Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, along
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts,
Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. You are listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Markets on this Black Friday. And it is the season
Speaker 1: for holiday shop and we know though this year it
Speaker 1: is not about doorbuster deals. This year it is about
Speaker 1: shopping in a social distancing world. And Paul, I know
Speaker 1: you and Bonnie Quinn talked earlier with Danna tell Zy.
Speaker 1: She said the consumer is pretty healthy. Yeah, exactly right,
Speaker 1: and they're looking forward despite all the craziness in the
Speaker 1: world here, the consumer does have some liquidity as well. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: let's let's get to somebody who's got a front row
Speaker 1: seat on all of this. Jim Fallon is editorial director
Speaker 1: of Women's Wear Daily. He joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Terrytown, New York. So, Jim, great to have you
Speaker 1: here with Paul and myself. The Westchester mall not too
Speaker 1: far from you, guys, but as we are hearing colleagues
Speaker 1: are sending in there talking about the malls and Riverhead
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth, the outlets, everything is
Speaker 1: very quiet. It's a very different Black Friday this year,
Speaker 1: extremely different. And I think it's going to be a
Speaker 1: very different holiday season overall. I mean it's if any
Speaker 1: time is going to be an online holiday, this is
Speaker 1: the year. And the question is will it ever go
Speaker 1: back to what it used to be? So Jim, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was. As we've heard from
Speaker 1: retailers really over the last several years, we've heard about
Speaker 1: this concept of omni channel kind of you know, being
Speaker 1: online bricks and mortar, you know, talk to us what
Speaker 1: omni channel means to you and how we're seeing that
Speaker 1: play out this holiday season. Well, they were omni channel
Speaker 1: basically is now utilizing your brick and mortar assets in
Speaker 1: a way that is going to pretty much drive traffic
Speaker 1: to your website. I mean, I think Deloitte or um
Speaker 1: Adobe predicted a hundred and six increase in UM buy
Speaker 1: online pickup in store curbside pickups. So you're seeing Walmart,
Speaker 1: you're seeing Target, You're seeing all these retailers really using
Speaker 1: their store based to fulfill orders from online, especially with
Speaker 1: the surgeon online orders and worries over delivery and things
Speaker 1: like that. So whereas omni Channel used to be, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we have our store and we also have
Speaker 1: our website and we're bringing the two together. Now, it's
Speaker 1: really how can we use our store base to fulfill
Speaker 1: orders from online? And yes, customers might come in, but
Speaker 1: not in the numbers that they used to. Yeah, I listen.
Speaker 1: I gotta say to you, I've done a lot of
Speaker 1: shopping already and the packages, as I've warned our team
Speaker 1: today that I've got to listen for the door when
Speaker 1: packages are dropped because we have some porch pirates in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood, so I've got to be careful and get them.
Speaker 1: But what's interesting to know your neighborhood. It's a good neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It's just they know. The packages that are delivered are
Speaker 1: really good too. Um. But what's interesting is when I order,
Speaker 1: I think about what's the exchange policy, how easy it
Speaker 1: how much is it going to cost for shipping back
Speaker 1: and forth? Because I love shopping online, but I'm often
Speaker 1: ordering multiple sizes and doing things like that. But I
Speaker 1: look at the store policies and that really determines where
Speaker 1: I shop a lot. Now, No, that's that's a very
Speaker 1: good point. And I think consumers are going to become
Speaker 1: more and more wary and informed about those types of things.
Speaker 1: And also the key crunch point is the delivery times,
Speaker 1: and you know, I think predictions are now that pretty
Speaker 1: much December eleventh is going to be the cut off.
