Gold mining execs detained

G’day.

Welcome to Point Blank. Happy Monday! The weekend always seems to slip away too quickly.

Today’s brief: Mali junta has detained Perth-based gold miner Resolute Mining’s CEO and two execs after-tax talks. Also in scope, UniSuper and Cbus Property force Dexus’ hand in property sale by court order for contractual breach.

Here are some insights to kick off your week 👇

 💼 Practice Points

• ASIC charges a director, claiming the director played fast and loose with the company’s financials, misrepresenting revenue and income to attract investment. Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, he also used his director's position to secure a personal loan.

• Wage theft just became criminal. Under the new provisions, employers who intentionally underpay staff—whether it’s under the Fair Work Act, modern awards, or enterprise agreements—can now face criminal charges. And the penalties? Brutal. Companies could be on the hook for the greater of $7.8m or 3x the underpayment amount. Individuals, meanwhile, face up to 10 years’ prison time and/or fines that are the greater of $1.6m or 3x the underpayment amount.

• It’s AGM season, folks! And ASX has a reminder for companies: if something new or different pops up after sending out the notice of meeting but before shareholders vote on a resolution, you might need to send a supplementary disclosure. The clock’s ticking—this needs to happen at least 10 days before the vote. Anything less could mean an adjournment or, worse, a whole new meeting.

🏘️ Word on the Street 

• Kate Wellington, former CEO of the UK Costs Lawyer Standard Board, is set to take over David Price as CEO of the WA Law Society, following his 18-year stint in the role.

• Looks like the Big 4 might need to trim the ranks. A parliamentary joint committee is recommending that accounting partnerships be capped at 400 partners, aligning them with legal partnerships.

• WA appoints Seamus Rafferty SC as District Court judge, and Saul Davies as the judiciary’s newest magistrate. Rafferty has two decades of experience as a trial advocate and as appeal counsel in criminal matters. Davies has spent 16 years at Perth-based firm Taylor Smart Lawyers and Notaries.

📢 Talking Points

• The Greens have unsurprisingly one-upped Labor’s HECS policy with a bold proposal to wipe $128bn in student debt for 3 million graduates, declaring “If Anthony Albanese can go to university for free, so should everyone else.” The plan includes cancelling $81bn in student loans and making university and TAFE education free—funded by a hefty tax on big corporations.

• Coalition support has surged to 40%—its highest since 2022, making them strong contenders for this upcoming election.

• Australian space start-ups like Southern Launch and Gilmour Space are blasting off, with the sector set to hit an estimated $1.2bn in the next decade—quite the leap from the mere $27m the industry was worth in 2022.

• Experts are calling out Albanese's social media bans, saying "age-gating" won’t actually make unsafe digital products safe. Government messaging around “incentive regulation” may mean that the ban could become less about booting kids off and more about denying big tech the ability to host young users unless they prove their products are safe. Meta wants the burden to sit with the app store gatekeepers, Apple and Google. But Albanese reckons he has the policy right and will press ahead.

• With the final state now called, Trump has swept up all seven swing states in the US election. Finishing with 312 Electoral College votes to Harris’ 226, Trump secured Arionza, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden secured 306 votes to Trump’s 232, winning most of those coveted swing states. In 2016, Trump took 304 votes to Clinton’s 227.

🏦 The Treasury

• Treasurer Jim Chalmers warns that Trump's trade policies may bring short-term economic headaches—think reduced output and inflationary pressures. Chalmers continues to bring words of caution: “We wouldn’t be immune from escalating trade tensions that might ensue.”

• Bitcoin surpassed US$80k for the first time. The boost comes from Republican’s newfound embrace of digital assets.

• ASX retreats as volatility jolts. Prices in iron ore fell and mining investors are aloof to China’s latest stimulus package.

 🧠 Word Guess

• Judges parked, perhaps ignored by players (5)

🤝 Deal Room

• Zen Energy is eyeing battery projects in Taiwan—and possibly Japan—after landing a hefty $43m investment from a $1.1bn Taipei-listed renewable energy developer.

• Chemist Warehouse and Sigma are set to be valued at over $30bn once their backdoor listing deal goes through—putting them on par with Woolworths ($36bn) and well ahead of Coles ($23bn). The high valuation comes courtesy of the deal structure: no shares are being placed on offer, forcing passive index funds to buy in, which will drive up demand.

• Cuscal, the $480m payments infrastructure company, has officially lodged its prospectus for an IPO and is already claiming the demand is more than what’s on offer.

• Woodside is in talks with potential buyers for stakes in its multibillion-dollar US Gulf Coast Driftwood LNG development and its Scarborough asset in Western Australia.

🏗 Sector Specific

Diggers

• Mining unions have come out swinging at BHP and Rio Tinto, demanding guaranteed 5% annual wage hikes, better pay for long-serving tradies, and improved rosters.

• Lynas CEO predicts US-Australian cooperation on critical minerals will keep growing under a Trump administration, driven by America’s reliance on China for key minerals used in weapons, electronics, and renewables.

• Global Lithium Resources, the lithium explorer backed by billionaire Chris Ellison, is looking to delay its AGM over fears that a minority shareholder is trying to take control of the company—nominating for the board and attempting to limit the number of directors to just three.

• MinRes is under pressure from its JV partner Albermarle to wind down its Wodgina lithium ops, as Albermarle warns lithium prices will stay "lower for longer"

• Resolute Mining is in unfamiliar territory. The Perth-based gold miner’s CEO, Terry Holohan, and two senior execs were unexpectedly detained by Mali’s military-controlled government while in Bamako. The executive team travelled to West Africa for discussions with local mining and tax authorises, and were shortly detained after the meetings.

Fin

• Bank of Queensland seems to be trying a less conventional approach to staff reductions—making salary and bonus talks tougher in the hopes employees will just quit. With a goal of cutting 400 jobs by July 2026, with an estimated upfront cost of $25m to $35m, sources say BOQ managers are being nudged to push resignations, saving the bank millions in redundancy.

• Despite ANZ’s $6.7bn cash profit, CEO Shayne Elliott's cash bonus has nosedived, dropping from $2.3 million to $1.2 million, amidst a bond trading and workplace conduct scandal.

Tech

• Despite price cuts of up to 25% since 2023, Tesla's vehicle sales have dropped to their lowest level of the year. The culprit? Fierce competition from luxury European brands and affordable Chinese rivals, along with lukewarm demand for the Model Y and Model 3.

• Remember BlackBerry, the phone giant of the 2000s? Now they’re all about secure communications software. Their VP recently pointed out how Chinese espionage groups targeted Trump, JD Vance, and Kamala Harris' phones during the campaign, highlighting serious national security risks and vulnerabilities in telco infrastructure.

Real Estate & Retail

• Dexus, one of the country’s largest real estate landlords, will have to sell its $830m stake in Sydney’s massive Macquarie Centre to UniSuper and Cbus Property – the pair already half own the asset. The usual move comes after the superannuation giants successfully argued in court that they had the right to take over the entire shopping mall due to Dexus’ contractual breach.

• Endeavour Group, owner of Dan Murphy’s and BWS, warns of slowing sales as cost-of-living pressures push drinkers to value options. First-quarter sales flatlined at $2.54bn, squeezing margins, while its hotels saw a 2.5% boost from Father’s Day and footy finals crowds.

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