Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Apple AI Plans, EU Elections
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 0:05Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple car playing Enroud
- 0:08Speaker 1: Otto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
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- 0:16Speaker 2: So it's bringing on rog Rana. He's a tech analyst
- 0:18Speaker 2: for Bloomberg Intelligence. You've been following Apple stock for decades here,
- 0:25Speaker 2: how important is today?
- 0:26Speaker 3: Anurag?
- 0:28Speaker 2: I feel like Apple doesn't have the AI juice in
- 0:31Speaker 2: at stock.
- 0:32Speaker 3: Is that something they care about?
- 0:35Speaker 4: No, they have to care about it because that's the
- 0:37Speaker 4: most important thing investor's mind right now. So there are
- 0:40Speaker 4: a few things we already kind of know thanks to
- 0:42Speaker 4: Mark German. Is there's going to be most likely an
- 0:45Speaker 4: announcement with Open Eyes, some kind of joint agreement with
- 0:48Speaker 4: them to use their technology into the new operating system.
- 0:52Speaker 4: So I would say a lot of that is already
- 0:54Speaker 4: built in. We all know that Apple doesn't have its
- 0:56Speaker 4: own large language model as good as what's available with
- 1:00Speaker 4: Opening I or arguably with Google, so but they can
- 1:04Speaker 4: partner with these two companies. So that's that's the luxury
- 1:06Speaker 4: Apple has that it does not need to do with
- 1:08Speaker 4: everything in house and that's what we're going to look
- 1:11Speaker 4: forward today, is what's the strategy in terms of working
- 1:14Speaker 4: with partners and then using that technology to fuel the
- 1:18Speaker 4: operating system.
- 1:19Speaker 5: It does it? Will it justify their one up in
- 1:22Speaker 5: the stock?
- 1:22Speaker 6: How do you make the correlation between the news and
- 1:24Speaker 6: what we're actually going to get and the actual move
- 1:26Speaker 6: in the in Apple share price.
- 1:29Speaker 4: So, Alex, one of the things I would say is
- 1:31Speaker 4: for the past one and a half to two years,
- 1:32Speaker 4: there has been nothing but bad news coming for Apple.
- 1:35Speaker 4: You know, that has been an issue because iPhone growth
- 1:38Speaker 4: has slowed down, mostly because of China. So I would
- 1:41Speaker 4: say this is the first liver of good news that
- 1:44Speaker 4: has the potential to improve iPhone sales next year. It's
- 1:47Speaker 4: not going to do anything this year. I mean, it's
- 1:49Speaker 4: it's very difficult to model that out. But if the
- 1:52Speaker 4: operating system has enough juice for people to figure out
- 1:55Speaker 4: and say I will go out and change my phone
- 1:58Speaker 4: next year, I think that's the That is the gas
- 2:01Speaker 4: that people are looking for, is whether that can go
- 2:03Speaker 4: back and reignite sales growth.
- 2:05Speaker 2: And we were talking with Mark Herman earlier this morning
- 2:08Speaker 2: and he kind of suggested that, you know, it can
- 2:10Speaker 2: be taken as a little bit of an embarrassment by
- 2:13Speaker 2: Apple that they do not have, you know, kind of
- 2:16Speaker 2: their own AI capabilities in house, that they need to
- 2:20Speaker 2: partner with open Ai. Do you think investors view it
- 2:23Speaker 2: that way? They're just like, we don't really care how
- 2:25Speaker 2: you get it, just put it on the device.
- 2:27Speaker 4: Yeah, but personally I don't care how do you do
- 2:30Speaker 4: get it on the device? Same thing for search. What
- 2:32Speaker 4: I really like about that if they partner it is
- 2:34Speaker 4: then they don't have to spend billions of dollars to
- 2:37Speaker 4: do it in house. If you look at the capex
- 2:39Speaker 4: of Apple compared to some of the other companies, it's
- 2:41Speaker 4: much smaller.
- 2:43Speaker 7: And you know, I'm.
- 2:44Speaker 4: Okay with that because it helps out in my free
- 2:46Speaker 4: cash flow. As long as they can partner with people,
- 2:49Speaker 4: I'm absolutely fine with it.
- 2:51Speaker 5: Well, let's go to the idea.
- 2:52Speaker 6: I mean, you can bring my daughter into this. So
- 2:54Speaker 6: I'm doing a lot of reading Estrian Apple. I'm taking
- 2:57Speaker 6: all my notes and doing my homework, and I said, hey, dydn't.
- 3:00Speaker 6: I was like, you know that Apple's going to have
- 3:01Speaker 6: this thing tomorrow and they're gonna maybe unveil something that
- 3:04Speaker 6: will help emojis and you can get better emojis when
- 3:07Speaker 6: you're typing texts and she's like, that is so cool
- 3:10Speaker 6: when you need to get the new phone, and I think, anurag,
- 3:12Speaker 6: that's your point where like people like my daughter are like,
- 3:16Speaker 6: that's awesome, upgrade your phone now, because I'm like, oh.
- 3:18Speaker 5: A few years, a few years.
- 3:19Speaker 6: She's like, no, no, you got to get the phone
- 3:21Speaker 6: because I need the emojis so I can send texts
- 3:23Speaker 6: to my friends. That's basically what you're talking about. There's
- 3:25Speaker 6: a huge install base. You do something that even is
- 3:27Speaker 6: like semi cool, and that's going to drive sales.
- 3:31Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's the coolness factor. And frankly speaking,
- 3:33Speaker 4: one of the things that really caught my attention is
- 3:35Speaker 4: Mark German reported that the new features would be available
- 3:39Speaker 4: on iPhone fifteen Pro and the newer one that's coming.
- 3:43Speaker 4: I mean, that's a big deal because, frankly speaking, if
- 3:46Speaker 4: that's a very small portion of the total install base,
- 3:49Speaker 4: even those early adopters, if they go out and rush
- 3:52Speaker 4: to increase their you know, the refresh the phone in
- 3:55Speaker 4: a much quicker way, that's going to help out Apple.
- 3:58Speaker 2: All right, So what else today should we be looking for?
- 4:01Speaker 3: Anna Raga?
- 4:02Speaker 2: I mean, is there going to be a new watch
- 4:04Speaker 2: and do anything or is it just getting everybody to
- 4:06Speaker 2: focused on AI.
- 4:07Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all going to be AI. And I think
- 4:09Speaker 4: one of the things I really like what I've seen
- 4:11Speaker 4: from Apple in the last six months is now they
- 4:13Speaker 4: are all focused on this product because one of the things,
- 4:16Speaker 4: again Mark said that, you know, they shut down the
- 4:18Speaker 4: cards project, which has been around for you know, so
- 4:20Speaker 4: many years, taking out massive amount of investments, and then
- 4:25Speaker 4: they you could say that they diverted that attention and
- 4:27Speaker 4: not focused on AI completely. But right now the entire
- 4:31Speaker 4: company is focused on AI, embedding it every product, every
- 4:34Speaker 4: operating system, every feature. And I think, and you know,
- 4:38Speaker 4: one of the things we've heard even in China is
- 4:40Speaker 4: consumers don't like that Apple has been behind in this
- 4:44Speaker 4: particular one and that has been a reason for them
- 4:47Speaker 4: not to upgrade their phone. So I think Apple's taking
- 4:49Speaker 4: this a lot more seriously. I think other tech companies
- 4:51Speaker 4: are taking it a lot more seriously. Who have been
- 4:54Speaker 4: you know, I would say, taking their dominant position in
- 4:57Speaker 4: their respective markets for granted over the last few years.
