This is Business Weekend with Lass screen World.

Hi there and welcome the Business Weekend.

I'm Ross Greenwood.

It is great to have your company coming up on the program.

This week, the price of bitcoin and ethereum collapsed, the US Federal Reserve pumped one hundred and twenty five billion dollars into the US banking system in just five days to avert a liquidity crisis, and Tesla shareholders signed off on a potential trillion dollar US pay deal for its major shareholder Elon Musk.

So is this a new.

Normal or assign our markets?

Our economies are on the precipice.

We'll speak with June Bailou at Anton Tagliaferro, the fund manager is here.

Very surely.

Our big banks also have a problem right now.

Their expenses, especially for staff and technology, arising much much faster than their revenue, and that means their profits are lower.

And that's because Australia's economy simply isn't growing fast enough.

And we put all that to the NABS chief executive Andrew Iruvine, who warns a living standards could decline as a result.

We cannot with confidence say that our children will have a higher quality of life than we did, and that's what this is all about.

And look, a pretty obvious way that Australia could grow faster is to give more resources projects up and running quicker as well.

But despite the political rhetoric about wanting to grant approvals quicker, the reality is they're way behind other nations that compete with us for these projects.

One person who understands this only too well is Woodside's chief executive Meg O'Neil.

Our message to government is we've just got to speed things up.

It's too difficult to invest here.

And our corporate regulator Asset this week said our market technology has fallen behind the rest of the world and the competitance in thisx SEABO Australia is up for sale.

Well, today we speak with Finkley's chief executive.

It clears our deals with all those market makers with its financial technology and infrastructure.

The listing companies was it really never their their comfort zone.

So all that and plenty more coming up on today's program.

We've got I want to start the program.

But looking at the warning signs that are springing up for financial markets around the world.

Even late this week, the Tesla's shareholders enthusiastically voted for a potential trillion dollar pay packet for Elon Musk.

It screams over indulgence, even though musk remuneration is heavily geared at the shareholder's outcome.

He needs to grow Tesla almost six times in ten years to get that trillion dollars worth of stock.

The sheer scale of it and the risks seem inordinate.

And for a company that's grown by tapping the global demand for electric vehicles and via batteries, his future plans pivot to robots and to artificial intelligence.

And things do get kind of wild from an economic standpoint, because at a certain point, with AI and robotics, you can actually increase the global economy by a factor of ten, maybe one hundred.

There's not like an obvious limit.

And it's not the only warning sign of indulgence out there.

The massive falling cryptocurrencies bitcoin and ethereum gives a warning about prices being set for perfection.

One of the biggest is the US Federal Reserve being forced to part one hundred and twenty five billion dollars into the US banks in just five days to prevent a liquidity squeeze in America this week, and after the FED cut interest rates last week, it's now stop selling bombs into the market, soaping up cash in the system.

The US Fed or Reserve Chair explained just a little of what's happening when they made that interest rate announcement.

Our long stated plan has been to stop balance sheet runoff when reserves are somewhat above the level we judge consistent with ample reserve conditions.

Scigns have clearly emerged that we have reached that standard.

But by putting more cash into the US economy, they're trying to basically avert a disaster, especially where many parts of the government there are down because of the political impast in the Senate.

Here in Australia, there's no immediate credit crunch, but even our own Reserve Bank Governor Michelle Bullock, while keeping interest rates on hold for possibly a prolonged period this week in a press conference, she let us know that she's keeping a watching brief and what's happening in America.

The Fed have got themselves, as I think Jay set out to a position now where they think their reserves are about as low as they can go without introducing difficulties in the money markets for banks trying to get liquidity, so this is obviously part of their response to do that.

I don't think there will be a credit crunch, because I think that's exactly what the FED is trying to avoid, getting some sort of liquidity crunch.

And also watching all of this is our own Treasurer Jim Chalmers.

He gave an overlooked.

Speech earlier in the week so the City fifty Australian Economic Forum, about the intensifying competition for capital for liquidity if you like.

He cited a speech by the former FED chair be In Bananki at a time that the world had too much sin savings and too little to invest in.

For a generation, money was cheap and it was plentiful, but four shocks in fifteen years have reshaped the world economy, driving up the cost of capital and redrawing the global investment map.

When Bananki spoke in two thousand and five, global savings stood at around twenty five percent of GDP.

Today it's near the lowest level in more than forty years, at around twenty two percent of GDP.

So in a global economy of around one hundred and sixty nine trillion dollars that's about eight trillion dollars less than if the world was still saving at mid two thousands levels.

There are a few explanations for this.

