Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-December 25, 2020

With that in mind, we checked in with the president of Morehouse School of Medicine on the virus and boosting black physicians nationwide. Also the president of sam Sunite North America on surviving when no one was traveling and those animals spirits running wild across Wall Street in the form of I p O s and spacks. We catch up with someone who has taken several big companies public, Yes, Steve cake Bread. He weighs in on that frenzy. We begin, though,

with this week's cover story. It is a story about how in a year of so many wrongs and wrongdoings, there is one thing that went really really right this year. That story by Bomberg News US Healthcare team leader Drew Armstrong, who, along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber, talked with Bloomberg Quicktake anchor Tim Stanovic and me, congratulations to Drew on his first cover story. It turns out, which is

which is which is great for him? Um. So so yeah, you know, so much has just gone terribly terribly wrong this year, and I think we all recognize that, and this is our good business issue. And it was a chance to actually reflect on on a few things that actually were remarkable. Um and not least which is what the vaccine represents, which is this herculean undertaking. Um that

was you know, coordinated from multiple places. I mean, you had government doing something very right in this regard, but also you know scientists who were basically doing their job and doing it doing it really fast. Um. And and that was sort of what we turned to Drew about and said, by the way, let's just step back and like marvel at what was just achieved here. We had never seen a vaccine, uh come to fruition this fast? Can you help us kind of put a bowl around that?

And um, ultimately that bow looked like dry ice, uh with a little vile of liquid, and you know, no it is not real uh real real vaccine juice, but miracle on ice was the cover line, and Drew, we did try, we did, we did try to get the real bottle it right, Drew. Yeah, I mean we were, i know, calling around the evening before the photo shoot seeing if anybody would give us a empty to be clear um bottle of Fiser's vaccine, which is which was

being used most most heavily um to time. But unfortunately, no luck on that. Kind of glad they didn't, because I'm hoping they're using the vial for the vaccine. Just gonna put it out there, guys, So so tell us about that. This story is remarkable because one of the big things that you point out true is that the science was there. We were very lucky that the M and R messenger RNA science was already in the works

for several years. Yeah. This is a technology that has been kind of kicking around in the biopharmaceutical world for a number of years, and people have always thought it held a tremendous amount of promise. You know, essentially turns the ideas that it turns cells into little protein factories and so you can kind of turn them into a little mini drug manufacturers themselves, which is great theoretically, but it hadn't really delivered in a big, big, big way

UM yet. Maderna is probably the the most out in front company with this. But there has long been this idea that you know, you could use it to rapidly make um vaccines in the pandemic because of the speed with which you can design and begin producing these things. A lot of flu vaccines that people don't notice they're such a grown inside eggs um it is, and it can take quite a long time to actually develop and

test the things. But you know, the MR and A vaccines, they were designed in just a couple of days after Maderna and the ni H got a copy of the virus is genetics um from downloaded from from China. So it's remarkable how fast um this can happen in this technology, getting things out front as quickly as did. I was shocked to read that Drew that it took only a couple of days. So where is the when it comes to vaccine development? Where where does the time hiccup? Is

it the clinical testing? Is it the is it the is it the actual manufacturing of it? Where's the bottleneck? Yeah? That's a great question. And this is something I actually had a wonderful conversation with Health and Human Services Secretary alex As Are about. He's a former Eli Lowy executive who worked there in the in the drug industry for

a long time. And one of the things that we talked about in our discussion, and this is comments throughout the pharmaceutical ins reason when you're looking at laying out hundreds of millions of top dollars or eventually billions of dollars potentially to bring a drug or a vaccine through trials, you know, you don't do everything at once. You do the initial pre clinical work, and then you pause and you look at the results, and you say, okay, let's

go ahead to the phase one. And then you do that work, and then you pause and you go ahead and you say okay, let's go ahead of phase two. And you know, so on and so forth up through clinical trials, and then you need to start thinking about, okay, we need to build manufacturing. How much do we need to build? This is a long process with a lot

of consecutive steps. What happened with ward Speed was essentially it took all of those and compressed them all down kind of into one big race from the word go, and it said, Okay, we're gonna build manufacturing at the same time, we're going to run the phase three you know,

Phase two and phase through trials. We're gonna arrange for pre purchased deals for these things, basically compressing steps that typically would take years and years and years to be due partly because of the risk and high chance of failure involved with drug development, saying do it all at once, that will put a bunch on the line here. Um, you know, most of the drug companies involved were part

of that program Operation war Speed to do that. Feiser was not technically but did very similar work in terms of compressing its timelines and was still first across the line. Here the Miracle on Ice, that is the COVID nineteen vaccines. That story from Bloomberg News US Healthcare team leader Drew Armstrong, who has kept us so informed during this health pandemic, and also Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. They joined

Bloomberg Quick Take anchor Tim Stanovic and me. Check out that cover story and the cover image so cool literally and figuratively. It's on newsstands, online and on the Bloomberg terminal coming up. When your turn comes up, we want people to actually be ready to accept the vaccine. Success in getting a vaccine check, success in getting everyone to take it not so easy. The president of Morehouse School of Medicine weighs in, that's next on Bloomberg Business Week.

This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. This was a week that we talked about a new COVID nineteen strain. We had some U S States reporting the highest number of deaths from COVID since the summer travel bands were back, and the U. S. Government's top infectious disease doctor Anthony Faucci, got the vaccine as part of an effort by health officials to build

confidence in the shots. In keeping with all of that, Bloomberg Quicktake anchor Tim Stenovick and I talked with Dr Valerie Montgomery Rice. She's president and dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, the first woman to lead the Atlanta based medical institution, who is also leading a new multimillion dollar initiative to increase the number of black physicians nationwide. It's a move important to getting care out to the underserved

black communities. She kicked it all off though with an important reminder, Well, first of all I want to say, I'm glad you're having this conversation is that, first of all, the vaccine is not gonna it's not going to take care of everything for us, that we still have to continue these public health initiatives of washing our hands, wearing our man ask and watching our distance. With that being said, I am trying to move the conversation from one of

