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Woolworths Ltd plans to offload $900 million of its retail sites from the company’s property portfolio.

The retailing giant plans to sell 30-plus neighbourhood and sub-regional shopping centres, then lease back the sites on a long-term basis, Woolworths said on Monday.
The Australian share market finished weaker on Monday. The S&P/ASX 200 Index closed 21 points lower at 4,439 and on the futures market the SPI200 is down 5 points.

Turning to currencies and the Aussie Dollar at 7:45AM was buying 89.79 US cents, 57.35 Pence Sterling, 76.65 Yen and 70.03 Euro cents.
A global sell-off on international equity markets saw Australian shares slump 1.7% by lunch.
Despite the decline, investors may count themselves lucky with the SPI futures pointing to larger losses before the open and European markets losing around twice as much ground.

The slump also took a bite out of the Aussie dollar, which has fallen more than 2c in the last 24 hours.
Campbell Brothers expects to post an underlying net profit after tax for the half year ending 30 September 2010 of between $63m and $68m.he company reported a net profit after tax of $38 million for the previous corresponding period and a record result of $57 million in the half year to September 2008.

The chemicals manufacturer said the forecast result reflects current strong trading conditio
Brambles confirmed media speculation, saying that US customer ConAgra had advised CHEP Americas late last week that it was moving its pallets business to another provider.
Leighton Holdings Limited (LEI) this morning said its nine-month profit to 31 March 2010 would come in at around $400 million, almost double that of a year ago. Looking ahead, the company said it expected, for FY10, to deliver revenue of around $18.5 billion and net profit after tax ‘in excess’ of $600 million.

Last year the company reported a $440 million full-year, post-tax profit.

Leight
Australia would heavily tax the booming profits of its mining companies under a tax system overhaul proposed Sunday that also would invest in infrastructure to support mining operations and reduce corporate taxes.

The new 40 percent tax on resource profits targets industries that have grown rapidly as they've produced the raw materials that feed burgeoning Chinese and Indian manufacturing dema
Wesfarmers said that sales at Coles climbed 4.9% in the third quarter to $6.9b, when compared to the previous corresponding period.Despite the stronger result, Wesfarmers offered a cautious outlook for the remainder of the year saying the positive effect of the government’s stimulus package was wearing off.