Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. All right,
Speaker 1: you are listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carl Masser along
Speaker 1: with Mike Reagan. Tim Stanovic is off today and so
Speaker 1: great to have back with the Tim is gonna be
Speaker 1: bummed that he missed him. Ken's Wig is back with us,
Speaker 1: and we talk about so many different things with him,
Speaker 1: but we certainly get into real estate stories because he's
Speaker 1: president at Swig Equities. It's a real estate development and
Speaker 1: investment firm based in New York City. He is with
Speaker 1: us via Zoom in New York City. Ken's Wig, how
Speaker 1: are you good. Nice to hear your voice, Carol, Well,
Speaker 1: nice to hear your voice. Um, what's top of mind
Speaker 1: for you? Though? When you look at today's investment environment?
Speaker 1: I feel like we talked about so many big macro
Speaker 1: fet issues, inflation issues, supply chain issues. But I'm curious
Speaker 1: from your perspective and your world, what's really top of
Speaker 1: mind and top priority? You know? Um? Well, from an
Speaker 1: investment side, I think you hit it all, um, you know.
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things is which we've
Speaker 1: talked about before is just getting back and cre cranking
Speaker 1: up the American economy again and and and the business
Speaker 1: of doing business. So we're and it's getting their America's
Speaker 1: plus or minus forty three percent occupying their office space today. Um.
Speaker 1: New York City is a tad under that at about
Speaker 1: thirty nine and a half percent UM. And in my opinion,
Speaker 1: one of the things that that is missing and is
Speaker 1: really critical to to really performing business on a on
Speaker 1: a on a very very efficient and productive way is
Speaker 1: being in the office and attending business in person. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the issues. And are
Speaker 1: they back hint, are people really coming back? You know,
Speaker 1: not enough in my opinion, where As they say New
Speaker 1: York City is about thirty nine point five percent actual
Speaker 1: occupancy of people in the office, UM, the rest of
Speaker 1: the nation's forty two to forty three percent. So we're
Speaker 1: lacking a little bit. But business does not perform ultimately,
Speaker 1: l and efficiently and creatively unless people are interfacing back
Speaker 1: and forth. And that goes back to tribal days. You know,
Speaker 1: the thing that separated us from from other animals on
Speaker 1: earth is our ability to communicate with each other and
Speaker 1: work with each other and perform tasks with each other
Speaker 1: in person, and from then going on, that's what our
Speaker 1: success has been. So, um, I understand sort of a
Speaker 1: split schedule, but I believe that's one of the biggest
Speaker 1: challenges that we're facing. Right. I know my course is
Speaker 1: a Christian, but I do feel like there's gonna be
Speaker 1: people saying, say, oh, look, it's the real estate guy
Speaker 1: talking about getting people back to real estate. No offense,
Speaker 1: but of course it is. But but I'm saying, first
Speaker 1: of all, the people that are that have space are
Speaker 1: still paying their rent and then and they're still performing.
Speaker 1: So I'm talking about real business productivity, creativity and opportunity
Speaker 1: and and and and it just doesn't happen. And it will,
Speaker 1: It'll work for a little while. But the networking that
Speaker 1: goes on in the elevator going to work, we're exiting
Speaker 1: work or the or or meeting in a coffee room
Speaker 1: or bumping into people does not happen anymore. Um. But
Speaker 1: people are still going to movies, right, They're still going
Speaker 1: to UH shows, they're going to sporting events, they're going
Speaker 1: to concerts. So it's not that they're not going out,
Speaker 1: it's just they're not going to the office. Um, So
Speaker 1: that that's a whole another piece. And I don't think
Speaker 1: it's just COVID related. Because you pack yourself into a bar,
Speaker 1: you pack yourself in a music festival, you're you're more
Speaker 1: at risk at cold getting COVID than you are sitting
Speaker 1: in an office, you know, distance with people. So I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the big concerns ken when you
Speaker 1: when you plan for the future. Um, is it realistic
Speaker 1: to expect those occupancy rates to get back to a
Speaker 1: sort of the pre pandemic level or you you sort
Speaker 1: of counting on it being something still below still room
Speaker 1: for recovery, but but maybe not back to where we were. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that that clearly what's happened is that we've
Speaker 1: got First of all, we've got it. We've got a
Speaker 1: shortage of workers in America right now. Um and and
Speaker 1: on a whole another level, you know, as a as
Speaker 1: a wilder thought, but I think actually economically prudent was
Speaker 1: that we need about thirty million UH immigrants in this
Speaker 1: country over the next ten to fifteen years. We have
Speaker 1: an aging population, we have we have uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a lack of workforce, and we need people to come
Speaker 1: in and do that. So that's not a whole another level. Um,
Speaker 1: But do I believe that people working are going should
Speaker 1: be partly at home and partly at work right now?
