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Nine to pay costs in Aston ruling

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Original article by Cameron England
The Australian – Page: 3 : 9-Feb-21

The Federal Court has awarded indemnity costs to Elaine Stead in her defamation case against newspaper columnist Joe Aston. The indemnity costs will be backdated to 22 April, when Nine Entertainment Company rejected Stead’s offer to settle the case for $190,000. Stead was recently awarded ordinary and aggravated damages totalling $280,000 over several articles that were published in the ‘Australian Financial Review’. Nine could potentially face a total bill of more than $2.5m arising from the defamation case.

CORPORATES
NINE ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX NEC,FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Amazon tops $1bn sales but still in red

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Original article by David Ross
The Australian – Page: 15 : 9-Feb-21

Digital giant Amazon has advised that its Australian arm posted a loss of $3.8m in 2020, following a $2.5m loss previously. However, Amazon Australia boasted total sales of $1.12bn in 2020, compared with just $562.1m in 2019. The company’s online stores recorded sales totalling $511m, while its subscription services’ sales rose from $35.4m to $90m. Amazon entered the local market in late 2017, and it now employs nearly 1,000 people in Australia.

CORPORATES
AMAZON.COM INCORPORATED

Media at ‘pivotal moment’: News

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Original article by James Madden
The Weekend Australian – Page: 21 & 22 : 8-Feb-21

News Corporation has posted net income of $US261m ($343.4m) for the December 2020 quarter, compared with $US103m for the same period in 2019. The global media company’s EBITDA rose 40 per cent year-on-year to $US497m. Revenue fell three per cent to $US2.41bn year-on-year, although it rose from $US2.12bn in the September quarter. News Corp’s subscription video services rose by 77 per cent to $US124m. News Corp CEO Robert Thomson says the push for greater regulation of digital platforms in Australia and worldwide represents a pivotal moment for the global media industry.

CORPORATES
NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, FOXTEL MANAGEMENT PTY LTD

Rod Sims’ big tech fixation blinds him to Murdoch’s monopoly

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Original article by Kevin Rudd
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 39 : 8-Feb-21

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation controls 70 per cent of print readership in Australia, and his power is arguably set to increase under the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s proposed news media bargaining code. ACCC chairman Rod Sims has become so fixated about new digital technology monopolies that he seems to have forgotten about Murdoch’s existing one. The code will see Google and Facebook compelled to pay for Fox News-style clickbait, while it is high time there was a royal commission to look at both existing and new media monopolies.

CORPORATES
NEWS CORPORATION – ASX NWS, AUSTRALIAN COMPETITION AND CONSUMER COMMISSION, GOOGLE INCORPORATED, FACEBOOK INCORPORATED, FOX NEWS, SKY NEWS

Iluka adds rare earths to mineral sands for a bigger bang

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Original article by Brad Thompson
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 14 & 20 : 8-Feb-21

Australian mineral sands producer Iluka Resources is seeking to expand into the rare earths sector. The company is hinting that it wants to become an integrated producer of heavy and light rare earth oxides, with the next step in its rare earths goals involving spending $35 million to boost the product from its mineral sands mine at Enebba in Western Australia to a 90 per cent concentrate. It could consider sending this concentrate to Lynas Rare Earths’ cracking and leaching plant in Kalgoorlie. Goldman Sachs has suggested that Iluka is capable of developing the first fully integrated rare earths operation on Australian soil by 2025 at a cost of around $1.2 billion.

CORPORATES
ILUKA RESOURCES LIMITED – ASX ILU, LYNAS RARE EARTHS LIMITED – ASX LYC, GOLDMAN SACHS AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

The three most likely: Nine’s search for new CEO narrows

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Original article by Lilly Vitorovich, James Madden
The Australian – Page: 19 : 8-Feb-21

Nine Entertainment Company is widely tipped to appoint an internal candidate to succeed Hugh Marks as CEO. Oscar Oberg of Wilson Asset Management and Brian Han of Morningstar both expect either Nine’s head of publishing Chris Janz or Stan CEO Mike Sneesby to get the job. However, Carl Fennessy of Endemol Shine Australia is believed to be the leading external candidate to replace Marks, who has stepped down in the wake of revelations of his relationship with a junior executive.

CORPORATES
NINE ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX NEC, WILSON ASSET MANAGEMENT, STAN ENTERTAINMENT PTY LTD, ENDEMOL SHINE AUSTRALIA PTY LTD

Nine faces ad hit with diminished Australian Open

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Original article by Lilly Vitorovich
The Australian – Page: 19 : 25-Jan-21

Ben Willee from advertising agency Spinach says advertisers are worried what impact delaying the Australian Open tennis for three weeks might have on Nine’s audiences for the event. Nine has a $300 million, five-year broadcasting deal with Tennis Australia, on which it has sought concessions because of the delay, and it has won a discount of over 10 per cent on its $60 million payment for this year. Katie Rigg-Smith from media agency Mindshare notes television networks traditionally use live sport in the first quarter of the year to promote new and returning shows.

CORPORATES
SPINACH ADVERTISING PTY LTD, NINE ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY HOLDINGS LIMITED – ASX NEC, TENNIS AUSTRALIA, MINDSHARE

Lynas shares surge on US rare earth plant agreement

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Original article by Nick Evans
The Weekend Australian – Page: 21 & 26 : 23-Jan-21

Shares in rare earths producer Lynas Corp closed up 13.7 per cent at $5.56 on 22 January after it advised it had struck an agreement to construct a $60 million processing plant in Texas to produce rare earth products. The US Defence Department will pay half the cost of the plant, which will make products for US strategic stockpiles. Lynas is the only non-Chinese refiner of rare earth products, which are used in the manufacture of equipment such as missile systems and high-­performance magnets, and the increased tension between the US and China has seen the US keen to reduce its reliance on China for the supply of such products.

CORPORATES
LYNAS RARE EARTHS LIMITED – ASX LYC, UNITED STATES. DEPT OF DEFENSE

Murdoch son raps media for toxic politics

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Original article by Alex Barker
The Australian Financial Review – Page: 24 : 18-Jan-21

James Murdoch has launched his strongest attack on the US media since leaving the family media company started by his father Rupert. When asked if Fox News had played a role in the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, James Murdoch claimed that media organisations had amplified election disinformation, resulting in a significant part of the US public believing in a "falsehood". He did not make specific reference to Fox News, his father, or his brother Lachlan, who is the CEO of Fox Corporation.

CORPORATES
FOX NEWS, FOX CORPORATION

Printing body blasts Ovato over restructure, redundancies

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Original article by David Ross
The Australian – Page: 13 & 19 : 12-Jan-21

Listed printing and marketing services firm Ovato has attracted further scrutiny over its restructuring plan. Taxpayers will bear most of the cost of 330 redundancies at Ovato, via the federal government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme; this follows the company’s decision to transfer these workers to corporate entitles that have insufficient funds to pay creditors. Members of the print industry have described Ovato’s restructuring plan as an ‘asset strip’, while Print & Visual Communication Association president Walter Kuhn says the government should have stepped in and insisted that Ovato must pay all redundancy costs.

CORPORATES
OVATO LIMITED – ASX OVT, PRINT AND VISUL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION