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. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Well, it was hard to keep track of the news flow. I never had enough Bloomberg screens up. Tim, I've just got to say a lot of stories this week with Sam Mekmin Freed and Donald Trump in Court of course DC, with Kevin McCarthy getting ousted from his role as House
speaker in a moment. We're going to hear from the founder and executive chairman of logistics Giant XPO Trucking Giant as well on how politics at home and abroad affect his business and what higher rates really mean for the macro outlook.
Also Ahead, Churchill's ken Kensal remains ultra bullish on private credit despite rising defaults. We're also going to speak with the head of Northwell Health on the promise in peril of AI when it comes to the healthcare sector. In the Bloomberg Equality Issue, it profiles entertainment local Tyler Perry, who's become a one man towrtive force despite being largely ignored by Hollywood studios.
I love this story, so many great nuggets in it. All of that to come, We begin with the wild week that was for global bonds.
I thought you were going to talk wild week for politics.
Oh yeah, check check, all right, yes, also for American politics. It's how Speaker Kevin McCarthy was voted out of his role. I mean, it's just kind of hard to still get your head around all of it, and it's continuing to evolve.
All of this against the backdrop of a big batch of US jobs market data, a lot for us to talk about and to help us make sense of it all, we turned to Bloomberg News rates reporter Michael McKenzie and, as we mentioned, Brad Jacobs, founder and executive chair at XPO, also the co founder of United Rental's former chair of United Waste. He has lots of experience when it comes
to the real economy. Bloomberg Economics editor Molly Smith and I wanted to know how closely he watches yields, and this conversation happened about midweek.
That determines what you want to do with your capital spending. Do you want to spend more, do you want to spend less? Do you want to invest? So pay a lot of attention to that.
Well, Michael coman in on it, and then lay it out for us, because it's been kind of a wild ride once again when it comes to global bonds here.
Yes it has, Carol, and I think the story remains. People are still trying to work out whereas the top and yields, particularly for ten year yields, which matter a great deal for the US economy. That's the yield that determines mortgages, and also it helps determine a lot of the corporate boring costs. It made a run above for eighty A lot of people talking maybe five percent, but it wasn't that long ago. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about four to
fifty was going to be the ceiling. So really, when you talk to investors and bond managers, as I've been doing for last a few days, there's still a census shell shock out there.
Yeah, tell us rad if you want to come in here. On the logistics perspective, this has got to be such a tough environment to operate in right now, with the idea that interest rates are high, I'm going to stay that way for a while. Well, you've got goods demand in the economy seems to be waning. I mean, how are you managing this right now? And how would you describe how the business is doing?
Well?
Interest rates are higher than what they work. They were low for a while. But I'm an old dog. I remember when interest rates were much higher than where they are now.
But is that an important point because we keep saying perspective. I remember working with folks who said, I remember having a fifteen sixteen seventy percent mortgage rate.
I remember when hi yeal bonds were in the mid teens and that was normal, and that.
Was for a number of years.
And I remember back at United Rentals when Leon Black was on our board and.
He of a poll of fame, of course.
One of the first inventors of the junk bond, now of the high yield called high yield, and I remember when it when it went down to about ten percent. He said, we got to get as much yielded as hig yielded issue as much as Possiblely.
It's never going to go below here.
Of course it did and stayed there for a long time, so I historically we're not at very high levels.
Michael, come on back in, because I think Brod brings in a good point right when we talk about the amount of money that continues to maybe come into the economy, fuel it and continue to put pressure on the inflationary side of things, what are the markets telling us about monetary policy and inflation at this point.
Well, he raises a very good point, and I think this is what the market has missed in particularly the bomb market. At the beginning this year. They really thought there was going to be a recession by now, and that hasn't come to fruition. And in fact, the stimulus coming through the Biden infrastructure and other plans is still kicking in. So the key here is that's probably going to keep employment pretty tight, and that's the one metric
that everyone's now watching. And until you see employment severely weak and then suggest economies on a recessionary path, bond yields are going to stay high and they may go higher. And I think inflation is still fairly elevated. It's more than double the Fed's targets. So that still has going to take time to come down, but a sticky inflation environment, you know, a Brazilian economy by the job sector, and this fiscal stimul is still coming through from Washington. Rates are higher for London.
I want to I'm curious, Brad, do you have a question for a rates guy?
I do.
How confident are you in that? What's your level of conviction on that? Because most people have gotten this completely wrong last couple of years. I remember I was at a trade organization for mostly fortune two hundred CEOs about year and a half ago, and we voted on the little slide o app of whether we're going to have a severe recession or a monitor recession or no recession or and n over ninety.
Percent conference poll but go ahead yes.
And and over ninety percent, well over ninety percent said it was either going to be a severe recession or a monitor recession last year. So obviously that never happened. So it's how confident are you in your in your in your prediction?
Wells as you made that, you made that point, Brian so I was talking to investor this morning. He said he thinks now the rates are at levels where you will get a recession next year. However, he's still you know, that's his gut feel, but he says, I still got to check that I'm not confident enough that you know, we will get a real slow down, and so therefore it really I think the markets it's been saying recession, recession,
it's been caught out every time. I think it's still going to take time for the stimulus to come through and wear off. And I think the other real factor. I think one of the big changes here is the Bob mark has always been used to this idea that oh our rates go up, something breaks, nothing's broken, And I think the reason why we haven't really seen anything break outside of course regional banks who've now been ring
fenced by the FED. And that's a very important point because as long as they stay ring fenced, that's not going to bleed into the economy as much. But I think the key fact here is you've got a lot of people sitting on thirty or six mortgages below three percent who do not want to sell their homes and
take out a new mortgage. And you've got a lot of companies that benefited from borrowing at very low rate back in twenty one and twenty twenty, and again you're not going to get that corporate bond hit that we would have got from higher rates.
Delight to still have with us. Brad Jacobs, Founder and executive chair at XPO. Your customers include everybody from Amazon, Apple, eight Am, Low's, Walmart home depots, so many more companies. And you have a global perspective. Where is though the strongest parts of the global economy in your view, and how does geopolitics potentially continue to kind of impact that.
Geopolitics is very important.
I think the two biggest things are obviously of Vladimir Putin and Chi Jimpin, who could single handily, literally single handedly you them, throw a pretty big monkey ranch into whole world economy. Those are not insignificant possibilities. Those are not one percent possibilities. So we have to pay attention to that. But we can't be obsessed by that. We can't just be.
Held down and just just.
Enamored but just that those features, so.
We just keep trucking along.
