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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the twenty fourth of January twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Fast five Business News by Fear and Greed,

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Speaker 1: where we give you the top five business stories you

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Speaker 1: need to know in just five minutes. I'm Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and good morning Sean Aylmer.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Michael Shawan.

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Speaker 1: Five big stories to race through in five minutes. Let's

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Speaker 1: get cracking. The story number one, a major shake up

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Speaker 1: underway in the local retailing sector, with shareholders overwhelmingly backing

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Speaker 1: a takeover of Premier's Apparel brand and the closure of

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Speaker 1: a well known fashion brand.

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Speaker 2: That's right, so Meyer is taking over Premier's Apparel Brands.

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Speaker 2: Billionaire Solomon lou gets a seat on the Meyer board

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Speaker 2: and he'll hold twenty seven percent of the company. He

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Speaker 2: is the biggest shareholder in Premier Brands. Bringing the two together,

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Speaker 2: he is kind of well, it's not running the company.

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Speaker 2: A woman called Olivia Worth who's doing that. But he's

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Speaker 2: easily the biggest shareholder. The one hundred and twenty four

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Speaker 2: year old department store will now get Just Jean's Dottie

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Speaker 2: Portman's Jjson Jkee the new retailer, the combined retailer I

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Speaker 2: suppose we'll have seven hundred and eighty three large format

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Speaker 2: stores and specialty stores, seventeen thousand star four billion dollars

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Speaker 2: in sales, two hundred and fifty million dollars in earnings.

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Speaker 2: The share prices I both have fallen in recent weeks

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Speaker 2: on the back of poor pre Christmas sales. Yesterday, May

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Speaker 2: was up more than five percent, Premier was down slightly.

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Speaker 2: It's easy to see who investors think the deal is

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Speaker 2: best for and seohn.

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Speaker 1: All one hundred and thirty six Rivers stores across the

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Speaker 1: country will close in mid April after the receivers for

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Speaker 1: parent company Mosaic Brands couldn't find a buyer for the retailer.

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Speaker 2: That's right, six hundred and fifty jobs will go. Rivers

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Speaker 2: actually has a deep history in Australia. It started in

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine selling goods to stores like Grace Brothers

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Speaker 2: and David Jones, but actually goes back to eighteen sixty

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Speaker 2: three where it manufactured shoes Originally, it opened its first

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Speaker 2: retail store in nineteen eighty three. It's the seventh Mosaic

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Speaker 2: brand to go. So we've lost Rockman's Autograph, Crossroads, w

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Speaker 2: Lane b Me Cadi's and now rivers the administrators trying

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Speaker 2: to find a buyer for Miller's and non eb.

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Speaker 1: Story number two show on the Albanesi government has put

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Speaker 1: an extra two billion dollars into its green bank to

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Speaker 1: boost momentum in clean energy investment, notwithstanding the shift away

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Speaker 1: from renewables in the US.

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Speaker 2: The extra funding is the first for the Clean Energy

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Speaker 2: Finance Corporation's general purpose funds since the organization was set

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Speaker 2: up in twenty twelve. That was set up with ten

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Speaker 2: billion dollars two billion dollars yesterday plus all the investment

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Speaker 2: income CEFC, so there's a Clean Energy Finance Corporations tail

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Speaker 2: investment capacities now about thirty billion dollars. It also looks

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Speaker 2: after specific investments for certain things, such as the new

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Speaker 2: twenty billion dollar rewiring the Nation Fund for Electricity Transmission.

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Speaker 2: Prime Minister to Anthony Albinezi yesterday say the extra money

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Speaker 2: would unlock about six billion dollars of private investment in

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Speaker 2: energy transition projects.

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Speaker 1: On to story number three. Now, in local airlines on

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Speaker 1: time statistics are improving Sean believe it or not, but

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Speaker 1: remain below pre COVID levels, largely because of a lack

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Speaker 1: of new aircraft, which is hampering efforts to meet demand.

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Speaker 2: So one time arrival figures for last year Quanus seventy

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Speaker 2: five percent, Jetstar seventy three percent, Version seventy two percent.

