Australian shares closed the week at their highest level since early 2008, with Friday's trading buoyed by news that BHP, the world's biggest miner, had agreed to sell its US shale assets and promised to return all proceeds to its shareholders.
BHP provided a strong lift for the S&P/ASX 200 index, which closed 0.9 percent higher at 6,300.2, enough to score a second straight week of gains.
Nearly a year after putting its US shale assets up for sale and after months of market anticipation, BHP agreed to sell its shale oil and gas assets for $10.8 billion, with BP Plc picking up most of them.
The better than expected sale price and the resulting expectations of an enticing future share buy-back provided a fillip to shares, which rose over 2 percent to their to their highest in more than two months.
In contrast to BHP's fortunes, shares of AMP slid over 5 percent to their lowest in nearly 15 years after the firm warned costs stemming from an inquiry into financial sector misconduct would eat into first-half profits.
The wealth manager had flagged A$530 million ($391.46 million) of costs it would to use to compensate customers for poor advice, among other things, while saying underlying net profit for the first-half would fall to between A$490 million and A$500 million, lower than a year prior.
New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index climbed 0.7 percent, or 63.68 points to finish at 8,996.16.
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