Corporate news will dominate Australian business this week.
The Seven Network-WesTrac merger will continue to attract headlines as Seven shareholders mull over their verdict.
The meetings to vote on the issue are due to be held on April 20, but Seven is understood to have more talks scheduled with major shareholders this week.
Arrow Energy could signal its acceptance of a higher offer from Shell and PetroChina as early as this morning.
Plus, Rio Tinto’s four arrested employees front court in Shanghai in a trial starting today.
Sigma’s long awaited financial results will also dominate corporate reports in Australia when they are released tomorrow, as expected.
They will be terrible and a shock to shareholders, even though there has been some softening up by the company to warn the market of the scope of the changes.
Interim reports will come this week from related companies, Washington H Soul Pattinson and Brickworks.
Brickworks’ figures and commentary should tell us if the solid rise in housing starts in the second half of 2009 is helping the country’s biggest brickmaker.
Premier Investments (which is dominated by the Just Jeans chain) reports interim figures today.
Data for car sales and skilled vacancies will be released.
The first RBA’s Financial Stability review for 2010 is due for release on Thursday and should be reassuring.
Key comments on the improvement in the US and European financial systems were included in last Tuesday’s minutes of the March RBA board meeting.
The minutes also noted that the Australian financial system remains resilient.
Assistant Governor Philip Lowe speaks this week on Thursday, the same day as the Stability report’s release.
His boss, Governor Glenn Stevens speaks in Melbourne the day after.
World bankers will be on inflation watch when Japan reports its consumer price index for February.
Policy minutes from the Bank of Japan will also be released this week.
On the corporate front, results are due from China Telecom and China Unicom.
In the US, data for existing and new home sales, house prices, durable goods orders and consumer confidence will be released.
And we will get the third estimate for 4th quarter growth.
The second estimate saw the estimate boosted to an annual 5.9% from the first guess of 5.7%.
Home sales data is likely to be depressed due to the February snowstorm but durable goods orders are likely to have maintained their rising trend.
Fourth quarter profits are expected from homewares group, Williams Somona, luxury jeweller Tiffany & Co and men’s wear group Phillips-Van Heusen, which last week agreed to pay $US3 billion for the Tommy Hilfiger brand of men’s clothing and products from private equity group, APAX.
Other quarterly reports will come from homebuilders, KB Home and Lennar, software maker Adobe Systems, big drugstore chain Walgreen Co., Cereal maker General Mills and the biggest US electronics retailer Best Buy will be the major profit reports of interest.
In Europe, attention will be focused on Greece with European Union leaders due to hold a two-day summit on Thursday and Friday.
Greece is looking for formal support and a mechanism to help it lower its interest cost, and to guarantee new debt issues, Germany and other countries are undecided. France wants some help for Greece.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged EU member states on Friday to approve a standby aid package for Greece.
The whole debacle could unravel and see a terrible bang in currency and other markets if there’s no agreement.
