Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. This is Bloomberg business
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Speaker 1: and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: Harveryone.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend podcast. Top of
Speaker 3: mind for US this week, the American consumer, US consumer
Speaker 3: confidence ease this month and a more muted outlook for
Speaker 3: business conditions. Walgreen slashed its fiscal year forecast, and jobless
Speaker 3: claims they rose to the highest since the end of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4: Okay, all that being said, Americans are still spending on
Speaker 4: their cruises. We check in with the CEO of Carnival
Speaker 4: after the company raised its full year earnings outlook, strong
Speaker 4: demand for cruises helping Carnival post a surprise profit last quarter, and.
Speaker 2: Tim speaking of big ships.
Speaker 3: Okay, Elon Musk is going to need one, a really
Speaker 3: big one for his own growing family. A deep dive
Speaker 3: into his obsession with population decline.
Speaker 4: I think he can afford it.
Speaker 2: You know what he wants.
Speaker 4: He wants U all a lot more babies he does. Hey,
Speaker 4: it's not a V six or a V eight or
Speaker 4: even a V twelve. Okay, how about the four point
Speaker 4: one million dollar hybrid supercar with a V sixteen engine.
Speaker 2: All right, all of that to come.
Speaker 3: We begin with the wealthiest person in the world, at
Speaker 3: least depending on the day. He's up there, though, he
Speaker 3: has spent some four decades building up the house of
Speaker 3: arn and the clothes and accessories that signify status among
Speaker 3: the global elite. You know, brands that include, of course,
Speaker 3: Louis Lauton, Christian Duor Bulgary Celine, Fendi, Tiffany, and a
Speaker 3: few more.
Speaker 4: He's not done, though, and with more. On the new
Speaker 4: monthly issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, we welcome in the editor
Speaker 4: Brad Stone. He's also the author of Amazon on Bound
Speaker 4: and The Everything Store. He Too, along with Bloomberg's Angelina
Speaker 4: ross Quett, wrote the cover story, now available on newstands
Speaker 4: on the Bloomberg terminal at Bloomberg dot com slash BusinessWeek.
Speaker 5: Business Week is now a monthly magazine.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: That's perhaps unusual, but it's one hundred year old brand
Speaker 5: that stands for examining the biggest companies and names in business,
Speaker 5: and we continue the tradition every day on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 5: com and now in the monthly magazine. This is a
Speaker 5: magazine that I think will surprise a lot of people.
Speaker 5: It looks different, it feels different, it's thicker, and our
Speaker 5: mission is to put a critical, significant force in business
Speaker 5: or tech, or politics or economics on the cover every
Speaker 5: single month. And as you say, this month, it's Bernard Arnault.
Speaker 5: I did not know a lot about him before starting
Speaker 5: this journey, but as you say, one of the wealthiest
Speaker 5: people in the world two hundred and ten billion dollars
Speaker 5: has fallen a bit since the French parliamentary elections. I
Speaker 5: think he'll be just fine, but he's now the third
Speaker 5: wealthiest person in the world, and I think not very
Speaker 5: well understood.
Speaker 4: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned elections because politics actually
Speaker 4: plays a big, a big part in his origin story.
Speaker 4: So just sort of get into that a little bit.
Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting. He grew up in the north
Speaker 5: of France. His father ran their families manufacturing business, had
Speaker 5: a small real estate component. He you know, highly accomplished,
Speaker 5: went to the best engineering school in France, joined the
Speaker 5: family business, got his father to re orient towards real estate.
Speaker 5: Moved to the US after the left one the French elections,
Speaker 5: and I think the late seventies or early eighties your
Speaker 5: testing my not knowledge here of French history, and really
Speaker 5: didn't do so well in the US, but woke up
Speaker 5: to the possibility of these small little luxury houses, often
Speaker 5: family owned Christian Dior Louis Buiton, that weren't really being
Speaker 5: run as businesses but were being more run as kind
Speaker 5: of cultural artifacts. And he was very opportunistic bought the
Speaker 5: company that owned Christian Dior out of bankruptcy in the
Speaker 5: early eighties and has been on an acquisation tear ever since,
Speaker 5: buying companies sometimes through sort of leveraged buyout means, and
Speaker 5: assembling this huge empire.
Speaker 3: Great story, though, I mean Tim and I have been
Speaker 3: talking about this offline, about Christian Dior and.
Speaker 2: A New York cab driver.
Speaker 3: Can you tell us a little bit about like that
Speaker 3: that helped him kind of think about Well.
Speaker 5: He tells the story and you know what, it has
Speaker 5: moved into mythology or legend. But apparently when he was
Speaker 5: a college student in the US, he asked a cab
Speaker 5: driver at JFK, do you know the name of the
Speaker 5: French president and the cab driver did not know, but
Speaker 5: knew the name Christian Dior, and that, he says, sort
Speaker 5: of awakened him to the cultural residence of these brands.
Speaker 5: And when we think about names like Louis Vuitton, Bulgary Hennessy, Tiffany,
Speaker 5: which they recently acquired, you know, they it is interesting.
Speaker 5: I mean, these are these are brands that have done
Speaker 5: extraordinarily well in China, you know, in a way that
Speaker 5: the Chinese luxury brands have never been able to do.
Speaker 5: And so he's tapped into something that I think is
Speaker 5: true about this lifestyle in European tradition.
Speaker 4: Well, that's I want to go to China now, because
Speaker 4: when he went to China in the early nineties, he
Speaker 4: tells a story of what he saw there. It's a
Speaker 4: far cry from anyone who's been to one of the
Speaker 4: mega cities in China in this day and agent seeing
Speaker 4: one of the businesses that the company owns, perhaps on
Speaker 4: the famous street in Shanghai where all the luxury brands are.
Speaker 4: What did he see in China in the early nineties
Speaker 4: that gave him an indication that this is going to
Speaker 4: be a killer market.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, we asked him about that, and in fact,
Speaker 5: I think the answer to that precise question was there
Speaker 5: was nothing. He was very skeptical. He said that one
Speaker 5: of his memories was that everybody was wearing mousuits, and
Speaker 5: you know, if you've got a luxury business and a
Speaker 5: fashion business, you're probably like, is this the right place
Speaker 5: for me? And also at the time, the Western brands
Speaker 5: were confined to hotels, so they were operating a louis
Speaker 5: uitan store at the bottom of the Palace, in the
Speaker 5: basement of the Palace hotel. But obviously he has ridden
Speaker 5: and been aggressive in exploiting the rides of China and
Speaker 5: China joining the and not just China, but lots of
Speaker 5: countries in the in the Middle East and in Asia
Speaker 5: joining the global economy, the concurrent rise of an affluent class,
Speaker 5: and then the psychological need. It's so interesting of people
Speaker 5: who are newly rich to feel like they're part of
Speaker 5: that they're in distinct distinct from from their fellow countrymen.
Speaker 5: They're part of a global affluent class that they feel special,
Speaker 5: and he's just tapped into that need and sold a
Speaker 5: lot of handbags.
Speaker 3: I thought that was interesting too, that you got into
Speaker 3: like he understood the power of logos logos excuse me,
Speaker 3: luxury logos in particular, right, and really understood that kind
Speaker 3: of gave a marking to somebody who maybe was successful,
Speaker 3: but by having that logo kind of just cemented that position.
Speaker 5: I think there was one point in the company's history
Speaker 5: where they were arguing that the Louis Vuitton monogram had
Speaker 5: ceased to be relevant. And you fast forward today. I
Speaker 5: visited Paris for the story, and next to the Louis
Speaker 5: Eiton flagship on the Chance of Lyse is a new
Speaker 5: structure that they're renovating. We don't know what it's going
Speaker 5: to be yet, and they've covered it in a sort
Speaker 5: of monogrammed facade, so it looks like a big Louis
Speaker 5: Eton trunk. And the number of tourists who flocked to
Speaker 5: basically a building under construction to take pictures talks to
Speaker 5: the global resonance of these marks. And you couple that
Speaker 5: with the way in which he has exploited celebrity Pharrell
Speaker 5: Williams at Louis Euton, jay Z and Beyonce Tiffany go
Speaker 5: down the list. Rihanna started her own brand inside LVMH
Speaker 5: and the way you know celebrities flock to their shows.
Speaker 5: There's a reciprocal relationship, the celebrities posting on their Instagram,
Speaker 5: bathing in this aura of opulence that ar Noah's created.
Speaker 5: It is about, yes, it's about the marks and the monograms,
Speaker 5: it's also about celebrity and a lifestyle that people aspire to.
Speaker 3: He understands that, he understands social media.
Speaker 2: He's not on social media though.
Speaker 5: Right, It's funny. All the kids are, and they except
Speaker 5: for Delphine and the oldest daughter's not. The four other
Speaker 5: kids are, and and Juan, the oldest son, said, oh,
Speaker 5: he's on it and he monitors, but he's not posting.
Speaker 5: And they tried to get him on Twitter at one
Speaker 5: point before it was ex and he was apparently reluctant.
Speaker 3: So you met him, tell us about the meeting and
Speaker 3: meeting him for the first time.
Speaker 5: Well, this might surprise you, but he was better dressed
Speaker 5: than I.
Speaker 3: Was.
Speaker 5: Look, he it's exquisite, right, I mean the way he
Speaker 5: holds himself, the way he dresses. You know, he's very
Speaker 5: he to me, he was very French. I was probably
Speaker 5: very American, but he was generous enough to do the
Speaker 5: interview in French. My colleague Angelina Resquette and I interviewed
Speaker 5: him and just extor really patient. I got the sense
Speaker 5: that he enjoys talking about Like we were not there
Speaker 5: to press him on succession, on what the next company
Speaker 5: he's going to buy. I mean, we break some interesting
Speaker 5: news about that in the story, but we really wanted
Speaker 5: to know, you know, give tell us, you know, share
Speaker 5: your stories, tell us how you built this business, how
Speaker 5: you think about operating seventy five disparate houses together, what
Speaker 5: are the synergies. What was it like, you know, visiting
Speaker 5: China recently, where, in contrast to the first visit, throngs
Speaker 5: of people are out to see him and asking him
Speaker 5: to bless their babies, and so, you know, I feel
Speaker 5: like he got into it and had a good time
Speaker 5: with us, and then just sat for this extraordinary photo
Speaker 5: shoot with Reuven Affendor. Oh yes, yeah, and which you
Speaker 5: know makes for a really beautiful inaugural issue of the
Speaker 5: monthly BusinessWeek.
Speaker 4: Okay, we'll talk about the succession element to this in
Speaker 4: a few minutes, but before we get there, I just
Speaker 4: want to learn a little more about his empire, the
Speaker 4: real estate portion of this, because yes, he's known for
Speaker 4: these luxury brands these luxury houses, but it's also a
Speaker 4: real estate company, that's right.
