Good morning,

If you want to know just how tough the 2023 financial year was for Aussie stockbrokers, check out Taylor Collison’s latest numbers.

The Adelaide stockbroker reported a 55 per cent decline in its corporate and equity capital markets revenue to ASIC this week and slashed its dividend.

Revenue from brokerage similarly declined, down 23 per cent, while proceeds from the sale of investments fell a staggering 86 per cent.

Elsewhere, Iress has been added to investors’ naughty list. Shares in the financial software and data firm nosedived 30 per cent to a 10-year low on a single day in August after it delivered its fourth material earnings downgrade in 12 months, driven by higher costs.

Speaking on a webinar yesterday, Allan Gray managing director Simon Mawhinney said he’d dug into the company and found an astonishingly poor track record in allocating capital, noting the $130.4 million impairment of its UK goodwill, flagged in April.

Iress is the sixth-worst performer on the S&P/ASX 200 this year, down almost 40 per cent. No prize for guessing who else is down there with them: Star Entertainment (-74 per cent), Core Lithium (-72 per cent), Sayona Mining (-60 per cent), Chalice Mining (-49 per cent) and Elders (-48 per cent). Expect shareholder tempers to flare this AGM season.

Finally, we hear the Credit Corp downgrade is the talk of the Morgans Investor Conference in Noosa – teeming with small-cap fundies and corporates. We reckon the emergency Liontown equity raise also scored a mention between beers.

Happy reading,

• Ticketek-owner TEG seeks $700 million in dividend recap; taps Goldman Sachs.
• Macquarie Capital bankers resurrect South32’s Eagle Downs auction.
• Alinta Energy taps MA Moelis to shop billing platform.
• Credit Suisse’s head of research pops up at mid-tier broker Canaccord Genuity.
• Liontown Resources equity raise underwritten for $375 million at $1.80 a share.
• Patrick Grove-backed proptech seeks equity injection.
• Whitehaven investor sells $157 million worth of stock after BHP win.

• Origin valuation stirs investors’ quest for higher offer, writes Angela Macdonald-Smith.
• New York state’s attorney general accused three major players in the digital asset industry of lying to investors and concealing losses, The New York Times reports.
• UBS is doubling down on wealth management and expanding in the US, Bloomberg reports.

Mining heavyweight South32 has fallen 14 per cent this year and is trading around $3.40.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.