Okay, Ben, what's your call? And are you seeing an entry point here?

We are.

We quite like AFG.

I think they reported a really strong result, both in the mortgage aggregation side of the business, which sort of prints steady recurring earnings, as well as the AFG securities lending business, which is the higher margin part of the business.

And they've grown that loan book quite strongly, which really underpins earnings into next year.

I think the market's pretty, as Steve said, just scared about the budget and what that means for the property market, as well as interest rate rises.

However, if we point to AFG's track record, they've actually been pretty conservative with the lending in that AFG securities business.

Ben, staying with you, what's your top conviction pick?

What's the difference? What are you seeing with BOSS?

Yeah, super interesting, Andrew.

I've been spending a bit of time on BOSS Energy recently, in fact.

I was reading a broken note this morning, which was in order of preference, liking Paladin, then Deep Yellow, then Next Gen, and they were all positive, and Boss was fourth and negative, saying better opportunities elsewhere.

However, this is why I'm so interested in it, because everyone hates the stock now.

The reason why Paladin and all those guys are up is because the Uranium price is going up and the Uranium fundamentals look broadly positive.

You've got all these new reactors being built out.

Often there isn't, I would avoid.

Ben, would you buy it?

Uh, no.

I think Woodside's probably a fine exposure, uh, to these higher energy prices, oil and gas prices.

Uh, but, and like, look, we've done reasonably well trading Karoon Energy as our preferred way to play, I suppose, the oil price.

Uh, gas prices in particular are going well with the Asian gas prices rocketing, and it also gives you a bit of a positive read through for coal prices, given thermal coal's substitutability with natural gas.

Uh, but the problem with Woodside that we continue to come back to is that they're mature assets, they're aging assets.

Uh, come 2032- That gas throughput from some of their processing facilities is gonna fall off a cliff, and the current dividend yield today won't be as well supported.

Uh, keen to hear your thoughts." So Ben, let's, uh, let's start with you.

How did it all start with you with motocross and riding and all

of that? Yeah, it's a bit of a funny one how it all kick-started off for me, because personally, in our family, there was no real interest in dirt bikes or anything throughout the line at all.

So growing up, between the ages of one and maybe five or so, there was not much to do with dirt bikes at all.

There was more cars and trucks and tractors and all the more regular things.

It wasn't until we outgrew the little house that we were living in in town, and my parents bought a property a bit out of town, and it happened to be sort of right across the street from Truman's place, or Truman's parents' place, and he had a bunch of, he had a dirt bike set up in his front yard, a freestyle motocross training facility in his front yard.

And we always sort of, we were always super young at the time.

My being, I think I was four.

You try to keep it calm? Yeah, no.

Mm

... like, I'll often come up, come, you know, we're talking about ideas and I'll present an idea to Luke and he says, "Oh yeah, interesting.

Look, where'd you get this idea from?" Um, and I've quickly learnt that the most powerful ideas are your own original ideas.

So if I can explain, "Oh, I sort of stumbled upon this, which led me down this path," which then knowing the people involved has become a good idea, um, then...

Whereas if I say, "Oh, I, I read off," I don't know, "Twitter" or "Fund manager X, Y, Z's monthly report that they're, they're in it for these reasons," well, I'm kind of last to know.

So-

Mm

... is that you can only create the right products and services if you really understand what's going on in, in the industry and how the competitive dynamics are.

Mm-hmm

... lobbed a lowball takeover bid at 17 cents, and then upped it in January to 21 cents.

Uh, and that's interesting because clearly this guy who's...

It's actually, Q Gold is a company controlled by, like, a mining billionaire, um, Chris Wallin, and he could clearly see the, the value there.

Uh, we'd kind of done a bit of digging to see what are the dynamics at play here? Why does he want...

Um, what does he want out of this deal? Is he gonna come back? Um, what's gonna happen now? Uh, then we kind of talk about management, what their incentives are, and this is the big one, the strategic, strategic review.

So yeah, the company, uh, Venus, uh, outlined that it was doing a r- strategic review at the end of January-

Mm-hmm

So did you, for his recommendation of him, he didn't just go and buy a standard one off the shelf for whoever you followed, Nubin Turma? And obviously Goose Green

up here is a lot different than the heavy lamb I'm forming.

