This is what the flux.
I'm Brettan, I'm justin and it's last Friday, the twentieth of December, doyboy.
Each year, Treasury releases a juicy report that highlights how many Aussies are taking advantage of tax benefits.
Juicy.
Get this, Nearly half of all Australian landlords have negatively geared their properties. All in all, the negative gearing benefit will cost the government six billion dollars in lost tax.
Flux ma'am. It has been a huge twenty twenty four and we've loved being in your ears each and every week with the latest business news stories. We cracked over one thousand pot episodes, we celebrated millions of downloads. But just to remind us, this is our last pod for twenty twenty four and we'll be back fit and firing
on January twentieth, twenty twenty five. So if you're enjoying the pod, please give us the greatest of holiday gifts by hitting subscribe and giving us a five star rating and review.
We don't really need a review, just a five star rating and the subscribe three truly marvelous stories today, doesy boy? Let's do it for our first, Quantus has agreed to pay one hundred and twenty million dollars in compensation to eighteen hundred former ground handlers who were illegally sacked.
Surely New CEO could just blame Old Sea over this one.
What is the story here, well, juzzyboy, Quantas, Australia's national airline carrier, has been around since nineteen twenty two.
In fact, my friend at Quantus is the third oldest operating airline in the world behind KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and I've.
Janker Great Trivia Knowledge two fan favorite now ban.
During the pandemic, Quantus suffered some serious losses. We're talking more than seven billion dollars. On top of that they profited off ghost flights.
They faced an a Triple C inquiry and New CEO mass layoffs the ban.
Back in October this year, the Federal court found that Quantus had illegally fired eighteen hundred and twenty workers back in twenty twenty.
And rather than true redundancies, Quantus had outsourced to these roles to contract it.
So now Quantus has agreed to pay one hundred and twenty million bucks to the Transport Workers Union to pay those affected workers and Juseyboy the Transport Workers Union is calling this the large case of illegal sackings in Australian history. That is huge for me. Man Quantus's new CEO, Vaness Hudson. She's apologized and now let's move on from all of this.
So what is the key learning here? When a new CEO steps into their role, they inherit the good, they inherit the bad, and of course they're very ugly from their predecessor.
The good thing for a fresh CEO is that they can apologize for past mistakes without personally owning them.
Yeah, these apologies can help the company rebuild investor and customer trusts while distancing themselves from past errors from previous management.
And Vanessa Hudson has leaned hard into this story.
Poor call center service. Sorry about that it was on previous CEO, Alan Joyce's watch ghost flights.
Deeply regretful, Alan Joyce again and now again the illegal sackings. Let's settle the case that happened under my predecessor.
But here's a twistbeed Man. Despite all this turbulence, quantius of share price is at an all time high.
Turns out, investors are loving Vanessa's apology.
Tool for our second story. Australia's Big four banks have reduced their lending to fossil fuel companies over twenty percent in the last two years after big pressure from climate activists. Wow way billions and billions and billions. Jusey boy, tell me more? Okay, so we know the big four banks in Australia some of the biggest banks in the whole wide world. Yep.
They lent to almost everyone, homeowners renovating their kitchens, businesses, expanding their empires.
In fact, they man between CommBank and ZED, Westpac and NAB. They lent forty three point four billion dollars to fossil fuel businesses back in twenty twenty two.
But does boy. Activist groups and investors have been piling on the pressure to stop lending to fossil fuel companies.
And it seems to be working.
Get this.
The Big four led thirty four billion dollars to fossil fuel companies in twenty twenty four, or nearly ten billion dollars less than twenty twenty two.
On top of that, the Big Four is pushing fossil fuels companies to create climate transition plans if they want to be eligible for future financing, and.
If they don't see legit transition plans by certain dates in twenty twenty five, it means no more lending.
That is very interesting, juzy boy. So what is the key learning here?
Thanks are being forced to balance commercial interests with the need to address climate risks.
On the one hand, banks and all for profit companies need to focus on maximizing their profit to deliver shareholder value.
But on the other hand, there's an argument they need to maximize profits ethically, and a number of climate activists and ESG conscious investors believe that fossil fuel lending it just ain't right and clearly be Man The pressure has worked because the Big four have dropped their lending to fossil fuel companies by twenty two percent.
And the banks aren't the only companies being pressured by investors.
YEP. Remember back in twenty twenty one, when a small activist investor grew called Engine Number one, won three seats on the Exon Mobile board.
They booted off the old board members and started to push for some changes from within. So who knows, be Man and maybe hens Ed could be there for our third and final story, of the year. Honda and Nissan have confirmed that they're in talks are a mega merger which could radically change the car market.
By the time we're back in January. By man, we could be calling them Nissenda has an interesting ring to it.
Tell me more, well, we spoke on the pot a few weeks ago about the recent demise of the good company Nissan.
Yeah, they warned they only had twelve to four eighteen months of gas left in the tank if they didn't make a big move. Not the cash guy. Yeah, there was a hot minute when maybe the cash Kai, the extral the pathfinder, they were going to disappear into the history books of the car industry.
But now Honda and Nissan, who are both Japanese companies, have confirmed they're looking to merge.
That's because both companies have kind of struggled lately.
Missen's profit margin cut by seventy percent over the past year, and.
Hundreds four year profits were expected to drop by more than fourteen percent from.
The previous year, and the goal of this joint merger would allow the companies to gain economies of scale.
So what is the key learning here?
Economies of scale are the cost advantages that exist when a company increases the scale or size of its operations.
In this case, Man, it's about the merged company producing more cars for fewer costs. The cost of raw materials is cheap out because you're buying in bulk.
The cost of producing the materials is cheaper because you can make the most of your machines.
So be man. If Missing and Honda ti the knot, they would become the third biggest car maker by sales volume, only behind Toyota and Volkswagen.
And that means a whole lot more purchasing and it also means more market share in Australia too. Yeap Nisson has about four percent of the Australian car market, including yours, and Honda has about six percent and does work. Clearly, the market liked the sound of this news because Nissen share price jumped by twenty four percent, if you don't mind.
Their biggest one day jump in over fifty years. It has been a huge twenty twenty four and this is our final farewell for the year. Enjoy the end of the year, have a safe holiday season, and make sure if you're missing some finance news and some business updates over the break it's all in the Flux app, which ain't going nowhere. Plenty of business news, finance courses and budgeting tools to keep you occupied over that busy summer period.
A big thank you from Brett and I. We've had an absolute ball this year and looking forward to twenty twenty five.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you in twenty twenty five.