Duke Energy Corp. says its first quarter earnings rose almost 15 percent on strong results from its international operations and reduced corporate costs.
Duke, based in Charlotte, N.C., said Tuesday its net income rose to $511 million, or 38 cents a share, in the three months ended March 31, That’s up from $445 million, or 34 cents a share, a year ago. Analysts expected earnings of 35 cents a share.
It says revenues edged up 2 percent to $3.7 billion. Analysts expected revenue of $3.8 billion.
Duke’s international operations improved as a result of higher prices in Brazil and favorable exchange rates.
Its regulated utilities earned less than a year ago because of higher operating and maintenance costs and more temperate weather, which reduced demand for power.
Duke serves 4 million electric customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
Research in Motion on Friday gave attendees at the Rogers TabLife TO conference a sneak peak of its upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook tablet.
I was Master of Ceremonies for the event, so I witnessed the demonstration first-hand - and got a chance to touch and feel the much-hyped device.
Truthfully, you could hear a pin drop in the auditorium as RIM’s David Neale, Vice President of Special Projects, walked the audience through its user-interface and a few of its features. This demo was one of only a few public showings of the PlayBook since the tablet was officially announced in September.
While it’s premature to predict Apple has something to worry about, the PlayBook managed to wow the crowd on a number of levels.
Due out sometime before March 2011 for about $500, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a 7-inch tablet (opposed to the iPad’s nearly 10-inch size), with a WSVGA (1024 x 600 resolution) touchscreen.
After cautioning onlookers the software build was still early, Neale began the demonstration by showing the various apps divided into groups (Internet, Media, Games, Utilities, and so on), using his fingertips to swipe between them left and right. Neale said the final build will support gestures, as well.
To demonstrate the power of the processor – which is only running on one “core” instead of two, at this point in time – a 1080p high-definition video was launched (BBC’s “Life in the Blue”); Neale then swiped upwards to minimize the window, before selecting a website on the browser (which supports Flash), followed by opening a photo after that. All three windows were running simultaneously, which you can see side by side.
Clearly, Neale was showing off the processing (and multitasking) power of the tablet – and even though it wasn’t yet optimized for peak performance, it was mighty impressive.
Neale joked about the PlayBook being “real” indeed - as he held the .9-pound device in his hand – addressing some online speculation that questioned whether the tablet really existed.
The PlayBook also features two HD cameras (one 5-megapixel camera facing outwards, and one 3-megapixel camera facing the user for video conferencing), which Neale also demonstrated; and a micro-HDMI port to connect the PlayBook to a high-def source, such as a HDTV or projector.
In an interview following the demonstration, Neale said the device was geared to both consumers and businesses, and security is a top concern for its users. Neale confirmed the first-generation unit will have Wi-Fi support, and if there’s a nearby compatible BlackBerry, a Bluetooth tethering option for 3G connectivity, as well.
Rogers on Friday confirmed it would carry the device at launch (I’m sure other Canadian carriers will, too) and announced a new data sharing plans for multiple devices.
Later in 2011, PlayBook devices with integrated 3G and/or 4G wireless radios will debut. Neale also hinted at different form factors, as well.
Stay tuned to Moneyville.ca for more on the BlackBerry PlayBook.
China’s foreign-exchange reserves exceeded $3 trillion for the first time, highlighting global imbalances that Group of 20 finance chiefs aim to tackle at meetings in Washington.
China’s currency holdings, the world’s biggest, swelled by $197 billion in the first quarter, the nation’s central bank said yesterday. New loans were a more-than-estimated 679.4 billion yuan ($104 billion) in March, it said.
Premier Wen Jiabao’s policy of controlling the currency, along with trade surpluses and flows of capital into the fastest-growing major economy, have boosted the reserves by $1 trillion in two years. G-20 finance chiefs are seeking to agree on an early-warning system that can prevent the type of imbalances in trade and financial patterns that contributed to the 2007-09 crisis and recession.
“The continued substantial foreign-exchange reserve accumulation by China is a reflection of global imbalances,” said David Cohen, a Singapore-based economist at Action Economics who formerly worked for the U.S. Federal Reserve. China continues to “resist the pressure for faster appreciation of the yuan,” he said.
China will report first-quarter economic growth of 9.7 percent and March inflation of 5.4 percent, Jiang Guangce, a partner and fund manager at Congrong Investment Management Co., said yesterday, citing market speculation. Consumer prices rose 5.3 percent or 5.4 percent last month, according to a Phoenix Television report yesterday.
