Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / UPS, Boeing Earnings, Tesla Profit Margins
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steinhl and Paul Sweeny.
- 0:06Speaker 2: The real ap performance has been the US corporate high yield.
- 0:09Speaker 3: Are the companies lean enough? Have they trimmed all the fats?
- 0:11Speaker 2: The semiconductor business is a really cyclical business.
- 0:15Speaker 4: Breaking market headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
- 0:18Speaker 3: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
- 0:21Speaker 2: These are two big time blue chip companies.
- 0:24Speaker 3: The window between the peak and cut changing super fast.
- 0:28Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steinhl and Paulsweenye on Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:35Speaker 2: On Today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big
- 0:37Speaker 2: business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
- 0:40Speaker 3: Each and every week, we're going to provide in depth
- 0:42Speaker 3: research and data on some of the two thousand companies
- 0:44Speaker 3: and one hundred and thirty industries are analysts cover worldwide.
- 0:47Speaker 2: Today we'll talk Tesla and how the company remains the
- 0:50Speaker 2: Wilson was a valuable automaker.
- 0:51Speaker 3: Plus our conversation with Rockwell Automation CEO Blake Morritt. But first,
- 0:56Speaker 3: another week of earnings and another dismal forecast, this time
- 0:59Speaker 3: from the likes of US, the company posting disappointing fourth
- 1:02Speaker 3: quarter earnings and providing twenty twenty four guidance that missed
- 1:05Speaker 3: the mark.
- 1:06Speaker 2: For more in this co host John Tucker and I
- 1:08Speaker 2: spoke with Bloomberg Intelligence senior transport logistics and shipping analysts
- 1:12Speaker 2: Lea Clascow. I first asked them about why the results
- 1:15Speaker 2: were so disappointing.
- 1:16Speaker 5: They're really just reeling from the impact from the labor
- 1:20Speaker 5: negotiations they had last year. So running up ahead of
- 1:23Speaker 5: those negotiations, a lot of shippers were like, you know something,
- 1:26Speaker 5: I'm not going to use UPS because I might want
- 1:29Speaker 5: to use one of their competitors like FedEx or even
- 1:32Speaker 5: the postal service, because I don't know if my stuff
- 1:34Speaker 5: is going to be able to get where it needs
- 1:36Speaker 5: to go on time. So a lot of that diverted freight,
- 1:39Speaker 5: you know, is kind of deleveraging effect on the network,
- 1:41Speaker 5: which really weighs on margins. And then you know, they
- 1:46Speaker 5: had the negotiations. They have a contract in place, which
- 1:49Speaker 5: is fantastic for UPS and also for the teams stairs,
- 1:52Speaker 5: you know, but a lot of the costs, the initial
- 1:54Speaker 5: costs of that new contract are in year one, and
- 1:57Speaker 5: so that's like a real big hit to margins. That
- 2:01Speaker 5: coupled with the fact it's taking some time for them
- 2:03Speaker 5: to win back some of that share. Management noted that
- 2:06Speaker 5: they've won back about sixty percent of that share. It's
- 2:09Speaker 5: going to take time for them to get that share
- 2:12Speaker 5: back to where it needs to be. And again, these
- 2:14Speaker 5: are networks, and when you're talking about freight transportation, it's
- 2:17Speaker 5: all about building density because the more stuff you can
- 2:20Speaker 5: deliver at the same time, you know, the better the
- 2:23Speaker 5: margins are. And that's what they're really working through right now.
- 2:27Speaker 5: And you know, and what I thought was kind of
- 2:30Speaker 5: one of the more interesting little tidbits is that they
- 2:32Speaker 5: think that this year that the small package volume from
- 2:36Speaker 5: an industry standpoint, is only going to increase like one percent,
- 2:40Speaker 5: which to me I thought was a little pessimistic. But
- 2:43Speaker 5: you know, all in all, they're really dealing with tepid demand,
- 2:48Speaker 5: they're dealing with rising costs, and you know, they're obviously
- 2:51Speaker 5: taking those costs pretty seriously. As you know, they're laying
- 2:54Speaker 5: off or planning the layoff or reduce heads however nicely
- 2:58Speaker 5: you want to say it, twelve thousand people. And then
- 3:01Speaker 5: also they're looking to get there. They're putting their brokerage business,
- 3:04Speaker 5: which is called Coyote under a strategic review. Coyote is
- 3:09Speaker 5: the third largest freight broker out there. So one of
- 3:13Speaker 5: the largest publicly traded ones are C. H. Robinson. People
- 3:18Speaker 5: might not know that, might may know that name. Also
- 3:21Speaker 5: r XO is another pure play brokerage as Landstar. There's
- 3:25Speaker 5: a couple private ones. A lot of large companies like
- 3:28Speaker 5: JB Hunt have their own brokerage business in house.
- 3:31Speaker 6: You get sorry for a series of stupid questions, but
- 3:34Speaker 6: this is who you're talking to. What is a freight
- 3:38Speaker 6: what's their role on what do they do a freight brokerage?
- 3:41Speaker 5: So it's they're pretty much get together buyers and sellers
- 3:44Speaker 5: of freight. So if you think about it, so if
- 3:47Speaker 5: you're a shipper and you have a load that you
- 3:48Speaker 5: need to get from point A to point B, you
- 3:51Speaker 5: might use a broker to find a truck to carry
- 3:54Speaker 5: that load, and the broker kind of makes a spread
- 3:58Speaker 5: in between what their charge the shipper and what they're
- 4:01Speaker 5: paying the trucking company. What's happened is, you know, it's
- 4:04Speaker 5: a very cyclical business. Uh, there's there's there's great highs
- 4:07Speaker 5: and kind of depressing loads and margins can be very
- 4:10Speaker 5: volatile during this like, so.
