Candy Crush creator to list on the Nasdaq: Midday Roundup

King, the British software company behind the manically addictive and popular smartphone game Candy Crush Saga, will file for an IPO in the US, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph.

The newspaper understands the company has filed for a secret IPO on the Nasdaq. The company was turning over £300 million at the start of the year.

The confidential filing wouldn’t be unprecedented. Twitter recently filed for its own IPO confidentially, due to the fact it has less than $US1 billion in revenue.

King owns the hottest smartphone game on devices right now, but it’s got a battle on its hands to convince investors it won’t go the way of Zynga, whose stock has plummeted.

It’s not the first time news of a King IPO in the works has been reported. Rumours about it have been swirling for months. In August, Bloomberg cited unnamed company insiders who said King had hired JPMorgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of America Corp to prepare for an initial public offering.

Falling dollar hurting some business, NAB survey shows

While some businesses are praising the falling Australian dollar, others are hurting. The most recent NAB Quarterly Business Survey has found as many as a third of businesses are suffering due to the falling currency.

The lower value for the currency has raised input costs for some industries, such as retail and wholesale.

“The extent of these effects appears plausible given that the combined value of exports and imports of goods and services represents around 40% of Australian GDP and that some businesses may have experienced positive effects,” chief economist Alan Oster said in a statement.

“The responses may reflect the impacts of both a historically high Australian dollar and a sharp depreciation in the Australian dollar, and these may have opposite effects on business.”

Shares higher on solid offshore lead

The Australian sharemarket has opened higher this morning, following solid leads from offshore markets, especially in the United States where Wall Street ended higher on strong economic statistics.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index was up 15.7 points or 0.3% to 5,310.2 at 11.45 AEST, while in the United States, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 55 points or 0.4% to 15,328.3.

The Australian dollar has fallen to US93.5 cents.