分类： business

Global fast-fashion e-commerce leader Shein has formally announced its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) will launch on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 1, confirming a valuation of nearly $27 billion for the company at the top end of its offering range, according to an official filing released Monday.

In its regulatory submission to the Hong Kong bourse, the retailer outlined plans to issue 280 million new shares at a price band between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50 per share. If all shares are issued at the upper end of the range, the offering will raise approximately US$1.7 billion (HK$13.86 billion) in gross proceeds. The company will finalize its offer price on August 31, with the listing set to go live the following day.

Founded in mainland China and headquartered in Singapore since 2022, Shein secured final approval from Chinese regulatory authorities for the Hong Kong listing just last month, marking an end to years of delays that derailed earlier plans to list on either the New York or London stock exchanges due to cross-border regulatory hurdles.

Unlike many of its fast-fashion competitors, Shein has built its competitive advantage on the back of China’s unparalleled textile manufacturing ecosystem and a hyper-responsive supply chain model. The company’s ability to roll out new product designs in days, paired with its famously low price points, has catapulted it to the top tier of global e-commerce, reaching comparable market standing to Amazon in the U.S. consumer market. As of the end of 2025, the platform counted 156 million average monthly active users across Europe, outranking Amazon and trailing only fellow Chinese cross-border platform AliExpress in monthly user size on the continent.

Shein confirmed that the net proceeds from the IPO will be allocated to two core priorities: upgrading its technological infrastructure and expanding its global market footprint. The move to Singapore for its headquarters was widely framed by analysts as a strategic step to reduce growing geopolitical and regulatory scrutiny of China-founded global corporations, though the company still retains nearly all of its manufacturing base in China, leveraging the country’s low-cost production capacity and advanced e-commerce logistics network.

Despite its impressive growth trajectory, Shein has faced mounting regulatory and public scrutiny across major Western markets in recent years. The company reported a full-year net profit of $2.06 billion for 2025, but posted a $99 million net loss in its most recent quarter after the U.S. eliminated a longstanding import duty exemption for small-value packages, a change that directly raised costs for the company’s core cross-border shipping model.

Regulatory pushback has been particularly sharp in the European Union. Earlier this year, a French appeals court rejected a government request to temporarily suspend a portion of Shein’s French website after illicit childlike sex dolls were discovered on the platform (the products were immediately removed after the discovery). In June alone, French regulators issued two fines totaling more than €22 million ($25.1 million) over violations including inadequate product traceability, incorrect environmental labeling, and non-compliance with delivery transparency rules. Cumulative fines imposed on Shein by French authorities now exceed €210 million, and Italian regulators have also issued fines over allegations of misleading environmental claims.

Beyond regulatory penalties, the company has faced repeated criticism over its environmental impact, driven by its high-volume, fast-turnover business model, as well as long-running allegations of supply chain human rights violations. Shein’s executive chairman has repeatedly pushed back on these claims, telling Agence France-Presse last year that the company maintains “zero tolerance” for forced labor in its supplier network.

As Australian drivers continued to grapple with skyrocketing retail fuel prices, the country’s largest petroleum retailer Ampol has announced staggering half-year profit growth, driven largely by global oil market volatility sparked by escalating conflict in the Middle East linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s tensions with Iran. The windfall is set to flow directly to the company’s shareholders via a sharply increased interim dividend.

In its latest mandatory market update released this week, Ampol reported that its replacement cost operating net profit – a metric favored by investors because it strips out inventory fluctuations caused by shifting crude prices – jumped to $857.2 million for the six-month period ending June 30. That figure marks a more than 475% increase from the $180.2 million profit the company recorded in the same period one year prior.

To pass the gains directly to shareholders, the company will issue an interim dividend of $1.85 per share, an amount nearly four times higher than the payout offered in the first half of 2023. Ampol CEO and managing director Matt Halliday framed the strong results as a combination of geopolitical disruption and the company’s own operational strengths. Halliday noted that Australia and New Zealand could not insulate themselves from global energy market shifts triggered by the Middle East conflict, even as the market dislocation that drove up prices worked in Ampol’s financial favor.

“While the market dislocation provided a benefit to our financial results, our supply responsiveness, trading capabilities, refinery reliability, customer and supplier relationships as well as the progress of our retail segmentation strategy all enabled Ampol to meet its customers’ needs,” Halliday said. “In short, the underlying business performance improved across multiple segments as Ampol’s supply chain remained resilient, when less robust supply chains faltered.”

Global crude oil markets have seen extreme swings in pricing since the start of 2024, directly tied to escalating geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Before the conflict escalated in January, benchmark crude traded as low as $US56 ($A78) per barrel. By April, tensions pushed prices to a peak above $US130 ($A181) per barrel – the highest global crude price recorded since the 2022 global energy crisis.

