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Speaker 1: Before we start today's podcast, we want to acknowledge the

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Speaker 1: horrific terrorist attack that took place in Bondai yesterday. We're

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Speaker 1: absolutely devastated to hear the news. Today's recap podcast pales

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Speaker 1: in significance to the events that took place yesterday. We're

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Speaker 1: sending our thoughts to all the victims, their families, the

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Speaker 1: Sydney Jewish community and everybody affected by this senseless attack.

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Speaker 2: This is what the flux.

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Speaker 1: I'm Brett and I'm Justin and it's Monday, the fifteenth

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Speaker 1: of December. We are very excited to be doing our

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Speaker 1: very first recap episode for twenty twenty five now be Man.

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Speaker 1: As you know, retail is one of the lifebloods of

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Speaker 1: the Australian economy, with employees, millions of ossies. It fills

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Speaker 1: our shopping centers and it gives us a real time

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Speaker 1: read on how confident people are with their money, and

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five gave us a heap to talk about.

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Speaker 1: So in this recap episode, we're taking you through the

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Speaker 1: three biggest retail stories of twenty twenty five in Australia.

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Speaker 1: What happened, why it mattered, and what it tells us

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Speaker 1: about where Ossie Retail is heading next.

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Speaker 2: Three generous stories today, Juzzy boys, let's do it for

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Speaker 2: our first. Chemist Warehouse officially launched on the ASX yesterday

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Speaker 2: as its mega merger with Sigma Healthcare went live.

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Speaker 1: Now it's time for investing. Why pay more for the

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Speaker 1: share price? So tell me what'll be man.

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Speaker 2: Well, juzzy boy. We all know Chemists Warehouse as the

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Speaker 2: pharmacy with ales tighter than compression socks.

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Speaker 1: And the jingle more catchy than hot Potato by the Wiggle.

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Speaker 2: But since its first store in two thousand, Chemist Warehouse

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Speaker 2: has grown to more than six hundred.

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Speaker 1: Stores and be Man or Chemists Warehouse announced its plans

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Speaker 1: to merge with Sigma Healthcare back in December twenty twenty three.

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Speaker 1: Yesterday was their hard launch.

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Speaker 2: And Chemists Warehouse sprinted from a private company to the

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Speaker 2: nineteenth largest on the as HOUSE.

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Speaker 1: We're talking to company worth around thirty two billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: Now, for some perspective here, Chemists Warehouse is valued more

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Speaker 2: than Colds and more than double of Quantus and be Man.

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Speaker 2: With so few big name companies listing on the ACEX lately,

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Speaker 2: there has been a heap of buyers that have been

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Speaker 2: sweeping in yep, and naturally a lot of sellers getting out,

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Speaker 2: in particular Man Chemist's Warehouse franchisees, who collectively were holding

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Speaker 2: more than a third of the company pre IPO. And

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Speaker 2: unlike the Chemists ware House founders, these franchisees shares those were.

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Speaker 1: Unescrowed, so they're making a rain at buster the nasal spray.

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Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 1: When a company goes public or mergers with another company,

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Speaker 1: shareholders are often required to hold onto their shares for

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Speaker 1: a set period of time.

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Speaker 2: Now. This is called escro and it's designed to prevent

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Speaker 2: a flood of shares hitting the market all.

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Speaker 1: At once, which could crash the share price.

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Speaker 2: For example, Jazzy Boy Chemist Warehouse co founders own forty

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Speaker 2: eight point three percent of the merged company.

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Speaker 1: So if they were to sell all their shares on

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Speaker 1: day one, it would be way more supply of shares

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Speaker 1: than demands.

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Speaker 2: Causing the share price to decline big time, not to

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Speaker 2: mention the fact that new investors would be less likely

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Speaker 2: to invest if they knew the founders were out on

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Speaker 2: day one.

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Speaker 1: On the other hand, THO. B. Man Chemist's Warehouse franchisees,

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Speaker 1: who earned about thirty seven and a half percent of

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Speaker 1: the company aren't under escrow terms.

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Speaker 2: And with so much interest in chemists ware house stock,

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Speaker 2: many franchisees have already jumped at the chance to cash in.

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Speaker 2: And while the sales of franchise shares has already begun,

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Speaker 2: we could see even more selling in the coming week.

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Speaker 2: For our second story, the Reject Shop is planning to

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Speaker 2: rebrand its stores into Dollarama stores as it pushes towards

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Speaker 2: becoming a super low priced retailer.

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Speaker 1: Wasn't it already kind of low priced? Hallou can you do?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Tell me what's going on here? So?

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Speaker 2: The Reject Shop started in Melbourne in nineteen eighty one

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Speaker 2: as a retailer that sold discontinued lines of products and

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Speaker 2: factory rejects, but over the years.

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Speaker 1: It's become a lot more than just rejects.

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Speaker 2: It sells everything from snacks to party hats, to health

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Speaker 2: foods and cleaning supplies.

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Speaker 1: But beman from late twenty thirteen to early twenty twenty five,

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Speaker 1: the Reject Shop's share price had plummeted more than eighty

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Speaker 1: three percent.

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Speaker 2: So in July this year, Dollarama announced his acquisition of

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Speaker 2: the Reject Shop for two hundred and fifty nine million dollars.

