Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about cars right now.
Speaker 3: Rolls Royce sells arguably the world's most luxurious motor cars,
Speaker 3: but they don't want to sell more of them, just
Speaker 3: higher priced versions of each one. In order to do that,
Speaker 3: the Goodwood based manufacturer has opened up a private office
Speaker 3: right here in New York City for its highest network
Speaker 3: clients in America to help design increasingly individual masterpieces.
Speaker 2: As the CEO refers.
Speaker 3: To them, let's bring him in to talk about lifting
Speaker 3: luxury margins and contributing those to parent company BMW. Chris
Speaker 3: Brownridge runs the company now, and he joins us from
Speaker 3: the private office down in the meatpacking district. Chris, great
Speaker 3: to have you on the program. Thanks so much for
Speaker 3: joining us. I wonder if you could start by telling
Speaker 3: us what your goals are in terms of your contributions
Speaker 3: to BMW, in terms of growing margins. What do you
Speaker 3: want to achieve in your say, first couple of years
Speaker 3: as CEO.
Speaker 4: Oh, good morning, Matt, and it's great to be here
Speaker 4: in New York. I'm sitting in our private office and
Speaker 4: that's a great place to start. The whole business at
Speaker 4: Rolls Royce is about creating value for our clients. And
Speaker 4: what we're seeing is increasing demand from our clients for
Speaker 4: more and more bespoke and personal motor cars. And the
Speaker 4: whole private office network that we're setting up is designed
Speaker 4: to really create environment where we can engage them directly
Speaker 4: with our design team and so we see a great
Speaker 4: opportunity and our client feedback about the private office is
Speaker 4: extremely encouraging.
Speaker 3: So you have I believe you have setups like this
Speaker 3: in other hubs in Dubai for example, in Shanghai for example,
Speaker 3: how strong are they in terms of contributing to margin growth?
Speaker 4: Well, the New York Private Office is of a network,
Speaker 4: and as you say, we have a number around the world.
Speaker 4: We started with the home of Ross Rice in Goodwood,
Speaker 4: where our clients would come to us and so they
Speaker 4: could meet the team and we could work with them
Speaker 4: to create their own bespoke rolls RoCE and this is
Speaker 4: a growing aspect of our business. For example, in Shanghai,
Speaker 4: in the first six months of the private office being open,
Speaker 4: we had engagements with more than two hundred clients. So
Speaker 4: it's clearly something that resonates with our target audience. It
Speaker 4: creates a unique experience for them and Chris, I.
Speaker 1: Want to talk about global demand, and but I particularly
Speaker 1: want to talk about Chinese demand because, of course, you
Speaker 1: think about what we've seen out of China this week,
Speaker 1: a big bang of stimulus measures and wildly different industries here.
Speaker 1: But we were talking to the CEO of Pandora, for example,
Speaker 1: who said that they're strong everywhere except in China.
Speaker 2: What are you.
Speaker 1: Seeing when it comes to China when it comes to
Speaker 1: Rolls Royce specifically, well.
Speaker 4: It's clear at the moment in China the luxury industry
Speaker 4: is on some experiencing some more challenging times. But the
Speaker 4: Chinese market is very important to Rolls Royce and that's
Speaker 4: we've invested in it. In fact, we've opened a private
Speaker 4: office in Shanghai because we see a growing number of
Speaker 4: ultra high networth individuals and certainly what we've seen since
Speaker 4: that private office has been open is more profound engagements
Speaker 4: for our clients. You know, It's always been an important
Speaker 4: reason for us, and it will continue to be for
Speaker 4: the future, even.
Speaker 5: If you're looking at the long term in China, Chris,
Speaker 5: what does that mean for a more immediate demand? And
Speaker 5: wondering if this bigger push into the US with this
Speaker 5: New New York office starts to offset any weaknesses you
Speaker 5: might be seeing across the globe.
Speaker 4: Well, Ros Rice is a brand which with a great
Speaker 4: heritage and history, and of course we have clients all
Speaker 4: around the world, and we've seen over many years fluctuations
Speaker 4: in demand in every region of the world. And that's
Speaker 4: the great thing about our business. We're super flexible, super agile,
Speaker 4: and of course we've got clients all over the world,
Speaker 4: so if one region is up, there's always another one
Speaker 4: that may be down. But overall we can balance our
Speaker 4: business really effectively because we're so very agile.
Speaker 3: It does seem like, you know, within luxury, we see
Speaker 3: the lower end kind of struggling the higher end. We
Speaker 3: talk to, for example, executives at Lamborghini and Ferrari and
Speaker 3: they continue to do Gangbuster's business.
Speaker 2: Do you notice a.
Speaker 3: Growth in high net worth individuals? Is that what's powering
Speaker 3: this drive at the top end of luxury, Yeah, very
Speaker 3: much so.
Speaker 4: And in response to the growing demand for our clients,
Speaker 4: we're opening these private offices, but we're also investing in
Speaker 4: the home of Ross Royce. We're expanding our facility there,
Speaker 4: not so we can build more motor cars, but so
Speaker 4: we can build more precious and special motor cars for
Speaker 4: our clients. We need more space for these bespoke commissions,
Speaker 4: and we're certainly seeing over the last years a real
Speaker 4: growth in demand for more personalized and more specific requests
Speaker 4: from our clients. But also what they particularly value is
Speaker 4: the experience that we deliver them, and that's why when
Speaker 4: our clients can't come to Goodwood, Goodwood comes to the clients,
Speaker 4: and that's why we have our private offices. So where
Speaker 4: I'm sitting here in New York, this is a little
Speaker 4: bit of Goodwood. It's like an outpost to where our
Speaker 4: client we'll.
