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Speaker 1: Welcome to the weekend edition of The Fast Five.

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Speaker 2: Business News by Fear and Greed are Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 2: Hello Sean Ale.

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Speaker 1: Hello Michael sean On.

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Speaker 2: Weekdays, it's all about the Fast five, the top five

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Speaker 2: business stories in five minutes. On the weekend, we still

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Speaker 2: keep it to five minutes, but we're going to pick

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Speaker 2: out the biggest business story of the week, the most

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Speaker 2: remarkable story, the most ridiculous story today, and then our

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Speaker 2: favorite business ish story was We'll start with the biggest obviously, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: what was yours?

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Speaker 3: Wise Tech Global? The return of King Richard Richard White

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Speaker 3: that is founder of the company, been running it for

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Speaker 3: thirty one years, driver of ideas, also a man who

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Speaker 3: is facing allegations from women who have worked with him

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Speaker 3: over the years, and in at least one case, White's

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Speaker 3: gifted a former lover a seven million dollar house on

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Speaker 3: Melbourne's waterfront. Now on Monday, four independent directors quit Wise

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Speaker 3: Tech Global. The chair was one of those, and the

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Speaker 3: statement from the company he was, well, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: The same from the company was very frank, it said

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Speaker 3: in track differences in the board and differing views around

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Speaker 3: the ongoing role of founder in founding Zeer Richard White

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Speaker 3: was a reason for these directors stepping down. The share

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Speaker 3: price lost twenty percent. Then later in the week we

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Speaker 3: had its earnings come out and the earnings weren't that

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Speaker 3: good and the share price, but what we did find

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Speaker 3: out is that Richard White is coming back as executive chair.

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Speaker 3: The share price jumped two percent, but it is still

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Speaker 3: off about twenty percent for the week. It is a

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Speaker 3: huge test for corporate governance in this country. At a

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Speaker 3: Senate Estimates Committee hearing in canber the boss of ASEK,

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Speaker 3: Joe Longo, that's a regulator, said that he's very interested

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Speaker 3: in what's happening. He's making some preliminary inquiries. We're going

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Speaker 3: to hear a lot about this one.

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Speaker 2: Michael, Yeah, I reckon that is the biggest story of

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Speaker 2: the week. There was a bit happening in politics though

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Speaker 2: as well, and I will mention that we had some

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Speaker 2: polls at the beginning of the week that showed the

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Speaker 2: coalition opening up a fifty two to forty eight percent

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Speaker 2: two party preferred at lead over Labor. Basically, the way

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Speaker 2: it's heading, we may be looking at a change of

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Speaker 2: government when the election is eventually called at some point

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Speaker 2: the next few few months, it feels like we are

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Speaker 2: in the campaign, though already we had a lot of

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Speaker 2: kind of campaign ish stories through the week. Opposition leader

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Speaker 2: Peter Dunn't being forced to defend purchases of bank stocks

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Speaker 2: fifteen years ago, and stories about him buying and selling

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Speaker 2: property using a trust and he's basically said that it

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Speaker 2: only ever acted with integrity, but it's just one of

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Speaker 2: those stories that that does make a leader look bad.

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Speaker 2: And then finally in politics, we had Chinese warships Sean

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Speaker 2: off the coast this week doing live firing exercises that

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Speaker 2: nobody knew about until the Virgin Australia pilot happened to

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Speaker 2: notice that the ships were broadcasting a warning thirty minutes.

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Speaker 1: After it had started. A bit of a diplomatic crisis.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, a bit scary.

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Speaker 1: What's about?

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Speaker 3: What about the most remarkable story of the week, Michael.

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Speaker 1: Ah Big week for aviation, Sean.

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Speaker 2: I think every week's a great week for aviation, but

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Speaker 2: this week was a big one, a big hour. In particular,

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Speaker 2: Quantas had a jump in half year profit but significantly

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Speaker 2: the first time it's paid a dividend to shareholders since COVID.

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Speaker 2: Great day for Quantas, Great day for QUANTUS shareholders. On

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Speaker 2: the same day, though, we had the federal government announcing

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Speaker 2: that it was approving Qatar taking a twenty five percent

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Speaker 2: stake in Virgin Australia, which means that from June, Virgin

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Speaker 2: is back in the long haul business and customers like

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Speaker 2: you and me, Sean, we are going to be the winners.

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Speaker 3: My option for most remarkable story, I'm sorry to say

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Speaker 3: it's Donald Trump again. He's decided to put tariffs on Canada,

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Speaker 3: Canada and Mexico from next week in extra ten percent

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Speaker 3: on China, talking about twenty five percent tarifs and eyear goods.

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Speaker 3: There was a cabinet meeting where Elon Musk took center stage.

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Speaker 3: Looks like he's getting more power in the Trump administration.

