DoorDash, the ubiquitous US food delivery app, has agreed to acquire British rival Deliveroo for Stg2.9 billion ($A6 billion) in cash, expanding its business in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

San Francisco-based DoorDash will pay 180 pence ($A3.70) for each Deliveroo share, 29 per cent more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was announced, the companies said before the London Stock Exchange opened for trading on Tuesday.

The deal is DoorDash’s second major international acquisition in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the US, Canada and Australia.

After the purchase of Deliveroo, and the 2022 acquisition of Helsinki-based Wolt Enterprises, DoorDash will operate in more than 40 markets worldwide.

“I could not be more excited by the prospect of what DoorDash and Deliveroo will be able to accomplish together,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in the statement.

Both companies were founded in 2013, using the then emerging technology of smartphones to link restaurants and their customers to a network of delivery riders.

Deliveroo operates in nine countries, including the UK and Ireland, which accounted for 59 per cent of its business in 2023.

It also does business in France, Italy, Belgium, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.

The acquisition comes less than three months after technology investment company Prosus agreed to buy Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com for 4.1 billion euros ($A7.1 billion), boosting its food delivery portfolio in Europe.

Mattel, the maker of Barbie dolls and other popular toys, plans to raise prices for some products sold in the US to offset higher costs related to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The California-based company said the increases were necessary even though it is speeding up plans to diversify its manufacturing base away from China.

Trump has imposed a 145 per cent tariff on most Chinese-made products.

Critics of Trump’s tariffs warn they could lead to higher consumer prices and empty shelves if companies forgo shipments rather than pay elevated import duties.

Trump has dismissed such concerns, defending the tariffs by saying the US imports too much “junk” from China.

“Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally,” Trump said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

Mattel executives told analysts on a conference call that China accounted for 40 per cent of Mattel’s global production.

The company behind toys such as Hot Wheels cars and Uno card games plans to move roughly 500 products in 2025 from manufacturers in China to sources in other countries, compared with 280 products in 2024.

For some highly sought-after toys, Mattel said it would enlist factories in more than one country.

To prevent possible shortages, the company said it was focusing on getting products to stores without interruptions.

The company said that even with price increases it expected 40 per cent to 50 per cent of its toys would cost customers $US20 ($A31) or less.

“The diversified and flexible supply chain in global commercial organisations are clear advantages to Mattel in this period of uncertainty,” CEO and chairman Ynon Kreiz told analysts.

Citing the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the president’s trade policies, Mattel withdrew its annual earnings forecast on Monday.

The company said it would be “difficult to predict” consumer spending and the company’s US sales for the remainder of 2025 without more information.

Mattel reported larger-than expected first-quarter sales but also a wider loss. Mattel said sales rose two per cent to $US827 million for the quarter that ended March 31.

The company’s loss expanded to 40.3 million dollars, or 12 cents a share, in the quarter.

That compares with a loss of $US28.3 million dollars, or eight cents a share, in the same period in 2024.

Analysts expected a loss of 10 cents on sales of $US786.1 million for the first quarter, according to FactSet.

with DPA

Fresh hope has emerged for a shattered Liberal Party after its electoral wipeout, with coalition candidates taking the lead in crucial contests with teal independents.

Despite losing a swathe of seats to Labor, confidence is growing the Liberals could retake the seat of Goldstein in Melbourne and hold on to Bradfield in Sydney.

Liberal challenger Tim Wilson could regain his old seat of Goldstein from teal MP Zoe Daniel, taking the lead in the marginal electorate by just 334 votes as postal votes come in.

While Ms Daniel claimed victory on Saturday night, postal votes and pre-poll ballots have made the contest come down to the wire.

Liberal Gisele Kapterian has edged ahead by 54 votes in the seat of Bradfield against independent challenger Nicolette Boele.

The two seat counts have restored some optimism in Liberal ranks after the party plunged to its lowest primary vote since its formation in the 1940s.

Greens leader Adam Bandt remains in danger of losing his seat of Melbourne to Labor’s Sarah Witty.

Labor is set to claim at least 86 seats to the coalition’s 39, with 15 electorates still too close to call as of Tuesday afternoon.

As they look to set out their second-term agenda, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong are splitting their attention between global and local issues.

President Donald Trump on Monday flagged a 100 per cent tariff on films made outside the US, before saying he would consult with the American film industry.

“Australia and America, we’ve worked so closely on so many great movies and so our movie and entertainment industries are really very interlinked and very collaborative,” Senator Wong told ABC radio on Tuesday.

“So what we would say to the Trump administration is it’s a great thing that we’re collaborating on doing, so let’s keep working together because that’s what viewers want to see.”

NSW Premier Chris Minns went further, saying it was “a terrible, terrible decision” as he called for film industry support, adding it will be difficult if studios start to shut.

The decision by the coalition to ramp up culture wars during the election “was a demonstration of why the Liberal Party had done so badly in Australia, cities and suburbs”, Senator Wong said.

“Overwhelmingly, Australians who live in cities and suburbs looked at the Liberal Party and said, ‘you don’t represent my aspirations, you don’t reflect the things I’m worried about’.”

Senator Wong pledged to serve the full term in the new government, adding: “I’m looking forward to being part of a third-term Labor government as well”.

Mr Albanese is mulling a refreshed cabinet with factional leaders to meet in coming days to present their picks.

But the leadership team of Treasurer Jim Chalmers, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Trade Minister Don Farrell will remain.

Senator Wong, who doubles as the government’s Senate leader, issued a warning to the Greens to heed the results of the election after the minor party pledged to use its balance of power to force more progressive reforms.

“Australians rejected the politics of conflict and the politics of grievance and unfortunately, Adam Bandt in some ways is quite like Peter Dutton,” she told Nine’s Today Show.

The Liberal leadership contest is coming down to three contenders after Peter Dutton became the first opposition leader to lose his seat, with shadow treasurer Angus Taylor and deputy leader Sussan Ley the main frontrunners.

Skype, the once-popular video call service, has ended operations after more than 20 years.

Owner Microsoft had announced the move in February, encouraging Skype users to migrate to its communications app Teams.

“As we say goodbye to Skype, we want to thank our incredible community. Over the years, you’ve connected with family, friends, and colleagues across the world,” the Skype team said in a post on the service’s official X page on Monday.

“This isn’t the end – it’s a new beginning. Join us on Microsoft Teams Free and continue making great memories.”

The service stops being available from Tuesday.

Skype was founded in Luxembourg in 2003 by Niklas Zennström of Sweden and Janus Friis of Denmark.

The service ushered in an era of online communication as it allowed a mass audience to make free voice and video calls over the internet for the first time.

It was particularly popular for international communication as it allowed users to avoid high telephone costs that had been inescapable until then.

At its peak, Skype had several hundred million users a month worldwide.

According to the Similarweb statistics service, the number of users has since fallen to about 30 million a month.

Skype users could not only call other Skype users, but also make calls to landline and mobile numbers.

A Skype credit or subscription was required for this feature.

Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 for $US8.5 billion and integrated it into its ecosystem, including Windows and Office.

Despite this integration, Skype has lost ground to competitors such as Zoom and WhatsApp.

But Microsoft Teams, which launched in 2017, has now established itself as one of the leading providers in the collaboration software market and plays a central role in corporate communications.

ChatGPT inventor OpenAI has reversed course on plans to transform into a for-profit company, announcing that it will remain under the control of its original US non-profit entity.

The decision follows consultations with state attorneys-general in California and Delaware, who could have moved to block the restructuring.

“OpenAI was founded as a non-profit, and is today overseen and controlled by that non-profit. Going forward, it will continue to be overseen and controlled by that non-profit,” the company said in a statement.

The reversal raises questions about the future of OpenAI’s funding structure.

Major investors, including Japan’s SoftBank, had backed the company on the condition it would transition to a profit-driven model by the end of the year.

Chief executive and co-founder Sam Altman told reporters on a call on Monday that SoftBank had no plans to reduce its funding.

Microsoft, which has invested almost $US14 billion ($A22 billion) in the company, has not commented on the new plan.

The profit-oriented restructuring was originally intended to attract more investors as competition in the artificial intelligence sector intensified.

It came after a period of turmoil in late 2023, when OpenAI’s board abruptly fired Altman, only to reinstate him weeks later following pressure from investors and staff.

OpenAI’s co-founders, including Altman and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, originally started it as a non-profit research laboratory on a mission to safely build artificial general intelligence for humanity’s benefit.

Nearly a decade later, OpenAI has reported its market value as $US300 billion and counts 400 million weekly users of ChatGPT, its flagship product.

The non-profit decision marks a victory for Musk, who now runs rival AI firm xAI.

Musk has been a vocal critic of the profit shift and has taken legal action to block the transformation.

with AP

Millions of hectares of Australian farmland have sold for a total of almost $15 billion, as agricultural property values rack up 11 years of growth.

Median farmland values increased by 6.9 per cent in 2024 to a record $10,231 per hectare, according to Bendigo Bank’s Agribusiness Farmland Values report released on Tuesday.

