Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / A Generational Opportunity in Distressed Debt

Transcript

A Generational Opportunity in Distressed Debt · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney. Alongside
0:04
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day we bring
0:06
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
0:11
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
0:15
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Let's talk distress debt.
0:22
Speaker 1: One would think that after the sixteen months we've just
0:25
Speaker 1: experienced with the global pandemic and the global economic disruption,
0:30
Speaker 1: that there would be plenty of distress debt. Paul Trigg Yanni.
0:33
Speaker 1: He's a managing director and head of distress debt Ford
0:35
Speaker 1: investco joins us. Paul, thanks so much for taking the
0:38
Speaker 1: time here talk to us about the distress debt market.
0:42
Speaker 1: Are there opportunities out there? Are you seeing more distress
0:45
Speaker 1: debt or the the federal reserve backstoff? Pretty much everything?
0:49
Speaker 1: So thanks for having me. Yes. I think generally speaking,
0:52
Speaker 1: over the last twelve d eighteen months, we have we've
0:55
Speaker 1: really seen a generational opportunity and distress debt investing um.
1:00
Speaker 1: Most companies twelve eighteen months ago had pretty severe revenue
1:04
Speaker 1: shortfalls supply chains in many cases were we're pretty severely disrupted,
1:09
Speaker 1: and in all companies were broadly affected across most geographies,
1:15
Speaker 1: and so there was there was really plenty to do
1:17
Speaker 1: in terms of looking for distressed opportunities. If you fast
1:20
Speaker 1: forward to where we are today, we think many of
1:22
Speaker 1: the larger companies have had access to liquidity, whether that
1:26
Speaker 1: be through the public equity and credit markets rallying, or
1:31
Speaker 1: the federals are backstop as as as you as you mentioned, UM.
1:35
Speaker 1: The caveat to that is that the small cap space,
1:37
Speaker 1: which is a large focus for US, has really been
1:40
Speaker 1: left behind. In many ways. These smaller companies don't have
1:44
Speaker 1: the same level of access to capital. Many of them
1:47
Speaker 1: are private, UM, and many of the lending facilities that
1:51
Speaker 1: were put in place really have not allowed many of
1:54
Speaker 1: these smaller private businesses, several of which are are private
1:59
Speaker 1: equity owned, to access that liquidity. So it's it's still
2:02
Speaker 1: quite a robust opportunity for small companies, Paul. How much
2:05
Speaker 1: has the market view changed? I remember, UM, last year
2:10
Speaker 1: we heard a lot of economists warning about these cascading bankruptcies.
2:15
Speaker 1: It was going to be catastrophic, and it doesn't look
2:18
Speaker 1: like that really happened. No, I think it's I think
2:22
Speaker 1: in our view that's correct, particularly in the in the
2:24
Speaker 1: large cap market. I think many of those companies were
2:27
Speaker 1: able to get get capital through various different means. UM.
2:31
Speaker 1: The equity markets, obviously, as we all know, have come back,
2:34
Speaker 1: the public credit markets have come back, and so UM
2:38
Speaker 1: in large part, the large cap distressed opportunity, which was
2:41
Speaker 1: significant twelve eighteen months ago, seems relatively small today. But
2:47
Speaker 1: that having been said, if you look at the private
2:50
Speaker 1: universe of smaller companies UM, again, if you were to
2:54
Speaker 1: take sort of lower middle market or small cap companies
2:56
Speaker 1: that are generally leveraged buyouts or management buyouts owned by
3:00
Speaker 1: private equity firms, UM, they're still pretty significant opportunity there.