Speaker 1: I keep hearing different opinions. On the one hand, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, oh, consumers are much more forgiving,
Speaker 1: they recognize the crunch on retailers. Uh, and so if
Speaker 1: packages don't arrive on time, they're much more forgiving. And
Speaker 1: I keep thinking to myself, they're forgiving until DECEMBERY when
Speaker 1: they're waiting for that one gift for their left one
Speaker 1: that's not arrived. And then, um, so I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be a lot of pressure on retailers this year,
Speaker 1: particularly the logistics systems. And again the benefit is how
Speaker 1: quickly they can leverage their store bases to fulfill those
Speaker 1: orders and drive the consumer to the store to pick
Speaker 1: up the product, because again that gives the retailer bigger margin. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, the key the key question of this holiday
Speaker 1: is going to be yes, growth of online, but what
Speaker 1: are the margin's going to look like? Yeah, I was wondered, Jim.
Speaker 1: You know we're seeing boxes pilot outside of to pretty
Speaker 1: much everybody's door up and down the street here. Talk
Speaker 1: to us about luxury. I mean, if I'm going to
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money on a luxury watch, does
Speaker 1: that also work in an etail e commerce type of environment?
Speaker 1: Or I want to or do you find consumers want
Speaker 1: to go to the store, look at it, hold it,
Speaker 1: feel it, all that kind of stuff. Surprisingly, the luxury
Speaker 1: players are saying that more and more consumers are shopping
Speaker 1: online for those very high priced items. It's also forced
Speaker 1: those luxury players to offer those items online because luxury
Speaker 1: very much to your point, was kind of snobbish about
Speaker 1: a lot of things, but very much snobbish about the
Speaker 1: online experience. They thought the consumer wanted that personal touch,
Speaker 1: personal service had to be in the store, etcetera. Now,
Speaker 1: because consumers haven't been you know, stores were closed, they
Speaker 1: didn't have access to those consumers. So they were setting
Speaker 1: up a lot of online shopping, a lot of video
Speaker 1: conferencing type shopping. Um and you know, the retailers I've
Speaker 1: spoken to have said They've sold jewelry worth hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars via video conference and just then drove
Speaker 1: it up to the woman's house and dropped it off.
Speaker 1: So this is what I think. I think this is
Speaker 1: something that's really dramatically different. We caught up at the
Speaker 1: CEO of Watches of Switzerland and they talked about how,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole idea of online shopping shifted to
Speaker 1: we were you know, thank you Zoom and all these
Speaker 1: other platforms that we were setting up, you know, sales
Speaker 1: personnel with customers online and doing you know, like we
Speaker 1: would be at a counter right like the shifting you
Speaker 1: know that we moved to that, you know, changing kind
Speaker 1: of how we shot and that that is something that
Speaker 1: will probably stay with us. And I think about that
Speaker 1: how important that could be for especially luxury goods, very
Speaker 1: much so. And as they said, I don't think it
Speaker 1: may slip back a little bit when hopefully the vaccines
Speaker 1: take effect and people are protected against the virus and
Speaker 1: so forth. But this behavior is a fundamental shift in
Speaker 1: the way everybody is going to shop. And I think
Speaker 1: it's the combination of convenience, if you can get that
Speaker 1: personal service, even via Zoom or whatever. Then you might
Speaker 1: not travel to a store, and you know, in a sense,
Speaker 1: traveling to a store versus getting the one on one
Speaker 1: zoom experience, you might get better attention actually via zoom.
Speaker 1: I want, so, j what are some of the items
Speaker 1: that are hot this year and what are some of
Speaker 1: the items that maybe are not? UM. I think you
Speaker 1: know you're going to see the normal electronics seems to
Speaker 1: be taking off a lot of TV discounts today. UM. Apparel,
Speaker 1: the sweaters that you know, the things like that. Jewelry
Speaker 1: may do well because again it's one of the few
Speaker 1: things that you women particularly will be able to show
Speaker 1: off when they're on their conference calls on the computer
Speaker 1: at home. UM. I think guys like to show off
Speaker 1: like that new watch as well. I'm just going to
Speaker 1: put that out there. Yes, that's true. UM, that's true
Speaker 1: very much. UM. And so you know very much tops
Speaker 1: because none of us wear bottoms when we're on the computers.
