Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Ford Will Take $19.5 Billion in Charges Tied to EV Overhaul

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Ford Will Take $19.5 Billion in Charges Tied to EV Overhaul · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
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  Speaker 2: Ford and US it will take a nineteen point five
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  Speaker 2: billion dollar charge tied to an overhaul of its electric
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  Speaker 2: vehicle business after struggling to turn a profit. Speaking of
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  Speaker 2: Bloomberg's remain Bostic, Katie Greifeld and Matt Miller CEO Jim
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  Speaker 2: Farley says the overhaul is about moving towards more profitable vehicles.
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  Speaker 3: Look for this announcement, Matt, It's really about moving to
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  Speaker 3: more profitable vehicles. You know, we're going to make in
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  Speaker 3: Tennessee now an affordable pickup truck. I think is going
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  Speaker 3: to really surprise the market. These are customers we know,
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  Speaker 3: not a lot of guestwork in terms of the revenue,
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  Speaker 3: the cost we need to get at and in war
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  Speaker 3: four vaner in Ohio. So these are going to be
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  Speaker 3: better investments for the company profit and all those hybrid sales,
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  Speaker 3: you know, those are really profitable vehicles for us.
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  Speaker 2: All right, That was ford A CEO Jim Farley, speaking
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  Speaker 2: with Bloomberg's remained boss at Katie Greifeld and Matt Miller.
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  Speaker 2: After that nineteen point five billion dollar charge, Let's break
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  Speaker 2: it down and what does it mean for the company
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  Speaker 2: and for the stock. We do that with Steve Mann
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  Speaker 2: Global Autos and Industrials Research Channels, a Bloomberg Intelligencies based
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  Speaker 2: down there in Princeton, Steve nineteen point five billion dollars.
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  Speaker 2: That is a massive number for Ford. What goes into
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  Speaker 2: that number? What does it mean about their commitment to EVS.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it is a very big number. It pretty much
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  Speaker 4: backed up the truck on these charges. But the important
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  Speaker 4: thing is it's Clarinda deeck for next year. Right, there
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  Speaker 4: is a couple of earnings tailwind for Ford and actually
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  Speaker 4: to their competitors in the right as well. So the biggest,
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  Speaker 4: I think the biggest write down. Two biggest write down
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  Speaker 4: is the writing down the losses on their Mustang Machy.
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  Speaker 4: You know they've been losing around twenty five thousand dollars
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  Speaker 4: on the edit line per vehicle, so it's massive. The
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  Speaker 4: other is the charges really on their joint venture with
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  Speaker 4: their battery supplier in Korea, So you know they're going
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  Speaker 4: to repurpose one of those plants for energy storage. So
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  Speaker 4: again it's really clearing the deck. There's a couple of
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  Speaker 4: tailwinds for twenty twenty six, which includes you know, Trump's
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  Speaker 4: loosening the MPG miles per gallon rule.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, Just looking at the stock pretty much flat today,
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  Speaker 2: but the stock is at a fifty two week high
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  Speaker 2: of thirty seven percent. Does that reflect steve investors want
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  Speaker 2: these auto companies to kind of back away or proceed
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  Speaker 2: more cautiously towards their move towards EV's.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, especially in the US. And look, Ford is
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  Speaker 4: you know, not just pivoting in the US, but they're
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  Speaker 4: also pivoting in Europe. You know, they just announced a
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  Speaker 4: joint venture with Renault to develop evs over in Europe,
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  Speaker 4: and you know Ford doesn't really have a big presence
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  Speaker 4: in Europe, so they're taking that approach of partnership. GM
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  Speaker 4: is doing the same thing. Remember they took one point
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  Speaker 4: six billion dollar charge, much more modest than the nineteen
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  Speaker 4: billion that Ford is taking. But you know GM is
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  Speaker 4: dialing back but keeping one foot on the EV's. I
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  Speaker 4: think they I believe they still think that they're you know,
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  Speaker 4: they still can succeed, especially when they introduced the Chevy
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  Speaker 4: Bolt in the New Year.