But okay, cute, But Brett, in terms of the pushback against g you know, the globalization of the economy, and we talk about that being pushed back. Do you see that guy firsthand.
Yeah, so every so you mentioned before and increasingly so, no question, but that she mentioned before some of the customers you have. So I'm privileged to have windows into g XO RXO XPO where we have a whole cross section of customers right around the whole world, and so you get to see a lot a lot of information what's going on, and you also get to interact with a lot of customers, a lot of boards of customers,
a lot of C suite. There's not a single board in America that's not who has and has had business in China. Who's not thinking I need to diversify away from China. It's just the risk is too high. So everyone universally is doing that.
What about the risks in our own political system? Does that crop up? Does that bother you? Does that worry you about? What happened this week with the Speaker of the House.
Well, that's the two party system, and that's been going on for a couple hundred years.
Do you consider it functional?
It's worked for two hundred years.
I mean so as a global traveler, I certainly would not want to be in any of the countries that have one party systems.
That's the worst.
I mean, there's a very repressive, horrible cultures. And this is a country where, despite everyone fighting with each other and calling each other's names and certain levels of dysfunction, we, unlike China, don't have a million people in prison camps because of their religion. We, unlike in Russia, we don't have journalists like you. If you criticize the president, you go to jail for eight years. So I mean, it's still a great country, fantastic country.
When we're looking at some of the trends in the US economy right now, I mean, we've been talking about for so long the shift of preferences from goods to services, and I would think from your perspective, that's probably the last thing you would want to hear. You want people to be buying stuff.
Right we are good.
All of the three companies I mentioned move goods one way or another, So more goods is better than more services. But for the economy as a whole, that's a normal cycle. Sometimes it's more goods, some it's more services. We're not in the best part of the cycle to be in transportation, but there are specific things that each one of those three companies are doing that are independent of the macro to improve the businesses.
That was Brad Jacobs, founder and executive chairman at XBO, along with Bloomberg's Michael Mackenzie. Brad, by the way, has a new book coming out in January, How to Make a few Billion dollars. More of our conversation on that and on his portfolio of companies, it's all available on the Business Week podcast feed. Molly Smith will be back with us next hour. And I got to say Tim Brad's going to come back to talk about that book. And I've been exchanging conversations on LinkedIn.
Well, hopefully I'm there that you better be there. Yes, he's a lot of market down you're listening to Bloomberg business Week coming up. Why Churchill Asset Management CEO Ken Kensel sees upside for his business despite upheaval in Washington and the higher for longer rate environment, Well, we appear to be destined.
For all of those dynamics. Has come one of the most attractive opportunities that I've certainly seen in my career in direct lending in private credit.
The head of New Ven's forty seven billion dollars private capital affiliate joins us next, This is Bloomberg.
If you're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast, catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or watch us live on YouTube.
Banks, as you know, increasingly muscling in on the one and a half trillion dollar private credit market in a move that further blurs the lines between private lending funds and their traditional banking rivals. Bloomberg News reporting this month at Barklay's Associate General and Deutsche Bank have all made concerted efforts to grab a slice of the lucrative, increasingly lucrative corner of leverage finance.
Back with us for a temperature check on the private credit world. As Ken can sell, he's president and CEO of Churchill Asset Management Nevians, a forty seven billion dollar private capital affiliate, which is the asset management arm of trillion dollar financial services firm TIAA. Ken spoke with Carol and Bloomberg Simone Foxman from the Greenwich Economic Forum in Connecticut this past Tuesday. This was just ahead of Kevin McCarthy officially using his post as House speaker.
Uncertainty is generally not a good thing, and certainly we've had a lot of that over the last year. The current environment that we've been you know, living through has you know, certainly created a very challenging dynamic overall, and and of course the banking termail in the spring, and of course now some of the dynamics playing out of Washington.
But but I would say that out of those dynamics has come one of the most attractive opportunities that that I've certainly seen in my career in direct lending, in
in private credit. So I guess in that sense, you know, I never wanted to wish for for dysfunction and uncertainty, But but I will say that in many respects, you know, private credit and direct lending, you know, unlike the GFC Carrol you know, has been here if you will, to kind of come to the rescue a bit by providing the financing capital and lending capital and and ultimately growth can capital to the companies that need that capital and have you know, have done and have performed well through
the current environment. So in that sense, we're super busy and hoping that if things settle down a bit. We were certainly hoping for that post labor day that you know, we get even busier.
Well, interesting that you talk about private credit like this, because Bank of America actually put out a note they said that private debt defaults are going to reach five percent by early twenty twenty four because a lot of deals one third of deals come due in the next two and a half years.
Is that bad for private credit though?
Well, first of all, I'm not sure I agree with those numbers. You know, the reality is if you look at our portfolio or the portfolio of any number of you know, what are arguably high quality, you know, the top tier you know, private credit managers, you know, some of which are publicly traded, I think what you would see is generally portfolios have held up extremely well. So, you know, I think that the prediction that default rates would reach five percent is not supported by what we're
seeing today. Now, now that doesn't mean that it won't won't play out, but I would say that just because there's a maturity wall doesn't necessarily mean that those companies
are going to ultimately default. I mean, I think what you may very well see, and you're already seeing it today, is that you know, a lot of those companies are going back to their lendings lenders and say, look, this is a good business, it has strong cash flow, it's performed well, and we need to extend and the frankly, the reality is that to the extent that the businesses have performed, the odds are very good that they can work something out with their lenders and extend the maturity.
So I wouldn't necessarily equate maturities to defaults because you know, as a direct lender is a private credit lender, you know we have the ability to sit down with the company and work out the dynamics if in fact those need to be done. Now, it's a totally different story if the company is performing poorly or underperforming it, or you know, is otherwise not able to make its payments. But I would not attribute just maturity to necessarily creating
that problem. And certainly we are not seeing evidence of that today, so you know, it'll being to see how that plays out.
Ken Raight, Defaults can tell one story, and you're saying you're not necessarily seeing that, But in terms of rewriting terms and working with your borrowers, are you doing a lot more of that in this environment?
Frankly not right now, I would tell you that our portfolio today, so we have investments in over five hundred US mid market companies in in areas like healthcare and software and business services. These are all backed or owned by private equity investment firms, which is largely the case for many of our peers. And I think, you know, I've certainly had an opportunity to talk to my peers You'rredish Economic Forum. Number of them are here. You know, we trade notes, and I can tell you that our
portfolios overall are holding up quite well. So you know, our quote unquote workout person is frankly not that busy. Surprisingly, I think to some and and our new deal people, you know, the folks that are underwriting new transactions are actually quite busy. In fact, we had a very strong we had a record quarter for a third quarter last quarter.