Speaker 1: All right, full disclosure. I have a potum on right now,
Speaker 1: the UM. But ironically, you are seeing some growth in
Speaker 1: shoes and things like that. What the consumers at all
Speaker 1: price points are beginning to under beginning to do, is
Speaker 1: they want to treat themselves. They're not eating out in restaurants,
Speaker 1: they're not going on vacation. So there's been this spending
Speaker 1: boom because it's like, I have this liquidity, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the program, I want to do something
Speaker 1: with it. I need a treat, and so they're spending
Speaker 1: money on things they might not wear right away, but
Speaker 1: they're kind of buying for when this this horrible experience
Speaker 1: is over. Well, Jim, have a good holiday season. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we'll be checking in with you throughout. Jim Fallon,
Speaker 1: editorial director of Women's Where Daily, joining us on the
Speaker 1: phone from Terrytown. Guess it's really fascinating story here. She
Speaker 1: has positioned her company as the peloton of education by
Speaker 1: connecting teachers from around the country to school struggling to
Speaker 1: find teachers by taking over classroom with live stream instruction.
Speaker 1: Let's get the latest. We welcome Shelley Barren Wall, CEO
Speaker 1: of Elevate K through twelve. Shelley, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us here. Talk to us about your company, about
Speaker 1: the issue you're trying to address. Sure, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me on. So when we talk about
Speaker 1: the problem that you're trying to solve keep COVID aside.
Speaker 1: It's a plaguing problem in the USK to old schools
Speaker 1: and district which is of the teacher shortage. Now, in
Speaker 1: the past, there was already a teacher shortage problem that
Speaker 1: existed that we was solving. According to the Learning Policy Institute,
Speaker 1: there were over five hundred thousand in teacher vacancies or
Speaker 1: uncertified substitute teachers teaching in the classrooms. With COVID. Now
Speaker 1: that problem has actually grown several times. So according to
Speaker 1: the American Federation of Teachers, one in three K TALK
Speaker 1: teachers is expected to retire early due to COVID. So
Speaker 1: if you just talk about the problem right now, the
Speaker 1: teacher shortage problem across the USK to our school districts
Speaker 1: already existed and with COVID it's just accelerating at a
Speaker 1: much higher rate. And that is a problem that we're solving.
Speaker 1: When there isn't that great format teacher or the grade
Speaker 1: six science teacher or the high school cybersecurity teacher not
Speaker 1: existing in the local zip code, how can you bring
Speaker 1: that same power of amazing teaching into the classroom by
Speaker 1: live streaming it so that zip code is not a
Speaker 1: barrier to the access to high quality teachings. Say, one
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you is you said they
Speaker 1: were already over five teaching substitutes in our system. Why
Speaker 1: is it so that sounds like a really high number?
Speaker 1: Is it help me out here? Right? So, the way
Speaker 1: you have to think about a problem about this problem
Speaker 1: is it's not really that the supply of teachers overall. Right,
Speaker 1: So if you look at the overall demand for teachers
Speaker 1: as of today, there are three point one million k
Speaker 1: twelves teachers in the school system. The supply may be
Speaker 1: slightly higher than that. But where it breaks is the
Speaker 1: geographic arbitrage. We do a lot of work. Let's stay
Speaker 1: in South Georgia, dirty County, right, Sometimes it's impossible for
Speaker 1: them to find a Spanish teacher there, or a calculus teacher.
Speaker 1: But there's a high supply of teachers of calculus teachers,
Speaker 1: maybe in San Francisco. So the problem really is of
Speaker 1: a geographic arbitrage. I am surprised that there is not
Speaker 1: more conversation about this problem as we talk about reskilling
Speaker 1: America and reskilling real America, uh in specifics. So the
Speaker 1: problem exists eight because of that. The second reason the
Speaker 1: problem exists is what the children need to learn is changing.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of conversations about STEM, computer science, cybersecurity.
