| Building materials company James Hardie will buy AZEK, a maker of outdoor living products, in an $8.8 billion deal. AZEK shareholders will receive $26.45 in cash and 1.0340 ordinary shares of James Hardie for each share of AZEK common stock they own. Treasurer Jim Chalmers warned the impact of the new US administration's policies will have a "seismic" impact on the global economy, ahead of his fourth national budget due to be handed down tomorrow. Chalmers will unveil new cost-of-living assistance, with subsidies on electricity bills to be extended for six months at a cost of A$1.8 billion to the budget bottom line. Eighteen months into her role as Qantas CEO, Vanessa Hudson is pulling off what seemed like an improbable victory. She is simultaneously winning over disgruntled flyers, reporting super-sized profits and delivering knock-out returns for investors. In a rare interview, Hudson, 55, says the numbers are no one-off. And she maintains relentless demand for flights, coupled with the biggest fleet overhaul in the airline's history, is set to propel Qantas even further.  Vanessa Hudson, CEO of Qantas. Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg The Australian dollar may be headed for its first annual gain since 2020, as the central bank keeps interest rates high and the economy benefits from expected Chinese stimulus. The Aussie will climb as high as 68 cents by December, according to Westpac and Bank of America, which would imply a gain of 8.4% from Friday's close. National Australia Bank and Westpac see the currency rising to 65 cents by the end of June, after some initial volatility. I'm still old enough to remember when strawberries were a rare treat, writes David Fickling for Bloomberg Opinion. My own children are likely to grow up thinking of them the way I think of apples or bananas — affordable, year-round fruits. This is all due to remarkable innovation in recent decades that has turned a once-rare crop into a harvest on the scale of the global coffee or leather trades. It's also a sign of how such progress can make efforts to protect the environment harder. | 
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