Soccer Association and Football Victoria over proposed rule changes has escalated, with the association lodging a complaint with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission over concerns the changes will force clubs into more expensive leagues and stifle competition.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley told police chiefs at a private conference that public protests against his company’s automatic license plate readers are not organic and are largely driven by paid actors and Russian bots, according to leaked audio obtained by 404 Media. Langley made the comments Sunday at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference in Orlando, Florida.
Pennsylvania-based EQT will become the nation’s largest natural gas producer through a $12.8 billion all-stock acquisition of rival Range Resources, the companies announced Monday, positioning itself to meet what it expects to be a surge in demand from power generation, data centers and liquefied natural gas exports.
The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states on Monday filed a lawsuit against Dollar General, the nation's largest discount chain, accusing the retailer of systematically overcharging customers at the register while advertising lower prices on shelves and in promotions. The FTC alleges the practice extracted "millions of dollars in unlawful overcharges" from shoppers who rely on the chain's low prices to stretch their budgets.
A version of the S&P 500 that strips out artificial intelligence stocks briefly pulled ahead of the standard index this year and is now trading neck-and-neck, as investors rotate away from technology and into defensive sectors, according to data from Goldman Sachs and CNBC analysis.
The National Basketball Association has named Kalshi and Polymarket as its preferred prediction-market exchanges, becoming the latest major US sports league to embrace the industry while also signing a cooperation agreement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The partnerships include integrity protections, restrictions on the types of contracts offered and information-sharing requirements, the league said Monday.
Visa and Mastercard are threatened with a potential £5bn lawsuit in the UK after law firms lodged an application at the Competition Appeal Tribunal seeking compensation for businesses allegedly overcharged on customer card payments since October 2020.
Some economists see Microsoft's offer of voluntary buyouts to roughly a quarter of its global workforce as part of a broader tech industry shift toward capital-intensive AI investment. The company expects uptake below five per cent, a spokesperson told Fortune, while its capital expenditures, including finance leases, rose about 30 per cent to $45.2 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30, CNBC reported.
The Dangote refinery's initial public offering closed on Tuesday after drawing applications from investors in 119 countries, with domestic and retail demand alone covering the $1.6 billion target in what is Africa's largest ever share sale.
The European Commission has formally accepted an action plan submitted by Temu to remedy breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA). The plan, which follows a non-compliance decision and a €200 million fine in May, sets out five measures to mitigate the spread of illegal content and products on the platform.
Royal Mail has paused the final stage of its second-class delivery shake-up until the new year, deferring the extension of alternate-weekday deliveries to 107 remaining hubs until 11 January, following pressure from the postal workers' union and a warning from Prime Minister Andy Burnham over repeated service failures.
The UK government is considering giving carmakers incentives to add 'vehicle-to-grid' technology to electric vehicles, allowing them to charge cheaply overnight and sell power back at peak times. However, campaign groups have warned the credits could have the perverse effect of permitting more sales of polluting petrol cars in the near term.
Oil prices continued to decline on Tuesday as renewed diplomatic efforts to end the US-Iran war raised hopes of a de-escalation in the wider regional conflict, with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Iranian officials holding talks in Tehran and US President Donald Trump signalling he is weighing a deal with Tehran.
California’s public pension fund Calpers reduced its combined direct shareholdings in the Magnificent Seven technology stocks by 26% in the first half of 2026, the Financial Times reported, as concerns over stretched valuations and the payoff from surging AI investment fuel a broader repositioning toward private equity. The move came alongside a warning from Elon Musk that financing for AI data centre companies has largely dried up, triggering a pre-market sell-off in neocloud providers CoreWeave, Cipher Digital and IREN.
Apollo Global Management is finalising a deal to buy nearly a 10% stake in Mubadala Capital, the alternative asset manager subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal is expected to be announced later Monday morning, with financial terms not immediately known.
