Latest / What the Flux / Fortescue greened out | Microsoft's Canva-dupe | EssilorLuxotica goes Supreme
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is what the Flux.
- 0:06Speaker 2: I'm Brander Justin and at Monday, the twenty second of July,
- 0:09Speaker 2: Dozzy boy.
- 0:10Speaker 1: New jobs data was released late last week and the
- 0:13Speaker 1: jobs market is still relatively tight. It scurried its way
- 0:17Speaker 1: from four percent unemployment to just four point one percent,
- 0:20Speaker 1: and that means a slightly higher likelihood that next month's
- 0:23Speaker 1: Reserve Bank meeting could mean another cash rate rise. Bookieh
- 0:27Speaker 1: Spookie stuff, Fluxlam.
- 0:28Speaker 2: It's the time of the year where everybody is worried
- 0:30Speaker 2: about their tax return? How do I do it? When
- 0:32Speaker 2: do I submit it? How much money am I gonting
- 0:34Speaker 2: at back? That's why we built the Flux tax took
- 0:37Speaker 2: it within the Academy this month. Make sure you head
- 0:39Speaker 2: to the Flux app and check out the academy.
- 0:41Speaker 1: Three balance worthy stories today, Dozzy boy, let's do it
- 0:44Speaker 1: for our first four. Eskew Metals Group, one of Australia's
- 0:48Speaker 1: largest companies, has cut seven hundred jobs across its global
- 0:51Speaker 1: workforce after its green ambitions haven't quite met investor expectation.
- 0:55Speaker 2: Sounds like all that green hydrogen talk might not have
- 0:58Speaker 2: been all it was chalked up to be. So what
- 1:00Speaker 2: is the story here?
- 1:01Speaker 1: Well, juzzy Boy. Fortescue is the mining giant that was
- 1:04Speaker 1: founded by Andrew Twiggy twig Man Forest back in two
- 1:07Speaker 1: thousand and three.
- 1:08Speaker 2: It's since become the fourth largest iron ore producer globally,
- 1:11Speaker 2: with a marker cap of a wappen sixty seven billion dollars.
- 1:14Speaker 1: But dose the boy. Interestingly, Fordescue is also at the
- 1:16Speaker 1: forefront of developing green hydrogen technology.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Yep, it's set some pretty lotty goals to achieve it
- 1:22Speaker 2: net zero by twenty thirty. But now Fortescue has just
- 1:24Speaker 2: announced that it'll be acting seven hundred jobs globally and
- 1:28Speaker 2: restructuring its business. And not just that being man, it's
- 1:31Speaker 2: also scaling back it's green hydrogen initiatives because of high
- 1:35Speaker 2: energy prices.
- 1:36Speaker 1: You mean, the same green hydrogen initiatives that it's been
- 1:39Speaker 1: raving about since twenty twenty.
- 1:41Speaker 2: Yep, the very same, which is why Fortescue is highlighted
- 1:43Speaker 2: a number of times that it has no plans to
- 1:45Speaker 2: actually abandon these green hydrogen initiatives.
- 1:48Speaker 1: But there's still a lot of questions in the air
- 1:50Speaker 1: about whether Fordescue's investment in this new technology will actually
- 1:54Speaker 1: reap any results.
- 1:55Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here.
- 1:56Speaker 1: When a company chooses to innovate with new technology, it
- 1:59Speaker 1: needs to balance current shareholder value with long term growth potential.
- 2:03Speaker 2: We know that a company is obligated to a shareholder
- 2:05Speaker 2: aka the people who put money into the business.
- 2:08Speaker 1: So if a company wants to mix things up and
- 2:10Speaker 1: do something a little bit different, it needs to sell
- 2:13Speaker 1: the vision to shareholders successfully and be man.
- 2:15Speaker 2: That's not always easy because investing innovation is inherently experimental
- 2:20Speaker 2: and very risky.
