Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Wall Street Poised for Bonus Increases in ‘Year of the Bank’
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
- 0:14Speaker 1: Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg
- 0:17Speaker 1: Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts,
- 0:21Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
- 0:24Speaker 2: The most widely read stories on.
- 0:25Speaker 3: The Bloomberg always about Wall Street bonus.
- 0:29Speaker 4: Absolutely need readership.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Oh my god, I need readership this month or this
- 0:32Speaker 3: quarter or this year. Write a story on Wall Street bonuses.
- 0:35Speaker 2: Yeah, while we have one today. It's a Wall Street
- 0:38Speaker 2: poise for bonus increases in year of the bank. So
- 0:41Speaker 2: you can bet a lot of people are clicking on
- 0:43Speaker 2: that story. Catherine Doherty is the author of that story.
- 0:46Speaker 2: She's our Bloomberg News finance reporter, Catherine. It is only May,
- 0:50Speaker 2: but the folks you talk to say that there's been
- 0:53Speaker 2: some banner deals in the first part of the year
- 0:55Speaker 2: that has led them to conclude already that it's going
- 0:58Speaker 2: to be a big, big year for bonuses.
- 1:00Speaker 5: Right And we should covey up by saying it's still
- 1:02Speaker 5: early in the year, so things could change. But right
- 1:05Speaker 5: now the projections are looking pretty rosy. And that's because
- 1:08Speaker 5: the long awaited comeback of deals. You've started to see
- 1:11Speaker 5: that come through. We do have the big banks, they
- 1:14Speaker 5: have just reported their first quarter.
- 1:16Speaker 6: The second quarter looks to be pretty steady.
- 1:19Speaker 5: So if the second half of the year takes a
- 1:22Speaker 5: turn for the worse, that could change these projections. But
- 1:25Speaker 5: right now, it looks like the payout, especially for M
- 1:29Speaker 5: and A advisory equity underwriting quite strong.
- 1:33Speaker 6: And as we've been talking about.
- 1:35Speaker 5: The volumes that you've been seeing across equities and fixed
- 1:39Speaker 5: income as far as trading goes, those traders that are
- 1:42Speaker 5: facilitating the buying and selling are also poised to see
- 1:47Speaker 5: a pretty hefty payout if things continue as they as
- 1:51Speaker 5: they've been going.
- 1:52Speaker 3: Yeah, we've just seen so much underwriting of public debt
- 1:56Speaker 3: for the technology companies ipel market kicking up, and that
- 2:00Speaker 3: we're I guess still on the docket for some time,
- 2:03Speaker 3: maybe towards ented the second half of this year for
- 2:05Speaker 3: some mega IPOs.
- 2:07Speaker 4: Yes, SpaceX and Think so.
- 2:08Speaker 3: I mean, you can certainly if you wanted to project
- 2:11Speaker 3: out some pretty big fees for these guys, Yes.
- 2:13Speaker 5: But that is also with the assumption that those IPOs
- 2:17Speaker 5: come through. I think that that's if all things continue
- 2:21Speaker 5: in these deals. Actually see the light of day, then yes,
- 2:26Speaker 5: these bankers who are facilitating them will see their pay
- 2:30Speaker 5: bump increase. But if they don't, then we could see
- 2:35Speaker 5: a reversal. Don't expect any huge declines, but in terms
- 2:39Speaker 5: of the ten to twenty percent plus year over year
- 2:43Speaker 5: increase that is projected right now, that is considering that
- 2:46Speaker 5: all of these things kind of fall into place in
- 2:49Speaker 5: the way that everyone would hope.
- 2:51Speaker 3: Because the way we used to do it when I
- 2:52Speaker 3: worked on the street was used around December. You'd have
- 2:55Speaker 3: the really, really big discussion about how much the bonus
- 2:58Speaker 3: pool actually was going to be. And he used November
- 3:00Speaker 3: actuals and December projected, and that's what you use.
- 3:03Speaker 4: To set up your bonus pool. You're crewing for it
- 3:06Speaker 4: all year, but to say who gets what.
- 3:08Speaker 6: So that's right, and there's a lot of months between
- 3:10Speaker 6: now and December.
- 3:12Speaker 3: I've been sitting on the wrong side of the seat
- 3:14Speaker 3: where my boss will come in and say, yeah, we
- 3:16Speaker 3: had a great year, but we had a terrible month
- 3:17Speaker 3: last month, so we're going to be cautious here.
