The Constructive Finance Podcast was delighted to sit down with special guest Bernard Salt to discuss the property development industry in 2017 and beyond.
Bernard Salt is widely regarded as one of Australia’s leading social commentators by business, the media and the broader community.
He is a high-profile Melbourne-based Partner with the global advisory firm KPMG where he founded the specialist advisory business, KPMG Demographics.
Bernard writes two weekly columns for The Australian newspaper that deal with social, generational and demographic matters.
Bernard has popularised demographics through his books, columns and media appearances for 25 years.
For more information about the podcast or getting involved please email paige@holdencapital.com.au
Read full transcript below:
Steve Wiltshire: Good morning all. Today our guest is widely regarded futurist and commentator and partner at KPMG, Bernard Salt who's head of their demographics division. Welcome Bernard.
Bernard Salt: Hi Steve.
Steve Wiltshire: Sorry, I'm a bit nervous today.
Bernard Salt: That's all right. That's quite all right, very good.
Steve Wiltshire: Bernard, by way of introduction can you give us a bit of an overview of how you actually got the inspiration for what you do and how you got started?
Bernard Salt: How I got started in demographics?
Steve Wiltshire: Yes.
Bernard Salt: I seem to be getting that question quite a bit these days. Well, I describe myself as a failed history and geography school teacher. I wanted to be a school teacher when I was growing up in a small country town in Victoria.
Steve Wiltshire: Where is that?
Bernard Salt: A place called Terang which is near Warrnambool and Camperdown, in fact it's Darien country. I thought I wanted to be a school teacher, I liked my school teachers, got on well. I did my teaching degree and then worked out how much school teachers earned and I thought no I reckon I can do better and so I went back and did another degree in Urban Geography in the growth of Melbourne, the growth of cities over 100 years, in fact. It was that merging of geography with history in fact and urban growth and development, looking at the way in which Australian cities evolved and leveraging that off the way in which London was actually being formed and evolved in the 1800s we'll say, so it was going back to those European roots.
After I did my degree I started work with the Geelong Regional Commission, which was a planning authority, which exposed me to the census, 1971-1981 censuses, which I loved seeing all of these city data observations 100 years later from the data that I was looking at in the evolution of those cities.
Then I fell into consulting, doing feasibility studies for shopping centres and that was all demographics. That exposed me then to the world of commercial property development and the interesting thing there was that I would talk to a client, a shopping centre owner or investor, about a suburb over 100 years and their jaws just dropped because they're used to seeing an assessment for last year, the next 5 years or 10 years and here's someone talking about well this part of Melbourne or this part of Sydney evolved like this in the 1890s, the 1930s, the 1950s and it's heading in this direction. That provided me with this long term perspective that if you have a property worth $500 million or more, you kind of want to know that it's gonna be around, not in 5 years but in 20 years or 30 years, you want that long term perspective.
Steve Wiltshire: Yeah okay. From a personal level, what do you think made you successful? You're a guru in the field, what were the personal elements that you think made you a success?
Bernard Salt: I think you certainly do need to be able to communicate across a range of medium. If you do not enjoy writing, this is not for you. If you do not enjoy speaking and presenting an argument then it's not for you. You need to be able to perform in any environment, whether it's a podcast, whether it's on-stage, whether it's looking down the barrel to a camera, whether it's via social media, you need to be very adaptable and you need to actually enjoy the process of communications. Interestingly, in the 1990s I'd write these wonderful reports, they might be 50, 60 pages or whatever it was, to a CEO on a property or a shopping centre and the CEO would say, "That's terrific Bernard, what's it say?" He'd pass it off to his people, it was mostly men at that stage, which was all well and good and I thought that's interesting but at the end of the day, it was your ability to encapsulate the key issues in a presentation. This might've been 3 months work, it might've been $50,000 worth of consulting work-
Steve Wiltshire: You've gotta distil it down.
Bernard Salt: Distil it down into a central proposition and then I realised you know, it's actually speaking and encapsulation and ideas that swing business, that actually impact business. What business will do is they'll ask you what the report says and then in a series of questions, it's like a dipstick, they're testing to see whether in fact what you are saying stacks up.
Steve Wiltshire: Resonates with what they're thinking.
Bernard Salt: Resonates with their thinking and until they find something inconsistent, then they will dismiss you or get rid of you or whatever it is. That's the way business works in consulting so-
Steve Wiltshire: From your point of view, in today's environment, you've been doing this a long time, what pushes your buttons? When you look at a project for a client, what are the things that interest you and you're finding consistently with developers are important and things that you like building internally?
