Veteran financial journalist Alan Kohler is stepping down from the ABC after more than 30 years with the broadcaster, including 24 years as one of its leading presenters.
“I love the ABC, always have, even more so after I joined it,” Kohler told staff on Wednesday.
“It’s difficult to imagine this wonderful place not being part of my life. But I’m 74, and it’s time to devote more time to my family, including my six grandchildren.”
Kohler built his reputation in financial journalism as a columnist for the Australian Financial Review, before later writing for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
In 2001, he founded The Eureka Report, offering readers expert analysis of markets and wealth. Six years later, he launched the digital news publication Business Spectator.
However, Kohler’s 31-year career at the ABC turned him into a household name, helped by his familiar closing line: “And that’s finance.”
He joined the broadcaster as a business and economics correspondent before becoming the face of Inside Business. Kohler currently writes a weekly column and presents the podcast That’s Business.
Kohler is scheduled to deliver his final finance report on December 16. Fairfax reports that his replacement is expected to be announced “in the coming weeks”.
Veteran financial journalist Alan Kohler is retiring following more than three decades with the ABC
Kohler, pictured right with his son Chris Kohler, will present his final ABC finance report on December 16
ABC managing director Hugh Marks thanked Kohler for his longstanding contribution to the broadcaster and its audiences.
“I can’t thank Alan enough for everything he has given to the ABC and our audiences,” Marks said. “While this marks the end of an incredible chapter, it is certainly not the end of Alan’s contribution, but the beginning of a new one.”
“For decades, he has helped Australians understand complex issues with insight, clarity and a uniquely engaging style, delivered with warmth, humour and that trademark cheeky grin.”
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ABC news director Simon Robinson also paid tribute to Kohler’s decades-long career.
“Sadly for us, and for the audiences who treasure him, Alan has decided to bring his distinguished ABC tenure to an end at the close of this year,” Robinson said.
“Alan will remain connected to the ABC, and we’ll be speaking with him about future ideas and projects.”
Although widely praised for his warmth and humour, Kohler has also delivered forceful analysis of Australia’s economic outlook and its potential challenges.
That analysis included predictions made before the Reserve Bank board unanimously raised the cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.6 per cent on Tuesday. Economists have cautioned that additional increases could come before Christmas.
The latest move lifted the cash rate to its highest point since 2011 and marked the fourth interest rate increase borrowers have faced in 2026.
Only days earlier, Kohler apologised to his followers after sharing a bleak forecast that a potential rate rise could push 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.