vaccine hesitancy of vaccine acceptance. What we've seen is um science at great work here. We know that we now have something that has been shown to be ninety four effective in preventing the disease. That doesn't mean you don't get infected. What it means that when you have the vaccine in place, it is going to come. It's gonna produce antibodies that are going to gobble up that virus

so that you will not get ill. And so we still have more to know, but what we really do know is that it's safe and it's been shown to be very effective at at so when your turn comes up, we want people to actually be ready to accept the vaccine, because that is one of the ways that we can mitigate the ravishes of this disease, of this illness, of

this sickness that has really taken over our country right now. Well, Dr Rice, you are one of the very few people who actually has been able to get the first dose of this vaccine. You got it last week on CNN with Dr Sanjay Gupta. Um, I imagine you get the fiser BioNTech one. Yes, I got the fiser one. And I'm a person who, even though I'm a surgeon, I don't like needles. It was joined the club. I'm not a surgeon, but I don't like needles. It wasn't painful

at all. It's you all. It was less painful than the flu back. Okay, what about How did it feel afterwards? Totally fine? And so you know, you go on to sign up for this app and called v tech of v safe, be Safe, that's what it is. And every day I've been answering questions. I had a little bit of arm sotleness. I haven't had any headaches and a nausea, any fatigue or anything, and so I felt really good. That's good to hear because even after the flu shot, I get a sore arm. Was it cold going in

a bit of a sore arm? But it wasn't. It's not a sore to me as as it is when I have the flu acting I get the blue vaccine every year. Of course, I felt nothing. I mean I was like when you saw it on there, I was like, okay, that's it. I was expecting a lot more. I think the needle is bigger than the solution. Yeah, the needle is kind of I'm gonna look away. I'm gonna look away, to be honest, No, don't look okay. And and it's

doctor's orders, okay, Caro. I mean, you know, go with someone who knows how to give a shot, right, so people like, okay, have you given a shot before? You don't? We want to make sure of that. But no serious and all seriousness. Here is an opportunity to you all. And I know people get concerned about warp speed. You know, warp speed does not mean that there were any steps skipped.

And I've had the privilege you all of looking at the data pay zero, phase one, Phase two, phase three data because I was on one of the I'm on one of the NIH panels and we've seen that data. And now that Madonna and Buyser have both released their Phase three data. I've looked very intentionally at that, and so I can tell you to safety profile, it really did show that it was equally effective regardless of your race, regardless of your gender, regardless of your age, and regardless

of whether or not you were obedient. And that made a big difference to me to saying, Okay, they really did have great enrollment of people in the diversity in these trials. I am curious, what are some of the dominant conversations you're having at more House. You know about COVID nineteen right now. Yeah, so the main dominant conversation were, you know, we did have originally of our doctors or

healthcare providers who were healthtant. That has decreased. We probably haven't vaccinated over two hundred people now two hundred of our healthcare professionals. So that's been the biggest conversation. Okay, yes, we have the historical context of what has happened with blacks and clinical trials, et cetera, but that's not where we are now. You are we had a different phase in this country. Dr Rice, you shared with us and

your team shared us. Uh, some research and some information about how studies showed that black patients have better outcomes when treated by black doctors. Um, I get that. I have a lot of women doctors because I just feel more comfortable addressing things and talking about things. So you guys at Morehouse have instituted a program to address that, and that is a multimillion dollar initiative to increase the

number of black physicians nationwide. Talk to us about that program and why you're doing a little bit more about why you're doing that. Thank you, Thank you, Carol. So you know, the dual pandemics of COVID nineteen and racial injustice really magnified for us sort of the health disparities

that were impact in the black community. And what we recognized a long time ago when we were founded that in order to ensure that you have the highest level of compliance and cultural competence, there needs to be a share of governance between the patient and the provider, right and so we have been working to ensure that there's representation of underrepresented minorities who care for patients from different communities.

Right now, black clinicians only comprised about five percent of the physician workforce and seven percent of all medical students. As we have been continuing to grow and have impact, more Health School of Medicine is partnering with Common Spirit. We recognize we have to share commitment to the creation and advancement of health equity, particularly in that of underserved communities. As you may know, Common Spirit is the largest not for profit health system in the country. They're found in

twenty one states. They have over a hundred and forty hospitals. And because of this shared commitment, we have decided to partner together over the next ten years through a hundred million dollar initiatives when we're gonna address the underlying health disparities, but that is going to primarily focus initially on the

underrepresentation of black conditions. So when you look five to seven years from now, you're gonna see five new regional medical schools with More Health School of Medicine and Common Spirit name on them, allowing More Health School of Medicine to double its class sides from a hundred to two hundreds. And then you going to see ten new residency training

programs across the country. So we believe we're gonna triple the number of Black residents who graduate from a residency training program and go out and practice in the community. So the other great thing that Morehouse School Investiment has a lot of experience with this pipeline programs, right, So we adopted an elementary school here in Atlanta called a

Sega Airmand Global Academy a Kate through five. Now, all we're trying to do there with those six D students is engaged them so they get to see us in a white coats they did to come to the school, et cetera. We're planting the seeds strong people. Pipelines so important in creating more diversity and equality throughout institutions, companies,

and really our world overall. That's Dr Valerie Montgomery Rice, President Dean of Morehouse School of Medicine, talking with Bloomberg Quick Take anchor Tim stant of k n ME that full conversation on our podcast feed. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. What do you do when your business is all about travel in a health pen emic, you get packing on some new ideas to reach consumers. The president of Samsonite North America fills us in This

is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer from Bloomberg radio, the hospitality industry and just about all of the companies associated with it have witnessed and are still living through a shutdown like they've never seen before. And any company associated with travel, well, they felt the downturn equally, like luggage maker Samsonite, who, as many other companies did during the pandemic, had to first cope with the unprecedented. More on that from Lynn Berard, president at

