Major InterContinental expansion bolsters Salter Brothers' ASX hopes
British hotelier IHG Hotels & Resorts will open luxury InterContinental properties in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney and re-introduce its Regent brand after a two-decade absence in a major shake-up of the industry.
The company announced plans to rebrand a number of its lower-tier Crowne Plaza Hotels as part of a deal with Salter Brothers, the local fund manager that owns the properties and is preparing to float a $2 billion portfolio of accommodation assets on the ASX within 18 months.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
West Australian
a day ago
- West Australian
World Gold Council working to lure artisanal miners across globe away from ‘illicit actors'
The World Gold Council estimates up to 20 per cent of the world's supply of the precious metal is produced by 'artisanal' miners whose activities are vulnerable to exploitation from 'illicit actors' such as terrorists and mercenary organisations like the notorious Wagner Group. During his visit to Kalgoorlie-Boulder this week, the council's chief strategy officer Terry Heymann said the London-headquartered organisation wanted to bring these small-scale miners into the formal gold supply chain and make them less likely to work with 'informal and illicit markets'. Artisanal and small-scale mining involves individuals usually working by themselves and mainly by hand or with some mechanical or industrial tools. 'This is very different from the large-scale professional mines . . . (it's) not really happening in Australia, it's much more of an issue in other parts of the world, but it's an issue that we care about deeply and we're doing a lot of work in how to support responsible artisanal and small-scale gold mining,' Mr Heymann said. 'A number of my colleagues this week are in Ghana, where the Ashanti King is actually convening a conference to address this issue, which is how do we support access to the formal markets for small-scale and artisanal gold mining? 'Why is that important? 'Because if they don't have access to the formal markets, they go to the informal and illicit markets. 'And that's a real challenge for the gold industry, one that we're actively involved in and doing a lot of work on.' Mr Heymann said a report it held in partnership with former British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab highlighted the dangerous nature of these 'illicit actors'. '(Mr Raab's) findings, unfortunately, are really stark . . . without access to the formal market, these illicit, informal and sometimes illegal miners are forced to work with illicit actors, and that then gets into supplying gold funding for terrorist groups, mercenaries, with the Wagner Group as an example.' The Wagner Group is a Russian-based private military company which has been involved in conflicts across the globe, including the current war in Ukraine. Notoriously, in June 2023 the group's then-leader Yevgeny Prigozhin launched an 'armed mutiny' against the Russian military — but it ended before the Wagner Group's planned march on Moscow. Mr Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia in August 2023. Mr Heymann said the issue was extremely important for the whole gold sector. 'It's a different part of the gold sector to where most of the people investing in gold are going to be getting their gold from,' he said. '(And) it's not something the industry can do by itself, and this is why we are calling on governments around the world, particularly those involved in the G20, who can really group together and make a difference on this to take action, to be part of this coalition of the willing to actually drive change. 'My boss, the CEO of the World Gold Council, was meeting with the secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development last week, who is Australian — Mattias Cormann — and he pledged OECD support to us. 'The OECD has been hugely involved in this, and I think it's that level of support we need — of the OECD, of national governments in Australia, in the US and Canada, big mining nations using their ability and their leverage to bring together different groups of people who can really address this issue.'
Herald Sun
a day ago
- Herald Sun
The lessons from IDP Education's week from Hell
The student recruiter has been hit by the migration backlash not just here, but in Canada, the UK and the US Other listed colleges are tweaking their business models to focus on domestic students While there's no end of the pain in sight, some brokers reckon IDP Education is a buy at its marked-down valuation It's not unusual for a small cap stock to decline 50% in value or more in one day. But when the top 200 stock IDP Education (ASX:IEL) achieved that this week – erasing more than $1 billion of market value – it was a case of 'class, take note'. The dramatic plunge came after the overseas student wrangler's confession on Tuesday that full-year revenue and earnings would plummet on the back of visa crackdowns. The stock has lost an astonishing 75% over the last year. Arguably the downgrade was years in the making, given the quality issues besetting both the tertiary and vocational sectors for some years. Still, investors were shocked by the scale of the revision or maybe they just hadn't done their homework. IDP guided to a 28-30% decline in student placement volumes, with its language testing arm likely to fall by 18-20%. Adjusted earnings before interest and tax (ebit) are expected at $115-125 million, a circa 50% year-on-year decline and well shy of market expectations of $166 million. Trump-like 'regulation by fiat' The visa crackdown was contained in a bill that the old Parliament did not pass, but government went ahead via a Trump-style Ministerial Directive (MD107). The measure means visa applications are processed on the perceived risk of the education provider and the student's country of origin. Dubbed by college operator Academies Australasia (ASX:AKG) as 'regulation by fiat', the measure compounds the problems of providers with high visa rejection rates. The reasons for the knock-backs are likely to be beyond the colleges' control. Nowhere to hide as migration policies bite IDP's problems don't start and end at home. Half-owned by sandstone universities, the company started out as a local uni recruiter but now touts for colleges in the UK, Canada and the US. Half of the company's revenue deriving from English language testing and teaching. The UK is even more zealous on reducing migration, as is Canada given the backdrop of the recent close election. We'll simply call US a no-go zone, given Trump's order to block Harvard University from admitting international students. Heeding the lessons IDP is not the only ASX-listed, overseas student focused