Bernard Salt: I'm always interested in change and change for the better. One of the better things about getting older and old in consulting is that you build a reputation and you can pick and choose your projects and you can pick and choose who you want to work with. That is one of the most pleasing aspects and you can choose projects that you think are interesting, that are engaging, that are bold, that are game-changing, that are right for the times, that are exciting, that make a difference, that you can actually think yes, I can see why that project would work and I can explain it, I can communicate why that project is the right place at the right time. I'm also a patriotic Australian, I want to see the quality of Australian life, the quality of Australian infrastructure, the quality of Australian property actually improve over time. Again, it's getting older and wanting to make sure that you're leaving a legacy for that next generation. Although I don't think future generations are going to say I wonder who that demographer was that advised on that project, I'm deluded you could say.
Steve Wiltshire: Don't worry [inaudible 00:07:13].
Bernard Salt: That's right.
Steve Wiltshire: From that perspective, are we successful at the moment? Do you see the quality of Australian development improving the way you'd like to see it or are there areas that we need to sort of lift our game, so to speak?
Bernard Salt: There's no doubt that I think, certainly in terms of commercial property, residential property, many of the towers that are being built, I think generally that's the case. Understand, I haven't worked on any projects where the quality has not been there and that's my point about I just avoid projects where I don't believe in the developer or the project.
Steve Wiltshire: So you can say "no"?
Bernard Salt: I can say "no" and I do, in fact. I think that the quality of what is being delivered adds to the diversity and the articulation of urban life in Australia. I think that we have come from an extraordinarily bland property base, 3 bedroom brick veneers out in the suburbs with drive-in shopping centres. I mean that was terrific for the 1950s, 60s, 70s and maybe 80s. The 1990s through to the 2020s, we wanted something different, something a little more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated, a little more articulated and that's certainly what we're delivering at the moment. I am concerned about infrastructure and our ability to deliver particularly transportation infrastructure. The cost of freeways, motorways, tunnels, roads is just mind-numbing. How can we continue to deliver fluidity to bigger cities of Melbourne and Sydney unless we actually can efficiently deliver infrastructure.
Steve Wiltshire: We've got a problem here, in terms of the way we go about delivering and by that I mean the process of funding or what have you. Have you got any thoughts on that? I have some issues with the process where we seem to accept that governments tender it out on a package basis where the finance actually drive, or the deliverability of the finance, tends to drive the outcome of the product rather than the product being presented and then finding a way to actually fund it and deliver it.
Bernard Salt: Look, I don't know enough about funding and you may well have a better solution. I think my concern is that infrastructure, transportation infrastructure, seems to be being driven by political priorities rather than by absolute need and it's almost like we need someone to say here's the top 20 list of big picture pieces of infrastructure we need across Australia to improve the quality of Australian life and to deliver fluidity into our cities. The problem is that that can direct funding into some cities as opposed to other cities and in a political sense, well you can't give money to that state and not to this state, if you do that for them then we want this, here's a seat that we need to swing, what do we need to upgrade to get votes across the line, they're the compromises. Everything would run better if it was just run by economic rationals in some respects.
Steve Wiltshire: A benevolent dictator-
Bernard Salt: A benevolent dictatorship with a demographic edge.
Steve Wiltshire: That would be good, okay. In terms of projects that you've been seeing in recent times, what are some of the key mistakes or directions that you think developers need to think more about and correct in their thinking?
Bernard Salt: I certainly like to see big, bold, brave, nation-building, city-changing, lifestyle-changing projects. I do think that the development community needs to not just come up with the right projects, come up with the right funding, whatever that is, I don't understand that side of it but you need to bring the Australian people with you. If there's one thing I've learned about the Australian people, they can be narky if they're not consulted or brought along. This is a public relations exercise, you need to actually say here's a big project, it's gonna cost hundreds if not thousands of millions of dollars, it's going to be good for these sorts of reasons and here is why it's exciting, here is what the benefits are to the entire community. I often feel that projects are announced as a fait accompli and then you need to get your hands in there, into that city, into that community and argue the case.
Steve Wiltshire: How does that translate then for a, let's say a developer who's building a tower of 100 apartments on the edge of the city? How does that translate for them?