Aging populations mean households are increasingly drawing down savings rather than building them up.

Easing gave way to quantity of tightening.

China's economy is maturing, it's facing bigger structural headwinds, and it isn't in the position to be the global provider of capital in the same way that it was two decades ago.

Yet this is a time when the world needs more capital and not less to roll out the infrastructure that's needed for the new generation of artificial intelligence think transport, health, education, infrastructure.

Even our cities might need to be rethought and rebuilt to cope with that in the future, which might also make you rethink the all time record share markets here and around the world.

So let's bring it out regular panel.

It looks at the investment markets.

Anton Tagliaferro and June Beilou are two of Australia's most respected investment managers.

Aton the founder of Investors Mutual, remains its investment director and June Beilou is the founder and lead portfolio manager of the boutique investment manager ten Cap, which managers Australia's first long short ETF, which is going to be launched in just a little over a week's time.

So welcome DEVIZI I'm so pleased you here because markets just keep hitting all time highs.

You've had Bitcoin, you've had gold, come on Antona, but the red flags out there for you for investment markets.

Look, it's a time ross where markets are being driven by momentum.

I think we have a whole generation of investors who are about to learn about that valuation is relevant.

So at the moment, many of those markets Bitcoin, Gold, all these AI stocks, Rare Earth stocks, whatever the trend is any particular week or two, it's all about momentum.

And when that momentum turns, you see these large moves because none of them are based on valuation.

So we are coming to a point, I believe in the next So it's hard to know when three months, six months, maybe next week.

I'm not sure when valuations will matter.

They have to matter because the nonsense we've seen in the last sort of six to twelve months I've never seen before my career.

I mean, you look at Palante you know, which is an AI stock in the US.

It's trading on eighty time sales next year sales.

It's valued at five hundred billion US, which is eight hundred million lozzi.

So that's half the Australian stock market capitalization.

So one AI stock trading on eighty time sales is half the market cap of all our resources, all our bags, all our everything.

Right, So you sort of sit there and go.

As I said, it's a momentum driven market, and I think there's a whole generation of investors who are about to learn the valuations matter.

Okay, So June Bay, you've got the same view because obviously you've invested in some of these situations that have run up pretty rapidly.

What's your own view where valuations its right now?

Look in some areas, so yes, you do see some valuation issues, you know, we talk about the multiples and others.

However, the AI trend itself, my view is that it's got long way to go.

We are seeing a lot of the difference between the tech bubble and this is now.

Tech bubble is a lot of random companies through money, new ideas that doesn't have proper user case, and now and yeah, we're using it.

We use three different language.

Models and trying to see the thing and we're getting efficiency.

And then the next level up is actually using a gentic version and to really help you to find what stratgizze your business across every industry.

I was actually just in New York a few weeks ago.

I saw all the big banks.

I saw the Goldman Sachs, the JP Morgan Wells, Fargo and you know KKR and the private equity and everything else.

Yes, certain areas of the market.

They talk about private credit, it's got really fast.

They couple frauds, you know, things that are happening over there.

But in terms of market dynamic, JB, the Goldman Sachs set, they are advising about one trillion dollars of asset for the next little while and that's a pipeline for coming to market, mergers, acquisitions.

There's a lot of activity coming in twenty twenty six.

So market is actually looking very healthy.

Yes, there's a bit of you know, volatility more recently because certain areas is becoming more expensive, but I think you're already marketplace actually looks pretty good.

We talked about Australian market.

Actually it doesn't look too expensive.

Okay, So I'll go back to you Anton, because this is when this is a new paradigm for investment.

Every time anybody says that it sort of falls over the markets, I'm just wondering with you since that there is something new coming as a result of the opportunity's artificial intelligence.

In particular, we've seen the run up in the chip stocks, we've seen the run up in the data centers.

It's what happens next to all of that.

Well, so a lot of money.

I mean, look at the hyperscalers in the US, the the Metas, the Amazons, the Oracles.

You know, they're spending hundreds of billions now a year on data centers.

They're not sure if they'll ever make a return on what they're building today.

So at the moment we have central banks pumping in or governments pumping printing money, giving handouts.

We've got all these hyperscalers spending hundreds of billions a year on data centers.

It's one off essentially, but you know, they don't know.

We've got private credit funds with very loose credit policies lending money everywhere, and I think we're beginning to see some of those things come home to ruse.

So we do have this wall of money hitting markets, and we are seeing, you know, some irrational behavior in many parts of the market.

So at some point, as I said, we have to have a correction.

It can't go over to the momentum allways, and valuations will matter.

