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Warner Bros. Urges Investors to Reject Paramount Bid · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 2: Paramount updating.
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  Speaker 3: It's bid for Warner Brothers, but it did not increase
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  Speaker 3: its price. It's sticking to that thirty dollars a share
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  Speaker 3: offer for Warner Brothers. But what they did do is
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  Speaker 3: offer some more commitment on financing. Forty one billion dollar
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  Speaker 3: new equity backstop.
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  Speaker 2: KEITHA.
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  Speaker 3: Rongenathen is Bloomberg Intelligence analyst on US Media and she's.
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  Speaker 2: Here with us. Now does this move the needle at all? Here?
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  Speaker 3: Gita for Paramount to basically talk about the financing and
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  Speaker 3: how it's going to backstop it by the Ellison family,
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  Speaker 3: but not change the actual price.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, not completely sure, Scarlett. I do think that they
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  Speaker 4: need to up the price. You know, Warner Brothers Discovery.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, the main concern that they raised was financing,
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  Speaker 4: but they also called the proposal inadequate, inferior to Netflix,
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  Speaker 4: and illusory. The inadequate really stems from the fact that
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  Speaker 4: they feel that Paramount Skuid Dance is undervaluing their TV
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  Speaker 4: network business pretty substantially. Plus they also talk about the
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  Speaker 4: extra almost two dollars a share that they would need
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  Speaker 4: from Paramount if they were to walk away from a Netflix.
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  Speaker 4: This is for this is to cover both the termination
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  Speaker 4: fee that Warner Brothers Discovery would own would owe Netflix,
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  Speaker 4: as well as, you know, some of the financing costs.
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  Speaker 2: So there's all of that.
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  Speaker 4: You know, you kind of put all of that match
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  Speaker 4: together and we come up with at least a thirty
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  Speaker 4: two dollars fifty cent increased bid that Paramount would need
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  Speaker 4: to present in order to kind of get the Warner
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  Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery board back to the table. So, yes, the
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  Speaker 4: financing helps a little bit, but not sure it really
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  Speaker 4: changes the conversation.
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  Speaker 5: We haven't heard a whole lot from Netflix recently. Are
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  Speaker 5: they just quietly sitting on assign lines and confident in
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  Speaker 5: their bid?
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  Speaker 4: So they did, you know, put out a letter to
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  Speaker 4: employees shareholders just kind of reiterating their commitment to the deal.
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  Speaker 4: They think that it will go through. They don't think
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  Speaker 4: they will have, you know, huge problems with the regulators.
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  Speaker 4: And it was interesting today even in the Warner Brothers
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  Speaker 4: Discovery letter that they put out suggesting that you know,
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  Speaker 4: they don't see or they rather that they view both
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  Speaker 4: of the deals as equal from a regulatory perspective. And
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  Speaker 4: one of the key numbers that they highlighted the Warner
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  Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery team was the nine billion dollars in synergies.
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  Speaker 4: So Paramount Skydan's basically talking about three billion dollars in
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  Speaker 4: centergies from its Skydance deals six billion dollars from the
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  Speaker 4: you know, Warner Brothers Discovery deals, saying that that will
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  Speaker 4: actually put a lot of you know that that's bad
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  Speaker 4: for Hollywood. Sure, it would result in a lot of
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  Speaker 4: job losses, whereas the Netflix deal might actually be better.
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  Speaker 3: So who knows, And I mean, this is something that's
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  Speaker 3: going to play out over the next year and a
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  Speaker 3: half to two years. Githa. We know that Jared Kushner,
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  Speaker 3: the President's son in law, his private aquity firm, Affinity Partners,
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  Speaker 3: was involved in the Paramount Skuydance deal. It was supposed
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  Speaker 3: to contribute two hundred million dollars to the financing, but
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  Speaker 3: it has since pulled out of this bid, perhaps because
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  Speaker 3: of potential conflicts of interest. Does this change the scope
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  Speaker 3: of Paramount Suiddances offer, Does it make it more attractive,
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  Speaker 3: less attractive, or does it not really do much?
