I haven't watched it by 4 Corners must just be going down the ASX 100 list and speaking to anyone that is aggrieved by one of the companies. I just feel this investigative journalism gets lower and lower quality by the year.

@Mujo I'm halfway through watching the episode and have seen enough.. Four Corners is a woeful show..

I don't blame the CEO for not agreeing to be interviewed by these bottom feeders..

Not showing up for the Senate Select Committee is another matter.. He needs to grow a backbone!

I saw the program and found it quite informative.

At one level, the small number of case studies highlighted are exactly what you might expect to see where you have the big buyer - small seller power imbalance at play, with weak or poorly supervised/enforced regulations. Who knows how representative or not they are.

Looking at it from the SMB perspective, who would ever make a large investment predicated off a contract to a singlelarge buyer? The facts is that probably thousands or tens of thousands of Australian SMBs have to do this every day. Business is tough, and Australia has a lot of oligopolies.

I was interested to learn about the development covenants or lease covenants at the retail parks. These really do seem to be a barrier to competition, and I think it would be a good thing if these were made illegal. Even though I expect there are are some valid counter-arguments, I think that large players with market power should perhaps not benefit from these in the interests of promoting competition.

It is disappointing that the CEO's didn't front the Senate. That is disrespectful. Afterall, stakeholder management is a key CEO role, and there is no higher Government Staheholder than a Senate Enquiry. I can understand why they wouldn't front the ABC. Clearly, as the program stated or implied, their strategy is to avoid having their CEOs become "public villan" personalities (like Banducci and Joyce etc.). It is probably the right call, even if I'd personally like to see senior people be accountable. (I was never a fan of Joyce, but he always seemed to front up to the press. So, I'll give him that.)

Given the high marketshare in tools & hardware, Bunnings probably deserves greater attention from the ACC. Afterall, there's been a pretty strong focus on supermarkets, and Bunnings seems to have gotten off quite lightly.

So, on balance, while it is easy to criticise the Four Corners program and "gotcha" journalism approach, I actually think the program serves a purpose here, and if the ACCC is asleep at the wheel (I am not saying they are) then its good to know that others are watching.

I do enjoy my outings to Bunnings, and will continue to do so. But I hope they do the right thing. And I want our public institutions to keep them honest and to promote competition.

I suffered through it too. It seems it was mostly a few aggrieved subscale operations that get put out of business by a more efficient business. Clearly this is a reality in many businesses. Mecca now would be doing that in cosmetics etc.

I note Sydney Tools was founded in 2001 in NSW and has been a roaring success and expanded so shows there is competition. Ryobi may have an exclusive with Bunnings but Miwaukee (both made by the same company anyway) has an exclusive with Sydney tools. Mitre10 would have the same. So nonissue.

The whole private label thing is done everywhere think 'Staple Superior' on Iconic, Endeavour with their range of drink brands, Mecca and Sephora with their own brands, Kmart with Anko, Amazon does the same too. It is not an exclusive thing to Bunnings. Again non-issue.

I assume the restrictions on an area is when Bunnings agrees to develop and anchor a shopping are and so gets a 10-year agreement in exchange for doing so instead of someone coming into to freeride on their investment. The low-quality investigation there leaves a lot of questions rather than answers. Likely nonissue.

Not appearing at the Senate was bad form though agree.

I was interested to read, as I posted in the ASX:COL thread that in the 1980s the Australian politicians blamed the supermarkets then as well for inflation. Seemed like they just pulled the same playbook. Also the recent ACCC report finding there was no price gouging by the supermarkets. When questioned Albanese said they were and when asked for his definition for price gouging was 'taking the piss.' Says it all really,

I just hate that the ABC is doing the Government's bidding on deflecting blame for inflation from themselves.

If we have the way of 4 Corners we would be having protectionism and higher prices for our already astronomical building costs for housing.

