Speaker 1: Welcome to Strictly Business Varieties, weekly podcasts featuring conversations with
Speaker 1: industry leaders about the business of media and entertainment. I'm
Speaker 1: Cynthia Littleton, co editor in chief of Variety Today. My
Speaker 1: guest in New York is Joe iyan Ello, chairman and
Speaker 1: CEO of Argus Capital Ayannello was a top executive at
Speaker 1: CBS for more than twenty years when he found himself
Speaker 1: out of a job in early twenty twenty after via
Speaker 1: common CBS tied the knot again. Ianello gathered a number
Speaker 1: of colleagues who were in the same position. They set
Speaker 1: off on a mission to create a better spack deal
Speaker 1: for buying and operating media and entertainment assets. As he
Speaker 1: explains in our conversation, Argus aims to capitalize on the
Speaker 1: disruption all around the industry. The largest media companies are
Speaker 1: shifting priorities and funneling resources to build new streaming platforms.
Speaker 1: Ianello sees quote fantastic businesses and quote being neglected. He
Speaker 1: thinks he has an irresistible offer for those in the
Speaker 1: seats that he used to occupy, sell or spin off
Speaker 1: a big piece of a solid business to the argustine
Speaker 1: and let them run it with relentless focus. Given that
Speaker 1: Ianello is surrounded by CBS alumni in this venture, it's
Speaker 1: no surprise that he still uses US an hour when
Speaker 1: referring to anything involving CBS. Ianello sees Argus as becoming
Speaker 1: a Bolton management team or key advisors for young public companies.
Speaker 1: It's an intriguing vision of the near future for media
Speaker 1: if he can pull it off. That's all coming up
Speaker 1: on today's episode of Strictly Business. Joe Ianello, chairman and
Speaker 1: CEO of Artists Capital Corp. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming to Brian Park and doing this in person. What
Speaker 1: a treat. It's great to be here with you, Joe.
Speaker 1: You have recently you have joined the wave of spack
Speaker 1: deals that have been out there in the marketplace. That's
Speaker 1: been a really interesting development. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the back of it all in a little bit, but
Speaker 1: just to start, tell us about Argus Capital Corp. You
Speaker 1: recently raised about two five million and you have brought
Speaker 1: together a number of former colleagues that you worked with
Speaker 1: at CBS. You've got the band back together, You've got
Speaker 1: you've got some money in your coffers. What is what
Speaker 1: is the goal and why did Argus Capital come together? Now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the timing was there's such change going on
Speaker 1: in the broader t MT sector really again driven by
Speaker 1: technological advancements. So we see lots of opportunities you know,
Speaker 1: of ahead of us, and you know, I'm fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to put together really again a unique group. Again, these
Speaker 1: are these are kind of fortune one hundred c suite
Speaker 1: executives that happened to be all available at the same time,
Speaker 1: which is really again unique certainly in the spack world,
Speaker 1: but even in corporate America to have that breadth and
Speaker 1: depth of talent around me, and so so what exactly
Speaker 1: exactly so so so we we studied the vehicle, the
Speaker 1: spack vehicle deeply before we we entered you know, the
Speaker 1: marketplace and what it does. It really gives us the
Speaker 1: ability to choose to deal we want to do where
Speaker 1: we can add the most amount of value. So that's
Speaker 1: why again, it's why why is back and why you
Speaker 1: know now, was the team was available again in in
Speaker 1: a in a space that we know something about and
Speaker 1: a bit and leslie all of the change that's going
Speaker 1: on that creating a lot of these opportunities. For sure,
Speaker 1: there is, there is so much movement right now, but
Speaker 1: among media entertainment, it really is an industry in transition.