I think where I do agree.

Funny enough, there is some there are stocks where there is some value because if they're not doing well in this particular moment, they get slammed.

If they're earning on an earning's upgrade, like West Farmers, they go to ninety six bucks.

It's very ridiculous.

But as soon as you lose that, it comes right down.

So you do have this market of extremes.

So there is value in some of those out of favor stocks.

But then on the other hand, there are there is so much hype in many of these other sectors.

Well, Jimba, you famously run long short funs, so you can as equally go short as you can long.

What's your own sense right now?

Are you looking for more short opportunities to be able to profity prices fall or you're still on the long side looking for the upside in many of these.

Situations, you're absolutely.

So with our long short we actually move from places to play where we see the opportunity, you know, things will fall.

So evaluation part is the expensive company is where we do find some of those opportunity on the shorting side, because where we you know, some of those companies, if you're earning is not going to meet people's expectations and you're very, very very expensive, then there's a lot of opportunity on the short side.

So that's where we concentrate our ideas at the moment.

However, what's interesting though, in the cyclical component of the of our market at the moment, because of the interest rate cut didn't come through, you know, and then the costs running a bit high, the inflation is running a bit high, and then consumers sort of pouse some more.

We are seeing a bit of you know, actually earning air pocket at the moment for some of the cyclical side, you know, so we can use those, we can use some of the short in those space as well.

But these other side we're kind of more think, you know, a lot of those companies they're cheap enough.

If share price does for it is probably providing really good buying opportunity because look, our economy actually doing a can this company nothing like the valuation stretch that we see on the other side.

Okay, so you say that our economy is going okay, it's only growing at one point eight percent paranim at the motment.

So we're talking to the banks at the Marment.

Their costs are growing faster than their sales.

Will talk to Andrew wevo And very shortly, and as a result, their profits are being squeezed.

The going backwards now the banks of that massive run ups this year in anticipation of interest rate cuts and tom but it just even strikes me that we're not in a fast growing economy right now, that we are a bit stuck, and that surely is going to put a handbrake on the earnings that companies in Australia can make.

Yes through Lacross and I think we've been talking about the banks being over valued for a while.

I mean, they're all on a p of twenty, which has never happened before.

I guess they are benefiting from a situation where it at the moment, there seems to be zero bad debts, you know, and the economy keeps rolling along either because of government handoates or government spending whatever.

But look they are.

They don't look very attractive because as you're saying, you know, they've had this big rerating.

You know, their pees used to be about forteen or fifteen, they're now on twenty or twenty five, and their earnings have maybe moved, you know, two or three or four percent.

So that's again, I think that's showing the weight of money argument.

You know, where you have all this money from government's, private credit whatever.

The world is a wash with money, and we're ending up with very strange valuations, you know, but I think we're coming close to a time where valuations will matter again.

But one thing about this, and that is exchanged drat funt.

You're launching one, I know.

But they chase the stocks when they're going up, and they drop them hard when they're going down.

Tell me about the fact of being an active manager versus the passive managers who chase it.

Because many people believe that they actually skew the markets.

So that's the passive ETFs that you're speaking to.

What we launch is the activity and that chase the actual manager how we perform.

You're absolutely right.

So those ETF passive ETFs.

They magnify the rise and full of certain factors.

You know, whether it's a thematic you know, whether it's rare earth and others, gold for example.

You know, you have a lot of passive flow into it, but the minute that turns it can create some more significance in terms of the other side, the passive ones.

That absolutely has been the magnification.

But active space is what's interesting.

It's quite new and it gives the investors the opportunity actually buy into the institutional gray farm managers because previously that's only really available to high networth you know, Ultra had their worth individuals because you know you're unitrust minimum spence one hundred thousand dollars as much.

Yeah, well too, what it's going to be fascinating in the next couple of weeks, few weeks, we'll just get you back again just to what says where the markets have gone, whether we're at a tipping point or whether in day there is more to run in this astonishing boom.

Many thanks for your time and Son Taiglaferre from Investors Mutual and June by Lou from Tencap thank you.

Thanks for us well from.

There we're going to go to Australia's biggest business bank, the National Australia Bank.

Like Westpac, which released results earlier this week, and also mcquarie on Friday, it's clear that expenses at our biggest institutions, as I was saying, are growing faster than their income, and as we've just been discussing, less Australia's economy can grow faster than the nation and its living standards ultimately have to grind to a halt.

So this week I sat down with the NABS Chief Executive Andrew Ervine, who's been in the CEO's seat there for around eighteen months, having previously run it's highly profitable business bank.

