Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2: We are in the midst of the largest wealth transfer
Speaker 2: in history right at this very moment. So one hundred
Speaker 2: trillion dollars of wealth is going to next gen and
Speaker 2: millennial clients over.
Speaker 3: The next decade.
Speaker 2: So that has some pretty significant implications. But in addition
Speaker 2: to that, women are controlling more and more global wealth.
Speaker 2: Today they control a third of global wealth, but in
Speaker 2: the next five years, thirty trillion is going to pass
Speaker 2: in the hands of women, and they're going to control
Speaker 2: over fifty percent of the global wealth market out there.
Speaker 3: Today, Welcome to the City of London, the City of
Speaker 3: the City, the City of London.
Speaker 4: Please mind the gap between the trial and the financial
Speaker 4: hearts of the country, the.
Speaker 5: City, the city.
Speaker 4: Welcome to in the city.
Speaker 1: Stand clear of the doors.
Speaker 5: Peace.
Speaker 6: I'm front Sine Lacwaw in the London studio. Now on
Speaker 6: this week's In the City, we debrief on Bloomberg's first
Speaker 6: Women Money and Power event in London, which brought together
Speaker 6: senior women across finance globally. You just heard one of
Speaker 6: these women, City Group's private bank head idly now her
Speaker 6: comments on the spike in female fortunes happening right now
Speaker 6: and how that is transforming investing around the world was
Speaker 6: one of the key themes covered across the day, but
Speaker 6: other key topics included the outlook for private markets and
Speaker 6: what the return of Donald Trump to the White House
Speaker 6: means for markets and economies. So for today's episode, we're
Speaker 6: going to unpack these topics and some of the other
Speaker 6: key takeaways from the event. With me to do that,
Speaker 6: EMBA News director Ros Matheson and from our UK and
Speaker 6: Middle East Finance team, Jenny s Sorain. So welcome both
Speaker 6: to in the City. Jenny, you were in charge with
Speaker 6: others of this live blog out of go.
Speaker 3: It was really great.
Speaker 7: There were so many I think surprising moments from the
Speaker 7: day where, you know, kind of heading in, I thought
Speaker 7: we would hear a lot about one thing, and then
Speaker 7: we ended up hearing a lot about another thing. So
Speaker 7: like one of the big takeaways for me was really
Speaker 7: even folks that I think are huge owners of public
Speaker 7: equities or kind of traditional fixed income you know, bonds
Speaker 7: and things like that, they were really big on private
Speaker 7: markets and so we just continuously heard about that all
Speaker 7: day long in terms of how big that market is growing,
Speaker 7: what risks folks are worried about kind of getting embedded
Speaker 7: as that market grows where they're seeing opportunity. So I
Speaker 7: thought that was that was sort of one of the
Speaker 7: more interesting takes from the day in terms of, you know,
Speaker 7: here are these women that are managing humongous portfolios of equities,
Speaker 7: and yet they're looking kind of beyond for what's next.
Speaker 6: We had rolls, you know, senior suite from like City Group,
Speaker 6: Female Leadership, We had to Morgan Stanley, we had Jenny
Speaker 6: Johnson of Franklin Templeton, and we had Santander and I
Speaker 6: guess the common pattern was you have all this money
Speaker 6: that needs to be invested, so it's not that it's
Speaker 6: being taken out of money, it's just shifting around.
Speaker 1: Well, that's right, and that was where it was very
Speaker 1: interesting to see where they're looking to put money. It's
Speaker 1: interesting to see when he was saying the conversation around
Speaker 1: private markets. It was also striking to me the way
Speaker 1: that people talk about passive investing, which is interesting because
Speaker 1: they were also citing the kind of term or that
Speaker 1: the planet is in and how unpredictable things are, and
Speaker 1: yet you know, looking a lot towards the rise of
Speaker 1: passive investment.
Speaker 3: But was really striking to.
Speaker 1: Me was the way that people are very optimistic about
Speaker 1: the US as a market with the incoming presidency of
Speaker 1: Donald Trump for the second time. They're really upbeat about
Speaker 1: the outlook for the markets there for dealmaking there, I
Speaker 1: guess seeing Donald Trump as a very transactional president who'll
Speaker 1: just want business to get on as usual, but alsobeat
Speaker 1: on the US economy and in contrast, by and.
Speaker 3: Large, very downbeat on Europe, worried.