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  Speaker 4: I think yes, you're right, Scarlett. The optics were definitely
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  Speaker 4: bad and it kind of, you know, looked a little
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  Speaker 4: bit questionable. So now they're kind of removing that, which
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  Speaker 4: is which is definitely good. I think it's more positive
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  Speaker 4: for the Paramount Skydance deal. That said, though, I think
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  Speaker 4: they really really need to deliver a knockout bid, and
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  Speaker 4: the knockout bid that we're kind of looking for is
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  Speaker 4: something like thirty five dollars. I think that really then
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  Speaker 4: gets Netflix thinking about, Okay, do we need to re
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  Speaker 4: up our offer, and everybody gets excited at the Warner
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  Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery board again until they do some thing really
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  Speaker 4: significant on the pricing front. I don't think the Warner
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  Speaker 4: Brothers Discovery board is going to want to come back
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  Speaker 4: to the table to re engage Keith.
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  Speaker 5: Have one of the comparable deals out there for a
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  Speaker 5: spin off of Warner Brothers. Cable Networks is what Comcast
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  Speaker 5: is spinning out. It's cable Networks and a company called
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  Speaker 5: Versant is that publicly traded yet have they done that?
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  Speaker 6: Spin out.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, they did. You know, they have a when issued trading.
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  Speaker 4: The actual the complete distribution will will happen sometime in
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  Speaker 4: January when it will start trading, but we do you
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  Speaker 4: know they with the when issue trading, we do have
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  Speaker 4: some price discovery for that stock. So right now, if
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  Speaker 4: you kind of look at where versus just trading, we
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  Speaker 4: get a d or a forward EBIDOM multiple of about
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  Speaker 4: five point two times, which is higher than what paramount
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  Speaker 4: Skydance had suggested for the valuation of the Warner Brothers
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  Speaker 4: Discovery at four point five x. So already there we're
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  Speaker 4: kind of seeing some signs that the valuation of the
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  Speaker 4: global networks business should be slightly higher.
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  Speaker 3: Do you see any other m and A taking place
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  Speaker 3: in media? I know we're all fixated on the bidding
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  Speaker 3: war for Warner Brothers Discovery, but at one point Comcast
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  Speaker 3: was a potential bidder and it dropped out fairly early.
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  Speaker 3: But are there any other deals kind of percolating in
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  Speaker 3: the background that you would keep your eye on.
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  Speaker 4: I think there's just a lot of consolidation that's waiting
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  Speaker 4: to happen. Scarlett. I think people first want to wait
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  Speaker 4: and watch a little bit see what happens with the
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  Speaker 4: Warner Brothers Discovery situation kind of test out what's happening
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  Speaker 4: with the regulators. But yeah, there are absolutely a lot
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  Speaker 4: of smaller players, and you know, Netflix becoming bigger or
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  Speaker 4: Paramount becoming bigger really kind of forces everybody to take
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  Speaker 4: a hard look at their portfolios and see what they
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  Speaker 4: should do next. As you rightly mentioned, NBC is the
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  Speaker 4: one name that definitely comes up to mind. Comcasts NBC
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  Speaker 4: they need something. Their Peacock platform is really subscale, so
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  Speaker 4: it's really going to depend on whether they want to
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  Speaker 4: do some kind of partnership or they actually need to
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  Speaker 4: go out and acquire some other smaller networks, maybe AMC networks,
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  Speaker 4: maybe some other kind of you know, streaming business. So
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  Speaker 4: a lot of deals waiting to happen, but I think
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  Speaker 4: this is really the big one that everybody's focused on
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  Speaker 4: at the moment.