Samsonite North America. As it has been for everyone, it has certainly been a unexpected and quite busy, challenging year since March, one year that has been in the industry for twenty seven years and certainly has not experienced anything like it. But we immediately upon the pandemic hitting in March, we had started to hear some sense of that from our team in China, so we got a little bit of a headstart from our colleagues about what was happening

in China. So we did immediately have to pivot, and at the very started pandemic, we really focused on our people just to make sure that everyone was safe and certainly thankful that our employees are healthy and well um, but we did have to make some strategic shifts within

the business. Uh. Certainly number one priority was to really relok at our structure, knowing that there was a slowdown and ultimately pretty much a virtual stop to travel UM as a global company, we are extremely fortunate to have our CEO, Kyle Jendro, who was previously our former global CFO for many years, leading us through, so him along with our current CFO, as a TELEGANI really worked hard to ensure that we secured the financial liquidity to whether

the storm, and then regionally, it was really up to us to manage the regions and very fortunate to have a very strong leadership team, but we did have to make sure that we looked at our cost structure and reevaluate the business to set us up for a very strong and stable future. And I'm very glad to report that we are all extremely confident and that we have set ourselves up in a strong position to get us

to the other side. At the same time we were doing that, we certainly didn't want to lose sight of our consumers and recognizing that they had shifted more to an at home environment and weren't traveling, we still wanted to be along the journey with them, so we found ways to communicate them with them digitally, um in more unexpected ways, showing them how to exercise with luggage products. We made some products. Can I just say that is just I can only imagine the virtual planning meeting lane

where it's like, alright, guys, listen, nobody's traveling. That's our business, so what do we do? But how clever that someone's like, hey, like and it's a great idea. I mean, I think all of us who those who couldn't maybe afford to buy a peloton or something else, we're like, all right, I'm looking around home. What can I use at home to work out? Absolutely? And there was a shortage and buying some weights, so a lot of those paces and start lifting right, So we did find creative ways to

pivot around there. And then after that transformed, we actually did start to see as we approached the summer months into the fall that there was a shift to some more smaller localized movement around. And we are fortunate to have a broad protfolio products. So are Gregory packs, um you know, the mountain hiking and people are buying into those packs, so that business was not as um tough as they travel suitcases happened to be UM and really began to focus on ways that we could help consumers,

even bags and backpacks. We also owned spec and we saw an increase in tablet cases as consumers were shifting to working from home and saw a big spike in those. We really just shifted into providing consumers and marketing to our consumers with products that they would need in the new environment. How easy there wasn't to shift in terms

of either marketing. I mean I've talked to a fair amount of cmos at some well known brands too, and they just were like, you know, all of a sudden, it was like, all right, this advertising campaign just doesn't work anymore, and we have to quickly shift and things that would normally take months. That's exactly a hundred percent correct. I think everybody had to adapt on a dime, and we all rotated quickly, and we were monitoring sales on

a daily basis. One of the fortunate benefits of e commerce and digital as well as you can see by minute what you're selling, so we were able to pivot very quickly. We have a very versatile team UM throughout the region, and we were able to really leverage all of those insights that we had to make sure that we were capitalizing where we could help help consumers and

travelers out there. So, Lynna, are there any consumer trends because we've talked to the CEO of Whirlpool and some others, uh, and I was talking to another one on the phone and just saying how some of the consumer trends that we're seeing this year, especially consumer patterns that stay with you for seven, eight, nine months, they don't go away quickly or may not at Are there consumer trends that you're seeing that you think might impact how you guys?

I don't know your composition of your product line or how you sell. Is there anything that might have a longer term impact in terms of strategy? Yeah? Absolutely so. Sam sknite has historically been known for a suitcase travel UH provider, but we have over the years developed a strong assortment of bags and accessories and we have seen a significant uptick in those products during this downturn and it's just really accelerated the lifting sales and that will

follow us for some time. And simultaneously, when travel does come back, we will start to see the lift of the travel suitcases coming back. Yeah, that's something we're all trying to focus on when lockdowns and and our world moves back to being normal. That's Lin Berard, president at sam Sunite North America. Still ahead. As many companies like Samsonite struggled and then learned to pivot during the pandemic, it was full steam ahead when it came to I

p o s and spacks this year. I'm excited to see the market come back and hopefully we'll get others. And I know is line enough to be strong as well? Checking with someone who took yxt Pandora and Salesforce all public. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. Is

Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Great story in the Bloomberg this week about how animal spirits are famously running wild across Wall Street, like how the first day returned for I p o s average this year, and how SPACs special purposed acquisition vehicles that raise money for a blank check company to buy whatever it wants have raised over sixty billion dollars this year, more than the previous decade combined. So we talked about both with

Steve kate Bread, CFO of YXT. He led the financial teams that took yxt Pandora and Salesforce all public. He definitely was into the animal spirits. I'm excited to see the market come back and hopefully we'll get others and I know, is Line enough to be strong as well? Yeah? Did it like surprise you though? In a year that was just you know, off the charts and so levels and you know the personal impact, the health impact of course of COVID, the economic impact, but yet to see

such a strong I p O market. Yeah, that's a great observation. You would have thought with macroeconomics and all the issues that we had. We had elections too, But I also think it talks to the strength of the capital markets and where companies that are growing and aspiring to get bigger and continue to grow, the access to capital in the public markets is the easiest and most

efficient way to get there. And you also have different ways to get capital through debt offerings, convertible operings and the I p O s and spacts and direct listing as you mentioned. So I think what businesses start to see is it's time to get into the market and get access to the capital because it's always there despite the heavy lift or load on pandemics and macro economics. Well what do you make though? Yeah, God, I have

so many questions for you. Um is it at all akin to the IPO market that we saw back in two thousand to me, having you know, covered business news in the markets at that point, I think it's very different in terms of the companies that we're seeing come to market versus today. I also feel like we have a market that kind of smacks you down pretty quickly if you're not legit or there's problems. Yeah, no, I

agree with that. I don't think this is the two thousand entries here where companies were coming to market a little too early or people didn't understand the business model. I think one of the big things about this market is you're right, people are bringing real businesses. People do understand business models, and the investors can look into those and look beyond just what the macroeconomics are of a company as long as they understand the long term business models.