Bernard Salt: You need good public relations. You need to ensure that the local community is informed, that they have a sense of contribution to shaping it, that people who object, their opinions are taken on-board. You need to work with the community to insert a project of that scale and you need to be genuinely open-minded and say well here's how we can compromise there, here's how we can compromise there. Although I will say there comes a point where you do need to just say look we've compromised as much as possible, this is the project that's going here. The feedback I often get from developers is you know those people who were so vehement in their objection, they're the first ones lining up to buy an apartment in that building, they turn around completely.
Steve Wiltshire: I've certainly seen that before. I think that probably translates for any project [inaudible 00:13:19]. Obviously it's scale, the level of involvement probably needs to be scaled down because if you're building 40 townhouses somewhere or 20 townhouses somewhere in the suburbs, the level of engagement probably isn't gonna be as great.
Bernard Salt: Exactly.
Steve Wiltshire: I think still, it comes down to communication is what you're talking about and it's communicating with the populous that you're impacting on. If you get their involvement, you can't make them feel too [inaudible 00:13:44].
Bernard Salt: Yeah. There needs to be a simple, clean, logic line because the response typically is well I wasn't consulted, why do we need this, not in our backyard, it's just going to add to traffic or whatever, what is the net contribution? When it's completed, it's a pretty darn good lifestyle, I want to be part of that.
Steve Wiltshire: Australians are pretty good at saying no, no, no I don't want that, without understanding what it is they're knocking back. That's a two-way street.
Bernard Salt: Yeah I think it's just concern about change. This is the community that I've grown up with, I see this as a threat to my way of life, to my lifestyle whereas I think, with the right communication people can see well this is an opportunity for me to actually evolve my lifestyle. We all really want to be out in 3 bedroom brick veneers out in the middle of suburbia, mowing the lawn on a weekend. Many people do but a lot of people these days think you know that was great for my 30s and 40s but at this time in life I want something different, very different in fact.
Steve Wiltshire: That's an interesting point. I mean I know you studied very closely, from the demographic point of view, the different bands going through the system. How is that attitude of the baby boomers now gonna start playing out and as the younger generations come around they're gonna want different things but they still don't control as much of the purse strings so to speak or the outcomes as the baby boomers do and I'm just wondering, how does that translate in terms of the legacy that the baby boomers ultimately leave behind for the benefit of those following?
Bernard Salt: In actual fact I think the baby boomers will be leaving a legacy, that will be an inheritance to their children. Unfortunately for their children, that's another 25 years into the future. The baby boomers aren't planning on going anywhere in the short term. You could argue that that means that the millennial generation really don't have to focus as much on superannuation and retirement planning. If they have parents who are going to bequest them a share in a house for example, they will also have had 40 years of contribution to a superannuation so you've got a superannuation base, then there's the inheritance. Now I know that's not for everyone but certainly for a good proportion, a substantial proportion, that will be the narrative.
Really then, the challenge for the millennial generation is to actually get into affordable housing and, as we discovered with the smashed avocado incident that I'm sure you've heard of, this is a major issue and a very sensitive issue with this generation. Having looked at it quite intensely over the last 3 or 4 months, I do think that it is significantly a Sydney issue, substantially a Melbourne issue, far less so in the other capital cities let alone in regional Australia. You can buy a house and land in Perth for example, 10K from the CBD, on the north side, on the west side, even the south side where the median house price is still less than 600,000. That's affordable, Adelaide's affordable, parts of Brisbane substantially are affordable. Even in Melbourne, 14K west of the CBD at Sunshine West, the median house price is 600,000, that's the median so technically that's affordable.
Sydney is another ballpark altogether, another league. There is nothing affordable within 50 to 60 kilometres of the CBD other than two little islands, one is St. Mary's which is public housing where the median house price is 600,000 or less and the other is Macquarie Fields in the southwest, which is also public housing. Again, another generation could say well let's makeover, let's reimagine those places.
Steve Wiltshire: From that point of view, when we look at Brisbane particularly, where do you see the marketplace, the status of the marketplace and where it's gonna be going in the next couple of years? I mean, we look at it from our perspective and I suppose if we take a look at it from a very focused local perspective, we see that affordability gap with Melbourne and Sydney, which in the past has driven really good population growth with respect to migration, with the economic position of Queensland where it is and the lack of job growth, we're stagnating. Now do you see any potential changes that are likely to impact that moving forward, either by way of growth areas in terms of employment in Queensland or some other shift that might see a greater return to that shift of people either selling up because of jobs here or selling up because they've got enough money in their pocket to start up a business?
