Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Penel Podcast. I'm Paul swing you.
Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Brahma Waits. Each day
Speaker 1: we bring you the most noteworthy and useful interviews for
Speaker 1: you and your money. Whether at the grocery store or
Speaker 1: the trading floor, find a Bloomberg Penl podcast on Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts, as well as
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com. There is a push pull dynamic
Speaker 1: when it comes to emerging markets. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: you have an increasingly doubbish federal reserve potentially weaker dollar.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, you have trade wards that arguably
Speaker 1: may end up slowing certain economies, particularly those tied to
Speaker 1: China more than developed markets. Here to sort of pass
Speaker 1: through where the opportunities are here. As Eric Fine, portfolio
Speaker 1: manager focus on a marketing emerging markets fixed income at
Speaker 1: van Eck Global, he joins us here in our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Interactive Broker studios. So where are we in terms of
Speaker 1: this dynamic? Is the sort of bull case for EM
Speaker 1: stronger right now or or the bear case? Um well,
Speaker 1: I as a you know twenty five plus your EM
Speaker 1: person um for twenty five years, I've been asked what
Speaker 1: do I think about emerging market sponds, and for years
Speaker 1: I've said I don't know, and I feel more and
Speaker 1: more comfortable. I think it depends country by country. However,
Speaker 1: that wasn't your question. Your question was broadly speaking, and
Speaker 1: so my answer would be if quote unquote emerging markets
Speaker 1: to you means um um a lot of exposure uh
Speaker 1: to names like Mexico or Turkey, um, or it means
Speaker 1: significant exposure to quote unquote E m f X, then
Speaker 1: then UM, I would be more cautious. Um. Right now
Speaker 1: the countries we are concerned about happen to be big
Speaker 1: ones UM, Mexico in particular, Turkey, ongoing, Russia is tricky
Speaker 1: because it's the fundamentals are fine. It's more about sanctions
Speaker 1: risk um. Um So, Uh I think you could. I
Speaker 1: think you could make a mixed case um and uh
Speaker 1: so I would say, but I would I would say
Speaker 1: the biggest concerns we have are that, uh, countries like
Speaker 1: Turkey there's too much trapped exposure. Essentially, countries like Mexico
Speaker 1: there's too much comfort with its ratings and we think
Speaker 1: it's a d rating story. Claberg is mixed. Um. You're
Speaker 1: saying that Mexico, you think it's going to default, No
Speaker 1: D rating, D rating, D rating, Oh no, no, no no
Speaker 1: default D rating. Um. I I would say that there's
Speaker 1: there's a non trivial chance in a country like Turkey
Speaker 1: that's in the midst of a bounce payments crisis right now. Um,
Speaker 1: but no Mexico's D rating. So if you if you're
Speaker 1: going to be very very married to the existing um
Speaker 1: amount of debt that's out there essentially um, then um um.
Speaker 1: Then I'd be cautious, and I'd be biased towards dollars,
Speaker 1: towards dollar denominated debt, because the more profound thing that's
Speaker 1: happened is that the FED has gotten activated. That seems
Speaker 1: to me the big wheel turning um and uh. And
Speaker 1: it gets to what you think happens. Let's say, let's
Speaker 1: say that the Fed's reaction is discounting um a slowdown
Speaker 1: in the economy. Well, most people with my experience that
Speaker 1: believe in the so called dollar smile, which is um
Speaker 1: um in in uh in extreme good time times, in
Speaker 1: extreme bad times, the dollar can do. It does really
Speaker 1: well and uh and and in a recession you've had
Speaker 1: through all this dollar dead issuece essentially a big shorten
Speaker 1: the dollar, we're going to a recession. The traditional behavior
Speaker 1: is what we've seen, let's say, out of Turkey, when
Speaker 1: they when they're worried about access to finance or a nowntern,
Speaker 1: they buy dollars right and then if the policy reaction
Speaker 1: is bad, they the authorities uh step in and try
Speaker 1: to muck around with that. So, Eric, is there an
Speaker 1: argument to me to be made that investors should avoid
Speaker 1: or underweight emerging markets broadly until the China situation is resolved.
Speaker 1: There's just too much uh, you know, tape risk. Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: That's my one of my strongest is in general, people
Speaker 1: are way too worried about emerging markets. UM as you
Speaker 1: get paid. Let's just look at corporum corporates. You get
Speaker 1: paid a higher spread for the same rating as a
Speaker 1: US corporate, and that e M corporate has to work
Speaker 1: harder to get that same ratings. You're basically you're in
Speaker 1: a sense getting that lower leverage lower you know, not
Speaker 1: that even those of those sorts of variables um uh,
Speaker 1: typical US pension funds have about three allocated to e
Speaker 1: M debt. If you look at the boring old efficient
Speaker 1: frontier and I'm not a fan of looking backwards. But
Speaker 1: the last fourteen years, and you look at the different
Speaker 1: elements of fixed income you're supposed to have depending on
Speaker 1: your risk tolerance of your bonds in e M debt,
Speaker 1: and we're living in a post quee era where the
Speaker 1: storytelling works with it. What are we talking about these days,
Speaker 1: last ten fifteen years, sustainable level of debt, independent central banking,
Speaker 1: getting paid for political risk. Those are all three. Those
Speaker 1: are three things that EM has an answer for us.
Speaker 1: So broadly speaking, I think this is e MS continues
Speaker 1: to quit itself. My my concern is that as we
Speaker 1: go through a trickier period, the names that are vulnerable
Speaker 1: happen to be names that are household names, big names
Speaker 1: in our portfolio. You know what we do is we
Speaker 1: avoid them. Um. But one of the big phenomena, the
Speaker 1: other phenomen has happened in the last ten years, is
Speaker 1: that there has been increasing exposure to names because they're
Speaker 1: part of an index, not because investors are choosing to
Speaker 1: to to invest. And so I worry about Oh, I
Speaker 1: don't like it, therefore I'm underweight behavior as opposed to
Speaker 1: I don't like it and I don't own it behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering where do you find value. You said
Speaker 1: dollars nominated bonds. Of which nations I'd say, some great
Speaker 1: UH names out there are Brazil, UM and Ukraine. Brazil
Speaker 1: is a big name, so that's why I mentioned it's
Speaker 1: a big important one. UM Brazil has essentially one core problem.
Speaker 1: It's fiscal in particular pension reform. Other than that, it's
Speaker 1: an okay shape. Reserves are high well, certainly relative to imports. Um.
Speaker 1: The economy is coming out of one of the deepest
Speaker 1: recessions about a hundred years. They're going through number of
Speaker 1: implementing a number of structural reforms. If and the central
Speaker 1: bank is independent, inflation and inflation expectations are low and anchored.
Speaker 1: If the economy grows, there's plenty of capacity, so you
Speaker 1: won't see it past through the inflation immediately or you know,
Speaker 1: and of structural reform. So so I think that's a
Speaker 1: very very positive story, assuming they get pension reform through,
Speaker 1: which is you know, a daily weekly soap opera. But
Speaker 1: that is one of the great stories there. I think
Speaker 1: pet Bra is a is a good way to um
Speaker 1: UM get exposure. By the point of good corpus. I'd
Speaker 1: also say Ukraine north of six over spreads. UM was
Speaker 1: on an IMF program. It's likely re inter and IMF
Speaker 1: program very popular. UM It's does have some issues, mainly
Speaker 1: short term debt liabilities, but most of them are to
Speaker 1: the US and can be handled through sponsorship from you
Speaker 1: or or association with the I'm of Eric Fine, thank
Speaker 1: you so much toward a force through emerging markets investing.
Speaker 1: I guess the takeaways don't be scared away from emerging
Speaker 1: markets given the trade tensions. Eric Fine, portfolio manager for
Speaker 1: Emerging Markets Fixed Income Strategy at ben Global, joining us
Speaker 1: UH in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio. Let us turn
Speaker 1: our sights to the one and only Mark Bennioff, who
Speaker 1: has been a force unto himself when it has come
Speaker 1: to consolidation. Salesforce dot Com now buying Tableau, a software
Speaker 1: company h for a fifteen point three billion dollars in
Speaker 1: an all stock deal. Sales Salesforce shares are down today
Speaker 1: more than four percent. Tableau shares, however, UH surging more
Speaker 1: than thirty percent. Luckily, we have Una Grana Software and
Speaker 1: I T Services analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence here with us
Speaker 1: in our Interactive Broker Studios to help us understand why
Speaker 1: markets are perceiving this as a good deal currently for
Speaker 1: for Tableau and perhaps not so much for Salesforce. Well,
Speaker 1: it's all stock deal, so you would expect Salesforce to
Speaker 1: go down a little bit. But you know, frankly, Salesforce
Speaker 1: has done such a good job about a quieting companies
Speaker 1: over the past few years, adding it to the portfolio
Speaker 1: of already present companies it has. They bought a company
Speaker 1: called mules Soft last year, and this particular deal actually,
Speaker 1: you know, really complements the business of those guys, all right,
Speaker 1: So why is Salesforce doing this deal? This is really
Speaker 1: a big trade for them. Why are they doing this deal?
Speaker 1: So one of the biggest themes in enterprise software today
Speaker 1: is and you know, artificial intelligence, getting more analytics out
Speaker 1: of your existing customer base, getting more insights. So for that,
Speaker 1: you really need to you know, pull out data that
Speaker 1: you have internally on your you know systems as well
Speaker 1: as married to social media other kind of data systems.
Speaker 1: But then at the end of the day, after you
Speaker 1: gain insights of it, you need to visualize those particularly
Speaker 1: in dashboards and beautiful graphs. And this is what tableou
Speaker 1: does better than anybody else out there, can you just
Speaker 1: zoom out a little bit and just give us a
Speaker 1: sense of how much this deal is just yet confirmation
Speaker 1: of Mark benning off strategy and frankly his his sort
Speaker 1: of instinct and trusting his internal instinct to just go
Speaker 1: with the deal when he sees it and moving quickly.
Speaker 1: Moves very quickly, definitely, And you know we have seen
Speaker 1: over the years, whether it was demand where um or
Speaker 1: Force dot com, which is part of their platform as
Speaker 1: a service at that time. I mean, all of these
Speaker 1: things eventually adds very well to their exist in core
Speaker 1: customer base, which is, you know, the people who buy
Speaker 1: their sales cloud or their customer service cloud. All of
Speaker 1: this you know, ties very well into that. So it
Speaker 1: is you know, as you said, it is something that
Speaker 1: market backing off just better than you know, almost everybody
Speaker 1: out there at this point. Boy, I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: Salesforce stock price chart five years on the Bloomberg terminal here.
Speaker 1: That is a good story. I mean, wow, so he
Speaker 1: and the market clear, He's obviously earned the markets support, um,
Speaker 1: but the stock is down today. You know, I think
Speaker 1: this is gonna be deluded to earnings initially, I mean,
Speaker 1: did he overpay here potentially, it's so it is expensive.
Speaker 1: Sixteen times sales is probably one of the largest. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say higher valuations that we have come across.
Speaker 1: But again he's paying with stock, so that you take
Speaker 1: that into account as well. It's not cash um And
Speaker 1: you know, I think SIP bought a company called Qualtricks
Speaker 1: just a few months ago. They actually paid more than this.
Speaker 1: So current valuation in software is so high that if
Speaker 1: you really need to get some deal done, you need
Speaker 1: to take out you know, cash on at a much
Speaker 1: higher multiple. So right now, who does this hurt them most?
Speaker 1: In terms of Salesforce dot com competitors, They are trying
Speaker 1: to be as aggressive so that Microsoft doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: really become bigger in this space. So that's one second.
Speaker 1: I think Article needs to step up their game a
Speaker 1: little bit because their stock has not done as well
Speaker 1: as Salesforce has over the last three to five years,
Speaker 1: and they may not have that mouth currency to use
Speaker 1: their stock to buy that. So they you know, they've
Speaker 1: been buying back stock aggressively. They really need to think
Speaker 1: back and say, do I need to get more cloud
Speaker 1: deals to to to grow over the next few years
Speaker 1: or not? Alright, So my favorite question when we talk
Speaker 1: about deals, is this going to set off more deal
Speaker 1: flows so my banker friends can get paid. It has
Speaker 1: been for a while software deals has been so hot.
Speaker 1: That's just I mean, I I won't be surprised over
Speaker 1: the next few months if you see more deals in
Speaker 1: those space. So what what So in a software space
Speaker 1: is this? Is it all about the cloud here? I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we saw Google just uh last week with
Speaker 1: two an a half billion dollar acquisition. Is is cloud
Speaker 1: still the area where these tech companies are uh, you know,
Speaker 1: investing money, making deals, putting capital to work. Cloud is
Speaker 1: one Customer insights is another one. So Google, you know,
Speaker 1: buying look at It is the same exact thing as
Speaker 1: as Salesforce buying Tableau in terms of visualization of that data.
Speaker 1: So you are trying to figure out a lot of
Speaker 1: these enterprises, legacy enterprises, companies like Pepsi, Coca Cola, they
Speaker 1: have so much of data on their own systems they
Speaker 1: really need to extract it, get value out of it,
Speaker 1: and then go back to that same customer and sell
Speaker 1: more products to them. And that's where a lot of
Speaker 1: these things are coming through. Is you know, your ability
Speaker 1: to extract that data, clean it up in just then
Speaker 1: analyze it and then finally show social you know, dashboards
Speaker 1: along with it. Anaag ran I, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Anaa Ran as a senior analysts for software and I
Speaker 1: T Services for Bloomberg Intelligence here in our Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: Reactor Broker studio. Well trade tensions appear to be abating
Speaker 1: somewhat today on news of the Mexico deal. Of course,
Speaker 1: China is still to be determined, but looking at the
Speaker 1: action today, market certainly liking the reduced attentions with Mexico.
Speaker 1: To get a sense of where to go next, we
Speaker 1: welcome Brad McMillan. Brad is chief Investment Officer of Commonwealth
Speaker 1: Financial Network, about a hundred sixty one billion dollars under management.
Speaker 1: He joins us on the phone from Waltham, mess Uh, Brad,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us. Do you think that
Speaker 1: this storm is passing financial markets as we speak? I do, Paul,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you why. There's been a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of bad news. There have been some real shock Certainly
Speaker 1: the Mexico tariff adjudgment you know, certainly qualifies as a shock.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless markets have been resilient and they bounced back strongly.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of strength there. Okay, So
Speaker 1: at this point, given the fact that we didn't see
Speaker 1: that much of a pullback, at this fact of not
Speaker 1: getting a China US trade deal, where are the opportunities.
Speaker 1: I think the opportunities are in growth sectors. I would
Speaker 1: probably stay away from internationally exposed equities. You know, certainly
Speaker 1: there's still risk there when you look at the United States,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fear about consumers spending, There's a
Speaker 1: lot of fear about how fast the economy is going
Speaker 1: to grow. In fact, we're seeing wage growth holding steady
Speaker 1: at over three percent. We're seeing job growth despite the
Speaker 1: last despite the disappointing number the other day, you know,
Speaker 1: hold at strong levels, and we're seeing confidence high. I
Speaker 1: think the consumer has been oversold, so Brad. One of
Speaker 1: the areas that has u tends to lead the market
Speaker 1: both up and down, as we saw in the fourth quarter,
Speaker 1: is big tech. And I think maybe what's changed a
Speaker 1: little bit in the analysis is and the big technology
Speaker 1: stocks that have driven the market has been maybe there's
Speaker 1: a new regulatory risk fact that it needs to be
Speaker 1: waited for these names as US regulators start taking a
Speaker 1: look at big tech. How do you factor that in.
