Scott Phillips - investing in the brewing industry

Hi, I'm Brews News editor Matt Kirkygaard, and welcome to a special episode of the Brewery Pro Podcast. Brewery valuations and investment in the brewing industry have increasingly become issues of focus for us here at Bruce News as we cover the brewing industry. There are several ASX listed brewing companies and a number of breweries that have flagged their hopes for an eventual IPO.

We have also seen the emergence and rapid growth of equity crowdfunding that is pitched as an investment in the breweries undertaking that form of capital raising. We have previously looked at brewery valuations from the point of view of those charged with valuing and selling these businesses. But in this episode we look at the issue of investing in brewing businesses from the point of view of an investor.

My guest is Scott Phillips, the Chief Investment Officer in Australia for the Motley Fool, a website and podcast providing investment, education, and advice. I should stress that this is not investment advice, this is general information only, and I'm sure Scott will thank me for saying that. Now I'm an avid listener of the Motley Fool Money. And there's a link to in the show notes to that podcast. And apart from being a great source of general advice on how to approach investment.

Scott has spoken a number of times on that podcast of having been an investor in Gage Roads, now Good Drinks Australia. I was keen to hear the thinking that led Scott to invest in good drinks and also his reason for selling his shares. but also to look at the idea of investing in breweries generally and the thought process that investors should bring to their decision.

Aside from being somebody with a significant knowledge about investing generally, Scott also has an understanding of the drinks business as well, something that I don't hear very often in money and investment journals. This conversation talks about basic investment principles and approaches, but also looks at investing in brewing and some of the factors that potential investors should consider in deciding whether or not they are actually investing or indulging in their passion.

I introduced this as a beer of the conversation as it was originally intended to go out on that platform. But given where the conversation went, we decided to release this as a Brewery Pro podcast instead, as Scott's insights are very relevant to the brewing business generally. Without any further ado, this is Scott Phillips.

Scott Phillips, welcome to Beer's Conversation. Matt, thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I know you've got uh you do hours of podcasting content a week and uh It it it's great to see your face as opposed to just hear these dulcet tones uh coming through, you know, as a as as I go for a run during the week. Do you do you have people You know, you you you're you're ordering a coffee or a a drink in a bar and people go, I recognise that voice?

Yeah mate uh well I do a bit of TV too, so actually more people recognise me from that than than the voice I think. Uh but as you as you rightly point out I do have a head for radio and a voice for print, so uh I will I will do my level best to

Yeah, no, very occasionally. Uh the other thing I'm I'm down in Barrel in New South Wales and uh and because that comes up on the strap or the news sometimes for the locals It just kinda you know, twigs so people I think are probably more aware of that than if I was just from Sydney or Melbourne or Adelaide or somewhere that it'll be a bigger part of town, so

Uh yeah, you know, I get a few people recognize me. That's kinda fun. I have to make sure I'm almost on my best behaviour though. I can't uh you know, can't can't do the road rage in traffic or uh or pushing someone in front of a coffee line. So maybe it's good for me. Maybe maybe everyone should be a little bit recognized just so that we're all uh on our best behaviour more often.

Yeah, well in in my case I can't be photographed drinking wine because it would just be sort of odd o off brand. Exactly, exactly. Tell us a little bit about who is Scott Phillips and what's the Scott Phillips story? Uh so uh who is Scott Phillips? Uh my my parents' child, my my my young bloke's father I suppose, but uh other than that I work in my work life at least, chief investment officer of the Motley Fool. So Uh we uh provide investment advice to individual

shareholders, uh people like you and me and other people. Uh in fact I was a member of the Motley Fools US services before I joined the company. So uh I've kinda come through that path. Uh sometimes when you enjoy something, appreciate something get something from what you're doing, it makes it easier to join the business. So that's kind of how that came about.

Um we try to basically call it as we see it and tell the truth. And uh that shouldn't be rare in the finance industry. And I don't want to disparage everybody in the finance industry, but the conflicted remuneration and Opportunities for making money at other people's expense are often too large to ignore for some people. And look, we we're a for profit company, we make money, don't get me wrong. But we um we only get paid by our members.

We've make we've made a tiny little bit of money for advertising, we even canned that recently. Um we have a funds management arm which is off to the side. We don't have nothing to do with them. We're owned by the same business but we run independently. The MultiFools Advice Business. It's only member funded. If our members like us, they hang around, they keep paying us. If I don't if I do a bad job then I go and get another job'cause they just simply walk away and I don't get paid. So

Uh it's a very, very aligned structure. We try to call it as we see it, we try and give people good advice, we try and help them learn about investing, about constructing portfolios, about doing the right things with their finances. Um and if we do that half well then again, as I said, members will hang around. If we don't then

They'll you know, they'll vote with their feet and that's kind of the way it should be. So no conflicts, uh we don't make money if people trade too much, any of that sort of stuff. It's all very, very basic. Something I very much understand as an independent publisher, we have to sell advertising but Yes. Then again, we also have a certain number of breweries or advertisers cancel because they don't like our uh our our our coverage'cause ultimately we're here to serve our

audience. Um I I I do have to say that when you uh included you and me in that investment thing, uh I I listened to your podcast. I'm an avid listener of the podcast. But not because I'm an active investor. Um I I I I I I find the topic fascinating. Uh w which is incidentally how we how how I came to uh approach you for this interview because one of the topics that you've mentioned a number of times on the Motley Fool podcast, and I'll link to that um in in in the show notes.

is you've talked about Good Drinks Australia and Since Lion and uh l the old line Nathan and C U B uh were bought internationally and taken off the Australian stock uh you know market. Um we haven't had many drinks businesses uh yeah on the ASX and those that are tend to be microcaps or very, very small uh businesses. So we don't see a lot of mainstream coverage of them. But that's starting to change. So when you were talking about um your investment thesis around Good Drinks Australia

it it really uh stood out to me. Um so b before we talk about Good Drinks Australia specifically, m maybe you can explain to our our listeners who are beer industry people What is an investment thesis and you know how how do you develop an investment thesis? So I should say too very quickly just by way of background I also worked for Woolworths way back in the day, uh I both in the grog shop while I was going through uni and then I worked in the head office uh at Woolworths Unora.

uh for a few years um in the liquor department. So I have I have some liquor background, some some beer background, I also don't mind a tipple. So I I'll approach this from both perspectives as we as we chat for the next little while.

