Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: Business Week often highlight the global wellness market. Our Pursuit's
Speaker 1: team covering it regularly, whether it's products, services, treatments, places
Speaker 1: to go, it is a massive market. Some have pegged
Speaker 1: it at about one and a half trillion dollars and
Speaker 1: investors are definitely noticing. And that includes our next guest.
Speaker 1: It's great to have on with us, Ellie Rubinstein. She
Speaker 1: is co founder and CEO of Mandatari Manatory. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: it's a private equity firm. It invests in the wellness area.
Speaker 1: Her name, if it sounds familiar, it should. Her dad
Speaker 1: well known in the financial space, and he is a
Speaker 1: Bloomberg contributor on radio and TV, David Rubinstein. He's also
Speaker 1: been a guest on our broadcast. And Ellie joins us
Speaker 1: via zoom from San Antonio, Texas. Ellie is so good
Speaker 1: to have you here with Tim and myself. How are you?
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing wonderful.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you having me on. Well, it's great to
Speaker 1: have you on This is definitely a space that we
Speaker 1: spend an awful lot of time, certainly at Business Week
Speaker 1: talking a lot about because there's a lot of money
Speaker 1: going into it. Tell us about your background. You grew
Speaker 1: up in Alaska, you spent a lot of time, it
Speaker 1: sounds like in the great outdoors. How did that shape
Speaker 1: you in thinking about where you wanted to focus kind
Speaker 1: of your investing time on. But for sure, so I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I always tell people is
Speaker 1: you learn more from your failures, or you learn more
Speaker 1: from what your passions are. And so I spent the
Speaker 1: last ten years starting my career actually focus within the
Speaker 1: seafood markets or um within water. And we kind of
Speaker 1: have a running joke in my family and my father
Speaker 1: eventually said, do you have to source all your own food?
Speaker 1: Was huntered as German? He said, can't you go buy
Speaker 1: a seafood or a beef companies? Dad, It's not that simple.
Speaker 1: But you know, in our family, usually when someone says
Speaker 1: what you can't do, that motivates me. So that was
Speaker 1: the emphasis for it, married with a very strong emphasis
Speaker 1: on culture of where I wanted to live, how I
Speaker 1: wanted to live, and really the people that surrounded myselfs
Speaker 1: with So that was why I just decided to go
Speaker 1: and start my own firm. I would say that, um,
Speaker 1: I did step out of my family, and that I
Speaker 1: did move to bail at a young age and be
Speaker 1: a professional ski racer. And you know, while I might
Speaker 1: have gone east for college at Harvard, I put my
Speaker 1: foot down again and said, you know, Dad, I love you,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the support and the advice, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go back to Harvard for grad school. And
Speaker 1: and so I feel like I started to become my
Speaker 1: own person when I took charge of my life. And
Speaker 1: for me, that meant the decision of going to Purdue
Speaker 1: and receiving my double masters, my master's and AGCON and
Speaker 1: my MBA and food and aggrobusiness. And why that matters
Speaker 1: was I wrote my essay on my passion for sourcing food,
Speaker 1: smoking my own food and really taking charge of the
Speaker 1: health aspect when you control your own supply chain. I
Speaker 1: did not anticipate Mandatory would become as big as it did,
Speaker 1: but that was really where it came from, was what
Speaker 1: I didn't enjoy doing. We got to ask you for
Speaker 1: our folks here obviously in Bloomberg Radio, but you're also
Speaker 1: on YouTube right now, where are you? Because it looks
Speaker 1: like you're in a lodge. You're skeys are behind you.
Speaker 1: We can see. This is the magic of zoom, Carol.
Speaker 1: Where have you been called out on it? So I
Speaker 1: am for my job on the road a lot. So
Speaker 1: I am today in Texas, where I've been spending the
Speaker 1: winner for work. So that is the background of my
Speaker 1: office in bil Um. But today, being Women's Day, I've
Speaker 1: got a special women's dinner with some of our women
Speaker 1: investors in Texas, so we put that background up. I
Speaker 1: think it's a little too sunny in Texas. The natural
Speaker 1: lighting I don't think would work on this. So as
Speaker 1: if I'm in veil and still around snow, there's my background,
Speaker 1: well said, I love it. Hey, um, elliot, I want
Speaker 1: to I'll talk a little bit about where you're putting
Speaker 1: your money right now. I mean, there's probably not a
Speaker 1: better time to talk about it, because we're talking so
Speaker 1: much about rising commodity costs, rising food costs around the world. Uh,
Speaker 1: much of the world being cut off because of Russia's
Speaker 1: invasion of Ukraine from so much grain. So we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about commodity prices and I'm wondering how we
Speaker 1: should be thinking about diversifying when it comes to where
Speaker 1: we're getting our food, how we can be sustainable when
Speaker 1: it comes to food supply because there are are there
Speaker 1: is so much out there that can disrupt it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: think that degree from Purdue a agcon is one of
Speaker 1: the best degrees because it's really a macro economic of
Speaker 1: the global food supply chain. So when we started Mandatory,
Speaker 1: it was an anomaly at the time to say we
Speaker 1: are a firm focus on the global food supply chain.
