Aurelia Butler

Growth in wage tax and in flat-rate withholding tax on interest and capital gains contrasted with lower revenues from sales tax and corporation tax compared with a year ago.In the first five months of the year, tax revenues in Europe’s biggest economy rose 2.8% to 322.3 billion euros, said the ministry in its monthly report.The most recent tax estimates put this year’s overall tax revenues 4.1% higher, at almost 864 billion euros.The government is in the midst of discussions about the 2025 budget with the three parties, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s Free Democrats (FDP) at odds in many areas.Looking at the wider economy, the report said that although some indicators had moved sideways in May, the leading ones were increasingly pointing to a moderate recovery for the rest of the year.($1 = 0.9305 euros) More

SYDNEY (Reuters) – After two years in deep freeze, Australian investors will be looking for signs the initial public offerings market is thawing as fast-growing Mexican restaurant chain Guzman Y Gomez serves up the country’s biggest IPO in 11 months.The Sydney startup puts up A$335.1 million ($223.4 million)of new stock, about one-sixth of the company, for trading on Thursday.In its listing prospectus, the company forecast a second consecutive net loss for 2024 but a profit in 2025 and hopes investors back its plans to match the current Australian store count of McDonald’s (NYSE:MCD) in 20 years.Guzman Y Gomez’s (GYG) initial issue was closed to the public and largely involved selling shares to existing financiers and franchise owners. How the shares perform will send a signal about broader sentiment after high interest rates and inflation squashed demand through 2022 and 2023.Australian listings collapsed after a record 2021 as pandemic stimulus payments ended and the central bank raised interest rates to slow inflation. In 2024 so far, Australia has raised just A$98 million in IPOs, the second-lowest June half in more than a decade, according to LSEG data.”Guzman Y Gomez will be a bit of a bellwether,” said Campbell Welch, an adviser at Novus Capital who ran a small IPO for health services provider Freedom Care in November, one of 32 new listings in the country in 2023, compared with nearly 200 in 2021.”It’s still pretty tough to raise money but some of these things look like they’re resolving themselves. I don’t see why it can’t succeed.”A prospectus filed in May generated rolling headlines about GYG’s target of opening at least 30 stores per year from 183 in Australia currently – a rate it has achieved just once, in 2023 – and about its omission of store lease liabilities and share-based payments from earnings projections.The company said its accounting treatment of expenses was typical of franchise businesses.”Once we’re listed, the market will price us every day and our focus will be on the things we can control: selling burritos and delivering on our strategy,” GYG founder and co-CEO Steven Marks said in a statement.A Morningstar client note valued the stock at A$15 a share, below its A$22 issue price, saying the company with 3.5% of the country’s fast food market had not established a competitive advantage which would justify its rapid expansion.Without that advantage “we are hesitant to fully bake in management’s 1,000-store long-term projection”, Morningstar analyst Johannes Faul wrote.”The restaurant space is highly competitive. Switching costs are nonexistent for patrons and barriers to entry are relatively low.”Sebastian Evans, chief investment officer at NAOS Asset Management, said GYG’s small share register and ambitious growth narrative may support the stock given its familiarity with Australians.”We will follow the business and have done so for some time, but we believe the significant ramp-up in store rollout and the proposed geographic split of these new stores adds to the amount of execution risk,” Evans said.Emanuel Datt, principal of investment manager Datt Capital, said the fact GYG considered a private sale before choosing a listing – as reported by Australian media – indicates “public markets may be falling back into favour.”($1 = 1.4997 Australian dollars) More

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(Reuters) – A look at the day ahead in Asian markets.No Wall Street, no problem. Investors in Asia go into Thursday in a bullish mood with Asian stocks at two-year highs, boosted by strength in tech and calm across global markets that is keeping a lid on volatility and loosening financial conditions.U.S. markets were closed on Wednesday but investors weren’t fazed by any potential liquidity concerns – the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index leaped more than 1% to its highest since April 2022, and the MSCI World index hit a record high.Highlights from Thursday’s Asia and Pacific calendar are interest rate decisions from China and Indonesia, and first quarter GDP figures from New Zealand.The People’s Bank of China is likely to keep benchmark lending rates unchanged, after holding its medium-term lending facility (MLF) loans steady earlier this week. Markets mostly use MLF rates as a guide to lending benchmarks.Economic activity and indicators remain sluggish though, and pressure to ease in the coming months is mounting.Bank Indonesia is also expected to keep its key interest rate on hold, at 6.25%, according to a Reuters poll of economists who pushed out their first rate cut call to early next year from late this year.That change in outlook was partly driven by the rupiah’s slide to four-year lows against the U.S. dollar, which led the central bank to unexpectedly raise rates in April.Inflation has been within the bank’s 1.5%-3.5% target range for almost a year, but the U.S. Federal Reserve’s ‘higher for longer’ policy stance and dollar’s persistent strength have tempered rate cut hopes.It’s not inconceivable that New Zealand slipped into a technical recession in Q1, albeit an extremely mild one. The consensus forecast in a Reuters poll is for quarter-on-quarter GDP growth of 0.1%, following a contraction of 0.1% in the October-December period.Back on the market front, if Wednesday’s break higher in Asian stocks is to be a springboard, China may have to get out of its funk – while the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index has risen 12% from its mid-April low, China’s blue chip CSI 300 index has flat-lined.Asian tech shares are, unsurprisingly, on an Nvidia-inspired roll. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tech index jumped 3.7% on Wednesday, one of its best days this year.If U.S. financial conditions are a key driver for markets more broadly, investors in Asia should be bullish – they are now the loosest since March, according to Goldman Sachs, and the loosest in two and a half years, according to the Chicago Fed. In currencies, the yen remains anchored near lows that prompted Tokyo to intervene recently, but traders appear relaxed – one-month dollar/yen implied volatility fell for a sixth day on Wednesday to its lowest since April 8.Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Thursday:- China interest rate decision- Indonesia interest rate decision – New Zealand GDP (Q1) More