Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steel and Paul Sweeney.
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Speaker 1: Breaking market headlines and corporate news from across the globe.
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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: It's based Bloomberg Intelligence Show. We dig inside the big
Speaker 2: business stories impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
Speaker 3: Each and every week we provide in depth research and
Speaker 3: data on some of the two thousand companies and one
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty industries our analysts cover worldwide.
Speaker 2: Today, we'll look at how AI and satellite data are
Speaker 2: redefining weather forecasting.
Speaker 3: Plus June is Pride Month. Then will highlight pass segments
Speaker 3: on topics related to equality.
Speaker 2: But first we begin with the energy section.
Speaker 3: We recently looked at the company in Energy. In Energy develops, builds, owns,
Speaker 3: and operates power generation and energy storage projects in the
Speaker 3: America's Europe and Asia.
Speaker 2: The company recently announced the successful commissioning of a solar
Speaker 2: energy plant in Ohio, which will be run under a
Speaker 2: power purchase agreement with.
Speaker 3: Microsoft, and back in December, Meta Platforms announced it's signed
Speaker 3: four contracts with in Energy for seven hundred and sixty
Speaker 3: megawats of clean energy.
Speaker 2: For more on in Energy and the challenges it's facing,
Speaker 2: we were joined by the company's founder and CEO, Michael Polsky.
Speaker 3: We first asked Michael, just how hard it is to
Speaker 3: get agreements with hyperscalers right now?
Speaker 5: These are large scale agreements, so it's not easy to
Speaker 5: just walk in and these are big deals. So first
Speaker 5: of all, we have to make sure that both sides
Speaker 5: so that we agree on that. You know, suppliers have
Speaker 5: sufficient supplies and buyer satisfy bio requirements is what is
Speaker 5: also important that certain reliability standards are being mad and
Speaker 5: most importantly, the price has to be appropriate for a
Speaker 5: buyer to agree to buy this.
Speaker 2: Michael, is the Trump administration making your business, the development
Speaker 2: of your business, the expansion of your business easier more difficult?
Speaker 2: Noble impact? Yet what have you seen?
Speaker 5: Clearly the administration send very right sign President announced Energy emergency,
Speaker 5: which I believe there is an energy emergency because we
Speaker 5: have to build. There is increased demand and we have
Speaker 5: to build more supplies and more supplies we have to build.
Speaker 5: If we build like we used to do it, it
Speaker 5: would take too long. So it's really an emergency. So
Speaker 5: we try to in energy, we try to build as
Speaker 5: much supply as possible. What is also very important, not
Speaker 5: just supply, but transmission. I mean, one of one of
Speaker 5: our biggest developments right now and what we believe is
Speaker 5: critical to meet sort of this emergency is to build
Speaker 5: more transmission lines. I always like to say that, you know,
Speaker 5: if we build more trucks without roads, we're not going
Speaker 5: to deliver goods.
Speaker 6: So in order for.
Speaker 5: Electrons to move, we need transmission lines. And if we
Speaker 5: have mission then we can shorten time to interconnect facility.
Speaker 5: We have to be able to move power from where
Speaker 5: it's produced to where it's used, and I think we can.
Speaker 5: We can really build infrastructure a lot faster here and
Speaker 5: with a lot more impact.
Speaker 3: I mean, to your point, go Goldmen Sachs talking about
Speaker 3: how power is already tight in the Northeast. There was
Speaker 3: a report that said the development of data centers to
Speaker 3: the largest US grid, and PGM is raising costs by
Speaker 3: almost ten billion because we just can't build it out
Speaker 3: fast enough. What's the biggest hurdle to reimagining transmission.
Speaker 5: I think there are multiple. One is obviously permitting because
Speaker 5: it takes forever permit.
Speaker 3: And supposedly that's all going to be fixed. Now has
Speaker 3: that all been fixed?
Speaker 5: I mean it's in the process. Obviously there are there
Speaker 5: are good announcements. We have to see as a business,
Speaker 5: we have to see how it's going to be im implemented,
Speaker 5: because implementation is very important. But it's not just permitting.
Speaker 5: I think transmission has to be appropriately paid for and
Speaker 5: right now, particularly for low on this transmission, we don't
Speaker 5: have a metadology in this country how to pay for transmission.
Speaker 5: So there is a lot of you know, intention to
Speaker 5: build and the only really transmission being built the one
Speaker 5: that recovered by utilities or rtos through the rate payer.
Speaker 5: You know, the moment you touch something that is not
Speaker 5: typically normal, then it's very difficult. So we have to
Speaker 5: really come up with appropriate methodology to value transmission and
Speaker 5: allocate the cost of transmission. I think, in my opinion,
Speaker 5: for this administration for Department of Energy that should be
Speaker 5: really one of the most important tasks to build our infrastructure.
