Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi,
Speaker 1: I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. Happy holidays everyone. It was week forty one,
Speaker 1: working from home still for many a holiday short and
Speaker 1: trading week, and one where we saw a new COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen strain and that much talked about long dark winter
Speaker 1: it was upon us COVID nineteen understandably dominating our conversations.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, we checked in with the president
Speaker 1: of Morehouse School of Medicine on the virus and boosting
Speaker 1: black physicians nationwide. Also the president of sam Sunite North
Speaker 1: America on surviving when no one was traveling and those
Speaker 1: animals spirits running wild across Wall Street in the form
Speaker 1: of I p O s and spacks. We catch up
Speaker 1: with someone who has taken several big companies public, Yes,
Speaker 1: Steve cake Bread. He weighs in on that frenzy. We begin, though,
Speaker 1: with this week's cover story. It is a story about
Speaker 1: how in a year of so many wrongs and wrongdoings,
Speaker 1: there is one thing that went really really right this year.
Speaker 1: That story by Bomberg News US Healthcare team leader Drew Armstrong, who,
Speaker 1: along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber, talked with
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quicktake anchor Tim Stanovic and me, congratulations to Drew
Speaker 1: on his first cover story. It turns out, which is
Speaker 1: which is which is great for him? Um. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, so much has just gone terribly terribly wrong
Speaker 1: this year, and I think we all recognize that, and
Speaker 1: this is our good business issue. And it was a
Speaker 1: chance to actually reflect on on a few things that
Speaker 1: actually were remarkable. Um and not least which is what
Speaker 1: the vaccine represents, which is this herculean undertaking. Um that
Speaker 1: was you know, coordinated from multiple places. I mean, you
Speaker 1: had government doing something very right in this regard, but
Speaker 1: also you know scientists who were basically doing their job
Speaker 1: and doing it doing it really fast. Um. And and
Speaker 1: that was sort of what we turned to Drew about
Speaker 1: and said, by the way, let's just step back and
Speaker 1: like marvel at what was just achieved here. We had
Speaker 1: never seen a vaccine, uh come to fruition this fast?
Speaker 1: Can you help us kind of put a bowl around that?
Speaker 1: And um, ultimately that bow looked like dry ice, uh
Speaker 1: with a little vile of liquid, and you know, no
Speaker 1: it is not real uh real real vaccine juice, but
Speaker 1: miracle on ice was the cover line, and Drew, we
Speaker 1: did try, we did, we did try to get the
Speaker 1: real bottle it right, Drew. Yeah, I mean we were,
Speaker 1: i know, calling around the evening before the photo shoot
Speaker 1: seeing if anybody would give us a empty to be
Speaker 1: clear um bottle of Fiser's vaccine, which is which was
Speaker 1: being used most most heavily um to time. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: no luck on that. Kind of glad they didn't, because
Speaker 1: I'm hoping they're using the vial for the vaccine. Just
Speaker 1: gonna put it out there, guys, So so tell us
Speaker 1: about that. This story is remarkable because one of the
Speaker 1: big things that you point out true is that the
Speaker 1: science was there. We were very lucky that the M
Speaker 1: and R messenger RNA science was already in the works
Speaker 1: for several years. Yeah. This is a technology that has
Speaker 1: been kind of kicking around in the biopharmaceutical world for
Speaker 1: a number of years, and people have always thought it
Speaker 1: held a tremendous amount of promise. You know, essentially turns
Speaker 1: the ideas that it turns cells into little protein factories
Speaker 1: and so you can kind of turn them into a
Speaker 1: little mini drug manufacturers themselves, which is great theoretically, but
Speaker 1: it hadn't really delivered in a big, big, big way
Speaker 1: UM yet. Maderna is probably the the most out in
Speaker 1: front company with this. But there has long been this
Speaker 1: idea that you know, you could use it to rapidly
Speaker 1: make um vaccines in the pandemic because of the speed
Speaker 1: with which you can design and begin producing these things.
Speaker 1: A lot of flu vaccines that people don't notice they're
Speaker 1: such a grown inside eggs um it is, and it
Speaker 1: can take quite a long time to actually develop and
Speaker 1: test the things. But you know, the MR and A vaccines,
Speaker 1: they were designed in just a couple of days after
Speaker 1: Maderna and the ni H got a copy of the
Speaker 1: virus is genetics um from downloaded from from China. So
Speaker 1: it's remarkable how fast um this can happen in this technology,
Speaker 1: getting things out front as quickly as did. I was
Speaker 1: shocked to read that Drew that it took only a
Speaker 1: couple of days. So where is the when it comes
Speaker 1: to vaccine development? Where where does the time hiccup? Is
Speaker 1: it the clinical testing? Is it the is it the
Speaker 1: is it the actual manufacturing of it? Where's the bottleneck? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That's a great question. And this is something I actually
Speaker 1: had a wonderful conversation with Health and Human Services Secretary
Speaker 1: alex As Are about. He's a former Eli Lowy executive
Speaker 1: who worked there in the in the drug industry for
Speaker 1: a long time. And one of the things that we
Speaker 1: talked about in our discussion, and this is comments throughout
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical ins reason when you're looking at laying out
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of top dollars or eventually billions of
Speaker 1: dollars potentially to bring a drug or a vaccine through trials,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't do everything at once. You do
Speaker 1: the initial pre clinical work, and then you pause and
Speaker 1: you look at the results, and you say, okay, let's
Speaker 1: go ahead to the phase one. And then you do
Speaker 1: that work, and then you pause and you go ahead
Speaker 1: and you say okay, let's go ahead of phase two.
Speaker 1: And you know, so on and so forth up through
Speaker 1: clinical trials, and then you need to start thinking about, okay,
Speaker 1: we need to build manufacturing. How much do we need
Speaker 1: to build? This is a long process with a lot
Speaker 1: of consecutive steps. What happened with ward Speed was essentially
Speaker 1: it took all of those and compressed them all down
Speaker 1: kind of into one big race from the word go,
Speaker 1: and it said, Okay, we're gonna build manufacturing at the
Speaker 1: same time, we're going to run the phase three you know,
Speaker 1: Phase two and phase through trials. We're gonna arrange for
Speaker 1: pre purchased deals for these things, basically compressing steps that
Speaker 1: typically would take years and years and years to be
Speaker 1: due partly because of the risk and high chance of
Speaker 1: failure involved with drug development, saying do it all at once,
Speaker 1: that will put a bunch on the line here. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, most of the drug companies involved were part
Speaker 1: of that program Operation war Speed to do that. Feiser
Speaker 1: was not technically but did very similar work in terms
Speaker 1: of compressing its timelines and was still first across the line.
Speaker 1: Here the Miracle on Ice, that is the COVID nineteen vaccines.
Speaker 1: That story from Bloomberg News US Healthcare team leader Drew Armstrong,
Speaker 1: who has kept us so informed during this health pandemic,
Speaker 1: and also Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. They joined
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Take anchor Tim Stanovic and me. Check out
Speaker 1: that cover story and the cover image so cool literally
Speaker 1: and figuratively. It's on newsstands, online and on the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: terminal coming up. When your turn comes up, we want
Speaker 1: people to actually be ready to accept the vaccine. Success
Speaker 1: in getting a vaccine check, success in getting everyone to
Speaker 1: take it not so easy. The president of Morehouse School
Speaker 1: of Medicine weighs in, that's next on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol
Speaker 1: Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. This was a week that we
Speaker 1: talked about a new COVID nineteen strain. We had some
Speaker 1: U S States reporting the highest number of deaths from
Speaker 1: COVID since the summer travel bands were back, and the U. S.