Speaker 1: I sometimes I feel like the winds around me sometimes
Speaker 1: it is literally in transition. Um And I know one
Speaker 1: of the things that you've talked about is that you
Speaker 1: feel like there's going to be a lot of moving
Speaker 1: and shaking, a lot of divesting, a lot of things
Speaker 1: coming off of larger entities that may be reevaluating. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about that and why that's happening now in
Speaker 1: this market? Yeah? I think. I think. Look, I think
Speaker 1: when all of these conglomerates you know, getting together, right,
Speaker 1: you're putting a lot of asset groups together, you know,
Speaker 1: cable nets, with broadcasting, with streaming, with film companies. And
Speaker 1: I think what investors really want is they want focus.
Speaker 1: You know, when they're investing in a company, they want
Speaker 1: to know how the management team is prioritizing, how they
Speaker 1: allocate capital. And now, because a lot of companies are
Speaker 1: over the top, you know, direct the consumer whatever you know,
Speaker 1: you know, call it the Netflix model, if you will, Right,
Speaker 1: it's all of that content, all of that content, you know,
Speaker 1: is being distributed directly to the consumer, and that takes
Speaker 1: you know, capital to do that. So then I think
Speaker 1: investors are gonna push so then why are you in
Speaker 1: this business or this business or that business? Again, I
Speaker 1: just always use the example of you know, I look
Speaker 1: at Hulu and Hulu is owned by Disney and Comcast.
Speaker 1: Yet Disney and Comcast also have streaming services, right Disney
Speaker 1: Plus and Peacock. So when they're making a piece of
Speaker 1: premium content, where does it go? Does it go on Peacock,
Speaker 1: does it go on Hulu? What does it go on
Speaker 1: Disney Plus? And I think as an investor, I think
Speaker 1: part of this process, you know, uh, when we left
Speaker 1: the after the merger, we really started you know, thinking about,
Speaker 1: you know, what we're doing more as an investor and
Speaker 1: really prioritizing how you do that, I think is what's
Speaker 1: gonna These investors are going to force companies again to
Speaker 1: kind of choose where you want to be. And so
Speaker 1: therefore that leads to a lot of what I we're calling,
Speaker 1: you know, corporate divestitures or carve outs, where there are
Speaker 1: fantastic businesses buried inside conglomerates where their capital, you know,
Speaker 1: priority isn't top of the list, so they would be
Speaker 1: better served as a separate entity where folks are dedicated
Speaker 1: to setting up the capital structure appropriate, you know, meaning
Speaker 1: how much death does the company has, does it pay
Speaker 1: a dividend, how does it prioritize its shoes? And letting
Speaker 1: investors invest in that company specifically. And again I think
Speaker 1: it's a win win for both. I think it's fantastic
Speaker 1: for the companies because again they get to unlock value right,
Speaker 1: these corporate carve outs and the the the asset class
Speaker 1: get investors get closer to it, right. And so I
Speaker 1: go back to our gust capital A lot of time
Speaker 1: sitting in that chair, you know, we we came to
Speaker 1: this with our radio division or outdoor division. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: and so um, what we didn't have the we didn't
Speaker 1: have the right public company management in place. We had
Speaker 1: fantastic divisional management that we could help, but we had
Speaker 1: to augment that with public company management. As you know,
Speaker 1: that's very different than running a business when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with public company investors quarter at a quarter. So again
Speaker 1: I come back to, is the team that we have
Speaker 1: together can actually help in that role. And that's where
Speaker 1: you're not seeing where we saw avoid in spacts because
Speaker 1: spacts were you know, um, really, I say, one man band,
Speaker 1: really a smaller shop. But because of the breadth and
Speaker 1: depth of the team we put together, we think a
Speaker 1: corporate carve out is really an interesting solution for some
Speaker 1: of these conglomerates that they can effectually kind of have
Speaker 1: us as the as an overlay. Two again, a solid
Speaker 1: management team right to help tell that story and execute uh.
