Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / E-Commerce & Supply Chains with Kornit Digital CEO

Transcript

E-Commerce & Supply Chains with Kornit Digital CEO · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
0:04
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
0:06
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
0:11
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
0:15
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Well. One of the
0:21
Speaker 1: things we try to do here in Bloomberg Radio, particularly
0:23
Speaker 1: during this pandemic, is to talk to CEOs from different
0:27
Speaker 1: parts of the economy, different parts of the world to
0:29
Speaker 1: see how their businesses have been impacted by COVID UH
0:34
Speaker 1: and how they're adapting. Today, we're going to chat with
0:36
Speaker 1: Ronan Samuel. He's the CEO of corn It Digital, based
0:39
Speaker 1: in Israel. Corner Digital manufacturers digital inkjet printers. The printers
0:43
Speaker 1: are used by the textile industry to print directly on
0:47
Speaker 1: to cloth thrown and thanks so much for joining us
0:49
Speaker 1: here again. You know, years, like I'm sure many other
0:53
Speaker 1: businesses around the world have been really impacted by COVID.
0:56
Speaker 1: I'd love to get a sense of how it impacted
0:59
Speaker 1: your company and and kind of how your positions here
1:01
Speaker 1: as the world begins to reopen. First of all, pleasure
1:06
Speaker 1: to be to be with all of you. UM. So UM,
1:10
Speaker 1: you know we have we are playing in the UH.
1:11
Speaker 1: In the textile industry and the technical industry is the
1:14
Speaker 1: second most polluted industry in the world after the oil industry.
1:18
Speaker 1: It's actually there's a huge consumption of water UM. And
1:21
Speaker 1: there's about thirty percent of four that are being produced
1:26
Speaker 1: never been sold, which creates twenty one million tons of
1:29
Speaker 1: text and are being on the way and about twenty
1:32
Speaker 1: eight trillion little water that being consumed. UH. This is huge, UM,
1:38
Speaker 1: and the textile industry has to move into most sustainable
1:41
Speaker 1: way of production. Now. The COVID erupted there like March
1:46
Speaker 1: last year, UM, and it was kind of a shock
1:49
Speaker 1: for the industry because the retail UM really stopped UM
1:54
Speaker 1: and the consumer went and ordering online UM and through
1:58
Speaker 1: the e commerce and the ecommerce today is representing like
2:01
Speaker 1: thirty percent of that being solved for the e commerce UH.
2:05
Speaker 1: And the focus that in twenty twenty four will be
2:08
Speaker 1: about six older girl being sold in e commerce, which
2:13
Speaker 1: really fueling the need for own demand manufacturing. Yeah, and
2:18
Speaker 1: I mean it's not just e commerce, right Runnan. We
2:21
Speaker 1: expect to get what we order tomorrow. You know, Amazon
2:25
Speaker 1: has spoiled consumers into wanting something within twenty four hours.
2:30
Speaker 1: So if I order UM UH tank top T shirt,
2:35
Speaker 1: it can't really be made in Taiwan because it has
2:37
Speaker 1: to be here right away. Does that mean we're gonna
2:40
Speaker 1: see UM supply chains spread out over the globe? Yeah,
2:46
Speaker 1: so you're absolutely right. So the e commerce has to
2:49
Speaker 1: adopt the supply chain to meet the consumer needs. And
2:53
Speaker 1: what the consumer needs is immediate gratification. They would like
2:57
Speaker 1: to have the same experience as going to a retail
2:59
Speaker 1: shop and get think the products. They would like to
3:01
Speaker 1: get their products within twenty four hours. But they also
3:03
Speaker 1: would like to choose to choose a variety of products.