- 5:01Speaker 4: And that's what I think open ai has done for
- 5:03Speaker 4: the rest of the ecosystem.
- 5:05Speaker 6: Also, honour more of the derivative plays from this. When
- 5:08Speaker 6: we're hearing the announcements from Apple in your world of software,
- 5:13Speaker 6: where should we be paying attention to?
- 5:15Speaker 4: I think see what we think is going to happen
- 5:18Speaker 4: is over the next one to two years, every software
- 5:21Speaker 4: company is going to embed more AI features into their
- 5:24Speaker 4: core software product. Now, the question is some of them
- 5:27Speaker 4: will have the ability to up charge for that, which
- 5:30Speaker 4: means they will have a pro model or a premium
- 5:32Speaker 4: model or a ProPlus model where the average revenue per
- 5:36Speaker 4: user can go up. This way, they don't have to
- 5:38Speaker 4: go out and look for a brand new user to
- 5:40Speaker 4: sell that software. They just have to convince the buyer
- 5:44Speaker 4: that it is worth your while to upgrade that software
- 5:47Speaker 4: into the one that has AI features. I think that
- 5:50Speaker 4: is where bulk of the investments are going to In
- 5:53Speaker 4: terms of the software industry, we think every major company
- 5:56Speaker 4: will play a role in it. The ones that we
- 5:58Speaker 4: have seen so far is that's coming out from Microsoft,
- 6:01Speaker 4: whether it's in the Office Suite or the one that
- 6:04Speaker 4: we like quite a bit. Is there coding software where
- 6:07Speaker 4: you could the software developers can actually do automated coding
- 6:11Speaker 4: in a much faster way. I think that will have
- 6:13Speaker 4: a massive upsell rate because the benefits of productivity are
- 6:17Speaker 4: way too high over there.
- 6:19Speaker 2: All right, on thirty seconds question of the day, I
- 6:21Speaker 2: have an iPhone eleven toy upgrade now or wait.
- 6:25Speaker 4: This winter when the next one comes in, which is
- 6:27Speaker 4: the iPhone sixteen or so. I think you will be
- 6:30Speaker 4: very happy with that particular.
- 6:31Speaker 5: One I found. Did it work? Like can you run stuff?
- 6:35Speaker 8: Yeah?
- 6:35Speaker 6: But at some point, like the apps just don't update
- 6:38Speaker 6: and the software doesn't update, and like you have to
- 6:40Speaker 6: turn it in.
- 6:40Speaker 2: Well, the big thing that what always prompts me to
- 6:43Speaker 2: upgrade is the battery. When a battery starts, that's that's
- 6:47Speaker 2: the message. All right, Honak, thanks so much for joining us.
- 6:49Speaker 2: A rag ronnie. He saved me a couple of dollars today.
- 6:51Speaker 2: I'm not gonna go out and buy a new iPhone.
- 6:53Speaker 2: He's a senior technologyanels for Bloomberg Intelligence. Yeah, it's always
- 6:56Speaker 2: the battery that kind of gets me.
- 6:58Speaker 6: The battery is rough, Yeah, but I do my thing
- 7:00Speaker 6: on like low battery all day, like you don't do
- 7:03Speaker 6: they do?
- 7:03Speaker 5: Yeah, which is fine.
- 7:04Speaker 6: It just means it instead of like staying up and
- 7:06Speaker 6: connected for a long time, it just goes to sleep
- 7:08Speaker 6: and I just have to wake it up.
- 7:10Speaker 2: Really yeah, but a last like anybody that you're the
- 7:12Speaker 2: first person that.
- 7:13Speaker 6: Business track for me, though I don't know, I feel
- 7:16Speaker 6: like this all makes some cheap sense. Anyway, We're definitely
- 7:20Speaker 6: watching Apple and looking forward to that announcement coming there
- 7:23Speaker 6: has a really big run up.
- 7:26Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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- 7:45Speaker 6: This is Bloomberg Intelligence Radio, where we cover all the
- 7:47Speaker 6: news and business and finance through our.
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- 7:56Speaker 6: Bloomberg Economics, amazing men and women who do the economic
- 7:59Speaker 6: side of the entire world. David Powell is senior Euro
- 8:03Speaker 6: Area economist for Bloomberg Economics and he joins us now
- 8:06Speaker 6: David BTP bund spread right, you have the France versus
- 8:10Speaker 6: German ten year spread fifty five basis points.
- 8:12Speaker 5: We haven't seen that all year.
- 8:14Speaker 6: You have a huge, huge sell off in the bond
- 8:17Speaker 6: market some of the main countries, even in Italy and
- 8:19Speaker 6: Spain and Portugal, equities are getting hit. What do you
- 8:23Speaker 6: make of what unfolded over the last twenty four hours
- 8:26Speaker 6: in France and the European Parliament.
- 8:29Speaker 9: Well, the far right parties of Europe had very large
- 8:33Speaker 9: gains in the European elections. These are the elections for
- 8:36Speaker 9: the European Parliament, and that wasn't so much of a
- 8:41Speaker 9: surprise in itself, because Poles were showing that was likely
- 8:44Speaker 9: to happen. But the big surprise is what's happened in
- 8:47Speaker 9: France is the reaction of the French President, Emmanuel Marcon
- 8:50Speaker 9: to the outcome, and he announced a snap parliamentary elections.
- 8:55Speaker 9: This won't affect his role as president because that's a
- 8:59Speaker 9: separate election, But soon the French will be going to
- 9:03Speaker 9: polls to be voting for new members of parliament and
- 9:07Speaker 9: for American listeners that's similar to the members of the
- 9:10Speaker 9: House of Representatives, and then the composition of that lower
- 9:14Speaker 9: house may change, and in fact polls suggest it will
- 9:19Speaker 9: more in favor of the of the party that just
- 9:23Speaker 9: won such a such a large number of seats in
- 9:26Speaker 9: the European Parliament.
- 9:28Speaker 2: So David in the European Parliament, what were some of
- 9:30Speaker 2: the contributing factors to that strong performance by the far right.
- 9:35Speaker 9: Well, Uh, discontent with with the with the way things
- 9:39Speaker 9: are going. Of course that's not unique to Europe and America.
- 9:43Speaker 9: A lot of voters of their concerns about inflation, what
- 9:46Speaker 9: that means for their spending power, and that has the
- 9:49Speaker 9: that that's that's had a similar impact on the on
- 9:54Speaker 9: the electorate in Europe where people are upset about these
- 9:57Speaker 9: high prices. Uh, the the the cost of living crisis
- 10:02Speaker 9: as they refer to it. But in addition to those
- 10:06Speaker 9: to those developments in France, but they've also had recently
- 10:10Speaker 9: is a change to the pension system in order to
- 10:13Speaker 9: make it more affordable. So they've lifted the retirement age
- 10:17Speaker 9: and that was done by the French president and it
- 10:19Speaker 9: was not a popular move as you can imagine. No
- 10:21Speaker 9: one wants to be told that they have to work
- 10:23Speaker 9: for longer in order to receive the same benefits, and
- 10:26Speaker 9: that has been a source of support for this for
- 10:30Speaker 9: the far right, which has come out which came out
- 10:33Speaker 9: at the time opposing that that's done. They've also come
- 10:35Speaker 9: out opposing recent changes that are being discussed to the
- 10:40Speaker 9: system of unemployment benefits. So it is now a debate
- 10:45Speaker 9: about shortening the duration of unemployment benefits that the government
- 10:50Speaker 9: is leading.