Australian motorists have already absorbed much of this price increase at the pump, though federal government intervention softened the blow for much of the past six months. To offset soaring fuel costs, the government cut the national fuel excise tax earlier this year, an adjustment that initially reduced retail prices by 32 cents per litre. The cut was halved to 16 cents per litre in July, and the full excise was reinstated on August 1. According to Australian investment firm AMP, every $US10 per barrel rise in global crude prices adds approximately 10 cents per litre to Australian retail fuel prices – a cost that falls directly on motorists already facing widespread cost-of-living pressures.

Over the past 12 months, Australia has seen a dramatic surge in financial scam activity, with criminals adapting increasingly sophisticated, technology-fueled tactics to steal from vulnerable members of the public, new data from Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) reveals. The new statistics, published in advance of Australia’s Scam Awareness Week, track scam attempts between October 2025 and June 2026, recording an 18% year-on-year increase in fraudulent activity that cements scams as one of the most pressing ongoing financial threats to Australian consumers. Official figures from the National Anti Scam Centre already show that Australians lost a collective $2.18 billion to scammers in 2025, and ANZ’s latest trend data indicates total losses for 2026 are on track to outpace that figure significantly.

Ben Verhoef, ANZ’s lead on scam prevention and analysis, explained that rapid advancements in artificial intelligence have reshaped how scammers operate, eroding many of the red flags consumers have long been taught to look for. “Scammers now leverage AI tools to craft more convincing, professional messages with flawless grammar and formatting,” Verhoef said. “For years, we advised people to watch for typos and odd fonts as warning signs, but scammers have largely overcome those telltale weaknesses.”

Of all tracked scam tactics, fraudulent goods and services schemes linked to online shopping remain the most common way scammers target consumers. Impersonation schemes, investment scams, and romance scams also rank among the most prevalent, with romance and friendship scams recording the fastest growth in customer losses of any category. ANZ’s analysis also identified seasonal patterns in scam activity, with sharp spikes recorded during the end of the Australian financial year and the annual university intake period.

That seasonal peak puts international students, one of the most vulnerable demographics targeted by scammers, at particularly high risk, Verhoef noted. Criminals now use language translation technology and professional interpreting services to communicate with students in their native languages, eliminating language barriers that once limited attacks on this group. “Many of these students are young, and they often don’t have experience verifying whether a communication is legitimate or a threat,” Verhoef explained. “Scammers exploit their fear to get them to comply with demands immediately.”

Verhoef shared alarming examples of scams targeting international students, including schemes where criminals impersonate police or government officials from the students’ home countries to coerce payments, and recruitment plots that offer students thousands of dollars to rent or sell their Australian bank account credentials after they graduate. “Once scammers gain control of a student’s account, we lose visibility into who is actually controlling the funds, which lets criminals move illicit money across the financial system without leaving a trace back to themselves,” he said.

Despite the sharp rise in scam attempts, ANZ’s data brings a note of positive progress: the bank reported a 24% drop in customer scam losses over the reporting period, with more than $100 million in at-risk funds saved or recovered by the bank’s security systems. Customers also contributed to this success by aborting more than 476,000 suspicious payments after noticing mismatched recipient details. ANZ emphasizes that there is no shame in falling victim to a scam, and urges anyone who suspects they may be targeted to reach out for support immediately.

Verhoef added that the bank continues to adapt its security infrastructure to keep pace with evolving scam tactics. “We’re constantly improving our ability to identify fraudulent transactions,” he said. “The earlier our detection tools flag suspicious activity and intervene, the better outcome we get for customers. Our in-house teams continuously monitor shifts in the scam and fraud landscape to update our detection rules to match new threats.”

Eleventh-hour negotiations between the United States and Canada have ended without a trade agreement, clearing the way for steep new American tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Canadian exports to take effect. The collapse of talks comes as a surprise, just days after former U.S. President Donald Trump expressed confidence that a deal would be reached, pointing to his positive working relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The 50 percent duties, which target roughly $20 billion in Canadian goods — equal to 5.5 percent of all Canadian exports to the U.S. — officially came into force on Saturday after multiple days of intensive negotiations failed to bridge remaining gaps. The tariffs cover a wide range of products, from construction materials like cement to sporting goods including hockey sticks.

In an official statement released Friday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Canada refused to finalize a pact based on terms that had been tentatively agreed to earlier in the week. Greer added that the Trump administration had already put forward a generous proposal that included significant tariff cuts for key sectors including steel, aluminum, automobiles and lumber, in exchange for reciprocal concessions from Ottawa. A senior anonymous U.S. official noted that no additional negotiating sessions have been scheduled for the near future, and clarified that Canada requested additional concessions that Washington was not prepared to accept. Despite the breakdown, the official emphasized that talks remained respectful and free of hostility.