Speaker 5: And another one of our colleagues, Natalie Wong on the
Speaker 5: real estate desk here at Bloomberg News, really helped us
Speaker 5: with this. I would say it probably started more modestly
Speaker 5: a decade or two ago, buying real estate in midtown
Speaker 5: Manhattan on Rodeo Drive in La LVMH has a separate arm,
Speaker 5: sort of an investment arm, El Catherton. They did a
Speaker 5: lot of deals through that, and over the time it's
Speaker 5: gotten more and more aggressive, where they're now designing whole
Speaker 5: new shopping districts in cities like Miami, in Montreal where
Speaker 5: a whole new luxury district is underway with LVMH as
Speaker 5: the primary backer in Asia, and it just gives well,
Speaker 5: first of all, are no a number of ways to win,
Speaker 5: not just on the sales, not just on the rent
Speaker 5: to rival companies who take store space, but on the
Speaker 5: underlying appreciation of the asset. It's it's an extraordinary amount
Speaker 5: of power because you know, we talk to rivals who say,
Speaker 5: you know, if you if you're in the prime spot
Speaker 5: and LVMH wants it, you know, maybe they're the landlord
Speaker 5: and you say goodbye because they're going to take the
Speaker 5: space from you, or the real the landlord is so
Speaker 5: intimidated by LVMH and it's power that they force you
Speaker 5: to leave. And then we asked our no, like do
Speaker 5: you have too much power? And you know his response
Speaker 5: is hilarious. It's along the lines of, well, if they're complaining,
Speaker 5: they're not very well managed, so he's got no sympathy.
Speaker 5: And but this is a company. You know, we talk
Speaker 5: about the advantages of the tech platforms and the power
Speaker 5: that they have to cast winners and losers. And I
Speaker 5: thought with this story, I was writing about the opposite
Speaker 5: a figure and a company that has a mass business
Speaker 5: power in another way, but I think it's sort of
Speaker 5: I think the real estate is the platform, and they
Speaker 5: own the platform, and they pick winners and losers and
Speaker 5: can anoint themselves by giving themselves the primary location, perhaps
Speaker 5: you know, discounts on rent, or it's just like the
Speaker 5: muscle to go and say, you know, the corner of
Speaker 5: Fifth Avenue in fifty seventh is the luxury capital.
Speaker 2: Of the world.
Speaker 5: They own three of the four corners.
Speaker 3: Now pretty amazing, it's pretty well. So you talk about
Speaker 3: that power, right, in terms of this you know, boutique
Speaker 3: of brands, if you will. And I just wonder if
Speaker 3: regulators though think, okay, there's too much power. Is that
Speaker 3: a risk at all as he continues to buy more
Speaker 3: and more brands?
Speaker 5: I don't, you know, I don't think so. There's you know,
Speaker 5: we highlight some deals that are now being looked at
Speaker 5: in the US. They're not LVMH deals, but different different
Speaker 5: sectors of luxury. But you know, it's a different set
Speaker 5: of regulators. There might soon be a different government in France.
Speaker 5: I probably don't know enough. I mean, I would sort
Speaker 5: of speculate that they would face more problems from a
Speaker 5: leftist government than a rightist right and that does assume
Speaker 5: the direction that France is drifting in now. But you know,
Speaker 5: one of the nice tantalizing tidbits of at the end
Speaker 5: of our story is that he has acquired a personal
Speaker 5: stake in Richmont, which is the owner of Cartier and
Speaker 5: some other brands. And you know, he says he wants
Speaker 5: to maintain its independence. But this is how it starts
Speaker 5: with him, how he went after Arimez and Gucci famously
Speaker 5: that you know he is not even though he's seventy
Speaker 5: five years old, done with his empire building.
Speaker 4: The Wolf in Kashmir is how some inside luxury circles
Speaker 4: have referred to him. You write about him laying off
Speaker 4: thousands of people after acquisitions. What's his reputation within the industry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I would say, well, first of all, the layoffs,
Speaker 5: that was early on, when you know he was acquiring
Speaker 5: some of these brands as part of like der larger
Speaker 5: companies with a lot of inefficiencies and pairing now to
Speaker 5: just the luxury acid sets. The Wolf in Kashmir was
Speaker 5: a phrase started by I think folks at Gucci and
Speaker 5: then later at Ermez and the way in which he
Speaker 5: uses leverage byout techniques to go acquire assets. I think
Speaker 5: he's viewed as as an intimidating figure who brings some
Speaker 5: pretty ruthless takeover tactics and business tactics to the world
Speaker 5: of luxury. But I think there's also a lot of
Speaker 5: admiration and respect for what he has achieved. I think
Speaker 5: at one point maybe there was a cold review of him,
Speaker 5: but how can you not admire right now, and particularly
Speaker 5: now that he's been a major philanthropic force in France
Speaker 5: and he's sponsoring the Olympics. There's probably more of a
Speaker 5: halo now than there ever has been.
Speaker 3: Just last question, what do you think people might be
Speaker 3: surprised about him in your coverage of him? In the
Speaker 3: reporting that might be surprised to find out? I know
Speaker 3: we covered a lot of ground.
Speaker 5: Look, I mean, if you're a follower of this world,
Speaker 5: there's some stuff in here that will surprise you. If
Speaker 5: you're not a follow, if you're even a sort of
Speaker 5: quasi business informed person, you might think that Bernard Arnau
Speaker 5: is married to Selma Hayek. He is not exactly. That
Speaker 5: is one of his rivals, right, and so I think,
Speaker 5: and but a surprising number of people have some of
Speaker 5: those you know, impressions and so and his wife is
Speaker 5: a concert pianist, extraordinarily impressive, impressive. So to understand who
Speaker 5: he is, his five children, who all work in the business,
Speaker 5: are also accomplished, and to understand how he has built
Speaker 5: this empire and the ways in which he now leverages
Speaker 5: his power, I think is going to surprise a lot
Speaker 5: of people.
Speaker 4: Brad, we lied one more question because you mentioned the children.
Speaker 4: I promised we talked about succession, five kids very briefly.
Speaker 4: Who should we be watching yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean all of them, right, because they're all they're
Speaker 5: all remarkable. You know, Delphine who runs deor is the
Speaker 5: is the only daughter, the oldest daughter. She is the
Speaker 5: sole descendant on the executive operating Committee of LVMH. So
Speaker 5: I think you'd have to say like she's got you know,
Speaker 5: she's probably if we're gonna talk about it in a race,
Speaker 5: and I don't know that they do, she would be
Speaker 5: the natural. But the way in which his youngest Jean
Speaker 5: and Frederic are are getting increasing authority. Alexander, who now
Speaker 5: is CO runs Tiffany and Co. And then Antoine who
Speaker 5: runs who is a non executive chairman of Laura Piano
Speaker 5: and runs all the image and communication for the company.
Speaker 5: They all have their pieces and and my impression, by
Speaker 5: the way in closing is that you know, like people
Speaker 5: we know well. Even though mister Arnault is of advanced stage,
Speaker 5: he has no intention of stepping back. He is in
Speaker 5: it for the long haul.
Speaker 3: And if you're playing tennis with him, do mention that
Speaker 3: rival because it might give you a little bit of
Speaker 3: an advantage. Anyway, reaches st do not wear nikes in
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Speaker 3: Business Week, now a monthly brought of course the editor
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Speaker 3: All right, now to an individual who is often the
Speaker 3: subject of a BusinessWeek story, including recently, we're talking about
Speaker 3: Elon Musk, and to some numbers you should know about Elon.
Speaker 4: Okay, six it's the number of companies Elon runs, two
Speaker 4: hundred and sixteen. It's the number of billions of dollars
Speaker 4: Elon is worth as of our taping, at least according
Speaker 4: to the latest calculation by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. And
Speaker 4: twelve it's the number of kids that Elon has at
Speaker 4: least that we know of. No question Elon doing what
Speaker 4: he can do to contribute to the population, which makes
Speaker 4: sense if you've paid attention to what he said in
Speaker 4: recent years.
Speaker 3: Well, I got to tell you, I'm one of seven,
Speaker 3: So my parents certainly did their jobs well. In Musk's mind,
Speaker 3: global for two rates are not just a crisis, but
Speaker 3: the crisis. In twenty twenty two, he tweeted that quote,
Speaker 3: A collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces
Speaker 3: by far.
Speaker 4: For more, we turn to Dana Hole, Bloomberg News senior
Speaker 4: technology reporter.
Speaker 7: He's been sort of ringing the alarm bell about this
Speaker 7: for quite some time. If you look at his tweets
Speaker 7: and all of his public appearances at the Milkene conference,
Speaker 7: you know, he really sees this as a big crisis.
Speaker 7: And I think it has a lot to do with
Speaker 7: the changing demography of the United States and frankly, his
Speaker 7: like interest in colonizing Mars, and you know, he's looking
Speaker 7: at trends and his own goals, and you know, he
Speaker 7: really is encouraging people to have at least three children.
Speaker 7: But I think that the sort of deeper thing here
Speaker 7: is that he's not just tweeting about this on x
Speaker 7: the platform that he owns. He's really putting money behind it.
Speaker 4: I would say, as a recent father, if he wants
Speaker 4: people to have more kids, he should talk to the
Speaker 4: folks in Washington about child care costs and the difficulty
Speaker 4: in raising the kids.
Speaker 2: Says the father of two young kids.
Speaker 4: I'm serious though, I mean, if if he wants people
Speaker 4: to have at least three, there's a reason why people
Speaker 4: don't have as many kids as they used to.
Speaker 2: It's expensive.
Speaker 4: It's very expensive.
Speaker 7: You know, there are a lot of reasons why the
Speaker 7: fertility rate has fallen. Women are having children later in life.
Speaker 7: It is incredibly expensive. We don't have the nuclear families
Speaker 7: we used to. People are thinking about things like just
Speaker 7: the cost of childcare and the cost of college, and
Speaker 7: the cost of just living and the cost of housing.
Speaker 7: And there's a lot of reasons why in a lot
Speaker 7: of industrialized countries, not just the United States, but in
Speaker 7: Scandinavia and Japan and South Korea and elsewhere, that the
Speaker 7: fertility rate has fallen. But you know, there's a lot
Speaker 7: of policy levers that you can push if you want
Speaker 7: to encourage families. And you know, instead, Elon has quietly
Speaker 7: donated ten million dollars to the University of Texas at Austin,
Speaker 7: his largest donation to higher education to date. And he's
Speaker 7: also funding a documentary film that'll feature like the professor
Speaker 7: that he's funding. And so it's just super curious to me.
Speaker 7: How on the one hand, you know, eli On is
Speaker 7: very public about his intentions, and yet seeing him get
Speaker 7: involved in academia this way is sort of a new
Speaker 7: realm for him.
Speaker 2: Well, that's why I wanted to ask you, Dana, I
Speaker 2: was listening to you.
Speaker 3: You know, is Elon mostly talking his book here, you know,
Speaker 3: about wanting to you know, develop mars and all that
Speaker 3: good stuff. What do the academics say when it comes
Speaker 3: to what's going on with fertility rates and perhaps populations
Speaker 3: more broadly, what does academia who study this actually say
Speaker 3: about what the.
Speaker 2: Problem is or no lack thereof.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so the field of demography is a super fascinating one.
Speaker 7: And my colleague Sophia Alexander really did a heroic job
Speaker 7: like talking to all the experts here, and they are
Speaker 7: very worried that Musk and his megaphone and his money
Speaker 7: are kind of now influencing the debate, if you will,
Speaker 7: within the field about just how serious this crisis is.
Speaker 7: I mean, you know, there are is Simultaneously we're seeing
Speaker 7: a lot of talk about no fault divorce and abortion rights,
Speaker 7: and we're seeing like women's reproductive freedom being skilled back
Speaker 7: in State after state. So there's just a lot of
Speaker 7: history here. Is that is very concerning for people that
Speaker 7: have been in the field for a long time.
Speaker 4: I think one important part of the conversation, at least
Speaker 4: here in the US that Carol and I have talked
Speaker 4: about Dana is even though Americans are not having as
Speaker 4: many kids as they used to, a lot of the
Speaker 4: jobs that need to be filled are being filled by
Speaker 4: immigrants right now. And that's really important when you talk
Speaker 4: about the economic context here in terms of population growth
Speaker 4: and aging population and who's actually doing jobs?
