Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Citi Investigated HR Complaints Against Wealth Head Sieg
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- 0:24Speaker 2: City investigates HR complaints against wealth heead Andy Sieg. City
- 0:29Speaker 2: Group has hired law firm Paul Weiss to investigate complaints
- 0:36Speaker 2: about the behavior the bank's wealth management chief, Andy Sieg,
- 0:39Speaker 2: who was brought on by a chief executive officer, Jane
- 0:41Speaker 2: Fraser as a high profile hire to drive a key part.
- 0:45Speaker 3: Of her turnaround plan.
- 0:47Speaker 2: And one of the reporters on this story joints us
- 0:49Speaker 2: now on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio Todd Gillespie Bloomberg
- 0:52Speaker 2: financi reporter Todd talk to us about what's happening over
- 0:56Speaker 2: at City Group with their wealth management chief.
- 0:59Speaker 3: Andy might pronuncient direction is correct? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- 1:03Speaker 4: I mean, well, what we do know is that you
- 1:04Speaker 4: know at to Andy c you know Rand Meryll for
- 1:07Speaker 4: a Bank of America's wire house for six years, came
- 1:10Speaker 4: on in twenty twenty three to turn around the wealth
- 1:14Speaker 4: business at City Group, which was ailing, was a key
- 1:17Speaker 4: priority for Jane Fraser's turnaround of you know, Wall Streets,
- 1:20Speaker 4: one of the least profitable, profitable banks on Wall Street.
- 1:24Speaker 4: He has been there for just under two years, but
- 1:27Speaker 4: in that time he has drawn several, you know, we
- 1:30Speaker 4: know from at least six managing directors complaints about his behavior,
- 1:34Speaker 4: particularly his treatment of senior female executives, including Ida lu
- 1:39Speaker 4: who left the bank after eighteen years in January. Some
- 1:43Speaker 4: of you might remember that it was quite a sudden departure,
- 1:47Speaker 4: and also towards one of the current his behavior towards
- 1:51Speaker 4: one of the current direct reports who runs the Wealth
- 1:54Speaker 4: at Work business there, a woman named Kristin Bitterly.
- 1:57Speaker 2: Now, which tipment behavior, It's just it's not from what
- 2:00Speaker 2: I'm reading in your story. It's more just the way
- 2:02Speaker 2: he speaks to them, or maybe speaks of them, or
- 2:05Speaker 2: just his it's not necessarily any sexual type of things
- 2:08Speaker 2: as far as we know now.
- 2:09Speaker 3: It's just more of his management style.
- 2:10Speaker 4: Perhaps precisely, Yeah, we call it. There's intimidating behavior. They're
- 2:15Speaker 4: expletive filled rants, which there you know, we know about
- 2:19Speaker 4: him reducing a male managing director to tears after berating
- 2:22Speaker 4: him in front of colleagues, calling people's work pathetic in
- 2:26Speaker 4: meetings with that person present and their colleagues present. So
- 2:30Speaker 4: and also undermining Idelu in particular and his COO, a
- 2:36Speaker 4: man called Valentine Valderbano, directing a managing director to exclude
- 2:41Speaker 4: her from correspondence that was important to her business in
- 2:43Speaker 4: the months before she departed the bank.
- 2:46Speaker 5: Well, let's talk about just his performance business wise, right,
- 2:49Speaker 5: I mean, under his tenure, the unit reached record levels,
- 2:54Speaker 5: improved returns.
- 2:55Speaker 3: What was his what was his style if you will,
- 2:58Speaker 3: under that wealth division?
- 2:59Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, And it is important to note that, you know,
- 3:02Speaker 4: City Group appeared to be standing by him, you know,
- 3:04Speaker 4: they do note, you know that he's really improved profitability
- 3:07Speaker 4: at the bank. The second quarter revenue, you know, was
- 3:09Speaker 4: a record and he's really done that by essentially moving
- 3:14Speaker 4: the unit's focus away from what was quite a lending
- 3:17Speaker 4: intensive balance sheet heavy private bank focus towards I guess
- 3:20Speaker 4: more of a wire house style, you might say, like Merrill,
- 3:23Speaker 4: like Merrill Lynch, where he you know, basically grew up
- 3:25Speaker 4: in the business and you know, he's focused on attracting
- 3:30Speaker 4: investment assets into the business and reducing that dependence, you know,
- 3:34Speaker 4: on the balance sheet at the bank, and that seems
- 3:36Speaker 4: to have have reaped dividends.
