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Speaker 2: Okay, so we have some big news. Echo Star Wars
Speaker 2: agreed to sell spectrum licenses to AT and T for
Speaker 2: about twenty three billion dollars. I'm looking at Echo Star
Speaker 2: shares right now, they're up seventy seven percent. So we
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about this right so our producers are scrambling.
Speaker 2: It's a mad dash. Who are we gonna get. We're
Speaker 2: gonna pull in someone who's hanging in Nantucket. That's right,
Speaker 2: it's John Butler, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior telecom atalysts.
Speaker 3: John.
Speaker 2: We really appreciate you taking the tele for album.
Speaker 4: Good morning guys.
Speaker 2: Good morning. Yes, we pull on the big guns. So
Speaker 2: explain to us right off the bat, what does this
Speaker 2: deal mean.
Speaker 4: So obviously, given the price action, it is huge for EchoStar,
Speaker 4: and I think at issue for them is they've been
Speaker 4: trying to build their own five G network to compete
Speaker 4: with the big guys, and they have the spectrum to
Speaker 4: do it, but they didn't have the capital to do it.
Speaker 4: They really have an outsized debtload that they've really been
Speaker 4: struggling to service. And the FCC intervened here and they've
Speaker 4: been pressuring on the head of EchoStar, Charlie Urgan, to
Speaker 4: either use the spectrum and start to fill those airwaves
Speaker 4: or to sell it. And so I think this is
Speaker 4: maybe the first of maybe even more moves to sell
Speaker 4: more Spectrum on the part of the company. But given
Speaker 4: the price tag, it alleviates that capital crunch, and so
Speaker 4: any risk of default here I think is minimized now
Speaker 4: in the wake of this deal, And so investors are
Speaker 4: breathing a big sire Leave talk.
Speaker 5: To me a little bit, John about this price. Twenty
Speaker 5: three billion dollars, nine billion more than EchoStar paid for
Speaker 5: the Spectrum, five billion more than the appraised value is
Speaker 5: at and t getting value out out of this twenty
Speaker 5: three billion dollar deal? Are they grossly overpaying?
Speaker 4: So I'll say Spectrum is like houses on Nantucket, you know,
Speaker 4: the price just continues to go up over the years,
Speaker 4: you know, particularly with the advent of AI now and
Speaker 4: the need for more capacity to carry that added traffic.
Speaker 4: It's really not a concern on my part as to
Speaker 4: whether or not AT and T is going to get
Speaker 4: a good return on this investment. And again all kitting aside,
Speaker 4: I go back to that analogy that really spectrum does increate,
Speaker 4: It tends to increase in value over time. It's a
Speaker 4: very ill liquid market, so it's hard to really get
Speaker 4: a good feel for their fair value of different frequencies.
Speaker 4: But I have no doubt that at the end of
Speaker 4: the day, even expensive is going to prove cheap here
Speaker 4: for them.
Speaker 2: Hey, John, can you take a little bit into how
Speaker 2: this is going to expand AT and T's network.
Speaker 4: So if you look at the spectrum holdings of Verizon,
Speaker 4: T Mobile and AT and T and spectrum, I'll just
Speaker 4: take a step back for listeners that don't know, when
Speaker 4: you're making a caller transmitting data over the area, you're
Speaker 4: doing it using spectrum. And the more you have think
Speaker 4: of it like the width of a pipe. The more
Speaker 4: you have, the fatter the pipe, the faster the download speeds.
Speaker 4: And so AT and T intends to put this spectrum
Speaker 4: to use almost immediately to really enhance the download speeds
Speaker 4: of the network. And so network quality gets better, word
Speaker 4: gets around, people begin to say AT and T has
Speaker 4: a better network. From a branding standpoint, there's a real
Speaker 4: benefit here. And then longer term again, as AI continues
Speaker 4: to scale up and ifrincing those queries that we make
Speaker 4: and the answers we get back. Now, a lot of
Speaker 4: that's going to be done at the edge of the
Speaker 4: network where you need that big fat pipe to support
Speaker 4: that traffic. So I think in their minds, those are
Speaker 4: the two things there, after improving the network quality and
Speaker 4: the brand image and having the pipes to move the
Speaker 4: traffic that's coming down the road here and.
Speaker 5: John yesterday, on a call with investors, AT and t's
Speaker 5: CEO Stanky said that, you know, regulators shouldn't be concerned
Speaker 5: that this transaction was going to put too much wireless spectrum,
Speaker 5: I guess in the hands of one of the largest
Speaker 5: telecom carriers. That's what he told investors. But do you
Speaker 5: think regulators are going to bulk at this No.
