Wealthy royal families’ bid for Santos rejected, the high cost of domestic violence to business, and poor economic news prompts fall in business confidence. Your weekly digest of the latest business news.

Oil and gas producer, Santos, has knocked back a takeover bid by private equity firm, Scepter Partners, a fund backed by nine of the world’s wealthiest royal families and other high-net-worth individuals with a combined wealth of $140 billion (K294 billion). Scepter offered A$7.1billion (K14.9 billion) for Santos, which has described the offer as ‘opportunistic in nature and does not reflect the fair underlying asset value of the company’.

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Woodside Petroleum’s CEO Peter Coleman says time, not money, is the key to securing a takeover of Oil Search.

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The cost of domestic violence to PNG business is high, according to new research by the Overseas Development Institute. One of three firms surveyed reported domestic violence cost K300,000 annually, and for another almost K3 million. These numbers represent 2% and 9% respectively of the companies’ total salary bills. Adding in the cost of counselling, recruitment and medical costs, the total cost of gender-based violence (GBV) to one firm increased by 45%.  On average, each staff member in the surveyed companies lost 11.1 days of work per year as a result of the impacts of GBV.

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Business confidence has posted a ‘relatively large fall’ over the third quarter, according to the ANZ Bank’s latest survey of PNG business. But this should ‘not be surprising, or alarming, that after another quarter of falling commodity prices and poor economic news on the local, regional and global front’.

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The drought in the Highlands. Credit: RNZ

Finance Minister James Marape says the Government has allowed districts to use K2 million from their service improvement programme funds to assist their people affected by the drought. Kumul Petroleum Holdings has donated K750,000 to Western Highlands, Enga, Southern Highlands, Hela and Chimbu provinces, to help deal with the effects of El Nino.

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The country has close to $US2.9 billion (K8bn) in foreign exchange reserves, enough to cover about nine months of imports it needs to survive, Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has told Parliament. He says both the Supplementary Budget and the 2016 Budget will be handed down on Tuesday, 3 November.

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PNG’s exchange rate rose 5.99% against the US dollar in the first 12 months of the trading band restriction regime, while all the other top-15 resource dependent countries saw their currency devalue by 5-29%, according to UPNG/ANU Researcher Rohan Fox.

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Atoll communiites at risk. Credit: ADB.

The Asian Development Bank is providing US$24.25 million (K70.49 million) to help 21 vulnerable islands and atolls in Bougainville, East New Britain, Milne Bay, and Morobe to build up its resilience and responsiveness to the impacts of climate change. It estimates the impact of climate change, could trigger a loss of up to 15.2% of PNG’s GDP by 2100.

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The current session of Parliament will debate a bill allowing PNG citizens with dual citizenship to carry the national passport and come and go with ease, says PM Peter O’Neill. Other bills include a Constitutional Amendment on PNG’s ownership of hydrocarbons and minerals, and the establishment of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).

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The National Development Bank has paid its first dividend of K1 million to the government, via Kumul Consolidated Holdings (KCL).

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PNG Forest Industry Association Executive Director, Bob Tate, says ground-breaking analysis using satellite sensing by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) shows PNG forests are in a robust state, without any significant deforestation for the past 25 years.

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The Papua province of Indonesia is under threat from fires and haze. Fires are burning out of control across hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan, where oil palm planters are accused of slash-and-burn clearing of ostensibly protected peat forests.

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Best in show. Credit: PNG Loop

And finally, congratulations to Ramu Beef, the Overall Winner of cattle exhibition at the 2015 Morobe Show. The company produced the champion fat animal, champion bull and supreme champion animal. The award for Best Led Animal in the Grand Parade went to Michael Nunteng, a Morobean smallholder cattle producer. Alan Atango from Markham won the award for the Champion Female prize.