Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - July 29th, 2022

edition of Bloomberg Business Week. While markets are digesting a second straight seventy five bases point hike from the Federal Reserve and a promise to carry on and it's fight against inflation and Tim, we also got a second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth in the US. It was a lot, It was a lot. All of this, though, Carol said, against the backdrop of an earning season that's

really kicking into high gear right now. I mean, here a few names, right, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Apple and Amazon all reporting this week. In fact, it's you know, a market cap half of the market cap of the S and P five founder. It's pretty incredible, Like blows your mind, it really does. So ahead on this broadcast, we're gonna talk to a suite of top executives, including the CEOs of Chipotle and tell on their latest results

and their outlooks. For the rest of talking Burritos and Barbie, we're also going to speak with the founder and CEO of Susie Cakes, go behind the scenes of an HBO drama, and dig into regulators delayed crackdown on popular by now pay later platform sounds like a pretty good program, right would stick around all about to come. We begin there with a catch up on crypto from the finance section of the magazine. Digital Tokens plunged this year. They've taken

the crypto exchange coin based down with them too. Now, US regulators are investigating the company and whether it improperly let Americans trade digital assets that should have been registered as securities. Bloomberg business Week columnist Max Chafkin is here to break down the battle between coin base and the sec It's a story that takes us back to September. We've had two things that have happened over the last couple of years with coin Base, as the kind of

crypto market, said Booms. This company has moved kind of closer into the kind of center of the cultural as right, guys, and as they as a company approached a direct list thing last year one of which is that the company kind of embraced it is kind of like culture war thing. It It basically told its employees that they couldn't, you know, protests in favor of Black Lives Matter, which won a lot of praise from you know, right wing types you know,

who are sort of into that kind of thing. And at the same time, the company was sort of making some some pretty significant changes to its business to allow more of these kind of lightly traded they're sometimes called all coins if you want a clean for these. These are basically, you know, it's like the crypto equivalent of a penny stock. So so some of them, you know, of course are are are legitimate. Some of them have

sort of gone nowhere. But what has happened, um over the last year or so is that coin Base went from being you know, kind of seen as a relatively sober minded, you know, one of the more um, you know, conservative of the crypto and exchanges insofar as that's possible, to kind of embracing a more um edgy, you know, confrontational pose with regulators. UM. Part of that is this

kind of like cultural component. Part of it is listing lots and lots more of these um alt coins um probably most famously Doze, which is like a joke cryptocurrency that that the company added um uh in may. So I do wonder what's the responsibility of these companies to investors, you know, in terms of what they are offering up, like you know, buy or beware, Like who's responsible at

this point? Yeah? Absolutely, coin bys has done some of that. Um. The thing that happened to this company is that, you know, as I said, it followed initially, Coinny says a long history. You know, it's been around, I think for almost ten years, backed by some of the biggest names in tech. Um what happened is that it sort of fell behind the

ball on these kind of lesser known currencies. So you had this sort of meme stock moment happened, and and competitors, most notably Binance, basically distinguished themselves by allowing a lot more different securities or or sorry we're not I guess we're not allowed to call them securities because because that's

kind of coin business whole position. But um uh, these different digital assets and coin base kind of in this frenzy to catch up, I think, basically allowed a lot more of these things on and that's kind of where they find themselves today. Where you have UM. You have this Department of Justice UH arrest of a former coin based employee who's you know, accused of basically insider trading UM.

And then you have the SEC saying that some of these tokens that we're being traded are in fact unlicensed securities. The upshot of that is that, you know, the SEC is is you know, maybe suggesting or interested in the question of whether or not coin bases operating you know, unlicensed security change, which would be really bad for the business. They've put out after these these UM complaints drop the d o J one on the SEC one. And it's important to say that coin base has not itself been

named in any of these complaints. You know, they're not shar they haven't been sued UM. And although you know Bloomberg is reported on this you know investigation, you know they have some see, haven't taken any UM formal action UM. Their position, the company's position is that it doesn't list securities. These things are digital assets and and therefore you know

it's it's in full compliance. I guess they was wondered to Max, like, if we find out that there's some internal conversations, you know, basically to the extent of, yeah, we don't really think this is anything, but we got to put it on our platform because if we don't, somebody else's Like you do wonder like what's the responsibility of a company and its leaders when they maybe they don't believe in something, but at the same time they

know investors are interested in it. Right, And this has kind of been something I think has been kind of whispered about in in crypto circles, but maybe not said publicly until these um, you know, until this happened last week, which is that you know, there are a lot of assets on coin base that are pretty obscure, right, They're not It's not like bitcoin and ethereum. It's it's things like pot call, which is a you know, social network for pets. Right, it's very lightly traded um. And you

know you can buy it pointment. And and there's a question about what when you when you when you invest in that token, what exactly are you doing? And I think the the kind of coin based position, right is that you're buying a you know, you're not buying a security, You're buying some kind of token that's going to be

useful in this company. But I think that, you know, the reality is a lot of people who are transacting in these digital assets are are basically gambling, right, and and and then so there's a question about whether or not that should be regulated. And then there's also a question whether or not, you know, there's even a problem with that. That was Bloomberg Business Week. Call him this, Max Chafkin coming up. Mattel's CEO talks toys, Barbie Dolls,

hot wheels, and Elon Musk. Yeah, you're gonna buy an Elon Musk doll if they have one? They don't know. That sounds kind of weird. That's the kind of a weird question to ask. If he comes O. Sorry, sorry, how about an Elon Musk action figure? Is that better? As long as it comes with a Tesla and a space X rocket? Okay? Fair? You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Steinovik from Bloomberg Radio.