Speaker 1: About the political see situation in Europe, worried about the
Speaker 1: outlet for labor in Europe, and certainly there was a
Speaker 1: very big contrast from some of the senior women yesterday
Speaker 1: on that.
Speaker 5: I completely concur with Allis's perspective around regulation. It's got
Speaker 5: to get obviously better than we've had in the US
Speaker 5: under the prior regime, and I do believe it'll be
Speaker 5: kind of industry specific, because there's certain industries that might
Speaker 5: have slightly different dynamics around m and A and consolidation,
Speaker 5: But in general were quite bullish.
Speaker 6: There was a lot of focus on deal making in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, so I don't know whether there was
Speaker 6: almost too much optimism after the last couple of months
Speaker 6: where there was a lot of turmoil in the markets
Speaker 6: and a lot of acts of the Trump tariffs because
Speaker 6: Jenny so they were very bullish on deal making in
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five, and also the tariffs were kind of minimized.
Speaker 6: You you know, a lot of them on stage said, oh,
Speaker 6: this is a negotiating tactic. It's just to get a
Speaker 6: better deal. It's the art of the deal. We're not
Speaker 6: sure that Donald Trump falls through with it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that was definitely the main vibe on the tariff front,
Speaker 7: which is interesting because you know, it's hard to know
Speaker 7: if if he really will follow through on on so
Speaker 7: many of us, so much of what he says, but
Speaker 7: definitely folks who were kind of discounting the threat of
Speaker 7: tariffs and absolutely thinking that he will follow through on
Speaker 7: everything he's said on deregulation. So we had a really
Speaker 7: great panel towards the end of the day where I
Speaker 7: think it was Christina Menez from Goldman Sachs, Alison Harding
Speaker 7: Jones from Deutsche Bank, and they were just talking a
Speaker 7: lot about, you know, the idea that so much has
Speaker 7: been on hold under the Biden administration because he's really
Speaker 7: put forward this image of you know, I'm gonna be
Speaker 7: hard on anti trust. I'm going to put every deal
Speaker 7: under review. And these guys are saying, you know, that
Speaker 7: just meant that a lot of clients didn't even bring
Speaker 7: anything to the table. And now, you know, we've got
Speaker 7: this new administration coming in. He's promised so much deregulation.
Speaker 7: We'll see who he puts at the top of all
Speaker 7: these different agencies. We really feel like kind of the
Speaker 7: animal spirits are coming back to life, and and we've
Speaker 7: really had a lot of client inquiries coming in and
Speaker 7: so it'll be interesting to see if that comes true.
Speaker 3: We did have it.
Speaker 7: There was so much back and forth because I think
Speaker 7: so many people are hesitant to say, you know, twenty
Speaker 7: twenty five will be this big, huge deal making frenzy.
Speaker 7: I think it was the former CEO of now West,
Speaker 7: Alison Rose, who she was talking a lot about how
Speaker 7: she thinks that we'll see a couple of one in
Speaker 7: one hundred year events, which is kind of scary. But
Speaker 7: she was basically saying, you know, this year, we've had
Speaker 7: things like you know, the continued you know, invasion of Ukraine.
Speaker 7: We've had so much going on in the Middle East. Obviously,
Speaker 7: we've had in the past couple of weeks with France
Speaker 7: in Germany, so she was just saying, you know, we'll
Speaker 7: have more of those and that could end up actually
Speaker 7: stymying things. So even you know, with this huge agenda
Speaker 7: of deregulation, the geopolitics, Trump's economic in her mind for
Speaker 7: the next twelve months.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And there was an interesting conversation also with the
Speaker 6: US Ambassador to the UK, Jane Hartley, and she kind
Speaker 6: of went through some of the biggest risks. But what
Speaker 6: was interesting it was always with a bit of optimism
Speaker 6: certainly on the UK.
Speaker 1: That's right, and saying that the UK rather could play
Speaker 1: quite a significant role when it comes to Europe.
Speaker 4: You know, there is some worry about some of the
Speaker 4: bigger countries in Europe, which is why I do keep
Speaker 4: going coming back to the UK and we need UK
Speaker 4: to lead because as we know, we've seen a lot
Speaker 4: of political instability recently in France, political instability in Germany,
Speaker 4: so the UK has to play a role.
Speaker 1: Obviously they were being a bit careful about this, but
Speaker 1: referring to some of the political turmoil in France and
Speaker 1: Germany and look at these very too significant economic engines
Speaker 1: in Europe and saying, you know, there's question marks there.
