Optus chief executive Paul O’Sullivan has assured investors that
the telco’s efforts to defend its market share will hold it in
good stead for the rest of the year, despite suffering a decline
in first-quarter profit, reports The Smage. Profit after tax at the nation’s second-biggest telco was $150 million for the three months to 30 June – $1 million short of
the previous first-quarter result. The result confirms that competition in the
mobile telephony sector has entered a new and quite ferocious
phase, says Stephen Bartholomeusz in The Age. That’s even worse news for Telstra’s Sol Trujillo than it
is for Optus’s Paul O’Sullivan.
And Optus has pointed the finger at rival Telstra
for the slow progress of talks over Optus’s ADSL broadband network
plans, describing the negotiations as “tortuous,” reports The Australian.

The Fin Review reports that large firms will come under even
more
scrutiny from the ATO after last year’s audit program generated a 25%
jump in revenue, taking the haul to a record $8.7 billion –
large corporation alone yielded an extra $1.6 billion. Also in the AFR, uranium exports worth $12 billion could be unlocked after the
Northern Territory government yesterday handed power to approve new
uranium mines to the commonwealth.

General Property Trust has wasted no time
charging ahead with its controversial new European property venture,
revealing yesterday it was negotiating to buy another $1.5 billion of
assets to add to its German apartments, reports The Australian.

And The Age reports that Woodside Petroleum’s record-breaking share price run has come to
a halt after a coup in Mauritania raised fresh security fears over
the group’s $810 million Chinguetti oil project.

On Wall Street, US stocks closed lower overnight amid rising
oil prices and disappointment over a tepid sales performance from
retailers in July. The Dow Jones fell 87.49 points to 10,610 – MarketWatch has a full report here.