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The blowtorch remains focused on PwC with Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill calling on the embattled accounting firm PwC Australia to provide more detail of the misconduct which had seen eight partners, including former chief executive Tom Seymour, pushed out of the firm in the wake of the tax leaks scandal. The Labor Senator, who chairs the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Corporations and Financial Services which has been investigating the scandal, said more questions needed to be answered by the firm following the announcement of the forced exits, which also included former chairman Peter Van Dongen. Senator O’Neill said PwC also needed to detail what action it was taking to hold the PwC Australia leadership team to account, including former chief executive Luke Sayers.

Meanwhile, struggling business owners face a “horror show” over the coming months as the taxman circles and operating costs spiral, warn insolvency experts. It comes as indicative data from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission shows a 17 per cent spike to 5520 in company collapses over the year to June 30, 2023. Revive Financial head of insolvency Jarvis Archer said that increasingly, small business owners are being forced to get second jobs to prop up their business or pay their rent or mortgage. 

And as the RBA meets to consider a further rate hike it should think about active quantitative tightening. Leading financial market strategist, Tim Baker from Deutsche Bank, says the central bank should consider selling government bonds to “spread the pain” of its monetary policy tightening to the 30 per cent of households that own their home outright. “By selling these bonds, long-end yields could rise, and weigh on equities and house prices,” he says.

The Markets

Five things to know this morning

1. ASX stocks may waver ahead of the RBA's rate decision. Tesla gains in shortened Wall Street session ahead of its Independence Day break.  More
2. Australian consumers might be feeling the pain of 12 interest rate hikes but home property buyers are still driving surprising credit growth for the banks, with ANZ winning big volumes as others temper their competition drive. More
3. Major chemicals supplier and distributor Redox will run the ruler over a number of takeover targets it has in the wings after making an underwhelming debut as the largest new Australian Securities Exchange listing so far this year. More
4. The 162-year-old Coopers Brewery has emerged as the largest Australian-owned malster after United Malt agreed to a $1.5bn takeover from French giant Malteries Soufflet. More
5. The failure of a mystery Russian investor to pay $7m into Wiluna Mining’s final emergency capital raising is partly responsible for the WA gold miner’s collapse, according to administrators FTI Consulting. More

"Efforts to send eight partners packing at the big four accounting firm have also uncovered some uncomfortable truths."

Read the full story here

DataRoom

Fruit and vegetable grower Costa Group is understood to have fielded a $1.2bn-plus buyout proposal from Paine Schwartz Partners, after the former owner of the business has been creeping up its register.

It comes after Paine Schwartz Partners lifted its stake in Costa Group in March on the back of a raid on the register in October last year, amassing a stake of just over 13 per cent. A substantial shareholder notice to the market revealed that Paine Schwartz held 14.84 per cent of the company, at March, up from 13.78 per cent.

When the fund bought into Costa last year, it said it had aspirations to get to 15 per cent.

But now a buyout proposal is understood to have landed, with the company yet to recommend an offer. More

Margin Call

There’s major upheaval under way at the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, where CEO Darren Bark has been put on unexpected leave just over two years after his appointment – and he’s very unlikely to be returning.

The developments are being kept quiet by JBD officials, who didn’t respond to emails and, when eventually reached, declined to comment on the matter. Bark’s employment hasn’t been formally terminated but we hear lawyers are involved and that’s never a great sign. More

Wealth

House prices defied the odds and rose again in the month of June – the fourth month of consecutive increases, but fears of a “downward adjustment” in the market are intensifying.

Rising mortgage rates and a potential lift in the volume of housing stock for sale threaten a reversal of this year’s surprise upturn.

CoreLogic’s latest figures show the overall pulse of the market is “decelerating” as June prices gained 1.1 per cent against 1.2 per cent for May. The slender improvement in overall prices – national prices are up 3.4 per cent since February – is clearly vulnerable.

The immediate risk is that the RBA may well pierce the reflating market if it pushes through a 13th rate increase when the board meets on Tuesday afternoon. More