One is you've got to grow revenue faster, and I think what's pleasing is that in the second half of the year we saw a real increase in momentum in all of our business and particularly in our business franchise, across both our corporate and institutional bank as well as our business and private bank, so that's really pleasing.

We're growing there at the fastest rate in I think three and a half years.

So that's one you've got to grow your top line, and then the second thing you've got to do is manage your costs.

Well, we've traditionally done that as a bank.

We're a pretty efficient bank.

Obviously, in the last year we had to deal with a problem with regard to a colleague payroll that created elevation in our costs.

We're hopeful that we can get that done and get back to a position where we're growing revenues faster than costs.

Okay.

So broadly though, inflation is still an issue in Australia.

So that means those pressures on payrolls, those pressures on costs, and they're not going away anytime soon.

So the question is can you actually control those costs or at some stage do you have to make some hard decisions.

I think we have to control the costs that we can control, and we're looking at doing that, and so you know, managing staffing numbers, working hard to deliver recurring productivity so that you make yourselves more efficient, improving processes and practices, and we're really leaning into that.

You know, we've also got AI coming that I think is going to help our colleagues to automate low value work and focus their time on higher value work that our customers appreciate.

Do you think there'll be many job losses as a result of my eye, not just in the national Australia's banks specifically, but in the broader community.

Look, I do think over time, as the technology matures, that there will be some job impacts.

But we're in an economy that needs more jobs.

We need more construction workers, we need more workers in our care economy, and in the banking environment, we want more bankers, we want more branch staff.

I'd love to open my branches longer, and so you'll see I think a shift in the type of work there there is, and there may be some ups and downs, but I don't think we're going to have enormous job losses at scale in this country.

And what about NEB specifically, can you see efficiencies all come from the AI.

Do you think your head count in say five or ten years time will be lower or greater than what it is today.

I think there'll be certain types of work, operational work where we'll have a lower headcount, and I think that's a good thing.

And to the extent we can, then it allows us to hire more bankers.

We want more home landers, we want more business bankers all over the country.

You know, so that we can shift the mix of our workforce.

I think that's great.

And if we can safely run the bank well and continue to grow and deliver for our customers with fewer people, then that's something that you know, I would be good with.

But we've just got to make sure that we're running the bank well consistently over time.

Okay, So you did speak at the very beginning about growing the top line faster than what the expenses are growing.

As I said, that's hard with inflationary pressures right now.

It's also hard when our economy is right now only growing at an annual rate of under two percent one point eight percent.

So how do you grow a bank faster when the economy is basically growing at just about half of its long term average?

Yeah, well, we actually think we're seeing a little bit of an acceleration ross.

We expect growth this year to be two percent and next year two point three percent, which, as you say, is about the trend levels of growth that the country can safely generate without triggering unnecessary excess inflation.

And you know, within that, we're seeing credit growth increasing pretty materially.

We expect business lending to increase seven and a half percent next year at the system level.

If I turn to housing, something more like six percent.

These are good numbers, but what Australia needs to grow at a faster rate is more productivity.

So we need more construction, more dwelling so that we can enable the dream of home ownership as well as bring more migrants to our country.

We need energy prices to stabilize so that we can have affordable energy and encourage more manufacturing on our shores.

And then we need to take advantage of AI and all the benefits that that will bring.

And if we do those things well and also get rid of red tape and what makes it hard to do business in this country, hopefully we could increase our trend rate of growth to something more like three percent, which is where we would all want it to be.

And how confident are you that the government is government, any Australian government can achieve those ambitions of reducing red type, taking away impediments to competitiveness to try and boost that productivity.

Look, I think it's been hard, and we've been having this productivity conversation for the at least the best part of ten years.

What I would say is that we have a government now that understands the gravity of the problem and the opportunity we have.

I think the question now is going to be can we grasp it?

It's not just government that has to do us.

All of us need to Banks and corporations have a role to play well.

But I tell you what, it's really important that we grasp this because if we don't.

If we don't, it's not certain that the last hundred years that Australia's had, where we were the one of the best places in the world to live and work, will be repeated over the next hundred years.

It's that serious, you think, because Australia right now has got to improve its competitiveness, improve its productivity to try and drive more of that wealth back to Australians rather than driving at wealth offshore.

For the last hundred years, every parent could confidably say that their children would live a better quality of life than they did, and that is at risk right now.

We cannot with confidence say that our children will have a higher quality of life than we did.

And that's what this is all about.

Okay, then take me to your business bank.

You are the biggest business bank in Australia.

It is the most profitable area of banking right now to do business, much more profitable than homelands where the white hot competition.