Speaker 1: In the public markets, do you see a scenario where
Speaker 1: maybe you would buy like eight percent of something from
Speaker 1: a company and they might have a small piece of
Speaker 1: it and you run it. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's actually different. I think we would
Speaker 1: only own a very small piece. So earlier you said
Speaker 1: to sixty five. So just so you know, we raised
Speaker 1: three or five. That includes the green shoe, so the
Speaker 1: underwriters get to exercise a green shoe and over allotment,
Speaker 1: and so we've raised a little over three hundreds. So
Speaker 1: when we look at the size of the companies were
Speaker 1: kind of targeting, and we we're talking multibillion dollar companies, mathematically,
Speaker 1: we're going to only own a small piece of that
Speaker 1: and that's okay, But but we're aligned with that conglomerate.
Speaker 1: So for in an instance, if somebody takes a ten
Speaker 1: billion dollar asset and wants to separate it. Right, they're
Speaker 1: going to actually own the vast majority of that asset
Speaker 1: because if this is worth again ten billion, and we
Speaker 1: have three hundred you know million, we're going to own
Speaker 1: a small piece of that. But the company then it
Speaker 1: would it provides for the company, is right, strategic flexibility,
Speaker 1: separate capital structure, investors at, separate management, and then they
Speaker 1: could do whatever they want thereafter, they can then sell
Speaker 1: the remaining shares um they to the public, do an
Speaker 1: exchange offer, which we've done before because of some tax basis.
Speaker 1: So the spack vehicle allows a lot of that flix exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm learning as thank you, Joe and so so Yeah, look,
Speaker 1: I think I think part of this is I don't
Speaker 1: think it's well understood. I think spats are more institutionalized today,
Speaker 1: but I still think there's a way to go to
Speaker 1: really understand the advantages of a spack. And you know
Speaker 1: what I see it is like again, when we look
Speaker 1: at it to ourselves, here's what we ask ourselves, and
Speaker 1: we always have the target in mind, is happens he said,
Speaker 1: Should this target be a public company? That's the first
Speaker 1: question you should ask, and there's got to be a
Speaker 1: hard question and question. And we've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: things that had no business being a company to oh
Speaker 1: they're not ready yet, or they didn't have the right
Speaker 1: you know, counsel and you know in coaching available to it.
Speaker 1: And so so you've got to ask yourselves. And again
Speaker 1: back to the depth of the team. I think we'll
Speaker 1: get to the right answer when we ask ourselves that,
Speaker 1: but again putting the targets hat on. And so if
Speaker 1: the answer to that is yes, then we have a
Speaker 1: couple of more questions we want to ask. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: does timing matter? You know, if you're if you're in
Speaker 1: a business that has growth, and you you have good
Speaker 1: organic growth, but there's also m and a growth, you
Speaker 1: might want to have a currency out there to start
Speaker 1: rolling these things up. So timing could be important. Uh B.
Speaker 1: You know is does does projections matter to you? Meaning
Speaker 1: is it you tell your story better by future numbers
Speaker 1: or historical numbers? Again, a lot of times, you know
Speaker 1: when I p O is you don't use projections right
Speaker 1: in a spac you can use those projections if that
Speaker 1: tells a better story to reflect the current value of
Speaker 1: the enterprise. Right. A lot of times when you see,
Speaker 1: you know, how did its facts kind of come come
Speaker 1: to be? When I POS doubled, you know, in the
Speaker 1: first day of trading, that's very good for investors. That's
Speaker 1: not so good for the target company because the company
Speaker 1: didn't double in value from yesterday to today. The bar
Speaker 1: just got raised the whole incredible lot. So what happened there,
Speaker 1: well because it wasn't priced appropriately, And again a lot
Speaker 1: of times it wasn't price appropriate because what numbers were
Speaker 1: you looking at? And so again as fact what we
Speaker 1: call it price discovery, you get to kind of find
Speaker 1: where market the market is with us fact because again
Speaker 1: you tell your story, you still have to go to
Speaker 1: the investors and they still have to buy into the
Speaker 1: deal at that value. Right, and we'll talk about you know,
Speaker 1: this thing as a blank check, which is is really
Speaker 1: a misnomer. But the investors and you have a negotiation.
