Managing Elective Medical Procedures

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Jason Kelly and Alex Steel here with you on a Wednesday afternoon. So I'm really happy to have

back with this. Alyssa Wrap, CEO of Surgical Solutions, join us on the phone from Deerfield, Illinois, and Alyssa has been great at providing us Alex with a real view of the front lines of this crisis because she's got more than two hundred employee who were working there in hospitals and health facilities less are really nice to have you back with us, Jason and Alex. Great to be

with you today. Thanks for having me all right, So, I feel like the world has actually gotten worse since the last time we talked, certainly a lot of places across the United States. How worried are you, especially given the window that you have in terms of this healthcare system now being stretched to its capacity. So I think

that I'm worried, isn't the word? Perhaps concerned is better, only because I've seen our people on the front lines be as excellent, dedicated, and prepared as we would want them to be. The only benefit of time marching on as people are leveraging their experience and insight as frontline healthcare workers in coping with it. So are people and those I hear about are doing a great job. But my concern is that the systems themselves are going to

be increasingly taxed. And listen, we've had more incidences of COVID IT on our own team in Houston in the last three weeks then we did in New York City at the peak of the first search. So it's because of this snap, you know, rubber band effect of reopening without all the social distancing and masks in place. We unfortunately know that weather doesn't play as much of a role as we had hoped in dampening the virus transmissions.

So because of everything going on, and without being overly political, we knew that there were mass gatherings due to the civil unrest. So with all of that closed down behavior than fast reopening and then uneven state by state responses, we're seeing many, many spikes and I expect those to continue for the next six months. Can I ask the sensitive question as to why the Sun Belt states weren't better prepared even if they reopened quote unquote the wrong time.

It's like, we knew that this was going to play out in New York and March, so I wonder, like, why isn't there a stockpil of stuff, Alex. I think it's a great question, and I don't have the perfect answer for you. What I can say is I think

that the cases were concentrated in New York. There was such a intense focus by the city, the state, and the healthcare hospitals and providers there to solve the crisis that they did the classic Bell curve effect, And because the peak of the curve was so much lower in the Sunbelt States. I think they hoped, I think we all hoped, frankly, that they would just avert disaster and never get to that same peak point local maximum. And unfortunately,

no one is this. This disease doesn't discriminate. No one is immune. So when they thought they had averted danger and then unfortunately dangerous struck they were they thought they were on the back nine and and no one is, unfortunately yet. And so Alyssa, you know, one of the things that we've talked with you about before is this

notion of the the holistic system in some ways. And while so many resources have been dedicated, obviously to treating COVID patients, there's a whole system out there and a whole population out there that has needs to go beyond COVID, some of which surgeries have been put off. Um, where are we in in that calculus right now? And what are you seeing when you talk to your folks, So

that that I feel more optimistic about. Once people started rescheduling elective procedures, they started scheduling fast and furiously, and I think that, um, that's really important for preventative health. I get as as afraid about what the health care affects, the health effects and negative health effects I should say, of not being seen and treated for preventative measures, now

what those will be in six, twelve, eighteen months. So I'm glad to see that our volumes were back up to eight of historic levels for elective surgeries, for example in places like Texas and Tennessee UM in June. Obviously, the next round of questions is where will they stabilize there? Given what's going on, they'll probably dip again and then hopefully come back. So I feel slightly optimistic actually about people's willingness to get back in there and get seen

for what was considered quote unquote elective. What I am concerned about on a on a macro level is how these hospitals that typically operate at three percent margins in the best case scenarios, are going to weather the next wave of the financial storm. And as self serving as it is to say, I think that even if I were looking at arm's length, you want this notion of an outsourcing partner like Surgical Solutions and many others where they can really risk share economically and in terms of

human capital and capital equipment, etcetera. If I were if I could wave a wand it's that many hospital systems would enter into those kind of risk sharing partnership strategic partnerships so they could have another entity or team of people helping them whether the next storms, because unfortunately this one isn't over. So I mean, aside from the obvious linkage with with with surgical solutions, like what are some other good options? Because I have to wonder like which

is it? Is it a demand or supply issue? Like if all these people come back, and will you have the actual capacity, Like I have to have a procedure done and I had to wait like two months and I was like on the list. No totally. Um. I think that it's both right and I think that the degree to which the federal government is doing creative things like making total joint procedures, those are orthopedic procedures where you would have something restorative, corrective and me a hip, etcetera.

