Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Netflix to Buy Warner Bros. in $72 Billion Cash, Stock Deal
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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- 0:24Speaker 2: It is Merger Friday.
- 0:25Speaker 3: Here Netflix agree to by Warner Brothers Discovery in a
- 0:28Speaker 3: historic combination, joining the world's dominant paid streaming service with
- 0:33Speaker 3: one of Hollywood's oldest and most revered studios. To get
- 0:36Speaker 3: the bottom of this, gets some real analysis with this
- 0:39Speaker 3: return to Githa rang Annat and she covers all the
- 0:41Speaker 3: media companies for Bloomberg Intelligence here. You know, it's interesting, getha.
- 0:48Speaker 3: You could argue that paramount sky Dance and Comcasts arguably
- 0:52Speaker 3: needed this Warner Brothers Discovery company more than Netflix. Yeah,
- 0:57Speaker 3: Netflix comes out on top here. What do you think
- 0:59Speaker 3: the strategy for netfocuses?
- 1:02Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you so much, Paul, So definitely in Netflix here.
- 1:05Speaker 4: Kind of really looking at the future. I mean we
- 1:07Speaker 4: are I think at you know, this cusp of the
- 1:10Speaker 4: media landscape kind of completely changing with the advent of
- 1:14Speaker 4: jen Ai, and I think the barriers to entry for
- 1:17Speaker 4: anybody is going to come down substantially because the costs
- 1:19Speaker 4: to produce content are going to come down substantially. And
- 1:22Speaker 4: I think Netflix kind of sees the writing on the
- 1:24Speaker 4: wall and says that they really need to play the
- 1:26Speaker 4: long game here and deepen their library with a lot
- 1:29Speaker 4: of the beloved and you know, global franchises that Warner
- 1:33Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery has to offer. So I'm just absolutely not
- 1:36Speaker 4: seen as existential for Netflix at all, but I think
- 1:40Speaker 4: they see it as existential from a long range perspective.
- 1:44Speaker 4: But of course the big losers here definitely Paramount and Comcast,
- 1:48Speaker 4: at least in the short run.
- 1:50Speaker 5: In talking about Paramount and Comcast here, how are we
- 1:53Speaker 5: thinking about the added pressures that they may be potentially
- 1:55Speaker 5: facing if we think about the fact that they are
- 1:57Speaker 5: lower or subscale I should say, into their streaming in
- 2:00Speaker 5: comparison to Netflix.
- 2:02Speaker 4: Yeah, this is pretty much game over. You know, we
- 2:05Speaker 4: already knew that Netflix had won the streaming wars. Now
- 2:08Speaker 4: without a shred of doubt, they are going to cement
- 2:11Speaker 4: their dominance. I mean, you just look at the numbers,
- 2:14Speaker 4: four hundred and fifty million global streamers. Yes, Paramount Plus
- 2:17Speaker 4: was already a subscale streamer with only about seventy million subscribers.
- 2:20Speaker 4: Peacock is even in worse shape with you know, only
- 2:23Speaker 4: close about forty to forty five million. So this really
- 2:26Speaker 4: kind of puts, you know, tremendous pressure on them, and
- 2:30Speaker 4: they really have to come up with some kind of
- 2:32Speaker 4: strategy to to you know, fortify their businesses. Maybe they
- 2:37Speaker 4: have to look at a potential combination. I don't know
- 2:39Speaker 4: what it's going to look like.
- 2:41Speaker 3: Keith and we talked who spoke earlier this morning to Jenrie.
- 2:44Speaker 3: She covers all the anti trust stuff for Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 2:47Speaker 3: Since she suggested that this will face a very difficult
- 2:50Speaker 3: regulatory review.
- 2:52Speaker 2: What if that is.
- 2:53Speaker 3: In fact the case, what do you think Netflix would
- 2:57Speaker 3: be willing to do to maybe get this deal done with?
- 2:59Speaker 3: They think about selling some massets here.