So yeah, I feel this is very different. I think the market is also looking for growth opportunities, as you guys discussed on your show numerous times, and there is a change in innovation going on so that's how new businesses get into the market with I t O s. Well, what do you make of door dash and Airbnb this year? And we've had a lot of analysis about who ultimately is the longer play here. Something gets door Dash because they're so established in the marketplace when it comes to

all the online ordering. Airbnb will see whether people continue to use it once life gets back to normal. How do you see it? Yeah, that's a great question. I think some of the larger I p o s like door Dash and Airbnb, one is they probably should have gone out earlier because people didn't get to participate in some of their growth. But now that they're out, people are saying, hey, I use these every day, I want

to invest in them. I think there's a little bit of prop in the retail or individual investors side as people are learning, particularly individuals that haven't been in the market for all that long. Remember they exhibited for a while it was mostly institutional, So I think you're seeing a lot of individual investors learning how to invest in companies.

And clearly one of the ways to do that is invest in the company that you use, and certainly all of us have used some type of food delivery service, and a lot of people were using Airbnb and the similar companies or companies to get out of the city. So I think it's investors investing in what they do and use. I'm a big stand of Starbucks, so I

invest in Starbucks, right right. It's like the old Peter Lynch model going way back when, right, just you know, invest in things you really really understand or that you use. It's why you know it's interesting. And maybe I'm going in a little bit of a different direction. But all of the thing stocks and we constantly have conversations about overvaluation, and I'm not trying to pump them up anymore than

they have. But I use Amazon a lot, and when I go to buy something, it's usually the first place I look. Yeah, exactly. I think you you know, one of the investment strategies is to go where you go, and like you said, you use Amazon, you invest there. If you use some other service, you go there because you're supporting the company. You know what the company is doing. You also know what how good or how bad their

service might be. So I think that's individual investors. I think that's really important to invest in where you spend your money. Day to day. You know, I talk a lot about to venture capital and entrepreneurs, get your company out public earlier because that discipline, that governance, the transparency that come for being public also help your company to be more operationally efficient inside. And I think race is the value line of the company inside, so people understand

what they have to do in that transparency. Does so large degree show up earlier if you go public earlier. Well that's interesting Steve, that you say that, because there's so much money out there, and we do see whether it's an Airbnb or Doeordish, they are able to stay private for a lot longer because they are able to do multiple funding rounds. Um is that a good or

bad thing? Well, it's a good thing that I also think it's a bad thing because I think you leave individual investors behind because the prices that go out are too high, soft bank getting in. I do wonder is there a point when it comes to SPACs that we're all of a sudden saying, Okay, we've hit a peak here. How do you see it's Steve? Yeah, Well that's a good question, Carol. You know what old is new? Right?

Because we've been around one side. Yeah, and there's been a ton of money raised and too SPACs and the blank check companies this past year. So and you know, it really gets down to how you want to take or what you need in your company to get a public because at the end of the day, spacts, correct

luciens and other things do end up being public. I do think that one has to be careful because there's a lot of different people that lead these spacts and you have to make sure their investment uh if you will, standards are high enough to meet your investor needs. And then also the really question are there really enough companies out there to be bought with that type of money at this point, So we'll see how that plays out. Everybody has a two year window and the clock's chicken

when you go raise that money, so we'll see what happens. Well, this is what I wonder, Steve. I mean, there is so much money out there. And we talked about this a little bit more, you know, earlier about these I p O company companies that ultimately IPO. They've been around for a few years, so we've gotten used to them, we've heard about them, we've gotten to see kind of them grow their business and and understand their financials better.

But I do wonder when there's so much money chasing, maybe when they're you know, too few deals you know ultimately what kind of ends to be city or you know, a skewed equation that we ultimately get in the marketplace. Yeah. No, that's a great question. We've seen the run ups in the companies we talked about, you know, do Arab, NB and others, and I think that's where investors have to be a little bit cautious. You can pay too much for something and you can wait for the vision because

you're investing in the longer term vision. So the question is how much you're paying today for that longer to vision and how long is it going to take to

achieve that result. So, yeah, there's a lot of money chasing this, and I think individual investors just need to be cautious about what they're doing with their money when they invest in these I mean, why does someone like soft Bank that has a lot of money do a spack And I should point out that the head of the Vision Fund originally revealed plans for this back uh in an interview they did with Bloomberg News at the Milken Institute Virtual Conference. Back in October, so we knew

this was coming. But why do they need to do this? I mean, same thing with hedge fund investor. I mean, is it just because it's a great vehicle to make fast money. I don't know. Well, it's a great vehicle to make money potentially, but I do think it's because there's an open market or open window here for boats like stop Bank and other hedge funds to go raise money. Because remember, raising money is job one here and right now it's easy to raise money, low interest rates, a

lot of confusion in the marketplace. So I view these facts and the hedge funds and stop Bank doing this is just another vehicle for them to raise money, as opposed to go out and look for limited partners or other individual investors to get into their funds. Hey, one thing I want to ask you, big picture, You've worked at a lot of different well known companies. Look at this market of seeing the ups and downs in terms

of cycles. You know, I mentioned at the kick at the beginning of our interview about a story that's running on Bloomberg about the animal spirits running you know, wild across the streets. So we've got great market for financial markets but it's not been a great year for humans. I mean, we have just incredible inequities and just the gap. What will potentially be the consequences of all of that. Yeah,

you know, that's a great question. And when I talk to people and in institution and investors, I think there's a disconnect between what the market's doing and quite frankly, what our neighbors are suffering through here. And you know, my family's in a in a business that depends on the restaurant business, and boy, when you don't have that

type of markets, it's tough to run these businesses. You say, So, I think we need to be cautious because although there's euphoria around the vaccine, there's a lot of unknowns coming from that. And I think I kind of look at this as it's going to be a tough market for the next couple of years, simply because there's so many people out of work and we need to get those people back to jobs and back to work to have

a really robust economy. Yeah, exactly, And there needs to be, you know, more of that wealth distribution that we've talked about. All right, last note, a little bit of a lighter note, but I hope it's lighter, because I don't know how it's been going. But you are also the co owner and founder of cake Bread Sellers in Napa Valley. How has that been going? Well? I'm going to give my credit to my parents. They sounded it. I just got to work there and enjoy the experience and obviously taste

the wine. But um, yeah, the wineries, you know, like I said, in Napa Valley with the openings and closings that the state has put on most of us selves of restaurants, and the restaurant business obviously is in difficult shape right now. But I think everybody is trying to keep their workforce employed because that's job one, and you change how you do business. We do a lot more internet sales, I will say that. You know, online purchases of wines of all ilk are probably doing pretty well

these days. I know I'm always online trying to buy more wine, you know, just to get you through the day. Ah wine. Yes, indeed, I've got some firsthand experience on that. That was Steve cake Bread, CEO of YX. He's also author of the I p O Playbook and Insiders God on Taking your company public and how to do it right and that reps up the first hour the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Karl

