Few people have shaped a major Australian company for as long as Michael Chaney has shaped Wesfarmers. On Thursday 29 October, at the company’s annual meeting, he chaired his last meeting and handed over to former BHP chairman Ken MacKenzie.

Four decades in one company

Mr Chaney told shareholders his involvement with Wesfarmers spanned 43 years. He joined in 1983 as company secretary and administration manager, became finance director the following year, and was managing director from 1992 until 2005. He returned to the board in 2015 and became chairman later that year.

“I don’t believe anyone could have wished for a more enjoyable, rewarding career than the one I have had with your company,” he said.

Managing director Rob Scott noted that there had been just five chairmen since Wesfarmers listed in 1984, and that Mr Chaney had worked alongside all of them. “It’s hard to see these contributions ever being repeated,” Mr Scott said.

The record

Mr Chaney said that since its float in November 1984, Wesfarmers had outperformed every other company then listed, with a compound shareholder return of 18.8% a year. A $1,000 investment at listing would be worth around $1.4 million today with dividends reinvested, he said, compared with around $62,000 for the same amount in the All Ordinaries.

He put that down to three things: a clear purpose, which from listing was “to provide a satisfactory return to shareholders”; management systems that drive behaviour towards it; and “sticking to your guns” when commentators urge different strategies or a break-up. He also credited the company’s half-ownership of investment bank Gresham Partners.

On capital, he said Wesfarmers had never told its divisions they were competing for it. “What is limited are those good investments and if any manager can find them, they’ll get the capital they need.”

The mistakes

He was candid about the risk of success breeding hubris. “Fortunately, we’ve made enough mistakes over the last 40 years to have a sober view of that issue,” he said, citing the roughly $1.5 billion written off on the Bunnings UK venture. His summary of the lesson: “if it ain’t broke, be ready to change it”.

A parting warning

Mr Chaney used his final address to criticise the state of economic reform, describing “low growth, weak productivity, dismal confidence and limited ambition or capacity for reform.” He said there had been “limited, if any, progress in productivity, backwards steps in business tax, and none of the wholesale tax reform” he had called for a year ago.

He also took aim at immigration politics, calling it “a race to the bottom” that ignored immigration’s importance to prosperity and would worsen skills shortages.

The successor

Ken MacKenzie joined the Wesfarmers board in June. Mr Chaney said he had a 23-year executive career at Amcor, including 10 years as managing director and chief executive, and was chairman of BHP for nearly eight years. All resolutions at the meeting passed, with Mr MacKenzie elected with 98.66% of votes cast, Kalkine reported.

He takes over at a less comfortable moment than the long-run record suggests: at the same meeting, Mr Scott told shareholders that Bunnings’ sales growth had moderated and that higher rates were weighing on demand.

Sources: Wesfarmers 2026 AGM Chairman’s and Managing Director’s addresses (29 October 2026); Kalkine.