Speaker 1: Welcome to Trilliance. I'm Joel Webber and I'm Eric. Eric.
Speaker 1: There is an article recently on Bloomberg and Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com terminals by Rachel Evans that sort of broke the terminal.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things we like to say when
Speaker 1: it gets really high readership. And it was about Spy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it articles big. When a lot of people
Speaker 1: forded to me and say did you see this? Did
Speaker 1: you see this? And that happened with this article? It
Speaker 1: was all over Twitter. People could not believe it, And honestly,
Speaker 1: I didn't know about it specifically. I knew Spy was
Speaker 1: a unit investment trust, but I didn't know this detail
Speaker 1: and about these kids that were tied to it, and
Speaker 1: I thought it was fascinating. So to break this down,
Speaker 1: we brought Rachel in as well as some of the
Speaker 1: Spy kids. Rachel, how did you find out about the
Speaker 1: story and what is it all about? Well, as Eric
Speaker 1: pointed out, like this is something that blew up on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and that's actually where we first came across this. Someone
Speaker 1: posted on Twitter last week or I guess two weeks
Speaker 1: ago when this goes out that they found this like
Speaker 1: weird kind of sentence in the documentation for Spy about
Speaker 1: how it had a set termination date, which is not
Speaker 1: usual in exchange traded funds, and b that the fund
Speaker 1: would either end at this termination date or when the
Speaker 1: last of eleven people named in the documentation died. So
Speaker 1: I got sent this email from a colleague of mine
Speaker 1: out in Hong Kong saying, this is the most fun
Speaker 1: E t F story ever, and I kind of in Spy.
Speaker 1: For those who don't know, this is the biggest E
Speaker 1: t F out there. Eric, you you talked about it
Speaker 1: all the time because of how much it trades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just to just drop some figures on Spy. It is
Speaker 1: the most traded equity right. There's four to six thousand
Speaker 1: stocks that are trading every day. Spy trades about twenty
Speaker 1: billion a day. That's about three or four times more
Speaker 1: than the next most which would be Amazon or Apple
Speaker 1: depending on the day. Um So, in my opinion, Spy
Speaker 1: has become somewhat of a son that a lot of
Speaker 1: the market revolves around. There's options, The options activities on
Speaker 1: Spy is is massive. The trading in his mass if
Speaker 1: people use it for liquidity, they use it for long
Speaker 1: term investing. Um and what's interesting is is probably the
Speaker 1: product that has the most diversified group of investors from traders,
Speaker 1: the hedge funds, institutional investors, foreign investors, everybody is in this.
Speaker 1: And unlike other s and P five e t s,
Speaker 1: this one, like we mentioned, is a trust. So the
Speaker 1: structure is a little bit different and that's ultimately where
Speaker 1: the bike gets come in. Yeah, so a U I
Speaker 1: T was basically chosen as the structure for the first
Speaker 1: e t F we had, you know, after exchange crash,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of people that the American Stock
Speaker 1: Exchange looking for a way to make a tradeable products
Speaker 1: like spy ended up being and to do so, they
Speaker 1: started looking at what structure might work best and settled
Speaker 1: on a unit investment trust because it's trades a bit
Speaker 1: like a it can be used to trade a bit
Speaker 1: like a stock, but it also has that kind of
Speaker 1: investment side of things. But one of the issues with
Speaker 1: the U I T is that they have to have,
Speaker 1: or at the time had to have a set termination
Speaker 1: date to deal with the rule against perpetuities. And let
Speaker 1: me add a little more to this, because uh, when
Speaker 1: and when you're talking about e t f s, the
Speaker 1: regulatory structure is a field we have on Bloomberg to
Speaker 1: identify what kind of structure because there's different things that
Speaker 1: go along with it. U I T s, which there's
Speaker 1: a handful, maybe half a dozen E t f that
Speaker 1: are structured as U I T s, but they have
Speaker 1: of the assets or three hundred and sixty billion SPY
Speaker 1: the cues d I A, M, d WI are the
Speaker 1: big popular ones, and a couple of things, not just
Speaker 1: the termination date, which will get into heavily in a minute.