Speaker 1: Government's top infectious disease doctor Anthony Faucci, got the vaccine
Speaker 1: as part of an effort by health officials to build
Speaker 1: confidence in the shots. In keeping with all of that,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quicktake anchor Tim Stenovick and I talked with Dr
Speaker 1: Valerie Montgomery Rice. She's president and dean of Morehouse School
Speaker 1: of Medicine, the first woman to lead the Atlanta based
Speaker 1: medical institution, who is also leading a new multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: initiative to increase the number of black physicians nationwide. It's
Speaker 1: a move important to getting care out to the underserved
Speaker 1: black communities. She kicked it all off though with an
Speaker 1: important reminder, Well, first of all I want to say,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're having this conversation is that, first of all,
Speaker 1: the vaccine is not gonna it's not going to take
Speaker 1: care of everything for us, that we still have to
Speaker 1: continue these public health initiatives of washing our hands, wearing
Speaker 1: our man ask and watching our distance. With that being said,
Speaker 1: I am trying to move the conversation from one of
Speaker 1: vaccine hesitancy of vaccine acceptance. What we've seen is um
Speaker 1: science at great work here. We know that we now
Speaker 1: have something that has been shown to be ninety four
Speaker 1: effective in preventing the disease. That doesn't mean you don't
Speaker 1: get infected. What it means that when you have the
Speaker 1: vaccine in place, it is going to come. It's gonna
Speaker 1: produce antibodies that are going to gobble up that virus
Speaker 1: so that you will not get ill. And so we
Speaker 1: still have more to know, but what we really do
Speaker 1: know is that it's safe and it's been shown to
Speaker 1: be very effective at at so when your turn comes up,
Speaker 1: we want people to actually be ready to accept the vaccine,
Speaker 1: because that is one of the ways that we can
Speaker 1: mitigate the ravishes of this disease, of this illness, of
Speaker 1: this sickness that has really taken over our country right now. Well,
Speaker 1: Dr Rice, you are one of the very few people
Speaker 1: who actually has been able to get the first dose
Speaker 1: of this vaccine. You got it last week on CNN
Speaker 1: with Dr Sanjay Gupta. Um, I imagine you get the
Speaker 1: fiser BioNTech one. Yes, I got the fiser one. And
Speaker 1: I'm a person who, even though I'm a surgeon, I
Speaker 1: don't like needles. It was joined the club. I'm not
Speaker 1: a surgeon, but I don't like needles. It wasn't painful
Speaker 1: at all. It's you all. It was less painful than
Speaker 1: the flu back. Okay, what about How did it feel afterwards?
Speaker 1: Totally fine? And so you know, you go on to
Speaker 1: sign up for this app and called v tech of
Speaker 1: v safe, be Safe, that's what it is. And every
Speaker 1: day I've been answering questions. I had a little bit
Speaker 1: of arm sotleness. I haven't had any headaches and a nausea,
Speaker 1: any fatigue or anything, and so I felt really good.
Speaker 1: That's good to hear because even after the flu shot,
Speaker 1: I get a sore arm. Was it cold going in
Speaker 1: a bit of a sore arm? But it wasn't. It's
Speaker 1: not a sore to me as as it is when
Speaker 1: I have the flu acting I get the blue vaccine
Speaker 1: every year. Of course, I felt nothing. I mean I
Speaker 1: was like when you saw it on there, I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: that's it. I was expecting a lot more. I think
Speaker 1: the needle is bigger than the solution. Yeah, the needle
Speaker 1: is kind of I'm gonna look away. I'm gonna look away,
Speaker 1: to be honest, No, don't look okay. And and it's
Speaker 1: doctor's orders, okay, Caro. I mean, you know, go with
Speaker 1: someone who knows how to give a shot, right, so
Speaker 1: people like, okay, have you given a shot before? You don't?
Speaker 1: We want to make sure of that. But no serious
Speaker 1: and all seriousness. Here is an opportunity to you all.
Speaker 1: And I know people get concerned about warp speed. You know,
Speaker 1: warp speed does not mean that there were any steps skipped.
Speaker 1: And I've had the privilege you all of looking at
Speaker 1: the data pay zero, phase one, Phase two, phase three
Speaker 1: data because I was on one of the I'm on
Speaker 1: one of the NIH panels and we've seen that data.
Speaker 1: And now that Madonna and Buyser have both released their
Speaker 1: Phase three data. I've looked very intentionally at that, and
Speaker 1: so I can tell you to safety profile, it really
Speaker 1: did show that it was equally effective regardless of your race,
Speaker 1: regardless of your gender, regardless of your age, and regardless
Speaker 1: of whether or not you were obedient. And that made
Speaker 1: a big difference to me to saying, Okay, they really
Speaker 1: did have great enrollment of people in the diversity in
Speaker 1: these trials. I am curious, what are some of the
Speaker 1: dominant conversations you're having at more House. You know about
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen right now. Yeah, so the main dominant conversation were,
Speaker 1: you know, we did have originally of our doctors or
Speaker 1: healthcare providers who were healthtant. That has decreased. We probably
Speaker 1: haven't vaccinated over two hundred people now two hundred of
Speaker 1: our healthcare professionals. So that's been the biggest conversation. Okay, yes,
Speaker 1: we have the historical context of what has happened with
Speaker 1: blacks and clinical trials, et cetera, but that's not where
Speaker 1: we are now. You are we had a different phase
Speaker 1: in this country. Dr Rice, you shared with us and
Speaker 1: your team shared us. Uh, some research and some information
Speaker 1: about how studies showed that black patients have better outcomes
Speaker 1: when treated by black doctors. Um, I get that. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of women doctors because I just feel
Speaker 1: more comfortable addressing things and talking about things. So you
Speaker 1: guys at Morehouse have instituted a program to address that,
Speaker 1: and that is a multimillion dollar initiative to increase the
Speaker 1: number of black physicians nationwide. Talk to us about that
Speaker 1: program and why you're doing a little bit more about
Speaker 1: why you're doing that. Thank you, Thank you, Carol. So
Speaker 1: you know, the dual pandemics of COVID nineteen and racial
Speaker 1: injustice really magnified for us sort of the health disparities
Speaker 1: that were impact in the black community. And what we
Speaker 1: recognized a long time ago when we were founded that
Speaker 1: in order to ensure that you have the highest level
Speaker 1: of compliance and cultural competence, there needs to be a
Speaker 1: share of governance between the patient and the provider, right
Speaker 1: and so we have been working to ensure that there's
Speaker 1: representation of underrepresented minorities who care for patients from different communities.
Speaker 1: Right now, black clinicians only comprised about five percent of
Speaker 1: the physician workforce and seven percent of all medical students.
Speaker 1: As we have been continuing to grow and have impact,
Speaker 1: more Health School of Medicine is partnering with Common Spirit.
Speaker 1: We recognize we have to share commitment to the creation
Speaker 1: and advancement of health equity, particularly in that of underserved communities.
Speaker 1: As you may know, Common Spirit is the largest not
Speaker 1: for profit health system in the country. They're found in
Speaker 1: twenty one states. They have over a hundred and forty hospitals.
Speaker 1: And because of this shared commitment, we have decided to
Speaker 1: partner together over the next ten years through a hundred
Speaker 1: million dollar initiatives when we're gonna address the underlying health disparities,
Speaker 1: but that is going to primarily focus initially on the
Speaker 1: underrepresentation of black conditions. So when you look five to
Speaker 1: seven years from now, you're gonna see five new regional
Speaker 1: medical schools with More Health School of Medicine and Common
Speaker 1: Spirit name on them, allowing More Health School of Medicine
Speaker 1: to double its class sides from a hundred to two hundreds.
Speaker 1: And then you going to see ten new residency training
Speaker 1: programs across the country. So we believe we're gonna triple
Speaker 1: the number of Black residents who graduate from a residency
Speaker 1: training program and go out and practice in the community.
Speaker 1: So the other great thing that Morehouse School Investiment has
Speaker 1: a lot of experience with this pipeline programs, right, So
Speaker 1: we adopted an elementary school here in Atlanta called a
Speaker 1: Sega Airmand Global Academy a Kate through five. Now, all
Speaker 1: we're trying to do there with those six D students
Speaker 1: is engaged them so they get to see us in
Speaker 1: a white coats they did to come to the school,
Speaker 1: et cetera. We're planting the seeds strong people. Pipelines so
Speaker 1: important in creating more diversity and equality throughout institutions, companies,
Speaker 1: and really our world overall. That's Dr Valerie Montgomery Rice,
Speaker 1: President Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, talking with Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Take anchor Tim stant of k n ME that
Speaker 1: full conversation on our podcast feed. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week coming up. What do you do when your
Speaker 1: business is all about travel in a health pen emic,
Speaker 1: you get packing on some new ideas to reach consumers.
Speaker 1: The president of Samsonite North America fills us in This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg radio, the hospitality industry and just about all
Speaker 1: of the companies associated with it have witnessed and are
Speaker 1: still living through a shutdown like they've never seen before.
