AIO

Asciano Group (AIO), one of the leading Australia based infrastructure owners that mainly concentrates on transport infrastructure has managed to win a $320 million worth deal to transport coal from the new Middlemount mine of Macarthur Coal to the developing coal port of Abbot Point, which is being considered as a win for the company over Queensland Rail (QR).

Asciano (AIO), a rail and ports operator, has reported their first company profit since listing three years ago. They have said that their EBITDA (arnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) to be at the upper end of their previous forecast of $675 million to $700 million. The company’s net profit rose from a net loss of $93.4 million the same period last year to $79.1 million profit for the six months to December.

Asciano Group (AIO), one of the leading transportation infrastructure owners in Australia has managed to raise a new $1.14 billion worth of debt funding in an attempt to improve its balance sheet. However, the group also declared that the investors will miss out on a half-year dividend. Asciano stated in a release delivered to the Australian Securities Exchange that the company currently has no repayment obligations till May 2012.

Transfield Services (TSE), a company that offers services in sectors like maintenance, operations, assets and project management sector was the best performer in ASX100 index for this week adding 26.1 percent or 58 cents in its stock price and was closed at $2.80.

City Pacific was the overall worst performing stock taking in a 60 percent decrease. It has been noted that for the past week (week 10 of 2008), majority of worst performing stocks on the Australian sharemarket was financial services providers and it’s an indication of the fall of the sector. Allco Finance (AFG), ABC Learning (ABS), Centro Properties (CNP), Asciano Group (AIO) and City Pacific (CIY) were among the worst performing stocks. Also, there moves were significant ranging from 29.9 percent to 60.2 percent.