This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. A US government shutdown and as a result, a monthly jobs report from the government that didn't happen. And catch the latest on all of this, just head to the Bloomberg or Bloomberg dot Com. Also this week, and from Washington, pharma stocks rallying on an announcement from the White House. We've got a deep dive into what exactly it means for drug companies and for patients.
And the mobile satellite company who stocks shot up as well as it looks to go against Elon and SpaceX. Then from Amazon's device overhaul to take on Apple in the era of AI and metas latest day eyeglasses, to Peloton pumping up prices and Aura's new ceramic ring. What you need to know from Bloomberg's Mark German. That and the exercise suit that amplifies your muscles by way of electric pulses and maybe makes you look like a superhero.
Yes, indeed, all that to come. We start with earnings officially just around the corner, but a few companies getting us warmed up, including Carnival Corporation, the world's largest cruise operator with a fleet of more than ninety ships and brands including Carnival Cruise Line its name, Sake Brand, Holland America Lines, Princess Seaborn, and a few more.
The company a great read on the consumer, on travel, and on the economy. Josh Weinstein, President, CEO and chief Climate Officer of Carnival Corporation joined us on the day the company reported record revenue and raised its full year earnings forecast for the third straight quarter. Still, investors weren't impressed.
We did set a record for demand for our yield, and that was across North American brands and European brands, both coming in four percent higher year over year, which is great consistency. We also saw that that improvement was driven both by the ticket pricing and on board spending.
So all the trends that we have are really quite positive and it's all helped lead to thirteen percent ROIIC, something we haven't seen since got about twenty years now, the highest operating income in EBITDA on a per unit basis that we've seen in twenty years, record net income. So the teams are working hard and delivering over delivering, and we'll continue to try to do that.
We're going to talk about all of that. Stiefel, an analyst over at Steple, pointing to a lower than expected fourth quarter net yields guidance. It's a measure of the amount of revenue you earn per available lower birthday. Are you just being conservative with this guidance because it sounds like things are going pretty well.
Yeah, things are going pretty well. It's consistent to what we said the guidance would be back in June if you backed into what the fourth quarter would be. As a matter of fact, we kept the second half overall consist in to where we were in December because we did experience a lot of volatility over the first half of the year given macroeconomic geopolitical events. But what we saw is, you know, we've outperformed every single quarter and that includes the third quarter, and we're going to work
hard to try to outperform. Again, we're projecting yields in the fourth quarter that demand to be, you know, nicely over four percent, just like we ended the third quarter. So the trajectory is the trajectory is good.
I'm Josh, great to have you here, and I'm looking at your share price for the year up almost eighteen percent, so easily outperforming the broader market. I mean, what's going on with the consumer? You guys track the ins and outs of it in terms of bookings, what the spend is on the ship when they get off the ship. So I'm just curious, how do you characterize the consumer and who's who's going on who's jumping on board with you guys.
So I'd say the consumer is strong. I think that's a pretty consistent word that we've been using for the past couple of years. And yes, we do see ebbs and flows, and we see gyrations in the backdrop and the macroeconomics. But at the end of the day, what we have to offer is a very very amazing value to what you can get by doing any other type of holiday, any other type of vacation, and people pay
for it. And the great thing is even though they're paying more for our experiences than they did last year and the year before and the year before that, the
gap to land based vacations is still huge. And so if there is a weakness and pull back in consumer sentiment, that bodes very well for us because people are looking to stretch their dollar even further and figuring out how do I get an amazing holiday because I need one, and spend as thoughtfully as I possibly can, and we turn up very well when you line us up against the alternatives.
Well, it's cool about talking with you, and I know Carnival is your big brand, but I mean you have multiple brands, and I know you've consolidated internment in terms of some of the groupings. But you talked about positive momentum on all of the brands or is there one in particular that you're really seeing some standout activity.
Well, you know, we have a as I said in my notes this morning, we have an internal leader board obviously with our with our eight world class brands, and we encourage the competition and everybody sees who's on top and who's marching forward. And you know, the two strongest brands on top of our leader board of returns are Carnival Cruise Line, which is America's cruise line, and Iida Cruises,
which is which is the equivalent in Germany. And the great thing is as strong as they are and as high as they are, they're they're looking over their shoulder because everybody is making improvement year over year, and that stretches across both North America and Europe as well. And the great thing is, despite the fact that we're showing so much improvement, only about half of our brands are back to where they were in returns since before our pause before twenty twenty. Only half of them are at
their historical peak. So I know the latent demand. They'll part of the latent potential that is in our brands, and they are marching forward at pace and you can see the results on a consolidated basis for the corporation.
Josh.
One of the things we always talk about is, and we have folks here who are They do one cruise, they do another cruise, they do another cruise. And I've been on a.
Carnival ship where I'm talking about Charlie Pah, Yeah I am. But I've been on an elevator where I've talked to people in the elevator and they're like, yeah, you know, this is our tenth cruise or a fifth cruise. I am curious what's the mix between new passengers who are experienced Carnival for the first time versus those who are coming back for a second, third, fourth, fifth, whatever time on one of your ships.
Yeah, so I'll speak holistically and then I can get a little bit more specific. But holistically, we got about a third of our guests at any one time are going to be new to cruise, and the remainder is going to be a mix of brand loyalists and those who cruise in general, and they might go on various brands and they're back on board one of our ships
one of our brands. It really is dependent on the profile of the brand and the cruise because there is a huge different in between a three night or quick getaway for the weekend out of Miami and going on a Quneyard ship for one hundred and twenty night world cruise.
Josh, I want to have a quick corporate finance question with you, because you said something on the call that got my interest, and I know a lot of interest from investors. Leverage is now down to three point six times net debt to ibadah, you'll be able to return cash to shareholders when that metric gets to three point
five percent. Can you get more color here on the size and scope of that just thirty seconds, what a dividend would look like, what buybacks would look like, and when exactly that would happen.
Well, what we said on the call is, you know, we finally got that line of site to three and a half times, and from a pro form of perspective, after we do a couple of things that we talked about on the call, we expect to get to that three and a half times, you know, very early in our fiscal twenty twenty six, and that really gives us freedom to not only continue to responsibly de lever but also start that process of returning cash to shareholders. Having
a dividend is very important to us. Historically we've been a dividend paying company, and we know that that opens new doors for investors. It gives ongoing yield, and that's a great thing for a company to be able to guarantee to its shareholders. So that is really priority one after that continuing deleveraging, and that will happen in early twenty twenty six.
That was Josh Weinstein, President, CEO and Chief Climate Officer of Carnival Corporation.
Also happening this week, the AI build out and spend continues. Corwe was one of the big stories. Shares of the company surged after it signed a deal to supply meta platforms with as much as fourteen point two billion dollars worth of computing power, underscoring the massive cost of developing and running advanced AI models while attracting AI and technology investments is something the Kingdom of Bahrain is focused on as it continues to diversify its economy away from oil.
On that we were joined by Her Excellency nor Bent d Lee al KULAIF, CEO of the Bahrain Economic Development Board and also the Kingdom's Minister of Sustainable Development. Her focus bringing investment into Bahrain, including data centers.
