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Speaker 2: We want to first talk a little bit about an
Speaker 2: IPO that's coming up later this month. Bill Ackman, the
Speaker 2: billionaire investor, has kicked off formal marketing for the IPO
Speaker 2: of his closed end fund and his hedge fund. And
Speaker 2: this is something Billy Lipscheltz has been covering for us
Speaker 2: here as our initial public offering Reporter, Billy, this is
Speaker 2: not Bill Ackman's first go round with an IPO for
Speaker 2: his hedge fund and his closed end fund, is it?
Speaker 3: No, it's not really When you look at how this
Speaker 3: has been playing out in kind of a mission that
Speaker 3: they've been attempting to kind of achieve. You go back
Speaker 3: to twenty twenty four when he set out to raise
Speaker 3: twenty five billion dollars, then cut it to two billion,
Speaker 3: and ultimately pulled the plug on that. This is now
Speaker 3: a kind of reinvigorated, rethought out strategy where he will
Speaker 3: raise money between five and ten billion dollars for the
Speaker 3: closed end fund, and if you participate in that, you
Speaker 3: get a stake in Perching Square proper. So trying to
Speaker 3: incentivize to get this deal across the finish line, something
Speaker 3: that they were not successful doing call it two years ago.
Speaker 4: Why is he doing it and why is he doing
Speaker 4: it now?
Speaker 3: Billing He's doing it to bolster Assets Center Management, so
Speaker 3: he has a fund listed in Europe. You generate fees
Speaker 3: no matter what off a closed end fund. It's not
Speaker 3: like an ETF where you can face some of the
Speaker 3: redemption issues. So bolstering their AUM, bolstering the fees that
Speaker 3: they're going to generate from this product, among others, reason
Speaker 3: to go public. This has been something they've talked about
Speaker 3: for quite some time, so it kind of is a
Speaker 3: litmus test, if you will. There's obviously been a lot
Speaker 3: of debate why do people go public? What do they
Speaker 3: want to achieve? At least from the pitch for Perching
Speaker 3: Squares to try to bring potential wealth to retail investors.
Speaker 3: But certainly a bit of the skeptics see this kind
Speaker 3: of similar to some of the other strategies we've seen
Speaker 3: the likes of a Carlisle or Kkartake over the last
Speaker 3: decade or so, and Billy just.
Speaker 2: Remind us of how Bill Ackman's strategy has shifted over
Speaker 2: the years, because once upon a time he was a
Speaker 2: big activist investor and he's kind of morphed into more
Speaker 2: trying to be like a Warren Buffett, you know, taking
Speaker 2: these big stakes and other companies for long term investments.
Speaker 4: Walk us through what that has looked like. It's been
Speaker 4: a big shift.
Speaker 3: To your point, we all remember herbal life in the
Speaker 3: back and forth between Acman and Icon, and now if
Speaker 3: you look at the holdings, whether it's in his fund
Speaker 3: or in the European listed closed end fund, we're talking
Speaker 3: about some positions in some pretty big companies. You've got
Speaker 3: Amazon dot Com, Howard Hughes, Google, Uber, Meta, some of
Speaker 3: the bigger names. Obviously, he's been very vocal about Fanny
Speaker 3: and Freddie and trying to bring them both public and
Speaker 3: obviously would benefit from that. So when you look at
Speaker 3: kind of the development of his career, he very much
Speaker 3: has leaned into trying to be able to turn Pershing
Speaker 3: Square into a modern version of Berkshire Hathaway. And interestingly enough,
Speaker 3: obviously Buffett is stepped away from Berkshire. So now maybe
Speaker 3: is this a perfect time, at least from the actman
Speaker 3: camp to step into that spotlight and be kind of
Speaker 3: a person who can be an investor that folks look
Speaker 3: at as a north star. Obviously, it remains to be
Speaker 3: seen and this will be a key test of that.
Speaker 3: But to your point, we've seen a big shift.