Haven't had a chance personally to watch this episode of 4 Corners, but usually do so later on the week on view. I'll try to catch up on the weekend and offer an opinion, if it differs greatly from those posted already. However, I'll be surprised to see anything different to the other comments, especially regarding 4 Corners and company crucifxions. I quite like it when they stick it to criminals involved in Vapes, illegal tabaco trade, etc. or tackle failures in Aged Care or other welfare shortfalls. But they usually do overstep the line when they act as judge, jury & executioner when doing pieces on companies.

Thanks for the heads up all!!

Haven't seen the 4 corners episode either. But this doesn't stop the share price from rising.

Now over $80! Who said $65 was expensive?

I've often thought that in these so-called exposés, many of the tactics that they highlight as having been used, are the sort of tactics that shareholders would actually want such a dominant market player to use to reinforce their own dominance and to protect their moat (competitive advantages). Yes, things can be taken to extremes and compassion should be shown in more instances than it probably is when small players are significantly hurt by such procedures, however the basics of protecting your margins, trying to negotiate lower prices from suppliers when possible, making sure your retail stores / warehouses have location advantages, establishing and promoting exclusive lines not available in other stores, etc. are just good business practise, and companies that do NOT try to do those things are going to be disadvantaged compared to those that do.

I don't know how many suppliers a company like Bunnings has to deal with, but it could easily run into the thousands, it would be hundreds at the very least, so it's inconceivable that you would not be able to find any disgruntled ones if you went looking. I haven't watched the 4 Corners episode myself, so not commenting specifically on that particular episode, but I do find that successful businesses tend to become convenient scapegoats when things get tough and people are looking for someone or something to blame.

Meanwhile, how often do we see the share price of a company like this only strengthen when practises of this nature are "exposed"? Based on my own past experience, I would expect most Wesfarmers' shareholders to take Bunnings side in this and to be more happy than not that Bunnings are looking after their own interests and not looking like losing their market dominance any time soon.

I believe that most investors would think, "they're running a business, not a charity."

Others without any personal interests in Wesfarmers might have a totally different view of course.

Disc: Not personally holding WES at this point in time, but I often do - have done many times in prior years. My only current consumer discretionary sector position is ARB.

Currently (3:50 pm) WES is at $83.45. A very definite uptick during the day. I have to wonder if WES's share price is being driven by the same forces behind CBA's.

WES is a company everyone thinks they know. Reasonable (not that large) dividend and company many punters would see as safe. A comfortable holding for a SMSF or dividend investor.

Discl: I'm holding WES in 2 PFs - one SMSF and the other a Company "growth" PF - I'm watching the price to offload the latter, but it just keeps going up!

I heard from somewhere there is a "cult" following for WES down in WA.

So they probably don't care what happens here and many are probably sitting on large capital gains and not willing to provide any supply of shares to the market. While grabbing the dividend as mentioned. As they are probably early investors, the yield will be much bigger

Yep completely agree @Bear77

If they are breaking or bending laws then I'm all for that being called out. However if it's just flexing their strength, that has been built up over many years from a standing start (there was no Bunnings when I was a kid), then good luck to them. Big businesses are supposed to use their buying power to get the best deals for their customers. And if a supplier doesn't like the deal they don't have to sell to them.

I don't own WES. But if I did, I'd want Bunnings management to keep strengthening their moats and make it really hard for their competition.

As for fronting the media and the Senate. Again if they have broken laws or the like then sure they should answer questions. But after the pathetic beat up by Senators of Woolies and Coles around "price gouging" I wouldn't give either of them oxygen. Blind freddy can see if you're only making a few percent net profit for many years, there's not much fat there. And these Senators either know that and chose to engage in a beat up around ROE and the like for political point scoring...or they don't understand how a business really works and what value the supermarkets and Bunnings etc have provided to their citizens over decades.

I for one have no desire to go back to the higher price days of only the local hardware store or local IGA.

Thought it was funny when ABC secured an interview with the WES CEO in "The Business" only to decline in the last minute when ABC were going ask some questions about the upcoming inquiry.

Again, does not stop the share price from going up. I'm hoping it will hit $90 soon and we will be all proved wrong.