Yeah, absolutely, it's important. I mean it's coming, it's not it's already there. So we've had a WS set up the first hyperscale data center in the Middle East in Battery in a few years back. And again, as I mentioned, the reason they chose Betteran is because of the regulation, but also the strength of the human capital. You mentioned Oracle, but we also have some regional and local investments for
data centers. So we're definitely seeing growth in that region where international companies that wish to use that and take advantage could come and plug and play and take advantage of the data centers already available. But really because of the demand, there's a lot of potential and opportunities for companies that still wish to have data centers in the region to come also and take advantage of that.
So I am curious. You said very optimistic. What's the biggest pertal obstacle right now in you attracting further investment. What's the thing that's difficult in terms of what you do.
I wouldn't say difficult, but we have to have a lot of conversations to explain in the business environment and talk about their characteristics what makes us different. But it's all very very exciting, so we don't mind that at all.
And I also do think about, you know, something that's certainly been front and set sent front of mind for us, excuse me, and certainly coming off the you in General Assembly, and you know, watching the turmoil that we've seen in the in the in the region, how important is that to the folks that you're talking with. It's companies, big name companies that we know other investors in terms of investing.
Obviously not every kingdom or area within the Middle East is the same, but you know the turmoil and the and certainly the war that we've seen between Israel and Hamas, how much of that the political situation sometimes slows things down.
You absolutely need safety and stability for companies to thrive, for the economy to grow, and for us in Betty and the region as a whole, We've always advocated for a piece, We've always played a part on a regional level, on an international level to advocate for a piece and stability,
and we continue to do that. At the same time, the countries are very much focused on their economic strategies, economic plans and continue to have conversations with companies and for those that have any doubt, we just say come and talk to us. We will, we will show you. We will explain to you that the current business environment, but we are blessed to have to have a very stable in it, in a safe business environment.
I have one last question too, and I'm just curious when you do have questions with investors obviously well known companies, big companies. I'm sure folks do their homework, but what is the thing that you think they don't really understand about Bahrain and in terms of the economy and what you guys are doing.
I think how diversified the economy is something probably people do not realize and given the journey and we've had a long journey off reform, our journey in reform and achieving the diversification that we're achieved today with eighty five percent of the economy being non oil, with a large manufacturing sector in nuge for financial services sector and others as well, it's something people do not realize and what that means is for years and years, for decades, we've built knowledge
and know how in our people, in our infrastructure, in our regulation and the way we do business and the way we work with the private sector as well. So that's something that I think always surprises people when we talk to them.
Our thanks to her Excellency or bent Lee al Koulev, CEO of the Bobrain Economic Development Board and also the Kingdom's Minister of Sustainable Development.
Coming up on Bloomberg BusinessWeek, once doc at Shot up this week on news and analyst upgrade and a mission to maybe go head ahead with SpaceX.
The president of AST space Mobile is next. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenovek on Bloomberg Radio.
If you think of satellites in space, you often think about Elon Musk and SpaceX, and yet there are a few other players in the space, among them Ast space Mobile. Shares of the company man taking off this week, up about two hundred and ten percent year to date. It is a nearly twenty three No, it's more than twenty three billion dollar market cap. It's a wireless telecom company
deploying satellites in space to be accessible for smartphones. And Barclay's raise the firm's price target to sixty dollars a year from thirty seven and keeps an overweight rating on the share stock at sixty five and change. Delighted to have with us, Scott Wasnwski. He is president of AST Space Mobile, as we said, joining us from Boston. So great to have you here with us. Scott, You've got to be busy. It sounds like you're super busy. If
I do a search. There's like various press releases coming out. You're Bluebirds satellites eight to sixteen. They're in various stages of production. My understanding is you guys have plan launches every one to two three months on average this year and into next year. You're on track to complete forty five used to raise by early next year and expect forty five to sixty satellites in orbit by the end
of twenty twenty six. Tell me if I've got it all right, and tell us about this build out and capabilities and who ultimately is signing up to use it.
Well, thank you for having us. You know, our company is entirely focused on this opportunity of providing wireless access from space directly to the phone in your pocket. So to do this, we're vertical integrated. We build our own satellites as you were just discussing, and we're based in Texas here in the United States, and we're partnered with
over fifty mobile network operators globally. That's how we go to market because that's those are the folks who have the customers today nearly three billion of them with the partners that we have. So we're focused on building this network out We have about an eight year history as a company. We have over thirty seven hundred patent and
patent pending claims on developing this new technology. It sounds far fetched at first, talking to your regular small phone in your pocket from low earth orbit, but that's the
capability that we have. And this is really important, I think for everyone because there's six billion phones out there in the world, and as we know, we depend on connectivities so much and it's very important that that phone works, whether it's convenience, peace of mind, or emergencies, and that's what we're focused on.
Starlink has partnered with T Mobile. You have partnered with AT and T and Verizon. What can you tell customers about when they can actually expect continuous coverage nationally and perhaps even globally as a result of this partnership.
Right, And so we actually have investment from about six different mobile network operators around the world, as well as American Tower, who's the largest tower company in the world. In Google and so in the United States. Yes, like you said, we're partnered with AT and T and Verizon, both investors, and it's very important for us to have that close relationship because the way, we've built a company, our services built purpose built for the mobile phone in
your pocket, so that it just works. And the key there is to be deeply integrated with the operator and solve the operator's problem so they can deliver value to their customers. So we're organized today around getting service out next year, and we're currently have about five satellites in orbit. We just announced our plans to deliver number six and seven to the launch pad and as you said earlier, we're looking to put up forty five to sixty by
the end of next year. And so this capability is very important in the United States but also around the world.
Well, tell us like who you anticipate or who are right now your biggest customers. I'm curious about commercial, residential, and I'm also curious about government.
Well, that's right. And the important thing about our company too is you know, space has historically been a bit of a niche. You know, if you live in a rural area or if you're on a plane and you want connectivity, there are nice little markets there. But this
is about going to the mass market. The six billion mobile phones in the world, and so that goes for people who live, work, and travel go in and out of coverage who have greater ability to pay and want that convenience, as well as people who live perhaps in rural areas who don't have good connectivity or are one to pay a little bit more a month to have cellular broadband. Again, this is not a text service. This is a cellular broadband service that we'll be selling. So
that's our US and really developed economy story. When you go around the world, there's many countries though, where there's over two billion people today who don't have good three G or better service on their phones. That means two G or nothing, and so market by market, our services valuable to the users and the operators who support those
end users. And then you mentioned US government. That's been a relatively new ad to our story in the last two years, but given the defense and space backdrop in the United States, this is something that's been front and center for US for the last two years, and we're already providing services to the US government for a more bit.
So, Scott, you probably know this little company called SpaceX that is out there and I'm just curious. They did a deal with Echo Star. They became the first company to a mask control of the satellite constellations in outer space, the launch infrastructures to deliver them there, and the potential for direct connections with mobile devices on the ground. So there's SpaceX. There are kind of the big behemoth there, the big player. There's you guys, there's Amazon dot Com
is global stock in the race for ubiquitous covers. How do you plan to compete with starlink, which already has thousands of satellites in orbit.
Right, and I think for the lame and it's important to distinguish between service to a dish that you might put on your house or on a car or on a plane, and then the phone in your pocket. Right, we all have Wi Fi at home, and then we have a cell phone for when we're on the go. So this is a market, the cellular market from space that's brand new. You've seen some players start to enter it, including Apple and Starlink, but we've been at this for
about eight years. This solution is tailor made, purpose built for this solution. This is not an add on news service for us. This is all we do and that's why we've been able to garner such incredible support from network operators globally, like like at and T and Verizon in the US, Votaphone in Europe, racketin Mobile in Japan, Bell Canada who we just announced cellular broadband testing in from Canada today with who's also an investor in US.
