Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Deere Plunges as Struggling Farmers Delay Machinery Rebound
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- 0:24Speaker 2: Looking at Deer, they reported numbers guidance a little bit
- 0:28Speaker 2: weaker than expected, but it's still up about eleven twelve
- 0:30Speaker 2: percent year to dates. Checking Chris Chiolino Bloomberg Intelligence, he
- 0:35Speaker 2: covers all the big machinery companies. Chris, what's the takeaway
- 0:38Speaker 2: from from Deer today? They called out the US farmers
- 0:42Speaker 2: facing some economic challenges here that guess that's impacting their businesses?
- 0:45Speaker 2: Would you learn?
- 0:47Speaker 3: Yeah, listen, I mean this really wasn't a particularly great quarter.
- 0:50Speaker 3: Three key results were mixed at best. It was really
- 0:54Speaker 3: a low quality earnings beat, primarily driven by a lower
- 0:57Speaker 3: tax rate. And as you alluded to, they did cut
- 1:00Speaker 3: their twenty to twenty five guidance. But to be honest,
- 1:03Speaker 3: I don't think that really changes the investment thesis here.
- 1:06Speaker 3: You know, we still expect earnings to bottom this year.
- 1:09Speaker 3: We're still looking at a very you know, gradual recovery.
- 1:12Speaker 3: As twenty twenty six unfolds, the reduction in the outlook
- 1:15Speaker 3: was really driven by weakness in their construction business, and
- 1:18Speaker 3: it appears to us that it was really more of
- 1:20Speaker 3: a function of some of the higher tariffs and costs
- 1:23Speaker 3: coming through. We knew that construction forestry was really going
- 1:26Speaker 3: to bear the brunt of the tariff impact, but this
- 1:28Speaker 3: court just came in, you know, a little bit more
- 1:30Speaker 3: of a headwind than we anticipated. It doesn't appear to
- 1:33Speaker 3: be that there's been much of a change in terms
- 1:35Speaker 3: of you know, farm fundamentals and their appetite to go
- 1:38Speaker 3: out and buy equipment.
- 1:39Speaker 4: Hey, Chrich, can you get more into the struggle that
- 1:42Speaker 4: that farmers are facing. That's that's impacting dear.
- 1:46Speaker 3: Sure, you know, we've been in this kind of prolonged
- 1:48Speaker 3: downturn in the ag economy. Crop prices continued to deteriorate,
- 1:53Speaker 3: farm fundamentals remain weak, interest rates remain high. We have
- 1:56Speaker 3: the you know, the overhanger, the uncertainty around the trade
- 1:58Speaker 3: environment and export market access. Really there's really no signs
- 2:02Speaker 3: or i would you know, say, green shoots yet that
- 2:05Speaker 3: we're at this inflection point. I think the positive takeaway
- 2:08Speaker 3: is that you know, inventories are coming down, Deer's not
- 2:12Speaker 3: going to have to massively underproduce retail demand next year.
- 2:15Speaker 3: So even if we're looking at a flatish type of
- 2:17Speaker 3: environment in terms of underlying retail demand, we're still looking
- 2:21Speaker 3: at probably higher production and some pricing coming through, which
- 2:24Speaker 3: should still generate some operating leverage in the business.
- 2:28Speaker 2: So, Chris, when demand is down from for their core
- 2:33Speaker 2: farm equipment, what does Deer typically do? Do they let
- 2:35Speaker 2: inventories build, do they get promotional to move inventory out
- 2:38Speaker 2: the door? How did they usually manage that?
- 2:41Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is it's a delicate balancing act, right,
- 2:43Speaker 3: I mean, it's almost impossible to time the cycle. And
- 2:47Speaker 3: what they've been doing, you know, for the better part
- 2:50Speaker 3: of this year, and even at the end of last
- 2:51Speaker 3: year they had been underproducing retail demand to bring down
- 2:55Speaker 3: those elevated inventories. They've done really a commendable job on
- 2:58Speaker 3: new equipment. Issue right now is still on the used
- 3:01Speaker 3: equipment inventory side, particularly on tractors, which are still quite elevated.