Speaker 1: I mean, at the same time, some of the optimism
Speaker 1: on the US was a bit intriguing because even though
Speaker 1: Donald Trump may be loosening regulation, he very much clearly
Speaker 1: wants to do that cutting red tape through DOGE, this
Speaker 1: this job that he's assigned to Elon Musk and I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily that it's going to be waving everything through.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see the big US steel deal with
Speaker 1: Japan and Joe Biden now potentially looking to block that,
Speaker 1: but Donald Trump is made clear he would block it
Speaker 1: either way. I mean, if he thinks a deal is
Speaker 1: not good for the US or not good for the
Speaker 1: US company, he will still potentially get in the middle
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: So there might be a little bit of risk.
Speaker 1: Still involved when it comes to the upper arrowdness of
Speaker 1: the conversation around the US, and you know, as we're saying,
Speaker 1: we just don't know exactly what he's going to do
Speaker 1: in the rest of the world. But it was intriguing
Speaker 1: to see, you know, people saying, well, Europe and the
Speaker 1: UK not really sure, some uncertainty around the new UK
Speaker 1: government and policy making. But equally, you know, there was
Speaker 1: one outlie I was quite intriguing. It was on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio actually in the morning, and that was from Oachery
Speaker 1: Capital Management, so Daniel Polly and she said, you know, yes,
Speaker 1: the US is looking good, but in all of this,
Speaker 1: maybe we are going to overlook Europe a bit. It's
Speaker 1: not all down arrow for Europe. So there were a
Speaker 1: few voices saying there may be opportunities in Europe and
Speaker 1: the UK in all of this.
Speaker 6: Ros I'm still so surprised about this massive difference about
Speaker 6: geopolitics and how it's playing out on the market. So,
Speaker 6: you know, this was December tenth that we did the conference.
Speaker 6: Usually people say, oh, what are you doing for the holidays?
Speaker 6: I mean, there's no winding down, right, And it was
Speaker 6: very clear from the people in the room, that people
Speaker 6: on the panels and people in the audience. It was
Speaker 6: you know that we're so busy because of geopolitics. I'm
Speaker 6: just trying to say on top of the news, and
Speaker 6: yet nothing is really translating into markets.
Speaker 3: Well, that's right.
Speaker 1: You see it on the energy market too, with the
Speaker 1: events in the Middle East. You're not seeing massive moves
Speaker 1: necessarily in the oil price. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of places we hear about are now they're listening a
Speaker 1: lot more to the geopolitical situation and they're bringing in
Speaker 1: people to help explain it to them. What does this
Speaker 1: mean tangibly all these things that are going on in
Speaker 1: the Middle East or beyond, but also looking through all
Speaker 1: of that to the realities of what does that mean
Speaker 1: for things like supply and demand. If you look at oil,
Speaker 1: it's really not affecting supply, for example, and so there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things happening in the Middle East, in
Speaker 1: particularly in Syria in recent day, but that doesn't impact
Speaker 1: the supply of oil. And as long as supply doesn't
Speaker 1: get impacted and prices don't move as a result, you
Speaker 1: are seeing a willingness to look suit through some of
Speaker 1: that in the market. And again people seem to be
Speaker 1: hanging their hopes on brighter times ahead for business in
Speaker 1: the US, and even with the unpredictability of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: because it can be a pretty unpredictable at least as
Speaker 1: a sense of knowing a bit more now about what
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is like as a leader from the first administration,
Speaker 1: and you know, business and markets learning how to deal
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 6: Jenny, what's your take on the private credit market. So,
Speaker 6: first of all, it's huge, and it kind of I mean,
Speaker 6: I wouldn't say it came out of nowhere, but it's
Speaker 6: so huge. It's like one point six trillion at the moment,
Speaker 6: and it's been really like a massive change, a massive
Speaker 6: shift over the last couple of years. Many believe it
Speaker 6: could even double. But you know, does it change how
Speaker 6: we price risk?
Speaker 3: We don't really know.
Speaker 6: Is there a concern with valuations? Does that change some
Speaker 6: of the conversations that we're having.
Speaker 7: That was definitely one of the big takeaways from yesterday
Speaker 7: was so I think it was it was Googenheims and
Speaker 7: Walsh that said that she sees this market doubling, the
Speaker 7: private credit market doubling.
Speaker 8: Specifically, I've seen estimates of potentially four trillion dollars in
Speaker 8: private credit going forward relative to where we are now,
Speaker 8: So we could see a doubling of the size. And
Speaker 8: I think one of the elements that would potentially drive
Speaker 8: that is a way for retail investors to somehow move
Speaker 8: into private credit, which right now that's really not happening.