Speaker 1: If a school district can't find a Grade Ford math teacher, Carol,
Speaker 1: go figure, how are they ever going to find a
Speaker 1: computer science teacher. So the problem really existed, people were
Speaker 1: talking about it, but I think COVID has just brought
Speaker 1: this problem center and completely up front. And this is
Speaker 1: a problem plaguing mostly the low income neighborhoods in the country. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think about Paul, like you probably thought about
Speaker 1: it with your kids. I know my parents did. They
Speaker 1: thought about when they bought a house where we were
Speaker 1: going to grow up and what kind of education. That
Speaker 1: was a big thing, and we know it's just not equal,
Speaker 1: right Paul, you know around the country absolutely, And Shelley,
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering what the you know, what this country
Speaker 1: has been dealing with really for the last eight months
Speaker 1: as it relates to education, much much more virtual education.
Speaker 1: What are your thoughts on the viability the quality of
Speaker 1: that virtual experience visa vi the in person experience, since
Speaker 1: you've had so much experience with it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for asking that question. I think it's a very
Speaker 1: important question. To be asked. Um, you'll see a lot
Speaker 1: of articles now talking about virtual education is not working,
Speaker 1: online learning is not working. I don't think virtual education
Speaker 1: or online learning is not working. What is really not
Speaker 1: working is the way it is being done. Over the
Speaker 1: last several years, we as the company have honed in
Speaker 1: on the specifics of what makes real life teaching impactful engagement.
Speaker 1: That a gaugey, the way you teach. How is the
Speaker 1: teacher being how is the teacher being like evaluated? What
Speaker 1: are you doing in a life syncodness and waterman. If
Speaker 1: you think about virtual teaching now and what you see
Speaker 1: with your children, what they've basically done is taken a
Speaker 1: platform like Zoo More Google Needs that was built for
Speaker 1: business and bandaged it and said, hey, kids, schools in districts,
Speaker 1: let's use it. And that's the reason it's not working
Speaker 1: because it wasn't built for a child, it wasn't built
Speaker 1: for engagement. The teachers didn't go through the right amount
Speaker 1: of training, The teachers are not going to the right
Speaker 1: amount of quality audits because everybody is just scrambling to
Speaker 1: fill let's get something out to the kids. The instruction
Speaker 1: loss that is going to happen, specifically in the low
Speaker 1: income neighborhoods because your children fall and Carroll's still you know,
Speaker 1: you have WiFi at home, you have laptops, you have electricity.
Speaker 1: When COVID hit, the transition was easy. We worked with
Speaker 1: some school districts when COVID hit. The only thing that
Speaker 1: the superintendent would say the goddesses to make sure that
Speaker 1: the meals are delivered to the kids. Some of these
Speaker 1: kids don't have electricity at home, some of them don't
Speaker 1: have WiFi, so they were different issues them. My viewpoint
Speaker 1: is virtual learning and online learning works if it's done well,
Speaker 1: and the three pillars that make it highly effective is
Speaker 1: great technology built four K twelve right, absolutely amazing, rock
Speaker 1: star teachers, and great content. You know, Carol, unfortunate to
Speaker 1: live in a town that has a very good school system.
Speaker 1: But this summer at school is just about to open.
