Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Broadcom Seeks More Than $60 Billion in Latest AI Debt Deal
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
- 0:10Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am
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- 0:24Speaker 2: I want to bring in man Deep Sing, he is
- 0:25Speaker 2: our global head of tech research here at Bloomberg Intelligence,
- 0:28Speaker 2: to give us kind of a preview into not just
- 0:31Speaker 2: in video results, but Broadcom as well as the semiconductor
- 0:34Speaker 2: socks seem to have lost a little bit of momentum,
- 0:38Speaker 2: you know, over the last couple of weeks.
- 0:40Speaker 3: Man Deep.
- 0:40Speaker 2: When in video reported results a couple of years ago,
- 0:43Speaker 2: it was like a cultural event. People held watch parties
- 0:47Speaker 2: in bars and cheered when the numbers came out. They
- 0:49Speaker 2: were all tuning in too. Bloomberg Television to other financial
- 0:52Speaker 2: news networks, are in video results still the cultural event
- 0:56Speaker 2: that they once were.
- 0:58Speaker 4: Well, I think it has become a lot bigger and
- 1:02Speaker 4: it's hard to produce those kind of beats that they
- 1:04Speaker 4: did a couple of years back. But still it is
- 1:08Speaker 4: one of the biggest tech names in all indices. And look,
- 1:13Speaker 4: I think when it comes to this AI cycle and
- 1:16Speaker 4: Vidia still is at the front end center of the buildout,
- 1:20Speaker 4: and now they are using their balance sheet for you know,
- 1:24Speaker 4: a lot of the buildout to happen, So they're not
- 1:27Speaker 4: just selling the chips, but also using the balance sheet
- 1:31Speaker 4: in a big way to create an ecosystem around what
- 1:33Speaker 4: they're doing.
- 1:35Speaker 5: Mande, let's talk a little bit about Broadcom.
- 1:37Speaker 6: You know, one of the things that we've been concentrating
- 1:40Speaker 6: on is how much issuance has been coming out of
- 1:42Speaker 6: AI issuers into the corporate market. But the deal that
- 1:47Speaker 6: they're talking about financing now with Broadcom is a little
- 1:49Speaker 6: bit different because it's talking about doing debt of different
- 1:53Speaker 6: parts of the capital stack. How do you think about that?
- 1:56Speaker 6: From looking at the balance sheet of these companies and
- 1:58Speaker 6: how much DEBTA they issue and wear, does that matter
- 2:02Speaker 6: for overall valuations for you or thinking about how they
- 2:08Speaker 6: might finance themselves in the future.
- 2:11Speaker 7: It does.
- 2:12Speaker 4: And I think this Broadcom deals specifically the sixty billion
- 2:15Speaker 4: dollars of debt and what Nvidia announced a couple of
- 2:19Speaker 4: weeks back with the six private equity players of around
- 2:22Speaker 4: five hundred billion dollars, that's an interesting structure. The special
- 2:26Speaker 4: purpose vehicle structure that will buy the chips from Broadcom
- 2:30Speaker 4: in this case and then lease it to Entropic. And
- 2:34Speaker 4: the goal here is for you know, Broadcom to sell
- 2:38Speaker 4: its chips, but Entropic doesn't want to pay for all
- 2:43Speaker 4: of that up front so that it doesn't have to
- 2:47Speaker 4: carry that on its balance sheet. I mean, remember, Entropic
- 2:51Speaker 4: is a fast growing lab that is yes, at a
- 2:54Speaker 4: very high trajictory, but it doesn't have the balance sheet
- 2:58Speaker 4: of the hyperscalers terms of paying up for those chips
- 3:02Speaker 4: and setting up their data centers. So in this case,
- 3:05Speaker 4: I think it really helps avoid Andthropic kind of buying
- 3:10Speaker 4: all of that as opposed to leasing, which is what
- 3:12Speaker 4: they would be doing in this case with this special
- 3:15Speaker 4: purpose vehicle structure. And the same thing is with Nvidia.
- 3:18Speaker 4: Nvidia is using its balance sheet along with the private
- 3:23Speaker 4: equity players to set up this special purpose vehicle which
- 3:26Speaker 4: will buy the chips and then lease it out to
- 3:30Speaker 4: users like open ai or other companies that want to
- 3:34Speaker 4: use those chips.
- 3:36Speaker 3: I have a dumb question.
