CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 18 April 2025

Luxury

"The cycle continues its normalisation phase after years of exceptional growth." Cecile Cabanis, CFO, LVMH Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton

Commodities

Despite the limited direct impact of tariffs on BHP, the implication of slower economic growth and a fragmented trading environment could be more significant. China's ability to shift toward a consumption-led economy and for trade flows to adapt to the new environment will be key to sustaining the global outlook.” Market Statement, BHP Group Ltd

“Lithium will come back and our focus on costs will make the upside even stronger. The global economy will bounce back, perhaps even better.” Chris Ellison, CEO, Mineral Resources Ltd

Healthcare

"We see AI playing a significant role in healthcare particularly in our field of imaging IT." Malte Westerhoff, CTO, Pro Medicus Ltd

Medicines

“What we are currently seeing in the [vial] market is a similar shift from bulk to ready-to-fill as we saw in syringes years ago… Of the roughly 13 billion vials in the market…only a fraction were ready-to-fill vials… 20 years later, we believe it will exactly be the other way around, with ready-to-fill vials dominating the market.” Dietmar Siemssen, CEO, Gerresheimer Group [major global medical packaging business]

“Australians deserve access to the best medicines available – yet the system to subsidise these medicines has not been comprehensively reviewed in more than 30 years.” Anne Harris, MD, Pfizer Australia & New Zealand

Recession

“I think we’re very close, if not in, a recession now. I think you’re going to see, across the board, just a slowdown until there’s more certainty. And we now have 90-days on the reciprocal tariffs — that means longer, more elevated uncertainty.” Larry Fink, CEO, BlackRock Inc

Volatility

“In investment banking, the volatile backdrop led to more muted activity relative to the levels we had expected coming into the year.” David Solomon, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc

“So, we have seen very significant volumes as the market dropped and then it bounced back up, we saw record volumes. There were some shifts that we noticed. Our clients traded fewer options. They traded more futures than usual. And as you would expect, we saw more trading in the fixed income instruments and foreign exchange.” Milan Galik, CEO, Interactive Brokers Inc [one of the world’s largest global electronic trading platforms]

Business Transformation

“I think the third big transformation of businesses is happening now, thanks to the Internet. For those of you who are old enough to remember: 1994, 1995, that was the year the Internet went mainstream in Western economies…The next big transformation was the smartphone revolution…so this [third development] is basically AI agents that will do things like answer the phones, take a credit card, process a sales order; or answer the phones, put a booking in a calendar, for example, for a hotel or a restaurant or a hairdresser or whatever it may be; or doing outbound lead generation and so forth.” Matt Barrie, CEO, Freelancer Ltd

Industrials

“So, most of our discussions with customers is frankly on [supply chain] optionality… then you have to ask yourself what demand gets destroyed.” Daniel Florness, CEO, Fastenal Co. [major global distributor of bolts, nuts, screws, washers, etc]

Insurance

“[We] are currently experiencing one of the greatest periods of upheaval since the end of the cold war. This turbulence has an impact on our markets. Core pillars of the previous world economic order such as free trade have come under fire. So far, the free flow of capital, which is central to our business, has not been affected yet by these upheavals, at least not more than in the past.” Andreas Berger, CEO, Swiss RE Ltd

Hardware

“If this [automotive] category goes as well as we’re anticipating or resonates even stronger than what our plans are, we’ll look at expanding that further, as we’ve done with pet and cleaning.” Ryan Baker, COO, Bunnings

Office Leasing

“We expect that effective rents will hit the same level nationally as the pre-pandemic peak by the end of 2026, with strong growth bolstered by stable incentives and significant growth in face rents.” Cameron Williams, Head of Office Leasing, Colliers Australia

Banking

“We're operating in an increasingly dynamic environment, driven by rapid technology advancement, changing consumer preferences, heightened competition and increased regulation. These structural shifts when combined with differences in capital treatments impacting smaller banks are necessitating bold decisions to fundamentally change the way we operate and allocate our capital.” Patrick Allaway, CEO, Bank of Queensland Ltd

Travel & RVs

“As widely reported in media, there has also been a sharp drop in interest for inbound travel to the USA. THL has experienced a substantial slowdown in new bookings, and elevated cancellations of bookings for the USA rentals high season. Booking intakes for this market from key European countries in the past week have been approximately 40 to 50% down on last year’s levels.” Market Statement, Tourism Holdings Ltd