Speaker 7: Oh absolutely, I mean who is growing the food in
Speaker 7: the United States, who is working in our meat packing facilities,
Speaker 7: who is taking care of your elderly parent. I mean,
Speaker 7: so when you talk about declining birth rates and fertility rates,
Speaker 7: you have to if you look at the world population
Speaker 7: as a whole, to be clear, like we are still
Speaker 7: we are still seeing population growth. You know, there are
Speaker 7: different projections, and projections are often wrong. I mean, you know,
Speaker 7: we know that people have fewer children during the recession.
Speaker 7: So what's actually happening now is that there were fewer
Speaker 7: babies born in like two thousand and seven, two thousand
Speaker 7: and eight, two thousand and nine, when we were in
Speaker 7: the depths of the last recession in the United States.
Speaker 7: Now all those kids are about to graduate from high
Speaker 7: school and you're seeing like a drop off in college enrollment.
Speaker 7: So I mean, there are rare, definitely real world impacts
Speaker 7: to population changes. But when you include immigration and you
Speaker 7: include the world as a whole and not just the West,
Speaker 7: you know, we are still on track to be growing people.
Speaker 7: That is a fact. And so it's just very interesting
Speaker 7: to sort of look at how, you know, this kind
Speaker 7: of fringe movement called natalism has increasingly entered the mainstream.
Speaker 3: Dana, does the world at large? Does the Bloomberg audience
Speaker 3: kind of need to keep the head of PWI Dean Spears.
Speaker 4: The Population Well Being Initiative exactly?
Speaker 2: Do they need to keep him on their radar?
Speaker 7: Yes, he's coming out with a book in the Fall
Speaker 7: by Simon and Schuster, six figure advance. I mean, it's
Speaker 7: called After the Spike. It's kind of, you know, it'll
Speaker 7: be like a mainstream book kind of espousing. I think
Speaker 7: a lot of what is in aligne with with musks
Speaker 7: thinking that we need to really be paying attention to
Speaker 7: fertility trends, and I think it's just important you know too.
Speaker 7: You know, billionaires have a lot of ways to spend
Speaker 7: their money. Musk has a foundation. You know, his foundation
Speaker 7: is now donating to academia. I think that that's really
Speaker 7: significant and something that investors and customers and people in
Speaker 7: general should be watching.
Speaker 3: And it also said that one of his right is
Speaker 3: researchers are going to be joining I think President Biden's
Speaker 3: counsel of Economic Advisors, right, So, yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 3: spreading out.
Speaker 4: But Dan, and this is also a story about Elon's
Speaker 4: businesses because he has had kids with people at his
Speaker 4: at at least one of his companies in the past.
Speaker 4: So we should note that even though we're talking about
Speaker 4: what could be his personal views that he's increasingly talking
Speaker 4: about on on X and on podcasts, he's this is
Speaker 4: coming out and in the work that he does too.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, and there are a lot of you know,
Speaker 7: I mean, to be clear, these are consent take adults.
Speaker 7: But like one of them is currently like his employee.
Speaker 7: I mean, she's an executive at Neuralink. And so you know,
Speaker 7: obviously a couple of years ago, Business Insider broke the
Speaker 7: news that Musk and chevon zillis the executive at Neuralink
Speaker 7: had twins together. They also had they had they had
Speaker 7: another another child that was previously unreported. So this is
Speaker 7: definitely like a pattern of his. It's just sort of
Speaker 7: unheard of, uh, that you would have that going on,
Speaker 7: I think, in most quarters. But it's it's a pattern
Speaker 7: that's been established and it seems to be continuing.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: It's an incredible story, and I think a really smart
Speaker 3: one and just kind of getting into it and explaining
Speaker 3: it and doing the research and giving us the facts,
Speaker 3: certainly when it comes to fertility and what's going on.
Speaker 4: Glos also has Carol reminded me some incredible animations on
Speaker 4: the terminals that actually made me.
Speaker 2: Kind of laugh.
Speaker 3: Check it out, everyone, Dana, have a great weekend. Bloomberg
Speaker 3: News Senior Tech reporter Dana Halt.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 1: York station, Just Say Alexa. Playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Speaker 3: Earning season in all its glory doesn't kick off for
Speaker 3: another few weeks, and yet thanks to quarterly earnings from
Speaker 3: one big player in the hospitality and leisure space this
Speaker 3: past week, we've got a pretty good read on what's
Speaker 3: up with the US consumer.
Speaker 4: Carnival raised its full year earnings outlook after strong demand
Speaker 4: for cruises helped it post a surprise profit last quarter.
Speaker 4: Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization will be
Speaker 4: about five point eight three billion this year. It's up
Speaker 4: from Carnival's March forecast of about five point six three
Speaker 4: billion dollars and above the average analyst projection of five
Speaker 4: point seven billion.
Speaker 3: Record setting demand is helping cruise companies sell tickets at
Speaker 3: higher prices, partly driven by the value of sailings versus
Speaker 3: land based travel, helping to attract new customers. That trend
Speaker 3: appears to be extending into twenty twenty five, with Carnival's
Speaker 3: booked position for next year already ahead of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four levels on both occupancy and ticket prices.
Speaker 4: Carnival turned just as second profit since twenty twenty in
Speaker 4: the second quarter, reporting eleven cents a share against an
Speaker 4: expected two cent a share loss. Sales also beat Wall
Speaker 4: Street's forecast s and p upgraded Carnival's debt rating to
Speaker 4: double B after the results, leaving it now just two
Speaker 4: notches away from investment grade. The stock having a big
Speaker 4: bounce recently. I'm nearly twenty percent. We got more from
Speaker 4: Josh Weinstein, President and CEO and chief Climate Officer of Carnival.
Speaker 8: We just wrapped up our second quarter and we were
Speaker 8: able to report record revenues, record deal record for dums,
Speaker 8: record even, and record operating income. So that that was
Speaker 8: a really big quarter for us. And the best news
Speaker 8: about it is that was the actual results.
Speaker 9: But from a bookings momentum standpoint.
Speaker 8: As you were saying, the bookings that we took in
Speaker 8: just in the second quarter actually set another record, and
Speaker 8: it was a record for the most bookings we ever
Speaker 8: took for the full year out So in this case,
Speaker 8: twenty twenty five, so as Stellar is, twenty twenty four
Speaker 8: is looking when it comes to the demand profile and
Speaker 8: the booking trends, twenty twenty five is already shaping up
Speaker 8: to be even better.
Speaker 3: So you can like pack up your bags go home
Speaker 3: for a year. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, talk to
Speaker 3: us about.
Speaker 5: Your lung cruise.
Speaker 2: Go on to your luck cruise.
Speaker 3: Hey, how broad based? Is it like, break it down
Speaker 3: for us. You guys have several brands and I know
Speaker 3: about a year ago you did a restructuring when it
Speaker 3: comes to those brands, But how broad based is it
Speaker 3: in terms of customer segment and geography.
Speaker 9: Yeah, the great thing is that it is exactly that
Speaker 9: it is broad based.
Speaker 8: So we're seeing strength from both our North our North
Speaker 8: American brand and our European brands. You know, to put
Speaker 8: that into perspective the past quarter, the second quarter.
Speaker 9: Because we're a portabole theer on bold class brands.
Speaker 8: You know, brands are coming in and out of different
Speaker 8: economic cycles.
Speaker 9: Different geopolitical issues.
Speaker 8: And whereas a couple of years ago we were talking
Speaker 8: about our European brands just taking a little while longer
Speaker 8: to chuck in, our North American brands coming out of
Speaker 8: our pause, in the second quarter of this year, their
Speaker 8: yields were up over twenty percent year over year.
Speaker 9: And so we're getting this.
Speaker 8: Momentum across the Atlantic and from all segments thea contemporary
Speaker 8: via premium via luxury. We're really seeing strengthen what we
Speaker 8: have to offer, which Kendally isn't surprising to us, because
Speaker 8: first of all, as we've talked about before.
Speaker 9: We are an incredible value.
Speaker 8: So even though we've been successful and really pushing on
Speaker 8: that demand and getting our pricing up, we are still
Speaker 8: an incredible value versus alternatives. And not only are we
Speaker 8: an incredible value when you look at our alternatives, the
Speaker 8: service levels that we provide are unmatched and they're just
Speaker 8: as good as there were from before the pandemic, which
Speaker 8: is not something that a lot of hospitality outfits can say.
Speaker 4: I'm wondering about the trends that you're seeing when it
Speaker 4: comes to on board spending excursions. Are there any signs
Speaker 4: of lower spending once consumers are on board? Are there
Speaker 4: any signs of weakness that you're seeing anywhere?
Speaker 8: Excuse me, no, not particularly you know in the in
Speaker 8: the second quarter, our onboards were up about four percent
Speaker 8: per deems year over year, and as you know, last
Speaker 8: year was called incredibly over the pree pandemic period. So
Speaker 8: you know, the trends that we look at to understand
Speaker 8: the strength of our consumer. We've got the results, we've
Speaker 8: got the onboard spending in real time, we've got the bookings,
Speaker 8: and all of those metrics for us are telling us
Speaker 8: that our consumers are incredibly strong. We've got incredibly strong
Speaker 8: brands that really resonate with the segments that we're going after,
Speaker 8: and people are absolutely still willing to spend on experiences,
Speaker 8: and that is exactly what we offered, great experiences to
Speaker 8: create memories and happiness for a lifetime.
Speaker 3: Hey, Josh, one of the numbers that struck me to
Speaker 3: is your total customer deposits reached an all time high
Speaker 3: a point three billion. That's our passed the previous record
Speaker 3: by over a billion dollars one point one billion, to
Speaker 3: be exact. Does all of that turn into avenue that
Speaker 3: shows up ultimately on the balance sheet? In other words,
Speaker 3: are there cancelations that can happen? What do you see
Speaker 3: around that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, there are cancelations that can happen, but the vast
Speaker 8: majority of that is going to come through ultimately in revenues.
Speaker 8: So that's a bit of a board indicator of how
Speaker 8: we're doing. And that increase is really a combination of
Speaker 8: increased pricing, us elongating the booking curves, of taking bookings.
Speaker 9: Even farther out than we had even just a year ago.
Speaker 9: And you know, we're doing a better job.
Speaker 8: Of bundling our offerings so that people can spend in
Speaker 8: advance of the cruise, not just for the ticket price,
Speaker 8: but certain on board experiences. So it's a combination of
Speaker 8: those things that we've been very focused on that are
Speaker 8: attributing to that increasing customer.
Speaker 3: Well, that's something we've talked about, right, all of the
Speaker 3: bundling that happens before they even step on a ship,
Speaker 3: and that ultimately can lead to more spending because that
Speaker 3: thinking of I've already paid for everything, right you get
Speaker 3: on ship and you're like, wait, I can still spend
Speaker 3: Like that really works.
Speaker 9: It does really work. It does really work.
Speaker 8: I mean a good it's a good amount of time
Speaker 8: that goes between the initial purchase impulse and then getting
Speaker 8: on board. So having what we'd refer to as a
Speaker 8: second walllet available is real. And actually, folks who buy
Speaker 8: something of onboard spending before they get on the ship,
Speaker 8: they spend more on board than those who don't do
Speaker 8: anything in advance.
