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Looking Forward For Verizon Business, What Comes Next · 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
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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. Now, I want to
0:21
Speaker 1: get over to Massimo Poselli. He joins us right now.
0:24
Speaker 1: He's a senior vice president of Global Enterprise for Verizon Business.
0:29
Speaker 1: And I guess mass your focus here is on five G.
0:33
Speaker 1: To me, it's so fascinating, not just because all the
0:36
Speaker 1: protesters around here are concerned that, you know, Bill Gates
0:40
Speaker 1: is using the vaccines to inject us with five G chips,
0:43
Speaker 1: but because it's gonna make I think business a lot
0:47
Speaker 1: more exciting and our personal lives also a little bit easier. Um,
0:52
Speaker 1: how do you think the most important UH leaps ahead
0:57
Speaker 1: will be will be met by the five G technology
1:00
Speaker 1: that you're that you're spreading around. Good morning, Paul, and that,
1:05
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you for having me today. UM.
1:08
Speaker 1: Fight G UH will change the way we live as
1:13
Speaker 1: as as normal people and as employees. UH. And it's
1:18
Speaker 1: probably the first generation of wireless services that will be
1:23
Speaker 1: more focused or well bring more value to the enterprise,
1:26
Speaker 1: to the end consumers. UH. Fight G combined with edge
1:30
Speaker 1: computing will allow to define the business processes and the
1:34
Speaker 1: engagement model with the consumer. Just think of the smart store,
1:41
Speaker 1: I think of a smart manufacturing, Think of telehealth, Think
1:45
Speaker 1: of the education. How can use the RBR to be
1:49
Speaker 1: more effective in the way you educate the people? UH.
1:53
Speaker 1: But the the art of the possible with five G
1:57
Speaker 1: is infinite. And actually what we're doing is to explore
2:01
Speaker 1: use cases on five G with our partners and with
2:06
Speaker 1: our customers in almost every industry. All right, mass, we'll
2:10
Speaker 1: give us a sense of timing. Here I see ads
2:13
Speaker 1: from UH. You guys may tinteen your other competitors saying
2:16
Speaker 1: five gus here. I don't think it's here. Where are
2:19
Speaker 1: we in the rollout? Give us a sense of the
2:21
Speaker 1: timetable UH on the different flavors or five G five
2:28
Speaker 1: G at the C band, f G at the ultra
2:31
Speaker 1: white band. UH. Five G is here now in seventy
2:36
Speaker 1: one cities for the horizon, and we have the six
2:39
Speaker 1: while access in twenty three cities. Uh, what will we
2:44
Speaker 1: say is by five GM is now because really finding
2:47
Speaker 1: the business processes for enterprise will take time. You will
2:51
Speaker 1: change the way they work. So that's why even if
2:55
Speaker 1: some use cases will be something you guys will be
2:58
Speaker 1: available in in in a few months, some will take
3:02
Speaker 1: a few quarters. But the time is now to work
3:06
Speaker 1: and define what technology could do and how technology could
3:10
Speaker 1: change at the way corporate works. What about the safety
3:15
Speaker 1: of this? I mean, you know, I was joking a
3:17
Speaker 1: little bit at the top, but you've got um Robert Kennedy,
3:21
Speaker 1: whom the Globe and Mail called a super spreader of
3:24
Speaker 1: medical misinformation, who nonetheless is a big name and has
3:31
Speaker 1: warned about safety concerns around five G. Is there any
3:34
Speaker 1: that we should take seriously? Listen, we had a discussion
3:39
Speaker 1: about the safety every time we launched a new generation
3:43
Speaker 1: of wireless services. So we heard the same one TREG.
