WOOLWORTHS | the Australian Shareholders' Association in the supermarket aisles

In this episode I'm joined by Julieanne Mills and Don Adams, company monitors from the Australian Shareholders' Association, for a deep dive into the supermarket giant Woolworths. As Woolies navigates a maze of six ongoing inquiries, we peel back the layers of political and economic forces shaping the narrative around this ASX heavyweight.

This interview is based on this statement from the ASA in February.

With a passionate defense of CEO Brad Banducci and a critical look at the media's portrayal of corporate leaders, this discussion goes beyond the headlines to explore the metrics that truly matter.

From Return on Equity misconceptions to the impact of inflation and supply chain woes, Julieanne and Don offer a wealth of insight into the realities of retail powerhouses in a rapidly evolving landscape. In the last 5 years Woolworths has contributed over $5.1 billion in taxes and $5.7 billion in dividends to shareholders. Don and Julianne outline Woolworths' role in the national economy and the accusations of price gouging.

We discuss the ongoing inquiries into the supermarket industry, the complexities of the grocery code, and the political pressures that are shaping the market.

We delve into the significance of return on equity (ROE) and return on funds employed (ROFE), the metrics that matter in this sector, and how they're often misunderstood by those outside the industry.

But it's not all about the numbers. Our conversation also touches on the societal impacts of Woolworths' operations, including its role as the largest employer in Australia and the ethical considerations of the company's practices, from their treatment of employees to their environmental and social initiatives.

There's a delicate balance between supporting local businesses and acknowledging the benefits that giants like Woolworths bring to consumers through their buying power and competitive pricing.

TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS AFTER THIS BRIEF MESSAGE

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Chloe: Shares for beginners Phil Muscatello and fin pods are authorised reps of money Sherpa. The information in this podcast is general in nature and doesn't take into account your personal situation.

Julieanne: What Woolworths gives back to not just investors, but Australians like over the last five years, it's given back $5.1 billion in taxes and then it's paid back $5.7 billion in dividends to shareholders. A politician attacking the company just seems really unfair because it's so not seeing the wider picture. We're able to blame somebody for something that is really out of their control. And I think that's a problem from a societal perspective.

Phil Muscatello: G'day and m. Welcome back to shares for beginners. I'm Phil Muscatello. How big is too big for an ASX listed company? Well, they're pretty small, aren't uh, they? Compared to the United States, aren't they? What are the political forces acting on the big supermarkets at the moment? Joining me today are, uh, two company monitors from the Australian Shareholders Association, Julieanne Mills and Don Adams. G'day.

Don: Hello.

Julieanne: Hey. Hi, Phil.

Phil Muscatello: Thanks very much for coming over. Julieanne and Don have been monitoring woolies for how many years now?

Don: Six years. Six years.

Phil Muscatello: Six years.

Don: Wow. I count this series of six years.

Julieanne: Yeah.

Phil Muscatello: In February, they wrote a statement about woolworths and, um, amid the current controversies, which we'll link to in the usual places. Now, we're going to start off with Julieanne we had a bit of a conversation on the phone yesterday, and you're very passionate in your defence of Brad Banducci and Woolworths and what's going on at the moment. How many inquiries are ongoing into the supermarket industry?

Julieanne: I think there are six, although it's very hard to work out what those six inquiries are. Uh, there's an ACCC one that's going on around competition, which the last one that was done in 2008. So this one, you know, it's quite a changed environment. There's uh, a lot more competitors out there for the supermarkets and we've lost some, like Franklin's no longer exist. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. There's m also the issue around the code. Grocery code and.

Phil Muscatello: Yeah, what is that grocery code issue?

Julieanne: So the grocery code at the moment is a voluntary code and it's around pricing and there are people in place that actually monitor the prices. And it's supposed to be an independent but employed by the supermarkets. However, there's pressure for that to become mandatory. So Woolworths and Coles have both agreed for it to become mandatory, but they would like more people included in that code. And their argument is that the competitive landscape for supermarkets is now not just coles, Woolies, Aldi and Metcash, it's actually those companies. But also there's more of a move from. Apart from the international Costco and Audi and Amazon, there's west farmers bunnings selling grocery products and chemist warehouse also selling grocery products. So they're all kind of competing in that same space and they're exempt from this new code at the moment. So there's some pressure for that to change. I mean, Coles and Woolworths have a fairly large chunk of the supermarket. Do you know what that is? I think it's about 37% for Woolies and uh, it's around 60%. So it is a considerable amount. But yeah, there's definitely pressure on them.

Phil Muscatello: So Brad Banducci, he's had a couple of train wrecks. Well, they've been portrayed in the media as train wrecks. And for example, the other day Nick McKim, the Greens senator, was questioning him and threatening him with jail for not coming up with the ROE figure, the return, an equity figure. How did that make you feel, the way that he was being treated?

Julieanne: I'm sort of. Yeah, I'm very disappointed in how the media are treating these CEO's. It seems like a constant attack. I know that he's made mistakes and especially like it all began really with the Four Corners episode on Woolworths. And that was a train wreck. It was a mistake. He said something he shouldn't have. He wanted to retract it. They didn't allow him. And then they just kept using that clip over and over as a promotion for the. For four corners. To me that was just, you know, uh. Given all the dramas that Woolworths have been through over the last five years, especially through COVID and the work that Brad Banducci and the chair Gordon Cairns have done to transform Woolworths from what it was to what it is now. I thought it was pretty unfair. And then with the Senate inquiry, they had made a fairly rational statement or uh, Woolworths had made a fairly rational statement and Kim was just attacking him. So you know, it was a bit. He was grandstanding, I felt, and it was just a platform for his political viewpoint rather than actually really trying to contribute to the question around, you know, are ah, the supermarkets gouging consumers? I don't personally think they are, but obviously they're not perfect. And I'm sure, there are some people that are pressured by the fact that they're one of the largest buyers. So obviously they have market power. So it's worthwhile doing these reviews, and it's worthwhile, you know, uh, really challenging these companies, but not to just attack them and to then sort of go on and on about return on equity, not listening to what he was saying, not understanding that return on equity is not the measure that is actually really looking at profitability and something that is used within the industry. So understanding how a company measures profitability is really important for shareholders. And personally, I didn't understand that initially, but I think every sector has a different measure, and you've got to understand the business model to be able to understand what measure is important for you as an investor to sort of be looking at.

Phil Muscatello: So, don, you had a few words to say about that return on equity issue.

Don: Uh, well, first, can I make a comment on Brad Banducci?

Phil Muscatello: Of course, please. The floor is yours.

Don: When they announced the half year results, uh, at the end of February, I think it was, the results were pretty well known to the market because they'd foreshadowed what the numbers would be in late January. But they also announced that day that Banducci was retiring and the share price fell 8% in the next two days. And that can only really be attributed to the fact that the share market likes Brad Banducci, and I think he's been a good CEO. Uh, in terms of the, uh, ROE the way they were being badgered, ROE is pretty much meaningless for a company like Woolworths. The company uses internally, uh, return on funds employed for determining long term compensation using EBiT, that's profit before interest and taxes, divided by the capital that each business unit is using. So that would be in Brad's mind, but certainly not return on equity. You can calculate it from the numbers in the annual report, and it's pretty ridiculously high, but doesn't really mean anything.

Phil Muscatello: And you can just look it up. I mean, it's so easy just to. You can look it up in 20 seconds and find that out. And the interesting thing is that figure of ROE was for, uh, the financial year 23. But if you look at the current financial year, it's a negative figure at the moment.

Don: Share price has been declining. It's gone down quite a bit this year, not just because of Brad leaving, but about a year ago it was around $38 a share. This morning it was $31 a share. The problem is that equity on the balance sheet, which is how you calculate the ROE you know, you take the 1.6 billion profit divided by 6 billion book value of equity and you get a number like 25%. But that doesn't measure anything that's meaningful because there's no standard you can measure that against. The book value of equity for a company like Woolworths is far from its actual value. If you look at the value of equity in the marketplace for Woolworths, it's $38 billion, so it's more than six times the book value. And the return to the market value of equity is about 4.2%. Quite a much more respectable number. When they use ROE they were referring to the banks, and banks are quite a very different type of company, uh, because their assets are all in dollars and dollars and so their equity and the market value of their equity and the book value of the equity are much closer. Westpac, uh, and ANZ, the market value of their equity is 1.2 times the book value. Commonwealth Bank's a bit higher because everybody loves the Commonwealth bank. But, yeah, it is much more meaningful there.

Phil Muscatello: And that's an interesting thing. So many metrics, I find, don't translate between different industries or sectors, do they?

Don: No, no. Yeah.

Phil Muscatello: And it's just something that you need to understand. I was also going to ask. There have been a series of articles in the Finn review where they've been saying that return on capital employed was a much more meaningful measure.

Don: Yeah, that's right. Woolworths calls it return on funds employed.

Phil Muscatello: For return on investment.

Don: Yeah, you refer to that. Yeah, you refer to that. Uh, it using EBIT and that came in at 14.9% last year. Or return on capital employed, which is after interest and after taxes. Profit after you've subtracted those things came in at 11%, which was pretty much in the range of, um, many other companies. It was lower than Coles and got some in the thing I wrote and I could look.

Julieanne: Yeah.

Don: Uh, Coles, Metcash and Wesfarmers had higher return on capital employed. Harvey, Norman, Meyer and Endeavour had lower return on capital employed. M. So it's right in the middle of the range. So it's not particularly outrageous. In 2021, Woolworths had a return on equity of 104% because the book value of their equity at the end of that year was just over 1 billion. Sort of ten years ago, their equity was 10 billion and it's been shrinking because they've been getting rid of businesses. And the reason it was so low in 2021 is they got rid of, of endeavour by distributing the value to the shareholders and they recovered some of that because of their investment in Endeavour in the next financial year and they're getting them back up to 6 billion. So you can see it's not something that you can really rely on on a continuing basis to, uh, measure profitability.

Phil Muscatello: So if you were a senator and you knew about the numbers like you do, what would you be looking at for evidence of price gouging?

Don: Oh, I'd look at the simple answer what are they paying for the products they're selling and how much are they getting in revenue? And, um, is the margin between those widening? And I've looked at that, we've looked at the cost of goods sold and the difference between that and their earnings before interest and tax, you know, their operating earnings. And it hasn't varied much over the last seven or eight years. It's quite high, it's in the 20% range. But it has to be because they have all their operating costs as well. But if you're just looking at the costs of what they buy and what they sell it for, that margin hasn't been changing.

Phil Muscatello: And what about the argument that they're not only just gouging consumers but they're gouging primary producers as well? What do you think of that?

Don: Well, I saw a thing on television where blok was plowing in his cherry orchard because Woolworths wasn't buying his cherries. Woolworths was still selling cherries. They were buying them from some people. So they're obviously able to get cherries to sell to their customers to meet their customers demand from some cherry growers. And that would be a function of quality and price that they'd be looking at to get the cherries in the store. And I guess there'll always be people who growing it in not the optimal area or aren't very good at growing cherries who just aren't able to compete or maybe they're too small, maybe. You know, I think in the meat business we've got very large meat processors now, meat to, uh, Woolworths and Coles. And you know, there are very few independent little corner butcher stores left in Australia, though there are specialist butcher stores around.

Phil Muscatello: Julieanne before we roll tape, you were mentioning about the quality of the reporting that woolworths employ because there are a lot of mum and dad investors and a lot of employees are invested in Woolworths. Tell us about that because you look a bit more at the governance side of things, don't you?

Julieanne: Yeah, I think it's good to just look at what Woolworths is you know, they're the largest employer in Australia. They have over 170,000 employees. And a lot of those employees are shareholders. A lot of those employees are in superfunds whose super funds are invested in woolworths. And, you know, I think that's another thing that really annoys me about the attack.

Phil Muscatello: Come on, get annoyed.

Julieanne: We're happy for you to get annoyed. I'm trying to stay restrained. No, no, no. Let it all go, Julia. Yeah, because I think they are a really good company. And why do we need to attack them? I mean, they're important to our economy. They're important to the competitiveness of the market. They're supplying a product that is a lot cheaper because they have the buying power that smaller supermarkets don't have. You know, I was thinking the other day about, I buy apples every week and I've got a local greengrocer that sells it to me for five times the price of Woolworths. You know, I, uh, will use that greengrocer occasionally, but, you know, to reduce my costs. Woolworths just does that automatically and I don't have to think about it. So I think, yes, we need small retail places, but we also need the big supermarkets. And they do have a lot of power. And it worries me, too that if the discussions at the moment around divestiture, which is becoming a political football amongst the Greens and the national Party, and now the Liberal Party is weighing into this, that if we do that, what will happen to our industry? Because the smaller that Woolworths and Coles get, the less buying power they have and the less power they have in the market. And do we really want to provide, want to change that, to give, uh, a benefit to people, to the bigger companies like Audi, Costco and Amazon, to just come into that market, and I am convinced that they will do that. I mean, you know, some of the competition that has managed to be held back was Kaufmans. They were coming into Australia a couple of years ago and they decided it was just too hard and too competitive. And I think that's because we have Coles and Woolworths, not because we have, you know, it's not the small supermarkets that are going to be able to stand up to them. It's only those two large competitors. So I think it's important that we support our ASX listed companies, and it's really important that we support companies that are actually doing a great job. Not to say that they don't have flaws, you know? Yeah, they do have flaws. You know, we're not just here to be cheerleader. Um, they have made mistakes with underpayment and people have died and a few things, you know, it's not perfect. And I don't love their remuneration for their CEO. However, at the moment, I probably think that he may deserve it, given what he's having to put up with. So, you know, I think it's a tough job, but why all of a sudden are we attacking them? I just, you know, going from adulation during COVID to full on attack.

