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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am.

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Speaker 1: He's done on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: We want to first talk a little bit about an

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Speaker 2: IPO that's coming up later this month. Bill Ackman, the

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Speaker 2: billionaire investor, has kicked off formal marketing for the IPO

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Speaker 2: of his closed end fund and his hedge fund. And

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Speaker 2: this is something Billy Lipscheltz has been covering for us

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Speaker 2: here as our initial public offering Reporter, Billy, this is

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Speaker 2: not Bill Ackman's first go round with an IPO for

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Speaker 2: his hedge fund and his closed end fund, is it?

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Speaker 3: No, it's not really When you look at how this

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Speaker 3: has been playing out in kind of a mission that

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Speaker 3: they've been attempting to kind of achieve. You go back

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Speaker 3: to twenty twenty four when he set out to raise

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Speaker 3: twenty five billion dollars, then cut it to two billion,

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Speaker 3: and ultimately pulled the plug on that. This is now

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Speaker 3: a kind of reinvigorated, rethought out strategy where he will

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Speaker 3: raise money between five and ten billion dollars for the

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Speaker 3: closed end fund, and if you participate in that, you

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Speaker 3: get a stake in Perching Square proper. So trying to

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Speaker 3: incentivize to get this deal across the finish line, something

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Speaker 3: that they were not successful doing call it two years ago.

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Speaker 4: Why is he doing it and why is he doing

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Speaker 4: it now?

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Speaker 3: Billing He's doing it to bolster Assets Center Management, so

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Speaker 3: he has a fund listed in Europe. You generate fees

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Speaker 3: no matter what off a closed end fund. It's not

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Speaker 3: like an ETF where you can face some of the

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Speaker 3: redemption issues. So bolstering their AUM, bolstering the fees that

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Speaker 3: they're going to generate from this product, among others, reason

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Speaker 3: to go public. This has been something they've talked about

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Speaker 3: for quite some time, so it kind of is a

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Speaker 3: litmus test, if you will. There's obviously been a lot

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Speaker 3: of debate why do people go public? What do they

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Speaker 3: want to achieve? At least from the pitch for Perching

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Speaker 3: Squares to try to bring potential wealth to retail investors.

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Speaker 3: But certainly a bit of the skeptics see this kind

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Speaker 3: of similar to some of the other strategies we've seen

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Speaker 3: the likes of a Carlisle or Kkartake over the last

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Speaker 3: decade or so, and Billy just.

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Speaker 2: Remind us of how Bill Ackman's strategy has shifted over

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Speaker 2: the years, because once upon a time he was a

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Speaker 2: big activist investor and he's kind of morphed into more

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Speaker 2: trying to be like a Warren Buffett, you know, taking

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Speaker 2: these big stakes and other companies for long term investments.

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Speaker 4: Walk us through what that has looked like. It's been

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Speaker 4: a big shift.

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Speaker 3: To your point, we all remember herbal life in the

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Speaker 3: back and forth between Acman and Icon, and now if

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Speaker 3: you look at the holdings, whether it's in his fund

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Speaker 3: or in the European listed closed end fund, we're talking

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Speaker 3: about some positions in some pretty big companies. You've got

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Speaker 3: Amazon dot Com, Howard Hughes, Google, Uber, Meta, some of

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Speaker 3: the bigger names. Obviously, he's been very vocal about Fanny

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Speaker 3: and Freddie and trying to bring them both public and

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Speaker 3: obviously would benefit from that. So when you look at

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Speaker 3: kind of the development of his career, he very much

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Speaker 3: has leaned into trying to be able to turn Pershing

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Speaker 3: Square into a modern version of Berkshire Hathaway. And interestingly enough,

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Speaker 3: obviously Buffett is stepped away from Berkshire. So now maybe

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Speaker 3: is this a perfect time, at least from the actman

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Speaker 3: camp to step into that spotlight and be kind of

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Speaker 3: a person who can be an investor that folks look

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Speaker 3: at as a north star. Obviously, it remains to be

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Speaker 3: seen and this will be a key test of that.

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Speaker 3: But to your point, we've seen a big shift.

