CEO INSIGHTS – Week Ending 27 February 2026

Olive Oil

“When domestic production grows, consumer engagement and consumption tend to follow. And when production falls, consumption weakens. So, locally produced brands really do matter. They shape category behaviour.” Leandro Ravetti, Co-CEO, Cobram Estate Olives Ltd

Car Market

"The new car market in Australia is expected to remain highly competitive with new brand entrants and dealers competing for market share." Market Statement, Peter Warren Automotive Holdings Ltd

Transport & Trucking

"Near-term trading conditions remain competitive and challenging, with ongoing pricing pressure and elevated operating costs. Industry indicators, including operator exits and elevated insolvency levels, point to continued capacity rationalisation across the sector." Market Statement, Lindsay Australia Ltd

Childcare

“Occupancy continued to be affected by tough market conditions with falling birth rates, increased supply, trust and confidence in the sector impacted by media coverage and families experiencing sustained affordability pressures, resulting in lower occupancy than pcp [previous corresponding period]." Pejman Okhovat, CEO, G8 Education Ltd

Iron Ore & Drilling Activity

"I keep reading in the paper, the stockpiles are up or something’s expected to downturn, but we seem to be sitting in there around that sort of $US95 to $US105 range (for the benchmark price), and it feels like it’s going to hang in there for some time to come.” Chris Ellison, CEO, Mineral Resources Ltd

“That said, overall exploration budgets remain well below prior cycle peaks. However, visibility is increasingly improving. We expect exploration budgets to increase by double digits in the calendar year 2026.” Paul House, CEO, IMDEX Ltd

Health

“Private health insurance is a core pillar of Australia's health care system. It funds around 40% of hospital episodes and the majority of elective surgeries and continues to ease the pressure on the public system.” Edward Close, CEO, nib Holdings Ltd

Homebuilders

“Cost of living and housing affordability pressures continue to push demand towards affordable product. Consequently, the Company’s more affordable estates are outperforming.” Market Statement, Cedar Woods Ltd

Defence Spending

“The market conditions are superb. The markets are growing, the budgets are growing, and as long as geopolitical tension continues to be high, we can benefit from that one. This statement is not new, but again, if you see how much budgets are growing over the last few months, and how many governments have formally stated to go even higher, this is very promising for Electro Optic Systems.” Andreas Schwer, CEO, Electro Optic Systems Ltd‍

Data Centres

"I honestly think the idea with the current landscape of putting data centres in space is ridiculous. It will make sense someday, but if you just do the very rough math of launch costs relative to the cost of power we can do on Earth, to say nothing of how you are going to fix a broken GPU [graphics processing unit] in space, and they do break a lot still, unfortunately. We are not there yet." Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI

Petrol Stations

“I think, generally, it's been in 18 months - 2 years now of significant cost pressure in this convenience sector but driven by policy declines in tobacco and high inflation, particularly impacting wages as well. That is a cost that impacts everybody. And so, I think at some point, you would have expected those cost pressures to lift margins, particularly in fuel. And I think we're starting to see that follow-through in terms of market pricing generally as well.” Scott Wyatt, CEO, Viva Energy Group Ltd

Retailers

“In general, I think that no matter what the wider market is doing, there's good retailers and poor retailers in all economies.” Ruslan Kogan, CEO, Kogan.com Ltd

Ageing Population

“Death volume is the most significant driver of revenue in the death care industry. In Australia, death volumes grew by 1.1% per annum between 1990 and 2025, and the ABS forecast that they will increase by 2.9% per annum from 2026 to 2035 and 2.4% per annum from 2036 to 2045.” Fraser Henderson, Co-CEO, Propel Funeral Partners Ltd

Storage & Victoria

“I think in order of priority, we would be more inclined to go to Queensland and New South Wales. I think when we look at the medium- to long-term growth prospects, they're the markets that we see, and certainly, from a leasing positive trajectory, that's where we would see most tenant demand coming through. So I don't think we would be an active investor into the Victorian market at the moment.” Steven Sewell, CEO, Abacus Group Ltd

Department Stores

“But what you're seeing, this is not a new phenomenon. This has been going on for decades, where department stores have been downsizing. Many of us, unfortunately, who have aged in life, can remember department stores being somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 square meters. The right size now is somewhere between 10,000 to 12,000 square meters, maybe even slightly lower.” Elliott Rusanow, CEO, Scentre Group Ltd

Coding

“Software development has experienced its most significant shift in decades. I am prepared to say this clearly: the era of manually writing code as the core act of engineering is over. AI amplifies the productivity of our expertise in logistics and trade, the rich datasets that WiseTech holds, and the network advantage that we have built over 30 years.” Zubin Appoo, CEO, WiseTech Global Ltd‍