Buy Hold Sell: The photo finish - 5 ASX stock duels that could go either way

Over the past few episodes, we’ve galloped through our Spring Racing Carnival series - from the “stayers” built to go the distance, to the “wet-track wonders” that hold their footing when conditions turn tough. And now, as we thunder down the home straight, it’s time for the Photo Finish.

In this final instalment, we’re doing things a little differently. Rather than our usual stock-by-stock format, we’ve set up a series of head-to-head matchups - five pairs of closely matched companies, each vying for line honours. Our guests will weigh in on which business they’d back, and why.

It’s a chance to see how professional investors think when they’re forced to make the hard calls, where conviction meets comparison, and small details separate a winner from the pack. Joining Livewire's Chris Conway to make those calls are Nick Pashias from Antares Equities and Marcus Ryan from Yarra Capital Management. 

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. In line with Spring Racing Carnival down here in Melbourne, this series of Buy Hold Sell has been cast in racing speak. So to round out the series, we're looking at the photo finish. That's right, my guests will be comparing similar companies and letting us know which one they believe has its nose in front. Joining me to do that are Nick Pashias from Antares, and Marcus Ryan from Yarra Capital Management.

All right. As mentioned, it is something slightly different to the usual episodes. I'll be presenting the gents with five pairs of stocks. For each pair, like I said, they'll share their preferred name and the reasons why. So first up, we're comparing Seek and CAR Group, both in the online classified space, of course. Seek in the jobs area and CAR Group, of course, in cars as the name suggests. Gents, which would you prefer in a photo finish? Marcus, I'll come to you first.

Seek (ASX: SEK) vs CAR Group (ASX: CAR)

Marcus Ryan (CAR): Our preferred name there, force-ranked, Chris, would be CAR Group. It is worth noting that we actually do like both names within the classified space. Our preference, force-ranked, would sit with CAR. To us, CAR is a true structural compounding growth opportunity. When we look forward, we like the large and diverse end markets that CAR sells into and offers its services into. We can think auto in Australia, we can think RV in the United States.

We like the product depth that the business has got, to continue to roll out better products to its customer base over time. And we do see some pricing upside opportunity as the network effect grows over time. So to us, CAR Group, we see strong double-digit top line growth opportunity translating to double-digit profit growth companies trading on around 30 times PE. And for that quality and durability of earnings, our preference would sit with CAR.

Chris Conway: CAR Group for you, Marcus, in the photo finish. Nick, what about you?

Nick Pashias (SEK): For us, it'd be Seek, Chris. They’ve just come to the end of a significant capital investment to literally rebuild their algorithms and their pricing model and now they're rolling that out. So there's a lot of fixed cost leverage that comes with that. They've already, in the most recent result, I think they had about a 12% yield increase, so that's price.

Volumes really haven't kicked. The Australian economy is still muddling through, so that's potentially still to come. Revenue growth should far exceed cost growth going forward, so you'll have margin expansion. And the hidden value within Seek is also in the Seek growth fund, which is around $2 billion. It's about $5 or $6 a share, which is not in the share price. So it's a bit of hidden value as well.

Chris Conway: Right. A bit of optionality there. Next up, we'll shift to the energy space. So we're going to talk Woodside Energy Group going head-to-head with Santos, battle of the big energy names, the last two big oilers left on the ASX. What's your preference here, Nick?

Woodside Energy Group (ASX: WDS) vs Santos (ASX: STO)

Nick Pashias (STO): Yeah, Santos. It'd have to be Santos. So Santos, again, is just at the end of its capital investment. So the Barossa LNG project is just about starting literally now. And they've got Pikka, which is in Alaska, coming on over the next three to six months. That should see volumes increase by about 30-odd percent, but free cash flow goes up materially more, maybe double.

Because you've got more revenue, but the CapEx is also falling away. And that is imminent. That is here right now. And I think that's what a lot of potential suitors saw. Now, we won't get into that, but we see that as well. So for us, it's Santos.

Chris Conway: What about you, Marcus? Head-to-head, Woodside versus Santos?

Marcus Ryan (WDS): Head-to-head, our preference would sit with Woodside. There’s a bunch of company-specific reasons for that. The first would be the quality of the oil and gas assets. We really observe this through the relatively low operating costs across their assets today. Secondly, that the management capability, the management depth, and the internal capability from a trading perspective is another notable feature with Woodside.

Third point would be LNG as a commodity. We actually see quite a bright future here. We think about the prospect for export-led growth out of the US, to hungry markets like Europe and Asia driven by decarbonisation and some of the geopolitical events. Stock-specific, in a similar way to how Nick has described Santos, we have that story with Woodside with two major projects coming on over the coming years.

Scarborough off the coast of Western Australia, and Louisiana in the US, which will drive higher production from Woodside, around 26%, and that really supports the cash flow characteristic. However, it will take a little bit more time than Santos, perhaps a little bit more patience required. The free cash flow yield, it is double-digit when we look about three years forward. So we do believe for patient investors we will be rewarded with this one.

Chris Conway: Next up, it's the battle of the tech giants. Now, these companies don't operate in the exact same spaces, but they're Aussie tech names, so they get lumped in together. I'm talking, of course, about WiseTech and Xero. WiseTech, the global logistics player. And of course, Xero, the accounting software. So like I said, not overly similar, but we all lump them in together. Marcus, I'll stay with you. What's your tech pick?

WiseTech Global (ASX: WTC) vs Xero (ASX: XRO)

Marcus Ryan (XRO): Our preference in that tech space that you've described, Chris, would sit with Xero, the accounting software platform. A couple of factors that we really like around Xero; the quality SME platform. And what we observe, and it's one of the themes that we've spoken about with quality, is that recurring revenue and the fact that customer churn is very low. It's about 1% per annum. We like the market position that Xero has.

So in its larger markets, if you take in Australia and New Zealand - very strong market position. Whereas when we look to markets like the US, the growth opportunity is longer dated there. We like the management capability and we like the fact that there's no obvious large governance overhangs on this company today.

Now, it would be remiss if we didn't call out the fact the share price has been a little bit weak in recent times since the recent US acquisition of Melio. We do feel as if a degree of patience is required from investors, to return back to Rule of 40, but we do see the longer-term growth opportunity intact and now representing quite an attractive entry point.

Chris Conway: Marcus, I have to ask – “governance overhangs”? Was that in direct reference to the stock that was on the other option in this pair?

Marcus Ryan: It was a little bit of a hand-pass backswing.

Chris Conway: Well played. All right, Nick, I will come to you. What's your preference amongst these two?

Please note that this episode was recorded before this week's insider trading probe into WiseTech.

Nick Pashias (WTC): It's the challenged one, WiseTech. The governance overhang… and that's obviously well-known. It's also in the price. The stock's down 30% on where it was last year. We're at the cusp of a new commercial model being rolled out. So their whole pricing structure, their product offering is changing. Marcus spoke about churn. It's non-existent in WiseTech's case. There is probably no competitor globally. It's a very, very big TAM.

They're solving real world problems that are large, that are complex. And then on top of that, you've got an acquisition which will give them significant growth in the longer term, solving the dead leg of empty containers going around the world. There's lots of value that these guys are generating for their customers. And so their pricing power is very, very strong. And like I said, you can buy it for 30% less than what you could last year. So to me, it's WiseTech.

Chris Conway: Yep, makes sense. All right, with people lining up all over the country to buy gold bullion, it would be remiss of us not to take a look at some of the gold miners. We're going to be pitching Ramelius Resources against Northern Star Resources. Nick, which one has its nose in front?

Ramelius Resources (ASX: RMS) vs Northern Star (ASX: NST)

Nick Pashias (RMS): In a photo finish, it's Ramelius. So Ramelius is less well-known and certainly less well-covered from the broking community. And it was the ugly duckling in the group. It was a very low-grade underutilised plant, short mine life. But what changed in the last 12 months is they bought Spartan, and Spartan has the Dalgaranga deposit. It's 60 kilometres away from their underutilised plant. Dalgaranga is a very high-grade gold deposit.

It's about six grammes per tonne. And the plan is to literally dig it out, truck it the 60 kilometres, and process it in a plant that already exists that's underutilised and get that gold into the bank. So it's transforming from the caterpillar to the butterfly with that acquisition. And I think that story's not well-known in the marketplace. So Ramelius.

Chris Conway: Very interesting. Marcus, what about you? Northern Star versus Ramelius, which one do you think edges ahead?

Marcus Ryan (NST): For us, NST would be our preferred large cap gold name. When we think about NST, for us, it's not just a mono call on the gold price. There's a bunch of company-specific factors that really support that view. Firstly, we like the quality of the assets and the mines that NST owns, and we observe this through the quite long mine life that NST has. We like the opportunity for production growth in years ahead, really underpinned by Super Pit in WA.

We like the management quality, the board governance frameworks, and strong track record of capital management. And valuation to us is also a standout. So the stock's trading at just a modest premium from a multiple perspective relative to gold peers, but the growth outlook is much more attractive. What I would say is hypothetical, but if gold were to remain at around US$4,000 an ounce, what we could actually anticipate to see is very strong earnings upside in NST. In fact, at the moment, if that was to hold, we could see profits about 50% ahead against a consensus view over the next 12 months.

Chris Conway: All right, gents. We are on the home stretch. We're going to compare a couple of the big banks. There is, of course, four of them as we know, but we're going to focus on ANZ versus Westpac. Who gets the first place finish? Marcus, which one edges ahead?

ANZ Group Holdings (ASX: ANZ) versus Westpac Banking Corporation (ASX: WBC)

Marcus Ryan (WBC): Of those two, Westpac would have its nose ahead, Chris. And as we reflect on Westpac and we reflect on an overall quite a low growth environment that we find ourselves in, we actually think Westpac can distinguish itself in a number of ways from the pack. We see opportunity for some successful operating execution across their personal and business banking franchises.

In addition to that, we see Westpac as probably having the largest cost out opportunity of all the banks, which takes us to project UNITE. And this is pretty amazing. But still today, this opportunity is coming about from the 2008 bringing together of Westpac and St. George and unlocking those opportunities in the back-end. It's quite remarkable.

Chris Conway: Better late than never, eh?

Marcus Ryan: Better late than never. And it does represent some blatant opportunity on the cost side. The final point with Westpac, unquestionably, the banking space is trading expensive today, and that's quite well-documented. But these distinguishing factors, I should say, with Westpac to us means that we see it as the best risk-adjusted bet in the space today.

Chris Conway: Nick, bring us home. Westpac versus ANZ. Which one gets the nod?

Nick Pashias (ANZ): ANZ simply because of the valuation anomaly. And Marcus touched on the valuation of the broader banks. ANZ is by far the cheapest of the four, but that in and of itself is probably not enough. So the catalyst has really been change in management, which is unlocking a lot of opportunities, a lot of idiosyncratic self-help opportunities with regard to cost out, with regard to rebuilding credibility with their customers.

All of those things are yet to play out. And he definitely is a change agent. He's starting to implement his strategy and we're starting to see the early signs of that. So for us it is a higher risk proposition, but the return is also there given the multiple that you're starting off with. So for us it's ANZ.

Chris Conway: Gents, I don't think we had one pair there that we agreed upon, but that's what makes a market and the insights were very compelling for the audience. So thank you. And thank you for participating in the entire Spring Racing Carnival inspired series down here in all of our hometown Melbourne, showing those Sydneysiders how it's done. If you likde 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.