Verizon lifted its annual forecast for wireless subscriber additions on Monday and said it had signed an AI infrastructure deal worth more than $2 billion with Amazon Web Services, as the carrier bets on strong demand for its simplified plans.
Nvidia announced on Tuesday it will invest $3 billion in Meta, the first concrete commitment from chipmakers in the social media giant's record $95 billion stock offering to fund AI infrastructure. The deepening partnership, which includes expanded work on Meta's Vera Rubin systems and Muse AI agent, comes as Elon Musk warns that more than 200 neocloud data centre providers face a funding crisis and consolidation.
European wholesale gas prices hit €97 (£81) per megawatt-hour on Monday, their highest since 2022, as temperatures fell across the continent and reports of planned US and Israeli strikes on Iran deepened winter supply fears.
Shares of major neocloud companies fell Monday after Elon Musk said that more than 200 of them could collapse, adding to investor jitters over debt in the AI data center sector.
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency has told state emergency managers that FEMA will shift financial responsibility for disaster preparation and recovery to states and localities within the next six months, a move that could cost New York billions of dollars in federal disaster relief, officials and experts say.
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday at its final policy meeting before the US midterm elections, keeping the benchmark rate at one of the highest pre-election levels in more than 20 years as inflation holds at 3.7% and oil prices remain elevated.
The UK government is set to announce proposals that would make it more expensive for employers to train workers aged over 25, in a bid to steer apprenticeship funding towards younger people. Business leaders warn the move could undermine the very goal of tackling youth unemployment, arguing that it simply moves opportunities around instead of creating new ones.
UK retail giant Tesco is planning to replace VMware with the open-source Proxmox platform across its thousands of stores, a job advertisement reveals. The move comes amid a legal dispute with VMware over contract pricing, which Tesco claims involved a 175 percent increase, and as the company modernises its edge infrastructure.
Bern Rogers, from Bristol, has been awarded £127,500 by the High Court for the care she provided to her mother Sheila, who had dementia, over two and a half years at home. The ruling recognises an informal contract between mother and daughter. Her brother, executor of the estate, intends to appeal the amount.
SoftBank Group plans to invest $50 billion in Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said, with the spending aimed at artificial intelligence, new technologies and data centers, according to a Bloomberg report.
Accelerate Resources has begun the first modern drill test of a 12-kilometre manganese corridor at its Woodie Woodie North project in Western Australia's East Pilbara, launching a five-week reverse circulation program at the Gingarrigan prospect. The maiden 3500-metre campaign will test a corridor where systematic mapping has identified more than 200 manganese outcrops, with rock chips grading up to 59.6 per cent manganese.
Australia's second-largest fresh produce supplier, Perfection Fresh Australia, has admitted to cartel conduct by fixing the price of broccoli, cauliflower and iceberg lettuce sold to Aldi stores in New South Wales, and has agreed to pay a $12 million penalty. The admission came as part of an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) civil action before the Federal Court.
Red Metal Limited has reported strong column leach test results from the fresh granite ore that dominates the Kary Zone of its Sybella rare earths project near Mount Isa in Queensland, clearing a major metallurgical hurdle ahead of the project's prefeasibility study.
SpaceX has signed a binding commitment letter for roughly $40 billion in GPU leases with an entity managed by Apollo Global Management, according to a regulatory filing. The deal, which SpaceX called the largest committed GPU financing, will see Apollo buy Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin chips and related server hardware and lease them to SpaceX over about five years. Elon Musk used the announcement to warn that debt markets have largely shut off funding for companies whose revenue depends solely on AI data centers, predicting widespread consolidation among the more than 200 neocloud providers.
Oil prices have climbed to near six-month highs even as shipments through the Strait of Hormuz return to close to pre-war levels, with US President Donald Trump warning it is "getting to be decision time" on whether to strike a deal with Iran or resume US attacks. In an interview on Fox News on Sunday, Trump said: "I have a decision to make. Do I finish it off, which would be very easy to do, or do I make a deal?... We don't play games."
