Anthony Macdonald

Sydney

Chanticleer Columnist (No.2), Podcast Host at Australian Financial Review

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Articles

Australian manufacturing will die without cheaper energy, Dyno fertiliser deal shows.

3 days ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

May 12, 2025 – 2.56pm or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fifteen years of weak energy policy is killing off what’s left of Australia’s industrial manufacturers. If it can be shipped and there’s a liquid global market, it will not be made on Australia’s east coast. Gas prices have killed it. Loading... Anthony Macdonald is a Chanticleer columnist.
Why bears have a hard time defeating the market

3 days ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

May 12, 2025 – 9.00am or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Equity markets have gone a bit haywire. The momentum trade was supposed to be over – it isn’t. Loading... Anthony Macdonald is a Chanticleer columnist. He is a former Street Talk co-editor and has 10 years' experience as a business journalist and worked at PwC, auditing and advising financial services companies.
A lot of Australian fund managers, not a lot of new ideas

6 days ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

Investment conferences are safe spaces for fund managers. They sit in rows, soak up company presentations, judge CEOs, ask questions anonymously via an app, get fed, drink free coffee and face absolutely no scrutiny from anyone. But what if you turn it around? What if you were Coles chief executive Leah Weckert or Wesfarmers’ Rob Scott? What does Australia’s institutional equities community look like in 2025? Loading...
It’s a wrap: Macquarie saves best for last at annual conference

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

Macquarie probably didn’t realise it, but it saved the best session of its annual conference in Sydney for last. Breville Group’s Jim Clayton trying to explain how Donald Trump’s tariffs on China impacted Chinese manufacturers, US retailers and middlemen like his company, was like someone trying to explain a unique game of chess. Loading...
Macquarie day two: Turnarounds charm, M&A, reading between the lines

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

May 7, 2025 – 6.20pm or Subscribe to save articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Ramsay Health Care’s Natalie Davis pulled the biggest crowd. Zip’s Cynthia Scott was the slickest presenter. Loading... Anthony Macdonald is a Chanticleer columnist.
Why the US’ influence on Australian business should worry us all

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

For all the talk from economists that Australia is immune or near immune to the US-China trade war and President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the experience inside Australia’s boardrooms is very different. Just like our financial markets, when the US sneezes, our boards and their management teams and investors all go cold. Uncertainty takes over, expansion or re-investment plans are delayed, and boards batten down the hatches and await more bullish times. Loading...
Day one at Macquarie: Comeback kids, tech bulls, retail’s key trend

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

Navy suits, few ties, coffee carts and as many bald heads as women – welcome to another year of Australia’s most powerful institutional equities powwow, the Macquarie Australia Conference. This year, the election, productivity and Donald Trump hung in the air, although chief executives came to talk about their fiefdoms and mostly stuck to the script on stage; little expansion plans, cost cuts, strategic tinkering, capital allocation and trading performance. Loading...
Australia’s lucky again but that comes at a price, Macquarie CEO warns

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

Australian companies have got it good. The United States is creating huge global change with its trade and national security policies, turning decades of economic and market convention on its head. But we’re the lucky country, and like during most financial crises of the past 30 years, we’re on the other side of the world muddling along and relatively sheltered. Loading...
Take the money and run: investors cash in on gold deals

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

For all the bullishness about gold, the price of gold and the price of gold miners’ shares, it is funny how even gold bugs can be willing sellers. Take $3.7 billion takeover target Gold Road Resources, a Perth mid-cap gold play whose claim to fame is a 50 per cent non-operating stake in the Gruyere gold project – an operating mine that has produced more than 1.5 million ounces in the past five years. Loading...
Westpac re-built its house on investors’ money. It must now use this better

1 week ago | afr.com | Anthony Macdonald

It was bold of Westpac Banking Corporation to bring up 2008. Chief executive Anthony Miller used his maiden result to remind shareholders just how much bigger, safer and better capitalised their bank was today than it used to be. The first numbers in his 114-page slide pack gave a then-and-now comparison of Westpac’s balance sheet. Loading...