Veteran financial journalist Alan Kohler is retiring from the ABC after more than three decades with the broadcaster, including 24 years as a lead presenter.
‘I love the ABC, always have, even more so after I joined it,’ he told staff at the broadcaster on Wednesday.
‘I find it very hard to imagine this wonderful place not being part of my life, but I’m 74 and it’s time to spend more time with my family, including the six grandchildren.’
Kohler rose to prominence in financial journalism, working as a columnist for the Australian Financial Review before writing for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
He launched The Eureka Report in 2001, which brought readers expert commentary on wealth and markets, before launching digital news site Business Spectator in 2007.
But it was Kohler’s 31 years at the ABC that made him a household name, with the familiar sign-off: ‘And that’s finance.’
Beginning as a business and economics correspondent, he went on to become the face of Inside Business. He currently writes a weekly column and hosts the podcast That’s Business.
It is understood the finance guru will step away from his work with the broadcaster at the end of the year.
Veteran financial journalist Alan Kohler is retiring after three decades with the ABC
‘I can’t thank Alan enough for everything he has given to the ABC and our audiences,’ ABC managing director Hugh Marks said.
‘While this marks the end of an incredible chapter, it is certainly not the end of Alan’s contribution, just the beginning of a new one.
‘For decades, he has helped Australians make sense of complex issues with insight, clarity and a uniquely engaging style, always delivered with warmth, humour and that trademark cheeky grin.’
While praised for that humour and warmth, Kohler has not shied away from the more serious commentary and analysis on Australia’s economic outlook.
This included his predictions before a unanimous decision by the board of the Reserve Bank on Tuesday which lifted the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.6 per cent. Economists have warned further increases could follow before Christmas.
The increase takes the cash rate to its highest level since 2011 and means borrowers have now endured four rate hikes in 2026 alone.
Just days earlier, Kohler had issued an apology to his followers for sharing his grim prediction that an interest rate rise could likely plunge Australia into recession.
On September 10, he revealed consumer confidence was down five per cent and ‘business conditions are also negative now for the first time I can remember since the pandemic’.
‘What all this means is that if there’s a rate hike in September, as the market now thinks there will be, it’s very likely there will be a recession because sentiment is so negative,’ he said at the time.
‘House prices are already falling quite a lot and probably fall more. So I think that if there’s a rate hike later this month and especially if there’s another one in November, I reckon we’re in for a recession.’
Kohler was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2019 for ‘significant service to the print and broadcast media as an editor, journalist and finance commentator’.
He has also collaborated with his son, Chris Kohler, the finance editor for Channel Nine, on social media content explaining economic and financial news.