- 4:12Speaker 6: This this just a backup of this brokerage that they
- 4:15Speaker 6: own that they're now getting rid of. That you could
- 4:18Speaker 6: have gone to them and they could have picked a
- 4:19Speaker 6: shipper other than you know, the company that owns them UPS.
- 4:25Speaker 5: Yeah, so you know, so UPS could potentially use its
- 4:29Speaker 5: own in house brokerage to move a trailer load of
- 4:32Speaker 5: freight between two of their sorting facilities. Or if you're
- 4:36Speaker 5: Walmart and you know you have an extra load that
- 4:40Speaker 5: you need to get from your DC to you know,
- 4:43Speaker 5: your spring Lake Walmart. I don't think there's a spring
- 4:46Speaker 5: Walmart and spring Lake Brick. You know, you might, you
- 4:50Speaker 5: might use them because either the carriers that you're contracted
- 4:55Speaker 5: with don't have the capacity, or you're trying to take
- 4:58Speaker 5: advantage of cheap rates and spot market, and right now
- 5:01Speaker 5: truckload rates are extremely cheap. They've been bouncing along the
- 5:04Speaker 5: bottom for quite some time, and so shippers might like
- 5:08Speaker 5: to leverage that. You know, intermodal is an example. So
- 5:12Speaker 5: you know the intermodal space, which is railroads. You know
- 5:16Speaker 5: that's when you see like two containers on top of
- 5:19Speaker 5: a railroad. You know, they're facing increased competition because of
- 5:22Speaker 5: the loose conditions that are on the spot market, and
- 5:26Speaker 5: a lot of those shippers might use brokerage to try
- 5:28Speaker 5: to find a carrier to carry their loads.
- 5:30Speaker 2: Our Thanks to Bloomberg Intelligence senior Transport, Logistics and Shipping
- 5:33Speaker 2: analysts Lea Clasico, let's turn.
- 5:35Speaker 3: Out to Boeing posting fourth quarter earnings, cashul and revenue
- 5:38Speaker 3: that surpassed analyst expectations, but the planemaker for gold guidance
- 5:41Speaker 3: for twenty twenty four as it faces lapses in safety.
- 5:44Speaker 2: To help recap the earnings, co host Emily Grafeo and
- 5:47Speaker 2: I spoke with Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Aerospace, Defense and Airlines
- 5:50Speaker 2: analysts George Ferguson. He began the conversation by discussing his
- 5:54Speaker 2: key takeaways from fourth quarter earnings.
- 5:56Speaker 7: I thought that the quarter's numbers looked pretty much in
- 5:59Speaker 7: line with what we expected, maybe a little bit better.
- 6:01Speaker 7: Commercial airplane. Some of the cash flow generation was a
- 6:05Speaker 7: little bit better. A lot of it from deposits, you
- 6:09Speaker 7: know that they're getting from airplanes as they move through production.
- 6:13Speaker 7: So I wouldn't call that sort of I mean, it's
- 6:15Speaker 7: good cash FLOWD what I wouldn't call it super high quality,
- 6:18Speaker 7: right like when you're generating a lot of cash from
- 6:20Speaker 7: your core operations. Their their global services business had some
- 6:26Speaker 7: very nice margins, even better than we expected, and that's
- 6:31Speaker 7: been a star performer.
- 6:32Speaker 8: It's good to see that holding up.
- 6:35Speaker 7: But yeah, I think the real story here is about
- 6:38Speaker 7: going forward. How they, how they, you know, nip these
- 6:41Speaker 7: quality problems in the bud. And so I do think
- 6:44Speaker 7: that as I think about it more sort of pulling
- 6:47Speaker 7: back guidance, I think that indicates that management is ready
- 6:51Speaker 7: to do whatever it takes to get these.
- 6:54Speaker 8: Quality problems in hand.
- 6:56Speaker 7: And so, you know, my senses maybe they think, look,
- 6:58Speaker 7: we we you know, we may not want to be
- 6:59Speaker 7: whole to an exact number of airplanes in twenty twenty
- 7:03Speaker 7: four as we dig through our manufacturing process and through
- 7:07Speaker 7: the supply chain processes and make sure that we're getting
- 7:10Speaker 7: a quality airplane out the door every single time.
- 7:14Speaker 8: So if pulling guidance is all.
- 7:16Speaker 7: About that and the efforts around that, at what it's
- 7:19Speaker 7: going to take, and focusing again on quality over just
- 7:23Speaker 7: management management metrics, I think that could be a very
- 7:27Speaker 7: very good sign. You know, again the management team is
- 7:30Speaker 7: crystal focused on this is what we have to do.
- 7:33Speaker 9: How different is that than what the company has already
- 7:36Speaker 9: been doing for the last few years. Were they not
- 7:40Speaker 9: as focused on quality and safety beforehand? Like how much
- 7:45Speaker 9: of this is truly a turnaround and a change for Boeing.
- 7:49Speaker 7: So I think I think the business has just materially changed.
- 7:52Speaker 7: I was at an aerospace defense conference last week, and
- 7:57Speaker 7: you know, I didn't need the conference to tell me this,
- 7:59Speaker 7: but I was prize that it was persistent and that
- 8:02Speaker 7: and what I heard from people at the conference over
- 8:05Speaker 7: and over again is that finding employees and employee turnover
- 8:10Speaker 7: is still a problem.
- 8:11Speaker 8: In this industry. It's still a problem now, you know.
- 8:14Speaker 7: I think that the higher you up in the tiers,
- 8:16Speaker 7: like a Boeing or an RTX or a GE, it's
- 8:20Speaker 7: easier to retain employees because you provide great benefit packages.
- 8:23Speaker 8: Everybody wants to be there. But even they have had
- 8:25Speaker 8: a lot of turnover.
- 8:27Speaker 7: And so I think pre pandemic, you could you could
- 8:30Speaker 7: potentially fall back on the thought and in the manufacturing
- 8:33Speaker 7: process of Boeing that you had very, very seasoned.
- 8:35Speaker 8: Folks on the line that have been well.