- 3:06Speaker 3: And you're right, they are allocating more merchandising programs and
- 3:09Speaker 3: pool funds to help address that issue and move the equipment.
- 3:13Speaker 3: And I think you see that partly reflected in their
- 3:15Speaker 3: production precision agg business this quarter, and pricing actually flip negative,
- 3:19Speaker 3: which was a surprise to us. It does appear that
- 3:22Speaker 3: this is you know, relatively transitory. We should expect pricing
- 3:25Speaker 3: to bounce back next quarter. But yeah, it's been a
- 3:29Speaker 3: you know, they've done a real good job of managing inventories.
- 3:31Speaker 3: It's just you know, when you're slogging along through the
- 3:33Speaker 3: bottom of the cycle here, it does become quite challenging.
- 3:37Speaker 4: So then I got to follo up, are you still
- 3:38Speaker 4: cautious about the pace of their recovery?
- 3:42Speaker 3: Yes, you know, I would say signs of recovery are
- 3:45Speaker 3: still you know, pretty elusive to us. And if you
- 3:48Speaker 3: just look over the last couple of months, you know,
- 3:50Speaker 3: you continue to see further downward pressure on crop prices,
- 3:53Speaker 3: which at the end of the day is one of
- 3:54Speaker 3: the bigger drivers of deer's business and farmer cash receipts.
- 3:58Speaker 3: We had a pretty ugly Wady report this week. You know,
- 4:01Speaker 3: it looks like we're going to get another year of
- 4:02Speaker 3: record corn production, so those stockpiles continue to build, which
- 4:07Speaker 3: is really going to keep you know, somewhat of a
- 4:09Speaker 3: stealing on crop prices here in the near term. So
- 4:11Speaker 3: we think this recovery is going to look much more
- 4:14Speaker 3: modest or subdued than what we typically see during a
- 4:17Speaker 3: normal cycle. Right now, we're still anticipating you know, a
- 4:20Speaker 3: modest you know, flat to up five percent next year
- 4:23Speaker 3: in terms of underlying retail demand for lar Jag, particularly
- 4:27Speaker 3: in North America.
- 4:28Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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- 4:48Speaker 4: Let's go to earnings. We want to talk about Cisco Systems.
- 4:51Speaker 4: So you had sales from its AI projects, right they're
- 4:54Speaker 4: beginning to pick up. But the problem was that it's
- 4:56Speaker 4: forecast for the current fiscal year. Well it was a
- 4:59Speaker 4: little bit on the concern side, and that didn't Investors
- 5:02Speaker 4: didn't like that very much. Let's find out why. So
- 5:04Speaker 4: let's go to wou Jinhoi's Bloomberg Intelligence. Senior technology analysts
- 5:08Speaker 4: joining us from Princeton. Wujin, thanks for joining us. I
- 5:11Speaker 4: got to ask you right after the bad What did
- 5:12Speaker 4: investors did? They just think that they should be benefiting
- 5:15Speaker 4: more from AI spending? What was the issue?
- 5:18Speaker 5: Yeah, I think a couple of things. AI wasn't one
- 5:22Speaker 5: of them. But also there's a big product refresh cycle
- 5:25Speaker 5: that investors were hoping would drive better growth. But at
- 5:28Speaker 5: the end of the day, the guidance was a reminder
- 5:31Speaker 5: that they are still tied to IT spending. And you know,
- 5:35Speaker 5: I viewed it as more as prudent conservatism because they
- 5:38Speaker 5: don't know what's happening on the second half.
- 5:39Speaker 2: Of the year.
- 5:40Speaker 5: Given where we are, you know, we have little visibility
- 5:44Speaker 5: in terms of rates as well as tire Still.
- 5:47Speaker 2: So the company recognized about one billion dollars in AI
- 5:50Speaker 2: revenue on fiscal twenty twenty five, and I guess AI
- 5:54Speaker 2: infrastructure orders for large from large cloud of providers whoever
- 5:57Speaker 2: eight hundred million in the quarter. So where do you
- 6:00Speaker 2: think these numbers can go?
