Morgans Conversations

Cromwell Property Group is the subject of a proportional takeover offer from Singapore based ARA Group, another EGM seeking the appointment of two new directors and last week released its FY20 financial results. In this interview, Morgans Senior Advisor Ben Hatcher hosts Paul Weightman with a discussion on their FY20 results and how Cromwell directors are advising shareholders to act in relation to the proportion takeover offer and voting at the forthcoming EGM.

Today’s Morgans Conversations was with Skroo Turner, CEO of Flight Centre. Flight Centre has seen an unprecedented decline in Travel across the globe during 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic restrictions. Skroo talks about 2020, the swift actions they took quickly to ensure liquidity, the c$1b in refunds they processed, the reduction in costs as a business and the actions moving forward to allow Flight Centre to continue to grow in the future.

Morgans Adviser Chris Titley chats to Ian Olson , MD of Pointerra (ASX:3DP). Pointerra is involved with 3D datasets and operates across multiple verticals including energy, resources, sport and film/TV. Ian talks about the history of Pointerra and how it was created with the current CEO of Nearmap (ASX Code:NEA) , how they are different to NEA and others, as well as the recent placement to Bevan Slattery (NXT, MP1, SLC founder) of $2.5m.

Morgans Adviser Chris Titley chats with Jens Monsees, MD of WPP AUNZ (ASX:WPP). WPP provides marketing, content and communications services in Australia and internationally. Jens previously held roles at BMW and Google and talks about WPP’s offering here in Australia as well as the importance of digital transformation, particularly through the COVID-19 Pandemic. Jens also discusses what is unique about Australia and NZ when it comes to consumer trends, behaviours and innovation.

Morgans Adviser Chris Titley chats to Lindsay Partridge, MD of Brickworks (ASX: BKW). Lindsay talks about the history of the company, why he joined, the evolution and innovation of building products, the changing dynamic of property due to COVID-19 as well his views on the longevity of the business and their various business units.

Morgans Adviser, Chris Titley, chats with Michael Chetner, Head of Australia and Asia Pacific of Zoom Video Communications (ZM. NAS). Zoom was built in 2011, listed on the Nasdaq last year and has risen to prominence recently as a tool for personal and business use via video communications. The platform has seen roughly 30x the normal usage - now about 300 million daily ‘Zooms” compared to 10 million a day last year. Michael chats about why Zoom has exploded in growth, how they have handled the scale and the spotlight that goes with it, the feedback they have received from users as well as their plans for future functionality.

Morgans Adviser Chris Titley chats with Adam Brimo, co-founder and CEO of ASX Listed Openlearning Limited (ASX:OLL). Adam goes in to detail about why and how they built the business and how online education has been transformed on it’s head in recent months. He talks about the liquidity of online marketplaces and how to balance the content with the users that want to consume, as well the some traction they are seeing with the University sector. Adam also discusses how they have positioned the business to be global, as well as some advice for other business leaders.

In the latest Morgans Conversations Podcast episode, Chris Titley chats to Alex Waislitz from Thorney Investments. Thorney run two listed portfolios - Thorney Tech (TEK) and Thorney Opportunities (TOP). Both of these are trading at a material discount to NTA.

Alex discusses how Thorney was positioned in March and the subsequent months and sharemarket recovery, his views on the overall economy and the sharemarket, the performance of some of their stocks such as Afterpay, Zip, Mesoblast as well what he thinks of the future of work and the advancement of technological trends.

Disclosure: Interviewer owns shares in TEK (Thorney Technologies)

Morgans Adviser Chris Titley chats with EMVision CEO, Dr Ron Weinberger, about the progress the company is making with their medical imaging technology to assist with stroke diagnosis. Ron was previously Managing Director of Nanosonics (ASX:NAN) before taking up the recent CEO role at EMVision. The company is currently trialling their technology at the PA Hospital in Brisbane.

As part of the Morgans Conversations Podcast Series, Chris Titley caught up with Rene Sugo, CEO of MNF Group (ASX:MNF). Rene talks about the history of MNF dating back to 2002 when they saw a trend of VOIP and have built a business leveraging that market opportunity. Now in 2020, VOIP powers such things as Zoom, Skype and many remote teams. The company has seen enormous demand through this Covid-19 period and whilst 18 years old, they have plans for many more years of growth.