Speaker 1: And any company associated with travel, well, they felt the
Speaker 1: downturn equally, like luggage maker Samsonite, who, as many other
Speaker 1: companies did during the pandemic, had to first cope with
Speaker 1: the unprecedented. More on that from Lynn Berard, president at
Speaker 1: Samsonite North America. As it has been for everyone, it
Speaker 1: has certainly been a unexpected and quite busy, challenging year
Speaker 1: since March, one year that has been in the industry
Speaker 1: for twenty seven years and certainly has not experienced anything
Speaker 1: like it. But we immediately upon the pandemic hitting in March,
Speaker 1: we had started to hear some sense of that from
Speaker 1: our team in China, so we got a little bit
Speaker 1: of a headstart from our colleagues about what was happening
Speaker 1: in China. So we did immediately have to pivot, and
Speaker 1: at the very started pandemic, we really focused on our
Speaker 1: people just to make sure that everyone was safe and
Speaker 1: certainly thankful that our employees are healthy and well um,
Speaker 1: but we did have to make some strategic shifts within
Speaker 1: the business. Uh. Certainly number one priority was to really
Speaker 1: relok at our structure, knowing that there was a slowdown
Speaker 1: and ultimately pretty much a virtual stop to travel UM
Speaker 1: as a global company, we are extremely fortunate to have
Speaker 1: our CEO, Kyle Jendro, who was previously our former global
Speaker 1: CFO for many years, leading us through, so him along
Speaker 1: with our current CFO, as a TELEGANI really worked hard
Speaker 1: to ensure that we secured the financial liquidity to whether
Speaker 1: the storm, and then regionally, it was really up to
Speaker 1: us to manage the regions and very fortunate to have
Speaker 1: a very strong leadership team, but we did have to
Speaker 1: make sure that we looked at our cost structure and
Speaker 1: reevaluate the business to set us up for a very
Speaker 1: strong and stable future. And I'm very glad to report
Speaker 1: that we are all extremely confident and that we have
Speaker 1: set ourselves up in a strong position to get us
Speaker 1: to the other side. At the same time we were
Speaker 1: doing that, we certainly didn't want to lose sight of
Speaker 1: our consumers and recognizing that they had shifted more to
Speaker 1: an at home environment and weren't traveling, we still wanted
Speaker 1: to be along the journey with them, so we found
Speaker 1: ways to communicate them with them digitally, um in more
Speaker 1: unexpected ways, showing them how to exercise with luggage products.
Speaker 1: We made some products. Can I just say that is
Speaker 1: just I can only imagine the virtual planning meeting lane
Speaker 1: where it's like, alright, guys, listen, nobody's traveling. That's our business,
Speaker 1: so what do we do? But how clever that someone's like, hey,
Speaker 1: like and it's a great idea. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: all of us who those who couldn't maybe afford to
Speaker 1: buy a peloton or something else, we're like, all right,
Speaker 1: I'm looking around home. What can I use at home
Speaker 1: to work out? Absolutely? And there was a shortage and
Speaker 1: buying some weights, so a lot of those paces and
Speaker 1: start lifting right, So we did find creative ways to
Speaker 1: pivot around there. And then after that transformed, we actually
Speaker 1: did start to see as we approached the summer months
Speaker 1: into the fall that there was a shift to some
Speaker 1: more smaller localized movement around. And we are fortunate to
Speaker 1: have a broad protfolio products. So are Gregory packs, um
Speaker 1: you know, the mountain hiking and people are buying into
Speaker 1: those packs, so that business was not as um tough
Speaker 1: as they travel suitcases happened to be UM and really
Speaker 1: began to focus on ways that we could help consumers,
Speaker 1: even bags and backpacks. We also owned spec and we
Speaker 1: saw an increase in tablet cases as consumers were shifting
Speaker 1: to working from home and saw a big spike in those.
Speaker 1: We really just shifted into providing consumers and marketing to
Speaker 1: our consumers with products that they would need in the
Speaker 1: new environment. How easy there wasn't to shift in terms
Speaker 1: of either marketing. I mean I've talked to a fair
Speaker 1: amount of cmos at some well known brands too, and
Speaker 1: they just were like, you know, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it was like, all right, this advertising campaign just doesn't
Speaker 1: work anymore, and we have to quickly shift and things
Speaker 1: that would normally take months. That's exactly a hundred percent correct.
Speaker 1: I think everybody had to adapt on a dime, and
Speaker 1: we all rotated quickly, and we were monitoring sales on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. One of the fortunate benefits of e
Speaker 1: commerce and digital as well as you can see by
Speaker 1: minute what you're selling, so we were able to pivot
Speaker 1: very quickly. We have a very versatile team UM throughout
Speaker 1: the region, and we were able to really leverage all
Speaker 1: of those insights that we had to make sure that
Speaker 1: we were capitalizing where we could help help consumers and
Speaker 1: travelers out there. So, Lynna, are there any consumer trends
Speaker 1: because we've talked to the CEO of Whirlpool and some others, uh,
Speaker 1: and I was talking to another one on the phone
Speaker 1: and just saying how some of the consumer trends that
Speaker 1: we're seeing this year, especially consumer patterns that stay with
Speaker 1: you for seven, eight, nine months, they don't go away
Speaker 1: quickly or may not at Are there consumer trends that
Speaker 1: you're seeing that you think might impact how you guys?
Speaker 1: I don't know your composition of your product line or
Speaker 1: how you sell. Is there anything that might have a
Speaker 1: longer term impact in terms of strategy? Yeah? Absolutely so.
Speaker 1: Sam sknite has historically been known for a suitcase travel
Speaker 1: UH provider, but we have over the years developed a
Speaker 1: strong assortment of bags and accessories and we have seen
Speaker 1: a significant uptick in those products during this downturn and
Speaker 1: it's just really accelerated the lifting sales and that will
Speaker 1: follow us for some time. And simultaneously, when travel does
Speaker 1: come back, we will start to see the lift of
Speaker 1: the travel suitcases coming back. Yeah, that's something we're all
Speaker 1: trying to focus on when lockdowns and and our world
Speaker 1: moves back to being normal. That's Lin Berard, president at
Speaker 1: sam Sunite North America. Still ahead. As many companies like
Speaker 1: Samsonite struggled and then learned to pivot during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: it was full steam ahead when it came to I
Speaker 1: p o s and spacks this year. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see the market come back and hopefully we'll get others.
Speaker 1: And I know is line enough to be strong as well?
Speaker 1: Checking with someone who took yxt Pandora and Salesforce all public.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. Is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Great
Speaker 1: story in the Bloomberg this week about how animal spirits
Speaker 1: are famously running wild across Wall Street, like how the
Speaker 1: first day returned for I p o s average this year,
Speaker 1: and how SPACs special purposed acquisition vehicles that raise money
Speaker 1: for a blank check company to buy whatever it wants
Speaker 1: have raised over sixty billion dollars this year, more than
Speaker 1: the previous decade combined. So we talked about both with
Speaker 1: Steve kate Bread, CFO of YXT. He led the financial
Speaker 1: teams that took yxt Pandora and Salesforce all public. He
Speaker 1: definitely was into the animal spirits. I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: the market come back and hopefully we'll get others and
Speaker 1: I know, is Line enough to be strong as well? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did it like surprise you though? In a year that
Speaker 1: was just you know, off the charts and so levels
Speaker 1: and you know the personal impact, the health impact of
Speaker 1: course of COVID, the economic impact, but yet to see
Speaker 1: such a strong I p O market. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: great observation. You would have thought with macroeconomics and all
Speaker 1: the issues that we had. We had elections too, But
Speaker 1: I also think it talks to the strength of the
Speaker 1: capital markets and where companies that are growing and aspiring
Speaker 1: to get bigger and continue to grow, the access to
Speaker 1: capital in the public markets is the easiest and most
Speaker 1: efficient way to get there. And you also have different
Speaker 1: ways to get capital through debt offerings, convertible operings and
Speaker 1: the I p O s and spacts and direct listing
Speaker 1: as you mentioned. So I think what businesses start to
Speaker 1: see is it's time to get into the market and
Speaker 1: get access to the capital because it's always there despite
Speaker 1: the heavy lift or load on pandemics and macro economics.
Speaker 1: Well what do you make though? Yeah, God, I have
Speaker 1: so many questions for you. Um is it at all
Speaker 1: akin to the IPO market that we saw back in
Speaker 1: two thousand to me, having you know, covered business news
Speaker 1: in the markets at that point, I think it's very
Speaker 1: different in terms of the companies that we're seeing come
Speaker 1: to market versus today. I also feel like we have
Speaker 1: a market that kind of smacks you down pretty quickly
Speaker 1: if you're not legit or there's problems. Yeah, no, I
Speaker 1: agree with that. I don't think this is the two
Speaker 1: thousand entries here where companies were coming to market a
Speaker 1: little too early or people didn't understand the business model.
