Wesfarmers (WES) Strategy Briefing Day 2025 summary

Group Strategy and Financial Outlook

• Focus on delivering top quartile total shareholder returns through disciplined execution, operational excellence, and capital allocation, with a strong emphasis on customer needs, team development, supplier partnerships, and community engagement.

• Over AUD 5 billion invested in core businesses over the past five years, with additional hundreds of millions in digital and data capabilities to drive growth and efficiency.

• Portfolio strengthened through exits from lower-growth businesses, new platforms in health, lithium, and retail media, and operating excellence, aiming for long-term value creation.

• Strong balance sheet with investment-grade credit ratings, $1.1b in unused bank facilities, and financial discipline providing capacity for ongoing investment and opportunistic, accretive M&A.

• Recent portfolio actions, including the wind-down of Catch and sale of Coregas, are expected to improve group earnings and capital efficiency.

Divisional Strategies and Growth Initiatives

• Bunnings targets sustainable sales and earnings growth via range expansion, space optimization, commercial offer acceleration, digital innovation, and a pipeline of over 100 property projects, with a focus on productivity and supply chain enhancements.

• Kmart Group aims to double sales and earnings long-term, leveraging the Anko brand for global expansion, investing in digital and supply chain modernization, launching a curated third-party marketplace, and focusing on low-cost leadership and operational excellence.

• Officeworks focuses on omnichannel experience, technology category expansion, B2B growth, and supply chain transformation, with investments in loyalty, data, and retail media to drive customer engagement and productivity.

• WesCEF is finalizing lithium refinery commissioning, expanding production capacity in key chemicals, and pursuing decarbonization, with lithium expected to incur greater losses in FY2026 before ramping up to steady-state operations.

• Health division prioritizes growth in consumer health and beauty, loyalty and digital asset leverage, and supply chain optimization, with new formats and private label expansion to drive higher margins and returns.

Technology, Productivity, and Omnichannel Transformation

• Significant investments in data, digital, and omnichannel capabilities are now shifting from build to benefit realization, with retail media, loyalty, and personalization engines driving incremental sales and cross-brand engagement.

• Generative AI and automation are being deployed across merchandising, supply chain, and customer experience to unlock productivity and efficiency gains.

• Centralized fulfillment centers and new supply chain infrastructure in Kmart and Officeworks are expected to improve delivery speed, reduce costs, and free up in-store labor for customer service.