education play feeling the pinch. It's a case of accepting the new reality and adapting. The amalgam of Icollege and Redhill Education, NextEd Group (ASX:NXD) reported a $2.2 million first half loss, amid a 21% revenue decline (to $47 million). However Nexted offset some of the impact of a 52% English language services decline with increased international vocation enrolment. The aforementioned Academies managed to grow half year revenue by 2.8% (to $23.9 million). The company also narrowed a previous $7.5 million loss to a $958,000 deficit. Operator of the Ikon (tertiary) and ALG (vocational) colleges, EDU Holdings (ASX:EDU) gets a gold star by doubling calendar 2024 revenue to $42 million. The company also managed a $2.6 million profit after three years of losses. Gary Burg told last month's AGM the impact of the visa changes remained unclear and the company was focusing on the domestic student market. A free kick of the 'political football'? Despite the IDP sell down there's still a country mile between its $1 billion market cap and the circa $20-40 million valuation ascribed to the other providers. As with all harsh sell-offs, have investors have over-reacted? Broker UBS contends IDP's business model is unbroken and the company 'remains a high-quality business in challenging conditions'. The firm rates the stock a 'buy' with a price target of $4.95, implying around 40% of upside. IDP is undertaking a detailed business review, with an update promised at its August full-year results. At Academies' AGM last year, acting chairman Chiang Meng Heng decried the sector being turned into a political Sherrin. 'Certain comments being bandied about smack of populism, rather than carefully considered positions that are good for the country,' he said. 'The air may not clear until after the federal election.' More than a month after the poll, clarity awaits. Originally published as Criterion: IDP Education's share plunge is a harsh lesson for the overseas student industry
Herald Sun
a day ago
- Herald Sun
Barry FitzGerald: Katanning ticks all the boxes for an Ausgold re-rate
'Garimpeiro' columnist Barry FitzGerald has covered the resources industry for 35 years. Now he's sharing the benefits of his experience with Stockhead readers. After its dramatic rise in the opening months of the year to record levels, the Aussie gold price has settled into a bit of a groove around the $5,200/oz level. Nothing wrong with that. It's a fantastic price and delivers fat margins to even our highest cost gold mines. And it is not to suggest that gold can't take off again and set new highs or fall significantly for that matter. The observation is that for the last six weeks or so the Aussie price has been as steady as it could be in these turbulent times. It means that share prices of ASX-listed gold producers and developers have also gone into a sideways trading pattern. Need to differentiate So more than has been the case in recent times when gold took off to record levels, the producers and developers now need to differentiate themselves from the pack with strong newsflow of the re-rating inducing type. It means that if the gold price continues to trade sideways, the stock involved has a reason to go higher. Alternatively, if the gold price heads south, the damage to the stock could be more limited than it would have been otherwise. Taking all that on board, Garimpeiro had a look at his calendar during the week to find which of the gold producers/developers have re-rating event(s) on the horizon. Ausgold stands out Ausgold (ASX:AUC) stood out for the pending release this month of a definitive feasibility study (DFS) into the development of its Katanning gold project, a three-hour drive from Perth in WA's southwest Yilgarn region. Katanning is one of the biggest undeveloped gold deposits in the country at 3.04 million ounces and has previously been scoped as having the potential to produce 136,000 ounces annually from open-cut ore sources for more than 10 years. All-in sustaining costs were put at $A1,549 and preproduction capital costs weighed in at just under $300m. But those are 2023 figures and things will have changed, including the reserve component of the resource thanks to infill drilling work. Gold prices have increased dramatically since those 2023 figures but so have construction costs. Having said that, the expectation is that the DFS will confirm Katanning as a very robust project with a super quick capex payback capability. Take that and the scale of the project – production in the early years will be higher still because initial higher grade ores - and Ausgold's $240 million market cap at 67c share looks to be on the mean side of things. The company has the lowest resource ounce valuation metric of its peer group for no apparent reason, except perhaps the project has been in the works since 2010 under Ausgold ownership. So the story of the resource growth since, and the pending release of the DFS leading into a development decision by year end, has been overlooked to a large degree by the market on a fatigue basis alone. Katanning momentum Momentum for Katanning is now the order of the day under John Dorward, Ausgold's executive chairman who arrived on the scene in May last year. A can-do sort of guy, Dorward was the former president and CEO of TSX-listed Roxgold, a West African gold group acquired by fellow Canadian Fortuna Silver Mines in an all-scrip deal worth $US884 million in 2021. Two weeks in the job at Ausgold and Dorward put Katanning on the development pathway by pulling in $38 million in equity, including $1m from his own pocket. That is being spent getting to the DFS stage and on a three-pronged strategy of establishing a bigger mining reserve component in the mineral resource estimate, extending the scale of the resource and making regional gold discoveries. Morgans' 94c target Morgans' veteran analyst Chris Brown has a 12-month price target on the stock of 94c. 'Our expectation is that delivery of a DFS broadly confirming or improving on the preliminary feasibility study, and employing a higher gold price, should prove positive for the share price,' Brown said. He also flagged that a final investment decision on a project development – expected by the end of the year - should also prove positive depending on the terms of the project's financing package. ''Our valuation will likely lift with the delivery of the DFS, and again when the final investment decision is taken,'' Brown said. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the columnist and do not represent the views of Stockhead. Stockhead does not provide, endorse or otherwise assume responsibility for any financial product advice contained in this article. Originally published as Barry FitzGerald: Katanning ticks all the boxes for an Ausgold re-rate