Masser coming up in the next hour. A sign that the E s G movement is too big to ignore. There's a backlash and speaking of backlash, Black Americans pushing back against taking a vaccine and with good historical reasons. Bishop Waynety Jackson of the Impact Network on building medical trust within the Black community and why holiday entertaining this year is so complicated and what we can do. And we'll wrap up with a partnership between jewelry designers and

the sustainable diamond industry in Botswana. That's all coming up on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Girol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. Hi am Carol Masser. Coming up in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. In this holiday short and trading week, We've got some of this week's highlights from our daily radio broadcast and podcast, including building trust in the COVID nineteen vaccine within the black community. We're

going to have to get community leaders out. It's going to take commuity leaders going to take the big based community Bishop Waynete Jackson, CEO of the Impact Network, weighs it on that. Plus people cannot wait to have something to celebrate, even if it's going to be virtually and also just to kick this year out the door. Why holiday entertaining this year? It's complicated, Well we know why, but we've got some helpful thoughts from Pursuits Food editor

Kate Crater to get you through it. And what do you get when you bring to beers, Blue Nile and Botswana together. We kick off this hour with a story in the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week by Bloomberg Economics editor Peter coy. He writes about a company's responsibility to multiple stakeholders, you know, like the things E s G investors care about. What Peter found out is that

there's a backlash against prioritizing anything other than profits. Here's more from Peter, who joined Bloomberg Cricktake anchor Tim Stenovik and me, it's certainly true that E s G investing is on the rise. Um there's a survey by Deloitte to found it something like twenty six of professional manager sist in the U s at E s G mandates

as versus only. That's a pretty rapid increase and citizen gendering a backlash, and we're seeing it in the Trump administration three different agencies of taking shots at e s G in different ways. On the final months of Trump's

term in office. Now Biden may try to reverse some of them, not all, but in any case, it represents obviously the Trump administration isn't doing this because they're feeling some heat, and that's probably coming mostly from Corporate America that is resisting some of the E s G mandates. So we in corporate America, where is the backlash coming from? Because I thought E s G was all the rage right now? Well, that's I mean, it's true, it's it's

a mixed picture. I think that's a fair point. There are a lot of companies that are totally on board with e s G, but in some cases they just don't like being pinned down as they want to have

sort of the freedom do it their way anyway. To give you some examples, the most stringent restrictions on e s G are coming from the Labor Department, which makes a certain amount of sense because the Labor Department is in charge of pensions, and naturally pensioners are vulnerable to bad investing, and they have they're relying on that money

for their retirement. They really are. Don't directly have anything to say over where the mind's invested, So the labor department bends over backwards to say that the money should be invested only according to UH pecuniary considerations money UH, not E s G. The E s G could be used only if there's a too exactly equal investments from a profitability point of view, s G could be the tiebreaker, and they expect that to be a rare situation. So

it's interesting there's align in your story. Peter. Cynical take on the s G is that it's a way for CEOs and boards to avoid accountability if profits come in below expectations. That can point to some wind farm as an explanation like, hey did the right thing, but it

heard profits right, you know. So I have a quote in the article from a woman named Barnelli Chowdhry who's at u c L in London, kind of on this point, saying you don't want E s G to be sort of get out of jail free card for companies you know, just wave your hands and say, oh, you know, we're

inswered about multiple stakeholders. It's not your shareholders. Well, you know, I think about Jamie Diamond right at the Business round of the Business Roundtable, and of course of JP Morgan, like, you know, when he made that statement about listen, companies have to have multiple stakeholders. I think everybody's like, yeah, it's shareholders, it's employees, it's your community. It's a lot

of things that we need to think about. But I do wonder, you know, ultimately, if you're a publicly held company, right, ultimately you still answer to your shareholders. Yeah, well, Carol, this is such a deep issue. We could talk about it all day long because there's so many nuances here. But there is that argument. Then the argument of the s G people is, look, shareholders could collectively decide that

they want some objective other than just making money. They collectively want to do something about climate change, for example, And the argument would be fine, if that's what they vote, They choose a board of directors that wants that, if they vote in proxies for that kind of thing, then they're certainly entitled to So is Milton Friedman right here right, the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. Well, that's what I'm saying, is like there is it's a

very clean storyline, the Milton Freeman one. What I'm getting at is that there's a lot of ambiguity in corporate law, and maybe that's not an entirely bad thing. Maybe we need to learn to live with a certain amount of ambiguity. And I tell the story of going back to Barnelly Child reciting uh eighteenth century play called Servant of Two Masters, the servant named Truffle Dino, who somehow manages to by scrambling left and right, served two different masters and fairly

ably as well. Peter's story something to chat about, virtually, perhaps with friends and family over this holiday weekend. Again, that was Bloomberg Economics editor Peter Coy who joined Bloomberg Quicktake anchor Tim Stanovik and me coming up, our world is about multiple stakeholders this year and being more inclusive. That includes building trust between the black and medical communities more with the CEO of the Impact Network. That's coming up.