Speaker 1: Talk about some of your new models. Of course, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about Stepter. It's your new all electric model in
Speaker 1: its first year of deliveries. A little bit of a
Speaker 1: setback here, of course, some recalls in place. What measures
Speaker 1: are you putting in place to deal with that recall?
Speaker 4: So Specter we launched this year and it's been a
Speaker 4: great success for us. Our clients feedback about Specters. They
Speaker 4: absolutely love the way the motorcar drives. It's a super coupe.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely stunning to look at, and it's a great
Speaker 4: palette our canvas for personalization we had this topic in
Speaker 4: terms of the recall. But what we're doing is we're
Speaker 4: handling that as efficiently as possible to make sure that
Speaker 4: our clients are not inconvenience. And our team have done
Speaker 4: a really good job of that, and we're making sure
Speaker 4: that we're quick to respond and we give all our
Speaker 4: clients the reassurance that they deserve.
Speaker 5: Which BMW, Which Rolls Royce vehicles are affected by this recall?
Speaker 5: Of course, we saw their profit warning out by your
Speaker 5: parent company, BMW. Can you give a sense of kind
Speaker 5: of where else the issue lies.
Speaker 4: The topic that we're discussing right now specifically affects Specter
Speaker 4: and only Specter, and in the North America area there
Speaker 4: are six hundred vehicles affected, and we have a pan
Speaker 4: of action for each and every one of them.
Speaker 3: I wonder what new models we can expect in the future, Chris,
Speaker 3: you have, you know on your ice cars twin turbocharged
Speaker 3: V twelve, you know, six point seven liter engine that
Speaker 3: just makes me salivate. Is it possible that that is
Speaker 3: married with electric power?
Speaker 2: Could we see a hybrid in the future for Rolls Royce.
Speaker 4: Well, one of the things that's always true about Rolls
Speaker 4: Rice is that we don't compromise, and with our V
Speaker 4: twelve power plant today in our model range, it's a
Speaker 4: fabulous piece of engineering. And also with spect we've delivered
Speaker 4: a motor car using electrification and again our pliant feedback
Speaker 4: is it's a perfect Rolls Rice. We'll never compromise. We
Speaker 4: always deliver the best possible power train for our clients.
Speaker 4: As for future motor car as well, I wouldn't want
Speaker 4: to give any secrets away right now, but what I
Speaker 4: can tell you is as a very exciting future for
Speaker 4: Rolls Rice, a.
Speaker 1: Very exciting future. You're not going to give away secrets
Speaker 1: right now, but I'm still going to try our clients
Speaker 1: asking for a hybrid. When you think about the Rules
Speaker 1: Royce customer base, are they asking for hybrids?
Speaker 4: Our clients, they tell us they love the V twelve
Speaker 4: and they also tell us that they love Spectrum as well.
Speaker 4: The thing that they love is the way a Rolls
Speaker 4: Royce drives. It's that waftability, that ease of driving and
Speaker 4: absolute silence when they're driving, and both power trains that
Speaker 4: we have deliver that. In space, driving a Rolls Rice
Speaker 4: is always a special occasion or indeed being driven in
Speaker 4: one and that will always be the case with every
Speaker 4: Rolls Royce that we make.
Speaker 3: In terms of what you're doing down there, do you
Speaker 3: envision a time when Rolls Royce is putting out more
Speaker 3: one off models? I mean, right now you've got you know,
Speaker 3: Ghost and Culinen and Phantom Inspector. But are you going
Speaker 3: to be doing really individual pieces high networth individuals.
Speaker 4: Well, we already today produce in very small numbers coach
Speaker 4: built motor cars for our most demanding clients, and these
Speaker 4: real show pieces of the possibilities of our crafts people
Speaker 4: and artists who work in Goodwood. But I'd argue today
Speaker 4: every Rolls Rice is a bespoke work of art, and
Speaker 4: that is our mission is to increase the specific content
Speaker 4: for each specific client in every Rolls Rice because ultimately
Speaker 4: they are a masterpiece for our clients. They really do
Speaker 4: represent the best of craftsmanship and the most special specific
Speaker 4: content for our clients. And that's what we're very, very
Speaker 4: proud of at Rolls Rice.
Speaker 3: All Right, when I listed the models, I left our Wraith,
Speaker 3: which is one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: I have to say as well, a power coupe.
Speaker 3: Chris, thanks so much for joining us, Chris Brownridge, there
Speaker 3: of Rolls Royce Motor Cars at his new private office
Speaker 3: in downtown New York. Be sure to listen by the
Speaker 3: way to my podcast Hot Pursuit. You can get it
Speaker 3: on Apple or Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Hannah Elliott and.
Speaker 3: I she's the luxury reporters of Reporter for Pursuits.
Speaker 2: We spent an hour with Chris yesterday and I think
Speaker 2: you'll find it interesting. That episode comes out on Friday.