- 2:21Speaker 1: There is just no promise that it's going to pay off.
- 2:23Speaker 2: Yeah, there's large upfront costs, there's a tension pulled away
- 2:25Speaker 2: from the core business as well.
- 2:26Speaker 1: In fordes Us case, it's green hydrogen initiative has accumulated
- 2:30Speaker 1: over two billion dollars in losses. That's so far, and.
- 2:32Speaker 2: While cutting edge technology that tackles climate change sounds exciting,
- 2:36Speaker 2: shareholders are only willing to wait so long to see
- 2:38Speaker 2: results from new initiatives. For our second story, Microsoft has
- 2:41Speaker 2: announced a new AI powered designer app late last week
- 2:44Speaker 2: to help newbies with their basic design skill.
- 2:47Speaker 1: This sounds real, can for dup. If you ask me,
- 2:50Speaker 1: juzzy boy, tell me everything you know.
- 2:52Speaker 2: Okay, So Microsoft is obviously the behemoth tech company started
- 2:55Speaker 2: back in nineteen seventy five and has grown to a
- 2:57Speaker 2: three point three trillion US dollar valuation.
- 3:00Speaker 1: We'd be talking about the second largest company in the
- 3:03Speaker 1: whole down universe based on market value.
- 3:05Speaker 2: Man. Although Microsoft has made some updates to its offer
- 3:08Speaker 2: suite over the years, let's be honest, they haven't been great.
- 3:11Speaker 1: Yep. PowerPoint praises still feel like they're from nineteen ninety eight.
- 3:14Speaker 2: So now Microsoft has announced a new AI powered app.
- 3:16Speaker 2: It's called wait for it, Designer every original name. It
- 3:20Speaker 2: can give you prompt templates to help kickstart the creative process.
- 3:24Speaker 2: Let's be honest, no one knows how to design and
- 3:26Speaker 2: give away post from scratch.
- 3:27Speaker 1: But boy, if you're thinking that it sounds awfully similar
- 3:30Speaker 1: to the c dog Ie Canvas, you would be right.
- 3:33Speaker 1: I was thinking that, actually, except Microsoft has one little
- 3:36Speaker 1: leg up on Canvas. It has a partnership with open Ai,
- 3:39Speaker 1: so there's a lot of AI in this tool too, And.
- 3:41Speaker 2: All of a sudden, Canvas may just have a big,
- 3:44Speaker 2: bad competitor in the design market.
- 3:46Speaker 1: Ooh, you went there. So what is the key learning here?
- 3:48Speaker 2: The hunter has become the hunted.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Over the past eleven years, Canvas identified a major gap
- 3:54Speaker 1: in the design market and grew from plucky upstart to
- 3:57Speaker 1: establish a leader of design software.
- 3:59Speaker 2: It was hunting down the design software market from Microsoft
- 4:02Speaker 2: and Adobe's Photoshop.
- 4:03Speaker 1: But after their rapid growth, they find themselves as the
- 4:06Speaker 1: company being hunted by Microsoft.
- 4:08Speaker 2: And be Man. When a tech leader rolls out a
- 4:10Speaker 2: new product into an existing offering, it has an enormous
- 4:13Speaker 2: strategic advantage distribution.
- 4:15Speaker 1: In fact, Microsoft already has more than one point five
- 4:19Speaker 1: billion Office sweet users around the globe.
- 4:21Speaker 2: Compare that to Canvas one hundred and seventy million users and.
- 4:24Speaker 1: Jesi boy this saying the first time we've seen a
- 4:26Speaker 1: global tech giant with massive distribution dupe another company's product
- 4:31Speaker 1: and make it into a feature.
- 4:32Speaker 2: For example, Garman and Tom Tom they were the leaders
- 4:34Speaker 2: in GPS mapping until Google and Apple made it an
- 4:37Speaker 2: app in their phones.