- 3:37Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 3:43Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 3:57Speaker 3: Target tough numbers, that's one thing. I mean, the results
- 4:00Speaker 3: were not great. I didn't think, but what I know?
- 4:02Speaker 2: And then CEO, you keep an insider there? I think
- 4:06Speaker 2: maybe the street wanted an outsiders. John was suggesting stock
- 4:09Speaker 2: down seven and a half percent.
- 4:10Speaker 3: I don't know.
- 4:10Speaker 2: If I were this guy, I would take it personally.
- 4:12Speaker 2: Let's see if Jenn Bartash just takes it personally. She's
- 4:15Speaker 2: a senior retail analyst to Bloomberg Intelligence. She covers Target
- 4:18Speaker 2: and all these names. Jen, let's start first with the CEO.
- 4:23Speaker 3: News here.
- 4:24Speaker 2: What do you make of this person and should they
- 4:26Speaker 2: maybe have gone outside the company?
- 4:29Speaker 6: Good morning? Yeah, it's an interesting choice, and I think
- 4:32Speaker 6: there are investors for a little while and now I
- 4:34Speaker 6: have been interested in seeing a CEO change. Brian Cornell
- 4:38Speaker 6: has done a great job during his tenure, at least
- 4:40Speaker 6: initially in terms of really driving growth for Target. But
- 4:44Speaker 6: an internal choice really implies much of the same strategy,
- 4:48Speaker 6: and I think there was some hopes that there would
- 4:49Speaker 6: be something a little different and maybe shake things up
- 4:52Speaker 6: and bring something new to the company.
- 4:54Speaker 5: You know, I'm wondering if Target is going through an
- 4:57Speaker 5: existential crisis right for this identity crime, because you feel like,
- 5:01Speaker 5: I don't know about you Uponda, the last time you
- 5:03Speaker 5: went into a Target. Sure, but you feel like they've
- 5:06Speaker 5: lost their mojo, Jennifer, because the last time I was
- 5:09Speaker 5: in there, the store shelves were not stocked very well,
- 5:11Speaker 5: felt disorganized, couldn't find a sales associate to help me.
- 5:15Speaker 5: What does this new CEO have to do to help this.
- 5:19Speaker 6: Company get back on track. Well, you know, it's very interesting.
- 5:22Speaker 6: He's highlighted three priorities, but they're not really new priorities.
- 5:27Speaker 6: But if they can bring focus to it, maybe that
- 5:29Speaker 6: will help. And that's you know, re energizing the assortment,
- 5:32Speaker 6: bringing back some of that style and you know value
- 5:37Speaker 6: that people crave. It's about having a very good, consistent
- 5:41Speaker 6: in store execution and experience, which is what you were
- 5:44Speaker 6: actually just talking about having things in stock, having you know,
- 5:48Speaker 6: associates available. And then the third is an acceleration in
- 5:51Speaker 6: the deployment of technology to maybe you know, make processes faster,
- 5:57Speaker 6: improve efficiency, that sort of thing. So we'll see if that,
- 6:00Speaker 6: you know, if that happens. But it's really about getting
- 6:03Speaker 6: back to what is it that consumers loved about Target
- 6:06Speaker 6: and how do you get them back in that frame
- 6:08Speaker 6: of mind so that they come to stores and spend there.
- 6:10Speaker 2: Well, you're the expert here, like I don't have a
- 6:12Speaker 2: sense of what people go to Target for.
- 6:14Speaker 3: What do you think they go to Target for?
- 6:17Speaker 6: Well, what they traditionally have gone to Target for was
- 6:19Speaker 6: that sense of discovery. Right, you had a couple of
- 6:22Speaker 6: things on your list, you got in and you were inspired.
- 6:24Speaker 6: You saw home decoration items that you just were like, oh,
- 6:28Speaker 6: that would look great in my living room. Or you
- 6:30Speaker 6: would go through apparel and you would see something very
- 6:33Speaker 6: stylish and you know value that you thought, oh, that's
- 6:36Speaker 6: a great thing to add to my basket. And so
- 6:39Speaker 6: that's what's a little bit missing. And part of that
- 6:42Speaker 6: may be because of just the rise in digital orders.