Speaker 4: I think regulators have been behind prompting the sale, if
Speaker 4: that's the right way to put it. So again, the
Speaker 4: FCC was really on Echo Star to sell some of
Speaker 4: that spectrum. They're educated and well educated and wireless as
Speaker 4: regulators to know that it was probably going to be
Speaker 4: one of the big guys that would step up and
Speaker 4: buy it. If I look at at and T spectrum
Speaker 4: holdings the whole, they had a competitive disadvantage or less
Speaker 4: holdings in the band or the frequencies that they purchased
Speaker 4: from Echo Star here. So I don't think there's any
Speaker 4: sort of regulatory argument against the deal here, but I
Speaker 4: would defer to our legislative analysts in Washington to really
Speaker 4: make the call there. But I'm not concerned.
Speaker 2: Stay with us for more Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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Speaker 2: So a lot of headlines in the news. One of
Speaker 2: them that caught my eye this was Eli Lilly. Okay,
Speaker 2: so their weight loss pill. It's moving a little bit closer,
Speaker 2: one step closer to this potential approval. This came after
Speaker 2: results from its latest trial. So what we want to
Speaker 2: do is get more details from that. Let's bring in
Speaker 2: Sam Fazzelli. He is Bloomberg Intelligence Director of Research for
Speaker 2: Global Industries and Senior Pharmaceuticals, joining us from London. Sam,
Speaker 2: welcome back to the show. So this is the second
Speaker 2: trial of the pill, I believe, So how is it
Speaker 2: different this time around?
Speaker 6: It is, Lisa, thank you for having me back.
Speaker 7: And I'm sorry that Paul is in here for me
Speaker 7: to give him grief because he always tells me off
Speaker 7: the technia.
Speaker 2: He always busts your.
Speaker 6: Job next time.
Speaker 7: And so look, this is a large trial in dibet
Speaker 7: diabetic patients, but it will be diabetic patients, so they're
Speaker 7: looking at the impact in that population. That population tends
Speaker 7: to have less of a weight loss for our variety
Speaker 7: of reasons. But it's come out exactly where we thought
Speaker 7: it would come out, actually maybe a little bit better
Speaker 7: than people's lowered expectations after that first trial read out
Speaker 7: a couple of weeks ago, if you remember when the
Speaker 7: stock got hit severely Lily stock, and so we're see
Speaker 7: about ten percent weight loss and still the same high
Speaker 7: levels of discontinuations. This is a long trial, so you
Speaker 7: even find a whole bunch of people and place would
Speaker 7: discontinue because they get bored, they want to go and
Speaker 7: get wed loss from another drug. So it's actually pretty
Speaker 7: decent data. And I think you can see that Nova
Speaker 7: is sold off on the back of this because it's
Speaker 7: a small molecular pill. It's a pilly can take, relatively
Speaker 7: easily manufactured, and you can take without too much complications
Speaker 7: in terms of don't eat to eat, take in the morning,
Speaker 7: takeing the evening, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 5: And that's the key, Sam. And I'm wondering how much
Speaker 5: of a game changer this is because it's not an injection, right,
Speaker 5: it's a pill. You're looking at an industry that by
Speaker 5: twenty thirty is projected to be ninety five billion dollars.
Speaker 5: So if this goes Eli Lilly's way, is it a
Speaker 5: game changer for the company?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it has gone their way.
Speaker 7: This is unless something shows up in the enormous number
Speaker 7: of files that they file to the FDA, or side
Speaker 7: effects or something.
Speaker 6: This is a drug that's likely to get approved.
Speaker 3: The question is how do you use it.
Speaker 7: You've got the injectibles once a week, once a week,
Speaker 7: not a big ask, very fine needle. People even tell
Speaker 7: me they don't even notice the needle going in and out,
Speaker 7: but still you don't see the needle. So what is
Speaker 7: its it? Ten percent weight loss versus twenty percent weight loss?
Speaker 7: So what is the right way forward here? Some people
Speaker 7: are needlephobic, it's going to be helpful for those. Some
Speaker 7: people can't get access to the drug because it's hard
Speaker 7: to manufacture. The other ones that are injectibles sterile manufacturing.
Speaker 7: So there's lots of room for this. And of course
Speaker 7: there's this other thing that I think a lot of
Speaker 7: people keep thinking about, is you've got your big weight
Speaker 7: loss with your injectables six months, in nine months, in
Speaker 7: twelve months, in switch to this and help you maintain
Speaker 7: You might not even need the higher doses, which are
Speaker 7: causing some side effects. Maybe you can get away with
Speaker 7: a lower dose and maintain that weight loss.