3:46
Speaker 1: We heard the same offer G, and we heard we
3:48
Speaker 1: were here in the same offer G, and we will
3:50
Speaker 1: hear the same on six G. So listen, this the
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Speaker 1: security is part of mount for us, and and you
3:56
Speaker 1: know wireless that will just bring the technology and value
4:01
Speaker 1: to the um beings. So no concern about security past
4:05
Speaker 1: when will I have to go out and buy a
4:07
Speaker 1: five G phone? When should I do that? Well, you
4:12
Speaker 1: should do that now has set on five phone or
4:16
Speaker 1: five G are available today in the market and and
4:20
Speaker 1: will bring value. Think of the health for example, the
4:24
Speaker 1: ability to capture your your health data and your personal
4:29
Speaker 1: data in the in the middlesecond and to share uh
4:34
Speaker 1: this with with your position and with the expert. But
4:38
Speaker 1: also think of the ability to consume media content. We
4:43
Speaker 1: had a view for the last Super Bowl where you
4:47
Speaker 1: could have a three D view, multiple view on the
4:50
Speaker 1: same screen using five G. So if you want to
4:53
Speaker 1: start having an experience in sports event but also have
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Speaker 1: the ability to uh you know, be in the forefront
5:03
Speaker 1: on the use of technology for your personal house, than
5:07
Speaker 1: it's right time now to buy f I G. Front.
5:10
Speaker 1: Are you working on six G already? You mentioned it?
5:12
Speaker 1: Is it already in the cards? Mainly so I think
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Speaker 1: the art of the possible four five G is infinite
5:20
Speaker 1: that we think you will probably take several years so
5:23
Speaker 1: before you full exploit of the value of I G
5:26
Speaker 1: and what I G could bring to people and to enterprises. So, uh,
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Speaker 1: we had in the forefront thinking the next technology, but
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Speaker 1: we're not totally focused on the point i G and
5:37
Speaker 1: then bringing the value of i G to everyone. Masimo
5:41
Speaker 1: takes so much for joining us. We appreciate it getting
5:43
Speaker 1: the update on all things on the telecom front with
5:46
Speaker 1: five G in particular. Massimo Passelli, Senior vice president of
5:50
Speaker 1: Global Enterprise for Verizon Business five G. The It's funny
5:54
Speaker 1: the telecom companies, they've spent billions of dollars on the spectrum.
5:58
Speaker 1: They will spend billions of dollars more on developing more
6:03
Speaker 1: of the infrastructure and the technology to support that spectrum.
6:07
Speaker 1: And then uh, presumably as they rollout services and so on,
6:10
Speaker 1: we will be incentive to go out and buy new
6:12
Speaker 1: five G phones in one not so we'll see how
6:14
Speaker 1: that plays out over the next several months and years. Now,
6:19
Speaker 1: I want to get into the impact of the pandemic
6:23
Speaker 1: and while the reopening on travel and e commerce. Adobe
6:28
Speaker 1: does that with its Adobe Adobe Digital Economy Index. And
6:33
Speaker 1: here to talk about that is the director of Adobe
6:36
Speaker 1: Digital Insides, Taylor Shriner Um. Taylor, what kind of action
6:39
Speaker 1: are are you seeing right now? Are we looking at it? Uh?
6:42
Speaker 1: A lift off so to speak in terms of the airlines. Well,
6:47
Speaker 1: broadly speaking, Matt we're seeing a turnaround across the board,
6:51
Speaker 1: but we're not out of the words yet. So, for instance,
6:55
Speaker 1: we are seeing that bookings are really double what they
6:58
Speaker 1: were before. People were starting to get back to needed
7:00
Speaker 1: People are showing a strong interest in travel, but if
7:03
Speaker 1: you compare today's bookings to what we were seeing in
7:06
Speaker 1: March of twenty nineteen, we're still down. So while people
7:10
Speaker 1: are eager to travel and they have increasing competence in travel,
7:13
Speaker 1: we're not even back to twenty nineteen levels quite yet. Taylor,
7:17
Speaker 1: talk to us about some of the regional UH differences
7:20
Speaker 1: you may be seeing in your data. You know, Matt
7:22
Speaker 1: and I earlier we're talking about how successful it seems that,
7:26
Speaker 1: you know, big states like Texas and Florida have been
7:28
Speaker 1: reopening ahead of other parts of the region. Are you
7:30
Speaker 1: seeing regional differences in terms of travel. We've seen a
7:36
Speaker 1: really strong UH bias for its southern and Midwestern states
7:39
Speaker 1: being willing to travel today. But on the other hand,
7:42
Speaker 1: if you look at the Northeast, where there's been a
7:45
Speaker 1: lot of reluctance to travel and they have sort of
7:47
Speaker 1: less travel than you would expect on average for the US,
7:52
Speaker 1: they have a greater responsiveness to vaccines. So the more
7:55
Speaker 1: vaccines are all out, the faster folks in the Northeast
7:57
Speaker 1: are willing to travel, either because data themselves are vaccinated
8:00
Speaker 1: or because they have greater faith in travel with more
8:04
Speaker 1: people vaccinated. So if that's the case, UM, I would
8:08
Speaker 1: expect when more people go out, when more people eat
8:12
Speaker 1: at restaurants, from, more people take flights, from more people
8:14
Speaker 1: hit the shops. Um, fewer people are sitting at home
8:17
Speaker 1: still using Amazon and other e commerce sites to get
8:21
Speaker 1: their goods. Am I mistaken. Uh, it's a fair assumption.
