Here’s what you need to know today

Australia

• Northern Territory cattle stations sell for over $300m. The sale of the 1 million hectare Beetaloo stations, located around 500km south-east of Darwin, is the largest pastoral deal in NT history. (ABC)

  
  

• ACCC sues HelloFresh and Youfoodz. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission is taking legal action against the two meal delivery companies for using ‘subscription traps’. Consumers were unable to cancel subscriptions online when they were told they could and were also charged when attempting to cancel their subscription before the first delivery cut-off period. (ABC)

  
  

• Star Casino CEO resigns. Billionaire Bruce Mathieson is the second largest shareholder in the troubled gaming company. His son, Bruce Mathieson Jr, will be replacing outgoing CEO Steve McCann in July. (AFR)

Global

• Nasdaq seeks approval for 23 hour weekday trading. The home of Nvidia, Apple and Google will request approval for 23-hour weekday trading. The news comes as other exchanges like the NYSE have already filed to increase hours the exchange is open to the public. (Reuters)

  
  

• EU set to ‘water down’ 2035 combustion engine plan. A senior EU politician has said the outright ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel-fuelled vehicles after the proposed 2035 cutoff date is likely to be softened. (The Guardian)

  
  

• Trump sues BBC for $10 billion. US President Donald Trump has sued the UK public broadcaster for defamation over an edit of Trump’s speech made in a documentary about the January 6 insurrection in 2021. (ABC)

  
  

• US critical minerals plan hits a snag. Korea Zinc, the world’s largest refiner of zinc, announced plans to build a US$7.4 billion critical minerals refinery in the US state of Tennessee to help the US reduce reliance on China. However, major shareholders are now objecting to the proposed capital raising to fund the plant. (CNBC)

  
  

• Singapore and China agree to 27 new deals. The agreements, including plans to deepen financial cooperation and capital markets integration, were announced during the 21st Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation in Chongqing. (Capital Brief)

Companies

• Ford abandons electric vehicle plans, expects US$19.5bn writedown. The American car manufacturer has announced plans to abandon its F-150 electric truck range and other large EVs as part of its renewed strategy. The move comes as US President Trump withdrew a $7,500 consumer tax credit for purchases of new EVs in September. (FT)
  

• REA Group faces Google threat. Shares in the Australian property listing portal fell after Google announced plans to test a direct ‘home for sale’ ad format rather than pushing to third-party sites. Citi analysts believe the impact won’t be too bad as 80% of REA’s traffic comes directly to the site rather than from Google ads. (Capital Brief)
  
  

• DroneShield up 22% yesterday on $50m European contract. The counter-drone company announced a new contract with a European reseller. This is welcome news after a brutal two months where shares fell more than 70% and the CEO dumped all his shares. (AFR)
  

• Juventus shares climb after rejected takeover bid. The storied Italian football club saw shares jump after it rejected a €1.1 billion acquisition from Tether, the stablecoin firm. The Agnelli family, who owns the majority of the club, stated that, “Juventus, our history and our values are not for sale.” (FT)

  
  

• PayPal applies to establish bank in US. By applying to become a bank, the payments company intends to be able to extend loans to small businesses. (CNBC)

  
  

• JP Morgan tokenises first fund. The world’s biggest bank will have investors in a money-market fund hold digital tokens, run on the Ethereum blockchain, to represent ownership in the fund. The fund will be open to individuals with minimum US$5m in investments or institutions with $25m minimum. (WSJ)

What the…?

International heist with $10m worth of goods stolen… in Canberra?? In what is likely the first international heist that has taken place in our nation’s capital, four French men faced court last Thursday after they were arrested for a burglary that took place in mid-October. The men allegedly flew over from France specifically targeting a Canberra home and are accused of stealing 70 items worth around $10 million. The crown jewel of the heist was a Richard Mille ‘Smiley’ watch (pictured below) that is worth over $6 million on the secondary market! The watch is 1 of 50 ever made with singer/songwriter Pharrell Williams another owner of the highly exclusive timepiece.

Richard Mille’s have attracted plenty of unwanted criminal attention for their high-profile owners in recent years. F1 stars have copped the brunt of it with Carlos Sainz’s watch snatched hours after the Italian GP in 2023 and current F1 Champion, Lando Norris, also robbed in 2021 at Wembley stadium for his Richard Mille. (AFR)

Police located and arrested the men in a Sydney KFC four days after the robbery took place. The accused are due back in court in January 2026. (ABC)

Investing is a lifelong journey

Here’s what you can learn today

A peak into China’s automated dark factories

Ren recently sat down with Julia Weng from Paradice Investments in another episode of our Best of the Best series. The pair discuss some Julia’s recent trip to China and it’s investment opportunties in the Equity Mates Investing episode titled ‘Best of the Best: AI Hype, China Risk & Australia’s Best Stocks - Julia Weng | Paradice Investments’ (Apple | Spotify | YouTube)

Ren: Are you seeing any common or consensus views that you think are wrong today?

Julia: There is a view, I dunno if it's actually consensus or not, that China is uninvestible because it's structurally challenged. We have been more positive on China. I was in China in September and yes, you know, the consumer spending is still quite weak. The confidence in the job market could be improved. However, I think China's doing a massive pivot from investing in property and hard investments to increase in consumption. And that's gonna take multiple years. You need more confidence in the social security system because the savings rate in China continues to increase and they're already one of the highest in the world. However, you know, China's clearly investing in the advanced industries, trying to leads robotics. You know, I saw a demonstration of this robot, it was 175 centimetres tall and it was amazing. I was like, I wanna buy this.

Ren: What was so impressive about the robot?

Julia: So this one was like a household helper robot. The robot could fold your laundry, it could take items off the shelves, it could actually follow your child around a shop while you go shopping. We also went to see an EV factory that belonged to Xiaomi and it was one of those dark factories. So in this factory they were making EVs and literally I saw these vehicles made in two minutes. It was all robotics. The robots were making it, the robots were checking it. The only people there were like the people checking on the robots.

Ren: Yeah they’re nuts. For people unfamiliar with the term they're called dark factories because it's all robots so you don't even need to turn the lights on.

Julia: Yeah. That's the future of manufacturing and you know, that's one of the things that we're really excited about. People immediately gravitate to language models and data centres. Manufacturing is one of the biggest beneficiaries of it because you know, labour is scarce, manufacturing labour is especially scarce. And so that's where you're gonna see the real margin upside from robotics. The more accurate, the more reliable. So China leads in that respect and I think it'll take a number of years, but we do think there's definitely certain aspects in China that are investible.

A message from R.M.Williams

Every R.M.Williams collection begins with a pair of iconic boots or perhaps a handcrafted belt, but this brand has so much more to offer. The brand's signature quality extends to functional leather wallets and travel bags, as well as easy-to-gift clothing staples like graphic tees, rugby jerseys and shirts. There are also a host of new limited edition products this Christmas, plus special collector's items and stacks of stocking fillers sure to impress.

Experience R.M.Williams' legendary craftsmanship for yourself, online at rmwilliams.com.au or in-store now.

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