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Speaker 5: So Bareley, what's the expectation here for this offering? Is

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Speaker 5: this going to be a retail led type of offering

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Speaker 5: or does this have a lot of institutional demand?

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Speaker 3: What do we know it'll be retail lad They've laid

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Speaker 3: out that they have a good chunk a few billion

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Speaker 3: dollars kind of earmarked for institutional investors, family offices and

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Speaker 3: kind of that. Like, but the big pitch really is

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Speaker 3: for this to be raised predominantly again, maybe not predominantly

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Speaker 3: two point eight billion dollars secured from qualified investors according

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Speaker 3: to Pershing Square, but it is catering to retail investors

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Speaker 3: and that's why you're seeing it take such a long

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Speaker 3: road show, launching today, expected to price on April twenty eighth.

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Speaker 3: You typically would see in a normal roadshow about seven

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Speaker 3: to eight days. This is more than two weeks and

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Speaker 3: the big pitch is being able to interact with the

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Speaker 3: retail investing crowd, much like they try to do a

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Speaker 3: few years ago, and trying to get people to agree

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Speaker 3: that this is a good investment for them. But if

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Speaker 3: you've paid attention to Bill Ackman and kind of his

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Speaker 3: ventures and adventures if you will, on X and Twitter,

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Speaker 3: very much trying to lean into the average investor, and

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Speaker 3: that was something they pitched again back in twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 3: trying to build pushing into something similar to Berkshire Hathaway

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Speaker 3: where they would have, you know, a Carnival esque event

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Speaker 3: every year where people could who are investing in the

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Speaker 3: fund could actually be able to meet and interact with.

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Speaker 4: Management and Bailly.

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Speaker 2: So far, no indication that the uncertainty the geopolitics of

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Speaker 2: it is going to put them off in terms of

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Speaker 2: pursuing this IPO.

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Speaker 4: No, and they marched forward. And I think that was

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Speaker 4: one of the things.

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Speaker 3: I can't remember if Actman put it on X or

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Speaker 3: set it in a podcast or something, was kind of

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Speaker 3: pitching that, well, you know, the time to deploy assets

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Speaker 3: is when markets are pulling back, and this actually fits

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Speaker 3: into the strategy in the kind of broader scheme of

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Speaker 3: what they want to do, and again just try to

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Speaker 3: simplify the fact that at least from the Pershing Square

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Speaker 3: corner in the Pershing Square camp, if you launch this

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Speaker 3: deal and do have a longer road show, you know

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Speaker 3: that there is uncertainty and there is a lot of

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Speaker 3: kind of issues with the geopolitical backdrop. But they're continuing

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Speaker 3: to push forward on that. Ultimately, what does this look like.

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Speaker 3: We'll continue to keep an eye on that over the

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Speaker 3: next two weeks, but again it'll be key to see

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Speaker 3: how this price is and what they actually bring in

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Speaker 3: house on April twenty eighth, because just a few weeks

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Speaker 3: ago in March, Robin Adventures tried to raise a billion

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Speaker 3: dollars for a closed nd fund and fell about thirty

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Speaker 3: percent short of their target. So certainly not the layup

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Speaker 3: that many people might have thought.

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Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Boomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, cocklay and Android

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Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 5: A lot of geopolitics on the front burner, of course.

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Speaker 5: But it is still earnings season right now. We've got

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Speaker 5: the big banks kicking off earnings today. Goldman Sacks put

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Speaker 5: out some numbers here.

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Speaker 4: I thought the numbers.

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Speaker 5: I'm an equities guy, so I looked at their equity

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Speaker 5: line first, and they just crushed it.

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Speaker 4: A little bit light relative to.