- 8:38Speaker 7: Trained, seen years in and years out of the business
- 8:41Speaker 7: and we're always going to get it done right. But
- 8:44Speaker 7: I think with the amount of turnover they've had. They
- 8:46Speaker 7: really need to go back and rethink, you know, how
- 8:50Speaker 7: they supervise the line, how they train the employees, and
- 8:54Speaker 7: they have to they have to create more stability by
- 8:56Speaker 7: investing in those people. And so I think this business
- 8:59Speaker 7: has been to rely changed since the pandemic. I will
- 9:01Speaker 7: also say that, you know, Bowling has been sort of
- 9:05Speaker 7: pushing this outsourcing of the business again. They were doing
- 9:08Speaker 7: this pre pandemic, and this is all about, you know,
- 9:10Speaker 7: they want to sort of turn it into the auto industry,
- 9:12Speaker 7: where you outsource subcomponents, you bring it together and rent
- 9:15Speaker 7: and you put together an airplane. And that's turned the
- 9:18Speaker 7: supply chain into a much bigger, you know, portion of
- 9:22Speaker 7: of what you're doing. And it's global as well, right
- 9:25Speaker 7: You're making some of these doors in Malaysia. Things are
- 9:28Speaker 7: coming from all over the world into renting to turn
- 9:31Speaker 7: into an airplane. And I think that's making it more
- 9:34Speaker 7: difficult to keep track of the supply chain and the
- 9:37Speaker 7: quality and the supply chain and what folks are doing
- 9:40Speaker 7: down at those factories. And so I think it's terially changed.
- 9:43Speaker 2: That's the problem, So George, and that sounds like a
- 9:46Speaker 2: problem to me. That was probably decades in the making,
- 9:50Speaker 2: i e. You know, going more to subcontractors and and
- 9:53Speaker 2: you know, as part of globalization. Perhaps is there a
- 9:59Speaker 2: sense that this is a really a long term fix
- 10:02Speaker 2: that investors should not expect anything months. Maybe it's gonna
- 10:06Speaker 2: take years here.
- 10:08Speaker 7: Well, so I mean, I don't think they're going to
- 10:09Speaker 7: stop production. I do think they're going to dig through
- 10:13Speaker 7: the supply chain, you know, sort of hopefully methodically, and
- 10:17Speaker 7: figure out where there could be sources of problem. But
- 10:20Speaker 7: I think what it means is that you're just not
- 10:22Speaker 7: going to see potentially the margin and the cash flow
- 10:25Speaker 7: out of this business that you saw a pre pandemic
- 10:28Speaker 7: for years. While they spend more money and more time
- 10:32Speaker 7: and invest in people and go down and make sure
- 10:34Speaker 7: that everything works. Some stuff may need to be reconsolidated
- 10:37Speaker 7: back at sub tier suppliers or even at Boeing if
- 10:41Speaker 7: they can't get comfortable that they're going to get the
- 10:43Speaker 7: quality out of it. I think it drags. Like I
- 10:45Speaker 7: said in Earnings, Cash Generation two years from now.
- 10:48Speaker 2: At the same time, what I hear from you and
- 10:51Speaker 2: from others in the airline businesses, there's a big demand
- 10:54Speaker 2: for new aircraft out there. So how do they balance
- 10:57Speaker 2: maybe slowing down the line a little bit with the
- 10:59Speaker 2: fact that they're customers need more and more of their product.
- 11:02Speaker 7: So I think it I think it hurts. I think
- 11:04Speaker 7: you'd like to be breaking to higher build rates. Now
- 11:07Speaker 7: air Bus will and air Bus will get market share,
- 11:11Speaker 7: but I think in the long term if you don't,
- 11:13Speaker 7: if you don't fix the quality problem here, you'll lose
- 11:16Speaker 7: long term share and competitiveness and that and that would
- 11:20Speaker 7: be really really bad.
- 11:22Speaker 9: What does this mean for Boeing stock price? Because compare
- 11:26Speaker 9: it to air Bus, it's underperforming on a year basis
- 11:29Speaker 9: Boeing versus Airbus. So is this enough to bring investors
- 11:33Speaker 9: new money into Boeing or is Airbus still going to
- 11:37Speaker 9: be the outperformer here?
- 11:39Speaker 7: So I mean, I think you know, Boeing investors are
- 11:41Speaker 7: going to have to take the long view here, right
- 11:43Speaker 7: because again I don't see any quick fix, you know,
- 11:48Speaker 7: quick leaping to much higher build rates, much better cash generation,
- 11:52Speaker 7: because I think they need to invest back in their business.
- 11:55Speaker 7: Airbus apparent doesn't apparently have this problem. I think more
- 11:58Speaker 7: of the supply chain is bill in house at Airbus
- 12:01Speaker 7: or at least better controlled, And so I think you're
- 12:04Speaker 7: going to see that Airbus is going to perform fundamentally better.
- 12:07Speaker 2: Here thanks to Bloomberg Intelligence. Senior Aerospace, Defense and Airlines
- 12:11Speaker 2: analyst George ferguson.
- 12:12Speaker 3: Coming up why Tesla's profit margin may deserve more appreciation
- 12:16Speaker 3: than it's actually getting.
- 12:17Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
- 12:20Speaker 2: depth research and data on two thousand companies and one
- 12:22Speaker 2: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
- 12:25Speaker 2: b I go on the terminal.
- 12:26Speaker 3: I'm Paul Sweeney, Ana Malex Steel, and this is Bloomberg.
- 12:38Speaker 4: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 12:42Speaker 4: weekdays at ten am Eastern on.
- 12:43Speaker 1: Apocarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen
- 12:47Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us
- 12:50Speaker 1: live on YouTube.
- 12:53Speaker 3: Let's turn out a Tesla, who stock has tumbled so
- 12:55Speaker 3: far this year, the auto industry warns a plunging ed demand,
- 12:58Speaker 3: and Wall Street analyst scale back on expectations.