Well the beets hoping it's latest seventy five basis point high will help bring down prices and so is our next guest and cries as German and CEO of Mattel the manufacture of course of Barbie and hot wheels and so much more. America's second largest toymaker recently reported second quarter results. Even as persistent inflation ways on margins, Mattel well, it's maintaining its full year guidance. These were excellent results

for Mattel without eight consecutive quarter of topin growth. Our profits also grew significantly, with adjusted operating income up despite high inflation, and following a record first half, we expect to continue growing in the second half. All in all, we're very happy with the position we are in. We expect to when market share going forward, and we reiterated fullier guidance for strong top line growth, increase profitability, higher growth margin. And all of this is in spite of

significant inflation and negative currency impact. So are you like, come on, investors, you still got it wrong. Look, we are very focused on managing the company. We have been growing now consistently. We're executing on our strategy we have you know, we won market share for two years in a row and we expect to win market share this year as well. Our supply chain is in very good shape. All of our own and operated factories are fully um

fully operational. Product is flowing in. We're seeing we're expecting a second half retail sales to be above the first half levels. We're seeing the industry growing as well. What happened that your margin is drunk? That maybe even caught you guys by surprise. No, the margin impact was expected. It was factored into our guidance. We talked about it

at the beginning of the year. Uh, and if anything, it's getting better actually because we did revise our guidance on gross margin UM Uh, not by much, but nevertheless a positive you know, uplift. We're able to upset currency negative currency impact and maintain and reiterate our guidance for the full year. So the margin, the margin reduction was very much expected and and said, you know, factored into

into our guidance at the beginning of the year. Over time, over time, we do expect that the combination of pricing and cost savings will more than exceed the impact of inflation and contribute to margin expansion. Give me an idea of what you're seeing with pricing power right now? Where are you able to raise prices so that consumers will continue to pay, but you can better cover increasing costs on your side without destructing demand. As pricing is one

of the options we consider in times of inflation. Uh sorry, this is not obviously unique to Mattel or unique to the toy industry. But we've said before and we're being very consistent about it, is that when we raise prices, we always keep consumers in mind. We're being very thoughtful and strategic and are committed to maintaining the highest quality and best value for consumers. We haven't seen, um, you know, any negative impact for the pricing actions we too class year.

We just took another action that will become that will be factored into our numbers in the second half. Um and this is something that we previously announced, So this is not new news and we haven't seen a negative impact. You know. These actions are very methodical and thought through what is selling, what is not. Where are you seeing

maybe some consumer sensitivity because of the overall inflationary environment. Well, in the in the second quarter, we saw comprehensive growth, uh you know, in constant currency, we were up in double digit strong double digit in North America, Emia and Latin America. We grew in all of our reported categories and in three in our three power brands, Barbie, Hot Wheels, and Fisher Price. So the performance was pretty pretty comprehensive

with some really strong numbers. We did say that Hot Wheels, as an example, is on on track to achieve its fifth record year in a row. Uh, Barbie is just coming off an all time high one and we said that we expect to be sales for Barbie to be comparable, so we're holding a very high bar and even all the pretty pretty strong performance across the board. So we

were talking about the Barbie movie. Do you anticipate making more money from the movie and your partnership on the Barbie movie or more from the lift that the Barbie brand gets thanks to the movie. We absolutely see the

opportunity as as incremental to our toy business. Our strategy to capture the full value of our i P is about participating in highly a creative business verticals that are adjacent to the toy industry and are also driven by big franchises and big brands, but we want them and expect them to be a creative in and of themselves.

So the partnership or you know, the Barbie movie and the the The partnership that we have with Warner Brothers um is such that we have a maningful economic participation uh in in the Barbie movie as well us for that matter, all of our multi projects, we do have economic participation, and of course we understand that in success there will be a benefit for the toy business, but we do expect the economic participation outside of the toy

aisle as well. We do not fund the movie. We do not uh you know, participate in in movie financing. This is not our expertise and not our business. But we do participate economically both as the I T owner, as the owner of the brand, and as a producer. We are a producer on all of our projects. Do you get a piece of the box office? You know, we haven't been specific in the commercial terms, but box office and research are part of the equation of uh

of of you know, of typical participations. Hey, can we talk to you about SpaceX? Tell us about the collaboration. It's a multi year agreement that Mattel has announces SpaceX to produce toys and collectibles. Yeah, this is an exciting partnership to create space exploration toys and collectibles under the Matchbox brand. The toys will come out next year. The collectible uh toys will be available on Mattel Creation or Director consumer side. And this is really about um, you know,

scaling our portfolio. Um, it's about innovation. It's about thinking out of the box and bringing new partners to the toy aisle. That was Mattel's CEO, Enn Cries. Still waiting on an update. Tough on that Elon Musk action figure doll, whatever you want to call it, Carol, He was pretty mum on that. Certainly more to come on Bloomberg Business Week or see Suitet. Lineup continues with the CEO of Echo bat find out why he says Lead is the

world's best recycling story. Yeah, that's an interesting one. But he's also thinking about how the Pivot evs with their lithium ion batteries is also affecting his world. This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the World, Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country. Sirius XM CHADO one nineteen and around the globe, the Bloomberg Business app and

Bloomberg Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Business Week, Bloomberg ANAF recently reporting have a tipping point for battery electric vehicle ascendency has been reached globally and it's about once five of new car sales go fully electric, everything changes, according to a Bloomberg analysis of the nineteen countries that have made the e V pivot, which kind of got us wondering about battery recycling overall. Well, fortunately we got

Marcus Randolf with us. He's executive chairman, CEO and president Echo Bad. It's the world's biggest recycler of batteries. Marcus, give us a macro view of your world right now and help us understand the biggest challenges your company is facing. Let me start with the quiz. I love this because it's surely helps people understand what bad areas are about. What do you think is the most highly recycled products. I know what it is because I looked at the website.

But but you put your paper out on the curb, you know, and your battery lead Battery recycling and recovery of lead through the recycling process. So so lead is by far the world's best recycling start. And we're talking about batteries like during cell batteries. Those aren't let lithium ion,

just lithium referring to lead acid batteries. Now, so so you find, well, well, the car batteries, car batteries, those big black boxes card with the two little posts on those things, we recycle a hundred and three million of those years. So what happens is we moved to e VS. What does that mean for you? EBS does two things. One is, obviously it opens up the world for lithium ion batteries, which are very different. But one of the things that gets missed is EVS also used lead acid batteries.

