We're here today to discuss how labor rights and other social and environmental issues impact
on supply chains in Asia and how these supply chain issues can affect companies and even
entire industries around the world.
From the human tragedies of situations like the factory collapse and deaths of hundreds
and I think thousands of people run a plaza in Bangladesh, to concerns over living wages
in factories as opposed to a minimum wage, to the ways in which governments such as
China manage water scarcity issues in regards to manufacturing sectors, environmental, social
and government issues can impact on the efficiency and the quality of supply chains as well as
impact on the reputations of companies that source their products and materials from factories
all over the world.
Labor rights issues are also hardly out of the headlines these days.
Yesterday, I don't know if anybody saw in the FIN review, but Andrew Forrest made a public
call for Australia to implement its own legislative version of the UK Modern Slavery Act which
would have legislative and regulatory impacts on how Australian companies do business around
the world.
Similarly, environmental issues will continue to impact on supply chains as well.
So from an investment perspective, human rights and environmental risks can be seen as a proxy
for corporate governance because the way the companies manage these risks of these issues
can also be an indication of overall company governance management.
Right, so before we get to our progression, I just want to set the scene and also talk
about my latest China trip.
And so as an EST or environmental, social and government analyst, I researched a number
of topics I think in terms of companies' earnings and annual sustainability.
The research also helps us to form a view on the quality of management in the companies
we invest in.
And labor rights and supply chain rich management have won such an area.
An area I've focused quite heavily on personally in the last couple of years.
I've been to China a few times and also Bangladesh on a field trip and it seems to run a plaza,
building collapse in Bangladesh where over 1100 people died.
I think it's fair to say that's been more and more of an investor interest in this area.
But with most of the supply chain located in South East Asia, it can be hard for us
investors to assess the risk, which is why I think going on a field trip can be very
insightful.
So about a month ago I went to Guangzhou in China to check out the latest developments
there and I came away with the conclusion that the whole fast fashion industry is actually
facing some serious challenges going forward.
But before we talk about labor rights and isolation, I think it's good to see the full
picture first.
So the five key points for me in terms of our China trip were the following.
So first, China is getting serious about tackling its environmental issues.
The textiles industry in China is very water-intensive, it's also mainly polluted, but it's facing
tough environment at levels from there for costs that may have been passed on to the
next level of supply chain.
And second, China's government doesn't see governments and textiles as a strategic
growth area going forward.
The textiles industry competes with food production and also energy production for
scarce water resources, and I think the textiles industry will likely be called the shortest
draw on that one, meaning it will be more expensive and more difficult to produce textiles
in China going forward.
And third, I think this can have some serious impacts on the global government industry
because China is a major exporter of fabric to the rest of the world, but the problem
is no other country really has the capacity today to replicate China's supply chain.
And fourth, the risk of labour rights issues in China seem to be on the rise again.
So with the production and learning to other parts of Southeast Asia too, where labour
rights are even worse, I think there's an increased risk of switch-up issues for brown
companies.
And then fifth, business models rely on underpaid workers, first the risk to long-term business
and sustainability.
So if you look at the IOL statistics, they estimate that there are about 21 million people
in forced labour around the world today.
Their child labour statistics says about 168 million children in child labour, about half
of which are in the worst forms of child labour.
So that includes things like human trafficking, but work that is incredibly hazardous to their
health and starts their development, prevents them from enjoying the lives that they want
all the kids to be able to enjoy.
And you take that step from those broad statistics of thinking about how do we intersect with
that?
So on their numbers, about two-thirds of the world's people in forced labour are in situations
of economic exploitation.
So it's usually commercial sexual exploitation that grabs their headlines and feeds a lot
of activists' interests.
But two-thirds of the people in forced labour in the world are strapped making the goods
and providing the services that people around the world get to enjoy and many of us get
to enjoy as well.
And when you think about child labour and Monza's alluded to this, the huge issues with child
labour, the biggest proportion of those children in child labour are in the agricultural sector.
There's not a significant amount of children in the mining industry, so about a million
children that work in incredibly hazardous conditions in mines, and then also a huge proportion
of kids working in factory work as well.
So you quickly realise that the point of intersection for most Australians when they come into contact
with exploitation and slavery, yes, it happens around us, and we've seen repeated cases
in the media about that happening, but it's usually through the stuff that we buy or companies
that we invest in.