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  Speaker 2: So, Steve, you know, we're many years into this transition
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  Speaker 2: to EV's, and you know, I know there are many
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  Speaker 2: there are European country, Scandinavian countries where it's almost one
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  Speaker 2: hundred percent of their fleets are are their new car
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  Speaker 2: sales are EV's. That ain't the case here in the US.
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  Speaker 2: With some hindsight here, why hasn't Why haven't EV's taken
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  Speaker 2: a better hold here in this US market?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it definitely needs more, you know, regulatory support for
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  Speaker 4: EV to take uh grow because you know, ev UH
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  Speaker 4: there's a lot of three hurdles, right that consumers have
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  Speaker 4: to get over, which is the price, the range uh in,
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  Speaker 4: the convenience, right of charging infrastructure. You know, without government
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  Speaker 4: support to actually build that out, it's gonna take some
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  Speaker 4: time for this electrification transition. I think a lot of
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  Speaker 4: people in the industry still feels that electrification, battery EV
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  Speaker 4: maybe hybrids in between it is the way to go
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  Speaker 4: in the future. But you know, I think there's there's
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  Speaker 4: a huge paradigm shift that consumers hair hair have to
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  Speaker 4: get over and it's it's really challenging to do that
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  Speaker 4: without government support.
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  Speaker 2: Here, and it does not appear that this administration at
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  Speaker 2: least is willing to provide support that support.
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  Speaker 5: How does the industry kind of view that, Oh.
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  Speaker 4: It's it's it's very unfortunate. I think the gyration, the
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  Speaker 4: volatility that we're seeing in regulation is really not helping
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  Speaker 4: the industry. There's a lot of some costs that's been
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  Speaker 4: incurred with the shift to the emphasize evs. You know,
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  Speaker 4: all three many automakers around the globe have spent billions,
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  Speaker 4: you know, with that nineteen point five billion that Ford
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  Speaker 4: just written down, you know, it's probably about half of
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  Speaker 4: what they what they've invested in in ev already. So,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we do need more stable policy. Uh. You
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  Speaker 4: know you mentioned Europe earlier. Uh, you know, Europe is
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  Speaker 4: in the same situation. I'll sink the European regulators really
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  Speaker 4: know what they want to do in the future. They're
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  Speaker 4: still continuing to talk about delaying going all evs by
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  Speaker 4: twenty thirty five, and you know that's going to have
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  Speaker 4: you know, some negative as well as positive implication to
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  Speaker 4: the global autumn auto industry.
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  Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
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• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 6:38
  Speaker 6: So we want to take a look at the companies
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  Speaker 6: to watch for in twenty twenty six. But how do
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  Speaker 6: you shrink that universe of investamble companies down into fifty
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  Speaker 6: that you really want to focus on.
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  Speaker 5: Well, thankfully we have.
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  Speaker 6: Bloomberg Intelligence and Tim Craighead, who is our global Chief
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  Speaker 6: Content Officer for doing just that. Tim is joining us
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  Speaker 6: right now. And Tim, you guys have really narrowed it
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  Speaker 6: down to companies to watch for for better or for worse.
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  Speaker 6: And you have a couple of themes to keep in
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  Speaker 6: mind here. What are the companies or what are the
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  Speaker 6: big themes that have the most companies that you really
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  Speaker 6: point us to?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, sure, thanks so, and we dive into some of those.
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  Speaker 7: So put a little bit of context. This group of
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  Speaker 7: fifty are all part of what we call focus ideas.
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  Speaker 7: It's a broader group of about one hundred. These are
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  Speaker 7: all high conviction ideas.
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  Speaker 4: They have.