Um great. Look, I I think an investment thesis c so you need to have a reason for investing in something. And so th investment thesis is just a is a w a wanky way of saying why why would I buy those shares? Why would I make that investment? Whether it's buying a house, buying a

I know, sports car, if you have an investment thesis about that, good luck. Uh but it's it's it just it's just it's just a it's just a fancy way of saying I've sat down and I've thought really clearly about why I'm buying something, why I think I'm gonna make money doing it, and what I expect from it. And so that's that's really all it is.

Um in in terms of investing in on the share market, you probably should have a view on the company's quality. You should have a view on the company's financial strength and position. Uh you should have a view on what you expect the future to look like and you should have a view on the price. Am I paying a fair price for all of those things? And you can

you know, it's possible to have a reasonably ordinary business, pay a really, really, really cheap price and do okay. Uh you might pay a small fortune for a fantastic business to still do really, really well. So um it's important to kind of put all those in the blender and hopefully the thesis says I expect to make money because of this business in this circumstances with this future at this price. That's that's all we're trying to do.

With that background, do you look at the devaluation, you know, what a business is valued at, um, you know, and whether you'll get a return from it, what its future prospects are, and you know how how how do you go through that process of working out what you think a business's value is.

So this is a that's a great question. I'll try not to get too technical'cause it's boring for even finance people, let alone people like the finance industry. Um and the ones that don't find it boring, by the way, are the ones who are boring themselves, so you want to be careful of those people. Uh look so

So what we what you're trying to do is you're trying to work out what a what a business's future looks like. Because at the end of the day, any investment, whether you're putting money in a term deposit, whether you're buying an investment property, whether you're buying shares, what you're trying to say is look, I'm gonna I'm gonna make an investment now. And I want more than what I put in.

at the end of whatever period of time, right? So I'm gonna invest a hundred dollars now, I want a few hundred dollars in ten years' time. That that's what you're looking for. You want you want more money in future than you've got now. That's why you would put money aside. The economists call it deferred consumption. So I could either buy the the the you know, I buy the hot dog now

Or buy the beer now, maybe we should say, or buy the carton of beer now, or I put the money away and buy two cartons of beer in the future. And so I've got to decide, you know, is that is that worth the risk? That maybe it'll go badly, maybe I'll have any beer at all.

Or maybe we'll get three cartons of beer. But either way, you're trying to say, you know, what's the future like? And from a financial perspective, you're looking at either the financial cash flows from the business, so dividends or or just how much money it makes, or that you hope someone's gonna pay a higher price in future.

And so that's what you tryna do. You're trying to say, Well, I know I know this business, I understand this business. Um let's take Woolies just to keep out of the out of the liquor industry for a second, we'll get back to that in a minute. But you know, if you if you buy shares in Woolies today, you're gonna say, Right, I know how much money it makes, I know what it does, I know what Supermarkets are and look like and all that kind of stuff.

If I buy shares today, I'm saying I expect Woolworths to make more money in future, to have more stores, uh, to be more profitable, and I expect the market will pay more for those shares at that point because it's a more profitable business. And it kind of is that simple. Now

The detail behind that gets a bit harder more quickly because you have to work out why do you expect that to be true? What is it about Woolies that's gonna let it grow? Uh or maybe it doesn't, by the way, maybe I'm entirely wrong. I don't own shares, by the way, I will disclose where I own shares as we chat. But that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to work out, you know, am I getting more in future? That's kind of the bottom line.

There's a whole lot of algebra you can put behind it. There's things called the net present value or discounted cash flows. Uh the terms we don't need to go into. But you you're basically yeah, you're trying to put money aside now, hoping that you buy something that's worth more in future, either because the dividends are large and flowing through, or because the share price goes up because the business is bigger and better. Okay, so so that

Your investment thesis, that's how you establish valuation. When did you invest in good drinks? It was a very long time ago. It was, I want to say. If I was a betting man I would reckon probably about twenty three. Thirteen or so. Okay. So and while it was called Gage Roads Brewing back in the day. And as as Gage Roads it had a very good private label contract with Woolworths, and it had a small but growing and relatively popular and relatively well regarded

uh Gage Roads brand. And how long did you hold on to the shares? Because I know that you've uh since sold them. I was right. April twenty fourteen I bought the shares. I sold them I sold the yeah, all of them in March of twenty twenty two. So I held them for well a little tiny bit less than eight years in total. Um the shares kind of were um consolidated, which is a weird way of just saying they kind of

uh you know, combined them all together and made the share price higher, so it's harder to look at the detail. But I will tell you uh that over that eight years I've got the numbers in front of me so I can I can unfortunately tell you how terrible it was. Uh I lost an average of eight point zero five percent per annum over that eight year period. Uh I just writing through numbers quickly I spent about twelve grand on the shares and sold them for about

Six and a half, six thousand eight hundred bucks. So there you go. Wasn't a very good investment. Okay, so so approaching the investment w did did you look at the that was a very exciting time for the brewing industry. It was growing. There was a lot of hype around

craft beer and the prospects for brewing. You know, d did you buy that thinking that the business individually was going to do well and expand, or did you see them as a potential takeover target, for example, that they might uh and get a get a you know, ownership premium paid?

So my I'd never ever invest on a speculation of a takeover because they too often don't happen. So it it was always possible and I would have been happy if there was one, but I don't think anyone should invest ho speculating on a takeover. Uh so no, it was all so the the reason was fundamentally that they had at the time uh a pretty good amount pretty good volumes. They had a is a very good contract business with Woolworths that I thought was going to continue to grow.

and they had a branded business that was attractive and higher margin that they had strategically decided to try to grow, to both r reduce their reliance on private label volumes and also to

try and add some more margin into the mix. And if that worked out the way I hoped it might, obviously it didn't in the fullness of time, at least not so far, maybe eventually it will. Then there was gonna be there was going to be more volume, which it scale is a wonderful thing when you've got a high fixed cost business like good drinks.

Um so scale is important, but also higher margins. If they could have, you know, taken out lower margin pri private label volume or even kept it and then added higher volume higher margin businesses, then you kinda get both. And so that was the that was the hope. Um it was also not particularly any expense it was not particularly expensive, sorry, at the time. And so it felt like a pretty good risk reward if a few things went right.

In the fullness of time, I don't think they did, and we'll talk about that in a second. Uh but that was that was the idea, was I it seemed like we know craft brewing was growing, the branded volumes were growing, and Warwick at the time also was a twenty percent sharehold. And there was a sense that that hopefully by the way, y thanks for inviting me on talking about my failures. I appreciate that, Matt.