- 10:51Speaker 6: So what I find interesting, David is the idea and
- 10:53Speaker 6: the more I read about it, the more it's like
- 10:55Speaker 6: Mattcrol's calling the far right bluff and it's like, all right,
- 10:58Speaker 6: you guys want those policies, Let's see how much you
- 11:00Speaker 6: want those policies that What is your assessment as to
- 11:04Speaker 6: how risky or not that strategy is and the effect
- 11:07Speaker 6: you could have on the economy.
- 11:10Speaker 9: Well, some of the things that Macwall's pushed through, like
- 11:13Speaker 9: raising the retirement age and this debate about shortening the
- 11:17Speaker 9: duration of employment benefits, Obviously they're not popular, but they're
- 11:20Speaker 9: necessary because France is a huge budget deficit there under
- 11:23Speaker 9: a lot of pressure from the European Commission to reduce
- 11:26Speaker 9: the size of it. Their debt isn't growing increasingly large,
- 11:30Speaker 9: and these reforms will reduce the amount that the government
- 11:34Speaker 9: is to pay out to pensioners and the unemployed, and
- 11:37Speaker 9: they'll also boost the potential size of the economy. So
- 11:40Speaker 9: it's kind of a win win situation from an economic
- 11:43Speaker 9: point of view. And even though these aren't popular, macalls saying,
- 11:49Speaker 9: these are necessary steps in order to get the public
- 11:51Speaker 9: finances in order. And the far right has been opposed
- 11:55Speaker 9: to many of these moves, but they haven't they haven't
- 11:57Speaker 9: proposed other solutions. So I think one of the things
- 12:02Speaker 9: Macwoll's kind of doing here is saying is you know,
- 12:05Speaker 9: you like to be opposed to what I'm doing, but
- 12:06Speaker 9: you're not putting forth any solutions yourself. And while you're
- 12:10Speaker 9: in opposition, I guess that's your job to oppose the government.
- 12:13Speaker 9: But let's see if you can put together some policies
- 12:16Speaker 9: yourselves that would solve the problems instead of just complaining
- 12:19Speaker 9: about what he has proposed as solutions.
- 12:21Speaker 2: David, can you give us a kind of an overview
- 12:23Speaker 2: just maybe how the economic the economies of Europe are
- 12:27Speaker 2: behaving generally speaking, How are they in terms of growth,
- 12:30Speaker 2: how are they in terms of inflation these days?
- 12:32Speaker 3: What are the trends?
- 12:33Speaker 9: Well, Europe, like the United States, has had an inflation
- 12:37Speaker 9: problem of the last couple of years, and in Europe
- 12:40Speaker 9: it was made even worse by the extreme rise and
- 12:44Speaker 9: commodity prices that resulted after Russia's invasion in Ukraine. They
- 12:48Speaker 9: have that inflation issue that's causing a cost of living crisis,
- 12:53Speaker 9: And like the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank very
- 12:58Speaker 9: drastically raised interest rates, although unlike the United States, it
- 13:02Speaker 9: had a major impact on the economy. So when we
- 13:05Speaker 9: look back to twenty twenty three, I think the US
- 13:08Speaker 9: economy grew something like three percent and the r Area
- 13:11Speaker 9: economy did not grow at all. So there's been a
- 13:14Speaker 9: much weaker economic performance as a result of the monetary
- 13:19Speaker 9: tightening that's taken place.
- 13:21Speaker 6: Yes, we got the ECB that did cut rates, we
- 13:23Speaker 6: don't know when the next one's going to be. And
- 13:25Speaker 6: then we get this violent move in bonn yields, and
- 13:28Speaker 6: I appreciate compared the sovereign deck crisis, it's like peanuts,
- 13:31Speaker 6: But nonetheless it's significant. At what point do bond yields
- 13:36Speaker 6: effect everything else start to affect the economy, Like how high?
- 13:39Speaker 6: How long do they have to stay for that to
- 13:41Speaker 6: feel to that to be implemented into the economy.
- 13:45Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean higher financing costs for the government. We'll
- 13:50Speaker 9: have implications for the budget deficit and implications for lots
- 13:55Speaker 9: of other things that are used as trademark interest rates
- 13:59Speaker 9: in the economy in many places. However, as you said,
- 14:02Speaker 9: these are small compared to what you're dealt with in
- 14:04Speaker 9: the past in terms of the area debt crisis, and
- 14:07Speaker 9: there's very unlikely to be any intervention from the ECB
- 14:11Speaker 9: or anything like that, only because not only the movements small,
- 14:15Speaker 9: but during a period of high inflation it's much more
- 14:18Speaker 9: difficult for a central bank to intervene and to justify
- 14:22Speaker 9: those moves than it is during a period of low inflation,
- 14:25Speaker 9: because of course those interventions require just essentially printing money
- 14:29Speaker 9: and using that money to buy those bonds. So we
- 14:33Speaker 9: have had some movement in financial markets, but nothing that's
- 14:36Speaker 9: screaming crisis, nothing that is screaming for the ECB to
- 14:40Speaker 9: jump in and come the situation.
- 14:42Speaker 3: All right, David, thank you so much. We appreciate that.
- 14:44Speaker 2: David Palm, he's a senior your Area of Congress for
- 14:47Speaker 2: Bloomberg Economics joining us from London the HQ for Bloomberg
- 14:51Speaker 2: at Queen Victoria Street via that zoom thing. So again,
- 14:55Speaker 2: some big moves, as Alex was pointing out earlier, of
- 14:58Speaker 2: the euro off about a half of one percent sent
- 15:00Speaker 2: one spot zero seven on the euro. You had the
- 15:03Speaker 2: CAC fall off pretty substantially as well the French index.
- 15:08Speaker 2: They're off about one point eight percent in terms of
- 15:11Speaker 2: the stock market over there on the news of these
- 15:14Speaker 2: snap elections.
- 15:15Speaker 6: So my question is, then do we learn anything about
- 15:17Speaker 6: how other elections will be treated like here in the
- 15:19Speaker 6: US or not. We know hedging doesn't work with these things,
- 15:23Speaker 6: as we learn, say with Brexit, so it's going to
- 15:25Speaker 6: be very interesting to see how long these moves actually last,
- 15:28Speaker 6: which might give us some insight into when they had
- 15:31Speaker 6: the elections in July, when the UK has their election
- 15:33Speaker 6: in July, and when we have our election as well
- 15:36Speaker 6: in November.
- 15:38Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 15:42Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on fo CarPlay and enroud
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- 15:48Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 15:53Speaker 6: And Alex Steel alongside Paul's We Need This a Bloomberg
- 15:55Speaker 6: Intelligence Radio. We're broadcasting to you live from the Interactive
- 15:58Speaker 6: Broker studio right here and quarters in a beautiful midtown Manhattan.
- 16:02Speaker 5: Lisa was just giving you a check on the market.
- 16:04Speaker 6: Also, Apple is down a touch, but it has a
- 16:06Speaker 6: huge run up since the end of April, and Video
- 16:09Speaker 6: is also down on that stock split. So we want
- 16:11Speaker 6: to dig a little deeper here with Carol Pepper, founder
- 16:13Speaker 6: and CEO of Pepper International. She joins us, Hey, Carol,
- 16:17Speaker 6: do you want to buy Apple into today? Like, do
- 16:19Speaker 6: you want to buy in Video on the stock split?
- 16:22Speaker 10: Definitely buying Video on the stocksplit. I think that that's
- 16:26Speaker 10: just a great sign. And in Video is going to
- 16:28Speaker 10: run right back up to over a thousand bucks a share.
- 16:31Speaker 11: It is the engine right now.
- 16:32Speaker 10: So I would definitely buy it and tuck it away
- 16:35Speaker 10: and not look at it, just leave it there on fear.
