WiseTech moves to take bigger slice of logistics pie despite global woes
WiseTech founder Richard White has pushed aside concerns about the contracting global economy and strike action at Australian ports, saying his company is taking a bigger piece of the logistics pie and is moving into customs, compliance and landslide logistics.
“If you think about world gross product, it’s growing at quite low amounts, but WiseTech is a growth company. It’s winning new customers, its customers are rolling out, it’s building new products into new markets,” said Mr White, who was speaking at the Macquarie Australia Conference.
The IMF has warned the global economy is on the brink of a second “cold war” as countries align themselves into regional power blocs – centred around the US and China – that could erase trillions of dollars in global output. At the same time, sticky inflation in countries such as the US and Australia is leading central banks to reconsider decreasing interest rates.
Mr White started WiseTech 30 years ago with Maree Isaacs and still owns more than 36 per cent of the company. The billionaire has a bird’s eye view of the economy because his company provides its CargoWise technology to 13 of the 25 biggest global freight forwarders. All 25 are WiseTech customers.
But he said he would leave predicting economic growth and rates to the economists, commenting that volumes have remained stable.
When asked about whether the strike action at Australia’s biggest stevedore was still causing issues, Mr White said it was a short-term blip.
“Australia is 1.5 per cent of world GDP and we are largely a global company,” he said. “Our business in Australia is quite large, but the remarkable thing is that whenever those choke points happen they clear very rapidly and the backlog comes through anyway.”