- 6:45Speaker 6: It's a less conducive to those impromptu purchases, but it's
- 6:49Speaker 6: also inspired by the assortment and by what people experience
- 6:53Speaker 6: when they're in the stores, and that's really where they
- 6:55Speaker 6: have to focus to get to get that magic back.
- 6:58Speaker 5: And Jennifer correct me if I'm wrong. I think Target
- 7:00Speaker 5: has more exposure to tariffs than say, Walmart because of
- 7:04Speaker 5: its mix of products. It doesn't have as much exposure
- 7:06Speaker 5: to groceries as Walmart does, but it gets a lot
- 7:09Speaker 5: of its products from overseas places that are getting hit
- 7:11Speaker 5: by these tariffs. How did that play out in this
- 7:14Speaker 5: quarter and how will it play out going forward.
- 7:17Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a great question, and it is one of
- 7:19Speaker 6: the things that's sort of been bogging down Target ever
- 7:22Speaker 6: since we've had very high food inflation. The willingness to
- 7:26Speaker 6: spend on discretionary categories has been a little bit more limited,
- 7:29Speaker 6: and that's really the area that Target has always excelled,
- 7:32Speaker 6: things like apparel and electronics and toys and home decor
- 7:37Speaker 6: and so you know, right now, the company is saying
- 7:39Speaker 6: they're doing a pretty good job of mitigating tariffs, but
- 7:42Speaker 6: they are more exposed because of the merchandise mix that
- 7:46Speaker 6: they have. So they said they've done some right sizing
- 7:50Speaker 6: they've paid off kind of the one time cancellation charges
- 7:53Speaker 6: they had while they were waiting on the terra verdicts.
- 7:55Speaker 6: We'll see what unfolds in third quarter, and especially because
- 7:59Speaker 6: it's back to school, which is a really important quarter
- 8:01Speaker 6: for Target.
- 8:03Speaker 3: It's always well.
- 8:04Speaker 2: I guess what's recently in the last ten fifteen years
- 8:06Speaker 2: really amaze me about Walmart is it how's effective their
- 8:08Speaker 2: digital strategy was, and they actually went toe to toe
- 8:11Speaker 2: with Amazon, and I think they more than hold their own.
- 8:13Speaker 2: Not just about Target and their digital strategy, how's that performing?
- 8:18Speaker 7: Overall?
- 8:18Speaker 6: Target's digital strategy has been doing pretty well. They've been
- 8:21Speaker 6: a They've made a conscious decision to not go head
- 8:24Speaker 6: to head with Walmart and Target. So, for example, in
- 8:27Speaker 6: their marketplace, it's not just an endless aisle of sellers.
- 8:31Speaker 6: They have a very close criteria of who they let
- 8:34Speaker 6: onto their platform and that's worked well for them because
- 8:37Speaker 6: it helps keep the product selection closer to what people
- 8:39Speaker 6: expect from Target. Their digital sales were up in terms
- 8:43Speaker 6: of same star sales this quarter, well uppaced the visit
- 8:46Speaker 6: visits to stores, and so they've been executing pretty well there.
- 8:51Speaker 6: It's just a matter of how do they marry the
- 8:53Speaker 6: two parts of the business to grow simultaneously.
- 8:56Speaker 2: I want to look.
- 8:57Speaker 5: Ahead tomorrow because we get Walmart. They may strike a
- 9:01Speaker 5: more cautious tone here. I'm curious if they're going to
- 9:04Speaker 5: actually say the word tariffs Paul and Jennifer tomorrow, because
- 9:08Speaker 5: last time when they did, Trump told them to eat
- 9:10Speaker 5: the tariffs because they said they were blaming the tariffs
- 9:12Speaker 5: on having to raise prices. What do you think we're
- 9:15Speaker 5: gonna hear from Walmart tomorrow.
- 9:17Speaker 6: Jennifer, Well, I think I think tomorrow with Walmart, it's
- 9:20Speaker 6: going to be more about the value seeking behavior of customers.
- 9:25Speaker 6: You know, I think that any of these retailers they're
- 9:27Speaker 6: holding price increases back to the last possible resort. With
- 9:30Speaker 6: regards to mitigating tariffs. Walmart will certainly be asked about it.