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things about this market
Speaker 1: is you're right, people are bringing real businesses. People do
Speaker 1: understand business models, and the investors can look into those
Speaker 1: and look beyond just what the macroeconomics are of a
Speaker 1: company as long as they understand the long term business models.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel this is very different. I think
Speaker 1: the market is also looking for growth opportunities, as you
Speaker 1: guys discussed on your show numerous times, and there is
Speaker 1: a change in innovation going on so that's how new
Speaker 1: businesses get into the market with I t O s. Well,
Speaker 1: what do you make of door dash and Airbnb this year?
Speaker 1: And we've had a lot of analysis about who ultimately
Speaker 1: is the longer play here. Something gets door Dash because
Speaker 1: they're so established in the marketplace when it comes to
Speaker 1: all the online ordering. Airbnb will see whether people continue
Speaker 1: to use it once life gets back to normal. How
Speaker 1: do you see it? Yeah, that's a great question. I
Speaker 1: think some of the larger I p o s like
Speaker 1: door Dash and Airbnb, one is they probably should have
Speaker 1: gone out earlier because people didn't get to participate in
Speaker 1: some of their growth. But now that they're out, people
Speaker 1: are saying, hey, I use these every day, I want
Speaker 1: to invest in them. I think there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of prop in the retail or individual investors side as
Speaker 1: people are learning, particularly individuals that haven't been in the
Speaker 1: market for all that long. Remember they exhibited for a
Speaker 1: while it was mostly institutional, So I think you're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of individual investors learning how to invest in companies.
Speaker 1: And clearly one of the ways to do that is
Speaker 1: invest in the company that you use, and certainly all
Speaker 1: of us have used some type of food delivery service,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people were using Airbnb and the
Speaker 1: similar companies or companies to get out of the city.
Speaker 1: So I think it's investors investing in what they do
Speaker 1: and use. I'm a big stand of Starbucks, so I
Speaker 1: invest in Starbucks, right right. It's like the old Peter
Speaker 1: Lynch model going way back when, right, just you know,
Speaker 1: invest in things you really really understand or that you use.
Speaker 1: It's why you know it's interesting. And maybe I'm going
Speaker 1: in a little bit of a different direction. But all
Speaker 1: of the thing stocks and we constantly have conversations about overvaluation,
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to pump them up anymore than
Speaker 1: they have. But I use Amazon a lot, and when
Speaker 1: I go to buy something, it's usually the first place
Speaker 1: I look. Yeah, exactly. I think you you know, one
Speaker 1: of the investment strategies is to go where you go,
Speaker 1: and like you said, you use Amazon, you invest there.
Speaker 1: If you use some other service, you go there because
Speaker 1: you're supporting the company. You know what the company is doing.
Speaker 1: You also know what how good or how bad their
Speaker 1: service might be. So I think that's individual investors. I
Speaker 1: think that's really important to invest in where you spend
Speaker 1: your money. Day to day. You know, I talk a
Speaker 1: lot about to venture capital and entrepreneurs, get your company
Speaker 1: out public earlier because that discipline, that governance, the transparency
Speaker 1: that come for being public also help your company to
Speaker 1: be more operationally efficient inside. And I think race is
Speaker 1: the value line of the company inside, so people understand
Speaker 1: what they have to do in that transparency. Does so
Speaker 1: large degree show up earlier if you go public earlier.
Speaker 1: Well that's interesting Steve, that you say that, because there's
Speaker 1: so much money out there, and we do see whether
Speaker 1: it's an Airbnb or Doeordish, they are able to stay
Speaker 1: private for a lot longer because they are able to
Speaker 1: do multiple funding rounds. Um is that a good or
Speaker 1: bad thing? Well, it's a good thing that I also
Speaker 1: think it's a bad thing because I think you leave
Speaker 1: individual investors behind because the prices that go out are
Speaker 1: too high, soft bank getting in. I do wonder is
Speaker 1: there a point when it comes to SPACs that we're
Speaker 1: all of a sudden saying, Okay, we've hit a peak here.
Speaker 1: How do you see it's Steve? Yeah, Well that's a
Speaker 1: good question, Carol. You know what old is new? Right?
Speaker 1: Because we've been around one side. Yeah, and there's been
Speaker 1: a ton of money raised and too SPACs and the
Speaker 1: blank check companies this past year. So and you know,
Speaker 1: it really gets down to how you want to take
Speaker 1: or what you need in your company to get a
Speaker 1: public because at the end of the day, spacts, correct
Speaker 1: luciens and other things do end up being public. I
Speaker 1: do think that one has to be careful because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different people that lead these spacts and
Speaker 1: you have to make sure their investment uh if you will,
Speaker 1: standards are high enough to meet your investor needs. And
Speaker 1: then also the really question are there really enough companies
Speaker 1: out there to be bought with that type of money
Speaker 1: at this point, So we'll see how that plays out.
Speaker 1: Everybody has a two year window and the clock's chicken
Speaker 1: when you go raise that money, so we'll see what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: this is what I wonder, Steve. I mean, there is
Speaker 1: so much money out there. And we talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit more, you know, earlier about these I
Speaker 1: p O company companies that ultimately IPO. They've been around
Speaker 1: for a few years, so we've gotten used to them,
Speaker 1: we've heard about them, we've gotten to see kind of
Speaker 1: them grow their business and and understand their financials better.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder when there's so much money chasing,
Speaker 1: maybe when they're you know, too few deals you know
Speaker 1: ultimately what kind of ends to be city or you know,
Speaker 1: a skewed equation that we ultimately get in the marketplace. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. We've seen the run ups in
Speaker 1: the companies we talked about, you know, do Arab, NB
Speaker 1: and others, and I think that's where investors have to
Speaker 1: be a little bit cautious. You can pay too much
Speaker 1: for something and you can wait for the vision because
Speaker 1: you're investing in the longer term vision. So the question
Speaker 1: is how much you're paying today for that longer to
Speaker 1: vision and how long is it going to take to
Speaker 1: achieve that result. So, yeah, there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: chasing this, and I think individual investors just need to
Speaker 1: be cautious about what they're doing with their money when
Speaker 1: they invest in these I mean, why does someone like
Speaker 1: soft Bank that has a lot of money do a
Speaker 1: spack And I should point out that the head of
Speaker 1: the Vision Fund originally revealed plans for this back uh
Speaker 1: in an interview they did with Bloomberg News at the
Speaker 1: Milken Institute Virtual Conference. Back in October, so we knew
Speaker 1: this was coming. But why do they need to do this?
Speaker 1: I mean, same thing with hedge fund investor. I mean,
Speaker 1: is it just because it's a great vehicle to make
Speaker 1: fast money. I don't know. Well, it's a great vehicle
Speaker 1: to make money potentially, but I do think it's because
Speaker 1: there's an open market or open window here for boats
Speaker 1: like stop Bank and other hedge funds to go raise money.
Speaker 1: Because remember, raising money is job one here and right
Speaker 1: now it's easy to raise money, low interest rates, a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion in the marketplace. So I view these
Speaker 1: facts and the hedge funds and stop Bank doing this
Speaker 1: is just another vehicle for them to raise money, as
Speaker 1: opposed to go out and look for limited partners or
Speaker 1: other individual investors to get into their funds. Hey, one
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you, big picture, You've worked
Speaker 1: at a lot of different well known companies. Look at
Speaker 1: this market of seeing the ups and downs in terms
Speaker 1: of cycles. You know, I mentioned at the kick at
Speaker 1: the beginning of our interview about a story that's running
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg about the animal spirits running you know, wild
Speaker 1: across the streets. So we've got great market for financial
Speaker 1: markets but it's not been a great year for humans.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have just incredible inequities and just the gap.
Speaker 1: What will potentially be the consequences of all of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a great question. And when I talk
Speaker 1: to people and in institution and investors, I think there's
Speaker 1: a disconnect between what the market's doing and quite frankly,
Speaker 1: what our neighbors are suffering through here. And you know,
Speaker 1: my family's in a in a business that depends on
Speaker 1: the restaurant business, and boy, when you don't have that
Speaker 1: type of markets, it's tough to run these businesses. You say, So,
Speaker 1: I think we need to be cautious because although there's
Speaker 1: euphoria around the vaccine, there's a lot of unknowns coming
Speaker 1: from that. And I think I kind of look at
Speaker 1: this as it's going to be a tough market for
Speaker 1: the next couple of years, simply because there's so many
Speaker 1: people out of work and we need to get those
Speaker 1: people back to jobs and back to work to have
Speaker 1: a really robust economy. Yeah, exactly, And there needs to be,
Speaker 1: you know, more of that wealth distribution that we've talked about.
