FYI | Apr 30 2007
By Greg Peel
Airline Australia Partners is getting desperate. Large newspaper ads on the weekend and unsolicited phone calls to shareholders suggest the reported sub-30% take-up to date appears accurate. If APA cannot get to 50% acceptance from Qantas (QAN) shareholders by the closing date on Friday, the assumption is it will walk away.
If it does manage 50%, but less than 70%, then the offer time could be extended. In the meantime, shareholders are looking forward to another potential profit upgrade, which has a lot to do with why the bid is apparently failing at this stage. Sheer defiance may have something to do with it too. It will be an interesting week for Qantas.
It probably won’t be an interesting week for RBA watchers, as Tuesday’s meeting and Wednesday’s interest rate announcement are expected to be a big zilch. Friday’s Statement on Monetary Policy will, however, be interesting. Will the RBA downgrade its inflation expectations from 2.75% to 2.5%? The big concern remains wage inflation, irrespective of the CPI.
Other economic releases locally this week are March private sector credit and the TD Securities/Melbourne Institute inflation gauge for April today, with the April performance of manufacturing index and RBA commodity index tomorrow.
Wednesday brings April skilled vacancies and Thursday the April performance of services index. On Friday we learn the March trade balance.
The Yanks probably won’t know if they’re Arthur or Martha this week as they are about to be bombarded with figures, to wit:
Monday: March personal income, personal spending, construction spending, core PCE deflator and Chicago purchasing managers’ index.
Tuesday: March pending home sales and April ISM manufacturing index and prices paid.
Wednesday: March factory orders and April employment change.
Thursday: March non-farm productivity, April ISM non-manufacturing index, and first quarter unit labour costs.
Friday: April non-farm payrolls (this one is important for wage inflation), unemployment rate and average hourly earnings.
Monday also brings Europe’s CPI estimate for April and Thursday its March quarter PPI.
On the local share market front, we learn Newcrest’s (NCM) quarterly result today along with Orica’s (ORI) interim. Tuesday brings St George Bank’s (SGB) interim and Wednesday Westpac’s (WBC). Friday, as mentioned, is the closing date for the Qantas bid.
Wall Street took a breather on Friday after a big week, managing only a 15 point rise in the Dow. Movements of note were a 3.5% rise in the nickel price and a 2% rise in the oil price. The SPI Overnight closed up 13.