Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, and.
Speaker 2: We kick things off with Brian Shimp, CEO of ANDERIL,
Speaker 2: as the first of many conversations. Brian, we're grateful to
Speaker 2: be here at ANDERILL. There has been a lot of
Speaker 2: hype around the company, a deep focus on what it
Speaker 2: is doing, how it is growing, and so as a
Speaker 2: place to start, which you just bring us up to
Speaker 2: speed on where ANDERI is today operationally, revenue, the business
Speaker 2: it is doing with the US government and Western allies.
Speaker 3: Absolutely well, thank you for having me on. Really excited
Speaker 3: to have you here. The Andral has been around about
Speaker 3: eight years, but we've grown incredibly in that time. I
Speaker 3: think this year we're going to be over sixty five
Speaker 3: hundred employees. We've got something like about half of them
Speaker 3: here in Costa Mesa. We're looking to basically double revenue
Speaker 3: this year. So we're about a billion last year, we'll
Speaker 3: go over two billion this year. And we're ramping production
Speaker 3: about four hundred percent. So a lot of the mix
Speaker 3: is switching from one of the earlier stage things we
Speaker 3: were doing, which were you know, kind of experimental, really
Speaker 3: learning what the technology could do, how to integrate it
Speaker 3: with war fighters. This year we're really moving into this
Speaker 3: mode of really producing.
Speaker 2: Brian, forgive me. We've actually got some breaking news that's
Speaker 2: just crossed the Bloomberg terminal. President Trump is saying that
Speaker 2: he was due to meet China's President g in two
Speaker 2: weeks time. He's saying now that he sees no reason
Speaker 2: to do so. The team are going to put some
Speaker 2: of the headlines up on the screen. But Caro, a
Speaker 2: significant piece of news because part of what we wanted
Speaker 2: to discuss today was China, the President saying that he's
Speaker 2: calculating increased tariffs on Chinese products.
Speaker 1: This is a dining up of GPN attentions.
Speaker 2: Brian, bear with us. We are now seeing this quite
Speaker 2: sharp market reaction. Clearly the S and P five hundred
Speaker 2: is changed direction here because I think, well, you know,
Speaker 2: jumping Carra. I think part of the point is that
Speaker 2: we were headed in a different direction, and.
Speaker 1: This brings so many questions around what the TikTok relationship
Speaker 1: had been, and much of that had been sort of
Speaker 1: almost this lynchpin in relationships between President She and indeed
Speaker 1: President Trump, but then been this ongoing narrative about how
Speaker 1: we could rectify and rehabilitate the relationship there've been calls
Speaker 1: from China perhaps wanting yet further relief from some of
Speaker 1: the higher tarists.
Speaker 2: That they've been Sorry, I've just pulled up the true
Speaker 2: social posts, and that's where the President's communicated and he's
Speaker 2: basically saying that China is becoming very hostile. Let's get
Speaker 2: back to the conversation.
Speaker 1: Well, your take, Brian, because in many ways, andrel and
Speaker 1: defense tech as a whole is about the story of
Speaker 1: national security, and it is about US versus China. Is
Speaker 1: that where you see the key risks.
Speaker 3: That is one of the key conflicts. But if you
Speaker 3: look worldwide, I mean you've got land wars in Europe,
Speaker 3: You've got you know, the Red Seas still basically denied.
Speaker 3: Iran doesn't look like it's going to slow down anytime soon. China,
Speaker 3: beyond just the tensions with US, has been constantly aggravating
Speaker 3: with the Philippines, you know, constantly fighting over different islands
Speaker 3: and things like that. So you're in this period of
Speaker 3: just massive geopolitical instability, and China is obviously the focus.
Speaker 3: But I mean they've had a very strategic view to this, right,
Speaker 3: Like they've blocked so they've pump put a significant export
Speaker 3: controls on magnets for high end but rare US.
Speaker 1: For example, we understand the breaking newser today as well
Speaker 1: as China's making harder and harder for rare earth to
Speaker 1: be exploited not just the US.
Speaker 2: But to Europe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think this is part of a long
Speaker 3: term strategic plan they have had, right, they have used
Speaker 3: industrial policy beyond just military power to construct a world
Speaker 3: where they have a lot of leverage over the US
Speaker 3: and their allies. They drive dependence on these things and
Speaker 3: it's a very sophisticated strategy that they're playing. Yes, I
Speaker 3: think this is something that Trump recognizes. I think he
Speaker 3: is a very good negotiator. If he's saying these things,
Speaker 3: he understands what that means and how he is using
Speaker 3: that to position for maximum advantage. And so I think
Speaker 3: it's going to be a long run conflict with China,
Speaker 3: and that's something we've just got to be prepared for.
