分类： business

After more than a century of continuous operation as a staple of Australian manufacturing, one of the country’s most storied family-owned mattress brands, A.H. Beard, has fallen into voluntary administration, closing a historic chapter for the nation’s bedding industry.

Official notices published this week confirmed that insolvency practitioners Peter Lucas and Damien Lau from P.A Lucas & Co have been appointed as joint administrators to oversee the company’s restructuring process, which leaves the long-standing firm’s future hanging in the balance. According to reports from *The Daily Telegraph*, chairman Garry Beard was visibly emotional, breaking down in tears as he delivered the news to workers at the brand’s southwest Sydney manufacturing facility on Tuesday.

The collapse has been pinned on a confluence of mounting economic headwinds that have squeezed domestic manufacturing in Australia in recent years. Plummeting discretionary household spending, as consumers cut back on big-ticket non-essential purchases amid cost-of-living pressures, has paired with skyrocketing raw material and operational production costs to erode the company’s profit margins. Compounding these challenges is a steady consumer shift toward lower-cost imported bedding products, which has undercut pricing for local manufacturers like A.H. Beard that prioritize domestic production.

Beyond its iconic status as a multi-generational family business, A.H. Beard leaves a major legacy as a pioneer of sustainable industry practice in Australian bedding. Kylie Roberts-Frost, chief executive of the Australian Bedding Stewardship Council, described the news as a devastating loss for the entire sector, noting that the brand’s early voluntary commitment to green initiatives laid the foundation for the council’s industry-wide sustainability programs. “The scheme of getting manufacturers on board with voluntary green measures — using recyclable materials and getting beds out of landfills at the end of its life cycle — would not exist were it not for the voluntary efforts of A.H. Beard,” Roberts-Frost said. “What makes this so difficult to sit with is that A.H. Beard was doing the right thing. They were investing in sustainability, supporting a stewardship scheme, and taking responsibility for end-of-life at a time when many in the industry are not.”

Founded in 1899, A.H. Beard has been led across three generations of the Beard family: currently, the business is run by chairman Garry Beard, his brother Allyn Beard, and Garry’s son Matthew Beard, who serves as chief executive officer. Over its 126 years of operation, the company estimates it has produced and sold more than 10 million mattresses. It built a reputation as a leading supplier to Australia’s hospitality sector, and even sold a specialized luxury mattress model to the Chinese market for upwards of $100,000. The brand’s collapse marks one of the most high-profile casualties of ongoing economic pressure on small and medium-sized domestic manufacturing businesses in Australia.

Australia’s benchmark share market extended its downward trajectory into a sixth consecutive trading session on Tuesday, marking its longest losing run in more than two years, as spiking crude oil prices and widespread investor anticipation of a key upcoming inflation reading dragged most sectors lower.

The flagship S&P/ASX 200 shed 55.70 points, a 0.64% decline, to close at 8710.70, while the wider All Ordinaries index followed a similar path, falling 55.80 points or 0.62% to settle at 8935. The Australian dollar also weakened against the U.S. dollar, ending the session at 71.63 U.S. cents. This six-session losing streak is the longest the ASX 200 has recorded since June 2022.

Out of the 11 major market sectors, nine closed in negative territory, with only the energy sector delivering consistent gains, lifted directly by the ongoing rally in global oil prices. International benchmark Brent Crude climbed an additional 2.5% to hit $US110 per barrel on Tuesday, as traders monitored stalled negotiations over a potential U.S.-Iran peace deal that has stoked concerns over global oil supply disruptions.

Major Australian energy names logged solid gains on the back of rising crude prices: Woodside Energy saw its shares rise 0.84% to $32.40, oil and gas producer Santos gained 1.18% to close at $7.74, and fuel retailer Ampol added 1.27% to end the day at $34.26.

These energy gains were more than offset by broad declines across consumer discretionary, healthcare, and materials sectors, as investors braced for Wednesday’s critical inflation data release. Markets fear that a hotter-than-expected inflation reading will give the Reserve Bank of Australia justification to resume its cycle of interest rate hikes, a prospect that has weighed heavily on rate-sensitive sectors.

Leading the declines in consumer discretionary stocks, conglomerate Wesfarmers dropped 2.10% to $72.31, gaming giant Aristocrat Leisure fell 4.21% to $46.20, and Lights Wonder slipped 3.27% to $116.32. In the healthcare space, biotechnology leader CSL extended its recent downward trend, falling 2.22% to $128.90, Sigma Healthcare declined 0.72% to $2.75, and medical technology firm Pro Medicus dropped 1.53% to $136.