Speaker 2: I did read a book The Grid, so it took
Speaker 2: me a whole summer to get through it, and it
Speaker 2: was not an easy read. But I think I have
Speaker 2: some understanding of it. What's your sense overall of power
Speaker 2: grid in the United States? How good is it, how
Speaker 2: bad is it? How much investment does it need?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 5: Obviously, you know there are there are a lot of
Speaker 5: discussions about greater right now the world being used like
Speaker 5: an antiquated all not reliable, which is which is true
Speaker 5: in many ways because most of our gride has been
Speaker 5: built thirty forty years ago, and and there are a
Speaker 5: lot of change since then. I mean, for example, we
Speaker 5: used to have very centralized way of generated electricity from
Speaker 5: very large cold nuclear you know sometimes gas power plants.
Speaker 5: Now we have a lot more decentralized generation. Number one.
Speaker 5: Another issue is that we have our weather pattern has changed.
Speaker 5: I mean now we have a lot more you know
Speaker 5: in claimant weather. We have ice storms, what we've seen
Speaker 5: in Texas, we have we have floods, we have other
Speaker 5: weather events, which shows that generation itself is susceptible. We
Speaker 5: cannot make hundred percent sort of guaranteed generations. So how
Speaker 5: to deal with this? We have to create connect like
Speaker 5: I like to call larger geographies, so power can move
Speaker 5: from here to there, just like coroans. Right, if we
Speaker 5: only go from here to there on one road and
Speaker 5: that's something to happened with that road, then we cannot
Speaker 5: avoid that, then all the traffic will be stopped for days.
Speaker 5: We can avoid this, so we we have to have transmission.
Speaker 3: So based on that, you said the sort of financing
Speaker 3: this transmission is key. How would that work? I get
Speaker 3: it for the you know, regulated utilities, but if you
Speaker 3: want a transmission line across multiple states, how could the
Speaker 3: financing work to make sense for an independent player like you?
Speaker 5: This is a fundamental problem here, right. We know we
Speaker 5: in the United States we talk about the reliability, we
Speaker 5: talk about national security, but for example, we develop in
Speaker 5: large transmission line and which dramatically increase reliability. But then
Speaker 5: you go to the rtos like myso and ask them
Speaker 5: to value reliability, and they just don't value this because
Speaker 5: neither they know how to do it or they simply
Speaker 5: don't want to do it. So this is a fundamental
Speaker 5: problem that you know when you have when you build transmission.
Speaker 5: For example, in our case Grain Belt Express, it's eleven
Speaker 5: billion dollar project. We have to have revenues associ in
Speaker 5: order to finance this, and if nobody wants to pay
Speaker 5: for anything, it's really hard. So I think it's it
Speaker 5: should be a priority for the government to really establish
Speaker 5: revenue streams for transmission.
Speaker 2: Thanks to Inventergy founder and CEO Michael Polsky.
Speaker 3: Each week we look at research from Bloomberg ne EF
Speaker 3: previously known as New Energy Finance.
Speaker 2: They're the team at Bloomberg that tracks and analyzes the
Speaker 2: energy transition from commodities to power, transport, industries, buildings, and
Speaker 2: agricultural sectors.
Speaker 3: This week we looked at BNF's outlook for nuclear energy.
Speaker 3: Within the last month, President Donald Trump announced four executive
Speaker 3: orders aimed at revitalizing nuclear energy in the US.
Speaker 2: For more, we spoke with Chris Gadomski, b n e
Speaker 2: F Lead nuclear analyst, and.
Speaker 3: We first asked Chris if the Trump administration's recent nuclear
Speaker 3: policies are actually going to work.
Speaker 8: You know, there's a big difference between policy push and
Speaker 8: market pull. Policy push is probably very very effective for
Speaker 8: renewable technologies, but when you think about building nuclear power plants.
Speaker 8: That's a pretty substantial decision that the utility CEO has
Speaker 8: to make, and it's something that the hyperscalers are looking
Speaker 8: at very seriously. So you can set the stage for
Speaker 8: having these very favorable policy initiatives. But whether or not
Speaker 8: the utility executive who's only in charge, who's running the
Speaker 8: utility for only seven eight years, decides, hey, I'll build
Speaker 8: a couple of large reactors, that's a pretty daunting thing
Speaker 8: for him to do, especially given an experience here where
Speaker 8: we spend thirty four billion dollars building two point two
Speaker 8: gigots of capacity in Georgia.
Speaker 2: Do we need the big plants that we're all used
Speaker 2: to or do we need this modular thing That technology
Speaker 2: looks interesting to me.