Speaker 2: Brian, Thank you for rolling with this. The news is
Speaker 2: breaking as we go to air, the markets reacting. One
Speaker 2: of the things that we've just shown on the street
Speaker 2: is the semiconductor index. Yeah. One reason why it's critically
Speaker 2: important to talk to you and Reill is your efforts
Speaker 2: to re ensure the manufacturing base in this country in Ohio.
Speaker 2: But in research for being here today, Caroline and I
Speaker 2: looked a lot at the supply chain for your industry.
Speaker 2: Why everything from why Harness through to GPUs that go
Speaker 2: on board a lot of the weapons behind us. Could
Speaker 2: you just expand on that a little bit, you know
Speaker 2: why arsenal one is so critical in that sense in
Speaker 2: that context absolutely so.
Speaker 3: You know, when you look at defenses one of those
Speaker 3: areas where national security is paramount, pulling these technologies onto
Speaker 3: US and ally and manufacturing is absolutely key. And the
Speaker 3: strategy we've taken with this is there is a lot
Speaker 3: of industrial capacity in the US. There is the ability
Speaker 3: to take advantage of largely commercial industry that can manufacture
Speaker 3: these things. But when you start stepping back, there's things
Speaker 3: that defense alone can solve. Right These are things like
Speaker 3: you know, the rare earth magnets, germanium supply, these are
Speaker 3: things that China has strategically tried to stranglehold. And this
Speaker 3: will require beyond just stating as a policy that you
Speaker 3: have to sources of America. The sources are very very limited.
Speaker 3: This is areas where I've been really encouraged by what
Speaker 3: the Trump administration has done around trying to reignite this
Speaker 3: idea of how do you do smart industrial policy? What
Speaker 3: is it going to look like in the US. It's
Speaker 3: going to look different. It's going to be a combination
Speaker 3: of tariffs, it's going to be a combination of things
Speaker 3: they did with like MP materials guaranteed off take. There's
Speaker 3: just this very different strategy that needs to be taken
Speaker 3: to really solve this on a country level scale. And
Speaker 3: for US, we can be early adopters, right like, we
Speaker 3: can take advantage of all those things, and we're building
Speaker 3: out a mass of manufacturing complex in Ohio to be
Speaker 3: able to take advantage of all of those suppliers in
Speaker 3: the US and build a lot of things here on shore.
Speaker 2: Okay, so the breaking news is that the president has
Speaker 2: taken true social and he is saying that it looks
Speaker 2: like he now won't meet with China's she and things
Speaker 2: are changing. We will discuss that for the next hour
Speaker 2: while we have you. Anderil has been in the headlines
Speaker 2: partly because of the insate website of all kinds of
Speaker 2: investors to be involved. You did a secondary or a
Speaker 2: tender for your employees would you talk about the focus
Speaker 2: you have right now in talent and that mechanism to
Speaker 2: keep people basically.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely, So the defense world has shifted a lot, right, Like,
Speaker 3: a lot of the people in traditional defense industry are
Speaker 3: amazing at things like aircraft design and hypersonics and things
Speaker 3: along those lines. But the next generation of this really
Speaker 3: looks different. It really looks about software. It looks how
Speaker 3: you adopt commercial manufacturing approaches. It's how you mass manufacture
Speaker 3: these capabilities. It's a very different focus. We're moving out
Speaker 3: of an era where we need to make relatively few,
Speaker 3: a very very expensive, high end things. We're moving into
Speaker 3: an era where it's much more about how do we
Speaker 3: have things at scale that are smarter, that are more autonomous.
Speaker 3: And so this ability to attract the best talent into
Speaker 3: this really is coming from tech companies. It's coming from universities.
Speaker 3: It's people who otherwise would have at you know, kind
Speaker 3: of all the tech company brand names. You would know,
Speaker 3: part of that's compensation and liquidity and all the startup economics,
Speaker 3: but honestly a lot more of it is just do
Speaker 3: they get to work on exciting problems with people they like,
Speaker 3: on things that really matter? Right, and I think we
Speaker 3: present this opportunity to be very clear in our purpose
Speaker 3: and our mission, something that's going to be impactful, and
Speaker 3: they get to work on just amazing cutting edge things,
Speaker 3: right like making autonomous fighter jets and you know, these
Speaker 3: reusable miss There's just an absolutely crazy thing to work
Speaker 3: on if you're a young engineer. And that's what we've
Speaker 3: really found is the formula to get the best and brightest.
Speaker 3: Here is an exciting opportunity to actually contribute, give back
Speaker 3: and build something incredible.
Speaker 1: Ron What a joy to have you sat with us
Speaker 1: rolling within Broiking News and be surrounded by all of
Speaker 1: this gear that you are driving innovation on branch and
Speaker 1: appreciate your CEO of Andreill