Uh but uh there was also there was also hope at the time. We learn more from our failures than we do from our successes. We do, we do. Hopefully our listeners will learn something too. Uh but yeah, no Woolies had a twenty percent stake and my hope at the time was that would secure long term private label.

support, which also didn't end up happening. A have you continued to watch because they they've been very active in the consolidation space. They they've you know, even this year they bought um the you know the the the very strong Victorian brand uh Stomping Ground. Um, you know, they they've uh launched a couple of uh tap rooms uh uh uh around the place.

And a lot of that has happened around the time you're making your decision to to to exit the business. What what were your thoughts uh around those compared to your original thesis?

I will say by the way the ship prices are down on what I sold them for, so at least thus far I've been right, but it's been a very short amount of time. We'll see we'll see what happens next. I think at the end of the day, uh industries I'll I'll talk I won't talk industry specifics just yet. I'll talk generals and we'll go back to that.

Mm-hmm. The reality is that if you have a high fixed cost business, which brewing tends to be, uh because you've got a whole lot of plant equipment, you've got to make the beer and sell a lot of it, uh you have to put big volumes through it.

And Goodrex has never yet really been able to partly because they lost that private label business. Yeah. Siding doors, right? If they if they had a a large and growing private label business and all the stuff they're doing, this is probably this I probably made money with this deal, right? And we're having a very different conversation today. End of the day

I don't I like the strategic make moves they're making. They're really positive. But over those last eight years they haven't yet been able to demonstrate value creation from any of those initiatives.

And maybe possibly eventually they finally do. And if they do, good luck to them. I hope they do. Uh they seem like decent people. I like the beer. Um, you know, hop hopefully it's a good thing for them. But hope can't be an investment strategy, as my multiful money co-host Andrew Page likes to say. And

Uh thus far, eight years of s of of execution, they haven't been able to do it. Now maybe eventually they said they do it, but you can't kinda hold every share on, well possibly maybe at some point something might happen. At some point you gotta say, execution matters, track record matters, delivery matters. Show m show me the money, right? A spin spending eight years going nowhere, or in fact backwards for me, um has been a very expensive

Lesson. Had I sold earlier by the way and invested just in a in a in the market in general or something else, I would have made even more money. So the longer I held, the worse it's been. I would love nothing better than to see them succeed and to be able to buy back in even at a higher price if they're able to start delivering on some of that on some of that.

I I like the acquisition idea because it adds scale, and this is these guys are subscale. That's one of the really key things that matters. The taproom stuff. It's an investment in brand and I'm also strategically really glad they're investing in in brand building. I think it's really, really important.

Will it generate them enough scale to pay for all those extra overheads they're incurring and fill the fill the brewery volumes, keep the production lines, you know, spinning eventually, hopefully twenty four seven or close to it? I hope so.

But you want to see evidence of that first. And thus far, uh, they've just been a bit disappointing, execution-wise. So I'd like to see it. I w I I never say never do anything. I'd I'd happily buy back in if if the circumstances change sufficiently to give me enough confidence that the future is brighter than it was. Thus far, lots of promise, lots of I don't mean promises in um they're making promises they can't keep, but I just mean that the the strategy has promised.

So lots of promise, but you gotta see some results I think, particularly after this long, to say, Hey, there is something here, more than just we really, really hope we can make it work. It it it's it's interesting. Uh you you talk about the high fixed costs of

um yeah any h fixed cost industry and brewing is very much that. Yet a lot of the um consolidation we're seeing in the brewing industry is from small craft brands, their customers like the fact that they're small and local and so they often keep the small production facility. Yeah. And so they amalgamate the business.

without ever to my way of thinking, getting the benefits of that scale, because, you know, like Lion and C U B, which have fifty brands available nationally, tend to produce from one or two mega breweries And it's that fact that made the craft brewing industry to some extent

attractive because they're small and local. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, does the brewing industry have that internal contradiction as an investment um because the the the need for small and local actually takes away the ability to grow and scale? Yes, uh yeah, absolutely does. If you think about in any industry structure, if it if an industry is big enough and beer is definitely big enough. There you can have multiple players with multiple different strategies.

What you have to make sure is that your strategy is financially viable enough to be, you know, generate returns for you as as the person who's putting in capital or running the business and for any external shareholders you might have.

So if you are uh and let's go I mean let's go restaurant industry, right? If you're Maccas, uh you have a squillion restaurants, you have low-paid staff, but you do it you you you you run it with military precision, you keep your cost down, your restaurants clean, your prices low, and you just pour through a whole lot of stuff. Then there are other high-end restaurants that charge$250 for, you know, for for a person for for lunch or dinner.

Who also can make a lot of money because they work on small volumes, really high prices, and really high margins. So Macas will say, we'll make a few cents on the dollar and just do a lot of it.

Others will say we want to make eighty cents on the dollar. Uh we're you know we're gonna sell we're gonna sell you know a twenty dollar lobster for seventy five dollars when it's platted up and try and make money doing that. And and frankly, beer and wine at restaurants, you know, come with double the price because they can, it's captive market. And so that's what that's what they do. So I don't think I don't think craft brewers are destined to never ever make any money.

They'll never make big amounts of money,'cause to your point, once you're not small or local anymore, you're not small or local anymore. And we know plenty of former craft or independent brewers who then got bought up by the big guys by C E V and Lion who said, well,

I'll take the money and good luck to'em. Um, but then they become part of the you know, people move on and so y the the challenge for the brewers when they buy those companies to say, can I extract enough vo value before people think it's just another one of those production line beers? Um But they all start small. That's how that's how they work, right? Back to Matilda Bay Brewing and plenty of others besides, right? All the way through.

Um but it's really hard. You can't make decent amounts of money if you're gonna stay small and local. You can be profitable, and frankly, Good Drinks Australia may well in a different life in a parallel universe. have stayed small, state regional, um, you know, downsized the facility.

And actually made some okay money doing that. You know, never never having dreams of conquering the world, but just saying, you know what, we're gonna be a great Western Australian brewer. We're gonna w run a couple of really small facilities, we're gonna be fill them up. The other thing, by the way, is not so much about size only, it's can you keep the machines turning over?

Um, you know, uh think about the you know the old story about buying a boat, right? The two two best has to buy a boat when you buy it, the day you buy it, the day you sell it. And w what it comes down to is that you p you pay tens of thousands for a boat, you use it once a year. And so you're not getting much use out of it. Think about it think about taxis, right? Taxis are a great example. Pre-Uber.

