Michael Simotas

Michael leads Consumer Equity Research with coverage of Retail, Food & Beverage and Petroleum Refiner/ Marketer stocks. Prior to this, he spent >12 years as an Equity Analyst at a bulge bracket investment bank, initially covering Healthcare and later covering Consumer where he was highly rated by institutional clients.

Consumer Discretionary

What We Are Known For

• >12 years experience covering discretionary retail
• Consistent top 3 ratings across key institutional surveys
• Solid track record of identifying turning points in the overall industry and individual companies.
• Deep and broad network of industry contacts
• Track record of successful counter-consensus stock recommendations based on detailed analysis and channel checks.

How I am Different

• FLT: Identified the balance sheet issue early – c. 2 months before an emergency equity issuance when much of the market was comfortable and the share price was high. Strong negative view that despite the demand recovery, profitability would remain poor due to margin pressures.
• MTS/HVN/NCK – We turned positive on Companies with exposure to the Housing cycle, alongside our Building Materials team, given turning rate cycle and expectation that a cyclical recovery should underpin sales & earnings growth.

Corporate & Strategic Access

• Miami Consumer Conference
• Nantucket Consumer Conference
• Asia Forum – Hong Kong
• Numerous expert calls, meetings & site visits (retailers, suppliers, landlords)

Consumer Staples

What I am Known For

• >12 years experience covering Australian Consumer Staples
• Consistent top 3 ratings across key institutional surveys.
• Solid track record of identifying turning points in the overall industry and individual companies.
• Deep and broad network of industry contacts and proprietary data across the value chain.

How I am Different

• Supermarkets: Proprietary 12 year time series of supermarket pricing which has a consistent track record of identifying turning points in inflation and pricing relativities.
• EDV: Only major broker to initiate coverage on the date of demerger and we maintained a non-consensus Buy rating at the time.
• WOW/COL: Fresh category analysis underpinned by consumer survey highlighting potential risk of share loss to greengrocers in addition to sales leakage to non-traditional channels in Personal & Household categories.

Corporate & Strategic Access

• Miami Consumer Conference
• Nantucket Consumer Conference
• Asia Forum – Hong Kong
• Numerous expert calls, meetings & site visits (wine distributors, wine competitors, supermarket operators, pub & gaming operators)

Energy (Oil & Gas)

What I am Known For

• Deep understanding of the Refining/Marketing industry and have covered Viva Energy since the IPO.
• A decade of experience covering retail, including the refiner/marketers’ retail partners which has facilitated stress testing of their retail strategies.
• Deep network of industry contacts.
• Regular, detailed analysis of publicly-available refining and retail margin drivers.

How I am Different

• Refiner Marketer Weekly – Real-time analysis of high frequency refining and retail margins (including for New Zealand) as well as industry volumes data.
• Minimum stockholding obligation (MSO) analysis – The first team to recognize and quantify the benefit from the competitive advantage provided
• VEA: Balance Sheet Deep Dive analysis – Identified VEA as significantly over-geared given generous covenants and accounting for leases held on balance sheet.

Corporate & Strategic Access

• Asia Forum – Hong Kong
• Numerous expert calls