Daniel Chaitow

Normalisation is an important part of business reporting and valuation. It allows analysts to form a better judgement on how a business is likely to perform going forward, ensuring that historical growth rates, returns and profitability measures are not skewed by white noise aka ‘one off’ items.

But often the term ‘one off’ is used as a catch all, used simply to soften the blow of a bad result: Is it a ‘one off’ event for a mining company to experience regulatory hurdles? Is it a ‘one… Show more

Normalisation is an important part of business reporting and valuation. It allows analysts to form a better judgement on how a business is likely to perform going forward, ensuring that historical growth rates, returns and profitability measures are not skewed by white noise aka ‘one off’ items.

But often the term ‘one off’ is used as a catch all, used simply to soften the blow of a bad result: Is it a ‘one off’ event for a mining company to experience regulatory hurdles? Is it a ‘one off’ event for a real estate business to experience property value fluctuations? Is it a ‘one off’ event for an agricultural business to experience bad weather? We think not. In fact, for many companies, the most unusual thing is when there are no disruptions to business plans at all. Show less

Have you ever dropped money in the bin by mistake? The truth is, nearly everything that we throw out has real value. Waste in Australia is currently seen as exactly that – a by-product with no intrinsic value, but with significant and growing costs of disposal. And there is a lot of it – about 50 million tonnes a year.

Every individual, government and company produces waste. They then incur significant expenses as councils and waste managers dig a hole and bury it. And there are… Show more

Have you ever dropped money in the bin by mistake? The truth is, nearly everything that we throw out has real value. Waste in Australia is currently seen as exactly that – a by-product with no intrinsic value, but with significant and growing costs of disposal. And there is a lot of it – about 50 million tonnes a year.

Every individual, government and company produces waste. They then incur significant expenses as councils and waste managers dig a hole and bury it. And there are substantial environmental impacts. Waste dumped into landfills emits methane, which is 25 times more potent than CO2, as a greenhouse gas. Toxins present in waste also have the potential to contaminate surrounding soil and groundwater. As a result, landfills have potentially very substantial long term remediation costs. Unsurprisingly, the cost of landfill has increased significantly over the last decade, and this has been further exacerbated by government levies and the introduction of a carbon price. All this portrays waste as a problem to be managed, with rising costs and rising potential liabilities.

In the Free energy! How much money is buried in landfill?”, we highlight that there’s an entirely different perspective on waste – one where it is a valuable, reusable resource in a resource-constrained world. Importantly, this illustrates the wider issue that increased environmental responsibility can actually improve profits and reduce risks, making the commercial decision as to which path to follow a straightforward one. Show less

On 31st July, the lights went out for over 600 million people in India, following a failure of the power grid in 20 of the country's 28 States. Various causes were cited, including low coal supply, low rainfall in the catchments for India's hydro energy generators, failures in India's energy infrastructure and individual States overdrawing from the system. The precise timing, in the middle of the Indian summer, was unsurprising.

Meanwhile, July was the hottest month on record in mainland… Show more

On 31st July, the lights went out for over 600 million people in India, following a failure of the power grid in 20 of the country's 28 States. Various causes were cited, including low coal supply, low rainfall in the catchments for India's hydro energy generators, failures in India's energy infrastructure and individual States overdrawing from the system. The precise timing, in the middle of the Indian summer, was unsurprising.

Meanwhile, July was the hottest month on record in mainland USA. One associated impact has been the worst drought since 1956. Nearly 90% of the primary corn and soybean belt has been significantly impacted, leading to substantial crop losses.

Neither of these events are evidence in themselves of the extent or pace of climate change. They do, however, provide strong examples of the human and financial risks of changing weather patterns. This has prompted us to reflect on the state of play of Governmental initiatives around the world to drive changes in commercial and consumer behaviour. Show less

Australia's potential to become a hub of capital for IT