Company Interview / Market Update | Metcash, NextDC, Westpac, CSL, Monash IVF, Dwellings Value, Retail payments

Metcash's (ASX: MTS) unaudited profit after tax is expected to beat market expectations... coming in at between $273 and $277 million. Metcash has also announced its "Hardware" and "Total Tools" businesses will merge to bring all hardware brands under the same roof including Mitre 10. The retailer says this will fast-stream its relationship with other retail stores. And Metcash's audited results are expected on June 23rd.

NextDC (ASX: NXT) says recent contract wins mean the company’s pro forma contracted utilisation has increased by 16 megawatts, or 7% to 244MegaWatts since last month's update. The largest increase in contracted utilisation has come from its data centre under development at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, representing 15% of its planned capacity, which is scheduled to go live early next year. NextDC has flagged that most revenue from new contract wins are expected to ramp up from FY27, after the completion and commissioning of new data centres.

Westpac (ASX: WBC) has appointed Philippa Greenwood to its board...Mrs Greenwood is the current chair of Westpac New Zealand and the A2 Milk company. She's also a non-executive director with Fisher and Paykel Healthcare. Westpac says this appointment reinforces the importance of New Zealand as a core market.

And CSL (ASX: CSL) has named Cameron Price as independant non-executive director. Mr Price will retire from his current position as chief risk officer at the Future Fund - which is Australia's sovereign wealth fund.

Monash IVF Group (ASX: MVF) has advised an incident at the Clayton laboratory occuring on Thursday 5 June where a patient's own embryo was incorrectly trasferred to that patient, contrary to the treatment plan which designated the transfer of an embryo of the patient's partner.

The average Australian home price is now over $1 million for the very first time All residential dwellings - including houses, flats and land - have seen a median price increase of 0.7 percent over the March quarter.

The RBA says retail payment trends in Australia show continued growth in digital transactions and a decline in traditional payment methods.