Speaker 1: But they can't invest dividends back every day. They can
Speaker 1: only invest them quarterly, so there's a little tiny bit
Speaker 1: of cash drag in a U I T although that
Speaker 1: can help if it's going down because you don't want
Speaker 1: to invest back into the market. The other thing is
Speaker 1: they can't do securities lending. Other E t f s
Speaker 1: which are open end funds, can lend securities. That isn't
Speaker 1: a huge deal in large cap stalks, but that can
Speaker 1: add a little extra revenue. So all told, SPY is
Speaker 1: actually the worst performing of the S and p F
Speaker 1: t f s because of those reasons, and because its
Speaker 1: fees a little higher, so a lot of sometimes long
Speaker 1: to an investors will choose I v V or over
Speaker 1: spy for those reasons, but the liquidity is so paramount
Speaker 1: that most people all that doesn't matter. They're just going
Speaker 1: after that liquidity. And one of the things that Rachel
Speaker 1: discovered about this was that that trust was actually set
Speaker 1: to expire in but one of the things that happened
Speaker 1: was that it was extended because of the trust being
Speaker 1: able to attach itself to individuals. Yeah, so this was
Speaker 1: kind of like this weird quirk that that we kind
Speaker 1: of came across initially that the trust was, yeah, set
Speaker 1: up for twenty five years, so twenty five years from
Speaker 1: that puts you up last year, so we could have
Speaker 1: seen the spy maturing or terminating at that point. However,
Speaker 1: when it became apparent that this was going to be
Speaker 1: more than just a sort of, you know, flash in
Speaker 1: the pan kind of success, that they worked to extend
Speaker 1: the trust and they extended it a hundred years, and
Speaker 1: then to give it a bit of extra juice, they
Speaker 1: added the names of these eleven individuals and stated that
Speaker 1: the fund would survive to twenty years. It's beyond the
Speaker 1: loss of their depths, potentially giving it a little bit
Speaker 1: of extra extension. No pressure, guys, that's where this week's
Speaker 1: episode comes in, this time Montrillian Spy kids, so joining us.
Speaker 1: This time we've got pomp Avelca, Kevin McGrath and Alexander Most.
Speaker 1: Alexander Most is actually the grandson of Nathan Most, who
Speaker 1: actually invented co invented spy in the first place. Guys,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us, thanks for
Speaker 1: having us. Good to be here. So trace to us.
Speaker 1: We'll start with Kevin, what person? What adult when you
Speaker 1: were a baby? Put your name in here. Sure, it's
Speaker 1: my mom, Claire McGrath. She worked for AMEX as a counsel.
Speaker 1: At the time, she was a lawyer. And um, maybe
Speaker 1: it's best if I can go back to how this
Speaker 1: kind of all started. Last Thursday, I was reached out
Speaker 1: to by a reporter via LinkedIn who contacted me and
Speaker 1: asked me if my name was Kevin Patrick McGrath, which
Speaker 1: is strange because I don't really use my middle name
Speaker 1: in any type of dot like. I think it's maybe
Speaker 1: only on my passport. And he laid out this whole thing.
Speaker 1: Did you have a family member who was in finance? Uh? Uh,
Speaker 1: you know you're connected to this very large fund. To me,
Speaker 1: I'm reading this as a you know, this is like
Speaker 1: a very elaborate scam, Nigerian prince scam. It's like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is uh you guys are really getting into that.
Speaker 1: Uh So I was like, Okay, send me the copy
Speaker 1: of the filing. I want to see it, not thinking
Speaker 1: this would turn into anything. Not only sends me the
Speaker 1: filing link, but he sends the an attachment with our
Speaker 1: names and it's my name, his name, cousin Paul, and
Speaker 1: uh our cousin Pete. So now then like like I
Speaker 1: was like, whoa, this is weird. And another thing that
Speaker 1: triggered it for me just scrolling through the filing was Spider. Um.