- 3:19Speaker 4: Like what there's.
- 3:20Speaker 2: Always a reason for the managers to say that to
- 3:22Speaker 2: come up at some angle. If you click on m
- 3:25Speaker 2: a go on. The Bloomberg terminal gives you a snapshot
- 3:27Speaker 2: of mergers and acquisitions and one point eight trillion dollars
- 3:30Speaker 2: of announced deals so far this year. That's up almost
- 3:33Speaker 2: thirty six percent from the same time a year ago.
- 3:36Speaker 2: So I'm guessing, Catherine that in terms of bonuses, projected payouts,
- 3:40Speaker 2: investment banking advisories top of the list.
- 3:43Speaker 5: Yes, I think that right now, and that's from a
- 3:46Speaker 5: year ago. That is not the discussion that we would
- 3:49Speaker 5: have been having. I think that again. So there were
- 3:53Speaker 5: so many months and quarters that the narrative was the
- 3:57Speaker 5: long awaited comeback of deals. Now actually starting to see
- 4:01Speaker 5: that come through, but it hasn't been quarter after quarter.
- 4:05Speaker 5: This has only been really the end of last year
- 4:07Speaker 5: and the beginning of this year that we have actually
- 4:10Speaker 5: seen the numbers. And if the rest of the year
- 4:15Speaker 5: falls into place again as projected, the pipeline is healthy,
- 4:19Speaker 5: is what executives have been saying, then yes, we might
- 4:23Speaker 5: see that these numbers do follow actually the numbers that
- 4:27Speaker 5: you're pointing out on the terminal, which is the actual
- 4:30Speaker 5: deal flow that the bankers are working on, and that's
- 4:33Speaker 5: why and how they get paid.
- 4:34Speaker 3: What's going on with headcount on global Wall Street is
- 4:37Speaker 3: this I'm thinking that there's AI could be a negative
- 4:42Speaker 3: impact for headcount and Wall Street what are we seeing
- 4:44Speaker 3: so far?
- 4:44Speaker 5: So executives were asked about this during first quarter earnings
- 4:48Speaker 5: and a lot of them echoed this same sentiment, which
- 4:52Speaker 5: is that right now headcount is flat and AI is
- 4:57Speaker 5: helping and making bankers more efficient, but right now, also
- 5:02Speaker 5: it hasn't led to that next step that everyone is expecting,
- 5:06Speaker 5: which is headcount reduction. A lot of the executives are saying, yes,
- 5:11Speaker 5: are are, and it's not just their bankers, just across
- 5:14Speaker 5: the entire company. Their executives are getting more efficient, but
- 5:18Speaker 5: that's allowing them to work on more deals. It's allowing
- 5:21Speaker 5: them to increase revenue, but not hire as much as
- 5:26Speaker 5: they might.
- 5:26Speaker 6: So instead of cutting folks right.
- 5:28Speaker 5: Now, I think the narrative is more talking about keeping
- 5:31Speaker 5: things flat.
- 5:33Speaker 2: We look at the markets and record hize for the
- 5:35Speaker 2: S and P five hundred the NASA. Can we come
- 5:37Speaker 2: back to this theme over and over again of there's
- 5:39Speaker 2: so many headwinds, yet stocks just continue to move north.
- 5:44Speaker 2: So far, the volatility that we've seen has not been
- 5:46Speaker 2: negative for trading desks. During those earnings calls, Did anyone
- 5:50Speaker 2: talk about the turn and volatility, how it can go
- 5:53Speaker 2: from good to bad quickly?
- 5:55Speaker 5: Good to bad volatility is kind of what you need
- 5:57Speaker 5: to narrow in on, right because at the end of
- 6:00Speaker 5: the day, if you are on one of these bank
- 6:03Speaker 5: trading desks and you're just facilitating and helping your clients reposition,
- 6:07Speaker 5: volatility is a good thing. So as up until now
- 6:12Speaker 5: it's been good volatility if we are distinguishing between good
- 6:16Speaker 5: and bad, and it's the same for the market making
- 6:19Speaker 5: firms outside of the banks, they've really been setting topping
- 6:24Speaker 5: their own records year after year, and so I don't
- 6:29Speaker 5: believe and it really if you go into different asset classes,
- 6:32Speaker 5: Equities has been kind of the strongest across the board,
- 6:37Speaker 5: but fixed income follows close behind.