8:26
Speaker 1: But actually we have seen fifty growth year over year
8:30
Speaker 1: this last March, So people are really still used to
8:34
Speaker 1: making their purchases online and they're not telling us that
8:36
Speaker 1: they are showing any signs of going back to a
8:39
Speaker 1: pure in person retail world. They're absolutely going to restaurants.
8:43
Speaker 1: You can see travel increasing, but we simultaneously see continued
8:48
Speaker 1: growth and basic things like grocery shopping online. Uh and well,
8:52
Speaker 1: uh we expect that to continue. Frankly, broadly speaking through
8:56
Speaker 1: the year. About outside the US tailor, you know when
9:00
Speaker 1: we go look at the UK or and mats based
9:02
Speaker 1: in Germany, are we seeing similar trends as it relates
9:05
Speaker 1: to e commerce. Well, this is the first year that
9:10
Speaker 1: Adobe has released our insights on the whole global digital economy,
9:14
Speaker 1: or this is the first report rather, and frankly, there's
9:17
Speaker 1: some really big numbers out there. Last year, we saw
9:20
Speaker 1: about three point five trillion dollars in online commerce, and
9:24
Speaker 1: we're seeing that grow over the first quarter at thirty
9:27
Speaker 1: eight percent. So we see incredibly strong global e commerce growth.
9:32
Speaker 1: And fact, we're predicting four point two trillion dollars UH
9:35
Speaker 1: in e commerce over the course of the year, which is,
9:38
Speaker 1: you know, bigger than than some major economies you'll see
9:41
Speaker 1: in in Europe. Yeah, way bigger, um. But I wonder
9:45
Speaker 1: how they compare to the US, I mean e commerce
9:48
Speaker 1: in the US versus a e commerce and the EU.
9:50
Speaker 1: Are they similar sizes or is the US far ahead
9:55
Speaker 1: of what we see here in old Europe? Well, you know,
9:59
Speaker 1: e commerce global is really dominated by the United States
10:02
Speaker 1: and China in terms of where the overall dollars are
10:06
Speaker 1: getting expensed, where the overall money is getting expensed. But
10:09
Speaker 1: to your point, we really see UH strong growth in Europe.
10:12
Speaker 1: The UK, for instance, saw sixty growth in the first quarter,
10:16
Speaker 1: so just stunning frankly, levels of e commerce growth that
10:21
Speaker 1: are continuing in Europe, and it's going to be different
10:23
Speaker 1: country by country with the varying payment systems and cultural differences.
10:27
Speaker 1: But globally we see incredibly strong growth and the US
10:31
Speaker 1: is at the moment on par with growth global growth,
10:35
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of countries that are going
10:36
Speaker 1: to get into this space and start to grow rapidly.
10:39
Speaker 1: All right, So, teller, you're based in the Bay Area
10:41
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, right, Lucky, that's correct. All right, give
10:45
Speaker 1: us a sense of how how that area is kind
10:48
Speaker 1: of reopening here. What's the feeling there Again, we think
10:51
Speaker 1: about the northeast maybe being a little bit more conservative.