Speaker 1: I think that there's a good case for that. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's interesting to note that the home
Speaker 1: time that people want to work are always on a
Speaker 1: Monday and Friday, and they're gonna work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Um. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I believe that Monday is one of the more important
Speaker 1: days to be in the office because that's when people
Speaker 1: set the schedule, set the agenda for what's going to
Speaker 1: happen in the week. If you do a Tuesday, you
Speaker 1: score to lose the day. So I mean, I think Monday, Tuesday,
Speaker 1: Wednesday working is much more important than and and if
Speaker 1: you work from home on a Thursday, Friday, or take
Speaker 1: a Wednesday Friday or something. But I think Monday's very important.
Speaker 1: But I think we're going to be in a hybrid
Speaker 1: situation for a little while. There's no doubt. Does does
Speaker 1: it make sense for a guy like you to think
Speaker 1: about converting some of the office real estate into residential
Speaker 1: in a city like New York, Well, we do lack
Speaker 1: residential um. Um, you know, apartments and housing. Uh. And
Speaker 1: that's all a degree of price right now. Um, but no,
Speaker 1: I haven't. In New York City is on about a
Speaker 1: twenty percent Downtown is about twenty percent vacancy rate. The
Speaker 1: overall Manhattan vacancy rates about sevent So certainly there are
Speaker 1: buildings that are are older, older buildings and can't compete
Speaker 1: with the new buildings that are there. And and that
Speaker 1: is something that would be you know, a prime candidate
Speaker 1: for conversion to residential. Uh. And you look at the
Speaker 1: city right now, there is no residential commercial you know,
Speaker 1: single areas alone. Everything is mixed together. So yeah, that
Speaker 1: that's certainly an option for some. Um. Yeah, hang on
Speaker 1: for a second, Kent. We're gonna do a little bit
Speaker 1: of news, but we'll come right back to you. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get back to Kent Swig. He is president of
Speaker 1: Swig Equities. He's joining us via zoom from New York City,
Speaker 1: and our conversation will continue. We are still here with
Speaker 1: Kent Swig, president of Swig Equity, still with us via
Speaker 1: zoom from New York City. So I am curious, Kent,
Speaker 1: in this environment, there could be some opportunities to stress
Speaker 1: properties Are you doing any buying? Are you doing any
Speaker 1: selling in this environment? I'm not doing any selling, but
Speaker 1: we are doing some buying. Yes, we're looking at the
Speaker 1: development project on the Jersey coast, which we're close to getting.
Speaker 1: We have another project up in Yonkers that we're looking
Speaker 1: at right now and negotiating and sporadically starting looking at Manhattan. Ken.
Speaker 1: I know you have a side hustle, as they say,
Speaker 1: as the kids saying in crypto, Can you talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about that, how you got involved
Speaker 1: in that and sort of what the state state of
Speaker 1: the project is. Well, I got involved about three years ago,
Speaker 1: and um we ended up buying some cryptocurrency uh and
Speaker 1: and found that there was problems with the company um
Speaker 1: and we ended up um starting our own token, if
Speaker 1: you will. The company is called Dignity Gold. We've got
Speaker 1: three billion tokens out outstanding. Very uniquely uh and quickly
Speaker 1: is one. We've got gold backing from minds that we
Speaker 1: own and control that are in Nevada. So we're all
Speaker 1: US based. Our gold as US based, our company as
Speaker 1: US based, our attorneys or accounts, everything is US based,
Speaker 1: all transparent. Also uniquely, we voluntarily filed last year with
Speaker 1: the sec UM, and then very uniquely we UM all
Speaker 1: the people that lost money uh in in the crypto
Speaker 1: that we got involved with, including ourselves. We then went
Speaker 1: out and issued free tokens UM you know, put out
Speaker 1: three billion tokens, including to ourselves, UM for all those
Speaker 1: who lost money that could show that they actually had
Speaker 1: a legitimate token owned before any impropriety in trading which
Speaker 1: was uh IN on some non you know, the non
Speaker 1: central decentralized trading platform in Ukraine. We issued all free
Speaker 1: tokens to anybody who could show us that. So we
Speaker 1: made everybody whole, including ourselves, and went forward. So we're
Speaker 1: now in the process with the sec UM. We are
Speaker 1: trading overseas for foreigners on CRYPTOESX and the Philippines and
Speaker 1: bit uh Global which is in Singapore, UH and going
Speaker 1: very well. We're six billion dollars of gold backing our token.
