Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Solomon Ali is head of the
Speaker 1: advisory firm Solomon R. C. Ali Corporation. He is also
Speaker 1: CEO of NDR Energy Group, and he joins us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Charlotte, North Carolina. Solomon, nice to have
Speaker 1: you here with Alex and myself. Well, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. It's a pleasure, you know, I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of lead in UM Bloomberg News. We've been doing
Speaker 1: a lot of reporting about diversity within the financial community
Speaker 1: on Wall Street and a recent story said that today
Speaker 1: not a single chief executive officer of a major US
Speaker 1: bank is black. UM, and I do want to get into,
Speaker 1: you know, wealth creation among the black community, because one
Speaker 1: of the things that certainly has been coming out, certainly
Speaker 1: in the light of George Floyd in Minneapolis, is again
Speaker 1: talking about the inequalities when it comes to blacks versus
Speaker 1: white in our our community, and a lot of it
Speaker 1: has to do potentially with the financial community, an access
Speaker 1: to wealth creation and access to banking. So talk to
Speaker 1: me a little bit about that and what you're seeing. Well,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, I believes that access to capital for
Speaker 1: minority of people that look like me is systemic. UM.
Speaker 1: It's been allowed for a very long time, and when
Speaker 1: you block us out or deny us access to capital,
Speaker 1: it just makes it a a little bit more difficult. When
Speaker 1: you look at from the other side, we are the
Speaker 1: largest consumers in the United States out of all the
Speaker 1: various nationalities, so we have a lot to contribute um
Speaker 1: to business and we do a lot of the work,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately we're just not being given the opportunity to
Speaker 1: get capital. So one of the things that we tried
Speaker 1: to do is demystified UM access to capital and what
Speaker 1: that actually means and what it looks like, and how
Speaker 1: to actually get it for people of color. So what's
Speaker 1: the transmission mechanism that's broken that's preventing that from happening
Speaker 1: right now? Basically the whole are trying to fix. The
Speaker 1: whole we're trying to fix is very simple. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of legislation that's been done many years ago
Speaker 1: before you and I UM and we weren't included. People
Speaker 1: who look like we weren't included. And when they began
Speaker 1: to try to include us, they had people who were
Speaker 1: making policies that were I will use the words not
Speaker 1: sensitive to who we were and what our needs were,
Speaker 1: because they didn't want us to live next door to them.
Speaker 1: They didn't want us to have access to capital because
Speaker 1: they felt like we would be competing for the same
Speaker 1: capital that they were trying to achieve. And that's why
Speaker 1: you have approximately thirteen thousand publicly traded companies and you
Speaker 1: have fewer than fifteen black how managing um publicly traded
Speaker 1: company And you would say, well, how could that even
Speaker 1: be in the day's age. Well, so talk to us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that and what's happened and why
Speaker 1: it hasn't opened up more. Well, it hasn't opened up
Speaker 1: more because they don't want it to open up. Now.
Speaker 1: Who they are is very simple. The establishment has a
Speaker 1: set of rules together. And it's not the bank's fault.
Speaker 1: It's not even current policymakers fault. But at some point
Speaker 1: these rules have to be revisited that they are actually inclusive. UM.
Speaker 1: So that we included because if you want minorities have
Speaker 1: access to capital. UM, you can get minorities to have
Speaker 1: access to capital B by regulating very simple. You know,
Speaker 1: you give us we don't want to hand out we
Speaker 1: do want to hand up. So if you could just
Speaker 1: simply imagine helping someone up to create jobs. According to
Speaker 1: the U. S Government, most jobs are created by people
Speaker 1: who look like themselves. So I'm an employer, I'm hiring
Speaker 1: someone that looks like me, and that's why unemployment amongst
Speaker 1: blacks are so so high, especially amongst black males. So
Speaker 1: I can totally see then how you're connecting all the
Speaker 1: dots right, because if you don't have minority owned, black
Speaker 1: owned businesses, then you're not going to have the people
Speaker 1: who hire other people who look like them, which then
Speaker 1: creates more wealth in the community. Getting the government to
Speaker 1: do anything right now on this except for rhetoric, I
Speaker 1: just I can't imagine that's going to happen. So you're
Speaker 1: actually putting your money where your mouth is and you're
Speaker 1: actually trying to help support that. What kind of concrete
Speaker 1: steps have you been able to take to help give
Speaker 1: access to capital um to black owned businesses. Well, we've
Speaker 1: find a group of various investors together and we helped
Speaker 1: to fund different deals and transactions. Recently, we helped to
Speaker 1: fund a lab out of Georgia Energy company Technology Company.
