Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: What are you seeing right now? Are you seeing those
Speaker 2: changes that people are talking about, that diversification away from
Speaker 2: US assets?
Speaker 1: Do you see that at all now?
Speaker 3: We really don't see that in the data at this point.
Speaker 3: I remember where we've come from, which is the US
Speaker 3: has been really an incredibly strongly performing market, strong economy.
Speaker 3: People who've been predicting the US to be some type
Speaker 3: of decline from an economic point of view, recessions, we've
Speaker 3: talked about that in the past two or three years.
Speaker 1: None of that's actually happened.
Speaker 3: And in fact, now I think you find and you've
Speaker 3: heard this on your show, more optimism associated with what
Speaker 3: the next year holds from an economic point of view,
Speaker 3: GDP pretty solid, looking to potentially even expand in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six. You've got the stimulus checks coming the way
Speaker 3: that they actually didn't adjust their withholding in order to
Speaker 3: be able to encourage those stimulus checks. That all is
Speaker 3: a pretty good setup. And you've got to be in
Speaker 3: the preparedness business. We're all risk managers, and at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, you've got to be resilient because
Speaker 3: things can go wrong. Things can happen but I think
Speaker 3: that's the setup, and so reallocating away from the US
Speaker 3: in the face of that probably not the smartest choice
Speaker 3: to make.
Speaker 1: But you've got to be diversified.
Speaker 3: So you cannot have the concentration you has been a
Speaker 3: pretty concentrated bet over the past few years.
Speaker 4: Although what's the consequence of that. I mean, there's a
Speaker 4: difference between reallocating away from and diversifying. There is some
Speaker 4: knock on effect, which is maybe some people are calling
Speaker 4: cell America, other people are just saying diversifying and hedging
Speaker 4: your bets. I mean, how much will that affect the
Speaker 4: funding conditions of the United States.
Speaker 3: Well, if diversification makes sense, one needs to have a
Speaker 3: balanced portfolio. It's just good risk management. It's good investment
Speaker 3: management to make sure that you've got exposure to the
Speaker 3: various different opportunities that are out there.
Speaker 1: But we certainly have seen and you know, look around.
Speaker 1: We're a global firm.
Speaker 3: We provide platforms and serve clients all across the world.
Speaker 3: But when you look at the US and you just
Speaker 3: look at the facts of the performance over the course
Speaker 3: of the past decade, you look at all the innovation
Speaker 3: that's been in the US, all of the value that's created.
Speaker 3: AI is one example technology. More generally, it would have
Speaker 3: been a mistake to not have participated in the US market,
Speaker 3: and so a little bit of rebalancing, a little bit
Speaker 3: of sort of thinking about how to make sure you've
Speaker 3: got the right portfolio where there's equities, fixed income. We
Speaker 3: talk about sixty forty. Oh gosh, it was dead. Now
Speaker 3: it's back bonds. Okay, where do you want to be
Speaker 3: exposed to in the bond market? You know, the US
Speaker 3: bond market is still the most liquid market in the world,
Speaker 3: and it is still the closest thing to a risk
Speaker 3: free asset that there actually is.
Speaker 4: How important is it that Senator Tom Tillis stays and
Speaker 4: senate at least for the next three hundred and sixty
Speaker 4: four days. He was on just a moment ago with
Speaker 4: us and he was talking about how he's not going
Speaker 4: to hold confirmation hearings until the DOJ suitor inquiry into
Speaker 4: a FEDOJ Powell is lifted. I'm just wondering, from your perspective,
Speaker 4: how important it is to see that type of noise
Speaker 4: died down around the Federal Reserve for you to feel
Speaker 4: confident that this truly is going to remain the status
Speaker 4: quo going forward, right, Well.
Speaker 3: The sentence is a great public servant, and I appreciate
Speaker 3: all of his time serving in the US Senate. But
Speaker 3: I think you hit the key point, which is, at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, is not super helpful for
Speaker 3: the long term objectives of the US, which are keep
Speaker 3: interest rates on the low side, to be able to
Speaker 3: make it easier for people to be able to borrow,
Speaker 3: to be able to buy a home, to be able
Speaker 3: to fund a car payment, for companies to be able
Speaker 3: to borrow in order to be able to fund and
Speaker 3: invest their businesses.
Speaker 1: For all of that, we want low rates, so.
Speaker 3: Creating and sort of shaking at the foundation of the
Speaker 3: independence of monetary policy, that's not really in the interests
Speaker 3: of keeping long term rates slow.
Speaker 1: So I think it is helpful if that.
Speaker 3: Dies down and we can get back to the business
Speaker 3: of releasing the economy perform.
Speaker 1: Counterproductive, which is the words you use in the past
Speaker 1: when it comes to it.
Speaker 4: Have you any engagement with the White House about this
Speaker 4: issue given the concerns.
Speaker 3: We're always talking to the administration making sure that we're
Speaker 3: giving our point of view, and so that's of course
Speaker 3: that's one of our jobs and one of my jobs
Speaker 3: as a CEO is to be talking all across the
Speaker 3: administration and in Congress and giving them our perspective. And
Speaker 3: I do think it is in the interests and the
Speaker 3: administration has been very clear they would like to see
Speaker 3: long term interest rates lower because it benefits companies and individuals.
Speaker 3: And so if that's the objective, then making sure that
Speaker 3: we're keeping the Federal Reserve sort of a little bit
Speaker 3: out of the news and not super controversial, I would
Speaker 3: personally say, would be would be would be in further
Speaker 3: into that objective.
Speaker 2: It's certainly very much in the news at the moment. Robin,
Speaker 2: Can we talk about your business? It has to be
Speaker 2: a much changing in what direction are you leaning into? Well,
Speaker 2: we've been reimagining the company, to be quite honest. You know,
Speaker 2: we've got a fun history. We're two hundred and forty
Speaker 2: years old. We were born right around the time of
Speaker 2: the United States seventeen eighty four, oldest bank in the nation,
Speaker 2: one of the oldest companies in New York.
Speaker 3: It's that's a fun history. Now we've got to be
Speaker 3: old because we've been innovating all along the way. We've
Speaker 3: stayed very focused on customers and our culture is important.
Speaker 1: That's how you get to be a long lived company.
Speaker 1: So what have we been doing.
Speaker 3: We've been taking stock of what we've actually got, our
Speaker 3: real assets, our great businesses, and we've really been focused
Speaker 3: on delivering them better for the client. Used to be
Speaker 3: a bunch of pieces, kind of siloed, fragmented, and so
Speaker 3: we set out three years ago to say, we're just
Speaker 3: going to reimagine the company and we're going to pull
Speaker 3: ourselves together. We're going to focus on our clients. We've
Speaker 3: got these market leading businesses, what kind of a financial
Speaker 3: services platforms company these days? And we're going to rally
Speaker 3: round as a team. Very important that culture team to
Speaker 3: be able to deliver for customers.
Speaker 1: And you can see the results. So this was past
Speaker 1: quarter for us.
Speaker 3: Which comes to the sort of the end of that
Speaker 3: first three year chapter. It was a quarter of records.
Speaker 3: It was actually a year of records for us in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. Record revenue, record pre tax income, huge
Speaker 3: EPs growth, and the market's rewarded us for that. But
Speaker 3: what they're really looking through and seeing is the fact
Speaker 3: that we're delivering for our customers, and that's what it's
Speaker 3: all about.