3:07
Speaker 1: A self expression is very important. Nobody wants to wear
3:11
Speaker 1: the same tissuts that anyone else next to him wearing UM,
3:15
Speaker 1: So they want to add a variety of products uh
3:18
Speaker 1: and and to go to the e commerce and having
3:21
Speaker 1: a variety of products and keeping the inventory offer a
3:25
Speaker 1: large sp use of products is almost impossible. So you
3:29
Speaker 1: have to change the supply chain into on demand manufacturing
3:33
Speaker 1: and you move you have to move the manufacturing from
3:36
Speaker 1: offshore to on shore or near shore next to the
3:40
Speaker 1: consumer and next to the main cities, like what Amazon
3:43
Speaker 1: is doing leveraging our technology or many other companies. So
3:47
Speaker 1: core Net is enabling on the main sustainable manufacturing, on
3:52
Speaker 1: shore manufacturing, and really changing the entire supply chain of
3:57
Speaker 1: the textile market. Ron Interest real quickly seconds give us
4:00
Speaker 1: a sense of how the industry can reduce its footprint
4:04
Speaker 1: in terms of the ecological harm it does. Yeah. So
4:07
Speaker 1: if you if you produce on demand, UH, and you
4:11
Speaker 1: produced to an order, So actually everything you produce being
4:15
Speaker 1: consumed today, thirty percent of the product are being produced,
4:19
Speaker 1: never being consumed, and you're throwing it away. This creates
4:23
Speaker 1: a huge amount of waste of materials, of water, um
4:29
Speaker 1: and a huge amount of pollution. So just by changing
4:33
Speaker 1: the supply chain to on show, on demand, this is
4:36
Speaker 1: a huge benefit for the globe and we are very
4:40
Speaker 1: happy to take a major part and a leadership in that. Ronan,
4:44
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate
4:46
Speaker 1: you getting on from Israel and sharing the story of
4:49
Speaker 1: your company. Ronan Samuel, he's the CEO of corn It
4:52
Speaker 1: Digital again a big player in the global textiles industry. UH.
4:57
Speaker 1: Navigating this pandemic, navigating the reopening and trying to do
5:00
Speaker 1: it in a more sustainable way given some of the
5:03
Speaker 1: challenges that that industry deals with as in terms of
5:08
Speaker 1: the sustainability issues. Let's bring in Laura Davison, Bloomberg Tax reporter. Lara,
5:15
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us, And what do we
5:16
Speaker 1: know about this plan here? So, yeah, this is basically
5:19
Speaker 1: Biden reverting to a different part of his American Jobs Plan.
5:22
Speaker 1: This is a a minimum tax on financial profits for
5:26
Speaker 1: for financial accounting purposes. This would basically affect companies like Amazon,
5:32
Speaker 1: like Netflix that has been able in the past to
5:34
Speaker 1: use legal tax breaks for research and development, for stock
5:37
Speaker 1: options to cut down their tax bills too, you know,
5:39
Speaker 1: zero percent or very low rate. So what what the
5:42
Speaker 1: Biden plan would say here and say, Okay, you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: even if you do have all these credits andtroductions, you
5:47
Speaker 1: have to pay at least fifteen percent on your on
5:50
Speaker 1: your financial statement profits. Um. This is basically a negotiating
5:53
Speaker 1: tactic that the Biden U is bringing up here, as
5:55
Speaker 1: as the Washington Post reported, um and saying Okay, we're
5:58
Speaker 1: not going to raise the tax rate, but we're going
6:00
Speaker 1: to make sure that at least a minimum amount of
6:02
Speaker 1: tax would be paid. It's very interesting. I wonder how
6:06
Speaker 1: corporate America will react to this. I mean, on the
6:09
Speaker 1: one hand, um, surely they don't want to see rates
6:12
Speaker 1: rise at twenty eight percent. But let's face it, Laura,
6:15
Speaker 1: even if rates rise to nominally, a lot of companies
6:19
Speaker 1: are still gonna pay nothing, right. Yeah. And the important
6:22
Speaker 1: thing to remember here too is this is part of
6:23
Speaker 1: the negotiations happening with the publicans. Um. You know, Biden
6:27
Speaker 1: and several center Republicans are working on trying to come
6:30
Speaker 1: up with some sort of bipartisan infrastructure deal, and this
6:32
Speaker 1: is one of the ways he's trying to kind of
6:34
Speaker 1: find ways to to pay for that plan. Democrats can
6:37
Speaker 1: still even if they do a bipartisan deal, or if
6:38
Speaker 1: they don't do something with Republicans can still go and
6:41
Speaker 1: are likely to do a separate tax deal later in
6:43
Speaker 1: the year that would raise the corporate rate. So this
6:45
Speaker 1: doesn't really take the rate off the table, It just
6:48
Speaker 1: puts it in a different bill than it might have
6:50
Speaker 1: been otherwise. Um. So that's one thing that's important to
6:52
Speaker 1: remember as well. As you know, even if the rate,
6:55
Speaker 1: the headline rate is percent, there are still lots of
6:58
Speaker 1: other deductions, credits, other tax breaks in the tax cod
7:00
Speaker 1: I mean that many companies pay far, far less because
7:03
Speaker 1: whatever the headline tax rate is. Yeah, Laura, what is
7:06
Speaker 1: there a sense about any kind of support for a
7:10
Speaker 1: tax floor, whether it's fift or something else. Is there
7:13
Speaker 1: bipartisan support for that? This is something that that Republicans
7:16
Speaker 1: have pushed back on Democrats. Um like the idea, uh, largely,
7:20
Speaker 1: but there's been some It's it's not universally seen as
7:23
Speaker 1: as a good idea. It's a little bit harder to implement.
