Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Merck, AI, Earnings, and First Republic
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller.
- 0:05Speaker 2: Every business day, we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros,
- 0:09Speaker 2: and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moving news.
- 0:14Speaker 1: Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever
- 0:17Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Let's talk to John Murphy. He does this stuff for
- 0:23Speaker 1: a living. He's Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. He's based in London.
- 0:27Speaker 1: He's trying to help poor Sam Fazelli, you know, with
- 0:29Speaker 1: his research. We appreciate John joining the team a few
- 0:32Speaker 1: years ago. John, talk to us about Prometheus. Here, what
- 0:36Speaker 1: is MERK buying for ten point eight billion dollars?
- 0:39Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, nice to join you. Yeah, what are they buying.
- 0:43Speaker 3: They're essentially buying one product, and it's a bit of
- 0:46Speaker 3: a gamble, some people might might suggest. But what we've
- 0:48Speaker 3: seen is we've seen phase two data in two indications
- 0:52Speaker 3: that both ritable bow disease indications Crone's disease and ultrative colitis.
- 0:57Speaker 3: Those data look very interesting, they look very competitive for
- 0:59Speaker 3: an see viewpoint. If and this is the key thing,
- 1:03Speaker 3: if they were to repeat those data in phase three.
- 1:06Speaker 3: Were probably not going to see that data till mid
- 1:08Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. And assuming there's a good safety profile,
- 1:12Speaker 3: then you're going to start seeing analysts put multi billion
- 1:14Speaker 3: dollar numbers in there in their spreadsheets. You're going to
- 1:17Speaker 3: start seeing high single digit billion dollars in their spreadsheets,
- 1:20Speaker 3: on which basis, ten point eight billion dollars will look
- 1:23Speaker 3: like a great, great deal. The converse is clearly true here.
- 1:27Speaker 1: Hey, John, just give me kind of the broad strokes.
- 1:29Speaker 1: How does a biotech analyst value a company like Prometheus?
- 1:33Speaker 1: I mean, before you know, like your close Friday with
- 1:36Speaker 1: an equity value a little over five billion dollars, do
- 1:39Speaker 1: you guys just go out there and say, hey, I
- 1:41Speaker 1: think the size of the market potentially is this, and
- 1:45Speaker 1: I think this drug could get X percent of this market,
- 1:47Speaker 1: and therefore I sign a multiple that way?
- 1:49Speaker 4: I mean, how do you guys do that?
- 1:51Speaker 5: Yeah?
- 1:51Speaker 3: I mean I think early on, a lot of this
- 1:53Speaker 3: is finger and the air stuff, right, and early on,
- 1:55Speaker 3: you're you're looking at the management team, you're looking at
- 1:57Speaker 3: the mechanism action, and you look at the disease air
- 2:00Speaker 3: Later on, and this is where these guys are now.
- 2:03Speaker 3: Later on you're looking at the clinical data and you're
- 2:05Speaker 3: comparing it with other products out there in the marketplace.
- 2:08Speaker 3: So we know in IBD there's a lot of big
- 2:10Speaker 3: drugs out there, Humera right nor to twenty billion dollars
- 2:13Speaker 3: for example. So you look at the data and you
- 2:16Speaker 3: compare and contrast there and versus those products. At the moment,
- 2:20Speaker 3: this looks pretty competitive. So that's kind of where you
- 2:23Speaker 3: are now. The next step then, of course, is a
- 2:25Speaker 3: company like Prometheus is going to be able to get out,
- 2:28Speaker 3: going to be able to do the Phase three itself,
- 2:29Speaker 3: it's going to be able to market the drug. Now
- 2:32Speaker 3: they've got a big guy on board putting their arm around,
- 2:34Speaker 3: and they've got Merk on board, and so again people
- 2:36Speaker 3: are going to start allocating greater value to the products
- 2:40Speaker 3: and to the company on the back of that.
- 2:41Speaker 6: Well, can we talk about the Merk side of this
- 2:44Speaker 6: deal here, because we're coming off I think a couple
- 2:47Speaker 6: of months ago Pfizer and Ciegen was the big biotech
- 2:50Speaker 6: deal that everyone was talking about. From when it comes
- 2:52Speaker 6: from Merks perspective, this is not probably going to be
- 2:56Speaker 6: the last acquisition that they make. How much cash do
- 2:58Speaker 6: they have on their balery. How much root do they
- 3:00Speaker 6: have to work with to diversify their pipeline.
- 3:03Speaker 3: Right, that's a great question, that's absolutely spot on In
- 3:07Speaker 3: terms of the commentary, I think, first for context here,
- 3:09Speaker 3: the key thing is Mert this year is going to
- 3:11Speaker 3: have the world's biggest selling drug, key Truder, a cancer
- 3:14Speaker 3: drug that goes off patent in twenty twenty eight when
- 3:17Speaker 3: it's going to be selling thirty three billion dollars. It's
- 3:19Speaker 3: about forty four percent of merk sales. So if MERK
- 3:23Speaker 3: doesn't have some products to replace that, it's going to
- 3:25Speaker 3: have a massive hole in its earnings. So we saw,
- 3:28Speaker 3: for example, MERK did a deal with acce on spent
- 3:30Speaker 3: eleven half billion dollars in twenty twenty one. You'll remember
- 3:34Speaker 3: they missed out and see gen Fires have taken siege
- 3:36Speaker 3: and now we've seen Prometheus today. There are going to
- 3:38Speaker 3: be more deals to follow from Merk because their strategy
- 3:41Speaker 3: or part of their strategy, is to make sure they
- 3:44Speaker 3: have additional growth legs when key Truder goes off. Pattern
- 3:48Speaker 3: in terms of how do they pay for these things,
- 3:51Speaker 3: what goes on in the balance sheet, Merk's throwing off
- 3:54Speaker 3: over twenty billion dollars of operating free cash flow annually.
- 3:58Speaker 3: So these sort of deals are deals they can very
- 4:00Speaker 3: straightforwardly do. They may pay cash, they may raise a
- 4:03Speaker 3: bit of a debt in the marketplace, but it's not
- 4:05Speaker 3: the sort of thing that's going to impact the credit
- 4:08Speaker 3: rating of a company like this.
- 4:10Speaker 1: John, you know what we've all been dealing with in
- 4:13Speaker 1: the macro over you know, the last you know, you know,
- 4:17Speaker 1: six months, maybe even more, is just a tightening of
- 4:19Speaker 1: credit out there, tough to raise capital, cost of capital
- 4:24Speaker 1: going higher for everybody in the marketplace. What does that
- 4:26Speaker 1: mean for the biotech space? If I've got a really
- 4:29Speaker 1: cool drug idea, or if I've got the science, can
- 4:33Speaker 1: I go out there and raise money for the early
- 4:36Speaker 1: early trials or is that a real tough go these days?
- 4:39Speaker 3: It really is a tough go these days. Absolutely, and
- 4:42Speaker 3: it's and it's tougher and tougher. And you can look
- 4:44Speaker 3: at it from two points of view. You can say,
- 4:45Speaker 3: if you're that biotech, what you really have to have,
- 4:48Speaker 3: ideally is you have to have hopefully some clinical data
- 4:52Speaker 3: at the very least, you have to have a very
- 4:54Speaker 3: good concept and a strong management and a credible management
- 4:57Speaker 3: management team in the absence of it becomes very, very tough,
- 5:01Speaker 3: and that's when you look at the other side of
- 5:02Speaker 3: the coin. Then big farmer starts looking down and they
- 5:05Speaker 3: can start to maybe cherry pick some of these better
- 5:07Speaker 3: assets because, as you rightly say, they're raising capital in
- 5:11Speaker 3: this market is a real tough ask. Of course, for
- 5:13Speaker 3: the farmer guys, they're so cash generative, it's something relatively
- 5:17Speaker 3: straightforward for them.
- 5:19Speaker 6: Well, when you're talking about just M and A activity
- 5:22Speaker 6: in general here, I mean, it feels like it's always
- 5:24Speaker 6: going to be in these bigger players' best interests to diversify.
- 5:28Speaker 6: We're hearing it from Mark, we're hearing it from Pfizer,
- 5:30Speaker 6: Maderna as well post COVID vaccine. But is the M
- 5:34Speaker 6: and A activity in any way indicative of kind of
- 5:37Speaker 6: the macroeconomic conditions that you're seeing or is this something
- 5:40Speaker 6: that's very specific to biotech.
- 5:43Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think it relates to the macroeconomic side
- 5:46Speaker 3: of things. What I focus on really is the patent cycle.
- 5:50Speaker 3: Remember that drug companies are when they bring a drug
- 5:52Speaker 3: to market, a drug has a twenty year pattern life,
- 5:55Speaker 3: it's probably taking ten years to get to market. That
- 5:57Speaker 3: means every ten years, on average, half of them business
- 6:00Speaker 3: they have to regenerate or find from somewhere else. And
- 6:03Speaker 3: what we're seeing is between twenty twenty three and twenty
- 6:07Speaker 3: thirty there's nearly four hundred billion, four hundred billion of
- 6:11Speaker 3: annual sales potentially exposed to generics. So you've got a
- 6:14Speaker 3: lot of these players, some of the ones you just
- 6:16Speaker 3: mentioned there, you've got fiser merk of artists for example.