Speaker 1: I recognized the name Spider. I went visiting my mom's
Speaker 1: office as a kid. There was a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: the one thing every kid does is go to the
Speaker 1: swag room and uh I remember seeing the Spider logo
Speaker 1: and you know, eight a ten year old boy, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, cool Spider. Yeah, like awesome. Um, that definitely
Speaker 1: lit a bell. I knew it had to be related
Speaker 1: to something she did. My concert is like did she
Speaker 1: get involved in the sketchy or is this like I
Speaker 1: assumed it was normal. You know my mom wouldn't do that,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was just kind of off from there.
Speaker 1: It was pretty wild. Rachel contacted us, I spoke to
Speaker 1: her and it's just been a very surreal week. So, Paul,
Speaker 1: what memories of SPI do you have? Because you and
Speaker 1: Kevin actually have known each other outside of the spy
Speaker 1: kid relationship, right, Yes, that's right. We uh, we grew
Speaker 1: up together. Um, my dad is originally from Long Island,
Speaker 1: so for holidays in the summer, we would as a
Speaker 1: family go and visit Kevin and his mom and dad
Speaker 1: and so as far as Spider goes, Uh, this was
Speaker 1: all completely new to me as of last Thursday. Kevin
Speaker 1: reached out to me as I'm getting ready for work.
Speaker 1: I work in Philadelphia. I am a bartender, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden I get a text message from Kevin,
Speaker 1: who goes, are reporters trying to reach out to you?
Speaker 1: Now you know, I'm sitting on the bus on my
Speaker 1: way to work, and like why why why are reporters
Speaker 1: reaching out? Like you know, there's like a certain panic.
Speaker 1: That's what did I do exactly exactly? Why is my
Speaker 1: cousin that lives in New York asking me and my brother.
Speaker 1: If we're hearing from reporters, Okay, there's just like a
Speaker 1: fair amount for a regular Joe Schmoe person, there's like
Speaker 1: a fair amount of like horror that goes into what
Speaker 1: went viral this time? You know, And come to find out,
Speaker 1: I spoke with Rachel as well, you know, standing in
Speaker 1: an alleyway waiting to you know, go into work, and
Speaker 1: I'm on the phone with her and she explains how
Speaker 1: all this happened, and between Kevin sort of giving me
Speaker 1: a heads up that hey, there's this reporter from Blueberg
Speaker 1: that's going to reach out to you and actually speaking
Speaker 1: to her properly. Is is how I've been brought up
Speaker 1: to speed, if you want to even call it that.
Speaker 1: This is still pretty much the intro was a little
Speaker 1: over my head. It's still at this point that's all
Speaker 1: Alexander's fault. Actually, maybe Alexander, maybe it's your grandfather's fault.
Speaker 1: What memories of Nathan Most do you have, Alexander? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, I remember Nathan Most pretty well. He
Speaker 1: passed away when I was younger, but he was always
Speaker 1: you know, a large figure patriarch in my family, someone
Speaker 1: who lived a couple of towns away. From me in California.
Speaker 1: But I really didn't know much about his history and
Speaker 1: involvement in the finance world and the history of the
Speaker 1: E T S really until last Thursday, when I got
Speaker 1: a lot more context and learned a lot more about it.
Speaker 1: Do you even remember him telling you stories about the
Speaker 1: E T F or or him being the godfather of
Speaker 1: the E T F or anything like that. I'm not
Speaker 1: a single thing about that, to be honest. Conversations revolved
Speaker 1: around what was for dinner that night. Okay, it's just
Speaker 1: like old school godfather you don't discuss business at the
Speaker 1: dinner table, so come on, I should have known better yet.