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  Speaker 6: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 5: Let's switch gears to the airline business. Bankrupt Spirit Aviation Holdings,
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  Speaker 5: you remember them, is in revived discussions to merge with
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  Speaker 5: front Tier Group Holdings in a deal that could rescue
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  Speaker 5: the deep discount airline from insolvency. Let's break this potential
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  Speaker 5: deal down. But George Ferguson, senior airspace, defense and airlines
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence, George, does it make sense putting
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: these two I'm going to call them struggling regional airlines
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  Speaker 5: or discount airlines? Does it make sense to put that together?
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  Speaker 4: You know what?
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  Speaker 7: I think it might actually so this is you know,
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  Speaker 7: back to the future. Originally sort of I think, you
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  Speaker 7: know what we saw sort of set off a little
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  Speaker 7: fight for Spirit Airlines was the initial uh you know
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  Speaker 7: merger purchase from Frontier. Frontier taking the Spirit, jet Blue
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  Speaker 7: decided they didn't want to let that those two you
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  Speaker 7: know coalesce, you know, merge together and become a major
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  Speaker 7: competitor to them, So they stepped in the middle, tried
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  Speaker 7: to grab Spirit and after that everyone Spirit Frontier jet
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  Speaker 7: Blue just went through some pretty rough times as fairs
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  Speaker 7: weakened in the market. I think, you know, the economy
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  Speaker 7: Flyer kind of faded out a little bit on higher
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  Speaker 7: inflation and other problems, and so, you know, I think
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  Speaker 7: where we're back to, though, is that Spirit and Frontier
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  Speaker 7: had very similar business, uh you know, types, similar cultures.
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  Speaker 7: I think if you put the two airplace airlines together,
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  Speaker 7: now you have an airline that have something like three
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  Speaker 7: hundred and fifty seats, I think there's enough other markets
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  Speaker 7: they could go after. I mean, in comparison, you know Southwest,
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  Speaker 7: which is is a domestic and sort of near to
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  Speaker 7: the US kind of market airline, they have seven hundred airplanes.
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  Speaker 7: They find a place to put all those airplanes. So
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  Speaker 7: I think it could sort of charge growth up pretty
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  Speaker 7: quickly for Frontier, sort of help them lay in an
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  Speaker 7: extra hundred airplanes might not be a bad idea, and
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  Speaker 7: they might get a really nice price on it.
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  Speaker 3: But do two week airlines make a strong airline.
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  Speaker 7: I mean, look, right now, I think the economy portion
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  Speaker 7: of the business is reeling. It has too much capacity.
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  Speaker 7: Spirit is shedding. Some of those airplanes are going to
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  Speaker 7: go elsewhere. So we're you know, we're talking about an
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  Speaker 7: airline that only has one hundred and I think if
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  Speaker 7: you want to be competitive in the market. You have
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  Speaker 7: to be able to fly sort of coast to coast
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  Speaker 7: off of your customers, you know, a full comple men
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  Speaker 7: of destinations. I think you need more half for those
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  Speaker 7: loyalty programs that helped drive some better results as you
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  Speaker 7: sell them, you know, credit cards and they buy their
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  Speaker 7: groceries and things like that that on it. So I
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  Speaker 7: don't think it hurts for Frontier to try to get
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  Speaker 7: larger and to do it, to supercharge it through taking
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  Speaker 7: one hundred airplanes out of Spirit. I don't think it's
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  Speaker 7: a I don't think it's a bad idea.
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  Speaker 6: Will the regulators allow this church, I.
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  Speaker 7: Don't think it's going to be a problem, right. I
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  Speaker 7: don't think it was originally a problem when when Jet
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  Speaker 7: Blue was looking at Spirit and when Frontier was looking
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  Speaker 7: at Spirit. But now Spirit's even smaller. We kind of
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  Speaker 7: put them together today, looking at available seat miles in
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  Speaker 7: one queue, a combined airline looked to us to be
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  Speaker 7: the sixth largest in the country.
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  Speaker 2: It was just.
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  Speaker 7: Ahead of Jet Blue. If it adds I don't know.