- 13:01Speaker 2: Co host Emliker Feel joined me as we spoke with
- 13:04Speaker 2: Bloomberg News Editor in chief Emeritus Matt Winkler on this
- 13:07Speaker 2: He discussed why Tesla's profit margin deserves more appreciation than
- 13:10Speaker 2: it's getting.
- 13:11Speaker 10: After losing fifty percent of shareholder worth since November twenty
- 13:17Speaker 10: twenty one, Tesla still is, surprise, surprise, the tenth most
- 13:23Speaker 10: valuable company, and it has the greatest market capitalization of
- 13:30Speaker 10: any maker of cars and trucks in the world. And
- 13:33Speaker 10: there's a reason for that why that is so today,
- 13:36Speaker 10: and it's because Tesla's margins of profit profit margins are
- 13:41Speaker 10: superior to any automaker, including by the way, you could
- 13:47Speaker 10: say its most interesting competitor, BYD from China, which if
- 13:54Speaker 10: you look at the last quarter, became the global sales
- 13:57Speaker 10: leader for zero mission vehicles, which of course it's the
- 14:00Speaker 10: Tesla space, which it has owned. And with all of that,
- 14:05Speaker 10: with all of that, if you like bad news, Tesla
- 14:09Speaker 10: still is holding its value. And I will say this
- 14:13Speaker 10: that if you looked at bid over the past six months,
- 14:18Speaker 10: it's actually trading it it's low. It's declined significantly since August.
- 14:24Speaker 10: So if there was if you like a reevaluation in
- 14:28Speaker 10: the market, if anything, Tesla is more than holding its
- 14:33Speaker 10: own and if anything, BYD is depreciating, and the rest
- 14:38Speaker 10: of the auto industry, of course doesn't have anything close
- 14:41Speaker 10: to the profit margins of Tesla. So that's the story.
- 14:44Speaker 10: I kind of like it, only because after last week,
- 14:47Speaker 10: everybody seemed to be going in one direction if you
- 14:50Speaker 10: read the narrative. The prevailing narrative was, you know, Tesla's
- 14:54Speaker 10: days are numbered not so fast.
- 14:57Speaker 9: So why are people overlooking? And is the fact that
- 15:01Speaker 9: Tesla is down more than fifty percent from its all
- 15:04Speaker 9: time high? Does that mean to you that this profitability
- 15:08Speaker 9: is actually not priced in yet?
- 15:11Speaker 10: Tesla has been a volatile stock, and remember we're talking
- 15:16Speaker 10: about an adolescent here when public in twenty ten, and
- 15:21Speaker 10: it's had many periods like this one where it has
- 15:28Speaker 10: retreated significantly, only to rebound with greater fervor. You've seen
- 15:35Speaker 10: that time and again. You know we're likely to see
- 15:38Speaker 10: it again. But here's an example. If you were to
- 15:41Speaker 10: go right now to the say Fortune magazine most admired Companies,
- 15:48Speaker 10: Tesla isn't there. Now, Think about that for a second.
- 15:51Speaker 10: This is a company that has completely transformed the auto
- 15:55Speaker 10: industry as we know it. It has essentially convinced people
- 15:59Speaker 10: that zero omission vehicles or the future, and even the
- 16:03Speaker 10: very traditional auto giants that competes against have conceded that
- 16:07Speaker 10: they have to make evs, and you would have thought
- 16:10Speaker 10: that would be in and of itself significant enough to
- 16:13Speaker 10: be admired, But no, it's not there. So there's a
- 16:17Speaker 10: lot of, if you will, noise that's associated with Tesla
- 16:21Speaker 10: because of its co founder, Elon Musk, and often the
- 16:26Speaker 10: noise obscures the signal, which is the vehicle itself.
- 16:30Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, I know you've been a long time owner
- 16:32Speaker 2: of the Tesla automobile, so you follow this industry probably
- 16:35Speaker 2: as close as anyone, just because I suspect it's always
- 16:38Speaker 2: been of interest to you. I think the issue now
- 16:41Speaker 2: for investors, not just for Tesla investors, is what is
- 16:45Speaker 2: the ultimate demand for evs out there? And now there's
- 16:48Speaker 2: a question. We saw Ford pull back the production of
- 16:51Speaker 2: the Ford F one fifty Lightning, which I've test driven.
- 16:53Speaker 2: It is an awesome vehicle at ninety four thousand dollars,
- 16:56Speaker 2: or better be, what is your sense as to the
- 17:00Speaker 2: man picture for electric vehicles in this country?
- 17:02Speaker 10: Okay, so you're quite right. I do own a Tesla models.
- 17:07Speaker 10: I never owned the shares for obvious reasons, because it
- 17:10Speaker 10: would be a conflict of interest. In Bloomberg. Being Bloomberg,
- 17:13Speaker 10: we're very careful about such things. But I am at
- 17:17Speaker 10: the one hundred thousand threshold on my Tesla and there's
- 17:23Speaker 10: no sign of any kind of deterioration. And I would
- 17:26Speaker 10: say that many people who write about Tesla probably don't
- 17:30Speaker 10: have the experience of the people who own Tesla's and
- 17:33Speaker 10: if you ask people who own Tesla's pretty much the
- 17:37Speaker 10: satisfaction there is right near the top. And actually Consumer
- 17:40Speaker 10: Report spares that out. So I would say that the
- 17:45Speaker 10: demand for evs is only going to increase. There was
- 17:48Speaker 10: recently a story on Bloomberg about more competition in California,
- 17:54Speaker 10: which has been the same that has led.
- 17:56Speaker 2: But that's California. It's like a different country.
- 17:58Speaker 8: Let's be honest.