- 16:37Speaker 11: Days and I'll go down. So on a fear day,
- 16:39Speaker 11: buy the stock.
- 16:40Speaker 2: So can we broad that out Carol to say, continue
- 16:44Speaker 2: to buy some of these large cap growth stories across
- 16:46Speaker 2: the border.
- 16:47Speaker 3: Where do we try to find some value out there?
- 16:50Speaker 10: No, I definitely feel like the value is long large
- 16:54Speaker 10: cap growth. Frankly, the leaders and the bigger stocks are
- 16:57Speaker 10: getting bigger. They're in a position with all the cash
- 17:00Speaker 10: on their ballad sheet to be very muscular to make
- 17:02Speaker 10: the innovative deals, to make long term investments where other
- 17:05Speaker 10: companies are struggling. So in tech, at least, bigger is
- 17:09Speaker 10: much better and that's where you need to stay. And again,
- 17:13Speaker 10: if you haven't fully filled out your tech allocation, it's
- 17:16Speaker 10: something to take a hard look at. In general, I
- 17:19Speaker 10: think growth continue to outperform value. It has for over
- 17:22Speaker 10: ten years, and I don't see that trend ending anytime soon.
- 17:25Speaker 10: Although it's still very prutent to own the entire SMP,
- 17:29Speaker 10: the US stock market is going to continue to outperform
- 17:31Speaker 10: the rest of the world, certainly for the foreseeable future.
- 17:34Speaker 6: You, Carol, you didn't mention Apple. You know you're talking
- 17:39Speaker 6: about large cap growth. We're talking about tech. I asked
- 17:42Speaker 6: an Apple you didn't talk about. It makes me think
- 17:44Speaker 6: that that's not in this thesis you have.
- 17:47Speaker 10: Well, I mean the problem that I've always had with
- 17:49Speaker 10: Apple is I feel like their product set is not
- 17:51Speaker 10: that broad.
- 17:52Speaker 11: I mean, Okay, how.
- 17:53Speaker 10: Many iPhones do people really need? Yes, you might upgrade
- 17:56Speaker 10: the phone that you have, that, are you really going
- 17:58Speaker 10: to penetrate.
- 17:59Speaker 11: Larger groups of new users.
- 18:01Speaker 10: I'm not so sure about that. They're very expensive. We're
- 18:04Speaker 10: in a high inflation market.
- 18:05Speaker 11: I'm not as.
- 18:06Speaker 10: Excited about Apple as I am about the other big
- 18:09Speaker 10: tech companies like Amazon, certainly Microsoft, in Nvidia.
- 18:13Speaker 11: We've got Google, even Facebook. You've got companies.
- 18:16Speaker 10: That are branching out into more areas of growth and expansion.
- 18:20Speaker 10: And to me, Apple's fairly focused. The car thing was
- 18:23Speaker 10: a mistake and now they have to backtrack on that.
- 18:26Speaker 10: I mean, they're still always going to be in the
- 18:27Speaker 10: top five. Don't get me wrong, you can own them.
- 18:30Speaker 10: I'm just not in love with them. As let's say
- 18:33Speaker 10: the leading story.
- 18:34Speaker 3: So are you in love with Microsoft and Amazon?
- 18:38Speaker 10: Yes, I've always been in love with Amazon since the beginning,
- 18:41Speaker 10: since they went public. Microsoft, I think is very very
- 18:43Speaker 10: strong and will continue to be. So they have a
- 18:46Speaker 10: much stronger focus on, i think, the corporate side of
- 18:48Speaker 10: the business, and that's very smart because all of this
- 18:50Speaker 10: AI innovation will start affecting corporate America and Microsoft will
- 18:55Speaker 10: most likely be one of the main delivery mechanisms because
- 18:58Speaker 10: they're embedded in so many corporate systems and so many
- 19:01Speaker 10: you know, Outlook systems and all the cloud storage that
- 19:05Speaker 10: they're doing.
- 19:06Speaker 11: I don't think that that's going to change.
- 19:08Speaker 6: So there was a great piece on Bloomberg that talked
- 19:10Speaker 6: about how big text profit growth is going to slow.
- 19:13Speaker 6: It's not going to go negative or anything. It's just
- 19:14Speaker 6: going to slow from the kind of growth that we've seen.
- 19:17Speaker 6: But that other areas like industrials, materials and healthcare can
- 19:20Speaker 6: see roughly twenty five percent profit growth by the fourth
- 19:22Speaker 6: quarter after a contraction twenty percent or more in the
- 19:25Speaker 6: first quarter. So I'm wondering, are you in love with
- 19:27Speaker 6: stuff outside of tech and maybe in those sectors.
- 19:31Speaker 10: Well, I certainly think those sectors have room to move,
- 19:34Speaker 10: which is fantastic. Certainly, you know, the GFLP one story
- 19:39Speaker 10: is going to continue and expand we're going to see
- 19:42Speaker 10: new drugs coming on and that is a blockbuster category.
- 19:45Speaker 10: But I also see that AI is doing tremendous work
- 19:48Speaker 10: in things like cancer research and coming up with real
- 19:51Speaker 10: cures in the health tech space. So I think healthcare
- 19:54Speaker 10: will also always be a good core holding.
- 19:57Speaker 11: But if you were to say what weight.
- 19:58Speaker 10: To put it out, I would overweight tack more than
- 20:00Speaker 10: I would overweight healthcare.
- 20:01Speaker 1: Though.
- 20:02Speaker 11: Of course, to me, healthcare is a continued growth story.
- 20:05Speaker 10: Because we have a lot of aging populations all over
- 20:07Speaker 10: the world and they just simply need more healthcare. So yes,
- 20:10Speaker 10: I mean healthcare is always a good sector. Anything growthy
- 20:13Speaker 10: is your friend. It doesn't mean the other sectors won't
- 20:16Speaker 10: touch up eventually, because a rising tide will lift all boats.
- 20:20Speaker 11: Especially when the rates start to go down. That's where
- 20:22Speaker 11: I think you'll see value start to move some more.
- 20:25Speaker 10: Because with value, you know, you just have very much
- 20:28Speaker 10: smaller margins to play with.
- 20:29Speaker 11: So when you have high interest.
- 20:30Speaker 10: Rates, you're more squeezed, and it's very hard to get
- 20:32Speaker 10: out of that squeeze any particular way if you're not
- 20:35Speaker 10: in a sector that's growing.
- 20:37Speaker 2: Hey, Carol, one of the themes coming out of the
- 20:39Speaker 2: pandemic was on shoring and friends shoring, and a lot
- 20:44Speaker 2: of folks are saying, take a look at Mexico.
- 20:47Speaker 3: Is that a theme you like? And so how do
- 20:49Speaker 3: you play that?
- 20:50Speaker 11: Yeah?
- 20:51Speaker 10: Absolutely well, As you guys know, I manage money for
- 20:54Speaker 10: ultra wealthy families with over one hundred million dollars family offices.
- 20:58Speaker 11: And they're very much looking at Mexico.
- 21:00Speaker 10: There's a huge real estate play going on now between
- 21:03Speaker 10: Mexico and the United States because many many businesses are
- 21:06Speaker 10: relocating their operations out of Asia to Mexico so that
- 21:10Speaker 10: they can just drive goods right across the border. Into
- 21:13Speaker 10: the US if they have to, So they're preparing for
- 21:15Speaker 10: the next pandemic. Frankly, Mexican they had a huge election.
- 21:20Speaker 10: The election went left. Of course, the wealthy families over
- 21:22Speaker 10: there are quite nervous, but the incoming president has really
- 21:26Speaker 10: pledged to not mess with the economy, and so far,
- 21:29Speaker 10: so good.
