Masks Also Helpful for Flu Season, Lustbader Says

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. Jason, I run to this

next guest. We do it every week. Do um? I do want to just put out there as we get ready to talk with Dr Ian lous bader Um a stunning and disturbing statistic and you can read about it uh in depth on the Bloomberg But the US will top two hundred thousand deaths from the novel coronavirus in coming days, so talk about a milestone. So let's talk about that and talk about where we are the virus

and in the race for a vaccine. Dr In Lusbader is back with US clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at n y U Landgown Medical Center on the phone in New York City. UM. Dr LUs Bader, truly, Jason, I look forward to these weekly conversations. How are you? My pleasure always always great to be with you guys. And I hope you have a healthy week is safe weekend, and uh, definitely it's a it's a challenge with all the data coming in. It's hard to coordinate it all,

but we'll try and make sense of it. So you know, Ian, I wanted to ask you about something because there's a great article. I'm gonna put it on Twitter, and there's a full personal disclosure here. Uh great piece in Time magazine that was fluttered among my family because my aunt in Atlanta, who is a nutritionist at emery UM, she

is part of a vaccine triallenge. She's interviewed in this story and it's the Maderna vaccine and it gave me, you know, some measure of hope in terms of her being interviewed and one of the and what they're talking about in terms of all these vaccines moving forward. Now there are a lot of cautions in this piece as well, and it talks about, you know, the need for two shots and the fact that you know, there's all these

different things going on. We don't know exactly what is going to work, what combination of things are going to work, the efficacy and the safety. What's the thing that you've heard of late that's the most important when it comes to vaccines in you know, this is really uncharted territory. We we haven't dealt with the pandemic of this size really since you know, the so called Spanish flew, and

we've had the swine flew another epidemics and pandemics. But this is really uncharted territory, and we're learning as we go in terms of the different manifestations and the diffused clotting and and so forth, and how some people have a very mild case and other people succumb. So I think we're learning a number of things. One is that even people who have the disease and who develop antibodies

do have lower antibody levels along the way. And I've had a number of patients with very high antibody levels who who do relatively well with the with the infection and over time we've we've checked their antibodies and the levels definitely seem to drop. Now we don't know how far down there will go, and we don't know if they have a cellular a T cell response that will protect them. But this really does argue for everyone getting a vaccine. We also don't know which is really going

to be the most effective vaccine. Is it a messenger or in a you know, is it a different technique that we're really going to have to see. We're just starting to get the data from the phase three trials with um you know, tens of thousands of patients getting getting tested, and overall looks like at this point that

that it does seem fairly safe. There was that one case with astras eneka, and there may be other cases that will learn about, but overall it appears the vaccines are fairly safe and from what I'm hearing, fairly effective. Now how long that will be or will people need a booster shot, which they probably will, I think we're going to have to kind of see how that goes.

But of course, in the interim, you know, the cases are in you know, have continue and of course, unfortunately the depths now up to you know, over two D thousand. We did anticipate these numbers. These numbers were just based on the trajectory. They shouldn't be you know, of course they're upsetting, but they shouldn't be shocking because we these numbers were all really guestimated along the way. So I

think we're making some progress. So I do want to ask you about a vaccine that because I'm thinking, Okay, I'm at some point I'm gonna be taking a vaccine. Should we wait for the one that is the most effective? Is their complications with taking multiple vaccines? Like I want to understand this as an individual, I think that great questions, Carol is as always, I don't think we have those answers.

And and is it possible that people may need two different kinds of the vaccines in other words, of a messenger RNA and perhaps another one. I think it's way too early to determine that. And I think the first priority, you know, will be those frontline workers and healthcare workers who who need some protection when they're encountering patients. UM and I do suspect that eventually is more and where people get vaccinated, it will be clear, you know, whether

combinations of vaccines work or whether you'll be protected. And I think we'll be able to check antibody levels along the way, and I think that will give us a bit of a clue. But I think the feeling is even if you have some exposure with a vaccine, even if you have some antibody response, that should help in reducing the severity of the effects of the virus. And again, we we don't know whether this will come back as a seasonal coronavirus, which other coronaviruses you know are common