Because they agreed that they're now going to be reimbursed through ambulatory surgery centers in and out where you can go in and out in a day and you have to be there less time, which is better for you and better for them. But but the providers will still be reimburses a similar way. I think the degree to which we can make it easier for people to have shorter hospital stays and and do more you know, ambilatory

surgery center work, that will be better for everyone. I think that could be a system shift that is a result of this. And needless to say, this isn't an original idea to me, but tell the medicine is your friend. Listen, if my kids have to go get a physical before getting back to school in the fall, I want that to be live. But if one of them has a you know, a sore throat or an alley in their ear to I really want to take them in right now. No,

if pddriction could see them, that would be a great pla. Yeah, just grab the iPhone for sure. Alright, Alyssa Rap, CEO of Surgical Coal Solutions. Great to have you back with us. Really appreciate your time joining us on the phone from Deerfield, Illinois. Well, I believe the technical term alex is baller alert. We got a couple of guys coming on next to talk about a great story, a really important story as well.

We haven't talked to Sean Donna in a while I've missed him, I follow him on Twitter, so I feel like I'm keeping up. Senior trade and globalization reporter for Bloomberg. He's joining us on the phone from Maine. Good for him. Joel Weber, editor of Bloomberg Business Week. He's in Massachusetts. So Joel, this is a really important story and one that I feel like provide some much needed context about where we are in the economic aspect of this crisis. Yeah.

So a couple of weeks slash months ago, now, Sean was like, you know, UM based in DC, and I really to get out of DC and I get into uh, you know, the heart of America and see what how

this crisis is really unfolding for for normal people. And Cleveland ended up being one of the places UM that he's gone, and the story that he published from there, I thought was a really interesting look at um, you know, community that's really uh grasping for any sort of relief, and it gives UM a sense of how, you know, two trillion dollar uh you know kind of effort to to kind of you know make the rescue um you know from Congress with the Cares Act, be something that

was you know, rooted in helping things, but it actually has left a lot of people in the cold. And I think that was what Sean was really able to find in Cleveland. And and Sean, you know what, what what jumped out at you because you know, this is a city where there's a river that divides the east and west, and people on the east side, especially these

are black neighborhoods, they're really feeling it. Yeah. I mean, like you said, a couple of months ago, I just was looking through the data and I just happened to see the the unemployment data for for Cleveland, for the metro area, and what it happened in Cleveland in April was that literally of the workers in the city had lost their jobs in a matter of weights. You had an unemployment rate that had gone from a little above three percent to twenty three percent just in weeks. And

most of those people were lower income people. And I started thinking, I need to go find out what's happening and if they're getting the help that that they need, and all the stuff that people are talking about in Washington in terms of this enormous and this really is a pretty unprecedented fiscal stimulus coming out of Washington, when that's actually getting to the people who you did on the ground. And once you get to Cleveland, what you discover is that there is this divide that happens with

the Cuyahoga River UH. On the east side of it, you've predominantly black neighborhoods, which really for decades now has been left behind by the economy, and this time around they're just not getting the help in the same way that UH neighborhoods predominantly white neighborhoods the west of the river are. And that's a story about you. We'll talking about race in America and racial incites, and so we're here. It is right now happening again in terms of rescue

being rolled out by the government. If you go to the east side of Cleveland today, you will find lots of people who aren't seeing to help that lots of other people in America are. Yeah, it's really amazing, amazing reporting. I urge all of you to to to listen to it,

to look at it, to read it. So I guess my problem is is that we know that they messed up in that respect, and now we're looking at another stimulus Supposedly maybe we're gonna get before August ten, and I'm wondering if we're ever going to be able to the things that we did to them help, especially when you have the extra money for unemployment ending July one. I mean, how do we right the ship? Yeah? No, absolutely,

so that the first thing is that extra unemployment. There's no doubt that next for six hundred dollars a week that was included. That cares that that's important for the ground, for people on the ground on the east side of Cleveland.