Speaker 5: So Bareley, what's the expectation here for this offering? Is
Speaker 5: this going to be a retail led type of offering
Speaker 5: or does this have a lot of institutional demand?
Speaker 3: What do we know it'll be retail lad They've laid
Speaker 3: out that they have a good chunk a few billion
Speaker 3: dollars kind of earmarked for institutional investors, family offices and
Speaker 3: kind of that. Like, but the big pitch really is
Speaker 3: for this to be raised predominantly again, maybe not predominantly
Speaker 3: two point eight billion dollars secured from qualified investors according
Speaker 3: to Pershing Square, but it is catering to retail investors
Speaker 3: and that's why you're seeing it take such a long
Speaker 3: road show, launching today, expected to price on April twenty eighth.
Speaker 3: You typically would see in a normal roadshow about seven
Speaker 3: to eight days. This is more than two weeks and
Speaker 3: the big pitch is being able to interact with the
Speaker 3: retail investing crowd, much like they try to do a
Speaker 3: few years ago, and trying to get people to agree
Speaker 3: that this is a good investment for them. But if
Speaker 3: you've paid attention to Bill Ackman and kind of his
Speaker 3: ventures and adventures if you will, on X and Twitter,
Speaker 3: very much trying to lean into the average investor, and
Speaker 3: that was something they pitched again back in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: trying to build pushing into something similar to Berkshire Hathaway
Speaker 3: where they would have, you know, a Carnival esque event
Speaker 3: every year where people could who are investing in the
Speaker 3: fund could actually be able to meet and interact with.
Speaker 4: Management and Bailly.
Speaker 2: So far, no indication that the uncertainty the geopolitics of
Speaker 2: it is going to put them off in terms of
Speaker 2: pursuing this IPO.
Speaker 4: No, and they marched forward. And I think that was
Speaker 4: one of the things.
Speaker 3: I can't remember if Actman put it on X or
Speaker 3: set it in a podcast or something, was kind of
Speaker 3: pitching that, well, you know, the time to deploy assets
Speaker 3: is when markets are pulling back, and this actually fits
Speaker 3: into the strategy in the kind of broader scheme of
Speaker 3: what they want to do, and again just try to
Speaker 3: simplify the fact that at least from the Pershing Square
Speaker 3: corner in the Pershing Square camp, if you launch this
Speaker 3: deal and do have a longer road show, you know
Speaker 3: that there is uncertainty and there is a lot of
Speaker 3: kind of issues with the geopolitical backdrop. But they're continuing
Speaker 3: to push forward on that. Ultimately, what does this look like.
Speaker 3: We'll continue to keep an eye on that over the
Speaker 3: next two weeks, but again it'll be key to see
Speaker 3: how this price is and what they actually bring in
Speaker 3: house on April twenty eighth, because just a few weeks
Speaker 3: ago in March, Robin Adventures tried to raise a billion
Speaker 3: dollars for a closed nd fund and fell about thirty
Speaker 3: percent short of their target. So certainly not the layup
Speaker 3: that many people might have thought.
Speaker 2: Stay with us more from Boomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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Speaker 5: A lot of geopolitics on the front burner, of course.
Speaker 5: But it is still earnings season right now. We've got
Speaker 5: the big banks kicking off earnings today. Goldman Sacks put
Speaker 5: out some numbers here.
Speaker 4: I thought the numbers.
Speaker 5: I'm an equities guy, so I looked at their equity
Speaker 5: line first, and they just crushed it.
Speaker 4: A little bit light relative to.
