Sugar refiner and building materials maker CSR has halted trade in its shares while it raises capital. The company has asked for a halt for up to two trading days as it sells shares to institutional investors. There are media reports that the company is seeking to raise $400 million through the share sale. The company says it will also soon release its half-year results in an announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

Following a positive round of meetings with farmer shareholders, Fonterra's Board of Directors has decided a vote on changes to the Co-operative's capital structure will be held at the annual meeting on November 18. Fonterra chairman Sir Henry van der Heyden said directors were pleased with the strong attendance and feedback from shareholders at the 77 meetings held around the country. “We had a record turnout of 3,500 farmers at the meetings. We’re encouraged so many farmers attended to give us their views,” Sir Henry said. “We’ve listened to this feedback and it has generally been supportive. We are making some changes to Step One (Strengthening the Share Structure) and Step Two (Restricted Share Value) stays the same. A detailed proposal will go out to shareholders in the Notice of Meeting, around October 30.” The Fonterra Shareholders’ Council has voted to support the proposal that is being put to the vote. Sir Henry said that in the meantime discussions with farmers are continuing with smaller regional ‘shed’ and ‘on-farm’ meetings being held throughout the country. “We will be backing these up with a round of 40 meetings between November 9-11, where farmers will be able to further discuss Steps One and Two with directors,” Sir Henry said.

Wesfarmers shareholders should be absolutely delighted with its first-quarter results because it looks like the turning point in the biggest retail gamble since the Myer restructure. Richard Goyder bought out the Coles group for more than $18 billion just prior to the global financial crisis and for a time some analysts were wondering whether the company would meet its repayment dates which triggered Wesfarmers shares to fall to around $14.40 this year. A year on, Wesfarmers shares closed at $28.26, up $1.82 on the day and touching $28.54. It was mostly due to the company's latest figures which showed food and liquor sales were up 7.3 per cent in the September quarter while stores opened for 12 months produced sales up 6.1 per cent. The latter figure beat its major rival Woolworths for the first time since Wesfarmers took control. Woolworths is now thinking the same way that this part of retailing is worth getting into by joining up with US operator US Lowe's and the local Danks which has yet to be cleared by the ACCC.

Coca-Cola Amatil shares produced a flurry of activity, reflecting renewed confidence in the stock which put on 35c over the week, including Friday's 5c improvement to $10.72, and touched a high of $10.80 on Thursday and again on Friday. The company has a big capital expenditure strategy in place for the year ahead. One of its projects is increased spending in Indonesia with cold-drink vending machine equipment to lift revenues to new records. It is also developing extra production and distribution in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia.