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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am

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Speaker 1: Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 2: Kind of a merger Tuesday, if you will. Es Da

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Speaker 2: Latter Companies is in talk to buy pooge brands and

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Speaker 2: a deal that would create a cosmetic giant about twenty

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Speaker 2: billion dollars in annual sales. Here, let's get some more

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Speaker 2: details on this transaction. We're joined by Clara Lizarraga. She

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Speaker 2: is company's reporter for Bloomberg News. She is based in Madrid.

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Speaker 2: Clara tell us a little bit about pooge brands. Who

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Speaker 2: are they and why do you think Esday Lauder is

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Speaker 2: in talks to acquire them?

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Speaker 3: Hi, Paul, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 4: So.

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Speaker 3: Pooje On, like Estilos, gets most of its revenues from fragrances.

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Speaker 3: It owns major brands like Carolina Raban, brands that have

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Speaker 3: products that have consistently been amongst the top ten best

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Speaker 3: selling fragrances. So for essay Loader, it would help strengthen

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Speaker 3: their position in this category of fragrances where they currently

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Speaker 3: get about seventeen percent of their revenues, And as you said,

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Speaker 3: it would create a much larger company with a stronger

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Speaker 3: exposure to Europe and Latin America and help it compete

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Speaker 3: more efficiently against rivals like Laurel for example.

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Speaker 5: So, Clara, I guess the thing with essay latter is

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Speaker 5: that this is a company in reorganization mode. It's got

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Speaker 5: this plan to focus on niche luxury price fragrances. Does

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Speaker 5: buy and Boots fit into that very specific strategy.

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Speaker 3: Well exactly, So this is These are some of the

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Speaker 3: questions that have that have been asked to so whether

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Speaker 3: this is the right time for a stayloader because they're

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Speaker 3: in the middle of streamlining operations. They were at some

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Speaker 3: point reviewing underperforming brands to see if they could divest

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Speaker 3: from some of them and focusing on higher and more

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Speaker 3: profitable products. So there are questions about whether a deal

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Speaker 3: with Pooje now would one be the right fit and

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Speaker 3: also would be the right timing considering these other complex

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Speaker 3: problems need to be resolved. The reaction so far so

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Speaker 3: stay Lads shares have been falling yesterday and again today,

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Speaker 3: So it would seem that these concerns are are definitely

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Speaker 3: weighing in.

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Speaker 2: And Push is a family owned I know the CEO,

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Speaker 2: Mark Push, a member of the founding family, did give

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Speaker 2: up that role, but he is executive chairman.

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Speaker 6: What role does the family play in this company?

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Speaker 3: So the family owned most of the capital and over

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Speaker 3: ninety percent of the voting rights. This is the third

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Speaker 3: generation of the family and part of the reasons behind

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Speaker 3: the IPO that happened less than two years ago was

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Speaker 3: that they wanted to plan succession and prevent any tensions

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Speaker 3: that could arise relating to generational change by listing the

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Speaker 3: company and making sure that the you know, the future

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Speaker 3: generations would be owners of the company, but not necessarily

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Speaker 3: in operational roles. So in that sense, a deal could

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Speaker 3: go in further in that direction. But it also is

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Speaker 3: surprising to think that the family would relinquish control over

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Speaker 3: this company, which is over one hundred years old.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, there's so many things to have to kind of

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Speaker 5: reconcile here. We talked about how Essay latter would want

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Speaker 5: to add to its fragrance line to widen that portfolio.

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Speaker 5: But the thing about Pooge is that it also operates

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Speaker 5: as you mentioned Carolina Herrera and Nina Ricci. These are

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Speaker 5: all fashion brands. They present collections during the Paris Fashion Week.

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Speaker 5: Is that something st a Lotter wants to get into

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Speaker 5: or is it that something that say Lotter might I

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Speaker 5: don't know divest or would that be part of the acquisition.

