Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / HPE Earnings, Mnuchin Chases Wall Street Glory
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- 0:02Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. This is Bloomberg Intelligence
- 0:11Speaker 1: with Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney.
- 0:13Speaker 2: The real app performance has been in US corporate high yield.
- 0:16Speaker 3: Are the companies lean enough? Have they trimmed all the fats?
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- 0:25Speaker 3: Do investors like the M and A that we've seen?
- 0:28Speaker 2: These are two big time blue chip companies.
- 0:31Speaker 3: The window between the peak and cut changing super fast.
- 0:35Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:41Speaker 4: I'm Paul Sweeney and I'm John Tucker filling in for
- 0:44Speaker 4: Alex Steele.
- 0:45Speaker 2: On today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show. We dig inside the big
- 0:47Speaker 2: business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
- 0:50Speaker 4: Each and every week we provide in depth research and
- 0:52Speaker 4: data on some of the two thousand companies at one
- 0:55Speaker 4: hundred and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide.
- 0:58Speaker 2: Today, we'll look at why the athletic perrol retailer Lululemon
- 1:01Speaker 2: raised his profit outlook for the full year.
- 1:03Speaker 4: Plus, We're going to discuss where we are in the
- 1:06Speaker 4: US with developing the carbon market, but.
- 1:08Speaker 2: First we dive into information technology. HPE reported better than
- 1:12Speaker 2: expected second quarter revenue this week.
- 1:14Speaker 4: The results were fueled by sales of servers built for
- 1:17Speaker 4: artificial intelligence work for more.
- 1:19Speaker 2: Co hosts Alex Steele and I were joined by wou Jinho,
- 1:22Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence senior technology analysts. We first asked him for
- 1:25Speaker 2: his key takeaways from HPE's earnings.
- 1:28Speaker 5: I will tell you I don't think many people gave
- 1:31Speaker 5: heughlet Packard the benefit of the doubt in terms of
- 1:34Speaker 5: the AI server story. We saw that in the multiple
- 1:37Speaker 5: relative to Dell, HPE had a multiple less than eight. Dell,
- 1:42Speaker 5: even with the pullback, was at seventeen. So you know
- 1:46Speaker 5: they delivered on the story. AI servers doubled on a
- 1:49Speaker 5: sequential basis, and it seems as if the momentum could
- 1:52Speaker 5: be carried through into the second half of the year.
- 1:53Speaker 6: And Woods reading your react note, which is a great
- 1:56Speaker 6: part of BI folks, You know of a big piece
- 1:58Speaker 6: of news hits, you want to know what the bi
- 2:00Speaker 6: analysts are thinking, and they get out with what they
- 2:02Speaker 6: call or react a quick thought on a big piece
- 2:04Speaker 6: of news. And your react Wood in your research note said,
- 2:08Speaker 6: maybe they didn't take this revenue beat far enough in
- 2:11Speaker 6: their in their guidance going forward, tell us about that.
- 2:13Speaker 5: Yeah, so if we think about the magnitude of the beat,
- 2:16Speaker 5: it was about four hundred million dollars in the quarter.
- 2:19Speaker 5: They only raise the guidance for about by about three
- 2:21Speaker 5: hundred million, So something doesn't tie here. A couple of
- 2:24Speaker 5: things I think may have happened was probably networking maybe
- 2:28Speaker 5: coming in a little bit lighter in the second half,
- 2:30Speaker 5: which is becoming a drag on the second half growth,
- 2:32Speaker 5: and that was somewhat to be expected. The one thing
- 2:35Speaker 5: I will say, and similar to what I said in Dell,
- 2:38Speaker 5: is that there might be still some conservatism as it
- 2:40Speaker 5: relates to the AI server sales going into the second
- 2:44Speaker 5: half of the year. Part of it. They addressed it
- 2:46Speaker 5: on the call. There's some constraints in terms of the
- 2:49Speaker 5: data centers where they can put start putting these AI servers.
- 2:52Speaker 5: And this is something new, and I think this is
- 2:54Speaker 5: going to be a bigger thing, a bigger deal going
- 2:56Speaker 5: into twenty twenty five. Are there enough data centers that
- 2:59Speaker 5: can really support these AI service going forward?
- 3:01Speaker 3: Will there be?
- 3:02Speaker 5: I say yes, the cloud guys as well as enterprise
- 3:05Speaker 5: guys will will eventually figure it out, but it takes
- 3:08Speaker 5: time to build these out.
- 3:10Speaker 2: Where do you think HPE should trade relative to Dell?
- 3:13Speaker 5: You know going forward, Well, there is a leverage issue
- 3:16Speaker 5: here in terms of the debt that they're taking on
- 3:18Speaker 5: the pending Juniper deal, they are going to be taking
- 3:21Speaker 5: on more debt, which is going to anchor the valuation
- 3:25Speaker 5: just a bit. Dell has a more favorable capital structure
- 3:28Speaker 5: which helps quite a bit. But I will tell you
- 3:31Speaker 5: if the AI story really starts to take off relative
- 3:34Speaker 5: to someone like a Delaware, a super Micro, we could
- 3:36Speaker 5: start seeing multiples rise a little bit more.
- 3:39Speaker 3: This might be a super silly question, but as someone
- 3:42Speaker 3: who has to like input all of these earnings for
- 3:45Speaker 3: software and for services and enterprise when it comes to AI,
- 3:49Speaker 3: who is a legit competitor with Hpe? Is it just Dell?
- 3:52Speaker 3: Are there smaller guys out there that do something similar?
- 3:56Speaker 5: I'll tell you that that's an excellent question. Right. So
- 3:59Speaker 5: the three pulicly trade names that compete hut to head
- 4:01Speaker 5: with Dell are super Micro, Dell, Hpe, and Lenovo. Right,
- 4:06Speaker 5: But what we heard from a copy text out of
- 4:08Speaker 5: Taiwan and video striking deals with these white box manufacturers,
- 4:13Speaker 5: like like a fox cod or a Quanta to directly
- 4:17Speaker 5: build these AI servers for these clouds. So you are
- 4:22Speaker 5: going to start seeing heightened competition in the landscape.
- 4:25Speaker 2: So you know, HPE is this it? I mean in
- 4:28Speaker 2: the sense that can we sit back and say, I
- 4:30Speaker 2: think these guys have it. They have an AI product
- 4:34Speaker 2: in their product lineup, and these guys can, in fact,
- 4:37Speaker 2: in the long term be players in this business.
- 4:40Speaker 5: So I think there's just been a The narrative on
- 4:44Speaker 5: HPE has been a little bit off for quite some
- 4:47Speaker 5: time now. We have to keep in mind that they've
- 4:49Speaker 5: been in a super computing game for quite a few years.