- 9:34Speaker 6: They certainly won't disclose any specific information about, you know,
- 9:38Speaker 6: the cost of tariffs on their business or the specifics
- 9:41Speaker 6: of how they're mitigating them. But I think they will
- 9:44Speaker 6: remain very cautious, and they have warned that there could
- 9:47Speaker 6: be volatility from quarter to quarter, especially with regards to
- 9:50Speaker 6: their margins, and we may see a little bit of
- 9:52Speaker 6: that play out tomorrow.
- 9:53Speaker 3: Thirty second, Sten, what's the holiday look like? Do you
- 9:57Speaker 3: think so far? What's the early take.
- 10:00Speaker 6: With regards to holiday season. I think the retailers have
- 10:03Speaker 6: good strategies to have streamlined inventory in place. It's really
- 10:06Speaker 6: going to come down to how confident is the consumer
- 10:09Speaker 6: and how much are they willing to spend.
- 10:11Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 10:16Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 10:30Speaker 2: All right, let's get back to these markets. Low's is
- 10:33Speaker 2: a stock that's in the news today. They reported some
- 10:36Speaker 2: pretty decent numbers and also made a big acquisition, buying
- 10:40Speaker 2: a company called what is this called Foundation Building?
- 10:44Speaker 3: Never heard of it?
- 10:45Speaker 2: Eight point eight billion dollars cash deal, transformational.
- 10:48Speaker 3: Deal some analysts on Wall Street or calling it. So
- 10:50Speaker 3: let's break it down.
- 10:51Speaker 2: When you're reading Bloomberg Intelligence, US home building analysts, Drew
- 10:54Speaker 2: first talk to us about this acquisition that Low's made.
- 10:58Speaker 2: What is the company and what's the upside for lows here?
- 11:03Speaker 7: Yeah, this is a pretty big story today when we
- 11:05Speaker 7: weren't necessarily expecting, they announced that they're going to acquire
- 11:09Speaker 7: foundation building Materials.
- 11:10Speaker 8: For eight point eight billion.
- 11:13Speaker 7: They're basically distributor of drywall, ceiling tiles, metal framing, insulation
- 11:19Speaker 7: to builders and remodelers. What's interesting is if you think
- 11:23Speaker 7: about how Lows has traditionally attacked the professional contractor segment,
- 11:30Speaker 7: it's really been through small and medium sized contractors.
- 11:33Speaker 8: That's really been their bread and butter.
- 11:35Speaker 7: What this deal does is gives them access to larger
- 11:39Speaker 7: scale projects. It's really the area that Home Depot has
- 11:42Speaker 7: been going over the last couple of years. But now
- 11:44Speaker 7: it puts Lows firmly in that lane and really opens
- 11:47Speaker 7: up a new growth opportunity for them.
- 11:50Speaker 5: Yeah, and didn't Lows by another sort of pro type
- 11:54Speaker 5: business earlier in the year. I know Home Depot did
- 11:57Speaker 5: something similar. They got they bought GMS for over four billion.
- 12:00Speaker 5: I wonder though, what this means drew for people like
- 12:03Speaker 5: us who want to di Wyatt. Are we going to
- 12:06Speaker 5: not be as catered to at the Lows and Home
- 12:09Speaker 5: Depots of the world.
- 12:11Speaker 7: So you're right, Lows did just recently close on the
- 12:15Speaker 7: acquisition of artists and design group who's a distributor of
- 12:20Speaker 7: internal finishes for things like countertops, flooring, and things along
- 12:25Speaker 7: those lines. So now Lows is really able to go
- 12:27Speaker 7: to large scale contractors and builders and really provide an
- 12:31Speaker 7: entire product suite on the interior of the business. In
- 12:34Speaker 7: terms of DIY, I mean, Di Wells, why is still
- 12:37Speaker 7: seventy percent of the business for Lows. That'll remain core
- 12:40Speaker 7: to their strategy. But what I think this speaks to
- 12:43Speaker 7: is the relative weakness in that segment and the need
- 12:46Speaker 7: for them to look for new avenues of growth, you know,
- 12:49Speaker 7: out over the next several years.
- 12:50Speaker 8: When we think.
- 12:51Speaker 7: About how the market is likely to unfold, and Lows
- 12:54Speaker 7: alluded to this today during the call, we think a
- 12:57Speaker 7: lot of the growth is going to come from big
- 12:59Speaker 7: ticket spending that's been pent up over the last several years,
- 13:02Speaker 7: and this gives them an entrance into that market somewhere
- 13:04Speaker 7: that where they didn't have that type of penetration before.
