Sam Lovrich

@felicitygerry Is this type of training provided to lawyers in Australia?

Delighted to moderate and be trained - learned a lot about FASD and about how little it is understood and responded to in criminal justice

@toy59496 You really should get invited to that dinner next year, clearly you’re a great dinner guest! Enjoyed your summary.

Business Summit Sydney So I spent the last 2 days at the AFR Business Summit in Sydney. I go each year just to make sure I have my finger on the pulse given I tend to work in isolation like Warren Buffett hiding in his office but perhaps not with the same results. I noticed this year I wasn't invited to the dinner so my star must have fallen relative to last year. I mean don't they know who I am?!! In any event there were some pretty interesting talks some of which I will itemize for people's interest, although much of it has already been described in the AFR... I should upfront give a special shout out to the Chanticleer guys who are without doubt the best interviewers in the room... Keep it up... 1. Ryan Stokes - this is the first time I've seen him talk, and I was surprised to discover that the man is a total gun. He had a good working understanding of finance, economics governance, productivity, and most importantly what makes a business both valuable and successful - he was definitely the smartest man in the room. I asked a question about Bluescope (thinking of you Jeremy @puppyeh1 ) and he was clear that a best and final offer means a best and final offer, which is impressive because it means he is conscious of protecting capital and not buying something at any price which might occur with an empire building executive that has no equity (no agency problem here). He was asked why he seeks acquisitions in public markets rather than private markets and the answer was an exercise in good sense in that he prefers transparency into generally efficient markets but with the occasional price dislocation for him to take advantage. You can tell he's not a fan of illiquid markets with poor information and uncertain valuations. So he was the surprise guest.... 2. Andrew Forrest - yes, Australia's richest man attended, and gave us some insights into the unit economics of clean energy. He claimed that even without considering the ESG component that if he wanted to create a source of energy for his company that clean energy requires half the capex of conventional sources of energy, and once it is set up, especially solar, there are no further input costs other than maintenance. It was a fascinating argument on the face of it and yet I'm not sure the audience was convinced when we are all confronting high energy costs. 3. Barnaby Joyce - his perspective on energy was a little different saying our sovereign energy advantage is coal and gas which we have squandered with the result that energy is incredibly expensive. He said people talk about the AI revolution but it's fantasy given the absence of water and energy to support that in Australia. He implied the liberals were doomed to purgatory unless they come up with some sort of preference swap arrangement with One Nation and I have to say I was convinced. Afterwards at lunch I had a chat with him because it seemed people weren't lining up to have that conversation, so I suspect it was a bit of a tough crowd. 4. David Solomon - so the head of Goldman Sachs was there in person which is a remarkable coup for the AFR. He was also interesting and made the thoughtful observation that even if inflation does rise, which you can kind of tell he expects, that at least from the point of view of Goldman Sachs it won't matter if their return on investment is even higher, say 3% higher than the inflation rate, so the nominal rate of return is still good. That's quite true for us financial types but is probably not very reassuring for those mugs on a fixed wage. It also reminded me of the Weimar Republic where stocks went wonderfully right up to the point that they did not...maybe they are all blind. Don't they read financial history? 5. Michele Bullock - the RBA governor talked to us yesterday and delicately tiptoed around the rampant fiscal stimulus by the government and the RBA's futile attempt to reign in the risk of inflation with basically their single lever of interest rates. She provided a laughable graph of modelling of future inflation predicted by the RBA which had an implausible envelope given the current fiscal bleed and recent history. She would have been better to simply give the standard deviation from the last 6 years or just say "I don't know". But it is important to remember that she has limited control over demand, and much less control over supply which is with Chump Chalmers. It reminded me of 2020 when I told Philip Lowe inflation would be rampant, but no no, it was going to be less than 2% because forward guidance provides cognitive feedback on the spending patterns of society. Sure it does... 6. Howard Marks - The legendary Oracle tuned in for a zoom conference and discussed the impact of AI on finance. Everyone should read his memos, I certainly do. He also pointed out that credit spreads are incredibly narrow given the volatility of the world and that there is no doubt that credit is being offered with weak or absent covenants which is typical of a late stage credit cycle before it all goes to hell. You can tell that oaktree is not being so cavalier with their credit. This was a point made by other guests as well. 7. Malcolm Turnbull - I was always a fan of Malcolm Turnbull, he was one of the few people that wrote to me in person before he became PM, and as usual he had some interesting insights. The key words he used was "sovereign exceptionalism" which means the US can go do what it damn well pleases, with the notable exception of bullying China who had a stranglehold on rare earths, he said that little event last year would have been a bit of an epiphany. You can see he laments the passing of a rule-based order, and like many people doesn't quite realise that it is has passed... I think "sovereign exceptionalism" is going to stay within the lexicon. 8. Danielle Wood - head of the productivity commission was there... Who did a great deal of good in her reports right up to the point where she thought it was sensible to tax cash flows... Bran Black of the business council, who didn't invite me to the BCA dinner (!), pushed back on that one. I don't think individuals like Danielle Woods or Chump Chalmers have actually run a business. 9. Catherine Livingstone, Chair, Pacific National - I'm going to mention this lady particularly as like Ryan Stokes she was a bit of a gun. She pointed out the saying "improve productivity" is like telling someone to "get healthy" , it's an endpoint, not an action plan. She said behind all of that there needs to be the structural changes to actually allow that increased productivity to occur, which is something basically said by Ryan as well. Someone I would have liked to hear more from, hint hint, AFR... 10. Ross McKewan - BHP chairman basically had the courage to pull the genie out of the bottle and say what the hell is going on with the NDIS?!! Some particularly insightful perspectives on that were made by a few others as well. We all know it's ridiculous, we all know society has developed a childlike dependency since Covid, and we all know it has to stop...before all us rich bastards move to Singapore. 11. Chris Lehane, Chief Global Affairs Officer, OpenAI - I'm going to mention him particularly because he pointed out that 50% of adult Australians are using ChatGPT regularly but only 5% are advanced agentic users. That gave me pause to think given I have a subscription to all the AIs... Was I in the 5%? It's also reminded me of Howard Marks who had to rewrite his memo because it was already out of date with only 3 months in the AI revolution. The pace is incredibly fast. 12. A few others were there, Shemara Wikramanayake, Matt Comyn, and Vanessa Hudson - all of whom had sensible things to say, and it's pretty impressive they are regular attenders. Shemara and Matt always make time and it's a testimony to their calibre that they do so. I still haven't figured out Vanessa Hudson, I'm not sure her gears are quite as smooth as the other two... But I may be negatively disposed as I wrote to her last year to question why a member of my family who has basically paid to build the Chairman's Lounge with so many flights is not a member. 12. The AFR - the hidden gem here is that the AFR actually puts this together every year, it's quite amazing, except for that dinner list that I was somehow missing from... I think the AFR is actually a sovereign asset in facilitating these connections. @FinancialReview @amacfirst @MrJThomson

@CroatiaWeek Amazing!

An extraordinary find in the Croatian city of Pula as 2,000-year-old marble masterpiece “Sleeping Cupid” is found... croatiaweek.com/2000-year-old-…

Interesting podcast conversation about AI and legal practice podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/gpt…

@Sophie__Torney Paying for parking by mobile app and credit card only can be alienating and disenfranching - cash is still legal tender and people should be entitled to use it. Let’s not follow councils like City of Yarra with using the PayStay app.

Tea with me (except it’s a chai latte!)

@NickJRishwain His hats get bigger

This guy looks 10x more Lebanese than I do and he also appears to be an Australian cowboy.

@DiegoAlcalaPR That’s fantastic Diego!

Celebrated two and a half years of sobriety yesterday. If I can do this, anyone can. ¡Pa’Lante!

@michaelcleland Get back to work!

#mushroomlady #ErinPatterson #verdictwatch

@DiegoAlcalaPR Happy birthday 🥳 Diego ✨ !

Late for the party but happy to announce that today it’s my birthday!!!! And like every year, I ask “what book I should read this year”. Love all!

@AnthonyODonne13 I refrained myself using that term

@SamLovrich I don't think Cardinals do WAGS — or not publicly, at least.

It's about time we televised the next papal conclave and make it a cliff hanger like the Brownlow count. You know, "Cardinal Bontempelli, 3 votes" etc.

@SunshineCity83 I see the cafe name - is this Rijeka? Looks beautiful!

@AIIWomen Sounds very worthy when we consider the data. I’ve just followed on LinkedIn as I’d not previously heard of this organisation!

We're a small team with a big agenda, encouraging #philanthropic corporate and community #leaders to apply a #genderlens to giving -to increase investment in women and girls and to help create a more inclusive society. Plse subscribe to our newsletter and follow us on LinkedIn.

Thrilling to have Alice Anderson - trailblazing entrepreneur and pioneer in the Australian automotive industry - featured so prominently in #IWD2025 events where her all-women’s Kew Garage still stands in the City of Boroondara! Alice deserves to be our 1st 👮🏻‍♀️ bronze statue!

Come along to this event to hear about Alice Anderson, Australia’s first female mechanic and owner of an all-womens garage in the 1920s. Her achievements were lost for several decades but we can learn so much today from Alice’s remarkable legacy! boroondara.vic.gov.au/events/female-…

@NickJRishwain Such a fantastic performance but Post no way as great as Kurt.

Really enjoyed this performance.

@c_s_wallace Thanks for sharing. Edmond’s reporting on Sayers and PWC is like governance catnip.

‘AFR Weekend can reveal that before he eventually clinched the top job, in 2012, Sayers was personally fined by PwC for behavioural breaches, and pre-emptively apologised to a group of female partners for unspecified past behaviour.’ afr.com/companies/prof… #auspol

@DiegoAlcalaPR That’s very interesting Diego. I hope to read it soon.

Just posted first co-authored paper, Legal Tech Abolition: using technology to free them all. Thanks to Dr. Michael Chou of Providence College for all your help. I'm intereted in your comments. Check it out: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

@theoryprinciple Congratulations Nicole and team. Looking forward to seeing what exciting projects lay ahead of your teams with this new partnership!

We are thrilled to finally have the word out about our acquisition by Factor! Combining forces with Factor allows our team to continue doing the great work we have been doing, while also expanding our AI work and our reach into the corporate in-house world lawnext.com/2025/02/manage…

@MrMichaelLucas I hope they made the cover of TV Week!

Although Rob and Noelene got married between seasons, we needed the wedding pics for set dressing. Costume of course nailed it, and the resulting shots are simply too good not to share. #TheNewsreader