Speaker 1: I saw for the first time signs in front of
Speaker 1: the schools recruiting substitute teachers. I guess the district was
Speaker 1: really anticipating with the COVID that there would be a
Speaker 1: greater need for substitute teachers. So if it has happening
Speaker 1: in strong school districts, you gotta really wonder kind of
Speaker 1: where we are and some of the others, and fortunate
Speaker 1: to continue our discussion with elevate K through twelve CEO
Speaker 1: Shelley Baron Wall. Shelley again just highlighted to me, uh,
Speaker 1: this issue of teachers and give us a sense is
Speaker 1: this Are you finding that there is a growing shortage
Speaker 1: of teachers or maybe just that arbitrage that you were
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, that's really a regional thing. So I
Speaker 1: would answer the question in two phases. Number one and
Speaker 1: the first problem is the geographic arbitract right if I
Speaker 1: look at the supply of teachers right now. But however,
Speaker 1: when we think about building a company, when we think
Speaker 1: about reforming a complete industry, you have to think about
Speaker 1: what this is going to do long term. And I
Speaker 1: do believe that as the percentage of people in general
Speaker 1: taking teaching certifications or wanting to be teachers reduces, this
Speaker 1: problem is going to further increase and rather than just
Speaker 1: impacting the low income neighborhoods, very soon may actually impact
Speaker 1: the high income neighborhoods. So what we need to do
Speaker 1: as as a society, what we need to do as
Speaker 1: a company, is not just think about the problems that
Speaker 1: we are solving right now, but also think about what
Speaker 1: are the strategies and measures that need to be taken
Speaker 1: now to continue to improve the supply of teachers, like
Speaker 1: to make teaching of un professor again where millennials and
Speaker 1: want to be teachers, and they're not wanted about that
Speaker 1: being a teacher, they may not get paid a lot,
Speaker 1: or where do they want to live. I think one
Speaker 1: thing that COVID has done is, you know what, people
Speaker 1: can live anywhere they want, and with our live streaming instruction,
Speaker 1: teachers can teach straight into a classroom where the kids
Speaker 1: are in one physical location from anywhere they want. So
Speaker 1: I look at it in two phases and that's how
Speaker 1: I see the problem evolving. So don't you think all
Speaker 1: I also think there's something wrong with us as a society.
Speaker 1: Cately that I don't think there is a lot of
Speaker 1: respect for teachers. We certainly don't pay them often enough,
Speaker 1: and we also ask teachers to often buy their own supplies,
Speaker 1: you know, contribute. You know, there's something wrong. I didn't
Speaker 1: grow up where my parents had to buy you know,
Speaker 1: we bought the things I basically needed, but the schools
Speaker 1: supplied a lot. And something's happened in our world. Despite
Speaker 1: the amount of money that we haven't spent on taxes
Speaker 1: and it goes into education, we've gotten I don't know,
Speaker 1: we really kind of gotten messed up. So how do
Speaker 1: we pay teachers more so that people want to be
Speaker 1: a teacher and come into the occupation. How do we
Speaker 1: make sure schools are funded in the right way? M
Speaker 1: so Actually, so, we do surveys of of our teachers.
Speaker 1: Right we have a network of over thousand teachers in
Speaker 1: the US. They're located everywhere, they teach online, they teach live.
Speaker 1: And when we do our surveys, Carol and we asked them,
Speaker 1: why did you leave the school district to work with us?
Speaker 1: What caused it? And the number one reason was because
Speaker 1: they were so done with a lot of bureaucracies and
Speaker 1: politics that happens within a school district where they went
Speaker 1: into teaching for the joy of teaching. So, frankly, it's
Speaker 1: not so much the money, it's actually the rest of
Speaker 1: the systems around it that plugged the teachers out of
Speaker 1: the school system. Definitely, paying them well, making teaching a
Speaker 1: high paid job is definitely a plus. And I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that with some of the laws changing, with some of
Speaker 1: the policies coming in, we see more and more of that.
