“While it has been a gruelling six to 12 months in markets, with many winners and losers, the focus now is how companies will perform for the full financial year come June 30.

“Companies will soon provide an indication to the market of whether they will miss or beat their expectations, and what their outlook is for the next 12 months.

“The sense we are getting is that there is a lot of uncertainty. The waters are muddied,” he says.

With inflation targets still under pressure, Dale says consumer sentiment is somewhat resilient however he is expecting a shift, placing pressure on retail companies.

“While the consumer has been resilient, behaviour is starting to shift and we expect households will start to reallocate across categories rather than maintain overall expenditure.

“When you consider inflationary pressure – be it wages, energy, freight, and other general costs of doing business – you will see most companies communicate expectations of a more difficult outlook ahead, especially in the retail space.

“JB Hi-FI (ASX: JBH) will be insulated from these shifts, given its resilient business model and ability to move in and out of different categories. However other companies, particularly furniture providers like Nick Scali (ASX: NCK) and Temple & Webster (ASX: TPW), will face a more difficult outlook.

“Companies like Lovisa (ASX:LOV), may be a little more recession proof given the target market demographic of 15 to 25 year olds. The large supermarkets, such as Woolworths (ASX: WOW) and Coles (ASX: COL) also tend to be a safe haven for investors given their dependable defensive positions, even though they will see some cost pressures coming through.”

Regardless, he says, a more difficult outlook is expected by most companies.

“Defensive is the way to play it leading into the back half of the year.”

Dale adds opportunity also exists in other parts of the market.

“In the tech and AI space, we are confident about Megaport (ASX: MP1). It is making changes to its business through Latitude and has also recently completed a large capital raise. It is a company that is almost at the beginning of its next leg of growth.

“TechnologyOne (ASX: TNE) has also done well embracing AI into its business as it continues to grow.

“ResMed (ASX: RMD) is also a key pick in the healthcare sector. There are concerns around GLP-1s impacting demand for sleep apnoea products, but the company has around 90 per cent market share in this market. It has also beaten its earnings now for five consecutive times and continues to deliver margins that are outstanding. It’s an obvious one to invest in,” he says.

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Annabelle Miller

Companies with heavy assets and low obsolescence (HALO) are emerging as the next big investment theme, following the disruption caused by AI disruption in asset-light sectors, according to principal, investment at ECP Asset Management, Annabelle Miller.

“In recent years, asset-light companies such as software and services demonstrated the ability to generate revenue and accelerate growth without the need for physical assets and infrastructure.

“AI has proven it can easily disrupt companies built on intangible intellectual property particularly in the software space. But what AI cannot do is disrupt those businesses which monetise services through a scaled physical asset or piece of infrastructure. Think about pipelines, powerlines or businesses monetising large installed bases of equipment,” she says.

Miller says there are several sectors where ‘HALO’ opportunities exist, including logistics and salvage, industrial engineering, life sciences, semiconductors, material and mining and consumer staples.

“As AI continues to disrupt, there are companies which investors should consider that have low risk of AI replication or disruption and high barriers to entry. Furthermore, many of these businesses will benefit from integrating AI tools into their workflows to improve efficiency and productivity of their physical asset base.

“One example in the life sciences space is Sartorius Stedim Biotech (EPA: DIM). The company owns high-security and ultra regulated physical spaces in France and Korea where drugs are manufactured. The company itself doesn’t produce drugs, rather it partners with drug companies at the earliest stages of development to assist in the manufacturing process for an emerging drug molecule.

“From the earliest stages of clinical development all the way through to commercial production, Sartorius’ equipment and consumables are specified in the drug master file for each drug processed in its facility. These drug master files are approved by the relevant regulatory body embedding Sartorius in the manufacturing process and making switching almost impossible.

“This company too is resilient to AI as no matter how many drugs AI formulates, a facility is still needed for production of the physical drugs.”

In the semiconductor space Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TPE: 2330) is an example of a critical utility in the technology landscape. It has a monopoly in the manufacture and development of advanced semiconductors used for everything from smartphones to the next-generation AI data centres, says Miller.

“While semiconductor designs change, the need for a high end foundry does not. TSMC is entrenched in their customer’s product roadmaps, locking them into their physical manufacturing ecosystem.

