Australian Bankruptcies

[divs4ever]

my school never had any power issues in the detitention room, but i do remember the day they installed airconditioners

air-conditioners ?

my classrooms had windows ( some of them actually opened/closed ) doors , and a clock ( which worked on batteries .. an upgrade from the key wound ones )

only selected class-rooms had electricity connected

 

[investor13]

air-conditioners ?

my classrooms had windows ( some of them actually opened/closed ) doors , and a clock ( which worked on batteries .. an upgrade from the key wound ones )

only selected class-rooms had electricity connected

you dont have to give your exact age away but were you in school pre colour TV days?
if post the colour TV revolution are you talking about pre or post the banning of the game british bulldogs?

 

[divs4ever]

you dont have to give your exact age away but were you in school pre colour TV days?
if post the colour TV revolution are you talking about pre or post the banning of the game british bulldogs?

yes , in fact i was in Grade 2 before common people had "( non-color ) TV
we watched the Moon landing and JFK on the only TV in the school

 

[mullokintyre]

Its great if you are in the restructuring/insolvency business this year.
One of the very few growth areas sadly.
From Evil Murdoch press

The number of businesses seeking to restructure to survive soared more than 200 per cent in the 2024 financial year as the Australian Taxation Office went into overdrive to collect debts.
According to the Corporate Insolvency Index, in FY24, total appointments were 11,049 nationally, a 39 per cent increase on 7932 the year before – aided by a 99 per cent increase in court-initiated liquidations (2167).

However, while the new financial year is set to record further high levels of insolvencies, more businesses are reaching for restructuring lifelines to survive the turbulence with restructuring matters soaring by 219 per cent to 1424 in 2023-24.

Director of insolvency comparison site Insolvency Australia Gareth Gammon says the results were “astonishing but not surprising.”

“The ATO has gone into overdrive to collect debts, particularly from small businesses – and directors are faced with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, the spectre of higher interest rates due to stubbornly high inflation, and micro- and macroeconomic and political headwinds,” he said.

“It has resulted in a surge in court-initiated windings-up, but conversely it has also prompted more directors to take action to save their businesses.”


Insolvency Australia director Gareth Gammon.
Founder of Business Reset and FY24’s top liquidator by appointment volume Jarvis Archer said the number of businesses choosing to restructure was “promising”.

“Compared to just one-in-five companies opting to restructure in an effort to survive in FY23, that number increased to one-in-four in FY24,” he said.

“Small business restructuring has become very effective for viable small businesses to repair their balance sheets and cashflow, allowing them to operate sustainably in the future.

Of the around 150 SBRs undertaken by my firm, none have defaulted on their payment plans to date.”

However, Mr Archer said businesses were not yet out of the woods, with indications that insolvencies will continue to increase or remain at elevated levels for the foreseeable future.

He said while this will particularly impact small business, there were also signs that medium and large businesses will experience a knock-on effect.

Importantly, the ATO issued 26,702 director penalty notices – which holds company directors personally accountable for unpaid tax debts – amounting to $4.4bn of debt in FY24, up 50 per cent on FY23.

“That’s debt that isn’t on a payment plan, where business owners aren’t engaging with the ATO. It will continue to work through its debt book to restore a compliant tax environment in accordance with its public interest duties to ensure a level playing field for business,” Mr Archer said.

“At some point, business owners need to make a call: ‘Can I see better times ahead, or do I cut my losses and close?’ With challenging financial conditions expected to continue to at least mid-2025, it will be difficult for some business owners to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”


Jarvis Archer, founder of Business Reset.
Principal of insolvency and restructuring specialists Worrells Scott Andersen said the ATO’s use of DPNs was not the only way to encourage directors to make a decision regarding the financial affairs of their company.

“I’ve seen and heard that with increasing consistency, the ATO is reporting debtors to the creditor reporting agencies and issuing garnishee notices to companies’ debtors and their banks,” he said.

“It’s clear that if the ATO isn’t satisfied with the level of engagement by the taxpayer, they will then issue statutory demands for payment to collect.”

Mr Andersen said SBRs were “a brilliant tool” to return a company to solvency.

“The acceptance rates are extraordinarily high, which means that fundamentally viable businesses continue to exist, employ people, provide products or services, while also providing a return to creditors more than what otherwise would be the case if they were to go into liquidation. SBRs allow an opportunity to restructure, move forward in their business and return to solvency.”

Mick

 

[JohnDe]

we hed the worlds cheapest electricity untill the early 2000s well in Qld any ways

Governments need to wake up and get power prices down soon, very soon.

Ensuring the survival of Australia’s steelmaking capacity will require ongoing co-operation from all levels of government, BlueScope steel managing director Mark Vassella says, with the company facing energy costs in some cases triple those of overseas rates and a deluge of cheap steel coming out of China.​

Cheap Chinese steel and high energy costs heap pressure on BlueScope

Speaking to The Australian after the company reported a one fifth fall in full year net profit and flagged further pain to come, Mr Vassella said plotting a decarbonisation pathway for the steel sector in Australia “is going to involve co-operation between state and federal governments, private practice, big energy companies, steel companies, it’s going to require co-operation across the board’’.

Mr Vassella said BlueScope’s energy prices in the US were sharply lower than in Australia, with the company paying about a third for gas there compared with here, and half the price for electricity.

Meanwhile, China last year sold 93 million tonnes of steel into world markets, with many Chinese operators likely running at close to break-even or actually losing money, he said.