Speaker 8: It certainly is, and we'll probably see small module reactors
Speaker 8: operating in Canada by the turn of the decade. I
Speaker 8: was going to say, turn the centu oh wit decade,
Speaker 8: and we'll probably see shortly thereafter some in Michigan as well,
Speaker 8: three hundred megawatt reactors. The advantage of this is that
Speaker 8: to go from first of a kind cost to end
Speaker 8: of a kind cost for small major reactors, you need
Speaker 8: to sort of it get some experience behind just set
Speaker 8: up by manufacturing facilities and sort of each one becomes
Speaker 8: progressively cheaper. And so it's much easier to do that
Speaker 8: with a small modu reactor than it is with a
Speaker 8: large reactor because it's a very very difficult decision and
Speaker 8: onerous position for utility executive to say, I'll build a
Speaker 8: very very large capital improvement here. That's going to take
Speaker 8: seven to ten years.
Speaker 3: So it's very daunting, which is why with the hyperscalers
Speaker 3: that's a question mark, right, because they need power yesterday,
Speaker 3: so they're not going to wait seven years for a
Speaker 3: plant to be built. And that's like the good case
Speaker 3: scenario is seven years.
Speaker 8: Right for the large reactors, certainly, I mean it took
Speaker 8: Vogel four years of licensing and ten years of construction,
Speaker 8: so you pay twenty five thirty percent of that, you know,
Speaker 8: the Department of Energy suggests thirty percent decline in the cost.
Speaker 8: Hopefully that will reduced the time to construct. But I
Speaker 8: think that the way to go is the smaller mojor
Speaker 8: reactors because they're more flexibility. Another big concern for hyperscalers
Speaker 8: is they want reliability, and large reactors small reactors all
Speaker 8: have episodes occasionally, and if you have a thousand megawatt
Speaker 8: reactor the size to what the Westinghouse eighty one thousand,
Speaker 8: and you'll lose that You're in a position you have
Speaker 8: to scramble to replace that power. If you have three
Speaker 8: or four three hundred megawatt reactors and one of them
Speaker 8: goes down for maintenance or so, it's easier to bridge
Speaker 8: that gap three hundred. So it's a it's an interesting
Speaker 8: dilemma that all the utilities the hyperscalers are facing.
Speaker 2: Is there any reason that the US could not model
Speaker 2: what Canada is doing here? Is that just a regulatory issue?
Speaker 8: You know, regulatory issue. The US has the gold standard
Speaker 8: in nuclear regulations, and the Trump administration would like to
Speaker 8: sort of make it easier to license some of the reactors.
Speaker 8: And it's a very very daunting thing when you when
Speaker 8: a company that newse Scale is the only company that
Speaker 8: has licenses technology of late and they spend, according to
Speaker 8: the CEO, five hundred million dollars in the process took
Speaker 8: forty four months. That's a pretty big roadblock for these vendors.
Speaker 8: New vendors who are trying to introduce innovative technologies.
Speaker 3: Okay, could we see something like the SMR so the
Speaker 3: small modular reactors behind the meter at a hyperscaler so
Speaker 3: basically not connected to the grid, its own small little
Speaker 3: SMR that's hooked up to like a meta facility.
Speaker 8: There's a lot of discussion about doing that. One of
Speaker 8: the problems with nuclear reactors is that you need to
Speaker 8: have some sort of it's preferable to be hooked to
Speaker 8: the grid, and one reason is safety is that in
Speaker 8: case something goes wrong, you need some source of power
Speaker 8: to keep the island. So that's something that's been kicked around.
Speaker 8: People are thinking about exploring that. But you know, a
Speaker 8: large reactor of three hundred megawats plus is probably going
Speaker 8: to be connected to the grid. Some of the smaller
Speaker 8: reactors in the fifty to one hundred mego lot may
Speaker 8: be a different story. But that issue about having access
Speaker 8: to the grid to cool it in case something goes
Speaker 8: wrong is important.
Speaker 2: Our thanks to Chris Kadomski be any lead nuclear analyst.
Speaker 3: Coming up, we'll look at the challenges faced by black
Speaker 3: US farmers.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomerg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
Speaker 2: depth research and data on two thousand companies and one
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
Speaker 2: b I go on the terminal on Paul.
Speaker 3: Swinging an a Malex Steel and this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 9: Out here in the middle of all these acres. It
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Speaker 9: in the world. Find more information at Love your Mind
Speaker 9: Today dot org. That's Loveyourmind Today dot org. Brought to
Speaker 9: you by the Huntsman Man twelfth Institute and the AD Council.
Speaker 10: This is the Bloomberg Green Report. Damage related to climate
Speaker 10: change costs the United States nearly one trillion dollars over
Speaker 10: a twelve month period that ended May first. That is,
Speaker 10: according to a Bloomberg Intelligence analysis. The spending represents three
Speaker 10: percent of the gross domestic product. Disaster recovery accounts for
Speaker 10: a big share of the climate change related spending. The
Speaker 10: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the back to back
Speaker 10: hurricanes Helene and Milton caused one hundred and thirteen billion
Speaker 10: dollars in damage and in another sixty five billion for
Speaker 10: the Los Angeles wildfires. The report, titled the Climate Economy
Speaker 10: twenty twenty five Outlook, says the biggest drivers of the
Speaker 10: trend in the US are insurance premiums. They've doubled since
Speaker 10: twenty seventeen. Increased climate costs from insurance premiums, power outages,
Speaker 10: disaster recovery, and uninsured damage are responsible for more than
Speaker 10: a third of US GDP growth since two thousand. Jeff Bellinger,
Speaker 10: Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence with Alex Steele and Paul
Speaker 1: Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: We recently looked at the company spire Global, which trades
Speaker 3: under Nasdaq ticker spir.