- 13:08Speaker 2: This may surprise you, Drew, but I'm probably the least
- 13:11Speaker 2: DIY guy you'll ever find.
- 13:13Speaker 3: I have people for that, Drew. But so I don't
- 13:16Speaker 3: really know much about the whole Lows thing. Tell me
- 13:18Speaker 3: about how their earnings were at this quarter.
- 13:21Speaker 8: Yeah, so the earnings were really a non event.
- 13:23Speaker 7: Comps were up one percent, pretty much in line. The
- 13:27Speaker 7: cadence of comps to the quarter was pretty much similar
- 13:30Speaker 7: to what we heard from Home Depot. They exited at
- 13:32Speaker 7: a four point seven percent cop and that really had
- 13:34Speaker 7: to do with how weather evolved throughout the quarter. Obviously
- 13:38Speaker 7: wouldn't be a retailer call if we didn't mention the weather.
- 13:42Speaker 7: We did see an improvement in big ticket spending, which
- 13:45Speaker 7: was encouraging and I think investors were pleased to see
- 13:47Speaker 7: that despite a still.
- 13:50Speaker 8: Challenging market out there.
- 13:51Speaker 7: They maintained their guidance for same store sales for twenty
- 13:53Speaker 7: twenty five, which calls for flat to up one percent,
- 13:57Speaker 7: so you know they did mention the environment still tough.
- 14:00Speaker 8: We think that the big ticket.
- 14:02Speaker 7: DIY discussionary categories that require financing, as we discussed with
- 14:06Speaker 7: its Home Depot.
- 14:07Speaker 8: Are still relative areas of weakness.
- 14:09Speaker 7: But we think both of these retailers are executing well
- 14:12Speaker 7: in a challenging market.
- 14:13Speaker 5: So drew as our home building analysts, I just want
- 14:16Speaker 5: to broaden this out for a moment and get your
- 14:17Speaker 5: thoughts on this.
- 14:18Speaker 3: So we saw that.
- 14:21Speaker 5: We saw that the gauge of future construction right new
- 14:24Speaker 5: building permits down more than five and a half percent
- 14:27Speaker 5: versus last year. But what we're seeing is sort of
- 14:29Speaker 5: a divergence in the industry. Right apartment construction is steadily
- 14:34Speaker 5: climbing and not keeping pace with single family homes. What's
- 14:37Speaker 5: driving that?
- 14:40Speaker 8: So a lot of it has to do with affordability.
- 14:42Speaker 7: I mean, with the rise and home prices over the
- 14:44Speaker 7: last five years up more than fifty percent, rates hovering
- 14:47Speaker 7: at six and a half percent, there's a lot of
- 14:49Speaker 7: people that simply can't afford to buy in this market.
- 14:52Speaker 7: We looked at some data last quarter on household growth
- 14:55Speaker 7: and really what that showed is that all the new
- 14:58Speaker 7: household hold formations have been in the renter market at
- 15:01Speaker 7: the expense of you know, owner occupied units, and it
- 15:05Speaker 7: really goes back to affordability.
- 15:06Speaker 8: So I think you're right. If we look at building permits,
- 15:09Speaker 8: they were.