But what's also important and in talking in work reporting the story, I talked to Rob Portman, the Republican Senator at Shore Ground the Democratic Senate, two people who really were heavily involved in a cool point together the Cares out, and they said, they really want to get something in this next thing that's much more targeted at a block on businesses and minority on businesses, and they really find some way to get to these people who are who

are being left out because they are being left out and they recognize that. And so we'll have to wait and see if that happens. But you know, there's there's a lot of neat out there. Sean Um, I want to talk about some of the characters that you got to meet um on the east side of the river, especially a pastor in a church twitch. What are those experiences like. Yeah, so one of the people I ran into on in my reporting with Miriam Scott. And Miriam

is a really impressive woman. She's a corrections officer. She works overnight shifts one of the play at huge county detention centers. UH and during the day she runs the First Love Outreach and Ministries, which is a tiny church UM in a part of Cleveland that literally is is called the Forgotten Triangle UM and it is a part of Cleveland where possible people live under the poverty line. Three quarters of the children in the episode live under the U S Povy line. She's just a stunning UH

statistics and Miriam stop is. She's been running this turn on a Sea spring basically on three hundred, one hundred dollars a week and ties and she can't hold in person services anymore, so that money's disappeared. She tried to go after a UH some pros some money from the from the sederal government for faith based education, but she discovered that because she's a volunteer, she and because there's no paywall associated with the pods. She couldn't get any help.

And she's not unemployed. She's working on she's working a job. She's looking overnight shift as a corrective officer. Uh. And she's at the same time she's kind of scraping it together and she is feeding. The last Saturday, she said over six hundred people one Saturday of Junion, she gave out twenty thousand towns of food, which is more food almost than she gave out in all of twenty nineteenons for the church. She's done incredibly hard work and she's

doing it with no help from the government. And it's you know these times of characters that run into on the east side of Cleveland. We're working really hard to help the communities to get through this crisis, and they're doing it with very little help to no help from from the sederal government. You look at the stimulus that's going on the economy, you think about the people who serves and how vulnerable they are, and that is clearly one part of the economy that should be getting more

and just isn't. It just isn't. And a really nice piece of reporting is Alex pointed out Shawn congratulations on this story. It's a must re check it out at Bloomberg dot com, on the Bloomberg terminal, or in the upcoming edition of Bloomberg business Week. That's Sean Donn, and senior trade reporter who left Washington to do some great reporting there in Cleveland. Our thanks as well to Joel Webber,

the editor of Bloomberg Business Week. All right, let's do a little Business Week economics, because when it comes to reopening the economy in any meaningful way, Alex, I think you and I can one agree on this, both being parents schools, they have to be reopened for the economy to be fully reopened. Please please not even economy for my own sandy and my husband's sanity, and then also

for the economy. Yes, so in that order. Emily Austar she wrote a terrific piece for Bloomberg Opinion about this professor of economics at Brown University and a Bloomberg Opinion columnists. As I mentioned, she joins us on the phone from Providence. All right, Emily, you gave voice and and maybe more importantly, gave some solutions to the problem that I think we are all obsessively thinking about. Tell us what you think and what you found is you sort of put pen

to paper here. Yeah, So what I was what I was writing about was just how we're going to think about working under the constraints that we seem to be facing for the fall. So, you know, like you, I would very much like us all to be back in person if we can do that. Bafely, it doesn't seem like school district A necessarily gonna be there. And so I think, particularly in New York, you guys are not

going to be in uh in school every day. And so I was thinking a little bit about different solutions people that have ranging from you know, the kind of home schooling that we've all been doing for this entire time period, two kind of different market based solutions. So should we all hire a governess like the one percent? Or should we should we think about intermediate and can be tid with other families, and just trying to give people some ideas for for how to move forward in