Those numbers, to be released today, would exceed economists’ median forecasts for 9.4 percent growth and 5.2 percent inflation.
‘Striking’ Increase
The currency holdings at the end of March compared with the $2.98 trillion estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of five economists and $2.85 trillion at the end of last year. M2 money supply rose 16.6 percent in March from a year earlier, exceeding analysts’ median estimate.
“Most striking at first sight is how fast the foreign- exchange reserves are rising,” said Mark Williams, a London- based economist for Capital Economics Ltd. “Chinese officials point to the first quarter’s trade deficit as evidence that there is less need for the renminbi rise, but the scale of reserve growth shows that the People’s Bank is still intervening very actively to keep the renminbi down.”
Yesterday’s reports underscore the challenges for China’s policy makers as they seek to stem inflation while at the same time preventing the yuan from soaring.
Stronger Yuan
The yuan closed at 6.5315 per dollar in Shanghai yesterday, about 4.5 percent higher than a year ago. By contrast, Singapore’s currency has climbed 10 percent in that time, according to Bloomberg data. That nation, which uses its exchange rate as the main monetary policy tool, yesterday said it will allow further appreciation after a greater-than-forecast acceleration in growth last quarter.
Any slowing in the pace of gross domestic product growth may help defuse risks of overheating and aid Wen’s campaign to contain consumer prices. The peak year-on-year gain in GDP growth during 2010 was 11.9 percent.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is among those who have said that excess savings in Asia contributed to inflows of capital into the U.S. The investments helped hold down American borrowing costs, fueling a record mortgage boom that ended with a bust that sparked the global credit crisis.
Global Imbalances
At a February meeting in Paris, G-20 policy makers produced a list of criteria to use as yardsticks for when dangerous global imbalances are developing. The list included public debt and fiscal deficits, private debt and savings rates, trade balances and net investment-income flows and transfers.
Omitted at China’s behest were foreign-exchange reserves, a sign of the international disparities in spending and saving. In a signal that China may continue to resist the initiative, Li Yong, a vice finance minister, said guidelines could be used as a “political tool” against his nation by the G-20.
Reserves are also affected by exchange-rate swings. Strength in the euro against the dollar may have bolstered China’s holdings in the first quarter, by boosting the dollar- denominated value of assets held in the European currency.
Chinese officials are reining in lending to counter inflation after a record expansion of credit in 2009 and 2010, with the central bank boosting interest rates four times since mid-October and raising banks’ reserve requirements.
“We will further improve the yuan formation mechanism and increase yuan exchange-rate flexibility to eliminate monetary conditions that fuel inflation,” Wen told China’s cabinet this week.
–Zheng Lifei. Editors: Paul Panckhurst, Chris Anstey
To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7560 or lzheng32@bloomberg.net
FedEx Corp. says slow-but-steady economic growth should produce strong earnings for the current quarter, although fuel prices and Mideast turmoil remain big uncertainties.
The world’s second-largest package delivery company was upbeat about the fourth quarter and year ending in May, saying revenue should continue to improve and its freight unit should return to profitability after 6 money-losing quarters. Shares rose 5 percent.
FedEx issued the outlook on Thursday as it reported that third-quarter earnings fell 3 percent. Rising fuel prices and harsh winter weather offset a double-digit rise in revenue.
The company earned $231 million or 73 cents per share for the quarter that ended in February, compared with $239 million, or 76 cents per share a year earlier. Winter storms reduced net income by about 12 cents per share. Snow and storms hurt operations for about 27 days, or nearly a third of last quarter. Fuel prices went up 30 percent from a year ago. Maintenance costs rose 19 percent as the company flew more aircraft.
Revenue rose 11 percent to $9.66 billion, mostly due to better prices and heavier packages. Rising package weights are a fundamental sign of the improving economy, especially when those heavier packages are shipped through more expensive options like express or priority overnight. It indicates that consumers and businesses are being freer with their spending.
For the current quarter ending in May, the Memphis, Tenn. company is predicting a profit of $1.66 to $1.83 per share. Analysts currently predict $1.66. The company earned $1.33 per share in the quarter a year ago.
For the fiscal year, FedEx forecasts earnings of $4.49 to $4.66. Excluding costs related to the integration of its freight unit and legal costs, it expects adjusted earnings of $4.83 to $5. Analysts currently expect an annual profit of $4.89 per share.