And you know, to the extent that you know, we do get some clarity regarding the dynamics in and around interest rates, and maybe a bit more certainty regarding potential increases and interest rates and inflation. You know, I think we could very well find ourselves in a relatively soft landing. And if we do, you know, I think we'll see M and A activity and transaction activity pick up, right because I mean it's really you know, the markets really
waiting for some stability regarding rate. So there's a lot of liquidity in private credit. Institutional investors are allocating significantly to the space yields. Obviously, conditions are quite attractive right now, and we're busy.
So I do wonder where you are seeing any cracks, because I do wonder in this higher rate environment, and we are going to be higher for longer, there's gone there's going to be some problems. We know that.
We're absolutely absolutely and I would say that, you know, in many respects, this is the kind of period where you know, the lenders that maybe we're a bit more aggressive and looked really good, you know, and getting higher returns, but maybe taking on more risk. I think, are those dynamics are coming home to roost? But I would say overall yes, And I would say that where we see cracks, if you will, and they're you know, certainly in our portfolio.
There are not many, but where we see them, they're very episodic and they're not tied to a broad you know, pullback in in economic condition. So for example, you know a deal that was done a year ago where you know they embarked upon an acquisition strategy in those acquisitions did not play out as expected, or where there was a fundamental premise regarding healthcare reimbursement rates and some shifts in the way that they oriented the business that maybe
didn't play out as well. So there are certainly situations that have not gone as well as planned, but not a fundamental pullback of the type that we would have seen, for example, in the GFC, in any way, shape or form.
So can I ask.
One last question, because we're run out of time. I wish you know, when I speak with you, I always want like an hour. They're thirty seconds quick because we keep talking about you know, treasury levels. Pick your duration back to levels of two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight. I think today reminds you of the Great Financial Crisis very quickly, like thirty seconds.
Yeah.
So I would say the pullback in the syndicated loan markets in many respects as a carbon copy in that sense. Right, So colo markets go dormant, liquid loan markets go dormant. The difference this time direct lending is there lots of liquidity lending capital to really go and support private equity. So similar in the liquid markets, but different in the sense that there are direct lenders there now to provide that capital.
That was Ken Kensel, president and CEO of Churchill Asset Management, along with Carol and Simone Foxman earlier this week.
Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, Jamie diamond says artificial intelligence is going to help extend our lives and rid us of terrible diseases such as cancer. Our next guest heads a massive healthcare institution, and while he's optimistic about the emerging technology, he's not ready to jump all in.
It provides extraordinary opportunity to improve clinical care, improve diagnosis, analyze data, but it also brings with it from potential Danjos.
North Well Health CEO Michael Dowling stops by next. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business App, and YouTube. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Technology has done unbelievable things from mankind. But you know, planes crash, pharmaccheries getting misused. There are negatives.
This is one.
The biggest negative in my view, is AI being used by bad people to do bad things. Think of cyber you know, Hemmy Kissinger talks about warfare, but you know the fact and I do think you know, eventually have legal guardrails around. It's kind of hard to do because it's new, but it will add a huge value.
All right, So, Tim, we've been talking a lot about this conversation that Jamie Diamond had with Bloomberg Originals Emily Chang that over the next generation, AI, artificial intelligence is going to have a profound impact not just on the way we work, but also in a big way on our health.
Yeah, here's what he said. Your children are going to lift to one hundred and not have cancer because of technology, and literally they'll probably be working three and a half days a week, lift to one hundred, a world without cancer three and.
A half day work weeks.
Sign me up.
Yeah sounds pretty great.
Right.
All right, So let's see what our next guest has to say about the role AI will play in our health. Michael Dolling back with us president and CEO at Northwell Health, you know, the largest healthcare provider in New York, the Northwell System, treating over two million New Yorkers each year at twenty one hospitals eight hundred and ninety outpatient facilities. You guys are hosting your annual Constellations Forum that focuses on AI and healthcare Constellation Forum, I should say, And
you are focusing on AI and healthcare? How are you guys and putting this together? Thinking about artificial intelligence, which is not a new science.
As you just mentioned, AIA is not new. The capability of the accelerated capability of it has been enhanced dramatically over the last couple of years and that will continue and it's going to be an integral part of whatever everything that we do going forward. So we have to decide. The big decision point for me is deciding what is it good for and what is it not so good for?
And I think we will be going through that analysis for quite a time because it provides extraordinary opportunity to improve clinical care, improve diagnosis, analyze data, but it also brings with it some potential dangers. You don't want the machine brain to outpace the human brain so that the human brain can't figure out what the machine brain is doing to you. Okay, is something we have to be very very careful.
Let's talk about the pluses before we get into the potential dark side here, which sounds like, you know, something out of a sci fi movie. What do you make of what Jamie Diamond said earlier today? Your children are going to lift to one hundred and not have cancer because of AI technology?
Is that is that true?
I want I want to live to be one hundred floss That's what we were.
Talking about earlier, me too here here, Yeah.
But is that where we are? Is that?
Is that an accurate thing to say?
Do you think we're getting nothing?
Class?
And I think we just got to be careful not to over exaggerate. I think it can have wonderful potential to allow us to identify the diseases earlier on, especially with the genome sequencing. When you combine them the results of the mapping of the human genome with AI, we will be able to predetermine way way in advance what you potentially could end up having problems with.
Okay, So then what would you do about it? To intervene what would you do about.
That if you noticed somebody was set to get cancer.
Well, then I think that you've got to determine the clinical leadership has the determine how you intervene, how you how you change behavior so people act differently, What kind of clinical treatments that you have to engage in to allow people to live longer a member, in the last fifty years or sixty years, we've added about thirty years to life, as life expectancy back in the nineteen thirties was around forty seven to fifty todays we're in the
seventies and eighties, so we've had major progress.
I do want to push back on this a little bit because in recent years we've also seen it come down as a result of COVID and drug overdoses.
Yeah, but that's a temporary thing. I mean that happens. You look at the long term trend, not the short term. You know, births in a statistic, it's the long term trend. And sure, when you have a thing that COVID is increase of mortality and it does come down a little bit, But I don't think that's something that will set a prediction for the future.
What do you believe will be the most significant changes in healthcare that helps patients live longer and live a better, longer life.
The biggest change in my view, to make those results a reality. It goes beyond the delivery of medical care. It has to do with lifestyle and behavior, so all of the social determinants of health. It has to deal with some of the societal issues. I mean, have we do a great job of taking care of you after you get sick, but we have to do a much better job of taking care of you before you get sick,
so you can prolong life. But that involves finding ways to get people to improve their own health, prove their own lifestyle. And that's just where AI can also be very, very helpful to be able to do the analytics right, to be able to tell you what people should be doing to improve their own situations and not dependent upon others all the time.