So a lot of people say lead acid batteries are going to die, they're going to re replaced by lithium. Not true. You know, they're still going to be used. Admittedly they don't use as much lead acid as a car does, but there's still it's still ancial part of our going forward business. So how much demand or what are you seeing like in your business? The thing you're never going to get away from is what is it mean to have this big boom and e v s

and what is that going to do for lithium? So you know that the low end of projections is sort of compound annual growth rate. You know that didn't really matter how much when you know you're just selling a few of easy year, which is where we were it or ten years, everybody's worried about lithium. But now now, I mean, you know, including plug in electric hybrids, last year there were six point six million electric vehicle soul six point six million, almost double what they were the

prior year. So you say, where's this industry going? For US? Lithium is both our greatest threat and our greatest opportunity. So you you look at what we're trying to do as we go forward, and that's to be we are by far the industry leader and let asset side, and

we are rapidly becoming. So on the lithium you have to because we want to, you know, to be honest, I mean, it is going to be challenging for let us batteries or a long term because lithium are just their energy density is much more favorable and ability to fully discharge is better, so they have big advantages. But on costs, they get killed. And so if you have low cost applications where you need big surges of power.

That's right down the world of lead acid batteries. As you get over to cars that have long, steady draws at last for hours, lithium batteries are fantastic. They're just expensive. They're hard to recycle. So I give you the numbers for lead acid recycling and recovery lithium recoveries. Now, the u e U is trying to legislate sixty percent recovery and there are a lot of companies that are making it. How usable is it on the other side of that recycling? Uh?

It is and it isn't. You look at lithium batteries. You know, the lithium, nickel, and cobalt deposits in the US are not very good. So all this sus come from from someplace else. Then the manufacturers are very interested in retaining control through the recycling process. So let add the battery. You get rid of it out of your car, you leave it at pet boys and they give it to us, and it just disappears in the system. In lithium, the car manufacturers want to own that stuff right through

the process. That kind of the takeaways here is you're going to see a lot of demand. I think there are a lot of questions about is there enough supply. You know, the recycling is really important, particularly because the manufacturers weren't on the resources. But starts a different world. But the question I think that you're asking is when you recycle it it is recycling? Is it comes back to write the matterufactor or is it it did well? Actually,

so what happens? So they don't have the deposits, so they ship the materials here, they make the batteries, or they make them in chump. By the way, China has remember the giga factories, Well China has about ten times more in the US does. So you start severely disadvantage. You don't have many giga factories, you don't have many resources. Then you get on the back end of this and right now there isn't a single company in the US

that can make cathode quality lithium ion batteries. So they process it here, send it back to China, then it

comes back here again. You know. So where this industry has got to evolve is it needs to get to where we have the full cycle processing capability here, and we're unique is Eco BAT, because we're in the front end of that and we do the logistics, the discharging, the disassembly, the shredding, the production of what's called black mass, which is sort of all of the metals and one then it goes off to others who handle the very back into the process. Right based on what you're seeing

this pivot right to alternative energy EVA. What are you seeing or how quickly you know as you as you think about the story and lead it is the best recycled product. And it's also if you don't get it right on the recycled side, you are not going to have the climate changing elements necessary to deal with windpower and solar power. You need energy storage. That was Marcus Randolph, CEO of Eco Bat. The company calls itself the world's

biggest recycler of batteries. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, we go from batteries to burritos. Another big quarter for the king of fast casual dining. We're talking Chipotle, Mexican Grill. Get me some gwalk right now, we're getting extra all right, we catch up with the CEO, Brian Nicol He joins us. Next, this is bloom Bark. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio. Shares of Chippotle

Mexican Grill rolling big time this week. On Wednesday, the day after releasing its latest quarterly update, the fast casual giant reported second quarter earnings that topped analyst projections. The burrito maker is adding new locations and customers are proving they're willing to pay more. The company also provided an upbeat sales forecast, despite rising food costs and pressure on

those wages, those are going up. Chipotle Chairman and CEO Brian Nichol joined us to help break down the numbers. Our customer mix definitely over indexes with higher income, and we saw that group actually increase their purchase frequency with us, and their spend was also a little bit up. So what we concluded is we've seen some trade down and people are switching some occasions in digipol way, so we

feel like we're gaining market share for our company. Uh And then at the same token, we did see a slight slow down with the lower income consumer from a

purchase frequency standpoint, but not in their absolute spend. And you know, the thing that was really powerful for us throughout the quarter is our restaurants were staffed and our team members did a great job of servicing both our digital business, which is rough, and our frontline business, which is really accelerating as people kind of come back to normal routines. And uh, that was really the thing that

I think carried us through the quarter. And then obviously our brand has tremendous value, uh and as a result, we were able to pass through some pricing to offset a lot of the inflationary pressures we've been dealing with. Brod, I gotta ask you, I mean restaurant margin in the quarter compared with an estimate of where you just kind of blown away by the performance, considering the declines we've

seen in consumer sentiment and so much recessionary talk. I really think it goes back to the strength of both our teams that are executing in our restaurants, because you know, they're the ones that turn the top line into the bottom line based on how they perform in the restaurant.

And then I think the I would say the strength of the brand, which is you know, it's really based on great culinary, great ingredients, you know, customization and convenience, and I think we did a great job of executing against all those markers and as a result, you know, we were rewarded with people's business that then our teams did a great job of executing so that it flowed to the bottom line, you know, to achieve a ten percent pump and also be able to deliver the margins

at the restaurant in this environment, I think it speaks of testament to just the value proposition, the strength of the brand and the strength of the people working in our restaurants. Let's talk about wages, because labor costs for the quarter were increased about thirty basis points from last year twenty four eight percent. You did that wage raise last year. That's sort of widespread wage increase. Are you

gonna have to do that again? You know, we are continuing to see pockets of me to do movement on our wages. The good news for us is we took a really big move about a year ago, which you mean, and then really what we've been doing is just monitoring kind of at the local level what's happening with wages and opportunity at our company so that we need to attract retain the right people. And we still are dealing with I like to say, pockets of challenges on that front.

Where are those geographical pockets? Yeah, and it's almost Look it's like store by store, it's not contained one region over another region. It really depends on what I would call kind of the market area. You know, there's a lot of dynamics that go into it. Is there big box retail nearby? What are the other alternatives for the employee pool that we compete with. While you raised wages pretty much across the board last year, by not necessarily you will have to do the same thing this year

or your you might might have to. We're look, we're still moving forward with MERITA increases, and we did a little bit bigger MERIT increase than usual given the inflationary environment. Because we don't want to fall behind on wages either, I should probably caveat. We're trying to run our wage program on more of a system basis, where it happens every six months we re evaluate wages, you know, we pass along merit increases and also we provide promotions for folks.