- 6:19Speaker 3: I being very very vocal indeed about having to do deals,
- 6:23Speaker 3: not huge deals, not like the ones that we saw
- 6:25Speaker 3: in the late eighties where that were buying other large companies,
- 6:28Speaker 3: but really deals that bring in product portfolio and late
- 6:31Speaker 3: stage assets and more lock on deals. But we would
- 6:34Speaker 3: expect to see a lot more deals in this kind
- 6:36Speaker 3: of high single digit billion dollars going forward. But we
- 6:40Speaker 3: don't think that today necessarily marks any sort of sea
- 6:43Speaker 3: change at all. This is very much in keeping with
- 6:46Speaker 3: the strategy the murk of an announced to the market already.
- 6:50Speaker 1: Hey, John, if I'm a merch shareholder, do I care
- 6:52Speaker 1: whether they come up with the next big drugs internally
- 6:54Speaker 1: through their R and D or they go out and
- 6:56Speaker 1: buy it.
- 6:56Speaker 7: Do I care?
- 6:58Speaker 3: No? Short short shop aren't, So no, I don't think so.
- 7:01Speaker 3: I think some investors like to see it coming through internally,
- 7:04Speaker 3: But at the end of the day, why does that matter.
- 7:07Speaker 3: If you're the smartest out there in terms of accessing
- 7:09Speaker 3: new technology or accessing new part line, that's as good
- 7:12Speaker 3: as doing it in the house yourself.
- 7:15Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting. I mean because there's Mark spending
- 7:17Speaker 1: thirteen billion on our R and D.
- 7:18Speaker 6: Yeah, thirty seconds, hear very quickly. What about the regulatory action.
- 7:22Speaker 6: It feels like the consensus here is that this is
- 7:24Speaker 6: going to have zero hurdles, So I.
- 7:27Speaker 3: Think, yeah, that's a very important point. Regulator in FTC
- 7:30Speaker 3: and FTC have clearly looked like they're going to be
- 7:33Speaker 3: more aggressive. However, there's no obvious overlap. Pier MERK doesn't
- 7:36Speaker 3: have a big presence in immunology. Slightly different to when
- 7:39Speaker 3: you looked at, for example, when we looked at fires
- 7:41Speaker 3: a siege and we did see some potential over that
- 7:43Speaker 3: learing bladder cancer. But this looks like it ought to
- 7:46Speaker 3: be clearing regulatory hurdles without any major issues.
- 7:49Speaker 1: All right, John, thank you so much for joining us. Really,
- 7:51Speaker 1: I really appreciate getting your insight. John Murphy, longtime pharmaceutical
- 7:55Speaker 1: analyst on the street, spent a lot of time in
- 7:57Speaker 1: Gold and Sachs. He joined Bloomberg Intelligence fore years ago.
- 8:00Speaker 1: So they've got a top notch healthcare team at Bloomberg Intelligence,
- 8:05Speaker 1: got folks in the US, in London with the Sam
- 8:08Speaker 1: Fazelli and John Murphy, and a good team in Asia
- 8:10Speaker 1: as well, So we got it covered all over the
- 8:13Speaker 1: place from every angle on the healthcare side. John Murphy
- 8:15Speaker 1: pharmaceutical anamals with Bloomberg Intelligence based in London. MRK buying
- 8:19Speaker 1: Prometheus biotech company ten point eight billion dollars. Nice little
- 8:24Speaker 1: trade for a Monday morning.
- 8:27Speaker 5: You're listening to the team ken'shar Live program Bloomberg Markets
- 8:31Speaker 5: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
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- 8:42Speaker 1: Earnings are happening. Focus turns to earnings, folks, also turns
- 8:46Speaker 1: to dividends. A lot of folcus saying we need to
- 8:48Speaker 1: pay more attention to dividends and focus on them going
- 8:50Speaker 1: forward in this higher industrade environment. Austin Grath, founder and
- 8:53Speaker 1: CIO of Opal Capital, joins us. Austin talk to us
- 8:58Speaker 1: about kind of how you guys view dividends, How does
- 9:03Speaker 1: that factor into your investment thesis.
- 9:07Speaker 8: So we view dividends as a critical component to investor returns,
- 9:12Speaker 8: and we do that for a number of reasons, but
- 9:15Speaker 8: I think the biggest reason is just the dividends of contributed.
- 9:19Speaker 8: You know, depending on when you look back in the past,
- 9:22Speaker 8: it's contributed anywhere between kind of forty and sixty percent
- 9:26Speaker 8: of returns when you look at dividends and the reinvestment
- 9:30Speaker 8: of those dividends. So we think that investors that tend
- 9:33Speaker 8: to look to those parts of the market will end
- 9:36Speaker 8: up benefiting over time. We think the reason that that
- 9:40Speaker 8: exists is is because it's the good signaling mechanism for
- 9:44Speaker 8: management teams. Management teams that are willing to distribute some
- 9:49Speaker 8: of their cash fload to investors in the form of
- 9:51Speaker 8: dividends and grow that distribution over time tend to show
- 9:56Speaker 8: that they're confident and their business going forward. And the
- 9:59Speaker 8: business is that do this also happen to be a
- 10:02Speaker 8: relatively high quality company. So we think it puts investors
- 10:06Speaker 8: in a pretty good kind of section of the market
- 10:09Speaker 8: if they focus on dividend paying companies.
- 10:12Speaker 6: Talk to us a little bit about that phrase high
- 10:14Speaker 6: quality company. Are we looking at it from a kind
- 10:18Speaker 6: of cash perspective? How much cash do some of these
- 10:20Speaker 6: companies have on their balance sheet? For example, I think
- 10:22Speaker 6: in twenty twenty it was Techo was all the rage
- 10:25Speaker 6: because of that liquidity option. How do you value high
- 10:28Speaker 6: quality at a time when that cash is diminishing.
- 10:33Speaker 8: Yeah, so high quality is kind of subjective and everyone
- 10:37Speaker 8: has a different definition. Some people say high quality is
- 10:41Speaker 8: just high free cashual yield, and you know that that
- 10:44Speaker 8: can be true in some situations, but company pre castule
- 10:49Speaker 8: yield can vary over time, and so we really look
- 10:53Speaker 8: for companies that both have found balance sheet, they have
- 10:57Speaker 8: the ability to generate attractive free flows through the cycle.
- 11:02Speaker 8: So it's not just kind of commodities companies that have
- 11:04Speaker 8: a ton of free cash flow because they're in the
- 11:07Speaker 8: right part of the pricing cycles for the commodity. But
- 11:10Speaker 8: we want companies that have that balance sheet strength and
- 11:13Speaker 8: stability to pay a decent dividend through the cycle and
- 11:17Speaker 8: also grow the dividend. And then finally it comes down
- 11:20Speaker 8: to the really subjective measures is speaking with management and
- 11:24Speaker 8: understanding kind of what their ability and willingness to pay
- 11:29Speaker 8: dividends is so companies like some of these tech companies
- 11:32Speaker 8: that have a lot of cash, they may be considered
- 11:35Speaker 8: high quality, but then they end up putting that cash
- 11:38Speaker 8: into a bunch of kind of moonshot projects that may
- 11:41Speaker 8: not be that helpful for investors. And so we like
- 11:45Speaker 8: to focus on companies who are focused on investing for
- 11:50Speaker 8: the long term, but also focused on putting money towards
- 11:55Speaker 8: investments that have high returns on capital and aren't just
- 11:58Speaker 8: kind of kind of shooting for the moon hoping that
- 12:01Speaker 8: you know, whether whatever it is, kind of flying cars
- 12:03Speaker 8: or you know, space exploration or or whatever they're putting
- 12:07Speaker 8: money into, hoping it turns into a proper business at
- 12:11Speaker 8: some point in the future.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Austin, speaking of dividends, the banks have begun reporting earnings,
- 12:16Speaker 1: and you think about some of these big banks and
- 12:18Speaker 1: they have did with dividend yields of three to four percent. Here,
- 12:21Speaker 1: what did you see from some of the bank earnings
- 12:23Speaker 1: so far? And have you changed your view towards the banks?
- 12:28Speaker 8: Yeah, So the bank earnings is really interesting because it
- 12:31Speaker 8: kind of highlights what we think is going to be
- 12:34Speaker 8: a theme through the first quarter reporting cycle. So a
- 12:39Speaker 8: lot of banks didn't really so the economy or the
- 12:42Speaker 8: economic data was relatively positive for a little over two
- 12:46Speaker 8: thirds of the quarter, and so when you look back
- 12:49Speaker 8: at what banks are reporting, they're reporting on the first quarter,
- 12:53Speaker 8: which was a relatively positive economic environment. We think most
- 12:57Speaker 8: banks and most companies will actually turn in relatively acceptable
- 13:03Speaker 8: reports in the first quarter. We think investors should really
- 13:07Speaker 8: focus on what management teams are saying about the quarters
- 13:11Speaker 8: to come, as the dislocation in the market seem to
- 13:16Speaker 8: have started in March, and we think management teams will
- 13:20Speaker 8: start preparing for that and start preparing investors for that
- 13:22Speaker 8: with some of their commentary, and there will be kind
- 13:25Speaker 8: of winners and losers. We saw JP Morgan was one
- 13:29Speaker 8: of the big winners from the dislocation, and some of
- 13:33Speaker 8: the smaller banks are not necessarily reporting catastrophic results, but
- 13:39Speaker 8: they're alluding to less earning power going forward, and we
- 13:43Speaker 8: think that the risk at current valuation levels.