Arla high-protein pudding cups have been recalled across Queensland, NSW and the ACT after glass fragments were found in products sold at major supermarkets. The recall covers 200g salted caramel and chocolate flavoured puddings sold at Coles, Costco, IGA, Harris Farm and Supabarn.
Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, a 31-year-old heir to the $88 billion fortune behind eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica, has escalated his public feud with chief executive Francesco Milleri, blaming him for a collapse in the company's share price just as strong quarterly results strengthen Milleri's hand ahead of his reappointment next year.
A cabinet split has emerged over whether to approve drilling at the Rosebank oilfield, with Chancellor John Healey in favour and Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh understood to be leaning towards rejection. The decision, expected before the end of the year, has sparked internal tensions and could see Prime Minister Andy Burnham make the final call.
Newport's Pacific Seafood processing plant returned to regular operations on Monday, a day after a fire in a freezing building forced an evacuation of the Yaquina Bay waterfront over concerns about ammonia contamination.
The corporate regulator will not take enforcement action against Super Retail Group or its directors over the scandal that led to the sacking of former chief executive Anthony Heraghty, the company has announced. The group will, however, fund Heraghty’s defence against the legal action brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, which alleges he breached director’s duties by failing to disclose a relationship with a senior employee.
Australian wineries and breweries are shutting down as alcohol consumption drops to record lows, with one Hunter Valley winemaker reporting revenue has fallen from $20,000 a week to just $2,000. The iconic Tasmanian brewer Boag closed last week, and wine exports have hit their lowest level in 22 years, as cost-of-living pressures and changing habits reshape the industry.
The Western Australian government has demanded Deloitte repay the $166,000 it received for a feasibility study on merging the University of Western Australia, Curtin University and Murdoch University, after errors were uncovered including hallucinated AI references and cost discrepancies of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Financial markets are pricing in four or five interest rate rises from the Bank of England over the next year, but City economists believe such aggressive tightening is unlikely given limited evidence that higher energy costs are feeding into broader inflation.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at GTC Berlin on October 22 that the company is considering charging around $2,000 per GPU per year for the software needed to run AI agents on its infrastructure, a pricing model that could generate $50 billion over five years under one scenario outlined by analysts. Huang stressed that software licensing will become an increasingly major part of Nvidia’s business but has not confirmed when the fee would take effect or which products it would cover.
Billy Evans, the longtime partner of convicted Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is facing growing scrutiny over his Austin-based startup Haemanthus, which claims to use laser technology to detect disease from blood, saliva, and urine. Interest in the company has surged since the release of the documentary "You Can See Everything" on Oct. 16, but Haemanthus has yet to launch a commercial product or publish independent data validating its technology. The company has reportedly raised up to $20 million and holds at least one patent, but its chief technology officer resigned in March, and questions remain about what the startup has actually built.
The US military has granted Elon Musk's SpaceX access to restricted space tracking data, a decision that industry observers say raises national security questions and could hand monopoly control of Earth's orbit traffic to a company owned by a major political donor.
The UK’s retail sector is outstripping other industries in offering enhanced paternity leave, new research has found, as more than 100 Labour MPs call on Prime Minister Andy Burnham to improve the national entitlement ahead of the upcoming budget.
Nvidia has entered a preliminary partnership with German energy company PreussenElektra GmbH to explore converting decommissioned nuclear power plant sites in Germany into high-performance AI data centers, the companies announced on October 21st.
A recruitment entrepreneur whose companies collapsed leaving debts of more than £3 million, including over £1 million to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), appears to have launched his operation for a third time, according to an investigation by The Guardian's Simon Goodley.
Insolvent businesses bought back by their former owners in pre-pack administration deals are significantly more likely to fail again and give far less money to creditors, according to research commissioned by the Guardian from Turnstone Intelligence. The study analysed more than 1,700 administrations from 2019 and found that 44 per cent of connected-party pre-packs had resulted in a second insolvency by July 2026, compared with 26 per cent where the buyer was unconnected to the original company.