Showing 1 to 30 of 30 results.
The impacts of interest rate changes on asset values are well understood by financial markets. Typically, for capital intensive assets such as real estate, the access and cost of capital are important contributors to future operating fundamentals.
Pilbara iron ore leads the global market for this in-demand resource. Watch this video with Head of Australian Equities Growth, Dushko Bajic, for an outlook for the iron ore trade.
2024 was a good year for global listed infrastructure. Strong earnings for energy midstream and a step-change in the earnings growth outlook for utilities helped the asset class to shrug off rising bond yields and political uncertainty.
Office real estate is undergoing a fundamental shift, while COVID-19 has accelerated a number of global real estate investment trends, including the continued growth and adoption of e-commerce and falling home ownership.
This year’s August 2024 reporting season has concluded with most ASX-listed companies disclosing their profit results and guidance for the 2025 financial year ahead.
This article was produced in partnership with First Sentier Investors. There were a number of positive earnings outcomes in FY24, but all eyes have been keenly focused on company outlook commentary, which generally held a more cautious tone in this year’s August reporting season.
First Sentier Investors’ David Wilson and Christian Guerra unpack why 2025 has opened to one of the most volatile reporting seasons in years.
While the wild swings in share, credit, currency, and commodity markets have garnered most of the attention in the months following the COVID-19 outbreak, cash markets in Australia have seen some highly unusual movements that demand further scrutiny.
COVID-19 has sent shockwaves through capital markets, and property securities have been no exception. The crisis has plunged the global economy into recession and has given rise to the remote work and learning thematic, while seemingly fasttracking the rise of e-commerce. These well documented trends have rightly called into question the long-term outlook of office buildings and shopping malls, among other types of real estate, which has seen some investment industry pundits subsequently question whether property securities is still a prudent place to gain liquid exposure to real assets. The answer is a profound ‘yes’. In this piece, we explore how the global property securities universe is much more than just office buildings and shopping malls, offering active investors a plethora of compelling investment opportunities in the current environment.
Global listed infrastructure underperformed in 2023 owing to rising interest rates and a shift away from defensive assets. Relative valuations are now at compelling levels. Infrastructure assets are expected to see earnings growth in 2024 and beyond, aided by structural growth drivers.
In a recent episode of First Sentier Investors' Curious Podcast, David Wilson, Deputy Head of Australian Equities Growth, discusses the significant volatility observed during the February 2025 interim reporting season.
The global political economy is rapidly evolving. The rules, norms and institutions that govern interactions between nation states are being upended, and the nature of capitalism is changing again. Having evolved in the past from laissez‑faire to Keynesianism to free market neoliberalism, it is now turning to nationalism with more state intervention.
The outlook for the global economy and financial markets looks more uncertain today than it has for a long time. Both interest rates and inflation have risen sharply. There is a growing consensus that much of the world will shortly be experiencing slowing economic growth.
The debate over the importance of intangible assets continues, in academia and in the market. Parts of the investment community dispute the inclusion of intangible assets in a company’s asset base, claiming that the definition of intangibles is too restrictive or perhaps not restrictive enough.
Head of Global Property Securities Stephen Hayes: Global city populations continue to grow, driven by urbanisation. The provision of housing for growing populations is a major challenge for many countries and cities. Adequate housing is a factor that influences a city’s mobility of labour, social wellbeing and commerce levels. Government housing policies are typically viewed holistically with policies covering social, private and rental housing. New supply is not always efficient and can be problematic particularly in densely populated cities.
The Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has seen most financial assets sell-off across the board, including securities in the traditionally defensive listed property sector, as investors grapple with how the drastic government and central bank responses to the crisis will augur for property landlords in the shorter term.
The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is affecting ever expanding fields of human activity. And the way we invest is no exception. It’s never been more timely for investors, advisors and investment managers to take deep stock of the impacts, real and potential, of AI, so we can better prepare to manage them – whether by leveraging opportunities, managing new risks or, more likely, both.
We are entering a new era. The year 2024 will be unpredictable and clouded by many uncertainties. It will be marked by geopolitical risks, the ongoing taming of the inflation beast, and how the US Presidential election will impact markets.
We recently spent a couple of weeks in the US and Canada, meeting with management teams from the railroads, utilities and energy midstream sectors, as well as with regulators. Below are some of our findings. We hope you find them interesting.
The world is on the cusp of a revolution in low-carbon technologies, and they are set to reshape many of our supply chains. The not-so-humble battery sits at the heart of this shift: the growth of electric vehicles (EVs), and renewable power generation/storage, will increase demand for a range of raw materials. It’s estimated that the global EV stock will reach 245 million vehicles by 2030 – more than 30 times above today’s level . Installed wind capacity is expected to rise almost fourfold in the same period, from around 700 gigawatts today, to around 2000 gigawatts in 2030 . However, a rapid ramp-up of such technologies will require a concurrent increase in the materials used in them. Significant investments in mining and technology will be required to meet the needs of the burgeoning battery market. This article outlines the key materials required for battery production, and their related investment opportunities.
Despite straddling two of the most disrupted years in living memory, the FY20-21 reporting season was overall very positive. In our analysis, around one-third of companies [that we cover] surprised us on the upside, around one-third delivered in line with expectation, and one-third were below expectation. Our investment approach focuses on selecting companies with strong return on equity and return on invested capital, and these companies delivered superior returns overall. We actually saw EPS grow by 26% over the previous corresponding period, and expect a further 20% growth in the financial year ahead. Put simply, investors in quality stocks were rewarded by strong performance through the reporting season. We were also pleased to see that overall, Australian companies have strong cashflow and balance sheets.
Last quarter I visited infrastructure companies in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. The trip included visits to ten corporate head offices and three site tours. This paper seeks to share some of the key findings from my meetings with Japanese passenger rail and utility companies.
Global listed infrastructure companies outperformed both global equities and bonds in 2022. We believe the financial and economic factors contributing to this outperformance may remain in play in 2023.
2024 was a year marked by global inflation and economic growth concerns against a backdrop of worldwide elections. As we head into 2025, volatility will remain an enduring constant.
We recently spent several weeks in the US visiting listed infrastructure management teams, regulators, politicians, industry associations and conducting asset tours. The following paper provides an overview of our findings.
After decades of flat electricity demand for US utilities, the industry is now seeing unprecedented demand as growth in data centers / AI, electrification, onshoring and electric vehicles outweighs energy efficiency gains. One utility executive stated: “Seeing all these customers wanting 24/7 load and willing to pay for it – it is every utility’s dream”.
In September 2023, I met more than 30 global listed infrastructure companies and stakeholders from the UK, Europe and China. The following travel diary summarises my impressions and findings from these meetings.
Corporate culture is a powerful dynamic in a company. It is the set of beliefs and attitudes about the way things are done, and so is a key component of many corporate functions.
This paper outlines the responsible investing approach adopted by various First Sentier Investors investment teams across the globe. It involves a holistic way of thinking that addresses multiple impacts across multiple environmental, social and governance (ESG) measures. We believe it can lead to better long‑term financial and sustainability outcomes, across more measures, than more traditional frameworks.
Insulation from the effects of inflation is a key objective for many investors and global listed infrastructure has delivered returns in excess of inflation over the long term. But passively investing in this asset class does not guarantee a hedge to inflation
 |  |
|---|