It would be very tempting to pore over yesterday’s statement from the RBA and worry about the bleak picture the central bank is projecting.
While it seems that the bank has finally woken up to the fact that the economy is far weaker than the mining boom suggests, it now seems that Glenn Stevens and co are worried about the period of tepid growth in non-resources sectors continuing for some time.
Retailers, builders, transport companies and the tourism sector should be bunkering down.
But enough of that. Today I want to get out of the gloom and focus on three pieces of good news.
Australia isn’t renowned for having a thriving home-grown electronics sector but perhaps it is building. Yesterday small Sydney company Audio Pixels announced it is entering a joint venture with Japanese electronics giant Sony to develop the local company’s audio speaker chips.
Audio Pixels’ technology promises to do for audio speakers what the plasma screen did for TV sets and with Sony’s help the Sydney company’s technology is now firmly on the path to mass production.
Audio Pixels’ share price increased 35-fold in the past 12 months and rose 2.7% to $9.24 yesterday.
That’s great news for company chair Fred Bart, who has a long history in Australia as a company director, particularly with controversial biotech Genetic Technologies. Bart owns 5.3 million shares, which means his stake has leapt in value from $1.4 million to $48 million.
Veteran beverage industry figure Peter Brooks made headlines last year when he announced he was selling beverage maker P&N to brewing giant Asahi for $364 million.
That deal was blocked by the ACCC but Asahi is poised to buy the water and juice divisions of P&N for $188 million. Brooks will then set up a new business called Tru-Blu Beverages to house his remaining soft drink assets, which include the Pub Squash brand.
Why is that good news? Well, Australia gets to keep one of its great entrepreneurs out of retirement and Brooks gets the chance to build another business that he will hope to sell for a big price.
The guys down at incubator Pollenizer get full marks for the way they have extracted maximum value from the rapidly-growing group buying sector.
First they had a win when Yahoo!7 poured an estimated $40 million into group buying leader Spreets – Pollenizer was one of the early backers of Spreets and presumably enjoyed a good return on its investment.
But the really smart bit was holding onto ownership of the technology platform that Spreets runs on, which is housed in a company called Dealised.
That technology has been on-sold to group-buying sites around the world and yesterday Dealised received $5 million in funding for further development and expansion.
Another win for Pollenizer – and Australia’s local tech scene.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