Speaker 8: It's at the very beginning in some cases, but that
Speaker 8: will also drive that development and make it more shall
Speaker 8: we say, the democratization, if you will, of private capital.
Speaker 7: And then I think it was Franklin Templeton's Jenny Johnson
Speaker 7: who talked a lot about how she's looking at private
Speaker 7: credit assets that are trading at exactly the same spreads
Speaker 7: as traditional fixed income assets like bonds, and she just
Speaker 7: couldn't believe that because she just thinks that there should
Speaker 7: be a premium for the type of iliquidity that you
Speaker 7: see in these markets. There was an also an interesting
Speaker 7: panel though that that I thought was really fascinating. It
Speaker 7: was about the business of wealth management, and they actually
Speaker 7: were talking a lot about how they were coming up
Speaker 7: with all these new solutions to try to actually introduce
Speaker 7: more liquidity into private markets. So Morgan Stanley Elizabeth Dennis there,
Speaker 7: she basically was saying that they're hearing so much more
Speaker 7: from clients that they want to invest in closely held companies.
Speaker 7: So take like the Revolutes of the world or the
Speaker 7: Monzos of the world here, and she was saying that,
Speaker 7: you know, we see all these clients really wanting to
Speaker 7: pour into these these big, growing startups, but they're just
Speaker 7: they're not going public, and they don't want to go public.
Speaker 7: And we understand all the reasons why that is. And
Speaker 7: so what they've actually been doing is helping these clients
Speaker 7: or helping these companies arrange secondary share sales where you know,
Speaker 7: they go to early investors or early employees who hold
Speaker 7: shares of these privately held companies, they buy those shares
Speaker 7: off of them and then sell it to their their
Speaker 7: wealthy their wealthy clients. And so for the company, you know,
Speaker 7: brings in new new investors, kind of brings in new evaluations,
Speaker 7: some new enthusiasm for their for their stock, and for
Speaker 7: those early employees and early investors, you know, they get
Speaker 7: the liquid that they've probably been long wanting, and so
Speaker 7: it sort of helps this market limp along, It helps
Speaker 7: these companies avoid the IPO markets for a little bit longer,
Speaker 7: and obviously it keeps your wealthy customers happy. And so
Speaker 7: it was sort of interesting to see all the ways
Speaker 7: that these women were kind of coming up with to
Speaker 7: introduce new liquidity into this growing and fast market.
Speaker 6: We also had a pretty special conversation with Jane Fraser
Speaker 6: of City Group. Is she the most powerful woman in
Speaker 6: global banking right now?
Speaker 7: I think so, you know, she's definitely, she's three years
Speaker 7: after from over three years after she was named. You know,
Speaker 7: she's still the only woman atop a major US bank,
Speaker 7: which is kind of sad, but definitely she sits at
Speaker 7: the corner of so many different things. You know, she's
Speaker 7: pulling off this massive transformation of City Group. We had
Speaker 7: a really nice big takeout on that yesterday where she
Speaker 7: talked about, you know, this is a five year process.
Speaker 7: I'm about halfway through. They've still got a lot more
Speaker 7: to go.
Speaker 9: My ambition is to be a high returning, high quality earnings,
Speaker 9: simpler institution that continues to play a shaping role in
Speaker 9: the global financial system. We are truly privileged to be
Speaker 9: as in as many locations as we are, with a
Speaker 9: talent base, with such a global mindset and an ambition
Speaker 9: about it. So I think about we've got the right
Speaker 9: strategy and vision we're executing with the right organization, and
Speaker 9: that we're a simpler, well controlled, modern organization.
Speaker 7: And she was really focused on you know, one key
Speaker 7: metric that they look at as return on tendable common equity,
Speaker 7: which you know sounds like a mouthful, but it's actually
Speaker 7: a really important metric that City Group has long lagged
Speaker 7: behind on and you know they're trying to get it
Speaker 7: up to I think twelve percent. They're sitting at seven
Speaker 7: percent right now. If you look at their peers like
Speaker 7: JP Morgan and Bank of America, those guys are are
Speaker 7: usually in the mid teens with that, And so even
Speaker 7: when they get to where she wants them to get
Speaker 7: to there, they're still pretty far behind their what their
Speaker 7: rivals are notching. And so I think, you know, she
Speaker 7: has one of the hardest jobs in banking, that's for sure.
