Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek said the company hadn't adequately grappled with tailwinds from the pandemic. Photo / Getty Images
Spotify chief executive Daniel Ek said the company hadn't adequately grappled with tailwinds from the pandemic. Photo / Getty Images
Keeping you up to date with the latest market moves, in association with Investment firm Jarden
International
US
Media services provider Spotify Technology announced it would reduce its global workforce by 6 per cent or 600 staff as it becomes the latest technology company to announce layoffs.
Additionally,chief executive officer Daniel Ek said he will be centralising most engineering and product work as part of a management restructure.
Chief content officer Dawn Ostroff was announced to be departing.
The main driver for the workforce reduction was that their operating expenses in 2022 outpaced revenue growth two-fold in part due to an ongoing challenging macro environment.
Ek stated it had been too ambitious in sustaining the tailwinds from the pandemic and will ensure severance pay of five months to all affected employees, along with healthcare, immigration and career support.
Consumer goods company Newell Brands also announced a restructuring project named “Phoenix” expected to be largely implemented by the end of 2023 and realise annualized pre-tax savings in the range of US$220-250 million.
The cost of the restructuring is estimated at US$100-130 million. About 13 per cent of office positions are to be eliminated, starting in the first quarter of 2023.
A new operating model is to be implemented that consolidates its five operating segments into three, as the currently reported segments of Commercial Solutions, Home Appliances and Home Solutions will now be reported as the one “Home & Commercial Solutions”.
Chief Executive Officer Ravi Saligram stated this will reduce duplication and are moving to a unified global manufacturing organisation that will drive margin improvement in the long run. Newell Brands shares closed 6.8 per cent on the day.
Rest of World
Flavor and Fragrances producer Symrise shares closed 5.7 per cent down in Germany as management issued a profit warning for 2022 due to an impairment loss of 126 million Euros relating to its premium pet product brand Swedencare which was recognised in the fourth quarter.
It had reaffirmed its long-term growth and profitability goals of averaging annual sales by five to seven per cent were unaffected from this.
Management further announced an acquisition of a minority stake in Danish aroma company EvodiaBio for an unspecified amount of the 45 million Danish Kroner raised, to “strengthen sustainable taste solution offering” for the food and beverage industry, with non-alcoholic beer the first segment it will address.
Commodities
Bitcoin continues to hover around the US$23,000 price from the weekend, a level seen for the first time in five months as it has risen more than 30.0 per cent within the past two weeks.
While Bitcoin has gained traction over a macro backdrop of disinflation within the United States, short interest of US$25.5 million into short-BTC products has also been registered which is the highest level seen since July 2022 and five times the inflows for long-BTC products.
Australia
New Zealand based buy now pay later operator Laybuy Group Holdings went into a trading halt pending an application to be removed from the ASX.
Shares will commence trading if there are no earlier updates than Wednesday the 25th of January. This comes after the previous year observed the company cutting costs and going through a restructure that saw 45 workers laid off - a third of its workforce at the time - in a bid for profitability.
The most recent trading update was on the November 29 last year, where management reassured it was on track to achieve earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation profitability in March 2023.
An Australian company says proved and probable reserves are 13.6 million barrels more than previously thought at a Brazil offshore concession. Photo / Rob Tucker
Mining company Karoon Energy announced a 23.0 per cent increase in 2P (proven and probable) oil reserves in BM-S-40 (Bauna) for its 100 per cent owned Santos Basin concession in Brazil.
This equates to an increase to reserves by 13.6 million barrels to 55.0 million barrels.
While this had been flagged in an October 2022 following a successful intervention campaign for the Bauna and Piracaba oil fields, the amount was not specified. We expect management to produce their quarterly figures today.
New Zealand
Utility Company Genesis Energy shares rose as much as 3.0 per cent this morning after their second quarter operating statistics were released.
Key highlights included net customer churn decreasing quarter-on-quarter by 0.9 per cent to 11.7 per cent, total customers increasing by 2.5 per cent to 481,000 and renewable generation was 980 Gigawatts per hour, a 50.0 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter.
Kupe gas and liquid petroleum gas sales were down as expected due to the scheduled shutdown in November.
Computer software company Serko upgraded revenue guidance range to NZ$42-47 million for the financial year ended March 2023, up from the previous guidance given at the half year result in November 2022 of “approximately doubling FY22 revenue” of NZ$18.9 million.
The reason given was a solid trading result over the seasonally low period of late December to mid-January and for this to continue in the current quarter of 2023. Shares increased 8.7 per cent on market close.
Coming up today
There is no scheduled news today for the NZX main board. Auckland Airport will release its monthly traffic update.
In Australia, mining companies Sandfire Resources, Evolution Mining and Coronado Global Resources will release quarterly production figures this morning. At 3:30pm, National Australia Bank’s Australia Business Confidence survey will release for December 2022.
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All market pricing and announcements are sourced from Refinitiv, NZX and ASX.
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