Speaker 5: Expectations on the fixed side, the fixed income sign but
Speaker 5: those are bond people who really cares. But anyway, it's
Speaker 5: a big business. It's a big business. But let's check
Speaker 5: in with Neil Sites. He covers his stuff for a
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence, you know, talk to us about Goldman Sachs
Speaker 5: and the quarter they just released.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I think the general broad strokes is that
Speaker 6: the core capital markets business is firing right as we
Speaker 6: sort of entered this quarter, this quarter's results, we obviously
Speaker 6: saw markets in flux, right, and obviously plenty of uncertainty
Speaker 6: down the pike here, But ultimately a lot of volatility
Speaker 6: in the quarter, particularly inequities and fixed income products mostly
Speaker 6: geared towards the later quarter, and so there was sort
Speaker 6: of a high bar coming into these results in expectations
Speaker 6: for a trading legs sort of beat and Frankly, we
Speaker 6: saw that really come through in the equities business. Now
Speaker 6: on fixed income, that's where the bigger miss has sort
Speaker 6: of overshadowed strength in other categories for Goldman and so,
Speaker 6: you know, a lot of that relates to specific products. Obviously,
Speaker 6: when you have volatility, it's not always perfectly positive volatility
Speaker 6: for the trading business, so a little bit of sort
Speaker 6: of you know mix within that. And then when you
Speaker 6: look at the investment banking business, I mean M and A, ECM,
Speaker 6: debt fees, all of those beat expectations. That was a
Speaker 6: big story heading into twenty twenty six was the expectation
Speaker 6: for capital markets for debt issuance, equity issuance, particularly IPOs
Speaker 6: and M and A to come back firing. The first
Speaker 6: quarter was solid. The backlog has dipped a little bit
Speaker 6: from a four year high in the prior quarter, so
Speaker 6: coming off a little bit part of that is due
Speaker 6: to when you have such strong results, things come out
Speaker 6: of the backlog. But I think the bigger question as
Speaker 6: we move forward is with the elevated volatility that's positive
Speaker 6: to trading, that tends to be not so helpful for
Speaker 6: the investment banking side. So how our clients transacting early
Speaker 6: in the second quarter is a key question, and Goldman
Speaker 6: says they remain engaged.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to that surprise drop in fixed
Speaker 2: income trading, do we think that that's Goldman specific or
Speaker 2: is that something that could have a read through to
Speaker 2: the other big banks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think that's what we're sort of going to
Speaker 6: be looking very closely at. It feels that it could
Speaker 6: be a little bit unique to Goldman. Again, it depends
Speaker 6: on the actual positioning within this business. When you look
Speaker 6: at some of the other large piers in the space, JP, Morgan,
Speaker 6: Bank of America, City Group, they all sort of guided
Speaker 6: to mid teens growth across the trading business for the
Speaker 6: first quarter, and that guidance came in early mid March.
Speaker 6: So the expectation is this could be a Goldman unique
Speaker 6: scenario where fixed income trading revenue was particularly weak. But
Speaker 6: we'll have to watch, right. I mean again, volatility tends
Speaker 6: to be positive for the trading business, but it's not
Speaker 6: a perfect relationship, and so we'll have to be watching,
Speaker 6: particularly given the sort of high bar and the expectations
Speaker 6: coming in that trading was going to be so strong.
Speaker 5: Hey, Neil, I'm thinking about twenty twenty six could be
Speaker 5: just a monster, monster year for IPOs.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 5: I'm thinking SpaceX, maybe some of these AI names like Anthropic.
Speaker 5: What are some of the big investment banks saying about
Speaker 5: that opportunity?
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think that is that is a big
Speaker 6: opportunity in the offing, right. I think a lot of
Speaker 6: it now relates to, Okay, these IPOs are coming at
Speaker 6: what pace? Will they come right? And so are these
Speaker 6: twenty twenty six stories are they first half, second half?
Speaker 6: Or do things get kicked into twenty twenty seven? If
Speaker 6: you know, the uncertainty that we're living through today prolongs
Speaker 6: and it sort of causes sponsors and strategics to sort
Speaker 6: of put pencils down and sort of reassess that that opportunity.
Speaker 6: Goldman noted IPOs a little bit softer in March. I
Speaker 6: don't think that surprises anyone, right, just given the volatility.
Speaker 6: I think they remain bullish moving forward on that business.