Speaker 1: I also spoke with Alexander's father and uncle about their
Speaker 1: memories of Native for for the story. I was pretty
Speaker 1: much tracking down everybody's immediate family and then having a conversation.
Speaker 1: So that was kind of like great, just to get
Speaker 1: some real color about what they remember about, you know,
Speaker 1: Nathan at that time and visiting the American Stock Exchange
Speaker 1: and hearing about his work. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: it's given us all a lot more history about actually
Speaker 1: how Spy kind of came into being. Then maybe we
Speaker 1: knew this time last week, and um, so there was
Speaker 1: eleven of them. What was there like an email like now,
Speaker 1: I guess it was ninety three where they have sending
Speaker 1: an email. Maybe they actually had a memo back in
Speaker 1: the day or whatever. Did they get the word get
Speaker 1: around the office that we need like baby names and
Speaker 1: can you just talk about how that how they how
Speaker 1: the eleven got chosen. Yeah, so, I mean I had
Speaker 1: a hunch when I was trying to figure out who
Speaker 1: the eleven were that maybe they were connected to the
Speaker 1: American Stock Exchange, and that that proved to be largely correct. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My understanding is basically they just put out a call
Speaker 1: for baby names. I'm not sure whether that was done
Speaker 1: by email or carrier pigeon or what. But yeah, Claire
Speaker 1: spoke to me, Kevin's mom spoke to me about how
Speaker 1: she remembers hearing people just asking for for names of
Speaker 1: younger relatives that they could put in this trust. Obviously
Speaker 1: the parents kind of were involved and the AMEX many
Speaker 1: of them directly with actually setting up the e t F,
Speaker 1: so they were relatively comfortable with their kids names being used.
Speaker 1: You've got to remember this is a pretty arcane legal
Speaker 1: document and to your point about email, you know, the
Speaker 1: Internet hadn't really begun doing its thing in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: so the likelihood that their names would ever come to
Speaker 1: light from this, you know, they're going to be buried
Speaker 1: in a document in that the SECS vaults. Um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: that they kind of came forward with these names. You know,
Speaker 1: we had communications people like giving their step grandkids. We
Speaker 1: had you know, sort of some of the specialists at
Speaker 1: the time that we're going to be trading the E
Speaker 1: T F giving their daughter. So yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: very odd thing, but that's how it kind of came about.
Speaker 1: And why eleven, that's a great question. I have absolutely
Speaker 1: no idea. I think they wanted to move if you
Speaker 1: have one, obviously that's a bit risky, so neverification. I
Speaker 1: don't know whether any of the Spike kids though this,
Speaker 1: but my kind of sense is that it was just
Speaker 1: a large enough group whereby you're not putting all of
Speaker 1: that pressure on one person to stay alive. Did you
Speaker 1: guys look at the other eleven names? How many do
Speaker 1: you guys know? I don't know any of them, but
Speaker 1: my mom just I mean, yeah, yeah, my younger brother
Speaker 1: is also one of the eleven, but he works for
Speaker 1: the water department, so he didn't get off today. Uncle,
Speaker 1: he's not a bartender like so and Alexander. Um, how
Speaker 1: many names did you know? Absolutely not at all to you.
Speaker 1: It's ben't surprised that anyone do anyone at all cost
Speaker 1: very here. Yeah, I think part of it was also
Speaker 1: I don't know why the number, but I think part
Speaker 1: of why my cousins and I were chosen because I
Speaker 1: think they wanted some geographical diversity as well. It's like
Speaker 1: another big thing. But um, yeah, a lot of the
Speaker 1: people were names my mom recognized. Webber I think who
Speaker 1: you spoke? Claire Webber's Cliff Webber's daughter. He was a
Speaker 1: big part of this. Rachel, I have a question for you.