what's obviously an incredibly challenging set up. Well, what I thought was interesting in the piece is that, um, a lot of it is for those one per centers, Like you said, the governance, there's also to do it yourself, which homeschooling, which would be really bad my household. But then you got into different options like a babysitter, coop or market based solutions. Can you take us through that where it is maybe more accessible to a broad variety

of people. Yeah, So I think that the two things there were sort of one talking about like, let's say your kid is in school for two days a week, uh, with a bunch of other kids in their class, UM, and there you could think about hiring a babysitter along with some other kids in the class, so you know, rotating the kids around to your different houses or apartments, um,

with some kind of supervision. Obviously, if you did that with six families, you know, that's six one six of the cost of doing it doing on your on your own UM. And then there are also you know, my guess is I'm actually just talking to somebody in l A this morning runs and after school program and they're going to be running a lot of programming for kids who are would otherwise be in school. So there certainly will be some art market based solutions for this where

your kids can be out of the house. Uh. Those aren't going to be challenging in other ways, I think and for that you're talking about like the j c C s and the y m c A s the world right, Yeah, exactly why I'm j c C is all those kind of things. And so as you look across the country, I guess one of the other challenges here, Emily is that even within a state like New York, you're going to have different decisions being made sort of

region by region, much less you know, across the country. Uh, is it feasible to think about, especially from an economic perspective, that some regions of the country and even some subregions of a state may be able to essentially thrive economically

while others may be left behind owing to closures and whatnot. Yeah, I mean, I think this is part of what what's sort of been very odd about the economics of this is just the idea that, you know, we don't think of the US as quite so segmented, and yet all of a sudden, you know, in this world, like the situation in Rhode Island is totally different from the situation in Texas, or from Florida, or from or from New York.

And I think that's going to mean that everybody's got to have got to have different solutions, but it is also going to mean that there's a tremendous amount of inequality across places in how much your economy is gonna be able to reopen. I mean, as you said, you know, school reopenings are kind of a key to economic reopening, and places where school is fully remote are going to have which fundamentally very different trajectory than places where school

is in is in person. If the schools can thence to stay open, I think the hardest thing is going to be if they open and they close again. That's going to be even even more challenging to adapt to. What I'm trying to get a handle on is like we we can talk for years about how horrible it is to have kids not in school on so many different levels, and I just can't quite get a read on, like financially what we need to pump into each school to get them reopened safely and anecdotally. I have a

five year old. Her kindergarten class had twenty six kids in a five hundred, six hundred square foot room, so already like that class would have to be broken up into three classes like there, so there's different classrooms. Um, do we have a read on that yet. No. What I actually think this is one of the biggest challenges to making progress on this is that people have different ideas. You know, I have some ideas, people have some some

other ideas, different kinds of staffing models, space models. But it's clear all of these things are going to take resources. But I don't think we've had a lot of uh, We've made a lot of efforts to like write down what is the budget? Um, you know, what different people do we need? How many of them do we need? Do we need two? And more? If your kids class needs to be in three different in three different classrooms, do we need three you know, three teachers? What's the

space we're going to use for that? How are we going to afford that afford that space? I think part of the problem is once we read that down, the answer will be, you know, this is incredibly expensive. But I also think until we do that, we won't we won't know, you know, what are the pieces that are the most expensive and what can we what can we do? So I would really like to see more concrete numbers put to this. All right, Emily Austin, We're gonna leave

it there. Professor of Economics at Brown University Blueberg opinion columnists. Her column parents Don't have to panic over part times school. It was one of the most read columns on the Bluemberg continues to get a ton of readership. It has spun around the web so many times, Alex, for all the obvious reasons, because people like you and me are trying to figure this out, both, as you said, for our own sanity, for the sake of the economy, for