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Speaker 1: And be man, if you're wondering who Dollarama is, that

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Speaker 1: is the nearly fifty eight billion dollar Canadian discounting behavior

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Speaker 1: which has a nothing of a five dollar promise.

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Speaker 2: Yep, it literally has nothing in store over five bucks.

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Speaker 1: And now the Reject Shop's new corporate overlord has revealed

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Speaker 1: its plans for a full scale transformation of the Region shop.

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Speaker 1: The Reject Shop's iconic name will eventually disappear and it

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Speaker 1: will be replaced by Dollarama branding and the Dollarma crew

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Speaker 1: plant to double the Australian store count to seven hundred

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Speaker 1: by twenty thirty four.

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Speaker 2: They're also planning to leverage dollar Arma's massive supply chain

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Speaker 2: to flight Australian stores with ultra cheap products.

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Speaker 1: And they Man, they're certainly trying to disrupt the market

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Speaker 1: with some price leadership.

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Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 1: Price leadership is most commonly when a company uses lower

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Speaker 1: pricing to reshape an industry.

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Speaker 2: It forces competitors to either follow suit or risk losing

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Speaker 2: market share.

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Speaker 1: In Australia, we've seen Audi pull out the price leadership

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Speaker 1: against Coles and Rullies over the past two decades.

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Speaker 2: And of course they've seen Kmart do this to Big

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Speaker 2: W and ironically the reject shop too.

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Speaker 1: But now the region shop with its Dollarama Mite is

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Speaker 1: pulling out the unu reverse cards Kmart.

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Speaker 2: The danger for incumbents is that they can't always match

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Speaker 2: those prices without crushing their own margins. The goal for

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Speaker 2: Dollarma would be to push out weaker players from the market.

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Speaker 1: We know the Big W is already struggling after it's

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Speaker 1: thirty five million dollar loss for the last financial year.

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Speaker 2: So this price leadership is about res setting customer expectations

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Speaker 2: for what cheap actually looks like.

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Speaker 1: The real discount war has only just begun. Your move next,

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Speaker 1: km Us.

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Speaker 2: For our third and final story, Coles has seen it

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Speaker 2: chares jump eight percent after a big push in its

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Speaker 2: home brand products.

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Speaker 1: The little red quote going hard and performing well, so

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Speaker 1: tell me more so.

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Speaker 2: Cole's Group is the company that owns major Rossie supermarket

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Speaker 2: Giant Coals, as well.

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Speaker 1: As one thousand liquor stores across the country under the

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Speaker 1: liquor Land brand.

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Speaker 2: But joseiboit. We know that over the past twelve months,

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Speaker 2: Coals has made a big push to chase market leader

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Speaker 2: all leez.

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Speaker 1: Yep Coles is double down on its downdown campaigns as

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Speaker 1: well as its private label brand, and it was good

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Speaker 1: news for the big red.

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Speaker 2: Coals Group's sales lifted one point seven percent to forty

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Speaker 2: four point five billion, but be man.

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Speaker 1: It's group net profit actually dipped by three and a

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Speaker 1: half percent.

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Speaker 2: Okay, what were the main offenders?

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Speaker 1: Well, the earnings from liquorland fell.

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Speaker 2: And tobacco sales fell thirty percent because of the black

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Speaker 2: market tobacco trade.

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Speaker 1: Interesting the sin categories.

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Speaker 2: But Josie Boit hold up right there because on a

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Speaker 2: normalized basis, Coals Group sales were actually up three point

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Speaker 2: six percent and.

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Speaker 1: It's profits up two point four percent.

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Speaker 2: So what is the key learning here?

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Speaker 1: Not all financial years are created equal, especially in supermarkets

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Speaker 1: where some years stretch to fifty three weeks.

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Speaker 2: Yep. That is why Coles also reported their normalized financial

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Speaker 2: results to investors, and normalized results are well. Normalized figures

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Speaker 2: strip out unusual factors like an extra trading week to

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Speaker 2: give a clear review of a company's performance.

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Speaker 1: And this matters for retailers like Coals more than an

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Speaker 1: industry like financial services or banking.

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Speaker 2: And why is that?

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Speaker 1: Because retailers like supermarkets report results in weekly periods, so

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Speaker 1: an extra week means an extra seven days of supermarket sales.

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Speaker 1: It's basically like coals playing an extra round of footy

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Speaker 1: in the season.

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Speaker 2: YEP, the last time Coles reported on a fifty three

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Speaker 2: week basis was actually FO twenty four, but before.

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Speaker 1: That it was f OX nineteen, so it doesn't happen

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Speaker 1: too often.

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Speaker 2: That is why analysts look at normalized numbers, which strip

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Speaker 2: out that extra week to show true performance the coals.

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Speaker 1: Those numbers were strong enough to impress it the checkout

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Speaker 1: and the stock.

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Speaker 2: Market, and clearly it impressed investors enough because coal shares jumped.

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Speaker 1: A only all years had fifty three weeks for goals.

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Speaker 1: That's it for today. Botsdown our first recap episode on

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Speaker 1: the Biggest Australian retail stories of twenty twenty five. Join

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Speaker 1: us on Wednesday for a recap on the biggest tech

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Speaker 1: stories of twenty twenty five. Thanks for listening and we'll

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Speaker 1: see you on Wednesday.