- 6:40Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming.
- 6:42Speaker 6: Up after this.
- 6:47Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live
- 6:50Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 6:53Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 6:57Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch US Live on to you.
- 7:01Speaker 3: You got some earnings coming out of some of the
- 7:03Speaker 3: restaurants here McDonald's Shakechack I mean, my McDonald's or been
- 7:07Speaker 3: the same since like nineteen seventy eight. It's a number
- 7:10Speaker 3: two with a coke, quote a pound of with GE's
- 7:12Speaker 3: and a coke. I mean, that's been the same way since.
- 7:13Speaker 2: You don't extra size it or notthing.
- 7:16Speaker 3: You know, if I have to do, say anything other
- 7:18Speaker 3: than number two with a coke, then I'm inconvenienced, you know,
- 7:21Speaker 3: And I've been doing that way since nineteen seventy eight,
- 7:23Speaker 3: I think.
- 7:23Speaker 4: So let's go to Mike Kaylin.
- 7:25Speaker 3: He knows what he's talking about here about these restaurants
- 7:27Speaker 3: senior restaurant and food service analysts.
- 7:29Speaker 4: Hey, Mike, let's start with McDonald's. How are they doing
- 7:33Speaker 4: with their business?
- 7:36Speaker 7: Yeah, so, you know, what we wrote today was that
- 7:38Speaker 7: they're trying to walk a tight rope right now. They're
- 7:43Speaker 7: copping some very strong results, you know, over the last
- 7:48Speaker 7: over a year ago starting in two Q, but they're
- 7:51Speaker 7: trying to do that with value, which which risks a
- 7:54Speaker 7: trade down from some of your consumers that are doing
- 7:57Speaker 7: a little bit better. So you know, sequentially, samestar sales
- 8:02Speaker 7: and growth rates are gonna are gonna decelerate starting in
- 8:06Speaker 7: the second quarter. They become very aggressive on value and
- 8:12Speaker 7: I think that's a big part of the reason why
- 8:15Speaker 7: all of the restaurant stocks, not all, but most restaurant
- 8:18Speaker 7: stocks are down and down significantly.
- 8:21Speaker 8: Today.
- 8:21Speaker 7: They're being as aggressive as I've ever seen them on value.
- 8:26Speaker 7: They have a dollar fifty sausage McMuffin right now at
- 8:29Speaker 7: two point fifty mcdouble. They have three dollars breakfast meals,
- 8:33Speaker 7: four dollars meals at other times of the day. This
- 8:36Speaker 7: is as aggressive as i've ever seen them. I think
- 8:38Speaker 7: that's much cheaper, and you know they're doing it. I
- 8:44Speaker 7: think for two reasons. Number One, they see they smell
- 8:46Speaker 7: blood in the water, Jack in the Box and Wendy's,
- 8:48Speaker 7: you know, Same Star sales were down mid single digits
- 8:50Speaker 7: last year. So those two chains, who they you know,
- 8:53Speaker 7: obviously compete directly with, are struggling mightily. And also who's
- 8:58Speaker 7: got more and better data than they do. And they
- 9:01Speaker 7: see that low income consumers are which were really struggling
- 9:06Speaker 7: last year, you know, could really feel it this year
- 9:09Speaker 7: as inflation accelerates again.
- 9:12Speaker 2: So what I also noticed, Michael, is that McDonald's has
- 9:14Speaker 2: a new lineup of specialty drinks. What are the financials
- 9:17Speaker 2: behind the beverage category versus the food category. I'm guessing
- 9:22Speaker 2: higher margins, perhaps bringing in lower demographics as a benefit.
- 9:28Speaker 7: Yeah, so a part of this, you know, beverages is big,
- 9:32Speaker 7: and a big reason why it's big is that it's
- 9:35Speaker 7: high margin. So yeah, McDonald's is hoping to increase drink
- 9:39Speaker 7: attachment rates to the orders. They're hoping to get some
- 9:42Speaker 7: business in the afternoon, people looking for a pick me up. Right,
- 9:47Speaker 7: They're going to do some Red Bull drinks in the
- 9:50Speaker 7: second half. So that's also part of their strategy to
- 9:55Speaker 7: try to lap very strong same store of sales. You know,
- 10:00Speaker 7: I don't think it's a bad idea, but you know,
- 10:03Speaker 7: trying to lap very strong comps with value and low
- 10:06Speaker 7: priced them items is just difficult to do. And you know,
- 10:11Speaker 7: and I'm saying this about McDonald's and things are slowing there,
- 10:14Speaker 7: but they're still best equipped to deal with, you know,
- 10:17Speaker 7: a downturn in the consumer because you know, they have
- 10:21Speaker 7: more scale than anyone. They can offer price points to,
- 10:23Speaker 7: you know, like I've been mentioning, whereas their competitors just can't.