Speaker 2: It's a space power, data and analytics company that offers
Speaker 2: access to data sets and insights about Earth, oceans, and atmosphere.
Speaker 3: We are recently joined by spiro Global CEO Teresa Condor,
Speaker 3: and she discussed how it's AI and satellite data are
Speaker 3: redefining weather forecasting.
Speaker 2: First, ask Teresa, what the broad potential is for this
Speaker 2: kind of satellite market.
Speaker 11: What is interesting about what we do The satellites are
Speaker 11: very small, about the size of a little bread really
Speaker 11: going around there, very tiny, and they're packed with a
Speaker 11: bunch of different sensors, and those sensors collect in our
Speaker 11: satellite case radio frequency information that then lets us help
Speaker 11: customers make better decisions about what to do. So some
Speaker 11: examples of things are a collection of atmospheric weather data
Speaker 11: that then goes into weather forecasting that allows companies utility companies,
Speaker 11: for example, make better decisions about how they should protect
Speaker 11: their grid in the event of extreme weather such as
Speaker 11: a hurricane. In other cases, you can use satellite surveillance
Speaker 11: data and tracking around the aviation sector and aircraft to
Speaker 11: help have better efficient operations around airports and the movement
Speaker 11: of aircraft, and a whole host of other applications, including
Speaker 11: defense related applications.
Speaker 2: Who do you guys compete with?
Speaker 11: So that's always a difficult question because we're present in
Speaker 11: multiple different markets. Whether you think of whether in climate,
Speaker 11: you think of aviation, you think of space reconnaissance, and
Speaker 11: so we'll have certain different competitors in each of those spaces.
Speaker 11: Since you mentioned Planet Lab earlier, I'll have to say
Speaker 11: that planet is not usually a company that is considered
Speaker 11: a competitor because they're taking pictures, they're doing imaging versus
Speaker 11: what we do is this collection of electronic information and
Speaker 11: radio frequency data.
Speaker 3: So you both send data to customers from your satellites,
Speaker 3: but the type of data and how you collect the
Speaker 3: data is then.
Speaker 11: Different exactly and the type of use cases and the
Speaker 11: relevance of it. So you'll have customers that want both
Speaker 11: types of data that are complementary.
Speaker 3: What kind of stuff are you noticing right now, like
Speaker 3: what is some themes some broad stuff that you're telling
Speaker 3: your customers.
Speaker 11: So I think there's a lot of interest in defense
Speaker 11: and intelligence applications of satellites and in particular the type
Speaker 11: of RF type of technology that we have. Naturally, this
Speaker 11: comes out of the current geopolitical situation. You have a
Speaker 11: lot of stuff going on in the United States right now,
Speaker 11: and at the same time, really since February, you've had
Speaker 11: rest of world governments looking at increasing their defense budgets,
Speaker 11: having less expectation of reliance on the United States to
Speaker 11: defend them in terms of crisis. So there's a lot
Speaker 11: of interest in how the rest of world can develop
Speaker 11: their capabilities.
Speaker 2: We have customers around the world. Is the domestic us
Speaker 2: we do we have customers around this? Is the US
Speaker 2: government a customer?
Speaker 11: The US government is also a customer.
Speaker 2: Are the big one of the line share or you
Speaker 2: it's pretty diversified.
Speaker 11: We're actually quite diversified both between commercial company customers as
Speaker 11: well as a government and that can be civil agencies
Speaker 11: who buy our weather, weather, atmospheric data sets. And it
Speaker 11: can also be defense and intelligence and that's US and
Speaker 11: rest of world. So it's pretty well diversified.
Speaker 2: We've had companies ranging from McDonald's to I don't know
Speaker 2: what say AI is revolutionary revolutionizing their business. How is
Speaker 2: AI impacting the satellite business?
Speaker 11: So AI is also an important in term and topic
Speaker 11: in the satellite sector. There's a couple of areas where
Speaker 11: we find it interesting. The first is in weather forecasting,
Speaker 11: where we're doing AI based weather forecasting, specifically when we
Speaker 11: talk about sub seasonal forecasts, so going thirty forty five
Speaker 11: days in the future, where normal forecasting models aren't usually
Speaker 11: very good. The other areas are when it comes the satellites,
Speaker 11: are the processing of data and the ability to use
Speaker 11: AI to process them automatically and on orbit so you
Speaker 11: don't have to download all the data sets, as well
Speaker 11: as in the operations of the constellation overall, because if
Speaker 11: you have many, many satellites in orbit in various various
Speaker 11: orbital planes with lots of different sensors on them, having
Speaker 11: AI ability to manage that network is something quite interesting.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, you also had a contract
Speaker 3: with Space Force, right, Did I read that right?