Speaker 6: So I think it's just going to be a timing
Speaker 6: question of rather when, not necessarily if. But of course,
Speaker 6: you know plenty of uncertainties still out there, so that
Speaker 6: remains the big question.
Speaker 2: Has David Solomon, the CEO, said anything about the geopolitical uncertainty,
Speaker 2: the war and Iran and what that means for business
Speaker 2: prospects overall.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think he has hinted at that sort of
Speaker 6: that same sentiment right where the volatility keeps clients engaged.
Speaker 6: So it's again positive to the trading as you think
Speaker 6: about how you have to have institutional clients have to
Speaker 6: reposition or allocate for a much wider range of outcomes
Speaker 6: and scenarios when we're sort of going through what we've
Speaker 6: had with AI, scare trades, software concerns, now war. That
Speaker 6: all sort of creates a pretty good backdrop for the
Speaker 6: intermediation type business when we have market that you know,
Speaker 6: frankly are still only a handful of percent off of
Speaker 6: all time highs. That's really strong. For the financing business
Speaker 6: that Goldman's been growing in. That was a really bright
Speaker 6: spot for the equities business in the first quarter. They're
Speaker 6: continuing to deploy balance sheet into that business, so they
Speaker 6: see an opportunity to sort of lean into client needs
Speaker 6: and client demands in this environment. Albeit cautioning that you know,
Speaker 6: there's a big uncertainty piece out there.
Speaker 5: Neil, thanks so much, really appreciate it, Neil site he
Speaker 5: covers all the big banks for and investment banks for
Speaker 5: Bloomberg Intelligence.
Speaker 4: We appreciate getting some of his time there.
Speaker 3: Stay with us.
Speaker 4: More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Speaker 5: We're back here on site at the New Jersey Institute
Speaker 5: of Technology in Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 4: Our first guest on site, which is very cool.
Speaker 5: Cassie Hallberg joints that she's the CEO of NJI backed
Speaker 5: startup Pure Trace Labs.
Speaker 4: Cassie, thanks so much for being with us.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at the backgrounds and the reading material that
Speaker 5: Scarlett and I have for all our guests today and
Speaker 5: one theme runs through it and I don't know what
Speaker 5: that theme is, but that theme is pfas. Can you
Speaker 5: tell us what PFAS is or are absolutely so.
Speaker 7: P FAS is sometimes referred to as forever chemicals. They
Speaker 7: were crazy useful chemicals that were developed after World War
Speaker 7: two because they are water resistant and heat resistant, so
Speaker 7: you may know them. From your nonstick cookware or from
Speaker 7: your rain proof rainwear. The problem that we've got with
Speaker 7: p fas is that they have gotten out into the
Speaker 7: environment and they've gotten into the americans bloodstreams. So ninety
Speaker 7: eight percent of Americans haven't our bloodstream and unfortunately, it
Speaker 7: is associated with health conditions such as cancer, birth defects
Speaker 7: in for utility, even high cholesterol. And one of the
Speaker 7: things that we're trying to understand is how do we
Speaker 7: do a better job of locating it? And other companies
Speaker 7: are also working on how do you do a better
Speaker 7: job of destroying this because the chemical bonds are very
Speaker 7: strong and they've proven very, very persistent in our environment.
Speaker 4: Okay, so talk us.
Speaker 2: Through what Pure Trees Labs that your CEO of does
Speaker 2: when it comes to pfs Absolutely.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 7: One of the challenges with pfas has been testing for them.
Speaker 7: Our current methodology for testing takes two to three weeks,
Speaker 7: is very labor intensive, so it's very expensive. It costs
Speaker 7: anywhere from five to eight hundred dollars, and that means
Speaker 7: that for the average homeowner, like you can't test your
Speaker 7: own water. Even though the EPA believes that up to
Speaker 7: half of Americans have p fats in our water, and
Speaker 7: so that's basically created a problem. So what Pure Trace
Speaker 7: Lab has been able to do through a wonderful invention
Speaker 7: by doctor Howch is use mass spectrometry and paper spray
Speaker 7: mass spectrometry to be precise in order to test for
Speaker 7: pfas and he can do it in under three minutes
Speaker 7: and with very little labor, and so we can do
Speaker 7: it at a fraction of the costs. So we like
Speaker 7: to say we can do it in minutes versus weeks,
Speaker 7: and we can do it at a third of the
Speaker 7: cost of what the current current methodologies are.