What you know they they want them on the road the entire time. You've had so much for the taxi plate, you want them on the road all the time. So you want the drivers changed over, you want to find a driver to drive it. You don't even care really how much you make specifically, you just want to keep it going because the longer it's on the road, the more money you make. And so from a from a brewing perspective You can have a small or a large brewery.

It's not really even the size that matters so much. It's whether you can keep it full and keep it operating all the time to to basically defray those costs. Because that's what you want. If you've got a massive million dollar plant and you use it for three days a year, you're never gonna make enough beer to make your money back.

If you can produce twenty four seven three sixty five, then you can start to say, Well, you know what? Those costs, those fixed costs, as a proportion to my volume, come right down, and that maximizes your chance of making a buck. So I think Craft brewing is really tough, it's really crowded. Um some of what the big guys got going for them, by the way, is not even so much production but distribution.

When you know you can make a beer and get to every bottle shop in the country, think about Great Northern, right? Um when you can say, Hi, I've got this idea for a new beer and I'm gonna make sure it's everywhere That is an enormous, enormous, enormous benefit. You can trade off against the other beers you've got, the other brands you've got. You've got more sales reps, more trucks. Um those scale things aren't just in production, but they're in distribution and sales as well.

Do you keep an eye on some of the other uh w we've got Mighty Craft, which was a publicly listed um that that they listed with the idea of Um it was initially called Founders First to accelerate some of these s small craft breweries. Um but again they they haven't been a solid investment.

um either. And uh ha having spoken to them a number of times to ask them they they keep talking about a platform of growth and, you know, the the benefits of scale. But they're they're not making any movements toward that I can see towards achieving scale for those small breweries and now they're looking at selling off some of those small breweries and going for their bigger brands. D do you watch them at all? A little bit, a little bit. Uh to your point

At the Motley Food we tend to be a we tend to be a best ideas business rather than follow everything business. So once something you look at something and go, Not making any money, not really making much headway as you say. Interesting'cause I just I I got a uh you know, uh a beer and and liquor background so I kind of you know I'm j I have a have an affinity for the sector plus I don't mind a drink myself, so that that always helped.

Um but I'm I'm only dirty with you, Matt. We're recording this in the morning, mate, so I can't sit and have a beer with you. I almost contemplated it but I uh I I did I did hold myself back so that was probably unreasonable. Um so yeah look I I I yes, I've looked at them, I Again, the the interesting thing about this is it's the same problem they're trying to resolve a different way. Yes. And that's kind of the challenge, right? That's kind of where we find ourselves. It's a tough one to

It's a tough thing to do to try and get that scale, to try and deliver. And scale's gotta be done different ways. You can scale with two you know, small but getting larger brands, or you can try and scale with a hundred brands, each have their challenges. Um you know the challenge of aggregating a hundred different brands means you've got to be across a hundred different brands.

Uh and again, not not the Minecraft's doing a hundred, but you know what I mean. The so those scale things actually become diseconomies of scale to use the the jargon because there's so many of them.

you never really get the benefit, you just end up spreading yourself more thinly. So it's a real challenge. I think it's uh it it's frankly a different version of the same problem that Goodrinks is having, which is how do you get sufficient scale to match your capital investment, so th the the fixed cost you've you've incurred, uh and for some of the variable costs like sales of people, uh they're not they're not fixed fixed, but you know, you're paying every every week to go and do a job.

Um it it's just it's a really hard thing to do. And frankly, craft brewing is probably its own worst enemy because there are so many of them. Each of them trying to get to scale. Everyone launches another brand to try and be the one that gets scale. And some will though. That's the other thing. Um one or two will eventually make it. They will be the exceptions to the rule.

because they just happen to find a a niche, a brand, a promise, a taste, a marketing campaign or whatever, that just grabs people. And we know there's been there's been those examples that generally the ones that get bought up by by Lion and Clinton. But as that happens, that's that's they're the exceptions. The rest will fight amongst themselves, all stopping the other, actually getting that scale because there's so many of them. Uh they're kind of tucking each other's oxygen.

I it it it's like a uh looking at craft brewing as an investment then, th the picture you're painting makes it sound a lot more like buying a racehorse and considering that an investment in that, you know, a hundred people buy a racehorse and, you know, ten of them are going to end up in, you know, probably breaking down in a race and some of them

y you get the pleasure of watching them win and lose and then one of them actually wins the Melbourne Cup. Um and, you know Uh uh c can you approach something like that a a as an actual investment or do you have to go into it, you know, looking at the inj the enjoyment you get from feeling the owner of something that you love?

I I reckon it's the latter, honestly, Matt. We've talked about the number sheer number of brands. There'll be those businesses that try and fail, those that try and try and try and lose and lose and lose money like good drinks, and those occasional ones that that do really well and get get bought out or become national brands. Um That yeah, i uh like a rate, th an expensive hobby is probably the best way to put it. Um

And honestly, the fact that, you know, some of these smaller ones are are trying to raise money with what they call crowd uh equity. Uh in other words, rather than listing on the stock exchange, they say to people, Hey, do you wanna come and buy, you know, put put five hundred thousand, a couple of thousand dollars into your favourite beer brand? Uh we do it'cause we love the beer, or we l we like the story.

Um and it's kind of nice to feel like you're drinking your beer. There's something to that, absolutely. But that's that's in the hobby area rather than the genuine investment area. Um again, it doesn't mean some won't be successful. I'm very, very aware that of the lot that are crowd crowdfunding right now There will be one or two that maybe do reasonably well. Um, the other good thing, by the way, is when you end up with with a crowd-funded ownership base.