- 3:03Speaker 4: They definitely could, so so far paut there. They're saying
- 3:06Speaker 4: all the right things. They're saying everything you know that
- 3:08Speaker 4: should assuage any regulatory regulatory fears that said, I mean,
- 3:13Speaker 4: you are combining the number one streaming service in the
- 3:15Speaker 4: world with the number three streaming service. Obviously a lot
- 3:18Speaker 4: of red flags there. Potentially They are, however, saying that
- 3:21Speaker 4: this is going to be good for consumers. This you know,
- 3:24Speaker 4: it's going to provide more consumer choice, that's actually going
- 3:26Speaker 4: to lower costs for consumers because you know, they're going
- 3:29Speaker 4: to be able to sell a bundle of HBO Max
- 3:32Speaker 4: with Netflix, potentially lowering costs by I don't know, thirty
- 3:35Speaker 4: forty percent. So that's one thing they're saying. The second
- 3:37Speaker 4: thing where there was obviously a lot of concern, and
- 3:39Speaker 4: not just from regulators but also from Hollywood content and
- 3:42Speaker 4: Hollywood moguls, would be that, you know, Netflix has typically
- 3:46Speaker 4: been very anti theatrical, so they talk always about day
- 3:50Speaker 4: and date releases, how you know, movies should be released
- 3:53Speaker 4: directly to streaming, and so obviously there's been a lot
- 3:55Speaker 4: of backlash from the exhibitors, from the theater, from the
- 3:59Speaker 4: you know, create community. But Netflix again kind of plicating everybody,
- 4:03Speaker 4: saying that they are going to continue the Warner theatrical
- 4:06Speaker 4: strategy by continuing to release those fifteen twenty movies year
- 4:10Speaker 4: after year in the theaters. And the last thing that
- 4:13Speaker 4: you know, everybody has been worried about is we have
- 4:15Speaker 4: to remember that Warner is actually a huge content supplier,
- 4:18Speaker 4: so they supply all of these big shows or you
- 4:20Speaker 4: think of Ted Lasso on Apple Tweed that's a Warner show.
- 4:24Speaker 4: So you know, again, are they going to pull The
- 4:26Speaker 4: big question is is Netflix going to pull back on that,
- 4:28Speaker 4: on all that content, And just this morning Ted Sarandos
- 4:32Speaker 4: said on the call that no, we're not. You know,
- 4:34Speaker 4: Warner Studio is going to continue to do whatever it
- 4:36Speaker 4: has been doing. But again, you know, not really sure
- 4:40Speaker 4: how that's going to work for Netflix if they you know,
- 4:43Speaker 4: just continue to do that. But so far they're saying
- 4:45Speaker 4: all the right things from you know, a regulatory standpoint.
- 4:47Speaker 5: So from a consumer experience standpoint here if it's Netflix
- 4:51Speaker 5: and they've got Warner Brothers Discovery here, we're thinking about
- 4:54Speaker 5: HBO Max and things of that sort. Essentially, are you
- 4:56Speaker 5: going to maybe see some sort of merger of experience
- 4:59Speaker 5: when you go on to net you're also accessing HBO
- 5:01Speaker 5: or will it be more of a bundle mindset here?
- 5:04Speaker 4: Yeah, So that is what has been really difficult to
- 5:07Speaker 4: parse out Nora. So they were asked this question again
- 5:09Speaker 4: repeatedly this in this morning's call. Is HBO Max kind
- 5:12Speaker 4: of going to be like one of the tiles that
- 5:14Speaker 4: you would see on a Disney Plus? Right, you go
- 5:16Speaker 4: and you see Pixar and Marvel, and is HBO going
- 5:18Speaker 4: to be something similar to that or are they just
- 5:20Speaker 4: going to continue to run the two services completely independently.
- 5:24Speaker 4: If you kind of run the math, it just doesn't
- 5:27Speaker 4: make sense for them to have two separate streaming platforms
- 5:31Speaker 4: because you have all of the overhead expenses and the
- 5:33Speaker 4: corporates and all of that to a company at that
- 5:36Speaker 4: so that doesn't really make sense. I think at some
- 5:37Speaker 4: point they basically fold in HBO max all of that
- 5:40Speaker 4: content onto Netflix, although they haven't necessarily clarified that, but
- 5:44Speaker 4: I think that in you know, basically helps them from
- 5:47Speaker 4: a cost perspective, helps them from a content perspective, and
- 5:49Speaker 4: then really helps them with engagement, which is really what
- 5:51Speaker 4: they're looking for. Deepen engagement on the Netflix platform. How
- 5:54Speaker 4: do you do that by increasing the amount of content?
- 5:57Speaker 4: So I think eventually that is the game plan, But
- 6:00Speaker 4: no specifics from the Netflix management team just yet.
