Eight years ago, former trucking and mining contractor Michael Kiernan found himself about $2.5 million out of pocket when manganese miner Valiant Consolidated collapsed.
West Perth mining companies are usually run by one of two types – the accountants who never get their hands dirty and the operators who’ve seen it all first hand.
A home-operated business started in May 2003 by Jenny Spring so she could spend more time raising her children has become a global operation with forward estimate earnings of $4 million.
The number of small business lobby groups in Western Australia has ballooned over the past year, and while all cover similar issues they represent different parts of the small business community.
In a rare moment of candour after last year’s Federal election, former Labor leader Mark Latham acknowledged that his party’s policies had failed to keep pace with changing society.
The latest statistical snapshot of the small business sector has highlighted the emergence over the past decade of home-based businesses, which account for 72 per cent of the 139,500 small businesses in Western Australia.
While women remain a minority in senior management and around boardroom tables, Western Australia has produced several leaders in their fields. Marsha Jacobs talks to some of this State’s top performers.
PROVIDING a big pool of in-house pre-seed funding is not the only path to commercialisation, according to The University of Western Australia Office of Industry and Innovation director, Andy Sierakowski.
THE University of Queensland made nearly four times more money from licence income in 2002 than the next best performing university and had more than $40 million equity in 34 spin-out companies.
FARMING electronics developer and electronic display sign manufacturer Computronics is a significant investor in research and development in Western Au
Developing research into a marketable product or service can be complex but the returns are great if all the right systems are in place as Julie-anne Sprague and David Gibson report.
IT was the expertise of two Edith Cowan University researchers that prompted PanoramaFLAT to make Perth a major base for a planned global roll-out of i
PERTH was home to Australia’s largest private equity transaction of 2004 when heavy equipment supplier Emeco International was sold to GS Private Equity and Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) for a price believed to be about $450 million.
FOR the second year running, Alinta was one of the most active companies in Western Australia, completing a series of deals that added to the size and diversity of its operations.
CANADIAN engineering giant Hatch appears to have won the biggest share of major contracting work in Western Australia in a year that was dominated by oil and gas, resources and the Perth to Mandurah railway.
THE boom conditions on the Australian stock market in 2003 laid a solid foundation for 2004, with most broking firms reporting improved totals in the WA Business News 2004 equity capital raising survey.