Speaker 1: And what that means is it allows you to manage
Speaker 1: to risk number one the supply chain and number two
Speaker 1: the geopolitical risk. So we think a couple of areas
Speaker 1: that we tend to focus on would be number one
Speaker 1: globalization to localization, uh number two companies disrupting the supply
Speaker 1: chain logistics, and then number three clean protein and and
Speaker 1: how that can be a hedge against some commodities. So
Speaker 1: a couple of examples of that globalization and localization. Gotham
Speaker 1: Green's is an indoor ad company. It is the leader
Speaker 1: in the space. We've had in New York City. We
Speaker 1: have had we've actually had We've actually had the founder
Speaker 1: on garage. Yeah, go with it. Ye talk about a
Speaker 1: dynamic CEO. So you know, this is an area that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure we would have ever invested in. But
Speaker 1: what they have is an impressive model that cuts that
Speaker 1: supply chain down in half. And usually Leafy Green takes
Speaker 1: about a week to reach the grocery store, right, but
Speaker 1: instead they cut that in half, which allows it to
Speaker 1: stay on the shelf in the grocery board two times
Speaker 1: as much. It's also focused on in areas so Walton,
Speaker 1: New York. Let's be clear, t in Brooklyn, they tend
Speaker 1: to locate in uh food deserts, right, And so they
Speaker 1: have a very unique algorithm. Instead of looking at population,
Speaker 1: it's looking at where can they help get people leafy green.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of this and and of course
Speaker 1: it's great for the environment. You know, it cuts down
Speaker 1: and it's a very big proponent of e SG. But
Speaker 1: I think that they're really changing the game in terms
Speaker 1: of farming, and so that would be one area. Um,
Speaker 1: hang on for a second because we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: do a little bit of news. We'll take a break
Speaker 1: and come back and and talk some more because we
Speaker 1: want to hear where else you are investing in It
Speaker 1: sounds like to you would want to listen to or
Speaker 1: check out a company called app Harvest. It's somebody we
Speaker 1: have had on who is very much involved in this
Speaker 1: space in terms of local food production and figure out
Speaker 1: how to reduce the impact on the climate as well
Speaker 1: as doing it cleaner. Uh. Ellie, We're gonna come back
Speaker 1: to Ellie Rubinstein, she's co founder, chief executive officer of
Speaker 1: Manda Tree via Zoom from San Antonio. Will continue with
Speaker 1: her big history and veil too. We never crossed past
Speaker 1: them even though I lived there right after college for years.
Speaker 1: We'll talked about that too. This is Bloomberg Radio. I
Speaker 1: want to get right back to our guests that we've
Speaker 1: been speaking to. Ellie Rubinstein, the co founder and CEO
Speaker 1: of Anna Tree. She joins us to be a Zoom
Speaker 1: from San Antonio, Texas. We should note that Ellie is
Speaker 1: the daughter of our colleague here at Bloomberg, David Rubinstein
Speaker 1: is a Bloomberg contributor. Uh and uh MANA Tree is
Speaker 1: a private equity firm and investment companies that improve human
Speaker 1: health through nutrition. That's what we were talking about before
Speaker 1: the break, Ellie, UM, I want to talk more about
Speaker 1: that and get an understanding of how you find the
Speaker 1: next company to invest in, what's your due diligence process,
Speaker 1: how do companies get on your radar, and how do
Speaker 1: you decide to say yes to a company? Sure, I
Speaker 1: want to first point out I think one of our
Speaker 1: advantages has actually been our diverse leadership. UM. So if
Speaker 1: you look at only of women PE managers, it manager,
Speaker 1: seventy of us are diverse leadership. And why that matters
Speaker 1: is that in our portfolio companies there are forty percent
Speaker 1: that's either CEOs are co founders UM that are that
Speaker 1: are women. And so when we're trying to attract companies
Speaker 1: that either need female perspective on their boards or female founder,
Speaker 1: that really matters. So a couple of themes that we've
Speaker 1: looked at. We've talked about supply chain. There's one called
Speaker 1: Cheeta Logistics, which is a female founded CEO, and so
Speaker 1: that is an Amazon like uh supply chain distruction company
Speaker 1: that assists restaurants with kind of on the go UM
Speaker 1: and healthier options for restaurants. Another one that I would
Speaker 1: love to emphasize is Evolved UM. It's in the gut
Speaker 1: infant gut pro bi audux space. And so our managing
Speaker 1: director is actually the only women on the board. So
Speaker 1: I think what we've always tried to look for is
Speaker 1: for things you know, um, I would say, where can
Speaker 1: we add creativity, Where can we lead with conviction? Where
Speaker 1: can we provide confidence? And also our culture. If you
Speaker 1: visit us in Bail, Colorado, at our office, we have
Speaker 1: team workouts, we have a kitchen. You'll see us eating together,
Speaker 1: and so usually we actually try to influence potential founders
Speaker 1: by bringing them to Bail and make sure that they
Speaker 1: can fit into that mandatory family and culture. You know,
Speaker 1: we really live out our our investment thesis of improving
Speaker 1: human health through nutrition and so making sure that that
Speaker 1: alignment is there is a big part of who we are.
