As a 30-strong squad of analysts beavers away at Woolworths' Bella Vista headquarters in north-western Sydney, scouring the world for acquisition opportunities, the retail giant has unsheathed its double-edged sword once again.
That is, another first-class bunch of sales numbers.
As Graeme Samuel and his troops from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission finalise their inquiry into the grocery industry, these numbers will lend more voice to claims that Woolworths, along with its rival Coles, dominates the supermarket business in this country and must look overseas for future growth.
Hence the acquisitions team. Woolies is naturally tight-lipped about its prospects overseas, but the word is Europe and the US are in the mix.
India, where the group recently unveiled a consumer electronics venture with Tata, is as yet embryonic. It also has problematic foreign investment rules.
JPMorgan and another investment bank, believed to be CSFB, have also been putting expansion ideas to the supermarkets giant.
Looking at the bigger picture, Woolworths is a compelling defensive story of a well-run company in the right sector, cashed up and prowling for acquisitions at a time when asset prices globally are on the wane.
Still, Woolies manages to ring up terrific sales figures in its core market, despite signs of pain suddenly emerging in the discretionary spending retail sector.
Food is not discretionary. Headline supermarket sales were up 16.3pc to $9.89 billion over the previous fourth quarter. Normalising, or stripping out the Easter impact and an extra trading week, sales rose 7.5pc.
General merchandising, that is Big W and the like, was up an adjusted 8.8pc and hotels - pubs and pokies - notched up a disappointing 1.1pc as smoking bans did little to keep punters glued to the machines. They may make up for this on the profit margin front. Pokies deliver stunning profits.
Demonstrating further the unrivalled quality of this business and its management, Woolworths confirmed its guidance for a growth in net profit of 21-25pc this financial year.
The analysts may be a mite disappointed with the New Zealand supermarkets and the Australian food and liquor results, but they will be heartened with the strength of Big W - and, above all, that there appears to be no overall earnings risk on the downside at this point.
The trend, however, appears to be for slightly moderating. The heat will come slightly off the Reserve Bank too. Food inflation fell from 4.5pc in the third quarter to 2.9pc in the fourth quarter. That has to be a plus for the outlook on interest rates.
TO THE ACCC's grocery inquiry. The commission hands down its findings on the last day of this month and many observers believe these are likely to include a recommendation that "unit pricing" be introduced.
This means standardised unit prices will have to be displayed on supermarket shelves. This is good news for consumers and bad news for the retailers. Research this week from Insight Partners and Citigroup estimates the supermarkets face an $810 million reduction in revenues if unit pricing is brought in.
Presumably this means the retailers bamboozle $810m a year out of their customers by displaying tricky pack sizes of 375 grams to 625 grams and the like. How nifty of them.
"The financial implications for listed companies will be negative," says the report. "We estimate packaged grocery profitability for Woolworths to fall 4%, Coles 6% and Metcash 3pc. The impact on Coca-Cola and Goodman Fielder is reduced because of their non-grocery sales."
The Insight-Citi survey of grocery prices found shoppers could save 21pc by buying the most cost-effective branded pack size. "Our estimate of an $810m fall in revenue assumes one in 20 shoppers switch to the most economical pack size."
Woolworths and Coles are not expected to oppose a move to unit pricing, should it occur. Shoppers in Britain have applauded a similar change.
Among other findings in the Insight survey, Coles' profitability is expected to fall further than Woolies' given its inefficient cost base.
Metcash, the third force and dominant wholesaler to the independent retail sector, would also concede fees and an estimated 2.6pc reduction in its packaged grocery wholesaling earnings.
While the jury will remain out on Wesfarmers' takeover of Coles for some time, Woolworths faces the different challenge of overseas expansion. It may not happen, nor does it need to, in the near future in any significant way. But the seeds are being sown.
Rather than enlist investment bankers, the internal business development team picked to look offshore is made up of people from various parts of the Woolworths business, from merchandising to supply chain and those with financial expertise.
Inevitably, large Australian companies expanding overseas experience problems in the early years. It can take a long time to get it right.
The luxury, however, for chief executive Michael Luscombe and his management is a stable and profitable platform in Australia.
On their side is time and, perversely, a volatile global economy. No better time to pick up assets on the cheap.
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