- 18:00Speaker 10: It's a case of yeah, there are more people buying evs,
- 18:05Speaker 10: and they're not buying as just Tesla as anymore. Tesla
- 18:09Speaker 10: had a seventy percent market share and now it's down
- 18:12Speaker 10: to sixty something percent. But Tesla's still growing. And that's
- 18:15Speaker 10: the whole point, is that the pie is getting bigger,
- 18:18Speaker 10: and Tesla's piece of the pie is going to get biggers.
- 18:21Speaker 2: From people say I want to buy a Tesla, I
- 18:24Speaker 2: don't want to buy an ev you know, it's like
- 18:26Speaker 2: I want to buy a Tesla because a teslacas it's
- 18:28Speaker 2: such a cool car core brand, But I'm not buying
- 18:31Speaker 2: it because per se, because it's an EV.
- 18:33Speaker 8: Yeah.
- 18:33Speaker 10: And look, here's the thing. Tesla makes only zero mission vehicles.
- 18:38Speaker 10: It's competing against companies outside of BYD and a handful
- 18:43Speaker 10: of others that make all these other fossil fuel machines.
- 18:48Speaker 10: That's a very complicated equation, which is why the profitability
- 18:52Speaker 10: in the auto industry is inferior compared to Tesla. Tesla
- 18:56Speaker 10: only has to focus on one thing, and so far,
- 18:59Speaker 10: if you look at it, it's done very well. You know,
- 19:01Speaker 10: first there was the models, and then there was the
- 19:04Speaker 10: Model X, and then there's the Model Why you know,
- 19:08Speaker 10: the Model three. All of these vehicles actually have made
- 19:12Speaker 10: Tesla a very formidable company, and there's more to come.
- 19:16Speaker 10: I mean, the reason why the stock fell as much
- 19:18Speaker 10: as it did is because Elon Musk actually said we're
- 19:21Speaker 10: going to take a pause, so to speak, to get
- 19:25Speaker 10: an even cheaper EV model in front of people in
- 19:29Speaker 10: the years to come.
- 19:30Speaker 2: What do you think that China's situation is for Elon
- 19:32Speaker 2: must from a competitive standpoints, selling those Teslas into China,
- 19:35Speaker 2: visav byd and some of the other Chinese manufacturers.
- 19:38Speaker 10: The vehicle speaks for itself, and to the extent that
- 19:41Speaker 10: consumers make that choice, it's a good thing for Tesla
- 19:45Speaker 10: to be in China.
- 19:46Speaker 2: Our thanks to Bloomberg News Editor in Chief Emeritus Matt Winkler.
- 19:50Speaker 3: Amazon dot Com abandoning its plan one point four billion
- 19:53Speaker 3: dollar acquisition of rumba maker I Robana. This comes after
- 19:56Speaker 3: a clash with European Union regulators who had threatened to
- 19:59Speaker 3: block that.
- 20:00Speaker 2: Co host Molly Smith and I spoke about this and
- 20:03Speaker 2: the latest and anti trust enforcement with Bloomberg Intelligence senior
- 20:06Speaker 2: litigation antitrust analyst Jennifer ree I first asked Jennifer if
- 20:10Speaker 2: she was surprised the deal between Amazon and I Robot
- 20:13Speaker 2: fell apart.
- 20:14Speaker 11: It wasn't at all, because back in July, the EU
- 20:16Speaker 11: said we have concerns about this deal. I mean they're
- 20:18Speaker 11: concerned about competition in the market for robot vacuums. I
- 20:21Speaker 11: think there's this idea that anti trust is only interested
- 20:24Speaker 11: in really big deals. But at the end of the day,
- 20:26Speaker 11: no matter how small the business is or how few
- 20:28Speaker 11: consumers it might impact, if there's an anti trust problem,
- 20:31Speaker 11: they still have concerns and it's still an illegal deal
- 20:34Speaker 11: in the eyes of regulators. So here they said in
- 20:37Speaker 11: a couple different countries in Europe that Amazon was a
- 20:40Speaker 11: particularly important distributor for robot vacuums and they could foreclose competitors.
- 20:46Speaker 12: I mean, but Amazon's in the market for everything obviously,
- 20:49Speaker 12: not just you know, the robo vacuum market. So and
- 20:52Speaker 12: surely there must be other real competitors out there that
- 20:56Speaker 12: have a more narrowed focus on the robo vacuum space
- 20:59Speaker 12: than Amazon.
- 21:00Speaker 11: Well likely, and that's probably what they argued. But the
- 21:02Speaker 11: thing is, the European Commission said, but this is a
- 21:04Speaker 11: particularly important channel because you won't only own the vacuum,
- 21:08Speaker 11: but you're going to own distribution. An important distribution is
- 21:10Speaker 11: like a vertical acquisition, right. It's an integration that they
- 21:13Speaker 11: had a problem with because that would give them the
- 21:15Speaker 11: ability to foreclose some of these other smaller makers of
- 21:18Speaker 11: these vacuums that need to sell on Amazon. And apparently
- 21:21Speaker 11: in some countries there wasn't enough other competition, so they
- 21:25Speaker 11: had some concerns. There could have been a remedy offered,
- 21:28Speaker 11: but the company decided not to do that. So it
- 21:30Speaker 11: was kind of a stalemate and honestly they were going
- 21:32Speaker 11: to get sued in the US, right, That's what I think.
- 21:34Speaker 12: Yes, OK, I kind of feel like this sets like
- 21:36Speaker 12: a bit of a tone maybe for I would think
- 21:39Speaker 12: there's got to be other similar consumer electronics companies the
- 21:42Speaker 12: where Amazon is a big competitor. That's like, I mean,
- 21:45Speaker 12: does this set some kind of a standard maybe that
- 21:48Speaker 12: this could be an issue going forward in the antitrust world.