Speaker 1: I think right now the assumption has been that growth
Speaker 1: is infinite, no one will ever touch them. But remember
Speaker 1: tech has weathered this before. We went through a phase
Speaker 1: where there was no taxes on the internet and if
Speaker 1: we impose taxes, it was going to destroy everything, and
Speaker 1: of course it didn't. Tech has a wonderful ability to
Speaker 1: kind of negotiate around government restrictions. Microsoft another good example.
Speaker 1: It was going to be broken up, it was going
Speaker 1: to be taken down. Now it's worth over a trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Companies can respond to these things. I think it's a
Speaker 1: real concern, but you have to factor in company's ability
Speaker 1: to stay ahead of the regulators, which thus far they've
Speaker 1: got a good record. So Brett, I'm struck by the
Speaker 1: optimistic tone that you're taking in this idea that growth
Speaker 1: stocks of more room to run the consumer has been
Speaker 1: over sold, impairing that with the idea that traders are
Speaker 1: currently pricing in two and a half rate cuts by
Speaker 1: the end of this year, basically indicating a slowing in
Speaker 1: the economy and a capitulation by the Federal Reserve that
Speaker 1: their policies are just too tight at this point. How
Speaker 1: do you reconcile these two sort of fact features of
Speaker 1: the market right now. Well, first of all, they call
Speaker 1: me or here at the office, So I'm not a
Speaker 1: natural optimist, okay, but when you look at what's going on,
Speaker 1: when you look at we've never had a recession with
Speaker 1: job growth as strong as it is, We've never had
Speaker 1: a recession with consumer confidence where it is puto business
Speaker 1: confidence and even the yolkerb Yes, it's recently inverted, but
Speaker 1: typically that gives us at least twelve months, so we've
Speaker 1: got at least a couple of quarters ahead of us.
Speaker 1: And I think right now all of the bad news
Speaker 1: is kind of pushed expectations down undoing. Yes, there's a
Speaker 1: storm coming, but I don't think it's showing up any
Speaker 1: time soon. But I think the FED actually gets that
Speaker 1: they're being cautious, they're being responsible, but I don't see
Speaker 1: anybody pushing the panic button just yet. So but I think, um,
Speaker 1: if we if I were just to summarize kind of
Speaker 1: the guests that we've heard that people on this show
Speaker 1: over the last several weeks, in terms of gauging a
Speaker 1: recession call, it seems to be the most people are
Speaker 1: thinking about something in timing mid is that something that
Speaker 1: is consistent with your thinking. I think that's the best bet.
Speaker 1: Right now, we've seen the EO curve invert. If that
Speaker 1: takes us out twelve months, that would be right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the sweet spot. If we see consumer
Speaker 1: confidence decay, that would also put us in the same spot.
Speaker 1: And there are other things that say that's the place.
Speaker 1: So the real question is not are we going to
Speaker 1: have a recession? We are at some point, but will
Speaker 1: it be in And I think that's reasonable. Okay, So
Speaker 1: we're speaking with Brad McMillan, chief investment officer at Commonwealth
Speaker 1: Financial Network overseeing a hundred and sixty one billion dollars.
Speaker 1: You talk with a lot of advisors, Brad, a lot
Speaker 1: of investors, and I'm just wondering, you know, if you
Speaker 1: tell them this, what happens If they say to you, okay,
Speaker 1: there might be a couple quarters left. When do I
Speaker 1: get out ahead of a recession? Sort of when is
Speaker 1: the sort of escape hatch open. Well. One of the
Speaker 1: good ways to look at it is, and I actually
Speaker 1: wrote a book about this, is it can make sense
Speaker 1: to de risk when the market moves into moves below
Speaker 1: it's two day moving average that historically is indicated a
Speaker 1: time to worry, and in fact, right now we were
Speaker 1: just below the two day moving average. So you could
Speaker 1: argue you should be worried. But when you look at
Speaker 1: the other fundamentals, we don't see sustained pullbacks without a recession.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to look at a recession. I'm going
Speaker 1: to see where consumer confidence is. I'm going to be
Speaker 1: mostly looking at a recession. So, Brad, one of the
Speaker 1: things you know that's been powering obviously powers the US
Speaker 1: economy and is um is the consumer, and we've seen
Speaker 1: generally a very strong consumer. We did have that surprisingly
Speaker 1: weak jobs data on Friday. What is your view of
Speaker 1: the consumer. I think the consumer still feels good. I
Speaker 1: think the what's interesting when you look at that weak
Speaker 1: jobs report. First of all, we've had week jobs reports
Speaker 1: before and they've rebounded. We seem to be in nineteen
Speaker 1: at a lower level of growth given that we've had
Speaker 1: two week reports, but it's still a healthy level on average.
Speaker 1: Second of all, you've seen wage growth hold up. There
Speaker 1: was some talk about how wage growth pulled back, but
Speaker 1: in fact, for the average working person, the production workers.
Speaker 1: Wage growth is held up much better. So for most people,
Speaker 1: they're spending ability is being enhanced because they're making more money.
Speaker 1: There's more people working, and in fact, with lower interest rates,
Speaker 1: they're going to be more able to buy things like
Speaker 1: cars and houses. That can only be helpful. So in
Speaker 1: the meantime, we do have this trade battle that seems
Speaker 1: to be reaching in the background. The U. S And
Speaker 1: China seemed to be hardening their lines depending on the day,
Speaker 1: and I'm just wondering how you factor this into your assessment. Well,
Speaker 1: there are two things going on here. First is a
Speaker 1: direct damage and even there, when you look at it,
Speaker 1: it's about thirty billion dollars right now in a twenty
Speaker 1: trillion dollar economy. It's meaningful, but it's certainly not going
Speaker 1: to break the bank. The indirect effects are going to
Speaker 1: be the most meaningful, and there you're starting to see
Speaker 1: reduced confidence. It will start to see more impact on
Speaker 1: consumers pocketbooks over the next couple of months if tariffs
Speaker 1: go up. So it's a headwind, but it's a headwind
Speaker 1: that's only gonna raw I slowly, and it's it's not
Speaker 1: going to be an earthquake. It's going to be a slow,
Speaker 1: slow slope to slow the economy down a little bit. So, bro,
Speaker 1: let's take if we get a bad headline, I mean
Speaker 1: a bad headline out of China, because I think the
Speaker 1: expectations are, oh, some deal will get done. But if
Speaker 1: we get some bad news out of China, what do
Speaker 1: you think the risk of the you the market is.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't think China drives much of the market.
Speaker 1: When you get Chinese headlines, you go back and you
Speaker 1: compare the you compare how the US market does. We're
Speaker 1: still a very closed economy relatively speaking, only about an
Speaker 1: eighth of our economy is exposed outside the US. Now
Speaker 1: there's more exposure to earnings, corporate earnings, but at the
Speaker 1: same time, much of that damage has already been done
Speaker 1: and you've seen diminishing effects as we get more and
Speaker 1: more headlines. So right now, I think the market's expectations
Speaker 1: are pretty well. I think there's more chance to beat
Speaker 1: it than underwhelment. Just real quick indexes or stock selection.
Speaker 1: What's your preference right now? Right now, I think it's
Speaker 1: still that indexes, you have individual stocks. Um, there's certainly
Speaker 1: some opportunities out there, but for the average investor, of
Speaker 1: the index remains the way to go. Brad mcbellan, chief
Speaker 1: investment officer at coming to WET the Financial Network overseeing
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty one billion dollars. Well, I've been
Speaker 1: told that this Sunday is Father's Day, So in case
Speaker 1: anyone out there is thinking about a gift, UM, I
Speaker 1: have enough. Um, I don't know, socks, ties, I've I
Speaker 1: think I've got all that kind of stuff. So what
Speaker 1: do you want? I'm just saying, well, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what I think our next guest, I'll have some cool ideas.
Speaker 1: Joseph Aboud, chief creative director for Men's Warehouse. He joins
Speaker 1: us in our Bloomberg eleven three oh studios. Joseph, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. It's really great to have
Speaker 1: you year. So, first of all, we were just talking
Speaker 1: off air. You know the question I had is our
Speaker 1: millennials are younger generations? Are they dressing up? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the most encouraging news. As we were just talking about
Speaker 1: to see the young guy getting dressed up again. Maybe
Speaker 1: his dad lived through that casual experience and so now
Speaker 1: he's finding his own space and he's doing custom suits
Speaker 1: and it's a very big part of our business. So
Speaker 1: the suit isn't dead, it's just morphed. They're wearing it differently.
Speaker 1: Maybe the trousers a little shorter, the silhouettes are a
Speaker 1: little leaner, but guys are getting dressed. So that's that's
Speaker 1: really terrific. So what's the age group? Because I remember
Speaker 1: back in the say six months ago, when we were
Speaker 1: talking about yoga, were coming back and wondering how jim
Speaker 1: ware was going to sort of infiltrate the male species.
Speaker 1: And I'm just wondering, you know, is that is that over?
Speaker 1: Because lul Lemon seems to be doing just fine. Well,
Speaker 1: they're doing great. I think that's a lifestyle thing, but
Speaker 1: I think that's just one piece of a guy's wardrobe.
Speaker 1: Every guy is going to find a moment when he
Speaker 1: needs to get dressed up. Younger or more staff published.
Speaker 1: And so that young guy is graduating college and looking
Speaker 1: to set himself for his future, is looking I need
Speaker 1: two or three suits for a wedding, a funeral, a
Speaker 1: job interview. So it's just that they're doing it their
Speaker 1: own way. And it's very difficult to buy suits online.
Speaker 1: You really need to go in and touch, feel and
Speaker 1: get fitted. So having a retail locations is crucial to
Speaker 1: get the guy to understand how it suits. And everybody
Speaker 1: type is different, let's be sure about that. So just
Speaker 1: it is Father's Day. So what what would you suggest
Speaker 1: would be like a really good, thoughtful, cool, fun gift. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they're all different. Well here's the thing. What
Speaker 1: a great and we found this that guys are getting
Speaker 1: custom suits as gifts the experience. It's not actually purchased,
Speaker 1: but it's a great gift. But if you want something
Speaker 1: more affordable, linen is a great fabric for spring summer.
Speaker 1: So the linen shirt is always a great piece of
Speaker 1: white linen shirt. It's fresh. Anything that's more personal to
Speaker 1: the dad. Maybe some dads are more dressed up. Some
Speaker 1: day ads are a little more casual. So it really
Speaker 1: depends on the direction you want to take. Where in
Speaker 1: the United States that you're actually seeing younger people dressing
Speaker 1: up more. Yeah, I think if you look at the cities,
Speaker 1: I mean obviously just looking at the building that we're
Speaker 1: in today, seeing all the young guys. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of guys in shirts and trousers, but there are
Speaker 1: a lot of guys and jackets and trousers. Some will tie,
Speaker 1: some without But we find that throughout, including that the
Speaker 1: dashing man next to me, of course, and it's great
Speaker 1: dressed in a short and tie. But you know, there
Speaker 1: is something wonderful. But when a guy gets dressed, he
Speaker 1: feels different. I always say, a guy feels like James Bond.