Speaker 1: The target gets to negotiate that right, you know, different
Speaker 1: than the I P O. So if that matters, you know,
Speaker 1: um to you, you use the forward projections, you hit
Speaker 1: the market uh quicker and then what I think most
Speaker 1: important for argus, right, then you get the benefit of
Speaker 1: hundreds of years of experience of the Argus team right,
Speaker 1: again very different than others, but again not available in
Speaker 1: an I P O. Do you have to make in
Speaker 1: those conversations? Do you I would imagine it? Who view
Speaker 1: to make the case? Here's how we're going to run
Speaker 1: in and here's how we're going to do it better
Speaker 1: or more efficiently or with more yeah, strategy. We listened
Speaker 1: to the targets company, you know, the management team of
Speaker 1: the current ownership and what their vision is. And if
Speaker 1: we could take a good idea and make it a
Speaker 1: great idea, then we're adding some value and then we
Speaker 1: have to help them execute it along the way. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times, again there's a lot of great
Speaker 1: companies that you know, probably have a great CEO and
Speaker 1: great manager, which is totally fine, and we're going to
Speaker 1: help them with the public investor story. But if there's gaps,
Speaker 1: we could help and drop some executives into operating roles
Speaker 1: as necessary. Um. But a lot of times, a lot
Speaker 1: of times, these companies they have a good framework, they
Speaker 1: just need a little bit of more direction of you know,
Speaker 1: how to get there. And I think our collective experience
Speaker 1: can really help them again achieve you know, their objectives
Speaker 1: really at the end of the day. But look, like
Speaker 1: I said, is they have to see the value we
Speaker 1: bring to that. And again I go back to the
Speaker 1: experience that you have when you have decades of experience
Speaker 1: with public investors. You know what I always say with
Speaker 1: public investors, you have to you have to tell them
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do, and then you have to do
Speaker 1: what you say, right, and then then the value. You
Speaker 1: don't decide what the value is. They decide what the
Speaker 1: value is. But if you execute that plan again, you
Speaker 1: know you should be increasing value if you're hitting all
Speaker 1: of your metrics. I know you can't talk super specifics,
Speaker 1: but the types of assets you're looking at and guessing
Speaker 1: networks content. Yeah, and I would say, look, it's obviously
Speaker 1: in the broader t MT space, but you know, think
Speaker 1: think O, t T think direct to consumer any any.
Speaker 1: The way we like to describe it is called tech
Speaker 1: driven media, where technology is enriching the consumer experience. Right,
Speaker 1: so we know something about you know, how to do that.
Speaker 1: It obviously can be new sports entertainment, right, so anything
Speaker 1: that has a you know, any live events, you know sports,
Speaker 1: you know, Um, I think again, we have some credibility
Speaker 1: in in our experience of running those types of companies.
Speaker 1: So so when we're what we're looking for is good,
Speaker 1: solid businesses. Again, they could be kind of late stage VC.
Speaker 1: They could be owned by private equity portfolio companies or
Speaker 1: these kind of corporate carve outs that we call them,
Speaker 1: but good you know, solid businesses, category leaders, strong fundamentals.
Speaker 1: They may be at a strategic inflection point, you know,
Speaker 1: they may be going from lineator, digital, all of those things. Again,
Speaker 1: where we can say is we have experience doing that.
Speaker 1: So I love the streaming, you know aspect of it
Speaker 1: because you know, we were one of the first companies,
Speaker 1: you know, traditional media companies to launch a streaming service
Speaker 1: called CBS All Access back in Access. I signed up
Speaker 1: I think the first week and I still use it.