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  Speaker 7: If it adds you know, some premium seating and knock
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  Speaker 7: some seating out of some of those airplanes, it might
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  Speaker 7: not even beat Jet Blue. I don't think this is
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  Speaker 7: a big issue for the US market.
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  Speaker 3: What would this mean for jobs? Jobs at Spirit, jobs
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  Speaker 3: at Frontier.
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  Speaker 7: I mean, I think it could probably preserve some jobs,
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  Speaker 7: because I don't think they're going to want to shrink
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  Speaker 7: the airline operations. But I do think if Spirit doesn't
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  Speaker 7: find someone to go with soon, that they may cease
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  Speaker 7: to exist, and that obviously hurts jobs.
• 10:23
  Speaker 6: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever
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  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: Marry Scarthoompaul Sweeney live here in our Bloomberg and Director
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: Brooker Studio in New York City streaming live on.
• 10:49
  Speaker 6: YouTube as well.
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: Well. Home Builder Leonar reported some earnings today, A little
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  Speaker 5: bit disappointing here on stock down five percent today, down
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  Speaker 5: eighteen percent year to date. It's a big company, it's
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  Speaker 5: kind of market capped for like twenty eight billion dollars.
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  Speaker 5: But I'm looking at some of the homebuilders, a lot
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  Speaker 5: of them are down double digits on a a year
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  Speaker 5: to date basis.
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  Speaker 8: Yere.
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  Speaker 5: Let's break it down with Drew redding Hope, building analyst
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: for Bloomberg Intelligence. Drew talk to us about Leonar. What
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  Speaker 5: did they say to the street here with their latest earnings?
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, this was a This was a tough print for
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  Speaker 8: Leonard at this cord. They came into the quarter with
• 11:22
  Speaker 8: a pretty low bar. Investor expectations had been coming down,
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  Speaker 8: but they still disappointed on both orders and margins. And
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  Speaker 8: even more concerning was the guidance they issued for the
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  Speaker 8: first quarter, which was short on orders, closings, and margins.
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  Speaker 8: So we think that consensus needs to come down pretty
• 11:40
  Speaker 8: sharply here. You know, what this tells us is that
• 11:44
  Speaker 8: even though rates have fallen to kind of that low
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  Speaker 8: six percent range, I think we're about six point three now,
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  Speaker 8: it doesn't appear that they're significantly catalyzing demand, which was
• 11:56
  Speaker 8: what a lot of people had been expecting. So I
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  Speaker 8: think that points out that, you know, there's other things
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  Speaker 8: going on. It's you know, we've we've said in the
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  Speaker 8: past it's not just rates, but its prices and overall affordability.
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  Speaker 8: But something we've heard pretty consistently from the builders is
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  Speaker 8: that consumer confidence is really holding the market back. There's
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  Speaker 8: concerns over the direction of the economy and concerns about
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  Speaker 8: the labor market. If look, if you don't have a job,
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  Speaker 8: you're you're certainly not buying a house. So we expect
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  Speaker 8: in this environment the use of sales incentives to remain
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  Speaker 8: elevate it and that's going to continue to pressure margins.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, they get volume, but they don't get
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  Speaker 3: the profitability. So home builders are facing a lot of challenges.
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  Speaker 3: They also face competition from the resale market. Talk a
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  Speaker 3: little bit about the numbers involved here in terms of
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  Speaker 3: new construction versus existing homes.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, that's a that's a great point. You know, the
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  Speaker 8: lack of force sale inventory in the resale market was
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  Speaker 8: a huge benefit to the builders over the last couple
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  Speaker 8: of years. There weren't a lot of options with funneled
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  Speaker 8: buyers into the new home market, where you know, builders
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  Speaker 8: have been able to make monthly payments more attractive for
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  Speaker 8: their use of buydowns. That dynamic has shifted over the
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  Speaker 8: last year where we're starting to see pretty significant increases
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  Speaker 8: in for sale listings in the resale market, particularly in
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  Speaker 8: the most important markets for the builders. You know, think Florida, Texas, California.