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Speaker 3: I think it would because so in essence, the poo

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Speaker 3: strategy has been to buy brands. They make fashion, but

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Speaker 3: they also create this image around the brand, and then

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Speaker 3: thanks to that they sell the fragrances. So it sort

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Speaker 3: of goes together and it's hard to separate the fashion

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Speaker 3: from the fragrances. I think in that sense it would

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Speaker 3: be complimentary to estay Loader. I guess the question is

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Speaker 3: Pooge also has a smaller part of the business that's

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Speaker 3: called niche brands, so things like bi Redo, another one

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Speaker 3: called Latis on Perfumer and these are much smaller brands

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Speaker 3: with higher price higher prices that the company has been

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Speaker 3: wanting to scale. But they currently account for roughly ten

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Speaker 3: to fifteen percent of revenues according to analysts. So that's

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Speaker 3: something that would be interesting to essay Loader that there

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Speaker 3: are questions about really how much can that grow and well,

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Speaker 3: would they want all of these kinds of fragrances or

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Speaker 3: only certain brands?

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Speaker 2: Is there any regulatory concern here about this deal getting approved?

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Speaker 3: There's some concerns on the makeup side, so Pooh Jones

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Speaker 3: are Charlotte Tilbury, which I believe is the third largest

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Speaker 3: makeup brand in the US, and so there could be

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Speaker 3: issues on that front. But on the f grons front,

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Speaker 3: I think it's it's not a problem.

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Speaker 6: Stay with us.

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Speaker 5: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us Live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am. He's done on our Billcarclay and

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Speaker 1: Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: One of the things that the Bloomberg Intelligence folks are

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Speaker 2: looking at is gaming out a recession scenario. That may

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Speaker 2: be a little bit more on the front burner now

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Speaker 2: with what's happening in Iran.

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Speaker 6: And one of those industries.

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Speaker 2: That you really have to be on the outlook for

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Speaker 2: should the economy soften is the US auto business. And

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Speaker 2: Steve Man joins us here Global Autos and Industrials Research

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Speaker 2: channels for Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us live here in our

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg at Directive Broker studio. So, Steve, I mean the

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Speaker 2: auto business. I mean cyclical business, but also one that's

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Speaker 2: undergoing profound transformation, trying to make this transformation to electric vehicles.

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Speaker 6: Probably not a lot of spare capital.

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Speaker 2: Lining around the cushion during if the economy were to soften.

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Speaker 6: How do you guys think about it?

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Speaker 7: Well, yeah, the industry did take a lot of write

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Speaker 7: offs because you know, the EV sales are not going

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Speaker 7: to be what it expected, especially in the UA. And

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Speaker 7: we were actually coming into twenty twenty six relatively positive

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Speaker 7: for the auto the big Detroit Big three because Trump eliminated,

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Speaker 7: you know, the penalties on gas guzzlers. We thought, you know,

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Speaker 7: they're gonna you know, these these automakers are going to

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Speaker 7: push out these you know, pickup trucks and shuvs with

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Speaker 7: high margins. And that's how we came in looking at

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Speaker 7: the industry at the being twenty twenty six. And then

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Speaker 7: this the war broke out right, and gas prices are

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Speaker 7: at where they're at. If you talk to the people

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Speaker 7: that actually buy and sell gas oil, it's like one

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Speaker 7: hundred and fifty bucks right on the ground. So it's

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Speaker 7: gonna it's having a huge impact. Gasoline prices are up

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Speaker 7: thirty forty percent where I'm at. So now the talk is,

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Speaker 7: you know, are they going to sell that many pickup

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Speaker 7: trucks and SUVs?

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Speaker 5: Especially with interest rates rising. That means auto loans also

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Speaker 5: become more expensive for consumers. But people will still need

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Speaker 5: cars and they will still need to upgrade or replace

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Speaker 5: their aging vehicles. Where does that leave the automakers? I mean,

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Speaker 5: do people go to secondhand cars? Do they take another

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Speaker 5: look at hybrids and evs in this environment?

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Speaker 7: I think it's a combination of both. The third thing

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Speaker 7: that could happen is they keep their cars a little

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Speaker 7: bit longer. You know, that's going to benefit companies like

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Speaker 7: O'Reilly AutoZone that actually sells after market parts. You know,

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Speaker 7: a lot of a lot of consumers, especially in this

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Speaker 7: k economy, those are looking who are looking for value

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Speaker 7: in affordable vehicles'll will hold off, you know, even if

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Speaker 7: interest rates are lower. You know, they they want to

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Speaker 7: make sure, you know, the jobs are stable and before

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Speaker 7: they spend twenty thirty forty thousand.

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Speaker 5: Dollars how much is a new car again on average.

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Speaker 7: Average is fifty thousand.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'll tell you my boy Joe is car

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Speaker 2: in his car repair shop in mask on his lot

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Speaker 2: is packed, man. I mean he's got more business what

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Speaker 2: to do with. So that goes to your point. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: people are keeping the cars longer. You know, if we

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Speaker 2: get higher for longer fuel prices, does that revive maybe

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Speaker 2: some demand in EV's and the hybrids.

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Speaker 7: It might look We actually looked at figure out when

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Speaker 7: looked at what the worst case scenario is. We looked

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Speaker 7: at past oil shock all the way back to you know,

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Speaker 7: the Iranian revolution back in the seventies, and we're coming

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Speaker 7: up with Okay, worst case sales in the US could

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Speaker 7: drop as much as fifteen percent. Now the pie is shrinking,

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Speaker 7: but even within that pie, the split is changing definitely.

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Speaker 7: I think it's no surprise if oil prices are high,

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Speaker 7: it has happened in the past, people will be more

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Speaker 7: interested in hybrids and this time around, you know, battery

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Speaker 7: evs as well.

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Speaker 5: Stay with us more from Bloomberg Intelligence coming.

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Speaker 6: Up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Cocklay and Android

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Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business App, listen on demand wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: One of the issues from an M and A perspective

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Speaker 2: with the second Trump administration is this is going to

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Speaker 2: be a very good time to get M and A done.

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Speaker 6: The regulation the regulators.

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Speaker 2: Whether it be the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice,

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Speaker 2: maybe be more accommodative. And I was certainly the expectation,

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Speaker 2: and I from what I understand, that's turning out to.

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Speaker 6: Be the truth.

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Speaker 2: And we want to focus on one particular deal because

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Speaker 2: it's a deal that I'm very familiar with having covered

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Speaker 2: the media industry for a while, and that is next Star,

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Speaker 2: big TV station owner, buying Tegna. Another big TV station owner,

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Speaker 2: Jennifer re joins us. She's senior litigation and analyst from

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Speaker 2: Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us live here in our studio. So

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Speaker 2: as I understand it, Next Star again, a huge owner

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Speaker 2: of TV stations across the country, hundreds of them close

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Speaker 2: its purchase of Tech, which are the old TV stations

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Speaker 2: owned by Gannett Company, the newspaper company that closed. Yes,

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Speaker 2: from the regulators like the Federal Communication Commission, the Justice Department.

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Speaker 6: Blessed the deal as people thought they would.

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Speaker 2: That's right, that's this administration. But there's still some suits

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Speaker 2: going on. What's going on with.

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Speaker 8: That right, So that expectation that the Department of Justice

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Speaker 8: and Federal Communications Commission will go ahead and allow that

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Speaker 8: deal to go forward, I think ramped up a group

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Speaker 8: of states to be ready to try to go after

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Speaker 8: this deal. And it's because the states have been saying

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Speaker 8: many states have been saying, and not just democratic state

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Speaker 8: attorneys general, but in a bipartisan way. The states have

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Speaker 8: been saying, if this administration lacks anti trust enforcement, if

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Speaker 8: they start allowing a lot of consolidation across many industries,

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Speaker 8: we're going to pick up the slack because states have

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Speaker 8: the right to enforce federal anti trust laws and they

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Speaker 8: have the right to go after a merger that they

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Speaker 8: believe is unlawful under the anti trust laws, just as

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Speaker 8: the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission do. So

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Speaker 8: that's what we're seeing here. You have eight states that

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Speaker 8: have said this wasn't right for different reasons. The FCC

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Speaker 8: approval was improper for certain reasons, the Department of Justice

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Speaker 8: clearance was improper for other reasons, and we're going to

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Speaker 8: go ahead and go to court to try to see

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Speaker 8: what we can do here.

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Speaker 2: I've been doing this mediam and a thing for a

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Speaker 2: long time. I've never really seen this before. I'm sure

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Speaker 2: it's been out there. So this is basically the state saying,

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Speaker 2: for what a reason the federal governments from our perspective,

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Speaker 2: from our point of view, is not as as strong

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Speaker 2: a regulators it needs to be there for, We're going

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Speaker 2: to pick up the slack and do it from a

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Speaker 2: state level.

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Speaker 6: Yes, have we seen this before? Not a lot.

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Speaker 8: Normally, the states are sort of aligned with the Department

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Speaker 8: of Justice or any of these agencies that are reviewing

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Speaker 8: a deal.

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Speaker 6: We have one.

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Speaker 8: Example from several years ago when T Mobile and Sprint

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Speaker 8: merged that they settled with the Department of Justice. They

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Speaker 8: divested some assets to Dish and the Department of Justice

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Speaker 8: went ahead and cleared the deal. The FCC cleared the deal,

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Speaker 8: and the states went to court. A group of states

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Speaker 8: I don't remember exactly how many, I think it might

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Speaker 8: have been round ten went to court to try to

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Speaker 8: block that deal. And you know a lot of people

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Speaker 8: would say, and I'll say in this case too for

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Speaker 8: next Star, that once you have the federal regulators that

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Speaker 8: have approved these deals. It is very difficult for the

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Speaker 8: states to then go into court and convince a judge

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Speaker 8: that the experts that cleared the deal were wrong. The

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Speaker 8: states lost in the T mobile sprint effort, and you know,

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Speaker 8: we don't know yet what's going to happen with Nextstar,

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Speaker 8: but they do go in with a tough case to

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Speaker 8: make once the FCC and dj have approved, which they have.

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Speaker 2: So are they doing this these states? And you say

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Speaker 2: it's bipartisans So it's not just democratic states that maybe

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Speaker 2: wanted to just go against this administration's regulatory policy.

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Speaker 8: I think in this case it may simply be democratic

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Speaker 8: states the ones that have sued Nextar. We also have

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Speaker 8: states that have are continuing litigation against Live Nation that

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Speaker 8: originally the Department of Justice had joined them with was

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Speaker 8: the lead plaintiff. The Department of Justice settled with one

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Speaker 8: week of trial. The states on a bipartisan in a

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Speaker 8: bipartisan way, have gone forward to continue that litigation. So

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Speaker 8: we are seeing bipartisan efforts in that area. With the

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Speaker 8: Next Star Tegna, I'd have to look at those eight

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Speaker 8: states to see the attorney generals whether they are Democrats,

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Speaker 8: or Republicans.

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Speaker 2: If your Next Star you close this deal, if you

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Speaker 2: pay Tegna the money.

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Speaker 6: Yes, Is there any risk to Next.

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Speaker 2: Star that somebody, some judge could say you got to

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Speaker 2: unwind this thing.

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Speaker 6: I think that risk is low.

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Speaker 8: I think actually getting an order saying you must unwind

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Speaker 8: this is low. If there's some kind of a liability

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Speaker 8: decision yet this deal was anti competitive, my guess would

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Speaker 8: be the more likely outcome would be some divestitures of stations,

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Speaker 8: which is honestly what I thought would have happened with

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Speaker 8: this deal with the Department of Justice to start, if

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Speaker 8: it had followed kind of its long standing tradition with

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Speaker 8: respect to TV broadcaster deals. Usually, the Department of Justice

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Speaker 8: would ask these companies, including Nexttar, which has divested all

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Speaker 8: sorts of stations doing deals in the past, to divest

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Speaker 8: in a local area called a DMA in this case,

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Speaker 8: to divest if they would own more than one of

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Speaker 8: the local affiliates of the Big Four, which are NBCCBS, Fox, ABC.

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Speaker 2: And that rule today, having done a million broadcasting M

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Speaker 2: and A deals in my life, seems so antiquated to

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Speaker 2: that it was antiquated twenty years ago. But now with

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Speaker 2: all the streaming, and I mean it's like, who cares.

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Speaker 8: Well, that's the argument the defendants will make, and that's

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Speaker 8: what the Federal Communication Said Commission said in part in

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Speaker 8: approving this deal. But I will say that there was

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Speaker 8: an Eighth Circuit decision about the FCC's every four years

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Speaker 8: it reviews its rules, about its review of its rules,

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Speaker 8: and that narrow market definition focused on those broadcast stations

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Speaker 8: in the Big Four was challenged, and the Eighth Circuit

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Speaker 8: didn't reject that. They rejected rules changes for different reasons,

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Speaker 8: but not because of that market definition. And the thing is, Paul,

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Speaker 8: I know viewership has changed radically, right in the last

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Speaker 8: ten twenty years. You've got all the cord cutters. You

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Speaker 8: have people who've never even heard of a cable subscription.

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Speaker 8: But you still have a set of consumers that get

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Speaker 8: those cable subscriptions or FiOS or whatever it is. They

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Speaker 8: want those local stations, if they want sports, they want

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Speaker 8: the local programming they can get. And if you have

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Speaker 8: a discrete set of consumers that could be harmed because

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Speaker 8: prices go up, it can still be an ag trust harm.

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Speaker 6: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android

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Speaker 2: Switch gears. We'll go to healthcare, as we like to do.

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Speaker 2: There's always news coming out of the healthcare business. There's

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Speaker 2: always M and A trades and this is no different.

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Speaker 2: Pfizer trying new They've been working on a line disease

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Speaker 2: drug here and they recently had I think they had

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Speaker 2: a study. It didn't really impress too much, but I'll

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Speaker 2: tell you, in this part of the country, lime diseases

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Speaker 2: no joke, boy, A lot of people.

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Speaker 6: Get it debilitated.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and it affects you for life, even if you

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Speaker 5: get over the worst of it in the first two years.

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Speaker 6: So there's just another air.

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Speaker 2: We're kind of waiting for the great science of the

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Speaker 2: pharmaceutical and biotech industry to come to the rescue.

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Speaker 6: Sam Fazelli joints just Bloomberg Intelligence, director.

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Speaker 2: Of Research for Global Industries and a senior pharma analyst

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Speaker 2: for Bloomberg. So, Sam, what's going on with Pfizer, What's

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Speaker 2: going on broadly with this little niche field of limes disease.

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Speaker 4: Lime disease, Paul.

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Speaker 9: So all those farmers and folks who go out into

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Speaker 9: fields have a risk of that. Of course, anyone who

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Speaker 9: goes out into a into a green space, and you

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Speaker 9: know I've got a bit of a garden, I'm sure

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Speaker 9: you do. And those ticks, man, they do like your

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Speaker 9: legs and anything that's nice and hidden in there to

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Speaker 9: go and have a bite at. And all your animals

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Speaker 9: suffer from it, et cetera. So those animals can take

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Speaker 9: drugs to prevent ticks, but there's really no such thing

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Speaker 9: for humans. And I mean the vaccines have been around,

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Speaker 9: but lime disease vaccine is something that would really be

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Speaker 9: quite an attractive option for those who are at risk.

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Speaker 9: The question is would take a lime this vaccine? But

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Speaker 9: these guys had some data. It's data from a vaccine

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Speaker 9: that they're developing with a French partner called Valeva. It

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Speaker 9: has been in development for a while and I'm just

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Speaker 9: reading the details here again off the screen on the

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Speaker 9: blueberog terminal seventy three percent effective against the tickborne illness,

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Speaker 9: which of course can be as bad as in supply

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Speaker 9: tast and causing major then longer term issues. So the

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Speaker 9: few problem with seventy three percent, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 9: is that good enough these days? I mean, think about

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Speaker 9: the COVID. COVID vaccines now are in background of people

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Speaker 9: having lots of COVID infections, are in the fifty to

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Speaker 9: sixty seventy percent range effective against hospitalization. Now that's on

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Speaker 9: the background of lots of COVID infections. Here you're not

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Speaker 9: you're testing it literally against somebody having no immunity. So

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Speaker 9: seventy percent is not particularly high. So it'd be very

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Speaker 9: interesting to see what they're regulator to say about this.

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Speaker 6: Sam. I'm kind of confused.

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Speaker 5: Why are there no current human vacs scenes from lime

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Speaker 5: disease on the market. I mean, there was something I

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Speaker 5: believe back in on late nineteen nineties from GSK, But

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Speaker 5: this seems like something that's there's a real demand for efficacy.

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Speaker 4: We need efficacy, we need the effectiveness.

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Speaker 9: Sorry, in vaccine world, I've forgotten now all those years

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Speaker 9: of writing about COVID you need vaccine effectiveness, which is

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Speaker 9: how much does it protect you, how long does it

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Speaker 9: protect you for? So this is something that I think

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Speaker 9: would be interesting to see whether this result is better

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Speaker 9: than what folks had been used to. But again, if

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Speaker 9: you took this, you're only three quarters of the way.

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Speaker 9: Let's say protect it and I'd like to see the data.

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Speaker 9: How long does it last? Do you need another shot?

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Speaker 9: Who takes this? I mean, do we want to everybody?

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Speaker 9: I mean people are hardly taking infectious vaccines where they

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Speaker 9: can pick it up in the subway.

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Speaker 4: Are they going to worry about this? Take this?

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Speaker 2: Those are questions right astim At the beginning of President

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Speaker 2: trump second term, there really a lot of threats towards

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Speaker 2: universities and maybe some of their medical research. Has that

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Speaker 2: in fact come to fruition. Our funds being withheld or

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Speaker 2: funds being pulled. Is that impacting university research?

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Speaker 9: There has been some more uncertainty created funds not being released.

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Speaker 9: There's been a lot of those situations arising. Of course,

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Speaker 9: it's not just grants going to universities. It's also direct investments,

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Speaker 9: for instance by the NIH which has a huge budget

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Speaker 9: and age gives us grounds.

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Speaker 4: But they also have research institutes, Institute for this, institute

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Speaker 4: for that. So there has been some effects. People are worried.

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Speaker 9: The number of people seeking to do PhDs in the

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Speaker 9: STEM world has declined. I don't know what the latest

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Speaker 9: statistic is, but has definitely declined. And that's really not

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Speaker 9: helpful because it is this foundation of science that then.

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Speaker 4: Builds the future innovations. Right.

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Speaker 9: I don't think that that's I don't think that's rocket science, right.

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Speaker 9: So I don't know why this became such a big thing,

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Speaker 9: but I'm wondering whether it was just noise and it

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Speaker 9: was playing to the public and this kind of eventually

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Speaker 9: going to dissipate and go back to what it normally was.

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Speaker 4: And of course Congress needs to get in there.

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Speaker 9: You've seen him, for instance, Quurt's coming back saying what

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Speaker 9: the HCHS has done isn't right for vaccines, et cetera.

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Speaker 4: So maybe this will happen here too.

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