Mark Pownall

Hit by the high cost of feedstocks, biofuels players Mission Biofuels Ltd and Australian Renewable Fuels Ltd are both seeking to adapt their strategies as rising agricultural product prices disrupt their business models.

The management of outsourced housekeeping provider AHS Hospitality has been backed in a buyout by ANZ's private equity arm and two of the banks funds which collectively have taken a majority stake in the company.

Think tank the Committee for Perth has made two key appointments to its high-powered board - adding business leader John Langoulant and major accounting player Jeff Dowling - as it embarks on its first major steps to improve the city's amenity.

National logistics giant Toll Group has bought Herdsman-based Courier Australia, taking 100 per cent of the Western Australian company which has been operating for almost 50 years.

Did Kerry Stokes come close or miss by a mile in his showdown with the board of WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd?

As new Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA chief James Pearson jetted off to Russia this week with a state trade delegation, his colleagues may hope he’s dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s on his paperwork.

Last week’s WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd extraordinary general meeting was one of those great occasions few get to see until retirement age, if a quick scan of the 800 or so attendees was anything to go by.

The Evans & Tate name is set to be removed from the stock exchange boards following a move by a consortium to take control of the listed shell and some its lesser known wine brands.

The value of incumbency was reinforced with today's release of voting details by WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd which reveals an even tighter race than shareholders at the meeting were told.

Many in Western Australia think we are lucky because our ports have largely been free of the issues that have confronted the east coast.

It’s the kind of story that would be big news in so many places. A couple of boffins come together with a pair of money men, see a gap in the market, and set up a business.

Darrel Jarvis remains a believer in the Palandri wine business which he has sought to resuscitate with Chinese backing, blaming the high gearing levels created by the group’s finance division for its collapse.

National construction major John Holland is set to move its Perth headquarters to Herdsman in a major signal that the suburban market has become a strong option for CBD companies.

Darrel Jarvis's Chinese-backed buyout of the operations of failed Palandri Wine Group has won the approval of the administrators in a complex deal thought to be worth at least $30 million.

Are the energy market issues of Western Australia about to be solved by the market?

To an outsider a $US1 billion blow-out in project costs seems horrific, but to Chinese-based conglomerate CITIC Pacific Ltd the rising expenses are far outweighed by the huge jump in commodity prices

Advertising and marketing expenditure by Western Australia’s public universities jumped 45 per cent in the past year, as the institutions competed with the business sector for the hearts and minds of the state’s youth.

Universities are set to benefit from the change in government, offering their services as a solution to growing pains. Mark Pownall reports.

With less than a week before the culmination of the boardroom battle at WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd, both sides remained in full battle mode ahead of Wednesday’s extraordinary shareholder meeting.

The salaries of Western Australia’s academic leaders continue to move around, often appearing to have little to link them to the past year’s financial performance of their organisation.

Recent construction projects at Western Australia’s public universities have focused heavily on research, teaching and student facilities, but a new development at Curtin University of Technology will be radically different.

The power brokers of state Labor have backed down in their fight with John D'Orazio, accepting his membership to the party.

Could the breakneck speed of development in the Pilbara end up costing producers and the state through inefficient duplication of power plants?

After years of deadlock with the state government, the proponent of a private port in Cockburn Sound is hoping a management change will restore life to the project.

The private interests of media magnate Kerry Stokes are usually shielded from the public by an array of mechanisms designed to keep prying eyes away.

Banks now are a lot different than the bad old days, when heavy regulation made the practice of lending money a very one-sided affair.

It’s fascinating how newspaper journalists find whistle blowers so important for their best breaking stories. As a reporter, these kinds of sources are invaluable for obvious reasons.

Kerry Stokes knows how to fire-up imaginations; right now, he’s got the whole of Western Australia and a fair bit of the rest of the country speculating on what he’s really up to with his high-profile push to spill the board of WA Newspapers Holdings Ltd.

The Len Buckeridge-backed James Point Pty Ltd has signalled its intention to press ahead with a private port in Cockburn Sound, appointing two high profile players from the sector to head the company.

The collapse of Melbourne stockbroking outfit, Opes Prime, and its ripple effect this week in Western Australia will no doubt have repercussions.

Rarely do you hear a Margaret River winemaker pine for what the Swan Valley has. Despite the valley’s long history of viticulture, almost as long as European settlement in Western Australia, and Margaret River’s comparative youth in that respect, the So

In the 1970s, one of the quietest jets landing at Perth Airport was the popular Boeing 727. These days only a couple still come to Perth, operating as freightliners.