EY fires workers who multitask 🤔

G’day.  

Welcome to Point Blank – Happy Friday eve. How was your morning coffee? 

 💼 Practice Points

• ASIC is suing QBE for misleading over 500k customers by promising discounts that were not fully reflected in their pricing of premiums.

• QLD Supreme Court finds that a party must not refuse or withhold consent to a change of control transaction to obtain a collateral advantage or benefits not originally in the agreement.

• Attention construction lawyers: Victoria is revamping its security of payment laws, notably scrapping the unique ‘excluded amounts’ regime that excluded common construction claims like latent conditions. These new amendments are expected to increase SOP activity in Victoria.

• ASIC confirms they are keeping a watchful eye on the MinRes tax saga, requiring the company to hand over the report on the board’s investigation. Meanwhile, the AFR thinks the MinRes and WiseTech boards should have their CEOs step aside during investigations, prioritising shareholders over personal ties—it's time for decisive action, not just damage control.

 📢 Talking Points

• The battleground for podcasts continues with Trump set to join Joe Rogan's podcast this Friday. Kamala Harris is also rumoured to make an appearance on JRE to win over male voters. Meanwhile, voters heed Trump’s advice with early voting breaking records. The race is tight.

• A KPMG report reveals that expanding ‘virtual’ or ‘home’ hospitals could treat 30% of diagnoses currently handled in traditional settings, potentially freeing up 350,000 beds and saving $7bn in healthcare costs by 2030 if Australia acts now.

• AI is transforming Australia’s workforce, with manufacturing jobs shrinking from 1.07m in 1986 to 878k in 2024, while healthcare and tech roles surge, growing from 567k to 2.25m in the same period. Jobs requiring creativity, empathy and collaboration are expected to thrive in the future.

• The Education Department has directed an Australian university to stop overseas student recruitment for 2025 despite pending legislation to enforce strict caps.

• 'No one can kick me out': Thorpe. Nationals call for a constitutional probe into Thorpe’s breach of her oath of allegiance, while the Coalition explores legal options to evict the independent Sentator for her outburst at King Charles.

 🏦 The Treasury

• Australia continues to lose its fight against inflation as the IMF projects that consumer prices will rise to 3.6% next year with a disappointing growth rate of 1.2%. US’ growth rate was upgraded to 2.8%.

• “People are worried about the bond market now,” says Investment Chief of US$7.7bn fund. US’ big tech selloff weighed on stocks, while Treasury yields climbed amid bets the Fed will be more measured with rate cuts.

 🤝 Deal Room

• Tupperware is selling its business to lenders for $23.5m and over $63m in debt relief following its bankruptcy woes.

• Zenith deal heats up as core-plus infrastructure funds and private equity firms get their first peek under the hood at the company’s financials.

• Nine, which demerged Domain into a separately listed entity while retaining 60%, is considering taking company private to diversify away from volatile TV earnings. Domain’s CEO has stepped down, leaving the company without a successor.

• Australia’s crypto hedge fund JellyC merges with Singaporean fund Triovo. JellyC will be the majority shareholder of the combined group.

🏗 Sector Specific

Diggers

• Australia’s largest wind farm has come online, set to generate 920 megawatts—enough to power 600k homes. Meanwhile, the IEA says that coal consumption in 2030 is set to be 6% higher than last year, illustrating the uneven nature of today’s energy transition where record renewable generation coexists with surging coal demand.

• Researchers have unearthed up to 19 million tons of lithium in Arkansas, proving that the Natural State might power the nation’s EV dream.

• After the Coalition’s complaints, the CSIRO is giving nuclear power's price tag a second glance—previously thought to be twice as costly as renewables.

Fin

• EY has fired several US employees for attending multiple online training sessions – multitasking is a fireable offence now? Deloitte has also laid off 250 UK employees for underperformance as part of ongoing cuts amidst a market slowdown, despite its partners still raking in over £1m (A$1.95m) each last year.

• IMF flags Australia’s $3.9tn superannuation sector as a financial risk, noting it's too easy for workers to rapidly shift in and out of illiquid assets like private equity—leaving funds with major liquidity issues if everyone withdraws at once.

Tech

• After acquiring Leonardo.AI for $250m, Canva is set to launch new AI features, including the innovative “Dream Lab” tool for image generation.

• Tim Cook meets China’s IT Minister, with aims to boost Apple's presence in China as iPhone sales decline by 2% due to fierce competition from Huawei.

• Telsa surges 9% in late trading by securing earnings of US72¢ per share, beating analyst expectations of US59¢. Tesla’s third-quarter net income rose 17.3% YTD as demand for electric vehicles ramps up.

Retail & Real Estate

• Woolies and Coles play a game of "not it," with both supermarkets pointing figures as suppliers for price hikes, while Woolies calls the ACCC’s case "factually misconceived". Allens reps Coles and KWM reps Woolies.

• Virtical's collapse reveals a shocking alleged tax scam, with the group owing over $50m for fake GST refunds tied to non-existent pub renovations.

🏘️ Word on the Street 

• Ashurst has dropped Care A2 just before its trademark dispute trial with rival a2 milk, leading Care A2 to enlist Colin Biggers & Paisley instead. The reason for Ashurst’s sudden departure remains a mystery.

• Chartered Institute of Arbitrators elects Holding Redlich partner as new president.