3:05
Speaker 1: And you still are seeing a significant amount of defaults
3:08
Speaker 1: UM in in sub five million dollar companies and and
3:11
Speaker 1: a significant amount of reorganizations. Many of those companies because
3:16
Speaker 1: their private have less access to capital. The direct lending
3:20
Speaker 1: and private credit universe has not has not stepped into
3:23
Speaker 1: finance distressed companies. And if you look, for example, at
3:27
Speaker 1: what we put in place in the US in terms
3:29
Speaker 1: of the main street lending facility that that ended the
3:33
Speaker 1: year less than one percent utilized, which was fairly significantly
3:36
Speaker 1: underutilized obviously because it effectively barred private equity owned companies
3:42
Speaker 1: from borrowing. So UM it's really been a very different
3:46
Speaker 1: story in in the small cab universe in terms of bankruptcies, Paul,
3:50
Speaker 1: what sectors are you guys doing some of your most
3:53
Speaker 1: work right now? So the the the interesting point about
3:57
Speaker 1: the smaller cap segment is that it tends to be
4:00
Speaker 1: more diverse. If you look at large cap distress, it's
4:02
Speaker 1: tended in the last five seven years to be very
4:04
Speaker 1: focused around retail and energy UM, and that's probably not
4:08
Speaker 1: surprising given what's gone on in those two industries. The
4:11
Speaker 1: small cap space over time, if you look over the
4:14
Speaker 1: last two decades, has been pretty pretty diverse in terms
4:17
Speaker 1: of industry focus. So we're looking at companies in general
4:20
Speaker 1: industrials and the healthcare sector, UM, in consumer sectors, in
4:25
Speaker 1: in small financial businesses. So it's it's it's really across
4:28
Speaker 1: the board, UM a very diversified opportunity set in terms
4:32
Speaker 1: of the smaller end of the market. What have you
4:35
Speaker 1: look at it the other way around? I mean you're
4:37
Speaker 1: used to obviously trying to find UM areas that the
4:42
Speaker 1: market sees as distressed, but you think, you know, maybe
4:47
Speaker 1: not may may not fail. Are there industry groups, for example,
4:51
Speaker 1: that you think it's been given too much credit? UM?
4:55
Speaker 1: So we I think we were initially very cautious in
4:58
Speaker 1: some of those industry groups UM that were particularly COVID impacted.
5:02
Speaker 1: And so maybe one way to think about it was
5:04
Speaker 1: UM that there's really been sort of the direct COVID
5:07
Speaker 1: impacted industries UM. And you can think about UM theater
5:10
Speaker 1: change for example, or you can think about shopping malls
5:15
Speaker 1: and things like that where social distancing norms changed over
5:18
Speaker 1: the last twelve to eighteen months, or airlines for example,
5:21
Speaker 1: UM and so obviously UM this pandemic has had a
5:26
Speaker 1: sort of beginning of middle and hopefully an end here
5:28
Speaker 1: and so people have seen their way through UH distress
5:31
Speaker 1: and are looking forward a year or two in terms
5:33
Speaker 1: of normalization of those UM we still remain pretty cautious
5:36
Speaker 1: on on those areas. I think the larger funds and
5:41
Speaker 1: larger cap dis stress market has has shown quite a
5:43
Speaker 1: bit of interest in those, and we're still fairly cautious
5:46
Speaker 1: on that part of the market. Again, those are those
5:48
Speaker 1: are larger companies than we generally focus on um. So
5:52
Speaker 1: that's our thoughts there A. Paul, thanks so much for
5:55
Speaker 1: joining us. Really appreciate getting your thoughts here on this
5:57
Speaker 1: interesting segment of the fixed income markt Pltrigg and he's
6:01
Speaker 1: a managing director and head of Distress Credit at Investco.
6:07
Speaker 1: I want to bring in now Mira Panda. As we said,
6:09
Speaker 1: she's a global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management.
6:14
Speaker 1: And the reason I almost forgot tomorrow is Job's Day.
6:18
Speaker 1: It's a non far forget. This is like Tom's monthly highlights.
6:22
Speaker 1: Well it is. It's I've always called it the Granddaddy
6:25
Speaker 1: of all economic statistics. It's it's a big deal and
6:28
Speaker 1: there's a lot of volatility around it. A lot of
6:30
Speaker 1: times people stopped trading for a moment while it comes out. Um, Amira,
6:34
Speaker 1: welcome to the program. Thanks so much for joining us.
6:36
Speaker 1: Let us get your insight on on what to expect here.