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Speaker 5: Expectations on the fixed side, the fixed income sign but

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Speaker 5: those are bond people who really cares. But anyway, it's

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Speaker 5: a big business. It's a big business. But let's check

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Speaker 5: in with Neil Sites. He covers his stuff for a

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Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence, you know, talk to us about Goldman Sachs

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Speaker 5: and the quarter they just released.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, So I think the general broad strokes is that

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Speaker 6: the core capital markets business is firing right as we

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Speaker 6: sort of entered this quarter, this quarter's results, we obviously

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Speaker 6: saw markets in flux, right, and obviously plenty of uncertainty

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Speaker 6: down the pike here, But ultimately a lot of volatility

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Speaker 6: in the quarter, particularly inequities and fixed income products mostly

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Speaker 6: geared towards the later quarter, and so there was sort

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Speaker 6: of a high bar coming into these results in expectations

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Speaker 6: for a trading legs sort of beat and Frankly, we

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Speaker 6: saw that really come through in the equities business. Now

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Speaker 6: on fixed income, that's where the bigger miss has sort

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Speaker 6: of overshadowed strength in other categories for Goldman and so,

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Speaker 6: you know, a lot of that relates to specific products. Obviously,

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Speaker 6: when you have volatility, it's not always perfectly positive volatility

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Speaker 6: for the trading business, so a little bit of sort

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Speaker 6: of you know mix within that. And then when you

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Speaker 6: look at the investment banking business, I mean M and A, ECM,

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Speaker 6: debt fees, all of those beat expectations. That was a

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Speaker 6: big story heading into twenty twenty six was the expectation

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Speaker 6: for capital markets for debt issuance, equity issuance, particularly IPOs

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Speaker 6: and M and A to come back firing. The first

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Speaker 6: quarter was solid. The backlog has dipped a little bit

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Speaker 6: from a four year high in the prior quarter, so

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Speaker 6: coming off a little bit part of that is due

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Speaker 6: to when you have such strong results, things come out

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Speaker 6: of the backlog. But I think the bigger question as

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Speaker 6: we move forward is with the elevated volatility that's positive

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Speaker 6: to trading, that tends to be not so helpful for

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Speaker 6: the investment banking side. So how our clients transacting early

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Speaker 6: in the second quarter is a key question, and Goldman

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Speaker 6: says they remain engaged.

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Speaker 2: So when it comes to that surprise drop in fixed

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Speaker 2: income trading, do we think that that's Goldman specific or

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Speaker 2: is that something that could have a read through to

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Speaker 2: the other big banks.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's what we're sort of going to

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Speaker 6: be looking very closely at. It feels that it could

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Speaker 6: be a little bit unique to Goldman. Again, it depends

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Speaker 6: on the actual positioning within this business. When you look

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Speaker 6: at some of the other large piers in the space, JP, Morgan,

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Speaker 6: Bank of America, City Group, they all sort of guided

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Speaker 6: to mid teens growth across the trading business for the

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Speaker 6: first quarter, and that guidance came in early mid March.

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Speaker 6: So the expectation is this could be a Goldman unique

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Speaker 6: scenario where fixed income trading revenue was particularly weak. But

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Speaker 6: we'll have to watch, right. I mean again, volatility tends

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Speaker 6: to be positive for the trading business, but it's not

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Speaker 6: a perfect relationship, and so we'll have to be watching,

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Speaker 6: particularly given the sort of high bar and the expectations

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Speaker 6: coming in that trading was going to be so strong.

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Speaker 5: Hey, Neil, I'm thinking about twenty twenty six could be

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Speaker 5: just a monster, monster year for IPOs.

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Speaker 4: Here.

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Speaker 5: I'm thinking SpaceX, maybe some of these AI names like Anthropic.

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Speaker 5: What are some of the big investment banks saying about

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Speaker 5: that opportunity?

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Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that is that is a big

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Speaker 6: opportunity in the offing, right. I think a lot of

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Speaker 6: it now relates to, Okay, these IPOs are coming at

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Speaker 6: what pace? Will they come right? And so are these

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Speaker 6: twenty twenty six stories are they first half, second half?

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Speaker 6: Or do things get kicked into twenty twenty seven? If

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Speaker 6: you know, the uncertainty that we're living through today prolongs

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Speaker 6: and it sort of causes sponsors and strategics to sort

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Speaker 6: of put pencils down and sort of reassess that that opportunity.

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Speaker 6: Goldman noted IPOs a little bit softer in March. I

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Speaker 6: don't think that surprises anyone, right, just given the volatility.

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Speaker 6: I think they remain bullish moving forward on that business.

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Speaker 6: So I think it's just going to be a timing

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Speaker 6: question of rather when, not necessarily if. But of course,

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Speaker 6: you know plenty of uncertainties still out there, so that

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Speaker 6: remains the big question.