- 6:02Speaker 5: Yeah? Look, Paul, they forecasted a billion dollars in orders
- 6:07Speaker 5: for fiscal twenty five. They double that if fiscal twenty
- 6:10Speaker 5: six recognize the billion of it this year, I wouldn't
- 6:13Speaker 5: be surprised if AI revenues grow at least another fifty
- 6:17Speaker 5: percent from here, and they're penetrating multiple pockets right not
- 6:22Speaker 5: only into the cloud. But if you think about a
- 6:24Speaker 5: longer term, when enterprise adoption really starts kicking in, there
- 6:28Speaker 5: is going to be a growth driver.
- 6:29Speaker 1: So we have to.
- 6:31Speaker 5: See where it'll be in twenty six and twenty seven
- 6:34Speaker 5: when enterprise grows. But the partnership with then video should
- 6:36Speaker 5: be beneficial to the longer term.
- 6:38Speaker 4: What AI sector? Is it just to competitive? I mean,
- 6:42Speaker 4: who are some of their peers, how are they doing
- 6:45Speaker 4: against them?
- 6:46Speaker 5: Well, if we think about it, well, they have multiple
- 6:49Speaker 5: they're in AI in multiple vectors right, So from a
- 6:52Speaker 5: networking space, Arista is one of the bigger competitors, as
- 6:57Speaker 5: well as a smaller company called Celestica from They also
- 7:01Speaker 5: they're also very very big on optical components and they're
- 7:05Speaker 5: coming up against companies like Marvel as well as Siena.
- 7:10Speaker 5: And they also provide AI servers and think about Dell
- 7:15Speaker 5: and HPE. So look, is it competitive, yes, but they're
- 7:20Speaker 5: one of the few American vendors that can actually supply
- 7:24Speaker 5: components all the way to the system hardware.
- 7:27Speaker 2: Oh what what are companies like Cisco and and Dell
- 7:30Speaker 2: and some other big American companies throughout the tech stack chain.
- 7:34Speaker 2: What are they saying just about the environment in terms
- 7:37Speaker 2: of demand from their customers? Are they sensing waning demand
- 7:41Speaker 2: or wavering demand? Just to see how some of these
- 7:44Speaker 2: I don't know, TIFFs other economic policies may work out.
- 7:47Speaker 5: Sure, Paul, you know Cisco is one of the first
- 7:50Speaker 5: hardware belt wathers that that came out. I will tell
- 7:53Speaker 5: you from from the numbers that I've seen on the
- 7:56Speaker 5: companies that have reported, uh, you know, the I spending
- 7:59Speaker 5: of vironment has actually been more resilient than I had thought.
- 8:03Speaker 5: I went into the quarter with my mediar outlook as
- 8:06Speaker 5: being a little bit cautious and negative, and quite frankly,
- 8:10Speaker 5: the results have come in better than I had anticipated.
- 8:13Speaker 5: The outlooks have come in better than I anticipated. But
- 8:16Speaker 5: the fact of the matter is I don't know what's
- 8:17Speaker 5: going to happen past December, and I think the Cisco's
- 8:20Speaker 5: guidance reflect that we'll have a better sense in a
- 8:22Speaker 5: couple of weeks from now. When companies like Dell and
- 8:25Speaker 5: then HPE after Labor Day when they report.
- 8:28Speaker 4: Did they talk about their guidance at all about the impacts?
- 8:31Speaker 4: We mentioned tariff quickly, but did the impact of tariffs.
- 8:34Speaker 4: If so, like, did they intend to how do they
- 8:36Speaker 4: intend to lessen that impact from tariffs?
- 8:38Speaker 5: You know, you know, Cisco has been probably one of
- 8:42Speaker 5: the better companies in terms of managing expectations of tariffs
- 8:47Speaker 5: as well as maneuvering the supply chain with the tariff.
- 8:50Speaker 5: So in terms of managing expectations, they embedded tariff impact
- 8:54Speaker 5: in their guidance. And because tariffs came in a little
- 8:57Speaker 5: bit lower than we had anticipated, that actually helped the
- 9:00Speaker 5: EPs just a little bit going forward. You know, all
- 9:05Speaker 5: of the guidance includes the tariff impact. Now, the one
- 9:09Speaker 5: thing I will add, we're still waiting for the semiconductive
- 9:13Speaker 5: rulings as it relates to Section two three to two.