So these are capabilities that have been developed with the network operator in mind. We are focused on making their network better so that they can deliver the value to the customer.
Are you not saying that you're competing with SpaceX and Starlink, that you're completely different businesses.
Well, we plan to go after the cellular user through the mobile network operator. They also have a strategy, as you said, that they're pursuing. But this is a market that we think is big. It's gonna be worth tens
of billions of dollars. There's six billion phones out of there that out in the world to go in and out of coverage, and all of us know that feeling when we don't have a signal, it's you're helpless, and so we think that and all of our over fifty network operator partners think that this is something that really enhances the value of the cellul other plan that almost all of us have, certainly in the United States, and so that is a strategy.
That's good.
That's going to be a nice robust market and we expect with our technology to be the leader in that because we're doing broadband from space.
You mentioned your work with the US government over the last two years. Can you expand on that a little bit? What exactly are you doing for the US government?
Yeah, so it's probably worth taking a step back. You know, we currently operate the five largest satellites and lower Earth orbit commercially. You know that lower orbit for the layman is. You know, that's what the space station is. It's much closer to the planet. It's that lag you experienced when you have a geosynchronous satellite. LEO solves all that. So
we have the largest satellites deployed in lowerth orbit. The one we're shipping to the launch pad in two weeks is three times the size, over twenty four hundred square feet. So this is a unique technology that was developed to talk to the small phone and to do it well and to navigate cellular air crowded cellular airwaves. But it
also has other applications. So with our US government business, we see up to ten different use cases, both communications and non communications that can support the US government mission for defense, and importantly, one of the ones we're testing in orbit today and we've been doing it for over a year, has really strategic and valuable implications, including potentially for the Golden Dome project.
You also mentioned the notion that it's not just texting and being able to make calls. This is broadband delivered from a satellite to wherever you are in the world. That's the idea here. What is the experience using the phone in that environment and how could that be different or similar than using a five GLTE network. What are the speeds we're talking here?
That's right, And so from the beginning, and this again, this is why we've been partnered with the network operators. They've been in the room with us, testing and developing this tech for five plus years. And what means is we're integrated on the back end. You remember, everyone's got a vision in their mind of calls in the old days,
where someone would be connecting the call and doing this. Well, that technology still exists in the world, it's just done with serve and with software, and so we're deeply integrated on that side of the business so that the phone just works. And so this is a native cellular broadband experience. The user doesn't know that there's a difference unless we
want them to. And they can do text calling, native calling, video streaming, and they can do all these applications and it feels just like you're using your phone on an LT in five G network. So how fast?
Like what are we talking megabits per second here? Up and down?
So we've tested over twenty megabits per second to the cell in the past couple of years with our satellites in orbit with the you know, there was mention of a spectrum deal a moment ago. We did our own spectrum transaction earlier this year, a very similar type of spectrum, which is about forty plus megahertz in the United States, and with forty megahertz we can deliver one hundred and
twenty megabits to the cell on the ground. Now, how you manage all the network traffic and how do you go to market is a critical decision we make with our partners around the world, including in the United States. But there's only one way to get broadband capabilities from space, and that's with a big satellite, and we have the biggest.
On the connection side of things. We're wondering too about the experience of being inside and outside. Anyone who's used like a garment head unit, for example, on a bike knows that you have to use it outside to get the cell signal. Can this coverage go inside buildings?
That's right, we can do one wall in. So some of the success factors for that are the fact that again we have a big satellite and we also use low band spectrum. That's part of our partnership with AT and T and Verizon is combining some low band spectrum that they have from decades ago, and so the low band spectrum propagation characters are the best, and as you go into midband even then it's still pretty good. So we can do about one wall in, which means a building, means a car, means a plane.
Ah okay, that's what we were because I think there were some folks like kind of messaging what is he talking about? Hey, you mentioned that you guys have picked up spectrum forty megahertz. Do you want to buy any more if some comes up for auction.
Well, in the space world, there's two big bands of spectrum that matter. It's called L and S. We just purchased long term access to the L band in the United States and Canada earlier this year, and that gives us a big chunk of spectrum, the biggest available in the most valuable wireless mark in the world, which is the US. We also purchased an international filing that allows us to go around the world and pick up other pieces of spectrum for Space, So we're pretty happy with
our spectrum position now for those two moves. This again is consistent with our historical strategy of sharing cellular spectrum with the operators, but it gives us more lanes of traffic and the ability to do better services to more subscribers. So we like our strategy in both of those two bands that matter.
All Right, We've got to run, so appreciate this deep dive. I hope you'll come back keep us abreast of what you guys are working on.
That was Scott was Newski, president of AST Space Mobile.
Still ahead on Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Pharmaceutical stocks popping up this week on actions by the White House.
Visors committing to for all of the infrascriptured medications to Medicaid. It will be at the most favored nations. Prices is going to have a new Jim back to on bringing Medicaid costs down.
And talk of cheaper drugs for Americans. That's next. This is Bloomberg.
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Wall Street had long feared that President Trump would follow through with threats to impose aggressive drug pricing policies, eroding the pharmaceutical industry's profitability and depressing share prices. Those feares, though largely laid to rest this week after Pfizer cut a deal with the White House, the company negotiating a three year reprieve on drug import tariffs in exchange for a promise to reduce what it charges Medicaid. Here's why.
As your CEO Albert Borla at the White House alongside President Trump.
The big winner of this deal clearly will be the American pace. There is no doubt about it. They are the ones that will see significant impact in their ability to buy medicines. But I would argue that it is not the only winner. I think who else is a winner here? It is American innovation and American economy.
Another meeting next week on this. We have another great company coming in similar kind of numbers, but we're going to show you some one thousand percent drops in prices. There has never been anything like this in the history of medicine.
That was President Trump you just heard, and Pfizer CEO Albert Borla. I just hope my high school math teacher is not listening about a thousand percent drop.
Yeah.
Now, because we're not going to get into for another day the math mathing there, Let's bring in Damien Garde. He's Bloomberg News health reporter. He's been very busy, He's taken some time to join us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Are drug price is going to go down as a result of this.
For the vast majority of Americans. No, I sincerely doubt it. There is no reason to conclude that based on what we learned at least yesterday from Albert Borla in the Oval Office and the promises that Pfiser has made. We can get into the nitty gritty, but I think the main thing the promise to Medicaid. An important caveat there is that patients on Medicaid Medicaid already pays the lowest available in the United States. It is legally obligated to
get that. So the notion that Pfeiser making a commitment to lower that further would change the out of pocket costs for patients, I just don't think there's much there. And furthermore, in terms of Pfiser's business only about five percent of that business accounts for doing business with medicaid.
That's where business probably too many times. And I think the main thing that should drive the reaction here is that in this announcement, Pfizer, which has a fiduciary duty to maximize its profits and to update shareholders on its guidance, did not update its guidance. The company said this thing that ostensibly means we're going to make less money, at least that's how the president characterized it, but didn't actually say we're going to make less money, which of course
legally they're required to do. I feel like that through line is maybe the lens maybe not cynicism, but the lens of reality that people should look at these announcements.
