Insights

The Reserve Bank has left the cash rate on hold at its final meeting of the year as it continued to stress the Australian dollar was "still uncomfortably high".

Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens wasn't expected to put an interest rate cut under the Christmas tree on Tuesday. As far as he is concerned, the community hasn't made full use of the various rate cuts he has been giving it over the past few years.

Hilton plans to sell stock worth an estimated $US2.2 billion in its initial public offering, one of the year's biggest IPOs. The return to public markets will value the US hotels operator at about $US19.2 billion. Hilton was taken private by The Blackstone Group in October 2007 for $US20 billion and was quickly hit by the global financial crisis.

Apple has acquired social media analytics firm Topsy for more than $US200 million, according to reports. It was unclear how Apple planned to use the firm but it could be related to Apple's new streaming music service Ping. Earlier this year, Topsy said it had created a searchable index of all publicly available tweets, to be available for marketers and others.

Australian companies remain heavily exposed to the risk of corruption due to their strong presence in bribery-prone countries, according to global corruption watchdog Transparency International.

Virgin Australia is free to complete its controversial $350 million capital raising after the Takeovers Panel rejected claims the issue of new shares would result in a big change to its ownership structure.

A rush to take advantage of the carbon price has given renewable energy its largest share of eastern Australia's electricity market since at least the Whitlam years, with black coal fired plants losing the most ground.

GPT Group will keep its minimum acceptance level at 50.1 per cent for its $4 billion tilt at the Commonwealth Property Office Fund (CPA), and says it is capable of running the fund if Dexus Property becomes a hostile minority unitholder.

Stockland Group aims to raise cash through the sale of its office assets as it focuses on residential and retail, which should help it to keep its forecast 2014 earnings growth of up to 6 per cent.

Sales

Listed Singaporean group Aspial Corporation has paid $41.5 million to buy the West Melbourne office complex formerly occupied by the National Australia Bank.

Melbourne's CBD office vacancy rate is forecast to fall to 8.3 per cent early in the new year, according to Savills Australia.

Stockland Group is aiming to raise cash through the sale of its office assets as it focuses on residential and retail, which should help it to keep its forecast 2014 earnings growth of up to 6 per cent.

The sharemarket fell for a third session despite the Reserve Bank keeping the cash rate at 2.5 per cent but continuing its campaign to talk down the value of the dollar.

Private equity companies are offloading assets to sharemarket investors at a rate not seen since before the global financial crisis, as the sector rushes to cash in on strong investor demand.

Last month marked the return of cashed-up Chinese buyers to the Australian auction scene, and auctioneers are jumping for joy.

As everyone knows, the GFC blew a mighty hole in superannuation accounts. The road to recovery has been a long and winding one. But the improvement in returns has really kicked up over the past 18 months and into this year.

54 per cent