We'll go back to that idea of genetic mapping, and you know, we're born, we get a map and we can already see what might be the potential problems. Maybe it's hard problems, so then maybe we know from the
get go that we have an awareness. I think about kids who are born, you know, who have you know, diabetes from a young age or or different issues if you will, you know from a young age, they that's their life and they grow into or grow with that problem and just from the get go look at life differently in terms of what they eat and what they
need to do. And I do wonder if we had that map from the get go, whether it's removing organs, treating things differently, like, I just wonder, can we do it better at a much earlier stage.
Absolutely, I think that you'll be doing genome sequencing of all kids within a couple of years in most children's hospitals. We are investigating that possibility right now here at not Well as part of our children's hospital. So I think that that's where it will start, mostly with children, and then I think it will expand to be doing genome
sequencing with adults. But let's be let's be cautious here because while it offers wonderful, wonderful potential, we don't fully know all of the implications yet, and we don't fully understand all of the ethical issues involved. So you know, you find out something about somebody or some family member, what extent do you disclose it what extent do you share it, how should it be shared, and when should
it be shared. All of these issues have to be worked out very very carefully over the next couple of years. So the enormous potential is here with the combination of genome secreting and AI. But I think we're going to a process over the next couple of years to figure out how to make use of it as appropriately as we possibly can and not overreact. Not on the react either, but not overreact. A little bit of caution is important here.
It's especially given the situations you're seeing with chat GIPG recently, where it produces lots of controversial information that's not correct. You cannot be doing that in the healthcare sphere. It's just too dangerous.
But there's something kind of strange happening here where we're talking about AI, Carol and what it can do in the future, because you know, there's this article in the current edition of Bloomberg Business Week about a moxicillin shortage here in the US. I mean, we're talking about a
drug that was discovered more than fifty years ago. And I lived this nightmare on Friday when my son was diagnosed with an ear infection, and the doctor had to spend a half hour of her time calling different pharmacies around Brooklyn trying to find a ten day supply of antibiotics a moxicillan that ended up costing me three dollars and sixteen cents when she finally found it. Michael, she
wasted so much time doing this. How are we talking about world where AI helps us live to one hundred but we can't get a moxicillin.
Well.
But that's why you've got to be This is why you've got to be a little bit cautious. As I said, this is why you can automatically assumed that there's a new technology coming into play that is going to just solve everything immediately. There's a lot of all the issues involved. I mean, one of the biggest changes in healthcare is moving more and more healthcare out into the community, expanding ambulatory care. I'm moving stuff out of the hospital, be
less hospital centric. The whole supply chain issues, the whole labor cost issues, all of these things are all part of the complete package that you've got to deal with. There is no warm magic, I know, pure all just because you have a new technology. It's how we used that technology in the context of the whole environment that makes if we do it right, we'll improve.
Everything our Thanks to Michael Dowling, the president and CEO at Northwell Health, his organization is the largest healthcare provider in New York. We spoke with him ahead of north Well's annual constellation for him, which took place on Thursday.
You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Up next, we'll dig into the Bloomberg Business Week Equality Issue, which lays out a corporate promise made and kept.
The important thing is that it does appear that when pushed, the companies can make change.
This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast just live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
So remember, amid the pandemic and more importantly, following the murder of George Floyd, how we heard from Corporate America big time making big statements and promises when it comes to diversity. Well, it turns out, Tim it wasn't just talk.
This data driven feature was a recent Bloomberg Big Take and can also be found in the Equality issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine. We encourage you to view it online and on the terminal to get a better sense of these important numbers, and it's got a really cool graphical interface. Bloomberg News Managing Diversity reporter Jeff Green is here to help us break the whole thing down.
We took a look at the sm P one hundred, well at least eighty eight of the S and P one hundred where we had data from twenty twenty to twenty twenty one, so the year after George Floyd, to see what actually happened with their workforce after what they promised. So when we looked at the net added workers, that
means everything'subpracted. Everything added. The three hundred plus thousand workers that were in the S and P one hundred companies that weren't there in twenty twenty, ninety four percent of them were people of color. And the first time we saw it, we figured we must have done something wrong. So we kept digging, and it's just that's the number.
You know.
It's interesting, John, because I feel like coming out of the pandemic you're seeing it feels like some of the conversations. I mean, Jeff, excuse me, some of the conversations, and you know, narrative roll back a little bit. But what you're saying is companies actually went out and did it.
Yeah, well, the narrative that's being rolled back now was not the narrative they were acting on in twenty twenty into twenty twenty one. So that is a big question that is going to be you know, we're going to be watching is as twenty twenty two data becomes available, which won't be till sometime next year. They don't have to turn this in till December, so sometime next year will get a sense of what happened next. And you know, more importantly, I guess is, whenever we see twenty twenty
three data, what did that really mean? But I mean, the important thing is that it does appear that when pushed, the companies can make change. There's a lot of other factors that went into this, obviously, because there are demographic changes going on. The pandemic was very disruptive. We had people of color being brought back in quickly to a workforce after people over adjusted and got rid of frontline
workers not understanding how things going to work. There's many factors at play here, but when we dig into it, we still think some of it had to be on purpose.
Jeff having said that in most cases right, diversity or people of color are still very way, way underrepresented when it comes to what you find at companies.
Well, in this sample, because these are the biggest companies, it's about fifty to fifty overall white and versus people of color, which is higher than the workforce in the country, which is more like seventy percent white. However, when you look at that, when you look at the workforces, even here, the higher paying, more power jobs are still underrepresented. There are still a smaller proportion of people of color in
those jobs. But it did get better at every level in the data that we looked at.
So, Jeff, talk to us though about the types of jobs that these folks were hired for, because it's not just that they were hired, we know what types of jobs these people were hired for.
Well, yeah, to some degree, there was a predominant of entry level jobs, those that maybe don't require a degree. But even at the level where a degree would probably be required or there would be a promotion required, we did see movement I mean, we focused on Amazon, which net Net didn't change the overall racial breakdown of their company after hiring thousands of people, but they did push
people of color up in the power structure. I mean, it was a very interesting move which you looked to be purposeful once again in the way that they approached their hiring and promotions.
That's Bloomberg News Managing Diversity reporter Jeff Green. His story is an the current is of business Week. It's the equality issue, and it's available now on newstands, online and on the Bloomberg terminal.