AMP’s chief economist Shane Oliver warned that headline inflation is likely to spike to 5% in the March quarter data, driven by surging fuel costs and rising insurance premiums. “We are going to see a spike,” Oliver noted. “On our rough estimates fuel prices rose by 30 per cent in the month of March – a bit less for petrol, a lot more for diesel – and that is on its own going to add more than one percentage point to inflation.”

Major mining stocks also slumped, pressured by rising operational fuel costs and a 1.14% drop in gold prices to US$4628 per ounce. BHP fell 1.30% to $55.43, Rio Tinto slipped 0.47% to $172.12, though Fortescue Metals bucked the broader trend to climb 1.72% to $20.11. Gold producers were hit particularly hard: Northern Star Resources dropped 2.89% to $21.50, Evolution Mining fell 2.98% to $12.69, and Newmont sank 4.50% to $158.69.

Beyond domestic inflation expectations, market volatility continues to be driven by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, according to Kyle Rodda, senior financial market analyst at Capital.com. Rodda noted that equity prices have fluctuated wildly on unconfirmed reports about potential plans to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical global oil chokepoint. He added that those reports lack credibility, as follow-up negotiations between parties have failed to materialize, former U.S. President Donald Trump has rejected the proposed deal, and military forces continue to build up around the Persian Gulf.

Interestingly, while Australian markets grappled with downside pressure, Wall Street notched another all-time record high during overnight trading on Monday.

In individual company news, Domino’s Pizza Australia saw its shares plunge 10.70% to $15.85, mirroring a selloff in its U.S.-listed parent company after the American fast food giant reported first-quarter sales that missed analyst expectations. The company blamed weak consumer sentiment, intense industry competition, and ongoing cost-of-living pressures for the underperformance. Bega Cheese also dropped 4.28% to $5.59 even though the company did not release any price-sensitive new information to the market. In contrast, Reliance World rallied 3.68% to $3.15 after the firm confirmed its full-year trading outlook for the 2026 fiscal year ending June 30.

Global financial markets traded with heightened volatility on Tuesday, as crude oil prices extended upward momentum while equity indexes struggled for direction, driven by ongoing geopolitical negotiations between the United States and Iran that could reshape Middle Eastern energy security and end an eight-week-old regional conflict.

Tehran has submitted a written peace proposal to Washington via diplomatic channels through Pakistan, outlining its core negotiating red lines that cover both its nuclear program and the future status of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. Under the reported interim framework, Iran has offered to immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20 percent of global oil and liquified natural gas supplies transit daily — in exchange for the United States lifting its ongoing blockade of Iranian ports. More contentious negotiations over Iran’s nuclear activities, a long-standing sticking point for the Trump administration, would be deferred to a later date under the plan.

The White House confirmed that President Donald Trump convened a meeting with senior advisors on Monday to review the Iranian proposal, but press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to comment on whether Trump would accept the terms. The news comes just days after Trump abruptly scrapped a planned trip to Islamabad by top envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, dashing earlier market hopes for a quick breakthrough. Top U.S. diplomat Secretary of State Marco Rubio already poured cold water on the proposal during an interview with Fox News, arguing that Iran’s offer does not meet Washington’s requirements. “If what they mean by opening the straits is, ‘yes, the straits are open as long as you coordinate with Iran, get our permission or we’ll blow you up and you pay us,’ that’s not opening the straits,” Rubio said.

Separately, during a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Saint Petersburg on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged that Moscow would deploy all possible efforts to bring an end to the ongoing Middle East conflict. Iran’s UN envoy Amir Saeid Iravani also told a UN Security Council session that Tehran requires binding guarantees that both the U.S. and Israel will halt future military strikes before it can offer full security assurances for Gulf waterways.

Energy markets responded directly to the diplomatic developments, with both major global crude benchmarks extending gains. By 0230 GMT, West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 1.0 percent to settle at $97.32 per barrel, while Brent North Sea crude rose 1.0 percent to $109.27 a barrel, approaching the key $110 threshold that has stoked global inflation concerns. Equity markets were far more mixed, with most major Asian indexes ending the session in negative territory: Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.5 percent to 60,238.21, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.3 percent to 25,851.82, and Shanghai’s Composite Index slipped 0.2 percent to 4,079.78. Gains were limited to a handful of regional exchanges including Seoul, Singapore, Taipei and Jakarta. In prior New York trading, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched new all-time record closes, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1 percent lower to 49,167.79 at close. London’s FTSE 100 also fell 0.6 percent to 10,321.09 on Tuesday.