10:53
Speaker 1: Texas and Florida very aggressive in the reopening. What's it
10:56
Speaker 1: like where you are in California? Uh, well, I can
11:01
Speaker 1: just speak for my area. You know, you still see
11:02
Speaker 1: a lot of masks, You still see uh, you know,
11:05
Speaker 1: a dearth of public transit, but people are out. I
11:08
Speaker 1: went to my first museum, uh this last weekend and
11:11
Speaker 1: you know, went over to see friends. So the the
11:14
Speaker 1: street level commerce is definitely growing and people are think
11:19
Speaker 1: you of traveling, looking to travel. Um, you know, one
11:21
Speaker 1: of the things we saw in the travel stats is
11:23
Speaker 1: that people are booking Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, uh, that's
11:28
Speaker 1: the one area where bookings are above twenty nineteen levels
11:31
Speaker 1: and you know, grademic totally in my area. That's that's
11:35
Speaker 1: what we see is that people are eager to travel
11:37
Speaker 1: and see friends and they're they're confident that by the
11:39
Speaker 1: fall that will be possible. Interesting, I'd like to get
11:43
Speaker 1: out there. Yeah, it's beautiful out there. West Coast is
11:46
Speaker 1: where it's at. Man's all right, Taylor, thanks so much
11:51
Speaker 1: for joining us. Taylor Shriner, he's a director of Adobe
11:54
Speaker 1: Digital Insights. Uh, there out there Digital Economy Index showing
11:58
Speaker 1: some good growth Matt from you know, kind of the
12:01
Speaker 1: pre vaccine time frame in this pandemic. But still you
12:05
Speaker 1: know below you know, you're looking at airline flights and
12:09
Speaker 1: hotels still below from levels. But but in e commerce, um,
12:14
Speaker 1: they point out that the e commerce in March of
12:17
Speaker 1: this year broke records, adding almost another Black Friday in
12:21
Speaker 1: online spending. So it's been huge. Yeah, it's been huge,
12:24
Speaker 1: and you know, you talk to the retail folks and
12:26
Speaker 1: they don't see that going back the market share that
12:29
Speaker 1: e commerce has, it's here to stay. Busy week this
12:35
Speaker 1: week for earnings. Also a busy week for economic data.
12:38
Speaker 1: Just today we had really strong consumer sentiment numbers come out,
12:42
Speaker 1: and that's good news. Tomorrow we have the Fed minutes
12:45
Speaker 1: and the press conference. Thursday, we get a GDP report
12:48
Speaker 1: for the first quarter. Lots to dig into. Uh, We're
12:51
Speaker 1: fortunate to have Marcus Schomer, chief economists at pine Bridge
12:55
Speaker 1: Investments joining us. Marcus, I love to start with that
12:57
Speaker 1: GDP print that we're going to see. Third, stay, what
13:01
Speaker 1: do you expect to see? It should be a phenomenal number.
13:03
Speaker 1: And then also for the next quarter as well, how
13:05
Speaker 1: are you thinking about that? Oh? Yeah, the numbers look
13:09
Speaker 1: really good. For the for the entire summer, the GDP
13:13
Speaker 1: number will be somewhere north of six percent probably. Um,
13:18
Speaker 1: we still don't know some of the some of the
13:20
Speaker 1: more variable parts like trade and inventories could be a
13:23
Speaker 1: little bit more negative. But we know that consumer spending,
13:26
Speaker 1: for example, is on track for a ninth percent quarter.
13:30
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the phenomenal number, and it's likely with
13:34
Speaker 1: the with the check stop fully distributed in the first quarter,
13:37
Speaker 1: that some of that is spilling into Q two as well,
13:39
Speaker 1: and the numbers are probably going to stay like that
13:41
Speaker 1: through the summer, so we get consumer spending, well, get
13:45
Speaker 1: personal spending in UH income on Friday as well. Right, Um,
13:51
Speaker 1: and a lot of people have been talking about the
13:52
Speaker 1: savings rate was so strong and there's been so much
13:55
Speaker 1: extra at least at the top cash to throw out
13:57
Speaker 1: into the system. Is that going to happen? Then? Do
14:00
Speaker 1: you expect a you know, um, a damn break in
14:03
Speaker 1: terms of spending. Um, well, we've we've seen it already. Right.
14:08
Speaker 1: We had a super strong retail sales number in January,
14:12
Speaker 1: and the only reason Q one is actually not better
14:15
Speaker 1: is because we had this really miserably cold February which
14:18
Speaker 1: depressed everything and people couldn't go out and spend it.
14:20
Speaker 1: And in parts they came back and with another check
14:23
Speaker 1: in that pocket went out on a spending spree again.