- 6:03Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 6:10Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
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- 6:24Speaker 3: A big deal of the day, Netflix acquiring Warner Brothers Discovery.
- 6:29Speaker 3: What's the regulatory framework? Are the regulators going to take
- 6:31Speaker 3: a look at this deal? This is a monster deal
- 6:33Speaker 3: in terms of dollars, you know, eighty billion dollars of
- 6:35Speaker 3: enterprise value. Let's check in with Jennifer Rea, Bloomberg Intelligence
- 6:38Speaker 3: senior litigation analysts.
- 6:40Speaker 2: So, Jen, this is a big deal. How the regulator's
- 6:43Speaker 2: going to view this?
- 6:47Speaker 6: It really is, Paul, and I think, and we've seen
- 6:49Speaker 6: a lot of opposition to it coming out already. I
- 6:52Speaker 6: think it's going to get really significant scrutiny, not just
- 6:55Speaker 6: in the United States by the Department of Justice, but
- 6:58Speaker 6: likely also in Europe and by the UK and possibly
- 7:01Speaker 6: some other jurisdictions as well. But you know, they're going
- 7:04Speaker 6: to look at these overlaps, which in this case are
- 7:07Speaker 6: both horizontal. That's in streaming. They both provide stream both
- 7:10Speaker 6: companies provide streaming services, but they're also vertical. You have
- 7:13Speaker 6: a big streaming service buying a big movie and TV
- 7:17Speaker 6: producer and a big content a library of content, and
- 7:21Speaker 6: that creates vertical issues. And when a company is really
- 7:26Speaker 6: strong in both levels of a supply chain. When they
- 7:29Speaker 6: vertically integrate this way, that can raise concerns too, So
- 7:31Speaker 6: the Department of Justice is going to have to dig
- 7:34Speaker 6: into both of those issues. And last, Paul, I'll say
- 7:37Speaker 6: this because we haven't seen very much about it, but
- 7:39Speaker 6: there's also what we call a monopsony concern here. Monopsony
- 7:43Speaker 6: is when there are a merger results and too few
- 7:45Speaker 6: buyers of a service or product. So in this case,
- 7:48Speaker 6: you've got two huge creators of scripted content that are
- 7:51Speaker 6: coming together and that could have a negative impact on
- 7:54Speaker 6: the artists, the production people, the writers that go into
- 7:58Speaker 6: making all the TV and movie content that the companies make.
- 8:02Speaker 5: Jennifer walk us through what exactly happens to the deal
- 8:05Speaker 5: if the DOJ or regulators more broadly decide to push
- 8:09Speaker 5: back on this.
- 8:10Speaker 6: Sure, So there are a couple different things that can happen.
- 8:12Speaker 6: I'll start by saying this. In depth investigation usually starts
- 8:15Speaker 6: by issuing what are called second requests for information. Those
- 8:18Speaker 6: are like really big subpoenas where they're going to get
- 8:20Speaker 6: a lot of business documents, a lot of data and
- 8:23Speaker 6: information from the companies. Now, once the DOJ has looked
- 8:26Speaker 6: at all that material. They have to decide either they
- 8:29Speaker 6: clear it out right, they clear it with the negotiated
- 8:31Speaker 6: settlement with the companies, or they soon to try to
- 8:34Speaker 6: block it in trial. A negotiated settlement could mean agreeing
- 8:38Speaker 6: to divest a product such as HBO max and or
- 8:42Speaker 6: agreeing to behavioral remedies such as making promises about the
- 8:45Speaker 6: way the post merger firm will behave in the marketplace.
- 8:48Speaker 6: But if something like that can't be agreed upon, then
- 8:52Speaker 6: the only thing the DJ has left to do is
- 8:54Speaker 6: go to trial and seek a permanent injunction from a
- 8:57Speaker 6: judge that blocks the companies from closing the deal. They
- 9:00Speaker 6: did that when AT and T he tried to buy
- 9:02Speaker 6: Time Warner several many years ago. But I'll contrast that
- 9:07Speaker 6: to when Comcasts bought NBCU. They also had some concerns there,
- 9:10Speaker 6: but they entered a settlement agreement with respect to that deal.
- 9:14Speaker 3: Jen Politics, I think politics is going to come into
- 9:17Speaker 3: this deal, maybe more so than some others here generally,
- 9:20Speaker 3: I guess, on the one hand, we have an administration
- 9:22Speaker 3: that presumably is more open to consolidation across industries, taking
- 9:27Speaker 3: a lighter touch. But then there's also a president who
- 9:31Speaker 3: makes it personal oftentimes.
- 9:33Speaker 2: Do we have any idea how that might shake out?
- 9:36Speaker 6: You know, Paul, You're exactly right, And it makes it
- 9:38Speaker 6: so hard nowadays to actually really do a true anti
- 9:41Speaker 6: trust analysis of a deal because we have seen the
- 9:44Speaker 6: Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, I could say,
- 9:48Speaker 6: aligning with the Trump administration in anti trust outcomes for
- 9:52Speaker 6: deals and pushing the policy priorities of the administration and
- 9:56Speaker 6: listening to what the President has to say. So where
- 9:59Speaker 6: the pre and the administration is against a deal, it
- 10:02Speaker 6: is a higher risk, i would say, of that deal
- 10:05Speaker 6: having to defend itself in court and the Department of
- 10:08Speaker 6: Justice seeking a block. But on the other hand, Paul,
- 10:10Speaker 6: we don't really know what's going on behind the scenes.
- 10:13Speaker 6: You know, we've seen some of these companies to mergers
- 10:15Speaker 6: hire some Trump aligned lobbyists, powerful people in Washington that
- 10:20Speaker 6: have helped them to push through the deal that was
- 10:22Speaker 6: the allegation with respect to the settlement the DJ entered
- 10:25Speaker 6: when Hewlett Packard bought Juniper. We don't know what other
- 10:28Speaker 6: kinds of concessions or agreements are being made. You know,
- 10:31Speaker 6: this is all sort of the back room channels and
- 10:34Speaker 6: without knowing that It's hard to understand where the administration
- 10:38Speaker 6: may come out months from now in the end on
- 10:40Speaker 6: the deal, but at least for right now, we know
- 10:42Speaker 6: that the administration doesn't look happy about this buyer. They
- 10:45Speaker 6: would have preferred Paramount.
- 10:46Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 10:53Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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- 11:01Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
- 11:04Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 11:07Speaker 5: We did get some earnings out of Hewlett Packard Enterprise,
- 11:10Speaker 5: that's taker HPE. We did see that this essentially disappointed
- 11:14Speaker 5: what investors were looking for here. We did see the
- 11:16Speaker 5: company gave an outlook for sales in the current quarter
- 11:19Speaker 5: that fell short of the high expectations, particularly for its
- 11:22Speaker 5: AI server business. And we've got the best person to
- 11:25Speaker 5: help us break this down. We're looking at going to
- 11:27Speaker 5: be chatting with Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech analyst Wu Jinho.
- 11:31Speaker 5: He's coming to us out of Princeton, New Jersey. Tell
- 11:33Speaker 5: us a little bit about what you took away from
- 11:35Speaker 5: this earnings report.
- 11:37Speaker 7: Oh yeah, thanks for having me so I actually like it.
- 11:42Speaker 7: I know there was a high focus on the revenue
- 11:44Speaker 7: numbers for the upcoming quarter, but EPs they actually erased
- 11:49Speaker 7: the EPs guidance from two twenty on the lower end
- 11:52Speaker 7: to two twenty five and two forty on the high
- 11:54Speaker 7: end to two forty five. So essentially, the strategy that
- 11:58Speaker 7: Antonio straight laid out with the Juniper acquisition is working
- 12:02Speaker 7: out as planned. It is cushioning some of these higher
- 12:05Speaker 7: commodity costs and the higher AI mix. So you despite
- 12:10Speaker 7: the disappointing one Q sales outlook, the overall years should
- 12:14Speaker 7: be fine.
- 12:15Speaker 3: So the company's talking about, you know, substantial interest in
- 12:19Speaker 3: its AI servers, and they call out governments, and that's
- 12:22Speaker 3: kind of new for me at least. I guess I'm
- 12:24Speaker 3: kind of used to talking about the hyper scalers, whether
- 12:26Speaker 3: it's Microsoft or Amazon. I've just spent maybe other categories
- 12:30Speaker 3: of people that may be making some AI investments and servers.