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Speaker 2: The long term average is eighty percent. According to the

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Speaker 2: Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics. Last year's figures

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Speaker 2: much better than twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 2: They are disastrous, really, But back then the airlines we're

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Speaker 2: trying to recover capacity from COVID. They got there in

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Speaker 2: terms of domestic capacity, not so much international capacity. The

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Speaker 2: bottom line here is that the airlines still haven't got

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Speaker 2: enough aircraft in the sky. In Quantas's case, its fleet

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Speaker 2: is particularly old. It's got an average age of sixteen years.

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Speaker 2: It's the third oldest of any major global airlines. Singapore

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Speaker 2: air Lines, for example, has an average age of its

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Speaker 2: fleet of eight years. It desperately needs to get more

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Speaker 2: planes underinvested for the last decade. As a result, that's

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Speaker 2: come out home to roost. Now. The good news, I

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Speaker 2: suppose for some of us, is that ticket prices in

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Speaker 2: December are actually six percent lower for the year earlier.

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Speaker 1: Not so good news, Shawn a story now before. The

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Speaker 1: National Australian Bank Well Being Index is back to record lows,

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Speaker 1: reflecting growing anxiety and parts of the population and lower

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Speaker 1: life satisfaction.

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Speaker 2: The fourth quarter survey said that Australians are becoming less patient,

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Speaker 2: polite and kind. There you go. Financial stress is increasingly

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Speaker 2: driving well being. The biggest financial concern among thirty to

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Speaker 2: forty nine year olds is financial stress. It's rising among

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Speaker 2: younger people. I think a lot of people have been

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Speaker 2: hurt by the past few years and they're just not

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Speaker 2: willing to be upbeat about twenty twenty five yet. The

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Speaker 2: survey explores how Australians feel about their lives in response

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Speaker 2: to changing economic and social conditions their personal finance. The

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Speaker 2: vibe of the economy is important to growth. National Australia

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Speaker 2: Bank says it had been tracking well. It's been tracked

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Speaker 2: in twenty thirteen, but December quarter last year was its

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Speaker 2: equal low ever.

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Speaker 1: Last one story number five. Donald Trump had his first

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Speaker 1: sit down interview with a TV station as second time

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Speaker 1: president yesterday. The interviewer was longtime supporter Sean Hannity from

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Speaker 1: Fox and Sean, If You're hoping for fireworks not. There

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Speaker 1: was a fairly tame affair.

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Speaker 2: Here was Donald Trump was critical of Joe Biden and

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Speaker 2: his pardons. He bemoaned Donald Trump bemoaned what he called

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Speaker 2: were disasters under the previous president. Not much much grace

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Speaker 2: with Donald Trump. He said he's worried about migrants coming

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Speaker 2: to Australia, saying the ones with tattoos all over them

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Speaker 2: could be trouble. Who knows. During the day, Trump signaled

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Speaker 2: the toughest stance on Russia, demanding President Vladimir Putin come

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Speaker 2: to the table to make a peace deal or risk

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Speaker 2: more US sanctions. He also warned that he might cut

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Speaker 2: federal funding for states that operate sanctuary cities for undocumented migrants.

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Speaker 2: The other thing, did you see that little spat between

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Speaker 2: Elon Musk and the new Stargate deal? So Stargate's all

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Speaker 2: about infrastructure for AI. Basically, Musk said that some of

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Speaker 2: the partners didn't have the money. Some of the partners

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Speaker 2: came back and said it was wrong. Then Musk came

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Speaker 2: and this is all on X. Of course, he called

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Speaker 2: Stargate fake. He called it. Sam Moltman, who's part of it,

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Speaker 2: the deal, he's an open II chief. He called him

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Speaker 2: a swindler. Now unusual really for a White House official

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Speaker 2: to poke holes and administration's policy publicly, especially on day.

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Speaker 1: Through, doesn't really bode well for the Trump Musk relationship.

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Speaker 2: Does it show? It doesn't?

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Speaker 1: It didn't. Right there we go the top five business

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Speaker 1: stories in five minutes. Thank you very much, Sean.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Michael.

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Speaker 1: It is Friday, the twenty fourth of January twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Remember to hit follow on the podcast, and if five

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Speaker 1: minutes isn't enough for you, you can find our longer daily

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Speaker 1: show called Fear and Greed wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 1: I'm Michael Thompson and that was the fast five business

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Speaker 1: news by Fear and Greed. Had a great day.