- 10:27Speaker 3: Nobody buys I would think, not to me, entities out
- 10:30Speaker 3: there by more beef than McDonald's does.
- 10:32Speaker 4: What do they say about the cost.
- 10:34Speaker 3: Trends of beef and is there any relief in sight here.
- 10:39Speaker 7: Yeah, Shakesheck and McDonald's both talked about it. Beef inflate
- 10:46Speaker 7: inflation is expected to moderate, right, It was I think
- 10:48Speaker 7: mid teens in the first quarter, and it's more impactful
- 10:52Speaker 7: to Shakeshack's bottom line because they own a majority of
- 10:56Speaker 7: their restaurants. But yeah, it's expected to moderate through the year,
- 11:00Speaker 7: maybe averaging you know, high single digit inflation four full
- 11:05Speaker 7: year twenty twenty six, so still elevated, not as bad
- 11:08Speaker 7: as we saw in the fourth quarter, which was you know,
- 11:11Speaker 7: high teens or mid teens in the first quarter. It's
- 11:13Speaker 7: going to moderate through year end, and we should should
- 11:17Speaker 7: settle out around high synclepigets.
- 11:18Speaker 2: How does Shakeshack counter rising beef costs? I mean, its
- 11:22Speaker 2: entire business model is based on hammergers. Does it just
- 11:25Speaker 2: kind of lean more into chicken burgers and build out
- 11:28Speaker 2: that that offering.
- 11:31Speaker 7: Well, they're leaning into ribs. They have the first baby
- 11:33Speaker 7: back rib sandwich they've had on the menu. You know,
- 11:37Speaker 7: it's two ways. First of all, you know, I think
- 11:40Speaker 7: there was some low hanging fruit in this in this company.
- 11:44Speaker 7: You know, I don't think it was the most efficiently
- 11:46Speaker 7: run business for quite some time, and so management has
- 11:50Speaker 7: done a good job over recent quarters being much more
- 11:53Speaker 7: efficient with labor, so that's offset some of the costs.
- 11:57Speaker 4: And then moving.
- 11:58Speaker 7: Forward, it's going to be more out supply chain and
- 12:02Speaker 7: productivity in the restaurants, right, So you know those are
- 12:06Speaker 7: going to be the two areas that they're looking at,
- 12:09Speaker 7: you know, but you know they're expecting some stam star
- 12:11Speaker 7: sales growth and that's the best way to boost your margins, right,
- 12:15Speaker 7: is just driving more foot traffic through your stores. So
- 12:18Speaker 7: they're still confident that they can drive at least some
- 12:20Speaker 7: restaurant margin expansion here in twenty twenty six.
- 12:24Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 12:31Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 12:34Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 12:37Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, Listen on demand wherever
- 12:41Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 12:45Speaker 3: All right, we got some learnings out there and including
- 12:48Speaker 3: some media companies, Warner Brothers, Discovery, Pelothons, out there etha
- 12:51Speaker 3: wrong and nothing. She covers all the media stuff or
- 12:54Speaker 3: Bloomberg Intelligence. She's not into this silly wellness stuff.
- 12:57Speaker 7: She's a player.
- 12:58Speaker 3: Warner Brothers Discovery getha. They reported numbers that they're just
- 13:01Speaker 3: about to get acquired by Paramount Skuidance.
- 13:03Speaker 4: What do we learn about Warner Brothers Discovery's business.