- 21:51Speaker 11: Well, I think what it tells you in terms of mergers,
- 21:53Speaker 11: I think it'll tell you that anytime these big tech platforms,
- 21:56Speaker 11: particularly Amazon, try to continue to expand their businesses this
- 21:59Speaker 11: way through mergers, they're going to have trouble. They're going
- 22:01Speaker 11: to face hurdles in the EU, UK, US, The UK
- 22:04Speaker 11: didn't have too many problems with this one. But I
- 22:07Speaker 11: think it does tell us something about the FTC's lawsuit.
- 22:09Speaker 11: You know, they have now this ongoing lawsuit against Amazon,
- 22:12Speaker 11: and they're looking at all these different businesses where that
- 22:15Speaker 11: compete with Amazon but also sell on the marketplace and
- 22:18Speaker 11: have some concerns about it. So you know, some of
- 22:21Speaker 11: the concept that went into the concerns here will be
- 22:23Speaker 11: part of that lawsuit in the US. We're a long
- 22:26Speaker 11: way away from an outcome there. That's pretty new, but
- 22:28Speaker 11: it's pending.
- 22:29Speaker 2: Chen when you talk to some of your friends in
- 22:31Speaker 2: the business, the M and A attorneys out there is
- 22:34Speaker 2: the feeling like almost it really is different out there.
- 22:38Speaker 2: It is really appreciably harder to get anything approved these days.
- 22:42Speaker 11: Oh, Paul, Absolutely, it is so much harder. There's so
- 22:45Speaker 11: much more scrutiny, it takes longer, and that we're seeing
- 22:48Speaker 11: that in the merger agreements. They are different than they
- 22:51Speaker 11: were five years ago. There are much bigger breakup fees
- 22:53Speaker 11: for sellers because they're concerned about the investigation, which can
- 22:57Speaker 11: take a year. They're concerned about a lawsuit. You have
- 23:00Speaker 11: much longer end dates. I mean, it used to be
- 23:02Speaker 11: the end date of a year seem like a really
- 23:03Speaker 11: long end date. Now we're looking at like two years
- 23:05Speaker 11: in some of these agreements because they know they might
- 23:08Speaker 11: have to go to litigation.
- 23:10Speaker 2: So, yeah, there's a big.
- 23:11Speaker 11: Difference right now.
- 23:12Speaker 2: And is that a sense that this it's a short
- 23:15Speaker 2: term reflection of who's in the White House, or is
- 23:17Speaker 2: that just a sense that I don't know, Congress or
- 23:22Speaker 2: society is anti big deal, or.
- 23:25Speaker 11: It's more about who's in the White House, because it's
- 23:27Speaker 11: about the appointments at the FTC and DJ making these
- 23:30Speaker 11: anti trust decisions. Right, So it just happens that we
- 23:33Speaker 11: have two people making decisions that the DOJ and FTC
- 23:36Speaker 11: that are particularly activists, particularly progressive in this area, believe
- 23:41Speaker 11: anti trust enforcement has been way too lax for years
- 23:43Speaker 11: and they're trying to change things.
- 23:44Speaker 12: Are these people's jobs potentially at risk if if Biden
- 23:48Speaker 12: doesn't win re election, Absolutely, and what would the potential
- 23:54Speaker 12: other candidates view on antitrust be.
- 23:57Speaker 11: So the interesting thing is that it really depends on
- 24:00Speaker 11: who's appointed. So let's just say the next president is Republican, right,
- 24:04Speaker 11: Trump or somebody else? Right Now, the Republicans are kind
- 24:08Speaker 11: of a mixed bag. I mean, it used to be
- 24:09Speaker 11: you could always think they're going to be way more
- 24:11Speaker 11: business friendly, they're going to appreciate the efficiencies that come
- 24:13Speaker 11: from consolidation, right, But now you kind of have this
- 24:16Speaker 11: populous side of the Republican Party, and some of the
- 24:20Speaker 11: people in that group also believe we need to crack
- 24:22Speaker 11: down on andy trust, like sort of the Josh Hollies
- 24:25Speaker 11: of the world. So I think if you get a
- 24:27Speaker 11: Republican it's going to depend exactly on who they put
- 24:30Speaker 11: as the chief of Anti Trust at DOJ and who
- 24:32Speaker 11: the commissioners are that get appointed at the.
- 24:34Speaker 2: FTC our Thanks to Bloomberg Intelligence, senior litigation analyst Jennifer Ree.
- 24:38Speaker 3: Coming up on the program, We're going to get the
- 24:40Speaker 3: latest on earnings from Rockwell Automation directly from the company.
- 24:43Speaker 2: C e oh, you're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence on
- 24:46Speaker 2: Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth research and data on two
- 24:48Speaker 2: thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries. You can
- 24:51Speaker 2: access Bloomberg Intelligence via bi go on the terminal.
- 24:54Speaker 3: I'm Paul Sweeney, anam Alex Steele. This is Bloomberg.
- 25:01Speaker 4: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 25:09Speaker 4: weekdays at ten am Eastern on.
- 25:11Speaker 1: Applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app.
- 25:14Speaker 1: You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our
- 25:17Speaker 1: flagship New York station Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
- 25:23Speaker 3: Rockwell Automation posting first quarter propit that missed analyst expectations.
- 25:27Speaker 3: So for more, Paul and I spoke with Rockwell CEO
- 25:29Speaker 3: Blake Morett. We discussed the state of American manufacturing and
- 25:32Speaker 3: the use of automation and technology. I first asked him
- 25:36Speaker 3: why the street was so disappointed in his numbers.
- 25:39Speaker 13: Well, I think they did hear the message of continued
- 25:42Speaker 13: underlying demand remaining strong. But we had a shipment miss
- 25:47Speaker 13: in the quarter. A lot of that was execution, and
- 25:51Speaker 13: we look at that as timing for shipments that will
- 25:54Speaker 13: come back in the year. You know, we had a
- 25:57Speaker 13: very strong growth last year of seventeen percent top line
- 26:01Speaker 13: twenty eight percent adjust to EPs. This is a bit
- 26:04Speaker 13: of a reset year as we get done shipping off
- 26:08Speaker 13: that older backlog that piled up as a result of
- 26:12Speaker 13: supply chain shortages and go back to booking and billing
- 26:17Speaker 13: incoming new orders. And so we're seeing lower growth in
- 26:20Speaker 13: the year with some growing pains, but the underlying demand
- 26:24Speaker 13: remains pretty strong.