“The TSMC ‘way’ is grounded in physics and chemistry, developed and refined over years, making it virtually impossible for competitors to replicate and is resilient to AI disruption. More likely we will see the company’s growth accelerate with the growth and expansion of AI.”

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It is times like these when investors are tempted to reposition portfolios quickly.

The outbreak of the conflict between the US-Israel and Iran has sparked further market volatility and ‘risk-off’ sentiment but reacting too quickly to geopolitical shocks can be counterproductive, according to Andrew Dale, partner at ECP Asset Management.

“Markets and investors alike despise uncertainty, which destabilises the market. However, there is no crystal-ball for investors to show the implications of this conflict over the long-term.

“It is times like these when investors are tempted to reposition portfolios quickly, sparking knee-jerk reactions and sell-offs. However, markets require time to process the ‘new information’.

“Long-term investors should remain disciplined and focused on sticking by their investment process and philosophy, rather than making rash decisions and rushing to investing now in energy companies because of the rising oil price,” he says.

Uncertainty in the market has been a feature for the past 12 months, which Dale says triggered the rotation out of growth stocks and into value, particularly for software-related companies coming under a lot of pressure from artificial intelligence (AI).

“This past year, investors have been questioning the valuation of many growth companies.

“During the first part of reporting season tech-heavy names were down 30 to 50 per cent, while higher quality growth names were down around 20 per cent. But by the second half of reporting season, we saw companies starting to deliver a reasonable result, providing a constructive outlook to re-enter some of those high-quality growth stories,” he says.

Dale says investors should lean toward defensible growth such as healthcare and industrials, as well as banks.

Within healthcare, Dale points out sleep-apnoea device manufacturer ResMed which has a defensible earnings stream. In banking, he says traditional banking stocks such as CBA are a good safe haven for investors.

“When economies are booming, investors look elsewhere but when there is a slowdown, banks tend to be a relatively good safe haven for investors.  This is especially true for the Australian market, where we are experiencing sticky inflation and a rate hiking trajectory.

“Companies like CBA will continue to provide a defensible position, but investors should not expect these companies to go up in double digits,” says Dale.

Other safe havens during market volatility include resources. Dale says investors should focus on the diversified play in resources.

“I think that once the market gets through this dislocation in the Middle East, companies like Rio and BHP will be the best way to play the resource rally,” says Dale.

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“A number of companies with a high proportion of their sales offshore will have entered reporting season forecasting revenue on the basis of the Australian dollar sitting at 65 to 67 US cents. With the dollar now above 70 US cents, this immediately translates to a 5 to 7 per cent downgrade.

“Going into reporting season, the general consensus was that there would be around 8 to 10 per cent growth in earnings across the board. But if you take resources companies out of the equation, which have performed well recently and have been bolstering those expectations, then the focus is on tech, industrials, healthcare and consumer focused companies. And these companies tend to be very vulnerable to currency movements because many of them are earning money offshore and translating back into Australian dollars. So it is likely that we will see some weakness coming through,” he says.

The first week of reporting season has already seen a high level of volatility in the market, further exacerbated by overseas markets which tend to drive sentiment in Australia. Dale says the volatility is unsurprising in light of the high price-to-earnings tech stocks and market commentary around the validity of AI in the technology sector, which has dominated markets globally.

“AI may not be totally transforming of every business, but it is certainly here to stay and will have a positive impact on productivity. If used correctly, AI will help to drive and grow earnings in the long term.

“But we’re still at the infancy stage with companies still focussed on how to leverage AI into improving productivity, and how to grow their overall earnings in their markets. That’s where the story is going to be,” said Dale.

Dale says Australian listed tech companies like WiseTech and Xero are expected to release reasonable results this season, despite a sell-off of these companies by those who think AI will reduce their total market share and opportunity.

“Companies like WiseTech and Xero have incredibly strong customer bases and they are operating in complex market; their solutions aren’t going to be replaced by AI. We believe there is a lot more room for growth for these companies, and the focus this reporting season will be on their ability to price, as well as their pricing power. Further weakness in the short term is possible, but their long-term growth story still holds.”

The healthcare sector is another area where Dale says investors should look for long term growth opportunities.

“The healthcare space has underperformed quite materially in recent months, but there are some great quality companies that still have good sales growth and earnings growth. For example ResMed and Cochlear both have very strong revenue growth, and the financials have come back into play,” he says.