- 13:07Speaker 9: Yeah, things are going along pretty nicely, Paul. For Warner
- 13:11Speaker 9: Brothers Discovery, as expected, we did the plenty of weakness
- 13:14Speaker 9: in the linear TV network division. I mean this was
- 13:17Speaker 9: well telegraphed by the company. Part of this is, of course,
- 13:21Speaker 9: just the structural weakness in TV advertising, but more importantly
- 13:24Speaker 9: and specifically for Warner it was the lack of NBA
- 13:29Speaker 9: and so we saw TV advertising fall about eleven percent,
- 13:32Speaker 9: but it's going to get far worse in the second quarter,
- 13:35Speaker 9: where they've guided to about a twenty percent decline. But
- 13:38Speaker 9: the other parts of the business, the parts of the
- 13:40Speaker 9: business that investors are most excited about, and especially Paramount
- 13:44Speaker 9: Skuidance is most excited about, which is the studios in
- 13:46Speaker 9: the streaming business is actually doing really, really well. So
- 13:49Speaker 9: the good thing that we saw with streaming was that
- 13:51Speaker 9: they added a lot of subscribers for HBO Max as
- 13:55Speaker 9: part of their international expansion efforts. So they've expanded into
- 13:58Speaker 9: a lot of European markets, and more importantly, it's not
- 14:02Speaker 9: just subscriber growth, it's it's that they're tracking really well
- 14:06Speaker 9: ahead of expectations in terms of praftability. So they already
- 14:10Speaker 9: achieved fairly strong craftability last year with one point three
- 14:13Speaker 9: billion for their streaming unit. Looks like they'll get maybe
- 14:16Speaker 9: close to even two billion this year. You know, the
- 14:19Speaker 9: estimates came up really nicely, and then Studio again doing
- 14:22Speaker 9: pretty well as well.
- 14:24Speaker 2: Has there ever been any discussion at Warner Brothers about
- 14:28Speaker 2: maybe creating tiers within HBO, you know, where you might
- 14:32Speaker 2: have advertising and the shows might be broken up with commercials,
- 14:37Speaker 2: So that is already there.
- 14:38Speaker 9: We do have an ad tier for you know, the
- 14:42Speaker 9: HBO Max product. I mean, this was part of this
- 14:44Speaker 9: whole wave of all of these different streaming platforms introducing ads,
- 14:48Speaker 9: started out with you know, Netflix and Disney Plus and
- 14:51Speaker 9: then Max. So it is slightly cheaper, but EAHBO show.
- 14:56Speaker 2: Is like broken up, the sopranos will be interrupted by commercials.
- 14:59Speaker 9: Ah yeah, okay, they do license it out that way,
- 15:04Speaker 9: So I think again, I'm not really sure what exactly
- 15:09Speaker 9: the Warner Brothers team is going to do. I think
- 15:11Speaker 9: at this point Scarlator, it might be a little bit immaterial.
- 15:13Speaker 9: I think the big focus right now is what Paramount
- 15:17Speaker 9: is going to do with this asset, because they are
- 15:19Speaker 9: pretty much on the verge of closing the deals supposed
- 15:22Speaker 9: to happen sometime in third quarter, and we're still unclear
- 15:25Speaker 9: whether they're going to operate this as two separate platforms,
- 15:28Speaker 9: Paramount plus an HBO Max, or whether they're kind of
- 15:31Speaker 9: going to consolidate it. What they're going to name the
- 15:33Speaker 9: new product. All of that is still kind of a
- 15:35Speaker 9: little bit unclear. But the one thing that we are
- 15:38Speaker 9: clear about is Paramount is acquiring a very strong asset,
- 15:41Speaker 9: and an asset that has really delivered a whole string
- 15:44Speaker 9: of hits this year for HBO Max. And remember the
- 15:47Speaker 9: big thing coming a little bit later this year for
- 15:49Speaker 9: HBO Max is the new Harry Potter series. So a
- 15:51Speaker 9: lot of excitement, a lot of buzz around that.
- 15:54Speaker 2: I never understood why they use the word Max in
- 15:57Speaker 2: the app name, like it just goes It's.
- 15:59Speaker 3: HBO was deemed by some people on the right as
- 16:04Speaker 3: being too woke and to hollywood ish.
- 16:07Speaker 2: So Max brought it back to earth.
- 16:09Speaker 7: Yes that was the reason.
- 16:10Speaker 2: Okay, but then it just confused everyone exactly.
- 16:12Speaker 7: It was a terrible decision.
- 16:14Speaker 2: And HBO, the branding on its own is so powerful
- 16:17Speaker 2: in terms of content spend, Gita, is that something that
- 16:20Speaker 2: Paramount is going to stick to. I mean, HBO is
- 16:22Speaker 2: known for being willing to spend on content. Is David
- 16:26Speaker 2: Ellison willing to spend in the same way.