Speaker 6: They would have to do a trial to prove that though.
Speaker 2: So, Sam, as you're talking, a question kind of popped
Speaker 2: into my head. You're talking about all the different advantages
Speaker 2: to it. What about has there been any talk about price,
Speaker 2: like how much could this pill cost compare to an injection?
Speaker 7: I mean, it would be an error for these companies
Speaker 7: to start competing with themselves on price with their products.
Speaker 7: If you find that actually you can go with the
Speaker 7: lower dose of this. Your margins are a bit better,
Speaker 7: definitely because there's no device involved. But I don't know
Speaker 7: what the small molecule manufacturing because they're not all small
Speaker 7: malley ques are easy to make, right, and it may
Speaker 7: be small discount perhaps, I don't know, but but I
Speaker 7: doubt that this will come out at a.
Speaker 6: Level that's significantly lower.
Speaker 7: On the other hand, it does have lower weight loss,
Speaker 7: so maybe maybe there is an opportunity to kind of
Speaker 7: I see pari pass whu if whatever, If that's the
Speaker 7: right phrase, in line with its weight loss that you're getting.
Speaker 5: I want to branch out and talk just biotech on
Speaker 5: a bigger scale for a moment because M and A
Speaker 5: hass you know, been pretty active right and in the
Speaker 5: sector we had Merk buying Verona Pharma I think it
Speaker 5: was for their respiratory treatment recently. What's the outlook for
Speaker 5: M and A there? And I know one of the
Speaker 5: hurdles for biotech, and it's sort of an ongoing hurdle
Speaker 5: is changes to regulatory framework, So talk to us a
Speaker 5: little bit about that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, did that those changes if you're talking about perhaps
Speaker 7: the from an FTC perspective, those those have not hindered
Speaker 7: and ideals. When we counted a whole bunch of deals
Speaker 7: in the first half of this year, and it looked
Speaker 7: like a pretty strong year for deals, and that's not
Speaker 7: even including.
Speaker 6: The Verona one. The thing here is a lot of
Speaker 6: executives in the biotech boord I'll still looking at their
Speaker 6: share price charts thinking back to those beautiful days of
Speaker 6: two or three years ago where the share prices were
Speaker 6: seventy eighty percent higher and thinking is it the right
Speaker 6: thing for them to do?
Speaker 3: To sell?
Speaker 7: Clearly some have got to the point of accepting that,
Speaker 7: and some have done it from a position of strength.
Speaker 7: Verona was rocketing up before they got taken out at whatever,
Speaker 7: over one hundred dollars a share, so Farmer is definitely interested.
Speaker 7: Maybe if the interest rate environment, going back to what
Speaker 7: we were just hearing earlier, does go in favor of
Speaker 7: cost of capital coming down, maybe you'll start seeing some
Speaker 7: more deals, and of course that would also help biotech
Speaker 7: valuations potentially in general. So maybe there would be an
Speaker 7: interesting time to look out to in the next six
Speaker 7: to twelve months.
Speaker 6: All right, Sam, and.
Speaker 2: The last minute, do you have here another article caught
Speaker 2: my eye. President from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert
Speaker 2: Kennedy Junior. There there are leslie funny to ban the
Speaker 2: COVID vaccine within months. Did this surprise you at all?
Speaker 6: Well, yes, no.
Speaker 7: The thing is it's rumor, and I think the HS
Speaker 7: has said, look, there's no nothing that we can tell
Speaker 7: you today that we're back this. I think that would
Speaker 7: be a mistake. And choice is what Americans have always
Speaker 7: valued in the freedom that the US has.
Speaker 6: Let's just leave the choice there, give.
Speaker 7: People all the information, do the scientific work that the
Speaker 7: HS wants to do, and just leave it open and
Speaker 7: give it to the discussion between physicians and patients and
Speaker 7: subjects and people.
Speaker 6: I think that's the right way.
Speaker 7: Whether that will happen or not, but if it does happen,
Speaker 7: we've got a bad time for Biontic and Moderna because
Speaker 7: that's the only source of revenue.
Speaker 2: Stay with us for more Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg and Intelligence podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Corplay and
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 2: What's also a piece of America are eyewear. Right, you
Speaker 2: go out and it's like you're styling, You're wearing your
Speaker 2: fancy sunglasses. It's a nice day out. You know, you
Speaker 2: have to look good when you're going out. So this
Speaker 2: is taking us to the competitive eyewear space.
Speaker 5: We're saying.
Speaker 2: Sources are saying that the maker of ray Band sunglasses,
Speaker 2: I have my own pair, as the Lord looks out again,
Speaker 2: they're considering increasing their steak in Nikon.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: The company has really been pushing ahead with these smart
Speaker 2: glasses initiative, so we want to find out more about it, right,
Speaker 2: so let's go to Diana Gomez. She is Bloomberg Intelligence
Speaker 2: senior equity research analyst. Diana, thanks for joining us up.
Speaker 2: So how much they want to boost their steak? And
Speaker 2: I kinda and what's the current holding at.
Speaker 8: Hi, Yes, thank you for having me. So at the moment,
Speaker 8: it's uh about a nine percent stake, and the reports
Speaker 8: we are getting is that there is a potential interest
Speaker 8: to increase that to about twenty percent, which would be
Speaker 8: in the order working at the current market cap maybe
Speaker 8: a three hundred million dollars or so, which given a
Speaker 8: se or Euxotica's cash position would not be quite material,
Speaker 8: but still quite a sizable stake in Nikon from a
Speaker 8: few years of quite a long experience as in their
Speaker 8: joint venture Connectending that.
Speaker 5: Connect the dots for us though, because what does Nikon
Speaker 5: have that Luxotica wants.
Speaker 8: Besides the brand name that is quite well known to
Speaker 8: even the consumer side outside the professional sector, there is
Speaker 8: the technology and the know how that can be utilized
Speaker 8: and leveraged by both companies. So we are talking about
Speaker 8: the distribution of SLR combined with nohow and brand a
Speaker 8: strong brand name of a company like Nikan. And they
Speaker 8: have been partnering in different areas. One of them which
Speaker 8: is quite an emerging ones is the myopia control which
Speaker 8: is which are these lenses that are meant to solve
Speaker 8: the progression of myopia in children, which is quite important
Speaker 8: given that forecasts are that's by twenty fifty about half
Speaker 8: of the world population could be suffering from myopia. So
Speaker 8: it's it's quite an interesting area as an example of
Speaker 8: those where they are collaborating, particularly in China where they
Speaker 8: are selling already some of these myopia controllances. With the
Speaker 8: FDA approval for the SEL or auxosticasles still being in
Speaker 8: the pipeline as well.
Speaker 2: And in quick thirty seconds, Diana, what are who are
Speaker 2: some of Nikon's competitors in there in the space and
Speaker 2: who does it supply.
Speaker 8: So they would be competing with other wcees and also
Speaker 8: even photographic kind of equipment, and the space is quite
Speaker 8: diverse at the moment because even with so or Auxotic
Speaker 8: at this partnership just potential extended partnership just shows how
Speaker 8: the company is going more into the medical technology and
Speaker 8: medical devices filled in terms of trying to also find
Speaker 8: medical issues just looking at the eye. So that's a
Speaker 8: new area where companies within the optomological and visual space
Speaker 8: are looking at and WNCES companies that are potentially with
Speaker 8: the consumer more known for the photo cameras also play
Speaker 8: a role with So it's all quite well integrated and
Speaker 8: in the world of smart classes.
Speaker 2: Stay with us for more Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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Speaker 2: All right, I want to move on to this story.
Speaker 2: We heard it yesterday or Sted right the management now
Speaker 2: they're trying to reassure their investors. This is after the
Speaker 2: Trump administration while they block construction of its almost finished
Speaker 2: Rhode Island wind farm. So we want to dig more
Speaker 2: into this story. Let's bring in Patricio Alvarez, Bloomberg Intelligence,
Speaker 2: equity research analysts, power and gas utilities. Who better to
Speaker 2: talk to them than this. So what does this mean
Speaker 2: for Orsad's plan share sale? That's what I wanted to
Speaker 2: start right.
Speaker 9: There, absolutely, So let's begin where Oristed's management NA went
Speaker 9: ahead with a plan for inequity increase.
Speaker 3: That's quite substantial.
Speaker 9: So that's sixty billion kroner that they announced on August eleventh.
Speaker 9: That was nearly forty six percent of their market cap
Speaker 9: back then, So it is a significant size of an
Speaker 9: equity increase. And that was mainly to cover the construction
Speaker 9: of Revolution Wind and that was because the company was
Speaker 9: not able to sell a stake in that project. That's
Speaker 9: mainly like, that's really their their key funding strategy is
Speaker 9: to sell stake selles in there in the projects that
Speaker 9: they're building. They were not able to do so, so
Speaker 9: they needed to go for this massive equity increase. Now
Speaker 9: that the stop work order that you just mentioned, I
Speaker 9: think most of the market did not see that coming,
Speaker 9: given that the project was already eighty percent of the way.