In the resources sector, Dale says that those who haven’t yet invested in these companies have likely missed most of the upside.

“There is a lot of appetite amongst investors to get exposure to hard assets like lithium, iron ore and gold. The outlook for these resources remains strong, however for investors who are currently underweight in resources and are looking at investing to gain, the ship has probably already sailed, as the price for these resources is on the higher end,” he says.

Faced with another volatile reporting period, Dale says this could be the norm going forward.

“It has become somewhat of a common trend that reporting season is a period of high volatility. This shouldn’t be a surprise to investors, and should be expected going forward.

“Long-term investors should look beyond the short-term market noise and understand the fundamentals and competitive advantages of the companies they are invested in, and look for quality companies that can evolve and grow with the market,” says Dale.

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Jared Pohl

The most important asset that any funds management company has is usually their human capital. For most active fund managers, it’s the people that make the decisions about which companies to buy and if those people are to be successful, the appropriate culture needs to be in place.

The type of investment strategy you run, requires you to implement a specific type of culture.

Culture and strategy often work hand in hand, in that a fund manager’s strategic approach to managing money is likely to dictate its culture. How you build the culture and nurture it may, in turn, dictate how successful your strategy is.

It will also determine the people that you hire, and the structure of your teams.

Two ends of a spectrum

There are low skill high breadth strategies (HB), and high skill low breadth (LB) strategies. in the former you’re generally trying to capture statistical mispricings. In the latter, you’re trying to identify where the long term value of this company has not yet been realised.  The time horizon for each of these is very different.

HB strategies tend to focus on shorter-term investment horizons as mis-pricings usually correct themselves quicker than the LB strategies, where fundamental value needs to be created and realised, which doesn’t tend to show up in short term valuation multiples.

Each of these strategies requires a different team structure to be effective.

Considering portfolio management strategies on a spectrum, on one end there is the more hierarchical or vertical structure, where perhaps one or two key fund managers, supported by a team of analysts, are making the decisions about which companies to buy.

On the other end of the spectrum is a more collaborative approach, where all analysts are involved in discussions around potential companies to invest in and the underlying research of those companies.

These two different approaches will usually use different methods of incentivising employees which is likely to lead to different cultures within organisations.

In a flat structure you want to foster collaboration, teamwork and open dialogue which results in a collective remuneration approach. The culture for such a strategy needs to encourage ideas sharing with a focus on equality among analysts.

A flat structure can be better at mitigating confirmation bias among stock pickers. But for that to be the case the culture must facilitate discussion and collaboration, so all members get an equal say and the loudest voice in the room doesn’t drown out everyone else. It needs a respectful culture where everyone can present facts and debate them with each other, and it needs to be an environment where all employees feel psychologically safe enough to debate ideas and voice dissenting opinions.

This kind of culture doesn’t happen overnight, and an organisation’s management needs to have processes in place for collaboration to build and work. Trust is essential for a cooperative culture as all members of a team need to trust that their ideas will be heard and understood.

Team meetings and get-togethers obviously help with collaboration but so does showing vulnerability, especially by leaders, so everybody operates from a place of shared humanity.

Flat versus vertical

A flat structure like what we have at ECP Asset Management still has clear lines of accountability, and individuals that are responsible for certain areas of coverage. But the team also shares knowledge and information which then gets debated and refined. It is only once those discussions are had with the whole team that we move forward with a buying or selling a company.

Due to the nature of this process decisions to buy or sell companies take some time, and of course there is also the possibility that not everybody in the team is pulling their weight.

A hierarchical structure, in contrast, generally makes decisions much quicker as it is usually only the fund manager that determines whether to buy a stock. In those environments, you generally have a portfolio manager and then individual analysts that sit underneath with very defined roles. The investment analysts feed information and research to the portfolio manager, who makes the ultimate decision.

The hierarchical approach often comes with a star fund manager who are often extremely successful, but also, as recent high-profile controversies have shown, carry key person risk. The whole fund management company’s success is dependent on the fund manager’s star continuing to shine.

The culture in these organisations is not as cooperative and is usually more about everybody respecting and understanding their role is to support the main portfolio managers.