Speaker 9: So it's a it's a very strong opportunity.
Speaker 4: Okay, Josh, I'm wondering about pricing pressures that you may
Speaker 4: be facing at the company. You're you're talking about consumers
Speaker 4: who are out there spending that's certainly strong. What about
Speaker 4: what you have pressure. Where you have pressure food prices,
Speaker 4: labor costs, fuel costs. What are you seeing on that front?
Speaker 9: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 8: I mean good news is there's been the deceleration of inflation.
Speaker 8: We don't see his inflation, but we certainly see a deceleration,
Speaker 8: which is which is encouraging. I think if you look
Speaker 8: at our P and L, you'll see on the on
Speaker 8: the crew labor side, our teams are doing a real
Speaker 8: good job of trying to be mind blow of the
Speaker 8: P and L and certainly pay a good living to people,
Speaker 8: but put doing so efficiently. The biggest thing that we
Speaker 8: see a change from free pandemic times to now, it's probably.
Speaker 9: You know, that combination of two of the things that
Speaker 9: you said, food and fuel.
Speaker 8: Those are inherently more expensive, and we're doing our best
Speaker 8: because because those are always going to be inputs into
Speaker 8: our business.
Speaker 9: We are laser focused.
Speaker 8: On reducing consumption because no matter what the price is,
Speaker 8: if we use less, we will be better off. And
Speaker 8: so I'll give you I'll give you two examples. On
Speaker 8: the food side, we are looking every which way.
Speaker 9: We can to cut the amount of food we.
Speaker 8: Put on, more cut consumption, to be more mindful of
Speaker 8: the fact that we've got a lot of food waste
Speaker 8: in any give, we've actually because we put this focus
Speaker 8: onto it, we've been able to cut our food waste
Speaker 8: by over forty percent per.
Speaker 9: Person per day versus where we were before the pandemic.
Speaker 9: And that's that is.
Speaker 8: Because we are giving so much thought to reducing the
Speaker 8: whole consumption cycle while still giving guests every thing they want,
Speaker 8: which just being more thoughtful about.
Speaker 9: How we do that.
Speaker 8: And on the fuel side, you know, not only is
Speaker 8: it good for the environment, it's good for the bottom line.
Speaker 9: And even though we are over thirty percent bigger.
Speaker 8: Today than we were in twenty eleven, we actually consume
Speaker 8: ten percent less absolute fuel than we did back in
Speaker 8: twenty eleven. We admit over ten percent the less absolute
Speaker 8: terms greenhouse gas submissions than we did back in twenty eleven.
Speaker 8: So by being laser focused on that, not only can
Speaker 8: we be good you know, world citizens, we can make
Speaker 8: a huge impact.
Speaker 10: On our bottom line.
Speaker 3: Hey, speaking of being laser focused, you shu guys still
Speaker 3: have I think, roughly I was looking at the Bloomberg
Speaker 3: maybe around thirty billion of debts still on your balance sheet.
Speaker 3: I think four point one billion maturing by year end.
Speaker 3: How am I the bookings and the outperformance there maybe
Speaker 3: power help with debt reduction, Like, what's your plans on that?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 8: Absolutely, that is when it comes our capital structure and
Speaker 8: priority one, two and three is reducing that debt balance.
Speaker 9: We've actually reduced it.
Speaker 8: By eight billions versus our peak, which is great. I
Speaker 8: predict we've probably got another billion or so to go
Speaker 8: as we get through the remainder of this year. That
Speaker 8: should get us the leverage metrics heading towards about four
Speaker 8: and a half turns, which is a big in roads
Speaker 8: versus where we were just a couple of years ago. Now,
Speaker 8: what we see as a plan going forward is, in
Speaker 8: addition to the fact that our increased EBITDA and better
Speaker 8: business is going to help our metrics and help the
Speaker 8: shape of our balance sheet, we have intentionally reduced our
Speaker 8: supply our pipeline of new builds in the.
Speaker 9: Medium term, and so we're looking at.
Speaker 8: A profile with only one new build coming in twenty
Speaker 8: twenty five, none in twenty six, and then one in
Speaker 8: each of twenty seven and twenty eight. What that does
Speaker 8: it will allow six billions of dollars of free cash
Speaker 8: flow each year for the next several years to.
Speaker 9: Pay down debt. And that's exactly where we're focused.
Speaker 8: You know, treasure for ten years that we were in
Speaker 8: ami stuff, and I know the power of having a
Speaker 8: fortress balancing.
Speaker 4: Hey, Josh, I don't want to believer the point here,
Speaker 4: but we're hearing over and over again from people not
Speaker 4: like you that they're starting to see some cracks form
Speaker 4: in the consumer. We're seeing some price wars happening in
Speaker 4: fast food right now. For example. Are you seeing weakness
Speaker 4: anywhere in your business or anywhere in the consumers that
Speaker 4: you deal with, you know.
Speaker 8: At at a general level, No, no, we're not. We
Speaker 8: see the demand profiles incredibly high. And I attribute that
Speaker 8: not just to the value gap, not just.
Speaker 9: That we're getting better at what we're doing. But if
Speaker 9: you think about.
Speaker 8: It, just put yourself in the minds of a consumer.
Speaker 8: They are stretched. If they are looking to figure out
Speaker 8: how do I make my vacation dollar go further? That
Speaker 8: is playing into what we have to offer because we
Speaker 8: are the bottom line where cheaper alternative and lots of
Speaker 8: other things that they can choose to do, and they're
Speaker 8: seeing the value of that.
Speaker 9: They have friends, they have family, who have taken.
Speaker 3: How is with a maconn all right on our behalf Josh,
Speaker 3: so appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Have a great summer, Josh Weinstein.
Speaker 3: He's President and ce of Carnival Corporation, joining us there
Speaker 3: from their headquarters in Miami.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
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Speaker 3: Play ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition
Speaker 3: of Bloomberg Business Week, including trading a job on a
Speaker 3: London trading desk for one as a whiskey distiller, will
Speaker 3: reintroduce you to the founder of Natterjack Irish whiskey whose
Speaker 3: happy accident to an innovative new blend.
Speaker 4: Plus the really really expensive Bugatti supercar that's also a hybrid,
Speaker 4: the CEO Breakfast Diet, and the former long run Broadway
Speaker 4: show Cats gets another life courtesy of Wild Costumes. It's
Speaker 4: all ahead in Bloomberg Pursuits.
Speaker 3: First up this hour, we begin with music and entertainment.
Speaker 3: The Las Vegas residency and extended run of concerts by
Speaker 3: a single artist has never been hotter. On any given week,
Speaker 3: fans can choose from an array of shows that might
Speaker 3: include a Dell with a string section at the Caesars Coliseum,
Speaker 3: Lady Gaga performing jazz standards on a piano at Park MGM,
Speaker 3: or Carrie Underwood belting out her country hits at Resorts World.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and then there's the sphere with you Two
Speaker 3: Fish and Dead and Company taking up residencies.
Speaker 4: It wasn't always this way Las Vegas, at least, in
Speaker 4: the words of one Las Vegas historian quote, was the
Speaker 4: place old performers go to die out. Bloomberg News entertainment
Speaker 4: reporter Chris Paul Mary writes all about the Las Vegas
Speaker 4: residency history and the latest issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine,
Speaker 4: also on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 4: slash BusinessWeek. So to understand how it got to be
Speaker 4: this way, We've got to go back in history from
Speaker 4: the days of Elvis and another surprising artist.
Speaker 6: It starts with Liberachi, believe it or not, who was
Speaker 6: a big star on TV and he was loured to
Speaker 6: Vegas a fifty thousand dollars a week contract. This is
Speaker 6: in nineteen fifty five. Wow, and and and just you know,
Speaker 6: makes it a thing to play there five nights a week.
Speaker 6: And that really establishes this idea of the star in
Speaker 6: residency playing one place. You want to see him, you
Speaker 6: go to Vegas. It's it's a you know, it's a
Speaker 6: big thing. And then of course you hit the tables afterwards.
Speaker 6: And it inspired Elvis, who bombed in his first Vegas
Speaker 6: experience with a big band a comedian and but but
Speaker 6: studied Liberaci and his showmanship and his outfits and and
Speaker 6: came up with his own Vegas version, which of course
Speaker 6: we all remember. And you know, the rat pack was
Speaker 6: you know, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, they were a
Speaker 6: residency in the sixties. And then you kick it to
Speaker 6: kind of the modern editor of Celine Dion and the
Speaker 6: two thousands she opened the Caesars Coliseum. That was a
Speaker 6: huge deal, one hundred million dollars. That really opened the
Speaker 6: door for all kinds of folks life share and Elvis
Speaker 6: and now we cut to adel and the old idea
Speaker 6: that yeah, the Vegas is where these sort of old
Speaker 6: stars went, is no more.
Speaker 2: Well, it's so wild. I mean I was thinking about this, Chris, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, how much is it kind of the evolution of
Speaker 3: Vegas as a place to have great food, go see
Speaker 3: great shows, like really experience a lot of pretty cool
Speaker 3: things in kind of a relatively small area.
Speaker 11: How much of is it?
Speaker 3: Two performers just tired of going on the road, and
Speaker 3: they're like, let me do this gig for a while,
Speaker 3: make a bunch of money, and then be done. But
Speaker 3: I don't have to like get in my tour bus,
Speaker 3: I don't have to get on planes. Like it's I'm
Speaker 3: just curious how it's all hard together.
Speaker 6: Some of them have bought homes in Vegas too, and
Speaker 6: sort of settled down. You know, we got started in
Speaker 6: this because, as you mentioned, Vegas always reinvents itself. In
Speaker 6: the Sphere, which opened in September with a residency, if
Speaker 6: you two really just set a new bar for entertainment.
Speaker 6: A lot of people were skeptical about what was going
Speaker 6: to happen there, but it's just so mind blowing the
Speaker 6: experience of the video indoors and out on the entire theater,
Speaker 6: and so that sort of was like, well, this, this
Speaker 6: is sort of the new version of the residency. He
Speaker 6: got us thinking about that, and then I was surprised,
Speaker 6: actually it, being a long time concert goer, that this
Speaker 6: actually translates into Vegas having the highest average ticket price.
Speaker 4: I was shocked to see the country.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, okay, so well, a couples one hundred and
Speaker 6: seventy six on average. It's a lot of money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's no Taylor Swift, but you know, you know,
Speaker 4: that's one thing that's always struck me about Vegas is
Speaker 4: everywhere and I've been there many many times, mostly for work,
Speaker 4: but one thing that I'm struck the right. Yeah, everything
Speaker 4: was there and cs every year, But what always strikes
Speaker 4: me is the way that people throw money around in Vegas.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like this fantasy world because the people
Speaker 4: who are throwing money around, you know, they're not throwing
Speaker 4: money around like that every day when they're at home.
Speaker 4: And I'm wondering what it is about Las Vegas that
Speaker 4: can attract such high ticket prices.
Speaker 6: Well, that's number one. People are going there, forty million
Speaker 6: people last year going there to have fun. You know,
Speaker 6: you're not going there to visit relatives. For the most part,
Speaker 6: You're not, you know, I mean it is you are
Speaker 6: cutting loose, and sometimes you're cutting loose with a corporate
Speaker 6: credit card too, like you mentioned going to a conference
Speaker 6: of some kind. So the city is designed really for that.
Speaker 6: So if you're not going to gamble, you're going to eat,
Speaker 6: you're going to see a show shop, you're spending money.