And that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead in our next hour, more from our magazine team, including the domestic cover story, which profiles the entertainment mogul that Hollywood ignored for a long time until now. We're talking about Tyler Perry.
Plus with much of America keeping an eye on court cases involving former President Donald Trump and fallen crypto mogul Sam Bankman Freed, we look at the critical issues facing the nation's highest court as it enters a new term with guns, abortion, the limits of federal power, and much more. On the docket.
This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser.
And I'm tim Stenaveeck.
Stay with us.
Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up.
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You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business app, and YouTube. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa, our flagship New York station, jo Say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Plenty ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including our domestic cover story on Tyler Perry's self made media empire, which he built without much help from Hollywood.
Plus the CEO of the regenerative agricultural company Regrow on using data to drive sustainability, and some key legislation that's set to help the cause.
That legislation coming from your home state. All right, First up this hour the Bloomberg Business Week Equality Issue, covering a lot this week, including the US Supreme Court opening up a new term, the remarks in the latest edition of the magazine ponder where its conservative revolution might go next. One federal Appeals Court already has lots of ideas.
In the next nine months, an outside share of the High Court's biggest cases will come from the ultra conservative Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals. Those far reaching rulings are providing impossible, are proving impossible for the Supreme Court to ignore. Cases involving federal regulatory power, guns and probably abortion in social media regulation are going to test Carrol just how far the Supreme Court's conservative majority wants to go in remaking the nation's legal landscape.
We're all watching closely. Greg Stores, Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter, writes for Bloomberg BusinessWeek about the conservative Fifth Circuit and the key decisions that could come in the Justice's next terms. He joins us from Washington, DC. Also here the edit of Bloomberg Business Week. Joel Weber with us at Bloomberg headquarters. I feel like the fourth quarter is a big one on so many different levels, Joel, but definitely for the nation's highest court.
So this is the beginning of a new term for the Supreme Court, and Greg has become indispensable in writing sort of these walk ups and helping us make sense of these moments. Obviously, the Supreme Court has made a number of interesting and controversial and headline making decisions within
the last couple of years. What he flagged heading into this one is that the Fifth Circuit is the area of the country that is basically an appellate court that has a lot of very conservative judges, and this term in particular has a number of cases that originate with that appellate court. So, greg what does it all mean and help us make sense of it all?
Well, it means a number of things. It starts in starts off with some big cases involving the power of federal regulatory agencies. There's a case with the Court's going to be hearing tomorrow involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, that's the entity that regulates things like mortgages and auto loans set up after the two thousand and eight financial collapse.
And then it's got cases involving guns and almost certainly abortions coming up later on in the term, and they're really going to shape how far the Supreme Court's going to go this term.
Okay, So the Fifth Circuit talk to us about what they oversee and their jurisdiction, and also what makes this time so different?
Yeah. So this is a court that has twelve Republican appointed judges and just for Democratic judges, and six of the Republican appointed just judges are Trump appointees. And the individual personalities on the court are also very distinctive and very outspoken. So just to name one, there's a judge named James ho who, even while on the bench, has written that abortion is a moral tragedy and said that if there's too much money in politics, it's because there's
too much government. And these conservative litigants in many cases, like the State of Texas, which is part of the circuit, like to get their cases before this court because very
very often they get good results. And with a number of these cases this term, what has happened is that this circuit has struck down an administration policy or said that it administrative agency has to change the way it's doing something, and the Biden administration and has gone to the Supreme Court saying, hey, the Fifth Circuit's gone too far. So it's kind of testing just how conservative the US Supreme Court is.
Well, it sounds like it's a list that they will be dealing with with some very very important issues. It's hard to pick out like, what's the most significant, But where shall we begin in terms of cases that you, as someone who's followed the US Supreme Court like, really is kind of front and center, and you're thinking about this one in a big way.
Well, certainly the gun case that they're going to hear arguments on November seventh is one that's going to get a lot of attention. This is a case involving whether somebody who is subject to a domestic violence restraining order still has his or her full Second Amendment rights. The Supreme Court back a year and a half ago, in a case called Bruin, that the way we test whether a gun restriction is constitutional is to look back into history and see if we can find a historic analog
to the current restriction. And in this case, the Fifth Circuit said, you know, we look back at seventeen eighty nine, and we didn't see any laws that restricted gun possession by somebody who has a domestic violence restraining order, and therefore the Second Amendment doesn't allow the sort of restriction. So this is going to be a real test of whether the Supreme Court's history test that had set up a couple of years ago means what it seems like
it means. And if it does, then that means it's going to be really hard to argue in favor of all these other gun restrictions around the country.
So what does that mean for the federal ban on bump stocks? If we're continuing with the firearms theme, what would this court potentially do in that context and explain what bump stocks are actually? I think a lot of people might remember them, I think in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting years ago.
Right right, there's a Las Vegas shooting. Basically, it's a device that turns a semi automatic weapon, which is legal, into a machine gun, which is illegal. And the question this is actually a very different legal question and indicase involving the domestic violence restraining orders. This is actually a question of administrative law and not a question of the
Second Amendment. The question is whether the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco and firearms, when it banned those and this actually was under the Trump administration, whether it had authority to do that. Essentially, what ATF did was to say that a bump stock is akin to a machine gun, which is illegal, and therefore we're going to say the bump stocks are illegal too, So this one actually goes to one of those questions of how much power do
federal regulatory agencies do. It just happens to be one that also coincides with this big fight over gun rights.
Greg let's bring it back to core Bloomberg competencies. Two other areas that will be of great interest the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, as was the Securities Exchange Commission. What might be in the balance.
Here, Ye, it's like barely a decade old. I think the CFPP.
Yeah, yeah, just slightly more than that. You're right. And this is actually the second time we've had a CFPB case at the Supreme Court. This is a Fifth Circuit ruling in some ways came out of nowhere. This was not like an argument people have been raising for years. But the Fifth Circuit said, there's a constitutional provision that
says you can't spend money without a congressional appropriation. And the way CFPP is set up, it gets its money from the Federal Reserve, it doesn't it not subject to the year to year congressional appropriation process. And the Fifth Circuit said, up, that's unconstitutional the way it's set up, and it struck down is paid a lending rule that never actually took effect, but it cast a cloud over
basically everything the CFPB had done. Because if everything it's been doing all this time has been using money that it wasn't supposed to have, maybe there are questions about whether those past actions can stand. So there's a lot of concern, and there's a brief buy like the mortgage industry saying, hey, we're really concerned that this might unsettle the mortgage industry if the Supreme Court adopts in a full threaded way what the Fifth Circuit did, So big
stakes for this agency. There's an agency that has been very active in a lot of fronts, both the banking world and the non banking world. So the business community is going to be watching this one very closely.