- 4:53Speaker 5: After the acquisition of Kray, now a couple of things
- 4:57Speaker 5: on the traditional service side, they didn't have the product
- 4:59Speaker 5: lineup to compete against like a super Micro and Dell.
- 5:02Speaker 5: But we're still in the early innings. And one thing
- 5:05Speaker 5: that I will tell you they are going to have
- 5:08Speaker 5: their discovered conference and schedule to be on stage is
- 5:11Speaker 5: the CEO of Nvidia, and that should really help prop
- 5:14Speaker 5: up the product narrative on the AI server side. Look,
- 5:17Speaker 5: we're still in the early innings, second, third, fourth, fifth inning.
- 5:21Speaker 5: HPE is going to be in the center of this.
- 5:23Speaker 3: I am curious how does the first mover advantage thing
- 5:26Speaker 3: play out? Like, if I'm a company, am I married
- 5:30Speaker 3: to Dell? How easy is it for me to switch
- 5:33Speaker 3: when Hpe kind of comes roaring?
- 5:35Speaker 5: So I want to take it in a different way. Right,
- 5:38Speaker 5: at the end of the day, it's a hardware, please.
- 5:41Speaker 5: You know a laptop is a laptop is a laptop, right,
- 5:43Speaker 5: you know my HP laptop is similar to a Dell laptop,
- 5:47Speaker 5: and you know it depends on the bells and whistles.
- 5:49Speaker 5: AI is actually going to be a different animal, especially
- 5:52Speaker 5: for the corporate enterprise, and you're going to have to
- 5:54Speaker 5: start wrapping around services around with the hardware itself. There
- 6:00Speaker 5: are probably three companies that can actually do that, Lenovo, Dell,
- 6:04Speaker 5: and Hpe, And you'll need the extensive services that can
- 6:08Speaker 5: help not only supply the hardware, not only supply the
- 6:12Speaker 5: maintenance and repair, but AI will need ex software expertise
- 6:18Speaker 5: to help build out these AI models for these corporations.
- 6:23Speaker 5: And you know there aren't many IT services companies that
- 6:26Speaker 5: can do that.
- 6:26Speaker 4: Hpe is one of them thanks to Wouji and Hull
- 6:29Speaker 4: Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Technology Analyst.
- 6:32Speaker 2: We next take a look at the Swedish Swiss company a.
- 6:35Speaker 4: B b ABB is a technology leader in electrification and automation,
- 6:40Speaker 4: enabling a more sustainable and resource efficient future.
- 6:44Speaker 2: Guest host Jessman and I were joined by ABB chairman
- 6:47Speaker 2: Peter Vasser. We first asked Peter where the focus this
- 6:50Speaker 2: company is these days.
- 6:52Speaker 7: It's clearly it's the energy transition, which is not only
- 6:56Speaker 7: the hard to abate tech betas, it's in general the
- 6:59Speaker 7: move from a more fossile driven energy system into electric
- 7:04Speaker 7: energy system and there we obviously contribute with our products
- 7:08Speaker 7: and systems, which gives us energy savings between twenty and
- 7:12Speaker 7: forty or even fifty percent. So that's one angle.
- 7:15Speaker 1: The other one is.
- 7:16Speaker 7: All linked to new technologies around automation and robotics, because
- 7:20Speaker 7: we are world leading company in both areas, and that
- 7:24Speaker 7: has to do with the reshuring, bringing things closer home
- 7:28Speaker 7: again where the markets are, but also in some countries,
- 7:32Speaker 7: dealing with the demographics because we have less and less
- 7:35Speaker 7: people working in the working age, and therefore robotics and
- 7:39Speaker 7: the automation becomes very important. And the last one is AI,
- 7:43Speaker 7: which will revolutionize obviously all what's related to automation in
- 7:48Speaker 7: the future.
- 7:49Speaker 8: We'll talk to us more about what you think is
- 7:52Speaker 8: the best way to try to scale manufacturing when it
- 7:55Speaker 8: comes to the EVE charging space.
- 7:59Speaker 7: Think what we really need on the e moobility side.
- 8:03Speaker 7: Let me put it this way, is really work on
- 8:08Speaker 7: two fronts. One is a technical side on the charging side,
- 8:11Speaker 7: but the other one is also on the user friendliness side,
- 8:14Speaker 7: so that they become actually more reliable, they are much
- 8:18Speaker 7: more modern. On the manufacturing side, I think we have
- 8:21Speaker 7: had clearly in some countries and regions there was some
- 8:26Speaker 7: scarcity of manufacturing capacity which I think have been sold.
- 8:30Speaker 7: Was not an issue for ABB in that sense, but
- 8:33Speaker 7: it's the product evolution which is.
- 8:34Speaker 1: Very key now.
- 8:35Speaker 7: On the other side, I think one that should not
- 8:38Speaker 7: forget that the whole network of electrification needs to be
- 8:42Speaker 7: up to speed. You cannot just actually consume much more energy.
- 8:46Speaker 7: You also need to build the transmission lines that the
- 8:50Speaker 7: power actually comes in. Where we have got let's say
- 8:53Speaker 7: the charge is installed either for a private passenger cars
- 8:57Speaker 7: or for busses, ships, trains, whatever you want to call it.
- 9:01Speaker 7: So I think we need much more infrastructure investments on
- 9:04Speaker 7: the one side, and really really to actually get to
- 9:07Speaker 7: EV charging and the passenger cars based on electrification much
- 9:12Speaker 7: more developed in the future.
- 9:14Speaker 2: Peter, who are some of your bigger customers that you're
- 9:17Speaker 2: working with these days.
- 9:19Speaker 7: We are here in the United States, so we have
- 9:21Speaker 7: all kinds of our manufacturing companies in that sense. But
- 9:24Speaker 7: on the industrial side, any any company you can think of,
- 9:30Speaker 7: which are they are in manufacturing space. For example, they
- 9:34Speaker 7: use our actification products, they use our automation products. So
- 9:38Speaker 7: you have all the industrial companies and that's where we
- 9:41Speaker 7: make the difference. The other side, utilities are very key.
- 9:45Speaker 7: As I just said, they need to make sure we
- 9:47Speaker 7: have an off supply.
- 9:48Speaker 2: And I know I'm just looking at our PGeo function
- 9:51Speaker 2: where I can see where your revenue comes by geography,
- 9:53Speaker 2: you're everywhere. You see certain parts of the world that
- 9:56Speaker 2: are more in front of you know, kind of making
- 10:00Speaker 2: the transition then some others.
- 10:01Speaker 7: Yeah, I think I would say that Europe has started
- 10:04Speaker 7: this rather early with the new Green Deal in Europe,
- 10:08Speaker 7: but also moving into a very different energy systems paid
- 10:13Speaker 7: some price with the wars in Russia, so energy prices
- 10:16Speaker 7: have gone up and that some rethinking has taken place.