That's where we intersect with the developing world, and that's where low institutional
capacity, huge vulnerability of people often drives huge risks in terms of slavery and
exploitation.
And it happens in our region, so more than half of the world's people in forced labour
are in the sort of Asia Pacific region, with a huge concentration in India and southern
sort of the subcontinent around there, but also across the Pacific as well.
So we in Australia are very much connected to this, and we've seen repeated cases of
how these goods make their way into our country, and we can say with fairly high degree of
certainty that most people, if you're not being very conscious about the way you invest
or the way you purchase, will be buying products made with exploited labour and slave labour.
So we've said, perhaps we'll later step in and say, okay, how do we try to do something
about this issue?
If you go back to the early 90s, the predominant mindset from most multinationalists was, this
isn't our problem.
Where you outsource production is our contractors' problem, so if you've got an issue with the
ethics of how workers are being treated, go take it up with them.
And then we know that there's really strong campaigning throughout that early 90s period,
particularly focused on the sweatshops of Nike, that started to shift the dialogue.
Increasingly companies started to say, okay, we've got to, I think it started out purely
as a reputation of risk, like Bill Nike, the CEO of Nike, after huge amounts of campaigning
and he said, yep, we got it wrong, but now we're making immense amounts.
So they recognized that it was a reputation of risk that pushed them to change their practices.
And now they've got codes of conduct in place and they've started looking at how their suppliers
are actually treating their workers.
So that's had varying results.
So we've heard that exploitation is on the rise in China, certainly wages remain an ongoing
and prevalent issues as most companies, what they're focused on, is how do they drive down
costs rather than how do they improve working conditions.
But there's also been some really big benefits from that sort of transactional, let's monitor
our suppliers, let's see what's going on, hasn't done a lot with working hours, hasn't
done a lot with wages, but where it has driven out the worst forms of exploitation is in
forced labor and child labor.
So it's now far less prevalent when you look at the first year of manufacturing that you
see huge risks when it comes to high prevalence of people in slavery or high prevalence of
child labor.
Now that still occurs, but where usually we see it far more predominant now is when there's
self-contracting that's being unmonitored, so it still sits outside the purview of companies.
Or when you're operating in remote regions where there's not a lot of access to those
reasons to build that connection to suppliers and have some visibility of what they operate
in.
But what that means is as we push through that first year of manufacturing, one of it's
just slipped down to the next tier.
So when you go, when moms had the supply chain diagram of all the different stages of production,
when you move from those final stages of manufacturing, which is what the industry is predominantly
focused on, to look at the spinning, weaving, dying areas of production, to look at the
systems.
made about Australia, you're obviously much more connected to the Asia Pacific region
than Europeans are, and I was in the US two weeks ago talking about sustainability.
And it's the way we, or the way these countries approach is pretty different from the way Australia
is sustainable. It's definitely more on the agenda in Australia than it is in the US.
It's becoming much more important in Europe too, with the UK, the stewardship code becoming more important.
But it's still, for many people, certainly if you're talking about labour rights and supply chain issues,
it's still far from a bad show for many in Europe and the US.
Now, if you look at how CANDUM, as Maureen actually explained, CANDUM stands for Conviction and Responsibility
and Asset Management, approach it before elaborating on the labour rights issue,
I would briefly take the time, if you allow me, I would briefly take the time to explain how we approach ESG.
CANDUM is actually an asset manager who was covering nearly all asset classes that were engaged in equity,
fixed income, even asset allocation, and currently managing about 20 billion under the broad ESG umbrella.
I'm probably researching board level understanding of these issues.
And so, people when you're talking about education, I suppose, for all of you,
do you feel you're actually accessing that level of the organisation when it comes to their decision making
of all issues in the supply chain? How's that going?
Yeah, I think, as you mentioned before, I think the Rana Plaza meeting collapse was really a catalyst for change.
So, in the aftermath of that, we've had some major conversations with both management of listed retailers
but also boards, and I think gradually there's been more and more interest in actually getting to know the details.
So, there's a broad spectrum. On the one hand, they have companies where they apparently service these things.
In other cases, you have boards where the chairman or other directors might actually be personally very involved in these issues.
So, I think it's a bit of a mix actually, but definitely, I think the Rana Plaza was that catalyst
that said it as well, sort of had to happen to bring that issue to the forefront.
I think it came up as one of the great examples of that. Guy Rosso was out in front of the media straight after saying,
we thought we had some of these issues covered, we had no idea how bad they were.