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  Speaker 7: High conviction ideas where we see something very different from
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  Speaker 7: what we think is embedded in market expectations, and there's
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  Speaker 7: catalysts ahead to change the market mindset. Those catalysts coming
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  Speaker 7: up in twenty twenty six, and that's where these fifty
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  Speaker 7: come into and across the group this year, the biggest
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  Speaker 7: bucket are two. One is just simply new product innovation
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  Speaker 7: that is being rapped out into twenty twenty six. The
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  Speaker 7: other no surprise AI related, and some of it's the
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  Speaker 7: tech companies. Some of it are companies that are feeding
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  Speaker 7: into the process and happy to get into some of
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  Speaker 7: those or other topics as well, such as cyclical pressures
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  Speaker 7: and competitive concerns on the negative side, and there's a
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  Speaker 7: couple of other things as well.
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  Speaker 2: So on the new products, give us an example of
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  Speaker 2: a new product that you guys think might really be
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  Speaker 2: important for a company in a stock.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 7: So, you know, it's interesting because some of these can
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  Speaker 7: be quite technical. Paul. You know, you think Annilan Pharma
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  Speaker 7: or Bridge Bio are two biotech companies that have new
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  Speaker 7: products coming. One of them relates to heart issues, another
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  Speaker 7: relates to dwarfism. But it's new products that will expand
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  Speaker 7: to market and drive we think significantly better revenue and earnings.
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  Speaker 7: On the other hand, there are some good old fashioned
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  Speaker 7: names that you know and you love. Canada Goose has
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  Speaker 7: new product flow coming through that we think reinvigorates the
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  Speaker 7: top line. Brinker think Chili's, the restaurant are going through
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  Speaker 7: a whole new upgrade of their menu and up selling
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  Speaker 7: clients with good stuff like Margarita's with Patron and so
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  Speaker 7: the new product idea can expand across a whole number
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  Speaker 7: of different segments. It's quite interesting.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm looking at Decker's as one of the new
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  Speaker 6: products companies you highlight and their ug is introducing styles
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  Speaker 6: to stay relevant beyond the winter months.
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  Speaker 5: Let's talk a little bit about AI because that's.
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  Speaker 6: Going to continue to be a big theme even as
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  Speaker 6: investors are starting to make distinctions between companies that are
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  Speaker 6: in it for good and those that maybe kind of
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  Speaker 6: fat ish. What are some new names that surprised you
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  Speaker 6: in terms of their making the list.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's it's interesting. I'll givia the new names and
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  Speaker 7: the ones that aren't on here, and I'll do the
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  Speaker 7: latter first. There's none of the big llms this year
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  Speaker 7: that are on our list or in video that's on
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  Speaker 7: the list that's not on the list. What you find
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  Speaker 7: are other either enabling technologies, so I think LAMB Research
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  Speaker 7: it's a semicap equipment company that makes the gear that
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  Speaker 7: you make the semiconductors with. That's quite well positioned. TSMC,
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  Speaker 7: the world's largest foundry that's making the AI accelerator chips
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  Speaker 7: that feed into the llms, or even back up in
• 10:38
  Speaker 7: the channel of how do you build out AI constellation,
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: which is the US's largest nuclear utility. That's quite important
• 10:48
  Speaker 7: if you're going to generate the electricity to drive the
• 10:51
  Speaker 7: data centers to drive AI acs. Interestingly, European construction company
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  Speaker 7: they own Turner, which is the US largest construction company.
• 11:02
  Speaker 7: They've got the biggest order book for building out data centers.
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  Speaker 7: So there's a host of different kinds of ways you
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  Speaker 7: can think about leveraging AI beyond just simply the big
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  Speaker 7: lllms like Google or Open AI or things along those
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  Speaker 7: lines that you hear about.
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  Speaker 2: Tim on this list, you and the BI analysts also
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  Speaker 2: highlight stocks that might be have pressure on the downside,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's cyclical pressure, competition, MNA, project delay. Give us
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  Speaker 2: a name or two that might have some downside risk
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  Speaker 2: this year.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, it's interesting on that. Think about what's going on
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  Speaker 7: from the standpoint of you're just talking about airlines from
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  Speaker 7: a European vantage point, We've got wage pressures that are rising,
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  Speaker 7: and for Air France KLM, a big chunk of their
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  Speaker 7: business is the Transatlantic market, which is getting more and
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  Speaker 7: more competitive, and with both of those factors, we think
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  Speaker 7: that there's risks to estimates. China Railway Group. It's a
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: big state owned enterprise in China. It's one of the
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: big four engineering companies. And to the degree that China
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  Speaker 7: is shifting towards more technology and innovation driven investment and
• 12:25
  Speaker 7: less away from bridges and roads and railroads and things
• 12:29
  Speaker 7: along those lines, China Railway Group we think has downside risk.