6:39
Speaker 1: You know, we've had some big misses, but obviously things
6:44
Speaker 1: are going in the right direction. Yeah, absolutely, and thanks
6:48
Speaker 1: for having me. So. We're forecasting about six hundred thousand
6:51
Speaker 1: jobs were added in June, so pretty much in line
6:54
Speaker 1: with what we saw back in May. Slightly above but
6:58
Speaker 1: we're probably going to see continued strength and areas like leisure,
7:01
Speaker 1: hospitality broad based within the services. As those areas of
7:05
Speaker 1: the economy really come back, could potentially see um some
7:09
Speaker 1: seasonal effects on the negative side in terms of education
7:12
Speaker 1: as teachers adjournal for the summer. But given the layoffs
7:15
Speaker 1: we've already seen that space, those challenges are are well
7:18
Speaker 1: understood and could be less of a headwind around and
7:21
Speaker 1: I'd say that overall that could bring our unemployment rates
7:23
Speaker 1: from about five point eight percent down to about five
7:27
Speaker 1: point five percent, in line with the decline last month.
7:30
Speaker 1: So ultimately the risk here in the jobs reporters probably
7:33
Speaker 1: really to the downside, and not because the economy is
7:36
Speaker 1: not creating jobs, but just because we can't feel them
7:40
Speaker 1: at a rapid enough clip. So mirror as we think
7:44
Speaker 1: about the jobs market, that brings us to potential for
7:46
Speaker 1: wage inflation we haven't had. You know, there was a
7:50
Speaker 1: period in the market, you know, it's called it a
7:52
Speaker 1: month or two ago where inflation was really a concern
7:55
Speaker 1: for this market. Seems to have faded a little bit.
7:57
Speaker 1: Where are you in terms of thinking about inflation in
7:59
Speaker 1: this market, whether it's transitory, whether there really is some
8:02
Speaker 1: of longer risk concerns. Ultimately, I'd think about it on
8:06
Speaker 1: the basis and then the kind of three to five
8:09
Speaker 1: year basis, and I think from perspective, the higher inflation
8:13
Speaker 1: numbers we're seeing now probably are mostly transitory. We're seeing
8:17
Speaker 1: some of those base effects play out, higher energy prices
8:21
Speaker 1: versus last year, higher services on a on a month
8:25
Speaker 1: over month basis, as services kind of start to come
8:27
Speaker 1: back um evidence of supply chain issues. But look, we've
8:31
Speaker 1: already seen a lot of commodity prices peek out. I
8:33
Speaker 1: think that some of these things will play out over
8:36
Speaker 1: the course of the year. But I mean, as you say,
8:39
Speaker 1: with some of the higher wage pressures will probably in
8:42
Speaker 1: for an environmentment of slightly structurally higher inflation over to
8:46
Speaker 1: say that three to five year timeline, Let's think maybe
8:49
Speaker 1: two to three percent inflation as opposed to the sort
8:52
Speaker 1: of two percent or sub two percent inflation we've been
8:55
Speaker 1: seeing kind of pre COVID post financial crisis. It's no
8:58
Speaker 1: big deal. Me and Paul are children of the seventies.
9:01
Speaker 1: We know what real inflation is like, and that wasn't
9:05
Speaker 1: even like real inflation. It's always interesting. Somebody today brought
9:08
Speaker 1: up the Weimar Republic, and I was like, dude, that
9:11
Speaker 1: was really bad. The seventies were not even there yet,
9:14
Speaker 1: So we're worried about three or four percent. It's n
9:17
Speaker 1: b D. The labor shortages, are they going to be
9:19
Speaker 1: a problem for the market or um just add to
9:22
Speaker 1: upward pressure in such an odd environment in that there's
9:28
Speaker 1: about nine point three million job openings, but there's also
9:31
Speaker 1: about nine point three million people unemployed. So the labor
9:34
Speaker 1: shortage challenge is an interesting one that we're seeing across
9:38
Speaker 1: small business surveys, consumer surveys that people just can't still openings.
9:42
Speaker 1: And I think in the short run that's probably going
9:44
Speaker 1: to continue to push up wages because we are seeing
9:46
Speaker 1: companies either offer you know, bonuses to submit applications, bonuses
9:51
Speaker 1: after you know, two months time, higher wages. We're seeing
9:55
Speaker 1: that in a month over months basis. But the question
9:58
Speaker 1: is how long or a thousand to start for a
9:59
Speaker 1: June your analyst, Yeah, exactly so. But what we are
10:03
Speaker 1: kind of seeing from a broader perspective is that a
10:05
Speaker 1: lot of states are taking away those UH enhanced supplements
10:09
Speaker 1: to unemployment benefits. In fact, about half of states have
10:13
Speaker 1: throughout the month of June and a few more in July,
10:16
Speaker 1: so by the time we get to September when the
10:19
Speaker 1: rest will also expire, and you know, people should be
10:21
Speaker 1: um kind of coming back off the sidelines, combined with
10:24
Speaker 1: the fact that um, hopefully kids will be back in
10:27
Speaker 1: person full time at school, so people who have childcare
10:30
Speaker 1: challenges should also have a bit of luck there and
10:34
Speaker 1: be able to get back into the labor force. Amara,
10:37
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us to really appreciate it.