And because it was happening at that level, the executive level of the organisation,
they've gone from being one of the, in terms of our grading systems, one of the poorly graded companies to one of the best performers.
And that's because there has been that board level of engagement and executive level of engagement to improve systems.
And that's consistently what we find, that boards, when the boards are involved and when the executive are involved,
you get much better outcomes in terms of how they invest in this and progress these issues.
But the motivations for those groups being involved vary.
So, if a media story blows up enough time in the face of the executives, then they'll get concerned,
and then they'll want to get educated about these issues.
So, that's speaking from a campaign of perspective, I suppose it's different, a little bit different from the investor perspective.
But I'm sure it's the same risks to the brand reputation that allows these ESG conversations to open up when you're an investor coming in.
So, increasingly, because there's been so much attention on it here in Australia, we find that we are engaging at the executive level at least,
and occasionally at the board level as well.
And certainly in talking to sustainability managers, that's their big moment of opportunity.
When there's some kind of crisis, and there's got, you know, the investment stranded as it's,
that gives them the opportunity to engage with the board, which has got a pitty of a way that has to blow up.
Yeah, that's probably the biggest issue what we're trying to do is engage with companies and by explaining our process.
Certainly in Europe, I think in Europe sustainability has evolved quite a bit.
Been very popular in France for a very long time, UK coming on board now, Germany too,
legislation is different obviously in all these kind of countries, but we're still seeing that we still need to educate companies on why it is important,
because for many it still feels like the reputational risk is important, but that's one issue,
reputational risk, but for it's more like how it brings value to a company,
and there's still a lot of education that's needed from a corporate perspective, I think.
As an asset manager too, obviously we work with data, and companies are not used,
certainly if you talk about supply chains, they're not used to getting data from their suppliers, sub-suppliers, that's even a bigger issue.
So by engaging with these kind of companies, educating them on what is important,
they're kind of forced to, obviously kind of can't do it on their own, but if more and more investors are embarking on this mission,
I think companies gradually become convinced of the importance of ESG,
not only from a reputational perspective, because for me, reputational is one thing, but it's too negative,
because you're most often talking about the blow-up events, which are always very unfortunate,
and it's kind of a wake-up call for a company, for it's more like being anticipating, trying to anticipate
and trying to educate them on how to avoid these kind of reputational events.
Even, I imagine there's also an investor stake in engaging on these issues before they become crises.
Ms. Winston Churchill had said, you know, never let a good crisis go on exploited, I think, for paraphrasing.
But some of the issues that you raise, Mons, you know, the emphasis of textile in Made in China 2025,
in Soil 10, Water 10, Air 10, they're not crises yet, because we're not at 2025,
but these are slow-moving macro trends that could quickly become a crisis, but there's an opportunity to intervene.
Is there, how do you balance out that taking advantage of a good crisis,
versus saying these are big mega trends you can get ahead of now?
Yes, look, it's unfortunate that sometimes it takes a major catalyst event for change to occur.
I was speaking to retailers about the risk of doing business about foundation before the run-up last a billion clubs happened,
but once that happened, you suddenly had an anchor point which made that dialogue much easier.
In this case, I think, when I came back from my China trip, I wrote a paper on it,
I've also contacted a number of listed retailers, some of them have a dialogue with them quite soon, actually,
about what I see as the key issues going forward.
I think after run-up last a, there has been a lot of improvements, like Gershwin said as well,
companies becoming more and more focused on labour rights, particularly for the first tier suppliers,
and then gradually maybe on second and third tier as well.
But that's mainly been about labour rights.
There's not so much about the environmental issues, but I'm looking at it now and thinking,
a company that suddenly has a number of factories further down in the supply chain,
that gets shut down by the government in China, that's going to impact the lead times,
and also, of course, disruptions.
I think, often in this context, people talk about whether or not the company has a moral responsibility
to look after these issues in the supply chain.
But I would say, I wouldn't use that word, I would say they've got a vested interest in doing so,
because I think that can easily backfire, and the implications can be being in a short term or a long term.
It's kind of a dynamic field.
So in the past, China's had these issues for a long time,
but it's only now that they've really gotten serious about implementing that.
Water 10 is the key legislation in China.
In the past, there's been a little different government departments,
and they haven't really collaborated that well.