But despite more than a decade of consecutive growth, the figures represent a cooling in the rate of annual increases compared to 2018 to 2022, when values more than doubled.

“The underlying drivers of the Australian farmland market were more varied in 2024 with elevated interest rates a constant and with a greater mix of seasonal conditions,” Bendigo Bank executive Neil Burgess said.

“Favourable weather in NSW and Queensland has been in stark contrast to the significant lack of rain experienced in southern regions, which has been reflected in farmland prices.”

Victoria was the only state to experience a decline in the median price per hectare, along with slowing growth in South Australia due to drought conditions.

Tasmania experienced the strongest growth year-on-year at 14 per cent, followed by Queensland at 12 per cent.

Buyer sentiment was buoyed by a rebound in cattle prices in Queensland, the report said.

The report showed 4.7 million hectares of farmland, roughly the size of Denmark, was sold for a combined value of $4.9 billion in 2024.

The most valuable farmland was in Victoria’s Gippsland region at $29,335 per hectare, followed by Tasmania’s northwest at $27,019 and South Australia’s Adelaide and Fleurieu regions at $22,488.

Values are expected to record stronger growth in the second half of 2025, off the back of recovering livestock prices and rising crop production.

Farmland availability is tight, with mixed seasonal conditions and uncertainties in global trade, Mr Burgess said.

“So our outlook is for continuing moderate growth in farmland values across 2025.”

Anthony Albanese will enter his second term in power with a massive majority after a landslide victory, but Labor insiders are tempering voter expectations of dramatic reforms.

The scale of the win has taken people within the government by surprise, with Labor having won at least 86 seats.

The boosted numbers in the parliament, and the political capital that comes with the victory, have prompted calls for Labor to lift its policy reform agenda.

Retired Labor MP Graham Perrett said people needed to focus on what Mr Albanese had already promised to do.

“He’s a pretty straightforward bloke. What he promised before the election is what he’ll deliver after the election,” he said.

“There’s a lot of challenges in there, in terms of climate change, defence and the economy and productivity and a few other things in there … that’s a big agenda for any second-term government.”

On other issues including Indigenous reconciliation, Mr Perrett said while the government could walk and chew gum at the same time, there were enough challenges in an uncertain world to keep the cabinet busy over the next three years.

Labor plans to boost funding for Medicare and continue working towards universal childcare.

Mr Albanese will also look to boost housing supply after making it a centrepiece of his election campaign launch.

“We went beyond where we said we would … we’ve been an ambitious government,” he told reporters in Canberra.

“We’ll continue to be an ambitious government, but we won’t get carried away.”

Labor sources backed Mr Albanese’s plan, saying the election result was a ringing endorsement of what was taken to voters.

They expected the most senior ministerial positions to remain the same as Mr Albanese positioned his leadership as one of stability and unity.

Labor national president Wayne Swan said what clearly stood out was that people wanted stability.

“They preferred a majority Labor government in the times of international uncertainty,” he told AAP.

“The gains that Labor made in the last election were extended substantially across metropolitan and out of suburban Australia.

“The Libs comprehensively lost what you’d call the middle ground in politics in this election.”

The coalition has 40 seats, as the counting by the electoral commission continues, representing a substantial loss from the 2022 poll.

Skechers is being acquired and taken private by the investment firm 3G Capital.

The board of Skechers unanimously approved the $US9 billion ($A14 billion) deal, the companies said on Monday.

The offer of $US63 per share represents a premium of 30 per cent to Skechers’ 15-day volume-weighted average stock price, the companies said.

Skechers shares jumped 25 per cent at the opening bell Monday, to $US61.72.

Skechers reported a record $US9 billion in revenue in 2024 with net earnings of $US640 million.

China accounts for 15 per cent of Skecher’s revenue, according to the data firm FactSet.

About 97 per cent of the clothes and shoes purchased in the US are imported, predominantly from Asia, according to the American Apparel & Footwear Association.

Using factories overseas has kept labour costs down for US companies but neither they nor their overseas suppliers are likely to absorb price increases due to new tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Following completion of the transaction, the company will continue to be led by Skechers chairman and CEO Robert Greenberg and his management team.

Its headquarters will remain in Manhattan Beach, California where it was founded more than three decades ago.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter this year.

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are increasingly clogging up the wheels of a world economy that for decades were greased by predictable and relatively free trade.

Big-name multinationals right down to niche e-commerce players last week cut sales targets, warned of job cuts and reviewed their business plans, while major economies revised down growth prospects amid bleak data read-outs.

While financial markets are betting the US and China will pull back from an all-out trade war and that Trump will cut deals to avert higher tariffs on others, the sheer uncertainty of where this ends has become a major drag factor in itself.