- 9:18Speaker 5: We'll see where it stands. If we do have a
- 9:20Speaker 5: negative ruling there, that could not only affect Cisco's guidance
- 9:26Speaker 5: and margins, but also the rest of the electronics space.
- 9:28Speaker 2: So I'm looking at the stock would Cisco that is,
- 9:31Speaker 2: and it's up about eighteen percent year to date, so
- 9:33Speaker 2: certainly being in the market, and I look at the
- 9:36Speaker 2: A and R function, I see sixteen buys, ten holds,
- 9:39Speaker 2: and one sell. So kind of a little bit of
- 9:41Speaker 2: a split up there on the street. In terms of expectations,
- 9:44Speaker 2: what do you think the bold cases for Cisco from
- 9:47Speaker 2: these levels?
- 9:48Speaker 5: Yeah, the bowl case is fairly easy, Paul. Faster than
- 9:53Speaker 5: five percent to six percent growth driven by the product
- 9:57Speaker 5: reforst cycle security as a driver for Cisco, that's going
- 10:03Speaker 5: to raise multiples. And if it's going to raise multiples,
- 10:07Speaker 5: it's gonna you have a higher stock from where it
- 10:09Speaker 5: is today.
- 10:10Speaker 4: So Chuck Robin, Cisco CEO, is gonna be speaking with
- 10:13Speaker 4: BTV anchors Ed Ludlow Karen Hide just after eleven o'clock.
- 10:16Speaker 4: So if you were in that room, what would you ask?
- 10:21Speaker 5: Yeah, what I would ask is when does a security
- 10:25Speaker 5: story really start to take hold where it does affect
- 10:28Speaker 5: the growth positively?
- 10:30Speaker 2: Right?
- 10:31Speaker 5: Security offers a faster hardware growth as well as software growth,
- 10:36Speaker 5: as well as a high margin recurring revenues. So it's
- 10:40Speaker 5: a security it's turning into security.
- 10:42Speaker 2: At the end of the day, Stay with us. More
- 10:44Speaker 2: from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 10:48Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
- 10:52Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
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- 10:59Speaker 1: get your podcasts or watch US live on YouTube.
- 11:03Speaker 4: All right, we shift from the markets to tech, and
- 11:05Speaker 4: some have suggested that President Trump's novel export arrangement with
- 11:08Speaker 4: Nvidia AMD paying the US government fifteen percent of revenue
- 11:12Speaker 4: from some chip sales in China, Well, it could violate
- 11:15Speaker 4: federal law. And if it did, what would happen? That
- 11:18Speaker 4: is the question of the latest article on the terminal.
- 11:21Speaker 4: You have to check it out. Matthew Shuttlin is Bloomberg
- 11:23Speaker 4: Intelligence media litigation analyst. Matthew first question right off the
- 11:28Speaker 4: bat is does.
- 11:29Speaker 6: It Yeah, it does it violate the law? It's an
- 11:32Speaker 6: interesting question that I don't think people had.
- 11:34Speaker 2: Thought about for a while.
- 11:35Speaker 6: But there is this clause in the twenty eighteen Export
- 11:40Speaker 6: Control Reform Act that says that no fees can be
- 11:45Speaker 6: charged for the processing of these export control licenses. There's
- 11:50Speaker 6: also a clause in the US Constitution going way back
- 11:56Speaker 6: that says that taxes cannot be levy against articles exported
- 12:02Speaker 6: from US states. You put those two things together and
- 12:06Speaker 6: you start to see, you know, some serious questions that
- 12:09Speaker 6: could be raised about whether imposing a fifteen percent effective
- 12:15Speaker 6: tax on exports is actually legal or not. Now, no
- 12:19Speaker 6: lawsuits have been filed yet, and there would be some
- 12:23Speaker 6: hurdles to filing them, But I think there is a
- 12:25Speaker 6: very plausible legal case that could be made.