Look no further than the share price reaction.
I said, yes, sir, I'm like, why is this stock rallying? They're going to make less money. I just made no sense. Everyone's like, well, it's all about the Tireff thing, and I'm like, true, and that is certainly a part of it. But I'm like, they're going to make less money. How can this be a good thing?
Right?
So, I think the relief that you're seeing in the share price reaction is twofold or maybe even threefold one. It alleviates the threat that the Trump administration was really going to come down hard with an aggressive policy that would be on the books, that would really constrain what
drug companies could charge. Instead, we get this voluntary, relatively vague promise from Pfizer that is expected to set a template for the company's peers, Eli, Lilly, Murck, etc. They will probably all have their day at the Oval Office to do a similar kind of dog and pony show. And then furthermore, what's established is that if you make
those promises, you get a reprieve from tariffs. Which is the other kind of overhang for the entire sector, is this fear that the import of medicines from Europe would face levies of the President has said one hundred two hundred percent, the notion that if you just go out there and say we're going to follow what the administration wants on drug pricing, we get that alleviation.
Debbie, just quickly, just to be fair, I mean, has Pfizer come back and said this is going to impact us financial or it's not going to invit haven't gotten any clarification from the company on this.
They have not there hasn't been a follow on filing with the SEC kind of making clear that they're restating any guidance. And furthermore, what they've said is that the terms of their agreement with the White House are confidential, so respectfully, we can only conclude what's been said publicly.
Damien sit Ti, We're going to bring in Angie Frank. She's CEO of the private health company calder Rose. The firm does drug discount management. It uses AI as well as communicating with different parties involved in the negotiating process to get consumers the best prices. She joins us from Wisconsin. Angie, I'll ask you the same question that I asked Damien, because you're right in the middle of this drug pricing thing.
Are drug price is going to come down as a result of what we saw at the White House yesterday.
I think what Damian said there's some truth to that.
I think at the end of the day, we won't all feel it immediately, but I do think.
Drug prices are going to come down.
I think the announcement yesterday is a big change to the system, and it is the first step in what I think will be multiple steps were certainly opening up more channels for patients to access their drugs at more affordable prices. And I think the underlying the Medicaid price that states currently pay is going to come down based on Pfizer's announcement yesterday.
Well that's interesting. What would the mechanism for that be, because that's what I found myself wondering even yesterday in the announcement, which granted was lacking key details for obvious reasons. Is very new, but why would this kind of set in motion a snowball that would end with patients paying less at the pharmacy count?
Yeah?
Yeah, so I think, you know, if you look at the overall list prices starting to come down to an MFN like number, and that openings yes most favored nations exactly, and that opening up more channels for patients to access their drugs at lower rates. I do think the direct model that the the website that was also announced, which opens up a channel for patients to be purchasing directly at lower.
Costs, could really have a.
Ripple effect on the way benefits are offered and how employers and self insured employers start constructing benefit plans that give their employees access to drugs, which may bypass other players in the system, the traditional players in the system, middlemen that have been making money off of off of drug pricing and discounts and rebate models that really didn't
benefit patients directly. So I think I think the new channels being opened up and the new price point at mac's most favored nation will over the longer term, have a pretty significant impact.
Nothing confuses me as much as like picking up prescription and cupons and pharmacy benefits, and I don't know, it's just kind of crazy, Damien. The PBMs, the pharmacy benefit managers, they are being looked at closely like another layer that drives up costs, and so that is certainly part of the narrative here. So does that potentially remove that in what we heard from the president and the CEO of Pfizer yesterday, But then throw in this trump OURX, Like what role is that play.
That we need to see play out? But I think through the eyes of Pfizer and certainly people in the pharmaceutical industry, there is an optimism and maybe a hope that the agreement announced, if in fact it's a template for other companies, will shift the White House's attention away from pharmaceutical manufacturers and toward the PBMs and the other middleman that you mention. And I think to Angie's point, there is a potential that trump our X, this sort
of direct to patient offering that we've heard about. You know, there are arguments is suggest how popular that might be. How many people who don't have insurance would be willing to pay out of pocket hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year for a medicine.
Is that what trump our X would offer is an insurance like this is not covered by insurance.
It would be a cash pay business. And so we assume that the majority of customers for it would be uninsured or underinsured, because otherwise they could get the drum it's much cheaper through their insurance carrier. But the opportunity, I realize we're getting kind of in weeds here. The opportunity is that if one of those direct offerings we're selling instead to employers rather than patients themselves, then they
would be truly bypassing the middlemend that exists. This is sort of the Mark Cuban model that he's as drugs exactly. So if Trump and you know, I'm using my imagination here. This is not something anybody's announced. If trump Orex, the website that has not yet launched but has been described, were to expand its aperture to include employers, then we could be talking about legitimate savings for all parties involved and a huge change to the way it's done.
Now, Angie, come on back in here and talk a little bit about the innovation side of things, because Albert Borla at the White House said it's not just the American patient that who will be a big winner, but it would also be the American innovation and the American economy. Perhaps there are those out there who might say, okay, well, if companies, drug companies aren't able to make as much money from the drugs that they sell, R and D
in this space might suffer. We know it's expensive run the clinical trials and to do the the R and D. What do you think it means for American innovation when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
Well, I think it was great. I agree with Albert on all points. I think it's great for America that we're moving manufacturing and that level of innovation, job.
Creation, et cetera to the US.
When you when you simplify the supply chain and the pricing mechanisms for for our current you know, drug pricing model. When you simplify that today there's that we lack so much transparency and how prices are established and who gets which price, And to your point earlier, Carol, where you mentioned you know, the coupons and the copays and all these things are so confusing. They're confusing by by design. People are making a lot of money off of that
confusion and that opacity. When you simplify and drive more transparency, you have less waste in the system, and that waste will feed the top the funnel. That will be dollars that can go directly to the top of the innovation funnel and enable manufacturers to continue to work on and innovate more drugs and more medication therapies that help patients with you know, life saving and life changing conditions.
So it takes two and a half.
Billion dollars to bring a drug to market, So every dollar of waste compromises our ability to invest in.
More and more therapy.
So I think it's going to have a tremendous impact over the long run.
And you just got about a minute left. I mean, just talk to us about what you do. It's a data engine, it's information you have. It looks like a couple of different constituencies that you work with. But just give us an idea and what that tells you about kind of the drug industry and drug pricing industry, what you have been seeing.
Yeah, we really have a technology platform where re ingest you know, large volumes of data. We apply logic and rules around various pricing programs and discounts and rebates, and then we ensure price integrity that the right price is going to the right set of patients and the right.
For that particular therapy.
So we're really driving quite a bit of price integrity in the system. The constituents that we work with include both pharmaceutical manufacturers and providers, and we really believe fundamentally that ensuring that the providers and the manufacturers can work more closely directly together benefits Americans, benefits patients, benefits innovation.
Our thanks to Damian Garday, Bloomberg News health reporter and Angie Frank's, CEO of the private health company Caldero's, which focuses on drug discount management.
And that wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio, coming up in the next sixty minutes. This past week was full of stories and news in the consumer tech gadget space. It all coming at us from Amazon's device overhaul to take on Apple and also something on Peloton's price hike, so.