This is Bloomberg is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Back with us this week. A voice we've reached out to several times during the pandemic, Bishop Wayne T. Jackson. He is founder and CEO of the Impact Network. It's a privately owned African American inspirational television network. It's got an audience of some ninety million in the US. You can find it on Dish Network, Direct TV, Comcast,

ex Affinity, and a lot more. Well. Bishop Jackson joined us once again from Detroit, where we talked about building trust in the COVID nineteen vaccine within the black community, something we heard about earlier from the president of Morehouse School of Medicine. We began with Bishop Jackson talking about

the recent COVID cases Detroit. We have had a spike in the past, you know, after the post Thanksgiving and and uh the holidays, people traveling and coming back and forth from to the ne relatives, and it has been a spike has been matter factor a devastation. We lost our shaff our share off, one of our county shaff with well known but loved um all around the city and the county. And you know he he went in with Kobe about maybe a week and a half ago

and put him on a ventilator. Prayers were going up for him. We thought he would, you know, maybe make their turn, but he didn't. And especially have so many cases like that in the community. Well, you know, I just did out. I put out on Twitter a pole and I just said, because I'm kind of curious and I've seen some of the polls out there, will you take UM? Will you get the COVID nineteen vaccine? Simple question, Yes, no,

still deciding UM. And I think there is, as you know, a lot of pulling out there that when it comes to the black community, the minority community, that people are really nervous about taking this vaccine. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? Why can't you speak for the whole community? But I can't say this. I have taken a poll also, and UM. I have a dual role as a pastor of a large congregation in the city of Detroit plus the founder of the Impact OVID, the network,

as you said, as an over ninety million homes. So I'm in touch with a lot of pastors, African American pastors around the country, and the consensus have been that people really are literally about that about that vaccine. I haven't had one person now, one person that I have come in contact with that said that they want to

take you know, the virus. I would take the vaccine, you know, and listen, there's history there that you understand some of the nervousness within the black community, UM in terms of our past in our history and the black community being used basically, you know, to to test you know, various medical treatments are are you know, without their knowing or you know, it's just kind of horrific when you think about it, is that the crux of why um

Black Americans are hesitant or what are you hearing specifically about that? Well, you know, you go back to ninety two exactly the situation with you know, the cyphilism and given the black um man to see how males, to see how it would react, even though they had a cure for it, and even though they you know, um asked him and persuaded him, not even going to get any other type of medical care, and they just die, you know, cysius with a very terrible, uh, you know,

disease that cause a lot of pain. And so the way that a lot of African Americans feel is that they feel that the government is not on their side. They feel like you know again, um, that this is a government that had taken and advocated slavery and taking them from their homeland and putting them in change and taking them over you know, ships and bringing them over here, stripping over their names, uh and giving them a different name. So it's a lot of history behind that of mistrust.

And so what we have here, they're thinking that the community thinking that, you know, you know, you want to use me at the guinea pig. You know, I heard people say, well, you can't get rid of the common code, you can't get rid of the common flu. And now you take this within seventy eight months and you get a cure for something without even going through them the regular protocol of even use an animal testing, and now you want to put it on the people, and then

you know, the very very leery of it. What can you do? What can local leaders do? What can a President Biden come January or Dr Faucci do right now to have some influence over the black community when it

comes to the COVID nineteen vaccine. Well, let me say this first of all, it is unfortunate that this is happening as far as the people who really need the help, as you know that the death rate is very high when it comes to the Ucan community, and um, they're um, you know, impacted in such a negative way when it comes to deaths, and even people who have not really who beat of the COVID nineteen but yet they don't have their full capacity of breathing and also being able

to be normally dan. So we're the only African American faith based Christian network and we feel this responsibility to help get the message out in such a way of educating the people. When you go back to so what progress have you made so far? Because you would think that you're you know, the black community would trust an organization like you, but it just sounds like and yours excuse me, but it sounds like there is still a lot of distrust out there. So how do we kind

of change that. Well, it's going to be education. I mean, you've got to educate them in the first of all, um just not going to you know, um um by his President Pence, he got the tests and the SIRT in general, he had the tests and then Biden had um not the test vaccine being thank you the vaccine not a testing going on too. So that's fairy, right, yeah,

we've been talking about testing so long. Now we're talking about the vaccine, but it's not going to turn the minds of the average African American on the street in the community. What you're going to have to do. We're going to have to get community leaders out. It's going to take communicant leaders, going to take the baith based community, the pastors, because the people that sits in their pews,

they trust their pastors. So it's going to have to come a loan um educational process to get people to really understand that the vaccine is safe. And we asked what Biden uh uh, the President elect could do when he was on his brother that they're going to put funds out there that can you know, get get the community aware of the vaccine, how the vaccine is safe

and things like that. It's going to take that grassroot type of effort to really change the man to the people that I have not it's not no, no, not not in a way that you would want it to help. And we and we know it. And when you look at this, you look at you know you're talking about virtual learning. Then when you have a computers, don't we have internet? And you know they've fallen behind, and and it's always the lacas, the of African American people of

color that suffers the most. It's just going to have to be and I believe that Biden is going to and this is my personal feeling that he's going to be more sensitive to these matters because until we get there. You talked about George Bloyd, But George Floyd it brought that was a tipping point. It's got a lot of awareness because this has been going on. It's just not started. They didn't just start, as we've talked about often on our broadcast, and we know a lot of work that

still needs to be done. Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, founder and CEO of the Impact Network, still to Colm, why is it all so complicated? Including holiday entertaining. It really is like trying to find good things to say about the Ki Corneck. It's just been like a devastating, horrible here for restaurants and it keeps getting worse. That's coming up next. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio.