- 12:29Speaker 2: If a lawsuit were to be filed, Who would do it?
- 12:33Speaker 2: What entity would do that?
- 12:35Speaker 6: Yeah, so that's a great question. I mean, if you're
- 12:37Speaker 6: in Nvidia or AMD, I don't think you want to
- 12:40Speaker 6: run right into court after you negotiated a deal with
- 12:43Speaker 6: President Trump and challenge it there. And so I think
- 12:48Speaker 6: you would see a potential lawsuit come from from a
- 12:52Speaker 6: trade association that's concerned about the potential for this setting
- 12:56Speaker 6: a precedent that goes forward after these particular deals. You
- 13:02Speaker 6: could also envision shareholders of the companies who are upset
- 13:05Speaker 6: about the company agreeing to something that might be inconsistent
- 13:08Speaker 6: with federal law potentially filing lawsuits as well.
- 13:12Speaker 4: And I like, we keep saying if this sword happ
- 13:14Speaker 4: and yes, what would be the timeline for something like this?
- 13:17Speaker 6: Yeah, so it's hard to say exactly. We don't we
- 13:20Speaker 6: haven't seen the final agreements here between Nvidia and AMD,
- 13:24Speaker 6: and just a couple of days ago, the White House
- 13:26Speaker 6: said that they were the Commerce Department was still exploring
- 13:29Speaker 6: the legality of how to do this, probably because they're
- 13:33Speaker 6: looking at this precise statute we're talking about here. So
- 13:37Speaker 6: timing's very much in flux for all of this, and
- 13:40Speaker 6: it's going to be a question of whether we see
- 13:42Speaker 6: this sort of approach going forward. But lawsuits could be
- 13:45Speaker 6: filed any time. They would be filed in in federal
- 13:48Speaker 6: district district courts. Probably you would seek injunctions trying to
- 13:53Speaker 6: stop the imposition of these taxes, and it could be
- 13:56Speaker 6: litigated up through the court system from there.
- 13:58Speaker 2: But I mean to be clear, were agreed to by
- 14:00Speaker 2: the companies and the government. I guess the companies met.
- 14:03Speaker 2: The companies are just saying, hey, this is just the
- 14:06Speaker 2: cost to do business in this country with this administration.
- 14:10Speaker 2: Is that kind of think they were.
- 14:11Speaker 6: I think that's exactly it, and I think there would
- 14:14Speaker 6: be hurdles to these companies suing for that reason. I
- 14:17Speaker 6: suspect these agreements are going to include waivers of their
- 14:21Speaker 6: particular right to sue. And it's better to access these
- 14:25Speaker 6: markets than, you know, to not access the markets at all,
- 14:31Speaker 6: even if it comes at a fifteen percent price tag.
- 14:34Speaker 2: Now, this whole.
- 14:35Speaker 4: Deal, it started to fuel some concern that the government
- 14:38Speaker 4: could charge companies for a range of business activities with
- 14:42Speaker 4: other countries. I mean, is that a viable concern? And
- 14:45Speaker 4: then what questions could that bring up in the meantime?
- 14:49Speaker 6: Yeah, that is really I think the big question here
- 14:52Speaker 6: is is this a one off or is this how
- 14:55Speaker 6: how this administration is going to operate for all exports
- 14:58Speaker 6: going forward? And if it's it's the latter, I think
- 15:02Speaker 6: that raises much much bigger concerns. Usually you would look
- 15:06Speaker 6: to Congress to set the standards here, and there is,
- 15:09Speaker 6: as I said, a statute that says no fees for
- 15:12Speaker 6: the processing of these export licenses. And so in a
- 15:18Speaker 6: typical world you would see Congress, you know, explore maybe
- 15:21Speaker 6: setting the legality of something like this. But right now
- 15:25Speaker 6: we have a law from seven years ago that may
- 15:28Speaker 6: or may not be be challenged.
