Latest / What the Flux / Bottom's up for big brewery | Microsoft's AI challenge | Procter & Gamble's sales hit
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is at the Flux.
- 0:06Speaker 2: I'm bread and aur Justin and it's Friday, the second
- 0:09Speaker 2: of August.
- 0:10Speaker 1: Not so fast their inflation you thought you could run
- 0:12Speaker 1: away from us, juzzy boy. The June quarter's inflation rate
- 0:15Speaker 1: was released yesterday and inflation dropped from four percent to
- 0:19Speaker 1: three point nine percent. And juzy boy, many investors are
- 0:22Speaker 1: thinking this could put to rest any talk of a
- 0:25Speaker 1: rate rise next Tuesday.
- 0:27Speaker 2: Interesting man, did you know that twenty percent of tax
- 0:30Speaker 2: pays in Australia own an investment property? No, it is true,
- 0:33Speaker 2: absolute fact and fluxdam. We've rolled out a brand new
- 0:36Speaker 2: academy this month all about investing in the property market.
- 0:40Speaker 2: We take you through all the steps you need to
- 0:42Speaker 2: understand your goals, what to look for when evaluating investment properties,
- 0:45Speaker 2: and also how to get access to investment property funds.
- 0:48Speaker 2: So if you want to check it out, it is
- 0:50Speaker 2: all in there. Check it out in the Flux Academy.
- 0:52Speaker 1: Three insightful stories today, juzzy boy, let's do it for
- 0:55Speaker 1: our first. An Aussie vodka maker that makes a popular
- 0:58Speaker 1: ready to drink vodka has gone into voluntary administration.
- 1:02Speaker 2: Always sad to hear stories like this. Be Man had
- 1:04Speaker 2: quite a few lately, so tell me more some background.
- 1:06Speaker 2: Bilson's Brewery was established in eighteen sixty five in northeast
- 1:10Speaker 2: Victoria and is one of the oldest continuing beverage manufacturers
- 1:14Speaker 2: in all of Australia. In twenty seventeen, the company behind
- 1:17Speaker 2: the brewery that operated under the name Bilson's Beverages was
- 1:21Speaker 2: taken over by new.
- 1:22Speaker 1: Owners and get this, juzzy Boy. In the years after
- 1:24Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, business was booming, largely thanks to a ready
- 1:29Speaker 1: to drink vodka product that it sold. They sell their
- 1:31Speaker 1: stuff in Dan Murphy's BWS, many other stores and be Man.
- 1:35Speaker 2: Their annual sales actually reached around one hundred and twenty
- 1:37Speaker 2: million bakarnis in the twenty three twenty four financial year.
- 1:41Speaker 1: Not bad. But this year things started to become real
- 1:43Speaker 1: tough for old bilson yep. The company experienced a big
- 1:46Speaker 1: fat slowdown in demand and also also juzzy boy chunky
- 1:50Speaker 1: increases in the government xcise for alcohol and.
- 1:53Speaker 2: Now Bilson's Beverages has been put into administration.
- 1:56Speaker 1: And unfortunately for Bilson's it encountered a triple whammy of
- 2:00Speaker 1: negative factors that ultimately brought on its demise.
- 2:03Speaker 2: So be man. Tell me what is the key learning here?
- 2:05Speaker 1: When a company is in the wrong place at the
- 2:07Speaker 1: wrong time, survival can be very challenging.
- 2:10Speaker 2: Yeah, we know for small and medium sized businesses, whether
- 2:13Speaker 2: in one challenge at a time can be hard.
- 2:15Speaker 1: But Bilsons they face three. Firstly, they face the cost
- 2:18Speaker 1: of living pressures that are basically facing all consumer facing companies.
- 2:21Speaker 2: Yet reditary vodcas aren't quite necessary in the current market conditions.
- 2:25Speaker 1: Secondly, the company struggled to manage it costs as it
- 2:28Speaker 1: scaled up its production over the last few years. And Thirdly,
- 2:31Speaker 1: Bilson's faced big increases in the excise paid to the government, the.
- 2:35Speaker 2: Tax paid by alcohol companies.
- 2:37Speaker 1: Now get this, jazzy boy, alcohol makers paid the third
- 2:40Speaker 1: highest rate of tax in the world in Australia.
- 2:43Speaker 2: And now, sadly, Bilson's is in the hands of administrators.
- 2:46Speaker 2: For our second story, Microsoft saw its shares drop seven
- 2:50Speaker 2: percent in its worst day since October twenty twenty two
- 2:53Speaker 2: because it's AI revenue just missed its forecasts.
- 2:56Speaker 1: When you position yourself as AI royalty, you just can't
- 2:59Speaker 1: be missing your numbers. Tell me more.
- 3:01Speaker 2: Okay, so we know Microsoft for its famous Microsoft Offer Suite.
- 3:04Speaker 1: Don't forget it's now infamous and uncoordinated Windows ninety five
- 3:08Speaker 1: launch dancing, and of.
- 3:09Speaker 2: Course, more recently for making the big switch into cloud
- 3:12Speaker 2: and AI.
- 3:13Speaker 1: And Jessie boy they have done so very successfully. In fact,
- 3:16Speaker 1: their shares have jumped over fifty percent just over the
- 3:18Speaker 1: last two years.
- 3:19Speaker 2: And Microsoft's twenty three twenty four revenue was on part
- 3:22Speaker 2: with the entire economies of Greece and New Zealand.