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Speaker 2: Has David Solomon, the CEO, said anything about the geopolitical uncertainty,

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Speaker 2: the war and Iran and what that means for business

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Speaker 2: prospects overall.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, I think he has hinted at that sort of

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Speaker 6: that same sentiment right where the volatility keeps clients engaged.

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Speaker 6: So it's again positive to the trading as you think

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Speaker 6: about how you have to have institutional clients have to

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Speaker 6: reposition or allocate for a much wider range of outcomes

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Speaker 6: and scenarios when we're sort of going through what we've

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Speaker 6: had with AI, scare trades, software concerns, now war. That

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Speaker 6: all sort of creates a pretty good backdrop for the

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Speaker 6: intermediation type business when we have market that you know,

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Speaker 6: frankly are still only a handful of percent off of

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Speaker 6: all time highs. That's really strong. For the financing business

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Speaker 6: that Goldman's been growing in. That was a really bright

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Speaker 6: spot for the equities business in the first quarter. They're

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Speaker 6: continuing to deploy balance sheet into that business, so they

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Speaker 6: see an opportunity to sort of lean into client needs

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Speaker 6: and client demands in this environment. Albeit cautioning that you know,

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Speaker 6: there's a big uncertainty piece out there.

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Speaker 5: Neil, thanks so much, really appreciate it, Neil site he

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Speaker 5: covers all the big banks for and investment banks for

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Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence.

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Speaker 4: We appreciate getting some of his time there.

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Speaker 3: Stay with us.

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Speaker 4: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live

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Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android

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Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.

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Speaker 5: We're back here on site at the New Jersey Institute

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Speaker 5: of Technology in Newark, New Jersey.

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Speaker 4: Our first guest on site, which is very cool.

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Speaker 5: Cassie Hallberg joints that she's the CEO of NJI backed

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Speaker 5: startup Pure Trace Labs.

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Speaker 4: Cassie, thanks so much for being with us.

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Speaker 5: I'm looking at the backgrounds and the reading material that

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Speaker 5: Scarlett and I have for all our guests today and

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Speaker 5: one theme runs through it and I don't know what

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Speaker 5: that theme is, but that theme is pfas. Can you

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Speaker 5: tell us what PFAS is or are absolutely so.

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Speaker 7: P FAS is sometimes referred to as forever chemicals. They

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Speaker 7: were crazy useful chemicals that were developed after World War

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Speaker 7: two because they are water resistant and heat resistant, so

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Speaker 7: you may know them. From your nonstick cookware or from

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Speaker 7: your rain proof rainwear. The problem that we've got with

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Speaker 7: p fas is that they have gotten out into the

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Speaker 7: environment and they've gotten into the americans bloodstreams. So ninety

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Speaker 7: eight percent of Americans haven't our bloodstream and unfortunately, it

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Speaker 7: is associated with health conditions such as cancer, birth defects

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Speaker 7: in for utility, even high cholesterol. And one of the

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Speaker 7: things that we're trying to understand is how do we

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Speaker 7: do a better job of locating it? And other companies

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Speaker 7: are also working on how do you do a better

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Speaker 7: job of destroying this because the chemical bonds are very

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Speaker 7: strong and they've proven very, very persistent in our environment.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so talk us.

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Speaker 2: Through what Pure Trees Labs that your CEO of does

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Speaker 2: when it comes to pfs Absolutely.

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Speaker 5: So.

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Speaker 7: One of the challenges with pfas has been testing for them.

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Speaker 7: Our current methodology for testing takes two to three weeks,

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Speaker 7: is very labor intensive, so it's very expensive. It costs

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Speaker 7: anywhere from five to eight hundred dollars, and that means

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Speaker 7: that for the average homeowner, like you can't test your

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Speaker 7: own water. Even though the EPA believes that up to

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Speaker 7: half of Americans have p fats in our water, and

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Speaker 7: so that's basically created a problem. So what Pure Trace

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Speaker 7: Lab has been able to do through a wonderful invention

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Speaker 7: by doctor Howch is use mass spectrometry and paper spray

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Speaker 7: mass spectrometry to be precise in order to test for

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Speaker 7: pfas and he can do it in under three minutes

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Speaker 7: and with very little labor, and so we can do

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Speaker 7: it at a fraction of the costs. So we like

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Speaker 7: to say we can do it in minutes versus weeks,

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Speaker 7: and we can do it at a third of the

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Speaker 7: cost of what the current current methodologies are.