You know, I do wonder too, Greg. I think about our audience, right, and obviously Supreme Court justices can Supreme Court decisions, excuse me, will impact different parts of the US population. But I think about the investment world and the business world, and I think about certainly the CFPB they're going to be following that. But what do you think is top of mind for like the Bloomberg audience.
Certainly all these cases about regulatory agencies are really really important, and the business community kind of has an ambivalent relationship with them, so they don't like a lot of the regulation, but they do like stability, and the CFPB case sort of threatens some of that stability. There's another big case involving another big case involving it's a little technical but really really important, but how much authority agencies have to
interpret ambiguous federal statutes. And that's another case where to give the agency more power, which is traditionally what they've had that at least ensures some stability in terms of the regulations. So that is a big thing. So far this term, we don't have any of the major business fights, nothing over like punitive damages or class actions, none of the kind of traditional fights that the Chamber of Commerce
has been pushing. The biggest action is probably going to be in these administrative law questions.
Our thanks to Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg Store and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber for that report.
You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up, the equality issue profiles writer, director, producer and actor Tyler Perry. He truly does it all. And we get into how he built his own media empire.
He did what has been key to his financial success. He insisted on owning one hundred percent after Wyant's Gate was finished with those distribution rights.
This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or watch us live on YouTube.
What is wrong with you? Why do you feel the need that you got to get somebody all the time? Well, when you get and gotten somebody that got you, and you go get them. When you get them, everybody's gonna get God. Yeah, but you're getting the gotters when they didn't do anything to you.
Get you.
God has get me. I'm gonna get my glock.
That's the voice of Medea Simmons. She's the famed movie, TV and theater character created and portrayed by writer, director, producer, and actor Tyler Perry. Medea is considered the leading lady of Perry's sprawling entertainment empire. We know that, Tims Sure.
The latest issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek Magazine is the Equality Issue. It's out now on newstands, online, and on the Bloomberg terminal, and one feature is this week's Domestic cover story on how the Hollywood establishment largely ignored Perry on his way to achieving incredible commercial success well also helping to turn Atlanta into a film and television hotbed.
There's a lot of amazing nuggets in that story. Hey, Bloomberg's Molly Smith, and I actually caught up with Bloomberg News Atlanta b our chief Brett Pulley to find out more.
I first met and spoke with Tyler Perry and did a story about eighteen nineteen years ago Diary, his first film with Lionsgate, his very first film that just come out,
Diary of a Mad Black Woman. And you know, it's really interesting to revisit someone from the time there in sort of this new evolving stage that he was in, and then to visit him years later and he's a billionaire and you know hosts Megan Markle and Prince Harry at his house now that's like they're hide away when they leave the when they left the UK, and you know, his best friends with Oprah and all these things, and owns a really formidable motion picture studio here in Atlanta.
So Brett, you get at this a little bit in the story here how Tyler Perry grew up in New Orleans and then came to Atlanta and realized that this is where he wanted to set up shop and gets a little bit starstruck almost every time he goes down I seventy five, and you know, sees his name on billboards directing them to Tyler Perry Studios. Just want to get a sense from you. You know, this isn't the Hollywood Hills here, but you know you've been in Atlanta
for quite some time now, you're Atlanta Bureau chief. What is it? How much of it do you see driving through the city there?
Well, I mean you see both things. You see Tyler Perry's presence, as you mentioned, you know, I mean you can't, you know, go to and from the world's busiest airport, which is in Atlanta without seeing that those signs off the highway because it's so relatively close to the airport. Uh. And so its presence, you know, it's significant in so many ways. Uh. And as is the presence of the
entertainment and the motion picture business here. I mean you know, just over the last ten years or so since very aggressive tax uh tax benefits have been put in place by the state, a lot of film and television is produced here. You know, all of the practically all of the Marvel stuff from Disney uh is done here. UH. And a host of you know, a host of programs,
television programs and films and UH. And it's it's interesting because it has it has u pomped it a lot of people who would otherwise be in Hollywood to be here in Atlanta, and that's you know, that's that's you know, talent. But also you know, I've been having conversations with people who were in film finance and some of the big agencies have put offices here, and so it's you know,
it's really becoming a Hollywood West. And Tyler Perry is you know, is a large part of that and certainly the largest personification of that.
Tell us about Tyler Perry though, and you know, it's interesting as we teased into it, I mean, this is you know, Hollywood sometimes misses trends and waves no doubt about it, and they definitely the Hollywood establishment, as you point out, ignored this individual who wrote, who directed, who produced who acted truly the one man show? What is it that Hollywood missed? And why did they miss it? And tell us how Tyler Perry is just turning how we make content upside down?
Yeah, well, I think they missed. What they missed is that, you know, there are a lot of places to look for UH business and to look for an audience, right and there I think the the the prism may have been a little too narrow in Hollywood. You know, Tyler recounts some great examples of that. You know, he went to see UH an executive after his he had built an audience with his stage plays around the country, right
at all these theaters and cities around the country. People would you know, church groups and stuff loaded up on buses and people went to see these plays. And then he created a great ancillary revenue along, you know, with with merchandise and other sales. And so he had made a fair amount of money before Hollywood had discovered him.
Annual ticket sales and you say, fifty million million revenue.
So when he finally got a deal in Hollywood with lions Gate, right, he put up half, they put up half, and he did what has been key to his financial success he insisted on owning one hundred percent after Lionsgate was finished with those distribution rights. So after however, many years, one hundred percent ownership of all of these films goes to Tyler Perry. So you know, as a result, Tyler owns all twenty eight of the films he's made, he
owns over eighteen hundred episodes of television. I mean, you talk about a long tail. You know, as distribution platforms change, and we know they keep evolving and changing, who knows what in the world that'll be worth one day?
Right, hey, listen, I want to go to what you started to say that when he went to visit a Paramount Pictures executive looking for a filmed out film deal and they said, well, black people don't go to the movies, Well, he has shown them that they certainly.
Do, right, that's for sure. I mean, you know, all of the films, every film that he's made, every film that he made for Lionsgate. I'm not sure about the subsequent ones, but you know, the lions shared no pun intended of his work has been distributed by Lionsgate. In terms of motion pictures, they all made money and they're reliable sources. Of revenue, and he delivers them on time,
and he delivers them under budget. And of course these are things in a very predictable, unpredictable business, I should say, such as motion pictures that Hollywood likes. And so he has been a reliable sort of production machine for the motion picture and television business.