Mr Vassella said the system currently was appropriate, but the government needed to remain diligent, and BlueScope was looking forward to a new anti-dumping commissioner being announced.

On energy, BlueScope was keen to see “more supply and more suppliers’’, Mr Vassella said, with higher energy prices to cost the company $25m more in the current half against the same period last year.

“Quite frankly, we’re technology agnostic,’’ he said. “The issue for us is the sorts of businesses that we run – we need 24/7 power.

“So whilst the build out of renewables is fabulous, and we have a power purchase agreement with a solar farm in western NSW which is about 20 per cent of our power, we need power that’s dispatchable, available 24/7, not wind driven, not sun driven.

“We’ve talked to both sides of government about the importance of that baseload capacity that’s in the energy system to make sure that companies and industries like ours aren’t disadvantaged.

“We’re not there with battery technology yet. Unfortunately, the scale of the requirement of the Port Kembla steelworks is beyond the technology for batteries.

“We need dispatchable, affordable renewable energy .... and more supply and more suppliers, we think is helpful in terms of creating a functioning energy market.’’

Mr Vassella said inflationary pressures were also front of mind.

“We’ve come through a really tight supply chain period post-Covid where we’ve seen a whole bunch of cost increases so no different from the household cost pressures – businesses are seeing the same sorts of cost pressures.

“We’ve got to look at our business, to work out how we try and mitigate that and how we get it back.

“So lots of attention and focus in our business. How do we do things more efficiently for lower cost? How do we make more with less? That’s just part of the culture of being a manufacturer.’’


A worker watches as slabs of molten metal are cut to length at the slabcaster at BlueScope Steel manufacturing plant in Port Kembla. Picture: John Feder

Mr Vassella said China’s steelmakers had continued to run at “really high levels of production’’ despite weakness in Chinese domestic construction, meaning that the excess was flowing into global markets and pushing steel spreads below what was considered historically the bottom of the cycle price-wise.

“We’ve seen a dynamic where China’s continued to run at really high levels of production, which has kept raw material costs up,’’ Mr Vassella said.

“And because of the soft domestic market, they’ve been exporting enormous amounts of steel … which has been driving steel prices down so we’ve had a spread squeeze and that’s resulted in the numbers that we’ve put forward.’’

Mr Vassella said he believed the Chinese operators were not operating sustainably.

“I think we’re now seeing steelmakers understand that the business model they have is not viable,’’ he said.

“And I suspect those steel companies in China are at cash break even or cash loss positions, quite frankly.

“So I think that’s why we started to see some pressure come on with iron ore, but there’s no question that the softness in China is going to drive an impact on iron ore costs, and that will ultimately flow through to us – not necessarily good outcomes but that will ultimately flow through to us.’’

Mr Vassella said the company had set up its Port Kembla operations over the past few years to ensure they would be cash break-even, including sustaining capital expenditure, at the bottom of the cycle, however prices were dipping below those levels.

“Now, what we’ve seen in the last six months is spreads actually go below the historical bottom of the cycle, down as low as $US150-odd dollars a tonne in Southeast Asia, which is extraordinarily low when we talk about a long run bottom of the cycle (which is) more like $US180 a tonne,’’ he said.

“But of course, spreads change from month to month to month, and sometimes when they get really low, it’s difficult to manage costs, particularly when you’ve got things like energy costs going up that you can’t immediately take action to try and fix.”


Hot roll coils are formed in the hot strip mill during the manufacturing of steel at BlueScope’s Port Kembla steelworks. Picture: Bloomberg

BlueScope on Monday reported a full year net profit of $805.7m, down from $1.01bn, on revenue of $17.01bn, down 6 per cent.

The outlook would continue to be soft also, with the company expecting a substantial drop in underlying earnings for the first half of the current financial year.

BlueScope is forecasting earnings for the first half in the range of $350m-$420m, down from an underlying EBIT of $718m for the first half of last year.

Mr Vassella said strength in the company’s US steelmaking and global downstream operations had offset the impact of the weakness in Asia and in the Australian and New Zealand assets.

“Operating cash flow for the year, after capital expenditure, was $434m,’’ Mr Vassella said.

“This was lower than FY2023 due to slightly lower earnings, higher working capital, and higher capital expenditure, as we invest to secure long-term sustainable earnings and growth.

“Despite the lower operating cash flow, BlueScope again finished the year with a robust balance sheet, with $364m net cash.’’

Underlying earnings in the company’s Australian operations were 30 per cent lower at $376.9m.

“Domestic dispatches were softer in the year, predominantly driven by softer building and construction activity, as housing approvals contracted and the backlog from prior period was worked through,’’ the company said.

“Despite this softness, underlying demand for housing remains robust in the medium-term.’’

Underlying earnings in the North American division were just 3 per cent lower at $935.1m.

BlueScope will pay a fully franked final dividend of 30c per share, up from 25c for the same period last year.

RBC Capital markets said the profit and revenue figures each missed consensus estimates by 3 per cent.

BlueScope shares fell 2.5 per cent early Monday to $20.01.

 

[investor13]

Governments need to wake up and get power prices down soon, very soon.

Ensuring the survival of Australia’s steelmaking capacity will require ongoing co-operation from all levels of government, BlueScope steel managing director Mark Vassella says, with the company facing energy costs in some cases triple those of overseas rates and a deluge of cheap steel coming out of China.​

most people know except the government we need to. Bowen and co are convinced that wind mills and solar panels will save the day fogetting the fact they have never worked any where else