14:26
Speaker 1: And I assume that, um, the April and May retail
14:29
Speaker 1: sales numbers will look really good as well, because you're right,
14:32
Speaker 1: it's not just the check itself, but it's also the
14:34
Speaker 1: money that's been accumulating over the last literally the last
14:38
Speaker 1: twelve months, as people couldn't go on vacation, couldn't couldn't
14:41
Speaker 1: go into the stores, and that has built up the
14:43
Speaker 1: savings rate. It's not really that people were saving, they
14:46
Speaker 1: just couldn't spend. That's a slightly different different way of
14:50
Speaker 1: thinking about it. But some of that money will seep
14:53
Speaker 1: into the economy over the next couple of months, and
14:55
Speaker 1: I think that's why GDP goes will remain strong in
14:58
Speaker 1: Q two and probably spending it to you three as well.
15:01
Speaker 1: Question is what happens after that? Yeah, that's kind of
15:04
Speaker 1: where I wanted to go here. I mean, we're seeing
15:06
Speaker 1: a kind of a wide range of GDP forecasts out
15:10
Speaker 1: there on the street. For one, what's your call for
15:14
Speaker 1: the year of one, and then maybe also for next
15:17
Speaker 1: year as well. Um, for this year we're we're around
15:21
Speaker 1: six percent, and next year we see a slowdown back
15:24
Speaker 1: to something around three and a half percent, a little
15:26
Speaker 1: bit of low consensus next year. I think the near
15:29
Speaker 1: term story is fairly clear, and the stimulus push is
15:34
Speaker 1: so strong that there's probably not a lot of disagreement
15:36
Speaker 1: where we where we are right now. But the disagreements
15:39
Speaker 1: the more interesting where we will be a year from now,
15:41
Speaker 1: because we're seeing more risks arising sort of on the horizon.
15:45
Speaker 1: The pandemic is not over yet in the world. We
15:48
Speaker 1: won't see really a resumption of global growth for a while,
15:53
Speaker 1: the FETE is given up on the bond market and
15:55
Speaker 1: allowing bond to rise, and that takes away from the
15:58
Speaker 1: stimulus phisical policy is not talking about top fights and
16:02
Speaker 1: not just spending increases all the time. And then we
16:05
Speaker 1: have some political risks coming with the midterms next year.
16:09
Speaker 1: We have maybe another spending package coming soon from the
16:13
Speaker 1: Biden administration. How important is it? Do we need it? No? No,
16:22
Speaker 1: we didn't even need the last one. I mean, we're
16:25
Speaker 1: way about what was necessarily close to the output gap
16:29
Speaker 1: and were so we're so in in such undiscovered country
16:32
Speaker 1: right now that we have we have no idea what
16:34
Speaker 1: the side effects of all this will be. For example,
16:37
Speaker 1: at some stage when there will be you know next year,
16:40
Speaker 1: well there won't be those spending packages. There will be
16:42
Speaker 1: a huge decline in the way fiscal policy is boosting
16:47
Speaker 1: GDP growth, which could which could actually lead to much
16:50
Speaker 1: much lower goals that everybody is expecting, not because the
16:52
Speaker 1: economy is weak, but because the comparison from the stibulous
16:56
Speaker 1: fuel to the maybe less stimulus fuel. Two And certainly,
17:03
Speaker 1: if the Republicans win the mid terms, there will be
17:05
Speaker 1: no stimus in twenty three, that that change from twenty
17:09
Speaker 1: to twenty three could be rather abrupt and could cause
17:13
Speaker 1: a lot of micro volatility and also some confusion. Some
17:17
Speaker 1: people may fear the economy is already two week recession
17:20
Speaker 1: talk may start again. All this, all this access that
17:24
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now is creating a lot of volatility
17:28
Speaker 1: in the micro numbers, but also people will create volatility
17:31
Speaker 1: in the expectations for the future. Okay, Marcus, I'd love
17:35
Speaker 1: to just switch gears a little bit and talk about Europe.
17:37
Speaker 1: You know, where Matt is based in Germany, much tougher
17:41
Speaker 1: vaccine metrics. They're much you know, perhaps not the um
17:47
Speaker 1: the stimulus having the same impact as having here in
17:49
Speaker 1: the US. What's your view of Europe and the economic
17:52
Speaker 1: recovery there. Well, I mean, right, the current situation that
17:58
Speaker 1: does not look good. And you know, if look at
18:00
Speaker 1: the p M I in disease that the beautifully tracked
18:03
Speaker 1: the difference in the US where services are surging now
18:07
Speaker 1: in Europe where services are stalled. UK s in the middle.