Despite the strong forecast, FedEx warned that political turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa could hurt earnings. The tension there has already helped drive oil prices up 16 percent since the middle of February and an escalation could drive prices higher. It could also slow shipments and make deliveries more difficult.
The full impact of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan is unclear, but property damage was minimal, FedEx said. Japan is a major market for the company. Its business there is mostly comprised of exports including computer and car parts.
In the third quarter, Express unit revenue rose 11 percent from a year earlier. International priority freight pounds _ the total weight of shipments _ rose 21 percent, while revenue per pound rose 3 percent. International priority shipments are being driven by continued growth in emerging economies, especially Asia. Shipments include parts for computers, cell phones and other electronic gadgets.
Ground segment revenue improved the most of any unit, at 14 percent. The ground segment includes packages delivered by truck in the U.S.
FedEx shares rose $4.25, or 5 percent, to $89.53. Shares of UPS, the world’s largest package delivery company, rose $1.67, or 2.4 percent to $72.05.
Police say the death toll in New Zealand’s earthquake has risen to 144.
Police Superintendent Dave Cliff told reporters the toll reached 144 on Saturday after more bodies were pulled from wrecked buildings, and that more than 200 people remain missing after last Tuesday’s 6.3-magnitude quake.
Prime Minister John Key said Saturday that the disaster may be New Zealand’s “single most tragic event” and called for two minutes of silence next Tuesday.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) _ The neighborhood’s toilet is a portable one out on Keller Street. The water supply is cut, making showers and clean laundry distant dreams. Residents stay fresh with bottles of hand sanitizer, and they’re running low.
“Don’t stand too close to anyone,” Judy Prime said with a chuckle as she took a break from shoveling huge piles of wet sludge out of her garage in the shattered Christchurch suburb of Avonside.
The days since Tuesday’s massive earthquake rumbled through Christchurch, killing at least 123 and toppling buildings, have brought a level of misery unusual for the residents of this modern city of 350,000. Some 226 people remain missing, said Police Superintendent David Cliff.
Water and power supplies to thousands have been cut, and many have been forced to sleep in their cars or tents as their unstable houses sway with the relentless aftershocks.
Many Christchurch residents first started getting used to some deprivation five months ago, when an earlier quake struck the city. Now, life is even worse.
Tuesday’s temblor brought a fresh surge of water up through cracks in the yards of Prime and her neighbors along Keller Street. Most houses on the street suffered damage, and many will need to be demolished.
Prime, 66, has spent each night sleeping on a rubber mat under the dining room table, worried that aftershocks will send parts of her home crashing down. Every evening, she and her neighbors gather in her back yard to share beers and barbecue the meat from her freezer _ still good, because it was encased in thick ice when the power went out.
“We’ve become a family, you know?” she said. “What one hasn’t got, the other has.”
Across the road, Christmas lights adorn the portable toilet that has stood outside Paul Stokes’ house since the September quake knocked out the sewage line. Officials still hadn’t gotten around to fixing the pipes from that disaster when Tuesday’s temblor hit.
“Only Christmas lights I put up this year _ it’s really handy in the middle of the night,” said Stokes, who was wearing a T-shirt that said “Tested to 7.1″ _ a reference to the magnitude of the September quake.
Mayor Bob Parker said 780 portable toilets have been installed throughout the city, and hundreds more are on their way. But many residents have resorted to digging holes in their gardens to take care of business. For those on Keller Street, the Stokes’ toilet is a blessing.
Inside their home, Stokes’ wife Yvonne sat by a wood stove, warming up from the chilly drizzle outside. Thursday was the first night since the quake that she slept _ while sitting up in a chair in the living room. The ceiling in her bedroom is sagging, the walls are cracked and she worries the roof might cave. The whole house will have to be destroyed, she said.
Thursday also marked the first day she’d managed to eat since the disaster; the family cooked up sausages and mashed potatoes on a gas stove.
She clutched the hand of her sister-in-law, Christine Lagan, and cried as the two sat side by side. Lagan took the family’s laundry back to her house outside Christchurch on Thursday and returned with fresh clothes _ giving the family a small measure of dignity amidst the dismal conditions.
“We go to the toilet and can’t even flush,” Yvonne said, tears running down her face. “We are in tatters.”