Speaker 1: All right, last note, a little bit of a lighter note,
Speaker 1: but I hope it's lighter, because I don't know how
Speaker 1: it's been going. But you are also the co owner
Speaker 1: and founder of cake Bread Sellers in Napa Valley. How
Speaker 1: has that been going? Well? I'm going to give my
Speaker 1: credit to my parents. They sounded it. I just got
Speaker 1: to work there and enjoy the experience and obviously taste
Speaker 1: the wine. But um, yeah, the wineries, you know, like
Speaker 1: I said, in Napa Valley with the openings and closings
Speaker 1: that the state has put on most of us selves
Speaker 1: of restaurants, and the restaurant business obviously is in difficult
Speaker 1: shape right now. But I think everybody is trying to
Speaker 1: keep their workforce employed because that's job one, and you
Speaker 1: change how you do business. We do a lot more
Speaker 1: internet sales, I will say that. You know, online purchases
Speaker 1: of wines of all ilk are probably doing pretty well
Speaker 1: these days. I know I'm always online trying to buy
Speaker 1: more wine, you know, just to get you through the day.
Speaker 1: Ah wine. Yes, indeed, I've got some firsthand experience on that.
Speaker 1: That was Steve cake Bread, CEO of YX. He's also
Speaker 1: author of the I p O Playbook and Insiders God
Speaker 1: on Taking your company public and how to do it
Speaker 1: right and that reps up the first hour the weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Karl
Speaker 1: Masser coming up in the next hour. A sign that
Speaker 1: the E s G movement is too big to ignore.
Speaker 1: There's a backlash and speaking of backlash, Black Americans pushing
Speaker 1: back against taking a vaccine and with good historical reasons.
Speaker 1: Bishop Waynety Jackson of the Impact Network on building medical
Speaker 1: trust within the Black community and why holiday entertaining this
Speaker 1: year is so complicated and what we can do. And
Speaker 1: we'll wrap up with a partnership between jewelry designers and
Speaker 1: the sustainable diamond industry in Botswana. That's all coming up
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Girol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi am
Speaker 1: Carol Masser. Coming up in our second hour of the
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. In this holiday short
Speaker 1: and trading week, We've got some of this week's highlights
Speaker 1: from our daily radio broadcast and podcast, including building trust
Speaker 1: in the COVID nineteen vaccine within the black community. We're
Speaker 1: going to have to get community leaders out. It's going
Speaker 1: to take commuity leaders going to take the big based
Speaker 1: community Bishop Waynete Jackson, CEO of the Impact Network, weighs
Speaker 1: it on that. Plus people cannot wait to have something
Speaker 1: to celebrate, even if it's going to be virtually and
Speaker 1: also just to kick this year out the door. Why
Speaker 1: holiday entertaining this year? It's complicated, Well we know why,
Speaker 1: but we've got some helpful thoughts from Pursuits Food editor
Speaker 1: Kate Crater to get you through it. And what do
Speaker 1: you get when you bring to beers, Blue Nile and
Speaker 1: Botswana together. We kick off this hour with a story
Speaker 1: in the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week by Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Economics editor Peter coy. He writes about a company's responsibility
Speaker 1: to multiple stakeholders, you know, like the things E s
Speaker 1: G investors care about. What Peter found out is that
Speaker 1: there's a backlash against prioritizing anything other than profits. Here's
Speaker 1: more from Peter, who joined Bloomberg Cricktake anchor Tim Stenovik
Speaker 1: and me, it's certainly true that E s G investing
Speaker 1: is on the rise. Um there's a survey by Deloitte
Speaker 1: to found it something like twenty six of professional manager
Speaker 1: sist in the U s at E s G mandates
Speaker 1: as versus only. That's a pretty rapid increase and citizen
Speaker 1: gendering a backlash, and we're seeing it in the Trump
Speaker 1: administration three different agencies of taking shots at e s
Speaker 1: G in different ways. On the final months of Trump's
Speaker 1: term in office. Now Biden may try to reverse some
Speaker 1: of them, not all, but in any case, it represents
Speaker 1: obviously the Trump administration isn't doing this because they're feeling
Speaker 1: some heat, and that's probably coming mostly from Corporate America
Speaker 1: that is resisting some of the E s G mandates.
Speaker 1: So we in corporate America, where is the backlash coming from?
Speaker 1: Because I thought E s G was all the rage
Speaker 1: right now? Well, that's I mean, it's true, it's it's
Speaker 1: a mixed picture. I think that's a fair point. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of companies that are totally on board
Speaker 1: with e s G, but in some cases they just
Speaker 1: don't like being pinned down as they want to have
Speaker 1: sort of the freedom do it their way anyway. To
Speaker 1: give you some examples, the most stringent restrictions on e
Speaker 1: s G are coming from the Labor Department, which makes
Speaker 1: a certain amount of sense because the Labor Department is
Speaker 1: in charge of pensions, and naturally pensioners are vulnerable to
Speaker 1: bad investing, and they have they're relying on that money
Speaker 1: for their retirement. They really are. Don't directly have anything
Speaker 1: to say over where the mind's invested, So the labor
Speaker 1: department bends over backwards to say that the money should
Speaker 1: be invested only according to UH pecuniary considerations money UH,
Speaker 1: not E s G. The E s G could be
Speaker 1: used only if there's a too exactly equal investments from
Speaker 1: a profitability point of view, s G could be the tiebreaker,
Speaker 1: and they expect that to be a rare situation. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting there's align in your story. Peter. Cynical take
Speaker 1: on the s G is that it's a way for
Speaker 1: CEOs and boards to avoid accountability if profits come in
Speaker 1: below expectations. That can point to some wind farm as
Speaker 1: an explanation like, hey did the right thing, but it
Speaker 1: heard profits right, you know. So I have a quote
Speaker 1: in the article from a woman named Barnelli Chowdhry who's
Speaker 1: at u c L in London, kind of on this point,
Speaker 1: saying you don't want E s G to be sort
Speaker 1: of get out of jail free card for companies you know,
Speaker 1: just wave your hands and say, oh, you know, we're
Speaker 1: inswered about multiple stakeholders. It's not your shareholders. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about Jamie Diamond right at the Business round
Speaker 1: of the Business Roundtable, and of course of JP Morgan, like,
Speaker 1: you know, when he made that statement about listen, companies
Speaker 1: have to have multiple stakeholders. I think everybody's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's shareholders, it's employees, it's your community. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that we need to think about. But I
Speaker 1: do wonder, you know, ultimately, if you're a publicly held company, right,
Speaker 1: ultimately you still answer to your shareholders. Yeah, well, Carol,
Speaker 1: this is such a deep issue. We could talk about
Speaker 1: it all day long because there's so many nuances here.
Speaker 1: But there is that argument. Then the argument of the
Speaker 1: s G people is, look, shareholders could collectively decide that
Speaker 1: they want some objective other than just making money. They
Speaker 1: collectively want to do something about climate change, for example,
Speaker 1: And the argument would be fine, if that's what they vote,
Speaker 1: They choose a board of directors that wants that, if
Speaker 1: they vote in proxies for that kind of thing, then
Speaker 1: they're certainly entitled to So is Milton Friedman right here right,
Speaker 1: the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying, is like there is it's a
Speaker 1: very clean storyline, the Milton Freeman one. What I'm getting
Speaker 1: at is that there's a lot of ambiguity in corporate law,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's not an entirely bad thing. Maybe we
Speaker 1: need to learn to live with a certain amount of ambiguity.
Speaker 1: And I tell the story of going back to Barnelly
Speaker 1: Child reciting uh eighteenth century play called Servant of Two Masters,
Speaker 1: the servant named Truffle Dino, who somehow manages to by
Speaker 1: scrambling left and right, served two different masters and fairly
Speaker 1: ably as well. Peter's story something to chat about, virtually,
Speaker 1: perhaps with friends and family over this holiday weekend. Again,
Speaker 1: that was Bloomberg Economics editor Peter Coy who joined Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quicktake anchor Tim Stanovik and me coming up, our world
Speaker 1: is about multiple stakeholders this year and being more inclusive.
Speaker 1: That includes building trust between the black and medical communities
Speaker 1: more with the CEO of the Impact Network. That's coming up.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. Back with us this week. A voice
Speaker 1: we've reached out to several times during the pandemic, Bishop
Speaker 1: Wayne T. Jackson. He is founder and CEO of the
Speaker 1: Impact Network. It's a privately owned African American inspirational television network.
Speaker 1: It's got an audience of some ninety million in the US.