18:10
Speaker 1: You can see once you start vaccinating enough of your population,
18:14
Speaker 1: you can start to reopen and services come back in
18:16
Speaker 1: the same way as they're already back here in the US.
18:20
Speaker 1: You know, the vaccinations are taking up in Europe as well.
18:23
Speaker 1: They're exploding right now. The supply is exploding. So given
18:27
Speaker 1: give them another months, given another six weeks, and they
18:30
Speaker 1: will be on the same track that we are on.
18:32
Speaker 1: So it's just a bit of a delay. The issue
18:34
Speaker 1: in Europe, in my mind, is more um, there's a
18:37
Speaker 1: there's a very different way of policy stimulus. They don't
18:42
Speaker 1: have the checks, they don't have the big packages, and
18:47
Speaker 1: they have a lot of political groups coming up. In
18:49
Speaker 1: the next couple of months, we have elections in Germany
18:52
Speaker 1: and September, and the outcome of that is very unclear.
18:55
Speaker 1: And then something I've been worried about four years is
18:58
Speaker 1: in April of next year, twelve months from now, we
19:00
Speaker 1: have elections in France and that could be that could
19:04
Speaker 1: be a real nail binder if if the right wing
19:09
Speaker 1: candidate could give current president markrom you know, run for
19:13
Speaker 1: his money. Marcus, where is oys Kirschen West? Casan is
19:20
Speaker 1: very close to Cologne, so um, very much in the
19:24
Speaker 1: western part of Germany. I'm just stalking Marcus here on
19:27
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg he was born. I'm sitting in Berlin and
19:30
Speaker 1: I'm a big germanophile. But I'd say that has hurt
19:33
Speaker 1: that the lack of vaccines here has hurt me. And
19:37
Speaker 1: I will be interested to see if there's any scarring
19:40
Speaker 1: from that economically and also um to see what happens
19:44
Speaker 1: if the Greens actually take the cake in September, because
19:48
Speaker 1: they've really run up in the polls, even ahead of
19:51
Speaker 1: the C d U, C s U and our latest
19:53
Speaker 1: aggregate poll, which is totally shocking. We gotta get you
19:56
Speaker 1: back on, Marcus. It was a pleasure talking to you.
19:58
Speaker 1: Thanks for spending some time with us. Marcus show Er,
20:00
Speaker 1: his chief economist at pine Bridge Investments. UM, and it
20:04
Speaker 1: was great to hear from someone who isn't just you know,
20:07
Speaker 1: your typical red blooded Americans, someone who has a little
20:10
Speaker 1: bit more interest in what's going on here in Germany.
20:13
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Time check in with Bloomberg Opinion were
20:21
Speaker 1: joined by opinion columnist Mark Gilbert, who's talking about the
20:25
Speaker 1: many reasons bankers love hedge funds, and Mark, I guess
20:28
Speaker 1: the main reason is the main reasons are you know,
20:32
Speaker 1: millions or billions of dollars and fees. Right, money, It's
20:37
Speaker 1: all about money, It's all about the green backs, and
20:39
Speaker 1: hedge funds need the services that the investment banks can provide.
20:43
Speaker 1: They need them to lend the money into so they
20:46
Speaker 1: can leverage their bets. They need to borrow stocks often
20:49
Speaker 1: when they go short in the market. There's a lot
20:51
Speaker 1: of specialist prime services that the investment banks provide to
20:54
Speaker 1: the hedge punk community, and they had a lot of
20:57
Speaker 1: money for it, all right, Mark, I u a full disclosure.
21:01
Speaker 1: I used to work at Credit Swiss back on those
21:02
Speaker 1: Credit Swiss First Boston, and I know what a huge
21:06
Speaker 1: business their prime brokerage businesses for them, as it is
21:08
Speaker 1: for other leading Wall Street firms. So I was interested
21:11
Speaker 1: to see the Credit Swiss is trimming it's prime broker's
21:14
Speaker 1: exposure here post Arcticos. To me, this just feels like
21:18
Speaker 1: a knee jerk reaction and they're going to be back
21:20
Speaker 1: at some point, not in that arcti distant future. What
21:22
Speaker 1: do you what do you make of what's going on
21:23
Speaker 1: in Credit Swiss. Well, they've said that they're going to
21:26
Speaker 1: trim by thirty five billion dollars, which is about a third,
21:29
Speaker 1: So that shows you they've got a hundred billion dollars
21:32
Speaker 1: out there. To the hedge fund community. There are there
21:35
Speaker 1: are top five prime brokerage firm um. But you're probably right.