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  Speaker 8: So all of a sudden, there's this new competition for them,
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  Speaker 8: and in order to get a sale, they're having to
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  Speaker 8: fight harder for each one, which means higher incentives, more
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  Speaker 8: pressure on pricing. Drue.
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  Speaker 5: I'm looking at the existing home sales in the United States.
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  Speaker 5: It has been been running at about a four million
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  Speaker 5: home rate for the last few years, but historically that's
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  Speaker 5: been a lot higher, hasn't it. So there just there's
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  Speaker 5: just not a lot of supply of existing homes out
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  Speaker 5: there in the marketplace.
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  Speaker 6: And is that an interest rate story?
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, it's partly an interest rate story. You know. The
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  Speaker 8: one thing that we've consistently pointed out is that if
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  Speaker 8: you look at the composition of outstanding mortgages, you have
• 13:55
  Speaker 8: a majority of current mortgage holders who have something well
• 13:58
  Speaker 8: below the prevailing mortgage rate, which is around six percent. Now,
• 14:03
  Speaker 8: a lot of people during the pandemic, we're able to
• 14:04
  Speaker 8: lock in rates in the fours and even you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 8: the high threes, some perhaps in the twos. So, you know,
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  Speaker 8: the existing home market has really been frozen if you
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  Speaker 8: look at total volumes, you know, you mentioned we've been
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  Speaker 8: hovering around this four million annualized rate for about three
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  Speaker 8: years now, that's that's about twenty percent below what a
• 14:23
  Speaker 8: normalized market would look like. So you know, I think
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  Speaker 8: rates coming in will certainly help. As we look out
• 14:30
  Speaker 8: to next year, we do think that you're going to
• 14:31
  Speaker 8: see perhaps mid to highest single digit growth in the
• 14:34
  Speaker 8: existing home market. But keep in mind we're coming off
• 14:37
  Speaker 8: you know, historically low levels, so some improvement, but I
• 14:40
  Speaker 8: think context is certainly key there well.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: And are certainly not the only builder facing these these challenges.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: How is the company specifically saying or explaining to investors
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: how it's adapting to this new normal of persistent affordability
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: concerns due to softening consumer confidence and a weakening job
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: mar get all these macro headwinds that it has no
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: control over.
• 15:05
  Speaker 8: Yeah, Lenar has been a pretty interesting example. Remember they're
• 15:09
  Speaker 8: the second largest builder by volume in the country, and
• 15:12
  Speaker 8: they run a production first business, which means their goal
• 15:16
  Speaker 8: is to push volumes, and over the last couple of
• 15:18
  Speaker 8: years they've been willing to sacrifice margin to get volume.
• 15:23
  Speaker 8: So you know, they'll tell you they're bringing a more
• 15:25
  Speaker 8: affordable product to the market, But what we've seen is
• 15:28
  Speaker 8: a dramatic drop in their gross margins. In just three years,
• 15:31
  Speaker 8: they've gone from you know, a gross margin in the
• 15:33
  Speaker 8: high twenty percent to something in the high teens percent
• 15:37
  Speaker 8: in twenty twenty five, so a very sharp ball. And
• 15:40
  Speaker 8: what they told us last quarter is that, you know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 8: they can only push so hard on this market. The
• 15:47
  Speaker 8: demand just simply isn't there. So in order to get
• 15:49
  Speaker 8: more sales, the incentives have to keep ratcheting up. So
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  Speaker 8: what they told us is that they're they're making some
• 15:55
  Speaker 8: sort of a pivot into where they're looking to sustain
• 15:58
  Speaker 8: their gross margin. So what we want to hear from
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  Speaker 8: them on the call is, you know, where do we
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  Speaker 8: think that gross margin floor ultimately lands and is the
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  Speaker 8: pullback in production that we've started to see it has
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  Speaker 8: it normalized?