- 12:35Speaker 7: Yeah, hey, Paul, So let's think about the sovereigns. Let's
- 12:39Speaker 7: think about the Saudi's, the US, the US federal government,
- 12:44Speaker 7: they are going to start ramping up their own AI
- 12:49Speaker 7: initiatives as well, right, the Department of Energy, Department of defense.
- 12:53Speaker 7: They're customers of HPEES Supercompute, and they're going to convert
- 12:57Speaker 7: from supercomputing to AI s servers as some of these
- 13:01Speaker 7: configurations start rolling out. They already you know, h HPE
- 13:06Speaker 7: already has some agreements with the saudist. But you know,
- 13:09Speaker 7: and that's one of the issues with with HPE's outlook.
- 13:13Speaker 7: It's more on the timing of when these deals are
- 13:15Speaker 7: flowing through. It's being pushed out more towards the second
- 13:20Speaker 7: half of the year versus the first half. But they
- 13:24Speaker 7: are going to play a much more meaningful role in
- 13:27Speaker 7: the future, not only for HPE, for Dells and super
- 13:29Speaker 7: Micro as well.
- 13:31Speaker 5: So how are they doing in terms of comparison to
- 13:33Speaker 5: competitors in this market.
- 13:36Speaker 7: Well, I mean, you know, HPE has made the strategic
- 13:42Speaker 7: content on not going after these lower margin AI server deals.
- 13:46Speaker 7: If we look at, you know, some of the competitors
- 13:50Speaker 7: the way I have Dell modeled out, they're going to
- 13:54Speaker 7: do roughly about forty billion dollars in AI server revenue.
- 13:56Speaker 7: Super Micro around the seminal level similar level for next
- 14:00Speaker 7: year is probably going to do roughly about five billion
- 14:02Speaker 7: dollars in AI server AI server revenues. In physical twenty six. Now,
- 14:08Speaker 7: look that five billion dollars is not that the sneeze at,
- 14:12Speaker 7: but you know, relatively speaking, it's gonna be much smaller
- 14:15Speaker 7: in scope and scale.
- 14:16Speaker 3: Why are they smaller? Why are they lagging? And is
- 14:18Speaker 3: there a plan for them to kind of narrow that gap?
- 14:21Speaker 7: Yeah, you know, I found that to be disappointing in
- 14:25Speaker 7: terms of lagging. I do think they have the assets
- 14:28Speaker 7: to do so. But at the end of the day,
- 14:32Speaker 7: you know, the management team at HPE is very focused
- 14:35Speaker 7: on shareholder and shareholder value. These AI server deals are
- 14:39Speaker 7: very low in margin and highly competitive, so they're not
- 14:43Speaker 7: chasing after these lower margin deals. And one of the
- 14:45Speaker 7: streetategic reasons on why they're going after HP is going
- 14:49Speaker 7: after these sovereign deals is because they think it's going
- 14:51Speaker 7: to be higher in margin and and hopefully that does
- 14:55Speaker 7: pan out for them, which is one of the reasons
- 14:57Speaker 7: why that you know, we're talking about one fifth the
- 15:00Speaker 7: size of the deal flow for them.
- 15:03Speaker 5: So out of outside of HPE, what else are you
- 15:05Speaker 5: really keeping an eye on right now in this tech space?
- 15:09Speaker 7: Well, well, the AI play is going to be pretty important,
- 15:14Speaker 7: but I will tell you, uh, the d ram story
- 15:17Speaker 7: is actually going to start materializing in as a potential
- 15:21Speaker 7: headwind for all of the hardware space. One thing that
- 15:24Speaker 7: we didn't discuss on HPE is the three hundred percent
- 15:29Speaker 7: rise and d RAM prices is going to affect their
- 15:31Speaker 7: server sales. They think they're going to pass that through
- 15:33Speaker 7: to customers. I have I'm a little bit skeptical, but
- 15:36Speaker 7: I think it's you know, the rise in commodity costs
- 15:38Speaker 7: and d RAM is going to be the new tariff
- 15:41Speaker 7: story in twenty twenty six. That's going to affect a
- 15:43Speaker 7: lot of these hardware vendors.
- 15:45Speaker 2: Why are DRAMs up so much?