Speaker 6: The other thing is that these residencies tend to be
Speaker 6: smaller theaters. Some of the acts we really featured Christina Aguilera.
Speaker 6: You know, she's somebody who could play big Arenas. She's
Speaker 6: playing at a thousand seat theater at the Venetian, which
Speaker 6: was configured to kind of be like a Parisian nightclub,
Speaker 6: and it's got mostly tables seating. In addition to a
Speaker 6: you know, pretty high ticket price, you're also got a
Speaker 6: food and beverage minimum two hundred and fifty a person,
Speaker 6: which sounds like a lot until you try to until
Speaker 6: you sit down in a nightclub in Vegas, and it's
Speaker 6: just play money at that point. And so that's the
Speaker 6: experience she's going for. She told us, you know, everyone
Speaker 6: could feel like a VIP and people are buying it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Vegas is the place where the ATM is only
Speaker 4: spit out hundred dollars bills. You know, you can't choose twenties.
Speaker 2: The size and scope, Yeah, her perspective.
Speaker 3: No signs of anything slowing down in terms of these
Speaker 3: types of performers coming there and and you know, more
Speaker 3: residencies to come essentially.
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, it certainly seems that way. People are lining
Speaker 6: up to get into the sphere. You know, the city
Speaker 6: talked about his first hip hop residency this year. We have,
Speaker 6: you know, still a huge artist, Lady Gaga del And
Speaker 6: the next thing we know we asked around about seems
Speaker 6: to be you're familiar with the Abbess show in London,
Speaker 6: the avatars avatars sorry, and you know it's probably going
Speaker 6: to be something along those lines. Maybe it'll be kiss
Speaker 6: who knows, but yeah, so, and that's you're right. The
Speaker 6: city reinvents itself. There was circus La for a while.
Speaker 6: Now it seems sports and residencies.
Speaker 2: Very cool stuff.
Speaker 3: Chris, Paul, Mary, thank you so much. Really fun to
Speaker 3: check in with you about the story. Bloomberg News Entertainment editor.
Speaker 3: Check out a story at Boomberg dot com and also
Speaker 3: on the Bloomberg terminal.
Speaker 2: You're listening and watching Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen
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Speaker 3: All right, Tim, here's pop quiz for you. What do
Speaker 3: you Enrique Iglesias, Lake Shelton, the rapper Future and the
Speaker 3: rapper and producer Logic all have in common?
Speaker 4: Dontin they make music good? They have Las Vegas residency.
Speaker 2: No, no, come on, you know this one.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 2: They've all sold their catalogs.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I wrote that, so I should know that.
Speaker 3: Sorry, guys, we tried to make this work or stakes
Speaker 3: in their catalogs they have sold to Influence Media Partners,
Speaker 3: a seven hundred and fifty million dollar fund backed by
Speaker 3: Warner Music and Black Rock that invests in music IP
Speaker 3: intellectual property.
Speaker 4: It's been a growing trend for musicians lately to cash
Speaker 4: out on their work. For the companies purchasing the catalogs,
Speaker 4: it may be worth the investment for more. We were
Speaker 4: joined by the founder and co managing partner of Influence
Speaker 4: Media Partners, Lolette Pizarro.
Speaker 12: This has been probably the healthiest we've seen in the
Speaker 12: last few years in single artist acquisition opportunity. What's gotten
Speaker 12: really interesting about the market for us at Influence is
Speaker 12: that artists really do care about partnership, and I has
Speaker 12: become a very vibrant space.
Speaker 4: Name image and likeness is what you're referring to.
Speaker 13: Name, image and likeness.
Speaker 12: And you know, when I wrote this strategy a few
Speaker 12: years ago, I wasn't quite sure if the active artists,
Speaker 12: an artist who has a manager, an agent, a really
Speaker 12: you know, significant bench of talent would allow us to
Speaker 12: invest in their name, image and likeness rights.
Speaker 4: Well, help us understand name, image and likeness when it
Speaker 4: comes to these artists, because we talk a lot about
Speaker 4: it in the context over the last few years of
Speaker 4: athletes in college who are now able to license their name,
Speaker 4: image and likeness. How does it work in the musician
Speaker 4: space in the artist space.
Speaker 12: Everyone has a different approach around how they manage name,
Speaker 12: image and likeness rights. I can tell you what we
Speaker 12: do at Influence as it relates to Influence. We approach
Speaker 12: it as an opportunity to invest in.
Speaker 13: A specific vertical of rights.
Speaker 12: So we look and we speak to we learn, We
Speaker 12: do insights works around how the artist has commercialized their name,
Speaker 12: image and likeness rights historically and what might be a
Speaker 12: white space, So it could be wellness or hospitality, or
Speaker 12: film and television, or an area that they haven't really
Speaker 12: explored but there's interest in exploring, and we'll approach it
Speaker 12: around taking a position on those rights exclusively.
Speaker 3: Isn't that kind of what an agent does.
Speaker 12: We partner with the agents very often, so I would
Speaker 12: say we look more like a marketing agent, which is
Speaker 12: more classic in sports and doesn't exist in music, and
Speaker 12: I feel like that's the white space that influence is
Speaker 12: really owning. So a marketing agent who will work in
Speaker 12: tandem with the television and commercial agent and the touring agent.
Speaker 12: But we're specifically focused on bringing new marketing opportunities to artists,
Speaker 12: and on a very specific basis, we also work with
Speaker 12: artists on non exclusive rights as it relates to name,
Speaker 12: image and likeness. But the proposition, given the type of
Speaker 12: talent that exists and influence and the type of marketing
Speaker 12: DNA that we're bringing in, it's become a very compelling
Speaker 12: proposition to talent in which now we're being approached just
Speaker 12: on name, image and likeness opportunity outside of catalog investments.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to ask you, are there
Speaker 3: times where a performer says, yeah, we're going to hold
Speaker 3: on to our music, but can you help us with
Speaker 3: the other Can you help us with the name, image
Speaker 3: and likeness side of the business.
Speaker 13: Yeah, it just started to happen.
Speaker 12: It's you know, we're in early days of you know, influence.
Speaker 12: We're very much a startup, but it's so exciting and
Speaker 12: promising to see artists respond this way, see the opportunity
Speaker 12: and want to lean in on what we're proposing, our
Speaker 12: ambition and our strategy. I will tell you, Carol that
Speaker 12: our marketing, our marketing pipeline is just important to us
Speaker 12: as our acquisition pipeline. We really believe that if you're
Speaker 12: investing in IP, the best way to protect IP is
Speaker 12: to constantly drive rediscovery of that IP and make sure
Speaker 12: that it's at the forefront and there's ways to consistently
Speaker 12: re engage with fans and audience, and that is at
Speaker 12: the heart of our proposition.
Speaker 4: It's a seven hundred and fifty million dollar fund, it's
Speaker 4: backed by Warner Music in Black Rock. What can you
Speaker 4: tell us about fund returns over the last couple of years.
Speaker 12: So we've done very well. I mean investing in music royalties.
Speaker 12: As you guys know, it's an alternative investment class. But
Speaker 12: we've been performing a little bit better than I think
Speaker 12: the market would say that these royalties or investment in
Speaker 12: music whereights perform. And part of it is because one,
Speaker 12: we're highly focused on our value chain proposition. So from sourcing,
Speaker 12: we really look at, you know, making sure that the seller,
Speaker 12: so whether it's an artist or songwriter or an entrepreneur,
Speaker 12: truly cares about partnership and wants to lean in on
Speaker 12: value creation and marketing opportunities.
Speaker 13: So it makes what influence invests in a little bit
Speaker 13: different than the balance.
Speaker 4: Of the market. R What can you tell us about
Speaker 4: like expected returns though when someone comes to you as
Speaker 4: it's an alternative asset, as you mentioned, it's alternative investor,
Speaker 4: think what the market.
Speaker 12: Has said about these returns is that they are low
Speaker 12: to mid teen returns, and influences work better than mid
Speaker 12: teen's returns.
Speaker 3: All right, Just trying to get an idea of like
Speaker 3: kind of where it fits right. You know, we talk
Speaker 3: a lot about alt investing, so it's just trying to
Speaker 3: get an idea of exactly kind of where it kind
Speaker 3: of slots in in the investment space. Having said that,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like, how big can it be for
Speaker 3: you guys, You know, to mention how much you guys,
Speaker 3: you've got a seven hundred and fifty million dollar fun
Speaker 3: already already six hundred million in Are you getting new
Speaker 3: investor money coming in to either do a second fund
Speaker 3: or build out this fund?
Speaker 12: Yeah, So our investors are really happy with our performance
Speaker 12: and our returning to our next vehicle. I think the
Speaker 12: question always is what's the appropriate scale for this investment class,
Speaker 12: and we're working to define that as well. Look, we
Speaker 12: see ourselves as a premium rights holder of premium music rights,
Speaker 12: and so we also very much care about having the
Speaker 12: opportunity to partner and actively manage. And I think we've
Speaker 12: identified our space in the sub early billions of opportunity
Speaker 12: for the future, so, you know, potentially a two to
Speaker 12: three billion dollar vehicle. I know that there are other
Speaker 12: buyers in the space who have far larger ambitions, but
Speaker 12: right now, that's how we see the opportunity at Influence.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a period until about twenty twenty
Speaker 4: two we were talking about this all the time. Kenny Chesney,
Speaker 4: Leonard Cohen, Justin Timberlake. Those were catalogs applied by Hypnosis
Speaker 4: and Blackstone, John Legend, Bruce Springsteen's TBNX, Bob Dylan. They've
Speaker 4: struck deals with other firms. Has the idea of selling
Speaker 4: a catalog slowed down at all? In a higher rate environment.
Speaker 12: There has been just as much activity in terms of acquisition,
Speaker 12: and there has been just as much activity in terms
Speaker 12: of new entrants backed by institutional investors. But what has
Speaker 12: shifted is the actual announcement activity. And I've been looking
Speaker 12: and studying that. Even as us as influence, we've only
Speaker 12: announced twenty five percent of our acquisitions.
Speaker 4: Interesting, I was wondering about that because I saw the
Speaker 4: numbers versus who you've announced. But you know, you say
Speaker 4: there's more people out there to do the acquisitions, the
Speaker 4: more institutional money, doesn't that make it more expensive for you?
Speaker 4: We only have thirty seconds left. But if there's more
Speaker 4: places for these artists to sell, doesn't it increase competition?
Speaker 12: Yeah, looks competition continues to get more and more competitive
Speaker 12: around music rights. So what's critically important is understanding your
Speaker 12: proposition around value creation, being able to have deep trust
Speaker 12: in the space.
Speaker 13: You know, sourcing truly matter.
Speaker 12: So proprietary sourcing or limited opportunity matters and gives you a.
Speaker 13: Bit of an advantage.
Speaker 12: So yes, as it continues to get more competitive, being
Speaker 12: able to be thoughtful across the value chain is critical.
Speaker 3: Listen, really appreciated eving so real and transparent. Really fun
Speaker 3: to talk with you. I'll Lette, take care and look
Speaker 3: forward to hearing more in the future. Luette Pizarro. She's
Speaker 3: a founder and co managing partner of Influenced Media Partners.
Speaker 3: Joining us right here in New York City.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live
Speaker 1: each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car
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Speaker 3: All right, everybody, there is Scotch, whiskey, US whiskey, Canadian whiskey,
Speaker 3: Japanese whiskey, blended Tennessee whiskey, single malt, and more.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: That's I have to tell you. All I know is
Speaker 2: I like a good whiskey sour. That's all I know.