Speaker 1: Teachers want flexibilities. Like a lot of our teachers are
Speaker 1: from North to Code down there from Oklahoma where they
Speaker 1: live in small towns with the cost of living is low,
Speaker 1: but they're teaching in a big town in let's say
Speaker 1: in North Carolina and into a classroom. So I think
Speaker 1: that part is causing them to leave the profession. And
Speaker 1: if you look at the root cause analysis of that
Speaker 1: and start targeting each one of those, you will see
Speaker 1: more and more teachers come back into the system. Like
Speaker 1: we've currently partners with companies like Sylvan Learning that your
Speaker 1: code sharing our teachers. We're partnering with University of Phoenix
Speaker 1: talking to these universities on how you can make your
Speaker 1: teaching curriculum more impactful. That more millenniums and the younger
Speaker 1: generation want to get into this profession and teach the
Speaker 1: way they wanted, maybe from a beach, and how do
Speaker 1: you make it SEXI before them, Okay, I mean you
Speaker 1: told me, But what's interesting. I have a cousin. I
Speaker 1: mean she's retired now and we would have kept teaching
Speaker 1: a few more years, but you mentioned bureaucracy. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: talk to me about situations where schools didn't back up
Speaker 1: teachers against parents, and it became where teachers were, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of having to reprimand kids or it just got
Speaker 1: really difficult. And I do wonder you know that dynamic
Speaker 1: how what what you're hearing about that as well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that probably not every school district goes
Speaker 1: through that. We have the fortune of working with some
Speaker 1: amazing school districts where their leaders and superintendents care a
Speaker 1: lot about their staff. Because again, it's like any other organization, right,
Speaker 1: you care for your people, you give them the right rules,
Speaker 1: and the entire organization flourishes. So specifics, what I have
Speaker 1: heard about is Number one is the time commitment required.
Speaker 1: Right Like, as a teacher, you may think that that
Speaker 1: a am to three pm is where your life and no,
Speaker 1: your life kind of continues beyond that. So the number
Speaker 1: of hours of work that they have to do beyond
Speaker 1: the to three is what pushes a lot of teachers
Speaker 1: from a regular brick and mortar system to working with
Speaker 1: us online. The second is the flexibility of time. More
Speaker 1: than sixt the tchual teaching population is women, more than
Speaker 1: of our teaching population is women, right, So you see
Speaker 1: the difference there, and they are between thirty two to forty.
Speaker 1: They are a mother with a teaching certification, so they
Speaker 1: need that flexibility that I can work and I can
Speaker 1: also you know, be at home when needed. So that
Speaker 1: flexibility that the gig economy has offered to a lot
Speaker 1: of other industry. It's high time that it comes to
Speaker 1: Kate pout now and that's what we're trying to change. Shelly,
Speaker 1: just quickly, what is most school dridstricts, I would say
Speaker 1: around the country are really struggling with virtual learning? What
Speaker 1: the mistakes do you think they're making? What advice would
Speaker 1: you give them to try to improve their virtual learning?
Speaker 1: I think the first the only advice that I would
Speaker 1: give them, actually not the first run is believe in
Speaker 1: synchronous teaching. What the difference between synchronous and asynchronous arning
Speaker 1: and teaching a synkinner, So a lot of remote teaching
Speaker 1: that's happening not with elevation but without elevate wealth is
Speaker 1: a teacher would come online, teach for maybe ten fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes and then that's synchronous teaching, and then give a
Speaker 1: synchinners work to the kids to do on their own
Speaker 1: watch videoself based learning. Again, it goes back to the
Speaker 1: have and have not right, like your children would be proactive,
Speaker 1: would want to do a syn conness learning maybe or
Speaker 1: maybe not. I'm not sure, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: students who we serve there isn't a culture of success.
Speaker 1: They don't have those examples. So what is really not
Speaker 1: working is the lack of synchronous life teaching into remote learning.
Speaker 1: Online learning is not life learning, and I think the
Speaker 1: industry and the country needs to start understanding the difference
Speaker 1: between the two. That's a really good, important distinction, especially
Speaker 1: as we move forward and we expect that this online
Speaker 1: learning is going to kind of stay with us in
Speaker 1: some form or another. Shelly, thank you so much. She
Speaker 1: Alie bar and Wall. She is founder and CEO of
Speaker 1: Elevate K twelve. Check out more about what they're doing.
Speaker 1: You can go online and find out about that. Paul,
Speaker 1: You know, we talk a lot about diversification when it
Speaker 1: comes to investing, right, and that often includes some hard
Speaker 1: tangible assets, including wine, which is what our next guest
Speaker 1: knows about. Anthony is saying he's a repeat entrepreneur. He
Speaker 1: has founded and sold a couple of companies. His current
Speaker 1: venture is as co founder and CEO of vino vest
Speaker 1: excuse me, a tech platform for investing in wine, and
Speaker 1: he joins us on the phone in Los Angeles. Um, Anthony,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have you here with Paul and myself.