Speaker 9: Forty five out of sixty five wind blades were already
Speaker 9: on the ground. So this is you know, this is unprecedented.
Speaker 9: I think the Empire Wind stop work order and then
Speaker 9: restart is different in the way that the project was
Speaker 9: not as as far in advance as this one. So
Speaker 9: it will dampen investor confidence ahead of the ahead of
Speaker 9: the plan that could increase. But we do know that
Speaker 9: the backing of the Danish government, which has committed a
Speaker 9: fifty fifty percent pro rata share of that it could increase. Well,
Speaker 9: we'll give some reassurance and will probably help secure those funds.
Speaker 5: I know the stock took a big hit, fell to
Speaker 5: a record low, but it bounced back again. I believe
Speaker 5: it started trading again right overseas and rallied. And why
Speaker 5: is that more? That was it over sold?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 5: Investors think it was over sold, you.
Speaker 9: Think, I think I think there was a big mix
Speaker 9: of boats. So the stop work order came came in
Speaker 9: Friday after market and I think markets didn't have time
Speaker 9: to digest the implications to the equity increase after you know,
Speaker 9: we had a bank holiday in the UK, so markets
Speaker 9: open up this morning and that was mainly because of
Speaker 9: these reassurance of Oysted. So the company came out with
Speaker 9: a statement saying that the Danish government has actually reached
Speaker 9: rated or reaffirmed their intent to participate at least in
Speaker 9: fifty point one percent of that equity increase, with the
Speaker 9: remaining set to be underwritten. So the company, the company
Speaker 9: tried to instill some confidence, you know, reta into the plan.
Speaker 9: And as we know, we think that the backing of
Speaker 9: the Danish government is a big endorsement for this equity increase.
Speaker 9: So we do think it will go ahead, but perhaps
Speaker 9: we will have to wait into early September where there
Speaker 9: will be an a GM and see where the share
Speaker 9: price is trading at them.
Speaker 2: Can you walk us through the president's arguments against offshore
Speaker 2: wind and then and then what supporters are saying, the
Speaker 2: pros and the hans against it?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 9: So, yeah, the administration has flagged that there are several
Speaker 9: issues with wind development in general. Firstly that it could
Speaker 9: impact the environment for whales, so that it could actually
Speaker 9: hurt whales, that birds could fly into the wind blades,
Speaker 9: and and then on the other on the other side
Speaker 9: of or on shore, there's also a community resistance. There's
Speaker 9: been there's been a few protests actually saying that that
Speaker 9: the offshore wind doesn't look good on the horizon. So
Speaker 9: these are these are several things. But but again or
Speaker 9: State actually had all the permits for for for this,
Speaker 9: for this farm to go ahead, and several studies actually
Speaker 9: you know, countering the impact of these of this offshore
Speaker 9: wind farms versus their benefit. Offshore wind has been a
Speaker 9: niche technology in in the US is still a nascent industry.
Speaker 9: It's a bit more advanced in Europe, but in the
Speaker 9: US we still have only a handful of megawats.
Speaker 3: But still it's it's an important part of the energy mix.
Speaker 9: It will help uh decarbonize the economy, will help add
Speaker 9: more electrons into the grid and avoid using more expensive gas.
Speaker 5: And in the time we have left, Patricio, can you
Speaker 5: talk to us a little bit about Orsted's competition, their
Speaker 5: rivals in this space and what this possible setback for
Speaker 5: them might mean for the competition. Is this, you know,
Speaker 5: actually an advantage does it give them an advantage in some.
Speaker 9: Way, So perhaps outside of the US, I would say
Speaker 9: there there will be you know, there's possibly some silver
Speaker 9: linings for other competitors. We cover other companies like RWE,
Speaker 9: which is heavily invested in European offshore wind. So the
Speaker 9: company is still moving ahead with plans in Germany. That look,
Speaker 9: you know, clear that there's more regulatory certain to hear
Speaker 9: in Europe, but conditions are still I would say not
Speaker 9: straightforward for offshore wind development in Europe. A few auctions
Speaker 9: here have been unsuccessful. We've only tendered a handful of
Speaker 9: megawatts in the past.
Speaker 3: Two or three years. So that said, there is a silver.
Speaker 9: Lining for them, but I wouldn't say that the outlook
Speaker 9: changes materially.
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