PRE-MARKET AUSTRALIAN, JAPANESE AND SOUTH KOREAN STOCKS NEWS: Earnings from BHP, Challenger, Cochlear, CSL, Hub24 and Reliance Worldwide
```markdown AUSTRALIA
Bendigo & Adelaide Bank (BEN AT) - Co. was imposed with additional licence conditions by APRA and announced a three-year programme to address non-financial risk at an estimated cost of AUD 70mln. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
BHP (BHP AT) - Co. FY (USD) net rose 9% Y/Y to 9.83bln (exp. 10.95bln), underlying profit rose 30% Y/Y to 13.2bln (exp. 12.7bln), rev. rose 15% Y/Y to 58.8bln, final dividend 0.99/shr, Co. noted potential to unlock up to an additional USD 3.5bln through active capital portfolio and asset management for WAIO assets. (Newswires/Dow Jones Newsplus)
Challenger (CGF AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net 505.6mln (prev. 192.3mln Y/Y), normalised net 468mln (prev. 456mln Y/Y), rev. 2.94bln (prev. 2.89bln Y/Y), dividend 0.16/shr (prev. 0.15/shr). (Dow Jones Newsplus)
Cochlear (COH AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net 147.3mln (prev. 388.9mln Y/Y), underlying net 322.4mln (prev. 391.6mln Y/Y), rev. 2.35bln (prev. 2.34bln Y/Y), dividend 1.30/shr (prev. 2.15/shr). (Dow Jones Newsplus)
CSL (CSL AT) - Co. FY (USD) net loss 2.58bln, underlying net fell 4% Y/Y to 3.10bln, rev. rose 2% Y/Y to 15.80bln, final dividend 1.62/security, expects FY27 rev. in line with FY26 and underlying net growth of around 5%. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
Downer EDI (DOW AT) - Co. was awarded water and power work valued at more than AUD 900mln, including a NZD 420mln contract renewal with Watercare Services, alongside other contract renewals and extensions across Australia and New Zealand. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
EML Payments (EML AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net loss 19.7mln, underlying EBITDA fell 18% Y/Y to 48.3mln, rev. fell 7% Y/Y to 207.0mln, no final dividend. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
FleetPartners Group (FPR AT) - Co.’s takeover battle has intensified with two new potential suitors emerging, pushing its market value to almost AUD 900mln. (The Australian)
Hub24 (HUB AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net rose 42% Y/Y to 121.4mln, rev. rose 23% Y/Y to 501.1mln. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
Judo Capital (JDO AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net rose 29% Y/Y to 111.1mln (exp. 114.68mln), rev. rose 23.5% Y/Y to 522.4mln (exp. 522.4mln). (Capital Brief)
Reliance Worldwide (RWC AT) - Co. FY (USD) net 6.3mln, adjusted net fell 15.3% Y/Y to 125.1mln, adjusted EBITDA fell 12.8% Y/Y to 242.1mln, rev. fell 0.7% Y/Y to 1.31bln; Co. also agreed to a AUD 3.55bln takeover by Brookfield Capital Partners at AUD 4.75/shr in cash, representing a 32% premium to Monday's close and an enterprise value of AUD 4.1bln. (Dow Jones Newsplus, Motley Fool)
Sims (SGM AT) - Co. FY (AUD) net 245.3mln, rev. rose 6.9% Y/Y to 8.01bln, final dividend 0.20/shr. (Dow Jones Newsplus)
JAPAN
Daiichi Sankyo (4568 JT) - Co. and AstraZeneca (AZN LN) say Enhertu significantly improved progression-free survival versus global standard of care in the Phase 3 DESTINY-Lung04 trial, with data to be presented at an upcoming medical meeting and shared with global regulators. (Newswires)
Honda Motor (7267 JT) - Co. says it will resume car production at plants in Saitama, Suzuka and Yokkaichi from 20 August. (Newswires)
Mitsubishi Motors (7211 JT) - Co. plans to launch a new EV in Australia and New Zealand this year, to be built by Foxconn's automotive unit Foxtron Vehicle Technologies. (Nikkei)
SoftBank (9984 JT) - Co.-backed SB Energy is reportedly set to file for an IPO this week targeting a USD 50bln valuation, while OpenAI is to lease 8GW from its Ohio data centre and NVIDIA is to invest USD 1.5bln in the project. (IFR)
Other News
Japan's listed companies expect net profit to rise 14% for the year ending March 2027, led by suppliers with high market shares in AI-related infrastructure and manufacturing, including Hitachi and Ibiden. (Nikkei)
SOUTH KOREA
HD Hyundai (267250 KS) - Co., Hyundai Engineering & Construction (000720 KS) and TerraPower discussed ways to strengthen cooperation in the US small modular reactor market. (Yonhap)
LG Electronics (066570 KS) - Co. has started operations at a new home appliance plant in Brazil as it seeks to expand further in South America; Co.’s robotics hub in South Korea is scheduled to be visited by NVIDIA (NVDA) senior director Madison Huang on Tuesday. (Yonhap)
Samsung Electronics (005930 KS) - Co.’s Samsung Display unit is to build an additional OLED display production facility; Co. spent a record KRW 27.3tln on R&D in H1, up 51.5% Y/Y, while facility investment rose to a record KRW 28tln. (Newswires, Yonhap)
Geopolitics
US President Trump ordered cuts to US-South Korea military drills and said North Korea's Kim has responded to his overtures. (Newswires)
Other News
South Korea and the US are seeking to resolve outstanding issues over a USD 200bln investment plan agreed as part of bilateral tariff negotiations, according to Industry Minister Kim Jung-kwan, while the US has reportedly demanded memory chips as South Korea’s first investment under the bilateral investment plan. (Yonhap/JoongAng)
This is the standard pre-market Asia-Pacific earnings digest, built around the Australian full-year reporting season with single-stock items from Japan and Korea attached. The pattern in these sessions is well established: BHP's result sets the tone for the ASX materials complex and feeds directly into iron ore and dividend expectations across the peer set, while the large healthcare names, CSL and Cochlear here, tend to trade on guidance rather than the backward-looking print, and both carry softer forward signals that have historically mattered more than the headline miss. The Reliance Worldwide cash takeover at a stated premium is the cleanest single-stock event in the wrap; agreed cash bids of this kind typically see the target converge toward the offer with the spread reflecting completion and regulatory risk rather than fundamental repricing. The Bendigo additional licence conditions item follows a familiar APRA sequence, where remediation costs are disclosed up front and the constraint on capital and operations becomes a multi-year drag rather than a one-day move. On the Japan and Korea side, the Enhertu Phase 3 readout reinforces the established pattern of Daiichi Sankyo and AstraZeneca trading on survival-endpoint quality ahead of formal data presentation, while the Korea tariff and investment-plan headlines sit in the slow-moving bilateral channel that has repeatedly surfaced without immediate resolution. Worth noting is that mixed wraps of this kind usually see index-level direction set by the heaviest weights, BHP and CSL, with the rest of the tape trading idiosyncratically.