But there's also competition in business banking right now.

To protect your lead in that area, do you also need the second office a margin to get the business across the lot.

We've been competed against in this space for as long as I've been in Australia.

I remember coming here five and a bit years ago and being holed up in hotel quarantine just down the road here in Sydney and reading newspaper articles about how others were coming after us in the business bank.

And in the last year we grew market share in business lending as well as in business deposits, and we were the only big bank to grow share in both lending and deposits this year, and we did that while holding margin steady, and I think that's been a highlight for us and shows good execution.

What it means is that we've got to continue to be there for our customers, give them good service, lend them money when they need it so they continue to want to bank with us.

And that's what this is all about.

And we're going to continue to work hard to keep the trust of our customers.

And having run that business bank and having been close to a lot of those business customers, what are those, especially the big business customers that you deal with, what are they saying about Australia's competitiveness right now and their preference for leaving their capital in Australia versus taking it overseas, particularly the United States.

Australia's got lots of opportunities for growth.

You know, I've been out the country recently talking to customers overseas, particularly in Asia.

What you're seeing is investors in some ways taking money off the table from the US and so they've got to actually then deploy that capital somewhere else.

And one of the places that they're looking to deploy capital here is here in Australia.

They like our rule of law, they like our English language, they like the minerals that we have, the energy opportunities that we have, and our property market both residential and commercial.

So you know, Australia is an attractive place for capital to invest, and we need to continue to be that so that more capital wants to come here to our chores.

Just to finish up.

You were the subject of some headlines earlier this week about this year about you know, your own personal entertainment, the way in which you go about your business.

Does that hurt you.

As an executive?

Does it change the way in which you operate?

Because these things do get very personal.

It must have been I defended you because I think some of these allegations they were almost indefensible in some ways.

It was nothing you could really say.

Does it change and behavior to think?

Look, it was probably a bit more judicious in where I was and who I was seeing with, But look, at the end of the day, I run the business hands on.

I want to be with our customers so I understand them, I understand what's making them tech and I want to be there helping my bankers.

So I don't make any apologies for that.

It still hurts, that doesn't it.

I'm a human being and you know it just is what it is.

I get on with it and many thanks for your time.

Thank you.

We'll coming up after the break.

Australia's biggest oiling gas company, Woodside, its chief executive Meg O'Neal, is keen to keep it as a genuinely Australian company, even though she concedes many of its biggest opportunities in future are overseas.

Thanks for being with us here on business weekend.

Well this week, James Hardy shares were smashed on the stock market after reports that it was about to be taken out of key indices in its quest without shareholder approval.

It should be said to move its stock market listing to America, and the temptation to shift to America must surely be there for more Australian companies.

The capital markets in America are deeper the domestic market, many times larger, energy prices a third what they are here.

Corporate tax rates as well are much lower.

An obvious company to move, in my opinion is Woodside, our biggest oil and gas company, is now truly a global business, with big in Louisiana, the Gulf, Mexico and in Mexico itself.

Its project approval time is much faster elsewhere than it is here in Australia, where it's giant brows.

Fielding Wa is still caught up seeking environmental and regulatory approvals.

Early this week after its invested, I Are set down with its chief executive Meg O'Neil, and she explained why she still wants Woodside to be firmly keeping its space here in Australia.

So we've been on a journey in the past few years making decisions that are going to transform the company.

Between twenty twenty four and twenty thirty two, so an eight year time period, we're going to increase our production by fifty percent, increase our operating cash flow by more than fifty percent, and that will give us the capacity to return to increase our dividends to shareholders by fifty percent per share, with money left over to either continue investing in future growth or support our shareholders with further returns.

Because I would say that that is an unusual resources company in history, resources companies held onto their capital because they didn't know where the next bunch of capital is coming from and paid very small dividends.

You've taken a different path here to pay more out of our shareholders.

Why have you done that?

So?

Woodside has always been a significant dividend payer.

The last twelve years, we've paid eighty percent of net profit after tax to our shareholders.

So once we started up the Pluto LNG project, we were at a point in time where we had a lot of cash flow coming in and we said, look, we've got to reward our shareholders who stuck through us in these very capital intensive construction phases that we were in.

Really impressively, we've been able to keep up those high returns in the capital intense period that we're in now, and we know our shareholders are counting on us to continue returning those dividends, our Australian dividends.

Love the Frankin credits that we return, We know that is highly valued and it's you know, it's inefficient for us to keep them, so we want to get them in the hands of the mums and dads who count on Woodside.

