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Speaker 1: It's Friday, the fifth of July twenty twenty four. Welcome

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

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

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Speaker 1: need to know in just five minutes. Are Michael Thompson

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Speaker 1: and Good morning, Sean Aylmer. Good morning, Michael, Sean Five stories,

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Speaker 1: five minutes. Let's go. There's some big ones today. Story

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Speaker 1: number one. Santos's share price jumped four percent yesterday after

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Speaker 1: reports that two separate companies, Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi

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Speaker 1: National Oil Co, are considering bidding for the oil and

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Speaker 1: gas giant.

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Speaker 2: The Stone owned companies have been conducting preliminary evaluations of

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Speaker 2: Santos as a possible acquisition target, according to Bloomberg Now.

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Speaker 2: Santos came out and said it doesn't comment on market speculation.

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Speaker 2: While the news surprised sum analysts and any deal would

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Speaker 2: have many regulatory hurdles to get through, the reports show

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Speaker 2: that there's plenty of movement in the oil and gas world.

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Speaker 2: The big prize is the L and G projects in Australia,

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Speaker 2: P ANDNG and team or less. Santos also has oil

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Speaker 2: assets in Alaska. For much of last year, Santos and

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Speaker 2: Woodside held merger talks, which would have created an eighty

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Speaker 2: billion dollar company. The talks ended in February this year.

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Speaker 2: After they ended, CEO Kevin Gallagher talked about the strategy.

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Speaker 2: He had carbon capture and storage projects in South Australia,

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Speaker 2: the massive Brossa gas project and the Team or C

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Speaker 2: and a fifteen billion dollar P ANDNG venture so Sean.

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Speaker 1: Even if this doesn't go ahead, Santos is pretty much

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Speaker 1: in play, isn't it Yes?

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Speaker 2: I think so gas is increasingly in demand as the

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Speaker 2: best transition fuel as the world ultimately moves through renewables.

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Speaker 2: Golf countries are investing billions of dollars in gas, and

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Speaker 2: Qatar plans to nearly double LNG export capacity, Saudi Arabia

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Speaker 2: and the United Arab Emirates of pumping cash into domestic

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Speaker 2: fields and building trading operations globally. Santos basically could fit

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Speaker 2: into all of that. Apart from the Woodside Santos merger, EIG,

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Speaker 2: a US based private equity group, made a fourteen point

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Speaker 2: four billion dollar bid for Santos back in twenty eighteen,

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Speaker 2: so the bidding has been going on for a while.

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Speaker 2: I think it's to start escalating all.

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Speaker 1: Right onto Story number two now sean finally some relief

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Speaker 1: for tenants, with rents now falling, stable or rising much

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Speaker 1: less quickly across most capital cities.

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Speaker 2: Domane's Dune quarter rent report shows the weakest quarterly growth

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Speaker 2: for house rents since twenty twenty one in Sydney and Melbourne,

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Speaker 2: and since twenty twenty in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. It's

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Speaker 2: a similar story for units. Vacancy rates are also rising,

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Speaker 2: suggesting conditions are starting to improve for renters. Interesting to

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Speaker 2: look at the growth in rents over the last year.

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Speaker 2: Perth and Melbourne led the way with growth of twelve percent,

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Speaker 2: even though house price growth in the Victorian capital has

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Speaker 2: been very weak. Apartment rents haven't risen as much in Melbourne,

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Speaker 2: though at ten percent they're still well above Sydney domain.

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Speaker 2: Chief of Research Nicolo Powells had going forward, more rental availability,

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Speaker 2: slightly less demand following the peak of immigration last year,

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Speaker 2: and the likelihood of a jump in first homeowners should

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Speaker 2: keep taking pressure off the market.

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Speaker 1: Story number three. Total sales of vehicles hit a record

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Speaker 1: for the first six months of the year, though the

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Speaker 1: pace of growth they have peaked because June numbers are

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Speaker 1: well below last year.

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Speaker 2: Australian customers took delivery of just under one hundred and

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Speaker 2: twenty thousand new vehicles last month, taking sales for the

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Speaker 2: six months to more than six hundred and thirty two thousand.

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Speaker 2: That's about nine percent higher than a year earlier. For

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Speaker 2: that six months also a record now the previous record

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Speaker 2: was six hundred and six thousand back in twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 2: But for the month of June sales are actually down

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Speaker 2: four percent compared to a year earlier. Being the end

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Speaker 2: of the financial year, June really matters. While SUVs and

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Speaker 2: like commercial vehicles dominate the market, there has been a

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Speaker 2: jump in hybrid vehicle sold. Hybrids captured fourteen point four

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Speaker 2: percent of the market last month compared to seven point

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Speaker 2: eight percent a year earlier. Toyota again led the way

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Speaker 2: from Ford, Mazda, Kia and Mitsubishi Ford Ranger top selling vehicle,

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Speaker 2: followed by Toyota Hilux Rat four, Toyota vehicle that one,

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Speaker 2: the Mitsubishi Outlander, and then the Tesla Model Y.

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Speaker 1: Story number four. Britain went to the polls overnight shan

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Speaker 1: with only one result possible, really a landslide win to

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Speaker 1: the Labor Party.

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Speaker 2: We won't quite now how big the landslide is for

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Speaker 2: a few days, but it is likely to be the

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Speaker 2: largest majority for a Labour government ever in the UK,

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Speaker 2: meaning that Rishie Sunnek's Conservative Party faces the worst defeat

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Speaker 2: in history. The polls are open from seven am to

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Speaker 2: ten pm meaning Australian Eastern time. They close at seven

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Speaker 2: am this morning. Voting isn't compulsory. Last election, about two

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Speaker 2: thirds of the population voted. The new Prime Minister will

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Speaker 2: be Keir Starmer, a barrister who was Director of Public

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Speaker 2: Prosecutions before joining parliament in twenty fifteen. One of his

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Speaker 2: most famous jobs was serving as a human rights advisor

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Speaker 2: to the Northern Ireland Policing Board. Good luck to him.

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Speaker 1: Last one sean story number five. The pressure on Joe

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Speaker 1: Biden to drop out of the races growing as two

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Speaker 1: credible opinion polls show Donald Trump well ahead in the

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Speaker 1: battle to become president.

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Speaker 2: The New York Time is reporting that mister Biden conceded

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Speaker 2: the possibility of him dropping out to a friend, though

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Speaker 2: the White House denied the report. There are also stories

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Speaker 2: of dozens of Democrat politicians considering signing a letter demanding

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Speaker 2: he withdraw from the election. Meanwhile, a New York Times

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Speaker 2: poll found mister Trump ahead forty nine percent to forty

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Speaker 2: three percent Wall Street Journal poll, about the same largest

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Speaker 2: lead for mister Trump thus far. The survey suggests that

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Speaker 2: worries over Biden's age you're driving this shift. In fact,

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Speaker 2: nearly three quarters of voters in the Time poll said

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Speaker 2: the eighty one year old president is too old for

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Speaker 2: the job.

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Speaker 1: Okay, there we go, the top five business stories in

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Speaker 1: five minutes. Thank you Sean, Thank you Michael. It is Friday,

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Speaker 1: the fifth of July twenty twenty four. Remember to hit

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Speaker 1: follow on the podcast, and if five minutes isn't enough,

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Speaker 1: you can find our longer daily show called Fear and

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Speaker 1: Greed wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Michael Thompson and

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Speaker 1: that was the fast five business news by Fear and Greed.

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Speaker 1: Have a great day.