CSL’s $7bn write-down, PM defends CGT changes, beer drinking is back
Published: May 11, 2026
CSL’s $7bn write-down, PM defends CGT changes, beer drinking is back
News in brief
It is budget day, and ahead of its release at 7:30pm tonight, PM Anthony Albanese has given a defence of why his government will break its 2025 election promise to not touch the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing.
One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce says his party is not interested in joining the Liberal-National party coalition (not that they are being invited) but would give confidence and supply in exchange for policy concessions if the conservatives were elected to power.
Outdoor advertising group oOh!Media has rejected a $770 million takeover offer from a US based private equity group and says it is talking to more potential suitors. The latest rejection comes after the group knocked back a proposal from Pacific Equity Partners.
The number of drinks sold by Anheuser-Busch, the world’s largest brewer, increased in the March quarter for the first time in three years, suggesting there might be life left in the alcohol sector.
An El Nino weather pattern is expected to form in coming months, and could be the most powerful even on record, according to the latest outlook from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
Fear-o-meter
In recent decades, few, if any, corporates have had a fall from grace as large as CSL. Established in 1916 as Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, to service the health needs of a country isolated by war, CSL provided Australians with access to 20th century medical advances including insulin, penicillin, and vaccines against influenza, polio and other infectious diseases.
It listed on the ASX in 1994, and by 2020 was the largest company on the bourse. But ever since it spent nearly $19 billion buying Swiss based Vifor Pharma in 2022, its trajectory has been south.
CSL was re-rated by investors around 2024, and since the June of that year, it has lost nearly 70 per cent of its value, or $100 billion in market capitalisation. Since August last year, its share price has almost halved.
Alongside the re-rating, whereby shareholders re-think the long-term prospects for a company, CSL has also disappointed at earnings times, and downgraded profit forecasts.
Fear & Greed Q+A today
On why SMEs are facing an increased risk of cyber attacks:
"Historically, cyber criminals would traditionally go after the big players because that’s where the big money was. But now, because of AI, they can spread those attacks across millions of small businesses at scale. Small businesses aren’t necessarily being selectively targeted anymore — they’re just being swept up. AI has given attackers the acceleration and the scale to do that. And a lot of businesses still think they’re too small to be targeted, but that mindset really hasn’t changed over the years, even though the threat environment absolutely has."
CSL has shocked investors by writing down the value of its assets by $7 billion, including its Vifor kidney treatment subsidiary, and cut its full year earnings and revenue forecasts. It is one the biggest write-downs in Australian corporate history and comes just three months after the company re-affirmed its guidance.
Investors showed their frustration yesterday sending CSL’s share price down 16 per cent, pushing it out of the top ten companies on the ASX. The only other companies to make such huge impairments have been miners BHP and Rio Tinto, who over recent decades have written down oil, coal and gas assets.
Hurting the one-time blue chip are competitive pressures in its core blood plasma group and falling vaccine rates in the US. Long-time CEO and now chair, Brian McNamee is under pressure to keep his job. Former CEO Paul McKenzie was replaced, abruptly, last August and the interim CEO, Gordon Naylor, doesn’t want the job full-time.
This week the team from Ausbiz, including Juliette Saly and Nadine Blayney, join us on Fear & Greed. Watch live at ausbiz.com.au and sign up for a daily market wrap at ausbiz.com/newsletter.
Greed-o-meter
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