Speaker 1: You know, there's so much going on in this space,
Speaker 1: and I can only imagine the people who are knocking
Speaker 1: Elie on your door. And you talk about some of
Speaker 1: the criteria in terms of picking um in a world
Speaker 1: where we're thinking about impact on climate, when we're thinking
Speaker 1: about innovation disruption, you know, how do you though usually
Speaker 1: kind of weed through everything that comes through your door. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, we are growth equity, and so that'll
Speaker 1: weed out some of it in and of itself. We
Speaker 1: try to be the second largest check in behind the founder.
Speaker 1: We we obviously our hands on UM and we're really
Speaker 1: kind of that last stage in. But I will say
Speaker 1: that there's there's themes that we stick to, and so
Speaker 1: those would be clean protein, precision nutrition, supply chain disruption,
Speaker 1: UM and usually they have to get through our lit
Speaker 1: mistress of are they actually improving human health? And so
Speaker 1: we call ourselves an calary conversion business. That's a big
Speaker 1: thing for it. We've seen plenty of companies that might
Speaker 1: not be healthy, so we go after much larger kind
Speaker 1: of the themes that we've seen, such as functional beverages,
Speaker 1: were decline in soda sales. It's got to be a
Speaker 1: category leader with a very large addressable market. So we're
Speaker 1: not in just kind of these niche sweet spots. One
Speaker 1: last thing I'd say is we almost go in unsexy gregories.
Speaker 1: Another company we just close called Good Culture, and they're
Speaker 1: the market leader in disrupting sour cream and cottage cheese.
Speaker 1: It's a great example of both E S. G um
Speaker 1: in the regenerative agriculture, which it appears that if you know,
Speaker 1: the animals are treated better and the land is treated
Speaker 1: better than that in product, and the consumer is also healthier.
Speaker 1: So that's usually the way that we think about it.
Speaker 1: All right, just got about a minute left, hair, I
Speaker 1: wish we had more. You have to come back and
Speaker 1: talk about as these uh investments continue. Um, but just
Speaker 1: about seconds. Your dad, how does he inspire you in
Speaker 1: all of this or or do you pick his brain
Speaker 1: or do you say, hey, dad, you might want to
Speaker 1: think it. Take a look at this. My father is
Speaker 1: the greatest supporter of women I admire. He's relentless, he's humble,
Speaker 1: he's focused. He emphasized partnership to me, and he always
Speaker 1: emphasized say thank you, prioritize your LPs, prioritized most importantly
Speaker 1: your team. And so he's a guy who famously went
Speaker 1: broad and built Carlisle and now we're helping us go
Speaker 1: deep and focusing on improving human health. So I look
Speaker 1: up to him. Um, you know, he's really been my
Speaker 1: key support and cheerleader. And that is why mana tree
Speaker 1: is how it is. I will give him credit. He
Speaker 1: came up with the name mandatree. It means food from heaven,
Speaker 1: just like he believes private equity is the greatest calling
Speaker 1: of mankind. So we're doubling ensure that with being in
Speaker 1: private equity as well as food. Ellie, before we let
Speaker 1: you go, you are based in Vail, Colorado. Your favorite
Speaker 1: ski run on Vail Mountain or do you prefer to
Speaker 1: Beaver Creek. I'm Beaver Creek girl, guys male athlete, and
Speaker 1: the World Cup. So anything on the World Cup hill
Speaker 1: in downhill. Alright, Birds of prey, that's what you're looking at.
Speaker 1: Birds of prey, of course. All right. Ellie Rubinstein, co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Mandatree, joining us not from Veil
Speaker 1: today via zoom from San Antonio, Texas,