Bernard Salt: Look I think there's a couple of factors, a couple of reasons why you would be positive about Queensland. I will preface this by saying I'm an optimist and I am a patriotic Australian. I would not want to live in or invest my youth, my energy, my career in any other nation on Earth but in Australia. In Queensland, I think there is upside to Queensland and that is I think the tourism sector, international tourism particularly driven by Chinese visitors. We have a million Chinese visitors to Australia at the moment. There is no reason why that could not be two million or three million over 10 years time. What does Australia, what does Queensland, what does Brisbane, Southeast Queensland look like if there were three million Chinese visitors to Australia? That would completely change the economics, the dynamics. There would be an impact on the hotel sector, the aviation sector, as well as other aspects of tourism. I think agro-business will continue to drive opportunity in Australia, all states would prosper from that.
I don't think that it's possible for five million baby boomers now straddling their 60s and sitting on high property values in Sydney and Melbourne worried that they haven't saved enough in super to live the lifestyle they think they're entitled to in their 70s and beyond. At the back of their head they're thinking you know I've got this house in Killara, Sydney that I bought in 1979 for $80,000, it's now worth $2.8 mil and it's my nest-egg and I want to trade that down, buy a lifestyle property somewhere in Southeast Queensland and top up my super and live happily ever after. Now, I think in their late 50s and early 60s they're concerned about jobs but give it another 5 years, certainly another 10 years, that must convert into a lifestyle shift, the downshifting seachange, lifestyle or sunbelt shift has yet to surface. I can't see how it could be any further than 10 years but it could be 5 years, so that 5 to 10 year timeframe is what I'm counting on. Otherwise, I just cannot imagine the baby boomers staying in Killara or in Glen Waverley in Melbourne or in any other number of regional cities.
Steve Wiltshire: You've gotta have a feeling a significant outcome or series of outcomes I guess both in terms of demand, in terms of where they identify they want to be but also a supply shift in terms of the properties that they're shifting out of.
Bernard Salt: Totally. You sell out of Killara or you sell out of Glen Waverley and that frees up the market for people in their late 30s, early 40s. You tend to buy your peak property in your life I've been told. Harry Dent says that you buy your peak property between 40 and 44, the average person does and you sell it between 60 and 64. It's Harry Dent's great demographic contribution, I think, and it's a fair assessment I think. I actually think that that does release a lot of property in Melbourne and Sydney but it also shifts demand into Southeast Queensland and coastal areas you would have to say, right up and down the eastern seaboard.
Steve Wiltshire: Yes I would've thought particularly that northern New South Wales coastline, you're talking about coastlines, those sort of seaside places we used to go to when we were kids for holidays sort of become the places you think about retiring to maybe.
Bernard Salt: [Belliner and Gamber 00:23:11] and Boomerang Beach and Blueys Beach, there's a whole range of them north of Sydney but I certainly do think that baby boomers, they're holding fast at the moment because they've worked out their property value is rising, they're not losing so every year they stay in Killara it probably goes up another, I don't know, quarter of a mil. That's money in the bank and I'm still in work and I'm only working two days a week but I can't really replicate that in Brisbane and so this is like a game of chicken if you like. There'll be a point at which it just precipitates. There's point at which steam rises from the earth and then it condenses into rain and falls back down. The baby boomer steam rising above Killara at the moment and by the end of decade, I reckon it'll just condense into rain and they'll say right, now's the time, I'll sell Killara at 3 mil, I'll buy a 1.5 mil snappy apartment overlooking the botanic gardens in Brisbane, live the lifestyle and I've got 1.5 mil to do my Rhine River cruises for the rest of my life. Sounds pretty good, the narrative works well. You've got a 1.5 mil apartment to bequest to the kids. I don't have to give everything to the kids, I've been exceptionally generous up to this point.
Steve Wiltshire: How does all that fit in with the press' fixation with the so-called 'bubble'?
