CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 31 May 2019 By NAOS Asset Management

 

 

"Australia and New Zealand are among the most exciting, vibrant and forward-looking markets in the world."

 

"5G is enormously important and it’s going to have a major impact on a whole range of different sectors. For example, one of the benefits of 5G will be much lower latency and that means it potentially has a role in things like driverless vehicles, or remote-controlled agricultural or mining vehicles. The way technology and communications technology has transformed vital Australian industries like agriculture and mining is very striking."

 

"We are well positioned within the digital manufacturing industry and are helping to ignite the fourth industrial revolution [by combining hardware, software and biology].”

 

"Like real estate, there's a lot more certainty now. People were holding off. Before the election, there was doubt in people's minds. Everyone from truck drivers to tradies could see there was a tax here, a tax there and this wasn't good for confidence.''

 

"First, the best industry information shows that China has lost between 150 million and 200 million hogs [from African swine fever]. This is equivalent to more than the entire pork production in the United States. In addition, China is the largest pork producer and consumer of pork in the world."

 

"It has been very pleasing to see an improvement in the market and strong competition for milk."

 

“Raspberry production was unfortunately impacted by unfavourable crop timing and its contribution was disappointing.”

"The macro demand for almonds remains strong in both retail and industrial markets."

 

“I think for some companies; their life cycles can benefit significantly from being private. The nature of the investors we have in our funds is that they are very long-term investors, managing pensions for the next 100 or 200 years. They look over a very long term. When you take a business private, and take it out of the spotlight of public markets, there’s a lot less focus on next quarter’s earnings and a lot more focus on where we are in three, five, seven, 10 years' time with this business"

 

“On average, things [credit defaults] will get worse over time, not because they’re going to get bad, but because it’s been so good for so long."

 

“I think the argument for a small rate cut is sound."

 

"We have seen a noticeable increase in the volume of new business loan applications since the election."

 

"There's been a debate in the last few years about if there's too much VC [venture capital] money and if we're at a point of saturation but that thinking misses the fundamental point. We started behind the pace we needed to be at many years ago and we're only just catching up to levels that will be sustainable for the medium to long term now. There's still a huge pipeline of investing opportunity in the local market"

 

"In Europe, the macro situation remains in flux. And in Asia, we have a looming trade war. So, where does that leave us. We have not been immune to the increased traffic trends seen post Easter. We believe that the U.S. consumer, which makes up the majority of our sales remains healthy."

 

"The trade war between the U.S. and China is a real issue for our industry, fortunately we do not own our Chinese manufacturing plant and we are able to consider moving production closer to the market we serve, notably the United States and Europe."

 

“I think, by and large, the consumer is in a fairly decent place.”