- 3:37Speaker 2: We know that some of the hyperscalers, I believe it
- 3:40Speaker 2: was Alphabet that went negative free cashlow for the first
- 3:43Speaker 2: time this quarter.
- 3:44Speaker 3: Is that right?
- 3:45Speaker 2: Mandep yes, Okay, could in Nvidia ever go negative free
- 3:50Speaker 2: cashlow given the buildout that's required here for all this
- 3:53Speaker 2: AI infrastructure, or because it's a key supplier, it's not
- 3:56Speaker 2: in the same boat.
- 3:58Speaker 4: No, because I remember they are generating you know, like
- 4:02Speaker 4: almost one hundred billion plus and free cash flow every year,
- 4:05Speaker 4: So they've become what Apple has done over the past decade,
- 4:09Speaker 4: you know, and with seventy five percent growth margins. They
- 4:12Speaker 4: will continue to do that in the foreseeable future. And
- 4:16Speaker 4: they're not setting up you know, their own fabs, so
- 4:20Speaker 4: the only investment they have is really in terms of
- 4:23Speaker 4: backstopping a lot of these SPB structures. So I don't imagine,
- 4:28Speaker 4: you know, Nvidia kind of making a big investment that
- 4:32Speaker 4: they will get into negative free platform situation.
- 4:36Speaker 2: Okay, before we let you go, Anthropic were it feels
- 4:40Speaker 2: like we're starting to get more details about its upcoming IPO.
- 4:43Speaker 2: For instance, our reporting here at Bloomberg indicates that Anthropic
- 4:47Speaker 2: will match or beat the size of SpaceX's record setting up.
- 4:50Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after
- 4:53Speaker 2: this market environment, is this something where if equities turn
- 4:58Speaker 2: south or the bond issue because comes more turbulent the
- 5:01Speaker 2: Anthropic might delay its IPO. How sensitive do you think
- 5:04Speaker 2: Anthropic is to those macro conditions?
- 5:07Speaker 4: Very unlikely given what we have seen with SpaceX. And
- 5:10Speaker 4: remember and Tropic has gone from almost ten billion dollars
- 5:14Speaker 4: in ERR to sixty five billion dollars in a span
- 5:17Speaker 4: of eight months, and they expect to close the year
- 5:20Speaker 4: at around one hundred billion dollars in rare almost at
- 5:23Speaker 4: ten x. When you have a company like this at
- 5:26Speaker 4: this scale, I mean they would not have a problem
- 5:30Speaker 4: going public and raising money and give it how well
- 5:33Speaker 4: SpaceX did you know with eighteen billion dollar underrate and
- 5:36Speaker 4: much lower growth. I mean people would be lining up
- 5:39Speaker 4: for this IPO regardless of the market conditions.
- 5:42Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 5:49Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 5:53Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 5:56Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 5:59Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 6:04Speaker 2: We were talking ira about Anthropic and this AI company
- 6:09Speaker 2: that's going to come public at some point, and Man
- 6:12Speaker 2: Deepsin doesn't think that market.
- 6:13Speaker 3: Conditions will be a deterrent for it. If something were
- 6:16Speaker 3: to happen.
- 6:17Speaker 6: Yeah, the IPO market, I don't remember it being this
- 6:20Speaker 6: robust for the last fifteen years, really, right, there was
- 6:23Speaker 6: a lot of when interest rate thor at zero, a
- 6:25Speaker 6: lot of companies, you know, either didn't go public or
- 6:27Speaker 6: were issuing debt as a form of financing. But now
- 6:30Speaker 6: it seems like the primary market and the equity world
- 6:33Speaker 6: is open for business and means of financing for a
- 6:37Speaker 6: lot of these names.
- 6:37Speaker 2: All right, Anthony Hughes is with us. He's our senior
- 6:39Speaker 2: equity capital markets reporter. Anthony, what do we know about
- 6:42Speaker 2: the upcoming IPO You've been doing a lot of reporting
- 6:45Speaker 2: on it.
- 6:46Speaker 8: Yeah, Well, obviously, after the experience of SPICEX in jam,
- 6:50Speaker 8: we're well versed in this process. But there has been
- 6:53Speaker 8: certainly a pickup in the number of stories about Aanthropic
- 6:55Speaker 8: in the last few weeks. And I think you could
- 6:57Speaker 8: say that that this pep's a leading indicated that the.
- 7:01Speaker 5: Deal is getting close to fruition.