And before we were having to come in between those because the competition to get labor to work had really increased dramatically because there were fewer people applying. Luckily, that seems to have gone to more of a normal pace where applicant flow as well as our ability to then retain people as as starting to get more I would say to a normal approach for us or normal run rate. I gotta ask you only because it's been another story that we've been following for the last few months about

unionization that we're seeing certainly among you know, restaurants. Are you how do you guys feel about that or is that part of your move to make sure you stay ahead of when it comes to higher wages, because would you prefer that your restaurants don't become unionized or are you okay about it? Yeah? Look, I really don't see the need for union. I believe our jobs and the culture and the opportunities are best done within our restaurants and within our company. We don't need a third party

to be a part of that conversation. We've got great wages, Okay, they're great jobs. Were a growth company. You have the ability to join our company with you know, a high school degree or some equivalent. And also if you talk to any like new immigrants or refugees, this company delivers jobs and deliver the American dream. And I can share many stories where you know, I was just with somebody

that was a refugee from the Congo. He's now one of our highest level general managers making six figures leading a multimillion dollar restaurant, a team of thirty plus people. And the guy is electric, and you know what, he's gonna be able to continue to grow with U. There's a young woman, she immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, single female, didn't know English, learns English. You know, nine years later, she's our top restaurant general manager in the entire copy.

So yeah, there's just tremendous opportunity for people to go from a crew position, work their way up to being a general manager, becoming what we call a restaurant tour which is our top general managers, becoming a multi unit leader. And when you're when you're building thus restaurants a year, there is so much suction for people to get promotered

and moved up. I I think last year we promoted you know, like nineteen thousand people just tremendous opportunity, and I'm very proud of our company and I'm very proud of the jobs that we provide to our people. Hey, Brian, A lot those still out of your control, especially when it comes to costs, and this is something that we heard fed J. J. Powell talking about the rising costs across the board, especially for food. You did those say that other parts of the business, you've seen prices plateau.

Where has inflation been transitory in your business? Don't mistake that for transitory because it hasn't gone back. Right. The good news is we finally had like I don't know if you can call this a trend, but we have like a month or two where we didn't see everything going up. But as you mentioned, we had some major inputs going up still and in a meaningful way. And that's why, you know, unfortunately we got to take another

price increase in August. As much as I hate to do it, we're fortunate that our it has the pricing power to do it and we can maintain the integrity of our value. Was it what ingredients? What ingredients are you referring to? Was a chicken? Was at steak? What was it that plateau. It was it was more in the proteins, so like poor beef in some produce items. Unfortunately, packaging aluminum, uh, dairy tortillas, avocados, chicken continue to have a lot of pressure. One thing I want to ask

you about, Brian. I mean, you're continued to grow in terms of the number of restaurants and especially the pickup windows. So where is it that you really continue to see growth in terms of the types of restaurants you want

to be opening up. Yeah, look, the restaurant the Chipotle lane format um is you know, a traditional Chipotle with a pickup window where you don't have to get out of your car, and those restaurants, and we now have four hundred and thirty of them, and I think the last time we spoke, or maybe the first time we spoke about this, I think when we were talking about it, we had like ten and this we're back in like two thousand nineteen. So it just shows the power of

our development. But they continue to really perform. You know, our digital business is about big uh in in that execution and then the total business is also opens at a higher volume as well. So uh, that's what we're building. Um, we just opened our first one up in Canada to a really successful opening, and then just recently we opened one and kind of a smaller town outside California. It's like a new record opening for us. So it's got

a lot of momentum. We'll continue to build the inline um Chipotle's as well where we can't get the chipotlen but it's clear consumers like the additional access point of not having to get another car, and it really it's the fastest drive the experience you can have because you've ordered ahead, you've already paid for it. If you order a fountain drink, that's the thing that you gotta wait on. Otherwise you pull up, say your name, and you know

you got a burrito and you're ready to go. Hey, Brian, about a year ago we were interviewing you and I asked you about Chipole accepting crypto, and I gotta be honest, you kind of laughed it off, and and here we are a year later, and you know, June of this year you announced that you now up crypto at US locations his partnership with Flexa. So essentially, people load up this app with with their crypto and then you accept that app at the restaurant's what how's that going right now?

What percentage of sales is in crypto at this point? It's uh, you know, look, it's a really neat tool that Flexa provides so that people can monetize their crypto. Um, but you know, they carry all the risk and uh, it's a very very small percentage of sales um arguably as almost negligible. But um, you know, for those that have it and want to monetize it, we found I think a pretty clever solution. All right, but you are doing and then buy the dip game, right and if

you win, you can get it. But you could get you gotta could get a crypto. We've got a lot of creative people in our own marketing department, I'll tell you that much. Well, well, why do you promotion in time? Even dose coin is in there like so no, no, no, but but it is interesting, is it just kind of it's appeals to your audience, and you know what is it?

You know, look, we have a commitment to a relevant both in culture, food, culture, you know, music, you know, I guess tech falls all the way to this idea of crypto, and uh, I think the team does a fabulous job of staying on the front end of where young people want to be. Uh, and then also being very relevant. You know, I never want our brand to be out of sync with the conversation. And uh, you know, look, the reality is the things that drive culture, right, It's food,

it's fashion, it's sports, it's music, like it's tech. So we want to be president in those things. That was the chairman and CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill. We're talking about, Brian Nicol. And that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanivack. Ahead in our next hour, the cover story the massive credit trap forming underneath the millions of people using buy Now, Paid Later platforms.