- 13:47Speaker 6: Can We talk a little bit about buybacks here, because
- 13:49Speaker 6: it feels like a lot of companies again who are
- 13:53Speaker 6: still sitting on cash and issue ins etc. That they
- 13:56Speaker 6: had from twenty twenty and twenty one, are actually still
- 14:00Speaker 6: buying back their stock despite talking about risks and layoffs
- 14:05Speaker 6: and kind of macroeconomic gloom and doom. What happens to buybacks.
- 14:12Speaker 8: It's an interesting question. Some of the biggest buyer backs
- 14:16Speaker 8: of shares for the large technology companies, and they tend
- 14:20Speaker 8: to buy back a lot of their shares to offset
- 14:23Speaker 8: dilution associated with compensation for employees. There's actually no we
- 14:29Speaker 8: could talk about the tax on buybacks. There's no tax
- 14:34Speaker 8: associated with the return of the buybacks for share for
- 14:40Speaker 8: management compensation. There will be a one percent tax on
- 14:45Speaker 8: buybacks that actually reduced share count. It's more of a
- 14:50Speaker 8: discretionary payment. So we think if if the economy really
- 14:55Speaker 8: does turn south, you might see those buybacks slow down
- 14:59Speaker 8: or even stop in many situations. But you do have
- 15:02Speaker 8: a lot of tech companies that are kind of forced
- 15:05Speaker 8: to buy back shares to make up for the dilution
- 15:09Speaker 8: that will take place if they don't buy back shares
- 15:12Speaker 8: just because of the way that they compensate their employees.
- 15:15Speaker 1: So also when you look at a company like Apple,
- 15:18Speaker 1: here's a company one hundred and sixty five billion dollars
- 15:21Speaker 1: of cash on its balance sheet, annual free cash flow
- 15:24Speaker 1: of about one hundred billion dollars a year for the
- 15:26Speaker 1: next couple of years, yet they pay no dividend.
- 15:29Speaker 7: Yes, they have a massive buyback, but no dividend.
- 15:32Speaker 1: I mean, does that surprise you because it seems like
- 15:35Speaker 1: they could put out a two or three percent dividend
- 15:37Speaker 1: yield and attract a whole new group of income seeking investors.
- 15:43Speaker 1: When you see a company like Apple, how do you
- 15:45Speaker 1: kind of view that?
- 15:47Speaker 8: Yeah, we look at that as management doesn't really value
- 15:51Speaker 8: a dividend. They value buybacks more than dividends. Over time,
- 15:56Speaker 8: we think that that might change. One of the changes
- 16:01Speaker 8: we see is potentially with the buy back tax that
- 16:05Speaker 8: was put in place. There has been talk about increasing that.
- 16:10Speaker 8: I think that President Biden mentioned it around the State
- 16:14Speaker 8: of the Union speech, to the extent that the government
- 16:17Speaker 8: starts to increase buy back taxes. We think that dividends
- 16:21Speaker 8: become relatively more attractive because you don't have the significant
- 16:27Speaker 8: difference in tax situation between dividends and buybacks, and we
- 16:32Speaker 8: think more companies will start distributing cash flows in the
- 16:36Speaker 8: form of dividends going forward. One thought on the Apple situation,
- 16:41Speaker 8: and actually many tech tech companies out there, is just
- 16:45Speaker 8: they haven't necessarily hit a point in their life cycle
- 16:49Speaker 8: where investors are expecting them to distribute that cash. We
- 16:54Speaker 8: think over time, if investors pressure for a higher dividend,
- 16:59Speaker 8: you will get more serious consideration for management teams.
- 17:03Speaker 1: All right, Austin, thanks so much for joining us. Always
- 17:06Speaker 1: love talking about stocks and dividends and companies dividend policies,
- 17:10Speaker 1: because a lot of folks are saying this next decade
- 17:13Speaker 1: is the decade of the dividend.
- 17:14Speaker 7: We've heard that a.
- 17:15Speaker 1: Couple of times from a couple investors. Austin Graff, He's
- 17:17Speaker 1: a founder and CIO of Opal Capital. Before that, he
- 17:21Speaker 1: was an equity analyst at PIMCO.
- 17:23Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape cats are live program Bloomberg
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- 17:36Speaker 5: flagship New York station, Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 17:42Speaker 1: If you think about over the last year, year and
- 17:44Speaker 1: a half, at least, to me, the most widely used
- 17:47Speaker 1: term reference on Ernie's conference causes has been AI. Every
- 17:51Speaker 1: company's talking about AI, artificial intelligence, how it's impacting their business,
- 17:55Speaker 1: how they're using it, and I think most investors don't
- 17:58Speaker 1: even know what it is. They're trying to figure out
- 18:00Speaker 1: what is it? How does it impact the companies that
- 18:01Speaker 1: I invest in. We figured we go to a professional
- 18:04Speaker 1: here who does this stuff, Ashley Still. She's a senior
- 18:07Speaker 1: vice president and general manager for creative Cloud and document
- 18:10Speaker 1: Cloud at a little tech company out in California called Adobe. Ashley,
- 18:15Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us.
- 18:18Speaker 4: Let's just start off.
- 18:19Speaker 1: I would love to get your definition of what is
- 18:21Speaker 1: AI and then how does it apply to some of
- 18:24Speaker 1: the businesses that Adobe is in.
- 18:28Speaker 9: Well, first, thanks for having me, and you know, at Adobe,
- 18:32Speaker 9: our mission is to help everyone bring their CreatiVision to life,
- 18:35Speaker 9: and we certainly believe that AI gives us a huge
- 18:40Speaker 9: opportunity to do that, for professionals and non professionals to like. So,
- 18:45Speaker 9: you know, AI simply for me, is when algorithms kind
- 18:51Speaker 9: of are aiding software to do tasks, and it often
- 18:57Speaker 9: helps automate repetitive, monotonous activities that traditionally humans have undertaken.
- 19:06Speaker 9: And one of the areas that we're really focused on
- 19:08Speaker 9: right now is an error of AI called generative AI,
- 19:12Speaker 9: and that enables people, you know, it's services like chat
- 19:17Speaker 9: GPT or Dolly, and Adobe just introduced a service called
- 19:21Speaker 9: Adobe Firefly that enables you to simply just enter text
- 19:28Speaker 9: and the models and algorithm produce images based on the
- 19:34Speaker 9: text that you've written. And so obviously this enables a
- 19:38Speaker 9: huge opportunity for people to express their ideas and create
- 19:44Speaker 9: content in new in different ways.
- 19:47Speaker 6: So how does that align with kind of just the
- 19:50Speaker 6: broader text space. I guess I mean, I'm thinking of
- 19:52Speaker 6: it as chat gpt is the easiest example of it.
- 19:56Speaker 6: It kind of makes sense that alphabet would hop into
- 20:00Speaker 6: what the Microsoft would happen to it because they have
- 20:02Speaker 6: search engines and that makes it kind of an easier alignment.
- 20:05Speaker 6: But then how do other companies within the tech space
- 20:09Speaker 6: adopt it? It feels like AI and chash ebt even
- 20:12Speaker 6: is a very wide umbrella. Can you give us some
- 20:14Speaker 6: more examples?
- 20:16Speaker 9: Absolutely? So, you know, for Adobe, we see this is
- 20:21Speaker 9: a huge opportunity to aid editing. If you think about
- 20:25Speaker 9: what our tools do, whether it's video or imaging or
- 20:28Speaker 9: photography or design, our tools enable creative professionals or marketers
- 20:35Speaker 9: to produce content. And they might do that with starting
- 20:40Speaker 9: with images or graphics that they've created themselves, or you know,
- 20:45Speaker 9: if you're a large company, you're probably licensing content as well.
- 20:49Speaker 9: This is a huge opportunities another source of content. Think
- 20:53Speaker 9: of it that way, where if you're in Photoshop and
- 20:58Speaker 9: you need to add an element to a design that
- 21:01Speaker 9: you're working on, instead of going and and you know
- 21:05Speaker 9: finding it in your files or from a colleague, you
- 21:09Speaker 9: can literally just produce it on the fly. So it
- 21:12Speaker 9: is again a powerful tool to help with editing. On
- 21:17Speaker 9: the marketing side, again, it enables marketers in more text
- 21:22Speaker 9: examples to create copy and and you know, one of
- 21:27Speaker 9: the big trends in digital and for companies is personalization
- 21:33Speaker 9: and a lot of content and experiences are being created
- 21:37Speaker 9: in order for businesses to have more relevant experiences for
- 21:42Speaker 9: their customers. And humans can't produce enough content to get
- 21:47Speaker 9: to true one to one personalization, and so AI is
- 21:51Speaker 9: going to be a really important again tool in the
- 21:55Speaker 9: in the tool chest to achieve true personalization and and
- 22:00Speaker 9: unlocks the power of digital.