Speaker 1: You can find it on Dish Network, Direct TV, Comcast,
Speaker 1: ex Affinity, and a lot more. Well. Bishop Jackson joined
Speaker 1: us once again from Detroit, where we talked about building
Speaker 1: trust in the COVID nineteen vaccine within the black community,
Speaker 1: something we heard about earlier from the president of Morehouse
Speaker 1: School of Medicine. We began with Bishop Jackson talking about
Speaker 1: the recent COVID cases Detroit. We have had a spike
Speaker 1: in the past, you know, after the post Thanksgiving and
Speaker 1: and uh the holidays, people traveling and coming back and
Speaker 1: forth from to the ne relatives, and it has been
Speaker 1: a spike has been matter factor a devastation. We lost
Speaker 1: our shaff our share off, one of our county shaff
Speaker 1: with well known but loved um all around the city
Speaker 1: and the county. And you know he he went in
Speaker 1: with Kobe about maybe a week and a half ago
Speaker 1: and put him on a ventilator. Prayers were going up
Speaker 1: for him. We thought he would, you know, maybe make
Speaker 1: their turn, but he didn't. And especially have so many
Speaker 1: cases like that in the community. Well, you know, I
Speaker 1: just did out. I put out on Twitter a pole
Speaker 1: and I just said, because I'm kind of curious and
Speaker 1: I've seen some of the polls out there, will you
Speaker 1: take UM? Will you get the COVID nineteen vaccine? Simple question, Yes, no,
Speaker 1: still deciding UM. And I think there is, as you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of pulling out there that when it comes
Speaker 1: to the black community, the minority community, that people are
Speaker 1: really nervous about taking this vaccine. What are you hearing?
Speaker 1: What are you seeing? Why can't you speak for the
Speaker 1: whole community? But I can't say this. I have taken
Speaker 1: a poll also, and UM. I have a dual role
Speaker 1: as a pastor of a large congregation in the city
Speaker 1: of Detroit plus the founder of the Impact OVID, the network,
Speaker 1: as you said, as an over ninety million homes. So
Speaker 1: I'm in touch with a lot of pastors, African American
Speaker 1: pastors around the country, and the consensus have been that
Speaker 1: people really are literally about that about that vaccine. I
Speaker 1: haven't had one person now, one person that I have
Speaker 1: come in contact with that said that they want to
Speaker 1: take you know, the virus. I would take the vaccine,
Speaker 1: you know, and listen, there's history there that you understand
Speaker 1: some of the nervousness within the black community, UM in
Speaker 1: terms of our past in our history and the black
Speaker 1: community being used basically, you know, to to test you know,
Speaker 1: various medical treatments are are you know, without their knowing
Speaker 1: or you know, it's just kind of horrific when you
Speaker 1: think about it, is that the crux of why um
Speaker 1: Black Americans are hesitant or what are you hearing specifically
Speaker 1: about that? Well, you know, you go back to ninety
Speaker 1: two exactly the situation with you know, the cyphilism and
Speaker 1: given the black um man to see how males, to
Speaker 1: see how it would react, even though they had a
Speaker 1: cure for it, and even though they you know, um
Speaker 1: asked him and persuaded him, not even going to get
Speaker 1: any other type of medical care, and they just die,
Speaker 1: you know, cysius with a very terrible, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: disease that cause a lot of pain. And so the
Speaker 1: way that a lot of African Americans feel is that
Speaker 1: they feel that the government is not on their side.
Speaker 1: They feel like you know again, um, that this is
Speaker 1: a government that had taken and advocated slavery and taking
Speaker 1: them from their homeland and putting them in change and
Speaker 1: taking them over you know, ships and bringing them over here,
Speaker 1: stripping over their names, uh and giving them a different name.
Speaker 1: So it's a lot of history behind that of mistrust.
Speaker 1: And so what we have here, they're thinking that the
Speaker 1: community thinking that, you know, you know, you want to
Speaker 1: use me at the guinea pig. You know, I heard
Speaker 1: people say, well, you can't get rid of the common code,
Speaker 1: you can't get rid of the common flu. And now
Speaker 1: you take this within seventy eight months and you get
Speaker 1: a cure for something without even going through them the
Speaker 1: regular protocol of even use an animal testing, and now
Speaker 1: you want to put it on the people, and then
Speaker 1: you know, the very very leery of it. What can
Speaker 1: you do? What can local leaders do? What can a
Speaker 1: President Biden come January or Dr Faucci do right now
Speaker 1: to have some influence over the black community when it
Speaker 1: comes to the COVID nineteen vaccine. Well, let me say
Speaker 1: this first of all, it is unfortunate that this is
Speaker 1: happening as far as the people who really need the help,
Speaker 1: as you know that the death rate is very high
Speaker 1: when it comes to the Ucan community, and um, they're um,
Speaker 1: you know, impacted in such a negative way when it
Speaker 1: comes to deaths, and even people who have not really
Speaker 1: who beat of the COVID nineteen but yet they don't
Speaker 1: have their full capacity of breathing and also being able
Speaker 1: to be normally dan. So we're the only African American
Speaker 1: faith based Christian network and we feel this responsibility to
Speaker 1: help get the message out in such a way of
Speaker 1: educating the people. When you go back to so what
Speaker 1: progress have you made so far? Because you would think
Speaker 1: that you're you know, the black community would trust an
Speaker 1: organization like you, but it just sounds like and yours
Speaker 1: excuse me, but it sounds like there is still a
Speaker 1: lot of distrust out there. So how do we kind
Speaker 1: of change that. Well, it's going to be education. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to educate them in the first of all,
Speaker 1: um just not going to you know, um um by
Speaker 1: his President Pence, he got the tests and the SIRT
Speaker 1: in general, he had the tests and then Biden had
Speaker 1: um not the test vaccine being thank you the vaccine
Speaker 1: not a testing going on too. So that's fairy, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about testing so long. Now we're talking
Speaker 1: about the vaccine, but it's not going to turn the
Speaker 1: minds of the average African American on the street in
Speaker 1: the community. What you're going to have to do. We're
Speaker 1: going to have to get community leaders out. It's going
Speaker 1: to take communicant leaders, going to take the baith based community,
Speaker 1: the pastors, because the people that sits in their pews,
Speaker 1: they trust their pastors. So it's going to have to
Speaker 1: come a loan um educational process to get people to
Speaker 1: really understand that the vaccine is safe. And we asked
Speaker 1: what Biden uh uh, the President elect could do when
Speaker 1: he was on his brother that they're going to put
Speaker 1: funds out there that can you know, get get the
Speaker 1: community aware of the vaccine, how the vaccine is safe
Speaker 1: and things like that. It's going to take that grassroot
Speaker 1: type of effort to really change the man to the
Speaker 1: people that I have not it's not no, no, not
Speaker 1: not in a way that you would want it to help.
Speaker 1: And we and we know it. And when you look
Speaker 1: at this, you look at you know you're talking about
Speaker 1: virtual learning. Then when you have a computers, don't we
Speaker 1: have internet? And you know they've fallen behind, and and
Speaker 1: it's always the lacas, the of African American people of
Speaker 1: color that suffers the most. It's just going to have
Speaker 1: to be and I believe that Biden is going to
Speaker 1: and this is my personal feeling that he's going to
Speaker 1: be more sensitive to these matters because until we get there.
Speaker 1: You talked about George Bloyd, But George Floyd it brought
Speaker 1: that was a tipping point. It's got a lot of
Speaker 1: awareness because this has been going on. It's just not started.
Speaker 1: They didn't just start, as we've talked about often on
Speaker 1: our broadcast, and we know a lot of work that
Speaker 1: still needs to be done. Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, founder
Speaker 1: and CEO of the Impact Network, still to Colm, why
Speaker 1: is it all so complicated? Including holiday entertaining. It really
Speaker 1: is like trying to find good things to say about
Speaker 1: the Ki Corneck. It's just been like a devastating, horrible
Speaker 1: here for restaurants and it keeps getting worse. That's coming
Speaker 1: up next. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We're bringing you some of this week's highlights on our
Speaker 1: Deli radio show and podcast, including one of my favorite
Speaker 1: people to talk with Bloomberg pursuits food atit her Kate Crater.
