Briefs: NAB's rumoured equity raising, WA legislates on Bell Resources, S&P rates Qld Police Credit

Banking Day staff
  • National Australia Bank is said to be preparing to launch one of the biggest equity raisings in recent years - a $3 billion-plus rights issue believed to be underwritten by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, according to the AFR's Street Talk reporters. Citing 'investor sources' it was surmised that NAB and its advisers were "putting the final touches on the deal on Wednesday night", which is expected to be unveiled at the bank's half year results today.

  • Australia's most expensive commercial dispute, a multi-faceted battle that ran for 20 years in several jurisdictions and courts following the collapse of Western Australian conglomerate the Bell Group, refuses to be put to bed. This is despite an agreement in 2013 between the liquidator and a consortium of Australian and international banks, finalised in June last year, creating a pool of A$1.7 billion to be distributed to creditors. As several news outlets report, the four major "winners" (among them the Insurance Council of WA) have continued to bicker, leading WA Treasurer Mike Nahan to announce legislation to ensure certainty over the process of distributing funds.

  • A survey of 620 Australian small and medium businesses on behalf of Bibby Financial Services in March indicates 29 per cent of SMEs are now insured against the risk of bad debt, nearly double the proportion in July 2014. However, less than half of SMEs surveyed said they had reduced their operating costs (43 per cent), hired more staff (45 per cent) or improved their access to finance (48 per cent) as a result of government policy initiatives. Among the positives was an intention to increase the level of borrowing after several years of below trend growth in business lending. Two in three businesses intend to maintain or increase business investment over the next 12 months.

  • Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has assigned first-time credit ratings of BBB/A-2 to Queensland Police Credit Union, with a stable outlook. "Our ratings on QPCU reflect the credit union's very strong capitalisation levels and anticipated resilience in its credit loss performance, associated with its high concentration to members employed by the Queensland Police Service," said S&P credit analyst Andrew Mayes. On the downside are QPCU's exposure to competitive business pressures in Australia's retail banking market, its relatively small size and a limited franchise outside of its core service area.

  • A survey of 177 pension funds, insurance companies and official institutions in 19 countries (including Australia), commissioned by BNP Paribas Securities Services, has disclosed that a majority (59 per cent) of asset owners see increasing complexity of risk management as their major performance hurdle, ahead of regulatory reporting (33 per cent) and regulatory compliance costs (28 per cent). In contrast, more Australian instos (42 per cent) cited regulatory changes as the biggest single risk to the performance of the industry this year. Economic uncertainty was only considered a risk to their business performance by a fifth of respondents (21 per cent).