Research.

August 12th 2015: AGL published strong FY15 results, which came in ahead of market consensus, thanks mainly to the Macquarie Generation acquisition which performed ahead of expectations: By divisions (AGL changed its operational structure after its investor day in May): Energy Markets: EBIT up 27.4% to reach $2,063m thanks mainly to good results from Wholesale markets, helped by the acquisition of the Macquarie [...]

August 11th, 2015: Transurban published strong FY15 results in regards to equity but weak credit-wise, on the back of strong traffic growth (average daily traffic growth of 5% across assets) and increased toll revenues (proportional toll revenue growth of 39.6% and 10.7% when excluding acquisitions and impact of 95 Express Lanes), helped by acquisitions and consolidation of the US business. [...]

Earnings CBA reported statutory net profit of A$9.063 billion (cash earnings of A$9.137 billion) for the full year 2015 (up 5% on the year) which was broadly in-line with market expectations. The result continues to be underpinned by the market leading cost to income ratio (42.8%), stable net interest income (albeit there was some weakness in the net interest margin [...]

In its third quarter trading update NAB provided an update on its strategy but nothing that materially changed our view on them as an issuer. The capital planning questions were largely covered with the recent capital raising  (core tier 1 ratio stood at 9.94%  and we expect a ~0.50% increase post the sale of GWB and the NAB Wealth reinsurance placement) but the UK exit [...]

ANZ announced today a fully underwritten institutional share placement to raise $2.5billion and a shareholder share purchase plan to raise around $500 million. The reason behind this capital raising is in response to the FSI recommendations and what ANZ describes as a "surprise" to an "accelerated timetable" of the change to risk weights on residential mortgages. This capital raising is not unexpected [...]

Earnings On 5 August 2015 Genworth Mortgage Insurance Australia Limited delivered its 1H 2015 result delivering a gross written premium (GWP) of $285 million, down 9% on a proforma basis as a result of low mortgage originations in the high LVR sector. Turning this into profit, the group experienced a net earned premium (NEP) of $265.7 million, up 3.7%. This was broadly in-line with [...]

Group Earnings   Suncorp Group reported a full year 2015 cash earnings of $1,191m, down 8.7% from $1,304 million. This result was broadly in-line with market expectations despite the financial impact of the group’s worst year of natural hazard events which saw the allowance of $595m dwarfed by the final net impact of $1,068m. Headline numbers look solid but the composition of core earnings is [...]

Over the past few months there has been a significant amount of press about a “global bond market rout”. While this topic is justified it is isolated to certain product types (i.e. fixed rate bonds), so what might seem risky to some is not risky to others. For this reason we believe it is critical for Australian income investors to [...]