Speaker 1: You know, you put on a great suit or a
Speaker 1: great texedough there's something really special about that. It's now
Speaker 1: guys are wearing suits because they want to, not because
Speaker 1: they have to. And that's the distinction. It's not a
Speaker 1: uniform anymore. Joseph. I think one of the great things
Speaker 1: about your brand and your company over the years that
Speaker 1: just a good Brandon line of clothing is it's actually
Speaker 1: manufactured here in the United States. Can you tell us
Speaker 1: about that? Yeah, yeah, no, that's I think of all
Speaker 1: of the things, of all my accomplishments are factory in
Speaker 1: New Bedford, Massachusetts. We have eight hundred people there and
Speaker 1: we produce about three hundred thousand high quality tailored garments
Speaker 1: a year using Zenia fabric, lor Piano Fabric, all the
Speaker 1: high end Italian fabric. So uh and it's grown. The
Speaker 1: first season I launched in we made two thousand suits
Speaker 1: there and now we're up to about three hundred and
Speaker 1: forty thousand units, so it's it's it's a great place.
Speaker 1: I think most people don't know that. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about being made in America's being made well in America.
Speaker 1: That's important. So you're part of tailored brands, and I
Speaker 1: know that they did just appoint a new chief executive
Speaker 1: officer within the past few months, Janish Lothi, and his
Speaker 1: background is more in the casual wear, and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how that sort of meshed with your understanding of kind
Speaker 1: of the future. How is that kind of going forward? Well,
Speaker 1: I think Denish is Uh is highly intelligent, energized CEO.
Speaker 1: We love having him. I think he's learned about what
Speaker 1: we do in tailoring. He can fit a suit now,
Speaker 1: so he really immerses himself in the experience. And when
Speaker 1: we talk about casual and dressing, I think there's a
Speaker 1: myth to some degree. As a woman, you probably know
Speaker 1: that women have one wardrobe. Men have two wardrobes. They
Speaker 1: haven't learned to integrate their wardrobes, and so when we
Speaker 1: talk about casual, you can put a casual piece in
Speaker 1: with a suit. So we're trying to teach men about
Speaker 1: lifestyle dressing, and that does include suits, dressy clothing, but
Speaker 1: it also includes sports wear. So I don't think there's
Speaker 1: a one way or another to dress. I think it
Speaker 1: should be all available to man, such as you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: online shopping and how that's you know, there's challenges. They
Speaker 1: are certainly in fine clothing. You talked about the importance
Speaker 1: of actually touching and feeling it. Uh. You guys have
Speaker 1: a new story you opened recently right your for your collection. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's our it's our flagship store or black label collection
Speaker 1: on forty ninth and Madison. And what I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do is bring back the experience of the great
Speaker 1: specialty store, great product, one of a kind pieces, service,
Speaker 1: style and information. And that's always been my goal is
Speaker 1: to be able to help men because so often you
Speaker 1: walk into a store, you can't get the proper help,
Speaker 1: you can't get the right fit. So service is a
Speaker 1: huge part of the experience for guys. I love that.
Speaker 1: When it comes to the experience for women, people talk
Speaker 1: about manicures and and uh and getting your hair done
Speaker 1: in bloods. But with with respect to a male store,
Speaker 1: it's just simply the service. Is there anything else any
Speaker 1: other high touch elements of being served in a store. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the the whole experience for guys. You know,
Speaker 1: lifestyle for guys. We talk about the barbershop, we talk
Speaker 1: about the bar those things that are important but really
Speaker 1: for guys. And it's interesting how men shop. They're there,
Speaker 1: they're laser focused. They want to know about the fabric,
Speaker 1: they want to know about the fit, and it's so
Speaker 1: important to give them that information. You know, here's a
Speaker 1: fabric that is from Italy or from the UK. And
Speaker 1: also what you want to do is make sure that
Speaker 1: you can tell them about the experience and having them
Speaker 1: enjoy it. Make it a process for the guy and
Speaker 1: his wife or girlfriend or mom whatever. Jessepha Food, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being with us. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: for having me again. Jesseph's food designer and chief creative
Speaker 1: director of Men's Warehouse. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. I'm
Speaker 1: Lisa Abram Woyds. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abram wits
Speaker 1: one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide.
Speaker 1: I'm Bloomberg Radio.