- 21:30Speaker 11: I don't think she.
- 21:31Speaker 10: Will question becomes how much will the outgoing president pass
- 21:35Speaker 10: his agenda before he leaves. But having said that, I
- 21:38Speaker 10: think they're all very happy with the way the economy
- 21:40Speaker 10: has been growing over there. So yes, Mexico will continue
- 21:43Speaker 10: to grow. It's only actually just getting started, and there's
- 21:47Speaker 10: a lot of activity in the real estate section the section.
- 21:50Speaker 11: There's a lot of joint.
- 21:51Speaker 10: Venturing between US and Mexican family offices going on, So
- 21:55Speaker 10: keep your eye on Mexico. It's also a fantastic retirement
- 22:00Speaker 10: nation for Americans who can't afford to stay here with
- 22:03Speaker 10: the current retirement I mean, you can live on your
- 22:05Speaker 10: Social Security beautifully in Mexico and you can't do that
- 22:08Speaker 10: in the US in retirement. So they were already massive
- 22:12Speaker 10: communities of retired Americans living across the border. And again
- 22:16Speaker 10: it's easy for them to get home if they prefer
- 22:18Speaker 10: to have health care in the US.
- 22:20Speaker 11: But it's a big trend. It's going to continue to grow.
- 22:23Speaker 6: Well, my best friend's pushing Costa Rica like that's her thing,
- 22:26Speaker 6: Like they're going to move her family for a year anyway.
- 22:28Speaker 6: So yes, that is a trend, Carrol, for sure, just
- 22:31Speaker 6: a headline that's crossing here. I feel like this is
- 22:32Speaker 6: for Paul because he'll get into it. BTP boom spread
- 22:35Speaker 6: ten year gap rises to fifty five basis points, the
- 22:38Speaker 6: highest in a year, and that's the difference between what
- 22:40Speaker 6: the ten yere yield in France versus Germany is yielding.
- 22:43Speaker 6: And since Germany tends to be looked at as the
- 22:45Speaker 6: risk free rate over in Europe, it's a sign of
- 22:47Speaker 6: where the stress is. Before the sovereign dead crisis, France
- 22:51Speaker 6: was really thought of his stable along with Germany, and
- 22:54Speaker 6: the dead crisis kind of avoid miss that got rid
- 22:59Speaker 6: of the got rid of that a little bit, and
- 23:01Speaker 6: there was more political risk over in France. Also, the
- 23:03Speaker 6: equity market is getting crushed. Did we learn anything, Carol, Like,
- 23:06Speaker 6: I know you're a US person, but did we learn
- 23:09Speaker 6: anything about what happened in the European Parliament and Macron's
- 23:12Speaker 6: choice to call these elections for the lower house in
- 23:16Speaker 6: relation to how we can trade and expect things here
- 23:19Speaker 6: in the US in November.
- 23:21Speaker 11: Oh, that's a really interesting question.
- 23:23Speaker 10: Well, I would say that, in my opinion, the vote
- 23:26Speaker 10: in the EU is a one issue vote. It was
- 23:28Speaker 10: an immigration vote because literally they're intignated. Almost every country
- 23:32Speaker 10: has massive numbers of people arriving on their shores by
- 23:35Speaker 10: vote because very close to get to Europe from other countries.
- 23:39Speaker 11: So you know, the Europeans are sick.
- 23:41Speaker 10: Of the immigration crisis, and I think his decision to
- 23:45Speaker 10: call snap elections is worrisome because he may lose even
- 23:48Speaker 10: more and that's what people don't want to see.
- 23:51Speaker 11: There is a fear of.
- 23:52Speaker 10: A return to a World War two kind of fascism
- 23:55Speaker 10: in Europe in reaction to immigration.
- 23:58Speaker 11: That's what.
- 23:58Speaker 10: But having said that, the souter parties still hold the majority,
- 24:02Speaker 10: so I think for the EU itself, we're still set
- 24:05Speaker 10: for this for this next cycle. But it's certainly a
- 24:08Speaker 10: commentary on they're way more enthusiastic on climate change and
- 24:12Speaker 10: they're way more aggressive on trying to somehow stop all
- 24:17Speaker 10: of this incoming immigration into the your EU block.
- 24:20Speaker 11: So I think those two factors are really.
- 24:23Speaker 10: Driving that vote, because average people are not happy with
- 24:27Speaker 10: what's happening in Europe. So having said that, when you
- 24:30Speaker 10: come to the United States, you're definitely seeing a.
- 24:32Speaker 11: Number of voters very unhappy about immigration.
- 24:35Speaker 10: And it's something that has to be dealt with in
- 24:37Speaker 10: this country as well. We just have to have a
- 24:41Speaker 10: better system that functions better. So it is a big
- 24:44Speaker 10: election issue. Both sides are trying to grab it. I
- 24:47Speaker 10: don't know what the outcome will be. It's a split
- 24:50Speaker 10: decision right now in this country. But I do think
- 24:52Speaker 10: here people are worried about fascism as well. Fascism is
- 24:56Speaker 10: a scary rise throughout the developed world right now, and
- 24:59Speaker 10: I I do think in America we have a real
- 25:01Speaker 10: allergy to fascism, and when it comes to the voting polls,
- 25:04Speaker 10: I don't think people are going to tolerate fascist talk
- 25:07Speaker 10: in the United States.
- 25:08Speaker 11: That's just my opinion, all right.
- 25:11Speaker 3: Keerl, thank you so much for joining us.
- 25:13Speaker 2: Kyle Pepper, founder and CEO of Pepper International, joining us
- 25:15Speaker 2: New York City via zoom.
- 25:17Speaker 1: Here you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us
- 25:23Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecar Play and
- 25:26Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business. You can also listen
- 25:29Speaker 1: live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station,
- 25:33Speaker 1: Just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 25:37Speaker 2: Well, you know, we love these big take stories here
- 25:40Speaker 2: at Bloomberg News.
- 25:41Speaker 3: That's where our reporters a Bloomberg.
- 25:43Speaker 2: News they do some really awesome deep dives and on
- 25:46Speaker 2: some really interesting stories.
- 25:48Speaker 3: Today is no different.
- 25:49Speaker 2: How about this one talent exit at Williams New York
- 25:52Speaker 2: Fed stokes concern on its way. Alex Harris joins is
- 25:56Speaker 2: Bloomberg short Term interest rate reporter here. So Alex, thanks
- 26:00Speaker 2: much for joining us here in our studio. The New
- 26:02Speaker 2: York Federal Reserve Bank, that's a big one. And so
- 26:06Speaker 2: what's happening with our friends at the New York Fed
- 26:08Speaker 2: because we need to pay attention to this.
- 26:10Speaker 8: Yeah, So what's kind of happened over the last couple
- 26:12Speaker 8: of years is you've seen an exodus of basically senior management.
- 26:16Speaker 8: These are people who have been with the bank for
- 26:18Speaker 8: decades just deciding to exit, either that they retire or
- 26:22Speaker 8: that they you know, find another opportunity on Wall Street
- 26:25Speaker 8: or just really but what's ultimately driving it is the
- 26:29Speaker 8: environment is just not they have found just not conducive
- 26:32Speaker 8: either that you know, there's been changes in the banks,
- 26:35Speaker 8: in the bank under the leadership of John Williams that
- 26:39Speaker 8: they have found, you know, doesn't necessarily work for them anymore.
- 26:44Speaker 8: And as a result, they're leaving. And what people are
- 26:47Speaker 8: worried about is the so called brain drain. It leaves
- 26:50Speaker 8: a vacuum of people who are experienced at fighting crises
- 26:54Speaker 8: because remember a lot of these people have been there.