Speaker 11: There was one that was just recently announced with Chase
Speaker 11: Force contract.
Speaker 2: How cool is that?
Speaker 10: I know?
Speaker 3: So how easy is it to come to deals with contracts?
Speaker 3: I would think that your services are highly needed right
Speaker 3: now as companies are trying to figure out where to
Speaker 3: build stuff, for example, or how to allocate their supply chains.
Speaker 11: So I think demand is very strong right now for
Speaker 11: both satellite data sets as it relates to climate or
Speaker 11: to better understanding increased weather variability. And there is also
Speaker 11: increasing demand what I mentioned on the defense and the
Speaker 11: intelligence side, and in particular as more and more countries
Speaker 11: look to how they build out their own sovereign capabilities,
Speaker 11: and this is where we have the strength in building
Speaker 11: both in Europe as well as in the United States.
Speaker 3: Our thanks aspiring Global CEO, Teresa Condor.
Speaker 2: June is Pride month. So on Bloomberg Intelligence, we've been
Speaker 2: highlighting segments on topics related to equality.
Speaker 3: In this segment, we spoke to John Boyd, founder and
Speaker 3: President of the National Black Farmers Association.
Speaker 2: John discussed the challenges faced by black US farmers, and
Speaker 2: we first asked him to break down what his organization does.
Speaker 12: We offer technical assistance and outreachs two one hundred and
Speaker 12: fifty one thousand members in the United States. We've been
Speaker 12: around since the early eighties, and we were organized to
Speaker 12: help eradicate discrimination that government agencies and state federal levels.
Speaker 12: And we've been doing this kind of work for a
Speaker 12: very very long time. And I spearheaded the black farmer's
Speaker 12: lawsuits won in settlement in nineteen ninety nine and the
Speaker 12: other settlement on December eighth, twenty ten by former President
Speaker 12: Barack Obama that paid out one point two five billion
Speaker 12: dollars to twenty eight thousand black farmers who faced an
Speaker 12: experienced discrimination at the hands of the United States Department
Speaker 12: of Agriculture. So we've been around a very very long time.
Speaker 3: So John, how is that journey going? I mean, how
Speaker 3: clearly it wasn't great when you started the association. What
Speaker 3: kind of grade would you give give it now?
Speaker 12: Well, I think we really went back decades here in
Speaker 12: progress with the administration. They came in and done away
Speaker 12: with anything that began with the word equity and diversity
Speaker 12: and justice and eliminated those positions at the United States
Speaker 12: Department of Agriculture, and we still haven't received our five
Speaker 12: billion dollar payout for discrimination. And also the also land
Speaker 12: in federal inventory that I've been after for many many years,
Speaker 12: and it was disheartening to learn that the administration was
Speaker 12: bringing white farmers in from South Africa offering them a
Speaker 12: fast path to citizenship. And also we learned that they're
Speaker 12: going to offer these farmers land out of federal inventory
Speaker 12: that came from black farmers and land from the Department
Speaker 12: of Interior that came raising land that was primarily leased
Speaker 12: to Native Americans. I was disheardened that the President said,
Speaker 12: although he was doing away with DEI or anything that
Speaker 12: was race related, and then brought in white farmers too,
Speaker 12: the United States solely based on race. So he's saying
Speaker 12: he wants to have everything equal and do away with
Speaker 12: the race stuff. But then he brings in white farmers
Speaker 12: from South Africa and once to offer them a fast
Speaker 12: past the citizenship. And I'm one hundred and ten percent
Speaker 12: opposed to it.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, John, it's also hard because being a
Speaker 3: farmer's hard in general, Like hard enough, you're dealing with crops,
Speaker 3: hard weather, You're dealing with things completely out of your control.
Speaker 12: And then it hardest occupation known to man. People is farming.
Speaker 12: And I could work twenty four hours in a day
Speaker 12: and never catch up. And you know, we have to
Speaker 12: deal with the act of mother nature, like you said,
Speaker 12: floods and tornadoes and hurricanes and droughts, and disbelieve it
Speaker 12: or not, is the first year and a very very
Speaker 12: long time that I'm farming without a farm operating loan
Speaker 12: here in my own country, where the bank said and
Speaker 12: the government said, you know, we're not going to extend
Speaker 12: credit to you because your input costs and the low
Speaker 12: price is due to the President's terrorists created some of
Speaker 12: the lowest prices. And in a very very long time,
Speaker 12: if you factor in the input costs and the low
Speaker 12: commodity costs, weet five dollars of bushee corn and four
Speaker 12: dollars and something of bushel, and so it being severing
Speaker 12: around ten dollars of bushel. People, these are very very
Speaker 12: low prices. And every time the president says the word tariffs,
Speaker 12: he scares the bejeebas out of the markets, and the
Speaker 12: prices plummet. And you know, many Americans don't know that
Speaker 12: farmers or price takers. We're not price givers. So my
Speaker 12: price is based on the market that the president can
Speaker 12: plays with when you know, when he gets ready, it
Speaker 12: affects the very first people that voted for him, overwhelmingly
Speaker 12: is farmers in this country are the very first population
Speaker 12: that's taking a black eye from the president because of
Speaker 12: these low prices that we just don't have any control LEVELM.