10:39
Speaker 1: A mere appendant. She's global market strategist at JP Morgan
10:43
Speaker 1: Esset Management, joining us on the phone from New York.
10:48
Speaker 1: Max Chafkin joins us. He's a calumnist for Bloomberg Business Week.
10:51
Speaker 1: He's actually Matt in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio here
10:54
Speaker 1: in New York. And the story he has as a
10:57
Speaker 1: junior Microsoft engineer figured out a nearly perfect bitcoin generation scheme.
11:01
Speaker 1: So notes right down your alley, met and part of
11:04
Speaker 1: the heist issue, Yeah, exactly ten dollars okay, so it's
11:08
Speaker 1: part of it's big take, right, but it's also Max
11:11
Speaker 1: is this also in the Business Week heist issue? Yep,
11:15
Speaker 1: yep for for for this week, we've got a full issue.
11:19
Speaker 1: There's actually no news in the issue, it's only stories
11:22
Speaker 1: about um sort of crimes, scams. Um, it's it's our
11:28
Speaker 1: as you say, be treating issue. So we've got this
11:31
Speaker 1: really fun one about a it's kind of a weird
11:34
Speaker 1: digital currency scam. We're talking about this a lot of
11:36
Speaker 1: tier of crime, it seems like. So it tells US's
11:38
Speaker 1: not weird. It's awesome. Yeah, So this is we were
11:41
Speaker 1: we the writer Austin car and I we're joking about
11:44
Speaker 1: this as as the you know, Ultimate Xbox the Ultimate
11:47
Speaker 1: video game cheat. This was a basically a junior employee
11:51
Speaker 1: at Microsoft whose job was to test the store where
11:54
Speaker 1: people buy stuff on Microsoft's website, and he figured out
11:57
Speaker 1: a way to get basically an unlimited number Xbox gift cards.
12:01
Speaker 1: If you're a gamer, these cards contain codes and you
12:04
Speaker 1: can use them to buy games, you can buy content,
12:06
Speaker 1: you can also buy you know, stuff like I am
12:11
Speaker 1: an Xbox fanatic. My gamer tag is shower fan. If
12:15
Speaker 1: anybody wants to challenge me, from Halo to Call of
12:19
Speaker 1: Duty to Red Dead Redemption, I have easily spent thousands
12:22
Speaker 1: of the okay, but I've also always wanted to be
12:28
Speaker 1: part of a heist. And this is a pretty awesome
12:30
Speaker 1: one because the guy actually guess what like ten million bucks, right,
12:32
Speaker 1: and he spends it on cool stuff. Oh yeah, he
12:35
Speaker 1: gets ten million bucks. He uh flips these five by
12:38
Speaker 1: five codes on a website called packs full, which is
12:41
Speaker 1: a site where people trade these things. This is something
12:44
Speaker 1: I didn't know about it, but it's a it's a
12:46
Speaker 1: really robust market. In fact, he was selling so many
12:48
Speaker 1: of these codes, you know, thousands of them, that he
12:51
Speaker 1: was manipulating the price of of xbox currency, according to
12:55
Speaker 1: I R. S. When they, you know, came after him,
12:58
Speaker 1: then he turned that into bitcoin. He put his bitcoin
13:01
Speaker 1: through a crypto money laundry thing, spits out some clean coin,
13:05
Speaker 1: and then, as you say, starts buying cool stuff. When
13:09
Speaker 1: the Feds caught up to him, you know, they found
13:11
Speaker 1: him in his you know, seven figure late lakefront house
13:14
Speaker 1: somewhere some nice part of washing the Pacific Northwest. It's
13:17
Speaker 1: some place amazing, by the way. Fun fact, I used
13:19
Speaker 1: packs full a few years back. I went two weeks
13:24
Speaker 1: without spending US dollars. Well, I only spent bitcoin. Was
13:28
Speaker 1: my was my challenge, and I had to get stuff
13:31
Speaker 1: um from game stop. I had to buy gas, I
13:34
Speaker 1: had to buy food, and so packs full is really
13:36
Speaker 1: helpful because I could take my bitcoin and get gift
13:39
Speaker 1: cards for the stuff I needed, and that's part of
13:41
Speaker 1: the way I made it through these two weeks. Yeah,
13:44
Speaker 1: and one of the points, I mean, it's so wonderful
13:46
Speaker 1: we talk to such an expert here I have said.