- 26:56Speaker 8: They were there for the financial crisis, they were there
- 26:58Speaker 8: for the repo market blow up, they were there in
- 26:59Speaker 8: twenty like, they have crisis fighting experience, and so you're
- 27:03Speaker 8: leaving a lot of that knowledge is leaving the bank.
- 27:06Speaker 8: But then also just their ability and the question of
- 27:10Speaker 8: are they ready for whatever's next, And that's what people
- 27:13Speaker 8: are really concerned is they're feeling like something must is
- 27:16Speaker 8: severely lacking in the under the leadership of John Williams.
- 27:21Speaker 5: Why I love that you wrote this because Alex is
- 27:23Speaker 5: usually the person that has those.
- 27:24Speaker 6: Really nerdy rebo market articles where you're like, I know
- 27:28Speaker 6: this is important. I know I'm going to read it
- 27:30Speaker 6: three times and I'm still going to understand twenty percent
- 27:32Speaker 6: of it and I have to email Alex Harris, so
- 27:34Speaker 6: thank you.
- 27:34Speaker 5: For writing an article that I understood right off the bat.
- 27:37Speaker 5: What did they do about that?
- 27:38Speaker 9: Then?
- 27:39Speaker 6: I mean, is it as easy as like, hey, we're
- 27:41Speaker 6: going to offer more work from home?
- 27:42Speaker 5: Is it not that at all? Is it something very different?
- 27:45Speaker 8: I think it's very different.
- 27:47Speaker 5: I think really what.
- 27:49Speaker 8: People are going to have to start looking at is
- 27:51Speaker 8: taking a really serious look at the role of the
- 27:54Speaker 8: New York FED. You know, for some people, they've said, look,
- 27:57Speaker 8: Lourie William excuse me, got elevated out of the New
- 28:01Speaker 8: York FED to running the Dallas FED. And she's taken
- 28:04Speaker 8: a lot of that staff with her. She has this
- 28:06Speaker 8: experience on the balance sheet. People really trust her. So
- 28:09Speaker 8: now people are wondering, well, it doesn't necessarily have to
- 28:12Speaker 8: be New York that carries out, you know, the implementation
- 28:14Speaker 8: of the Fed's policies when it comes to their balance sheet,
- 28:17Speaker 8: like this could shift to Dallas. So people are starting
- 28:21Speaker 8: to ask that question or pose that question. At the
- 28:23Speaker 8: same time, though, you know, people are pushing back and saying, no, no, no,
- 28:27Speaker 8: this has to be in New York. We need to
- 28:28Speaker 8: fix what is happening in New York. We need to
- 28:31Speaker 8: retain talent in New York because the banks are here,
- 28:33Speaker 8: and if something happens with the banking system, it's much
- 28:36Speaker 8: easier to call everyone down to Liberty Street and say, hey,
- 28:39Speaker 8: get in here, we got to figure this out than
- 28:41Speaker 8: trying to call people all the way down to Dallas
- 28:43Speaker 8: and say, hey, we got to figure this out.
- 28:45Speaker 2: So historically, the New York Fed has been the branch
- 28:49Speaker 2: that manages the Treasury's balance sheet, correct buying and selling bonds, well.
- 28:54Speaker 8: The Fed's balance sheet, so there are whole things of
- 28:56Speaker 8: treasuries and mbs and such.
- 28:59Speaker 2: So it's been done. And again they have traders there
- 29:01Speaker 2: and stuff that do this. I mean, this is where
- 29:02Speaker 2: it happens in New York.
- 29:04Speaker 8: Well, and you have other like Chicago still has you know,
- 29:07Speaker 8: market analysis people. They still have all these things coming
- 29:10Speaker 8: out of the other banks. But it is primarily a
- 29:13Speaker 8: function of the New York Fed. Their tasked with managing
- 29:15Speaker 8: their Fed's portfolio. Roberto Pearly is the SOMA manager, so
- 29:19Speaker 8: he manages the FED securities portfolio. You know, so these things,
- 29:23Speaker 8: and so the New York Fed really post financial crisis,
- 29:26Speaker 8: has just taken on such a larger role. They've essentially
- 29:29Speaker 8: become like a giant broker dealer just given the size
- 29:33Speaker 8: and the sheer size of their balance sheet. And that's
- 29:36Speaker 8: you know, someone like Christopher Whalen is making the argument
- 29:39Speaker 8: that you don't need an academic We don't, you know.
- 29:41Speaker 8: It's you don't need an academic running the New York Fed.
- 29:45Speaker 8: You need someone who's comfortable with operations, with the nuts
- 29:47Speaker 8: and bolts, and can kind of see it from a
- 29:49Speaker 8: more markets oriented perspective than an academic one.
- 29:54Speaker 5: So how do they pitch that?
- 29:55Speaker 6: Because who's going to give up a job at Goldman
- 29:59Speaker 6: that pays a nice tongue of change. Actually have no
- 30:01Speaker 6: idea how much the New York Fed does, but I
- 30:02Speaker 6: have to assume it's less.
- 30:04Speaker 5: How do I do it?
- 30:04Speaker 8: It's like I think, when I last look at the
- 30:07Speaker 8: annual report from twenty twenty three, I think it's like
- 30:09Speaker 8: a little over half a million dollars that the president
- 30:11Speaker 8: of the New York Fed makes. But I mean, look, Beth Hammock,
- 30:14Speaker 8: who ran funding, who ran the Goldman sex fundings?
- 30:17Speaker 5: Are she's elevated.
- 30:19Speaker 8: She's taking the role as the Cleveland Fed president. You know,
- 30:23Speaker 8: Lorie Logan could always you know, people are speculating that
- 30:26Speaker 8: she could come back to New York and run it.
- 30:28Speaker 8: You know, these are the kinds of people I think
- 30:30Speaker 8: that they envision when they're thinking about the role, and
- 30:33Speaker 8: who could who can you know, possibly you know, helm
- 30:37Speaker 8: the New York Fed after John Williams, who decides to
- 30:39Speaker 8: retire a step down.
- 30:41Speaker 3: Do we have a problem with John Williams.
- 30:43Speaker 2: Is that a people placing the blame on these departures
- 30:46Speaker 2: on John Williams and his.
- 30:47Speaker 8: Style, or you know, I think it's a I think
- 30:51Speaker 8: it's a bit of both.
- 30:52Speaker 5: I think, you know, again, you know, when we.
- 30:54Speaker 8: Spoke to people, the message was always he is a
- 30:58Speaker 8: brilliant macro economist, but just ill suited for the role.
- 31:02Speaker 8: I also think culturally, the other sense I got from
- 31:05Speaker 8: people is that, you know, culturally it's very different than
- 31:09Speaker 8: the San Francisco Fed, which is what he was running
- 31:11Speaker 8: for seven years before he came and took the role
- 31:14Speaker 8: in New York. It's just very different. And you know,
- 31:16Speaker 8: sometimes culturally people don't fit and that's okay, and so
- 31:21Speaker 8: that's something to also think about. And so I think
- 31:25Speaker 8: it's a bit of both. I think it is somewhat
- 31:27Speaker 8: of the culture and just sort of not meshing you know,
- 31:32Speaker 8: they were just sort of ill suited for each other.
- 31:34Speaker 5: Right, We'll keep an eye on good stuff.
- 31:36Speaker 3: Yeah, Alex Harris, thank you so much for We appreciate it.
- 31:38Speaker 3: Alex Harrish. She's a short term interest rate reporter working.