Putting a ceramic ring on it courtesy of Aura and the thing Mark German really wanted to talk about. Plus meet the parents, foreign buyers and all cash consumers buying up luxury apartments in New York City.
And how did sheat onlooking your best? You will be shocked literally what you need to know about the Catalyst suit. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim stenevec Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily, reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.
Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including Thanks Mom and Dad for the apartment, just one of the trends going on in the New York City real estate market.
And you may look like a superhero wearing it, and it just might supercharge your muscles while doing so. Our own Chris Rouser takes the Catalyst suit for a spin.
First up Fall. Maybe the time when the air gets cool and Starbucks tries to get you to buy the Pumpkins spice latte, But it also means it's the time the consumer tech companies show off their latest wares ahead of the holiday shopping season, and this year there was no exception.
With what you need to know on it all, we were joined by Bloomberg News Managing editor for Global Consumer Tech Mark German on the good, the bad, and what Mark says will be the device of the holiday season.
These are the Meta RAE band displays. These are metas first display glasses. I haven't set them up yet, they just came into the office. These are the first mainstream smart glasses with a screen and the lens. We've talked about them significantly and then it has what's called the neural wristband. You put this around your wrist and that allows you to track your finger movements in your motion in order to navigate the user interface of the glasses.
So I'm actually really excited to diving in really using them and eventually publishing my review. Three eight hundred dollars they went on sale. It's some ray band and lens crafter stores, best buy stores. So excited to dive into these.
What's the learning curve using this mark? How do you have to be trained to use it? Do you have to do a demo to use it? Can you just use it out of the box? Is this Is it going to be easy for consumers?
Yeah, they think that you need this crazy demo, and so they're not letting anyone buy it who doesn't get the demo. I got the demo at Meta's headquarters a few weeks ago, so they were pretty comfortable with me just getting out of the box. There's probably going to be some sort of They tell me a video that plays on the glasses that you know when you first do the first boot, tells you how to use the thing.
There's a little bit of a learning curve. Fifteen twenty minutes or so on the learning curve as well, And so it's going to take a little bit of time to get used to it if you're new to it, to get it up and running. But I think people will eventually like this technology. My hope is eventually it moves to a hand an eye tracking like setup so you don't need the neural wristband, something similar to how
the vision pro is operated. But definitely, I think this is a category that's going to take off unbelievable.
I know when you talked about this last time, I mean kind of I think both of us were blown away and looking at your video that was on the Bloomberg about how to use it learning curves. You know, there's these videos to kind of have, you know, we figure out how to use things. But when I think about learning curves, Peloton, I feel like is still on a learning curve. And the stock has swung. They're upping prices. Explain this to us and is this the way forward for this company?
So it's a mixed bag, right. The stock is down probably because of the changes in pricing. They hiped prices between a couple hundred bucks and seven hundred bucks in the I end depending on which bikes or treadmills you're looking to purchase. They hiked subscriptions between a couple bucks and five bucks, depending on which subscription you're getting. So Wall Street doesn't like that because that's going to lead to regression, even more regression in terms of user numbers.
It's going to lead to people leaving their subscriptions, it's going to lead to people maybe not wanting to buy the devices themselves because of the higher price points. And so, you know, Wall Street usually likes a price hike, but in terms of Peloton, they really seem to despise it. On the other side of the coin, I think the
hardware that they rolled out today is extraordinarily impressive. This new CEO has been in the building for a little bit less than ten months actually, I think maybe ten months to the day today, and they've got five or six new hardware devices. Under the prior CEO who was there two and a half years or so, they did basically nothing in terms of new product launches or innovation.
So I think they deserve a lot of credit for working overtime and really fast to get this new equipment out, and so we'll see what really happens with these user numbers based on these price increases, but clearly Wall Street is terrified.
Okay, let's move on to another wearable in the Aura Ring, a five hundred dollars version of its smart ring, this one ceramic. We should remind everyone a lot of this stuff coming out right now because this is the holiday season. This is when people do holiday shopping. We traditionally get a lot of new devices and gadgets out during this time. Mark this new URR ring. I was surprised that Aura has such a high valuation now raised money. Bloomberg News
reported on this in recent weeks. What can you tell us about this ring and what it does for the business or could do for the business.
I think it's going to do nothing for the business. This is absolutely the same ring they launched. I think it was last October. It's the Worr Ring four. It's just coming out in a new finish that's one hundred dollars more expensive, So it's the ceramic finish. I have the ceramic blue one arriving at the office tomorrow, so looking forward to taking that for a spin as well to see if there is anything more meaningful about it.
But this is just probably a marketing lever and maybe raise ASP slightly.
Okay, five hundred dollars for.
A smart ring, interesting price point, Let's see what happens. But ours are really fantastic business. But the problem is is that there are ten billion dollars in terms of the evaluation right now. So they're too expensive to get acquired right and they're they're not worth enough to be like some major hardware company. But they're they're getting there. They need more types of devices, they need to expand beyond rings into other types of hardware.
Yeah.
I was going to say when it comes to things like this technology devices consumer tech mark, I mean, are we that easy?
You know?
You just put a different finish on and we're like, yeah, I'm going to spend the money. We're not that easy, are we?
Uh depends sometimes maybe, I don't know, We'll see. I don't think people are going to buy the ceramic version. I think it's going to be super niche. I think people are more into a couple of hundred dollar version. The reason these are doing so well is because of like FSA, HSAY whatever accounts. People are using that to buy these devices, and then a lot of people maybe not a lot of people, but some people have the
AMX Platinum and the AMX plat. They just did their big price increase and part of that there's like a two hundred dollars annual or a ring credit on there now unfortunately, and they should change this. That doesn't work with the subscription. You have to pay like six or seven bucks a month to use an Aura or seventy dollars a year, but the two hundred a year you get from AMX it's kind of a scam because you need to buy the new hardware and Aura doesn't come
out with new hardware every year. That's neither here nor there, but that might be driving some purchases too.
Is this is this is Aura? I mean, and you wrote the story, you know, just a couple of weeks ago about the multi billion dollar valuation. Is this a hardware company or is it a software company software as a service.
Well, it's both. They would be kind of they would be fine if they didn't have this subscription, But it's really the subscription and the annual subscription in particular, that I think it is driving things. You know, they always say hardware is hard Hardware is very bad margin wise, it's not a good business. But when you're able to put a software product on top of it that has a ninety percent margin, you're in pretty good shape. This is why Apple shifted to services almost a decade ago now,
because they knew that Harward sales were flatlining. They knew margins could potentially go down. They knew they would have to adjust prices, and the way to create recurring revenue is putting something on top that's necessary. And Aura and whoop and some other peloton, of course is the post child of this. Have figured out this hardware plus software business model.
All right, Speaking of hardware, let's go to your story that's out about Amazon overhauling its devices to take on Apple and the AI era. What do we need to know and what kind of stood out for you?
They look really cool. I think I think Panos, he's the SVP of hardware now at Amazon and Alexa and Services, has done a really nice job on redesigning the hardware at the Echoes and the Echo shows three new kindle scribes. These are kindles that you can read on, but you can also write on and drawn. It's sort of like a scratch pad. I think they looked terrific. And these are going to do pretty well. The new Color Scribe six hundred and thirty dollars is the most expensive Kindled
device ever. I think, actually the most expensive device from Amazon since the failed virophone from a decade ago. I think it's going to do really well for me. I actually like this new mid tier Kindlescribe. It has a backlight. It looks like real, really nice bright white paper, but obviously digital. So I might get one of those to do some reading. I need to go back to reading, and maybe I'll get one of those for the holidays.
