Takeover activity pushes All Ords to record high

A Spate of merger and acquisition moves by some of Australia's largest companies yesterday spurred the Australian sharemarket to new highs.
Stronger overnight commodity prices and a positive lead from Wall Street last Friday also bolstered the local bourse, which gained more than 1 per cent.
The ASX 200 picked up 63.18 points to 4951.3, just below its previous best high of 4956.7, while the All Ordinaries gained 61.2 points to a new record of 4910.6.
The All Ords' previous closing record was 4903.9 reached on February 1.
Aequs Securities institutional dealer Ric Klusman said strength in the resource sector, as well as AGL's counter-bid for Alinta and the competition watchdog's decision to clear transport group Toll Holdings's bid for Patrick had bolstered the market.
Toll jumped $1.15, or almost 9 per cent, to $14.10 while Patrick Corp surged 88c, or 12.6 per cent, to $7.86. Toll said on Sunday it would issue a revised offer within two weeks.
"If you remove the regulatory hurdle it paves the way for Toll to financially engineer how they can complete it," said Jason Teh at Investors Mutual. "A higher cash component would definitely lure them across the line."
Energy group AGL gained 41c to $18.84 while Alinta jumped 51c to $10.89.
"A strong rally in resources backed up by specific situations helped the market," Mr Klusman said.
BHP Billiton rose 56c to $23.93 while Rio Tinto surged $2.86 to $70.36.
In its annual report yesterday Rio said the global economy looked set to remain strong and it expected prices for its commodities to remain above long-term averages this year.
Alumina rose 25c to $6.83. ABN Amro raised the stock to "buy" from "hold".
Coles Myer shares rose 52c to $10.49 after it announced the sale of its Myer stores to a private equity consortium for a higher than expected $1.4 billion.
Harvey Norman jumped 28c to $3.84. JPMorgan raised its rating to "neutral" from "underweight," and Goldman Sachs JBWere lifted its rating to "market perform".
In the energy sector, Woodside Petroleum was up 51c to $40.75 while Santos climbed 23c to $11.28.
The banking sector was also stronger, led by ANZ, which gained 36c to $26.31. The Commonwealth put on 49c to $44.14, NAB gained 17c to $37.17 while Westpac rose 13c to $23.50.
PBL rallied 19c to close at a record high of $17.65. But Macquarie Radio Network slipped 0.5c to $1.40 despite posting an interim net profit of $3.7 million, an improvement of 42.1 per cent.
Telstra rose 2c to $3.83 but Optus owner Singapore Telecom eased 1c to $2.25.
The spot price of gold was $US544.40 an ounce, $US1.35 lower than Friday's local close.
In the gold sector, Newcrest gained 78c to $21.30 while Newmont rose 10c to $6.72. Bendigo Mining was up 10c at $2.37.
Heart implant maker Ventracor slumped 7.5c, or 7.7 per cent, to 89.5c. The company placed $22.6 million in shares at 78c, compared with the last closing price of 97c.
The top traded stock by volume was Patrick with 28.09 million shares traded.