The Chinese owners of the Port of Darwin have been accumulating losses at a rate of about $30m a year since controversially purchasing the strategic infrastructure from the Northern Territory government for $506m eight years ago.
But it’s a topic unlikely to be on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s agenda for his impending landmark visit to the Middle Kingdom, now that he’s approved Shandong Landbridge Group’s ultimate ownership of the northern Australian infrastructure via continuation of the group’s 99-year lease.
The local subsidiary of the Chinese giant, Landbridge Infrastructure Australia, has just released another year of disastrous financial results for the 2023 financial year. The private company is owned by Ye Cheng, a billionaire with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Landbridge hasn’t made a profit in Oz since it won the lease in 2015. In the most recent financial year to June 30, it made a bottom-line loss of $26.4m, from $8.5m in the previous year.
Accumulated losses total $233.4m, or about $30m a year since the Chinese took over.
The company’s detailed financials come as Albanese prepares for what will be the first visit from an Australian leader to China in seven years.
The PM will hold talks with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang. News that Albo had just given the Chinese the all clear to remain owner of the Port of Darwin, as well as the release of detained journalist Cheng Lei, have helped towards smoothing the terrain for his visit.
After Albanese won the 2022 election, he said his government would review the circumstances of the port’s ownership by the Chinese corporate giant.
Last year the port generated revenue of $58.7m, from just over $54m previously. It owes about $430m in both interest and non-interest-bearing loans to its Chinese parent.
The port comprises East Arm wharf, which facilitates the import and export of dry goods, raw materials, petroleum, livestock, vehicles, containers and general cargo, as well as Fort Hill Wharf, where cruise ships berth. The port also provides berthing for the Australian Navy. But there is nothing geopolitically strategic to see there.
The company’s ongoing financial viability is only secured thanks to the Shandong Landbridge Group having provided a letter of financial support for the next 12 months to the Aussie subsidiary should there be a cashflow problem.
So for now, at least, it remains a going concern.
A super posting
We are not sure superannuation king maker AustralianSuper could get any more Team Red.
The industry super giant, for a start, has just landed a new client. And there is nothing like a prime ministerial endorsement to boost business, with Anthony Albanese just before he left for his visit to America switching his retirement savings from the Insignia Financial Group-owned MLC to AustralianSuper, which has something like $300bn in funds under management.
Meanwhile, look who slid on to the executive team of the industry giant as its new chief officer of strategy and corporate affairs – Paula Benson, wife of former Labor senator and communications minister Stephen Conroy, now key Canberra lobbyist with TG Public Affairs and media commentator.
Benson has joined from global infrastructure fund manager IFM and for a time prior to that was in corporate affairs at NAB.
Conroy has recently been advising PwC on how best to manage its all-consuming international tax scandal.
Post office not dead
Whiplash is a danger in trying to keep up with Aussie Post chief Paul Graham.
Last week, he was at Senate estimates declaring he wanted to shut post offices because there were too many and he wanted to cut costs.
Under current government regulation, Post needs to maintain a minimum of 4000 post offices nationwide. At last count there were 4271, with Post, which lost about $200m last year, effectively operating the most expansive retail network in the land.
So what is Graham doing this week trumpeting the opening of a new, designer, mega post office in Orange, NSW, billed as a “community hub” where not only can customers buy a stamp, but also a barista-made coffee while tuning into the launch of “Australia Post radio” in-store?
There are change rooms where customers can try on kit that’s come in a parcel they’ve just collected – so goods can be immediately sent back if they don’t fit, plus a space where online retailers can run a pop-up, physical store.
Who said the department store was dead?
Josh’s new role
For anyone who might have been in doubt, the naming of former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg as the chair of Goldman Sachs’ down under outpost is beyond just an honorary position or that of figurehead.
The appointment, taking over from investment banker Christian Johnston, was announced at the end of July in combination with news that the former Liberal member for Kooyong would not seek preselection from local membership to be the party’s candidate at the next federal election towards ousting teal independent Monique Ryan.
Now, some three months later, Frydenberg has become a director of Goldman Sachs Holdings ANZ, the local operation’s operating vehicle, where profits are actually made, or not.
Last year the entity made about $100m in profit from about $500m in revenue – not exactly on par with our nation’s gross domestic product, but still financial services of substance.
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