So, Brett, you mentioned that Tyler Perry has been trying to extend his commercial reach. He's openly said that he wants to buy bet from Paramount. You also mentioned in the story that Tyler Perry's trying to get into streaming, So what's the next big move for him?
Certainly interested in bet and has been interested, and I guess it's a matter of if Paramount puts the property back on the market. And he has deals with Netflix and with Amazon, and is in the streaming world and has some projects coming up in that world with some formidable stars such as Carrie Washington and Oprah Winfrey and Susan Sarandon. So he's still on the hunt for the elusive critical success, but certainly sticking very close to what has made him a tremendously successful guy.
So many great nuggets in this story about how he came to be and just kind of where he's going. Brett, thank you so much. Of course, our Bloomberg News Atlanta b R chief Brett Polly. His book, by the Way on beet is called The Billion Dollar Bets, so check that out as well.
Molly Smith with Carol and Brett right there, Tyler Perry, such a big voice today when it comes to content, when it comes to media, when it comes to culture.
Totally on that.
A reminder that we will be on the road in Los Angeles this coming Thursday for the first ever installment of Bloomberg's screen Time. We'll be speaking with the moguls, celebrities and entrepreneurs defining the next phase of pop culture. Find out more at Bloomberg Live dot com.
An amazing lineup and we're going to be featuring some of those folks on air well. Speaking of the West Coast. Up next on Bloomberg BusinessWeek, how the Golden State is taking the lead in data driven sustainability guidelines within the all important agricultural sector.
That's straight ahead. This is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business App, and YouTube. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa Play Bloomberg eleven thirty. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Our next guest is a Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst class of twenty twenty two. Now just a reminder, Catalysts are people whose innovations, efforts and objectives have a genuine shot at changing the world for the better. And we are so delighted to have back with us Anastagia Volkova. She's the co founder and CEO of the regenerative ag company Regrow. We got to talk about some of the accolades, Tam.
Yeah, well, let's just start with just a couple of them. Okay, but we got to we can't say I'm all or else. We're not going to get any time from an interview. Let's just go with this one time. Is named Regrow is one of the one hundred most influential companies in twenty twenty three. Fast Company has named it one of the most innovative companies of the year and Anastasia was named to the Time one hundred list of the next one hundred most influential people in the world.
Can I say, aren't you happy you called it first with the catalysts?
Yes?
Yes, yes, yes. You also have a PhD in visual drone navigation, which I always think is so cool and I think we talked about it last time. Good to have you back with us.
Yeah, if i'd beless to be back. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely, it's wonderful to also see all the momentum in food and agriculture space and the industry leaders generally, we believe that it's an industry that can decarbonize thes soon as are.
Things really changing and things are What is momentum?
Me?
What does it look like? Okay, let's look at the most recent pieces. So to California builds a passing legislature and they are going to mandate climate disclosures for companies over one billion dollars in revenue trading in California. There's also a segment for half a billion dollar revenue company.
Which does that mean what do they have to show?
It literally means that they need to go and calculate how they are impacting climate in their own emissions as well as their purchase goods and services. So if you are, for example, a food company making food that ends up on the shelf or on the plate, you literally need to be thinking about what is the emissions on farm because this is where the largest portion of those emissions sits.
And by twenty twenty seven you'll have to declare it, which effectively means that if you start measuring it, you'll start managing it.
When you say that this is one of the industries that can decarbonize the quickest, are you including animals in this as well?
Like?
Are you including cattle farming's ranch?
That's right?
Agriculture, how I mean this is like one of the worst things for the environment.
It's very subjective, right, so when you start thinking about what are the animals supposed to do versus what we got them to do, how we disaggregated agriculture. Whilst in an integrated system, they're actually all very helpful. It's a more circular system. You can feed them better. Crops with a lot of emissions in the animal system are still in the crops. We produce most of the crops to feed animals, not to feed ourselves. So that's where the majority of the impact will come.
First use the complication.
I am saying that we need to decarbonize all parts of the burger and starting to list what are the parts that we should decombnize. But I am definitely saying the alternative burgers better for the environment, Yes, but there's things about the burger that are also not terrible for them.
And a station when you work with the company, what exactly do you do for them?
We help them first uncover their school three emissions i e. Those that on farm. So if they come and pick their supply sheds, they say, I source this over there. Can you tell me how is that impacting the environment? And we actually letter up the data from the field levels, have dynamically generated data on a near real time basis that can say here's what's happening in the landscape, this
is what's what's impacting the environment right now. Once they have that snapshot, they can also model with the platform that we provide them, the ag resilience platform, the abatement potential, that is to say, what can I change for better? What can I reduce? How can I get to my mission deroduction goal?
So it's not about carbon offsetting. It's actually do so you don't create carbon in the first place.
Yes, it's value chain investments. It's almost we call it in setting. It's the opposite. So you take action within your value chain. You are not you're reducing your own emissions, you're not looking to offset them somewhere else.
I hate offset.
Sorry no, and European Commission is with you.
Because you shouldn't be making You've got to reduce the carbon footprint. It's not a case. It's not exactly I'm not going to all right, so I'm creating a lot of carbon, but I'm going to go plant some trees. You're still putting the carbon in there, like we've got to reduce it overall. That's just.
No.
Absolutely, have to find ways of producing food in a way that doesn't harm the environments so much it actually renews it and regenerates.
It is vertical farming. One of those answers.
Oh it seem good question.
It's very controversial.
It's very controversial because you have to consider everything from the system perspective. Right, So on one hand, you have the transportation of say, salad from Salinas, California, to New York City and that's absurd. So you probably should consider growing it here if you recycle some of the resources, if you're able to provide it with the water it
needs without drawing more water into that farm over time. Okay, great, but you're still looking at a system that largely requires artificial synthetic input fertilizers, and they sustain the system, is opposed to say soil out there that when healthy sequestors carbon and provides water, cleaning, clean air, all of those ecosystem services to us living all around those environments.
You know, it's interesting. We had Johanna's Huting of Powers twenty one on and they basically are making sure that you know, or helping developing the developing world, you know, create data sets. They don't actually have the data, but they're pulling from different sources and making sure it's pure. But the whole idea is you need to collect and track transformative data to help bring about transformative policies and change.
Talk to us about the importance of that having that data that you guys are providing, right, the information, but also go hand in hand with governments, states, countries saying we've got to do better. And so you need the data to kind of meet.