They become their own zealots, right? The ones who say, Oh, you gotta try this beer, it's great, it's great, it's great You know, there's there's nothing like the true believer of when you actually own the beer. Do you want you wanna you want a two ees? No, no, I want one of my beers'cause I I own that and I wanna I wanna, you know, look after my investment, all that kind of stuff. So there is some there is some

frankly, marketing value, strategic value, having some some retail shareholders like you and I who say, I want to drink my beer, you know? Um, I don't know if many of your listeners own shares, but there's something too walking to Woolworths if you own shares in the in the store. I had a family member who way back in the day bought shares in Meyer and he said

I went in there and I I looked everything differently and I felt like I owned the business and I was more interested in it and it does change the way you interact with with products. Uh but to your back to your question, I

We know how fickle the industry can be. One of the wonderful things about being a a a beer consumer is there are so many new and different choices over and over and over again. You can pick whatever you want, right? You go for oh I'll have I'll try this today. You know, it's it's a wonderful thing. If you if you're a brewer, you're like, Don't try theirs, stay with mine. Mine's better. And that's the natural tension, right? And

That's I mean craft beer in and of itself is that they are passion projects. That's kind of as consumers that's what we expect them to be as well. So the entire industry structure at that end is not, hey, I'm gonna f I I'm gonna drink it'cause it's gonna be the next twoies. It's I'm gonna drink it because I don't want it to be the next twoies and if it is, then I'll go and I'll change beers'cause I like local and different and unusual and all that kind of stuff.

Um, I think the best and most successful craft brewers in in the true craft sense will be those who Maintain local passion and size their cost base accordingly. But there will be, you know, there's a couple of crowdfunded beers that are trying deliberately not to be craft. They're actually trying to be local but mass and accessible. And there's there's a decent chance they might actually do something at some point that

Not unreasonable if they can get enough of a crowd swell. Um think about some of the beers that we we drink now regularly. Uh Hahn is probably a good example way back in the day when I was in the in the growth shop and Hahn Ice and Carlton Cole were competing. That's how old I am. Um You know, I mean Han Pre Tuies or or Lion buying them. Um that's probably the maybe that's the archetype of what some of these other beers could be at some point.

But you're not going to do it by trying to be or trying to remain craft. You're going to have to do different but accessible, inexpensive, available, easy drinking, that kind of stuff, because that's where scale comes from.

I I'm glad you raised equity crowdfunding because for all of the reasons that you Uh said, you know, it does create zealots and it does become people who feel passionate. But so you you you've got crowdfunding, which is that go fund me, I've got an idea, back it um and then you've got the equity crowdfunding. And we we've we've seen the brewing industry really embrace that equity crowdfunding, which is

And I know you've spoken to the guys from Virtual on your um the Good Oil podcast. Um and I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But sitting back and watching these things being s the the equity ones are being very strongly sold as an investment. And in the pitch documents. They're talking about all of the bolters and the stone and woods that have sold for, you know, tens and tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Um And

There is an element of of of the way that it's done. It's very high pressure, very much about hype. You can't read the financials for the business until actually the offer opens. Um, and you know, th th th there is an element to me, I describe it as, you know, those those weekends when you're invited away for a free weekend's vacation but then you and your significant other have to sit in a room and listen to a high pressure um

And you know, for for a timeshare development. And you know, is there a d you know, quite apart from their f viability as investments, Is that sort of hyped marketing approach to any investment good for an industry or good as an investment category or I is that a warning sign of itself if that's the way that these things have to be sold? That's a really, really good question, Matt. I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a nuanced answer because

There is a little bit of exception and rule in in in that in that space as you talked about. If we go back to Amazon, which listed in nineteen ninety seven, I should disclose I own shares, then

You know, the idea of we want to become the world's biggest bookstore felt hypey and unrealistic and unreasonable in nineteen ninety seven when the when the internet was young and and you know, the world's biggest bookstore, yeah, right, guys, sure. Um they want to track on Walmart, yeah, right, so if you're gonna take on Walmart, etcetera, etc.

We will say after the fact, if and when some of these beer brands that are the equity crowdfunded end up crashing and burning, we say, See, I told you it was too hot. And then one of the two of them make sense, we say, wow the hype was real. That that was actually a really real thing and I'm glad I didn't ignore it or I'm sorry I ignored it. And so we we we we do these things normally in hindsight. We look at it and go, Oh man.

I don't love hype when it comes to investing generally. I think, you know, people I want people to enjoy investing. I want it to be fun and interesting. I want the I want it to feel like something you can get your teeth into and really get some intellectual um enjoyment out of.

But I don't want to be a dopamine hit. You know, it's n it's not it's not it's not there to, you know, red or black at the casino, you know, five bucks in the pokies. Hey, I'm up, I'm down, I'm up, I'm down, oh man, this, you know, I don't want to be exciting, I don't be I don't want to be, you know, um edge of the seat stuff.

This is long term. I'm putting some money down now. Putting$1,000 down now. Hopefully, as we said before, I got$2,000 in 10 years' time. Great. That was worth it. That that's that's investing, right? Uh punting on uh a thing that might possibly do well or not, the horse as you mentioned, the either the investment or at the races, whichever way you uh either owner or or a punter, I'm not sure who gets the worst returns actually. Uh the bookies win, but I'm not sure anyone else does.

It's a really difficult thing. So I don't love the hype, um, generally in any investing, including equity crown funding. And there's plenty, by the way, on the I on the ASX, plenty of hype there. Uh you'll look at some of the lithium stocks or some of the other stuff. I mean there's there's hype all over the place. Um So you want to be careful of that. I don't love that. I think it's a shame that we have that going on in general.

But I don't want to point it just at the equity crowd guys. What I do worry about is that people get sold the idea, not the financials. And the people who participate in any capital raising, including equity crowdfunding, may not be doing it with the required degree of understanding and sophistication when it comes to what they're buying, what they're getting for. So if I if I spend if I invest two thousand dollars in a in a inequity crowd funded B, uh

you know, capital raising or uh some biotech on the you know, sort of, you know, c cancer cure on the ASX or some lithium hopes and dreams minor, they're not necessarily different. They they can they're the same types of problems. People say Beer, beer, I love beer, I love that beer, I love the person behind that beer, therefore I'll buy the shares. I'm like, well, the the first three things can be true.

Whether you should buy the shares or not isn't relevant to any of those things, right? Uh we all know businesses that have that have gone so motherless broke despite being backed by some great people. Adam Gilchrist famously was on the board of a a sandal wood producer, um wood uh used for Um you know, those kind of incense stick kind of things. Um I love Adam Group, which is a great cricket player, he seems like a really good bloke who you know I I loved his honesty on the cricket pitch.

But does that make him a good director? Does that make it a good investment? No. A and and that's not so bad, Gilchrist or the company, just th the two don't need to be the same. So when you think about celebrity backed companies generally.

um and buy it because the celebrity's involved, that gets a that's that stretches things a little bit more than I think you should be comfortable with. The flip side I will say is some of that celebrity endorsement actually can be good for the sales or the product itself.