Okay, So it just also skes me that you are now one of the largest ordo gas companies in the world, energy companies in the world.

Why would it not be better for your company to be based in the United States with a regulatory environment, the capital markets are richer, All of these things seem to favor your company as compared with Australia.

Why stay here.

Look, we're a probably the Australian company.

You know, this is where we were born in the town of Woodside a little bit more than seventy years ago.

We've built our business in Western Australia, have a material business in the Gippsland as well, so this is home for us.

That said, we're still able to access those great opportunities in the US.

So some of our significant growth opportunities are investments in the US.

We're able to access the capital market.

We have great access to the bond market.

We raised three and a half billion dollars in the US bond market earlier this year.

So the fact that we're Australian listed isn't an impediment from taking advantage of all those things that the US offers today.

Okay, so the US offers all of those advantages, but there is even the regular the raising issues about whether Australia's capital markets are competitive enough, whether the technology is kept up.

All of these things would otherwise be obstacles to businesses such as yours remaining an Australian listed company.

Well, again, we've got such a strong Australia shareholder base, We've got a lot of our revenue right now as seventy five percent Australian, and even as our business transforms, Australia will still be an important part of.

The market for US.

So again we can get all the good things out of the US whilst remaining a sex listed.

Okay, so then tell me about the Australian regular tre scheme.

For an energy company such as yours.

It's been notoriously slow to grant you approvals for the extension of the Northwest Shelf of even Scarborough Brows in particular, is a field that really is still waiting to be developed.

Is there a danger that Australia leaves valuable hydrocarbons in the ground because government's just simply not fast enough or a studentough to be able to develop them.

Well, we've been really clear about a couple of things.

One is the importance of gas in the energy system, both in Australia and the importance of Australian gas for our customer nations abroad as they think about energy security, national security and decarbonization.

Today we talked about the role that energy could play to help displace coal in the world's power generation mix.

So gas is needed.

I think we've been moving the needle on people understanding that gas will be important in Australia.

If we think about how to decarbonize Australia, we need to get rid of the brown coal and replacing it with renewables and gas is the low emissions way to do that.

That keeps the lights on for everybody.

So I think we're starting to make headway.

But that said, the regulatory environment continues to be very challenging.

Northwest Shelf life extension.

We're very pleased to get that approval, but there's been challenges along the way.

We're in court on multiple related to some of the developments we want to progress, including Northwest Shelf.

Our message to government is we've just got to speed things up.

It's too difficult to invest here.

Okay, so it's too difficult to invest here.

That's not a message any government would like to hear.

I would imagine and other places that you have investments in Africa, in the United States, in Mexico.

You know, even in Korea you're doing some work as well.

These environments, these jurisdictions seem to be more welcoming of your capital, of your presence.

Look, everywhere we go, the governments want to ensure that a company like ourselves is doing the right things.

That we're paying taxes, that we're investing in community, that we're creating jobs.

We've done all of those things for forty plus years here in Australia.

We're doing those things now in places like Mexico and Louisiana.

We would love to continue doing that in Australia we are with the Scarborough Project.

We'd love to do that with brows.

But again, you know, governments will make choices, they'll make policy see choices about where they want their nations to head.

Perhaps the encouragement for.

The government here is if we think about things like critical mineral processing, you know, reindustrialization of Australia, all of that requires energy, and all of that is going to require natural gas.

You've got to have natural gas to have the heat required.

To process Artificial intelligence, is the obvious one to talk.

About artificial intelligence.

Yes, So.

You know, if we're going to unleash the technology capability and the potential that this nation has, we've got to be able to have that sovereign AI capability, all of which requires power at large scale.

So you're already building one ammonia plant, one large ammonia plant, which is fairly close to being completed.

So is it tempting for a business such as yours to do more of that to add value to your gas so you can actually send it as gas through a pipeline, create LNG and ship it around the world, or create products including ammonia and hydrogen.

Because that seems you brought up the value chat and serve as your product, doesn't it.

Sure, So we've spent a lot of time on what we call our new Energy strategy, where we've looked at what are alternative molecules that have lower carbon intensity when our customer uses them, and hydrogen and ammonia fit in that space.

So whilst amonia has many uses today fertilizer explosives, the opportunity we're pursuing is the use of ammonia for energy, either in power generation or marine transportation.

There are some good positive policy signals out of places like Europe as well as Japan, Korea, Singapore, but we need to make sure that we're disciplined with our investment dollars, and the markets for lower carbon ammonia are moving a little bit more slowly than some of those nations would have.

Suggested a few years ago.

