Great Southern Ltd has rejected claims from the Wine Grape Growers' Australia that the grape glut that crippled many players in the industry during 2005 and 2006 would return to haunt the sector within five years.
The 2007 harvest has been a welcome relief for grape producers in WA, with unexpected sales to east coast operators easing the burden of oversupply. But the glut is yet to be fully overcome.
The Western Australian entrepreneurs who have created the most wealth in the non-mining sector are led by people who spent most of their business life running private companies before opting for a sharemarket float.
Fortescue Metals Group Ltd boss Andrew Forrest laid the groundwork for his current wealth four years ago this month when he negotiated a deal with Allied Mining & Processing.
WA Business News' Wealth Creators may be sitting on enormous fortunes, but that wealth is predominately on paper. And while the stock market can push the value of an individual's shareholding up, it can just as easily make the wealth disappear.
The iron ore boom has underpinned the enormous wealth of Fortescue Metals Group Ltd managing director Andrew Forrest, and it has also boosted the wealth of some of Western Australia's most famous families.
The resources boom has swelled the job books for many of the country's engineering firms, which in turn has lifted company profits and share prices and lined the pockets of some of the industry's long-serving executives.
There may be a host of rags-to-riches tales among the executives enjoying the share price spoils of their publicly listed entities, but it's a storyline that also extends to the private sector.
WA Business News invited some of the state's leading tourism identities to discuss the key challenges facing the industry, and to offer a possible vision for the future of the sector in WA.
The city's taxi industry continues to plague the local tourism sector, with hotel owners and tourism business operators joining in a chorus of outrage over the standard of the service.
A study looking at Perth's hotel needs for the next 15 years is expected to reveal significant capacity constraints as the sector experiences its biggest growth period in two decades.
The shortage of hospitality workers has hit crisis point, according to several tourism industry leaders, who say increasing the number of immigrants to work in the sector will help businesses grow and prevent service levels falling.
Former Perth Airport chief executive Graham Muir has called on current airport management to fast-track the development of an integrated domestic and international airport terminal in line with its now 20-year-old master plan.
Tourism WA chair and restaurateur, Kate Lamont, believes Western Australia's tourism promotion should be focused on markets that bring in big-spending tourists rather than attracting lots of low-spending ones.
Watershed Premium Wines managing director Geoff Barrett said his company would turn to foreign investment to continue in its push to plant a total 240 hectares of vineyards.
As the sector's dominant player, agribusiness investment manager Great Southern Ltd is used to successfully weathering legislative storms. And the latest ATO tax challenge for non-forestry MIS will be no different, according to executive director and gene
With uncertainty surrounding the future of non-forestry managed investment schemes, promoters are expecting an increase in MIS project sales this year.
Managed investment scheme promoter Rewards Group Ltd believes its close alliance with listed investment company, The Ark Fund Ltd, will reduce the adverse impact of recent tax changes on its non-forestry projects.
The current decision to end managed investment scheme involvement in any industry bar forestry has significant repercussions for rural Australia, not to mention the legion of city-based corporate types who have lived well off this system.
The federal government's February 6 announcement that the ATO would cease issuing product rulings for non-forestry managed investment schemes after July 1, thereby removing the 100 per cent up-front tax deduction, sent shockwaves through the industry.
The Corruption and Crime Commission inquiry has already claimed a pride of fallen scalps but the real implications lie ahead for lobbyists, ministers, bureaucrats and business.
The establishment of a register of lobbyists is one of the main reforms flowing from the CCC inquiry, but apart from voyeuristic journalists it is hard to find supporters of this initiative.
Ministerial staffers would be banned from holding senior elected positions in political parties if the state government adopts reforms currently being evaluated by Commissioner of Public Sector Standards, Maxine Murray.
In 1994, while Lou Di Virgilio was working in the financial markets in New York, two of his younger brothers, Dominic and Robert, were running a small used car yard in Maddington.
Western Australia's second biggest home building group, Alcock/Brown-Neaves Group, neatly illustrates the challenges facing private businesses trying to manage the combination of rapid economic growth and spiraling costs.
The automotive trade has traditionally been the exclusive preserve of private companies but that changed dramatically 16 months ago when Perth's biggest car dealer listed on the stock exchange.
Western Australia's economic boom has not been all plain sailing for private companies. Our annual review of the sector identifies both winning companies and strugglers, and highlights the large number of sharemarket floats and trade sales.
Former Australian cricketer and Western Australian captain, Graeme Wood, is gearing up for his toughest test yet, as the new chief executive of the WA Cricket Association.
Fears held by the state's two AFL clubs about the impact of Super 14 club the Western Force on the corporate hospitality market have proved unfounded, with boxes for all three clubs sold out for the 2007 season.