Speaker 3: Do you think the grains that will be included in
Speaker 3: trade deals, which then in essence could help Well, I
Speaker 3: hope so.
Speaker 12: And you know, I'd like to equate it back to
Speaker 12: the president's first presidency, and I believe it was in
Speaker 12: twenty eighteen where we were I was actually selling soybeans
Speaker 12: almost a sixteen eighty cents a bushel, and when the
Speaker 12: President imposed tariffs the first time on this presidency, the
Speaker 12: price plummeted because China basically stopped buying them, all the
Speaker 12: way down to six dollars a bushel from sixteen dollars
Speaker 12: eighty cents. So we don't have anything to compare it
Speaker 12: to in a positive aspect. They didn't work the first time,
Speaker 12: and right now, as I'm sitting here talking to you,
Speaker 12: I'm in a very precurious situation. You know, no farm
Speaker 12: operating loan, a shaky market, and for the future of
Speaker 12: agriculture right now, things are looking grim.
Speaker 7: People.
Speaker 12: We just don't have the new markets that the President
Speaker 12: said they were working to put in in place, and
Speaker 12: you know the egg Department. Instead of making things better,
Speaker 12: they're saying that they want to close offices. So the
Speaker 12: administration says that they're going to help farm is by payments,
Speaker 12: but they're closing farm all right.
Speaker 3: Thanks to John Boyd, founder and president of the National
Speaker 3: Black Farmers Association. Coming up on the program, a conversation
Speaker 3: on DEI with the CEO of Hispanic Association on corporate responsibility.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in
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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via
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Speaker 3: I'm Paul Sweeney and am Alex Steel and this is Bloomberg.
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Speaker 13: The Bloomberg Small Business Report. I'm John Tucker. Christopher dip
Speaker 13: is a Montreal based engineer who's developed an app called
Speaker 13: by Beaver. It scans barcodes and tell consumers whether a
Speaker 13: product is Canadian. Dip says it's the chastest growing app
Speaker 13: he and his business partner have developed, garnering thirty five
Speaker 13: thousand downloads in just two weeks. His app's popularity reflects
Speaker 13: growing anger at Canada's biggest trading partner, the US, as
Speaker 13: President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs, made fifty first state jabs,
Speaker 13: and referred to the country's prime minister as Governor Trudeau.
Speaker 13: Furious Canadian consumers have turned into vindictive shoppers. Experts warn
Speaker 13: this trend could have significant economic implications for US businesses
Speaker 13: big and small. In Canadian grocery stores, US grown produce
Speaker 13: is wilting on the shelves. Canadians are scaring wineless over
Speaker 13: dinner to avoid ordering California wines, and more and more
Speaker 13: Canadians are canceling vacations to the US. And that's the
Speaker 13: Bloomberg Small Business Report.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Paul Sweeney and Alex Steele
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3: June is Pridemont so on Bloomberg Intelligence, We've been highlighting
Speaker 3: segments on top related to equality.
Speaker 2: In this segment, we looked at Bobby the only female
Speaker 2: found it, and mom led organic infant formula company In
Speaker 2: the US, the industry has historically been dominated by male executives.
Speaker 3: Laura Maudi is the CEO and co founder at Bobby.
Speaker 3: Laura mother for was a high powered executive at Airbnb
Speaker 3: before surprising everyone around her to leave her position for Bobby.
Speaker 2: We had the pleasure of speaking with Laura and we
Speaker 2: first asked her about the biggest struggle right now in
Speaker 2: the baby formula industry.
Speaker 14: The biggest struggle I think right now is you know,
Speaker 14: you'll remember the formula shortage in twenty twenty two. There
Speaker 14: has been a very concentrated effort to make sure that
Speaker 14: we diversify and break up the concentrated market and the
Speaker 14: only way to do that is to invest in more
Speaker 14: domestic manufacturing. I think the last time I spoke to
Speaker 14: you guys, I mentioned that we have co created a
Speaker 14: bill that really allows and incentivizes more domestic manufacturing for
Speaker 14: infant formula, and right now is that is the number
Speaker 14: one focus.
Speaker 2: The infant formula made an America Act of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Talk to us about that.
