John Sevior on why businesses aren't investing (it's not interest rates)

Soft business capex data surprised the market yesterday with a chorus of commentators suggesting further rates cuts are now likely. John Sevior, Portfolio Manager at Airlie Funds, has shared his insights into what he believes is holding back expenditure from Australian companies. “The forces of destruction are at the strongest as they have ever been.” Sevior cites recent comments from Wesfarmers CEO Richard Goyder who says agile digital competitors and reduced barriers to entry are now making the risk reward proposition unacceptable. “we are happy to invest where the spread of possibilities is bad to okay’, but now for a whole range of factors it turns [out] that businesses can be destroyed by digital competitors, access to markets – the barriers to market access have become lower – and he said the spread now has gone from ‘bad to okay’ to ‘very good to disastrous.’ Click here to access the full article via The Insto Report (VIEW LINK)