- 15:30Speaker 2: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
- 15:36Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
- 15:39Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto
- 15:43Speaker 1: with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you
- 15:46Speaker 1: get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
- 15:50Speaker 2: Right here's the story my eyes went to immediately this
- 15:52Speaker 2: morning when I came in US and Canadian banks are
- 15:55Speaker 2: summoning staffers back to their offices at a faster rate
- 15:58Speaker 2: than European rivals. That was very interesting, and we've got
- 16:01Speaker 2: lots of good data in their charts and stuff like that,
- 16:04Speaker 2: But to me, it just went right to the difference
- 16:07Speaker 2: between the US and Europe is it relates to banking
- 16:09Speaker 2: and investment banking, where it just seems like the US
- 16:12Speaker 2: banks have just dominated. And I know there's a lot
- 16:15Speaker 2: of reasons why structurally, but this one just feels like
- 16:18Speaker 2: a part of it. So we want to get right
- 16:20Speaker 2: into it now. Tom Metcalf, finance editor for Blow News.
- 16:24Speaker 2: He's in our London office. Tom, what do you guys
- 16:26Speaker 2: find are are American bankers really coming back more to
- 16:29Speaker 2: the office more frequently than the Europeans.
- 16:33Speaker 7: Yeah, it's a very very clear trend actually. So what
- 16:36Speaker 7: we did went back looked at the biggest fifteen US
- 16:39Speaker 7: and Canadian banks and then also the biggest fifteen European
- 16:42Speaker 7: and the split basically simpers flies down to is about
- 16:44Speaker 7: three days a week in Europe compared to four days
- 16:47Speaker 7: a week in the US. And of course in the
- 16:49Speaker 7: US has a lot of very notable examples who are
- 16:51Speaker 7: back fully to five days, right, the JP Morgan's, the Goldmans.
- 16:55Speaker 7: So I think it's been a really interesting split, and
- 16:57Speaker 7: like you say, it's it's kind of part and part
- 17:00Speaker 7: sort of this divergence really between particularly the US banks
- 17:03Speaker 7: and europe in that, you know, one of the theories
- 17:05Speaker 7: going out there's lots of reasons why this is happening,
- 17:07Speaker 7: but certainly one analyst was saying, you know, one element
- 17:10Speaker 7: is the fact US banks are just that much more
- 17:12Speaker 7: profitable and thus they sort of have almost like a
- 17:15Speaker 7: little bit more leverage over their employees to effectively go no,
- 17:18Speaker 7: it's going to be our way or the highway, is
- 17:20Speaker 7: what Mike Mayo told us. But as you say, it's
- 17:24Speaker 7: one of those stories where you know, I think anecdotally
- 17:26Speaker 7: that was the kind of clearly the sense, but it
- 17:29Speaker 7: was quite startling to see it kind of you know,
- 17:31Speaker 7: when you really dive into the day to go, oh, yes,
- 17:33Speaker 7: it's really basically almost two different strategies, with broadly speaking,
- 17:37Speaker 7: the Europeans kind of viewing it as a almost like
- 17:39Speaker 7: employee retention tool and US banks going we don't care.
- 17:43Speaker 7: We think the most efficient way to work is in
- 17:45Speaker 7: the office. You're coming back in, Well, you're.
- 17:47Speaker 4: Kind of leading to it. I wanted to ask Tom,
- 17:50Speaker 4: is this a cultural thing? Is this also playing a factor?
- 17:54Speaker 7: Yeah, and there's obviously no one size fits all, right,
- 17:57Speaker 7: but like broadly speaking, a little bit more of that,
- 18:01Speaker 7: you know, go attitude, et cetera, say Goldman, Whereas the
- 18:05Speaker 7: European banks, you know, structurally there's more retail banks in
- 18:08Speaker 7: that space, or certainly investment banks. The capital markets is
- 18:11Speaker 7: a bit smaller part of their business. So certainly a
- 18:15Speaker 7: bunch of different things flowing through here. And you know what,
- 18:19Speaker 7: the other interesting thing was the academic research we took
- 18:21Speaker 7: a look at the same time, is not out there
- 18:24Speaker 7: going if you bring everyone back to the office, you
- 18:26Speaker 7: necessarily get better stock market performance or even better financial performance.
- 18:29Speaker 7: So it's very much I think cultural is probably what's
- 18:33Speaker 7: drive in this. You know, the tone from the top.