Tell me all, I s I need some books.
Mark.
In the meantime, just very briefly, we didn't get a chance to talk about the Nest branded hardware again. I said it would be sort of round the world with Mark German. In terms of tech devices. What do we need to know about Alphabet's lineup?
It's kind of whatever. The most interesting thing to me is they announced this hundred dollars speaker, but it doesn't come out until the spring, which I guess is anywhere between March and the end of May. Why they released it so early, announced it so early before the release only, I don't know.
God knows.
I guess they wanted to just tell a more cohesive story and try to get out in front of some of the Apple announcements coming up in the next several months. Moving to two K video quality, I think that's good. Ring at Amazon the other day or yesterday they announced four K video, So it's kind of interesting to the Amazon and Google are completely two different spectrums of video quality in the same week.
Hey, really quickly twenty thirty seconds. What do you think is going to be the big hot consumer tech item this holiday shopping season?
Ooh, smart glasses. I think the Reban meta glasses I think are going to do pretty well. And of course the iPhone seventeen pro has just been blockbuster for Apple. They can't make them fast enough, so this is really big stuff for Apple this year.
Hey, we're speaking with Mark German, and he's Bloomberg News Managing editor for Global Consumer Tech. He joins us from a Los Angeles Mark more on the H one B story. You know, we saw so many tech CEOs just a couple of weeks ago at the White House at that dinner. I was surprised to see a decision such as this from the President, given that it would affect the companies
that these individuals run so negatively. Why don't you think we've heard a collective message from the tech community on the H one B visa issue yet?
Oh?
I mean, Tim, you know the answer to that. It's because they're scared of Donald Trump and they don't want to push back on this H one visa issue only for Trump to hit back at them with tariffs or starting to charge Apple more tariffs than they're already paying today.
Right.
I think they are worried if they fight on this issue, they'll come back and be hit harder on other issues, maybe issues that they consider more fundamental to their lobbying efforts. You're not going to see Apple push back publicly against this H one B issue. They would have done so already. Instead, they're going to work with lobbyists and other groups behind the scenes to have them do their bidding for them. But you're not going to see them push back publicly. That's not going to happen.
That was Mark German, managing editor for Global Consumer Tech. After we spoke to Mark on it Wednesday, he reported that Apple has hit pause on a planned overhaul to its Vision pro headset to redirect resources toward a more urgent effort developing smart glasses that can rival products from Meta platform.
The smart glass war it is on.
He loves these things from Meta.
It's like, right, we talked about all these things when we had him join us, and wait, wait you guys, I don't.
Want to talk about it about everything. I want to talk about this olast on these classes. I mean, he told us this a couple of weeks ago when he was, you know, at their headquarters trying these for the first time. He said, these are these are game changing.
He's a tough audience, and so when he's really into something, you know, you really take notice. All right, everybody, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. Thanks mom and dad for the apartment and hey, thanks everybody for paying all cash for apartments.
It's just one of the trends, or maybe a couple of the trends happening in the NYC real estate market. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Mortgage It's in the US rose at the end of September for the first time since July, shifting direction after steady string of declines. Now, even with that uptick, borrowing costs as still around their lowest levels in almost a year, creating opportunities for both house hunters and owners seeking to refinance.
In Manhattan, home sales jumped to the highest level in more than two years, as affluent buyers, armed with cash thanks to a boost from the stock boom and last year's rich Wall Street bonuses, forged ahead on deals. For an update on the New York City real estate picture, we recently checked in with Louise Phillips Forbes. She's a real estate broker with Brown Harris Stevens. She's been in the industry for more than three decades and its close to six billion dollars in sales.
Look, my old motto is, you know, marry your home in date threeate and have that motto.
I mean, wait, marry the home and date the rate.
Yes, I mean I had my first mortgage, Guys, my first mortgage was like eight point three five or something, and I had it as low as two point eight five. And you know, so and so I just think that I think it's about getting educated in the buying power ships. And I always say, certainly in the last eighteen months. I'm like, listen, guys, it's okay to buy when interest rates are high if you can afford the carry for a period of time, you were paying less for the home than if it was lower.
But some people have been carrying that for like three years now and they thought, Okay, well I can do this with like a seven year arm and it'll retel drops.
They haven't, but they are, and those individuals got much more home if they are inconvenience. Listen. I had a roommate when I bought my apartment first because to me, it was about owning my home instead of renting. So we make compromises, and you don't go on that extra trip for you if you want to be in that school district for your kids. So those decisions were made and have been being made. But the market, you know, is definitely this fall is feeling, there's an energy in
it despite it being an election. Oh you about New York City, New York City our market specifically?
Yeah, sorry, Now I am curious though when it comes to activity, are there multiple bids? Still Give us an idea, give us some color around.
Sectors happening in some cases yes, square sector well, I think that the one bedroom market. I mean, listen, I did a development project that I converted and I've got a couple of left at three ninety three Western Avenue, a seven hundred and ninety two square foot one bedroom just rented for seven thousand dollars. Oh, so if you can own, try to own. So the one bedroom market has seen especially if you have low carrying costs. They are seeing multiple bids. Anything under two million is also
very efficient if it's priced right. If you're not priced right, it's not happening. And the market is very knowledgeable and observant, meaning buyers.
What about the higher end, what are you seeing with foreign buyers? We love to talk to you about where those buyers are coming from us.
It depends on what country, but they are they've doubled in the last year.
We have at what level?
I think that the lower end, we don't have the olive arts necessarily, but but you have people who are looking for the future and want to pull money out of their government or their country.
Where are they coming from?
Mexico, Ukraine. We've seen for myself a lot from Korea and a lot from China.
So okay, So we love to talk obviously real estate, but also politics and how it is. So give us an idea because that's interesting. In terms of foreign buying, have you noticed an uptick in terms of the political wins?
How well?
I think. I have somebody trying to purchase a piece of property from me who basically says, I'm concerned about out the mayor, and they're trying to buy from from Jakarta, and I'm like, how much you know? Like were you here when de Blasio was here?
Were you here.
When you know We've lived through difficult mayors or mayors that were not pro real estate. But I think that it becomes a conversation for people as a negotiating tool more so than it's preventing them from making a decision.
So I find that it's negotiating. So if they want to buy something, somebody has some pressure to say reduce the price, because yes.
And if I've been on the market for sixty days, which I have on this piece of property and it's still sitting and they're like, listen, I'm happy to pay this, I'm not going to pay that, and I'm not concerned. I'm happy to wait till after the mayoral election, and the truth of the matter is that people if you look at the rhythm of deals historically these elections, there is a surge afterwards, but it doesn't change the result no matter what the result is.
What happened during the Deplasio administration to real estate, you made reference.
To it, I just think that I just think that they were decisions that were not collaborative. And if you think about in twenty nineteen, I mean the the rental law of twenty nineteen that prevents conversions from occurring, that was all actually Cuomo and Cuomo is not that far from the policies that Mandami is holding. And I would say that in my interpretation, in my understanding, that a lot of politicians in these times make a lot of promises that are not actually able to be accomplished in
the manner that they're trying to. The collaboration of the state is necessary, exactly.