Speaker 1: How did you track them down? Just cure? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if you can unveil your methods. But it was
Speaker 1: like Google to LinkedIn to all that. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's kind of like rule on. I wanted a reporter
Speaker 1: just be dugged and keep looking. Um so, I mean,
Speaker 1: given I had a list of full names, had a
Speaker 1: list of some addresses, the subdates of birth, really Google
Speaker 1: and then just hitting the phones, you can't be a
Speaker 1: good bit of a sort of old fashioned footwork and
Speaker 1: trying to track people down. Did you reach out to
Speaker 1: anybody who was like, no carment, stay away from me.
Speaker 1: Kevin alluded to thinking that this was a scam when
Speaker 1: he was first reaked out to you on LinkedIn, and
Speaker 1: I definitely spoke with a couple of other people directly
Speaker 1: who were like, m uh huh, yeah, my work says,
Speaker 1: you're trying to fish me. Um. So there were a
Speaker 1: few people that were very suspicious of this, and completely
Speaker 1: understandably so, I mean, it's not every day you get
Speaker 1: a call completely out of the blue where somebody has
Speaker 1: your full name, your address, your relationships with various people.
Speaker 1: I can totally understand how it would freak anybody out,
Speaker 1: and trying to reassure people that I wasn't there to
Speaker 1: fish them. I just had this like really odd story
Speaker 1: about how they were connected to two fifty billion fund,
Speaker 1: which again sounds very scammy. It was a little bit
Speaker 1: of a challenge. How would you like to make two
Speaker 1: it's reach the Nigerian Princess of I do have a
Speaker 1: question for Rachel actually, so you're the one who did
Speaker 1: like a lot of the search on on this. We're
Speaker 1: eleven individuals we are named in this document is there
Speaker 1: in your research? Is there somebody keeping track of us?
Speaker 1: I mean, and Claire said that she didn't give them,
Speaker 1: Like our social security numbers are my parents don't remember
Speaker 1: giving my aunt our social security numbers to be attached
Speaker 1: to this document. So like, what if we change our names?
Speaker 1: What if we like decide to go underground, Like how
Speaker 1: will that impact? Yes, hit up deed Pole, get that
Speaker 1: name change? I don't know, I don't know. It's a
Speaker 1: great question, um. And we actually reached out to State
Speaker 1: Street that currently runs the fund to see if they
Speaker 1: had any comment on this or any color on what
Speaker 1: they were doing is to keep tabs on things, and
Speaker 1: they refer comment to the New York Stock Exchange, which
Speaker 1: obviously bought the AMX, who declined to comment. So we
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, it seems as though at the
Speaker 1: moment your your names are out there and I'm sure
Speaker 1: people are keeping a closer watch on you than maybe
Speaker 1: they were before. But a sort of room that has
Speaker 1: all of our pictures and heartbeats and current locations known
Speaker 1: alias is now you should do that at the bar? Well?
Speaker 1: I'm yeah, No, I don't know if anyone's actually keeping
Speaker 1: a direct record, So I mean, it seems like you
Speaker 1: guys are probably safe in that respect for now. All right,
Speaker 1: very cool, good to know. I can sleep easy tonight.
Speaker 1: So what if you wanted to get your name removed
Speaker 1: from this? I am not sure you would have to
Speaker 1: ask a unit investment trust lawyer. My understanding is that
Speaker 1: these things can be amended, so you could replace the
Speaker 1: list with other babies, But I'm not sure whether you
Speaker 1: could remove one name, right, I um, I have some
Speaker 1: lawyer regulars that sit at the bar who will remain nameless.