- 10:19Speaker 7: I think here in the US you quite clearly see
- 10:23Speaker 7: the demand is there in all industries now supported by
- 10:28Speaker 7: the various acts you have here, either the Inflation Act
- 10:33Speaker 7: or then also the Industrial Act, and that is driving
- 10:36Speaker 7: investments now. It's much earlier days than in Europe for example.
- 10:40Speaker 7: Aha is a little bit of mixed back, I have
- 10:43Speaker 7: to say. So you see some countries at the leading edge,
- 10:46Speaker 7: like smaller company countries like Singapore. In China, which is
- 10:50Speaker 7: our second biggest market after the US, you see actually
- 10:54Speaker 7: a lot of efforts now being put in place to
- 10:57Speaker 7: change the electric system in in China, a lot of
- 11:01Speaker 7: EV cards are coming in and you can see that
- 11:05Speaker 7: those really are now generating the growth in China by
- 11:09Speaker 7: city subdued compared to the US at this stage. So indeed,
- 11:13Speaker 7: we are operating across the world in more than one
- 11:16Speaker 7: hundred countries. We get good insights. At the moment, the
- 11:20Speaker 7: driving forces are really the US and Europe, with let's
- 11:25Speaker 7: say Asia apart from India are lacking somewhat.
- 11:29Speaker 8: So where else do you go to expand from here?
- 11:32Speaker 8: When you already are in so many places?
- 11:34Speaker 7: It's quite clearly US is our key number one market
- 11:38Speaker 7: and that's where we have a developing We have over
- 11:40Speaker 7: the last ten years, we have put more than fourteen
- 11:43Speaker 7: billion dollars into the US in terms of investments. We
- 11:48Speaker 7: have got forty manufacturing sites in twenty states. We're operating
- 11:52Speaker 7: in all states with our services, et cetera. So that's
- 11:55Speaker 7: a key market. We see the electrification market in the
- 11:58Speaker 7: US as key, but the industrial one which has a
- 12:01Speaker 7: lot to do with bringing home let's say, manufacturing capabilities
- 12:06Speaker 7: and capacity. And then the second one is clearly India,
- 12:10Speaker 7: which at the moment is in terms of growth outstripping
- 12:14Speaker 7: all other countries in a big way. They are very
- 12:17Speaker 7: low in manufacturing capacity and that's where a lot of
- 12:21Speaker 7: investments now for the high end manufacturing goes in. And
- 12:25Speaker 7: then the third one will be Europe quite clearly as
- 12:28Speaker 7: the European change Indian energy system, but also the demographic
- 12:33Speaker 7: issues which we have in Europe which will take out
- 12:37Speaker 7: about fifty million kind of working people over the next
- 12:42Speaker 7: ten years and that needs to be replaced by automation
- 12:44Speaker 7: and robotics. So there's a lot of investments on going there.
- 12:48Speaker 2: Thanks to Peter Vassar, chairman of ABB, coming.
- 12:50Speaker 4: Up a look at new carbon offset guidelines from the US.
- 12:54Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
- 12:57Speaker 2: research and data on two thousand companies and thirty industries.
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- 13:03Speaker 4: I'm Paul Sweeney, Mad, I'm John Tucker. This is Bloomberg.
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- 13:26Speaker 4: Oh, Paul Sweeney Ant, I'm John Tucker, filling in for
- 13:28Speaker 4: Alex Steele.
- 13:29Speaker 2: We look next at the Canadian athletic apparel retailer Lululemon Athletica.
- 13:33Speaker 4: Lulu Lemon raised its profit outlook for the full year
- 13:36Speaker 4: while also beating market expectations for earnings in the first quarter,
- 13:39Speaker 4: and this came despite investor concerns over the company's slowing
- 13:42Speaker 4: sales growth.
- 13:43Speaker 2: For more, guest host John Tucker and I were joined
- 13:45Speaker 2: by Punham Goyle, senior US retail analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
- 13:49Speaker 4: We first danced Poonham for her key takeaways from Lululemon's
- 13:52Speaker 4: earnings report.
- 13:53Speaker 9: So, I think the earnings are better than expected because
- 13:55Speaker 9: while we do see slowing growth at Lululemon, where it's
- 13:57Speaker 9: accelerating from the mid teams to low double digits near
- 14:02Speaker 9: ten percent. There was concern that is that because of
- 14:06Speaker 9: a slower macro and the fact that lul Lemon is
- 14:09Speaker 9: losing out to competition Aloyoga, et cetera. We discovered that
- 14:13Speaker 9: part of that is true, but part of that is
- 14:15Speaker 9: not true, and I think that's why investors have a
- 14:17Speaker 9: little more confidence.
- 14:19Speaker 4: How big is the US market for them? And are
- 14:22Speaker 4: they selling overseas and how much?
- 14:24Speaker 9: Yeah, so the US market the America is eighty percent
- 14:27Speaker 9: of their business. International is twenty percent, with China half
- 14:31Speaker 9: of that.
- 14:32Speaker 4: And is demand picking up or slowing in China or
- 14:34Speaker 4: is it new to the Lulu Lemon market.
- 14:37Speaker 9: So international was a bright spot this quarter. International sales
- 14:41Speaker 9: grew about thirty five percent, and within that, China was
- 14:45Speaker 9: up Mainland China was up forty five percent, So a
- 14:48Speaker 9: lot of growth there. It's a bright spot for lul Lemon.
- 14:51Speaker 9: International is part of their three pronged strategy to double
- 14:54Speaker 9: sales into twenty twenty seven. It's been doing very, very
- 14:58Speaker 9: well and we expect that to cont.
- 15:00Speaker 2: And I'm looking at your research here, Poonam. You're talking
- 15:02Speaker 2: about you know when you talk about that doubling sales
- 15:05Speaker 2: to twelve and a half billion, you know by twenty
- 15:07Speaker 2: twenty six the company and you're saying strong international growth. Okay,
- 15:11Speaker 2: I get that men's growth. Talk thus about Lululemon and
- 15:14Speaker 2: Men's I mean, it's just not John and I don't
- 15:16Speaker 2: know where to go with this.
- 15:17Speaker 4: Do real men go to Lululemon?
- 15:20Speaker 9: Is what it's Real men are going to Lululemon. You know,
- 15:24Speaker 9: it's one of their bright spots right now. And they
- 15:26Speaker 9: actually think that Men's could become overtime. I think you'll say,
- 15:29Speaker 9: take some time fifty percent of the business. So there's
- 15:32Speaker 9: a lot of opportunity in men's. And you know when
- 15:35Speaker 9: you walk those stores and I looked at the men's inventory,
- 15:37Speaker 9: it actually looks great. It's not just about outfitting the
- 15:40Speaker 9: men to go to the gym. It's about outfitting the
- 15:43Speaker 9: men to go into work with casual, comfortable where that
- 15:47Speaker 9: they can.
