Global Food Retail Group scoops up Wendys; Five million Gmail passwords leaked; Atlassian’s sales up 44% to $US215 million: Midday Roundup

Australian ice-cream brand Wendys has been sold to Singapore-based conglomerate Global Food Retail Group.

The iconic chain announced the finalisation of the sale in a statement today, which also includes the Wendys operations in New Zealand, saying the deal will mean the network of Wendys stores will be expanded.

“It’s a significant day for our Wendys teams across Australia and New Zealand, with confirmation the business has new owners, and big plans to grow our brand internationally,” said Wendys chief executive Rob McKay.

While McKay did not specify how many new Wendys stores will open as a result of the deal, he said the new owners have plans for Wendys to be part of “a new foray into the fast-growing Asian marketplace”.

However, he confirmed there will be no changes for current Wendys franchises and employees.

Global Food Retail Group is a subsidiary of listed Singapore company Global Yellow Pages.

Wendys currently has 200 stores in Australia and 30 in New Zealand.

Five million Gmail passwords leaked online

A Russian website has reportedly published a list of almost five million Gmail accounts and passwords.

But the passwords appear to be old, according to Mashable, and seem to have been taken from websites where users used their Gmail addresses to register and may be totally different from a user’s actual Gmail password.

Some of the sites that have been identified this way include friendster, filedropper, xtube and freebiejeebies, according to Mashable.

A representative from Google Russia said it was investigating the alleged leak, and reminded users to use strong passwords and enable two-step login verification to protect their accounts.

Google said in a statement it has “no evidence that our systems have been compromised” and urged users to create strong passwords.

Atlassian’s sales up 44% to $215 million

Australian success story Atlassian continues to have a bumper run, posting a 44% jump in sales to US$215 million ($234 million) for the past financial year.

The software maker added more than 9,000 net new customers over the period, with nearly 40,000 companies now using its products including eBay, Coca-Cola, Netflix and NASA.

“Our mission is to help teams in every company do the best work of their lives and achieve incredible results. With nearly 40,000 active companies relying on Atlassian to boost team productivity, we’re making incredible progress,” said Atlassian co-chief executive and co-founder Scott Farquhar in a statement.

Atlassian has grown from a small Australian startup into one of the biggest companies of its kind, with offices in seven countries and nearly 1,000 staff, and is also well-known for its philanthropy work.

The company relocated to the UK earlier in the year.

Shares dip

Despite opening higher this morning, local shares have dipped in the first hours of trading off the back of softening iron ore prices and some lacklustre stock performances.

“Gains by RIO and Telstra have been largely offset by losses in BHP and CBA leaving the index relatively flat. While elsewhere Myer has shed around 8% after posting another dip in profits,” said Niall King, sales trader at CMC Markets.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was down 5.8 points to 5568.5 points at 11.52am AEST. On Wednesday, the Dow Jones closed 54.84 points higher, up 0.32% to 17,068.7 points.