Speaker 1: And after the first few like questions of do you
Speaker 1: get the money? Are they going to put it here
Speaker 1: on you? Like? The next question that of course the
Speaker 1: lawyers asked is how does this make you feel? Do
Speaker 1: you feel harmed by this? Is this causing emotional dress
Speaker 1: for you? That reporters are coming out of the woodwork,
Speaker 1: and and and and how does it feel that your yeah,
Speaker 1: how do how do you feel that your existence is
Speaker 1: tied to this multibillion dollar thing? Right? So the question
Speaker 1: was like, well, can we can we maybe get some
Speaker 1: legal money ont of this some damages situation? And listen,
Speaker 1: if you bring a claim against whoever would be that
Speaker 1: is like the person that the claim would be brought
Speaker 1: against UM. I mean, I'm obviously not suing Aunt Claire
Speaker 1: because I love my Christmas presents. UM, if if we
Speaker 1: try to bring suit, then they'll just amend us out.
Speaker 1: They'll just be like, all right, well we're not gonna
Speaker 1: give you damagees, You're just not part of this anymore.
Speaker 1: And then me, I won't have the fun fact that
Speaker 1: Alexander and Kevin and I and Pete all have. So
Speaker 1: when when you went to Aunt Claire or your mom
Speaker 1: your aunt, right mom mom? For him? Did she have
Speaker 1: I'm picturing a movie where they go. I knew this
Speaker 1: day would come like did she sit you down and
Speaker 1: you know, explain like who you are, like the special
Speaker 1: superpower you have her? No, it was morea did I
Speaker 1: do that now? Yeah? You know? Again to go back
Speaker 1: to kind of Rachel's point that we were discussing a
Speaker 1: little bit earlier, these were I think it's like a
Speaker 1: sixty plus page document that nobody was expecting. I mean,
Speaker 1: people don't read their iTunes terms and conditions nowadays. That's
Speaker 1: like actual legal things that they should care about. And like,
Speaker 1: now somebody's fishing through the sixty page filing for this
Speaker 1: E T I mean, obviously it being the biggest ETF
Speaker 1: probably garner that attention. Um, but yeah it was interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was totally like, yeah, I guess I must have. Um. So, Alexander.
Speaker 1: When we talk to people in our in all of
Speaker 1: our conversations about exchange traded funds, Nathan Most is sort
Speaker 1: of viewed as as basically the guy who you know
Speaker 1: created the thing, and so everything that we've seen e
Speaker 1: t f s do in in finance and foreign investors
Speaker 1: basically goes back to your grandfather. Uh. Eric, When you
Speaker 1: kind of think about the impact that that's had in finance,
Speaker 1: like what you know, put it in context for us,
Speaker 1: I can't understate it. Um. I think, you know, besides
Speaker 1: Vanguard and John Bogel and introducing index funds and the
Speaker 1: mutual ownership structure, this is right up there in terms
Speaker 1: of things that have affected the financial markets in the
Speaker 1: last fifty years. UM. Nathan Most, who I researched a lot.
Speaker 1: I talked with your your grandfather's colleague named Steve Bloom
Speaker 1: when I was researching a book. He's hard to reach.
Speaker 1: He's like Professor Faulkner from War Games. You can find him,
Speaker 1: but he it's hard and I did get him on
Speaker 1: on the call on a call for an hour and
Speaker 1: he spoke highly reference. Thank you. It's it's totally appropriate.
Speaker 1: And just so you know, UM, this was a big deal. Um.