Still, Yvonne said neighbors were keeping each other sane by banding together. Neighbors were dropping off meat pies, chocolate and bottles of water to those in need, and the couple who runs a nearby corner store was giving away any food they could spare.
“We’re all looking after each other,” she said.
Across the road, she embraced a weeping 71-year-old Wyn Tinnion, who said she has not been able to stop crying since the quake sent nearly everything she owned crashing to the floor.
“You just don’t know what to do _ at least we’re alive,” Tinnion said, burying her face into Yvonne’s shoulder.
“At least we’ve got each other,” Yvonne added, giving her a squeeze.
Tinnion and her 75-year-old husband Kelvin have been surviving on donated water and cooking on a gas stove lent by a neighbor. Tinnion was too scared to lock herself in any of the city’s portable toilets, so she has been using a bucket instead. Her husband has the unenviable task of emptying it for her.
At night, the couple uses flashlights and candles to see around their house. They whittle away the hours listening to their battery-operated radio.
The walls are cracked, and her garage is flooded with murky water and mud. She hasn’t changed her clothes since Tuesday, and her face crumpled again as she looked down at her nails, ringed with purple residue from the blueberries she scrounged from her freezer.
“I’m so filthy. I haven’t had a wash since last Tuesday,” she said, eyes welling with tears.
“Hey,” Yvonne said gently, slipping an arm around her friend. “I don’t look like a beauty queen.”
For a moment, Tinnion’s eyes cleared _ and the two women began to laugh.
President Barack Obama took bipartisanship beyond civility to gosh-darn friendliness when he ambled across Lafayette Square to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
He rarely walks anywhere — strolling presidents drive the Secret Service crazy — but he decided strolling into enemy territory would send just the right message.
Once there, he began with a muted apology for not acting more like Mister Rogers: “Maybe we would have gotten off on a better foot if I had brought over a fruitcake when we first moved in.”
He may not have sent sweets to the chamber, but he did ladle out some pretty sweet deals to its members.
The recovery and stimulus measures he supported included massive helpings of taxpayer money to banks, brokerages and big corporations, few strings attached.
While his political base clamored for the stricter control Republicans demonize as nationalization, Obama went the other way, trusting the banks to lend the money to businesses to help retain and rehire workers. They didn’t, instead hoarding the cash for themselves — and letting top executives keep their bonuses. Sounds like a pretty beautiful day in the neighborhood to me. Who needs cake?
Corporate America is racking up record profits, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is back above 12,000, rising consumer confidence has shoppers flocking to stores. So what exactly is the chamber’s beef with Obama?
Hurt Feelings
It’s true that business continues to be a vocal critic of Obama’s reshaping of health care and of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. Yet there has to be something more to explain how a traditionally staid member of the Washington establishment has become such a vociferous critic of the president.
There’s a whiff of hurt feelings and bruised egos in the complaints you hear from the chamber about being left off invite lists and about Obama speaking directly to its members. Now there’s a concept for you: I guess presidents should talk to business leaders only through their lobbyists.
Then there’s the “fat cat” insult Obama uttered in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” in December 2009 just before the heads of a dozen or so banks were asked, nicely, in a confab at the White House, to help speed the economic recovery.
When Obama took a stab at explaining the public’s unhappiness over news that huge bonuses were going to the folks who caused the meltdown, he veered into a little trash talk.
“I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,” Obama said.
‘You Guys’
And moments later: “They’re still puzzled, why is it that people are mad at the banks? Well, let’s see. You know, you guys are drawing down $10 million, $20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it’s gone through in decades, and you guys caused the problem.”
Don’t fat-cat bankers have mothers who made the timeless point that words could never hurt them?
Some other questions: If Obama had spent the year spooning with corporate America, as it apparently had hoped, would the 500 largest nonfinancial companies have spent money on new plants and equipment rather than accumulate $1 easy to get unsecured personal loans.93 trillion — a record — in cash and other liquid assets as of the end of the third quarter? Would the flotilla of lobbyists arrayed to fight Dodd-Frank have stood down?
Monday’s visit wasn’t Obama’s first to the chamber but his third, despite the chamber spending an estimated $32 million in the midterm election cycle on issue advertising dedicated overwhelmingly to defeat Democrats.
No Objection
For some reason, the White House chose not to fight the “pivot” story line — the idea that Obama suddenly is wooing business to create the millions of jobs it would have, had it been courted properly.
It can hardly be said with a straight face that the original Obama economic team of Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, with Ben Bernanke at the Fed, was hostile to business.