13:50
Speaker 1: But but one of the interesting things, the points that
13:53
Speaker 1: we make in this piece is that, you know, we
13:55
Speaker 1: think about digital currencies being bitcoin, you know, ethereum whatever, um.
14:00
Speaker 1: These gift cards are their own kind of digital currency.
14:03
Speaker 1: And then they've been around for a really long time
14:04
Speaker 1: and they're actually really important to big companies, including Microsoft,
14:08
Speaker 1: but also of course Apple and you know, and others.
14:10
Speaker 1: So it's kind of a sort of nice reminder that
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, you think of you think of one one
14:15
Speaker 1: side of crypto and on the other side you have
14:16
Speaker 1: sort of the real economy. But they're you know, they're
14:18
Speaker 1: all together and and mashed up in interesting ways. So
14:21
Speaker 1: you make a great point about, um, why companies love
14:25
Speaker 1: these gift cards so much, And I hadn't ever thought
14:27
Speaker 1: about it before, but the fact is, so many people
14:31
Speaker 1: get these gift cards, actual physical cards, not just the
14:34
Speaker 1: five by five codes, and they have them lying around
14:36
Speaker 1: and they forget about them, and that turns into millions
14:39
Speaker 1: or even maybe hundreds of millions of dollars with the
14:41
Speaker 1: revenue that a company gets without ever having to give
14:45
Speaker 1: out products. Yeah, and there's been some regulation here. You know.
14:48
Speaker 1: A few years back, Congress uh made a rule saying
14:51
Speaker 1: you couldn't have the gift The gift cards had to
14:53
Speaker 1: last I think for at least five years. But but
14:55
Speaker 1: at some point these things expire their fees. And the
14:59
Speaker 1: other interesting thing that that's brought up in this story.
15:01
Speaker 1: You know, Microsoft can give out the gift cards as
15:04
Speaker 1: like a marketing spence and then it only has to
15:06
Speaker 1: book that, uh, if somebody actually redeems them. Otherwise it's
15:10
Speaker 1: just you know, they just give them out. They don't
15:12
Speaker 1: do anything with it. So it's basically free money for
15:15
Speaker 1: a lot of these big companies. So Max, how did
15:18
Speaker 1: they catch this guy? Seems like you talk about bitcoin,
15:21
Speaker 1: you can't trace that, presumably, although now there's maybe that's
15:27
Speaker 1: kind of what we just it's the most traceable currency
15:29
Speaker 1: that there is. So yeah, they didn't. It had nothing
15:33
Speaker 1: to do with the crypto thing. That's not how they
15:35
Speaker 1: caught him. They caught him because he was basically using
15:38
Speaker 1: his colleagues passwords, which which worked for a while. Basically,
15:42
Speaker 1: his colleagues had really bad passwords. As he's saying the story,
15:45
Speaker 1: you know, one of them was you know, secret one
15:48
Speaker 1: to three. So he was he was guessing these passwords.
15:51
Speaker 1: He was using a kind of a VPN situation where
15:56
Speaker 1: it looked like his traffic was coming from a different continent.
