Macquarie Bank is positioning itself in the burgeoning global
media market with the $392 million acquisition of the BBC’s European multimedia operation – BBC Broadcast, reports The Age. The deal gives the bank an operation that provides services for
television, web and 3G mobile phone content, and has a guaranteed
client in the BBC until 2015. And the market likes the look of the acquisition by Macquarie Bank’s
recent $1 billion cashbox listing, Macquarie Capital Alliance Group, says Bryan Frith in The Australian. BBC Broadcast is a relatively new business which is growing rapidly and it’s the growth prospects that appeal.

The federal government could move to appoint key investment banks to
the $32 billion Telstra privatisation as early as August to ensure
political infighting doesn’t scuttle the sale process, reports the Fin Review.
It’s a nice coincidence that on or about the day the federal
government’s advisers hand their 1,100-page scoping study for T3 to
the finance minister, Nick Minchin, Sol Trujillo starts work as
Telstra’s new chief executive, says Stephen Bartholomeusz in the Smage. It illustrates the point that the scoping study isn’t a
static document or roadmap for the government and Telstra to
follow, but a series of options and scenarios into which the sales
process has to be plugged and negotiated.

Also in the AFR, superannuation funds are expected to achieve
returns of 12.2% in the year to 30 June, fuelled by record
stockmarket highs.

On Wall Street, Google shares topped US$300 for
the first time closing up 2% at $304.10. At that price, the
market value of the search engine giant is US$84 billion, larger than
that of Time Warner, Walt Disney or Yahoo. And US blue chips nearly
broke even – despite oil prices closing above US$60 a barrel for the
first time – as big gains in Boeing and Exxon Mobil limited the losses.
The Dow Jones closed down 7.06 points at 10,290 – MarketWatch has a
full report here.