We're bringing you some of this week's highlights on our Deli radio show and podcast, including one of my favorite people to talk with Bloomberg pursuits food atit her Kate Crater. She's a go to and all things food dinning, trends and the chefs and restaurants behind it all. Kate talked with us about holiday entertaining this year, which, like so many things in our world, is rather complicated. It really is like trying to find good things to say about

the Hicaronic. It's just been like a devastating, horrible year for restaurants and it keeps getting worse. And um UM I got to report on a story UM that talked about how while indoor dining is shut in New York, it's still it's still totally um open across across state lines in New Jersey and even in like Westchester and the Hamptons they're at like five and fifty percent capacity and um, and it's making steps here in New York

just tear their hair out. Well. And you know, we talked about that story on air because it was kind of interesting, right, and it's it's like, how do you get your head around that you can't have a restaurant open in New York or indoor, but you can in New Jersey. Right. It's like it's a little crazy, but it it is allowing I guess some restaurant owners to have a little bit more business. I'm hoping, yeah, no,

I think I'm this guy. Um Ed McFarland who has at Lobster Barr says that even though his his place that's in Soho and New York has been shot, his business in Hampton's is up like sixty And then some of these other people, as you might have talked about their incent they're trying to incentivize people to come to eat in New Jersey. Like David Burke said he would pay people's tolls if they they his restaurant before it we I think again. Um Jeffrey Bank who has car Mines.

I love car Mines. It's this family style Italian restaurant which is as the Tropicana in Atlantic City. They he's worked at a deal with the hotel so rooms are like forty four dollars if you go and needed the restaurant, And he rightly said, that's about how much Acrost part your car if you're if you're in New York City. So they're definitely trying to make the best of the

challenging situation. Well, right, and I guess we all are approaching I was just texting with somebody about the holidays and they're like, I'm not going to see any of my my family, you know, it's just, you know, I'm not seeing my grandkids. Like, it's just it's not business as us all when it comes to holidays. Your story, though, gives me some hope because you always, you know, you always somehow find some optimism and so like, what's our gut, Like what do we do here in terms of entertaining

how do we approach it? What are some of the things that you found out for your story? Um, you know it was I mean, one thing we found out is that people cannot wait to celebrate the holidays here and around the world. Um, Christmas tree um purchases started earlier than ever in Christmas tree prices are up a little bit because there's like a bidding more going on with them. But I think even in November people were like going up to places where they sold Christmas trees

and starting to order them. And then in England I thought this was kind of cool. Um people started there was like a rush on Christmas puddings in late September. That is that's called starting really early. I know, but it's just so the people. I think people cannot wait to have something to celebrate, even if it's going to be virtually in all statistic kick this year out the door. You know, it's just been so challenging for almost everybody.

I agree with you, I just need some tradition, something that reminds me of kind of the way it was, because it's hard to remember the way it was at this point. Um. Here we are, you know, almost a year in with all of this, Um what about you know? Okay, I thought it was interesting in your story. I guess there are people who will be ordering out from restaurants

right during the holidays. Yeah, that's some And that's an until that came from Comcast UM and they were looking at had people plan to spend money and for the eight percent said they were, um, they wanted to support local business by um little restaurants takeout, which is a really nice number. And another thing that's like hopeful is um Prosecco sales are being here, UM opening here. They were up over a hundred million dollars UM. So like

the perfect little drink, isn't it. You could do so much with it, anything sparkling, So yeah, no, I encourage everybody to grab the quote, grab a bottle of sparkling wine and starts off bringing the holidays, and you'll be right in time with what everybody else is doing. Listen, we've talked with you too. I mean, people are doing a lot of cooking at home, and I'm assuming that's going to be a big part. That's where some where people can find some joy. Certainly this holiday season. That's

exactly true, although if they don't want to. UM. There's also been so many restaurants and the suff through New York now doing some pretty deluxe meal kids so you can get um. The eleven Madison Park one who has gotten some attention. It's a duck. I think it costs four hundred and seventy five dollars, but by all accounts, I mean, I think you get leftovers with it and um. But it's a way, it's a way to go big.

But almost any restaurant you can think of, Dan Barber It's Stone Barnes is doing some really in demand meal kits. In San Francisco, Dominique Krann has a talier cran and she does some fun ones that have like caviart Art and her staff do these really fun instructional videos that come with it, so you can you sort of feel like you're talking. It's you know, it's like going into the kitchen and meeting meeting the pros and having them talk through your meal. So there are as you were

playing like this. Definitely need some ways to make the best of a very challenging situation. Leave it to Bloomberg Pursuits Food Edit our cake Crater to always find some optimism in our what she really is the best and I must read for anyone interested in food and restaurants straight ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, helping out and emerging economy and reimagining the engagement ring all in one the details and a partnership between the Beers and Blue Nile.

This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Gerol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Big well known brands are increasingly reaching out to communities and we see that with the ten ten program that is bringing together independent jewelry designers and the natural diamond industry in Botswana getting ready to

debut a collection Come January to explain. Stephen Lucy, your executive vice prior in a consumer markets chairman and chairman and forever Mark at the Beer's Jewelers, joined us from London along with Sean KELSEEO Blue Nile, who was in Seattle. But like many of our guests, we began with how their worlds were impacted by COVID, similarly to uh To

Stevens experience. Bunu had a pretty remarkable year. I'm I'm only here at Bunow for about a year and a half, so I'm I picked a particularly interesting time I think too to enter the jewelry industry. So it's been it's been crazy, frankly, um, but we've had a We've had

a really good second half of the year. The beginning of the year was pretty challenging, I think, as it was for most folks, both business and all of our employees around the country, and we have employees in in Europe and China as well, so it's pretty pretty scary, frankly. But the last several months have been very strong for our business. We've seen a number of a number of consumers shift from bricks and mortar purchases to online and

that's very good for our business. And we've been able to uh expand our assortment and I think provide great jewelry and diamonds two consumers looking for something special in these remarkable times. Yeah, consumers have definitely pivoted. And if you weren't going digital, you are probably increasingly at this point. I know all of our shopping for the holiday season is completely online. It often is, but it's even more so this year. So Stephen, tell me about this ten

ten program that you guys are doing together. Well, i'll tell you when. Um, you know, we back up now it's sort of six months ago and when we were in the really middle of the lockdown and uh, and there was one point in time where most of the stores stewelry stores in the world were closed, the mines were closed, the Indian cutting centers were closed, all because of covid um. But we knew we would come out

of it. So we've begun to think at that time, well, um, what can we do for the people that are particularly dependent on diamonds and also those likely to have a harder time withstanding Uh, you know the lockdown, big companies like de Beers, you know we can we can come

through these things. But when you think about smaller jewelry designers, and when you think about a country like Botswana that really is largely dependent upon diamonds, you know, Botswana is in many ways the success story of of Africa in terms of its economic development, but built on the use of diamond revenues. And so at the beer as we were thinking when we do come out of it, who do we need to help? And I guess the two that stood out for us was was, first of course