Speaker 1: First of all, how are you doing? And I'm curious
Speaker 1: about the pandemic impact. UM, how what it's had on
Speaker 1: your business, especially go back to April and then kind
Speaker 1: of where we are today. Absolutely, and first of all,
Speaker 1: thanks to both for having me on UM. I think
Speaker 1: with the pandemic, with a lot of both being uh,
Speaker 1: you know, lockdown and certainly drinking a lot more wine,
Speaker 1: I think we've seen a lot of hill winds, especially
Speaker 1: in the high end wine investing market. As coupled with that,
Speaker 1: a lot of savvy investors are thinking of ways where
Speaker 1: they can diversify away from traditional stocks and find other
Speaker 1: assets where they can start to hedge some of their profits.
Speaker 1: So UM, I think with our company as well with
Speaker 1: a lot of other alternative investing companies, we've started to
Speaker 1: see a lot more openness and interest from retail investors
Speaker 1: and institutional investors alike. So Anthony, tell us about your company,
Speaker 1: how does it facilitate investing in fine wine. Absolutely. Our
Speaker 1: company makes it simple and accessible for anybody to be
Speaker 1: able to to invest into fine wine as an asset class.
Speaker 1: So not only do we actually help with the selection,
Speaker 1: we also help our investors store their wine, ensure their wine,
Speaker 1: as well as provide a platform for liquidity into selling
Speaker 1: their wine whenever they want. So, if I deposit some
Speaker 1: money with your and can give you some money, will
Speaker 1: you go out and buy a basket of wines for
Speaker 1: me to invest in? Or how how does that work?
Speaker 1: How do you decide what I should be buying? I
Speaker 1: guess yeah, that's a great question. So we do take
Speaker 1: a basket approach in that based on your maybe your
Speaker 1: risk tolerance, your investment timeline, as well as how much
Speaker 1: how many you have to actually invest. We're able to
Speaker 1: then have our team, as well as algorithms that we've built,
Speaker 1: be able to construct a portfolio of wines that could
Speaker 1: be right for you. So, just like in the traditional
Speaker 1: stock market, you've got your equivalent of blue ship stocks
Speaker 1: or maybe your emerging market stocks. Uh, there's the same
Speaker 1: thing in the wine world. There's some wine regions and
Speaker 1: producers that are a bit more established than others that
Speaker 1: have um really predictable gains as the wines mature and age,
Speaker 1: and there's also newer and hotter, up and coming regions
Speaker 1: that maybe a little bit more speculative, but can also
Speaker 1: to deliver returns that are above above market. Hey, Anthony,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about your demographics, because if if we wanted
Speaker 1: to get started, I mean, you can start, you know,
Speaker 1: for as little as a thousand dollars, right, I think
Speaker 1: that's your standard UM kind of platform. Premium is fifty.