Don't you feel like you could you could see this one coming? Yeah, I mean from a mile away, How is this any different than a credit card? Exactly? It just seems like that trouble was coming. We're also going to go back behind the scenes of the second season of the HBO drama Industry. It's set to premiere on Monday. It's a fun one, and the entrepreneur behind the cookies and cakes and more of Susie Cakes. I just like

saying Susie Cakes. Well, you gotta go to California or Texas to get them, all right, or you can order them. That's true, you can order all right. That's all coming up next. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week, inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happened. Bloomberg business Week with Carol Messier

and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Play ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including a season two preview of the HBO series Industry. The show's co creators take you inside the high pressure and cutthroat world of high finance. I'm looking forward to that. When I bunched the whole first season, I did, Oh yeah, it was great. Play us A female founders secured just two percent of venture capital last year.

That's according to a Bloomberg story from back in a January. The CEO of Susie Cakes is overcoming that trend by baking her way to the top and helping other women do the same. She's been doing it for a while and has really gone through a lot of tough times and kind of the overall economy. So looking forward to her story. First up this Hour, this week's cover story, it's about by Now Pay Later companies known as b npls. They include big names, a firm Clarina and after Pay.

Each offers installment financing with an attractive hook, pay quickly in four rounds and there's no interest. Sounds amazing, Yeah, it sounds amazing, right, we could go wrong credit, though, Carol is Credit and regulatory bodies in the US and Europe are starting to sniff around now that more users are getting in over their heads. Joining us with more are Bloomberg investigative reporter, as made to pres and Business

Week editor Joel Weber. What really stood out here was how much we were all suddenly being indated with with sort of these offers, like you go to a checkout and it's sort of like, you know, do you want to pay in four easy payments? And we were sort of like, where did this come from? Like it is suddenly everywhere and lo and behold, it really took off during the pandemic and we were all doomed scrolling, and it turned out that this industry just boomed on it.

But now we're seeing economic headwinds. Regulators have taken note and lo and behold, uh, there's good old fashioned debt problems even when you're you know, supposedly paying and four for four easy payments. So, so as may as you kind of dove into this topic topic, I'm curious, there's a real fundamental loophole that the buy now, pay later industry is built on, which was it's one thing if you pay in five payments, but it's another and four.

Why why that distinction and why does it matter so much? Yeah, So this story really focuses on the pay and for a model in particular, and that's what really unites these companies so affirmed after pay Karna. They all kind of do different stuff, but their main product is paying for, or one of their main products is paying for and that's what they all do at the same And so the way that they're able to really change the consumer

credit game was by bypassing consumer protection regulations. That explains one of the reasons why these two have just seemingly exploded overnight and So if you take the Truth in Lending Act, for example, that's a landmark law at an ACCID and it requires extensive disclosures for what are called unsecured consumer loans split into payments are five or more. The law doesn't touch pay and four because it's pay and four for payments. How big has this industry become?

Usage has increased, you know, over the past two years. Usages increase every year, So consumers, you know, they're really making up a larger part of particularly e commerce spending. Um, they're slowly creeping into brick and mortar, but it's really just e commerce. So we're looking at at like, you know, a few percent two percentage points of consumer spending online,

but obviously growing, you know, every single day. As far as valuations, I mean, if you look at Learned, the value has dropped significantly recently, but it's still worth seven billion dollars after pay was sold to Block, the Digital Payments Company for twenty nine billion dollars. So these companies are are very big. They're making Hey, they're missing billionaires.

You know that Karna headline, Uh, you know when the valuation got got slash recently was really interesting because it was sort of like if everything seemed like it was going great for this industry and then you saw that valuation gets last and it was sort of like, wait, what what is your reporting bear out there? What like, what what's going on with the industry and why are valuations maybe continuous? Suddenly there's I mean, there's a number

of reasons. So first of all, losses are up there, say seeing you know, more people obviously, you know, usage has increased, so they're having more customers. But also more customers are unable to pay back their loans, so investors obviously don't like that. Stocks are way down. You know, competition is increasing. Apple recently announced that it would get into the game with it's a version of pay and

for Work called Apple Pay. Later, pay Pal joined the crew a couple of years ago with its version of payand for you know, even big banks these days are looking at the npls. But also we saw, you know, we looked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau complaints their database and complaints are mounting, and then of course regulation is likely comings. Um, the NPP is now looking into this industry and trying to really figure out like what

kind of consumer harm is happening? And we definitely found that there was absolutely consumer harm being happening. I mean, in part because it's just so easy to get these loans. You know, the credits, the old traditional credit system, you know, excludes people unfairly a lot of the times. But it also sometimes you know, prohibits people from being able to take on debt because they truly cannot. They truly cannot

take on debt, and this is a problem. You know, the b NFL industry often will give you a loan even if you can't qualify elsewhere. How do they make money if they're they're not charging you for the ability to pay back over time exactly, you know, so so usually paying for is always interest free. You can get

hit with late fees. But primarily what the NFL companies do to make money is that they charge the merchant a percentage of whatever it is you're buying, and the merchant thinks that that's worth it because they you're more likely to buy with these things. And then also your card is going to be bigger, You're gonna buy more stuff because you think that it's cheaper because you're only

paying and you're praying and for payments. You also, you know, they do with some Klarina and a firm for example, also have longer term interest loans that they offer until they make some interest off that. But this is kind of their main selling point. I mean, they really say the merchants are their primary customer. You know, we as shoppers think that we're getting the good deal, but really it's merchants are their primary customer. Um, so that's really

the and that's and that's also sorry. What what they say helps distinguish them from credit cards because it makes them better than credit cards because credit card companies, you know, they may are credit card issuers, they make a lot of money off of the interests and fees that they charge on people that don't pay their bills on time. That was Bloomberg News. Invest get a reporter Asme de

Prez along with Business Week editor Joel Weber. You're listening to Bloomberg business Week coming up the co creators of investment banking, drama industry. We have this big issue thinking, God, does anybody who actually want to watch the TV Shoesn't features COVID spoiler alert, You're gonna want to tune in. This is Bloomberg, This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Well, if you didn't have plans for your Monday night, now

you do. On August first, the second season of the investment banking drama Industry returns to HBO. I can't believe we're already at August? Can you? Are you gonna know? Are you getting ready for another binging round? Oh? Yeah, I mean, I highly recommend season one, And after catching up with the show's co creators Mickey Down and Conrad k I'm even more excited for season to Carol, it has been a couple of years since the show premiered back into they filmed it before the pandemic, right, we

asked how they addressed that time gap. We had a pretty natural hiasis from a storytelling point of view, because obviously there's a two year gap between the end of the first season and when it's a in season two.