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Speaker 5: So what is the market here for any type of

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Speaker 5: p FASS detection treatment? Is it something that would be

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Speaker 5: done at the consumer level or the industrial level? Is

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Speaker 5: just like just doing a radon test that I have

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Speaker 5: to do for when I buy my home in New Jersey.

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Speaker 7: I love the analogy with rate on because it's one

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Speaker 7: we use often.

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Speaker 4: So yes, the answer is yes.

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Speaker 7: Industry needs it because they need to be checking that

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Speaker 7: it's not in our consumer packaging. The municipalities need to

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Speaker 7: be doing it to make sure it's not in our water,

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Speaker 7: Our farmers need to be doing it to make sure

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Speaker 7: it's not in their soil, because if it's in the soil,

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Speaker 7: it's going to get into the it's going to get

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Speaker 7: into the food. So so you know, what we're doing

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Speaker 7: and focusing in on is taking a first little bite,

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Speaker 7: which is can we bring this to the homeowner market.

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Speaker 7: We know that just under half of all households in

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Speaker 7: America have p fasten their water. In New Jersey, we

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Speaker 7: believe that that's up to actually eighty about eighty four percent.

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Speaker 7: So we've got the ability to give homeowners the ability

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Speaker 7: to actually test at a very reasonable price. And then,

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Speaker 7: more importantly to your point about Radon, we've got the

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Speaker 7: ability to give it to home inspectors. Traditionally, home inspectors

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Speaker 7: can't wait two to three weeks for a test result.

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Speaker 7: But if we can get them a test result within

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Speaker 7: one to two days, they can put this into the

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Speaker 7: real estate transaction. It doesn't mean you're going to blow

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Speaker 7: up your real estate transaction because there are solutions, so

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Speaker 7: you can if let's say you've got p fast in

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Speaker 7: your water, there is a solution for all different budgets.

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Speaker 7: You could potentially get a carbon activated water of a pitcher.

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Speaker 7: You could use a carbon activated water from your refrigerator.

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Speaker 7: You can also go all out with reverse osmosis or

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Speaker 7: even a home filtration system, depending on what your budget

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Speaker 7: is and what you personally can do. But you can

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Speaker 7: do things to remove these from your environment.

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Speaker 2: Okay, but first things first, you got to figure out

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Speaker 2: how much is in there. Talk a little bit about

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Speaker 2: the role that NGIT played in helping doctor Chen, whose

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Speaker 2: technology this is based on, really figure out this technology.

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Speaker 7: Yeah, they were amazing because doctor Chen walked in and said,

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Speaker 7: I've got this great invention.

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Speaker 4: What do I do?

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Speaker 7: You yelled Rika, And what NJIT was able to do

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Speaker 7: through their partner and JII was they actually walked out

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Speaker 7: and started doing some business plans and cases. Right, is

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Speaker 7: there a big enough market out there that it warrants

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Speaker 7: being able to commercialize this? And if you are going

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Speaker 7: to commercialize it, who are you going to target? Who

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Speaker 7: are you going to target first? And what does that

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Speaker 7: look like? So they basically were able to take the

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Speaker 7: business aspect and marry that with a science and so

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Speaker 7: many universities we've got brilliant ideas, but we don't necessarily

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Speaker 7: have professors trained in business. And so what NJ is

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Speaker 7: doing that's incredibly unique is they're bringing business and they're

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Speaker 7: bringing technology together so that we can get those best

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Speaker 7: ideas out into the marketplace.

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Speaker 4: Thirty seconds left. How hard is it to raise money

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Speaker 4: these days?

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Speaker 7: We've been very lucky so far, so we've been able

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Speaker 7: to We're funded via the njii's Investment Fund, and we

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Speaker 7: will let you know as we find out if we

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Speaker 7: need more money.

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Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,

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