Speaker 1: I used it this morning. Right, It's not Paramount plus
Speaker 1: e grot Bound Amount plus. But but if you just
Speaker 1: think about that for a second, ten that's five years
Speaker 1: before Disney plus Peacock on the our other piers launched
Speaker 1: their services ago. So so so that's what so when
Speaker 1: you have started, when you start at zero and then
Speaker 1: you build it, you get a lot smarter on you know,
Speaker 1: you know, why do subs come in why did they
Speaker 1: churn out? You know, where are they spending time? You know,
Speaker 1: I always used the example of he used to say,
Speaker 1: Showtime has been in the subscription business for its entire existence,
Speaker 1: but up until they launched we launched Showtime O T T,
Speaker 1: they never had a subscriber. And people look at me,
Speaker 1: they go, what do you mean by that? It was like,
Speaker 1: because the distributors had all of this subscription data on
Speaker 1: the on the the m v P dcast of the world,
Speaker 1: the classic middlemen middle right, and Showtime we just get cash.
Speaker 1: They get you know, a fee for that, but they
Speaker 1: didn't know their their subscriber. And so once we launched
Speaker 1: Showtime over the Top, we got so much smarter. We're
Speaker 1: able to program more efficiently, and in terms of CBS
Speaker 1: All Access, the advertising can be much more targeted, right,
Speaker 1: and so so the efficiency you get by doing that.
Speaker 1: And so look, we saw the trends early. Um, we
Speaker 1: saw that's the way consumers were consuming content, and we
Speaker 1: said we had to position the company, you know for that.
Speaker 1: So imagine us telling that story to a target company
Speaker 1: who has a subscription service, to say, look at the
Speaker 1: breadth and depth of this team that can help you
Speaker 1: you know, navigate those tricky waters. You know, there are
Speaker 1: streaming wars as you know going on. You know, we
Speaker 1: believe there's not just going to be you know, three
Speaker 1: or four you know, streaming services. We think there's lanes
Speaker 1: for for many they may have two hundred million subscribers, right,
Speaker 1: but you could still make a fantastic business model at
Speaker 1: you know, ten millions subscribers, right. So, so we think
Speaker 1: there will be those pockets of that that that dedicated
Speaker 1: kind of focus us streaming service. So we see there's
Speaker 1: going to be lots of those you know, companies kind
Speaker 1: of coming out of this. And so look that what
Speaker 1: we're really kind of focusing on. We're using our our
Speaker 1: collective networks to talk to the right people to make
Speaker 1: sure again it goes through that criteria is like should
Speaker 1: this entity be public and have access to the public
Speaker 1: market's timing? Do we add value? Is? So is this
Speaker 1: kind of actionable and so um so, look, we we've
Speaker 1: we've been we've been excited. It's it's it's so much
Speaker 1: fun really to work with people you you trust, respect,
Speaker 1: enjoy you know, being around. So it's a different kind
Speaker 1: of version for us. It's all a bit new, but again,
Speaker 1: the principle of building a world class you know, organization
Speaker 1: and company and helping another company grow is really kind
Speaker 1: of why we get up every morning. Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Argus Capitals Joe ian
Speaker 1: l O right after this message, and we're back with
Speaker 1: more from Argus Capitals Joe I n L. Are you
Speaker 1: to the point where you're calling people, you know, people
Speaker 1: the business associates you know, and it's like, hey, what
Speaker 1: about this? But we do something like is the is
Speaker 1: the market that kind of like just active right now?
Speaker 1: We're in the targeting phase, and so what we do
Speaker 1: is we target companies where again we're putting we're putting
Speaker 1: the conglomerate or the targets company had on and we're
Speaker 1: thinking to ourselves, should this company be public or should
Speaker 1: this asset, you know, a group of assets be public,
Speaker 1: shouldn't be separated in some sort of way? What are
Speaker 1: the pros and cons? And again, because we sat in
Speaker 1: the chair, I would say that would be I would
Speaker 1: never do that because X, Y and Z or that
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. So you're looking for stuff that unlocks
Speaker 1: value right for the for the target right and gives
Speaker 1: them capital. Third, party capital. We're going to bring money
Speaker 1: into this about yeah, about equity, and you'll be equity,
Speaker 1: it could be debt, right, we will bring fery party
Speaker 1: capital north of the we have. So the way the
Speaker 1: projects will be responsible for bringing capital even beyond. That's
Speaker 1: called the pipe exactly exactly, So that's called that's called
Speaker 1: a pipe. Basically, it's a private investment in the public entity.