Speaker 1: Him and your grandfather were in an office in the
Speaker 1: American Stock is Change, which was in third place, right,
Speaker 1: So it was kind of a story of the down
Speaker 1: and out um exchange looking for an idea and they
Speaker 1: found it in spy and your grandfather and Steve developed
Speaker 1: this product and it took a while, but now e
Speaker 1: t f s take in you know, the majority of
Speaker 1: all new flows that in America. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a big, big deal. Thirty a half of the top
Speaker 1: thirty biggest asset managers have ETFs and a lot of
Speaker 1: people are using them because they're cheap, tax efficient, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: I equate them to the MP three. I think what
Speaker 1: he did was similar to what the MP three did
Speaker 1: the music. So what do you think of that? You know,
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting, especially because I myself a
Speaker 1: few investments I have are invested in e t s
Speaker 1: and seen saying that's really democratized investing and made accessible
Speaker 1: to just average people outside of actual manager's a fascinating
Speaker 1: piece of history and kind of interesting. Can you give
Speaker 1: us any of the E t F you own? I
Speaker 1: actually invest in by the Okay, I have to say so, Um,
Speaker 1: if you google Nate most John Bogel, your grandfather went
Speaker 1: to see Bogel to try to get the Vanguard five
Speaker 1: hundred to be the first E t F and Bogel
Speaker 1: told him, no way, I don't want trading any anywhere
Speaker 1: near my E t F. But apparently Bogel says he
Speaker 1: gave him some ideas. So long story short, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of history in your video of it is so ironic. Okay, So, Paul,
Speaker 1: you're a bartender twenty something. I knew nothing about E
Speaker 1: t F before this article published. How is this going
Speaker 1: to change your life? Well, for the record, I'm the
Speaker 1: oldest member of the spy group. Um so, the de
Speaker 1: facto patriarch in my opinion. Um So, you know I've
Speaker 1: been telling my bar guests about this, right because you know,
Speaker 1: when you sit at a bar, it's dinner in a
Speaker 1: show and the first question that they ask is am
Speaker 1: I going to get any money out of this? And
Speaker 1: you know they're disappointed to hear no, I'm not. But
Speaker 1: how do you how do you get into that? Is
Speaker 1: it like a little trivia about myself? Oh, it's actually
Speaker 1: ridiculously difficult to explain to anybody, Like, hey, read this
Speaker 1: article that my name is in like four yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're like and it and it's like twenty minutes later,
Speaker 1: they're done their drink. There's there's tickets printing in the
Speaker 1: back that I'm just ignoring because I'm trying to explain
Speaker 1: this to my bar guests and most of the time
Speaker 1: they still don't get it. So the question that I
Speaker 1: get asked after that is, well, do they want to
Speaker 1: kill you to make the to make the trust mature?
Speaker 1: And that was you know, that was my second question, Like,
Speaker 1: is Rachel putting me on a hit list right now?
Speaker 1: Is this is this happening? And um, I mean you're
Speaker 1: the financial experts. I'm safe, I hope right. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some desperate active mutual funds out there, but
Speaker 1: I don't think they go that far. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I got a number of pitches for potential thrillers based
Speaker 1: on the spike. It's how they're all bumped off secretly
Speaker 1: over a period of time and what happens to this.
Speaker 1: But no rest assured is twenty years after the death
Speaker 1: of the last person. Definitely enough time for the managers
Speaker 1: of the fund to sort out, making bumping you guys
Speaker 1: off very very unnecessary. Indeed, right, if somebody wants to
Speaker 1: make money from this trust, they can just sell their shares, right,
Speaker 1: And so I mean, don't please keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: What would be hit people? Uh So, what actually does
Speaker 1: happen when this you know, expiration it gets hit and
Speaker 1: so we will see the termination of Spy if we
Speaker 1: get to that point. However, the lawyers that I have
Speaker 1: spoken to since have emphasized the fact that the rule
Speaker 1: of perpetuities has now been taken off the books in
Speaker 1: New York. So there is the potential to just amend
Speaker 1: SPY again and extend the termination date out further, or
Speaker 1: remove the termination date altogether. Potentially you could have another
Speaker 1: group of babies put into to give it that lifespan aspect,
Speaker 1: but you don't need to given that the rule of
Speaker 1: perpetuities has ended, So you could have a new fund
Speaker 1: set up to gradually take the assets. You could have
Speaker 1: another amendment, but ultimately it seems like Spy or equivalent
Speaker 1: is not going anywhere, so Kevin, how did this article
Speaker 1: you you work in finance a little bit, you're in
Speaker 1: pr How did this this article change things for you? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I just kind of learned a lot um. That's probably
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing. I mean, I knew what my
Speaker 1: mom did. I always was kind of just being changed
Speaker 1: gently you here talk over the dinner table, you know,
Speaker 1: that type of thing. But it was just interesting to
Speaker 1: hear really like the story of how this you know,
Speaker 1: why they chose to Unitary Investment Trust. You know, it
Speaker 1: was really because at the time they had to push
Speaker 1: this through the SEC and they actually had to get
Speaker 1: two divisions of the SEC to work on this, so
Speaker 1: they wanted to keep it as simple as possible and
Speaker 1: they had to basically take a known vehicle for this investment.
