I recently had some goods shipped from the United States to Australia. They were couriered by the American logistics company FedEx Corp (NYSE: FDX), a name you may be familiar with. You may also be wondering what this has to do with WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) shares.
Well, FedEx may be an American company, listed on the American markets, and with a market capitalisation of US$80.1 billion.
However, I noticed something interesting on my shipping invoice. FedEx employed the use of CargoWise, and included references to it on my invoice.
CargoWise happens to be the flagship logistics service of none other than ASX tech stock WiseTech Global.
As an ASX investor, this immediately piqued my interest. We might want to take a brief pause and acknowledge the success of having a homegrown company's services employed by a global shipping juggernaut like FedEx.
This observation got me thinking about Warren Buffett's concept of a moat, and more specifically, whether WiseTech shares show enough evidence of an effective moat to warrant an investment.
Image source: Getty Images
WiseTech shares: Show me the moat
A moat is a concept that Buffett began discussing publicly in the 1990s. It refers to a permanent competitive advantage that a company can possess that helps to protect it and its profits from competitors and other threats.
Here's how Buffett himself once described the concept back in 1995:
What we're trying to do is we're trying to find a business with a wide and long-lasting moat around it… protecting a terrific economic castle with an honest lord in charge of the castle.
And in essence, that's what business is all about… it can be because it's the low-cost producer in some area, it can be because it has a natural franchise, because of surface capabilities, it could be because of its position in the consumers' mind, it can be because of a technological advantage, or any kind of reason at all, that it has this moat around it…
And then if we feel good about the moat, then we try to figure out whether, you know, the lord is going to try to take it all for himself, whether he's likely to do something stupid with the proceeds, et cetera. But that's the way we look at businesses.
WiseTech appears to show signs of possessing a decent economic moat under what Buffett described as "a natural franchise" and "surface capabilities". You could also arguably throw in the other descriptors too.
So far, this assumption is based on some qualitative, anecdotal observations. But let's look at some quantitative data.
Last year, WiseTech reported that CargoWise brought in US$682.2 million in revenues for the company over FY 2025. That metric is impressive enough in itself, but particularly so when we also note that it was up 18% over FY 2024.
The growth has continued into FY 2026 too, with WiseTech unveiling a 12% rise in CargoWise revenues to US$372.4 million over the first half of the financial year back in February.
An honest lord of the castle?
Those are the kinds of numbers one would expect a company with a wide moat surrounding its products to deliver.
However, before anyone rushes out to buy WiseTech shares, there is a caveat to note. Buffett also talked a lot about an "honest lord" of the company castle. I'm not going to call WiseTech's co-founder, former CEO, current Executive Chairman, and perennial shot-caller Richard White honest or dishonest. But White has been embroiled in a number of scandals in recent years, including ASIC raids related to alleged insider trading last year.
White has delivered strong growth at WiseTech for many years. However, his conduct might warrant some deeper dives before investors rush out to buy WiseTech shares as a wide-moat investment.