Speaker 14: So again, like I said, this is on the back
Speaker 14: of the shortage and what we recognized was nothing will
Speaker 14: change if nothing changes when it comes to the footprint
Speaker 14: of infant formula manufacturing. So this bill incentivizes new players
Speaker 14: to up level and to break ground and build infant
Speaker 14: formula manufacturing here in the US.
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 3: How expensive is it?
Speaker 14: It's very expensive. It's very expensive, but maybe nothing like
Speaker 14: other investments that are being made right now in manufacturing.
Speaker 14: It takes around three years and it could be anywhere
Speaker 14: from you know, sixty two, one hundred and fifty million
Speaker 14: dollars to get a basic footprint in place, and sometimes
Speaker 14: even more. And given how long it takes to be
Speaker 14: able to get more manufacturing up and running, this is
Speaker 14: why we can't wait for another crisis. The investments have
Speaker 14: to happen now. And what this bill is is and
Speaker 14: it's finally gotten bipartisan support. I don't actually believe there's
Speaker 14: anything more bipartisan than investing in how our next generation
Speaker 14: is fed and building the resiliency of this market. I
Speaker 14: am just hoping that this bill gets introduced as something
Speaker 14: that gets passed sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2: Just remind us, Lara, where do Americas Where do we
Speaker 2: source most of our infant formula these days?
Speaker 14: Yeah? Look, most of it, most of it is sourced domestically.
Speaker 14: But what we did do is that we allowed some
Speaker 14: international formulas, some foreign formulas to come into the country
Speaker 14: on the back of the shortage. We essentially have imported
Speaker 14: our way out of a crisis, and that is still happening.
Speaker 14: So over the last few years, we've gone from less
Speaker 14: than one percent of infant formula being made and sourced
Speaker 14: in the US to now over ten percent of American
Speaker 14: babies are on formula coming in from overseas. And the
Speaker 14: big push that I'm trying to have is high quality
Speaker 14: formula should be able to be sourced and made here
Speaker 14: at America for American babies.
Speaker 3: Yes, but because it's expensive to say, build the plans here, etc.
Speaker 3: Can we get that at a price point where like
Speaker 3: you can stand business and make money, but also it
Speaker 3: can be available to all different types of families.
Speaker 14: The push I would have on that is it takes
Speaker 14: more than the private sector to be able to make
Speaker 14: that happen. And we're talking about infant formula. This is
Speaker 14: where we need something like this bill to be put
Speaker 14: in place to help bring down the costs because what
Speaker 14: they are is it's a production tax credit, which means
Speaker 14: that for every can, for every production run we make,
Speaker 14: there's tax credits given back so that we can bring
Speaker 14: those costs down. And it's really important that we make
Speaker 14: those investments today. Otherwise what we're doing is we're waiving
Speaker 14: the white flag as a country and saying America is
Speaker 14: unable to do it. So we're going to allow other
Speaker 14: countries to feed our babies. Fast forward in seven ten years,
Speaker 14: we could be in a much bigger crisis if we're
Speaker 14: allowing on other countries to feed our babies.
Speaker 2: D just give us the latest updates for your company, Bobby.
Speaker 14: Well, we've been pushing a lot of innovation. I think
Speaker 14: the one thing we can't lose sight of is that
Speaker 14: the quality of infant formula deserves its utmost attention on
Speaker 14: an ongoing basis. So we recently launched the first USDA
Speaker 14: organic whole milk infant formula made at our facility in Ohio,
Speaker 14: and we're going to keep watching the way science evolves,
Speaker 14: and when the scientists say that there's new updates that
Speaker 14: need to happen, we're going to be making those changes
Speaker 14: to our product. And my entire focus as a mother
Speaker 14: is to keep innovating and up leveling the nutritional requirements
Speaker 14: of formula for American babies.
Speaker 3: Do you a want of competition right now?
Speaker 14: There is competition. There is competition, and it's health the
Speaker 14: competition because we need we need choice, and this is
Speaker 14: probably one of the only products in the market that
Speaker 14: doesn't have enough options. It doesn't have enough choice. And
Speaker 14: I believe, I speak for many parents that when you
Speaker 14: walk down the formula aisle of a retailer today's it
Speaker 14: can often be an empty, sad and lonely aisle. You're
Speaker 14: feeding your babies, and it shouldn't be so, I believe
Speaker 14: and I hope that with something like the Domestic Manufacturing Bill,
Speaker 14: it actually introduces more competition. We need to see more
Speaker 14: bobbies on shelf, and that competition will force all of
Speaker 14: us to up level the standards.
Speaker 4: All right.
Speaker 3: Thanks to Laura Maudi, CEO and co founder of.
Speaker 2: Bobby, we continue with our June Pride Month conversations on
Speaker 2: topics related to equality.
Speaker 3: In this segment, we spoke to Sid Wilson, the CEO
Speaker 3: of the Hispanic Association, on corporate responsibility.
Speaker 2: We discussed corporate responsibility and the importance of diversity, equity,
Speaker 2: and inclusion. We began the conversation by asking sid what
Speaker 2: his organization does.