- 22:02Speaker 1: Hey, Ashley, you know, as more and more companies and
- 22:05Speaker 1: individuals for that matter, embrace artificial intelligence, there's concerns out
- 22:09Speaker 1: there about control, having control over AI, what it can do.
- 22:15Speaker 1: How do you guys at Adobe think about that and
- 22:18Speaker 1: manage that risk.
- 22:21Speaker 9: Yes, So it is incredibly important as content is produced
- 22:26Speaker 9: in more and more ways, right by both humans as
- 22:29Speaker 9: well as algorithms and machines, for to have transparency. And
- 22:37Speaker 9: again I think there's whether you think of it as
- 22:41Speaker 9: control or transparency. Ultimately, consumers have to trust the content
- 22:47Speaker 9: that they're seeing, whether it's from a brand and a
- 22:50Speaker 9: marketing context, whether it's from news organizations. And Adobe founded
- 22:57Speaker 9: along with you now nine hundred partners an initiative called
- 23:01Speaker 9: the Content Authenticity Initiative, And what this really focuses on
- 23:05Speaker 9: is transparency for digital content. And we do that by
- 23:10Speaker 9: adding metadata to content as it's being edited and produced,
- 23:16Speaker 9: and that enables news site, businesses, et cetera to provide
- 23:22Speaker 9: that transparency to the consumer to just be clear, was
- 23:28Speaker 9: this content created with the help of generative AI, How
- 23:33Speaker 9: was this content edited?
- 23:35Speaker 5: Right?
- 23:35Speaker 9: Is it real or is it fake? So we're really
- 23:39Speaker 9: focused on transparency with both AI, but just in general
- 23:44Speaker 9: with digital content, are.
- 23:46Speaker 6: You all worried about regulatory pushback or scrutiny from Washington
- 23:51Speaker 6: or even scrutiny from kind of your demographic as well
- 23:53Speaker 6: as more and more people are talking about adopting AI,
- 23:56Speaker 6: it feels like there's privacy concerns associated with them. How
- 23:59Speaker 6: are you thinking out that?
- 24:02Speaker 9: Well, one of we believe very strongly that everybody participating
- 24:09Speaker 9: in I in AI needs to take a responsible approach
- 24:13Speaker 9: and so, for example, at Adobe, what we've done is
- 24:16Speaker 9: we only train our models on content that we have
- 24:21Speaker 9: a license to right or content that's on the Internet
- 24:25Speaker 9: where the license has expired. And we believe this is
- 24:29Speaker 9: really important because a lot of people don't want their
- 24:34Speaker 9: content to be used in training. You know, we represent
- 24:37Speaker 9: the creative community, and there are many people in the
- 24:40Speaker 9: creative community who don't want their style kind of quote
- 24:45Speaker 9: unquote stolen from them, and so we do believe it's
- 24:50Speaker 9: important to take a very responsible approach. And there's also
- 24:54Speaker 9: parts of the law that are very unclear right where
- 24:58Speaker 9: you know, copyright in the age your AI will evolve
- 25:02Speaker 9: right now, again with generative AI, if an artist produces
- 25:08Speaker 9: work through text prompts, there's no ability to copyright that work.
- 25:15Speaker 9: So there are definitely areas where the law will need
- 25:20Speaker 9: to evolve, and we think it's important as well that
- 25:23Speaker 9: companies are responsible and how they're sourcing data for AI.
- 25:28Speaker 1: Hey Ashley, Thank you so much for taking the time
- 25:29Speaker 1: to join us. We really appreciate kind of getting the
- 25:32Speaker 1: benefit of your wisdom on AI artificial intelligence. Actually still
- 25:36Speaker 1: senior vice president, General Manager Creative Cloud and document Cloud
- 25:39Speaker 1: at Adobe.
- 25:42Speaker 5: You're listening to the team Ken's are live program Bloomberg
- 25:45Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot com,
- 25:49Speaker 5: the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or listen
- 25:52Speaker 5: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
- 25:56Speaker 1: We're in a thick of bank earning season that means
- 26:00Speaker 1: talked to Hermit Chan. We talked to him a lot.
- 26:01Speaker 1: I'm kind of tired of this guy, but he covers
- 26:03Speaker 1: the regional banks. He's really really good at one of
- 26:05Speaker 1: the top guys on the street. But we're also joined
- 26:06Speaker 1: now by Neil SIPs, equity research analysts the Bloomberg Intelligence
- 26:10Speaker 1: He's a proud at University of Dayton flyer.
- 26:12Speaker 7: Neil.
- 26:13Speaker 1: The last time I saw you you were in Asso
- 26:14Speaker 1: shit working with Alison Williams. That they promoted you to analyst.
- 26:19Speaker 10: Yeah, that's right, that happened. Yeah, And you know, I
- 26:22Speaker 10: think many years of kind of getting into the details
- 26:25Speaker 10: of some of some of those bigger banks you get
- 26:27Speaker 10: a lot of experience and a lot of understanding, you
- 26:31Speaker 10: know what all these business lines are are driven by
- 26:33Speaker 10: and ultimately how these businesses are positioned.
- 26:35Speaker 4: All right, So what did you see from Schwab today?
- 26:37Speaker 1: And then you know, I'll ask you for your thoughts
- 26:39Speaker 1: later on kind of what we saw Friday from some
- 26:40Speaker 1: of the bigger banks.
- 26:41Speaker 4: Which would you see from Schwab today?
- 26:42Speaker 7: Yeah?
- 26:43Speaker 10: Sure, so I think from Schwab, you know, from the
- 26:46Speaker 10: from the start, you see the strength of their business.
- 26:49Speaker 10: You see return on equity and access to twenty percent,
- 26:52Speaker 10: you see pre tax margin above forty percent. Ultimately saw
- 26:56Speaker 10: the net interest margin decline this quarter sequentially, and that's
- 27:00Speaker 10: the biggest question for investors is what's going on with deposits.
- 27:04Speaker 10: Ultimately what we saw as deposits decline on the platform
- 27:06Speaker 10: by about forty billion this quarter.
- 27:09Speaker 4: That accelerated from the That's huge, right, Yeah, that's huge.
- 27:13Speaker 4: Of anything's big, but I mean when it's money, that's really.
- 27:16Speaker 10: Yeah, And for Schwab specifically, I mean that's that's sort
- 27:19Speaker 10: of the proposition of how they make money is ultimately
- 27:22Speaker 10: the uninvested cash in their clients accounts is what ultimately
- 27:26Speaker 10: gets reinvested. Into securities on the balance sheet, and that's
- 27:28Speaker 10: really the driver of net interest margin. When those deposits leave,
- 27:32Speaker 10: you start having issues on the liquidity front, and that's
- 27:36Speaker 10: kind of the question and what the you know what.
- 27:37Speaker 10: The CEO was trying to quell some of those concerns
- 27:40Speaker 10: today with of how they're going to provide funding going
- 27:42Speaker 10: forward as deposits leave.
- 27:44Speaker 6: Herman hop on into this conversation. Herman again, that guy
- 27:49Speaker 6: her Hobbins is the conversation talks to us a little
- 27:51Speaker 6: about what we can actually expect from these earnings. I
- 27:53Speaker 6: think Thursday is the big day where we're getting the
- 27:55Speaker 6: majority of the regional banker earnings. What is or is
- 27:59Speaker 6: there a kind of one bank or two or three
- 28:02Speaker 6: that you're really paying attention to. Last Friday it was
- 28:04Speaker 6: all about JP Morgan. Obviously, I think tomorrow it's going
- 28:07Speaker 6: to be off's a bit all the big three, But
- 28:09Speaker 6: on the regional basis, what's what's on your radar? Yeah?
- 28:12Speaker 11: Sure, So Wednesday and Thursdays are the big days for
- 28:15Speaker 11: the regional bank reporting for the first quarter. We had
- 28:18Speaker 11: mm T report today, PNC on Friday. The biggest issue
- 28:23Speaker 11: in the focus is going to be on deposits. As
- 28:25Speaker 11: Neil mentioned earlier, where are we on deposits? How do
- 28:28Speaker 11: they stack with the rest of the group. The best
- 28:32Speaker 11: so far has been JP Morgan and then M and
- 28:36Speaker 11: T was actually showing steady and stable deposits, which is
- 28:38Speaker 11: a great sign. We're still waiting on some of the
- 28:42Speaker 11: others that the numbers look maybe a bit poor on,
- 28:46Speaker 11: which would be somebody like Western Alliance and banks like
- 28:50Speaker 11: First Republic. But we're probably hoping to see pretty stable
- 28:54Speaker 11: the maybe down a little bit for deposits across the group.
- 28:58Speaker 1: Can you up on Friday some of the big banks
- 29:00Speaker 1: reported I was not here. I was driving all over
- 29:03Speaker 1: the central coast of California. I missed it. But it
- 29:06Speaker 1: was the story there for a lot of these bigger banks.
- 29:09Speaker 1: And will it continue to be this positive net interest
- 29:12Speaker 1: margin stories? That one of the key things that you're
- 29:14Speaker 1: looking at.