• 12:34
  Speaker 7: A couple little companies that are unusual but intriguing. Dino Polska,
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  Speaker 7: which you've never heard of, I'm sure, is a Polish
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  Speaker 7: supermarket company, but they've got two big European competitors that
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  Speaker 7: are coming into the Polish market. Again, downside risk to earnings,
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  Speaker 7: and the same thing can be said about Joined Labs.
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  Speaker 7: We talked about a couple of positive healthcare companies. This
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  Speaker 7: is one of the contract research companies that helps a
• 13:04
  Speaker 7: pharmaceutical do their drug development. And China is now looking
• 13:10
  Speaker 7: to go broad and global with approvals on new pharmaceutical products.
• 13:16
  Speaker 7: Join who focuses in on China is losing some of
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  Speaker 7: their business. So there's lotswo ways we can think about this.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
• 13:37
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• 13:40
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Some news in the food business today, Kraft Heines is
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: replacing its chief executive officer get somebody new here starting
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: January first. And this move follows a difficult period for
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the food company here and I know they made some
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: announcements about splitting up the company. So a lot going
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: on Kraft Heins. Let's break it down with Christina Peterson,
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: food industry reporter for Bloomberg News. She joins US lifeg
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: on our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Talk to those first
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: about this, the change at the CEO level. What's going
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: on there?
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, we had expected in September that the current CEO
• 14:14
  Speaker 8: would lead one of the two new companies, specifically the
• 14:18
  Speaker 8: one that is the grocery staples. They actually don't have
• 14:22
  Speaker 8: official names yet, but that was a collection of the
• 14:25
  Speaker 8: least profitable or less profitable food items there, including things
• 14:29
  Speaker 8: like lunch abules and Oscar Meyer Deli meats. The surprise
• 14:34
  Speaker 8: came this morning that he is in fact not going
• 14:36
  Speaker 8: to lead that company, and instead they are bringing in
• 14:39
  Speaker 8: Steve kay Helene from Kelenova to lead the second company
• 14:45
  Speaker 8: after the split has gone through. That is being called
• 14:48
  Speaker 8: the Global Taste Elevation Company, and that's going to have Heinz, Ketchup, Kraft,
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  Speaker 8: mac and cheese, some of those beloved iconic products.
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  Speaker 6: So that's the fast going part of the company, and
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  Speaker 6: the other one is kind of the you know, the
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: equivalent of CNN, TNT and you know, the leave it
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  Speaker 6: behind assets that you know are you're managing a decline
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  Speaker 6: in What can you tell us about Steve cal Lane uh,
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  Speaker 6: the former Kelenova CEO. What is his approach his philosophy.
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  Speaker 8: Well, I just spoke with him and he said that
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  Speaker 8: he's going to be focused on bringing organic growth to
• 15:19
  Speaker 8: the company. We talked a little bit about focusing on
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  Speaker 8: some of the health and wellness trends that consumers are
• 15:24
  Speaker 8: looking for, increasing offerings with protein, with fiber, with shorter
• 15:29
  Speaker 8: ingredient lists, you know, the so called cleaner labels. So
• 15:32
  Speaker 8: they'll definitely be leaning into that. It sounds like a
• 15:34
  Speaker 8: little bit more. He also led Kellogg through it split.
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  Speaker 8: The Kelag company split into w K Kellogg and then Kelenova.
• 15:43
  Speaker 8: Both of those companies were then separately acquired. I asked
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  Speaker 8: him if he thought that could be a path here,
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  Speaker 8: and he said, it's hard to break the future. So
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  Speaker 8: not rolling it out.