So we're laser like focused on demonstrating value from this Beaumont New Ammonia project that we acquired last year, making sure that we've got high quality customers when we've got that low carbon ammonia to sell, and we'll be very disciplined before we start further expansion.

In that space.

So just take me finally to Best Straight and I want to go in terms of you acquiring the interesting past straight where Woodside first look for oil and gas that now because of the deal you've done with x On Mobile, you get control of it.

You can start to explore again.

Is there much guess left there?

Yeah, So we're very excited about bows Straight through the HP Petroleum merger.

We have that fifty percent stake and one of the things that we've seen and our team that's been working at has seen, is that there are some opportunities to squeeze a bit more gas through that asset.

So when we negotiated the agreement with Exon Mobil, we said, look, we've got to have a joint venture agreement that allows us to pursue those opportunities even if Exon Mobil isn't as interested.

So is this guest that's known to be there?

Is this gas?

So there's about two hundred pedadules of gas that has been discovered, just not developed.

So we're excited about.

Those opportunities, and I'm really excited about the x on Mobile team coming across.

So we'll take a operatorship next year and about six hundred people will come join the Woodside team.

I know they've got things up their sleeve.

I know they've got opportunities, and so we look forward to having the new team on board to squeeze maximum value out of this outset that we can.

Okay, so I seem to remember that Bastrait was due to run out early twenty thirties, twenty thirty two, something of that nature.

How long do you imagine with these extra resources you can keep Bass straight running and keep the gas going into Victoria vide along for plant.

Yeah, look, I have to give you a date once we get our hands on the tiller, but cautiously optimistic, as I said, two hundred pedadules in the four known opportunities, and then we'll see what the team is able to unlock by hard work, engineering know how and that creativity.

So you've developed this story, the narrative about Woodside and its future.

Does it sometimes disappoint you that politicians and do others in Australia don't understand that story well enough?

Well, look I think there's an opportunity for us to make sure that we are effectively telling our story.

And you know, hopefully you've seen some of the ads that we've been running talking about the role of natural gas in the power sector, in the manufacturing sector.

You know, we sell natural gas to minors, to mineral processors, to smelters, you know, all those sorts of businesses that need our product to be profitable in their own in their own spaces.

So we're spending a lot of time on this communication journey to again help politicians in the ordinary citizen understand why natural gas is so important.

Meygarnil, always good to chat to you, many things for your time, Thank you.

After the bright more companies are choosing to remain private rather than listing on the public markets with the extra disclosure obligations.

The A six is also under investigation by a corporate calpaccy.

So we speak with the boss of an alternative exchange that's created to market for chase in private companies.

It's great to have your company here on business weekend.

Well.

The decision by the Chicago based derivatives network CEBOW to sell its Australian stock exchange is a genuine blow for the corporate regulator ASSEK, which is trying to improve competition in Australia's listings market after a series of embarrassing blunders by the local stock exchange operator.

The AX.

Since launching back in twenty eleven under the brand name chai x Cebo now holds around twenty percent of market share in Australia's equity trading.

Earlier this week, the ASSEX jair Joe Longo spoke at the Press Club in Canberra, where he discussed the rise of private credit and private markets here in Australia.

The clear point is that businesses are choosing to stay private for longer to avoid the arduous, continuous disclosure laws that ASX listed companies have to comply with.

But the trade shares in private companies, well there's another alternative.

The platform FCX is owned by Finclear and it's watching closely the brawl between the ASX CEBOW and the regulators.

Ed Boyd caught up with finn Pleaar's chief executive David Ferrell earlier this week.

Yeah, Ed, look a good question and I don't think it's worrying at all.

Look Ciebow and they're very clear in their announcement, have a clear strategy for leveraging their core businesses, and their core businesses are derivatives and futures markets in the US, and that's where they're focusing.

This was always a bit out of their comfort zone potentially, so I don't see it as being a surprise.

I don't really see it being wirrying.

It's actually a good business.

They've got to some critical mass twenty percent.

I see it as an opportunity for a bit of a refresh and for someone to come in and really provide competition to the ax.

It was previously owned by private equity.

Do you think are you hearing anything private equity might be interested.

Or look, I guess that's again a great question.

I don't know.

They're the obvious acquirer.

Probably would be another international exchange potentially.

Look, you know, Ciebo were never natural in terms of being a listing exchange because it's not really what they do globally.

Like I said, there are derivatives and futures exchange, and so listing companies was really never their their comfort zone.

But another international listing exchange would be probably the ultimate or the obvious owner.

Cebo did a lot of hard work.

They received approval from ACIK just last month.

It's now able to list companies.