- 15:49Speaker 4: Everybody who listens to this program of views is on
- 15:52Speaker 4: YouTube knows Paul is the company fashion place. Yes, if
- 15:56Speaker 4: you saw somebody in like Lululemon come into the office,
- 16:00Speaker 4: might be a film.
- 16:00Speaker 2: It might be a problem. But I'm going to refer
- 16:02Speaker 2: to to Punum because she knows fashion here and she
- 16:05Speaker 2: knows what works. So if I'm Lulu Lemon, talk to
- 16:08Speaker 2: us just about what they're saying about the consumer out there, Punham.
- 16:12Speaker 9: So the consumer, We've been talking about this for a
- 16:15Speaker 9: while now. The consumer is selective. They're choosing where to shop,
- 16:18Speaker 9: when to shop, how to shop, and if they see
- 16:21Speaker 9: the right product, they are still purchasing it. The one
- 16:23Speaker 9: thing that struck out during the call was that traffic
- 16:26Speaker 9: was up in the quarter, which means people are still
- 16:29Speaker 9: going to lul Lemon. They still have purchase intent. But
- 16:32Speaker 9: there were some product missteps which they're working to correct
- 16:35Speaker 9: into the second half of the year, where they didn't
- 16:38Speaker 9: have the right colors, or they didn't have enough colors
- 16:40Speaker 9: I should say, they didn't have enough depth and sizes.
- 16:43Speaker 9: They were running out of the small sizes. So these
- 16:45Speaker 9: are problems that I would think are execution related and
- 16:47Speaker 9: are being fixed and can be fixed into the back half.
- 16:50Speaker 9: So while there is still part of a macro problem,
- 16:53Speaker 9: the story isn't that Little Lemon people are not going
- 16:56Speaker 9: to shop there. People still are interested in the apparel.
- 16:58Speaker 9: They just have to fix the product a little and
- 17:01Speaker 9: really improve our execution into the back half.
- 17:04Speaker 4: They're known for form fitting, but just to get back
- 17:07Speaker 4: to the men's fashion, they have anything for old fat guys.
- 17:11Speaker 9: Well. Their ABC men's franchise is really popular and it's
- 17:15Speaker 9: not form fitting. It's about the casual flare and they
- 17:19Speaker 9: have done very well there. And you don't need to
- 17:22Speaker 9: wear a tight leggings for men's that's not the appeal there.
- 17:25Speaker 9: That's for the women. But I'd say even for the woman,
- 17:27Speaker 9: you know what worked really well in the corner where
- 17:30Speaker 9: they're loose fitting pants and their biker shorts. So yes,
- 17:33Speaker 9: leggings is a big business for them, but they are
- 17:36Speaker 9: broadening that. Eight.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Let's switch gears just a little bit. I saw it
- 17:39Speaker 2: yesterday reporting in the Wall Street Journal Punium Dollar Tree
- 17:43Speaker 2: is among the potential sales spin off of Family Dollar.
- 17:46Speaker 2: What is going on with the dollar stores here? I
- 17:49Speaker 2: would have thought that if a part of the consumer
- 17:52Speaker 2: market is weak and the lower end economically, that perhaps
- 17:56Speaker 2: that would be good for the dollar stores. But what's
- 17:59Speaker 2: going on there?
- 18:00Speaker 9: So they're really two very different types of dollar stories.
- 18:04Speaker 9: Gen Bartashus covers the space, but from my coverage every
- 18:08Speaker 9: years ago, I can tell you that dollar Tree targets everyone, right.
- 18:11Speaker 9: I would shop at Dollar Tree, Paul, You would shop
- 18:13Speaker 9: a Dollar Tree. You buy that one twenty five item
- 18:15Speaker 9: there and you go treasure hunt. But a family Dollar customer,
- 18:19Speaker 9: that's their principal discount store. That is where they buy
- 18:22Speaker 9: their groceries, that is where they buy their day to
- 18:25Speaker 9: day needs. So as that customer's wallet is being stretched,
- 18:28Speaker 9: that business does come into more pressure.
- 18:31Speaker 4: Thanks to Pootamgoyle, senior US e commerce and retail analysts
- 18:34Speaker 4: at Bloomberg Intelligence, we have.
- 18:36Speaker 2: Something here at Bloomberg called Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The
- 18:39Speaker 2: idea behind it is to provide data on commodities, power, transport, industries,
- 18:44Speaker 2: building and agriculture and new technology.
- 18:46Speaker 4: And this week we looked at new carbon offset guidelines
- 18:49Speaker 4: for the US. US government recently outlined seven key principles
- 18:53Speaker 4: that US buyers and sellers should follow to responsibly take
- 18:57Speaker 4: part in the voluntary carbon market.
- 18:59Speaker 2: For more on what they this means, guest host Jess
- 19:01Speaker 2: Mettin and I we're joined by Kyle Harrison, head of
- 19:03Speaker 2: sustainability research at bloomerk n EF. We first asked Kyle
- 19:07Speaker 2: to talk to us about where we are in the
- 19:09Speaker 2: developing carbon market.
- 19:11Speaker 10: So for several decades now, we've had what's called a
- 19:13Speaker 10: voluntary carbon market. This is where companies can go and
- 19:16Speaker 10: they can buy verified emission reduction certificates in order to
- 19:20Speaker 10: achieve a for example, carbon neutrality goal where they're neutralizing
- 19:23Speaker 10: their emissions, and so they'll go out and they'll buy
- 19:25Speaker 10: these carbon credits. But the market has gotten a lot
- 19:28Speaker 10: of criticism over the past couple of years for low
- 19:30Speaker 10: integrity projects.
- 19:32Speaker 2: So when a Hollywood sled flies on their private jet
- 19:35Speaker 2: and say, oh, but I offset it with a carbon footprint,
- 19:38Speaker 2: what does that mean.
- 19:39Speaker 10: So they're going out and they're buying these carbon credits,
- 19:41Speaker 10: and they're investing in a project somewhere else in the
- 19:44Speaker 10: world that is reducing or removing or avoiding carbon emissions.
- 19:48Speaker 10: But the challenge has always been the integrity of those investments, right,
- 19:51Speaker 10: It's been in projects that aren't necessarily leading to decarbonization.
- 19:55Speaker 10: And so this market has gotten a lot of criticism.
- 19:57Speaker 10: But there's been a lot of efforts from the privates
- 20:00Speaker 10: actor specifically over the past couple of years to boost
- 20:02Speaker 10: that integrity, and now they have support from the US
- 20:04Speaker 10: government with this announcement last week.
- 20:06Speaker 8: So what happens next.
- 20:08Speaker 10: So, as you guys mentioned, it's a big ringing endorsement
- 20:11Speaker 10: for this market. What the US government did is it
- 20:14Speaker 10: publicly supported a couple of initiatives, such as the Integrity
- 20:17Speaker 10: Council on Voluntary Carbon Markets. This is a group of
- 20:20Speaker 10: non governmental organizations as well as financial institutions and corporations
- 20:25Speaker 10: that are working and creating their own standards for what
- 20:27Speaker 10: a good quality carbon credit looks like if you follow
- 20:30Speaker 10: that Integrity Council principle or that framework. As a corporate buyer,
- 20:34Speaker 10: I know I can buy those credits and I'm not
- 20:36Speaker 10: going to get accused of greenwashing, so I can fly
- 20:39Speaker 10: those flights or I can continue to do business, but
- 20:41Speaker 10: I can be relying on a tangible, impactful investment into decarbonization.
- 20:46Speaker 2: You know, folks, the work coming out of BENF I
- 20:49Speaker 2: think is absolutely the gold plate for this entire industry,
- 20:53Speaker 2: and we rely upon these folks pretty heavily. Here's just
- 20:56Speaker 2: some crazy numbers. Every company in the world will need
- 20:59Speaker 2: carbon credits to achieve net zero goals, and you guys
- 21:02Speaker 2: benef estimate annual carbon offset demand could reach five point
- 21:06Speaker 2: nine billion tons of carbon equivalent annually in twenty fifty.
- 21:10Speaker 2: That's some from one hundred and sixty four million today.
- 21:13Speaker 2: What industries are going to be getting us there?
- 21:16Speaker 10: For lack of a better word, as you mentioned, it's
- 21:18Speaker 10: really every single industry. But really you can look at
- 21:20Speaker 10: the heaviest emitting sectors as the biggest potential demand sources
- 21:24Speaker 10: oil and gas companies, metals, and mining industrials. These are
- 21:28Speaker 10: heavy emitting sectors that can't easily decarbonize. You mentioned airlines before.
- 21:33Speaker 10: As an airline, how do you reduce your emissions? Do
- 21:35Speaker 10: you stop flying planes? That's the most tangible way to
- 21:38Speaker 10: go ahead and do that, right, And so carbon credits
- 21:41Speaker 10: will be an important part of their decarbonization strategy long term.
- 21:45Speaker 10: And as you mentioned, demand could reach six billion tons
- 21:48Speaker 10: to give you a sense of scale, that's around ten
- 21:50Speaker 10: percent of global carbon dioxide emissions today. So this will
- 21:54Speaker 10: play a huge role in the global climate change or
- 21:57Speaker 10: the global fight against climate change in the future.
- 22:00Speaker 8: So then every company in the world would need carbon
- 22:03Speaker 8: credits to achieve net zero goals.
- 22:05Speaker 10: This is how it works exactly, and so you can
- 22:08Speaker 10: use this analogy with any company, but carbon credits typically
- 22:11Speaker 10: should only be used as for those emissions or that
- 22:14Speaker 10: itch that a company can't scratch. Once it's done everything
- 22:17Speaker 10: it can to reduce what it physically emits as a company,
- 22:20Speaker 10: it'll have what we call residual emissions somewhere along its
- 22:23Speaker 10: value chain. That is your perfect universe for carbon credits.
- 22:26Speaker 10: And the US government was very vocal about this in
- 22:28Speaker 10: their announcement last week, is that companies shouldn't abandon their
- 22:32Speaker 10: decarbonization efforts. They should prioritize those efforts, and then they
- 22:36Speaker 10: should use carbon credits. But those must be reliable carbon credits.
- 22:40Speaker 10: And so that's kind of where these credits play a
- 22:42Speaker 10: role towards the end of that value chain.
- 22:44Speaker 2: All right, I'll tell you why this gets my attention,
- 22:46Speaker 2: because it's got the intention of Michael R. Bloomberg, the
- 22:49Speaker 2: founder of Bloomberg LP and this little radio TV station
- 22:52Speaker 2: thing we got going here. He's out with an editorial
- 22:54Speaker 2: really kind of calling out the Biden administration saying that
- 22:57Speaker 2: this new plan might work and it's something we need
- 22:59Speaker 2: to pay attention to. I mean, is this something that's
- 23:02Speaker 2: at the whim of whatever administrations in the White House
- 23:05Speaker 2: at the moment? Not necessarily.
- 23:07Speaker 10: As I mentioned, right, the private sector is going to
- 23:10Speaker 10: be the biggest leader and kind of moving this forward
- 23:12Speaker 10: and spearheading it. It has been financial institutions and corporations
- 23:17Speaker 10: that have taken the reins and they will continue to
- 23:18Speaker 10: do so. They will be the biggest demand source, but
- 23:21Speaker 10: they need to be complemented by strong government support, right,
- 23:24Speaker 10: and so this endorsement is hugely important, and it's you know,
- 23:28Speaker 10: obviously it's the Department of Treasury, but it's also the
- 23:30Speaker 10: Department of Energy. The Department of Energy will be subsidizing
- 23:34Speaker 10: and investing in early stage carbon removal projects through this initiative.
- 23:38Speaker 10: And then the Department of Agriculture was also involved and
- 23:41Speaker 10: they're going to be going ahead and catalyzing and providing
- 23:44Speaker 10: farmers with subsidies in order to pivot to low carbon farming.
- 23:47Speaker 10: So it's really a kind of a combined effort that's
- 23:51Speaker 10: going to be needed both from the government and the
- 23:52Speaker 10: private sector. But even with an administration change, for example,
- 23:56Speaker 10: if you still have corporations and financials focused, it'll still
- 23:59Speaker 10: move this market.
- 24:00Speaker 8: We really have about a minute left, but talk to
- 24:02Speaker 8: us about tech companies like Microsoft and their plans when
- 24:06Speaker 8: it comes to being more active in carbon offsetting today
- 24:09Speaker 8: and how they really think of where it could continue
- 24:11Speaker 8: going into twenty fifty.
- 24:13Speaker 10: Technology companies have always prided themselves on their ability to
- 24:16Speaker 10: lead in the icebreakers when it comes to decarbonization. So
- 24:20Speaker 10: tech companies like Microsoft and Google and Amazon, they were
- 24:23Speaker 10: the first large scale corporations to buy clean energy from
- 24:26Speaker 10: solar and wind projects for example, it's only natural that
- 24:29Speaker 10: they're kind of the icebreakers when it comes to voluntary
- 24:31Speaker 10: carbon markets. You're seeing companies like Microsoft announce huge carbon
- 24:35Speaker 10: removal deals for these nascent technologies that maybe aren't necessarily
- 24:39Speaker 10: at scale today, and they're also not competitive from a
- 24:42Speaker 10: cost standpoint. What those investments will do is that they'll
- 24:45Speaker 10: bring the cost down and it'll make it more attractive
- 24:48Speaker 10: and competitive for all those other companies that are out
- 24:50Speaker 10: there to invest in carbon removal and therefore this voluntary
- 24:53Speaker 10: carbon market.
- 24:54Speaker 2: Thanks tot Kyle Harrison, head of Sustainability research at Bloomberg
- 24:58Speaker 2: an ef.
- 24:58Speaker 4: Coming up of a program we're going to look at
- 25:00Speaker 4: how former US Treasury Secretary Steve Manosan is chasing Wall
- 25:05Speaker 4: Street glory.
- 25:06Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing research
- 25:09Speaker 2: and data on two thousand companies in one hundred and
- 25:11Speaker 2: thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b I
- 25:14Speaker 2: go on the terminal. I'm Paul Sweeney.
- 25:16Speaker 4: MAA don John Tucker. This is Bloomberg.
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- 25:40Speaker 2: Hey there, I'm Paul.
- 25:40Speaker 4: Sweeney and I'm John Tucker filling in for Alex Steele.
- 25:43Speaker 2: We move now to energy and Trafagora. Traffagora is one
- 25:47Speaker 2: of the world's largest suppliers of commodities.
- 25:50Speaker 4: And this week the company posted the first half profits
- 25:53Speaker 4: down seventy three percent from a year earlier. This comes
- 25:56Speaker 4: as the commodity giant adjusted calmer conditions across it's key
- 26:00Speaker 4: energy and metals Marcus For.
- 26:02Speaker 2: More on this guest host John Tucker and I were
- 26:04Speaker 2: joined by Archie Hunter, Bloomberg Commodities reporter. We first asked
- 26:07Speaker 2: Archie for his take on this week's earnings report.
- 26:10Speaker 11: It's a big drop off, It's still a huge profit
- 26:13Speaker 11: as far as the sector goes. Look the commodity trading
- 26:16Speaker 11: industry is coming out of, and perhaps what the signals
- 26:20Speaker 11: is the trading industry is coming out of like a
- 26:22Speaker 11: real real boom time where COVID nineteen and then the
- 26:27Speaker 11: sort of Russian invasion of Ukraine's really sort of super
- 26:30Speaker 11: sized volatility, especially in the energy space, that's starting to
- 26:34Speaker 11: peter out. You know, we're still getting big moves. I
- 26:36Speaker 11: think you've seen some big moves on gas, but you know,
- 26:39Speaker 11: it's really not as extreme as it was over the
- 26:42Speaker 11: past few years. And as a result, you know, whilst
- 26:45Speaker 11: this is a still really big number historically for a
- 26:48Speaker 11: company like traffic Eura, you know, there's been a big
- 26:51Speaker 11: drop off since this time last year.
- 26:53Speaker 4: So I don't need to cry for commodities traders at
- 26:56Speaker 4: this point.
- 26:58Speaker 11: I don't know about that. Look, these companies have made
- 27:01Speaker 11: extraordinary amounts of money over the past few years, especially
- 27:05Speaker 11: the biggest companies, and and look, you know, one of
- 27:08Speaker 11: the interesting things about them is that they're owned by
- 27:11Speaker 11: the top executives who either trade or are part of
- 27:15Speaker 11: middle office or back office.
- 27:17Speaker 4: By the employees essentially, right.
- 27:19Speaker 11: Yeah, exactly. So, Look, these companies have paid out big dividends,
- 27:23Speaker 11: big share buybacks, to those shareholders over the past few years.
- 27:28Speaker 11: They're still doing that, right. Look, traffic Eurer paid out
- 27:31Speaker 11: I think was over six hundred million in the way
- 27:33Speaker 11: that it reimburses its shareholders over the first half. So
- 27:37Speaker 11: that's still a lot of a lot of money for
- 27:39Speaker 11: the roughly one four hundred people, so relatively few people
- 27:43Speaker 11: who hold stock in the company.
- 27:44Speaker 4: So if I'm one of the executives there and I've
- 27:46Speaker 4: really cleaned up, I'm just going to pack up and
- 27:48Speaker 4: go go live on an island somewhere, right.
- 27:52Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean you and I might think that, but look,
- 27:56Speaker 11: there's definitely some movement happening in the sector. At the
- 27:58Speaker 11: same time. Look, view owned shares in these companies that
- 28:02Speaker 11: seem to be doing really well every single year. I think,
- 28:05Speaker 11: you know, from what we see, a lot of people
- 28:07Speaker 11: seem to be sticking around as well, right, And look,
- 28:09Speaker 11: it's still really interesting time to be trading commodities. I
- 28:12Speaker 11: think what these results show is that, you know, whilst
- 28:14Speaker 11: it's a big drop off from the last couple of years,
- 28:18Speaker 11: like historically, you know, Trafficker would make in some of
- 28:21Speaker 11: its best years before the pandemic, it would make maybe
- 28:25Speaker 11: a billion a billion dollars would have been an absolutely
- 28:28Speaker 11: mammoth year, some of its best years, and so you know,
- 28:31Speaker 11: the company made that in half a year, which just
- 28:34Speaker 11: goes to show, you know, you know, whilst it's not
- 28:36Speaker 11: absolutely mammoth as we have seen, it's still very big
- 28:40Speaker 11: and people are still making a lot of money.
- 28:42Speaker 2: Archie, I don't know anything about this company, traffic Aer,
- 28:45Speaker 2: primarily because it's a private company. A. Where is it based?
- 28:48Speaker 2: And b why is it public?
- 28:49Speaker 11: So Traffiicura is headquartered in Switzerland, but it's domstald in Singapore.
- 28:56Speaker 11: A lot of these commodity trading companies are very global
- 28:59Speaker 11: in their re but can be domiciled in various different jurisdictions.
- 29:04Speaker 11: Why isn't it public? I think you know that that's
- 29:07Speaker 11: been a question over the past few years. One is
- 29:10Speaker 11: that you have to open yourself up to a bit
- 29:12Speaker 11: more scrutiny. Like Trafficer has a bond, so it does
- 29:16Speaker 11: publish it's you know, its numbers to the market. But
- 29:19Speaker 11: I think you know, these these people have been doing
- 29:22Speaker 11: very well only in the company themselves. Why would they
- 29:25Speaker 11: need to raise more equity potentially? You know, they're still
- 29:28Speaker 11: getting huge amounts of money in financing from banks, which
- 29:32Speaker 11: is really the lifeblood of the trading industry, right. You know,
- 29:35Speaker 11: companies can buy and sell huge cargoes of oil or
- 29:39Speaker 11: copper on their own equity, but you know most of
- 29:42Speaker 11: the time they do it through tapping major banks for
- 29:45Speaker 11: financing lines.
- 29:46Speaker 4: Now, who are their customers? Are their customers also the
- 29:50Speaker 4: end users of these products, and certainly with the boom
- 29:53Speaker 4: and commodity prices, I would imagine that they've been heard.
- 29:57Speaker 11: So look, Trafficer noted in it in its results that
- 30:00Speaker 11: it had some clients that were struggling to deal with
- 30:02Speaker 11: the higher the normal commodity prices. I think you've got
- 30:05Speaker 11: to bear in mind that we might look on the
- 30:07Speaker 11: on the Bloemoe terminal, we might see commodity prices denominated
- 30:11Speaker 11: in dollars. Look, a lot of buyers, for example, of
- 30:14Speaker 11: like oil products in emerging markets, aren't buying those commodities
- 30:18Speaker 11: and dollars. They're buying them in their local currency. And
- 30:20Speaker 11: the dollar is appreciated, as we know, quite a bit
- 30:23Speaker 11: over the past a year or so, so you know,
- 30:25Speaker 11: that's even more expensive, and I think that's what they're
- 30:28Speaker 11: alluding to there. But look on the whole you can
- 30:31Speaker 11: see that high prices have started to have an impact
- 30:35Speaker 11: on demand in some commodities, or perhaps prices of as
- 30:39Speaker 11: traffic Gura said, and its results, prices for copper overran fundamentals.
- 30:43Speaker 11: So that's why I know you guys were talking a
- 30:45Speaker 11: little bit about the becom. You know, copper has retreated
- 30:49Speaker 11: a little bit over the past couple of weeks, in
- 30:51Speaker 11: part because I think market analysts feel that it's sort
- 30:55Speaker 11: of overrun the actual supply and demand dynamics.
- 30:58Speaker 4: All right. Thanks to Archie Hunter, Commodities Reporter, we.
- 31:01Speaker 2: Now take a look at one of the Bloomberg Big
- 31:03Speaker 2: Takes stories featured this week on Bloomberg Intelligence. It focuses
- 31:07Speaker 2: on former Treasury Secretary Steveh Nuchin, who now leads the
- 31:10Speaker 2: private equity firm Liberty Strategic Capital.
- 31:13Speaker 4: The Big Take piece is titled MANUSI Chases Wall Street
- 31:17Speaker 4: Glory with war chest of foreign money.
- 31:19Speaker 2: For more, guest host Jess Men and I were joined
- 31:21Speaker 2: by the story's author, Max Abelson, Bloomberg News Finance reporter.
- 31:25Speaker 2: We first asked Max for more context on his story.
- 31:28Speaker 12: This is a story I think at its heart, it's
- 31:30Speaker 12: really about ambition and what we write about in the story.
- 31:34Speaker 12: Although I should say, I should say, mess my servant
- 31:37Speaker 12: I write about it in this story is that you
- 31:39Speaker 12: know what we saw eight years ago when when Zachmeider
- 31:43Speaker 12: and I wrote that BusinessWeek profile of Mnuchins as Trump's moneyman,
- 31:47Speaker 12: you were able to kind of get a snapshot of
- 31:49Speaker 12: what it looks like when someone tries to take their
- 31:51Speaker 12: Wall Street wealth and turn it into Washington power.
- 31:54Speaker 2: And he did that. He was successful.
- 31:56Speaker 12: You know, people I think look down their nose at it.
- 31:57Speaker 12: They thought they thought Trump's campaign was ridiculous when he
- 32:00Speaker 12: when he agreed to do it, they were wrong. Manutia
- 32:02Speaker 12: really saw something that other people missed, and Trump won,
- 32:05Speaker 12: he became Treasury secretary. You kind of forget this, But
- 32:08Speaker 12: people went in and out those four years. Manucha stayed.
- 32:11Speaker 12: He kept his head down. And what this story is
- 32:14Speaker 12: about is capturing him as he takes that Washington power
- 32:18Speaker 12: that he accumulated and he turns it into even more money.
- 32:22Speaker 12: And it's a story about scale. I mean, this guy
- 32:25Speaker 12: was an investor beforehand. Now he's a big investor. He's
- 32:28Speaker 12: got this big war chest of Middle East money. He's
- 32:31Speaker 12: going for deals that could be kind of like, I
- 32:33Speaker 12: don't know, it's a little silly to say world historic.
- 32:35Speaker 12: But if this guy can pull off a deal for TikTok,
- 32:38Speaker 12: it's going to send him into this echelon of You're
- 32:41Speaker 12: gonna have to read the story to understand this, but
- 32:43Speaker 12: you know, not just gorillas, but the senior gorillas of
- 32:45Speaker 12: global finance.
- 32:46Speaker 8: TikTok walk us through this about how that's associated with
- 32:51Speaker 8: how when it comes to this war chest of wealth
- 32:54Speaker 8: that he's been building.
- 32:55Speaker 12: Yep, So let me take you back in time. So
- 32:57Speaker 12: I think you and I spoke back in March, and
- 33:00Speaker 12: New York Community Bank was I mean, it was mayhem.
- 33:03Speaker 12: There was news that leaked that New York Community Bank
- 33:05Speaker 12: really needed capital, and that is not good. If you're
- 33:07Speaker 12: a bank, you do not want news out saying, you know,
- 33:10Speaker 12: it'd be a nice to ray some cash. Unbeknownst to
- 33:14Speaker 12: us at the time when that headline hit, Mnuchin and
- 33:16Speaker 12: some partners were like basically a day away from investing
- 33:19Speaker 12: in New York Community Bank, and they decided, you we
- 33:21Speaker 12: still go forward, and they did. Of course that actually
- 33:25Speaker 12: on paper, you know what their profits on that New
- 33:27Speaker 12: York Community Bank deal, they have made a pretty penny
- 33:29Speaker 12: at least on paper, Like basically doubling their money. But
- 33:33Speaker 12: a few days after that deal closed, he goes on
- 33:37Speaker 12: TV and he says, you know what, I'm putting together
- 33:41Speaker 12: a deal to buy TikTok. I've got a plan. And
- 33:43Speaker 12: it was weird for a couple of reasons. One because
- 33:46Speaker 12: New York Community Bank made a lot of sense for
- 33:48Speaker 12: Steven Mnuchin because he bought do you remember remember One West,
- 33:51Speaker 12: Remember that bank deal he did. New York Community Bank
- 33:54Speaker 12: makes sense in that like TikTok. On the other hand,
- 33:57Speaker 12: you know, the guy invested in Hollywood. People forget about
- 33:59Speaker 12: that muchin find out some serious blockbusters, including Avatar if
- 34:02Speaker 12: you saw it. But you know, it's like why TikTok?