And actually, I mean we gave us quite a big creative decision because obviously the biggest thing that's ever happened to workplaces in the last hundred years happened, and we had this were this big issue, thinking, God, does anybody who actually want to watch a TV shows that features covid um but but so, But what we decided to do was sort of jumped the characters forward, started them in a psychologically quite different place to where we saw them in the end of season one, and make sure

that covid was sort of textually in the story and quite kind of doing with a light touch, but also, you know, make sure that they had a psychological impact of all the characters. That make sure it didn't drive the plot too much, because we didn't think anybody wanted to be plunged back into that kind of you know, working from home world. How do you think about the evolution of this series and the topics that you want

to cover. It's really funny because we had some really consultants in the first on the first season and obviously me and contradies to work in finance, but you know, we're ten years out of the game, so it was really helpful to have some people who were on the ground um and in season two we had some really really good consultants. We had some i mean, we had a sort of secret consultant. It was a pretty high profile guy in the in the industry. There was not

warm with the name he was. He was he was really really good at giving us some sort of air to the ground stuff. And it was really odd because all the things that we came up with this season it seems to have come true. I mean there were loads of it was sort of these little thing I mean, there was obviously there were some very esoteric um things to be touching this season, the idea of cr mess and you know, there's a there's the idea of Telly health and uh, you know, obviously response to for their

good COVID pandemic and all that stuff. It feels like it was quite nice to be able to try and predict stuff and see what actually happened. And you know, obviously it's a pretty tumultuous time with financial markets at the moment, which was was great for good Amber Mickey. I'm wondering how from a writing perspective you bring people up to speed on what not that they missed in season one. But since so much time has passed between the two seasons, how you remind people of what actually happened.

Are we going to see some sort of previously on or how do you handle that as as a writer. Yeah, it's a really good question, and especially since you know, because of the COVID pandemic, there's basically been two years

in between the seasons. Um, I think we are we kind of you know, it's it's what The first episode of the second season is a little bit of a balancing act because you want to you obviously want to throw people into the deepend and you know, not have too much throat clearing and too much reminders of what happened season one. But obviously, especially given the time gap between the two seasons, you don't want people to be

lost either. I think practically there probably will be a sort of season recap, but there are a few little

sort of nods the first season and the reminders. But I mean, yeah, I mean it's Um, I think I think it's and I suppose even if you haven't seen the first season, I think this is this season sort of stands up and you know, we stow the characters back here and and then you know, the inside the interest of Harper coming back into work after a year of isolation is a pretty relatable one, and I feel

like that, Yes, all right, I gotta ask you. There's a lot of sex, drugs, and rock and roll in the series and Conrad, come on in, or let's start with you, Conrad. I mean, keep it clean. It's a family audience. But I mean, is that the reality of what you guys saw when it came to the financial world? Um, well, look, I mean the answer we always give that question is

it's obviously slightly sensationalized. When people always say, oh, is this based on your sort of biography or your live reality of working in these places, we obviously, I mean, you know, it's not a documentary of making a TV show, So we obviously sensationalize things and lean into certain things. And me and Mickey, because we're creative partnership, I think we're very We're kind of a bit braver in some of how bold we are because we wrote that stuff

with each other. We try and push each other. We always for some reason, maybe it because we're demented, we're always learned in quite perverse places. But I mean us, I think I think look that that we love I mean the just talking about the sex scenes. I mean, I know you have a family audience, but like we're very proud of people always like, oh it was in gratuousnes is it objectifying? And like we actually think in season two there's actually more sex, but weirdly it's more

character based. We feel like we're telling more story. And it was a very it was the kind of the the dialogue we were having between the actors, the intimacy coordinators, the producers. It was a very much a kind of concerted effort to make those things really feel like they were earning their place in the show. And the one thing I will say so the people put off by the sex and the drugs in the season one, and

obviously you have a more financially skewed audience. Me and Micky are incredibly proud of the finance story that anchors season two in a way that in a way that we would I mean, in a way that we never really dug We never dug up into the real weed about start in season one. I mean we've been in season two. We've actually rendered it even more authentically. Well, Ma didn't finish up with us if you could, because I do love that you guys get into hedge funds

and the private wealth management division. We talked about it here. I mean, people in our world are getting richer and richer, and they just need more and more advisors in private wealth divisions to manage it all. Yeah, I mean it's it's a depicture of private wealth management. Is I'd say it's pretty sensationalized. I mean I actually an internship in private wealth management that was my first ever job outside

out of university. And this is us a little bit of a piece of revenge against him, I think, and not giving me a job at the end of it. There are personal aspects that make their way into it. So guys, um, no banking after this, you're completely done with banking. Does it make you want to get back into it? Give it another shot? Banking is done with us, and I think I think banking med it's it's mind up when they and they pushed me very very keenly towards the door. Well yeah, but you know it is.

But it is funny actually writing about it, and that wouldn't me and make you have this awful term for it where we're not in finance anymore because we're writing about it, we're kind of finance adjacent. And you do you realize how you realize just how many incredibly unique and strange and idiosyncratic characters are in that world are thanks to make down and Conrad k co creators of the HBO Show Industry, talking all about season two and

I looked it up, Carol. The first three episodes are called Daddy, the Giant Squid, and the four Oh my God. That alone just makes you want to tell it's going to happen The Giant Squid. We've got to check it out. Still to come on Bloomberg Business Week, The sweet taste of success. As life gets more complicated and people are, you know, on their devices more and more, this premise of connecting through celebration with face to face and sharing a cake has really resonated. The founder and CEO of