- 16:29Speaker 9: He is absolutely willing to spend. So they have outlined
- 16:32Speaker 9: six billion dollars in synergies Scarlett, but none of those
- 16:36Speaker 9: cuts are going to come on the content spend side.
- 16:38Speaker 9: So we're looking at a combined programming budget for both
- 16:41Speaker 9: those companies at about thirty thirty two billion dollars. That
- 16:44Speaker 9: is the highest in the industry. And remember, Paramount, even
- 16:48Speaker 9: before they went and acquired Warner Brothers, really did a
- 16:50Speaker 9: whole host of different content deals. We had that really
- 16:53Speaker 9: important deal with Duffer Brothers. We had the south Park
- 16:56Speaker 9: streaming rights deal where they're paying something like one point
- 16:59Speaker 9: five billion dollars. We had the UFC deal, which was
- 17:02Speaker 9: you know, close to almost eight billion dollars over a
- 17:05Speaker 9: period of seven years. So David Ellison is not holding back.
- 17:08Speaker 9: He's made this commitment to have thirty film releases. That's
- 17:11Speaker 9: basically doubling the output at both the studios starting next year.
- 17:16Speaker 9: He's saying all the right things and doing all the
- 17:18Speaker 9: right things as far as Hollywood is concerned right now.
- 17:20Speaker 9: From a content investment perspective, KEITHA.
- 17:23Speaker 3: Karen from The Jersey Shore writes in asked about Peloton,
- 17:26Speaker 3: I know they released some earnings. We got the peloton,
- 17:29Speaker 3: we got the bike, we got the tread, we got
- 17:31Speaker 3: also what's going on there?
- 17:34Speaker 9: So this is a story where you know, we've seen
- 17:37Speaker 9: consistent progress in terms of praftability metrics. So again, we
- 17:40Speaker 9: had a quarter where they really reported strong numbers when
- 17:43Speaker 9: it came to EBITDAU. When it came to free cash flow,
- 17:46Speaker 9: they raised their free cash flow targets pretty significantly. I
- 17:48Speaker 9: mean this was a company that just a few years
- 17:50Speaker 9: ago was burning a lot of cash. So they've definitely
- 17:53Speaker 9: definitely right sized their cost bace, lots of cost savings initiatives.
- 17:58Speaker 9: All of that is going well. But really, the the
- 18:01Speaker 9: ultimate story I think for Peloton is are they going
- 18:05Speaker 9: to be able to turn around the demand story? And
- 18:08Speaker 9: that is where we really have a tough time kind
- 18:11Speaker 9: of getting behind this name, because you know, the consumer
- 18:16Speaker 9: demand for connected fitness just doesn't seem to be there.
- 18:19Speaker 9: I mean in terms of existing subscribers, yes, they're hanging
- 18:23Speaker 9: on to them, but in terms of attracting new subscribers,
- 18:26Speaker 9: we're really not seeing much traction there at all.
- 18:29Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not a growth story. Is Peloton a content
- 18:32Speaker 2: company or a hardware company? Very quickly it.
- 18:37Speaker 9: Is actually a mix of both. So they're trying to
- 18:39Speaker 9: really kind of shift the narrative from being a hardware
- 18:42Speaker 9: company to a subscription based company, and I think they've
- 18:44Speaker 9: they've done that, done a pretty successful job. But again
- 18:46Speaker 9: it's coming down to growth in subscribers and they really
- 18:50Speaker 9: aren't getting much progress there.
- 18:53Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 18:59Speaker 1: You're less and into the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us
- 19:03Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android
- 19:06Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
- 19:09Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 19:14Speaker 3: Let's get back to the earnings land right now. Sabani
- 19:19Speaker 3: Joints to share Bloomberg Intelligence senior semiconductor analysts. We had
- 19:22Speaker 3: arm holdings. They reported I guess some weakness in their
- 19:26Speaker 3: phone business, but they do have some AI tailwinds as well.
- 19:30Speaker 3: Stock trading off here today on the news, let's go
- 19:32Speaker 3: to Sabani Kunjan talk to us about arm holdings.
- 19:35Speaker 4: What did you hear today?