- 31:41Speaker 2: On the big Take story here today, Talent Exit at Williams,
- 31:45Speaker 2: New York stokes concern on its sway in the marketplace
- 31:49Speaker 2: about the New York Federal Reserve. And you can catch
- 31:52Speaker 2: those big take stories Bloomberg dot Com Slash Big Take
- 31:55Speaker 2: or go on the Bloomberg terminal NI Space Big Take.
- 31:58Speaker 3: Another good one today.
- 31:59Speaker 1: Here you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us
- 32:05Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on applecard Play and
- 32:08Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also
- 32:11Speaker 1: listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station,
- 32:15Speaker 1: Just Say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 32:20Speaker 3: Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney.
- 32:21Speaker 2: We're live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio in
- 32:23Speaker 2: Midtown Manhattan, what I'm going to call an A plus building.
- 32:27Speaker 2: We're also streaming live on YouTube as well, as you
- 32:30Speaker 2: can head over to YouTube and search Bloomberg Podcast talking
- 32:33Speaker 2: about real estate on the commercial side. It is a
- 32:36Speaker 2: hot topic for a lot of folks, particularly those in
- 32:39Speaker 2: larger markets, where you're really trying to figure out how
- 32:41Speaker 2: this commercial real estate, particularly the office real estate market
- 32:43Speaker 2: is going to shake out here and what the impacts
- 32:45Speaker 2: that will have across the economy. We have an expert
- 32:48Speaker 2: with us today, Ken Fisher, joins us. He's a partner
- 32:49Speaker 2: at Fisher Brothers. Joins us here on our Bloomberg Interactive
- 32:52Speaker 2: Broker studio. Ken, thanks so much for.
- 32:54Speaker 3: Joining us here.
- 32:55Speaker 2: Let's just start right here in New York City office
- 32:58Speaker 2: real estate.
- 33:00Speaker 12: That's your view, Well, we're looking at a really a
- 33:03Speaker 12: bifurcated market. There's the class A trophy market, and there's
- 33:08Speaker 12: just about everything else. What we've seen in our portfolio
- 33:13Speaker 12: is a lot of activity. Tours are still fairly robust,
- 33:19Speaker 12: and we have we've made some very very big deals,
- 33:22Speaker 12: some of the biggest deals in the country over the
- 33:24Speaker 12: last year, year and a half.
- 33:26Speaker 6: Yeah, let's get to some of Yeah, let's get to
- 33:29Speaker 6: some of that, just to get perspective to the listeners.
- 33:31Speaker 6: Fisher Brothers has a core commercial portfolio in New York
- 33:34Speaker 6: City right that includes thirteen forty five Avenue of the
- 33:36Speaker 6: America's twenty two hundred and ninety nine Park Avenue and
- 33:39Speaker 6: Park Avenue Plaza like these are like big, huge centers
- 33:44Speaker 6: that are really iconic in the financial industry. Talk to
- 33:47Speaker 6: us about the kind of leases that you were signing,
- 33:49Speaker 6: say last year, and what kind of leases are you
- 33:52Speaker 6: signing this year.
- 33:53Speaker 12: Well, that's been fairly consistent. The rents themselves have been
- 33:59Speaker 12: fairly stag that they've been.
- 34:01Speaker 7: They haven't moved much.
- 34:02Speaker 12: What has moved is then effective rents, the rents after
- 34:06Speaker 12: you factor in tenant improvement allowances and brokerage commissions and
- 34:10Speaker 12: free rent, that number has gotten hit substantially. The amount
- 34:14Speaker 12: of landlord worked has also increased. So as part of
- 34:17Speaker 12: making the deal there's tenant improvement allowance. There's also the
- 34:20Speaker 12: work that the landlord has to do in terms of
- 34:23Speaker 12: capital expenditures to make the buildings leasable.
- 34:26Speaker 2: So take for example, at thirteen forty five Avenue of America's,
- 34:30Speaker 2: which those of us who have been here for more
- 34:32Speaker 2: than fifteen minutes called sixth Avenue. Paul Weiss, big New
- 34:37Speaker 2: York City law firm, just took I guess fifteen year
- 34:40Speaker 2: one hundred and forty three thousand, square foot lease. So
- 34:46Speaker 2: is that new space? Are they just kind of repositioning space?
- 34:49Speaker 2: And what did you have to do? You have to
- 34:50Speaker 2: put in pool tables and ping pong tables, all that
- 34:53Speaker 2: kind of selling.
- 34:53Speaker 12: I wish it was that simple. First it was seven
- 34:56Speaker 12: hundred and sixty five thousands. Okay, we had a million
- 34:59Speaker 12: square foot vacant see facing us in twenty twenty five
- 35:03Speaker 12: with Alliance Bernstein moving out to Nashville, and so, you know,
- 35:08Speaker 12: year before the pandemic, we actually looked inside the portfolio
- 35:13Speaker 12: because we knew that we were competing now not only
- 35:15Speaker 12: with our comp set, but also with new construction. We'd
- 35:18Speaker 12: seen millions and millions of square feet of new construction
- 35:21Speaker 12: that we hadn't seen since the sixties. Wow, And so
- 35:24Speaker 12: we knew we had to invest and reposition the portfolio,
- 35:28Speaker 12: and so we did so. And then of course the
- 35:30Speaker 12: pandemic hit. And so in the middle of repositioning these
- 35:35Speaker 12: assets with you know, massive amenities like we see here
- 35:39Speaker 12: in this building, we also had to modify our stance
- 35:42Speaker 12: and start.
- 35:43Speaker 7: COVID proofing the buildings.
- 35:45Speaker 12: So we did HVAC work, a touchless experience, bluetooth technology,
- 35:51Speaker 12: all of that stuff that we hear about we incorporated
- 35:53Speaker 12: into our portfolio, and the result was, you know, while
- 35:58Speaker 12: again we said that rents were fairly stable, it was
- 36:01Speaker 12: the amount of work that it.
- 36:02Speaker 7: Took to get Paul Weise in.
- 36:04Speaker 12: So it was not just what we saw in the
- 36:06Speaker 12: deal itself, but what we had to do the repositioned
- 36:09Speaker 12: ability to get Paul Weiss.
- 36:10Speaker 7: To look at it.
- 36:12Speaker 5: So, was that a healthy commercial real estate market? Is
- 36:15Speaker 5: that an investment cycle?
- 36:17Speaker 11: Like?
- 36:17Speaker 5: How would you then describe it?
- 36:21Speaker 12: Well, you know, again we're looking at a bifurcated market,
- 36:24Speaker 12: so you know, we're competing with other Class A assets
- 36:31Speaker 12: and so we long before the pandemic hit, we just
- 36:35Speaker 12: knew what we were going to have to do. There
- 36:37Speaker 12: was a stat that came out years ago that almost
- 36:40Speaker 12: sixty percent of the market was over sixty years or earther,
- 36:44Speaker 12: and so we fell into that concept.
- 36:47Speaker 7: We fell into that grouping, and so.
- 36:49Speaker 12: It became very very important for us to reinvest in
- 36:52Speaker 12: the portfolio. And I think we will see that those
- 36:55Speaker 12: who have reinvested and spent the capital expenditures necessary to
- 36:59Speaker 12: reposition buildings have had some activity, and those who haven't
- 37:03Speaker 12: have not.
- 37:04Speaker 2: One of my first Wall Street interviews was in Park
- 37:06Speaker 2: Avenue Plaza, the old First Boston Corporation back in.
- 37:09Speaker 3: The day, and I was like, oh, this.
- 37:11Speaker 7: Is really real place.
