Buy Hold Sell: 5 ASX stayers built to go the distance

Spring has arrived, and with it, the familiar buzz of the racing season in Melbourne - where form, endurance, and timing can make all the difference. It’s not just the horses gearing up for a big run - investors, too, are scanning the field for those rare “stayers” that can go the distance.

In this episode of Buy Hold Sell, we’re drawing inspiration from the track to talk about the enduring performers of the sharemarket - the companies that keep compounding, year after year, through every twist in the economic cycle. These are the market’s equivalent of the proven stayers: dependable, disciplined, and capable of delivering over the long haul.

Joining Livewire's Chris Conway to break down what makes a true long-term performer are Nick Pashias from Antares Equities and Marcus Ryan from Yarra Capital Management. 

We kick off by finding out whether the gents fancy a flutter during the Spring Racing Carnival or prefer to keep their bets confined to the stock market. We then explore what the term “quality compounder” really means to them - the traits, fundamentals, and track records that separate the contenders from the also-rans.

And of course, we’ll run the ruler over three proven “stayers”, before each guest reveals the one company they’d hold for the next five years (if they had to!).

Please note this episode was filmed on 22 October 2025.

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Edited Transcript

Chris Conway: Hello and welcome to Livewire's Buy Hold Sell. My name is Chris Conway. Spring has sprung and that means horse racing is taking centre stage down here in Melbourne where we are shooting this series of Buy Hold Sell. Today, we're focusing on the stayers, enduring performers that keep compounding year after year. Joining me are Nick Pashias from Antares and Marcus Ryan from Yarra Capital Management. Gents, before we talk stocks, I just wanted to ask, are you interested in the spring racing carnival at all, or do you confine your risk-taking just to markets? Marcus, I'll come to you first.

Any interest in the Spring Racing Carnival?

Marcus Ryan: Thanks Chris. It's great to be here. Look, interesting question. I'd say they're two quite different propositions - horse racing to the share market. But, even in carnival season that we find ourselves, look, my focus remains more on share market opportunities, albeit the investment opportunities here are much more longer dated and much more patience is required relative to, I believe, around the three minutes and 20 seconds that the average horse takes to complete the Melbourne Cup - the race that stops the nation.

Chris Conway: You've done your research mate. Well done. Nick, what about you? Do you enjoy the nags at all, or just on the market?

Nick Pashias: Well, I come from a long line of punters, but it definitely skipped me. So not really, not me.

Traits of enduring performers

Chris Conway: Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, let's sharpen up. We're going to talk about some companies of course, but I just wanted to understand; when I say ‘enduring performer’ or ‘quality compounder’, what that means to each of my guests. So Nick, what conjures up in your mind when I say those terms?

Nick Pashias: Yeah, it's something that is repeatable, something that has recurring revenue streams, that's sustainable in that sense. And it's something that has a big TAM (total addressable market) to grow into by definition. And it's got a moat around it… so not easily penetrated by competition. There's something unique about it. They're the kind of attributes that we look for.

Chris Conway: Yep. And what about you Marcus? A similar story? Anything else you look at?

Marcus Ryan: Look, there's some very similar themes there, but I think from our perspectives across our portfolios, getting the focus on quality and quality exposures, exposure to companies that have the capacity to compound earnings over time, is really important. And really, quality to us, it's more of a fundamental qualitative assessment. And we think of themes like market position. We think about pricing power. What capacity does this business have to offset higher input costs into its business with higher pricing? We think about management quality. Is this the type of management that can grow into the opportunity before it? And just lastly, financial sustainability. And really that's just a fancy term for saying, "Does the company have the right amount of debt at that point in time to navigate the risks and opportunities ahead?"

Car Group (ASX: CAR)

Chris Conway: Makes sense. All right, we'll get into the meaty part of the Buy Hold Sell episode. The first stayer that we're going to run the rule over is CAR group, the old car sales established in 1990. Digital vehicle marketplace, as many people would be well aware. Operations here in Australia, South Korea, the U.S. and Chile. Marcus, buy, hold or sell for you.

Marcus Ryan (BUY): CAR to us is a buy. CAR is one of our preferred names in the classified space, sitting amid the much larger communication services sector. To us, CAR is a real structural compounder. We like the large and diverse end markets that the business is growing into. We like the product depth, we like the pricing upside as the network effects grow in their markets. CAR is the type of business, Chris, that looking forward, we can see growing top line at around 10% double-digit, translating into double-digit profit growth. What we're observing is this company's trading at about 30 times earnings. So for that quality of earnings and for that durability - that point that Nick highlighted - the capacity to repeat those earnings, we see that as a good place to be.

Chris Conway: So buy for you, Marcus. Nick CAR Group has had a tough 12 months in terms of the share price. Down around 5%. Not devastating, but not as good as the broader market. Buy, hold or sell for you?