I'm glad you brought that up, because that's one time. Time is like you need to have all money on board to make a lot of these things happen. So it might sound look, I'm not talking about any specific candidate in particutionar, but you know there are promises that are made on a campaign trail. If you don't have buy in from Albany, you're not necessarily going to be able to enact those policies for sure.
And I think that that is that is by design so that there can be simpatico between the two or negotiations of those two offices. But I just think that how to accomplish better housing, you can look at the things like for the eighty five, the new tax that has just come in, it's our new four to twenty one,
which is affordable housing. I think that the restrictions that have been put forth into that new tax abatement, it may not lead to as much housing as we're hoping because of some things like there, if you do a union more than one hundred unit building, your minimum income I mean yournum minimum wage goes up costing twenty percent
additional hard cost. So it's just a delicate balance. And I just remember the days when you want a developer Boughder certificate and somebody sold it to somebody else and they do what they do, which is build amazing affordable housing, and it's just gotten a lot more complicated.
Yeah, it's a I mean, I just feel like when it comes to a lot of major cities right, affordable housing. It's just it's something we've been talking about for I feel.
Like forever, and you can't do it. One politician can't do it. It has to be the state, it has to be the city, and it has to be the city assembly.
In a longer term, you know, commitment to doing it. We are talking with Louise Phillips Forbes. She's real estate broker Brown Harris Stevens here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. A couple of rapid fires. So homestaying on the market longer, yes or no? Like in the I know compared to I guess.
It's shortened in the first two quarters, elongated a little bit in the summer, and it seems to be a little more efficient in the upcoming weeks that we've seen in September, although it's hard to figure that out based on the Jewish holidays as well as getting back to school.
So first time home buyers are we seeing more.
Of them older than they've been in a long time, averages forty years?
All right? What about parents buying places for.
Kids all day long? So all day long, and it's not for it's with and even grandparents, because honestly, the conversations and the council that I've had with some family members is you can give it to them after you're.
Gone, or they can enjoy it today.
And I just had that happen today and accepted offer where we're facilitating that, and I mean I have a I mean I talked to my kids about that also. I mean, they really want to work hard for what they have, but I would rather be with them enjoying it and they and I'm there debt. I am their institutional debt.
All right.
Another one I just want to ask you real quickly, cash buying, all cash still strong.
Cash is king?
Is that the foreign folks or not necessarily most of them are foreign, But that's okay.
They they that is typical because of how they pull that money out. It's also too complicated to try to get credit for them if they're not a residence that makes sense. So so cash is still king for them. But again it is really we're we're doing we're doing deals that are through a trust and they're the they're the institution, they're the bank, so they're coming across as cash.
That's my rapid fire list.
Okay, I just want to make sure that all that one that's like that has that might have a little longer of an answer. Consolidation in the industry. So the big news this week Compass is buying Anywhere for one and a half billion dollars anywhere. People might not be familiar with the parent company, but they own Coldboralt Banker, Corkoran and Southeby's International Realty. How does that change your world? At Brown Harris Stevens.
And we've all been observing the Zillow Compass battle around the private listing and you know, let's sake, claic rumor was it and I don't know if it's factual or not, but Berkshire Hathway was what the original hope of the first choice for Compass to acquire when that was not possible anywhere. You know, they have a lot of debt and that that senior debt. It's only a stock exchange. What it does for them in the New York market is they're capturing forty percent of that market.
It'll be interesting.
But as.
You know, Compare they're smaller, but they're they're national, and I would say that you know, it gives them a stronghold on a market that they really want.
So how much of New York City does will Compass.
Have forty percent of the market share right after the acquisition, And I think that what I would say to that, And again, bigger is not always better. It's really hard to maintain culture. And there are one hundred and seventy nine thousand new agents, And how do you feel special?
You know?
And I mean Robert Repkin is an impressive young man and a a major operator and a visionary, so I respect and admire him. I'm not a fan of the private listing platform.
That was Louise Phillips Forbes, real estate broker with Brown Harris Stevens. She specializes in New York City.
All right, everybody's still ahead. On Bloomberg BusinessWeek, what Bloomberg's Chris Rouser calls the little cheat when it comes to feeling fit.
I discovered the Catalyst suit, which is an EMS suit. It's a stemsuit, like you like physical therapists use after you get an injury. They kind of zap your muscles with electricity and it encourages your muscles to work harder. More of it tenses up, and then it heals.
It heals stronger, winds Us along with the owner of Catalyst, maker of the Catalyst Suit. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Daily with Carol Masser and Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Well, it's the jolt that tickles your muscles, and suit it up in the Catalyst Jen for you might look a bit like one of the Avengers. It's pretty cool. It is all part of looking and feeling your best. As Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser writes about the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week with Pursuits devoted to the pursuit of wellness. Here with Morris Chris Rouser along with Brendan Kennedy, the CEO of Monte Mayer, it's the owner
of Catalyst, and they both are here in our studio. Welcome, Welcome. First of all, I got to start with you, Chris. How did this come on your radar? I mean, I know you are always kind of the king when it comes to things that you can try to feel better to look back.
Yeah, I'm a fitness person, I'm a wellness person. I'll try anything once. If you ask me to do a form of exercise with you, I will do it. So I've done everything solid core, PHYZEQ fifty seven, zoomba, you name it, I've done it, hot yoga, hotter yoga.
And something in a chair yo.
Yes, yes, there was briefly a PILATEUS studio in Manhattan called Shaes twenty three because you did all the exercises in a chair and it was on twenty third Street. So at the beginning of the year, I just was thinking about how overwhelming wellness has gotten. There's endless podcasts, The Manisphere podcasts are just like telling you so many
different things every week to do. There's businesses where you can spend like seven thousand dollars a month where you go and you get tested for all the stuff every month, get ai to tell you what to eat and what exercise. Just feels very overwhelming. And I thought, Okay, what's the response to that.
What is my response to that.
I want to cheat, I want to cheat code, I want an easy way out.
I want to hack.
And so we got the whole Pursuits team together to think to like go out and do research and figure out what like the hot wellness hacks right now that makes it easier for you because at the end of the day. What you really need to do is exercise, You need to sleep, you need to talk to people, and you need to eat. Well, that's basically all you need to do. So like, what are the things that can sort of hack your into doing those more easily? And so as I was doing my research, I discovered
the Catalyst suit, which is an EMS suit. It's a stimsuit like you like physical therapists use after you get an injury. They kind of zap your muscles with electricity and it encourages your muscles to work harder. More of it tenses up, and then it heals stronger. And so that technology is now a suit that you can wear and you can do workouts and it like supercharges your workouts.
Okay, I know the guy who owns the company is sitting right here, but I'm still going to put you on the spot, Crisp, because I see technology like this and I'm like, yeah, does it actually work?
I have to tell you it actually works.
You're not just saying muscles through my blazer, but it really totally works. I did it for six months after having a pair of injuries. I had foot surgery. You guys, remember I fractured my elbow I was like out of the gym for months. I felt kind of bummed about it, and it really got me back going. Yeah, you really see results that it helped my posture. I lost weight, gain muscle.
All right, So Brendan, come on in. You are the owner of Catalyst. Talk to us about this device, kind of how it came to be and tell us little bit about the business.
Yeah.
So I joined EMS about four years ago, and I was a little skeptical at first too. My wife had used it about seven years ago.
