Endeavour Group’s announcement that Executive Chairman, Ari Mervis, will step down naturally raises many questions. However, one question it helps answer is that near-term sales and earnings look like they are stabilising. The teleconference call made it clear that the strategy “refresh” is just the beginning. As a result, there could still be substantial change in Endeavour and earnings risk under new CEO Jayne Hrdlicka who starts in January 2026.

Woolworths has said that each of its businesses must “stand on its own two feet”. For Big W, perhaps it could be cut off at the knees at some point. While an exit is hard to execute, in some form, we expect it may occur over the next 18 months. For the retail industry it will be highly disruptive given the floor space needs to generate more sales and gross profit. A mix of other retailers could generate as much as $2.3 billion, or 50%, more in sales than the prevailing level.  While in the short-run, it may benefit a retailer like Kmart, the medium-term risk is all major retailers with geographic overlap lose some sales, namely Coles, Woolworths, Kmart and Target.

Treasury Wines reported FY24 EBITS of $658 million with organic growth of only 4% adjusted for acquisitions and currency. The result showed the importance of the DAOU acquisition to earnings and its increasing focus on the luxury wine segment. Earnings growth in FY25e will half come from the growth of DAOU and a further quarter from Penfolds price rises. The underlying business is likely to have limited growth outside these factors given pressure on wine demand under $15 per bottle.