But there still needs to be appreciation of the role of all analysts even in a vertical culture as when analysts end up doing a significant portion of the work and are not being heard, or their views are not being represented in a portfolio, that leads to dissatisfaction and high turnover in teams.

And in a flat structure like ours, we recognise that it is equally important to be flexible, given the changing nature of markets, and to have independent oversight at a high level. Our board chair and chair of the investment committee, Manny Pohl, takes that role at ECP Asset Management and keeps the team on track.

The bottom line

Many of the star fund managers with a vertical approach to strategy have been very popular with investors who have benefited from their winning stock picking. It is also easy to follow a name, rather than a process you may not entirely understand.

However, a collaborative approach, supported by a collegiate culture, also has a lot to offer the investor if they can understand how cooperative decision making can overcome confirmation bias and lead to solid long-term outcomes.

By Jared Pohl, partner

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Mr Warton joined ECP in 2021 as principle, investments. Prior to ECP, he spent seven years at First Sentier Investors in a number of investment roles, including as a member of the Emerging Companies team in Sydney and the Global Infrastructure team in London.

ECP Asset Management founder, Dr Manny Pohl, says Mr Warton’s promotion reflects his excellent track record and commitment to delivering positive outcomes for clients.

“Justin has been an integral member of the team since he joined, and has made a significant contribution to ECP. Justin’s promotion to partner recognises that he has been a key driver of the business and will continue to be a part of the firm’s long-term success,” says Dr Pohl.

The ECP Global Growth Fund has recently been added to the HUB24 platform giving investors greater access to opportunities in global companies. It also celebrated its 5-year track record this month.

“The ECP Global Growth Fund’s investment strategy is grounded in the belief that the underlying economics of a business drive long-term investment returns. The portfolio is constructed from high quality franchises, with a sustainable competitive advantage and aims to deliver superior long-term performance,” says Dr Pohl.

“Our portfolio represents a collection of exceptional businesses operating across a range of industries and geographies, as well as up-and-down the market cap spectrum,” says Mr Warton.

“Pleasingly, over the course of the Fund’s life, we have demonstrated particular ability to deliver outperformance through the identification of high quality franchises in the smaller, off-benchmark, and more under-covered parts of the market, and have grown with them as shareholders. Cross-border money movement platform Wise PLC (AIM:WISE), tabletop gaming manufacturer Games Workshop (LSE:GAW), and digital advertising platform AppLovin Corp (NASDAQ:APP) are standout examples of this,” he says.

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Annabelle Miller

As Nvidia hits fresh record highs based on strong sales of its advanced computer chips, Annabelle Miller, principle, investments at ECP Asset Management, says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is the standout investment opportunity in artificial intelligence (AI) computing.

Nvidia recently announced a US$5 billion investment in Intel as a strategic move to allow it entry into the AI data centre market while supporting US government efforts to onshore computer chip production away from Asia. The collaboration combines Nvidia’s accelerated computer chips, or graphics processing units (GPUs) which power AI, with Intel’s central processing units (CPUs), which are the brains behind personal computers. For Intel, the investment essentially provides a much-needed infusion of capital, according to Ms Miller.

“This is not a foundry deal but rather just badly needed US$5 billion in cash for Intel. Intel’s real issue is its small scale, high cost and poor execution of its foundry. This deal ultimately tells us that Nvidia still has a strong preference for TSMCs foundry and technical excellence. Further, it is likely that Nvidia is providing this investment to quell pressure from the US government,” she said.

Ms Miller favours TSMC over Nvidia for the strong growth opportunities the Taiwanese company offers and its strategic position near Asian computer chip suppliers. The company will be a key beneficiary of the growth of the AI infrastructure market, estimated by Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to grow from $600 billion to $3-$4 trillion by 2030. This huge growth will create upside for TSMC’s medium-term revenue growth from 2026, Ms Miller says.

“Our preferred way to invest in AI computing is through TSMC. They’ve got the technological superiority currently and huge expected growth in revenues. TSMC has a 40 per cent five-year CAGR for AI products, but also when you look at their competitive advantages, its geographical concentration in Taiwan and being so close to its suppliers is important too,” she said.

“If TSMC has an outage at a manufacturing facility at 2am in the morning, they can just ring up their supplier which is five minutes’ drive away and the problem can be quickly fixed. So, it is these kinds of little nuances that provide us with the comfort that TSMC is the right way to go in terms of investment,” she said.

