Linfox, one of Australia’s largest trucking and rail freight companies, is bracing for a downturn in the economy in the first three months of calendar 2024 as the full effects of sharp interest rate rises and cost-of-living pressures wash through.

Mark Mazurek, the chief executive of Linfox, owned by Rich Lister Lindsay Fox and his family, said business customers previously able to confidently forecast six months out were now much more reticent.