Speaker 5: So what is the market here for any type of
Speaker 5: p FASS detection treatment? Is it something that would be
Speaker 5: done at the consumer level or the industrial level? Is
Speaker 5: just like just doing a radon test that I have
Speaker 5: to do for when I buy my home in New Jersey.
Speaker 7: I love the analogy with rate on because it's one
Speaker 7: we use often.
Speaker 4: So yes, the answer is yes.
Speaker 7: Industry needs it because they need to be checking that
Speaker 7: it's not in our consumer packaging. The municipalities need to
Speaker 7: be doing it to make sure it's not in our water,
Speaker 7: Our farmers need to be doing it to make sure
Speaker 7: it's not in their soil, because if it's in the soil,
Speaker 7: it's going to get into the it's going to get
Speaker 7: into the food. So so you know, what we're doing
Speaker 7: and focusing in on is taking a first little bite,
Speaker 7: which is can we bring this to the homeowner market.
Speaker 7: We know that just under half of all households in
Speaker 7: America have p fasten their water. In New Jersey, we
Speaker 7: believe that that's up to actually eighty about eighty four percent.
Speaker 7: So we've got the ability to give homeowners the ability
Speaker 7: to actually test at a very reasonable price. And then,
Speaker 7: more importantly to your point about Radon, we've got the
Speaker 7: ability to give it to home inspectors. Traditionally, home inspectors
Speaker 7: can't wait two to three weeks for a test result.
Speaker 7: But if we can get them a test result within
Speaker 7: one to two days, they can put this into the
Speaker 7: real estate transaction. It doesn't mean you're going to blow
Speaker 7: up your real estate transaction because there are solutions, so
Speaker 7: you can if let's say you've got p fast in
Speaker 7: your water, there is a solution for all different budgets.
Speaker 7: You could potentially get a carbon activated water of a pitcher.
Speaker 7: You could use a carbon activated water from your refrigerator.
Speaker 7: You can also go all out with reverse osmosis or
Speaker 7: even a home filtration system, depending on what your budget
Speaker 7: is and what you personally can do. But you can
Speaker 7: do things to remove these from your environment.
Speaker 2: Okay, but first things first, you got to figure out
Speaker 2: how much is in there. Talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: the role that NGIT played in helping doctor Chen, whose
Speaker 2: technology this is based on, really figure out this technology.
Speaker 7: Yeah, they were amazing because doctor Chen walked in and said,
Speaker 7: I've got this great invention.
Speaker 4: What do I do?
Speaker 7: You yelled Rika, And what NJIT was able to do
Speaker 7: through their partner and JII was they actually walked out
Speaker 7: and started doing some business plans and cases. Right, is
Speaker 7: there a big enough market out there that it warrants
Speaker 7: being able to commercialize this? And if you are going
Speaker 7: to commercialize it, who are you going to target? Who
Speaker 7: are you going to target first? And what does that
Speaker 7: look like? So they basically were able to take the
Speaker 7: business aspect and marry that with a science and so
Speaker 7: many universities we've got brilliant ideas, but we don't necessarily
Speaker 7: have professors trained in business. And so what NJ is
Speaker 7: doing that's incredibly unique is they're bringing business and they're
Speaker 7: bringing technology together so that we can get those best
Speaker 7: ideas out into the marketplace.
Speaker 4: Thirty seconds left. How hard is it to raise money
Speaker 4: these days?
Speaker 7: We've been very lucky so far, so we've been able
Speaker 7: to We're funded via the njii's Investment Fund, and we
Speaker 7: will let you know as we find out if we
Speaker 7: need more money.
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