Susie Cakes joins us on the other side. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial capital of the World Bloomberg eleven Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nineteen and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week. The cakes, cupcakes, cookies, bars,

pies and pudding. Susy Cakes is celebrating its sweet sixty and if you're from California, or perhaps you've been to Texas or California recently, you might have seen as Susie Cakes in the Flesh Well. Susie Sarach. Susan Sarach is the founder and CEO of Suzie Cake. Take us into the origin story here, because you've got a pretty great beginning, taking the ingredients of taking the recipes from your grandmother's and building a really what's become an empire. Thank you

for mad Yes. I grew up in Chicago and both of them grandmother's, Mildred and Madeline, lived across the alleys from each other, so while I was growing up, we always had some great desserts around the house. Fast forward. I went to um Hospitality School for college and then

worked in the hospitality industry about fifteen years. While I was in food and beverage and hotels and restaurants, I noticed a lot of women leaving the business because it was difficult to have a family or have a life outside of work working seven So I grew up a business model predicated on women. Have women having careers in hospitality without having to sacrifice other areas of their life, combined with these amazing three by five dred Ruscipe cards

I had from my grandmother's. So let's talk about your business. So I think about sixteen years in, you have made it through the financial crisis, the pandemic, and then today's supply chain stresses and more, and also an environment that continues to be disrupted in innovation, whether it's in the food space, how we work, who's working, how do you

think about it today and how you run it? You know, one thing I've always been is very true to what our core mission is, which is connecting through celebration and not trying to be all things to all people and just being very good at what you do. And so what I have focused on since day one was creating the highest quality scratch made products combined with the highest level of guest service to all of our guests, and

being very straightforward and open about what we're doing. Our kitchens are open, we use high quality ingredients, we don't sacrifice on that. And I think as troubling and up and down as the economy has been and times are, people really want to celebrate now more than ever. To be able to bring that joy to people and bring

your mindset to a simpler time. A lot of people tell me our cakes you're buying them of their childhood or you know, when when life was easier, And so I think that Susy Cakes has really strived over the past sixteen years because as life gets more comp located and people are, you know, on their devices more and more, this premise of connecting through celebration with human beings face to face and sharing a cake and celebrating somebody has

really resonated. How's it going for you at your locations throughout California and Texas. Are you having a hard time keeping employees, are you having to raise wages? And are you seeing differences in different areas of the country. It's been very challenging actually in both areas of the country.

And UM, you know, in order to meet the decreased labor market early in we had to quickly alter our business model to fewer days, fewer operating hours per day, and fewer product offerings, so we really had to lean heavily on technology and UM have a focus on driving more sales online. So as a result, we've increased our online sales from six percent to thirty one percent which is huge, but that allowed us to have less team members in the store taking orders and having an easier

production model, creating less waste. We actually ended up with a more profitable business model. You pitched your business for like two years? Is that fair? Yes? I would say the better part of eighteen twenty Was it just that? Because we talked about this a lot at Bloomberg UM about the ability or inability of women and certainly minorities to attract investment dollars? What was it was? It? Was it just because did you bootstrap or did you get money?

Or like, tell me about it? Very bootstrapped? Um three um. Really literally everyone who I spoke to and showed my business model too said Susie cakes was a bad idea, and um even the FDA said, Susie um baking is a hobby out of business. It was incredibly frustrating and difficult at times to keep going knowing that so many people were saying people are respected, we're saying that it was a bad idea and so are really only options that we had were bootstrap upping and you know, gathering

uh money from friends and family. Who would you know at least you know, have a little bit of faith in me um to get the first door open. So much of my time outside of work is spent on supporting the next generation of female entrepreneurs because they are still struggling with getting uh funding and um, you know it needs it needs to shift and I don't know what will create that shift, but I'm still seeing it. Sixteen years later. That was Susan Sarach, founder and CEO

of Susie Cakes. And by the way, they do ship nationwide, so yeah, I mean, you know they've got that famous Southern red velvet cake. All right, Well, now I'm hungry. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. If you're looking for a European summer getaway, you may want to think outside the box. Okay, So forget about France, forget about Italy, forget about Greece. Our Pursuits team tells us where to eat, the drink and stay in the distinctive

country of Wales. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik from Bloomberg Radio Time Now for our weekly dive into the Pursuit section of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. We are thrilled to have not one, but two great guests to take us through it. Yeah, we got Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser with us also contributing writer Brandon Presser.

Brandon traveled to the United Kingdom and to the longest place name in Europe to give readers a look at the amazing culture, food and adventure that Wales has to offer. Maybe not the typical destination for European travelers. All right, So Chris, why was our intrepid reporter sent there and what did you find out? I want to know what this pitch was like. Well, every year, as you guys know, we do a list of the places to go in

the following year. It's one of our holiday traditions. We do about twenty five amazing interesting places to go and for our list, Whales on the list and it was Brandon's idea to do it, and we included it in our places to Go in two And there's a real revival of wealth wealth culture on the international scene. So the Welsh food and products and drinks are really getting a lot of attention. Okay, Brandon, So come on in here before we get to you know, what you ate,

what you drink. I just want to know what the landscape there is, Like I would say so very concisely, it's like Ireland on steroids. Um. So you have all those touchstones like the jagged cliffs and you know, the green pastors, but then you kind of kick it up ten notches where these pastors lead to craggy mountains and the cliffs you know, run eight hundred miles of coasts. So it's it's very dramatic. I don't think people do think about going there, but it sounds like there's just

some wonderful things to explore from. I mean, I saw this sounds like whales. Why why I thought a princess of Wales and prince of what like, that's where I went. I'm just going to tell you, UM, tell us what you found out. Well, this of all, when I was telling people that I was doing a story on whales, and everyone was like, oh, yeah, you know ocean conservation. You know, we really have to save the whales. And I was like, no, no, we all in the classry

and they're like, well, this is the country. There was a lot of teaching amongst friends, but um, first of all, so I sort of took that advind when I was there. So for me, in addition to looking at the landscape, it was really about trying to identify and isolate the distinct Welsh culture as separate from the rest of the UK. Do we get to the elephant in the story? And what is this long word name? None of us are going to be able to pronounce this? What what is

this longest place name in Europe? So there's Um in the north part of Wales. There's a little island right up because called the Isle of Anglesey and Um there's a small town Um. And all the town names, true to many destinations, are placed descriptors. So because Welsh is one of the most ancient languages, there's a lot of compound place names, and this one is the most eccentric.