Nick Pashias: I'll give you the punchline, then in the end I’ll give you the story.

Chris Conway: Okay.

Nick Pashias (SELL): So investment is like driving, you've got through the windscreen, not through the rear vision mirror. So you've got to look at things that are point in time right now, looking forward, and we see some structural issues ahead of CAR Group, and that is a declining user base. Younger people are not getting their licenses, so by definition they're not buying cars. And so that big TAM that we spoke about as a key attribute for these types of stocks, we feel is under pressure. There's a whole host of reasons why that might be, whether it's Uber or autonomous vehicles which really haven't hit anywhere yet, but that's another risk in the terminal value of CAR Group. Now, CAR management are very good. They've seen this, we think, and made great acquisitions and diversified the business.

You mentioned the geographies that they operate in. They also diversified into verticals, but the issue that that's had, is it's increased complexity to the business. It's increased cost and it's taken away the leverage, the operating leverage to that top line, which is attractive that Marcus spoke about. And you can see that in the numbers this year. I think their revenue growth is higher than their EBITDA growth, which implies market compression. And so for those reasons, and it is, it's still trading on a 30, 32 times multiple, but we think it's a cyclical stock that's priced as a growth stock. So it's a sell.

CSL Limited (ASX: CSL)

Chris Conway: There you go, a sell. All right, we'll shift gears. Next, we're going to have a look at CSL Limited, one of the best companies that Australia has ever exported to the world, in my humble opinion. Of course, involved in the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products and vaccines. As if I need to tell people that - everyone knows CSL. Nick, I'll stay with you. Buy, hold or sell for this one.

Nick Pashias (BUY): This one's a buy. Again, trying to look forward, it has been, no doubt, a difficult and painful resetting of expectations. I think it's a lot to do about focusing on the wrong things in terms of the margin that they guided to, which they haven't hit. Now, it's poor communication, it's currency, it's execution that have led to it. But we are where we are. So look at the business now going forward, the key attribute or the key business, is the Behring business, which we still think demand is growing at mid-single digits.

You'll get 1% or 2% pricing growth on top of that volume growth, which is a good top line. And from here on they've initiated a number of efficiency programs, which should see margin starting to expand in the short term. And over the longer term you've got what they call their Horizon 2 initiatives, which about manufacturing, they're longer dated. But we think that right here, right now, you're getting something on a little bit more than a market multiple, low twenties multiple, and it should grow in the teens. And so we think that that's pretty compelling. They've got a lot of work to do. They have to execute, they have to rebuild credibility. They're a proud company, chairman included. And I think that's a great motivator in terms of their desire to fix things.

Chris Conway: Marcus, CSL, some of the pain Nick was just talking to: it did have a tough reporting season. I think it was down around 15% on the day, which is unheard of for a stock like CSL. Down 27% over the last 12 months. Are you seeing any value? Is it a buy, hold or sell for you?

Marcus Ryan (HOLD): To us today, Chris, CSL would be more of a hold. And if I was to summarise our view, it would be that CSL today is not quite the business that it was yesteryear and the earnings outlook is not quite as attractive as what we've seen delivered in prior years. Three of the key points that would highlight with CSL, firstly the business mix and the industry exposure is different to what we've seen in prior years. We could talk a little bit about the Vifor acquisition. Some would say that is now history, 2022 acquisition, but it has had an impact on the ROE of the group. Would also call out competitive dynamics and product substitution risk that we see has actually accelerated in the last six to 12 months. And that's particularly been around some of the high-margin parts of the CSL business in that Behring franchise.

And then just finally, when we think about the biggest market for CSL, which is in the US, we think the backdrop there is also a little bit more challenged than what it's been in prior years. We could talk a little bit about regulation, we could talk a little bit about the prospect for US pharmaceutical tariffs. So just building on Nick's point, however, we actually see recent changes that the company is initiating to address some of these issues. We would support them. We think they have merit to streamline the business. However, we think it'll take time for the fruit to come. We see opportunity cost of sitting in the stock today and we just don't see that earnings visibility as clearly as some others.

Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST)

Chris Conway: All right. We'll round out by talking about one of the hottest segments in the market right now. It is, of course gold - although we're filming on a day where the gold price was down a little bit overnight. But it's been one of the hottest trades all year. We're going to talk about the biggest player in the space, $37 billion market cap, Northern Star Resources. Marcus, I'll stay with you. Buy, hold or sell?