- 7:03Speaker 8: And you know, I think based on a whole bunch
- 7:05Speaker 8: of different stories, I think you could say that we're
- 7:09Speaker 8: sort of basically expecting Anthropic to file pretty soon here,
- 7:12Speaker 8: potentially as early as late next week. I think would
- 7:15Speaker 8: be possible, and they if they did that, they would
- 7:19Speaker 8: have to wait fifteen days to launch the deal, and
- 7:21Speaker 8: then after about a week or so of a road
- 7:23Speaker 8: show they would go public. And the way the math
- 7:25Speaker 8: of that works out is that Anthropic could potentially be
- 7:28Speaker 8: public in late September.
- 7:30Speaker 5: I mean, I think talking to some.
- 7:32Speaker 8: Sources, I would say that people were talking, Oh, maybe
- 7:36Speaker 8: it's going to be late September, early Octobers. There's always
- 7:38Speaker 8: a potential for some slippage there, but I think, as
- 7:41Speaker 8: we saw with SpaceX, when it's a deal that's going
- 7:44Speaker 8: to create a lot of excitement, good and bad, I
- 7:49Speaker 8: think that Anthropic is going to be something that people
- 7:52Speaker 8: investors going to want to take a good look at.
- 7:54Speaker 8: And I think there's nothing that's really going to stand
- 7:56Speaker 8: the way of it actually going full speed ahead and
- 7:58Speaker 8: not having any delays. So I think you have to
- 8:00Speaker 8: pretty much assume in the situation, and SpaceX was really quick,
- 8:03Speaker 8: but Anthropic will be pretty much on schedule after they
- 8:07Speaker 8: file confidentially on June one. But you know, it's sort
- 8:10Speaker 8: of a two three month review process after you file confidentially.
- 8:13Speaker 8: But you can see here that Anthropics is sort of
- 8:16Speaker 8: basically positioned to go public, you know, right on schedule
- 8:19Speaker 8: after they file confidentially, basically.
- 8:21Speaker 6: Just really quickly. Does it seem like there's going to
- 8:23Speaker 6: be decent demand? I mean, obviously some of these deals
- 8:25Speaker 6: have come with just absolute you know, eye popping demand numbers.
- 8:30Speaker 5: Is the same thing likely for Anthropic Well, I think
- 8:33Speaker 5: it remains to be seen.
- 8:34Speaker 8: But I think the indications I'm getting from people we
- 8:37Speaker 8: talk to in the market is that you know, there
- 8:40Speaker 8: is going to be a lot of interest in this one.
- 8:41Speaker 8: I mean, the reality is of whether you're a believer
- 8:43Speaker 8: in AI or not. The company has a very high
- 8:45Speaker 8: growth rate, and you know, when you ever see company
- 8:47Speaker 8: with a high growth rate, there's going to be a
- 8:48Speaker 8: lot of interest.
- 8:50Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 8:56Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast just Live weekdays
- 9:01Speaker 1: at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto
- 9:04Speaker 1: with the Blueberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
- 9:07Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 9:11Speaker 2: We're at the end of a week in which we
- 9:13Speaker 2: got some big earnings from the retail sector, notably Walmart,
- 9:17Speaker 2: Target as well. I'm curious in terms of what this
- 9:20Speaker 2: all means for where things stand for the US consumer
- 9:23Speaker 2: and the road ahead.
- 9:25Speaker 3: Let's bring up Punam Goyel.
- 9:26Speaker 2: She's senior US e Commerce and retail analyst Apploomberg Intelligence.
- 9:30Speaker 2: She joins US now from Princeton, New Jersey. Walmart has
- 9:34Speaker 2: had a rough go. The results were okay, but investors
- 9:38Speaker 2: were not too impressed, and in fact, the stock is
- 9:39Speaker 2: down for a sixth day and seven yesterday it plunged
- 9:43Speaker 2: nine percent. Today it has extended that decline. Are people
- 9:47Speaker 2: rethinking whether Walmart can come out ahead in this higher
- 9:51Speaker 2: interest rate, higher inflation environment?
- 9:54Speaker 7: Sure? So, I think there's two things happening with the
- 9:56Speaker 7: results yesterday. The first is that when you look at
- 9:59Speaker 7: the Walmart results, the underlying health of the consumer remains
- 10:03Speaker 7: strong and remains intact. Because what really caused the stock
- 10:07Speaker 7: to fall is the deflation that we're seeing in pharmacy
- 10:10Speaker 7: sales and that caused the comp to be weaker than expected.