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  Speaker 2: Just looking at this stock here, Craft times compound it
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  Speaker 2: and your return over the last five years negative to
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  Speaker 2: percent versus the consumer Packaged Good Index up about seventy
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  Speaker 2: eight percent. Of course, the S and P up about
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: fifteen percent. So what's what's been a challenge for Craft,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: heigns over the last number of years.
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  Speaker 8: I mean, in general, the food companies are all struggling
• 16:15
  Speaker 8: with this shift as consumers move towards healthier, less processed food.
• 16:21
  Speaker 8: The company says that they just had too many brands
• 16:24
  Speaker 8: and that splitting into two will help them focus on
• 16:27
  Speaker 8: each component. I think that there is. Some analysts chatter
• 16:32
  Speaker 8: that that's what companies say when they just need to
• 16:35
  Speaker 8: know spin off some of their less profitable items. But
• 16:39
  Speaker 8: they will tell you that they expect both companies will
• 16:42
  Speaker 8: have better value when there's an ability to focus more
• 16:44
  Speaker 8: on the condiments and box meals and then on some
• 16:47
  Speaker 8: of the other foods.
• 16:48
  Speaker 6: Chris Christina put this all into context for us when
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: Paul talks about how you know this group has been
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: kind of struggling overall.
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: We also saw that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 6: With PepsiCo with Coca Cola, I mean, they have had
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: to rethink their strategy completely.
• 17:02
  Speaker 8: Yet there's just been a lot of movement in the
• 17:04
  Speaker 8: food industry right now. PepsiCo announced some pretty dramatic changes
• 17:08
  Speaker 8: last week. They're going to reduce the number of products
• 17:11
  Speaker 8: they sell by twenty percent and lower prices in some
• 17:13
  Speaker 8: of their key brands as part of agreement with activist
• 17:17
  Speaker 8: investor Elliott Investment Management. Coke has a new CEO. I
• 17:21
  Speaker 8: think Coke is in pretty solid shape. They've been doing
• 17:25
  Speaker 8: their shares have been doing really well compared to some
• 17:27
  Speaker 8: of the other business companies. But yet, in general, the
• 17:31
  Speaker 8: companies that I think are really tapping into this health
• 17:34
  Speaker 8: and wellness interest in. Consumers are often the smaller startup brands,
• 17:38
  Speaker 8: and the big companies are playing catch up not only
• 17:40
  Speaker 8: with them, but some of the private label companies too
• 17:42
  Speaker 8: that are really nimble and able to get some of
• 17:45
  Speaker 8: these new products to market really fast.
• 17:46
  Speaker 5: Well I know, I mean you mentioned a private label.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: I know when I go to the shop right bellmar
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: New Jersey, we bluay a lot more private label than
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: we ever used to. How's that's got to be a
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: bummer for some of the like craft tients who spend
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: my lifetime getting me to you know, brand up with
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: cheese Whiz or something. I mean, now I'm going to
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: store brand, That's going to be a problem.
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  Speaker 8: I mean, consumers are definitely under pressure. They still need
• 18:08
  Speaker 8: to buy food, and one of the things they do
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  Speaker 8: is turn to more affordable food, and often private label
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  Speaker 8: is an enticing option. Interestingly, we are seeing that more
• 18:17
  Speaker 8: on the food side than on the beverage side.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah that's true.
• 18:20
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I guess people are willing to pay for beverage.
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: But I mean, I think about especially on the food side,
• 18:24
  Speaker 6: it's that move towards protein. Everyone is obsessed with ingesting
• 18:28
  Speaker 6: protein and making sure that whatever they are eating and
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: when if they are on Ozenbic or something else that
• 18:32
  Speaker 6: it's going to add to their you know, their healthfulness
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: rather than you know, kind of take away from it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: What are these companies doing in terms of competing better
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: against those startup brands? Are they looking to acquire them?
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: For instance?
• 18:45
  Speaker 8: Yeah, for sure in some cases that we saw PepsiCo
• 18:48
  Speaker 8: acquire Poppy, the prebiotic soda brand this year and Coete
• 18:52
  Speaker 8: grain free chips. So they are in certain instances acquiring
• 18:57
  Speaker 8: some of these companies, and I expect we'll see more
• 18:59
  Speaker 8: of that in twenty twenties.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Also, stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: after this.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Big Take Story, You know we love these Big Takes stories.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: These are great topics on who thinks of them? Great topics.
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  Speaker 2: They're really well reported, deeply sourced, all that kind of
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: good stuff. A lot of times they have fun graphics
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: for me to look at. So this one is really cool.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Saudi sisters wheeled fifty billion dollar fortune as global power brokers.
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  Speaker 5: I had no idea about these people, but our next
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  Speaker 5: guest does.
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  Speaker 2: Devin Pendleton. She's a wealth reporter for Bloomberg News. She
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: joins us live here in the Interactive Brokers studios. Who
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  Speaker 2: is the Oleyan Group? Olayan Group, O Lion O Lion.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Who are the two sisters behind the Saudi group?
• 20:00
  Speaker 9: So it is Lubna and her sister, Hizam a Lion.
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  Speaker 9: They're both in their early seventies and they have been
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  Speaker 9: at the helm of this family enterprise for decades, for
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  Speaker 9: more than forty years.
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  Speaker 7: Wow.
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  Speaker 6: And they have fairly low profiles too. That's the thing
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  Speaker 6: that is striking. They have these low profiles, but they
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  Speaker 6: are known as steally negotiators.
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  Speaker 5: Tell us what they've done.
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, they've done an incredible job building this family business,
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  Speaker 9: which was started by their father, who was a really
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  Speaker 9: unbelievable character. He basically worked his way up from nothing.
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  Speaker 9: You know, he's not a royal, was not connected to
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  Speaker 9: the royals at a young age, but he built an
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  Speaker 9: oil servicing company which he grew striking deals with all
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  Speaker 9: sorts of consumer brand companies in the US, bringing them
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  Speaker 9: to Saudi Arabia, everything from Coca Cola to cheese its
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  Speaker 9: to oreos. And he came over to the US in
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  Speaker 9: the early nineteen sixties, was very inspired by what he
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  Speaker 9: saw and bought some bank stocks, and basically his daughters
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  Speaker 9: took over that business which was sprawling. I mean it
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  Speaker 9: was in all sorts of sectors real estate, oil filled services,
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  Speaker 9: consumer goods, and hung on to those equity stakes, those
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  Speaker 9: banking steaks. So now they have this incredible portfolio of
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  Speaker 9: investments in the US on Wall Street as well as
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  Speaker 9: this you know, booming multi sector business in Saudi Arabia.
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  Speaker 2: So but people in power know these two sisters. They
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  Speaker 2: were at the White House recently t tell us about that.
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  Speaker 2: How do they subtly wield their influence?
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  Speaker 9: They are not noisy people. I think it's one thing
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  Speaker 9: to do business and thrive in Saudi Arabia as you
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  Speaker 9: have to really sort of be be quiet, be force full,
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  Speaker 9: sort of no be a little bit deferential to you
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  Speaker 9: know who's really in charge, which would be the government
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  Speaker 9: and the king and the Crown Prince. But they have
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  Speaker 9: had long term ties with the US. I mean you
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  Speaker 9: really saw that at the White House dinner you mentioned Paul.
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  Speaker 9: She was sitting right next to Elon Musk, but you know,
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  Speaker 9: arguably one of the most important people in the room
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  Speaker 9: because she has these connections on Wall Street through their
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  Speaker 9: long term equity investments. It's really important right now, especially
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  Speaker 9: because the Kingdom is trying to bring in a lot
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  Speaker 9: of inbound investment to transform their economy past oil. It's
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  Speaker 9: a big deal for them to be bringing in money.