- 3:25Speaker 1: But josebait, Microsoft has just released its quarterly results which
- 3:28Speaker 1: really spooked investors quite a fair bit.
- 3:31Speaker 2: Revenue of fifteen percent year of year and well ahead
- 3:33Speaker 2: of forecast. I would say that's pretty good. Earnings per
- 3:36Speaker 2: share also above the forecast, I would say that is
- 3:38Speaker 2: very very good. But Microsoft reported only a twenty nine
- 3:42Speaker 2: percent growth in its a zuo cloud computing year when
- 3:45Speaker 2: it was projected to grow thirty one percent. Next minute,
- 3:48Speaker 2: Microsoft shares dropped seven percent, but be man. Apart from
- 3:51Speaker 2: missing its cloud growth target, Microsoft is also spending a
- 3:54Speaker 2: pretty penny on its AI capabilities.
- 3:56Speaker 1: That is a big claim by you, Josie Boyce. So
- 3:58Speaker 1: what is the key learning here?
- 3:59Speaker 2: When exhaust roorbitan spending doesn't turn into exorbitant revenue, it
- 4:03Speaker 2: can create doubts in a company's biggest believers.
- 4:06Speaker 1: Yep, all the major tech companies chasing AI glory are
- 4:09Speaker 1: spending a ton of cash on software infrastructure and software
- 4:12Speaker 1: development right now.
- 4:13Speaker 2: Get this, Microsoft invested nineteen billion US dollars in the
- 4:17Speaker 2: June quarter into capital expenditure related to AI and a
- 4:20Speaker 2: man For the true believers, this is all necessary to
- 4:23Speaker 2: fund the AI long game.
- 4:25Speaker 1: But for many investors, AI spending just isn't converting into
- 4:28Speaker 1: AI earnings fast enough. In fact, the man AI revenue
- 4:31Speaker 1: hasn't grown into a big enough revenue stream to even
- 4:34Speaker 1: be disclosed on Microsoft's financial results. And the pressure isn't
- 4:38Speaker 1: just on Microsoft, but think also pressure on Amazon alphabet Meta.
- 4:42Speaker 2: Who shares all slid and average of eleven percent over
- 4:45Speaker 2: the past month.
- 4:45Speaker 1: So Microsoft's drop in share price is just a little
- 4:48Speaker 1: reminder that if they don't start making serious moll as soon,
- 4:51Speaker 1: the heat will be on.
- 4:53Speaker 2: For our third and final story, Procter and Gamble suffered
- 4:56Speaker 2: its slowest sales growth in six years as consumers started
- 5:00Speaker 2: cutting back on brand name products.
- 5:01Speaker 1: Not your cheapest products on the market. So kind of
- 5:04Speaker 1: does make sense what is going on herekab.
- 5:06Speaker 2: Man, you might not have heard of Procter and Gamble,
- 5:08Speaker 2: but you've most certainly heard of the brands they own.
- 5:10Speaker 1: Well, let's just run me through them. Juzzy boy, We're.
- 5:13Speaker 2: Talking Joette, We're talking oralb, Vicks, Vapor Drops, Panteen, Head
- 5:16Speaker 2: and Shoulders, just to name a few.
- 5:18Speaker 1: Also used to own Pringles and Kelloggs as well.
- 5:21Speaker 2: But Procter and Gamble's brands have been whacked in the
- 5:23Speaker 2: fourth quarter sales.
- 5:25Speaker 1: While they saw volumes grow by one percent, it's net
- 5:28Speaker 1: sales fell behind expectations and I'm talking more than two
- 5:31Speaker 1: hundred million US dollary doo wow.
- 5:33Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here?
- 5:34Speaker 1: Well, in times of need, retailers often turn to promotions
- 5:38Speaker 1: or discounts to attract consumers and juzzy boy, this strategy
- 5:41Speaker 1: can be effective in driving short term sales spikes.
- 5:44Speaker 2: But be man. When a company uses promotions and discounts
- 5:48Speaker 2: to get the attention of consumers, it might.
- 5:50Speaker 1: Help their volumes, but it comes at a price. Just
- 5:52Speaker 1: a little example for you. P and G saw an
- 5:54Speaker 1: improvement in the number of units sold, but their revenue
- 5:57Speaker 1: was still down.
- 5:58Speaker 2: But not only that, discounting all the time can devalue.
- 6:01Speaker 1: A brand YEP, consumers might start to associate the brand
- 6:04Speaker 1: with constant sales, and for some.
- 6:05Speaker 2: Consumers, lower prices may mean lower perceived value in the products.
- 6:09Speaker 1: Which all means they may wait for the next promotion
- 6:12Speaker 1: rather than purchasing at the full price right now. Hello,
- 6:15Speaker 1: can man do a seventy five percent off the price
- 6:19Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the time?
- 6:21Speaker 2: So B ANDNG needs to balance their short term benefits
- 6:24Speaker 2: of promotions with the long term health of their brand.
- 6:26Speaker 2: Flex Sam if you are looking at investment property, we
- 6:29Speaker 2: take you through house verst apartment location factors, researching suburbs
- 6:33Speaker 2: and everything you need to know when it comes to
- 6:35Speaker 2: investing in property. It's all in the Flux Academy this
- 6:37Speaker 2: month and it is an absolute corker.
- 6:39Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and we'll see you on Monday.