21:40
Speaker 1: You know, once once they get over the shock of
21:42
Speaker 1: losing this SMAs money to Arcas, they'll probably be back
21:46
Speaker 1: into that business because it's so lucrative. There's so much
21:49
Speaker 1: money to be made in it. You know, last year
21:51
Speaker 1: the revenue you could make from providing new services to
21:54
Speaker 1: hedge funds and family officers was more than thirty billion dollars.
21:57
Speaker 1: It's grown at an average rate about eight percent years.
22:02
Speaker 1: And given how hard it is to generate out for
22:04
Speaker 1: given how hard it is for headge funds to generate
22:07
Speaker 1: the returns they promised to investors in the current environments,
22:10
Speaker 1: their demand for leverage is only going to increase, and
22:13
Speaker 1: so the money you can make from providing those services
22:16
Speaker 1: as an investment bank is only going to head off. Yes,
22:19
Speaker 1: so Arcades and Greensville, right, they had a double whammy.
22:23
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if hedge funds out there, you know,
22:26
Speaker 1: if you're a woman or or a dude who has
22:30
Speaker 1: a big, risky trade and you need a prime brokerage services,
22:34
Speaker 1: you might not pick up the phone and call Credit Sweet, right,
22:37
Speaker 1: they might find it difficult to get that business back well.
22:41
Speaker 1: To be honest, half of the market is dominated by
22:43
Speaker 1: three firms Golden Sacks, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Um.
22:47
Speaker 1: And if you're a hedge fund, even especially if you're
22:50
Speaker 1: a bigger hedge funds, you probably have between three and
22:53
Speaker 1: five prime brokers who you use for your business. You
22:56
Speaker 1: want to spread the risks around yourself as a hedge fund,
22:59
Speaker 1: so risks are not just one way. Plus you need
23:02
Speaker 1: them to be able to find the stocks to lend
23:04
Speaker 1: to you when you want to go short on a position.
23:08
Speaker 1: So the headsphons themselves probably use a roster of firms
23:13
Speaker 1: to gain the advantage that they're seeking by doing these
23:17
Speaker 1: kinds of trades, by doing these leverage trades in the market.
23:21
Speaker 1: So it's interesting that that market share from three companies
23:25
Speaker 1: is just extraordinary. So do even the midsize investment banks
23:29
Speaker 1: did it? Did they even have prime brokerage businesses? When
23:31
Speaker 1: I think about it, maybe an RBC for example, high
23:34
Speaker 1: quality kind of mid tier investment bank. There's a lot
23:38
Speaker 1: of banks involved in the prime broker's business. I mean,
23:41
Speaker 1: Wells Fargo is in there in the in the top
23:43
Speaker 1: twn city groups, in the top twn bank of America's
23:46
Speaker 1: in the top ten. Um. There's there's a lot of
23:49
Speaker 1: crumbs to be had from from from what is a
23:51
Speaker 1: very large table um. And again, just to repeat trendy
23:54
Speaker 1: sweet sis, a hundred billion dollars of exposure to to
23:58
Speaker 1: this industry um, which is you know, that shows you
24:02
Speaker 1: how important it is to the investment banks as a
24:05
Speaker 1: whole um. And that eight percent growth in revenue per year.
24:08
Speaker 1: Not many businesses have had that sort of steady growth
24:11
Speaker 1: aga as bad as secures. But also nobody wants to
24:14
Speaker 1: get burned again like credit sweez did. And I'm guessing
24:19
Speaker 1: they're turning out their kind of risk adversity across the board.
24:23
Speaker 1: Is that naive of me mark or or are they
24:27
Speaker 1: going to get more risk averse. You've got to take
24:32
Speaker 1: on the risk to be able to do the business.
