SHARES in Coles Group Limited (ASX: COL) today began trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on a deferred-settlement basis.

The listing marks a return to the ASX for Coles, which was de-listed following Wesfarmers' acquisition of the Coles Group in 2007. It follows the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s decision on Monday to approve a vote of Wesfarmers shareholders in favour of a scheme of arrangement to demerge the two businesses.

“We are pleased to be joining the ASX under our own name,” said Coles chairman James Graham.

“Listing Coles on the ASX as a standalone business marks the next phase in the evolution of a company that began as a single store in Collingwood 104 years ago. I speak for the entire board when I say it is an immense privilege to be with Coles for such a milestone, and we thank our 480,000-plus new shareholders for joining us on this journey.”

Coles CEO Steven Cain said the past 11 years with Wesfarmers had seen Coles transform into a world-class supermarket retailer.

“Our 115,000 team members can take enormous pride that their company is now listed alongside some of the largest and most recognised businesses in Australia,” he said.

“We’re all very excited for the next chapter in the Coles story as we deliver on our strategy to make life easier for our customers.”

Coles shares will be transferred to eligible shareholders on 28 November and the shares will trade on a normal settlement basis from November 29.

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WITH JUST DAYS to go until the Victorian State Election on Saturday November 24, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) has released its priorities for the next State Government, covering a range of policy initiatives which will benefit Victorian retailers and the state more broadly.

Russell Zimmerman, executive director of the ARA, said that with Victoria currently in a budget surplus, the next State Government would be in a good position to invest in creating the conditions retailers need to thrive.

"Responsible economic management by successive Governments has placed Victoria in an enviable position, and the time is right to implement policies which enhance liveability and help businesses grow," Mr Zimmerman said.

"Since the previous election, the Victorian retail industry has grown to represent a $62.5 billion contribution, allowing retailers to employ more 16,500 more Victorians in May 2018 than in May of 2014."

Mr Zimmerman said three key issues stood out as priorities for the next State Government to address, which would assist in boosting retail’s contribution even further – payroll tax, skills and retail tenancy.

“Payroll tax is effectively an employment levy and discourages smaller retailers from growing their businesses and taking on extra staff,” Mr Zimmerman said.

"While the ARA would ultimately like to see payroll tax abolished altogether, we believe the first step is for the next State Government to raise the threshold to $800,000 to provide immediate relief for medium-sized retailers and small retailers looking to grow," he said.

On the skills front, the ARA will work with the next State Government to ensure retail is listed as a priority industry for Vocational Education and Training in Victoria.

Mr Zimmerman said the development of important skilling and retraining requirements such as business transformation, succession planning and structural change were crucial for Victorian retailers looking to the future.

"Over the last four years, there has been a significant decline in retail traineeships and apprenticeships in Victoria, from 4,700 students at the end of the 2013/2014 financial year to just 3,000 at the end of 2016/2017," Mr Zimmerman said.

The ARA will also advocate to level the playing field for retail tenants, with key measures including market appraisals and information transparency on the radar.

"Retailers face a power imbalance when re-negotiating their leases, and the Victorian retail leasing legislation requires important changes to level the playing field,"Mr Zimmerman said.

"We are calling on the next State Government to improve transparency, and reform market reviews, to ensure retailers are not coerced into accepting bad deals."

The ARA’s election statement also outlines a range of priorities, including reforms of taxation, planning and regulation, the promotion of retail tourism, and the development of a population strategy for Victoria.

To view the ARA’s full suite of election priorities, click here. 

About the Australian Retailers Association:

Founded in 1903, the Australian Retailers Association (ARA) is Australia’s largest retail association, representing the country’s $310 billion sector, which employs more than 1.2 million people. As Australia’s leading retail peak industry body, the ARA is a strong pro-active advocate for Australian retail and works to ensure retail success by informing, protecting, advocating, educating and saving money for its 7,500 independent and national retail members throughout Australia. For more information, visit www.retail.org.au or call 1300 368 041.

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SHARES in Coles Group Limited (ASX: COL) today began trading on the Australian Securities Exchange on a deferred-settlement basis.

The listing marks a return to the ASX for Coles, which was de-listed following Wesfarmers' acquisition of the Coles Group in 2007. It follows the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s decision on Monday to approve a vote of Wesfarmers shareholders in favour of a scheme of arrangement to demerge the two businesses.

“We are pleased to be joining the ASX under our own name,” said Coles chairman James Graham.

“Listing Coles on the ASX as a standalone business marks the next phase in the evolution of a company that began as a single store in Collingwood 104 years ago. I speak for the entire board when I say it is an immense privilege to be with Coles for such a milestone, and we thank our 480,000-plus new shareholders for joining us on this journey.”

Coles CEO Steven Cain said the past 11 years with Wesfarmers had seen Coles transform into a world-class supermarket retailer.