Absolutely it has to, and we have plenty to update the listeners on with the IRA money, with the investment with the Information and Reduction Act, and the Embedded Climate's MARGE Commodities program. The administration is looking to effectively accelerate
the investment into low carbon commodities and agricultural sector. But also they have released recently an initiative specifically focused on the data and the MRV the monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions and practices, and they completely go hand in hand. So if we ever want this to be a truly bipartisan issue that is internationally accepted, we need to start looking at the data and not wondering where the money
is going on. Because once you are seeing that the money is getting to where it needs to be, why wouldn't you invest more in because you are getting that return you're looking for. But it's the data that needs to tell that story.
Talk to us more about this because I always wonder about incentives here. It's one thing for the state to actually require disclosures like California is doing, you know, and it is a side point, but my concern is that, Okay, all these companies are going to move to Texas, which is a state that will not require these types of disclosures. Maybe that's a conversation for a different day.
You really grow on in Texas.
I mean, you could base your company in Texas instead of facing it.
Anyone who trades in Texas, not anyone who's headquartered like in California. For the California bill, you just have to be trading in California.
You are not headquartered in California, so people won't get around it.
I don't think we can move something to Texas and stop trading in one of the largest economists in the world, that is California.
Yeah, that's very true.
Okay, maybe the lawyers will be busy trying to figure out a way.
Maybe, so what's good?
But my question is really about is really about data, and you know where that data comes from and how you measure that data in this day and age.
That's right when you're looking at this type of bill, people are getting concerned that this will actually put more burden on the suppliers, of which farmers is one of the categories in this industry, of course the primary category. So this data, you don't need to invent more ways to get this data. We already, as Greta Thumberg always says, we already have all the solutions, we just need to
actually implement them. So regrow gets data from fire management system, statistical surveys, but importantly satellite imagery, so remote sensing of practices tells us a lot about what's happening in the land in a non invasive way, in a very scalable and cost effective way. Then we pass it through climate models, soil carbon crop models to understand what is the impact on the environment. So we see the practices from space, from local systems, tractor tells us what's going on. We
don't have to ask the farmer for absolutely everything. We have to accept that agriculture has been running on data. It's a big business, it's a big industry. It has the data. If you provide the incentives and you assure the privacy, you will be able to get the system to a level of transparency where it can all actually flow in a direction of Paris one point five degree trajectory.
What companies are you working with.
We're working with General Mills, Kellogg, Cargil, Folks across the supply chain from those that provide input to the farmer's trade and aggregate and process the commodities, all the way to those that you pick up their boxes off of supermarket shelves and plates.
Our thanks to Anastagia Vilkova, she's co founder and CEO of the regenerative agricultural company Regrow. She noticed in studio during un Climate Week and one update the two California bills. She discussed our schedule to be signed into law this month.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up next from farming, define wine and dining thanks to the upcoming return of the annual New York City Wine and Food Festival.
The creator of it all, founder and executive director Lee Schreger. On the other side, this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or watch us live on YouTube.
Bloomberg News Economics edtor Molly Smith back with us for our final segment. As you all know, we love, love love talking food and wine here at Bloomberg Business Week. It's always highlighted in the Bloomberg Pursuit section of the magazine. With that in mind, the Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival about to get underway. Have you ever gone?
I want to ask our next guest about it, because I have not.
Shamefully, you're missing, missing I am. It's October twelfth through the fifteenth brings together who's who in the food and wine space. Chefs Danielle Boulu. We have had him on our air many many and many more from the industries. To tell us about it is Lee Schrager, founder and executive director of the New York City Wine and Food Festival, joining us on zoom in New York City.
Lee, how are you good to see you ladies.
How's everything doing well?
Doing well? I feel like on a daily basis I could use a good meal and a great glass of wine. Having said that, you guys, bet are in what your sixteenth year tell us about it? Remind us about how it all came to be and how it's evolved, and your relationship with the Food Network and bringing this all to life.
Well, sixteen years and you have not been once. That is horrible.
I've been to the money Look at me. I've been to the y I've been to South Beach for that version.
Okay, okay, Well that's how it all started. It started actually in South Beach about twenty four years ago. Actually, excuse me. We're going to our twenty three third year in February and South Beach.
I'm curious though, why it took. Why South Beach first? And then why you kind of waited a little but before coming into New York.
Well two good answers for that. A. I live in South Florida. So I started Thered because nothing is easy in New York.
And I really say that again.
I.
Really wanted to make sure we kind of worked everything out before we went into a city that really was not forgiving in the sense, you know, they expect the best, and I wanted to deliver the best. So when I felt comfortable that we were as good as we were going to get or as good as we could get, to start moving forward and I felt comfortable, That's how it happened.
So Lee asking for a friend here obviously, But if you've never been to the Food Festival, the Food and Wine Festival, sorry, what would you tell somebody a newcomer what to expect, how to prepare, how much to budget for something like this, and what kind of events should you really be zooming in on. It seems like there's just so much to choose from in so little time.
So I would really if it's if you're a first timer. You know a lot of people who come for the first time want to try so many things, And although we would like to sell a lot of tickets to you, I'd rather you do less and appreciate it because it gets exhausting. If you're doing a runch next Friday with Martha Stewart and Daniel Blow at Tiffany and then you're going to go to the Grand Tasting in the daytime, then you're going to go to the Bergabash at night time,
that's a lot, and I think it's too much. So I always say to somebody, pick a daytime event and one nighttime event, or a daytime event and one late night event, or a dinner event and a late night event, and really enjoy it. You know, wear comfortable shoes, drink responsibly, and you know, don't overdo it. And you know there's
a lot of food. There's a lot of drink. New York City is not easy to get around with traffic, so I kind of pick where you know, even myself, I pick where I'm going and keep to one keep to an area every night, so I try to maximize the events.
I can go to.
That was Lee Schrager, founder and executive director of the New York City Wine and Food Festival. All net proceeds benefiting the nonprofit God's Love We Deliver and it All kicks off on Thursday. And for more details about the menus and the celebs that will be part of this iconic event, just head on over to our podcast feed.
And that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us, and a big thanks to Simone Foxman and Molly Smith of Bloomberg for their help over this past week.
Yeah.
Really grateful to everyone on the team for jumping in when I'm certainly not available. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday starting at three pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio and on Sirius XM channel one nineteen.
You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube just search Bloomberg Global News orre samilcast on Bloomberg originals available at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Originals, and streaming platforms including Roku, Amazon, fireTV, Samsung TV Plus and more.
Find our Bloomberg Business Week podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The latest edition of the magazine is available on newsstands now at Bloomberg dot com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. I'm Tim Steneveek and I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and safe weekend.
Stay with us. Today's top store and global business headlines are coming up right now.
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