24:35
Speaker 1: But the big bank should be in the business of
24:39
Speaker 1: mentioning those risks adequately. Now there's been a winnowing over
24:42
Speaker 1: the past few years anyway, more business is flowing to
24:44
Speaker 1: the big affirms because a lot of this is down
24:46
Speaker 1: to technology. A lot of it is down to the
24:49
Speaker 1: software that you have, a lot of it is down
24:51
Speaker 1: to your your ability to measure the risks across your
24:54
Speaker 1: own from the exposure that you have to the head
24:57
Speaker 1: front and the family office community. And that's why the
25:00
Speaker 1: big banks have half of the market. They're just that
25:03
Speaker 1: much better at assessing these risks, They're that much better
25:07
Speaker 1: keeping track of what those exposures are like UM, and
25:11
Speaker 1: frankly that they're probably that much better at squeezing the
25:14
Speaker 1: extra revenue out of the business that can finance the
25:17
Speaker 1: kind of back office technology they need to be able
25:20
Speaker 1: to service these clients safely. I mean, let's not forget
25:24
Speaker 1: Gold and got out of this completely unscathed, completely unscathed.
25:27
Speaker 1: UM and the top of the three in the risk
25:30
Speaker 1: management business. So yes, there are going to be increased
25:34
Speaker 1: risks in taken on these kinds of traits, but that
25:37
Speaker 1: should be the job of an investment bank to manage
25:39
Speaker 1: those risks, to make sure it's being adequately compensated, because
25:43
Speaker 1: there is no such things as a bad risk, there's
25:45
Speaker 1: only bad compensation and bad measurements. Risk is part of
25:48
Speaker 1: the business of of being an investment bank. Risk is
25:51
Speaker 1: partly what headgephuns have made their money from. Being able
25:55
Speaker 1: to assess those risks is the core of that business.
25:58
Speaker 1: And yes, there's as a wake up call, but it's
26:01
Speaker 1: not gonna produce I don't think any pulling back from
26:07
Speaker 1: the most of the investment banking community. They will reassess
26:10
Speaker 1: their risks, they will probably want to run the ruler
26:14
Speaker 1: more firmly over the heads from the community and the
26:16
Speaker 1: trades that they're doing. But at the end of the day,
26:19
Speaker 1: that's how you make money in this business. Mark, is
26:22
Speaker 1: there something just inherent in the structure of Credit Swiss
26:25
Speaker 1: that they just are not good risk managers because it
26:29
Speaker 1: seems like they are much more in the news than
26:31
Speaker 1: their peers. And I'm talking over a ten or twenty
26:34
Speaker 1: year period. I think every bank has got skeletons in
26:39
Speaker 1: its cupboard. You know, Deutsche Bank has had several of
26:42
Speaker 1: these blow ups. Ubs revealed today it lost almost the
26:45
Speaker 1: building dollars on the on the on the Arcadist blow up.
26:48
Speaker 1: So there are always going to be a postiles that
26:51
Speaker 1: are always going to be sort of known and loans
26:54
Speaker 1: and unknown and nots. The trick is how you react
26:57
Speaker 1: to them, and the business is how you response to
27:02
Speaker 1: your own risk bofile going forward, and how you assess
27:05
Speaker 1: the risk to make sure you're adequately compensated the trades
27:09
Speaker 1: that you've got on your book mark. Yeah, that's relating.
27:14
Speaker 1: That kind of goes to that risk adjusted return. Matt,
27:16
Speaker 1: you know you gotta, as Mark was suggesting. Yeah, I
27:20
Speaker 1: just wanted to say thanks as well to Mark Gilbert.
27:22
Speaker 1: There By the way, you can check out his piece
27:24
Speaker 1: and the work of his colleagues as well. If you
27:26
Speaker 1: have a Bloomberg in front of you, just type O,
27:28
Speaker 1: P I N GO. On the web, you can type
27:30
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash opinion. Um. And he also has
27:33
Speaker 1: his own ticker as we as we have mentioned, and
27:36
Speaker 1: and I Gilbert, and I Getbert for all. I don't
27:38
Speaker 1: think I have my own ticker? Do you have? Do
27:40
Speaker 1: you have your own Tickerment For a brief moment, if
27:43
Speaker 1: you typed in my number, my name, sorry, um, you
27:47
Speaker 1: would get all the charts, so you would get t
27:49
Speaker 1: hashtag b TV go. Um. But someone intelligently removed that
27:55
Speaker 1: feature from the terminal. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
27:59
Speaker 1: Markets pod cast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews
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28:06
Speaker 1: Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. Put
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