- 10:13Speaker 7: And three Q guidance that remains in place for the
- 10:17Speaker 7: back half of the year, So that is going to
- 10:20Speaker 7: deflate Walmart's comp as we move into the back half.
- 10:23Speaker 7: When we think about the consumer and how the consumer
- 10:26Speaker 7: is shopping, traffic was up in fact, traffic was up
- 10:28Speaker 7: at both Walmart and at Target. So those are encouraging
- 10:32Speaker 7: signs that the consumer is still going out and spending.
- 10:35Speaker 7: And when you look at the e commerce sales at
- 10:37Speaker 7: Walmart over twenty percent, it shows you the strength of
- 10:40Speaker 7: the spending. Now, does the consumer care about value? Absolutely?
- 10:44Speaker 7: Both retailers are slashing prices, They're providing more value and
- 10:48Speaker 7: we think that will continue to draw customers to their
- 10:50Speaker 7: brands over others.
- 10:52Speaker 6: But putting on in the longer term, how have we
- 10:54Speaker 6: seen the tariff picture and a lot of the I
- 10:57Speaker 6: don't want to call it a trade war, but you
- 10:59Speaker 6: know the budding of heads between the President Trump and
- 11:04Speaker 6: the Chinese administration on tariffs. And has that affected either
- 11:08Speaker 6: of these retailers. I know Walmart used to get a
- 11:10Speaker 6: significant amount of its of its stock from China.
- 11:16Speaker 7: Yeah, so when you look at Walmart specifically, more than
- 11:19Speaker 7: half of Walmart's businesses grocer so much of that stuff
- 11:23Speaker 7: is less impacted from what comes from China. But when
- 11:25Speaker 7: you look at the discretionary side of the business apparel,
- 11:27Speaker 7: home toys, etc. There is an impact. And yes, tariffs
- 11:32Speaker 7: have raised costs for retailers like Walmart and Target and
- 11:35Speaker 7: even others across the US because most of what we
- 11:38Speaker 7: consume is brought in from abroad, especially on the discretionary side.
- 11:42Speaker 7: Now that said, I think the tariff situation was worse
- 11:45Speaker 7: off last year when we were talking about one hundred
- 11:48Speaker 7: plus percent tariffs from China. From that standpoint, we've come
- 11:51Speaker 7: down a lot, and I think the new tariffs that
- 11:54Speaker 7: are in discussion are calling for a ten to fifteen
- 11:57Speaker 7: percent increase. Those are manageable, So I think we're at
- 12:00Speaker 7: a place where retailers now know how to mitigate some
- 12:04Speaker 7: of this teriff increase through supplier negotiations, through internal efficiencies,
- 12:09Speaker 7: and yes, they're passing some prices onto the consumer, but
- 12:12Speaker 7: Walmarts and Amazons are trying to hold back for as
- 12:15Speaker 7: long as they can before they can pass those on.
- 12:19Speaker 2: The tariff refunds have been a big theme for company
- 12:22Speaker 2: earnings this last quarter and will probably continue to be.
- 12:26Speaker 2: But I wonder for how much longer because it feels
- 12:29Speaker 2: like it's a one time boost, but you can't count
- 12:31Speaker 2: on it going forward, can you.
- 12:34Speaker 7: Absolutely it is a one time boost for sure, So
- 12:36Speaker 7: it helped in two Q results for many retailers across
- 12:39Speaker 7: the board, including Walmart, I think the boost gets smaller
- 12:42Speaker 7: as we moved through the back half. For most retailers,
- 12:45Speaker 7: the bulk was realized in the second quarter itself. But
- 12:49Speaker 7: I wouldn't expect this refund to continue into twenty twenty seven.
- 12:52Speaker 7: I think we will see some in three Q, but
- 12:55Speaker 7: once they've essentially received or gotten that refund back, that's
- 13:01Speaker 7: the new tariffs in place don't qualify for a refund.
- 13:05Speaker 6: So, but I'm talking to us a little bit about
- 13:07Speaker 6: how consumers have been shifting their patterns of purchases. You know,
- 13:12Speaker 6: when I look at the retail sales report at the
- 13:14Speaker 6: macro level, it often, you know, they have non store retailers,
- 13:18Speaker 6: and it's still relatively small compared to all the times
- 13:21Speaker 6: that I click online to buy something. It seems like
- 13:23Speaker 6: it's you know, a lot more that I seem to
- 13:27Speaker 6: purchase online, but it's only twenty ish percent of total
- 13:30Speaker 6: retail sales comes from online.
- 13:33Speaker 5: You have a really.
- 13:34Speaker 6: Great chart here in your chart pack from about ten
- 13:37Speaker 6: days ago talking about like active users on different apps
- 13:42Speaker 6: and stuff like that to buy. So have these you know,
- 13:45Speaker 6: trend toward online slow down at all or how have
- 13:50Speaker 6: any of those trends been changing?
- 13:52Speaker 4: Sure?
- 13:52Speaker 7: So when you look at those numbers that you're talking
- 13:54Speaker 7: about in the retail sales report. The one thing I'd
- 13:56Speaker 7: keep in mind is when you're looking at the non
- 13:58Speaker 7: store retail line, you're not looking at e commerce sales
- 14:01Speaker 7: from the brick and mortar businesses themselves, So a big
- 14:05Speaker 7: piece of the equation is missing. By our estimate and
- 14:08Speaker 7: our e commerce model, retail online sales is a percent
- 14:11Speaker 7: of total retail. They are closer to over twenty five
- 14:14Speaker 7: percent today, and we think they're edging the thirty one
- 14:17Speaker 7: percent of total retail in the next three to four years.
- 14:20Speaker 7: So the opportunity for retail sales to grow online is
- 14:23Speaker 7: still very vast, and it's still very large. In fact,
- 14:26Speaker 7: when you look at some of the numbers, whether it's
- 14:27Speaker 7: from Amazon or whether it's from even Walmart, you're seeing
- 14:31Speaker 7: plus twenty percent gains in e commerce. So I think
- 14:34Speaker 7: the shift to e commerce is still very much real,
- 14:37Speaker 7: it's happening, it's outpacing store growth. That said, there are
- 14:40Speaker 7: some categories that do better online than others. For example,
- 14:44Speaker 7: food is still underpenetrated online, and while we're seeing it
- 14:47Speaker 7: increase slightly, there's a long runway to go on the
- 14:50Speaker 7: grocery side of the business.
- 14:51Speaker 2: Yeah, I think about Walmart Plus and how much money
- 14:53Speaker 2: Walmart has put into developing its e commerce platform and
- 14:56Speaker 2: how it's paid off tremendously in so far as the
- 15:00Speaker 2: stock return has done much better, and the company is
- 15:03Speaker 2: trying to call itself a bit of a tech.
- 15:06Speaker 3: Company in many ways.
- 15:07Speaker 2: What has Target's efforts been like when it comes to
- 15:10Speaker 2: e commerce?
- 15:11Speaker 7: So Target's also making an e commerce push, and you
- 15:14Speaker 7: know they have Target, they have the shipping with Target
- 15:17Speaker 7: also as part of their membership and their Target circle.
- 15:20Speaker 7: I would say that the two are a little different
- 15:22Speaker 7: when you look at how big they are in e commerce.
- 15:24Speaker 7: Walmart's scaled up quite nicely, right, Walmart's today about one
- 15:27Speaker 7: hundred and fifty billion dollars when you look at it's
- 15:30Speaker 7: e commerce sales. Target's not there yet. And one of
- 15:32Speaker 7: the big reasons that you're seeing such a differentiation between
- 15:35Speaker 7: the two is much of Walmart's scale in e commerce
- 15:39Speaker 7: comes from food and grocery. So when you think about
- 15:42Speaker 7: Walmart Plus, it's I need avocados today, so I'm going
- 15:46Speaker 7: to get them shipped. I need spinach, I need this,
- 15:48Speaker 7: It's easy. Whereas Target, the mix of targets Business is
- 15:52Speaker 7: twenty percent grocery and eighty percent discretionary, and Walmart's fifty
- 15:56Speaker 7: percent grocery are more. So there's a clear differentiator in
- 15:59Speaker 7: how big e those can get based on the verticals
- 16:01Speaker 7: that they compete in.
- 16:03Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 16:10Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 16:14Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 16:17Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 16:20Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 16:25Speaker 2: So we've got Ira Jersey. He is a noted soccer
- 16:29Speaker 2: I don't want to say fanatic, but fan.
- 16:31Speaker 5: I'm a fanatic. I also own a minor league soccer team.
- 16:34Speaker 2: Okay, so he's an investor as well. Let's bring in
- 16:37Speaker 2: Randall Williams. He's our Bloomberg Business of Sports reporter. A
- 16:40Speaker 2: lot to talk about with you, Randall, and we'll get
- 16:42Speaker 2: to soccer momentarily and Ira, will you know, school you
- 16:45Speaker 2: on all of that. But I wanted to get your
- 16:47Speaker 2: take on what's going on in baseball because there's an
- 16:49Speaker 2: interesting development here with shares of the Atlanta Braves, which
- 16:53Speaker 2: is publicly traded. Short sellers are ratchetally ratcheting up their
- 16:58Speaker 2: bets against the company because they're worried that there's going
- 17:02Speaker 2: to be a lockout for the twenty and twenty seven season.
- 17:05Speaker 3: So we're seeing it play out in financial markets.
- 17:08Speaker 2: Short interest in the Class C stock of Atlanta Braves
- 17:10Speaker 2: has tripled over the last twelve months to almost seven
- 17:13Speaker 2: percent of shares available to be traded.
- 17:17Speaker 3: What's the latest on the possible lockout here for the
- 17:20Speaker 3: twenty twenty seven season.
- 17:22Speaker 9: Well, they're continuing to negotiate, but there's been no real progress.
- 17:25Speaker 9: Otherwise I'd be here every Friday talking about it. The
- 17:29Speaker 9: bottom line is that the MLB wants both a salary
- 17:32Speaker 9: cap floor and a ceiling so that it caps the
- 17:36Speaker 9: spending the teams can have, and the players just want
- 17:39Speaker 9: a floor. It'd be tough to argue that a salary
- 17:43Speaker 9: cap is needed based on the results that are happening
- 17:45Speaker 9: right now with the Dodgers, who have recently been losing
- 17:49Speaker 9: a lot of games. But ultimately, if the Dodgers win,
- 17:51Speaker 9: then that helps. I think the MLB's the MLB owners
- 17:54Speaker 9: is argument, and if they lose then it hurts it.
- 18:00Speaker 6: Staying in Atlanta can we talk a little bit about
- 18:02Speaker 6: the Falcons trying to sell ten percent of of the franchise.
- 18:08Speaker 6: I guess to KKR, you know, we're seeing more and
- 18:11Speaker 6: more investment by non traditional private equity kind of investors
- 18:16Speaker 6: in sports teams. So you know, is this a trend
- 18:19Speaker 6: that you think might accelerate and what are some of
- 18:21Speaker 6: the details that we know of?
- 18:23Speaker 9: Yeah, I think it definitely will accelerate. If you look
- 18:26Speaker 9: at some of the valuations out there, we'll learn more,
- 18:28Speaker 9: I believe in October when the NFL has another league meeting.
- 18:31Speaker 9: But if the reports from CNBC and sport cover are
- 18:34Speaker 9: true that this has valued at over ten billion dollars,
- 18:37Speaker 9: then Arthur Blank essentially just got a billion dollar blank
- 18:40Speaker 9: check to spend anywhere that he'd like. And that's the
- 18:44Speaker 9: reality of having private equity in sports is that they
- 18:47Speaker 9: are blank check writers. And what remains to be seen
- 18:50Speaker 9: is the returns. These are not short term plays. You
- 18:53Speaker 9: hardly ever see private equity firms try to flip their
- 18:57Speaker 9: stakes their long term holders. What is this one billion
- 19:00Speaker 9: dollars going to be and let's say fifteen to twenty years,
- 19:04Speaker 9: Could it be three billion, could it be four billion?
- 19:06Speaker 9: I don't think that it's out of the realm of possibility.
- 19:11Speaker 2: Randall, what is the latest with Mark Walter, the owner
- 19:14Speaker 2: of the LA Dodgers for now, the once owner of
- 19:17Speaker 2: the LA Lakers, and I believe the owner of Chelsea Ira.
- 19:21Speaker 5: Is he still I think he's involved somewhere.
- 19:24Speaker 9: Yeah, Okay, he's getting ready to sell some of his everything.
- 19:28Speaker 9: It feels like the things that are not on the
- 19:31Speaker 9: table right now are the Dodgers and the Cadillac F
- 19:34Speaker 9: one team, as well as the Professional Women's Hockey League.