Botswana our our partner in our largest minds. And secondly these independent designers who are clearly going to have a tough time and uh, and we thought that they had something that would be I think a paricular interest as well to consumers looking to get to get married after and committed after lockdown, but wanting to do it in the way that was perhaps a bit more um individual

and and a bit more expressive. And Sean, I want to pick up with you because these um collaborations are being sold on exclusively, I should say, with Blue Nile, and I think they're going for about three to four thousand um. Tell me what you're seeing so far in terms of they've started selling correct not yet that are going to launch. Yeah, they're going to launch in January.

Work for kicking off the death Okay, that's okay. We've got a lot of interest so far, I can I can tell you not only from folks we've we've provided a sneak peek too through our email programs, but also I can tell you are our employees are pretty excited about them too. This this Tent Tent Collections, the first

of its kind partnership for Blue Nile. We we've been selling diamond engagem ring online for about twenty years, so we've never done a collection quite like this, and we're really excited to be partnering with two beers on this program. It's a wonderful opportunity to support these terrific designers. There are ten designers, as Stephen mentioned, and each are producing

ten diamond engagement rings. They're affordable, as you mentioned, three to to four thousand five dollars each, and they are stunning, le beautiful, and this is what consumers want right now, amazingly beautiful natural diamonds in unique settings. H And also it gives us a really terrific opportunity and we're very proud to highlight Botswana and the wonderful work that is being done there and these terrific stones that have come

from this beautiful place. We'll tell us about these sustainable diamonds, um, that's what they are specifically, UM so and tell us about them and the distinction between their diamonds that are potentially sold in the marketplace. Well so, so Stephen can can chime in here as well. He's he's really the diamond mining expert. Uh. But UH, these particular stones all

come from Botswana. They're ethically sourced, uh, and they are they conform to the highest standards of sustainable production and all the way through the supply chain from the earth too, to the settings and then to our consumers hands. And it's really a a terrific story about a wonderful partnership between the folks of Botswana and the entire de beers, the entire supply chain, all the way through to a

retailer like Buno. Well, Stephen, come on and chime in here, because I do think um sustainability this is certainly something I've had a lot of conversations, whether it's the head of the company that owns Kia or uh, some of the major consumer product companies Patagonia, like, we are talking increasingly about sustainability, circularity, Consumers increasingly are demanding this. I think it's I think it is very much going to be a big part of the entire luxury goods industry's feature.

I mean this concept of of you know, a beer as we call social purpose the new status. It's I think fundamental part of consumers selection process when they think about products and brands. And I think that's where the story of diamonds in Botswana in particular is so compelling.

I mean, Botswana a very small country, but it is the world's leading producer of natural diamonds, and they've had an extraordinarily positive impact on the people of that country, both in terms of education, in terms of health care, and in terms of really just raising their living standards. I mean, before diamonds, the beer has discovered diamonds in the mid nineteen sixties in Botswana. Before then, it was

the world's poorest country. Today it's a middle income country, largely due to great governance and use of those diamond revenues. Literally of the revenues that come from the domond mines flow back into the communities in Botswana and it's a great good. And of course when we talk about circularity, I mean, you know, the expression of domint is forever. It is clearly the case, you know, do you buy

and you keep for your whole life. There can be nothing that in many ways it's more circular than that.

They never disappear, they get handed onto new generations. So um, we think it's in a way an exciting time for the natural diamond story and for people who maybe don't know about the positive impact that they have to have an opportunity through this program to learn more about this amazing uh country and what they've done with their diamond rev Well, I'm just gonna say I've been on the Blue Nile website and I've signed up to get some of the emails about the Tent Tent collection. But it's

been fascinating to kind of read over some of the designers. Um, you know, I do want to ask you, Sean, in terms of buying things like diamond jewelry online, we have seen an increased digitization of our world when it comes to retail this is your world. What has the pandemic changed in terms of people buying kind of expensive items.

I've I've I've talked with folks in the watch, the high end watching watch industry, and they actually would do virtual kind of shopping with customers so that they could talk to somebody face to face before they made a purchase. But what changed in terms of selling kind of luxury goods online because of the pandemic? Sure, I think a couple of things, Carol have changed over the over this year. Um One in terms of the product and then second

in terms of how consumers are shopping. So in terms of the product, earrings have been selling like crazy, especially expensive, very high quality diamond study earrings. You can imagine living in a zoom world. Diamond ear rings are a wonderful and ear rings in general are a wonderful way to to show off your your personality and to have something special.

And in particular these um, these beautiful uh diamond study rings we have ore have been have been selling like like they never have In terms of how people how people shop, we we've really seen a much first of all, just an increase in the number of shoppers. We've had record visits to our website both in the US and in the forty four other countries across the world where we where we offer and sell wonderful jewelry, but we've also seen folks calling into our call centers and and

a pretty dramatic increase in virtual shopping. So great to hear from another member of the retail world finding a way to reach consumers and help others. That's Stephen Lucier, Executive VP Consumer Markets, chairman and chairman and forever mark at the Bear's Jewelers, along with Shaun cal' CEO of Blue Nile. And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for

joining us. I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tude in daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You could also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week conversations download them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and be sure to check

out our Bloomberg Business Week Extra. About a favorite topic and one that constantly pops up on the Bloomberg and Bloomberg dot Com. It's about real estate and about the high profile moves to Austin from the likes of Elon Musk, Oracle and others. For some thoughts on that, we cut up with Ari Rostagar, founder and CEO at Austin, Texas based Rostagar Property Company, who was, as you might have guessed,

in Austin. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands, now online and of course on the Bloomberg have a say off weekend. Everyone, Happy holidays. This is Bloomberg