Phil Muscatello: Oh, those brave people at Woolies and coles keeping us all fed. And you know, that's right, with toilet paper.

Julieanne: Toilet paper and this. You know, the other thing that was kind of annoying me too, is the fact that this is feeding into those employees. They're having to put up with a lot more complaints.

Phil Muscatello: And I know you see the signs in the stores now, you know, about. I can't believe that people would act that way. It's just, it's astonishing.

Don: Yeah, if I just interject, I buy my toilet paper from Amazon.

Phil Muscatello: Well, that's the thing. I mean, they're so competitive because there are so many dry goods and so forth that you can buy from Amazon. It gets delivered the next day and.

Don: You don't have to carry that big bundle of rolls home from the store.

Chloe: Yeah, super is one of the most important investments you'll ever make. But how do you know if you're in the best fund for your situation? Head to lifesherpa.com dot au to find out more. Life Sherpa, uh, Australia's most affordable online financial advice.

Phil Muscatello: One could almost say that government has a role in creating inflation through money supply. And perhaps the anger is a way of telling the public, look over there, look at these evil people, don't look at us. And our role in creating inflation as governments. Who wants to take that one?

Julieanne: Mhm. That's a good question. Can I take it? I think inflation in this scenario is more about supply chains, COVID impact, cost of money, cost of petrol. You know, we have to keep in mind that there has been inflation because we've had a supply chain that's been blocked for a period of time. We've had a period of time where we couldn't get things and then a, uh, period of time where everybody wanted everything. So of course the costs went up. And then because of the costs of petrol and the costs of materials and the cost of labor, all these things are going up. So Woolworths has got employee costs sort of a nearly double digit or I think they are double digit now increases and you know, they've got to deal with the petrol prices, they've got supply chain issues, they've still got up to deal with the larger international consumer goods people that are basically selling to them at a much higher price. So it's a difficult scenario. I don't think it's government. This is a global problem. It's not just a government problem. And I think the government's doing the best it can in this scenario to kind of. But yes, perhaps, you know, redirecting the focus to companies that really perhaps don't deserve it.

Don: I think the central banks have certainly gone through a period of several years where they've been really pumping money into economies, just trying to keep them going with very low interest rates. And ah, I think we are probably paying the price from that as we get a recovery. The money has been there and things have been pushed up now it's all the factors that Julieanne just described, the supply chain things, the shortage of product, like property prices are booming because there's a real short supply of property, uh.

Phil Muscatello: For people to buy and for renters.

Don: And for renters. It's a terrible situation for renters. Yes, really an awful thing. There's also income inequality, which as uh, economists have been talking about for quite a few years now, and wealth inequality, how that's been increasing in uh, our society. And I think that's another issue and it's another reason why there should be attention on wages, which there is at present.

Phil Muscatello: Business like Woolworths or Coles are uh, also incredibly capital intensive. I mean it's just I've got a friend who works at Woolley's as a project manager and he's been describing to me the warehouse and the robotics and all of the investment that needs to be put in those because there's incredible efficiencies, but it's uh, a lot of money to set up something like that.

Don: Yes. And they have been investing there and there's also it systems in the stores and the other things they've been doing, the online product has been good. One of the things we worry about is their environmental and social behaviour. And we think Woolworths are uh, pretty high in their standard for that, particularly with regard to indigenous Australians. They're electrifying their fleet, they're getting into the trucks that'll be electric, uh, for local delivery. You know, we can go a whole lot of examples of what they're doing and the concern they have for society.

Phil Muscatello: Uh, and how about the way that employees are treated. Are they generally good at that?

Don: I think they like to think they are. Uh. I mean when you've got well 170 odd thousand employees in Australia and another 30,000 in New Zealand there's a lot of room for treatment at a local level. If you've got a manager who's a bit of a. And so you can't always promise that everything's great. But I think the company's policies from what we've seen have uh been uh directed towards looking after their employees. They've got particular concerns about employee safety and it's one of the components that go into the determination of annual bonuses for the senior executives. They had two deaths last financial year which was a real shock to them and uh. They bonuses specifically for that reason. This was what the bonus would be.

Phil Muscatello: But we're knocking this is the bonuses for management or for management?

Don: For management for the people running the place, the executives, not the directors. M. Yeah so we think they got. They rate fairly highly in the social side of things.

Phil Muscatello: Julieanne was making the point before that she thinks it's important to support a company like this to a certain extent not completely blindly. Do you think as a local Aussie company they do deserve maybe not so much support as in respect from the government in the way that they're talked to?

Don: Oh yes certainly. But I don't think the government has been too abusive. I mean I think it's uh. Well we won't label, let's call it.

Phil Muscatello: Widely, the government.

Don: Being sort of they are in the power Chardonnay sipping Balmain basket weavers sandal wearing. I shouldn't have said that, should I? But anyway. Yeah I think there's a lack of understanding of dynamics of uh. Finance and the dynamics of business. They sell $64 billion worth of stuff last year made a profit of 1.6 billion on it. Uh. It's quite a low profit margin. It's uh. Only about, I've forgotten two and a half percent.

Phil Muscatello: Yeah I think it's two and a half percent. Yeah.

Don: It's two and a half percent of sales.

Phil Muscatello: Yeah.

Don: That means every dollar you spend only two and a half cents goes to the shareholders are Woolworths and the rest goes to the supply of goods, to running the stores, to the leasing of the stores, to the delivery, to the uh. Logistics of shipping the goods and stuff around the country.

Phil Muscatello: Ok. We've been focusing Julieanne on the company itself but what about people who invest in it? What is Woolworths doing for investors?

Julieanne: Well I think that's a really good question and I think what Woolworths gives back to not just investors, but Australians over the last five years, it's given back $5.1 billion in taxes and then it's paid back $5.7 billion in dividends to shareholders. They have 350,000 retail shareholders and then on top of that, and they own 40% of the shares, but also 70% of the shares that are owned either retail shareholders or by super funds. So, you know, that money is coming back to us as Australians, whether we are an part of a super fund or whether we're a direct investor. Uh, you know, it's a reasonable profit and that comes out. They have a dividend payout ratio, which means profit, that's 70% to 75% of their profit is paid back to shareholders. The rest is reinvested into the business.

Phil Muscatello: So even if they are price gouging, it's ending up in our pockets anyway.

Julieanne: Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, we're accusing ourselves to assert understanding that. I think understanding the big picture here, which is why a politician attacking the company just seems really unfair because it's so not seeing the wider, uh, picture.

Phil Muscatello: So how was it monitoring the company last year for last year's AGM? Were there any issues that came up? I think from memory, I talked to Fiona about it and that was about the deaths of a couple of employees. But there was no, no problems with the remuneration report or anything, were there?

Julieanne: No. We always make comments about the quantum of the amount. Given that, I, uh, think his actual pay was eight point something million. That's what he actually got. Brad Banducci. It's a lot of money. When you think about what the average Woolworths employee gets paid.

Phil Muscatello: Not as much as the person from Qantas, was it?

Julieanne: Not as much as Qantas? M. No. So. And look, you know, that's always a really difficult question to ask and it's a difficult question to rationalise. How much is a CEO worth? I think Brad's been there for five years. It's been a very tough five years. He's worked extremely hard. That has not been an easy ride. They've had to get out a masters, they divested endeavour and then they had COVID in the middle of all of that. So a tough ride, I think. And maybe that's the end of his CEO, uh uh, career. So I don't know. But 8 million does seem a lot to me, but who am I to judge?

Phil Muscatello: Don, any thoughts there?

Don: Ok. The annual general meeting last year was relatively peaceful. I mean, you know, there were things about the deaths and with the remuneration report, we've always got quibbles about the details. We've been in meetings like the, uh, first meeting we went to. There were a whole lot of activists pushing poker machines as an issue because Woolworths was then the largest owner of poker machines in Australia. There were fruit pickers from the Goulburn Valley talking about. Well, I guess we call it modern slavery, um, being underpaid for picking fruit. It, uh, was quite a noisy and robust affair. It's been nothing like that lately. They've solved the problem with the poker machines by getting rid of them in Endeavour with Dan Murphy's and BWS and the hotels. We had the story about the Dan Murphy's in Darwin, the controversy about that up there, how it was too close to aboriginal communities. And, um, we know that the chairman at the time, Gordon Keyns and Brad Banducci, went up there and talked to the communities and sat in talking circles with those communities to develop a better understanding of what the issues were. It was fairly impressive that they'd take the time to do that.

Julieanne: Can I just jump in there again? That was a particularly poignant moment for me because I think when they published that report around the Dan Murphys in the Northern Territory and it was scathing. It was scathing of what they were doing because they were lobbying the government to change the rules around having a bigger. A, uh, liquor licence there, or liquor store. There's quite strict controls around how many liquor stores there are in Darwin. So it just reflects back on the integrity of the organisation, the integrity of the board. And I think as a monitor, that's what we want to see. We want to see open, transparent sort of processes. And I think.

Phil Muscatello: And issues being taken seriously.

Julieanne: And issues being taken seriously. And they did. I mean, initially they said no, no, no. But they did listen to the external report and changed their mind. And I think that's a good thing. M for everybody.

Phil Muscatello: And really there is a lot of competition. Just talking on the competition level, there is plenty of competition. I mean, people always think, you know, there's only two. I mean, I know personally, I go to, uh, an italian grocer and then there might be one other place that I might just go and get cheese from and then I'll go to Aldi because, you know, the cat food's really cheap there and the olive oil stuff cheap. And then m off to woolies up the hill.

Julieanne: Yeah.

Phil Muscatello: And it is open to everyone to create their own competition, isn't it?

Julieanne: I think that's right. And I think that's what they're trying to say. And they're trying to say that in those Senate committees and they're also inquiries and they're also trying to say that, uh, in the four corners report. But really, were they given that space to say that, you know, I was pretty disappointed with how they presented the supermarkets in that story. I think the ABC could do a lot better.

Phil Muscatello: I mean, I was a bit shocked when I saw the news on the night of the Nick McKim part of the Senate hearing and turning on ABC News. And it seemed like they were, yeah, this, uh, brave senator, you know, put the CEO of Woolworths on the spot and it was completely different to the way I saw it. And then when I saw other social media that they were saying, well, yeah, this guy doesn't really know what he's talking about in terms of finance.

Julieanne: I m think that's right. Those gotcha moments. Why can't we just have look at things with a much bigger picture, you know, like, really, who gains from that moment? The only person that gains, Nick McKim, basically gets more publicity. But I don't think that's necessarily.

Don: I don't think it was very good publicity.

Phil Muscatello: Why is that?

Don: Uh, I think he looked like a.

Phil Muscatello: Fool, but the media hasn't betrayed him. The media hasn't betrayed him as such.

Don: Well, he is.

Julieanne: Yeah, he looks like a fool to somebody who understands the numbers and understands return on equity. But to the public, the public, the punters equity, who may not understand that and who want to find a scapegoat for their inflationary pressures, it hits a nerve. And that's what's quite terrifying about it, that, you know, we're not really getting a good picture here, and we're able to blame somebody for something that is really out of their control. And I think that's a problem from a societal perspective. You know, we need more awareness around the bigger picture here and in a sense, to take some personal responsibility, even if, you know, we can't impact that.

Phil Muscatello: And as you said before, it is being reflected in the way staff are being treated at supermarkets now as well.

Julieanne: Yeah, that's very unfortunate.

Phil Muscatello: Yeah, uh, it is. Julieanne and Don, thank you so much for joining me today.

Julieanne: Thank you, Phil.

Don: Thank you, Phil. Enjoyed the conversation.

Chloe: Thanks for listening to shares for beginners. You can find more@sharesforbeginners.com if you enjoy listening, please take a moment to rate a review in your podcast player or tell a friend who might want to learn more about investing for their future.

Any advice in this blog post is general financial advice only and does not take into account your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of that, you should consider if the advice is appropriate to you and your needs before acting on the information. If you do choose to buy a financial product read the PDS and TMD and obtain appropriate financial advice tailored to your needs. Finpods Pty Ltd & Philip Muscatello are authorised representatives of MoneySherpa Pty Ltd which holds financial services licence 451289. Here's a link to our Financial Services Guide.