- 15:48Speaker 7: AI AI AI, you know these hyperscale the hyperscale cloud
- 15:53Speaker 7: guys are sucking up so much of this memory, and
- 15:56Speaker 7: the DRAM vendors aren't raising the capacity. So when demand
- 15:59Speaker 7: is tilting over one way, uh and some of the
- 16:04Speaker 7: standard DRAMs they're not producing as many DRAMs and the
- 16:07Speaker 7: capacity is not growing, you know, there's no nowhere else
- 16:11Speaker 7: to go for the price to go higher.
- 16:12Speaker 5: I mean, when we think about AI, and we're talking
- 16:14Speaker 5: about HPE right now in particular, our expectation is just
- 16:17Speaker 5: too high. Are people putting so much pressure in these
- 16:20Speaker 5: companies and we're seeing these you know, these estimates and
- 16:22Speaker 5: we're not really seeing them delivering or what's your read
- 16:26Speaker 5: on that?
- 16:27Speaker 7: Well, So let let's let's let's talk about HPE in particular.
- 16:30Speaker 3: Right.
- 16:32Speaker 7: You know, the way I wrote my earnings outlook commentary
- 16:36Speaker 7: was it depends on the lens that you look at, right,
- 16:39Speaker 7: from an earning from a sales lens, the AI sales
- 16:43Speaker 7: did disappoint, right, But if we think about it from
- 16:45Speaker 7: an earnings and a cash flow lens, the networking business
- 16:48Speaker 7: actually did as well as it should have, and it's
- 16:51Speaker 7: doing the work that it's supposed to be doing in
- 16:53Speaker 7: terms of cushioning some of the lower margining business. And
- 16:57Speaker 7: quite frankly, I still think that there's potential for Ernie's
- 17:00Speaker 7: upside if networking execution strengthens going into the rest of
- 17:05Speaker 7: the year.
- 17:06Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 17:13Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 17:17Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
- 17:20Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
- 17:23Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 17:27Speaker 5: Let's switch gears and dig a bit into the industrial space.
- 17:30Speaker 5: I mean, just last month we had a sphears of
- 17:32Speaker 5: a government shutdown continuing, and we saw it was the
- 17:34Speaker 5: longest government shutdown in US history. But this did drag
- 17:38Speaker 5: on a lot of the major airlines. And we have
- 17:40Speaker 5: a wonderful person to discuss us here with us today,
- 17:42Speaker 5: George Ferguson. Of course, he's Bloomberg Intelligence senior Aerospace, Defense
- 17:45Speaker 5: and airlines analysts, and we want to chat a bit
- 17:48Speaker 5: about what's going on in terms of Southwest earnings and
- 17:51Speaker 5: how government shutdown actually weighed potentially on this company here. George,
- 17:55Speaker 5: what is your takeaway here from what we're hearing from Southwest?
- 17:59Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean it was a little bit more than
- 18:00Speaker 8: we expected. I think the impact was about two hundred
- 18:03Speaker 8: million dollars on the quarter. It was in line with
- 18:07Speaker 8: what Delta Airlines had reported. We probably thought, you know,
- 18:12Speaker 8: perhaps Southwest a little bit less impacted as they're not
- 18:15Speaker 8: as heavily into the sort of the high volume airports,
- 18:20Speaker 8: you know. And actually I think it was a bit
- 18:21Speaker 8: surprised as well that they talked about the booking curve.
- 18:24Speaker 8: We think most people, you know, typically book well before
- 18:28Speaker 8: the holiday season, so we wouldn't have expected their booking
- 18:31Speaker 8: curve to be as impacted, But I mean again, I
- 18:34Speaker 8: think it's you know, largely in line with what we expected.
- 18:37Speaker 8: A couple hundred million dollars hit. I don't think it'd
- 18:39Speaker 8: be It's not gonna be terrible.
- 18:41Speaker 3: Stock is up four point six percent today, fifty two
- 18:43Speaker 3: week high for Southwest Airlines. So, George, what's the I
- 18:47Speaker 3: know you've either have publisher working on your twenty twenty
- 18:50Speaker 3: six outlook here, what's kind of the call for the
- 18:53Speaker 3: airlines in the next six or twelve months?
- 18:56Speaker 8: Yes, I mean as we look at you know, twenty
- 18:59Speaker 8: twenty six, we get it like visibility about six months
- 19:02Speaker 8: where the schedule and you know, we've already started to
- 19:04Speaker 8: look at schedules for the new year. So in the
- 19:08Speaker 8: first half of the year, the domestic business appears to
- 19:11Speaker 8: be growing. The domestic capacity for US airlines is.