“Our 115,000 team members can take enormous pride that their company is now listed alongside some of the largest and most recognised businesses in Australia,” he said.

“We’re all very excited for the next chapter in the Coles story as we deliver on our strategy to make life easier for our customers.”

Coles shares will be transferred to eligible shareholders on 28 November and the shares will trade on a normal settlement basis from November 29.

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THE House Standing Committee on Employment, Education and Training has announced an inquiry into the Status of the Teaching Profession.

Committee chair Andrew Laming MP said the inquiry is about what it takes for Australia to have a world-class education system.

“Australia’s teachers inspire, engage and challenge students to be the best they can. Although there are more teachers in Australia than ever, the attrition rate from the profession is rising.” Mr Laming said.

“This inquiry will examine ways to develop proper career structures and pathways for teachers to ensure that the profession remains fulfilling and rewarding for educators.  In addition, the inquiry will examine how teachers can be better supported within classrooms and schools more generally, to minimise the amount of time that is spent undertaking out-of-hours work."

Mr Laming explained that the Committee would seek to build on significant work already done in this area, and will consider relevant outcomes from two key reports —Through Growth to Achievement: Report of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools and Action Now: Classroom Ready Teachers— as well as current state and territory reforms.

In particular, the Committee wants to look at ways to overcome current constraints to deliver the best school education model for Australia. Some of those constraints include: inflexible curriculum delivery; periodic reporting and assessment practices; a lack of evidenced-based research; an absence of readily-available class room applications; time pressures for teachers and principals; and a lack of support for school principals to develop professional autonomy.

The Committee is accepting written submissions until Friday 21 December 2018.

Terms of Reference for the inquiry are available on the inquiry webpage and information about how to make a submission is available on the Parliament of Australia webpage.

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THE CARAVAN Industry Association of Australia along with the Residential Land Lease Alliance (RLLA) have released Long Term Residents in Caravan Parks and Manufactured Housing Estates: A Census 2016 Social Trends Report.

The report shows that more than 70,000 Australians lived in manufactured housing estates (MHEs) and caravan parks and that this living arrangement is a vital aspect of affordable housing from both the supply and demand side.

The report found that approximately 2 percent of Australians aged over 65 live in MHEs or caravan parks with the sector undergoing a large shift in the past decade.

MHEs and caravan parks, during the mining boom, provided an important source of temporary housing solutions in remote Australia to cater for the large amounts of support personnel required to sustain fly-in fly-out (FIFO) communities.

With the end of the mining boom, the demographic shift in communities has shown a strong take up from people aged 60-plus.

The research shows that 37 percent of residents in MHEs and caravan parks live alone – highlighting the important social benefits of living in land-lease communities which are increasingly providing facilities to encourage interactions between residents. 

From the supply side, MHEs provide an affordable downsizing option for the baby-boomer  generation who tend to have much equity tied up in their property, especially households with mid-lower income brackets. This downsizing also frees up housing supply in with ageing demographics.

The report highlights the need for government support in this sector as residents living in MHEs are nearly three times as likely to require assistance with core activities compared to Australian averages.

In terms of connectivity; only 64 percent of dwellings in MHEs and caravan parks reported having an internet connection, compared to the Australian average of 90 percent of dwellings. 

www.caravanindustry.com.au

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AUSTRALIA's largest enterprise Software as a Service (SaaS) company, TechnologyOne (ASX:TNE) today announced its financial results for the year ended September 30, 2018, showing continuing strong growth with profit up 15 percent underpinned by the fast growth of the TechnologyOne enterprise SaaS solution.

TechnologyOne CEO Edward Chung said, “I am pleased to announce our ninth consecutive year of record profit, record revenue and record licence fees for TechnologyOne.

“Today, TechnologyOne is a SaaS company, though the market is yet to fully appreciate this fact given we started as a traditional ‘on premise’ software company.  All new customers logos in FY18 were driven by TechnologyOne SaaS.  We now have 347 large scale enterprise customers, with hundreds of thousands of users, making it the largest single instance ERP (enterprise resource planning) SaaS offering in Australia. Our annual recurring revenue is growing very fast, at 20 percent per annum.

“Our SaaS offering is delivering a compelling value proposition for our customers providing them ‘any device, anytime access from anywhere around the globe’ as well as a simple and cost-effective way to run their enterprise. This is allowing our customers to innovate and meet the challenges ahead with greater agility and speed, without having to worry about underlying technologies. We take care of all of this, making life simple for them," Mr Chung said.

“We continued to dominate in the local government sector, where we closed 11 new major deals with $80 million in contract revenue. We have more than 300 council customers and are continuing to grow fast.

“TechnologyOne also continues to see strong growth in Government with initial licence fee growing 17 percent.