Speaker 1: And so we will once we know what it is.
Speaker 1: It's hard to go raise money when I don't know
Speaker 1: what the deal is. But once we know what the
Speaker 1: deal is, we would then go and raise more capital.
Speaker 1: That's why I think we can do a very large deal,
Speaker 1: bring infuse significant capital, let that business grow while the parent,
Speaker 1: the target whatever still controls right the entity, and it
Speaker 1: gets again the added value benefit of our collective operating experience.
Speaker 1: So it would be like they would A scenario would
Speaker 1: be that the larger company would keep and then be
Speaker 1: able to consolidate, but it would not have that's try
Speaker 1: and so so so again it gives them strategy flexibility.
Speaker 1: That's why again, if I was sitting in the chair,
Speaker 1: if I was running one of these large media conglomerates today, right,
Speaker 1: I would be thinking about that because that's very interesting
Speaker 1: again because again I know you cannot just say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I know the NFL just re re up
Speaker 1: their rights, right, So you saw everybody's rights fees, you know,
Speaker 1: increased significantly. So where is that happen? Where is that
Speaker 1: capital come from? Well, that capital has got to come
Speaker 1: from you know, that balance sheet of that media company.
Speaker 1: Well then where else? I mean, what what's giving you know,
Speaker 1: are you you can you increase revenue at that rate?
Speaker 1: That isn't I don't think so, right, And so so
Speaker 1: that's why you have to make those choices. And that's
Speaker 1: why you see you see companies selling assets, you see
Speaker 1: them you know, divest them. And this is such an elegant,
Speaker 1: a tax free way to do something to bring in
Speaker 1: you know, third party capital, smart money with an experience
Speaker 1: operator led group. Again me, it's it's win win win
Speaker 1: for everybody. Now, the key is that you have to
Speaker 1: price it right, right, you know, if you push the valuation,
Speaker 1: that doesn't work so well. And what I just keep
Speaker 1: saying is, look, let us build it. You know, the
Speaker 1: the the initial merger is just the starting point of
Speaker 1: where the value is. We build it from there. And
Speaker 1: so so we as a as a manager, agree to
Speaker 1: lock up our shares, we won't sell shares for multi years,
Speaker 1: and you commit to be operators or the idea that
Speaker 1: over time that just it depends. I think again, it's
Speaker 1: whatever the target needs is really the gap we're gonna
Speaker 1: fill if they need one or all as operators, if
Speaker 1: they need maybe it's sitting on the board, or maybe
Speaker 1: it's just as an investor. And so to me it's
Speaker 1: like again we're here. We're here to help again the
Speaker 1: company along again, manage the public markets and in certain
Speaker 1: instances manage the company if necessary. But you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: as much of a timeline for returns as a more
Speaker 1: traditional quit. No no, no, no, no. Again, we're a
Speaker 1: long time. We're used to get you know, we're used
Speaker 1: to receiving you know, an employee stock options right there
Speaker 1: were very low in their four year base and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, with restrictions and stuff like that, and so
Speaker 1: again we're doing this for the long haul. I mean,
Speaker 1: our our objective here is to build a platform to
Speaker 1: allow the company to succeed with our with our knowledge base,
Speaker 1: and we're going to kind of put our money where
Speaker 1: our mouth is and not to say, hey, we build
Speaker 1: a thing, we sell it, and we go off to
Speaker 1: the next one. We want to make sure again, UM
Speaker 1: this this is successful. Um, so we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: put in time. M Um. I know again, I won't,
Speaker 1: I know, I won't pressure on specifics, But do you
Speaker 1: have any are you in the hunt on anything now?