15:59
Speaker 1: But he's easy the same computer that he was logging
16:03
Speaker 1: on with. So so he's logged on into his work computer. Uh,
16:06
Speaker 1: and then he logs on as a criminal. It's the
16:07
Speaker 1: same computer. They were able to find him. The other
16:09
Speaker 1: thing he did was he shipped one of his stolen
16:13
Speaker 1: graphics cards. He used the he's the codes of biographics cards,
16:16
Speaker 1: shipped it to a previous address, and they connected it
16:19
Speaker 1: to him. Basically was a big data project, I mean,
16:21
Speaker 1: really interesting in this story, the kind of scope of
16:25
Speaker 1: Microsoft's security operation. I mean, they were the real ones
16:28
Speaker 1: who broke this case. Then they turned it over to
16:31
Speaker 1: the federal government. But but they're the ones who initially fingered, uh,
16:36
Speaker 1: the purp here, and then the Feds picked up the
16:38
Speaker 1: capes that they did their own investigation, and then they
16:40
Speaker 1: prosecuted the guy had a stolen a copy of Microsoft
16:44
Speaker 1: Office essentially and registered it to his startup. So that
16:49
Speaker 1: wasn't very smart, right exactly? So yeah, they if he
16:53
Speaker 1: had just done the crypto, I think he could have
16:55
Speaker 1: gotten away with it for a while longer. Alright. That
16:57
Speaker 1: a lot of cool stuff. And he was planning on
16:59
Speaker 1: getting a seaplane, a ski shalet, a yacht. He has
17:03
Speaker 1: a great list in the story of the stuff he's
17:06
Speaker 1: gonna get with his next ten million. But I mean,
17:08
Speaker 1: when you're doing a good hist you gotta have a seaplane, exactly.
17:11
Speaker 1: All right, Max Chapkin, thanks so much for joining us.
17:14
Speaker 1: Max is a calumnist for Bloomberg Business Week. Joining us
17:16
Speaker 1: here on a Bloomberg and exacortive broker's studio. And again
17:18
Speaker 1: the big big take stories. These are fascinating stories. This
17:21
Speaker 1: isn't give me two hundred words on Microsoft. These are
17:24
Speaker 1: deep dives, deeply reported, really interesting stories. Uh. And again
17:30
Speaker 1: check out the Bloomberg Business Week for the heist issue,
17:32
Speaker 1: and of course for all these big take stories. You
17:35
Speaker 1: can find them at Bloomberg dot com. All right, let's
17:39
Speaker 1: get over to built Smeat right now. Chief Investment Officers
17:42
Speaker 1: Meat Capital Management, I love to talk to Bill and
17:45
Speaker 1: Cole as well about value investing, their principal investors out
17:50
Speaker 1: of Phoenix, Arizona. And Bill, you've got some interesting plays
17:55
Speaker 1: that you think are are undervalued. UM in the pharma's side,
17:59
Speaker 1: am Jen murk Visor, and I wonder why you think
18:03
Speaker 1: the markets haven't given the valuations to these investments that
18:07
Speaker 1: you think they deserve. Well, thank you for having us,
18:11
Speaker 1: and and we think that first of all, the relative
18:15
Speaker 1: values are incredible compared to the last twenty years. They're
18:20
Speaker 1: they're the cheapest relative to the rest of the stocks
18:23
Speaker 1: in the SMP they've been in twenty years. The second
18:26
Speaker 1: thing is anecdotal. We have a cardiologist in our building
18:30
Speaker 1: in Phoenix, and since people got vaccinated, it's standing room
18:35
Speaker 1: only in the waiting room to get in there, and
18:38
Speaker 1: that is not yet reflected in the price of these
18:41
Speaker 1: medicine stocks. So part of it it seems Bill, you know,
18:45
Speaker 1: it's just kind of I would think that pharmaceutical stocks
18:48
Speaker 1: now I think about them a lot more. With COVID nineteen,
18:51
Speaker 1: I think about him in a good way. I'm not
18:53
Speaker 1: sure if that translates into higher stock prices, but part
18:56
Speaker 1: of it seems to be just perception. These companies maybe
18:58
Speaker 1: don't market themselves correctly. Yeah, that they've made the last
19:04
Speaker 1: five to teen years one of the biggest pr errors
19:08
Speaker 1: and advertising errors in history. But it looks like they're
19:10
Speaker 1: already to rectify that. Now. I noticed Lily's running a
19:13
Speaker 1: commercial where they teach people about a bunch of different
19:16
Speaker 1: medicines they make, and at the end of it, it
19:19
Speaker 1: comes on and the tagline is Eli Lily a medicine company.
