NAOS CEO Insights

CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 30 July 2021 By NAOS Asset Management

Written by NAOS Admin | Jul 30, 2021 12:49:30 AM

“Whenever restrictions were lifted, we have seen a recovery in both footfall and sales, in most cases at higher levels than those seen during the reopening in 2020” Jean-Marie Tritant, CEO, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield


As part of the NAOS investment process, we pay particular attention to the comments made by company CEOs and business leaders in order to gain a greater understanding of the current investment environment and key trends that may be emerging. Below are quotes from the week which in our view detail some of the most important and prominent industry trends and economic factors impacting their businesses.  
 
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COVID-19

“We are keeping a close eye on how an extended lockdown may impact market confidence, but pleasingly we are not seeing any evidence of that yet” Adam Powick, CEO, Deloitte Australia

“I am regularly speaking with senior clients and the mood is very different to this time last year with our clients continuing to invest in business growth and transformation with a forward-looking mindset” Adam Powick, CEO, Deloitte Australia

What we’ve seen is with successive waves of Covid over the past year and some months now, there has tended to be less in the way of economic implications from each wave,” Jerome Powell, Chair, US Federal Reserve

Building & Construction

“If the building industry does not get started there’s very significant implications for all of us” Brain Seidler, CEO, NSW Master Builders Association

Retail

“Whenever restrictions were lifted, we have seen a recovery in both footfall and sales, in most cases at higher levels than those seen during the reopening in 2020” Jean-Marie Tritant, CEO, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield

Tyres & Automotive

“Our Wheels and Tyres division is experiencing significant growth, driven by increased commercial tyres orders, as essential services such as transport, agriculture and mining continue to surge” Clive Finkelstein, CEO, RPM Automotive Group Ltd

“[We] benefited from unusually high consumer demand for some products” Market Statement, National Tyre & Wheel Ltd

Freight, Supply Chain & Logistics

“The freighter [aircraft] market continues to be strong with cargo traffic year-to-date through May at 8% higher than 2019. Limited belly cargo capacity from passenger airplanes has resulted in more freighters flying with high load factors. In fact, 72% of air cargo is now being carried on dedicated freighters. That compares to 48% pre-pandemic” David L. Calhoun, CEO, The Boeing Company

“In terms of the cost, we're paying more for freight than I would like to pay, but component costs continue in the aggregate to decline” Tim Cook, CEO, Apple Inc

Mining & Resources

“All regions experienced a recovery [in testing] as both major miners and juniors, who benefited from a strong equity raising market, increased their volumes” Raj Naran, CEO, ALS Ltd

“The long-term potential for China is still intact, but we have probably seen an unsustainably high level of industrial development in some of the months in the first half of this year” Jakob Stausholm, CEO, Rio Tinto Group Ltd

Hotels & Tourism

“Despite the short-term very adverse impacts of the current lockdowns in Sydney and Melbourne, which have seen occupancies plummet for hotels, there is a deep pool of buyers from all around the world seeking investment-grade hotel assets in Australia” Michael Simpson, MD, CBRE Hotels ANZ

Digital Infrastructure

“The pandemic has highlighted that digital infrastructure is not just a business enabler, but a primary source of competitive advantage for digital leaders across all industries and we continue to see a multitude of trends driving infrastructure that is more distributed, more on demand and more ecosystem connected than ever before” Charles Meyers, CEO, Equinix, Inc [world’s largest data center colocation provider]

Technology & Cloud

“So what is the metaverse? It's a virtual environment. We can be present with people in digital spaces, and you can kind of think about this is an embodied Internet that you're inside of rather than just looking at, and we believe that this is going to be the successor to the mobile Internet.” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook Inc

“[The] increase in cyber and ransomware attacks is a wakeup call for the industry” Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet Inc

Payments & Cryptocurrency

“Part of the reason we have such strong success [in BNPL] is because we have 400 million customers and we know the customer. A lot of the other BNPL players don’t necessarily know the consumer” Dan Shulman, CEO, PayPal Inc

“We have launched since then [2020] a few different [cryptocurrency] indices, eight to date…We think that this is going to become an asset class that, over time, would potentially become more acceptable to investors” Douglas Peterson, CEO, S&P Global Inc

Industrials

“We continue to see very strong demands of corrugated packaging and containerboard” Mark Sutton, CEO, The International Paper Company Inc [world’s largest paper & pulp manufacturer]

“[We are] at a time when environmental priorities have never been higher on the agenda of both our municipal and industrial clients” Veolia Environnement S.A.

Important information: This material has been prepared by NAOS Asset Management Limited (ABN 23 107 624 126, AFSL 273529) (NAOS) for general information purposes only and must not be construed as investment advice. Certain economic, market or company information contained in this material may have been obtained from published sources prepared by third parties. Nothing contained herein should be construed as granting by implication or otherwise, any license or right to use such third party content without the written permission of the owner.