7:26
Speaker 1: It's also, um, you know, a lot of economists say
7:28
Speaker 1: this is sort of a kind of roundabout way to
7:30
Speaker 1: go about this. If Congress doesn't want companies taking all
7:32
Speaker 1: these tax credits, introductions, getting rid of the tax credits
7:35
Speaker 1: and inductions, don't put some sort of minimum tax after
7:38
Speaker 1: giving people tax breaks and then taking them away, it's
7:40
Speaker 1: sort of a economically inefficient way to go about it.
7:43
Speaker 1: I mean, we've already seen Congress telling the banks they
7:46
Speaker 1: don't want them lending to two oil businesses that are
7:49
Speaker 1: perfectly legal operating in the United States. Um. I think
7:53
Speaker 1: we're not gonna understand how Congress works, but to me,
7:56
Speaker 1: it seems like Laura Um companies would prefer to have
8:00
Speaker 1: a percent top rate to a fifteen percent minimum, you know,
8:06
Speaker 1: And then it probably depends a little bit on the
8:07
Speaker 1: profile of your of your company. If you're someone like
8:10
Speaker 1: a tech company that has a ton of you know,
8:12
Speaker 1: research and development costs and things that can really cut
8:15
Speaker 1: down your UM your tax bill, having a minimum tax
8:18
Speaker 1: it's certainly not helpful. And having a little bit of
8:20
Speaker 1: a higher tax um, you know, isn't It wouldn't be
8:22
Speaker 1: as big of a deal if you have fewer of
8:24
Speaker 1: those credits and productions. If you're already paying you know,
8:27
Speaker 1: somewhere above fift it doesn't affect you as much. But
8:30
Speaker 1: this is something that you can imagine Corporate America is
8:32
Speaker 1: is galvanizing behind right now. And uh, you know, the
8:35
Speaker 1: US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable they're figuring out,
8:37
Speaker 1: you know, running the numbers and how will this affect
8:39
Speaker 1: you know, large companies in the country. Matt, this is
8:44
Speaker 1: my fifth fourth week coming back to the office full
8:48
Speaker 1: time to Bloomberg's HQ at seven thirty one Lexington Avenue.
8:51
Speaker 1: How do you like it? I love it, love being back,
8:54
Speaker 1: um and uh, you know, and what I'm noticing Matt is.
8:57
Speaker 1: You know, every week it's getting a little bit more
9:00
Speaker 1: people here in our headquarters. But I just wonder what's
9:04
Speaker 1: gonna what's happening with other businesses, you see, I don't
9:06
Speaker 1: really see a consensus on hey, let's get everybody back
9:09
Speaker 1: or let's be all remote or hybrid. Is just a
9:12
Speaker 1: lot of feeling out, I think along from corporate America,
9:16
Speaker 1: and that raises a lot of questions. But one of
9:18
Speaker 1: the questions is what does that mean for commercial real estate,
9:21
Speaker 1: not just in New York but around the country. Kevin Thorpe,
9:24
Speaker 1: he's the chief economist and head of global research for
9:26
Speaker 1: Cushman and Wakefield. They know where thing or two about
9:29
Speaker 1: commercial real estate. Kevin, thanks so much for joining us here.
9:32
Speaker 1: So again, you know, it's my fourth week back in
9:35
Speaker 1: Manhattan working, doing the commute, doing all that kind of thing.
9:39
Speaker 1: Um what is your sense as to how commercial real
9:43
Speaker 1: estate and vacancies and corporate America will come back to work? Yeah, well,
9:47
Speaker 1: thanks for having a good do with you. Glad to
9:49
Speaker 1: hear you're back at the office. Um, So I have
9:52
Speaker 1: a prediction for you, and here it is when when
9:55
Speaker 1: most people will be back, going to be Tuesday, September seven,
10:00
Speaker 1: I am, and so there's the day after labor Day.
10:05
Speaker 1: It's it's when we expect most of me back and
10:07
Speaker 1: I left an extra seven minutes for people to get
10:09
Speaker 1: their coffee. Um, I think really, look, I think virtually
10:13
Speaker 1: every survey conducted does suggest that employers and employees are
10:17
Speaker 1: anxious to get back to the office, obviously with more flexibility,
10:21
Speaker 1: but they want to go back, right. We're social creatures.
10:24
Speaker 1: We know that we can make one close one equal
10:27
Speaker 1: three in the office, and we know that that happy
10:30
Speaker 1: hours by yourself after work is not really a very
10:34
Speaker 1: happy hour. So, uh, you know, I think it's gonna
10:37
Speaker 1: be case by case, but um, for sure, I think
10:39
Speaker 1: the August September time frame is when most are penciling it.
10:41
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I say so. I love
10:44
Speaker 1: being in the office. I've never worked a day from home,
10:47
Speaker 1: and to me it sounds nightmarish. But I also lived
10:50
Speaker 1: two blocks from my studio here were I in you know, Bronxville,
10:54
Speaker 1: making an hour commute each way or worse, New Jersey.
10:58
Speaker 1: Having to deal with Penn Station. New Jersey is awesome,
11:01
Speaker 1: but you know I wouldn't want Penn Station is nasty. Um.
11:05
Speaker 1: I feel like they're probably a lot of people who
11:07
Speaker 1: still would be happy working from Summit rather than um
11:12
Speaker 1: coming into the big Apple, and you're likely going to
11:16
Speaker 1: see a little pushback there, Kevin. Yeah, I think it'll
11:19
Speaker 1: be a mix, right. I think we learned from this
11:21
Speaker 1: sort of first forced work from home experiment that it
11:25
Speaker 1: actually worked pretty well. I mean, people are a good
11:28
Speaker 1: portion of the workforce was largely productive, um and so
11:32
Speaker 1: that that's very real. Stating on compute time is very real,
11:36
Speaker 1: but that doesn't replace some people be able to kind
11:39
Speaker 1: of work remotely for a long period of time. And
11:41
Speaker 1: it hasn't gone remote, right, So it doesn't replace the
11:46
Speaker 1: valleys that office brains. When it comes to collaboration, worker
11:49
Speaker 1: productivity factors, now, it's still over factors, and these are
11:53
Speaker 1: these are the same reasons that office buildings were created
11:56
Speaker 1: in the first place, right, And so there's an economic
11:59
Speaker 1: inseet of not to mention, you want to in general
12:01
Speaker 1: be closer to your clients, right and a lot of
12:04
Speaker 1: the major clients are slow located in the city centers.
12:08
Speaker 1: So um, so yeah, I think there is going to
12:10
Speaker 1: be Those are a strong incentive, but it'll be Kevin,
12:13
Speaker 1: give us a sense of how the state, how the
12:17
Speaker 1: city of New York is right now, because in terms
12:18
Speaker 1: of vacancies and what the trends have been, what do
12:22
Speaker 1: you need to do to get people back into office.
12:24
Speaker 1: We've heard reports that people are you know, companies are
12:27
Speaker 1: subleasing or trying to sublease some of their space. What
12:30
Speaker 1: are you seeing in New York City? Yeah, so great,
12:33
Speaker 1: great question. So New York, New York got hard, very hard.
12:37
Speaker 1: But I mean virtually every big city San Francisco, La.
12:41
Speaker 1: But New York in particular got hit very hard by
12:43
Speaker 1: the pandemic. The fundamentals got got rocked. And right now
12:48
Speaker 1: office vacancy in Manhattan is you know, overfitting, pushing certain spots,
12:55
Speaker 1: and so it's a real challenge. It's absolutely a very
12:57
Speaker 1: strong you know, uh tenant that there uh strong leverage
13:02
Speaker 1: right now in the Manhattan market. One thing else say
13:04
Speaker 1: about New York is there in economics there's something called
13:09
Speaker 1: perfect substitutes. Right, So there's you know, Coca cola versus pepsi.
13:13
Speaker 1: If you don't like coke, you can go to pepsi.
13:15
Speaker 1: That kind of thing. There really isn't a perfect substitute
13:18
Speaker 1: for a New York right A year of pandemic doesn't
13:21
Speaker 1: change everything that New York has to offer in terms
13:24
Speaker 1: of infrastructure and restaurants and art and labor talent. So
13:28
Speaker 1: I'm confident New York is gonna bounce back and there
13:31
Speaker 1: will be a return to the office, certainly in New York,
13:34
Speaker 1: and it has. It's bounced back from every single recession
13:37
Speaker 1: as far as data goes back, So I just think
13:39
Speaker 1: it's gonna take it longer. We we've read that there
13:42
Speaker 1: are some industries that are still kind of the bright
13:47
Speaker 1: spots of commercial real estate, life sciences, for for example, um,
13:51
Speaker 1: they need to work in the offices, in the labs. Um,
13:56
Speaker 1: you know, they have to be there. Where do you
13:59
Speaker 1: see the most trouble and where do you see the
14:02
Speaker 1: least Yeah, So, just broadly speaking in commercial real estate,
14:07
Speaker 1: and there's certain certain property types that are actually have
14:10
Speaker 1: recovered swiftly, doing extremely well. You probably have covered this,
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, throughout your time on the program. Industrial logistics
14:18
Speaker 1: absolutely booming, warehouse based, the e commerce effect, data centers,
14:23
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, life sciences, as you mentioned. I actually
14:26
Speaker 1: think we're now at the point where we're going to
14:28
Speaker 1: see these other property type that have struggled throughout the
14:31
Speaker 1: pandemic property types that really rely on bringing people together,
14:35
Speaker 1: like office, like retail. I think we're now seeing the
14:38
Speaker 1: green shoots and those those sectors are likely they joined
14:40
Speaker 1: the party here. I think will bailing soon. All right, Kevin,
14:43
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate getting that
14:45
Speaker 1: update on commercial real estate. Kevin Thorpe, chief economists and
14:49
Speaker 1: head of Global Research for Cushman and Wakefield. The economy
14:54
Speaker 1: is opening up? Will people come back to their offices?
14:56
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Bloomberg Opinion informed perspectives, an expert, data
15:02
Speaker 1: driven commentary on breaking news. All Right, A m C
15:08
Speaker 1: has been a wild ride, to say the least, and
15:12
Speaker 1: if you owned it, um, you've gotten super rich. Over
15:15
Speaker 1: the last couple of days, it was up well, it
15:18
Speaker 1: was doubled yesterday, and it doubled the week before that.
15:21
Speaker 1: It's up two thousand, eight hundred and fifty percent since
15:25
Speaker 1: the beginning of this year alone. It's off twenty two today.
15:29
Speaker 1: Maybe people are taking profits, maybe they're getting ready for
15:33
Speaker 1: new shares um. In any case, we bring in Chris
15:36
Speaker 1: Bryant from Bloomberg Opinion to tell us what exactly is happening. Chris,
15:40
Speaker 1: had they just struck upon um an incredibly great business
15:44
Speaker 1: strategy that nobody foresaw coming, and so share holders are
15:48
Speaker 1: rushing to get in on this. Well not, I mean,
15:51
Speaker 1: it continues to be an upolute, extraordinary story. The latest,
15:54
Speaker 1: of course, we had this morning was that they are
15:57
Speaker 1: announcing the intention to issue yet more stock, so up
16:00
Speaker 1: to eleven million shares, and of course you know that
16:05
Speaker 1: will inevitably further dilute shareholders a little bit. Of course,
16:09
Speaker 1: they've done that previously and the stock has risen, so
16:11
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to try and you know,
16:14
Speaker 1: second guests the movements in the market today, but I
16:16
Speaker 1: will say this. You know they didn't issue prospectus to
16:19
Speaker 1: a company that announcement. We said the following. Under the circumstances,
16:23
Speaker 1: given the volatility I'm just referred to, we cause you
16:26
Speaker 1: against investing in our class A common stock unless you
16:29
Speaker 1: are prepared to incur the risk of losing all or
16:31
Speaker 1: a substantial portion of your investment. So that's UM. That's
16:35
Speaker 1: straight from a mc UM. So clearly anybody who invested
16:39
Speaker 1: at these value rations are you know, taking a big risk. Uh,
16:44
Speaker 1: and they're well aware of it. I should hope with
16:46
Speaker 1: the market cap now, I mean that's a risk for
16:48
Speaker 1: anyone buying making an equity investment, right, They just don't
16:51
Speaker 1: usually put it that clearly in the prospectives um for sure.
16:55
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, you buying stock always entails risk.
16:58
Speaker 1: But what they're saying here is because of the massive
17:00
Speaker 1: volatility that we have had in our stock, which is
17:03
Speaker 1: unrelated to the performance of our business, that obviously that
17:07
Speaker 1: entails extra That's the key class. So, Chris, you know,
17:11
Speaker 1: another aspect of this whole, you know, the deal with
17:15
Speaker 1: AMC has been the role of the CEO, Adam Aaron.
17:18
Speaker 1: He has really embraced these retail reddit investors um and
17:24
Speaker 1: kind of egging them on a little bit. It feels
17:27
Speaker 1: to me, what what do you make of it? Yeah,
17:30
Speaker 1: I mean I read a Columnartier in the week where
17:31
Speaker 1: I said that he was playing with fire, and I
17:34
Speaker 1: think I stand behind that. I mean, ultimately, he's performed
17:37
Speaker 1: an amazing service for his company and his shells in
17:39
Speaker 1: the sense that you know, this company has been able
17:41
Speaker 1: to raise a lot of capital to the company that
17:44
Speaker 1: was on the verge of bankruptcy several times over the
17:47
Speaker 1: past year or so. That's now off the table for
17:50
Speaker 1: at least the next year. Or two because they've raised
17:53
Speaker 1: so much money now, but they're simply not in danger
17:55
Speaker 1: of running out of it anymore. Nevertheless, of course, by
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, appealing to two retail investors, and he's done
18:01
Speaker 1: an incredible job of that in terms of, you know,
18:03
Speaker 1: giving YouTube interviews, in terms of you know, retweeting memes
18:06
Speaker 1: and all these fun things that make him you know,
18:09
Speaker 1: a friend to the to the retail investor, and the
18:11
Speaker 1: latest of course yesterday saying you know, you can have
18:13
Speaker 1: free popcorn. Um. All of this, of course, you know,
18:17
Speaker 1: ultimately encouraged retail investors to buy the stock at ever
18:20
Speaker 1: higher prices. And my concern, of course is that some
18:23
Speaker 1: of these investors are relatively inexperienced, and the danger is
18:26
Speaker 1: of course that they get a nasty surprise down the track,
18:29
Speaker 1: although they're prepared. I mean, if you read through Wall
18:31
Speaker 1: Street bets, um, those apes know that they're probably gonna
18:36
Speaker 1: lose their nut eventually. Um, Aaron Adams, I'm looking at
18:41
Speaker 1: the HDS function on the Bloomberg, which is Great Holdings
18:43
Speaker 1: and obviously a huge portion of this stock is now
18:47
Speaker 1: owned by retail, but he owned as of the last
18:51
Speaker 1: reporting period seven orty eight thousand seven forty seven shares.
18:55
Speaker 1: Most recent change, he domped half a million. I wonder
18:58
Speaker 1: what his ownership stake looks like now. Those those shares
19:02
Speaker 1: interesting that he's sold were actually given to his sons,
19:05
Speaker 1: so that clearly they have done very nicely out of
19:09
Speaker 1: that if they still hold this dog. Actually know, did
19:11
Speaker 1: my column very interesting? A mc um had an executive
19:16
Speaker 1: pay plan which was linked to the share price targets.
19:19
Speaker 1: Those price targets were lowered last year because it was
19:22
Speaker 1: thought that they wouldn't be able to achieve them, and
19:24
Speaker 1: of course when the shares first took off in January
19:28
Speaker 1: and then those targets were very quickly met thanks to Reddit.
19:30
Speaker 1: So you know, Adam Aaron is you know, scratching the
19:34
Speaker 1: backs of retail investors and you know, and that's been returned.
19:38
Speaker 1: He of course is doing very well this He still
19:40
Speaker 1: holds a substantial number of uh you know, shares already
19:44
Speaker 1: and of course we will get further ones as a
19:46
Speaker 1: result of his executive compensation, so you know, no doubt
19:49
Speaker 1: at all he'll do well. Its shareholders do well. And
19:52
Speaker 1: that's what he said time and again, I work for you.
19:55
Speaker 1: Now that's the case, and he's done a good job
19:57
Speaker 1: by raising money. The problem is now, is it can
19:59
Speaker 1: they made saying that the price at these elevated levels,
20:02
Speaker 1: that of course will be very difficult. I would. It's
20:04
Speaker 1: a refreshing view though, right Chris. I mean you've researched
20:07
Speaker 1: and written about CEO pay executive pay recently. I know,
20:12
Speaker 1: and this is one share This is one CEO who
20:15
Speaker 1: knows that he works for the owners. Yeah, that's true,
20:18
Speaker 1: and um, you know, of course it's very difficult when
20:21
Speaker 1: you've got a very diverse retail investor basis they do
20:25
Speaker 1: now to speak directly to to those shareholders. There aren't
20:29
Speaker 1: just you know twenty r so key institutional investors. He's
20:31
Speaker 1: got to go and see now he has to speak
20:33
Speaker 1: to them all. And I think it was quite smart
20:35
Speaker 1: actually yesterday by saying, you know, everybody mocked it, you know,
20:38
Speaker 1: free popcorn. But if if it encourages written investors to
20:41
Speaker 1: engage more with the company by stigning up to their portal,
20:44
Speaker 1: hopefully then they'll be able to get them to vote
20:47
Speaker 1: in favor of you know, further expeditions if that is
20:50
Speaker 1: required as expected. I think at some point they're going
20:53
Speaker 1: to publish a new proxy statement which will detail any
20:56
Speaker 1: possible further authorization for share issurans. But you know, for now,
21:01
Speaker 1: they've got enough money in the door. I was even
21:03
Speaker 1: talking about doing acquisitions or so forth yesterday. I think
21:05
Speaker 1: the priority really should be paying down debt. They've got
21:08
Speaker 1: a lot of debt still, and I've got a lot
21:10
Speaker 1: of rent that they owe to landlords. So this money
21:13
Speaker 1: can be good to good use. So, Chris, you know
21:17
Speaker 1: Adam Aaron here, the CEO, he's kind of playing up
21:19
Speaker 1: to his new shareholders, kind of reminds me of another
21:22
Speaker 1: you know, uh ceo is a kind of a promoter,
21:25
Speaker 1: and that's Elon Musk. I think about Elon Musk and
21:27
Speaker 1: how he, you know, really promotes on social media and
21:29
Speaker 1: other tesla as well as other assets like dog coin.
21:33
Speaker 1: So maybe Adam Aaron's is following in the steps of
21:36
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. Yeah, I think that's right. Look, I think
21:39
Speaker 1: a lot of people who look at Masque's performance and
21:42
Speaker 1: he's not everybody's cup of tea, but what he has
21:44
Speaker 1: done is connected with this young retail base. Uh. You know,
21:49
Speaker 1: Musk is able to direct the movement of cryptocurrencies and
21:52
Speaker 1: stocks just with a single tweet. Uh. And you know,
21:54
Speaker 1: clearly Adam Aaron is a you know, an older generation.
21:57
Speaker 1: It's probably not. He's not natural And so for media.
22:00
Speaker 1: You didn't tweet for a long time, I think. And
22:02
Speaker 1: then you know, once he realized that retail investors could
22:06
Speaker 1: be such a post and force and help for his company,
22:09
Speaker 1: then he's re engaged and you know, he's taken good advice. Uh.
22:12
Speaker 1: You know, he's naturally a sort of outspoken character. And
22:15
Speaker 1: I think you know the retail investors who have warned him.
22:19
Speaker 1: I will say this though, that one can take this
22:21
Speaker 1: retail narrative a bit too far. At the end of
22:23
Speaker 1: the day, ten billion of the stock has traded so
22:26
Speaker 1: far today. It's not just retail investors buying the shat.
22:29
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
22:32
Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever
22:36
Speaker 1: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
22:40
Speaker 1: at Matt Miller three. Boss Whinney, I'm on Twitter at
22:44
Speaker 1: pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us
22:47
Speaker 1: worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.