CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 11 September 2026

Younger Generation

“What are first home buyers doing to help themselves? And it’s a question that I honestly say to young people all the time…A lot of these kids are out spending a fortune on going out for dinner and going out with their friends and spending so much money when they actually should be home [saving money].” Damien Cooley, CEO, Cooley Auctions

"Our internal research shows that nearly half of singles aged 18 to 29 want to share in-person experiences with people who could become closer connections. Yet for a generation that grew up online, making that transition into real life can still feel hard." Spencer Rascoff, CEO, Match Group Inc. [world’s largest dating app company]

Land Lease & Holiday Parks

"There are strong long-term structural tailwinds supporting continued growth in the land lease communities sector and the attractiveness of the holiday parks business in providing affordable holiday accommodation." Market Statement, Ingenia Communities Group

Prefabrication

“Prefab and MMC [modern methods of construction] can help builders build factor and while we love the experience, right now against our traditional cost base, it’s more expensive, and in an environment where affordability is the dominant market driver, that’s not useful.” Brad Duggan, CEO, Metricon Homes

Art Collection

“A billionaire class with deep, deep pockets is now pursuing names as if they are brands.” Oliver Barker, Chair, Sotheby’s Europe

Sports Advertising & Sporting Assets

"On the other hand, live sports is just on fire. I mean people just can't get enough of it, and our advertisers can't get enough of it." Hugh Johnston, CFO, The Walt Disney Company

“But what I really love about the sector, and what the investment team really love about it is this concept of scarcity…There’s only, you know, one AFL competition. To try and start a new competition - I think we’ve seen a live example of that with LIV Golf – it costs a lot of money. It’s very, very, very difficult to try and replicate. So, scarcity is important.” David Elia, CEO, Hostplus

Property Investing

"These are seismic changes, and we're going to see a lot of capital move out of residential property and into non-residential investment." David Harrison, CEO, Charter Hall Group Ltd

Travel Spending

"Weaker consumer sentiment has added pressure to discretionary demand. Our customers tend to be active travellers, and although they continue to travel, higher airfare, lodging, and other travel costs may be leaving less room in their discretionary budgets for apparel." Tom Chubb, CEO, Oxford Industries Inc. [owner of Tommy Bahama]

Manufacturing & Auto

"Talking about collaboration with Chinese OEM, my answer is we are a Chinese OEM. We expect this year over 10 million exported cars from China. And now, after our ramp-ups, we are in the same condition as all the Chinese OEMs with the same cost base." Oliver Blume, CEO, Volkswagen AG

Consumer Spending & Elasticity

"Typically, I've seen more one-to-one elasticity; you're starting to see higher elasticities, could it be some of the pressure on the consumer. We've seen from ourselves and our peers who have lowered price over the last year or two that the results have been kind of underwhelming." Todd Cunfer, CFO, The Campbell's Company

"Consumers and businesses do have a lot of uncertainty. You see that in the consumer confidence measurements...But if you actually look at our business and how they're spending, it's strong and stable." Ryan McInerney, CEO, Visa Inc.

Smartphones & Memory Pricing

"We've seen maybe volume go down by low double digits on smartphones...The impact is largely on the lowest tier and the second lowest tier, everything below $300...because in a lot of cases, memory has now become more than half of the BOM of the phone. And obviously, it makes some of those device prices unsustainable." Akash Palkhiwala, CFO, Qualcomm Inc.

Data Aggregators vs D.I.Y.

"I've been here 27 years. There's almost no proprietary data [in this business] of any kind...You can get data from almost any source. But is it live, is it accurate, is it right away?...Sometimes there's a naive belief that, well, I just set up an MCP server [AI connection], I'll get the data — it's not going to work that way at all." Glenn Fogel, CEO, Booking Holdings Inc.

Emission Standards & Work Vehicles

“Right now, there is a disconnect between emission standards that we need to meet in Australia on heavy work vehicles. Whether it’s construction and tradies, and carpenters, and plumbers, and miners, and farmers – they’re all using their vehicles for work, which is a major engine room for the economy. Right now, the technology is not there to deliver very low emissions on the work vehicles.” Fadi Mawal, CEO, Ford Motor Co. of Australia

Supply Chain & Sourcing

"The ability to diversify production across more than 50 markets has never been more relevant in recent times. The diversification of the sourcing model and the flexibility of our supply chain continue to be very important strengths for the group." Óscar García Maceiras, CEO, Inditex [parent co. of Zara]

Gold & Jewellery

"Any time we've seen gold price increases pass through to the consumer at an industry level, not just Signet, we see some resistance on units and a little bit of pullback, particularly at lower value price points and gold weights." J.K. Symancyk, CEO, Signet Jewelers Ltd [world's largest diamond jewellery retailer]