the sake of our humanity. You know, we think about you know, and I have the the interesting perspective of both teenagers and a a a sub sub three roles who doesn't go to traditional school obviously yet, and and the the effect on families. And listen, you and I are very fortunate to have the resources that we do, and I think a lot about folks who don't have

those luxuries too. Yeah, it's and you know, yes, it's going to be horrible in terms of the social and inequality divide that we're going to see, particularly here in New York. And I look at my own personal circumstance like we're going to be fine. My daughter is gonna be fine, Like we're going to take care of her. How many people can really say that, and and that's a long term set up, like you can lose billions

of dollars over your lifetime as a whole group. Yes, um, if you don't have the right education, and that's gonna make all the issues we see worse. Absolutely alright, a really important issue. So check that out on the Bloomberg Our thanks to Emily Austrich. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Jason Kelly and Alex Steel here with you. We are debating the merits and demerits of meat right now, as we get into this new segment, Bloomberg Green, we

call it. Emily Chasen, Sustainability editor, back with us for Bloomberg on the phone from New York City. All Right, I have to say, Emily, the headline alone, low methane meat. I'm like, all right, that's here, but it's a stop gap. First of all, tell us what we're talking about. I have to say, I saw this on Twitter, I believe you, or when your colleagues put it out. So we're talking

about burger king to some extent. But this whole concept of low methane meat, this is basically like cows and gas, right, it's cow too. It's dude, it's cow too. So let's just let's just call it. It's cow to it. That's what it is. Um. Yeah. So it's really interesting because you know, there was a big trend years ago toward organic meat UM, and now people are thinking about, well,

meat actually has a huge impact on the environment. It is a huge force of global emissions, probably just nine from agriculture directly, and then if you think about the whole supply chain from farm to fork, over a third of global emissions. And then it's going to get even more attention as we've been working really hard to get the electric sector and the transport sector emissions under control. So as those emissions well, then the agriculture emissions get

bigger and bigger and bigger. So what we're looking at here is this sort of that realization from consumers and company saying, well, I guess we can sell you low methane meet it's like the new organic foods label or low carbon meat. So how do you get them? How do you get their tooths better? Usually have to like seriously because what it is, like, what is it? What you feed them? I means a certain type of cow. There is a ton of experimentation in the field right now.

I guess um Burger King just this week that came out with a open source method UM that looks at lemon grass and they say that lemon grass um sort of makes cow's bellies happier. Um. I think there's other people trying seaweed and various food additives. UM, so you know, if cows have fe bellies and the planet will be happier also. Um. But it's it's only a limited solution, right because there's still going to be quite a lot

of my thing. Even this can produce methane by up to a third, there's still many years that cows are out there emitting methane versus you know, a plant, right, I dare say, I mean, and we will not go down this rabbit hole, but like this could be useful information, I think for all sorts of things, especially you know have teenage boys. But Emily pizza there, that's true. The ultimate, um, I mean, the ultimate solution here, as you just alluded to when you talk about plants versus animals is eat

less meat. How much is that actually catching on? I will say I had an impossible sausage sandwich. This morning. It was delicious. Um, And we know that those meat alternatives are catching on, but I wonder sort of where we are in that adoption. Yeah, well, there's a ton of you start ups every year. There's a lot of activity in the private markets right now around plant based meat. UM,

beyond meats. I p O was really interesting in that space. Um, some of the big meat companies they're starting to get into plant based meat. There's all sorts of different proteins that people are putting out there, even once from microbes. So there's a lot of stuff happening there. And what what you're thinking about this. I've talked to an investor

who's like trying to be a vegan investor. Now, there's enough opportunities right now that you could try and adjust your portfolio for a vegan lifestyle in a way that you could just do your food in the grocery aisle more easily in the past. And that's interesting. Um, here here's the question for you. Can you methane capture this stuff?

