Insights

Social media is monitored to gauge what consumers want, writes Brad Howarth.

Saputo is risking its reputation as a "disciplined acquirer" as the battle for Warrnambool Cheese & Butter enters the "silly zone", according to Canadian analysts.

Travel insurer Cover-More has become the latest private equity-owned company to join the 2013 float rush, announcing plans to raise $521 million in an initial public offering later this month.

A range of soft business indicators and another month of benign inflation are not expected to reduce the big odds of an interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank at its last meeting of the year.

It has taken 10 years, and two takeover bids, but Alison Watkins is finally joining Coca-Cola Amatil.

Alison Watkins was always going to quit as boss of GrainCorp this month regardless of Treasurer Joe Hockey's decision to block a takeover bid for the grains group by US food group Archer Daniels Midland.

Analysts have started to downgrade their recommendations for GrainCorp because of the failure to win government backing for the $3.4 billion takeover bid for the company and an expected earnings slump blamed on dry growing conditions.

Coca-Cola Amatil has plucked its new chief executive from outside the close-knit Coca-Cola family, tapping former GrainCorp boss Alison Watkins to help transform the bottler into a global manufacturer that will reap the bulk of its earnings outside Australia.

Foxtel will start selling retail broadband and telephone services for the first time next year after signing a commercial deal with one of its parent companies, Telstra.

ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft has blasted recent criticism of the corporate regulator as a "smear" on its staff and the agency's "good work", ahead of a Senate inquiry into its operations.

The strong run for Australia's housing market may be beginning to wane, as the growth in dwelling values slows to a rate not seen in half a year.

Joe Hockey was well within his rights to place competition at the centre of national interest in his rejection of the Archer Daniels Midland bid for GrainCorp.

Chris Gibson on the pros and cons of a $650 million deal.

The sharemarket fell to its lowest level in six weeks despite the release of better-than-expected economic data domestically and in China.

Grocery and liquor wholesaler Metcash believes it can grow the independent retailer sector in the face of intensified competition from the majors, Woolworths and Coles, despite its flagship food business losing market share to them.

Local councils that lost millions of dollars after buying toxic investments through Lehman Brothers have finally reached a settlement with liquidators of the failed investment bank.