Top telco Telstra Corporation Ltd
(ASX:TLS) has appointed Russell Higgins and Steve Vamos as non-executive directors effective from September 15.
The telco also says that Charles Macek has informed the board that he will not stand for re-election at the company’s annual general meeting in November.
Russell Higgins is chairman of the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, an initiative of the Australian Government launched in April to accelerate the worldwide development of carbon capture and storage technologies.
Steve Vamos led Microsoft Australia and New Zealand from 2003 to January 2007, before moving to the U.S. to become the company’s online business head of Worldwide Sales and International Operations. Mr Vamos was previously CEO of ninemsn.
The appointments require endorsement at Telstra’s annual general meeting on November 4. Telstra’s profits have been increasing each year for the past three years.
Wood chipper Gunns Ltd (ASX:GNS) has completed the institutional component of its entitlement offer announced on Monday August 31.
The company raised around $115 million from the issue of approximately 128 million shares at an issue of price of 90 cents a share.
Gunns says the offer was extremely well supported with strong demand from both existing and new institutional investors. The forestry company says the new shares issued under the institutional entitlement offer will not be entitled to the fiscal 2009 final dividend. Gunns net profits have been decreasing each year over the last four years.
Minerals miner Panoramic Resources Ltd (ASX:PAN) has posted a massive fall in net profit for the 2009 financial year and says it is looking at additional hedging commitments because of the risk of nickel prices falling.
Net profit after tax and impairment for the year came to $5.6 million, down from $53.3 million in fiscal 2008.Net revenue for the year was$228.7 million down 4 per cent compared to last year.
The miner says it has weathered the global financial crisis well due to a combination of prudent commodity hedging, aggressive cost reduction program and record group production of 18,752 tonnes of contained nickel.
Panoramic Resources says it remains cautious on the short term outlook for nickel and is therefore being opportunistic and is looking at hedging additional nickel at prices that provide an acceptable margin.
Panoramic Resources declared a final dividend of 2 cents a share. Looking back over the past five years Panoramic Resources best net profit was in 2007.