Speaker 1: So we go through the whole gaming We don't go
Speaker 1: looking to borrow, mine or anything to that nature. We
Speaker 1: use our own resources and we rely on our own
Speaker 1: network UM to do this. And so what we look
Speaker 1: for is companies that have between three to five million
Speaker 1: dollars that are very much overlooked and a poise to
Speaker 1: actually grow, but they lack the capital and sometimes even
Speaker 1: the strategicness to actually develop and grow the company to
Speaker 1: take it to the next level. So we come in
Speaker 1: and we provide the capital and some strategious planning to
Speaker 1: help them to grow and scale their business. Solomon help
Speaker 1: me understand though, how you get to that three million
Speaker 1: dollar thresholds, Like, what about the people under that? How
Speaker 1: do you help them? Well, basically what we do is
Speaker 1: we help provide to provide a strategic planning for their merger's,
Speaker 1: acquisitions and just strategies on how to grow and scale
Speaker 1: their companies. And then we work with a group of
Speaker 1: investors UM that will loan them money and things of
Speaker 1: that nature. I've been doing this for about thirty something
Speaker 1: years being an entrepreneur and access in clientance. So again
Speaker 1: we just try to domestify what that actually looks like
Speaker 1: and brain companies in minority companies, people that look like me,
Speaker 1: and just help them to by strategic planning and by
Speaker 1: getting them access to capital and arranging for funding so
Speaker 1: that they can grow and normally what that will allow
Speaker 1: them to do. It helps to provide them with the
Speaker 1: working tools that they need for that strategic planning, for
Speaker 1: exit strategy out because as we know, before, the largest
Speaker 1: investment that most Americans had, especially African Americans with their homes,
Speaker 1: and now that we have even less homeownership than we
Speaker 1: did previously, the largest investment that they have is their savings.
Speaker 1: And African Americans are saving far less than their counterparts
Speaker 1: of whites and things of that nature, so we have
Speaker 1: less disposable income, we have less income, and so trying
Speaker 1: to teach them, one business at a time how to
Speaker 1: make the shift and redirect some of their resources into
Speaker 1: their business so that they can also hire people that
Speaker 1: look like there and help to grow the economy. You
Speaker 1: know you asked earlier about the black CEOs, um bankers
Speaker 1: and things of that nature, Well, we need to create
Speaker 1: more black owned businesses so that the black banks can
Speaker 1: have more deposits because typically um they don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of deposits and they're so heavily regulated, and we
Speaker 1: have some challenges um and meeting some of the different
Speaker 1: regulatory requirements because of the lack of capital, because we're
Speaker 1: always struggling financially. So I hear what you're saying, but
Speaker 1: I do wonder and going back to don't you need
Speaker 1: all of the major big banks on board to also
Speaker 1: be supportive to really kind of open up, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the access to capital for black Americans. Well, I would
Speaker 1: like to UM say, yes you do. But really what
Speaker 1: you need is the federal government to sit back and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: we realize that it has been an unfair and unjust
Speaker 1: playing film. So now we're going to bring in some
Speaker 1: regulations requiring the banks to make various loans, um and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. You know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: we used to have a program called Score where you
Speaker 1: had a lot of former CEOs of companies that would
Speaker 1: actually help you and you've worked through the Chamber of
Speaker 1: Commerce and things of that nature. You know, local rotary
Speaker 1: club that would help you on your business plan and
Speaker 1: your business strategies and things of that nature. So you
Speaker 1: gotta read called blacks don't have access to a lot
Speaker 1: of other successful black people that's in business. Um, constantly.
Speaker 1: We're looking at the athletes, we're looking at movie stars
Speaker 1: things of that nature, but we're not looking at a
Speaker 1: lot of black men and women who are successful in
Speaker 1: business that has been doing it okay. And so that's
Speaker 1: what we have to show them, is that it can
Speaker 1: be done. Let that be the dream. I remember when
Speaker 1: I started out years ago, I was always told, oh,
Speaker 1: you want to be the CEO of the one right
Speaker 1: in the check. I don't say that anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the one right to check. So the
Speaker 1: one right to check is a target, especially if you're
Speaker 1: a black CEO. Okay, you are a target for a
Speaker 1: regulatory and you know. Look, I was on the board
Speaker 1: a three publicly traded companies as an officer, as a
Speaker 1: director and required to raise money other three companies. We
Speaker 1: cornered the market. In two we created the fifth largest
Speaker 1: minority energy company in the United States. We took our
Speaker 1: i T intellectual property, and we cornered the market and
Speaker 1: smart home technology with the security systems and everything of
Speaker 1: that nature. So it can be done, but work is required.
Speaker 1: And the only way you get a chance and opportunity
Speaker 1: to do the work is unless you have the access
Speaker 1: to the capital, and it is a problem that can
Speaker 1: be it's it's not something that won't work. I think
Speaker 1: Senator Corey Bookers said it very simply. If you were
Speaker 1: to give us approximately fifteen billion dollars to actually fund
Speaker 1: African American companies, then what will happen is we will
Speaker 1: be able to contribute approximately one point five trillion dollars
Speaker 1: to the local economy. That is huge, especially especially when
Speaker 1: you think that we are the largest consumers. We make
Speaker 1: up roughly as part of the gd We make up
Speaker 1: roughly three point five cent um seven percent of the
Speaker 1: g D. Key that's huge, and that's as a consumer.
Speaker 1: So we just need to shift our thinking right right now.
Speaker 1: It's um an interesting perspective and I think an important
Speaker 1: one certainly, you know, with the background and backdrop of
Speaker 1: the last few months and trying to understand, uh, the
Speaker 1: inequalities that continue in our evasive in our society. Solomon,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Solomon Ali, chief executive officer of
Speaker 1: nd Our Energy Group. He is also head of the
Speaker 1: advisory firm Solomon R. C. Ali Corporation. Joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from North Carolina,