- 29:15Speaker 10: Yeah, and I think the question is still just surrounds deposits,
- 29:19Speaker 10: and particularly when you're looking at some of the some
- 29:21Speaker 10: of those larger players, the JP Morgan's Bank of Americas
- 29:24Speaker 10: of the World, they're the ones who are perhaps you know,
- 29:27Speaker 10: winning some of that share of deposits. As you see
- 29:30Speaker 10: things kind of reshuffle between institutions, and so ultimately the
- 29:34Speaker 10: question is that and obviously as we have you know,
- 29:36Speaker 10: objectively higher interest rates, now the question is what's going
- 29:39Speaker 10: to happen with loan growth as you you know, get
- 29:41Speaker 10: to these elevated levels on short term interest rates, and
- 29:45Speaker 10: then particularly when you look at investment banking, that continues
- 29:49Speaker 10: to remain slow, whereas trading was benefited by some of
- 29:52Speaker 10: that rate volatility.
- 29:54Speaker 6: Well, Neil a follow upon the loan growth story because
- 29:56Speaker 6: it feels like there's kind of this cash twenty two
- 29:59Speaker 6: on the one hand, and it's this big influx of
- 30:02Speaker 6: deposits that Jamie Diamond, I believe on Friday, Paul, you
- 30:05Speaker 6: missed this part. Jamie Diamond had.
- 30:06Speaker 4: A lot to say.
- 30:07Speaker 6: I'm sure on Friday, but Jamie Dimond said, look, by
- 30:10Speaker 6: the end of the year, that's going to reverse. This
- 30:12Speaker 6: is a temporary measure. But then on the other hand,
- 30:16Speaker 6: you have the loan growth, which is also song. So
- 30:18Speaker 6: that does that mean by the end of the year
- 30:20Speaker 6: everything that's being viewed as a major positive for the
- 30:23Speaker 6: big banks is just gonna fade away?
- 30:26Speaker 10: Yeah, Well, I think it's it's it's sort of difficult
- 30:29Speaker 10: to say. I think there's a lot of variables between
- 30:32Speaker 10: now and the end of the year, and a lot
- 30:33Speaker 10: of that's going to ultimately play out into what we
- 30:36Speaker 10: see in terms of loan growth, what the benefit of
- 30:38Speaker 10: interest rates is. And I even think you know, Herman
- 30:41Speaker 10: Chan may actually have you know, better insight on that
- 30:45Speaker 10: as it relates to kind of the loan growth that
- 30:47Speaker 10: you're seeing, perhaps more so at commercial versus consumer at
- 30:50Speaker 10: some of his banks.
- 30:52Speaker 11: Yeah, I would say that commercial lending is still fairly strong.
- 30:56Speaker 11: You saw some growth from M and C in terms
- 30:58Speaker 11: of C and I growth, so that's a positive sign.
- 31:01Speaker 11: We're still waiting on guidance furmenty the calls going on
- 31:04Speaker 11: right now, but that'll be the big driver a sentiment
- 31:07Speaker 11: going forward. Overall, it seems like credit availability could could
- 31:13Speaker 11: weaken a bit given the fact that we're seeing higher
- 31:16Speaker 11: deposit costs and banks needing to pay up for deposits
- 31:20Speaker 11: to retain those relationships. That probably could spur some weaker
- 31:26Speaker 11: demand going forward, and we've seen that across some consumer
- 31:30Speaker 11: lending types already with auto loans, those rates on the
- 31:34Speaker 11: auto loans are already driving something to the effect of
- 31:37Speaker 11: seven percent, which creates some sticker. Stock Shop for a
- 31:41Speaker 11: lot of the potential buyers of cars these days. So
- 31:44Speaker 11: that's something that we're looking into going ahead for the
- 31:48Speaker 11: rest of the year.
- 31:49Speaker 1: You know, what are the big banks saying about kind
- 31:52Speaker 1: of the capital markets business? Are they kind of saying,
- 31:54Speaker 1: you know, don't get your hopes up for twenty twenty three,
- 31:57Speaker 1: We'll think about twenty four.
- 31:59Speaker 10: Yeah. I think unfortunately, it's sort of been a kicking
- 32:01Speaker 10: the can down the road on you know, we expect
- 32:04Speaker 10: it to continue to get better at some point, but
- 32:07Speaker 10: when that's some point is you know, we're not too certain,
- 32:10Speaker 10: and you just look at kind of metrics of volatility,
- 32:13Speaker 10: where interest rates are, the uncertainty around interest rates the economy,
- 32:17Speaker 10: it's just challenging for capital raising to happen. It's challenging
- 32:20Speaker 10: for deals to take place when there's still not clarity
- 32:23Speaker 10: on ultimately where interest rates are going to be going forward.
- 32:27Speaker 10: And so I think, you know, twenty twenty four is
- 32:30Speaker 10: sort of where they're starting to push those you know,
- 32:33Speaker 10: those guidances of you know, potential for hope.
- 32:36Speaker 1: All right, Like many people, Neil, I'm I'm a fan
- 32:38Speaker 1: at Jamie Diamond, but his stock just went up another notch.
- 32:41Speaker 7: In my mind, telling his managing.
- 32:43Speaker 4: Directors to be back five days a week.
- 32:45Speaker 1: Has there been any what's the feedback that you've heard,
- 32:47Speaker 1: maybe even on the call Jamie Diamond's comments to it.
- 32:50Speaker 7: Have you heard any feedback there?
- 32:51Speaker 1: And we'll expect other banks to follow suit because a
- 32:55Speaker 1: lot of times Jamie kind of leads the pack.
- 32:57Speaker 10: Yeah. Yeah, he can tend to be a bell weather.
- 33:00Speaker 10: And I think you know, to that extent, perhaps it's
- 33:03Speaker 10: it's more focused on that senior talent, and you want
- 33:06Speaker 10: to have those people in the office, particularly for the
- 33:09Speaker 10: benefits of those that are junior below them, because ultimately
- 33:12Speaker 10: that's you know, that's how you're going to foster that culture,
- 33:15Speaker 10: which we know is incredibly important in investment banking, ultimately
- 33:19Speaker 10: driving relationships for the business. And so as you ultimately
- 33:22Speaker 10: see you know, work from home being phased out a
- 33:25Speaker 10: little bit, it may start at the higher ranks and
- 33:27Speaker 10: ultimately feed down into the lowers. And of course, you know,
- 33:31Speaker 10: we'll see if this does bleed into the other banks
- 33:33Speaker 10: and others, as ultimately that can sort of be a
- 33:37Speaker 10: competing factor for talent.
- 33:39Speaker 6: The only reason Paul Swen is a fan of Herman
- 33:42Speaker 6: Chan the only reason because he comes in five days
- 33:44Speaker 6: a week.
- 33:44Speaker 7: Yeah, he brings it.
- 33:47Speaker 11: The best ability is availability.
- 33:49Speaker 4: Oh well, the best ability is availability that one.
- 33:52Speaker 6: Put it on a shirt to it on Paul's forehead. Herman,
- 33:57Speaker 6: your take, then, I mean, let's just continue with that thing.
- 33:59Speaker 6: And that's the take from the big banks. Is it
- 34:01Speaker 6: that important for the regional banks in.
- 34:04Speaker 11: Terms of folks coming in? I think there's still a
- 34:07Speaker 11: lot of work from home mentality So well, we haven't
- 34:11Speaker 11: heard directive from the CEOs on down. So if the
- 34:15Speaker 11: Jamie Diamond issue of making folks coming in, at least
- 34:19Speaker 11: from the MD level, you could see some of the
- 34:22Speaker 11: regionals sort of follow suit, But we haven't heard of
- 34:25Speaker 11: any of the more mandated coming into the office, at
- 34:29Speaker 11: least not yet.
- 34:30Speaker 6: Herman, really quickly, I want to ask you about buybacks specifically.
- 34:32Speaker 6: I think I asked you this last week. I had
- 34:34Speaker 6: a fantastic answer. It's worth repeating. When you're looking at
- 34:37Speaker 6: some of the valuations of these regional stocks, they are
- 34:40Speaker 6: trading far below their kind of normal or average price
- 34:43Speaker 6: to book ratios. Isn't that a no brainer for these
- 34:45Speaker 6: regional banks to buy back their stock.
- 34:48Speaker 11: It makes it really enticing because our group, the regional
- 34:52Speaker 11: bank group that I cover, it's training about one times
- 34:56Speaker 11: tangible book value adjusted for the AOCI, so really low
- 35:01Speaker 11: levels attractive levels. We're still in a bit of uncertainty though.
- 35:06Speaker 11: PNC came out on Friday and said they were halting
- 35:09Speaker 11: buybacks until they get more clarity on maybe uncertainly from
- 35:13Speaker 11: the market and also from the regulators. So until we
- 35:17Speaker 11: see some of that clarity uppear, it seems like there
- 35:22Speaker 11: could be some less activity from a buyback standpoint. There
- 35:26Speaker 11: are others that have really strong capital ratios that we cover.
- 35:31Speaker 11: M and T is one. East Wests is another that
- 35:33Speaker 11: really have strong capital and operating really well that could
- 35:37Speaker 11: continue to do buybacks. So it'll be a mix, all.
- 35:39Speaker 1: Right, Gens, thanks so much for joining us. Herman Chan,
- 35:41Speaker 1: who has saved our bacon many times over the last month,
- 35:45Speaker 1: helping us get through what has been a stressful time
- 35:46Speaker 1: for some of these regional banks. Herman Chan, Bloomberg Intelligence
- 35:49Speaker 1: senior animals covering those regional banks, and Neil SIPs Man,
- 35:53Speaker 1: what a strong first show on my show, Neil Safe's
- 35:55Speaker 1: Equity Research Annals Bloomberg Intelligence. We trained him up and
- 35:59Speaker 1: here he is put out some great research and helping
- 36:01Speaker 1: us understand what's going on with the banks.
- 36:04Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape Cat's are live program Bloomberg
- 36:07Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 36:11Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
- 36:14Speaker 5: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 36:17Speaker 5: flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 36:23Speaker 1: Looking at the Big Take story, you know, we're all
- 36:26Speaker 1: big fans of the Big Takes story because they are
- 36:28Speaker 1: really usually usually very very interesting topics, but always deeply,
- 36:32Speaker 1: deeply reported. In today's is no different, and it goes
- 36:38Speaker 1: to the headline interest only loans to Hampton's set in
- 36:42Speaker 1: pale First Republic. That does not sound good there, So
- 36:45Speaker 1: let's talk to Jenny surname surname Surrain. I'm sorry, Jase Shrain,
- 36:50Speaker 1: thank you for Bloomberg News. She was one of the
- 36:53Speaker 1: reporters on this story. And you think about these big Jenny,
- 36:57Speaker 1: you got to the ham Does not that I go
- 36:58Speaker 1: there because I'm a Jersey shore guy. You think about
- 37:00Speaker 1: the Hampton Is to see these big, big homes.
- 37:03Speaker 7: They're not all cash.
- 37:04Speaker 1: They're getting up some big mortgages associated with those and
- 37:07Speaker 1: I would think for a banker that would be good business.
- 37:11Speaker 1: Talk to us about First Republican and the business they
- 37:13Speaker 1: were doing out in the Hamptons.
- 37:15Speaker 12: Yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. You know, for
- 37:17Speaker 12: years and years, First Republicans really focused on banking more
- 37:21Speaker 12: of these wealthy consumers. And so in our reporting we
- 37:25Speaker 12: learned that a big chunk of the mortgage business that
- 37:27Speaker 12: they did with with wealthy individuals was actually comes in
- 37:30Speaker 12: the form of interest only mortgages. So that means that
- 37:33Speaker 12: for the first ten years of that lunch.
- 37:34Speaker 1: I'm still a thing I thought that was like banned
- 37:36Speaker 1: after the Great Financial Crisis.
- 37:38Speaker 12: So it's interesting because they kind of reached this level
- 37:41Speaker 12: of infamy because bankers were offering them to lower income
- 37:44Speaker 12: consumers who wouldn't be able to keep up with the payments,
- 37:47Speaker 12: you know, once that interest only period ended. And so
- 37:50Speaker 12: this was kind of a new take on maybe an
- 37:52Speaker 12: old foe, and it was really meant to, yeah, be
- 37:56Speaker 12: away to get their claws into these wealthy consumers and
- 37:59Speaker 12: hopefully get more of their banking business generally. So they
- 38:01Speaker 12: had this large wealth management arm and lots of other
- 38:04Speaker 12: things that they could offer them, and so This was
- 38:05Speaker 12: like the sweetheart deal that they could do to just
- 38:08Speaker 12: sort of sink their claws in early and beg more
- 38:10Speaker 12: of these folks.
- 38:11Speaker 6: Also, Jenny welcome back. By the way, she was just
- 38:14Speaker 6: in London for three months. I think, cool, very exciting stuff. Yeah,
- 38:18Speaker 6: great pictures on Instagram just saying very well, how was that?
- 38:22Speaker 12: By the way, it was awesome, It was really good.
- 38:23Speaker 12: I mean it was interesting because I was there for
- 38:26Speaker 12: the first three months of the year and so watching
- 38:29Speaker 12: the US banking crisis and then kind of being involved
- 38:32Speaker 12: in the European banking crisis with Credit Sweeze. It was
- 38:35Speaker 12: interesting to kind of have a different, different seat at
- 38:37Speaker 12: the table.
- 38:38Speaker 6: Very very cool. So bringing it back stateside though, we
- 38:41Speaker 6: were talking about First Republic, who fills that slot with
- 38:44Speaker 6: First Public? Are there other candidates here that could maybe
- 38:47Speaker 6: take some of that market share?
- 38:48Speaker 12: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. They're not pulling back as
- 38:51Speaker 12: far as we know. So these guys did this more
- 38:55Speaker 12: than anyone else. But other banks do offer these products,
- 38:57Speaker 12: So that should be one thing we're careful about is that,
- 39:00Speaker 12: you know, JP Morgan does this. Others do too. It's
- 39:02Speaker 12: a big business and I think the problem with these
- 39:05Speaker 12: loans now is that as First Republic looks to get
- 39:08Speaker 12: a capital in fusion or potentially looks for a buyer
- 39:11Speaker 12: to kind of help it shore up and get a
- 39:13Speaker 12: little bit better here. That's why this has become a
- 39:16Speaker 12: problem because these loans, while they perform great and they
- 39:18Speaker 12: have all these wealthy customers attached to them, carry a
- 39:20Speaker 12: lot of interest rate risk, and so as interest rates
- 39:23Speaker 12: go up, the value of these loans goes down, and
- 39:25Speaker 12: so for any buyer that would be a problem looking
- 39:26Speaker 12: to fill that balance sheet hole.
- 39:28Speaker 1: So is First repubably looking to kind of work its
- 39:32Speaker 1: way out of this? Is that kind of what they've
- 39:34Speaker 1: been telling people, because it seems like, I don't know,
- 39:37Speaker 1: if you're buying a house in Hampton's you're.
- 39:39Speaker 4: Probably a pretty good credit. Yeah, I wouldn't mind. I
- 39:43Speaker 4: could take all that risk at a certain price.
- 39:44Speaker 7: Maybe.
- 39:45Speaker 12: Well, the problem is that it's just become such a
- 39:47Speaker 12: big hole. So, you know, we're in the middle of
- 39:50Speaker 12: regional bank earning season, so you're hearing a lot of
- 39:52Speaker 12: these guys talk about the unrealized losses on the bonds
- 39:55Speaker 12: on their balance sheet, which has become a huge problem
- 39:58Speaker 12: at First Republic. That's a problem too, but it's not
- 40:00Speaker 12: nearly as big of a problem as the losses unrealized
- 40:04Speaker 12: to be sure, on these mortgages that they've made, and
- 40:06Speaker 12: so as they looked for a potential buyers, they look
- 40:08Speaker 12: at a M and A deal. What we've heard is
- 40:11Speaker 12: that this is the thing that's causing a lot of
- 40:12Speaker 12: folks to balk and say, you know, this is just
- 40:14Speaker 12: too big. You know, even if they paid zero dollars
- 40:16Speaker 12: a share, they'd still have thirteen billion dollars of a
- 40:20Speaker 12: hole that they would need to fill, and so it's
- 40:22Speaker 12: just an untenable deal.
- 40:23Speaker 6: Are there other regions that are seeing similar things? I mean,
- 40:26Speaker 6: we associate as New Yorkers, we associate and New Jersey first, yes,
- 40:31Speaker 6: on associate the Hamptons with that kind of obviously very
- 40:36Speaker 6: very wealthy share. But are we seeing similar stories coming
- 40:40Speaker 6: out of I don't know, Miami, San Francisco, other wealthier
- 40:45Speaker 6: parts of the country.
- 40:46Speaker 12: Yeah, no, we when we looked at the data underlying
- 40:48Speaker 12: these mortgages, we've figured out that they actually they had
- 40:52Speaker 12: a really big presence in the Hamptons and certain wealthy
- 40:55Speaker 12: neighborhoods in New York. You know, the Upper West Side
- 40:57Speaker 12: was a popular destination Tribeca another one. But then yeah,
- 41:01Speaker 12: beyond that, you know, we looked at southern California. There
- 41:04Speaker 12: was a lot in the Wine country of California, in
- 41:08Speaker 12: Silicon Valley, you know, where all these tech billionaires are
- 41:10Speaker 12: being minted. So this was definitely not just a New
- 41:12Speaker 12: York thing. But yes, obviously for the Bloomberg consumer that
- 41:16Speaker 12: was a popular one.
- 41:17Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm looking at I mean, in this story
- 41:18Speaker 1: and people you can find the story at Bloomberg dot com,
- 41:20Speaker 1: slash Big Take or ni Space Big Take, go on
- 41:24Speaker 1: the terminal and you're going to take a look at
- 41:25Speaker 1: this because I got some great maps, like kind of
- 41:27Speaker 1: heat maps of northern California, southern California around La the
- 41:32Speaker 1: Hampton's Manhattan and you guys have it kind of heat
- 41:36Speaker 1: map this show kind of where the concentration is and
- 41:38Speaker 1: of some of these loans. And boy, you look at
- 41:41Speaker 1: the southern California and the one that shows up the
- 41:43Speaker 1: brightest on the heat map is Beverly Hills.
- 41:46Speaker 6: So I wonder who lives there and yeah, just a
- 41:49Speaker 6: few billionaires.
- 41:50Speaker 1: So all right, so what's next for this bank here?
- 41:53Speaker 1: I mean, is there a certain timeframe where you know
- 41:57Speaker 1: they've got to do something because the markets not really
- 42:00Speaker 1: buying in on it.
- 42:01Speaker 12: Yeah, no, I think you know, the big thing that
- 42:03Speaker 12: we're looking forward to is their earnings next week, because
- 42:06Speaker 12: that's when we'll really get the first look at just
- 42:09Speaker 12: how big the deposit outflows have been in the last month.
- 42:13Speaker 12: You know, you hear it anecdotally, and we talked to
- 42:14Speaker 12: lots of big customers who've said that they've pulled their funds.
- 42:17Speaker 12: But at the same time they had, you know, the
- 42:18Speaker 12: biggest US banks do a deposit infusion at thirty billion
- 42:22Speaker 12: dollars and so that was really meant to shore them up,
- 42:25Speaker 12: give them more time to eventually either have a capital
- 42:27Speaker 12: infusion or find a buyer. So yeah, I'm next Monday,
- 42:31Speaker 12: I think is.
- 42:32Speaker 1: Is that's when they read that's when first Republican that
- 42:34Speaker 1: they dance exactly.
- 42:35Speaker 12: Yeah, So that's our first that's our next real look
- 42:38Speaker 12: at under the hood and kind of what's going on
- 42:39Speaker 12: with these guys, because we really haven't gotten that many
- 42:42Speaker 12: on the record updates from them in the last month
- 42:44Speaker 12: or so that this has been a crisis.
- 42:46Speaker 4: All right, So what other I mean, it seems like
- 42:50Speaker 4: this and I really want to get your take.
- 42:52Speaker 1: It seems like the crisis aspect of this turmoil we've
- 42:56Speaker 1: been dealing with the banking space in the US, it's
- 42:58Speaker 1: passed or we've been to you know, too early on that.
- 43:03Speaker 12: I think it's I think it's early. I mean, I
- 43:04Speaker 12: think we So the biggest thing is that a lot
- 43:07Speaker 12: of the bank that we're most worried about haven't reported
- 43:09Speaker 12: earnings yet. And the big fear that I think folks
- 43:11Speaker 12: have is that they might miff on the disclosure aspect.
- 43:16Speaker 12: So we've seen that a few times already, where a
- 43:17Speaker 12: bank is even pre reported and maybe not given investors
- 43:20Speaker 12: exactly the data or information they wanted, and it's kind
- 43:23Speaker 12: of caused a whole new calamity. And so I think
- 43:27Speaker 12: that will be the big key test, especially I think
- 43:29Speaker 12: Innesday and Thursday. We have a lot coming up next
- 43:31Speaker 12: Monday obviously with the First Republic, it'll be a big
- 43:35Speaker 12: key test that really, you know, do they not only
- 43:38Speaker 12: do they say, you know, numbers that inspire confidence, but
- 43:41Speaker 12: do they say it in the right way? Do they
- 43:42Speaker 12: release the right numbers and right And so I think
- 43:44Speaker 12: that's the big question.
- 43:46Speaker 1: All right, you were the former editor in chief of
- 43:47Speaker 1: the Daily tar Herol, So I have to make sure,
- 43:49Speaker 1: I get my facts straight. Your basketball team started the
- 43:52Speaker 1: season preseason ranked number one in the country and they
- 43:56Speaker 1: didn't even go to the tournament. And I don't think
- 43:59Speaker 1: that's times has that happened? Oh, it had never happened before. Then,
- 44:03Speaker 1: So are you guys even gonna suit up a team
- 44:05Speaker 1: next year?
- 44:05Speaker 4: To face my duties or what we are?
- 44:07Speaker 12: We're gonna suit up a team. I mean, I hope
- 44:09Speaker 12: it goes better this year. I honestly think that for
- 44:12Speaker 12: most our Hills the season before when we will feel
- 44:19Speaker 12: good for kind of at least a few more So.
- 44:22Speaker 1: I am a big fan of Hubert Davis. I liked
- 44:24Speaker 1: him and when he played for Carolina, I liked it.
- 44:26Speaker 1: When he was with the Knicks. What's the feeling down
- 44:30Speaker 1: in Chapel Hill about Hubert Davis in terms of boy
- 44:34Speaker 1: that was kind of embarrassing.
- 44:35Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean that wasn't his team, so you know
- 44:37Speaker 12: that was still Roy's team. I think I think we
- 44:41Speaker 12: give him a few more seasons. I mean, we're not.
- 44:43Speaker 12: We don't throw babies out with the bathwater down in
- 44:45Speaker 12: job Well. We give people times to season up.
- 44:47Speaker 1: All right, So you're gonna they're gonna have a team.
- 44:49Speaker 1: We can confirm that. Will you go down to any games?
- 44:52Speaker 12: You know what, I don't have any plans to go
- 44:54Speaker 12: down to games this year.
- 44:55Speaker 4: I need to make some he needs to do tickets.
- 44:58Speaker 7: Just come to me.
- 44:59Speaker 4: I can set yup, be all set to go. We'll
- 45:01Speaker 4: put you right there, right in a defectory the Cameron crazy.
- 45:05Speaker 12: I don't think I would enjoy that.
- 45:06Speaker 1: And we have another with yeah, did you ever go
- 45:10Speaker 1: to a basketball game?
- 45:11Speaker 4: No? Did you go to a football game?
- 45:14Speaker 8: No?
- 45:15Speaker 7: Wow?
- 45:16Speaker 6: I just I'm not a sports coal not even.
- 45:20Speaker 1: I mean the little VA boys get their suit and
- 45:23Speaker 1: tis coats and ties on, they look.
- 45:24Speaker 6: All nice and so embarrassing.
- 45:28Speaker 12: I'm not. I'm not.
- 45:29Speaker 6: Look, I'm not a very kind of college spirit, kind
- 45:31Speaker 6: of gal.
- 45:32Speaker 4: So I just never never did.
- 45:34Speaker 7: All right.
- 45:35Speaker 4: I did go to.
- 45:36Speaker 6: Plenty of soccer games though, and swim meets, because you know, all.
- 45:39Speaker 4: Right, good stuff.
- 45:40Speaker 1: Jenny Serene, financial reporter for Bloomberg News. Uh, and I
- 45:44Speaker 1: think the feather in her cap is a former editor
- 45:45Speaker 1: in chief of the Daly Tar Hill. That is a
- 45:47Speaker 1: big job, not kidding, you know, for those college papers,
- 45:49Speaker 1: and the Deli Tar.
- 45:50Speaker 7: Hill is an excellent paper.
- 45:51Speaker 1: And be editor in chief there is pretty pretty cool too,
- 45:54Speaker 1: So that's good stuff. Jenny Serene big take story out
- 45:57Speaker 1: there with her team. Check it out bloomerked Slash Big tape.
- 46:01Speaker 5: You're listening to the tape. Catch are live program Bloomberg
- 46:04Speaker 5: Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the
- 46:08Speaker 5: tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App.
- 46:11Speaker 5: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 46:14Speaker 5: flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 46:20Speaker 7: All right, here's a headline that got my attention.
- 46:23Speaker 1: The pig still hasn't fully exited the python. And I think,
- 46:27Speaker 1: having read it, the pig in this case is the
- 46:31Speaker 1: pandemic and the you know, the economic hit from the pandemic.
- 46:34Speaker 7: So I don't know.
- 46:36Speaker 1: That's my best guest, John Authors, he's the author, He's
- 46:38Speaker 1: the one to blame for this. He's the senior editor
- 46:39Speaker 1: at Bloomberg Opinion. One of our favorite folks to chat with. John,
- 46:43Speaker 1: talk to us about this. The pig still hasn't fully
- 46:45Speaker 1: exited the python? What are you talking about?
- 46:48Speaker 3: Okay?
- 46:49Speaker 13: If you go down to I think it's the last
- 46:51Speaker 13: paragraph boy of the main peace before you get my
- 46:55Speaker 13: interesting piece about soccer refereeing in England in the spital Yes,
- 47:01Speaker 13: it's about It's about the pandemic and obviously it's created
- 47:08Speaker 13: a very big shock, big reaction, you know, like a
- 47:16Speaker 13: tsunami or something like that. The idea that that that
- 47:18Speaker 13: something has been hit very hard and it will create turbulence,
- 47:25Speaker 13: will create waves for a while afterwards.
- 47:29Speaker 6: Uh.
- 47:29Speaker 13: And because this is being reflected through human behavior, it's
- 47:33Speaker 13: that much harder to predict exactly how those waves are
- 47:36Speaker 13: going to work. But it's obvious we still haven't got
- 47:40Speaker 13: through that now. The particular point that I was making
- 47:44Speaker 13: their concerns and concerns tech where there was a lot
- 47:50Speaker 13: of spending brought forward during the worst days of the pandemic,
- 47:55Speaker 13: and that has raised some Varish people to suggest that
- 47:59Speaker 13: this we like the the Y two K incidents for
- 48:05Speaker 13: those who who remember it, that that when companies splurged
- 48:10Speaker 13: on it spending ahead of the millennium because they were
- 48:12Speaker 13: worried about what would happen when o'clock moved from ninety
- 48:15Speaker 13: nine to zero zero, and one of the one of
- 48:20Speaker 13: the consequences of that was that spending was much lower
- 48:23Speaker 13: on it than it had been expected several years thereafter.
