NSW Is Getting Australia's First Surf Lodge

A huge, $72 million ‘surf lodge’ is being built some 35km from the nearest coastline.

Located 60-minutes from Sydney CBD or 45 minutes by boat from Palm Beach, Wisemans Surf Lodge – in Wisemans Ferry, NSW – will boast a wave pool roughly the size of four football fields powered by US-based wave pool technology, Surfloch. The technology has the ability to generate 2.5-metre waves on the main peak ideal beginner waves on the second peak and everything in between.

As the world’s first surf lodge and Australia’s first resort-style surfing destination, it’s not limited to a luxurious surf experience, with a 9-hole golf course, 54 hotel suites, restaurant, bar, conference facilities also located on the 45-acre grounds.

The scheduled opening comes off the back of other local projects such as UrbnSurf and Aussie Surf Lakes that sees the further commercialisation of the surfing experience.

Co-founder John Du Vernet says, “What we’ll create at Wisemans is a solution to access the types of waves we’d often have to travel overseas for, waves we dream about. We’ve focused on creating a space that thinks about everything beyond the pool, even for the non-surfer, within a resort-like facility in a magical, and somewhat secret part of Sydney.”

Elsewhere, the resort will feature a remodel of a former hotel spearheaded by Sydney’s Kelvin Ho (Akin Atelier), best known for his work across a number of Merivale flagship venues. Ho will bring a nostalgic nod to the Australian surfing culture.

Access to Wisemans Surf Lodge will work on a membership-model, with more information to be revealed in 2021.

www.wisemans.surf

The Apple growth and profit machine is wavering, and the boost from price increases might not be enough to keep it going at historic rates. That dials up the pressure on Apple’s new chief executive, John Ternus.

The company saved the bad news for its earnings call, an hour after it posted its results for the September quarter, projecting that for the current quarter its high-margin services business will continue to slow and that its widely watched gross profit margin will continue to fall.

Apple AAPL -1.83%decrease; down pointing triangle shares had been flat in post-close trading but declined as much as 4% after the company made the projections, which fell short of Wall Street estimates.

The impact of high memory costs are weighing even more heavily on the company, Ternus and Apple Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh said on the company’s earnings call. Apple has stockpiled cheaper components purchased earlier, but those inventories are dwindling.

When Ternus took over as Apple’s third chief executive of the past 29 years on Sept. 1, he inherited sky-high expectations. The men he followed were among the most successful company leaders in American business history. Steve Jobs revolutionized consumer devices multiple times. Tim Cook expanded Jobs’s creation to spectacular heights.

The expectations are reflected in Apple’s huge valuation. Oppenheimer analyst Martin Yang noted that Apple stock trades at 36 times next year’s expected earnings, a premium to the overall market, even though its earnings are only expected to grow 1%, which is slower than its tech peers.

“We see insufficient upside to justify the premium,” Yang wrote in an investor note, adding that Apple needs to boost iPhone sales growth and turn around its slowing services business to make him more bullish.

Investors have bid up Apple shares because it has been a port in the AI storm—a reliable and capital-efficient business that stands apart from rivals which are spending hundreds of billions of dollars racing to the AI frontier.

While others invest in data centers, Apple has been pouring its own cash into buybacks and dividends. But that safety may be challenged if Ternus can’t speed up Apple’s innovation engine.

Apple’s lagging performance in AI was evident when its new “Siri AI” chatbot arrived this past quarter. Its long-maligned assistant was already stale the day it arrived, surpassed by agents such as Instinct and Muse that can complete multistep tasks for consumers, while Siri still sets kitchen timers.

Apple needs to give people reasons to buy its devices as they get more expensive. The company raised prices across the board last quarter to help offset higher costs. Without compelling new features, a big question is whether consumers will slow the frequency of iPhone upgrades.

The new iPhone Duo appears to be a bright spot. Consumers are scooping up the $1,999 foldable smartphone despite mixed reviews—so many that Apple can’t keep up with demand. Shipping dates jumped out to January soon after the device went on sale, a disappointment for the normally reliable Apple supply chain.

Apple said its revenue grew 12% in the September quarter, slightly ahead of Wall Street’s expectations. Its widely tracked gross profit margin, at 47.9%, also came in just ahead of analyst estimates.

Apple will need to find new growth avenues because a reliable engine during the Cook era—the services business—is slowing. Courts and regulators worldwide have limited Apple’s ability to charge developers big fees to distribute apps through its App Store, the biggest component of the company’s services segment.

One of its most lucrative App Store fee generators has been the ChatGPT app from OpenAI. Around the time Apple accused OpenAI of trade-secret theft this past summer, OpenAI began redirecting potential subscribers to pay via its website instead of the App Store, skirting Apple’s tollbooth.

Apple’s valuation has bumped up against a ceiling in recent weeks. Six times it traded above a $5 trillion market capitalization intraday before finally closing above the threshold, which it has already fallen back below.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

NSW Is Getting Australia’s First Surf Lodge

A huge, $72 million ‘surf lodge’ is being built some 35km from the nearest coastline.

Apple’s growth engine is showing signs of slowing, as rising costs, weaker services growth and AI competition challenge its profitability. With John Ternus taking the helm, the pressure is on to reignite innovation and sustain investor confidence.