Speaker 7: So she's I think she's definitely one of the most
Speaker 7: important people. But she's also got a really tough job
Speaker 7: ahead of her. And I don't think she's you know,
Speaker 7: she doesn't have any rose colored glasses on about that.
Speaker 7: I think she's pretty clear i'd about the challenges ahead.
Speaker 6: It's amazing, actually, how you know, after those conversations, so
Speaker 6: many people in the corridors would say, I really hope
Speaker 6: she succeeds because she has seen is you know, a
Speaker 6: kind of female leader that will pave the way for others.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, I mean I think that that's there's like kind
Speaker 7: of so much riding on it in terms of just
Speaker 7: both pulling this off, getting this bank into a place
Speaker 7: where it's actually producing the kind of returns it should be.
Speaker 7: But then obviously, yeah, she's a really visible player and
Speaker 7: a really visible woman on the world stage, and she's
Speaker 7: got a whole you know, thousands of women behind her
Speaker 7: in the finance field that want to want to see
Speaker 7: her succeed and rols.
Speaker 6: I mean, in some of these conversations, we also put
Speaker 6: the spotlight on trying to understand the changes in Blockshaine
Speaker 6: and maybe crypto and AI because of the Trump administration.
Speaker 6: Still really early days.
Speaker 1: It's still really early days, and it's more complicated than
Speaker 1: it may sound. Because people think Donald Trump, Oh, he
Speaker 1: just loves crypto. He will utilize that when he thinks
Speaker 1: it's good for him and his businesses and his family
Speaker 1: and their businesses also, and in general his low regulation
Speaker 1: light touch on different corners of the market, and we
Speaker 1: can expect, you know, him to be fairly light when
Speaker 1: it comes to crypto.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was interesting. Anna Button was on fire. She
Speaker 6: was like, let's just take you know, pause a second
Speaker 6: until we know what the US comes up with it's
Speaker 6: supervision regulation, and then Europe can follow suit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she was. I thought she was on fire.
Speaker 7: I really look like her Van I mean, I always
Speaker 7: like hearing her dog. But I really liked a lot
Speaker 7: of what she was saying, and I thought it was
Speaker 7: interesting some of the things that she was getting really
Speaker 7: fired up about, like the she had that whole little
Speaker 7: diatribe against Apple.
Speaker 10: We want and we welcome competition, but it has to
Speaker 10: be fair. And I've said this many times, not a
Speaker 10: fair level playing field right now on data, on capital,
Speaker 10: on resilience for payments providers that actually compete with us
Speaker 10: on banks, and so that is to me the most
Speaker 10: important aspect.
Speaker 7: You know, saying, you know, they are getting a huge
Speaker 7: chunk of our commissions every time we have a customer
Speaker 7: that puts their credit card into Apple Bay, and that's
Speaker 7: what I want to fight. And so I like how
Speaker 7: firey she was, and I definitely think she, you know,
Speaker 7: she was really trying to be a champion for Europe
Speaker 7: and wanting to see Europe kind of own its moment
Speaker 7: and go up against the US, And I mean, I
Speaker 7: thought it was just fascinating, especially given all the other
Speaker 7: kind of dynamics and definitely all the everybody else being
Speaker 7: really harsh on Europe. It was fun to see a
Speaker 7: champion for it. And at some point in the day.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think twenty twenty five will probably bring more
Speaker 6: champions or more losers, depending on which way you look
Speaker 6: at it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the question. We are kind of going into
Speaker 3: a very different world.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I didn't have several things, certainly my
Speaker 1: bingo cow to have to say recently, I mean, Marshal
Speaker 1: Law briefly in South Korea, and anyone expected that the
Speaker 1: rapid rapid fall of the Assad regime in Syria that
Speaker 1: was not on my bingo card either, sore a dramatically
Speaker 1: shifting landscape and overlaying all of it in a way
Speaker 1: despite the fact that Donald Trump will loom very large
Speaker 1: over the world.
Speaker 6: Thanks for listening to this week's In the City from Bloomberg.
Speaker 6: It was hosted by Me from sin Laqua. It was
Speaker 6: produced by Samersati, production support from Moses andm and sound
Speaker 6: design by Blake Maples. Special thanks to Ross Matheson, Jenny Seraine,
Speaker 6: and the organizers of Bloomberg Women Money Power event. Please subscribe, rate,
Speaker 6: and review wherever you listen to podcasts.