- 26:25Speaker 2: That's kind of where I want to go. Blake, tell
- 26:27Speaker 2: us who your customers are and what are your customers
- 26:30Speaker 2: telling you these days, we may.
- 26:32Speaker 13: Be the most pervasive technology in American manufacturing, so everything
- 26:38Speaker 13: from automotive and battery manufacturing to warehouse automation, food and beverage,
- 26:45Speaker 13: life sciences, energy, both traditional fossil fuel as well as
- 26:50Speaker 13: renewables across that whole spectrum our technology, our hardware, and
- 26:54Speaker 13: our software and our services are pretty prevalent.
- 26:58Speaker 3: So when do you know, Blake, if it's still the
- 27:00Speaker 3: supply chain issues that you're still working through versus just
- 27:04Speaker 3: weaker demand, Like do you even know when that moment shifts?
- 27:10Speaker 13: Well, So we had an encouraging quarter in the demand
- 27:14Speaker 13: side in that in Q one, so the quarter ended
- 27:17Speaker 13: in December. We did see double digit sequential growth and
- 27:22Speaker 13: orders off of the trough in our fiscal year, our
- 27:26Speaker 13: fiscal Q four last year, and those orders increases have
- 27:31Speaker 13: continued into January, so that's a very positive sign. Now,
- 27:36Speaker 13: a lot of our distributors, and most of our business
- 27:38Speaker 13: does go through electrical distributors, they had higher inventory than
- 27:42Speaker 13: they wanted and we expect in the coming couple of
- 27:45Speaker 13: months that that inventory gets to more of a normal
- 27:48Speaker 13: level so that their orders to us reflect the strong
- 27:53Speaker 13: underlying demand from machine builders and end users.
- 27:57Speaker 2: Blake, how much lead time do you have in your business?
- 28:01Speaker 2: What's your order book and kind of how much how
- 28:04Speaker 2: much lead tien do you really have?
- 28:06Speaker 13: So the product business, which is the majority of our business,
- 28:12Speaker 13: those lead times are typically days and weeks in a
- 28:15Speaker 13: normal period, and part of our challenge in Q one
- 28:19Speaker 13: was returning all of our products to those fast lead times.
- 28:23Speaker 13: But in a normal, you know, environment, we get an
- 28:27Speaker 13: order and it either gets shipped that day off our
- 28:30Speaker 13: distributors shelf, or we're able to make it and ship
- 28:34Speaker 13: it within days or a few weeks for those products.
- 28:37Speaker 3: So are you an early cycle economic read? Is that
- 28:41Speaker 3: fair to say?
- 28:43Speaker 13: You know, we certainly have exposure early in the cycle,
- 28:47Speaker 13: but the so called late cycle is also an important
- 28:51Speaker 13: part of our business. Whether you're talking about the traditional
- 28:55Speaker 13: process industries or life sciences, we've got pretty broad exposure early,
- 29:01Speaker 13: mid and late cycle. Although I have to say with
- 29:05Speaker 13: the supply chain backlog that we had in twenty twenty
- 29:09Speaker 13: two and twenty three, with the distributor overstock that we're
- 29:13Speaker 13: working through now, it's hard to pin a particular point
- 29:16Speaker 13: in the traditional cycle on this time.
- 29:19Speaker 3: Well, also because you're exposed to sort of all the
- 29:21Speaker 3: structural changes too, like infrastructure act A, chips ACT, the IRA,
- 29:25Speaker 3: So that's a structural shift even though you're still cyclical.
- 29:28Speaker 3: I can imagine that being quite confusing. So based on
- 29:32Speaker 3: where you are and all the different cycles, how are
- 29:35Speaker 3: we doing, Like how's the global economy doing, you know.
- 29:39Speaker 13: Particularly in our home market in the US, where we
- 29:42Speaker 13: have the largest market share, we see continued strong underlying demand.
- 29:47Speaker 13: So we're expecting our orders to be up, you know,
- 29:52Speaker 13: low single digits, and we've guided to one point up
- 29:57Speaker 13: in terms of organic shipments. Underlining demand I think remained
- 30:02Speaker 13: strong and one of the key indicators for me is
- 30:06Speaker 13: continued low unemployment rates in our most important markets.
- 30:11Speaker 2: So, Blake, I'm looking at the PGeo function on the
- 30:14Speaker 2: Bloomberg termol and I could see just by geography looking
- 30:16Speaker 2: at your revenue again, sixty percent roughly of your revenue
- 30:19Speaker 2: as North America. So give us a sense of kind
- 30:21Speaker 2: of North America versus rest of the world. What do
- 30:23Speaker 2: you guys seeing North America is.
- 30:25Speaker 13: The strongest market. China has significant problems right now, and
- 30:32Speaker 13: Europe still dealing with some of their structural issues. A
- 30:37Speaker 13: lot of the business we get in Europe is actually
- 30:39Speaker 13: for export back to North America from the machine builders
- 30:44Speaker 13: over there. But we expect for this year North America
- 30:48Speaker 13: is going to be the strongest market and that's good
- 30:51Speaker 13: for us because we've got home field advantage.
- 30:53Speaker 3: It feels like a US exceptionalism conversation right. Like yet again,
- 30:58Speaker 3: so if we just go macro them for a minute,
- 31:01Speaker 3: if the FED cuts rates in May, what does that do,
- 31:04Speaker 3: Like if you're already seeing us hold up pretty well,
- 31:08Speaker 3: does that accelerate the economy from where you stound?