Marcus Ryan (BUY): NST would be a buy for us. It'd be our favoured large cap gold stock. For us, NST, it's not just a mono-call on the gold price. And there's a bunch of stock specific factors that we think really supports the position. So firstly, just the quality of the assets. We observe, for example, the long life of mines. The organic production growth that sits within the business. We could talk a bit about Super Pit in WA and that's driving some quite attractive production growth in the years ahead. We like the management quality, board governance. They've had a strong track record around capital management. It brings us to valuation, where we think NST today is really trading at only a modest multiple premium to gold peers, but has a much more attractive growth profile. Hypothetically, if the gold price was to stay at these levels of around US$4,000 an ounce, it's quite interesting, but that would actually suggest earnings 12 months forward could come in around 50% ahead of a market consensus view. So we also see a strong earnings momentum story here.

Chris Conway: That's a pretty strong buy there. Nick, Northern Star year-to-date, up around 67%. So it's ripped pretty hard. Is there more room to run on this one? Buy, hold or sell for you?

Nick Pashias (BUY): Yeah, it's a buy for us as well. Look, it has obviously ripped as you say, but if you wind back the clock a little bit more, it was in the naughty corner of the gold company classroom. They had missed their production, they'd missed their OPEX numbers. And here we are today, they're in the middle of, maybe 12 months out, from a really big step up in their production, with what Marcus spoke about. The KCGM, it's $1.5 billion in 12 months’ time. It should start to deliver.

It's trading on a gold market multiple, and so that growth is not reflected in that multiple. Just to put it into context, I was looking at consensus numbers for production. Between now and the end of the decade, they should produce roughly a million ounces more. At $6,000 an ounce, Aussie, that’s $6 billion. And I also looked at CBA to see what CBA's revenue growth is. It's less than that. BHP is about half that number. So it gives you a sense of the growth that I think we both see in the company, that isn't reflected in the current share price.

Chris Conway: Very good. A strong double buy there to finish on. All right. We're going to shift gears for the final segment of this episode of Buy Hold Sell. It's one of my personal favourites. I've asked the gents to bring a stock, a stayer, that they would back for the next five years. So that well-trodden thought experiment of ‘if the market closed, what would be the one stock that you would hold?’ Nick, what have you got for us?

NexGen Energy (Canada) (ASX: NXG)

Nick Pashias: It's NexGen. Now, most people might not know what NexGen is. It's a uranium developer, so they don't produce today, but they have their foot on some very prospective land, and they have the Rook deposit. So let me just give you a few numbers about the uranium market. Uranium market demand globally is about 180 to 200 million pounds. Supply, mine supply, is about 110, 120 [million pounds]. So there's a massive mismatch between demand and primary mine supply. And that's before you add in all the Chinese reactors that are being built, all the Indian reactors, all the western world reactors. That's only going to add to that mismatch.

Now, NexGen have the Rook deposit, which is in Canada, and they will produce 30 million pounds. They'll be the Saudi Arabia of uranium when this is up and running. And they will do it at a very, very low cost, about $10 a pound roughly, versus a price of uranium about $80, $90. Why can they do that? It's because of their grade. Mining is a lot about the grade and their grade is around 10 times higher than a lot of the other competitors. For every piece of rock that they mine, the other guys have to mine 10 times that volume. And that's why the costs are so good. And so if you had to close your eyes and buy something, that would be the one.

Chris Conway: That's a pretty strong start, Nick. We are on the home straight. Marcus, bring us home. What's your pick for the next five years? The stayer.

NextDC (ASX: NXT)

Marcus Ryan: For the next five years, the stayer, it would be NextDC.

Chris Conway: Okay. That's slightly related crossover here a little bit. The power being generated to power the data centres. Right.

Marcus Ryan: Indeed. And look, most listeners would be aware, NextDC is one of our leading data centre owner and developers. Now interestingly, Chris, NextDC is a company that we have owned for in excess of five years. And so in terms of when I think about this question, it could well be a company that we own for the next five years as well. And in that sense, I think we can call NextDC, perhaps from our perspective, it is the trifecta of the season for the next five years. And just to really put maybe three points around this. We really like the industry demand growth outlook. Talk about structural growth, we could talk about cloud adoption, we could talk about AI capabilities. So there's a very strong demand outlook. More specifically to NextDC, we like the company specific earnings outlook. We view this as infrastructure-like with improving returns on equity.

And the funding model, we think, has got better for NextDC. And what we'd expect over time is that the company can also leverage, selectively, JV capital to help fuel the growth. It is worth noting that NextDC, in fact over the last few months, the share price is actually lower now than where it was 12 months ago. But yet the company has made all these contract wins. So when we look at the stock today, we actually think it's only valuing the known contract wins. And as we sit here to your hypothetical five years, every extra contract that drops, we think presents potential upside to value.

Chris Conway: Two strong picks to finish the show there. Big thanks to Marcus and Nick for their participation. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to give it a like, and don't forget to follow our YouTube channel. We're adding lots of great content every single week.