- 18:35Speaker 7: You know, someone like a Jamie Diamond, probably the most
- 18:37Speaker 7: outspoken executive on this, very very keen to have everyone
- 18:40Speaker 7: back in the office. And then on the flip side,
- 18:42Speaker 7: Bill Winters here, who runs Standard Chartered, he's literally taken
- 18:45Speaker 7: the opposite tone, so he's just effectively going, look, we
- 18:48Speaker 7: believe our employees can make the right decision for their
- 18:50Speaker 7: particular teams, and we will. And you know, standard charters
- 18:54Speaker 7: are a fascinating example of everyone we spoke to. They
- 18:57Speaker 7: basically said they don't even have a specific mandate at all.
- 18:59Speaker 7: They just truly are sort of decentralizing this and just
- 19:02Speaker 7: telling people that there's no policy, just make sure you
- 19:05Speaker 7: do what to write for you.
- 19:06Speaker 2: Wow, that's interesting, and I wonder I'm hearing stories that
- 19:11Speaker 2: you know, back to work schedules and requirements maybe used
- 19:14Speaker 2: as a recruiting tool to attract and retain talent. Ie
- 19:17Speaker 2: City group. I know Jane Fraser, the CEO is there
- 19:20Speaker 2: is she thinks it's a recruiting tool for City because
- 19:24Speaker 2: they're only at three day mandate. Are other banks thinking
- 19:27Speaker 2: that way.
- 19:29Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly. It goes to like it's not like kind
- 19:31Speaker 7: of a universal monolith here, Like you go through the
- 19:34Speaker 7: US banks and there's a bunch of an art in
- 19:36Speaker 7: and City is probably maybe the most interesting example because
- 19:39Speaker 7: as you say, it's got that, you know, it's going
- 19:42Speaker 7: through a big restruction and as part of that, it's
- 19:44Speaker 7: offering a bit of flexibility to its employees. Some people think,
- 19:47Speaker 7: because you know, that helps retain talent, who might otherwise,
- 19:50Speaker 7: you know, look further afield, but they can go, well, look,
- 19:52Speaker 7: if I'm at city, I get way more flexibility. It
- 19:54Speaker 7: fits my lifestyle, or it gives me that ability to
- 19:56Speaker 7: work from most places. So it's really fascinating and I
- 20:01Speaker 7: think you kind of almost have to go case by case,
- 20:05Speaker 7: but broadly speaking, still, if you're looking at a US bank,
- 20:08Speaker 7: you can expect a little bit more strictness around artio.
- 20:10Speaker 4: Hey, Tom, before you go, is there anything that surprised
- 20:13Speaker 4: you when you were doing this research where you were like,
- 20:15Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
- 20:16Speaker 2: I didn't think that was possible.
- 20:19Speaker 7: I think the biggest thing was like, how has it
- 20:20Speaker 7: been five years since?
- 20:22Speaker 1: You know?
- 20:22Speaker 7: I was just like, I didn't realize there's been half
- 20:24Speaker 7: a decade already. And I think, I mean, look, I
- 20:27Speaker 7: think that's the sense of you know, this is still
- 20:29Speaker 7: very much a work in progress. And I remember writing
- 20:31Speaker 7: about it, you know, during the pandemic and beyond, it
- 20:33Speaker 7: was very much felt to be this kind of big
- 20:35Speaker 7: philosophical debate about you know, the future of work, and
- 20:39Speaker 7: you know, I don't think anyone's actually reached a satisfactory argument.
- 20:42Speaker 7: I think basic answer, Sorry, I think basically banks have
- 20:45Speaker 7: settled into kind of where you think they would. Of course,
- 20:47Speaker 7: a JP more than Goldman are basically knowing that was
- 20:49Speaker 7: all nonsense. Let's come back and you know, I guess
- 20:53Speaker 7: in some ways, it's just that the firms are living
- 20:55Speaker 7: up to their stereotypes, right like you know, it's kind
- 20:58Speaker 7: of a classic. We're in August in Europe. Guess what,
- 21:01Speaker 7: everyone's working from home and stuff like that.
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