Ms Miller is less optimistic about Intel, despite Nvidia’s significant investment. “Intel has a lot of struggles to overcome in terms of fixing its foundry business, as evidenced by the fact it outsources a portion of its leading-edge node production to TSMC,” she said.

As for China’s recent ban on Nvidia GPUs and the emergence of competitors in Huawei, DeepSeek and Alibaba, Ms Miller says it is possible that China could catch up to the US and Nvidia in terms of GPU production.

“China’s move to ban Nvidia chips as a longer-term strategic move to develop their own industry and move away from reliance on TSMC. You’ve already seen companies like Huawei claim technologically superiority or at least being in line with Nvidia in their latest AI product roadmap. While it’s a war of words at this stage, and the proof will be in the pudding, as we saw earlier in the year with the DeepSeek moment, it’s not out of the realms of possibility that China is leaping ahead in the AI race,” she said.

“Either way, whoever wins the end market is going to have to make the majority of their chips with TSMC,” she said.

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Annabelle Miller

ECP Asset Management’s Global Growth Fund has been selected as the latest partner of Future Generation Women.

Annabelle Miller, principal at ECP Asset Management, will provide pro bono investment support for global equities, joining the select group of female investment managers.

Future Generation Women’s investment objectives are to provide investors with a combination of income and capital growth over the medium-to-long term. The fund invests in Australian and global equities, and consists of a balanced mixture of various Australian and global equity strategies, now including the ECP Global Growth Fund.

The ECP Global Growth Fund is a high-conviction, global equity fund focused on investing in high-quality growth businesses. The ECP Global Growth Fund’s portfolio is constructed of high-quality franchises, excluding those companies who do not have a sustainable competitive advantage.

Ms Miller said: “Future Generation Women’s mission to drive eclose the gender gap in Australia and support not-for-profits that are driving economic equality, resonates well with ECP’s values”.

“Becoming a partner to Future Generation, gives us the opportunity to contribute to a fund that not only seeks strong returns but also actively works to improve the lives of women and their children. We are looking forward to making a meaningful impact to the fund and its purpose, and ensuring the investment objectives of the fund continue to excel.”

Caroline Gurney, Future Generation chief executive officer said: “Future Generation Women represents the next frontier in investing for impact, bringing a gender lens into investment decisions. We welcome Annabelle Miller and the ECP Global Growth Fund as our newest partner to our fund. The addition of the ECP Global Growth Fund strengthens our investment portfolio and allows Future Generation Women to further our mission of driving gender equality through investments and philanthropy.”

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Annabelle Miller

Despite investors starting to show some concerns about the share prices of tech companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta, these fears should not be overblown, says Annabelle Miller, principle – investments at ECP Asset Management.

“Earlier this year, investors showed some consternation following the release of DeepSeek and its impact on companies such as Nvidia and others in the “Magnificent Seven”. This coincided with a deceleration of the growth rates in these companies; however we don’t believe it is a sign of problems with the fundamentals of these businesses.

“Rather, what we are seeing is an increase in capital expenditure by these hyper scalers, who need to invest billions of dollars into the hardware used to power AI applications and the GPUs used to power AI computations.”

Ms Miller says the capital intensity measured by the capex/sales ratio of the hyper scalers has increased from roughly 11 per cent in 2020 to around 21 per cent in 2025.

“Across the big five hyperscalers, we’re seeing over US$300 billion being invested this year, rising to over US$500 billion by 2030. The increase in capital reflects the next evolution of technology as these big trillion-dollar companies invest in the hardware necessary to power AI applications,” she says.

Investors should be aware that these AI investments will likely take time to monetise, resulting in short-term margin pressure and impacting earnings in the coming quarters.  However, Ms Miller says these investments are necessary to take costs out of the hyper-scalers and improve margins.

“We see this as one of the biggest long-term opportunities for investors.  By 2030, we expect a significant amount of margin expansion as these businesses harvest the benefits of the investments made today.

“We are already seeing more use cases for AI within these businesses. Microsoft has saved up to US$500 million in call centre operating costs through AI applications. These applications are assisting with automating tasks like coding, content generation, office productivity and marketing.”

Other beneficiaries of this wave of capital investment include companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which has a monopoly on the manufacture of advanced chips for the likes of Nvidia which end up in the hyper scalers data centres, says Ms Miller.