- 37:13Speaker 3: Yes it does, Yes it does for many reasons. What
- 37:15Speaker 3: percentage of.
- 37:16Speaker 2: New York City is a type of quality?
- 37:22Speaker 7: Oh gee, that's tought. I mean it's it's a It's
- 37:25Speaker 7: not fifty No, it's not.
- 37:28Speaker 2: So it's less than that. So I'm just getting to
- 37:31Speaker 2: the question. Bloomberg News I referenced this article many times.
- 37:36Speaker 2: A year and a half ago. Two years ago, Bloomberg
- 37:38Speaker 2: News wrote a story about Third Avenue Times Square to write,
- 37:42Speaker 2: where we are at Bloomberg's headquarters here fifty eighth Street, what.
- 37:46Speaker 7: Do you do with that inventory?
- 37:48Speaker 3: Because that's not a inventory for most of the most.
- 37:50Speaker 12: Work, it's not if you look at if you look
- 37:52Speaker 12: at the sub markets, you can you can kind of
- 37:54Speaker 12: look at it from that. From that perspective, Park Avenue,
- 37:57Speaker 12: sixth Avenue, these.
- 37:58Speaker 7: Are the hot market.
- 37:59Speaker 12: These are the hot places that a lot of deals
- 38:02Speaker 12: are going because of the flight to quality that exists
- 38:04Speaker 12: when market conditions take a you know, take a little
- 38:07Speaker 12: bit of a stump. What we've seen is we have
- 38:10Speaker 12: a building at six oh five Third Avenue, which straddles
- 38:12Speaker 12: to sub markets, and so you know, look, it puts
- 38:16Speaker 12: everything on the table. We've even examined the possibility of
- 38:21Speaker 12: conversion to residential, which you know, again takes a lot
- 38:26Speaker 12: of resources to do, so that's something that we've discussed.
- 38:30Speaker 12: I don't think it's going to be relevant to six
- 38:31Speaker 12: oh five, but again, you know, it's it's looking at
- 38:34Speaker 12: this at the market in the form of sub markets
- 38:37Speaker 12: and what is happening, and you can see the data.
- 38:40Speaker 12: You know where most of these deals are happening are
- 38:43Speaker 12: along those.
- 38:43Speaker 7: To those markets.
- 38:45Speaker 5: You're sorry, go ahead, but I.
- 38:47Speaker 2: Guess my question is just pick a building out of
- 38:49Speaker 2: thin air on Third Avenue, the Lipstick Building, because maybe
- 38:52Speaker 2: some people are out of town can think about that building.
- 38:54Speaker 3: That's what we're talking about.
- 38:55Speaker 2: If that were to trade hands today, discount from pre pandemic.
- 39:01Speaker 7: Just about it, I would say, wow, pretty close.
- 39:03Speaker 3: That is amazing. That's to me. We haven't seen that
- 39:06Speaker 3: market clear, have we No?
- 39:08Speaker 5: But does it have to I have to, like someone
- 39:12Speaker 5: going to sell the building tomorrow.
- 39:13Speaker 2: Loans are coming up to be refinanced, and they have
- 39:15Speaker 2: to do with a higher interest rate environment, so a
- 39:17Speaker 2: lot of hands are going to be forced in the
- 39:18Speaker 2: next couple of years, don't you think.
- 39:20Speaker 12: I think yeah, I think you're more likely to see
- 39:23Speaker 12: in a lot of cases, you know, workouts where there
- 39:26Speaker 12: will be more equity required, you know, be invested back in.
- 39:30Speaker 12: There'll be stricter covenants, more leasing reserves and reserves in general.
- 39:36Speaker 12: I think you'll see that rather than the keys being
- 39:40Speaker 12: handed back, And if it's a B or a C market,
- 39:43Speaker 12: you might see residential conversions be discussed. I think you know,
- 39:48Speaker 12: it's going to depend you know, in relation to that,
- 39:51Speaker 12: it's going to depend a lot on when the loan
- 39:53Speaker 12: matures as it relates to lease explorations.
- 39:57Speaker 6: Yeah, in terms of your reinvestment in the equity you
- 39:59Speaker 6: have to put in, are you done in that cycle
- 40:01Speaker 6: or are you still putting in a bunch of cash
- 40:03Speaker 6: to update all your stuff?
- 40:04Speaker 12: No, we have repositioned our portfolio and I can still eat.
- 40:10Speaker 7: So that's why he.
- 40:11Speaker 5: Laughed at himself. When are you talking about it?
- 40:13Speaker 12: We have we have made a substantial reinvestment and the
- 40:16Speaker 12: results are that we have you know.
- 40:18Speaker 5: We have leased, but that cycle's done for us?
- 40:21Speaker 7: Yes?
- 40:21Speaker 5: Yes, okay?
- 40:22Speaker 6: Do you feel like others are really are they also
- 40:24Speaker 6: starting to do it now? Or do you feel like
- 40:27Speaker 6: for everyone that cycle is is done.
- 40:30Speaker 9: No.
- 40:30Speaker 12: I think I think you'll. It depends again on the
- 40:32Speaker 12: asset and the sub market. You've got to be very
- 40:34Speaker 12: careful about the amount of money you have to do
- 40:36Speaker 12: it surgically. You can't invest the same amount of money
- 40:40Speaker 12: that you would put into thirteen forty five, say it's
- 40:42Speaker 12: six oh five as an example. So I think there'll
- 40:45Speaker 12: be some, you know, some buildings yet to be repositioned,
- 40:48Speaker 12: and there'll be some buildings that.
- 40:50Speaker 7: Have gone through the cycle.
- 40:51Speaker 2: Would you I don't know if you have a speculative
- 40:54Speaker 2: part of your company that says, I'm going to go
- 40:57Speaker 2: bid thirty cents on the dollar for this building on
- 40:59Speaker 2: Third Avenue because I think at that valuation, even if
- 41:02Speaker 2: I have to put money into that building, I can
- 41:04Speaker 2: make a good return. Are you guys thinking about that
- 41:07Speaker 2: or you just kind of focus on your core portfolio?
- 41:09Speaker 7: No, I think we have enough to focus on right now.
- 41:11Speaker 12: We've actually developed over the last couple of years about
- 41:14Speaker 12: twelve hundred multifamily with three hundred yet to come down
- 41:18Speaker 12: and Winwood in Miami. We're developing that right now. And
- 41:24Speaker 12: you know, I think as far as we are concerned.
- 41:27Speaker 12: We also have a major immersive retail experiential development in
- 41:32Speaker 12: Las Vegas. That's plenty for us right now.
- 41:35Speaker 2: Okay, Ken Fisher for joining us. Really appreciated, Ken Fisher.
- 41:40Speaker 2: He's a partner of Fisher Brothers. For those of you
- 41:42Speaker 2: who don't know it, I mean, particularly I think what
- 41:44Speaker 2: I've learned about commercial real estate, it is oftentimes a
- 41:47Speaker 2: family business. And there's a handful of New York real
- 41:49Speaker 2: estate families, including the Fishers. But you think about the
- 41:53Speaker 2: Dursts and the Tishman's and the Rudens and all that,
- 41:55Speaker 2: and the Fishers are right there, and it's kind of
- 41:57Speaker 2: a family business for a lot of these pies, with
- 42:00Speaker 2: substantial Wall Street support, of course in terms of financing.
- 42:03Speaker 2: But you go around New York City and other major
- 42:05Speaker 2: markets and you see the same names time and time
- 42:07Speaker 2: again in terms of it. Fourth generation now, yeah, fourth generation,
- 42:11Speaker 2: just family business. Great stuff, Ken Fisher, Thank you very much.
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