Speaker 1: You have to have a minimum balance, and then there's
Speaker 1: the grand crew, which is about a quarter of a
Speaker 1: million dollars minimum balance. Who do you have the most
Speaker 1: of on your platform? I'd say we definitely still have
Speaker 1: the most of our standard plans. So most folks, I
Speaker 1: think are really unfamiliar with investing in wine. Maybe they've
Speaker 1: heard of a friend or two as a couple of
Speaker 1: expensive bottles, and they're familiar with the general concept of
Speaker 1: wine going up over time as it ages and gets
Speaker 1: more expensive. But um, most people don't really know where
Speaker 1: to start. And that's really where we want to be
Speaker 1: as be that accessible entry point for someone to be
Speaker 1: able to maybe start with a few thousand dollars to
Speaker 1: diversify away from the stock market then build on from
Speaker 1: there as to become more knowledgeable and comfortable. Anthony, how
Speaker 1: is this? How is wine done as an asset class
Speaker 1: from investment perspective and kind of what benchmark do you
Speaker 1: do you look at or should we look at? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. So in terms of the performance
Speaker 1: of the fine wine market over the past thirty to
Speaker 1: forty years, it's outperformed the SMP five hundreds. It's had
Speaker 1: annualized returns of a little bit under twelve percent. And
Speaker 1: I think on top of just the strong annual performance,
Speaker 1: what really stands out to most investors is the lack
Speaker 1: of volatility. It's really really slow and steady. Over the
Speaker 1: last thirty years, it's only had six down years, which,
Speaker 1: um I think as something to diversify into that has
Speaker 1: lower volatility and really strong gains makes it a really
Speaker 1: attractive asset class, regardless of the fact that it's lying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well it's interesting. You know, the economists had a story
Speaker 1: I think it might have been last year, just talking
Speaker 1: specifically about Burgundy wine investors beating the stock market. UM
Speaker 1: no pun intended. How liquid is it? So you you invest,
Speaker 1: you buy bottles or you have a portfolio created for you,
Speaker 1: you can ultimately sell those bottles right and I'm curious
Speaker 1: how easy how quickly that can be done. You can
Speaker 1: also ultimately right drink those bottles. Absolutely so, since we
Speaker 1: are allowing each client to actually buy the whole bottle
Speaker 1: or by the whole case of wine, and we're not
Speaker 1: securitizing it into some sort of a fund or some
Speaker 1: sort of fractional ownership, the client enjoys the benefit of
Speaker 1: actually having that direct ownership or the physical asset, which
Speaker 1: means regardless of what happens to the price of the wine,
Speaker 1: that can still choose to drink it, enjoy it, gifts
Speaker 1: it whatever they like. Um, and your question about liquidity,
Speaker 1: we really only put a you know, put a premium
Speaker 1: on the wines that already have existing demand on the
Speaker 1: secondary market. So a lot of these top Burgundy wines
Speaker 1: or Bordeaux wines are ones from NAPA. UM, they're always
Speaker 1: in high demand. So we can be able to say, Um,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to sell off your portfolio positions tomorrow,
Speaker 1: we could get you out of those positions in a
Speaker 1: matter of a couple of weeks. Because there are so
Speaker 1: many investors or collectors on the consumption side that want
Speaker 1: that wine. All right, So Anthony, I'm a value stock investor,
Speaker 1: how do I bring that over to the wine Because
Speaker 1: what's the up and coming hot region or hot grower
Speaker 1: that I should be looking at right now? It's called
Speaker 1: the screw Top Paul And from New Jersey. That's definitely
Speaker 1: the value there. But I'd say for investment wines, what
Speaker 1: you want to do is not look at the Kreme
Speaker 1: Dola Creme, right those ones everybody knows and those prices
Speaker 1: have have been skyrocketing for the past few years. What
Speaker 1: you want to do is take an established region and
Speaker 1: maybe find some up and coming producers from that established region.
Speaker 1: So looking at Burgundy, there's there's producers that are selling
Speaker 1: balls of wines for ten thousand dollars twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a bottle, but they're all are also ones that are
Speaker 1: maybe five hundred bucks a thousand bucks a bottle, and
Speaker 1: you know that they're they're going to be climbing into
Speaker 1: those uh stratospheric price rangers in the next few years.
Speaker 1: Another approach is to take a completely uh up and
Speaker 1: coming wine region as a whole, so you're looking at
Speaker 1: the impact of something like climate change previously, places like
Speaker 1: Oregon in the past decade have really really started to
Speaker 1: blossom in popularity, and even a lot of these top
Speaker 1: burgundy producers are actually buying up land there because they
Speaker 1: see that as the future producing the best wine in
Speaker 1: the world as well. Thanks for listening to Boomberg Markets podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn. I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Bonnie Quinn. Paul Sweeney I'm on Twitter
Speaker 1: at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can all is
Speaker 1: catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio m