Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / WM's Steiner on Earnings, Generating Big Cash (Correct)(Audio)

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WM's Steiner on Earnings, Generating Big Cash (Correct)(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Broadcasting live to New York, Bloomberg eleventh, Rio to Washington,
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  Speaker 1: the chief executive of a stock that is hired today
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  Speaker 1: by more than three and a half percent after announcing
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  Speaker 1: results that exceeded analyst estimates. We're gonna tell you all
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  Speaker 1: about waste management that's coming up. Let's get to Charlie
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  Speaker 1: Pellett in the newsroom now he's got a Bloomberg business flash,
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  Speaker 1: and I thank you, Kathleen, thank you. Pim Thedal. The
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine minutes to go ahead of the clothes, stick
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  Speaker 1: now though decidedly negative. Tone SMP down twenty a drop
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  Speaker 1: of one percent. Down indust reels down to sevent to
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  Speaker 1: four a drop of one point one percent. We are
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  Speaker 1: brought to you by National Realty returns on cash in
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  Speaker 1: overshadowing corporate deals and strong results from Facebook. Apple is
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  Speaker 1: after the bell we hear from Amazon dot Com. It
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  Speaker 1: estate services companies cbr E Group beating estimates. Bob Slenttech
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  Speaker 1: is cbr ES CEO. He was interviewed today on Bloomberg Television.
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  Speaker 1: It was a good quarter for us around the world.
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  Speaker 1: Across our product lines. We had good growth, double digit growth,
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  Speaker 1: and all those services profit lines and in all our regions.
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  Speaker 1: Um The thing that I think drove it was good solid,
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  Speaker 1: really state fundamentals, probably better than people realizing. Fundamentals are
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  Speaker 1: rental rates and occupancies. But also something that was really
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  Speaker 1: important for us as we took market share in the
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  Speaker 1: majority of the markets that we're in and across our
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  Speaker 1: product lines. The US economy expanded in the first quarter
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  Speaker 1: at the slowest pace in two years, as American consumers
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  Speaker 1: reigned in spending and companies tightened their belts in response
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  Speaker 1: to weak global financial conditions. On a plunge in oil prices.
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  Speaker 1: Crude oil up today by thirty six cents forty five
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  Speaker 1: sixty nine on West Texas Intermediate, a gain of eight
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  Speaker 1: tenths of one percent. We've got gold of seventeen sixty
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  Speaker 1: a gain of one point four percent. And now let's
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  Speaker 1: take a look at some of the other stories making news.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you Charlie from the Bloomberg Newsroom. I'm Ramie in
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  Speaker 1: essent cio. This news update is brought to you by
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  Speaker 1: health insurance through President Obama's Affordable Care Act will likely
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  Speaker 1: be shelling out more money next year. Many insurers say
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  Speaker 1: the last coverage has been a financial drain for them,
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  Speaker 1: and there's been a wave of insurers already seeking premium increases.
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  Speaker 1: What does former House Speaker John Bayner think of Ted Cruz. Well,
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  Speaker 1: for one thing, he calls the Texas Senator quote lucifer
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  Speaker 1: in the flesh. Byner adds that he can get along
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  Speaker 1: with almost everyone, but that he's never worked with a
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  Speaker 1: quote more miserable s ob in his life. Authorities say
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  Speaker 1: of Baltimore police officer shot and wounded a thirteen year
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  Speaker 1: old boy who refused to drop a replica of a
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  Speaker 1: semi automatic pistol. That team is expected to survive. Here's
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  Speaker 1: Police Commissioner Kevin Davis. It's a replica from the automatic pistol.
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  Speaker 1: And I looked at it myself today. I stood right
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  Speaker 1: over top of it. I put my own eyes on it.
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  Speaker 1: It's an absolute identical replica semi automatic pistol. Those police
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  Speaker 1: officers had no way of knowing that it was not,
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  Speaker 1: in fact, an actual firearm. And last winner's East Coast
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  Speaker 1: blizzard has set another record in New York, while a
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  Speaker 1: record in Newark was deleted. The changes were prompted by
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  Speaker 1: questions about the accuracy of snowfall measurements. Noah says the
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  Speaker 1: twenty six point eight inch total reported for New York
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  Speaker 1: Central Park will be changed to twenty seven point five inches,
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  Speaker 1: an all time record. Global news twenty four hours a day,
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  Speaker 1: powered by our journalists in more than one news bureaus
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  Speaker 1: around the world. From the Bloomberg Newsroom, I'm Rami and
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  Speaker 1: a censio Charlie, and we thank you and again recapping
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  Speaker 1: SMP down twenty points, a drop of one percent, down
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  Speaker 1: in dust rols down two points, drop of one I'm
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  Speaker 1: Charlie Peloton. That's a Bloomberg Business flash. This is taking
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  Speaker 1: Stock with Kathleen Hayes and Prim Fox on Bloomberg Radio.
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  Speaker 1: When people talk about garbage, they usually talk about something
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  Speaker 1: they just want to get rid of and throw out.
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  Speaker 1: When they talk about garbage at Waste Management, they talk
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  Speaker 1: about something that is very, very off. Well. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: this company based in Houston operations across North America, posted
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  Speaker 1: better than expected results for its first quarter, aided by
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  Speaker 1: better pricing and increased volume. We're joined now from Houston
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  Speaker 1: by David Steiner. He's the president and CEO of Waste Management.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us, David, Thanks for having me
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  Speaker 1: so uh in a nutshell? What what is driving your
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  Speaker 1: growth and your results? Yeah, you know, so when we
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  Speaker 1: look at what we're doing, it's all driven by the
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  Speaker 1: customer um. You know, this is the first time we've
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  Speaker 1: had positive volume since two thousand and twelve, and that's
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  Speaker 1: because we're trying to provide the best customer service to
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  Speaker 1: the twenty one million customers that we provide cut service
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  Speaker 1: to throughout the United States. This quarter it showed with
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  Speaker 1: the most positive volume we've seen since two thousand and twelve.
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  Speaker 1: But we did that without giving up price. And when
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  Speaker 1: you can get price and volume on this this fixed
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  Speaker 1: asset base that we have is when you really start
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  Speaker 1: generating cash, and we just did. We did just that
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  Speaker 1: this quarter. Um generating more cash and we've generated in
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  Speaker 1: a quarter in in four years. What is the relationship
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  Speaker 1: between waste Management's business and trends in the housing industry?
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  Speaker 1: And I know you answered this today in terms of
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  Speaker 1: geographic diversity. Yeah, it's a great question. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: when you think about it, every time a subdivision is built,
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  Speaker 1: we put a can out when they build the house,
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  Speaker 1: and then we get a new residential customer because there's
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  Speaker 1: a new house created. And then you've got to create
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  Speaker 1: a lot of commercial businesses around that gas station's dry cleaners, restaurants,
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  Speaker 1: And so every time a subdivision is built, we really
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  Speaker 1: get a three for one pop to our volumes. We
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  Speaker 1: get a residential customer, we get a roll off customer,
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  Speaker 1: and we get a commercial customer. And so as we've
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  Speaker 1: seen housing bounced back since the last recession. Um, we've
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  Speaker 1: seen our volumes get better and better and better. Finally
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  Speaker 1: this quarter turning positive about six months earlier than we expected.
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  Speaker 1: So when you talk about customer service, you're to me
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  Speaker 1: in a space that is kind of generic. Right. A
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  Speaker 1: lot of people collect garbage, a lot of people have
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  Speaker 1: landfills and do recycling. How do you how do you
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  Speaker 1: use customer service to differentiate differentiate you from the competition
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  Speaker 1: and creates just solid quarter? Yea. You know, I always
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  Speaker 1: say we're sort of like the cable business. Um, every
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  Speaker 1: week we all get a mailer saying we can reduce
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  Speaker 1: your price for cable, but we don't take it because
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna have to sit at our house for a
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  Speaker 1: couple hours when they come and fix it, and then
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  Speaker 1: they might have to come again to install it. And
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  Speaker 1: you really don't want to spend the time until the
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  Speaker 1: cable starts going out, and once it starts going out,
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  Speaker 1: you look for another provider. And that's basically what's going
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  Speaker 1: on in our industry. You know, if you provide that
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  Speaker 1: great service, your customers generally don't want to switch. And
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  Speaker 1: so that's why customer service is so important to not
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  Speaker 1: only getting a new customer, but retaining that customer. Can
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  Speaker 1: you tell us about strength and specific areas of the
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  Speaker 1: country such as the South and I'm thinking of Florida,
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  Speaker 1: the Gulf Coast and even California. Yeah. Absolutely. You know,
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  Speaker 1: after the last downturn in two thousand nine, we really
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  Speaker 1: saw the Midwest and the East Coast leading our company.
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  Speaker 1: And that was unusual because because obviously the Sun Belt
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  Speaker 1: has generally led the economy, but because the housing downturn
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  Speaker 1: drove the recession in two thousand and nine, we saw
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  Speaker 1: better volumes up north. Now we've seen it normalized where
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  Speaker 1: the Sun Belts actually doing better, but the North and
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  Speaker 1: the Midwest continues to be strong. We just see it
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  Speaker 1: even stronger down in the Sun Belt. I just have
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  Speaker 1: to ask you a question about you. You enjoy books
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  Speaker 1: on quantum physics, and uh, you also enjoy model trains. Wow?
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  Speaker 1: Does quantum thinking about that help you think about waste?
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you a little story about that, because
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  Speaker 1: um that happens to be on my Wickpitia page. And
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  Speaker 1: I read that, and I said, I truly do like
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  Speaker 1: quantum physics, and I read the books, but but I
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  Speaker 1: don't know where the model trains came from and my
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  Speaker 1: kids I didn't even know I had a Wickpitia page.
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  Speaker 1: And my kids said, oh no, our friends go onto
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  Speaker 1: your Wickpedia page and put strange things on. Did you
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  Speaker 1: really drive this dow bony and you were when you
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  Speaker 1: were a kid? No, I never drove us. Okay, you
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  Speaker 1: heard it here. You heard it here, sports fans. He
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  Speaker 1: does not does not get into model trains. I just
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  Speaker 1: want to ask a little bit about capital investment. I
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  Speaker 1: know you've been spending money. Tell us about something called
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  Speaker 1: leech eight. I know this is water that has percolated
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  Speaker 1: through a solid or leached out of some of the constituents.
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  Speaker 1: What is leach shape and how does that affect your business? Yeah, so,
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  Speaker 1: any fluid that comes out of our landfills is classified
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  Speaker 1: as lee chap, and you know it's it's generally fairly benign,
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  Speaker 1: but you want to treat it before you put it
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  Speaker 1: back into the water system. And what happened to us
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  Speaker 1: this year is that we got an extraordinary amount of
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  Speaker 1: leach ape because of the heavy rains and then um
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  Speaker 1: generally it goes to a water treatment facility, and one
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  Speaker 1: of the regional water treatment facilities in the mid Atlantic
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  Speaker 1: actually had too much water, so they quit taking lead chap,
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  Speaker 1: so we had to transport it all the way up
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  Speaker 1: the East coast, and so our transportation costs went up
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  Speaker 1: by about our leech a costs went up by about
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  Speaker 1: fourteen million dollars. And so what we're gonna do is
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  Speaker 1: start building our own water treatment plants so that we
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  Speaker 1: can have our destiny in our own hands. Thank you
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  Speaker 1: very much. David Steiner is the chief executive of a
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  Speaker 1: Waste of Management. Shares of wait Management today are up
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  Speaker 1: three and a half percent. You're listening to Taking Stock
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  Speaker 1: n BIRK radio. Up next, I'll look at the stock
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  Speaker 1: market one day after the FED in the Bank of
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  Speaker 1: Japan and on a day when GDP was pretty weak.
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  Speaker 1: This is the MC radio