If corporate America wants to believe that Obama chose his new chief of staff, William Daley, for his relatively few years in the private sector as opposed to his many stellar ones in government and politics, fine. The same goes for appointing General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt to head a newly rebranded Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Hey, it’s cheaper than going to marriage therapy.
Meanwhile, beleaguered homeowners who don’t own valuable real estate just across from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue can only hope Obama “pivots” to being as anti-homeowner as he’s been anti-business.
Backing Down
A report by the nonprofit investigative website ProPublica found that Obama backed off his campaign pledge to empower bankruptcy judges to lower the mortgage payments of homeowners facing foreclosure. Seems that Geithner and Summers, those raging populists, were worried that an undeserving homeowner or two might get help.
The industry-friendly voluntary program that instead was implemented will help fewer than 800,000 homeowners get lasting mortgage modifications, far less than the administration’s target of 3 million to 4 million, the report said. And the Treasury Department allowed banks to break the program’s few rules with no ramifications.
We live in a world where corporations have recovered but people have not. Coddling the Fortune 100 doesn’t guarantee any new paychecks. Sweet talk is as devoid of nutrition as fruitcake.
Margaret Carlson, author of “Anyone Can Grow Up: How George Bush and I Made It to the White House” and former White House correspondent for Time magazine, is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)
Toyota reported a 39 percent slide in quarterly profit but raised its full-year forecasts for earnings and car sales as business booms in Asia and other emerging markets.
The results show a mixed picture for the world’s biggest automaker, which is enjoying booming sales in high-growth markets in Asia, Africa and South America, while facing lingering worries about quality lapses in the key U.S. market.
Toyota Motor Corp. reported Tuesday a net profit of 93.63 billion yen ($1.1 billion) for its fiscal third quarter, down from 153 billion yen a year earlier. Quarterly sales at the Japanese automaker declined 11.7 percent to 4.673 trillion yen ($57 billion).
The drop was largely due to damage from the strong yen, which erodes the value of Japanese exports, and the end of government-backed incentives for green cars in Japan, according to Toyota.
The maker of the Lexus luxury model, Camry sedan and the Prius hybrid now expects to sell 7.48 million vehicles around the world in the year ending March 31, up from the previous forecast for 7.1 million vehicles.
Toyota raised its annual net profit forecast to 490 billion yen ($6 billion) from 350 billion yen ($4.3 billion).
The new projection is more than double Toyota’s annual profit the previous year.
Senior Managing Director Takehiko Ijichi shrugged off the threat from a strong yen, saying that solid demand from emerging markets was growing into “one of the pillars supporting our earnings.”
The one area where Toyota has been stumbling is the U.S., where it has been losing market share because of worries about the quality of its cars after the massive series of recalls that began in 2009.
The recalls, which have ballooned to more than 12 million vehicles around the world, include sticky gas pedals, faulty floor mats, braking software glitches and other defects.
Ijichi acknowledged Toyota had not fully put the recall mess behind it, but was going in the right direction because of its efforts to be quicker and more responsive over the past year and a half.
“We think that the wound is now half-healed,” he told reporters at Toyota’s Tokyo office. “It is going to be a gradual effort, but we are starting to regain the trust of our customers. We are only halfway there.”
Later in the day, an investigation into the runaway cars in the U.S. by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and NASA is set to be released. Toyota officials said they were also awaiting the report and declined comment.
Toyota said it will continue efforts to beef up quality controls and speed up responses in each region.
Ijichi was relatively upbeat about how Toyota sales in North America had not collapsed despite the recall fiasco, holding up at about 14 percent market share, and rising in number of vehicles sold compared to the previous fiscal year.
In recent months, other automakers have seen jumps in sales as the U.S. auto market bounced back from the recession.
Toyota has also earmarked unprecedented generous incentives in the U.S. to woo customers to its cars. Ijichi declined comment on the incentives.
For the first nine months of the fiscal year, Toyota’s profit quadrupled to 382.7 billion yen ($4.7 billion) from 97.2 billion yen in the same three quarters the previous year. Sales improved 5 percent to 14.35 trillion yen ($175 billion).
Japanese rival Honda Motor Co. also raised its full-year earnings forecast despite reporting lower profit for the October-December quarter. Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s No. 2 automaker, reports earnings Wednesday.
Toyota shares were unchanged at 3,490 yen ($43). Results were announced shortly after trading ended on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Property prices in Perth posted the biggest declines in Australia as an oversupply of homes and a “two-speed economy” take their toll on the capital of the nation’s biggest mining state.
Perth home prices fell a seasonally adjusted 1.9 percent to a median A$465,000 ($461,000) in the three months to December, compared with a 0.4 percent rise in the national capital city median home price, according to a RP Data-Rismark report released today. Perth home values are likely to be little changed for most of this year before bouncing back in 2012, economists at the Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., National Australia Bank Ltd. and the Real Estate Institute of Western Australia forecast.
Western Australia’s “economy itself seems to be moving ahead very strongly, getting back towards the boom-type conditions in the resources sector,” said Paul Braddick, senior economist at ANZ. “But that’s quite a contrast with the housing market, where it has definitely become a buyers’ market and prices have eased quite considerably.”
The economy of Western Australia, home to the Pilbara region, one of the world’s biggest sources of iron ore and natural gas, grew at an annual rate of 6.5 percent in the quarter ended Sept. 30, more than double the national average, according to the national statistics bureau. In contrast, Perth’s housing market fell by 2.3 percent in the year to December, lagging behind a national growth rate of 4.7 percent, RP Data figures show.
Housing Glut
Property prices more than doubled between 2004 and 2007, spurring an increase in property construction. That created a glut that’s helped push prices down, Braddick said.
This has also made Perth’s apartment rental yields of 4.3 percent the second-lowest in the nation after Melbourne, and compared with a national average of 4.7 percent, according to the RP Data-Rismark figures.
There are about 15,300 properties for sale in Perth, some 3,000 more than demand, according to the state’s Real Estate Institute guaranteed pay day loans. The oversupply — compared with a national shortage of 178,400 dwellings at June 2009, according to the government’s National Housing Supply Council — will take about a year to absorb, REIWA President Alan Bourke estimates.
The story is different about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to the north of Perth, where mining projects are causing a housing shortage. Karratha’s median home price in December was about A$830,000, and Port Hedland’s was A$920,000, REIWA figures show.
‘Two-Speed Economy’
“We’ve got a two-speed economy,” Bourke said in a telephone interview. “If you go to the areas where the resources industry is doing well, median prices are close to A$1 million. We in Perth are more indirectly affected, and not bolstered to the same level.”
A 31 percent drop in migration in the year ended June 30 from a year earlier also helps account for a decline in demand, Bourke said. Prime Minister Julia Gillard campaigned before the Aug. 21 election for reduced population gains and dropped her predecessor’s endorsement of a “Big Australia” policy that envisioned a surge of more than 50 percent in citizens in the coming four decades.
Still, Perth prices will overtake the national average next year, rising 5 percent, and climb by 6.5 percent in 2013, assuming a 1 percentage point increase in the central bank’s benchmark interest rate, ANZ’s Braddick said. This compares with a nationwide increase of 3.3 percent in 2012 and 5 percent in 2013, he said.
Mining Projects
Andrew Wilson, economist at Australian Property Monitors, expects growth will be driven by a slew of planned mining projects, he said in a telephone interview. The state has about A$170 billion of mining and petroleum production projects in its five-year investment pipeline, according to the government.
This will mean a jump in the population of “fly in, fly out” workers, — who are based in cities like Perth and travel to mining projects — which will in turn drive up demand for housing, particularly rental accommodation, Wilson said.
“The expected boom will have to draw resources from Perth,” he said. “Perth remains the accommodation and financial hub that connects the mining industry with the resources it requires.”
After three decades in the business, Toronto real estate broker Paul Swartz is still trying to figure out the market.
Mid-sized U.K. companies found finance easier to get this year as the demand outlook for their goods and services improved, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said.
Ninety-three percent of mid-sized companies that sought funds in 2010 were able to obtain what they required, the ministry said in a statement on its website today, citing an annual survey. That compared with 82 percent in a 2009 study.
Next year, 58 percent of respondents said they expect sales to be higher than current levels, compared with 54 percent reporting an increase in 2010, the report found. The net balance of companies reporting sales gains rose to 31 percentage points this year from minus 25 points in 2009, indicating a greater number of businesses are growing, BIS said.
A mid-sized business is defined in the report as having annual sales of between 25 million pounds ($39 million) and 500 million pounds. The study was carried out for the ministry by research organization BDRC Continental, which surveyed 401 companies from Sept. 22 to Oct. 21.
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