- 34:06Speaker 12: And I think the way he sees it is according
- 34:09Speaker 12: to interviews with people who aren't working on that deal
- 34:12Speaker 12: with him, but no him, well, it's like he's got
- 34:14Speaker 12: an edge and when it comes to national security matters,
- 34:16Speaker 12: and don't forget TikTok is now by law, the Chinese
- 34:19Speaker 12: parent companies essentially gonna have to sell it. So he
- 34:22Speaker 12: thinks he's got an edge with national security and then
- 34:24Speaker 12: also with deal making. On the other hand, his fund
- 34:27Speaker 12: is like maybe three billion dollars or so it is
- 34:29Speaker 12: going to take a lot more than that to buy
- 34:31Speaker 12: TikTok here in the States. We're going to be watching
- 34:33Speaker 12: to see if what kind of partners he can bring
- 34:35Speaker 12: together and if he buys his first ever you know,
- 34:38Speaker 12: social media empire.
- 34:39Speaker 2: All right, I senior reporting Max, Mister Mnutchen made about
- 34:42Speaker 2: thirty visits to the Middle Eastern nations while in office.
- 34:46Speaker 2: That's around as many as is European and Asian visits combined.
- 34:49Speaker 2: So we spent a lot of time there when in office.
- 34:52Speaker 2: Is that getting translating into some investors in his fund?
- 34:54Speaker 12: I think I think that's really a key question. So
- 34:56Speaker 12: out of fairness, I just want to cite his spokesperson,
- 34:59Speaker 12: a guy by the of Devon O'Malley, who liked to
- 35:02Speaker 12: say to me while I was reporting the story that
- 35:04Speaker 12: those thirty visits, according to him, are like different legs
- 35:08Speaker 12: of just nine trips to a region that he describes
- 35:11Speaker 12: as is like, you know, highly strategically important. O'Malley would
- 35:13Speaker 12: say that Nusian was advancing US foreign policy economic interests,
- 35:17Speaker 12: not going to collect money. But I think as a
- 35:19Speaker 12: matter of historical record, you can see Mnusian going to
- 35:23Speaker 12: the United Arab Emirates. You could see him going to Cutter,
- 35:25Speaker 12: you can see him going to Saudi Arabia. And you know,
- 35:29Speaker 12: I'm talking about not just at his time at when
- 35:31Speaker 12: he was Treasury secretary, but certainly in the months after that.
- 35:34Speaker 12: And what does he end up with. He ends up
- 35:36Speaker 12: with a fund, as I say, about three billion dollars,
- 35:38Speaker 12: and a lot of that money is coming from the
- 35:40Speaker 12: Middle East. These are essentially the deepest pockets in the world,
- 35:43Speaker 12: the sovereign wealth funds essentially. And you know, if you're
- 35:47Speaker 12: an investor, that means that you get to play with
- 35:50Speaker 12: some pretty fun money. He's gonna need some more money
- 35:53Speaker 12: than that if he wants to do TikTok, but it
- 35:55Speaker 12: means that it's turned him into a essentially a private
- 35:58Speaker 12: equity investor on a really big scale.
- 36:00Speaker 8: Where else does he have his eyes on next beyond TikTok?
- 36:04Speaker 5: Well?
- 36:04Speaker 12: I had some fun reporting on the story. Not as
- 36:07Speaker 12: much fun as that famous picture of him holding up
- 36:09Speaker 12: the cash.
- 36:09Speaker 8: I feel like we all remember that photo of the
- 36:11Speaker 8: cash that it.
- 36:12Speaker 12: Was more fun. But I had fun looking at cybersecurity.
- 36:16Speaker 12: Not only did Liberty take over an entire cybersecurity company. Rather,
- 36:20Speaker 12: it's a mobile security platform. It's called Simperium. I don't
- 36:22Speaker 12: know if you've heard of that. But he has plowed
- 36:25Speaker 12: money into cyber Reason, Contrast Security, Blue Voyant, and these
- 36:28Speaker 12: are some interesting cybersecurity startups, and I want to tell
- 36:31Speaker 12: you not all of them have been a pretty picture.
- 36:34Speaker 12: Liberty about twenty million shares of satell Logic for like
- 36:36Speaker 12: seven fifty each. You know, back in twenty twenty two
- 36:39Speaker 12: was below a dollar twenty the last time I checked.
- 36:41Speaker 12: And then there's cyber Reason that was supposed to be
- 36:44Speaker 12: worth like billions of dollars when he made his investment.
- 36:48Speaker 12: The valuation now is said to be like three hundred
- 36:50Speaker 12: million dollars. You do not want that order, you know,
- 36:53Speaker 12: you're supposed to invest when it's worth three hundred million
- 36:55Speaker 12: dollars and then sell when it's worth billions. So manuchen
- 36:58Speaker 12: is you know, it's been really fun sort of take
- 37:00Speaker 12: me a snapshot of ambition.
- 37:02Speaker 4: But I want to be clear with you.
- 37:03Speaker 12: It's not a story of like these waltzing into becoming
- 37:06Speaker 12: a multi billionaire. It's going to be much more interesting
- 37:09Speaker 12: and a little bit more up and down than that.
- 37:11Speaker 2: Is he in it just for the money, or does
- 37:14Speaker 2: he want to be thought of in the same sense
- 37:15Speaker 2: as Julian Robertson at George Soros as some of those
- 37:18Speaker 2: big legendary names.
- 37:20Speaker 12: Thank you for asking that, you know his old boss
- 37:22Speaker 12: at Omen Sachs. John Corzine said to me, look, Max,
- 37:24Speaker 12: money's nice. I get it, I get it, but it's
- 37:26Speaker 12: more than that. I was actually kind of moved by
- 37:29Speaker 12: something John Corzin said to me, because don't forget Corsin
- 37:31Speaker 12: after running Goldman. Yeah, I mean I think I believe
- 37:34Speaker 12: you're a New Jersey or one one of you two
- 37:35Speaker 12: live in New Jersey. They're both right. You know, Corzine
- 37:39Speaker 12: managed to do the same thing. He went from finance
- 37:42Speaker 12: into government and he was successful. He was a senator,
- 37:44Speaker 12: he's a governor. Corzine said that there's this feeling of
- 37:47Speaker 12: being important and being at that table. Once you're at
- 37:50Speaker 12: that table of global influence, it is really hard to
- 37:52Speaker 12: leave it. Corsiin said to me, you know, this whole
- 37:54Speaker 12: quote didn't make it into the story, but he said,
- 37:55Speaker 12: you know, some people are programmed that they leave that
- 37:59Speaker 12: table of global importance and global influence and they're able
- 38:02Speaker 12: to go do something else. You know, It's like I
- 38:04Speaker 12: like gardening on weekends. You know and some people some
- 38:07Speaker 12: people want more influence and want more opportunity and want
- 38:11Speaker 12: to be more engaged and can't disengage. And I think
- 38:14Speaker 12: that helps explain Stephen MANUCI.
- 38:16Speaker 2: Thanks to Max Abelson, Bloomberg News Financial Reporter.
- 38:18Speaker 8: This is the.
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