• 16:11
  Speaker 6: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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• 16:32
  Speaker 5: The biggest IPO of the year priced last night, Medline.
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• 17:10
  Speaker 5: company for investors. Jonathan, what does Mendline do here and
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: why are they coming public?
• 17:15
  Speaker 9: Thanks Paul for having me.
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: So.
• 17:17
  Speaker 9: Medline is what's traditionally thought of as a distributor, but
• 17:20
  Speaker 9: I'd argue it's more than that. So really, this company's
• 17:23
  Speaker 9: been around for decades. It's started by the Mills family
• 17:25
  Speaker 9: in the sixties. In twenty twenty one, they sold to
• 17:29
  Speaker 9: private equity and now they're coming back to the public markets.
• 17:32
  Speaker 9: You know, what they traditionally did was provide distribution and
• 17:35
  Speaker 9: logistics to hospitals.
• 17:37
  Speaker 6: But over the years they.
• 17:38
  Speaker 9: Actually started making their own products, so things like masks, strape, sutures,
• 17:43
  Speaker 9: all the stuff that kind of you need into surgery
• 17:45
  Speaker 9: or to take care of patients. It's not too sexy,
• 17:48
  Speaker 9: but it has a much better margin than logistics. So
• 17:51
  Speaker 9: half the company today is their own medline brand products.
• 17:54
  Speaker 9: Half of it is distribution services. The secret sauce here
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: is that they basically give They don't give it all,
• 18:00
  Speaker 9: but they can essentially give away the distribution and logistics
• 18:02
  Speaker 9: piece while capturing all the margin on the product side.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: How much market share do they have?
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've gone to hospitals before and seen the
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: midline name attached to I don't know, like a bed
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: for instance, or you know the canister on the wall
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: where you get your ro gloves.
• 18:17
  Speaker 9: Yeah, that's a good question. I mean I think it
• 18:19
  Speaker 9: would depend on the product category. I mean, from the
• 18:22
  Speaker 9: distribution side, they're just a little bit bigger than their
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: peers like Cardinal Health and what was Owen's and Minor.
• 18:28
  Speaker 9: It's kind of a a oligopoly where those big three
• 18:31
  Speaker 9: players are distributing to all the healthcare facilities. You know,
• 18:35
  Speaker 9: in terms of products, you know, it's about half of revenue,
• 18:38
  Speaker 9: so roughly twelve fifteen billion right here.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: What about tariffs? How affected by tariffs are there?
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Because I can't imagine that these items gloves, masks, swaps,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: ranges are made in the US.
• 18:49
  Speaker 9: Well, they do have a fair amount of manufacturing in
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: the United States. They have talked about tariffs a couple
• 18:55
  Speaker 9: hundred million impact this year and next year. I mean
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: to be honest with you, For a be this size
• 19:00
  Speaker 9: and this scale, that that's a pretty surmountable hurdle. You know,
• 19:04
  Speaker 9: it'll get priced in in the next round of contract
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: negotiations and it'll be you know, business as usual going off,
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: going forward.
• 19:10
  Speaker 5: As a former banker, I just look at the deal
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: dynamics here, upsized offering offering finished north to ten times oversubscribed.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: Top ten investors in this allocation took more than fifty
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: percent of the shares. Top twenty five investors took about
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: eighty percent of the deal. Here are the private equity guys,
• 19:28
  Speaker 5: are they selling here or is this just company shares?
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: It's a combination of both. And then the Mills family
• 19:34
  Speaker 9: still owns about twenty percent of the company and they're
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: not selling any shares good.
• 19:38
  Speaker 6: So what what what are you suppose each here?
• 19:40
  Speaker 8: Do you think?
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry?
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: What what are the U s of proce each here?
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: What are they going to use the money.
• 19:43
  Speaker 9: For primary to pay down debt? They had about sixteen
• 19:46
  Speaker 9: billion dollars of debt. You know that they levered up
• 19:48
  Speaker 9: on the private equity transaction, and they're paying down a
• 19:50
  Speaker 9: pretty healthy slug of that right here.