So if you've got and let's let's use drink western example, one that was that was raised by Birchall, uh Nathan Cleary, um uh Tae Tua Vasa, T Tyson Pedro, some some sports stars, uh Cleary uh rugby league player and the other two uh UFC fighters. Um these are y you know, i it may be they bring with them massive numbers of potential drinkers because who doesn't want to drink the the the beer that these guys are drinking?

You know, that seems like a really good thing to do and a and a really cool idea and why would you not? So there are times when those things can in and of themselves be You know, yes it w makes you want to buy the shares, but if it also makes you want to buy the beer, then maybe there's something to it. So I I don't want to there's no there's no blanket rules.

But to your point, the more something's being hyped, the more careful you should be to make sure you're really considering the investment on its merits and not getting swept up by the story. I again like you, I'm old enough to remember a whole lot of fad investments, whether it was wine or you know um and and whiskey barrels. But then uh you know, I I look at something like ostrich farming that was huge for a while and

You know, o on on one level it stacks up, you know, people are healthier so ostrich meat is you know, or i i is leaner. We can use the feathers for this, you know, w we can use the skin for leather, we can use the eggs for this. You know, th there's nothing about the animal that can't be used, uh their environmental and it ticks s so many boxes.

And p and so much money flowed into it and I don't know anyone who made money in ostrich farming. Uh I know a lot of sparm people have put money into it, but I don't know anyone that actually made any money out of it, except for the people selling the investment.

Funny that. Uh which which is the number one which is the number one challenge. Um I mentioned at the top, the finance industry is an interesting industry. Um there is so much money flowing around our industry that there are people who have very, very, very strong incentives to find ways of parting you with your money.

Uh because there's so much in it, right? If I can create a product that all of a sudden seems attractive, then you'll throw me your money and I'll make a fortune and whether you make a fortune or not is up to you. Uh there are some people in our industry who are straight out crooks. There are some who are immoral, some who are just misled, and there are some who are trying to do the right thing. And, you know, you can make up your mind who's who, but um yes, you're absolutely right.

It kind of goes back to what I was saying about good drinks before, actually, not that they're anything like ostrich farmers, but you just gave a list of potential uses for ostriches and why it might possibly at some point be good. And that's okay, but the the the kind of the maybe what might possibly happen depending on circumstances at some point, etcetera etcetera.

Uh there's I kind of think about, you know, I don't know if you did probability at at school, I won't go into detail, but you know, if you go to a probability tree, say if this is true and then if that happens, then if that happens, then if that happens, I call if the small the biggest small word in the English language because once you add some of those ifs together

If I can buy an ostrich farm cheaply enough, if ostrich meat becomes something that's sellable, if supermarkets stock it at a large enough volume, if it can be s if if you know, there's so many ifs on that. that the probability of that actually being successful becomes infinitesimally small.

And why do people do it? Because they got sold on the greed idea. You could possibly make a fortune out of this. Why do people buy lot of tickets? Lotto lotto is the stupidest investment in the world. I buy a lot of tickets every now and again too, and I know I'm stupid for doing it. Uh so I'm not I'm not pointing the finger at other people.

Uh but the very idea of, you know, someone's gonna win a million dollars, it might be me, therefore I should buy a lot of tickets about the stupidest thing you could do. But how many of us do it? They reckon half of Australia bought a Powerball ticket last time was$160 million. Um despite the fact the odds were infinitesimally small. And so you kind of that that happens across the board. Greed takes over.

And the if-if-ifs all stack up and people go, well, but maybe but imagine if I but imagine if it's right. And then you start to convince yourself it's right, because humans are weird creatures. You've you will have heard me on the podcast talk about, you know, our evolutionary brains are so terribly, terribly ill-prepared for investment.

Um that I actually started I've started calling investing these days. I think investing is probably defined as your ability to overcome your brain's natural intention. 'Cause that's kinda what it is, right? Successful investors are the best are the ones who can best

overcome the brain's instinct to, I want action, I want it now. I'm not very patient. I can't imagine waving. The guy over there is making some money, so I'm jealous. Every day our brain is trying to is trying to, you know, mess with us when it comes to trying to invest. And the the bad people out there will absolutely know what our psychology does and take m full advantage of it. Every marketer in the world's job is to say

Hi. How about you how about I appeal to your subconscious? How about I appeal to your emotions? Very few want to appeal to your rational brain because rationally you'd say, that's a stupid idea. Why would I do that? But your emotional brain says, It tastes good, it looks good, I'll feel better, I might get rich, I you know and that that's what they want to try and appeal to. Shut off your rational brain.

uh use your emotion and and people raising capital are probably the same thing, right? They The only other thing I would add is The equity crowdfunders themselves, people raising money, aren't do it'cause they're trying to screw you. Ninety nine point nine percent of them are trying to do it because they think

If I could get some more money, maybe my beer might be the one that finally or or is the next Han or is the next Matilda Bay. And if I could do that, then I'll make money for me, I'll make money for my investors.

I'm not saying it's not risk free, I'm just saying I really think we should try this, and I'm gonna give it a red hot go, come and help me come and help me do that. Again, you know, Tuggy Forest started with Fortescue with, you know, not exactly fourteen dollars, but not much money in the back pocket, he's now a billionaire. So it's it's possible, right? Every other, you know, iron or company went broke, but Twiggy made it.

Should Twiggy have not tried? Well, obviously not, but should the others have not tried? In hindsight, we don't have the answer to that one. Doesn't mean that you know Twiggy's fortune isn't real. Really good points.

It you know, given investing is nuanced and and th the the considerations around it, is there a potential downside, you know, particularly from a from a brewing industry? And I I said I'd come back to wine and that's probably a good time. When we saw a a rush of investment in to the wine industry, you know, with government incentives and things like that. And then suddenly you have a a a wine glut that Because everybody's rushed into it.

that can take out a lot of what would otherwise be viable businesses because they're all competing against each other. You know, is there a potential downside if there is this easy money flowing into an industry, um, you know, that's based on passion and not necessarily uh more robust investment thinking. One of the paradoxes of investing is that most investors will say their believers in capitalism.

And capitalism works on the fact that if there's excess profit, someone will come and take that away. So if there are if there are a lot of beers being sold and a lot of beers being drunk, it makes sense for a lot of people to try and get into that industry. And how and make their share of it, right? And when when competition works.