Speaker 1: She's a go to and all things food dinning, trends
Speaker 1: and the chefs and restaurants behind it all. Kate talked
Speaker 1: with us about holiday entertaining this year, which, like so
Speaker 1: many things in our world, is rather complicated. It really
Speaker 1: is like trying to find good things to say about
Speaker 1: the Hicaronic. It's just been like a devastating, horrible year
Speaker 1: for restaurants and it keeps getting worse. And um UM
Speaker 1: I got to report on a story UM that talked
Speaker 1: about how while indoor dining is shut in New York,
Speaker 1: it's still it's still totally um open across across state
Speaker 1: lines in New Jersey and even in like Westchester and
Speaker 1: the Hamptons they're at like five and fifty percent capacity
Speaker 1: and um, and it's making steps here in New York
Speaker 1: just tear their hair out. Well. And you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about that story on air because it was kind
Speaker 1: of interesting, right, and it's it's like, how do you
Speaker 1: get your head around that you can't have a restaurant
Speaker 1: open in New York or indoor, but you can in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. Right. It's like it's a little crazy, but
Speaker 1: it it is allowing I guess some restaurant owners to
Speaker 1: have a little bit more business. I'm hoping, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I think I'm this guy. Um Ed McFarland who has
Speaker 1: at Lobster Barr says that even though his his place
Speaker 1: that's in Soho and New York has been shot, his
Speaker 1: business in Hampton's is up like sixty And then some
Speaker 1: of these other people, as you might have talked about
Speaker 1: their incent they're trying to incentivize people to come to
Speaker 1: eat in New Jersey. Like David Burke said he would
Speaker 1: pay people's tolls if they they his restaurant before it
Speaker 1: we I think again. Um Jeffrey Bank who has car Mines.
Speaker 1: I love car Mines. It's this family style Italian restaurant
Speaker 1: which is as the Tropicana in Atlantic City. They he's
Speaker 1: worked at a deal with the hotel so rooms are
Speaker 1: like forty four dollars if you go and needed the restaurant,
Speaker 1: And he rightly said, that's about how much Acrost part
Speaker 1: your car if you're if you're in New York City.
Speaker 1: So they're definitely trying to make the best of the
Speaker 1: challenging situation. Well, right, and I guess we all are
Speaker 1: approaching I was just texting with somebody about the holidays
Speaker 1: and they're like, I'm not going to see any of
Speaker 1: my my family, you know, it's just, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not seeing my grandkids. Like, it's just it's not business
Speaker 1: as us all when it comes to holidays. Your story, though,
Speaker 1: gives me some hope because you always, you know, you
Speaker 1: always somehow find some optimism and so like, what's our gut,
Speaker 1: Like what do we do here in terms of entertaining
Speaker 1: how do we approach it? What are some of the
Speaker 1: things that you found out for your story? Um, you
Speaker 1: know it was I mean, one thing we found out
Speaker 1: is that people cannot wait to celebrate the holidays here
Speaker 1: and around the world. Um, Christmas tree um purchases started
Speaker 1: earlier than ever in Christmas tree prices are up a
Speaker 1: little bit because there's like a bidding more going on
Speaker 1: with them. But I think even in November people were
Speaker 1: like going up to places where they sold Christmas trees
Speaker 1: and starting to order them. And then in England I
Speaker 1: thought this was kind of cool. Um people started there
Speaker 1: was like a rush on Christmas puddings in late September.
Speaker 1: That is that's called starting really early. I know, but
Speaker 1: it's just so the people. I think people cannot wait
Speaker 1: to have something to celebrate, even if it's going to
Speaker 1: be virtually in all statistic kick this year out the door.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just been so challenging for almost everybody.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, I just need some tradition, something
Speaker 1: that reminds me of kind of the way it was,
Speaker 1: because it's hard to remember the way it was at
Speaker 1: this point. Um. Here we are, you know, almost a
Speaker 1: year in with all of this, Um what about you know? Okay,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting in your story. I guess
Speaker 1: there are people who will be ordering out from restaurants
Speaker 1: right during the holidays. Yeah, that's some And that's an
Speaker 1: until that came from Comcast UM and they were looking
Speaker 1: at had people plan to spend money and for the
Speaker 1: eight percent said they were, um, they wanted to support
Speaker 1: local business by um little restaurants takeout, which is a
Speaker 1: really nice number. And another thing that's like hopeful is
Speaker 1: um Prosecco sales are being here, UM opening here. They
Speaker 1: were up over a hundred million dollars UM. So like
Speaker 1: the perfect little drink, isn't it. You could do so
Speaker 1: much with it, anything sparkling, So yeah, no, I encourage
Speaker 1: everybody to grab the quote, grab a bottle of sparkling
Speaker 1: wine and starts off bringing the holidays, and you'll be
Speaker 1: right in time with what everybody else is doing. Listen,
Speaker 1: we've talked with you too. I mean, people are doing
Speaker 1: a lot of cooking at home, and I'm assuming that's
Speaker 1: going to be a big part. That's where some where
Speaker 1: people can find some joy. Certainly this holiday season. That's
Speaker 1: exactly true, although if they don't want to. UM. There's
Speaker 1: also been so many restaurants and the suff through New
Speaker 1: York now doing some pretty deluxe meal kids so you
Speaker 1: can get um. The eleven Madison Park one who has
Speaker 1: gotten some attention. It's a duck. I think it costs
Speaker 1: four hundred and seventy five dollars, but by all accounts,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you get leftovers with it and um.
Speaker 1: But it's a way, it's a way to go big.
Speaker 1: But almost any restaurant you can think of, Dan Barber
Speaker 1: It's Stone Barnes is doing some really in demand meal kits.
Speaker 1: In San Francisco, Dominique Krann has a talier cran and
Speaker 1: she does some fun ones that have like caviart Art
Speaker 1: and her staff do these really fun instructional videos that
Speaker 1: come with it, so you can you sort of feel
Speaker 1: like you're talking. It's you know, it's like going into
Speaker 1: the kitchen and meeting meeting the pros and having them
Speaker 1: talk through your meal. So there are as you were
Speaker 1: playing like this. Definitely need some ways to make the
Speaker 1: best of a very challenging situation. Leave it to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Pursuits Food Edit our cake Crater to always find some
Speaker 1: optimism in our what she really is the best and
Speaker 1: I must read for anyone interested in food and restaurants
Speaker 1: straight ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, helping out and emerging
Speaker 1: economy and reimagining the engagement ring all in one the
Speaker 1: details and a partnership between the Beers and Blue Nile.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Gerol
Speaker 1: Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Big well known brands are increasingly
Speaker 1: reaching out to communities and we see that with the
Speaker 1: ten ten program that is bringing together independent jewelry designers
Speaker 1: and the natural diamond industry in Botswana getting ready to
Speaker 1: debut a collection Come January to explain. Stephen Lucy, your
Speaker 1: executive vice prior in a consumer markets chairman and chairman
Speaker 1: and forever Mark at the Beer's Jewelers, joined us from
Speaker 1: London along with Sean KELSEEO Blue Nile, who was in Seattle.
Speaker 1: But like many of our guests, we began with how
Speaker 1: their worlds were impacted by COVID, similarly to uh To
Speaker 1: Stevens experience. Bunu had a pretty remarkable year. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: only here at Bunow for about a year and a half,
Speaker 1: so I'm I picked a particularly interesting time I think
Speaker 1: too to enter the jewelry industry. So it's been it's
Speaker 1: been crazy, frankly, um, but we've had a We've had
Speaker 1: a really good second half of the year. The beginning
Speaker 1: of the year was pretty challenging, I think, as it
Speaker 1: was for most folks, both business and all of our
Speaker 1: employees around the country, and we have employees in in
Speaker 1: Europe and China as well, so it's pretty pretty scary, frankly.
Speaker 1: But the last several months have been very strong for
Speaker 1: our business. We've seen a number of a number of
Speaker 1: consumers shift from bricks and mortar purchases to online and
Speaker 1: that's very good for our business. And we've been able
Speaker 1: to uh expand our assortment and I think provide great
Speaker 1: jewelry and diamonds two consumers looking for something special in
Speaker 1: these remarkable times. Yeah, consumers have definitely pivoted. And if
Speaker 1: you weren't going digital, you are probably increasingly at this point.