• 19:54
  Speaker 6: Stock hasn't even opened yet.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, Jesus, well, when I was doing this, then
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: is the ticker to watch?
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: I was doing this if I didn't have it open
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: by ten third, not till the noon hour. Now, I
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: know my boss would come over and smack me with
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: this tennis record. That's happened many times.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: You're not allout to do that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: We're opening up this kid, Let's go, let's go.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: You had mentioned that some of its traditional competitors, like
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Cardinal Health, for instance.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: Is that still a competitor in that?
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Does Cardinal Health also make its own products and sell
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: it under its own name?
• 20:23
  Speaker 9: They do, but not at the same scale as Medline.
• 20:26
  Speaker 9: And that's, like I mentioned before, really been their secret
• 20:28
  Speaker 9: sauce and how they've outcompeted their peers. The other thing
• 20:32
  Speaker 9: that's interesting is Cardinal. You know, Cardinal is much more
• 20:35
  Speaker 9: of a drug distributor with this medical division. I don't
• 20:38
  Speaker 9: think they want to be in that business long term.
• 20:40
  Speaker 9: Owns and Minor actually just sold their business for a
• 20:43
  Speaker 9: couple hundred million to private equity. So Medline's the queer
• 20:47
  Speaker 9: number one gold standard player in this space.
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: Fifteen to seventeen times ford EBITDA Are you kidding me?
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: This isn't a technology company, it's a healthcare company.
• 20:56
  Speaker 9: Well, to put it into context, though, product companies, you know,
• 21:00
  Speaker 9: the Medtronics, the Becton, Dickinson's, the Abbot Labs, they're all
• 21:05
  Speaker 9: trading twenty times. So really it's getting a discount relative
• 21:08
  Speaker 9: to product companies, and it's kind of priced in line
• 21:11
  Speaker 9: with the healthcare distribution companies like the Cardinal Health, the
• 21:14
  Speaker 9: McKesson and so forth.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at the Cornerstone investors. There is at least
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: eight of them. They lined up more than two point
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: three billion dollars in commitments. What does that tell you
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: about the investor base of Medline.
• 21:27
  Speaker 9: Well, to me, it says that this is a very
• 21:29
  Speaker 9: stable business. I mean, they've talked about growing the top
• 21:33
  Speaker 9: line high single digits and adjusted EBITA by the same
• 21:36
  Speaker 9: or better. I mean, I think this is a story
• 21:38
  Speaker 9: that's going to unfold over multiple years where you know,
• 21:40
  Speaker 9: they're going to come out of the gate, they're going
• 21:42
  Speaker 9: to hit their numbers, they'll pay down debt so their
• 21:44
  Speaker 9: leverage goes down, you know, post this private equity era,
• 21:48
  Speaker 9: and then we'll probably see some more our shareholder friendly
• 21:52
  Speaker 9: capital deployment, whether it's buybacks. You know, this would seem
• 21:55
  Speaker 9: like a good business to have a divid end.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: Ultimately, there's a healthcare industry broadly defined that they like
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: this administration or they concern that maybe some o regulatory
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: riskcty out there.
• 22:04
  Speaker 9: I think it depends on who you ask, Okay, I
• 22:05
  Speaker 9: mean I think uncertain Nobody likes uncertainty in the business world, right,
• 22:08
  Speaker 9: and there's been a lot of uncertainty around healthcare in particular.
• 22:11
  Speaker 9: I mean, these companies in the service industry have been
• 22:14
  Speaker 9: a lady a little less in the spotlight than let's
• 22:16
  Speaker 9: say the drug and pharmaceutical industry. But you know, at
• 22:19
  Speaker 9: the end of the day, people get sick, they need
• 22:21
  Speaker 9: to go to the hospital, they need operations, they need
• 22:23
  Speaker 9: to see doctors. It's business as usual.
• 22:26
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