Speaker 1: Do you have any sense of like a time when
Speaker 1: you might have a deal? Yeah, and I I don't.
Speaker 1: I think we're having lots of good, interesting conversations. I
Speaker 1: obviously won't comment on anything specific at the moment, but
Speaker 1: I think there are there are some real I would say, big,
Speaker 1: you know opportunities that some of some of these companies have.
Speaker 1: They have to decide, they're making the decision. Um, we're
Speaker 1: just kind of pointing out what we think the upside
Speaker 1: is to kind of for them to see it through
Speaker 1: our eyes. And if if that, if we're kind of
Speaker 1: like minded and we see we see the world similarly,
Speaker 1: then I would say there's something there. So, UM, I'm
Speaker 1: quite encouraged by the conversations we're having. Um, we want
Speaker 1: to make sure we're disciplined not to kind of just
Speaker 1: jump at the first you know idea. We again, we
Speaker 1: want to put it through a thorough you know, due
Speaker 1: diligence process to make sure we fully vet you know,
Speaker 1: all the risk because again, we're investors right at the
Speaker 1: end of the day in the game, we have we
Speaker 1: have skin in the game, right and so um, we're aligned,
Speaker 1: you know, with the investors, and so we want to
Speaker 1: see we want to see it be successful and that
Speaker 1: takes time. But again I go back to the team
Speaker 1: is you know, the key is going to be due
Speaker 1: diligence because it's as when when we would buy you know,
Speaker 1: a company at CBS, we would make sure we understood
Speaker 1: the business very well before we decided, you know, what
Speaker 1: price we would pay. And it's a very similar type
Speaker 1: of analysis that we're good, we're that we're doing so
Speaker 1: so you know, we're we're we're going through employee costs
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. You know, we know, we know that,
Speaker 1: and so I think that part of it is going
Speaker 1: to be very helpful. Uh, and we're gonna look for
Speaker 1: you know, where there's value upside right where if somebody
Speaker 1: may not if you're not in the business, if you
Speaker 1: don't understand it's like, hey, you're looking at the contract,
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, we can do this with this content.
Speaker 1: Uh that it's not it's not being monetized unless you've
Speaker 1: been there and it's kind of done that you won't
Speaker 1: see it that way. And if we see it again
Speaker 1: pointed out and we kind of, you know, get it
Speaker 1: properly valued, I think that would demonstrate to the target
Speaker 1: and two investors that'd say, Wow, those guys are really
Speaker 1: adding value because I didn't. I didn't realize that that
Speaker 1: that depth of experience. Let me ask you my last
Speaker 1: question for you, Argus, where did the name come from?
Speaker 1: Very interesting? So, so we were very democratic about the
Speaker 1: argust name because we had to name it and every
Speaker 1: every obvious name that you would think of as taken
Speaker 1: and you know, and so we would do legal searches.
Speaker 1: So we the entire team I wanted to you know, blind,
Speaker 1: So everybody submitted um a list of names, and then
Speaker 1: everybody kind of voted, you know on it, and Argus
Speaker 1: got the most votes. And Argus in Greek mythology, Uh,
Speaker 1: it means it's the eyes of Argus. And what we
Speaker 1: thought the cost we're quote unquote on the hunt for
Speaker 1: a deal, having the eyes of Argus out there scouring,
Speaker 1: you know, looking for a deal. You know, it made
Speaker 1: it made the most sense. Uh and so so yeah,
Speaker 1: So I didn't know who named it. So one of
Speaker 1: one of our one of our team members was the
Speaker 1: was the one who came up with it. But I
Speaker 1: didn't know when we when we did it at the time,
Speaker 1: who did it to make it, you know, as democratic
Speaker 1: as you could possibly make it, to just say, it's
Speaker 1: like if I came up with the name, everyone's yeah,
Speaker 1: I like that name. I like that name. So um,
Speaker 1: I did not come up with the name. That's a
Speaker 1: good collective approach there, well, and you could forgive a
Speaker 1: bunch of CBS veterans wanting a name that indicated yeah
Speaker 1: that that was not lost upon us as well. When
Speaker 1: it said the eyes and I said maybe the logos
Speaker 1: should know I said no, no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: too far you know something about I P yeah people yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh and uh. And then we had a little
Speaker 1: design company designed the logo, which was fantastic. And so
Speaker 1: so look, we're really jazzed about this this next chapter.