Speaker 3: The global market for whiskeys is valued at approximately one
Speaker 3: hundred and forty billion dollars according to Euromonitor International. Our
Speaker 3: next guest last stop by on Saint Patti's Day, Saint
Speaker 3: Patrick's Day, and shared his story and shared some whiskey.
Speaker 4: Back with an update and how a recent mistake actually
Speaker 4: turned into an opportunity, is Aiden Megan, founder of Natterjack
Speaker 4: Irish Whiskey.
Speaker 11: Look, we've been traveling to anyone who will have us
Speaker 11: to go and promote the whiskey. We're now in fourteen
Speaker 11: states in the US, we'll be in twenty by the
Speaker 11: end of the year, and then with a bit of
Speaker 11: a tail wind twenty five by Saint Patrick's say, and
Speaker 11: we opened up New England. So it's been just been incredible.
Speaker 11: The reception to the whiskey has been great, and we
Speaker 11: got national national distribution through Total Wine and More, which
Speaker 11: was massive because we won Irish Whiskey the Year for
Speaker 11: twenty twenty four. Those recognitions are important, are yeah, yeah,
Speaker 11: and the previous winners are like the massive, like the
Speaker 11: twenty twenty two bottle. That one is a thirty year
Speaker 11: old Irish whiskey and it's two and a half round
Speaker 11: a bottle. Ours is eighty. So you talk about value
Speaker 11: and everyone knows value or it doesn't matter who you are.
Speaker 11: So it was really just an incredible award and it
Speaker 11: was really well taken. It opened up these kind of chains,
Speaker 11: and we've just opened up a big chain in Texas
Speaker 11: as well. I think we've got a good story, but
Speaker 11: people are like can I buy it? And it's really
Speaker 11: it's really frustrating when you're like, well there's local liquor
Speaker 11: store on sixth then and you're just like, that's not
Speaker 11: a compelling story. So so this is this change this year.
Speaker 14: It's been amazing.
Speaker 4: So talk about that process of going state to state here,
Speaker 4: because I think a lot of people who've lived in
Speaker 4: different states might understand that local and state liquor liquor
Speaker 4: laws very drastically across borders. Absolutely, So it's like it's
Speaker 4: really tough on a distribution level, especially if you're a
Speaker 4: small independent player to succeed here. How do you do it?
Speaker 11: So you partner with In our case, I can't even
Speaker 11: speak to our case because we're not with one of
Speaker 11: the big distributors, with individual distributors in each in each market.
Speaker 11: So what we do is we go we educate them
Speaker 11: we incentivize them to to incentivize them by bring them
Speaker 11: along in the journey, right, So meet them, spend time
Speaker 11: with them, spend time in market with them, telling the
Speaker 11: story so that they can then effectively tell the story
Speaker 11: as well.
Speaker 4: That's a slow process.
Speaker 14: Oh, it is absolutely.
Speaker 11: I think I was home two days in May, so
Speaker 11: you're on the road. It's it is pound the pavement.
Speaker 11: But that's actually what we've got to do. But then
Speaker 11: you add to the team, right, So we're now up
Speaker 11: to we have eight reps, We've a national sales director,
Speaker 11: we're just about to hire a national marketing director. We've
Speaker 11: got three people in Ireland. So it's a lot of
Speaker 11: penning in the pavement. But as you scale, you then
Speaker 11: you get them to tell the story and they can
Speaker 11: educate people.
Speaker 3: And I want to get to the story. But I
Speaker 3: do feel like it's a moment in time, or has
Speaker 3: been for years that in the liquor market, the alcohol
Speaker 3: market overall, that upstarts newcomers can really find a niche
Speaker 3: for themselves that people are interested. I think consumers are
Speaker 3: looking for different choices.
Speaker 11: They are they're looking for authenticity as well, right, And
Speaker 11: I think at the larger brand level that authenticity doesn't
Speaker 11: speak to someone who's who's into the process or into
Speaker 11: starting a business or those sorts of things that they
Speaker 11: struggle with that.
Speaker 14: So so for for a.
Speaker 11: Brand like ours, yeah, it's an amazing time to be
Speaker 11: able to actually go and meet the people and tell
Speaker 11: them our story.
Speaker 10: Talk to us though about your story, remind our world.
Speaker 11: So yeah, I was an equity trader hedge fund back
Speaker 11: in in twenty fifteen. I think was when I kind
Speaker 11: of had the moment. I was like, look, is this
Speaker 11: everything that I want to do with my life?
Speaker 14: Like I loved it.
Speaker 11: I think I was okay at it, like a decent career,
Speaker 11: but I was like I wanted to build something.
Speaker 14: I wanted to build a business.
Speaker 11: Now I was running the business with my partners and
Speaker 11: that sort of stuff, but I was like, this is
Speaker 11: the time for me to go do that, right. I
Speaker 11: had no real responsibilities at a house. I sold the
Speaker 11: house and moved back in with my parents, which they
Speaker 11: were very good to take me in for a couple
Speaker 11: of years.
Speaker 10: And how is your seed money?
Speaker 14: That was it?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I sold the house and that was just like
Speaker 11: how much is this going to take? It turns out
Speaker 11: it took a lot more time and lot more money
Speaker 11: than I ever fathomed. But then we got outside investment,
Speaker 11: and our investors are based out of a Michigan And
Speaker 11: so the first thing I had to do is I
Speaker 11: had to build a team. So I found Jordan Via
Speaker 11: whose artist Doller. I found a team of industry guys
Speaker 11: to help me because I had no idea.
Speaker 14: What I was doing, and in some ways I still how.
Speaker 2: Did you do that?
Speaker 10: Or is that just the trader mentality? I don't know,
Speaker 10: Let's figure out.
Speaker 11: To figure it out on the go, right, So I
Speaker 11: built I found actually my first business plan recently. It's
Speaker 11: dreadful like it issolutely horrific. So you go and you
Speaker 11: you learn, right, And so the business plans that they
Speaker 11: as they as it grew, it kind of became its
Speaker 11: own kind of thing. And then what I didn't want
Speaker 11: to do was what a lot of my peers had done,
Speaker 11: which is released of vodka origin, and that was that's
Speaker 11: that What I did know, what I wanted to do
Speaker 11: was clearly, yeah, you and I could have a gin
Speaker 11: in twelve hours, so it could.
Speaker 14: Get a bath. Tim and Aiden's gin boom.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: So so when Tim's not doing over the regat, so.
Speaker 11: I needed to so, but I wanted to do whiskey,
Speaker 11: So then we need to source whiskey. But this is
Speaker 11: back in twenty fifteen sixteen, that wasn't much available from
Speaker 11: a sourcing perspective. So I got you know, I got
Speaker 11: offered two thousand meters of eight year old double still,
Speaker 11: and I was like, I could buy that. Now I've
Speaker 11: got the capital and we can take it to market.
Speaker 11: But what happens then if it's a success, I can't.
Speaker 14: Get any more of it.
Speaker 11: So then that was all that was available contract. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 11: So I learned that, you know, I learned that I
Speaker 11: wanted a plan for scale, that we wanted to go
Speaker 11: for something that could really take off, and if it
Speaker 11: takes off, that there's not so many breaks on it.
Speaker 11: Because what I didn't want is to have a huge
Speaker 11: success and be like, Okay, you can have some more
Speaker 11: in five years when everyone's forgotten about it and you
Speaker 11: sit around going bankrupt. So so I really we held
Speaker 11: off and held off until we could get that proper
Speaker 11: supply contract that would allow us to grow. And we've
Speaker 11: now secured five years worth of what we need for
Speaker 11: the growth trajectory that we're on. So it's been amazing,
Speaker 11: but that meant we had to push it back a year,
Speaker 11: and that's a year. Don't forget me and my parents' basement.
Speaker 11: They're like, what are you doing.
Speaker 14: I'm like, well, I'm like.
Speaker 2: Are you not being judges?
Speaker 14: Thirty five?
Speaker 2: It's like, that's what parents are for. They take in
Speaker 2: when they need.
Speaker 14: It well exactly.
Speaker 11: And then but then I met my wife and I
Speaker 11: was like, yeah, I need to move back.
Speaker 10: Yes, is going to go back to the parents.
Speaker 4: Hey, but she loved you.
Speaker 14: Then yeah, it's a big thing exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: But you also to deal with the pandemic.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, And that was that put us into a
Speaker 11: kind of a tail spin. Right, So we had initial
Speaker 11: investors who weren't happy with how it goes. And the
Speaker 11: weird thing about the pandemic is Perna, Rickard and Diaghi
Speaker 11: the big companies, we're doing really well because they own
Speaker 11: every heart of the shelf.
Speaker 14: So if you wanted a twenty.
Speaker 11: Dollars or one hundred and twenty dollars bottle that were
Speaker 11: two hundred two two thousand dollars, they own everything. We
Speaker 11: had one skew right, so it's like who's taking a punt?
Speaker 11: On fifty eurobottle of whiskey. We've got the pricing wrong
Speaker 11: as well.
Speaker 14: But during the.
Speaker 11: Pandemic and so sales slowed, but they actually continued in
Speaker 11: the US, and because we pivoted a little bit to urs,
Speaker 11: so we were able to pivot because of our display
Speaker 11: our display box into the off prem the US. By
Speaker 11: the end of the pandemic, we were in kind of
Speaker 11: nine states and that was pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: Wow, which really kind of gives you some momentum, right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's side.
Speaker 4: When you expand to a new state. How much do
Speaker 4: sales grow.
Speaker 14: At the start? Very small, It's but you've got to go.
Speaker 14: You've got a program, so.
Speaker 4: It's not just being available. It's about educating the folks around.
Speaker 14: So do shows. We go to shows, we educate.
Speaker 11: We we do staff trainings in chains of bars or
Speaker 11: in the bars, right, and you try and get onto
Speaker 11: cocktail lists and then you try and get the placement
Speaker 11: in the right place behind the bars that people can
Speaker 11: see because the toad.
Speaker 14: People do call out the toad.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the toad on the bottle.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, like there are times like I'm buying one,
Speaker 3: I'm like I kind of like that bottle. But it
Speaker 3: looks like your bottle is pretty cool. And we're going
Speaker 3: to get into the toad in just a moment, because
Speaker 3: you guys have actually been doing some really honorable stuff
Speaker 3: around that making sure that the toad stick stays around
Speaker 3: for a long time. You brought us something we want
Speaker 3: to talk about, the mistake. What is the mistake?
Speaker 11: So our blend for Blend one and for a cast strength,
Speaker 11: it spends three and a half years expert one year
Speaker 11: virgin oak. Right, So I thought we'd taken out in
Speaker 11: twenty twenty are Blend one blend and put it into
Speaker 11: steel containers for the next time we needed to do it.
Speaker 14: The pandemic was on, we didn't have a huge need
Speaker 14: for whiskey.
Speaker 11: So about a year later I called up the guy
Speaker 11: who'd done it and I was like, where's that whiskey
Speaker 11: now and he's like, it's still in barrel. I was like, what, No,
Speaker 11: you can't, we can't take it. So I was like, well,
Speaker 11: we're going to do because I can't sell that as
Speaker 11: natter jack and I didn't.
Speaker 14: Have a brand for it.
Speaker 11: So it's like okay, So we left it and Jordan,
Speaker 11: via our distiller, was so he tasted about six months ago,
Speaker 11: and he's like, that is the best whiskey we've ever made.
Speaker 11: It's incredible.