Speaker 1: And that's how they basically it settled on this Unitary
Speaker 1: Investment Trust. And that's why they had to put our
Speaker 1: names in. And that's you know, again the rural perpetuities
Speaker 1: like you're saying before. I mean, I think that's really
Speaker 1: the fascinating story of just persistence in like creating this
Speaker 1: new vehicle for investment. Maybe Michael Lewis book and for me,
Speaker 1: it always speaks to the fact that you know, behind
Speaker 1: all of the finance industry there are people, right and
Speaker 1: like you know, we've interviewed a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were around the creation of it, and there was so
Speaker 1: much pride in it because people were just like, hey,
Speaker 1: we can create something new. I think finance sometimes gets
Speaker 1: a bad rap, rightfully so. But the other side of
Speaker 1: it is a lot of people have made a lot
Speaker 1: of money thanks to the innovations that have come through this,
Speaker 1: and those are rooted in people and ideas. Alexander, how
Speaker 1: do you think this article will change things for you? Well,
Speaker 1: I have the greatest fun fact of all time now.
Speaker 1: But besides that, I really just wonder. You know, we
Speaker 1: talked about the potential intrigue around us being assassinated or something.
Speaker 1: I think that the people in the financial industry should
Speaker 1: pay to keep me healthy. So this stays around. And Alexander,
Speaker 1: did anybody from your family say anything or have any reaction?
Speaker 1: I mean, too is actually my mom got the phone
Speaker 1: call on our family office, and then she's the one
Speaker 1: who contacted me with the ridiculous two billion dollar number
Speaker 1: many times mentioned seemed like a scamp. Everyone said it's
Speaker 1: pretty cool and been talking about it I've been reached
Speaker 1: out to plenty of time, um, and we all want
Speaker 1: some sort of money out of it, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: amen out. Yeah, and I have to say, I mean
Speaker 1: I spoke with a lot of the parents here. I
Speaker 1: spoke with Claire and with her husband George, and they
Speaker 1: were both kind of like, oh, I vaguely remember something
Speaker 1: like this, but I didn't expect it to come back
Speaker 1: to me years later. What they should have done is
Speaker 1: given you a couple of shares a spy when I
Speaker 1: guess how much it is up since a cool one percent? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so ten dollars would be whatever Joel you told me
Speaker 1: the math on that you know a few more than
Speaker 1: it was. Then all right, Alexander Paul Kevin, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining us on Trillians. Rachel the Nigerian
Speaker 1: Princess as always pleasure. Thank you. If you're interested in
Speaker 1: learning more about the creation of spin, Eric and I
Speaker 1: actually have a special season of Trillions called The et
Speaker 1: F Story that you can find on Boomberg or iTunes
Speaker 1: or wherever else you listen to podcasts, and you'll get
Speaker 1: to hear from the very people around the creation of
Speaker 1: Spy and how it came. Then just being Thanks for
Speaker 1: listening to truckings until next time. You can find us
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg Terminal, Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcast, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and wherever else you like to listen. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We're on Twitter. I'm at Joel Weber Show.
Speaker 1: He's at Eric Faltunist. I find Rachel at Rachel Evans.
Speaker 1: Underscore in Why Trillions is produced by Magnus Hendrickson. Francesca
Speaker 1: Levy is the head of Bloomberg podcast by