Speaker 1: I think, as I said before, it's um, it's fun.
Speaker 1: We're we're really enjoying this positive. It's different, excitingly building
Speaker 1: something you've been incorporations And because yeah, because look, I
Speaker 1: think we're learning about businesses that I would say a
Speaker 1: media adjacent where you know, some are coming to us
Speaker 1: and say, hey, this is not exactly down your fairway,
Speaker 1: but it's close and so would you consider doing something
Speaker 1: like this on that and so so it's just to
Speaker 1: have those conversations to understand those business models. Um, it's
Speaker 1: really kind of interesting and just just saying, wow, is
Speaker 1: that there's a lot of interesting businesses out there outside
Speaker 1: of the media, you know world, And so I think again,
Speaker 1: it's really just been Um, it's been invigorating to really
Speaker 1: kind of you know, see this kind from nothing all
Speaker 1: of a sudden start kind of forming literally going through
Speaker 1: an I P O process doing a road show. I like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, Um, but you really right now, we're
Speaker 1: we're just capital. We have we have capital, and the
Speaker 1: operations are pretty limited. And so we're saying, wait a wait,
Speaker 1: we're not used to doing that. We're used to kind
Speaker 1: of you know, dealing with issues and tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of employees and you know, it's just a you know,
Speaker 1: a dozen of us on a zoom call, you know,
Speaker 1: at the moment. But um, but we're using investment banks,
Speaker 1: we're using all of our collective networks really again to
Speaker 1: to find the right opportunity uh that again, uh and
Speaker 1: make a deal that works. It works for everybody. It's
Speaker 1: interesting because you know, I've been through, like we've been
Speaker 1: through periods where everybody's talking to everybody murger. But in
Speaker 1: this moment, it feels like things are being almost like legos,
Speaker 1: you know, things are being snapped off and snapped together
Speaker 1: in different ways. And so I can imagine with your
Speaker 1: expertise and that and and money and and drive, which
Speaker 1: which is definitely we could we can yeah, and look,
Speaker 1: look I can think. Look, that's that's why we well,
Speaker 1: that's why we did this because you know, uh, several
Speaker 1: of us could have went with the private equity route,
Speaker 1: did did a traditional route where another skills, another media
Speaker 1: company and things in any but this, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of felt because of all of this change going on
Speaker 1: the opportunities that we were going to be able to
Speaker 1: kind of pick the one we saw, you know, as
Speaker 1: as the upside, but again also having a little bit
Speaker 1: of fun and understanding where we can add some value.
Speaker 1: And so look, it just it lined up. I always say,
Speaker 1: you know, timing and life is everything, and I would
Speaker 1: not be able to put this group together, you know,
Speaker 1: twelve months from now, uh and do that. And so
Speaker 1: that's why it can. We said, we saw the opportunity
Speaker 1: and I think you know. The way we position it
Speaker 1: is kind We call it the lack of a better
Speaker 1: unique term spack two point oh, where this is what
Speaker 1: a SPAC should be. It should be an operator led
Speaker 1: team that can add value to the target post the deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us a review
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Speaker 1: be sure to tune in next week for another episode
Speaker 1: of Strictly Business.