- 4:38Speaker 1: What about Adobe? They were the leader in the PDF
- 4:41Speaker 1: format until Microsoft created their own PDF viewer in the Office.
- 4:44Speaker 2: Suite, so be Man. Only time will tell if Canva
- 4:47Speaker 2: can maintain its design market dominance.
- 4:49Speaker 1: For our third and final story, the maker of ray
- 4:52Speaker 1: Ban Sonny's esselaw Laxotica, has acquired the Supreme Fashion brand
- 4:57Speaker 1: for one point five billion US dollarydo the.
- 5:00Speaker 2: Old Sunny's and streetwear colob I can kind of see
- 5:03Speaker 2: it working. Tell me all a bit of boutground here,
- 5:04Speaker 2: Juzzy boys. So, Eslor Luxotica is the merged company of
- 5:08Speaker 2: Luxotica from Italy and Essloor from France. Fun fact for you,
- 5:11Speaker 2: Eslo Lexotica pretty much owns all of the big eyewear
- 5:14Speaker 2: brands around the world.
- 5:16Speaker 1: We'd be talking ray Band Oakley, you're a per sol man,
- 5:19Speaker 1: and don't forget Sunglass Heart.
- 5:20Speaker 2: I've seen you in there a few times. That's the
- 5:22Speaker 2: Sunny's retailer and they've got over fifty two percent market
- 5:24Speaker 2: share in the eyewear industry.
- 5:26Speaker 1: Now, Juzzy boy, it must have come as a bit
- 5:28Speaker 1: of a surprise for you when they made a big
- 5:30Speaker 1: announcement late last week.
- 5:31Speaker 2: Eslo Luxotica announced it will acquire the streetwear brand Supreme
- 5:35Speaker 2: from VF Brands for one and a half billion US dollars.
- 5:38Speaker 2: That would be the on trend sweetwear brand that many
- 5:41Speaker 2: celebs rock in the papped shots around town. And interestingly,
- 5:44Speaker 2: this is Esla Luxotika's first acquisition of an apparel company.
- 5:48Speaker 1: Yeah, it would seem that they want to acquire Supremes
- 5:50Speaker 1: platform and connect to Supreme's audience, which is primarily gen Z.
- 5:54Speaker 2: And while the share price of Supreme's owner jumped eight percent,
- 5:57Speaker 2: the shares in Eslo Luxotica dropped.
- 5:59Speaker 1: Nearly four mainly because many investors are unsure about the
- 6:02Speaker 1: strategic fit of a streetwear brand in a luxury eyewear company.
- 6:06Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here?
- 6:07Speaker 1: A strategic fit is when an acquiring company can benefit
- 6:10Speaker 1: from synergies with the acquired company.
- 6:12Speaker 2: So Eslo Lexotica is trying to leverage Supreme brand equity
- 6:16Speaker 2: to not only grow the brand further, but also make
- 6:18Speaker 2: their eyewear cool again.
- 6:20Speaker 1: And while all of this makes sense in theory, doesn't
- 6:23Speaker 1: always work out in brattice.
- 6:24Speaker 2: Remember when will Worth acquired dick Smith for four hundred
- 6:26Speaker 2: and thirty million bucks.
- 6:28Speaker 1: And it ended up selling dick Smith to a private
- 6:30Speaker 1: equity firm for just twenty million bucks.
- 6:31Speaker 2: So esltt Lexotica will be hoping it can successfully leverage
- 6:35Speaker 2: its retail experience in starting to sell Fyfe Culture clothes
- 6:38Speaker 2: to gen Z flux Am. The sooner you is to
- 6:39Speaker 2: bit your tax returns, the sooner you can potentially get
- 6:42Speaker 2: your tax rebite. We've got it all covered in the
- 6:44Speaker 2: Flux Academy. This month the FI twenty four tax Toolkits.
- 6:47Speaker 2: Make sure to check it out.
- 6:48Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on Wednesday.