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Speaker 3: Pretty incredible email from Elon Muster bureaucrats telling them to

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Speaker 3: list what they've done the last week. The US sided

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Speaker 3: with Russia in the United Nations. It was a deal

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Speaker 3: between the US and Ukraine over access to minerals. The

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Speaker 3: US or Donald Trump at least offered a US gold

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Speaker 3: card visa scheme five million bucks and you can get

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Speaker 3: a Social Security number. A banning of unfriendly media from

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Speaker 3: the White House, and you had a couple of remarkable meetings.

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Speaker 3: E Manuel mccron from France, the President talking to Donald

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Speaker 3: Trump with the longest handshake of all time fifteen seconds

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Speaker 3: and kissed Arma, the UK Prime Minister kind of standing

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Speaker 3: up to Donald Trump a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, big week.

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Speaker 2: What was the most ridiculous story in your eyes?

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Speaker 3: Look, the absolute rush to reverse climate change action. We

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Speaker 3: found out this week General Matis, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes Benz

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Speaker 3: are shifting away from electric vehicles, or at least their

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Speaker 3: focus on electric vehicles towards back towards intil combustion engines

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Speaker 3: and hybrids. We also had giant BP dumping all premise

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Speaker 3: of becoming a green energy company, abandoning its five year

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Speaker 3: attempt to reinvent itself. It's going to boost spending on

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Speaker 3: oil and gas and absolutely slash spending on renewables, basically

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Speaker 3: a fundamental reset of BP strategy. It is amazing how

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Speaker 3: quickly that has turned.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, quite ridiculous. Also ridiculous, Sean, is the fact that

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Speaker 2: we've had the largest ever theft in history this week,

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Speaker 2: which is just the numbers here are staggering. At crypto Exchange,

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Speaker 2: by bit was hacked an estimated two point four billion

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Speaker 2: dollars worth of crypto ethereum was taken. It is the

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Speaker 2: biggest theft, not just a crypto theft, but a biggest

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Speaker 2: theft in general ever in history, which is just amazing.

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Speaker 2: The thing though, that really gets me about this story, Sean,

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Speaker 2: is the fact that, according to the FBI, the culprit

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Speaker 2: the thief in this case was North Korea. Right. They've

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Speaker 2: got a very sophisticated cybercrime unit called the Lazarus Group,

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Speaker 2: and they've stolen huge sums in the past, and that

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Speaker 2: money is thought to have then funded North Korea's nuclear

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Speaker 2: and ballistic missile programs. Just adds a rather sinister element

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Speaker 2: to what is a pretty ridiculous story.

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Speaker 1: I agree.

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Speaker 3: Can't tell you my favorite story please. The stolen Golden

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Speaker 3: toilet saga ended up in court this week. Fees stole

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Speaker 3: a gold toilet valued at about ten million Aussie from

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Speaker 3: Blenham Pallace, famous to be the birthplace and ancestral home

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Speaker 3: of the Winston Churchill. Basically, they stole five men, stole

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Speaker 3: two cars, drove through locked wooden gates into the grounds

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Speaker 3: of Blenham Palace. They drove across the field up the

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Speaker 3: front steps smashed and broke in through a window, and

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Speaker 3: then they broke down the wooden door to the cubicle

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Speaker 3: where the toilet was fully plumbed. I like the fact

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Speaker 3: that the golden toilet is fully plumbed. They removed it,

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Speaker 3: leaving water pouring out of the python drove away. They

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Speaker 3: got caught. The toilet will never be recovered. Apparently it's

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Speaker 3: been melted down and sold alas. These people are facing

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Speaker 3: judgment though.

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Speaker 2: Sean, my favorite story is about Nvidio, which has got

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Speaker 2: to be the most watched tech stock in the world

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Speaker 2: at the moment, reported its results this week and the

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Speaker 2: thing that just stood out for me is just the

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Speaker 2: amount of money that this company is making. The sales

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Speaker 2: because of the AI boom in the three months to

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Speaker 2: the end of January, up seventy eight percent on prior year,

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Speaker 2: thirty nine point three billion US dollars two hundred and

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Speaker 2: sixty nine thousand US dollars a minute for computer chips.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Shocking, right, incredible.

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Speaker 2: Staggering, remarkable, unable to be believed.

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Speaker 1: It is just enormous. All right, there, we got.

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Speaker 2: Five minutes and pretty much everything you need to know

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Speaker 2: in the world of business.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Sean.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Michael.

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Speaker 2: We'll be back on Monday morning with the top five

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Speaker 2: business stories in five minutes. Don't forget to hit follow

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Speaker 2: and please join us online on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Facebook

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Speaker 2: and X. I'm Michael Thompson and this is the fast

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Speaker 2: five business news by Fear and Great