China’s stock market move into correction territory yesterday, while its property sector is being crunched … Kerry Stokes got a trifecta yesterday … The Japanese car market takes a dive … Another seven US banks bit the dust and were closed by regulators …
Kerry Stokes
Business As Usual: China moves to correction territory … trifecta for Stokes …
Mayne: Why the judge should make further inquiries on Seven deal
Before approving the deal between Seven and Westrac, Justice Jacobson should establish precisely what has gone on between Stokes, independent fund managers and the independent directors who are meant to representing the non-Stokes Seven shareholders.
Stokes savours his sweet merger victory
Kerry Stokes is this morning savoring victory in the heated Seven-WesTrac merger, with 88% of shareholders voting in favour of the deal. But a substantial number of retail shareholders remain unconvinced.
The final insult: Stokes refuses to attend Seven EGMs
Kerry Stokes has taken the unprecedented step of declaring that his job as executive chairman of Seven doesn’t include fronting retail investors at tomorrow’s shareholder meeting.
Stokes crafts a sensible compromise, now for the new directors
It’s game, set and match for Kerry Stokes’ conglomeration of his media and equipment empire, with institutional shareholders almost certain to approve the $2 billion related party transaction in Sydney next Tuesday.
Stokes’ successful merger hides behind-the-scenes campaign of spin
The Seven Network and WesTrac are set to merge, following a concerted campaign of intimidation and aggressive lobbying by the Seven-Stokes camp.
A challenger emerges for make-or-break sports rights
Upstart television business Fetch TV has emerged as an over-the-top bidder for the TV rights to the AFL from 2012. Malaysian billionaire T. Ananda Krishnan could shake up the local television landscape.
Excessive debt sees Kerry Stokes labelled ‘former billionaire’
The Camp Stokes roadshow swung through Melbourne yesterday but there was no attempt to make contact with Crikey or the shareholder activist who has gone half a dozen rounds with the former billionaire at various AGMs over the years.
How debt-laden Coates Hire takeover hurt Kerry Stokes
Just because Kerry Stokes wants to pay down some private debt without triggering a big tax bill through a capital return of Seven’s cash doesn’t mean that institutional investors should be dragged along to create a hotch-potch conglomerate.
Business As Usual: US consumer confidence takes a dip … News moves into Middle East
US consumer confidence takes a fall as do US house prices, too. But Wall Street cash is still good even though the banks are still struggling and other business snippets of the day.
Kerry Stokes’ Caterpillar: the 1000 pound dozer in the room
The question remains, who benefits the most from Kerry Stokes’ WesTrac shuffle? Seems clear that the big winner will be Stokes himself.
Furphies, Law: stop defending the TV hand-out and a compliant minister
PBL Media CEO Ian Law failed to mention the D word in his defence of the $250 million handout to the indigent Australian free-to-air TV industry in The Australian’s Media section this morning. That’s D for debt.
Stokes poised for media domination after Seven mining move
Kerry Stokes wants to tighten his hold on the the Seven Network by selling his huge WesTrac business into Seven in exchange for a controlling interest in the group. He’s turning Seven into, essentially, a construction company.
Revealed: Crikey lavished $200 on Conroy at black-tie journos dinner
Stephen Conroy is under the pump for his extracurricular affairs with media moguls, but he has them with journos too he says. It’s true: in March 2003, Senator Conroy was a guest on the Crikey-funded table at the Melbourne Press Club’s Quill awards. Uh oh.
Conroy and Rudd’s $250m headache
Plenty of fresh controversy today in the ongoing scandal of the Federal Government’s $250m “gift” to TV networks, with news that both Stephen Conroy and Tony Abbott have been getting uncomfortably close to the media industry.
Business As Usual: Westfield’s woes … Greeks falling behind … the dumped CEO
Frank Lowy owes Australians a lot for keeping his shopping centre giant Westfield afloat in 2009. That, plus the latest economic news from Greece and China in today’s business briefs.
The furphies fly in the Great Free TV Handout Debate
There’s plenty of nonsense circulating about the Government’s half-billion dollar handout to the television networks. And not all of it from the Government.
Business As Usual: Kerry hardly stoked by WA Newspapers … Westpac’s big bananas … Top Gear payout
WA Newspapers still shedding readers (and profits), Westpac’s knee-deep in bananas, the earnings power of Top Gear and the latest on the Japanese and European economies in today’s business briefs.
Government’s FTA TV bonus could have better spent elsewhere
Last week, without any hint or debate, the federal Government dramatically changed the settings and priorities of Australian media policy.
exposed 
Conroy’s secret ski holiday scandal
The Sunday Tele’s expose on Communications Minister Stephen Conroy’s little ski holiday at Seven Network boss Kerry Stokes’ $15 million penthouse just before the government’s $250 million gift to the networks.
Rebates to TV networks just an ugly bribe
The three commercial TV networks, Seven, Nine and Ten, went weak at the knees in congratulating the Government for its decision on rebate for licence fees. Can anyone say “election year”?
Rebel with a pause as private equity puts hit-and-run on hold
News that private equity has pulled another attempt to take the money and run from a poorly performing retailer again causes us to ask, just where is the added value from private equity?
Stokes bites the dust again on C7
Kerry Stokes has suffered another loss in the long-running C7 case with a full bench of the Federal Court rejecting its appeal against its 2007 comprehensive loss in the $200 million trade practices suit.
How Australia’s richest got their start
A look at how some of Australia’s richest businesspeople earned their first bucks: Frank Lowy drove trucks, Gerry Harvey sold vacuums door-to-door and Kerry Stokes picked grapes.
It comes down to this: one of them is lying
Forget the tryst. It’s inconsequential compared with this. Did Mike Rann the truth, or did he lie, asks Hendrik Gout?