- 19:37Speaker 10: Yeah, this was a roller coaster of a stock, right,
- 19:40Speaker 10: So if you look at the reaction post market, the
- 19:43Speaker 10: stock was up at one point eight to nine percent
- 19:45Speaker 10: and is now dined down equally the same amount. What
- 19:49Speaker 10: people initially really liked. Just for context, just six weeks ago,
- 19:53Speaker 10: this is an IVY company, does not sell chips until recently,
- 19:56Speaker 10: just six weeks ago, they had their coming out party
- 19:59Speaker 10: that they are going to enter the chip selling business
- 20:02Speaker 10: and they guided revenue for their AI server CPU chip
- 20:07Speaker 10: to one billion of revenue in their fiscal twenty eight,
- 20:10Speaker 10: which is really proxy for fiscal twenty.
- 20:12Speaker 8: Seven so next year.
- 20:14Speaker 10: Just within six weeks yesterday, they came in and said
- 20:17Speaker 10: the demand was now two billion. So investors really loved that.
- 20:21Speaker 10: I mean, in a matter of six weeks double your
- 20:23Speaker 10: demand for one year out is amazing as a brand
- 20:27Speaker 10: new chip selling company. I think what they didn't like
- 20:29Speaker 10: is towards the end of the call, the management said
- 20:32Speaker 10: we are still going to keep the same outlook of
- 20:34Speaker 10: one billion because we don't know if we will have
- 20:36Speaker 10: supply to meet that. So that was sort of a
- 20:39Speaker 10: really getting excited and let down moment. Other than that,
- 20:42Speaker 10: in terms of their numbers, they reported there was nothing
- 20:45Speaker 10: really to scream about. You know, everyone is aware handsets
- 20:48Speaker 10: are having weakness. They are almost immune to that because
- 20:52Speaker 10: of their content in a richer handset mix, and they
- 20:55Speaker 10: get the newer generation of IP gets them a lot
- 20:58Speaker 10: more dollar per chip, so their business is still likely
- 21:02Speaker 10: to grow through the year, while other headset makers are
- 21:04Speaker 10: going to see that headphines.
- 21:06Speaker 2: So Armholdings is run by Renee has And what's interesting
- 21:10Speaker 2: here Kanjohn is that he's got a side hustle. I
- 21:14Speaker 2: think he also has a role leading SoftBank Group International.
- 21:19Speaker 2: How does that work? How does he do both jobs?
- 21:22Speaker 10: Yeah, so he has been the CEO for ARM for
- 21:25Speaker 10: many years. The new role that you're referring to is
- 21:28Speaker 10: sort of a new incident. Look, this is that soft
- 21:31Speaker 10: Bank just just tells you the amount of trust and
- 21:34Speaker 10: the reliant soft Bank has on ARM. Now they have
- 21:38Speaker 10: been their initial investors, they have been all SoftBank I
- 21:42Speaker 10: think is still the largest holder of ARM. And this
- 21:45Speaker 10: boards really well for ARMED shareholders. That especially now that
- 21:48Speaker 10: it's going into the chip making or the chip selling business.
- 21:53Speaker 8: Having that seat running.
- 21:54Speaker 10: Sort of the AI semiconductor strategy for saft Bank, which
- 21:58Speaker 10: again is a very important semi doctor company. Now when
- 22:01Speaker 10: you think about outside the US, that really bodes well
- 22:03Speaker 10: for armshareholders.
- 22:06Speaker 3: Kunjan, what's the streets consensus or belief here at this
- 22:09Speaker 3: early early stage of this entrance into the chip business,
- 22:13Speaker 3: because I think there's some established players there. It's kind
- 22:15Speaker 3: of a competitive business as I understand.
- 22:17Speaker 10: It, it is, But the good thing for them is,
- 22:21Speaker 10: you know they are here to coming from a zero
- 22:24Speaker 10: share basis, right, So even a few percentage of share
- 22:27Speaker 10: pickup on a.
- 22:28Speaker 8: Very big and large growing market.
- 22:30Speaker 10: Remember, even the X eighty six guys who are the
- 22:33Speaker 10: incumbents the Intel and AMD have doubled their TAM in
- 22:36Speaker 10: less than six months, So the pile is like growing
- 22:39Speaker 10: two x in a very short amount of time. So
- 22:41Speaker 10: even if ARM grabs a few single percentage points of
- 22:45Speaker 10: share here, this is billions of dollars of new revenue
- 22:47Speaker 10: for them which didn't have, So we see it as
- 22:50Speaker 10: quite positive for them.
- 22:51Speaker 8: Despite the rising competition.