Before you laugh, I mean carbon captures a thing. Um, Capturing methane is also a thing, like is is that somewhere on solution somehow there was actually an experiment in Argentina a few years ago where they put methane backpacks on cows to capture it and then they create a full system. And there's also all this whole network of anaerobic digestors that works with cow maneure and that sort of thing could try and um capture the methane from

it and you know, power trucks or something else with it. Um. But yeah, it's interesting from a financial perspective that it's hard to invest in this space because there's not a lot of, like speaking companies that are public, so you sort of have to screen out stocks that are fossil fuels or curl or have some sort of damage to wildlife or deforestation. Wow, all right, well this is a great story. We'll put it out on Twitter. It is on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com. Emily Chason,

sustainability editor for Bloomberg, on the phone from New York City. Low, methane meat has arrived, but it's a stop gap. I feel like Alex Steel on my list of garage band names, methane backpacks pretty good one. I'm just wearing like, I mean, you know, those things be heavy. That's that's a bummer for the cows, but to the point of actual investing.

I completely agree with her on this. So I was talking to one big name head fund manager who used to be really into oil and basic commodities, and his base sick goal in life now is to invest in startups that make food better. And that can be like making bees more productive or making your corn more productive. It can be it can be technology, many different things,

but like that's his thing now. So, yeah, the problem is there's not a lot of public opportunities r right, Well, but you know, increasingly is the private markets get more liquid in some form or fashion. You know, maybe that comes on board and venture capitalists. You know, I mean the idea of constructing a vegan portfolio. It's kind of interesting, perfectly honest with you. I don't know if I could construct a vegan diet, Like, I don't really know what

that means. I know, I can't eat cheese, milk, eggs like I can eat carbs. I get really confused with the vegan thing. Yeah, there's it's basically no meat, no dairy I think are the main thing. Um, no paleos meat, nothing, you like, there's a grainy it's some grain and there's no cheese, like I can't like, I can't like. Here's the music. Can I have a segment? Yeah, exactly. I'm a journal Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no no, no, who's going to drive home? Honey? Please,

I'll do the riding revel. I want to drive all just drive, baby questions trying. This is the drive to the globe. Thanks, we'll dry un on Bloomberg Radio. All right, time for the drive to the clothes. Let's get there with Norm Calmly. He's CEO and c i O, Chief investment officer at Jack Capital Management, looking after about one and a half billion dollars. Joining us on the phone from St. Louis, Norm, how are you. I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thank you. What does all this look like?

They're on the ground in St. Louis? Uh be are we talking about we're talking about the crisis here, like I mean, the especially the health crisis. Yeah. Sure, so you know here in St. Louis we are um, you know, we're we're practicing a lot of social distancing. We've got some state in county and local mandates that I think of probably on the stricter side compared to many areas

of the country. We're not quite yet um as as strict as for example, Los Angeles or over the last couple of days, but probably a little bit a little bit stricter than for example, you know, Georgia, uh, Colorado,

some other states like that. Uh. I know we'll get to markets in the second as wealth manager, but I do want to ask a follow up on that norm and that um something that debates I think in the market is that do you kind of need a lockdown to then hurt economic growth or just the headlines are enough to curb investor confidence and curb their spending and make them stay home regardless of what the shutdown laws are. And I wonder what you're noticing is you're kind of

like in the middle. Yeah. So so you know, I think that there is a bit of pent up demand from consumers. I mean, I've talked to a lot of folks and I think you know, you may have also that uh consumer. You know, savings rates have have gone up during this crisis. I mean, it was just not as many places over the last several months to spend money. Uh. So we're seeing, you know, we're seeing some benefits on

the commerce side, uh and obviously delivery services. But um, yeah, I think that for folks that are lucky enough to to still have a job, and we know that there's there's a lot of a lot of folks that don't, um, there is some probably some pent up demand going on. So um, you know, I don't know if I answer

your question. I think you know, any news that we're getting, we're seeing some of it today that that you know, there could be a light at the end of the tunnel for for this is a positive light in the at the end of the tunnel, in the form of a vaccine, right right, yeah, vaccine. I mean we you know, we've got the you know, globally the smartest people in the world working on a cure for this, and it looks like, um, it looks like, you know, they're getting closer.