- 15:09Speaker 7: Actually down eight and a half percent on the single
- 15:12Speaker 7: family side compared to last year. You know, there was
- 15:15Speaker 7: a little bit of a surprise on starts, which tend
- 15:17Speaker 7: to be volatile month to month, But what we're hearing
- 15:20Speaker 7: from the builders is that they're not going to keep
- 15:22Speaker 7: pushing new units into a soft demand environment. We think
- 15:25Speaker 7: they're going to continue to pull back on starts through
- 15:28Speaker 7: the remainder of the year and then too next year
- 15:30Speaker 7: as they look to work through the existing inventory that's
- 15:33Speaker 7: out there in the market. If you look at the
- 15:36Speaker 7: new home inventory, we're at two thousand and seven levels,
- 15:39Speaker 7: so that's requiring builders to have to lean on incentives
- 15:42Speaker 7: to a greater extent in order to clear that. And
- 15:44Speaker 7: we think until we get through some more of that inventory,
- 15:46Speaker 7: you're going to see further weakness in single family construction.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 15:55Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
- 15:59Speaker 1: weekdays at tenn on appleclock Lay and Android Auto with
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- 16:05Speaker 1: your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 16:09Speaker 2: Tj Max TJX, owner of tj Max, raised it's fully
- 16:13Speaker 2: your guidance earnings for share outlook after better than expected results,
- 16:16Speaker 2: citing shoppers turning to discounters due to economic uncertainty. I
- 16:21Speaker 2: look at the stock. It's up three point three percent today,
- 16:23Speaker 2: it's up fifteen percent year to date. Fifty two week
- 16:26Speaker 2: hi seems like always good at TJX. Let's break it
- 16:29Speaker 2: down with Mary Ross, Gilbert Cheese's senior ecodanalys. She covers
- 16:32Speaker 2: the retail space for Bloomberg Intelligence. She's based out there
- 16:35Speaker 2: in our Los Angeles bureau. Mary looks like TJX is
- 16:39Speaker 2: doing pretty well here what you hear from the company, Yes.
- 16:43Speaker 5: Paul, you're absolutely right. TJX is hitting it out of
- 16:46Speaker 5: the park. This is a company that just executes seamlessly
- 16:50Speaker 5: and consistently, something in retail that's very, very difficult to do.
- 16:55Speaker 5: They saw strength across all categories, across all income groups,
- 16:59Speaker 5: all age groups, and they know how to get the
- 17:01Speaker 5: merchandise right by store, by region, so they have a
- 17:06Speaker 5: terrific planning and allocation. They sort of emphasize that and
- 17:09Speaker 5: another key point because they raise their guidance not only
- 17:12Speaker 5: for sales but also on the margin side. And there
- 17:15Speaker 5: was such a huge fear with tariffs. They only source
- 17:18Speaker 5: probably less than ten percent of their sales come for
- 17:22Speaker 5: their merchandise is something they directly source. They were able
- 17:26Speaker 5: to buy better, which means they got better deals. That
- 17:29Speaker 5: means there's so much availability out there, and it's something
- 17:32Speaker 5: we've observed in our channel checks and when you look
- 17:35Speaker 5: at the shopping halls on television, on a YouTube, and
- 17:39Speaker 5: you see the incredible brands that are available, and they
- 17:43Speaker 5: really are across good, better and best. So you can
- 17:47Speaker 5: get anything from Puma, Audi, Doos, Nike all the way
- 17:51Speaker 5: up to Eve, Saint Laurent and Gucci. So it's and
- 17:57Speaker 5: TJX really really wins across all that, so strength across
- 18:02Speaker 5: you know, all their channels and internationally, I mean Canada
- 18:07Speaker 5: was up nine percent comp sales. I want to ask
- 18:11Speaker 5: you about a possible headwind though, because it seems like
- 18:14Speaker 5: they're firing on all cylinders. But I know that TJX
- 18:17Speaker 5: mentioned in the past about a key demographic, the Hispanic customer.
- 18:22Speaker 5: They were concerned that maybe immigration policy was going to
- 18:25Speaker 5: keep them home or not spend as much. Did they
- 18:27Speaker 5: mention anything about that on the earnings call. Yeah, well,
- 18:30Speaker 5: you know, the earnings call wasn't quite finished when you know,
- 18:34Speaker 5: I came in here, so I missed the point that
- 18:37Speaker 5: it was a question that was brought up. I didn't
- 18:39Speaker 5: see it. I don't think they saw any weakness as.
- 18:43Speaker 3: A result of that.
- 18:43Speaker 5: I know it's been a big concern, not only for TJX,
- 18:47Speaker 5: as you brought up Alexai, but also for Ross and
- 18:50Speaker 5: for Burlington, and probably even more so for Burlington because
- 18:54Speaker 5: they really skewed to a lower income consumer and they're
- 18:57Speaker 5: due to report next week, and so we should learn
- 19:00Speaker 5: more on that.
- 19:02Speaker 8: Mary.
- 19:02Speaker 2: I always think the job of a retail analyst like
- 19:05Speaker 2: you was really tough because not only do you have
- 19:06Speaker 2: to do the regular stuff as an analyst, like get
- 19:08Speaker 2: the earnings estimates kind of right and on the financial analysis,
- 19:11Speaker 2: but you kind of have to have an opinion on
- 19:14Speaker 2: like who's good at picking out the right fashion to
- 19:17Speaker 2: even put in the store in the first place.