“US tariff policy is a serious negative shock for the world in the near term,” said Isabelle Mateos y Lago, group chief economist at French bank BNP Paribas.

“The US tariffs end-game may be further away and at a higher level than previously thought,” she said of blanket US tariffs currently set at a baseline of 10 per cent alongside higher, sector-specific charges on products such as steel, aluminium and autos.

Beijing said on Friday it was evaluating an offer from Washington to hold talks over 145 per cent US tariffs, to which it has responded with 125 per cent levies. 

Trump’s administration has also suggested it is close to deals with nations including India, South Korea and Japan to avert more tariffs in weeks to come.

In the meantime, companies such as Swedish appliances maker Electrolux slashed its outlook while Volvo Cars, computer gadget maker Logitech and drinks giant Diageo abandoned their targets on the uncertainty.

The tariff outlook prompted the Bank of Japan to cut its growth forecasts last week, while trade tensions were cited by forecasters in growth outlook downgrades for the Netherlands and the Middle East and North Africa region.

China’s factory activity contracted at the fastest pace in 16 months in April, one survey showed last week, while a similar UK readout showed British factory exports in April shrinking at their sharpest pace in almost five years.

Economists were quick to caution that a stronger-looking read-out from export-focused Germany might largely be due to factories front-loading business to get it out of the door before the tariffs took effect.

However, while front-loading may also have helped India to a 10-month high in manufacturing growth in April, analysts noted the nation – which faces lower tariffs than China and towards which Apple has shifted some output – could end up a genuine winner.

“India is well positioned to be an alternative to China as a supplier of goods to the US in the immediate term,” emerging markets economist Shilan Shah at Capital Economics said, predicting punitive tariffs on China were “here to stay”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has taken his election landslide as a mandate to press ahead with key reforms as he stares down the Greens on housing. 

Despite winning a substantial majority, Mr Albanese insists the government would turn to priority reform and not get ahead of itself.

Legislation to slash student debt by 20 per cent will be the introduced when parliament resumes.

“I didn’t get ahead of myself in the last three years, we had a clear mandate to govern, we had a lot to turn around,” he said in Canberra on Monday.

Housing will remain a major priority with the prime minister ready to take on the Greens, who still hold the balance of power in the Senate despite losing two seats to Labor in Brisbane.

Greens leader Adam Bandt has pledged to use the balance of power to force progressive reform but the prime minister took a stern tone after the Liberals and Greens lost their housing spokespeople.

“We have a clear mandate to build more housing, the key is supply,” Mr Albanese said, criticising the Greens and coalition for stalling Labor’s housing policies. 

“If the Senate gets in the way of that, then they’ll receive the same response that the housing spokespeople for the Liberal Party and the Greens got on Saturday.”

Mr Albanese also outlined his priorities abroad. He will travel to Canada for a G7 summit in June, with Indonesia to be his first international bilateral trip.

The prime minister has spoken with a number of global counterparts including US President Donald Trump since his re-election and more conversations have been lined up as his leadership team meets on Monday to decide on a new cabinet.

Depending on the final vote count, the delicate factional balance in the ministry could stir a wider reshuffle under an ascendant left wing.

Caucus will also meet after the final ballots have been counted and seats determined, but there will be a number of new faces.

Labor picked up in excess of a dozen seats, with more on the table as ballot counting continues. The government needed at least 76 out of 150 lower house seats to win and could end up with 85 or more.

The government faces a weakened opposition with the battered Liberals losing at least 13 seats and as many as 19.

Peter Dutton was the highest-profile casualty, becoming the first opposition leader to lose his seat as three Liberal frontbenchers were booted from parliament by Labor candidates.

After Mr Dutton’s loss in Dickson, the leadership frontrunners include shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley, defence spokesman Andrew Hastie and immigration spokesman Dan Tehan.

Some Liberal senators concede the coalition had failed to offer voters a substantial policy platform, especially on the economy.

“You’ve got to have the ambition to lead on the economy and … I don’t think that’s been evident over the last few years,” Liberal senator Andrew Bragg told ABC radio on Monday.

The coalition needed to avoid culture wars that target minorities and become more inclusive to win back the middle ground, he said, while branding a decision to preference One Nation as “misguided”.

Senate colleague Hollie Hughes, who lost her party’s pre-selection, was scathing of Mr Taylor’s role in the defeat saying “the economic narrative was just completely non-existent”.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it would be “extraordinary if Angus Taylor was rewarded with a promotion after the diabolical contribution that he made to this history-making coalition defeat”.