Speaker 1: I know all of our shopping for the holiday season
Speaker 1: is completely online. It often is, but it's even more
Speaker 1: so this year. So Stephen, tell me about this ten
Speaker 1: ten program that you guys are doing together. Well, i'll
Speaker 1: tell you when. Um, you know, we back up now
Speaker 1: it's sort of six months ago and when we were
Speaker 1: in the really middle of the lockdown and uh, and
Speaker 1: there was one point in time where most of the
Speaker 1: stores stewelry stores in the world were closed, the mines
Speaker 1: were closed, the Indian cutting centers were closed, all because
Speaker 1: of covid um. But we knew we would come out
Speaker 1: of it. So we've begun to think at that time, well, um,
Speaker 1: what can we do for the people that are particularly
Speaker 1: dependent on diamonds and also those likely to have a
Speaker 1: harder time withstanding Uh, you know the lockdown, big companies
Speaker 1: like de Beers, you know we can we can come
Speaker 1: through these things. But when you think about smaller jewelry designers,
Speaker 1: and when you think about a country like Botswana that
Speaker 1: really is largely dependent upon diamonds, you know, Botswana is
Speaker 1: in many ways the success story of of Africa in
Speaker 1: terms of its economic development, but built on the use
Speaker 1: of diamond revenues. And so at the beer as we
Speaker 1: were thinking when we do come out of it, who
Speaker 1: do we need to help? And I guess the two
Speaker 1: that stood out for us was was, first of course
Speaker 1: Botswana our our partner in our largest minds. And secondly
Speaker 1: these independent designers who are clearly going to have a
Speaker 1: tough time and uh, and we thought that they had
Speaker 1: something that would be I think a paricular interest as
Speaker 1: well to consumers looking to get to get married after
Speaker 1: and committed after lockdown, but wanting to do it in
Speaker 1: the way that was perhaps a bit more um individual
Speaker 1: and and a bit more expressive. And Sean, I want
Speaker 1: to pick up with you because these um collaborations are
Speaker 1: being sold on exclusively, I should say, with Blue Nile,
Speaker 1: and I think they're going for about three to four
Speaker 1: thousand um. Tell me what you're seeing so far in
Speaker 1: terms of they've started selling correct not yet that are
Speaker 1: going to launch. Yeah, they're going to launch in January.
Speaker 1: Work for kicking off the death Okay, that's okay. We've
Speaker 1: got a lot of interest so far, I can I
Speaker 1: can tell you not only from folks we've we've provided
Speaker 1: a sneak peek too through our email programs, but also
Speaker 1: I can tell you are our employees are pretty excited
Speaker 1: about them too. This this Tent Tent Collections, the first
Speaker 1: of its kind partnership for Blue Nile. We we've been
Speaker 1: selling diamond engagem ring online for about twenty years, so
Speaker 1: we've never done a collection quite like this, and we're
Speaker 1: really excited to be partnering with two beers on this program.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful opportunity to support these terrific designers. There
Speaker 1: are ten designers, as Stephen mentioned, and each are producing
Speaker 1: ten diamond engagement rings. They're affordable, as you mentioned, three
Speaker 1: to to four thousand five dollars each, and they are stunning,
Speaker 1: le beautiful, and this is what consumers want right now,
Speaker 1: amazingly beautiful natural diamonds in unique settings. H And also
Speaker 1: it gives us a really terrific opportunity and we're very
Speaker 1: proud to highlight Botswana and the wonderful work that is
Speaker 1: being done there and these terrific stones that have come
Speaker 1: from this beautiful place. We'll tell us about these sustainable diamonds, um,
Speaker 1: that's what they are specifically, UM so and tell us
Speaker 1: about them and the distinction between their diamonds that are
Speaker 1: potentially sold in the marketplace. Well so, so Stephen can
Speaker 1: can chime in here as well. He's he's really the
Speaker 1: diamond mining expert. Uh. But UH, these particular stones all
Speaker 1: come from Botswana. They're ethically sourced, uh, and they are
Speaker 1: they conform to the highest standards of sustainable production and
Speaker 1: all the way through the supply chain from the earth too,
Speaker 1: to the settings and then to our consumers hands. And
Speaker 1: it's really a a terrific story about a wonderful partnership
Speaker 1: between the folks of Botswana and the entire de beers,
Speaker 1: the entire supply chain, all the way through to a
Speaker 1: retailer like Buno. Well, Stephen, come on and chime in here,
Speaker 1: because I do think um sustainability this is certainly something
Speaker 1: I've had a lot of conversations, whether it's the head
Speaker 1: of the company that owns Kia or uh, some of
Speaker 1: the major consumer product companies Patagonia, like, we are talking
Speaker 1: increasingly about sustainability, circularity, Consumers increasingly are demanding this. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it is very much going to
Speaker 1: be a big part of the entire luxury goods industry's feature.
Speaker 1: I mean this concept of of you know, a beer
Speaker 1: as we call social purpose the new status. It's I
Speaker 1: think fundamental part of consumers selection process when they think
Speaker 1: about products and brands. And I think that's where the
Speaker 1: story of diamonds in Botswana in particular is so compelling.
Speaker 1: I mean, Botswana a very small country, but it is
Speaker 1: the world's leading producer of natural diamonds, and they've had
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily positive impact on the people of that country,
Speaker 1: both in terms of education, in terms of health care,
Speaker 1: and in terms of really just raising their living standards.
Speaker 1: I mean, before diamonds, the beer has discovered diamonds in
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen sixties in Botswana. Before then, it was
Speaker 1: the world's poorest country. Today it's a middle income country,
Speaker 1: largely due to great governance and use of those diamond revenues.
Speaker 1: Literally of the revenues that come from the domond mines
Speaker 1: flow back into the communities in Botswana and it's a
Speaker 1: great good. And of course when we talk about circularity,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the expression of domint is forever.
Speaker 1: It is clearly the case, you know, do you buy
Speaker 1: and you keep for your whole life. There can be
Speaker 1: nothing that in many ways it's more circular than that.
Speaker 1: They never disappear, they get handed onto new generations. So um,
Speaker 1: we think it's in a way an exciting time for
Speaker 1: the natural diamond story and for people who maybe don't
Speaker 1: know about the positive impact that they have to have
Speaker 1: an opportunity through this program to learn more about this
Speaker 1: amazing uh country and what they've done with their diamond
Speaker 1: rev Well, I'm just gonna say I've been on the
Speaker 1: Blue Nile website and I've signed up to get some
Speaker 1: of the emails about the Tent Tent collection. But it's
Speaker 1: been fascinating to kind of read over some of the designers. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I do want to ask you, Sean, in
Speaker 1: terms of buying things like diamond jewelry online, we have
Speaker 1: seen an increased digitization of our world when it comes
Speaker 1: to retail this is your world. What has the pandemic
Speaker 1: changed in terms of people buying kind of expensive items.
Speaker 1: I've I've I've talked with folks in the watch, the
Speaker 1: high end watching watch industry, and they actually would do
Speaker 1: virtual kind of shopping with customers so that they could
Speaker 1: talk to somebody face to face before they made a purchase.
Speaker 1: But what changed in terms of selling kind of luxury
Speaker 1: goods online because of the pandemic? Sure, I think a
Speaker 1: couple of things, Carol have changed over the over this year.
Speaker 1: Um One in terms of the product and then second
Speaker 1: in terms of how consumers are shopping. So in terms
Speaker 1: of the product, earrings have been selling like crazy, especially expensive,
Speaker 1: very high quality diamond study earrings. You can imagine living
Speaker 1: in a zoom world. Diamond ear rings are a wonderful
Speaker 1: and ear rings in general are a wonderful way to
Speaker 1: to show off your your personality and to have something special.
Speaker 1: And in particular these um, these beautiful uh diamond study
Speaker 1: rings we have ore have been have been selling like
Speaker 1: like they never have In terms of how people how
Speaker 1: people shop, we we've really seen a much first of all,
Speaker 1: just an increase in the number of shoppers. We've had
Speaker 1: record visits to our website both in the US and
Speaker 1: in the forty four other countries across the world where
Speaker 1: we where we offer and sell wonderful jewelry, but we've
Speaker 1: also seen folks calling into our call centers and and
Speaker 1: a pretty dramatic increase in virtual shopping. So great to
Speaker 1: hear from another member of the retail world finding a
Speaker 1: way to reach consumers and help others. That's Stephen Lucier,
Speaker 1: Executive VP Consumer Markets, chairman and chairman and forever mark
Speaker 1: at the Bear's Jewelers, along with Shaun cal' CEO of
Speaker 1: Blue Nile. And that wraps up the weekend edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: joining us. I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tude in
Speaker 1: daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at
Speaker 1: two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You could
Speaker 1: also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week conversations download
Speaker 1: them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Just search Bloomberg Global News and be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra. About a favorite topic
Speaker 1: and one that constantly pops up on the Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com. It's about real estate and about the
Speaker 1: high profile moves to Austin from the likes of Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: Oracle and others. For some thoughts on that, we cut
Speaker 1: up with Ari Rostagar, founder and CEO at Austin, Texas
Speaker 1: based Rostagar Property Company, who was, as you might have guessed,
Speaker 1: in Austin. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands, now
Speaker 1: online and of course on the Bloomberg have a say
Speaker 1: off weekend. Everyone, Happy holidays. This is Bloomberg