Today’s Financial Review leads with the news that the ACCC
has blocked Toll Holdings’ plans to takeover Patrick Corporation. Toll’s plans
to create a nationally integrated company to dominate rail, road and shipping
transport have been dashed, after its $4.6 billion takeover bid for Patrick was
rebuffed by ACCC – with chairman Graeme Samuel saying he didn’t believe
concessions made by Toll over almost four months of investigations into the
proposed deal hadn’t been “nearly sufficient.” And Toll boss Paul Little isn’t
the only one left red-faced by the “knockout blow,” says Anthony Hughes in The
Fin’s Chanticleer column. And the misreading of the situation by many is
symbolic of the way in which the general market bullishness of the past year
has sometimes shifted perceptions a long way from reality.


The Australian reports that New Limited is set to unleash a challenge to Telstra’s $1.6
billion-a-year Sensis business listing. The paper reports that News Interactive
will launch a new website within weeks, providing access to around a million
local traders and services listings. And Bryan Frith ponders the future for Toll Holdings, writing: “it would mean swallowing some
pride but given the emphatic nature of the ACCC’s opposition to Toll’s $4
billion-plus takeover bid for Chris Corrigan’s Patrick Corp, the best option
may be to take it on the chin and move on.”


The SMH reports on what may be the biggest breakthrough in the decade-long
investigation into the Offset Alpine publishing company – ASIC has finally
received 12 crucial folders of Swiss bank records and transcripts involving the
corporate high flyers Trevor Kennedy and Rene Rivkin. The papers should confirm
whether Kennedy and Rivkin, as well as Graham Richardson, were the true
controllers of the company. And they may also shed light on Swiss bank
transactions involving Rivkin and his driver Gordon Wood around the time Rivkin
was under pressure from ASIC investigators and Mr Wood’s model girlfriend, Caroline
Byrne, was found dead at the bottom of The Gap.

Shares in Zinifex fell 10% yesterday after the miner warned
of a cost blowout of $280 million at its major zinc mine in Queensland, reports
The Age. The world’s second-biggest zinc miner has been forced to remove waste
stripping from the Century mine earlier than expected after geotechnical
modelling revealed unstable pit walls posed a risk.

On Wall Street, US stocks closed lower overnight as weak results
from Intel and Yahoo raised concern the fourth-quarter
earnings season might not live up to expectations. The Dow Jones ended down 41 points at 10,854 – MarketWatch
has a full report here.