Speaker 14: So we said, okay, great, well this is what a
Speaker 14: screw up becomes a percent and evolution is full of mistakes.
Speaker 11: And everyone was like, okay, let's let's let's really market this.
Speaker 11: We're going to say you know, this was always your
Speaker 11: vision for the whiskey. And I was like, well that's ball,
Speaker 11: Like it's a lie.
Speaker 10: Can I continue talking?
Speaker 11: So I was like, let's call it. Let's call it
Speaker 11: a mistake. I've made some huge mistakes in my life,
Speaker 11: so some of the best parts of life come from mistakes.
Speaker 11: And I was like, let's just own it.
Speaker 4: It was wow, it was that sounded very good, and
Speaker 4: it is.
Speaker 11: It's like our whiskey it's a year older, it's and
Speaker 11: one year later in virgin I know, how big of
Speaker 11: a badge, forty six barrels.
Speaker 14: It's all sold. Yeah, huge, you can't.
Speaker 11: You can get some through natterjack dot com. And it's
Speaker 11: when I when I say it's sold, it's left our
Speaker 11: left our distribution, right, so it's still in stores.
Speaker 14: But we don't have That's the lot.
Speaker 11: I haven't seen a bottle in since I saw that
Speaker 11: one todays really heavenly.
Speaker 14: Thank you. Yeah, so it's really heavy on.
Speaker 10: The class to walk us through.
Speaker 11: So it's a little bit lighter on malt than our
Speaker 11: original blend, but it's still in there.
Speaker 2: About seventeen or smell lighter hmm, yeah, I feel it.
Speaker 11: And then there's lots there's still the char number four
Speaker 11: and still for me toasted walnut, a little bit of cinnamon.
Speaker 10: And so what does that teach you?
Speaker 2: As someone like these mistakes?
Speaker 10: So now are you guys experimenting more?
Speaker 14: Yeah, we are. We're playing around with it, we we do.
Speaker 14: You know what it taught me?
Speaker 11: It taught me that problems are only problems if.
Speaker 14: You see them as problems.
Speaker 10: That's pretty nice, right, This is why you make mistakes
Speaker 10: in life.
Speaker 14: A sorry sorry?
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 11: So my biggest trading mistake was about Korean one non
Speaker 11: deliverable forwards, which is which cost me my job back in.
Speaker 14: There it really yeah did Yeah, I rolled the wrong amount.
Speaker 11: I didn't know what a non deliverable forward was, so
Speaker 11: I now know what a non deliverbal forward is and
Speaker 11: I no longer.
Speaker 10: So some mistakes cost a job.
Speaker 3: Some mistakes can make a great, incredible delivery, like yeah, and.
Speaker 11: I think it's our I think it's our best whiskey.
Speaker 11: But then also for our first shipment to China in
Speaker 11: twenty nineteen, shipment like a thousand cases. We hadn't had
Speaker 11: a thousand case orders the first year of the business.
Speaker 11: Fay and I hand dipped all the bottles in black
Speaker 11: wax and they all got sent to China. But they
Speaker 11: went through the equator, which is fifty degrees liquid expanded
Speaker 11: because it's hot, wax man because it melts packed and
Speaker 11: so all the bottles opened. So it got to China
Speaker 11: and they said they opened it and it smelt amazing.
Speaker 11: There was no whiskey, so so it was all open.
Speaker 14: So we turned that that was a mistake.
Speaker 11: Yeah, turned that into mister Wang, our Chinese distributor, came
Speaker 11: in and he was like, are you going to cover
Speaker 11: the cost of this?
Speaker 14: And I was like, no, You've got insurance.
Speaker 6: He's like, my.
Speaker 11: Insurance doesn't cover wax melting and liquid expanding in the equator.
Speaker 14: And I was like, okay, if you triple your order,
Speaker 14: I'll cover the cost the first one. He's like done, Aidan.
Speaker 4: One thing I wanted to talk about was just the
Speaker 4: changing viewer around alcohol that we're seeing here in the US.
Speaker 4: How do you think about stuff like that.
Speaker 11: I do think about it quite a bit, and I
Speaker 11: think there definitely is a movement that way. And look,
Speaker 11: I think we know that alcohol in moderation. It's one
Speaker 11: study one day says that, with the other the oder
Speaker 11: days right, But for me, it's it is definitely a
Speaker 11: movement towards drinking less and also drinking better. So when
Speaker 11: we talked about authenticity and knowing the process and knowing
Speaker 11: the producers, I think that's really an opportunity for us
Speaker 11: for people to say, right, well, if what I'm going
Speaker 11: to have tonight is one whiskey, I want to drink
Speaker 11: something where it actually means something to me. So it's
Speaker 11: an opportunity to connect with a consumer, and I think
Speaker 11: that's how we try and tell that story as well.
Speaker 3: So like my mother, it's like when you're going to
Speaker 3: go shopping, like you know you're gonna buy something, make
Speaker 3: sure it's something you buy really good and make sure
Speaker 3: it lasts forever. Like this idea of quantity over maybe
Speaker 3: quality just generally, like you do wonder whether or not
Speaker 3: that kind of kicks in again in a world where
Speaker 3: we are very blessed by abundance, but you do wonder
Speaker 3: at some point where people are kind of like, well
Speaker 3: wait a minute, you know, and certainly in a higher
Speaker 3: inflationary environment.
Speaker 14: I think that's right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the natterjack toad. First of all, if you haven't
Speaker 3: seen this bottle, I'm going to take a picture and
Speaker 3: tweet it out. But it makes your bottle so distinct.
Speaker 3: Remind us about the natterjack toad.
Speaker 11: So natterjact toad is the only toad indigenous to Ireland.
Speaker 14: But it's a very Irish toad. It can't harp, it walks,
Speaker 14: it can't.
Speaker 11: Swim arounds, think great, and it does things its own
Speaker 11: way to survive. So it's very definite in how it walks.
Speaker 11: It has a croak that can be heard two kilometers away,
Speaker 11: like or sorry, amazing calling we heard two kilometers away,
Speaker 11: like like some whiskey drinkers.
Speaker 3: And it's not like always those male toads are so
Speaker 3: desperate there.
Speaker 11: We are, right, but they're as I say, they're not
Speaker 11: very good at swimming and they live in pools, so
Speaker 11: that's not a great combination. So what happens is they
Speaker 11: tend to die off. So they're endangered in Ireland. The're
Speaker 11: originally from Ireland, they're across Europe, but they're they're originally
Speaker 11: from these sand dunes in Kerry, and so we released
Speaker 11: yesterday released a thousand of them. We reckon about twenty
Speaker 11: percent of that will survive, and then we do next
Speaker 11: week we do another thousand and so they're they're incubated
Speaker 11: at Dingle Aquarium and then they're released. Scott and Stephen,
Speaker 11: we're down releasing them into the wild in the West
Speaker 11: of Ireland.
Speaker 2: Fortune of your profits to are going.
Speaker 11: Absolutely so we sponsor the program every year. It's a
Speaker 11: great program to keep them alive. And I think without them, well,
Speaker 11: this is party called Aid and Megan's Whiskey, and we
Speaker 11: wouldn't be sitting here.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 3: We love talking about it, and love hearing your journey,
Speaker 3: and we love hearing about the mistake.
Speaker 13: Pank.
Speaker 3: It's really kind of fun looking forward to what comes next.
Speaker 3: We have a great weekend you too.
Speaker 2: Stay safe.
Speaker 3: Aid Megan, founder of natter Jack Irish Whiskey, and I'm
Speaker 3: going to send out a picture in just a moment.
Speaker 2: Carol Master, Tim stand this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen
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Speaker 3: It's not a V six, a V eight or even
Speaker 3: a V twelve. How about tim AB sixteen.
Speaker 4: And you've heard of a power lunch, Carol, how about
Speaker 4: the power breakfast?
Speaker 2: Love it, love it.
Speaker 3: It's just some of what's in the latest edition of
Speaker 3: Bloomberg Pursuits. Here now is the editor of Pursuits, Chris Rouser.
Speaker 3: So great to have you here. We do talk about
Speaker 3: the power lunch, but a lot of executives, right like
Speaker 3: we kind of like somebody say, power breakfast, we care
Speaker 3: what they eat.
Speaker 15: That's true, you know, I think actually the power of
Speaker 15: breakfast where you meet people on decline, people do maybe
Speaker 15: power workouts together.
Speaker 4: In the morning.
Speaker 15: But we started this new series in the new monthly
Speaker 15: edition of Bloomberg Business Week, where we talk to CEOs
Speaker 15: as they come in and out of the offices, you know,
Speaker 15: as they come on for TV. We grab them as
Speaker 15: they're hanging out in the green room and we ask
Speaker 15: them about their lives and how they go through their day,
Speaker 15: so like, what are your workouts? What do you meditate?
Speaker 15: Like kind of like what their little life hacks are.
Speaker 15: And in the first issue, the first monthly issue Business Week,
Speaker 15: we asked them what they eat for breakfast and some
Speaker 15: of them have kind of elaborate traditions. Some people pre
Speaker 15: make yogurt smoothies on the weekend and then they drink
Speaker 15: them all week like Chip Wade from Union Square Hospitality.
Speaker 4: That makes sense, he's in hospitality, Like he needs to
Speaker 4: sort of be close to the product. And yeah, he's
Speaker 4: spend a lot of time on the weekends juicing. I guess.
Speaker 15: Yeah, But then it's not food, right, it's a juice.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting liquid.
Speaker 15: And uh, you know, one guy, Billy Halt from Trade
Speaker 15: Wet Markets Incorporated, has turkey bacon lettuce on a whole
Speaker 15: week wrap because he doesn't eat eggs and has not
Speaker 15: eaten eggs since he was a little kid.
Speaker 4: He should try him again. Can I tell you I'm
Speaker 4: going to sort of like g have a push for eggs.
Speaker 2: Here here's a hack. Yeah, I mean, tim, how many
Speaker 2: eggs do you grab?
Speaker 4: Three this morning? Not from here at home? I made
Speaker 4: them at home?
Speaker 2: Okay, but where do you usually get them from.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get them here. Yeah, they're like desk kind
Speaker 4: of hides them, like, yeah, I hide them, not for
Speaker 4: people to know about.
Speaker 13: Oops, did I did I say something that's.
Speaker 4: A hour breakfast?
Speaker 15: My favorite response was kim Anna, who is at hard Rock,
Speaker 15: and her answer was, I do not eat breakfast. I
Speaker 15: drink coffee. I love that, which respects.
Speaker 2: How's your get though?
Speaker 15: That's a little all these people drinking smoothies, who knows?
Speaker 2: I actually love this.
Speaker 3: I kind of feel like we should start doing this
Speaker 3: tim on air, like we should be asking like the
Speaker 3: sex who come on, like, what do you have for
Speaker 3: Breakfast's kind of interesting?
Speaker 4: Pick a couple? Okay, standard, wait what do you wait?
Speaker 2: So what do you have?
Speaker 9: Well?
Speaker 2: You eat?
Speaker 4: Well, it depends on the day, you know. I had
Speaker 4: cereal before the war out and then three eggs after
Speaker 4: and hopefully I don't get.
Speaker 2: Hungry soon and then he just kind of eats all day.
Speaker 15: Yeah, okay, now you're bragging.
Speaker 4: Yeah I know, Yeah, what do you have for?
Speaker 15: I have a smoothie?
Speaker 4: You have and tea?
Speaker 15: I stopped drinking coffee first thing.