- 19:15Speaker 9: Growing around GDP is two and a half percent, and
- 19:21Speaker 9: we see less of that growth in the low cost
- 19:24Speaker 9: airlines space.
- 19:25Speaker 8: Now, Southwest is in the middle of migrating between I
- 19:29Speaker 8: don't know if I call them low cost, they call
- 19:31Speaker 8: them budget. They're in the middle of migrating from budget
- 19:33Speaker 8: to an airline that's going to offer premium, you know,
- 19:38Speaker 8: premium seating and some premium services in the new year.
- 19:42Speaker 8: So look, you know, it looks like there is a
- 19:46Speaker 8: not a restructuring, but an adjustment underway again in that
- 19:49Speaker 8: budget low cost world. That's going to be less growth
- 19:53Speaker 8: than you're seeing in the full service the trend we've
- 19:55Speaker 8: seen here in twenty twenty five. So we're thinking that
- 19:58Speaker 8: premium seating, full service seating could be a bit excess
- 20:02Speaker 8: and could see continued push on the unfairs. We're thinking
- 20:08Speaker 8: budget ought to get a bit better. We were projecting
- 20:12Speaker 8: kind of a three percent increase in Southwest yields originally
- 20:15Speaker 8: before the government shut down. Now we're kind of thinking
- 20:18Speaker 8: two and a half percent. I mean, that's really not
- 20:21Speaker 8: bad for four Q So again we think that sort
- 20:24Speaker 8: of carries into the new year. Another big issue in
- 20:26Speaker 8: the new year is going to be a lot of
- 20:28Speaker 8: the US airlines got a bit of a kicker, got
- 20:32Speaker 8: a tailwind from lower fuel prices. We don't see fuel
- 20:36Speaker 8: prices going much lower from here, so that tailwind sort
- 20:40Speaker 8: of peels away in the new year, and that's something
- 20:43Speaker 8: they're going to have to manage as well, even as
- 20:45Speaker 8: they try to get sort of yields sorted out. We
- 20:47Speaker 8: don't see yields improving dramatically right now, but we see
- 20:51Speaker 8: yields probably firming a bit and maybe not falling. As
- 20:54Speaker 8: you know, following George, you have.
- 20:57Speaker 5: A broad view between aerospace, defense, airline, and you know,
- 21:01Speaker 5: as we're kind of wrapping up earning season, if you
- 21:03Speaker 5: want to call it that, did you hear about tariffs
- 21:06Speaker 5: at all during this earning season? Are you expecting to
- 21:08Speaker 5: hear about this in twenty twenty six?
- 21:11Speaker 8: The truth is tariffs. Really there was a little bit
- 21:15Speaker 8: of commentary around tariffs. We heard, I think most of
- 21:18Speaker 8: it from the engine makers, you know, a couple hundred million,
- 21:22Speaker 8: five hundred million here and there, which really doesn't matter
- 21:25Speaker 8: a lot on their business. So largely tariffs look to
- 21:29Speaker 8: have been you know, sort of I don't know if
- 21:32Speaker 8: they were sidestep but avoided by the aerospace supply chain.
- 21:37Speaker 8: One of the things about the aerospace supply chain is
- 21:39Speaker 8: that it definitely bridges the US and Europe, and it's
- 21:44Speaker 8: definitely sort of a you know, a NAFTA. NAFTA is
- 21:46Speaker 8: the old word whatever that North American Free Trade Zone is.
- 21:51Speaker 8: There's a lot of componentry that moves around that those
- 21:55Speaker 8: two regions, and so it's going to be I think
- 21:58Speaker 8: in everyone's best interest to keep tariffs off of aerospace, so,
- 22:05Speaker 8: you know, I think some of that had to play
- 22:07Speaker 8: obviously with the European agreements. In North America, we've seen
- 22:12Speaker 8: some give and take, right as Trump got mad at
- 22:15Speaker 8: at Canada here and there and decided there's going to
- 22:17Speaker 8: put some terrorfts on them. But again largely it's been
- 22:20Speaker 8: side step. The biggest problem was I think Brazil and
- 22:23Speaker 8: late in the you know, late or recently we've seen
- 22:27Speaker 8: the Canadian issue, but I think it's going to go.
- 22:29Speaker 8: I don't think it's going to be big issue.
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