Prime Minister Carney pushed back against the U.S. framing in his own statement, announcing that Canada would respond with reciprocal tariffs “dollar for dollar” to shield Canadian workers and domestic businesses. Carney blamed the breakdown on last-minute, unfair changes to the proposed terms introduced by U.S. negotiators, changes he said undermined confidence that any final deal would be honored. While Carney acknowledged that negotiators from both sides had made meaningful progress over recent weeks, he said that progress fell short of what is required to protect Canada’s national economic interests.

Canadian lead negotiator Dominic LeBlanc echoed Carney’s assessment after hours of talks Friday, telling reporters that there was still “more work to do” to reach a mutually acceptable agreement. LeBlanc and Greer had already held roughly three hours of intensive one-on-one negotiations the day before, on Thursday.

U.S. officials have long noted that the Trump administration moved forward with the new tariffs in response to what Washington calls discriminatory trade practices by Canada against American alcohol, automobile and dairy products. The tariffs were originally scheduled to go into effect this past Wednesday, but Trump issued a last-minute three-day delay to give negotiators more time to reach a breakthrough, citing encouraging major progress in talks at that time. Canadian negotiators had been stationed in Washington all week to work through longstanding trade flash points between the two allies.

For Canada, the tariffs have already inflicted broad economic harm: existing Trump administration duties on Canadian autos, steel and aluminum have contributed to business contractions and job losses across the country, and have severely strained what was once considered an unbreakable bilateral trade relationship. Carney has repeatedly emphasized to the Canadian public that the country’s trade relationship with the U.S. has been permanently altered, regardless of the outcome of any single agreement. He has pushed for Canada to diversify its export markets and cut its heavy reliance on the United States, which currently absorbs roughly 70 percent of all Canadian exports.

Beyond the immediate tariff dispute, the two countries still face the larger task of negotiating revisions to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the existing trilateral trade deal that Trump has refused to renew in its current form.

Trade analysts say the breakdown raises new challenges for de-escalation. Ryan Majerus, a former U.S. commerce official and now a trade lawyer at King & Spalding, noted that Canada’s decision to impose matching retaliatory tariffs will make it far harder to calm tensions in the near term. Even so, Majerus predicts that both governments will face intense pressure from stakeholders to find a compromise off-ramp in the coming days.

Christopher Padilla, another former U.S. trade official now with Brunswick Group, added that business communities on both sides of the border had held high hopes that a deal would be reached to end 18 months of tense trade friction between the two neighbors. That momentum, he said, will likely push both sides back to the negotiating table sooner rather than later.

In a pre-midterm election move designed to ease soaring U.S. cost-of-living pressures, former President Donald Trump has announced a sweeping cut to beef import tariffs, and industry analysts are already pointing to Australian cattle producers as the likely biggest beneficiaries of the policy shift.

The Trump administration’s new framework will slash tariffs on 300,000 metric tons of imported beef over the next three months. On his Truth Social platform, Trump outlined that the agreement guarantees the imported beef will be sold at 25% below current prevailing market rates, framing the policy as a win for both American consumers and domestic producers. “This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” he wrote.

When speaking to reporters following the official announcement, Trump declined to share granular implementation details or name the exporting countries that would gain access to the expanded low-tariff quota. “I don’t want to say which countries – though there are a few countries – but they are going to be sending in the highest quality beef and it is something that we need,” he told reporters.

The policy shift marks a notable reversal from Trump’s stance earlier this year. Back in April 2025, the president targeted Australian beef producers during a speech unveiling a broad round of tariffs he called “Liberation Day,” arguing the measures were needed to level the trading playing field. At the time, he noted that Australia bans imports of American beef to protect its domestic agricultural sector, even as the U.S. imported $3 billion worth of Australian beef in 2024. “I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing right now starting at midnight tonight,” he said then. Ultimately, Trump never implemented a full ban on Australian beef, only imposing a baseline 10% tariff on all Australian beef exports to the U.S.

Even with that baseline tariff in place, Australia emerged as a major winner of Trump’s broader trade policies last year. Australian beef exports to the U.S. hit 410,000 tonnes in 2024, a 17% increase year-over-year, as supply disruptions and trade restrictions hit South American exporting competitors. Industry observers now expect that the expanded low-tariff quota will open even more room for Australian producers to grow their share of the $100 billion U.S. beef market, given existing trade relationships and Australia’s reputation for high-quality product.

The announcement comes as Trump works to shore up support ahead of November’s U.S. midterm elections, with cost of living topping the list of voter concerns across the country. While the policy is aimed at lowering grocery costs for American households, the spillover benefits look set to flow straight to Australia’s $15 billion cattle farming sector.