Tony Sycamore, a market analyst at IG, noted that mounting domestic pressures may push Iran toward a faster agreement. The country’s aging crude storage facilities are projected to hit full capacity this week, and if storage is exhausted, Iran will be forced to shut in production. “If forced shut‑ins follow, Tehran risks irreversible long‑term damage to its reservoirs and a serious hit to future production and revenue streams,” Sycamore explained. While he called the latest Iranian proposal a step in the right direction, Sycamore added that “it is hard to see the US accepting anything less than a comprehensive deal that both opens the Strait of Hormuz and addresses Iran’s nuclear weapons programme.”

Beyond Middle Eastern geopolitics, global investors are also bracing for a packed week of high-stakes economic and corporate events. The Bank of Japan is set to announce its latest interest rate decision later Tuesday, with most market analysts expecting the central bank to hold policy steady. The U.S. Federal Reserve, European Central Bank and Bank of England are all scheduled to announce their own rate decisions this week, and most are expected to keep borrowing costs unchanged as the recent surge in energy prices stokes fresh fears of a renewed inflation spike. On the corporate side, earnings reports are due this week from three of the world’s largest technology companies — Apple, Meta Platforms and Microsoft — as well as major industrial and energy firms including Ford and ExxonMobil, which will give investors greater insight into the health of the U.S. and global economy.

Australia’s domestic banking sector is ramping up public pressure for regulatory and tax reform, after releasing new industry data that starkly exposes the wide gap between the financial contributions of local banks and large U.S. technology firms operating in the country.

The 2025 Contribution Gap report, published by the Australian Banking Association (ABA), calculates that the entire Australian banking sector paid a total of $16 billion in taxes and government levies during the 2024-2025 financial year. This puts the industry’s effective tax rate at 40%, making it the second-highest contributing sector to Australian public finances, behind only the mining industry which reported $70 billion in combined taxes and royalty payments. Breaking down the contributions of the nation’s largest lenders, the report notes Commonwealth Bank of Australia paid $3.4 billion in tax, National Australia Bank paid $2.6 billion, Westpac Banking Corporation contributed $2.2 billion, and ANZ Group paid $1.6 billion.

In contrast, the ABA’s analysis of three of the biggest U.S. technology companies offering bank-adjacent services in Australia found the trio paid a combined total of just $515 million in local taxes. Of that sum, Alphabet Inc. paid $323 million, Apple contributed $153 million, and Meta Platforms paid only $39 million — a sum less than 1.2% of the total tax paid by the four major domestic banks alone.

Beyond the tax gap, the report also highlights broader regulatory imbalances between the two industries. Australian banks employ more than 30 times the number of local workers than the major U.S. technology firms operating in the country, and carry binding legal obligations to combat financial crime, cyber fraud, and money laundering that do not apply to the same extent to big tech platforms. The sector has also invested billions of dollars to build and maintain core national digital financial infrastructure, including $2 billion for the national New Payments Platform, $1.5 billion to implement the federal government’s Consumer Data Right open banking framework, and $100 million for Confirmation of Payee scam protection technology.

ABA chief executive Simon Birmingham, a former Australian finance and foreign minister, emphasized that domestic banks have no issue meeting their tax and regulatory obligations to support Australian communities. “Australia’s banks pay their fair share of tax to fund critical public services, and do the heavy lifting when it comes to fighting financial crime,” Birmingham said. “Unfortunately, there is a current regulatory imbalance that is seeing global technology platforms and multinational payments firms deliver bank-like services here in Australia, without bearing proportionate regulatory and fiscal responsibilities.”

The ABA warned that if the contribution gap is allowed to continue growing unchecked, it will erode public revenue that funds essential services from healthcare to education, and threatens the long-term fiscal sustainability of the Australian economy. Birmingham has called on the federal government to intervene to level the competitive playing field, requiring large foreign multinationals offering financial services to fall under the same regulatory framework as domestic banks, and to increase scrutiny of their local tax contributions to ensure they pay their fair share.