There's not much profit to go around because that's what's supposed to happen. You know, capitalism invites competition, competitors come in, they keep profit margins low. Whenever profit margins creep up, someone else says, Oh, I'll have some of that place and other jump in. Think about the airlines. Every every five or ten years we have a third airline launch in Australia. Someone wants to try and take some share. Very rarely works. But that's what happens. Someone says

But what if I could make I I could probably make some money there? I could probably take something from those guys. Um now we have a lot of oligopolies in Australia too, a lot of a lot of which means, you know, a a few uh a few companies mod dominating a space. Uh we might talk about Uh Lion and C U B, we might talk about Coles and Woolies, we might talk about Quantas and Virgin, Tolster and Optus, maybe TPG. So two or three companies at the top of four big banks.

Um so it doesn't always work perfectly. But to your point, I think, you know, it's it's it's really hard because You know, a lot of easy money in an industry is because people think there's some promise and they're all gonna try and chase it. But yeah, you're right. The more competitors there are, the more serious those competitors are, the more engaged those those competitors are. Um

the lower the muds are for everybody else because they're all trying to do the same thing and eventually someone's going to try and fight on price or volume or distribution or something. It makes it harder to compete. So if you're a if you're a yeah if you believe in capitalism, you want lots of competition.

If you're a business owner, you want as little competition as humanly possible, right? Because you want to say, Well, how about we both no no one actually says it out loud because it's illegal, you can't collude, but if It right I'll give you an example right now without making any allegations. Uh as we record this, Quantas and Virgin are charging a small fortune for airline tickets.

And they're not adding any capacity. The airline that the planes are full, they're cancelling the ones that aren't full. They are absolutely both separately, but at the same time, maximizing profit. That's what oligopoly can do if it's working in in the in the favour of the independent. So without the small guys,

Would our choices from the big brewers be less and more expensive and less impressive and less exciting and interesting? Yeah, absolutely. They just make the two or three beers they'd get away with making, they'd make them at really, really, really long production runs, uh, they put the prices up because no one could compete on price, and they'd make a full.

Uh and I'm not not bespurching those guys. That's just what uh if you're if you're a business owner, that's what you would do. That's what you should do. You're there to maximize profit, right? The little guys in the space, the more of them. Uh, frankly, the lower the returns for everybody else. And is, you know, it's so it's a it's a tough one. Generally speaking, the more players in an industry the less profitable that industry is for the income. It just tends to be the white way.

Last question before we uh move off crowdfunding is how important is regulation to you know consumer con or investor confidence in an industry? Um and and I raise that because Uh equity crowdfunding is regulated by legislation. It's supposedly uh overseen by ASIC. And yet it's such a small little niche area that I can't imagine ASIC ever having the resources to properly uh regulate it. Um is that potentially problematic or you know, does that You know, create a wild west.

Possibility. Possibility absolutely, yes. Um I don't know of I wouldn't mention if I did, but I would say generally if there I felt that there was. I don't know of anyone doing equity crowdfunding who is doing any wild west stuff right now.

In i in the sense that they're not anything that's illegal or questionable that would possibly breach some rules, to my knowledge. Which is not to defend them, I just don't know any that are. I have no I have no investments in them by the way, I have no I have no dog in the fight, I have no relationship with anybody in that space.

But there's always the there's always the possibility for doing. So as I said, whenever there's enough incentive, whenever there's enough money sloshing around, someone's gonna be incentivized at some point to bend or break the rule.

So yes, it's always possible. Would ASIC have the opportunity to look at it? No, I don't think they would. The funding organizations, the guys who manage the crowdfunding um capital raisings, uh, they have every incentive to do the right thing because they want to do more and more and more of it. So I I I'm not too worried about the incumbent breaking the law as as it currently stands. I am actually more worried about the law itself and I and and the the way it's presented.

You know, when when the when the inference that someone can draw is I'm gonna throw two thousand dollars into a crowdfunded you know, craft brewery,'cause hey, it's only two thousand dollars and I get to own some beer and I get to feel like an investor. I think that's kind of it's not misrepresented, but it has the potential to be inferred by the reader of the information that way.

And as something I'm I'm an investor, right? I'm a stock market guy. But when people treat Would you know people would go to the if you went to the dogs and you put fifty dollars on the nose of something adapto on a on a s was it Friday Saturday night, whatever they race these days, um people say, Oh you're you know, you're you're a problem gambler, that's a stupid bet, why the hell would you do that?

As soon as you say, Oh, it's an investment, you put two zeros on it and you drop five thousand dollars on some brewery or some other company, by the way. And and you know, to be really, really clear, not bagging the the brewers or the or the crowdfunders, but when you say, Oh, look, here's this new big new business. Uh and a strong race capital, it might be cool. And you put five thousand dollars on it, you think, well it might possibly do well.

And I you know, it's it's it's one of those things that I think we need to be really careful of because It it has that veneer of respectability because it's air quotes investing rather than air quotes gambling. Then you can put$5,000 on it, feel like you're doing the right thing. If you put if you put$50 on a on a dog, let alone five hundred or five thousand dollars.

People look at me, Are you completely stupid? What you know, what what what chance do you have of knowing whether that dog's gonna win? I'd say the same with some of this crowdfunding. And by the way, again just be make me really clear, also some of the money people put on even ASX listed stuff. The little there's little speculative b miners and biotechnology companies, all sorts of stuff.

And people do exactly the same thing. They say, Oh no, it's it's an investment, I'm putting five thousand dollars on that maybe it might do well. And like if you if you wouldn't do that at the dogs or the casino, you really have no you have no business doing it uh in equity crowdfunding or on the ASX either. You y you make a great point there because I I guess

You know, anyone that watches journalism, we all read papers trusting that we've been given good information. And then I think anyone who has ever had personal knowledge of the story that they're reading immediately sees all of the flaws. That's true too. Yes. Good point. And and and so you realise that, well if you spread that across the whole paper, what do I what what do I trust in? And as somebody who has a fairly good understanding of the brewing industry

um and you even see Australia's leading uh you know financial paper, uh the AFR. Um, whenever it covers the the the drinks industry, you see it reporting so much on gossip and media release and speculation that has clearly come from the company that is listing or listed or, you know, wants to boost it. uh you know, prospects and it's been reported as fact. So it it it's clearly, you know, it runs across the whole industry. How challenging is it?

Um and I say this as a as a as a journalist who's who who sort of tries to strip out the the hype and nonsense from media releases to inform our readers, but as an investor, how hard is it? to have to work to get the knowledge of a business to uh to to make a meaningful informed investment? So that's a really, really, really good question. Um There is too much journalism by press release at the moment.