Speaker 1: It's about two dollars per token. If gold goes up,
Speaker 1: we put up more gold ore ore ore to UH
Speaker 1: minds that we own, and we've got seven that we've
Speaker 1: got rights to. Is over half a billion dollars half
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars of of precious metals gold, silver, rare
Speaker 1: earth minerals, platinum, etcetera. So it's an exciting project, very
Speaker 1: new for the for the industry. Though, so when when
Speaker 1: he talks about crypto mining, it's a whole different, whole,
Speaker 1: different different definitions. You're talking about the real Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting because the gold is an inflation hedge. Crypto
Speaker 1: is obviously, um, you know, a very up and coming
Speaker 1: type of business. It's you know, multi trillion dollar business
Speaker 1: at this point. But what we believed is taking business
Speaker 1: practices of transparency, good you know, procedures, policies and filing
Speaker 1: with the sec um uh, and take those and applied
Speaker 1: into the crypto market. So with with real backing of
Speaker 1: provable gold reserves. All right, you know, I'm going to
Speaker 1: jump in here because stable coins, i mean have certainly
Speaker 1: been on everybody's radar in terms of what happened to
Speaker 1: terror U s d um. You know we are not
Speaker 1: a stable coin, okay, but but it has sent shivers
Speaker 1: through the whole crypto market. Kent, you know this, it's
Speaker 1: brought everything down. It should. So how do you distinguish
Speaker 1: what you are doing or differentiate and how it is
Speaker 1: a longer term way? Well, first of all, we've we've
Speaker 1: filed with the SEC because we want to be regulated,
Speaker 1: which is a very unique thing. So we spent a
Speaker 1: lot of money because we believe that we should we
Speaker 1: should be regulated as a digital security which we are too.
Speaker 1: We have proven proven assets of gold backing our token.
Speaker 1: So they're in the United States and Nevada in two minds,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're shown. We've got forty three one on
Speaker 1: one engineering reports. We are doing due diligence also to
Speaker 1: file publicly on ourselves as part of our SEC filing,
Speaker 1: so we have you know, and the unique thing is
Speaker 1: that if you lose your password, unlike every other crypto,
Speaker 1: uh you we replace your password, just like if you
Speaker 1: own stock and ibm uh. They don't burn, they don't say,
Speaker 1: oh I'm sorry, you don't get your stock. They you know,
Speaker 1: cancel the stock certificate issue and your one. That's the
Speaker 1: same as us because everybody has to go through no
Speaker 1: your cent KYC and Anti Money Laundering m L processing,
Speaker 1: so we know who people are and we go forward.
Speaker 1: In addition to which we're also creating a fund right
Speaker 1: will throw off dividends and those dividends will be also
Speaker 1: issued to token holders, so we're very much running the
Speaker 1: company as a publicly, as a public company that is
Speaker 1: in a Wall Street world. But volatility is going to
Speaker 1: be part of this environment, right, Kent. I mean it's
Speaker 1: not going to go I mean, I've talked to a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who are you know, so called you
Speaker 1: know experts in this world too, and they're saying, you've
Speaker 1: got to think about it like the early days of
Speaker 1: the internet, and so think about that when you're either
Speaker 1: making an investment bank or I mean investment decision. I
Speaker 1: mean right, I mean we're in the early stages of this.
Speaker 1: We still don't really know how this all plays out. Well, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but if I if I were to tell you to
Speaker 1: Carroll uh and and um, I've got a great Mike,
Speaker 1: and I've got a great stock for you, and you go, okay,
Speaker 1: can't tell me about it? Okay, what would you like
Speaker 1: to know? Well, where's its base? Well, I'm not really sure.
Speaker 1: And who owns it? Well, I'm really not sure. And
Speaker 1: what does it do? I'm really not sure. How does
Speaker 1: it make money? Well it really doesn't. Well why will
Speaker 1: it go up because somebody else will pay more money
Speaker 1: from it? Well, that's describing a lot of the cryptocurrency companies.
Speaker 1: This is this and that that is why people say
Speaker 1: they don't understand it. Well in that respect, there's not
Speaker 1: much to understand this, but the technology, the blockchain, operation,
Speaker 1: upside and and usage of a cryptocurrency in the world
Speaker 1: more and more is is good any as a as
Speaker 1: an industry. Applying business applying business practices that aren't good
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So what we've done is applied good, solid
Speaker 1: business practices into that world. And I think that makes sense.
Speaker 1: All right, we have to leave it on that note.
Speaker 1: I know we will talk more about this, says we
Speaker 1: always like to touch on it with you. Um, good
Speaker 1: to hear your voice, glad to hear your well, and uh,
Speaker 1: of course that's Kent Swig joining us via zoom from
Speaker 1: New York City. He's president of Swig Equities.