But now there's a new task force, so they're really clamping down on factories,
and quite a few factories have actually been shut down for environmental reasons,
and that can impact the whole global supply chain.
I wonder if you could each reflect a bit on our role as investors in poverty alleviation,
and particularly because all of us care about sustainability and investment
and one option is not to invest in troubled industries like fast fashion, for example.
Yeah, let's just leave it.
I wonder if you could talk a bit about our role there in poverty?
I'll start with one of the investors go first.
Do you want to start first on the question, in terms of what the role of the investor is?
In poverty alleviation specifically?
Obviously you have a role to play there.
For me, it's pretty simple. It's like allocating value along the supply chain.
It's very easy as society to...
The attitude of letting society feel the burden of your personal activities
is something that has been very prevalent in Europe and in the US,
and I think that value allocation along the supply chain is becoming more and more important.
It's probably more like a millennial stuff where we're much more conscious
about the impact we have in terms of our day-to-day activities,
and I do agree as an investor that we have a role to play there,
and again to educate and to engage with companies, for example,
to deal with poverty and to allocate value across a long supply chain.
When I think of living ways as a good example there, I think it's a very complex issue,
and it's also the links to child labour, because often one of the reasons why I find
children working in factories could be because their parents are not earning a living wage.
It often comes back to that issue to me.
When I went to Bangladesh, one factory owner said to me,
we've actually emancipated women in this country.
They used to get married before they turned 18, they live in the countryside,
and now they work in our factories and they earn their own income.
But then you look at it and you think,
well, if their income is not even covering their basic cost of living,
I'm not so sure they've actually been emancipated.
So it's a long journey, and also, because I know there's a big gap
between what many NGOs estimate as a living wage and what the current wage is,
if that moved overnight, that can also cause a shock effect.
So I know in Bangladesh, when they're raising minimum wage,
eventually after the Arana Plaza building collapsed,
anecdotally, when they speak to workers there was,
well, rents went up accordingly overnight as well,
so the workers weren't actually better off.
It's got pocketed by the landlords instead.
And if suddenly you raise minimum wage to minimum wage,
sorry, where the living wage is, in one industry,
other industries might look at that and say,
well, we're actually getting out of the pay as well.
So then you actually contribute into mass inflation in the country too.
So I think that shift has to be gradual.
But it's interesting to see a list of retailers actually lobbying governments,
that actually physically lobbying governments to raise minimum wage
in a country like Bangladesh, not because they want to be the good guys
or be the ethical company, but more because they're nervous about disruption.
So I think it's a very complex issue.
I don't think there's any easy answers,
but most importantly, I think it has to be a bit of a gradual shift
because it is a very tight equation in terms of competing on labour costs
in the cutting and sowing segment.
So if there's a major shift,
that can actually have negative side effects as well.
Just a pregnant related kind of question to that point.
I think we'll start the intersection of technology as well.
So if you move the wage to some sort of living wage,
it doesn't become more efficient for the company to use technology
instead to do some of the different kinds of industries.
And therefore, workers actually lose potential of lose their jobs.
Yeah.
Look, in China, there's more automation happening
and there's really kicking off
because labour costs have increased so rapidly
compared to, say, Myanmar and Bangladesh.
But then when you speak to China, it's factory owners that have moved
some of the factories down to other places.
They don't have the same level of automation there,
not just because labour is cheaper.
There's also practical things like reliability of electricity.
So in Myanmar, I'm at a factory there
where most things are just done by manual labour
because they can't rely on the electricity network.
But yeah, China might well need to automate more,
to actually become more efficient
and more financially competitive,
but that also has a side impact on workers.
When I went to the workers focus group meeting in China,
it was very clear that the workers were very aware
of what's happening in industry.
Many of them were not too concerned about...
The main priority was actually to change their skills
and up their skills
because they knew that government industry
is not going to be around forever.
It's up to myself to try to gain the skills
so I can get a job in a different industry.
Because it is very heavily reliant on money,
labour at the moment, but I think that's changing.
Sorry, you want to say something?
I was going to get back to the original question.
Interesting to talk about the technology as well.
I think that's a fascinating question to ponder
what is the investor's role in poverty alleviation.
Because immediately, I don't know the answer to that.
It was great hearing two investors on the panel talk about it.
Certainly these ESG issues become proxies of overall profitability
and they have potential benefits for poverty alleviation.
But I have very rarely heard investors come out and say,
we actually have a direct role to play.
This is part of why we exist to think about poverty alleviation.
Now, no doubt, as we've talked about,
the growth and the investment in the technology
helps with poverty alleviation.
There are instances where the companies that we're investing in
are actively working against poverty alleviation.
So just those natural competitive pressures that say,
if you go to Bangladesh, they'll say,
they don't want minimum wage to go up too high.
Because they know that will be a mass exodus
of supplies from their country into competing countries
and that will increase poverty.
And that happens because businesses that we're investing in say,
well, if it's too costly to produce, we will simply move.
Which is counterproductive to poverty alleviation.
And I don't know if investors sit on that fence and go,
actually, we think you should stay in Bangladesh
even though your costs are going up because it's alleviating poverty.
Or they say, no, move to the next cheaper source of production
and try to do it as ethically as you can.
So I feel like that's a philosophical question
that the investment industry needs to struggle with.
How much is ethics a primary goal alongside profitability?
Or is it just a secondary goal that you guys do
to achieve profitability
because we know that it's a good proxy sometimes
for increased profitability.
I would love it, of course, ethics to be front and center
into every vocation thinking of who they are and what they do.
But I don't think that's predominantly the way
a lot of industries operate.
Is there enough out there to constitute a code
of what best practice looks like at company level
in terms of looking at the supply chain issues
in a holistic and meaningful way?
And is there a best practice from the investor side as well?
So, Gresham, I might ask you,
because you mentioned the particular statistics
in the fashion report.
So I think best practice, and we've talked about this,
is a matter of setting some really firm principles in place
and then living by them and pursuing them strongly.
So Mons talked about the importance of being relational
rather than just transactional.
The businesses that do this best are relentlessly relational.
They work hard to build relationships
with their first tier of suppliers.
So they've got leverage and they can work out what's going on.
They've got visibility of what's happening with their workers.
And then you can get into the next tier and the next tier
and implement the things that they want to see happening,
including improved working conditions at each of those tiers.
So those are the businesses that I think have that principle embedded.
They know they've got a vision of what they want
their supply chain to look like and they go about pursuing it.
So you've got different levels of best practice
for different business models.
So the H&M and Zara is largely responsible
for kicking off the fast fashion industry.
So it shouldn't be let off the hook,
but also those at the front and now trying to make that
as sustainable as possible.
So they've got a lot of visibility over their first tier
and second tier.
They've got initiatives where they're working in the cotton industry
to dedicate cotton suppliers that are free from child labour
and that are more environmentally sustainable as well.
So they're moving very quickly in trying to work out
how do they make this fast fashion more sustainable.
Whether they can do it or not,
I think it'll be a big challenge as we've heard today.
But they've got some strong living wage initiatives,
so they're part of that ACT group that I talked about,
industry-wide collective bargaining.
They've got pilot programs to improve living wages.
So no one outside of some very niche, ethical companies
have got living wages happening across their supply chain,
but it's a big issue for the entire industry
that they're working on.
So the sorts of things that you would want to see there
would be good supplier relationships,
collective bargaining with other groups,
so working with other industries to either negotiate with government
and negotiate with the sector to improve wages
and having strict controls on their suppliers to go,
how do we make sure that wages are increasingly going up.
There's really innovative practices that we're seeing there.
So companies intentionally paying a premium
that goes into the work of welfare fund,
that the workers are allowed to choose what they do,
to make up the gap between the wages that they're being paid
and the living wage that's necessary.
Yeah, I mean, as an investor,
active ownership is a part of what we do in terms of
ESD research and integration.
One of the good things about going on a field trip
like targeted to Guangzhou is not just about getting insights
on what's happening on the ground,
but you can also learn about best practice.
And that's very powerful.
So when you come back from a trip,
it's a good conversation style with a retailer
and say, I've just come back from China,
these are the key issues I've seen,
but this is also what we would like companies
we invested to do.
So you can actually learn from those trips
because often you see the best factories.
No one's going to be invited to one of the dirtiest
factories with the worst labour rights issues.
They know you're coming, they're pre-announced factories.
But from those, you can actually pick up
what I think is best practice.
If you take it back a step, I think,
often some of those business benefits we talked about before
about whether it's a win-win situation,
they're only really possible when you have influence
and control over your supplies.
And maybe that should be the starting point
for many companies too,
that they don't do all the right things.
If you look at from a supplier's perspective,
you might be dealing with 10 or 15 different brands.
Why should I listen to you, I think,
or source and code if you only account
for 2% of the volume from our factory
and tomorrow you might be sourcing it from somewhere else?
So I think the keys to gain influence would be volume.
And by that I mean maybe consolidating supply chains
but also reward factories that comply.
So if a factory isn't proving,
well, from that perspective,
is that being rewarded over time with more business?
I think trust is the key issue.
Fortunately, that's what we've got to change.
And from the global perspective,
does collaboration cut down on some of the costs of engagement
or costs of interrogating your supply chain?
Do you notice that?
Collaboration serves many purposes, obviously,
and that's one of the issues.
But for us it's more like Gerson said,
you try to leverage each capabilities
and obviously NGOs, media has role to play
other stakeholders like governments and investors.
And for us collaboration is also an issue of transparency
in terms of collecting data.
We have a big analyst team but still
to have a very balanced view from
environmental, social and governance perspective
on a company requires a lot of data, a lot of analysis.
So we're engaging not only with companies
but also with NGOs, with governments to get that data.
So collaboration is obviously very important.
I'm from the Australian Human Rights Commission
and I'm just wondering, as an investor,
where and how do you keep the line
when you invest in companies to be covered
with human rights issues?
Why do you draw the line?
For us it's simple, we draw the line
if they don't respect human rights,
labor rights based on what we call
the United Nations global compact standards,
if they don't respect, if they are badly scored
on our employees and supplier criteria,
we don't invest, very simple.
We're not allowed to invest actually.
Probably what's, it is changing obviously
but what sets us a little bit apart
our philosophy is that our portfolio managers
are not allowed to invest even if they're
from purely financial perspective.
We love a company or think it's a good company.
If we think that our major labor issues
or supply chain issues, we're not allowed to invest.
So that's why we draw the line.
I know from an investor perspective
in terms of integrating sustainability
into the investment process, there's a lot of leeway
that is allowed to portfolio managers
and there's certainly a lot of greenwashing going on
in our industry that we have to admit, unfortunately.
But from a company perspective,
for us it's very clear actually
we have very specific evaluation framework
on human rights and labor rights
and if you have a breach, a severe breach
or multiple small breaches or your policy
or your strategy doesn't comply
with what we think is the highest standard
in terms of labor rights and human rights
we will not invest in a company.
And adding to that, obviously,
and I agree with Malz and with Gershwin,
traceability and transparency is important
and transparency is sometimes even for companies
very complex and very difficult
because supply chain is very big and very long
and things get changed in many ways
but still we engage with companies, we require the data
and if they're unwilling to provide the data
it won't be part of our final best in class universe
so we go that far actually, if they don't provide the data
if it's important for us and they don't provide the data
it won't be part of our universe or investable universe.
Yeah, I mean, from our perspective,
a lot of the factors go into that investment decision making process
we don't have the sort of hard and fast rules
as we've described
but there's a lot of factors that go into that decision
if we have serious ESG concerns, whatever that might be
we might decide not to invest in that company
if we already hold the company it's a different story
then it comes down to the question, well,
do you divest because of that
or do you think you can actually have a more impact
by engaging with a company?
In my experience, I think if you hold a company
and suddenly there is a major issue
I think you have leverage as an investor
to engage with a company on that issue
so yeah, it always depends on case by case
but if there is an issue where you think
the company could improve that performance
and actually solve some of these issues
I think we're better off engaging with that company
that's my perspective on it
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that
Engaging and having impact is probably first very important stuff
but if you take a worldwide perspective
it takes many forms and many industries
and it's not always easy to have impact
obviously engage, try to get the data
but having that direct impact is not always easy
and collaboration in that regard is obviously very, very important
and also in Australia we have a fairly limited
investable universe
that's the benefit of that being global
where you can actually say here's a cutoff
companies below this line are not going to touch
in Australia you have to be a little bit more pragmatic
and I think that's why engagement should be really important
for all of the Australian investors I think
Australian investors are more often in the position
of being the universal owner
I feel like we could keep on going for hours on this
and talk about all the other areas we haven't gotten to
but unfortunately our time here is close
so I'd like to take the opportunity to thank
Maans, Kraus and Sweeney, Gorschen, Nimboko
and Wim van Heester for their participation on this
and thank you very much for your audience participation as well.
Thank you.