- 19:38Speaker 9: But of course he executed that sale to Joshua Kushner
- 19:42Speaker 9: and Bob Iger or I won't say last week that
- 19:44Speaker 9: was it feels like forever ago, when it was really
- 19:46Speaker 9: just yesterday. And then you have the other Lakers drama
- 19:49Speaker 9: with the Bus family. But he's selling off some of
- 19:52Speaker 9: everything to try to pay down some of this loan
- 19:55Speaker 9: investigation and things like that that are happening. I expect
- 19:58Speaker 9: the sale of to Bob Eiger and Joshua Kushner to
- 20:01Speaker 9: go through, whether the Bus family drama is settled or not.
- 20:06Speaker 6: So you know, another story out there that you've been
- 20:10Speaker 6: writing about this week is about the Knicks and the
- 20:13Speaker 6: Rangers and their relationship with Madison Square Garden. You know,
- 20:16Speaker 6: I came into Penn Station this morning, so you know,
- 20:19Speaker 6: just right underneath the Madison Square Garden, you know, talk
- 20:22Speaker 6: about what's going on there, and you know, is this
- 20:25Speaker 6: an attempt to you know, get value out of these
- 20:28Speaker 6: franchises or is it something a little bit more myopic?
- 20:32Speaker 9: Yeah, I think you get a proper valuation if you
- 20:34Speaker 9: split the businesses. And that's what it appears that James
- 20:36Speaker 9: Dolan and Madison Square Garden Sports Corporation are trying to do,
- 20:39Speaker 9: which is separate the Knicks business and then separate the
- 20:42Speaker 9: Rangers business to see what the valuations of each are.
- 20:46Speaker 9: And I think if they were to go in the
- 20:48Speaker 9: market that they would sell for astronomical prices. The Knicks
- 20:51Speaker 9: would probably be value. If the Lakers are at twelve
- 20:54Speaker 9: and a half billion dollars, then they didn't even hit
- 20:56Speaker 9: the open market. You really have to start, you know,
- 20:58Speaker 9: at eleven and a half or well for the Knicks,
- 21:01Speaker 9: and you could argue it should be the same price
- 21:03Speaker 9: as the Lakers. The Rangers, I think are one of
- 21:06Speaker 9: the most valuable teams in the NHL, and so they
- 21:08Speaker 9: would fetch a pretty high price too. And This is
- 21:10Speaker 9: majority stake sales that James Doland has not discussed. So
- 21:14Speaker 9: if you were to sell minority interest, and you have
- 21:17Speaker 9: to imagine again, we just talked about the Falcons and
- 21:21Speaker 9: what ten percent of that of that franchise could be
- 21:24Speaker 9: worth a billion dollars. That same thing can be said
- 21:26Speaker 9: for the Knicks and the Rangers. Not for the Rangers
- 21:29Speaker 9: in a billion, but it would still be a lot
- 21:31Speaker 9: of money.
- 21:32Speaker 3: You know, the Rangers haven't done anything since nineteen ninety four, whereas.
- 21:34Speaker 6: The next you know between twos an Islanders fan, don't
- 21:37Speaker 6: go there, okay, okay, Ira question on soccer for mister
- 21:40Speaker 6: Randa Williams. Yeah, So, you know, we talked about KKR
- 21:44Speaker 6: and some of these other equity investments and more and
- 21:46Speaker 6: more Americans instead of investing domestically in in soccer, you know,
- 21:51Speaker 6: they've invested a lot overseas and all over Europe, really right, Italy,
- 21:56Speaker 6: Britain and the like. Do you think the World Cup
- 21:59Speaker 6: is going to bring some of those some of that
- 22:01Speaker 6: interest back in the US, whether it's in United Soccer
- 22:03Speaker 6: leagues or Major League Soccer or otherwise.
- 22:06Speaker 9: I think the MLS has work to do, and they
- 22:09Speaker 9: know that they have a new commissioner coming in who
- 22:12Speaker 9: has you know, done a lot of really good work.
- 22:13Speaker 9: But at the end of the day, the MLS has
- 22:15Speaker 9: to rise into the top five leagues in the world
- 22:19Speaker 9: soccer leagues in the world, really, because if you think
- 22:22Speaker 9: about the American sports culture, the MLS is not in
- 22:25Speaker 9: the top three, and if you think about you know,
- 22:27Speaker 9: European football, it's not in the top three there either, right,
- 22:30Speaker 9: And so from that perspective, you do have a lot
- 22:33Speaker 9: of players from all nationalities coming here to play, but
- 22:36Speaker 9: it's not viewed the same way. And the real question
- 22:38Speaker 9: is like what happens when when Messi retires.
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