So you don't know what herbs are going to grow, so I just whacked them away.

I had 29 in the first mix, 29 different species.

And chuck them all in.

And then when it's in, walk through.

Some of the seeds were ridiculously expensive.

What about you then, Ben? Are you putting the cows out a little bit later than your neighbours? Or because you're down in Cornwall and there's great growing conditions, actually, as soon as the land's travelable, you're out there anyway?

Okay.

So network is one.

Um, a lot of it's just trawling through particular situations.

So l- some of my, uh, best winners is kind of identifying optionality.

Uh, you know, I think back to something I made a bit of money out of of even pre-fund was buying company under takeover offer at $1.20, which I was confident was gonna go through.

It was trading at $1.18. Bought some shares in it, ended up getting a takeover bidding war.

Went up to $2, I think even higher.

Yeah

Mm

... we'd be thinking already about five ways that we can exit.

Um, you know, catalyst, trading update, takeover, capital return, dividend, all the usual stuff that we talk about as catalysts.

Um, but yeah, position sizing is also important, so you can't obviously buy huge position, make huge weights, uh, these tiny speculative companies.

Um, and you know, if you think about in 2025, our small cap fund had a, a really good year, and if you look at the, the attribution of that, a lot of it was due to those position sizing decisions we made.

So, um, yeah, a lot of our bigger weights were, were the, the primary contributors.

So yeah.

So-

Um, so could be an opportunity to look at, uh, Transurban as an alternative to, uh, Atlas Arteria.

Yeah, not kind of one of our, um, core picks, but yeah, if you're in- uh, if you're into your infrastructure and your dividend yield, uh, that dividend yield was creeping up to a quite an attractive level, and probably opportunistically, uh, the takeover is striking today.

So I suppose if you're there, it's probably a hold, wait and see how it plays out.

Uh, market thinks they might get above that threshold and, and a slightly higher offer kicking in.

So yeah, probably a hold, but not super interesting from our perspective.

But then, you know, share prices can still continue to go if they still keep winning contracts.

They certainly can.

Uh, I think the way we think about investing is you're not necessarily always, yeah, trimming your winners and, and adding to your losers, but yeah, trying to assess each thing, each stock on its own fundamental grounds.

Uh, and the thing with these contractors is, like it's a good exercise in thinking about cyclicality really because these contractors, be it the electrical contractors or even the, the mining services contractors, were super unloved, uh, just a couple of years ago.

So trading on super low multiples, everyone was, you know, you can't own these businesses 'cause they're too cyclical, was kind of the, the common messaging.

Uh, and then as soon as the market gets a bit of a whiff of a structural tailwind, then you get multiple expansion, plus you probably win a few contract and, and your earnings growth is, is up and to the right a- and everyone owns it.

So yeah, you can probably throw a blanket over these electrical contractors, be it a, a Southern Cross or a GenusPlus or a Ventia.

[laughs]

What happened?

happened?Well, um, I don't know.

Sometimes th- things are just a bit closer together than, uh, you're anticipating, and when you've got a little bit too much speed, uh, I don't know, you end up missing a feature or something like that, and you can't just, [laughs] uh, go with gravity at that point.

So do you, do you all get on, or is there a, a pretty tight group that you like to surround yourself with on tour?

Um, I'd say, uh, for the most part, everyone gets along pretty well.

But, uh, definitely end up surrounding myself more so with, uh, like, the crew from North America since-

What happened?

Well, um, I don't know.

Sometimes th- things are just a bit closer together than, uh, you're anticipating.

And when you've got a little bit too much speed, uh, I don't know, you end up missing a feature or something like that, and you kinda just, uh, go with gravity at that point.

How do you train for something like this? Is it just fair to say you look at a mountain, like S- Soho down there in, in Queenstown, and you go, "Look, I could probably come down that mountain"? Is that how you do it?

it?Um, I guess so.

I mean, I figure the more, the more time you spend on skis, then, uh, the better prepped you're gonna be, uh, going into these events, and you can kinda just-