- 22:53Speaker 2: Memory chip makers have been super in demand. Their share
- 22:57Speaker 2: prices reflect the of memory chips, you know, the most
- 23:02Speaker 2: basic memory chips, because all of them are moving towards
- 23:05Speaker 2: high bandwith memory chips. What does that transition in the
- 23:09Speaker 2: memory chip industry mean for a company like ARM.
- 23:13Speaker 8: Well, they are seeing that pin point. Right.
- 23:15Speaker 10: The first end market that is being squeezed because of
- 23:18Speaker 10: this is the smartphones, right and again today's still smartphone
- 23:21Speaker 10: is their biggest royalty business.
- 23:23Speaker 8: So they are seeing that impact.
- 23:26Speaker 10: Like I said, fortunately for them, the stage they are
- 23:28Speaker 10: in the royalty they're getting pert chip is sort of
- 23:32Speaker 10: keeping that impact softened. But they are definitely seeing that impact.
- 23:36Speaker 10: The next market that could see a squeeze here could
- 23:38Speaker 10: be PC markets, right, So the top market, which is
- 23:41Speaker 10: the data center market, is of course going to get
- 23:43Speaker 10: all the priority. ARM is pivotting to increase a lot
- 23:46Speaker 10: more revenues coming from data center market, whether it's on
- 23:49Speaker 10: the IP side, whether it's on the chip side. So
- 23:51Speaker 10: we don't see other than smartphone headwinds, we don't see
- 23:55Speaker 10: a lot of impact to other markets for ARM and
- 23:58Speaker 10: this chip.
- 23:58Speaker 3: Just broadly speaking, Kujohn talk to us about this memory
- 24:02Speaker 3: chip shortage. What's the status I mean? And is this
- 24:06Speaker 3: just a function of time the chip makers make more chips, yes.
- 24:12Speaker 8: And no, it's a combination of both.
- 24:14Speaker 10: So if you think about memory right typically it's been
- 24:17Speaker 10: the most one of the most cyclical in the semiconductor
- 24:21Speaker 10: It's similar to a lot more of a big manufacturing business,
- 24:24Speaker 10: right where the memory makers don't usually go ahead and
- 24:28Speaker 10: install more capacity because of the risk of losses when
- 24:31Speaker 10: the cycles you turn.
- 24:32Speaker 8: Where we have come to this inflection because of.
- 24:34Speaker 10: AI is just the memory demand has superseded any prior expectations.
- 24:39Speaker 10: So we don't see this really going away anytime soon.
- 24:42Speaker 10: It's not very easy. Yes, the memory makers are installing
- 24:45Speaker 10: new capacity and working every day to get more capacity up,
- 24:49Speaker 10: but it takes time and we don't think.
- 24:51Speaker 8: This is just going to turn around anytime soon.
- 24:55Speaker 2: I look at the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index and the move
- 24:58Speaker 2: has been incredible. I mean since March thirtieth, it's been
- 25:02Speaker 2: a straight line up and I know it's off about
- 25:04Speaker 2: one percent today, but it's pretty much sitting at record highs.
- 25:07Speaker 2: What's the next catalyst, Conjohn to keep this thing going?
- 25:12Speaker 10: It's I mean, look, the demand numbers have been continued
- 25:15Speaker 10: to increase for the last four quarters. And what we saw,
- 25:19Speaker 10: especially after the war started in the Middle East that
- 25:22Speaker 10: socks was not doing much despite the numbers were kept
- 25:26Speaker 10: on going up and up. So we now are seeing
- 25:28Speaker 10: a little bit of a phenomenon where the risk on
- 25:31Speaker 10: trade is come back and investors are now reacting to
- 25:34Speaker 10: all of those numbers uplift. I think catalysts growing up
- 25:38Speaker 10: from here are going to be much harder. I mean,
- 25:40Speaker 10: it could surprise us like the CBU makers did surprises
- 25:43Speaker 10: this earning season, but again, you know, most of the
- 25:46Speaker 10: numbers continue to stay high, we lose things, they will
- 25:49Speaker 10: continue to go up in terms of fundamentals and expectations,
- 25:52Speaker 10: but right now I think the big catalysts.
- 25:54Speaker 8: Are going to be clarity on the twenty twenty eight numbers.
- 25:58Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg and tell Us podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
- 26:03Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each
- 26:06Speaker 1: weekday ten am to noon Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
- 26:10Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app.
- 26:14Speaker 1: You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube
- 26:18Speaker 1: and always on the Bloomberg terminal