And in the meantime, um, you know, just reading things from the CDC and listening to medical professionals, our abilities collectively to treat cases when they arise, even in the absence of a vaccine, appears to have improved pretty materially over the last three to four months. Yeah. I think that's right. And as you say, you know, all the best minds focused on. This is probably in a way that we've never seen over the course of human history,

certainly modern history. UM. So let's talk some names if we can. I mean, one of the biggest debates I feel like we're all having, and maybe it's not even a debate at this point, is around retail online and breaking mortar. How do you play this as an investor? What names do you look at specifically or not look at? Yeah, so, you know, for for a number of years now, Um, you know, brick and mortar, mall based retail in particular

has been under pressure. You know, it's just hard to compete with you know, next day delivery to day delivery via Amazon Prime for example. But this crisis has really accelerated it. And I don't have to go into a lot of detail other than you know, we've seen J. C. Penny go into bankruptcy, Neiman Marcus re enter bankruptcy. Um. You know that the whole, the whole trend has been accelerated and compressed because of because of the locked ms of physical retail across most of the country. I mean,

we own Amazon, we continue to like it. Uh, you know, we think obviously they're clear beneficiary and you know of the stay at home economy. Uh, and the stock has reflected a lot of that. But I think in addition to that, what what the CEO, Jeff Bezos has has done is used this crisis as an opportunity to invest more in their business and essentially were producing a um a COVID proof if I could use that term, supply chain and within the Amazon ecosystem, and you know, spending

four billion dollars. Uh, you know it is what he's announced that they're going to be studying in the current quarter on this. Gosh, it's just it's really hard for other retailers, certainly physical retailers to to match that. So normal. Are you at all playing the recovery trade? Because I understand on the fundamental ways what you're saying about Amazon is also obviously caught up in the tech rally that we've seen except for the last few days. Are you

doing the recovery bit? Um? Yeah, you know that's interesting. You may be reading our mail or we've been talking about it internally with our team. UM. I guess the short answer is, uh, we are playing the recovery of that to the extent to which our process and and uh, you know, our long standing process allows us to do so. So you know, we're growth investors. UM. There are probably a lot of really good values UM that will be a parent certainly in hindsight, say six or twelve months

from now, that go into that recovery basket. So you could look at you know, for example, distressed travel related companies. Uh maybe you know some of them all based retailers that are going to survive. You know, they're really cheap. That's not our game, though. We let our our value brethren brethren, uh pick those really cheap stocks that are going to ultimately work their way out of distress and

and and uh and recover. Um. But you know there are there are companies that that you know, we can own and you know one of them uh sent TOAs, which is a uniform company, probably the dominant work uniform company. You know, we think they're going to benefit from uh, you know, from normalization, you know, as an if and when it occurs. One more name I'd love to ask you about if I can, Norman, I think this is one that's interesting to both Alex and me as watches

of the stock market, but also as consumers. Lulu Lemon Uh, that's been a fascinating name to watch in many cases and maybe has defied some expectations throughout this Maybe it's everybody working in you know, leggings. But what do you make of it? Yeah, so Lulu Lulu Lemon is you know, one of our largest holdings, and we've owned it for

several years. Um, really fascinating company. Obviously, you know, made their name with leggings and and you know, yoga pants, mostly for for the female women market, but over the last several years has really made a concerted effort and by and large has been successful in expanding into into men's clothes. Um. So you know, we really liked the name. They're having a lot of success globally and growing their brand.

And then I was really intrigued. Uh, and I guess I like the acquisition that they made pretty recently of Mirror, which is a company they invested about a million bucks in I guess a year year and a half ago, um, and ultimately here fought for five million, which is crazy. It sounds for a pre public company. Uh, that's about five times projective sales, right, So we really really like it. Yeah, all right, well we'll have to talk more about that when next time you join us, good to catch up

with you. Norm Conley, of course, joining us from St. Louis, Chief Executive, Chief Investment Officer over Jack Capital Management. Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, South Cloud, Bloomberg dot com, or wherever you get your podcasts. And of course you can always listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News