It has fifty eight letters. It's basically describing church of a saint, near a place, near a whirlpool, near a forest. You're not going to even try to say it. I mean, I have a deep pound respect for Welsh culture and by a touching to say the place say, I feel like I would disrespected it does It does have a short name though, right is it Landfair yeah, so the double l is like an aspirated like like it's like

bend fare well. But but a lot of a lot of the culture that you write about has to do with the language and the history of the language, because there are a lot of words in in Welsh that don't necessarily translate to words that we would have in English, and a lot of them describe the natural world and you know, what you eat and drink. Yeah, absolutely, I think you know who that the Danish sort of exported as an idea of coziness became this you know phenomenon.

I have a friend with a good tattoo even and basically very crazy tattoo on her arm, and uh, this is a this is sort of the same thing. And I don't think that the Welsh are trying to actively export it. But they have so many words to describe the landscape. They lived so close to the earth, the harvest from the earth, you know, the farm's table is meters not miles, and and so they have all these things like pingo is the word that they used to

describe a tree that feels very heavy with fruit. So Chris as you went through it, and as um Brendan was reporting, and maybe reporting back or not reporting back, Um, like, what did you want to know or as you edited the story, what was it that just jumped out for you? I mean I wanted to know about the food. Honestly, you know, the best restaurant in the UK this year was was in Wales, i think for the first time.

And there's also been this movement to do the way that French has aot s or Italy has the ots like denominations that protect food culture. Wales is starting to do that with its whiskey and when it's with its cheese, just really marking how important that stuff is. So we want Brandon to taste everything. Okay, well, let's let's do a little bit of that at least. You know. How however,

Brandon can explain it to us. And I want to start with the idea, Brandon, of the international element, because it does seem like the food there has even though it's using local ingredients, the influence is really global. Absolutely. I think since the terrain is diverse and sort of surprisingly diverse, that you're having a lot of different culinary elements that are pulled from the mountains, from the pastures,

from the ocean. So it comes together as like a very complex culinary cannon that could actually rival France or Italy. They just haven't commoditized their culinary cannon yet. How much did you sample? I was thinking about this because it wasn't there. There wasn't there one place. Five tour are multiple Well there was in a Shereum, which one was the first is the first Welsh restaurant ever to win

Best Restaurant in the UK. I had been um tracking down the chef owner and his wife and had been emailing them and texting them, and I was like, I

really would love to come to visit. I know that you're really popular, but they had just one a second Michelin started so that feeling they were kind of on the rise, And it just so happened that the day that we had all agreed to meet was the day after they had just won this award um and they were like, you know, we can get you in, we can sneak you with seats and it's really fun to do a thirty four course tasting meal, but doing it alone for five hours was very focused on the food

because I had no one to talk to you. I gotta say, this just sounds fantastic in terms of the food, what you can drink, and what you can see. Um, but what you cannot pronounce, we'll have to deal with that later. Anyway, everybody should go to the magazine or check out the story online to really see the name of this place that you cannot pronounce or at least we can't pronounce in its entirety. Brandon, thank you so much.

Really appreciate it. It's another great read, and that of course is contributing Bloomberg Business Week writer Brandon Pressor Chris, we want to explore a little bit more with you though. What else is in the pursuit section of the magazine? And I have to say I love James tarmy story about Barbara Krueger Um, the artist who we probably all know her work, and yet it's interesting to see that it maybe hasn't you know, risen in terms of value

or popularity to some other um kind of pop artists. Yeah, so I love this story. When James pitched it, James, you know, always wants to explain an artists markets to people to like, to our readers who are very interested in investing in art. So he wants to tell our readers why an artist's work invaluable why it changes in value? And Barbara Kruger is, uh. She was a former magazine editor actually magazine designer who became an artist years ago.

She was kind of around at the same time as war Hall and some other people who will after that. And uh, you recognized her work because you know, you may remember the New York Magazine cover that she did, which was Elliot Spitzer when he had his downfall. And it was a picture of Elliot Spitzer and it said in her famous red box with forturo white font, it just said brain and it had an narrow point to his crotch. Um. Uh, So she still does she still

does work for New York Magazine. But mostly, you know, mostly she's a contemporary artist. Her work is near the top end of the contemporary market, and she's been working for many decades, but it's never it never really started breaking the million dollar mark until pretty recently. She had a small but very dedicated group of collectors. And now there's these four shows all around the world. One in Berlin, one was Veniceianale installation, and then MoMA New York has one,

and the Werner Gallery has a show. Her prices are boosting by twenty or more on the primary market. And that's that's a big move for someone who's been around for a long time and just shows her strength and the way that she's talking about culture and capitalism. Okay, and there's some really cool and and you know, I mean the Supreme, the company Supreme, Like if you see a Supreme shirt, you're going to recognize her work there. And there's some really cool backstory there. So I encourage

everybody to check it out. But Chris really he really wants to talk beer. Yeah, I want to talk to her. I mean that's yeah, I want to talk to you here. So we've talked like non alcoholic drinks with you. We've talked about like non alcoholic beer, nonucolic cocktails. But we're talking craft beer with alcohol but without a key ingredient gluten. Is it beer exactly? You can make beer without hops. Perhaps.

We have a great craft beer writer, Tony Rehagan, and he pitched this idea to me and I said, I don't know about this um And the story is the story about gluten free beer, and it centers on these two, uh, these guys, Trevor and Maureen Easton, who living Wisconsin, love beer. And then one day Maureen became gluten intolerant and her husband was like, I'm not gonna you know, I'm not gonna have you not be a part of this like tradition and that we have a drinking beer. We're not

gonna get left out of all this fun. So we started trying to homebrew beer without gluten. And he says, you know, at first, my my only market with Maureen, his wife, and then they actually figure out way to make it good. Now they have a huge market and they have a business that's national and there's other people doing it too. And the reason they can do it now in a way that they sort of did it perforce because they're using different grains which are more widely

available because bluten free dining is more common. So it used to be um they use a grain that kind of they kind of gave like a sweet puckery flavor to beer, and now they use buckley sorghum rights other things to get something that really tastes like the beer that you know and love. Think. Thank you to Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser, and of course earlier Bloomberg contributor Brandon Depressor, and that wraps up the weekend edition to

Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thanks so much for joining us and Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanivk. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday. It starts at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and check out our Bloomberg Business Week podcast. You can find it at Bloomberg dot com, Apple,

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