Bernard Salt: The bubble. I have been around for a long time, been dealing with the press for a long time. I can remember fielding calls from the, let's just call it the tabloid newspaper in Melbourne. In 2002, 2003, they're talking about a bubble in Docklands and I think for 17 years or 15 years there is a line of a bubble theory, which is not to say that it won't happen. My view is there may well be periods of over-supply, periods and places of over-supply, that may well be Brisbane, I don't know but with population growth tracking along at 300,000 per year forever into the future because we're a good place to go and people want to come here, whatever over-supply ultimately will be soaked up in due course. If you're saying well there's all this bubbly frothy stuff probably sitting out there in that sort of 2 to 5 year timeframe, yep that's fine but if I'm thinking what's the value going to be in 10 years time, you leapfrog over that and say well Brisbane is going to be a bigger city in 10 years time. There's gonna be more demand for that.
Apart from that, at that 10 year timeframe, I reckon the Killara baby boomer will have made their move in fact and then all their mates jump onboard so if there is an issue over over-supply and could well be, then I see it in that short to medium term whereas in the medium to longer term I see positive growth, development and greater sophistication, the argument that Brisbane and southeast Queensland evolve into a third global city on the eastern seaboard of Australia, although I've probably offended all Brisbanites there who say we were a global city 30 years ago. Well, not quite. 10 years ago.
Steve Wiltshire: We started to sort of stick our head under the covers about 10 years ago, yeah. I think the local feel is that that's the case, we are starting to blossom. We are starting to get recognition overseas and I think probably the view is we're a little under-done here but that's not a bad place to be. I think the concern more is that Sydney is a little overheated and if there is a correction then the odd story of we catch a cold, we get a bit of a chill, I think that probably concerns us a little bit but overall we feel like ... We haven't seen the growth that Sydney and Melbourne have seen, it's been consistent, it's been very long. We feel like that gap has been stretched. The question is will it close because the others come down or will it lose progressively because we start to come up?
Bernard Salt: Well this idea that Melbourne and Sydney catch a cold, Brisbane whatever-
Steve Wiltshire: Suffers a bit.
Bernard Salt: Suffers a bit, I'm not entirely sure about that.
Steve Wiltshire: No I'm not either.
Bernard Salt: If you go back 25 years to the early 1990s when Victoria was on its knees, I remember it very, very well, this pyramid collapsed and there was the State Bank collapse and Geelong was hit and Melbourne was on its knees, there was a transition and we had a brash young premier [inaudible 00:28:19] coming in and he's gotta do this and he nicked the Grand Prix and he did all that. There was a mass exodus from Victoria, it's a bit like almost a Trump effect at that time. Oh my God, the world is going to end. Hervey Bay had its biggest population increase in one year ever in that year and I was told, I'd be up here for business and bad headlines down south means that it's good for us, people actually escape, we see escapees flooding north. The more calamitous Melbourne and Sydney are in terms of outrageous pricing or housing un-affordability, I see that as actually good news because it opens the gap and you think well, there's got to be an opportunity in southeast Queensland's case. Brisbane isn't Sydney but it doesn't explain the extent of the price differential.
I think the same thing actually happens with Tasmania and Melbourne. Tasmania property market just hibernates for 20 years and then it blossoms, like one of those flowers in a bush fire, a bush fire comes along and then it flowers. The point is that the Hobart property prices get so far out of whack with Melbourne, all of a sudden Melbourne people think that looks attractive, I can actually fly down every weekend and it's still better than buying at Portsea or at [Lon 00:29:52] in fact. That logic applies, I think, elsewhere on the eastern seaboard between Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane.
Steve Wiltshire: No, I get that and hopefully you're right.
Bernard Salt: All these little theories that have evolved over the years that shaped your thinking.
Steve Wiltshire: Tell me, what are some of the new trends that you're seeing in development that are sort of game-changing that developers need to be aware of in the current marketplace? Is there anything that you're seeing in recent times that you've been thinking about?
Bernard Salt: I've certainly seen some very groovy marketing and the fact that I call it groovy really dates me. You see they pitch magnificently to baby boomers and to hipsters and whatever. There's almost like new life forms emerging out of the primal swamp of Melbourne and Sydney, absolutely brilliantly target-marketed like a rifle shot into that 28 to 35 year old hipster working in the creative industries in the inner-city of Melbourne and Sydney, then the baby boomers in their late 50s, early 60s looking to downshift or downsize. I think the marketing is very good.