“We continue to deliver exceptional projects at breakneck speed with several recent SaaS go lives being implemented in less than six weeks.

“The APAC region performed strongly with profit up 20 percent, underpinned by strong licence fee growth, significant turnaround in our consulting business and our market leading enterprise SaaS offering. We continued to invest strongly in the UK and remain excited about the significant opportunities for the coming years.

“We will continue to grow quickly, and like we have in the past 30 years, we expect to double in size again in the next five years,” Mr Chung said.

TechnologyOne executive chairman, Adrian Di Marco said, “TechnologyOne has consistently delivered strong and growing results since listing on the ASX in 1999. Our ability to deliver these results for 19 years has not relied on riding the cycle of the economy but it is because of our clear vision, strategy and our significant investment in R&D.

“TechnologyOne invested over $54 million in R&D this year. Our ability to successfully undertake large-scale cutting-edge R&D and to successfully commercialise it has underpinned our success. There are few companies in Australia that come close to the level of creativity and innovation at TechnologyOne.

“After many years of R&D investment, TechnologyOne SaaS is driving our strong results. We have today the market leading enterprise SaaS offering for the markets we serve.

“We continue to invest in new exciting ideas and innovation including Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, which we will ship in our 2019A release in the first half of 2019.

“These strong results would not have been possible without the talented and committed people who make up TechnologyOne led by our CEO, Edward Chung.

“In light of the company’s strong results, and our confidence going forward, the dividend for the full year has increased to 11.02 cents per share, up 8 percent on the prior year,” Mr Di Marco said.

The company has reported its sales pipeline for the new financial year remains strong. The TechnologyOne SaaS business will continue to grow strongly in the new financial year. This supports the outlook for continuing strong profit growth once again over the full year.

The company will provide further guidance at both the Annual General Meeting and with the FY19 first half results.

Further information

This market release should be read in conjunction with the TechnologyOne Investor Presentation and the TechnologyOne Statutory Accounts attached to the Appendix 4E. All documents are available on the ASX Announcement platform.

www.technologyonecorp.com

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THE Financial Services Council (FSC) has begun consulting with its members on the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA) Standards Blueprint and the two draft legislative instruments.

FSC CEO Sally Loane said the draft instruments - the Work and Training (Professional Year) and the Provisional Financial Adviser Term - were the first to be released following submissions to FASEA on the standards during 2018.

”FASEA’s release will provide FSC members with further guidance on what they and their advisers and authorised representatives will be required to meet from 1 January 2019 onwards,” Ms Loane said.

The FSC notes it will make submissions on the released draft legislative instruments by November 30, 2018 and the remaining legislative instruments as they are announced.

www.fsc.org.au

About the Financial Services Council

The Financial Services Council (FSC) has over 100 members representing Australia's retail and wholesale funds management businesses, superannuation funds, life insurers, financial advisory networks and licensed trustee companies. The industry is responsible for investing almost $3 trillion on behalf of more than 14.8 million Australians. The pool of funds under management is larger than Australia’s GDP and the capitalisation of the Australian Securities Exchange and is the fourth largest pool of managed funds in the world. The FSC promotes best practice for the financial services industry by setting mandatory Standards for its members and providing Guidance Notes to assist in operational efficiency.

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THE House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications and the Arts will hold public hearings in Melbourne on Wednesday, 21 November and in Sydney on Thursday, 22 November for its inquiry into the Australian music industry.

The chair, Luke Howarth MP, said that the committee is continuing to examine the potential for continued growth and the factors affecting the success of the Australian music industry, both domestically and internationally.

"The rise of music streaming services, such as Spotify, have revolutionised the music industry. The recent return to growth experienced by the industry has been attributed to the rapid and continued consumer uptake of streaming services, which now account for more than half the overall recorded music market," Mr Howarth said.

"We are very interested to hear Spotify’s views on the Australian music industry—to learn how we can support this growth and how we can grow the reach of Australian music here and overseas."

The committee will also be speaking to the peak bodies of the radio industry.

"Radio remains one of the most popular ways that Australians listen to and discover new music. The committee is keen to speak to radio—public, commercial, and community—to hear how we can best support and promote Australian music," Mr Howarth said.

The committee will hear from the major copyright collecting organisations APRA AMCOS and PPCA, which are responsible for collecting and distributing royalties for artists and publishers. It will also hear from a range of other organisations and experts representing record labels, venues, live music, music education and mental health support services for artists and music workers.

The public hearings will be broadcast live on the web (audio only).

Public hearing details:

MELBOURNE: 9am to 3.30pm, Wednesday, 21 November 2018, Federation Room, Parliament of Victoria, Spring Street

SYDNEY: 8.30am to 4.30pm, Thursday, 22 November 2018, Composite Room, Sydney Masonic Conference and Function Centre, 66 Goulburn St

Programs for the hearings are available on the committee’s website.