They can now compete with the ASX.

You've been through the approvals process with a SIK as well over the past few years.

I mean, how strenuous and rigorous is that regulatory process.

Look, I'd say we had a pretty good experience with ACIK.

They took what we call a very proportionate approach to admitting us.

That being said, it was still long and still quite rigorous, and obviously CEBO have been through that same process as well.

One of our six goals is to improve competition in the markets.

Are they doing a good job?

Oh?

Look, I think you know, Joe gave a very a very good address yesterday at the National Press Club, and certainly they're trying.

When it comes to and I'll talk to my expertise equity markets, the limiting factor in Australia has always been that we're constrained to one big counterpart here, not just as an exchange, but as an infrastructure provider, a back end clearing and settlement provider.

You know, that's where the complexities lie, and not necessarily around competition at the front end because there are other exchanges, there is competition there already.

It's really the back end that needs to be focused on and not focusing on traditional clearing and settlement, but focusing on how technology can move into this space rather than taking a traditional approach.

So how do we encourage that?

Well, I mean, I quote Joe I think from yesterday, and if you don't mind, I just sort of just pick on what Joe said.

In the past, we've tended to talk about public and private markets as if they were totally separate.

But what our work is showing is convergence, a shift from public or private to a single concept, the concept of the market, a shift that will only accelerate with new technology.

Joe then went to go on and talk about tokenization of securities, atomic real time trading and settlement, and that's what we've been focused on very much with FCX over the previous years.

We are the first regulated market using tokenization of securities and back end real time settlement.

That is where competition comes in from alternate structures, I think, rather than thinking about traditional structures.

Joe also said the private credits now two hundred billion plus and private companies are staying private for longer.

Are you seeing that private business is staying private for longer periods of time with it?

Without a doubt.

One of the big dynamics is companies not wanting to go public and why don't they want to go public, Well, they become subject to continuous disclosure and the public scrutiny that comes with that.

Also got this dynamic in Australia where we have a single listing market essentially ASX, and if you're of a size and scale that gets into the ASX two hundred or three hundred, it can be a very good experience.

If you're not, and you're down the bottom end of the two thousand other odd companies, it cannot be a great experience.

And so what we have here is we're starting to see a bifurcation in markets where it's very good to list if you're at the top end to create liquidity and diverse shareholder base.

But if you're not getting to that size and scale, there's no other infrastructure, there's no market to support you.

And that's really what we're doing with FCX is trying to build a more fulsome ecosystem to take companies from early stage, mid stage through to a public listing on the AX or another public listing.

But at the moment Australia doesn't have a choice.

You either fit into that box or you don't fit at all.

Yeah, And as the asex's reputation has taken a few hits over the past five or six years, has that encouraged more businesses to go private?

I think it's encouraged businesses to remain private.

Look, there we come across very good businesses which surprise us the whole time.

We're talking about businesses that would be worth many billions of dollars, that would have revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars, very successful businesses that people have never heard about, and they have just remained or they have elected to stay private longer.

The missing piece here is infrastructure.

They have no infrastructure to sit on.

They have no mechanism for a liquidity event away from going to a public market.

So there's no doubt companies are electing to stay private longer.

The missing piece is having infrastructure and liquidity to give them a similar experience to listed companies.

Last time we spoke was about a year ago, shortly after you were granted a clearing and settlement license for FCX.

How's it been going over the past twelve months.

Yeah, look, it's it's been really good.

Ed.

We've managed a few transactions.

We had a market transaction back in July August September for Future Group Future Super we manage a secondary transaction for them on platform.

Went very well.

It was the first time that we used our market license and our settlement license in anger, if you want to think about it that way.

And we're very focused now on follow up transactions, but also specifically looking at the fund opportunity.

So we think in Australia there's a real opportunity for liquid assets, unlisted funds to have an opportunity to use our infrastructure.

And just finally, what is the outlook like at the moment for private investment and private business in Australia.

Is it a good time to be there?

So if you're an advisor and you're an investor and you're looking for opportunities, you really don't have too many choice other than start to look at private and so what we're doing in terms of allowing access into private markets and showing investment opportunities is we think very exciting.

David Ferrel, Chief Executive Inklear.

Great to talk to you.

Thanks ed, pleasure to be here.

And that's it for the program this Sunday.

Up next all the latest news right here on sky News.

Business Weekend returns next Sunday.

But of course you can keep up today with all the lattest business news with our daily program Business Now Full thirty pm Eastern Time, and also fire our website skynews dot com today you thanks for your company today.

I'm Ross Greenwood.

We'll see you next week.