Speaker 4: Question because smoothie takes so long to make.
Speaker 15: And then you know, I get like a mix one
Speaker 15: of those mixes.
Speaker 4: Okay, Carol, I.
Speaker 3: Do a buffet upstairs, like fruit, some cheese, some cheerios.
Speaker 15: Okay, what's the opposite of bragging?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so said. Okay, where do we want to go?
Speaker 2: Where do we want to go?
Speaker 4: I want to go to see cats. I gotta I
Speaker 4: gott to earn back some respect from Chris Rousers guys. Okay,
Speaker 4: So Kats was on Broadway for decades forever they thought
Speaker 4: when I was a kid.
Speaker 15: Yeah, that's where most people were it from.
Speaker 4: And it was still on Broadway.
Speaker 15: It was one of the first It was like Andrew
Speaker 15: laid Webber's first huge blockbuster show, kind of that like CYNTHI.
Speaker 15: It was came out in nineteen eighty one. Uh, and
Speaker 15: it was such a hit, like kind of a rocky hit,
Speaker 15: and it was strange, and everyone loved the cat costumes,
Speaker 15: and honestly, like, I didn't see it. I never was
Speaker 15: really able to understand why everyone but you never saw
Speaker 15: because I'm not from New York. It doesn't have great buzz,
Speaker 15: like not that many people are like some people love cats, but.
Speaker 4: A lot of people are like, that's a bad show.
Speaker 15: And so it got revived.
Speaker 2: That came out from all over like you were. I
Speaker 2: think that's what people lie.
Speaker 15: That's the only thing that people like crawling all over you.
Speaker 15: So it makes no sense. It's just a series of vignettes.
Speaker 15: The music is really fun. It has obviously memory and
Speaker 15: some like really incredible songs. It was revived a few
Speaker 15: years ago on Broadway and now it's back at the
Speaker 15: Proman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center, and
Speaker 15: it is totally reimagined, and the directors and the choreographers
Speaker 15: have placed it in the world of ballroom culture, which
Speaker 15: is in the eighties and nineties. If you watched the
Speaker 15: show Pose or the documentary of Paris Is Burning, it
Speaker 15: was this underground queer, black and brown LATINX community where
Speaker 15: people would put on performances on runways. It's very creative.
Speaker 15: If you ever go to the Latex ball New York,
Speaker 15: they still do it. And they turned the show into
Speaker 15: a ballroom competition. And things that never made sense in Cats,
Speaker 15: like the Grizabella character who sings Memory. All these things
Speaker 15: suddenly make sense in this new context. And the energy
Speaker 15: is wild. The audience was screaming on their feet. It's
Speaker 15: I can't even tell you. We did a story on
Speaker 15: the costumes. There are three hundred costumes. It's kind of
Speaker 15: a drag situation. So a lot of them are like
Speaker 15: tear away and there's reveals and it's just a blast.
Speaker 4: So do you think this production of Cats makes its
Speaker 4: way back to Broadway?
Speaker 15: I before I went in, I did not think that
Speaker 15: because it was it was made through like a grant
Speaker 15: making process at the pack and it just doesn't have
Speaker 15: that feel because it's kind of like arts and crafts
Speaker 15: and sort of like duct tape together. Somebody else said
Speaker 15: to me, this is going to be like seeing Ham
Speaker 15: at the.
Speaker 2: Public all right, So now we need to get tired.
Speaker 4: Actually I'm trying to get tickets right now. Yeah, you
Speaker 4: sold me on it.
Speaker 2: But the design, like, how difficult.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a lot of costumes and as you said,
Speaker 3: when you're doing tear aways, you got to make sure
Speaker 3: they tear away the right time or don't get stuck.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 15: So the costume designers this woman Queen Jean, and she
Speaker 15: came up with five hundred designs for costumes and narrowed
Speaker 15: it down to only three hundred. You don't really notice
Speaker 15: that there are so many because the setup of it
Speaker 15: is like people changing and getting on and off the runway,
Speaker 15: so you don't sort of you're not like, WHOA, that
Speaker 15: must have been a lot of work. You're just like,
Speaker 15: this is so beautiful to look at. But the costumes
Speaker 15: are a huge part, but it's really the dancing and
Speaker 15: the singing and the performances.
Speaker 2: Any cat suits, there's.
Speaker 15: No there's no ears, there's no cats, no tails, no
Speaker 15: cat suits.
Speaker 4: Hey, Siri, remind me to get tickets to cats.
Speaker 6: Candidates?
Speaker 3: Oh my god?
Speaker 2: Which take is expensive?
Speaker 15: They have dynamic pricing, so now that the positive reviews
Speaker 15: have come out, it is a little bit more expensive.
Speaker 15: So by at the end of the run and it's extended,
Speaker 15: and then it's going to extend again.
Speaker 4: Actually well yeah, I'm looking at the website right now
Speaker 4: and it doesn't say they're all sold out, which is
Speaker 4: it's not sold Like this is the first time of
Speaker 4: actually going to be able to get tickets to something,
Speaker 4: because every time I hear about.
Speaker 2: Something, it's already so, well, how long is the run?
Speaker 5: What is it saying?
Speaker 4: It says to August eleventh on the website, But is
Speaker 4: it can to extend more?
Speaker 15: It already extended the end of July. Then that's I
Speaker 15: think another extension, but I do believe it's going to extend,
Speaker 15: extend even further.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of shows that I feel like are legendary,
Speaker 2: that one and then like Phantom.
Speaker 3: But I remember I remember seeing Phantom when I was younger,
Speaker 3: and then we took like my daughter my nieces and
Speaker 3: they were probably like in middle school or they're like,
Speaker 3: you realize this is about a creepy dude who kidnaps
Speaker 3: a woman and keeps her in the dungeon.
Speaker 2: Why do you think this is good that we see
Speaker 2: talk about it. By the way, all of those costumes
Speaker 2: are machine washable, which I think is kind of there
Speaker 2: you go, all right now, machine washable.
Speaker 4: Okay, we can afford tickets to cats, Oh yes, okay,
Speaker 4: we cannot afford.
Speaker 15: A Bugatti Toban, which is a four million dollars hybrid
Speaker 15: from Bugatti, which is one of our favorite supercar brands.
Speaker 4: Oh I didn't know. Yeah, we just love it.
Speaker 15: It's you know, it's these cars. It's so amazing, like
Speaker 15: crazy horsepower, can go crazy fast, but they're actually also
Speaker 15: and they're also completely unaffordable to any normal human, but
Speaker 15: they have Hannah likes them because Hannah are car critic
Speaker 15: likes them because they are kind of lux on the
Speaker 15: inside too, so you're having a great, like comfortable experience
Speaker 15: inside there's cup holders and stuff, whereas some of the
Speaker 15: race cars that she sort of reviews are pretty rough
Speaker 15: on the outside. Anyway, it's a hybrid, which is their
Speaker 15: first hybrid, and they have been very famous for doing
Speaker 15: these like sixteen cylinder combustion engines, and so doing this
Speaker 15: new car to replace the Sharon, which is their old
Speaker 15: top of the line car, just shows that they're now
Speaker 15: getting into like electric power trains. It has three electric motors,
Speaker 15: which makes it more powerful. So it has eighteen hundred
Speaker 15: horsepower and a top speed of two hundred and seventy
Speaker 15: six miles. But that is nuts, the sixteen with three
Speaker 15: electric motors. Yeah, I mean it's a very heavy car,
Speaker 15: very heavy and the like rolls. Rice was samous for
Speaker 15: their W twelve engines and which they are now sunsetting to.
Speaker 15: It's all the way to electric, So this is this
Speaker 15: is kind of the movements and there's a complicated ownership structure,
Speaker 15: but they're partially owned by VW and then also Portia
Speaker 15: and Rimac and when Porscha and Rimac took an interest
Speaker 15: in it. It was sort of seen. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 15: we're going to try to move this company into the
Speaker 15: future because because electrics is like a very big priority
Speaker 15: for a bole.
Speaker 4: Second, you know what's great about this car, Carroy, which
Speaker 4: it has Apple car Play, which means you can get
Speaker 4: our program Bloomberg BusinessWeek on.
Speaker 2: It could download this podcast.
Speaker 4: Yeah and listen onlay.
Speaker 2: Yeah inside the book, you know what.
Speaker 15: I'm just blown away by that product place.
Speaker 2: So wait, this is wait am I reading this right?
Speaker 6: Though?
Speaker 2: It's got a thirty seven mile range of all electric driving.
Speaker 15: Yeah, but you know that's actually I know that sounds crazy.
Speaker 15: That's not that uncommon because part of the electric part
Speaker 15: of the power train is for speed and power. They're
Speaker 15: not meant to drive around just using the rosaries.
Speaker 2: And stuff like that.
Speaker 3: The other thing is I thought was interesting in this Hannah,
Speaker 3: despite the modern aesthetics of the car and the advance motors,
Speaker 3: understood its interior looks analog.
Speaker 2: So did she not like it kind of money inside?
Speaker 15: No, Actually, that's an really interesting question. We find like
Speaker 15: that all the digital screens in cars are actually like
Speaker 15: not what people want, you know, it's you know, some
Speaker 15: cars like Volvoar are famously like you have to toggle
Speaker 15: through screens to get to the temperature and stuff, and
Speaker 15: like people really like a knob, you know what I mean.
Speaker 15: And so Hannah is saying, this is sort of a
Speaker 15: refreshingly analog space where you can look at the gauges,
Speaker 15: you know what's going on, You're not top toggling through menus,
Speaker 15: you're not distracted by a bright screen. And it's called
Speaker 15: the Bugatti turbion because the turbion.
Speaker 4: Is a watch feature.
Speaker 15: Yeah, talk, which we write about all the time. The
Speaker 15: dashboard which is so in the weeds, but it looks
Speaker 15: like this left fuel on a watch, which is a
Speaker 15: rotating cage that keeps part of the watchmaking mechanism in
Speaker 15: a watch rotating so that it does not affect it
Speaker 15: by gravity and therefore it doesn't become uneven in effect timekeeping,
Speaker 15: which is only to say that it's a thing. And
Speaker 15: watches that are expensive in sort of elites and hard
Speaker 15: to create. Because the engine system in this car was
Speaker 15: so hard to create, that's why they wanted to call.
Speaker 4: It that, all right, four point one million dollars, yeah,
Speaker 4: three point nine million euros. If you prefer it sounds
Speaker 4: great to see that way.
Speaker 2: Okay, definitely want to go see cats.
Speaker 3: I love that you love and it just sounds like
Speaker 3: like such a blast, It's so much fun.
Speaker 4: Before we let you go, can you give us some
Speaker 4: sort of preview of what you're thinking about when it
Speaker 4: comes to pursuits in the near future. Just to leave
Speaker 4: our listeners on edge, We have.
Speaker 15: A look at in our next monthly issue at a
Speaker 15: certain kind of like wellness care that is pretty expensive
Speaker 15: but also kind of promises to make your life better
Speaker 15: for longer. And we tested out some of these cool
Speaker 15: programs to see which ones seem legit.
Speaker 3: I love when you guys go into the wellness area,
Speaker 3: But is it like an oxygen chamber there?
Speaker 15: You can't give any money, you can't so many things.
Speaker 2: All right, we get a run.
Speaker 4: A big thank you to Chris Rouser, the editor of
Speaker 4: Ploomber Pursuits. I'm tim Stennebeck.
Speaker 2: And I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and save weekend. Everyone.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business Week podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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