Speaker 4: The Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility, we've been around for
Speaker 4: almost four forty years. Our mission is to advance Hispanic
Speaker 4: inclusion in corporate America. I've been in my CEOO for
Speaker 4: eleven years, and before that, I was twenty one years
Speaker 4: on a wall Street. I was on Equity resarch channelist.
Speaker 3: Okay, so you're talking to your team here.
Speaker 2: He's reformed.
Speaker 3: So today DEI in some ways is now a dirty
Speaker 3: word in corporations in the United States. How do you
Speaker 3: combat that?
Speaker 4: Well, brush you combat it with facts. The reality is
Speaker 4: that DEI is not a word, It's an acronym. It
Speaker 4: stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. The opposite of that
Speaker 4: is is homogeneity, inequality, and exclusion. So when we talk
Speaker 4: to companies, we talk about the facts that that diversity,
Speaker 4: equity and inclusion is not only the right to do,
Speaker 4: it's also good business. Now, whether you call it diversity,
Speaker 4: equity and inclusion or do the work of it, you
Speaker 4: know you're seeing some of them that are continued to
Speaker 4: find ways to do the work of staying under the
Speaker 4: Executive Order radar, but recognizing that without diversity equity and
Speaker 4: inclusion companies will have a very difficult time competing for customers,
Speaker 4: competing for talent, and competing for to be the brand
Speaker 4: of choice.
Speaker 2: This reminds me the change and perception of DEIS kind
Speaker 2: of reminds those of us on Global Wall Street of
Speaker 2: another kind of phenomenon, which was ESG and type of
Speaker 2: investment refocused on environment, sustainability, governance, those types of things
Speaker 2: that seems to at least in this country taken a
Speaker 2: back seat. How about rest of world? How does the
Speaker 2: rest of world think about diversity DEI in general?
Speaker 4: When you talk to leaders around the world, particularly in Europe,
Speaker 4: they feel that what's happening in the US is extremely
Speaker 4: unusual because they know that the path to a successful
Speaker 4: business or operation is through having a strong and robust
Speaker 4: and intentional diversity, equity and inclusion initiative at all levels,
Speaker 4: especially the C suite of the BORCED because we remember that,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes the argument about against THEI is they
Speaker 4: claim that it comproises merit, which we know that is incorrect.
Speaker 4: What it does is it why ends the scope for
Speaker 4: merit based opportunities. The problem though, was in the C suite,
Speaker 4: as you know, if you're at the C suite. You're
Speaker 4: the c SPE because you're qualified, You're the CC because
Speaker 4: you're sponsored, and sponsorship is still has implicit bias, and
Speaker 4: that's where you continue to see a lack of representation
Speaker 4: for women and people of color.
Speaker 3: I mean absolutely, how do we combat that at a
Speaker 3: time when federal policies, particularly on the education level, are
Speaker 3: getting rolled back.
Speaker 4: So let me first address the education components. Is that
Speaker 4: colleges and universities will still need to look for ways
Speaker 4: how they can attract diverse student bodies. You know, no
Speaker 4: university is going to want to have, let's say, an
Speaker 4: all white male student body and think that that's normal.
Speaker 7: It's not.
Speaker 4: And when you look at the pipeline into the workforce,
Speaker 4: particularly technology, whereas whereas all of us know, there is
Speaker 4: a shortage of workers going into those tech fields. And
Speaker 4: so with that, it means that you not only need
Speaker 4: to make sure that you're looking at what you look
Speaker 4: what you need to hire, but also looking at even
Speaker 4: the immigration policies, because immigration policy that the current administration
Speaker 4: has is completely counter to killing the jobs that are
Speaker 4: needed in the US to help the economy grow.
Speaker 2: Sid maybe thirty seconds left, what's kind of the the
Speaker 2: agenda for your organization over the next six or twelve months.
Speaker 4: Well, our agenda is to continue to talk to as
Speaker 4: many CEOs as possible. We're proud that we we interact
Speaker 4: with more fortune five hundred one thousand CEOs than any
Speaker 4: other Hispanic organs whole country. And we know that those
Speaker 4: direct conversations make a big difference to give companies the
Speaker 4: guidance understanding of how they can use diversity, equity inclusion
Speaker 4: in this current environment to now we navigate through this
Speaker 4: maze that they're having to addressed, but also how they
Speaker 4: can still win with diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 3: Right thanks to Sid Wilson, CEO of the Hispanic Association
Speaker 3: on Corporate Responsibility.
Speaker 2: That's this week's edition of Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 2: providing in depth research and data on two thousand companies
Speaker 2: and one hundred and thirty industries.
Speaker 3: And remember you can access Bloomberg Intelligence through b I
Speaker 3: go on the terminal. I'm Alex Steel and I'm Paul Sweeney.
Speaker 4: Stay with us.
Speaker 2: Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up
Speaker 2: right now.