- 31:12Speaker 13: I think that could help some of the largest CAPEX projects,
- 31:17Speaker 13: which you know we get some business from. But we're
- 31:20Speaker 13: not as much of a capex play as you know
- 31:23Speaker 13: some other names, and that we're pretty balanced between CAPEX
- 31:27Speaker 13: as well as op X in terms of improvements additional
- 31:31Speaker 13: efficiency in existing facilities as well. So I don't know
- 31:36Speaker 13: that interest rates are our biggest indicator. As I said,
- 31:39Speaker 13: for the economy, I look at unemployment, and you know,
- 31:44Speaker 13: I look at the amount of automation investment, both for
- 31:49Speaker 13: new green fields as well as adding efficiency and resilience
- 31:54Speaker 13: in existing facilities.
- 31:57Speaker 2: Like just explain to us kind of what your competitive
- 32:00Speaker 2: marketplace looks like. Where are you guys versus your competitors?
- 32:03Speaker 2: Who do you compete against? And how's that changing?
- 32:06Speaker 13: So our big competitors are mostly the European conglomerates. Really,
- 32:11Speaker 13: it's Semen, Schneider abb in certain narrow parts in the market,
- 32:17Speaker 13: Honeywell and Emerson here in the US where really, you know,
- 32:23Speaker 13: we distinguished ourselves by having a very balanced exposure from
- 32:27Speaker 13: discrete applications like automotive, to hybrid applications like food and
- 32:33Speaker 13: beverage and life sciences, to continuous process applications like energy
- 32:39Speaker 13: and mining and so on.
- 32:40Speaker 3: Hey Blake. To that point, Seemens Energy, part of Semen
- 32:43Speaker 3: had just been really hurt by offshore wind here in
- 32:47Speaker 3: the US, I should say, not owned by Semens, but
- 32:50Speaker 3: Semens owns a stake in Semens Energy. How what's your
- 32:53Speaker 3: view on the energy green transition build out right now?
- 32:57Speaker 3: Are you losing money? You making money? What is your
- 32:59Speaker 3: order book look like?
- 33:01Speaker 13: It's still early innings, but we're seeing good business as
- 33:05Speaker 13: a result of energy transition. And I would bucket it
- 33:09Speaker 13: in three different ways. I'd look at first, the decarbonization
- 33:13Speaker 13: of the traditional oil and gas companies, so carbon capture projects.
- 33:18Speaker 13: We've talked about the work we're doing with Occidental in
- 33:22Speaker 13: their director capture projects, the one point five initiative, it's renewables,
- 33:28Speaker 13: and again we've talked publicly about what we're doing with
- 33:31Speaker 13: companies like First Solar in creating you know, PV panels.
- 33:36Speaker 13: And then it's the thing that we've been doing for
- 33:39Speaker 13: our entire history, and that's driving efficiency across all manufacturing,
- 33:45Speaker 13: and those are all good applications for us. You know,
- 33:48Speaker 13: there's some relatively nascent areas like hydrogen that are sources
- 33:53Speaker 13: of optimism, but you know, I would put them in
- 33:55Speaker 13: those three main areas.
- 33:57Speaker 2: Hey, Blake, I'm looking at the A and R function
- 33:59Speaker 2: on the Bloomberg terminal. It shows me that there are
- 34:02Speaker 2: eleven Wall Street analysts buys on your stock, twelve holds
- 34:05Speaker 2: and five cells, so pretty mixed across the board. What's
- 34:08Speaker 2: the message that you bring to your investors into the marketplace.
- 34:13Speaker 13: That the underlying demand remained strong, that we really have
- 34:17Speaker 13: a unique position among all of those competitors and among
- 34:22Speaker 13: the niche competitors. I like the hand we have, and
- 34:26Speaker 13: as you know, manufacturing picks up and resets from the
- 34:31Speaker 13: period of supply chain shortages. We're in a great spot
- 34:35Speaker 13: to accelerate our profitable growth before.
- 34:39Speaker 9: We end here.
- 34:40Speaker 3: I don't know ninety seconds left. You mentioned jobs quite
- 34:43Speaker 3: a few times. What is your assessment of the labor market?
- 34:46Speaker 3: Hard to get you're going to keep labor paying more?
- 34:48Speaker 9: What do you see?
- 34:50Speaker 13: You know, I think in manufacturing workforce there's still a
- 34:54Speaker 13: lot of unfilled jobs, and we think that, you know,
- 34:59Speaker 13: having a skill workforce is absolutely essential for manufacturers to compete,
- 35:04Speaker 13: but it's augmented with the kind of technology that we offer.
- 35:07Speaker 13: So it's really that winning hand of having an enabled
- 35:11Speaker 13: and engaged workforce, and we do a lot to help
- 35:14Speaker 13: with workforce development, and it's also given them so called
- 35:18Speaker 13: superpowers with the technology that we offer.
- 35:21Speaker 9: Superpowers.
- 35:23Speaker 2: Can you find people for your type of work?
- 35:27Speaker 13: You know, certain jobs, it takes longer than in others.
- 35:31Speaker 13: We're actually helping with workforce development programs that we offer
- 35:35Speaker 13: in house and then provide labor, particularly focused towards technician
- 35:41Speaker 13: level jobs for manufacturers in America through our Academy of
- 35:45Speaker 13: Advanced Manufacturing.
- 35:47Speaker 3: Thanks very much to Rockwell Automation CEO Blake Morrett.
- 35:50Speaker 2: That's this week's edition of Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio,
- 35:53Speaker 2: providing research and data on two thousand companies and one
- 35:55Speaker 2: hundred and thirty industries.
- 35:56Speaker 3: And remember you can access Bloomberg Intelligence through Bigo on
- 35:59Speaker 3: the two terminal. I'm Alex Steele and.
- 36:01Speaker 2: I'm Paul Sweeney. Stay with us. Today's top stories and
- 36:03Speaker 2: global business headlines are coming up right now
- 36:10Speaker 8: M