- 19:19Speaker 3: What is TJX doing so well? Do you think? Well,
- 19:23Speaker 3: they have.
- 19:24Speaker 5: The most amazing buying team, and so they spend they
- 19:28Speaker 5: have sort of like a buying academy where they teach
- 19:32Speaker 5: their buyers. You know, they have to go through you know,
- 19:35Speaker 5: I think it's like three years, maybe even up to
- 19:38Speaker 5: seven years of work that they do with these buyers.
- 19:42Speaker 5: So the pricing that they work on and the product
- 19:47Speaker 5: that they're buying is really something that is steeped in
- 19:52Speaker 5: experience history. They also invest in systems, you know, so
- 19:58Speaker 5: that means technology logistics to make sure that they can
- 20:03Speaker 5: get this all right, because you can imagine that if
- 20:05Speaker 5: they're shipping multiple merchandise, you got to have fresh drops
- 20:09Speaker 5: because these customers will shop multiple times a week because
- 20:13Speaker 5: it's that freshness that brings them in. So yes, TJX
- 20:18Speaker 5: is the leader, though the largest in the world. I mean,
- 20:20Speaker 5: they'll probably hit sixty billion in revenues this year, up
- 20:23Speaker 5: from fifty six billion last year. And they keep increasing
- 20:27Speaker 5: the number of potential store openings they see. Previously they
- 20:30Speaker 5: said we think we have another twelve hundred stores to open.
- 20:34Speaker 5: Now they're saying it's another eighteen hundred stores to open
- 20:37Speaker 5: around the country, just around the globe in their existing markets.
- 20:42Speaker 5: So yes, this company really has the expertise in doing
- 20:46Speaker 5: it right. Is there a digital strategy here because I
- 20:49Speaker 5: remember I'm sure you do too, Mary, when you would
- 20:51Speaker 5: go online to try to find out what tj MAX
- 20:54Speaker 5: had and there was nothing there because you always had
- 20:56Speaker 5: to go in the store to find out what they had.
- 20:59Speaker 5: I think they had a step up their game right
- 21:00Speaker 5: because of Amazon and others online. But what is the
- 21:03Speaker 5: digital strategy, if anything, at TJX and TJX Alexa.
- 21:08Speaker 3: That's a good question.
- 21:09Speaker 5: So actually TJX has a digital strategy. It's across all
- 21:14Speaker 5: their brands except for home goods, and so it's about
- 21:19Speaker 5: I think it's I think it's just under five percent
- 21:22Speaker 5: of sales, so it's very small. But they also saw
- 21:25Speaker 5: strength in this quarter on their e comm business. So
- 21:28Speaker 5: they do have an e comm business. You can go
- 21:30Speaker 5: on it and you can shop anything you want on there.
- 21:34Speaker 5: Now you can't say that you want to shop by brand,
- 21:37Speaker 5: but you can select. Let's say, let's say that you
- 21:41Speaker 5: want to just buy the ultra luxe you know, merchandise
- 21:44Speaker 5: that they have there, and you'll see Christian d or sunglasses.
- 21:48Speaker 5: You'll see you know, like I mentioned, you know, on
- 21:53Speaker 5: the handbag size balan Chiaga. So you will be able
- 21:56Speaker 5: to find what you want on the high end, also
- 21:58Speaker 5: on the low end, but you'll have to do it
- 22:00Speaker 5: by price points, by sorting that way because they're not
- 22:03Speaker 5: allowed to necessarily have that ability to sort by brands.
- 22:07Speaker 5: So you will see they have a robust online business,
- 22:12Speaker 5: you know, and it's around the globe. Now, the key
- 22:15Speaker 5: is that they're a key differentiated in that regard. Remember
- 22:19Speaker 5: that it's still very small and that the vast majority
- 22:22Speaker 5: of their sales, you know, more like ninety six percent
- 22:25Speaker 5: or so are being generated in store, but nobody else
- 22:29Speaker 5: in off price other than the rack. The Nordstorm rack
- 22:34Speaker 5: has e commerce capabilities. All the rest it's strictly a
- 22:38Speaker 5: bricks and mortar model.
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