“These advanced chips are manufactured using high-tech proprietary processes involving array of complex chemistry and physics. As these chips become more advanced, TSMC will be able to extract greater pricing power. TSMC has even taken share from its competitors Samsung and Intel, which have been unable to keep up with these advancements.

“This is a fast-moving technology space, so the winners and losers of the AI play can change within a year. In January this year, DeepSeek emerged from nowhere. It was on no one’s radar and all of a sudden there was a new competitor in town.

“We can’t be complacent about emerging winners. However, TSMC has proven that it has invested in numerous amounts of R&D processes to cement its position in the semiconductor supply chain,” says Ms Miller.

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“Demand for healthcare is not driven by macroeconomic events or trends but rather actual need. As such, the healthcare sector is largely immune to what is happening in the global macroeconomic landscape.

“Having said this, investors do need to take into consideration the changing funding environment, particularly in the US where a microscope is being applied to all healthcare spending. Probably the area that has been the most complex in this regard has been the hospital sector which has had to deal with all sorts of cost increases,” he says.

Looking more locally, Dale says the healthcare sector in Australia is diverse, and there is no one theme that is driving all stocks.

“In Australia, the aging population and the demand for healthcare services is increasing, and provided a company can manage its costs base and has minimal regulatory influencers, it will be well-positioned to grow earnings.

“With aging populations comes an increase in life-deteriorating diseases such as diabetes, sleep related illnesses, hearing related problems and just more generally overall health. These will help to drive growth of stocks like ResMed (ASX: RMD), Cochlear (ASX: COH), Fisher & Paykel (ASX: FPH) and CSL (ASX: CSL),” says Mr Dale.

ECP’s preference for the sector remains focused on speciality device and product companies.

“The growth rates of speciality device and products companies has been very consistent over the past 10 years (taking COVID into account) and we would expect growth rates to continue well into the next decade. These companies also have very strong market positions and are dominant in the space they operate in.

“For example ResMed has 80 to 90 per cent market share of sleep devices while Cochlear has around 60 to 70 per cent market share of cochlear implants. This sustainable competitive advantage puts these companies in a very good position, and they are very defensible in times of economic uncertainty.

“These device companies with high market shares are very different to some other healthcare related names where costs can be harder to manage in these sorts of inflationary times,” he says.

ResMed has consistently outperformed, which Mr Dale says is due to a number of reasons, including its focus on R&D and the creation of new products in the sleep space.

“ResMed has been a market leader for many years in the product that it makes. Aside from its R&D focus, it also benefited from Philips, the second largest competitor in this space, recalling two of its products. This led to ResMed growing its market share to around 80 to 90 per cent over a 12 months period, with its ability to affordability supply the market in a timely manner now the issue.

“The stock also suffered around 18 months ago from the hysteria generated by the increased usage of GLP1s. These drugs were set to revolutionise the obesity market and solve all sleeping related problems and obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) problems. However, this was not the case and while GLP1s, when used correctly and consistently, have a very positive impact on weight loss, they take time to come into effect and are costly.

“Studies revealed that GLP1s can reduce the occurrence or severity of OSA, but combined therapy of GLP1s and CPAP usage was the best standard of care for OSA patients. This led to a large increase in demand and has really opened up the diagnosis funnel and will continue to drive good sales and earnings growth for the company over the next few years,” says Mr Dale.

Although some stocks have not performed to investor’s expectations, like CSL, Mr Dale says that the company’s fundamentals and strong R&D plans will support future growth.

“CSL had underperformed as investors had been disappointed with the pace of progress in its Behring business, and a narrative that has been distracted by its acquisition of Vifor and vaccine uncertainty in the US. There was also a global loss of appetite for healthcare companies post COVID in a “risk-on” world. But, as we’ve seen this year, things can change very quickly.

“We remain optimistic on CSL’s long term future. Its margin recovery is underway, and the company has a number of product launches coming, including Hemgenix, a gene therapy for haemophilia, and Garadacimab, a treatment for hereditary angioedema, that should support growth.

“At 25 times FY25 earnings, for low double-digit earnings growth over the next 5 years and improving returns on capital due to lower capex, CSL is a defensive company that looks very attractive,” says Mr Dale.

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