CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 22 March 2024

Travel & Leisure

“The 20 per cent growth in bookings we saw in January and February would suggest that Australians are continuing to get out and travel. It is a bit of a hangover from the pandemic. People have had a few years of not being able to travel and they don’t want to miss out.” James Thornton, CEO, Intrepid Travel

“We see Millennials, Gen Zs and digital nomads as the drivers for growth in vacation ownership because they value holidays and travel over property ownership” Barry Robinson, Managing Director, Travel + Leisure Co. International

Nuclear & Geopolitics

“Nuclear energy has great commercial attributes, but it also has huge geopolitical attributes. So, you have to look at the competition in China and Russia, who are looking at Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere as future markets [to sell reactors]” Chris Levesque, CEO, TerraPower [Bill Gates founded nuclear energy company]

Consumer Trust

“One extraordinary feature of Trustpilot is the broad applicability of what we do. What started as a way to build confidence in eCommerce has become an important symbol of trust for any sort of business. That applicability across any vertical in any country creates significant headroom for growth” Adrian Blair, CEO, Trustpilot Group

Leisure

“Don't lose sight of the fact that this industry continuously grows upon itself and no other company is better positioned to weather the cycles and continuously improve” Peter Arvan, CEO, Pool Corporation

“Our post-Covid slump was largely driven by overstocking challenges. We were ordering bikes too far in advance and when lockdown ended things went back to normal” Andrew Garnsworthy, CEO, 99 Bikes

Geopolitical & Red Sea Crisis

“One of the things I think we may be concerned about is if this continues for another six months, that we will not have perhaps the tanker fleet available to continue to go around” Shaikh Nawaf Al-Sabah, CEO, Kuwait Petroleum Corp.

Asia-Pacific

The introduction of the requirement to hold a license to sell Infant formula in China, has reduced the number of manufacturers, intensifying competition among ingredient suppliers. This competitive landscape has pressured Clover's margins” Market Statement, Clover Corp Ltd

“In a first half that Kering expected to be challenging, current trends lead the Group to estimate that its consolidated revenue in the first quarter of 2024 should decline by approximately 10% on a comparable basis, from last year’s first quarter. This performance primarily reflects a steeper sales drop at Gucci, notably in the Asia-Pacific region” Market Statement, Kering Group [luxury fashion conglomerate]

Global Economy

“The global economy has at least first signals on recovery” Burkhard Becker, CFO, Salzgitter Group [one of Europe's largest steel producers]

“We're seeing more and more international companies reducing the investment levels in Germany” Burkhard Becker, CFO, Salzgitter Group [one of Europe's largest steel producers]

Inflation & Interest Rates

“If a number of things conspire, and we end up actually moving more quickly than the forecasts [on inflation reducing], then we might need to think about interest rate cuts. But at the moment, we’re in the position where I don’t want to say either way. It’s basically not ruling it in, not ruling it out” Michele Bullock, Governor, Reserve Bank of Australia

Corporate Australia

“Perhaps we should consider whether six years could be a more appropriate balance point [for listed Non-Executive Director tenures]. This is not to suggest that six years should be a tenure limit, rather that this cycle time would be more reflective of the rate of change in the external environment and continuing relevance of particular skills, experience and thinking styles” Catherine Livingstone, Chair, Pacific National Ltd

Housing

“Looking more closely at the situation in Australia, you'll all see the daily reports about the level of immigration. It must be the highest it's been since World War II. We see that there's very little rental vacancy, and we see that construction has been winding down. So, that puts us in a situation that housing has got to run strong to the end of the decade. Otherwise, there'll be rows of tents in Hyde Park because there's just no way for people to live” Lindsay Partridge, CEO, Brickworks Ltd

Startups & Venture Capital Funding

“Perhaps as a result of the tighter funding environment, entrepreneurs are focusing on monetising faster and enabling profitable growth as soon as possible. Startups founded in 2022, the most recent year where we have a full year of analysable data, are 60% more likely to start collecting revenue within their first year, and 57% more likely to process $1 million within their first year, than those founded in 2019” Patrick Collison, CEO, Stripe

Computing & Technology

“[In] this new industrial revolution, there are two things that are happening, two transitions that are happening. The first is moving from general-purpose computing to accelerated computing. If you just looked at the extraordinary trend of general-purpose computing, it has slowed down tremendously over the years. And in fact, we've known that it's been slowing down for about a decade” Jensen Huang, CEO, NVIDIA Corp.

“As part of our heritage, we are committed to being the last manufacturer standing in film...Film is still the choice of many prominent directors and cinematographers, and I am proud of the fact that many of this year's Oscar nominees were shot on Kodak film” James Continenza, CEO, Eastman Kodak Co.