EMS is electric electric electrical muscle stimulation.
Exactly, and just like a doctor or physical therapist will put STEM on you to heal a muscle. It's the same time technology and doctors have been using it for sixty years. If you go to Europe, there are ms studios where there's thousands of them where people will go in and work out. I went in skeptically and tried it about four years ago during COVID and it's amazing
for me. It compresses time. I can get two hour workout workout that would normally take me two hours in a gym, I can do it in twenty minutes and it's a whole body workout. It hits the little muscles in your back that you might miss in a gym or skip leg day. Is your whole body, twenty six pads at once, and it stimulates your muscle. Just like your brain sends a signal to your muscle to contract, the suit sends the same muscles, the same signals, and
it hits ninety percent of your muscles. And so it's amazing and it works. It's efficient, it's fast, it's safe, and it compresses time for me.
So you were a client, I was a class who became an investor, and now you're the owner.
Yes, it's something I'm really passionate about. I use it three days a week, so twenty minutes each time, basically an hour a week. That little prep, a little clean up, but compared to changing and driving to a gym and working out for two hours, I can do it in twenty minutes. I can do it at home. I travel with it.
It's spectacular, all right.
So what does it cost?
So the suit retails for three thousand dollars. There's an app, and there's trainers on the app, so you pick. I want to focus on strength, I want to focus on cardio. Maybe I'm going to focus on my oar legs or my ad. I'm fifty years old. I've worked out in gyms for forty years. This is the first I've done Ironman. I've done marathons, I've done every kind of fitness activity you can do. I'm very active. This is the first time I've had ABS at fifty three, right, It's never
happened before. It's all because of suit. I can turn up the abs and hit those hit those muscles. Three thousand dollars. You follow a trainer on the app and that person leads you through a twenty minute workout.
People might know you from your days in cannabis, medical cannabis specifically. You were one of the co founders of Tilray. You led the company. It's publicly traded now you're no longer involved in cannabis. What was the process that got you to buying Catalyst and talk a little bit about the challenges the companies had before you came on board and what you're trying to do now to get it away from those challenges.
Absolutely so, I think cannabis. You know, I started in cannabis back in twenty eleven, so fourteen years ago, and back then people thought it was crazy, right, is what is he doing? He went to Yale, he has an MBA, Why is he going into cannabis? And he's throwing away his whole career. But I could see the future. I could see what was going to happen. I knew that country after country was going to legalize, the US States were going to legalize, and so I saw the opportunity.
I saw what was going to happen. I see the same thing in EMS. If you go to Europe, there's these studios everywhere with people working out in suits. And I think five years from now, everyone in the US will be familiar with EMS. They'll either have a suit or they'll go to gym and work out in that suit because it's the future of fitness.
Well, Christy, I mean, you do cover so much about wellness and fitness. We talk about it with you all the time. I mean, how do you slot this sin What are you hearing kind of from maybe the industry about maybe is this kind of a next way?
Yeah, I mean this is definitely We've done stories about EMS suits before, as plastic surgeons in New York City offer it. There's some startups that offer sort of similar things where you go to a studio. For me, this really fit into my normal system of going to Berry's boot camp. You know, I'm a big barriers person and doing my normal weightlifts, and then I added this in. Yeah, two or three times a week twenty minutes, and that's
where I really supercharged everything else that I did. And especially on a day when you know, like Brendan said, if you're too busy or you're traveling or whatever, you can just kind of toss it in. And although I have not taken it on a plane before, so I brought it with me. So this is what it looks like.
Is it quite big? It's not really.
So for those listening on radio christs holding up the vest portion. But there's also that that sort of there's another portion that.
Goes all the way down.
Yes, that's free around your legs, and there are armbands that go with it and you have to get it wet for the stem pads to like really.
Work today with a heart rate monitor too, it's kind of the same thing exactly, Okay.
Very similar.
So what do you see as your market? Is it a case of selling directly to consumers? Is it about setting up places like the Peloton model to some extent where you could go and actually get on a peloton and be at a at a physical locale. I mean peloton kind of went back and forth. What's the model in terms of growing this business?
So right now there are thousands of consumers that own the suit and they work out at their homes or at the office or in their hotel rooms while they're traveling, and they work out with the app.
There are also.
Maybe two to three hundred studios in the US that use a suit. Many of them use the Catalyst suit, and so you can go to an EMS studio if you're mostly in a big city and try it, and so they use a Catalyst suit. And so it's both supplying to studios and we're seeing more and more of those open, and then also to consumers.
What's the moat that you have here, because if this is big in Europe, you're doing it here in the US. People might catch on, they might see that it's working. Copycats could come in. What separates here hyper protect the brand?
I think there's two moats. I think the first moat is oddly any MS suit is regulated like a toaster in Europe, and so many facts can just make them and sell them here. It's regulated by the FDA, and so this suit is FDA cleared and so we went through the FDA process in order to sell it to consumers. That's that's one mote. I think the second moat is the content. There's there's hundreds of workouts online that you can engage in the app. Actually is what sends the
impulse impulses to That's what's apps. You yes, and so the app does it family.
To get them to do other things just saying no, forgive me go ahead.
No, I think it's the content and the FDA clearance really the two moats.
What about competition or just the wellness world at large, Like it feels like, you know, we go through these fads and waves and trends.
Yeah, you don't want this to end up in the same pile as the thigh master.
I think, hey, everybody should have a thigh master. No, I'm just kidding, But how do you make sure.
I think strength is important no matter what you do, right, And so I use my suit three day this week, twenty minutes I run, So I have cardio. You can you work out on treadmill wearing the suit. People do that, but I think strength will always be there. Strength will always be important. It fixes your posture. Bone density for a lot of people is really important. People on GLP one drugs lose strength, and so this suit helps people of different demographics in ages very quickly.
You can work out while you're wearing the suit, and also wear the suit independently while you're not working out, or you're always working out while you're wearing There are people.
That do freestyle workouts, which means this suit is charging impulsing and they're folding laundry or doing the dishes or walking on a treadmill.
I think you and I need these. You're still doing it real quickly.
Yes, yeah, oh yeah, I'm in.
I got to tell you. I go to a doctor and they say it's all about strength and getting your muscles and building muscle strengths. So it totally makes sense. Gentlemen, Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Brendan Kennedy, chief executive officer of Monty Marr, the owner of Catalysts, joining us here in studio along with our own Chris Rouser, He's editor of Bloomberg Pursuits. You can check out and read more about Chris's experience. It was a really fun read.
It's in the new issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek in the Pursuit section. I'm in I know you are.
I don't know if this is a thing where like we uh share share. I don't think it works like that because it has.
To be sized to you.
But actually, like you and I, we could we could maybe do that.
We could try it cool. It's pretty cool. Yeah, I'm like you, Chris, I'll try any workout class one.
Can I get one from my face? Like to tighten up the muscles?
I don't. I don't think you would want.
It's sometimes it buzzes you to your bones, like it really like you you get used to it, but it really is a lot.
It can be really Are you going to stick with it?
Yes? Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to keep doing it, I think. Yeah.
All right, Well, we'll keep you accountable, Okay, please do That's Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser, along with Brandon Kennedy's CEO of Monte Mayer. It's the owner of Catalysts.
And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us be.
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Tim and I are going to go put on our Catalyst suits.
I would try one of these, Labor, definitely try one of these.
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