- 48:26Speaker 13: But that's one of the concerns at the moment that
- 48:28Speaker 13: we'll find that that peak hasn't excited the python yet.
- 48:32Speaker 13: That but companies are still in fact able to reduce
- 48:37Speaker 13: their spending to where they were. Yeah, so that's that's
- 48:41Speaker 13: that's the python.
- 48:44Speaker 6: It's quite the image. Also, Paul, did you know that
- 48:46Speaker 6: when I first I think early early days of meeting
- 48:50Speaker 6: John Authors speaking of pythons, I was a producer on
- 48:55Speaker 6: television this is what four years ago maybe, and I
- 48:59Speaker 6: would reduce John author segments and he this was during
- 49:02Speaker 6: like Brexit or something, negotiations were happening or something along
- 49:05Speaker 6: those lines, and he explained Brexit to me through the
- 49:08Speaker 6: lens of Monty Python. And that is my earliest memory
- 49:12Speaker 6: of John Author's And then I went to go sit
- 49:14Speaker 6: by him and learned plenty about Monty Python and market.
- 49:19Speaker 13: I think it was the Ministry of again both either
- 49:26Speaker 13: that's all the black Knights who didn't know he was beaten.
- 49:30Speaker 6: All this rings bells for sure.
- 49:33Speaker 9: Anyway, John, listen, let's.
- 49:37Speaker 6: Let's talk about what's going on in France right now. Look, you,
- 49:41Speaker 6: I think one of the best parts about your columns
- 49:43Speaker 6: you kind of have a take on everything, and I
- 49:45Speaker 6: want to get your take on France in particular because
- 49:48Speaker 6: as I am getting more educated on the matter of
- 49:52Speaker 6: kind of pension reform and the labor strikes that I've
- 49:55Speaker 6: been told happen every year in France and around around
- 50:00Speaker 6: the country, talk to us a little bit about why
- 50:02Speaker 6: this time the pension reform is such a big deal.
- 50:07Speaker 13: Okay, the pension reform is such a big deal because, well,
- 50:12Speaker 13: there are a number of different layers to this. Obviously,
- 50:14Speaker 13: it's a very important test of Emmanuel MacColl who has
- 50:20Speaker 13: really been the only modern style technocrat who tries to
- 50:28Speaker 13: rescue ideology and certainly tries to rescue populism, who has
- 50:33Speaker 13: managed to stay successful within Europe, who got himself elected
- 50:37Speaker 13: the second time, and he has now staked an immense
- 50:40Speaker 13: amount on this. And it's a country where the far right,
- 50:44Speaker 13: the from Nacionale, is very strong. So that's one leg
- 50:50Speaker 13: of this, that is the political There's also the fact
- 50:54Speaker 13: that France has always been I could almost illustrate this
- 50:57Speaker 13: with you from Monty Pays. The thinking about this that
- 51:01Speaker 13: that that France has always been very much more prepared
- 51:07Speaker 13: to take to the streets than other Western European nations
- 51:12Speaker 13: that it's it's it's it's part of the culture. As
- 51:16Speaker 13: you were saying that that that that you might get
- 51:18Speaker 13: labor unrested, but they're also that much more prepared to
- 51:23Speaker 13: to demonstrate and to fight, and a little bit like
- 51:28Speaker 13: John Clees playing the extremely rude Frenchman addressing the knights
- 51:32Speaker 13: in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which you can
- 51:34Speaker 13: look up later and then. But I think the most
- 51:38Speaker 13: important point is France has a very generous national pension scheme,
- 51:44Speaker 13: but the French are much less bothered about a nanny state,
- 51:48Speaker 13: about a strong state than most other of the big
- 51:52Speaker 13: western capitalist nations. And raising the retirement age by two
- 51:59Speaker 13: years is has really got them. And this is something
- 52:03Speaker 13: that is likely to be necessary across the world because
- 52:09Speaker 13: we're all subject to the same demographics. And this is
- 52:13Speaker 13: an interesting case study in what happens when you really
- 52:17Speaker 13: try to bite the metal and reduce retirement benefits retirement
- 52:23Speaker 13: costs in a big developed economy. That is the key
- 52:29Speaker 13: worrying point to this. That's what is what it could
- 52:33Speaker 13: portend for the rest that the Macon has said, and
- 52:37Speaker 13: I guess you have to say, it's the courage to
- 52:39Speaker 13: do what any good technocraft would say, you need to
- 52:42Speaker 13: do and try to grasp the issue of reducing pentry costs,
- 52:46Speaker 13: but let's see if he can do it.
- 52:48Speaker 6: So the retirement age now from sixty two to sixty four.
- 52:51Speaker 6: And initially when this was brought to attention, Aminel Macron
- 52:57Speaker 6: was going to do this, you know laterally this wasn't
- 52:59Speaker 6: going to be put to a vote until, of course,
- 53:01Speaker 6: the protests first came on. John talked to us a
- 53:05Speaker 6: little bit about any sort of market fall out here,
- 53:07Speaker 6: because inevitably, if you've changed the pension reform, that has
- 53:11Speaker 6: a very real impact on the French national budget, and
- 53:14Speaker 6: therefore you would think on the sovereign debt as well.
- 53:18Speaker 6: Are we seeing any kind of market reaction?
- 53:20Speaker 13: What is the trade here? Not significantly, I think. I mean,
- 53:27Speaker 13: what's easy interesting is that French bond spreads spreads compartments
- 53:33Speaker 13: of French bonds have increased a little. But we're talking
- 53:37Speaker 13: about compared to the kind of spreads we've seen it
- 53:42Speaker 13: on Italian or Spanish debt at different times, countries that
- 53:46Speaker 13: really did look as though they could conceivably leave the Eurozone.
- 53:51Speaker 13: It's still nothing much too much to consider. You can
- 53:56Speaker 13: see that it's a problem that markets are are taking
- 54:01Speaker 13: notice of. But I would say that the markets are
- 54:04Speaker 13: not at this point a critical player in the French
- 54:09Speaker 13: drama in the way that they have been, says most
- 54:14Speaker 13: noticeably in Italy. If you have, if you have a
- 54:22Speaker 13: clear cut political defeat, which I'm not predicting, but if
- 54:26Speaker 13: you did, if you had to, if the pension retirement
- 54:31Speaker 13: age stays exactly where it is, a Macron admits he's
- 54:35Speaker 13: beaten both on the political and army economics, and that's
- 54:39Speaker 13: going to be pretty seriously bad for French debts. Yes, definitely,
- 54:44Speaker 13: we haven't got there yet.
- 54:45Speaker 1: Hey, John, just you got about it a minute left.
- 54:48Speaker 1: I know you're on holiday last week from reading your columns, and.
- 54:50Speaker 7: I believe you're in England. Yes, talk to us.
- 54:54Speaker 1: What's your takeaway from talking to families and friends and
- 54:58Speaker 1: hanging out at the pubs housing average Englishmen feeling? Are
- 55:01Speaker 1: Englishman feeling these days? You know, will post Brexit, post COVID,
- 55:05Speaker 1: post all that stuff.
- 55:10Speaker 13: I mean, I've actually had sort of lots of cheerful
- 55:15Speaker 13: conversations with people in the last week, which is nice
- 55:17Speaker 13: to know. I think that Brexits as a whole, it's
- 55:24Speaker 13: very difficult because obviously I was always against it. I
- 55:29Speaker 13: think the country is very slowly but clearly coming around
- 55:35Speaker 13: to the view that it was a mistake. And we'll
- 55:39Speaker 13: see how long that will happen. And I think you're
- 55:42Speaker 13: still talking about decades before there could be any attempt
- 55:46Speaker 13: to rejoin. But there is a things have not improved.
- 55:51Speaker 13: In fact, they've got worse since since Brexit, and that's
- 55:57Speaker 13: becoming more apparent.
- 55:59Speaker 1: All right, good stuff, John, Thanks so much for joining us.
- 56:02Speaker 1: Always appreciate getting your perspective. John Authores. He's a senior
- 56:05Speaker 1: editor at Bloomberg Opinion Scott. He writes a lot of stuff,
- 56:09Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting stuff, so you can check
- 56:11Speaker 1: that on Bloomberg dot com slash opinion John's work and
- 56:14Speaker 1: plus all the other opinion writers as well, and also
- 56:17Speaker 1: on OPI n go on the Bloomberg Ternel to get
- 56:21Speaker 1: all that great Bloomberg opinion pieces out there.
- 56:25Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcasts. You can
- 56:28Speaker 2: subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever
- 56:32Speaker 2: podcast platform you prefer.
- 56:34Speaker 4: I'm Matt Miller.
- 56:35Speaker 2: I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three.
- 56:38Speaker 1: And I'm Faull Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney
- 56:41Speaker 1: Before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide at
- 56:43Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.