I think the quality, the fit-out, the sophistication ... There's an unfortunate undercurrent that we're a bit of a back-order here in Australia. You go to Melbourne or Sydney or Brisbane, any capital city certainly and I think many provincial cities as well, we are far more cosmopolitan, far more global than I think certainly any part or most parts of the US or even Europe. It's may not the Upper East Side of New York but I often point to the fact that if you go to somewhere like Mt. Gambier, 20,000 people in the southeast of South Australia, it's a white bread sort of community, 10% of the population was born overseas. If you go to somewhere like Pittsburgh in the US, 4%. We have a cosmopolitan population that washes across the entire continent to every nook and cranny. It means that our palate, our preferences, our lifestyle, the way we want to live is very cosmopolitan. We're a colonial people also, so we like to show off to each other about how sophisticated we are so if you're naming an apartment building then we'll call it the Manhattan or something like that. I think that you're tapping into the secret fears and aspirations of the Australian people when you get that marketing right.
Steve Wiltshire: From a technology point of view, are you seeing any game-changers in that sector?
Bernard Salt: Well certainly technology is changing the way we work, the way we communicate. I do think that work in the future will become far more mobile. The idea of actually living in an office, working in an office ... I have an office in Melbourne, I'm never there. I float in, it's a repository, it's a place where I put stuff and I float in and then float out. I think that the fluidity of work, the mobility of work, so any office or any apartment needs to be respectful of the fact that okay, do you actually need a study or do you need a workplace in fact and you might need multiple workplaces. The stuff you can actually do while you're watching television, you don't need to be enclosed in an office so think of the way in which work and life are fusing.
People used to talk about work/life balance, I think that's dated. It's now work/life fusion. You can be at work and you're doing your internet banking or updating your social media profile or making a personal phone call or you can be at home, watching the television with your kids and you get an email from your boss. You're not gonna say no sorry, I'll respond to that 9:00 in the morning, you respond in the moment. This being able to work and flex through technology at any point in time, I think, changes the way we use space or organise space. The study, as such, I don't think we need a study but we need workplaces that we can use effectively.
Steve Wiltshire: Interesting. That makes a lot of sense and I think it probably resonates with a lot of people cus very few of us actually spend the time, as you say, just sitting in one space trying to focus.
Bernard Salt: Yeah. It's interesting if you look at the way in which I argue that the kitchen has invaded the lounge room and the bedroom has invaded the lounge room because sofas now have beds and they have cup holders. You have the kitchen invading the lounge room, the bedroom invading the ... I don't think the kitchen is invading the bedroom, you don't have cup holders next to the bed but everything meshes in the modern world and you need to be able to flex to do this, flex to do that.
Steve Wiltshire: Yeah. I mean as you say, food's become so important to use these days, it's invaded everything we do and we're blending it all together in terms of the livability. The bedroom is probably the one place where we-
Bernard Salt: The last place. The bed and the bath, you don't have food in there. No I suppose not.
Steve Wiltshire: Though they do have televisions and things.
Bernard Salt: They do, yes. Yes parts of the lounge room have invaded, although I don't know about that. I think people are more likely to watch an iPad in bed.
Steve Wiltshire: I was gonna say, I think televisions in the bedroom is starting to lose-
Bernard Salt: Bit gauche aren't they? But you have your phone or your iPad beside your bed.
Steve Wiltshire: Bernard, it's been a pleasure having you in here. Just one last or two last questions. Firstly, what would you say to a young Bernard Salt? Knowing what you know today, what would you say to a young Bernard just sort of starting out in life?
Bernard Salt: I'd say back yourself. In your 20s, there's a lot of people in a more senior position than you whose interests are served by you not blossoming so don't always take words exactly what people are telling you. They're not doing it through meanness, they just can't see what you can actually see so be bold, be brave, don't necessarily listen to ... I find millennials, Gen-Y, they'll say I've got this mentor. Well bugger the mentor, what do you think? Back yourself kid and go for it.
Steve Wiltshire: Good advice. Last question, we always ask this one. What's the best bottle of wine you've enjoyed lately? Or if it's a scotch that you prefer?
Bernard Salt: The best bottle of wine? Well you obviously don't know that I am quite famously a non-drinker. I used to drink up until I started on the speaking circuit and I worked out very quickly you can't be at one function after another and drink so I'm a soda water person. I often thought I'll come back to it eventually, I don't have a problem with it at all but I just feel healthier without it so ... You enjoy your bottle of wine and I'll make do with a soda water in fact.
Steve Wiltshire: Sounds good. Bernard, thank you.
Bernard Salt: My pleasure.
Steve Wiltshire: Thank you.
Bernard Salt: Thanks Steve, ciao.