And that's partly the journo's fault, but Frank Bets the business model fault for the for a lot of the a lot of the publications, right? Where it's like I've got to put a story out, I got a press release from so and so, they say this thing, I paraphrase it, I put some quotes in, I pub hit publish and I've reported the news and we're done.

And I say that all the time. In fact if you ever compare um two or three different news sources on the same story, they're all obviously using the same press release and regurgitate different ways.

um then i it's an issue it's a real issue for the for the for the interest for issue for society. I think we're not as well informed as we could be because of the pressure on journalists. A I'll just interject there because um a a lot of our readers will know that we publish media releases And it was something that I did at the at the start because in a drinks industry where you see that everyone's coverage is the same.

we actually publish the full media release with a disclaimer at the top saying, This is a media release. We have not applied any filter to it. Read it as as that because I I take the view that when everyone else reads the exact the same thing that's someone has gone through and edited and sort of but added no value to it, um they they can go, Well hold hold on, here is the source of all of that news.

And you're better off doing that. I think that's a better I honestly think that's a much better, more responsible approach than trying to try and recraft a story around a press release and Pitches a story. Um our investors at the Montley Fool have have tendencies in their early days with us. They tend to do the same thing. They will say, Oh, this company's gonna do this next year. And I'll say, Are they going to? Or is that what management said?

That's what management said, Okay, well let's say that because it's not the same thing. They're not they're not being disingenuous, they're just reading that and saying, But the management said they were gonna do it so they can do it, right? So yeah, you're exactly right. That's that is the um that is the challenge. So I think Back to your question in terms of the information investing. Here's the problem with investing a lot of the time: there are some really smart people who do it.

And smart people, I'm gonna make some massive generalizations here. Smart people generally want to be the smartest person in the room. They want to be smarter than somebody else, and they want to have the most complete, the most whatever version of their truth. And that's intellectually admirable. Investing-wise, you have to differentiate between how much you know and how much of what you know is actually important.

And I would suggest that that 95% of your it's the RD 20 rule, 95% of your returns, particularly the excess returns that when you beat the market, you do well, don't come from the one piece of information I found out on day 362 of my research.

If you get the basics roughly right, if you understand the business model broadly, if you understand the things that move the dial when it comes to businesses and investments, and you get that roughly right more often than not, you're actually probably going to be better off with that. than trying to be more um

uh try and be cleverer. You know, I think there there are some really, really smart people who are so keen on being right and the best and whatever, they miss the broader idea, which is get it eighty percent right. You know, it it didn't take it doesn't take all that much. Look at something like an Amazon. See us out. Or, I don't know, I'm trying to think of, you know, big exam. Even Wooldies, right? Wooldies listed at$2.35. It's now a$35 stock. Is it growing? Yes.

Has it got more customers at opening more stores? Is it taking market share? Yes. You don't even know all that much more than that. It is a sustainable guess. Um you could find out that the new Metro store at, you know, um New Farm West is gonna have three hundred and eighty four square feet of this thing and that price and that margin. And it's kind of it's interesting.

But does that change the the the basics of the the building box of the investment? Very, very rarely. So sorry, it's a long answer, but I actually think that the time is better spent understanding the sources of business and investment success. And looking for those. Right. So you know, get your mental model right. and then apply it rather than

Primary trying to be expert in a particular company thinking that as I said the the nth day of research will finally unearth that gem that that goes from I'm not gonna make any money to this to I'm the only person who knows this thing, I'm gonna make a squid in dollars. It's just so incredibly rare, it's probably time wasted.

Last question. Do you have any uh investments in the drinks industry at at this stage? Clearly you've sold your good drink shares. Do you have any uh others that you're keeping an eye on? I don't. Um I why not well you know how you know when you you're a kid, you're young and stupid. I I want I probably was always gonna be in investing. Unfortunately I haven't been as successful as I wanted to be.

I had I had uh aspirations when I was a kid. My old man used to drink two he's old and t two he's country special for those who remember that be. Uh and and I had I had dreams of buying buying two he's back from the Japanese and and making it Australian company again.

So uh so that that was going to be what I did with all my millions when I made them. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. But so you never know. Line, if you're out there and you wanna make me an offer, make me an offer. Uh but otherwise, no, I don't have any I don't have any drinks investments at the moment. I used to work for DiAgio back in the day. I'm still very partial to a Guinness or two.

Um so I I try to spread my drinking around. I got some Cooper's extra stout in the fridge at the moment actually. Uh so no, no, nothing nothing currently in the in the liquor space, unfortunately. I do uh I do own shares in Treasury Wine Estates for for full disclosure. I know you're asking about beer, but just to kind of cover the the general space, um, I would love to find some really high quality uh listed alcohol slash beer investments. Um, I think it's a

I think it's a very promising industry. I like what's going on. I think there's some really good money to be made by some savvy investors, but it's uh there's no options at the moment, at least in my uh in my investigations. But when there is, I'm sure you'll let me know, Matt. Well if if you can't afford Tuies, I think there are a lot of smaller craft breweries that may be uh looking for investors. So um exactly Godfather offer, right?

Well Scott Phillips, thank you. This has been a brilliant chat. I've I've really enjoyed it and learned a lot from it. So uh I'll be putting links to the Motley Fool and your various uh other podcasts. Um, but thank you very much for uh joining us for this conversation about beer investing. Mate, it has been an absolute ball. Thank you very much for inviting me and I will uh I will follow with interest. Thank you.

And that was Scott Phillips. As I said in the intro, this is general advice only, this is not investment advice. And you should take it in that context. If you want to hear more general advice, you can hear about Scott Phillips' thoughts on investing by his Motley Fool Money podcast that he does with Andrew Page.

You can also hear his chat with Matt Vitali from Birchill. Likely a very different chat with Birchill than I would have had on his Good Oil with Scott Phillips podcast. Again, there's a link in the show notes. If you like what we do at Radio Bruce News, you can invest in Either as a business you can take some advertising or as a listener you can sponsor the show. There's a link to that in the show notes.

You can invest some time with us by reviewing us on Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcasting service. Also, you can email us at producer at Bruzenews.com.au to share your thoughts. If you're not already a listener to the Radio Bruce News channel, we do a weekly show called Beer as a Conversation on that platform, and we also look at the news of the week on Bruce News Week. You can find a link to that in the show notes as well.