19:23
Speaker 1: Right if Nancy Reagan said just say no to drugs, cannabis,
19:28
Speaker 1: cannabis stores sell drugs. Uh, these people sell medicine. And
19:33
Speaker 1: now that people have been touched their lives, even even
19:38
Speaker 1: very healthy people have now been positively benefited by these vaccines,
19:42
Speaker 1: they now realize that these folks make medicine and and
19:46
Speaker 1: ultimately that won't switch things over in a day, but
19:49
Speaker 1: at some point in time, their earnings will be better
19:52
Speaker 1: than a lot of other people, and their prices will
19:55
Speaker 1: have started cheap, and it will be a successful three
19:58
Speaker 1: to five year uh outlook investment. Now I'll stand up
20:03
Speaker 1: for the for the weed here. Um. You know, liquor
20:05
Speaker 1: stores sell drugs too, and a lot of people use
20:08
Speaker 1: cannabis as medicine. I know you guys are a pretty
20:10
Speaker 1: conservative shop, but have you ever invested have you ever
20:12
Speaker 1: thought about investing in cannabis? No? I will say though,
20:17
Speaker 1: I had a back massage at a reputable place called
20:23
Speaker 1: hand in Stone, and she offered me for extra money, uh,
20:27
Speaker 1: and oil that that she thought would be good for
20:29
Speaker 1: the muscles that were bothering me CBD cannabinoid oils. I
20:35
Speaker 1: want to ask you also about something else, Bill, because
20:38
Speaker 1: I love Phoenix. I love hanging out, having dinner in Scottsdale,
20:42
Speaker 1: going out to Sedona. Um, if I could get on
20:44
Speaker 1: the course and play at TPC, that would be amazing
20:47
Speaker 1: as well. We've seen housing prices skyrocket all over the country.
20:51
Speaker 1: What's real estate like down there? Well, it's been pretty nutty. Uh.
20:56
Speaker 1: But what what what everyone needs to understand is it
21:01
Speaker 1: is in the DNA of Americans going back to their
21:05
Speaker 1: great great great grandparents who came to the East Coast
21:09
Speaker 1: and then constantly for the last two hundred years have
21:13
Speaker 1: arbitrage land values. So people are like shocked. It's like, Okay,
21:18
Speaker 1: there's ninety million millennials. They're gonna want what six million
21:22
Speaker 1: gen xers wanted. That means thirty more humans, and they
21:26
Speaker 1: were delayed in this whole process until COVID hit and
21:29
Speaker 1: the pandemic UH brought the need for a home to
21:33
Speaker 1: the forefront. So now, the first arbitrage was Los Angeles
21:38
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas and Phoenix. That the next arbitrage after
21:42
Speaker 1: that is the you know, the Spokens and Reno's and
21:47
Speaker 1: and we're those have already exploded. So just think of
21:50
Speaker 1: anywhere across the country where it's a pleasant place to live.
21:53
Speaker 1: There's a hundred thousand people there, and there's water and WiFi.
21:56
Speaker 1: We're gonna build a ton of homes in those places
21:59
Speaker 1: because that's what the land arbitrage dictates. And the market
22:02
Speaker 1: share of our home builders, which would be Dr Horton
22:06
Speaker 1: Lennar and NBR Ryan Holmes, is nine times what it
22:11
Speaker 1: was seven years ago. So a disapportionately large part of
22:15
Speaker 1: the homes being built will be built by us. All right, hey, Bill,
22:18
Speaker 1: just real quickly. What's the high temperature there today? I'm
22:22
Speaker 1: not in Phoenix, it is it's sixty three degrees in seaside, Oregon.
22:28
Speaker 1: We're on a bit alright. Good move there, Bill. I'll
22:32
Speaker 1: tell you what last time I was. Last time I
22:34
Speaker 1: was in Phoenix. It was a hundred six degrees but
22:36
Speaker 1: it's but it's a dry heat. It's a dry heat.
22:39
Speaker 1: And then we shot up to Flagstaff and it was
22:41
Speaker 1: much cooler up there. So I just love that. All Right,
22:43
Speaker 1: Bills all over, he's got it covered here. Uh Bill Smee,
22:46
Speaker 1: chief investment officer Smead Capital Management, that two point eight
22:49
Speaker 1: billion dollars in assets under manager. Talking to us today
22:52
Speaker 1: about pharma stocks, he thinks that they have some room
22:56
Speaker 1: to go. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
23:00
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts
23:03
Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm
23:07
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller y three and on Fall
23:11
Speaker 1: Sweeney I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast,
23:13
Speaker 1: you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio