Wesfarmers’ CEO told investors this morning “the honeymoon is very much over”, after a freak period of low interest rates, government stimulus measures, and increased savings brought on a pandemic-era shopping boom.

“I’d say that now the honeymoon is very much over,” Rob Scott said at the company’s annual strategy briefing in Sydney.

“It was also one of the only times at least in the last few decades that I can recall where value wasn’t as important for households when they had very high levels of accumulated savings, very low interest rates, and value was not as important.”

The Perth retail giant, which owns Bunnings, Kmart, Target, and Officeworks, assured those at the company’s annual strategy briefing in Sydney that Wesfarmers was in “very good shape”.

The shift to bargain hunting among consumers is “clearly a positive for many of our businesses”, he noted.

“We expect value to become even more important for customers, and we are seeing that today.”

Scott’s talk came hours after Wesfarmers pulled out of the race for botox chain Silk Laser, opting not to match a $3.35 a share takeover bid by Hong Kong’s EC Healthcare.

Despite pulling out of that acquisition, Scott said the company was considering other takeovers in the digital health, consumer health, and wellbeing spaces.

AFR have reported the Perth conglomerate is in talks with online prescriptions business InstantScripts.

Last year, Wesfarmers acquired Australian Pharmaceutical Industries, which includes Priceline Pharmacies and Clear Skincare Clinics, for close to $800 million.

This has been spun into Wesfarmers Health. Scott said the addressable market for health and beauty was as much as $19 billion, medical clinics and laser treatments $3 billion, and digital health $4 billion.

“Opportunity for Wesfarmers Health to play a valuable role in improving the health outcomes of Australians – making health, beauty and wellness experiences simpler, more affordable and easier to access.

“Wesfarmers Health has a complementary portfolio of health, wellbeing and beauty assets and is well positioned to capitalise on health sector tailwinds.”

Scott said net capital expenditure across Wesfarmers for FY23 would land between $1.1 billion and $1.2 billion, the majority related to growth capital expenditure.

It also has undrawn bank facilities of about $2 billion.