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  Speaker 9: And these Alliance sisters have had these connections for a
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  Speaker 9: long long time, so they're more important than ever.
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  Speaker 6: So they have the connections with the right people in
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  Speaker 6: Saudi Arabia. How does their I mean when I think
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  Speaker 6: about prominent investors in the kingdom, I think about Prince
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  Speaker 6: Abolid been to Lull and how he's been very vocal
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  Speaker 6: about his positions. He's you know, often seen on media networks.
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  Speaker 6: You don't hear about these Alliance Sisters at all, and
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  Speaker 6: I wonder how much of that is. You know, it
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  Speaker 6: is part of their success story totally.
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  Speaker 9: It's so so important. I think they are extremely discreete
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  Speaker 9: they are, like I said, like they really know their
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  Speaker 9: role in the kingdom, like they're important. They step in
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  Speaker 9: and help when they need to. For example, in Saudi
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  Speaker 9: Ramco IPO. Back in twenty nineteen, the Kingdom was having
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  Speaker 9: trouble kind of getting people excited and really getting the
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  Speaker 9: investors that they needed early to get backstop this IPO,
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  Speaker 9: they ask some influential families and the Alliance were one
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  Speaker 9: that you know, they really showed up. That matters for
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  Speaker 9: the Kingdom, and it also gives them, you know, license
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  Speaker 9: to really expand their business as much as they need
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  Speaker 9: to and too being a position of power to help out,
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  Speaker 9: but also you know, have favors in return.
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  Speaker 2: And the Bloomberg the Rich Go function lists their wealth
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  Speaker 2: of the family at approximately fifty billion dollars US.
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  Speaker 9: Right, Yes, fifty billion dollars US. But I can guarantee
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  Speaker 9: you that that is a conservative estimate.
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  Speaker 5: Is that right now?
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  Speaker 2: I understand that they while they keep a low profile
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  Speaker 2: of these sisters, they have good relationships with some of
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  Speaker 2: the big folks on Wall Street and like Larry Fink
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  Speaker 2: of Blackrock and things like that.
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  Speaker 5: So that's got to be useful.
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just through one portfolio alone, they
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  Speaker 9: have their big investors in Blackrock, the equity investors. They
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  Speaker 9: have at one and a half billion dollar steak in
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  Speaker 9: black Rock they own an almost billion dollar steak in
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  Speaker 9: JP Morgan. It's actually where lived a Lion first got
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  Speaker 9: her start. She was initially working as a low level
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  Speaker 9: banker at JP Morgan right after college. So they're really worldly,
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  Speaker 9: very well traveled, and just tough in this sort of
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  Speaker 9: very you know, meaningful business sense, like negotiators. They're very
• 24:28
  Speaker 9: involved in their investments. People really described them as intense.
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  Speaker 6: How hard was it to do the reporting on this story?
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  Speaker 6: I mean, these are people who intentionally want to keep
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  Speaker 6: a low profile. As you write, they came of age
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  Speaker 6: at a time when women weren't allowed to drive. They
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  Speaker 6: needed a mail guardian's permission to even get a passport
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  Speaker 6: to leave the kingdom.
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  Speaker 5: So were people willing to open up about them? No,
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  Speaker 5: Skylet it was so hard.
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  Speaker 9: In fact, me and my colleagues who worked in the story,
• 24:56
  Speaker 9: we had been righting reporting on them for years, like
• 24:58
  Speaker 9: just kind of keeping tabs and what they were doing
• 25:01
  Speaker 9: and writing things down on our notebooks for years until
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  Speaker 9: we felt like we were at a point where we
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  Speaker 9: could put together a story. And people just did not
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  Speaker 9: want to talk about them because they respect how discreet
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  Speaker 9: they want to be, and especially when they found out
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  Speaker 9: that We were trying to give a sense of their
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  Speaker 9: influence by tabulating their wealth. They were like, no way,
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  Speaker 9: absolutely not. You know, they're very modest people.
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: Have you heard from anyone in the Kingdom following the story.
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  Speaker 9: Not yet.
• 25:29
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