cold viruses or seasonal flu viruses. But vaccinating everyone, just like we vaccinate everyone for the flu, should give some degree of protection. Do we ultimately, and we're gonna come back and talk, but just thirty seconds, do we ultimately as a population, as a country, build up an immunity that we don't need vaccines in the future. No, you just said we're gonna probably have to be taking these. Yeah, that's my sense. For people who have the disease, they

may be better protected. But we don't even know that. Because we do see antibodies that are high and do begin to drop down over time, we don't will they go to zero. We don't know. When you read the headlines about bank saying coming in and then got to go home, or the Blasio, the mayor of New York City saying, yeah, we're gonna hold off for a couple of weeks. What do you make of it? Where are

we at this point? It's definitely again uncharted territory. But I think everyone agrees it's important to get back to work, both for or economic health and psychological health. Although we do have a lot of patients who are very worried, teachers and professors who are very worried about being in close proximity to UH kids who, as we know, can harbor the virus with minimal symptoms, And so I think developing a good strategy to allow people to get back

safely is important. And part of that, some of the data has come out that everyone wearing masks actually seems to be reducing the incidents of influenza as well as coronavirus, which makes sense right because obviously flu I mean, they're both viruses, and they both are respiratory viruses, and both coughing, sneezing and and so forth. So I think the whole mass concept is going to be with us for for a while, even during flu season. That being said, you

need a strategy to bring people back. What some colleges are doing, um, you know, is the spit testing, the antigen tests, which can be helpful before people come back to school. Some of them are getting nasal swabs, which

can be helpful, you know. In New York City it's uh, not everyone has access to that, but I do think the schools can certainly do UM these pods where you rotate kids who come in and group so smaller groups because if one of those kids happens to get sick, then you isolate that group, but you don't affect the whole class. So there are a lot of strategies, and even the CDC is a little unclear perhaps as to

the best strategy. There's not unlimited testing, and they recently as of today, actually just reverse course on whether or

not you should test asymptomatic people. And I think certainly, if um, someone feels fine and they're going to visit someone at risk, an elderly parent or relative, uh, it does make sense to get a nasal swab, and if that's negative, you can feel really pretty reassured that even if you do masks or social distancing that your risk of injuring your your relative is very low, whether or not a random encounter in an elevator or you hear someone in the office had COVID. Do you really need

to be tested? I think that's individual and if someone feels completely fine, sure, in the vest of all worlds, it's probably not a bad idea to be tested. But I don't think people should panicked about that because casual contact is certainly outside if you're passing people and so forth,

that's really a very low risk. I feel like in an ideal world, I mean, we've kind of gotten used to so for most of us wearing masks, like Jason, I were kind of kidding, you know that when I leave the house, I kind of you know, if I forget, I'm like, oh my god, It's like I'm not putting a seatbelt on in a car. It just has become

such a part of our process. I do feel like, do we get to a point in our world, especially if these viruses are going to stick around in that you know, taking a COVID test is going to be as routine is brushing our teeth every morning. Uh well, you know, perhaps for the time being, until we do get a vaccine, and just like people do not get routine flu shots, are routine flu testing UM or nasal

swabs which we can do for influence. If people come into the you're very sick, I see, ever, you know, you do a nasal swab and you can determine if they have the flu, or coronavirus or or a variety of other respiratory pathogens. So I think when people get vaccinated, and I understand the anti vax you know fears, but when these are really safe and tested um, I think that will significantly reduce the need for everyone to be tested on a very frequent basis unless there's something that's

really suspicious. In the meantime, wear a mask right in the means time, wear a mask, use your head, do social distancing, and the and the number of cases, certainly in the Northeast and in an area's pockets that are careful that the number of cases does seem to be going down, and hopefully that second wave will not be as bad as we think, right right, Yeah, I mean it does feel like and our things, Dr Ian les Bader, I mean it does feel like the science, even that

sort of retroactive science basically says, had we been wearing masks in much greater numbers back in the spring, those numbers don't hit where they hit when it comes to sickness and death. The science is pretty clear on this from the CDC, Tom Johns, Hopkins and elsewhere. Uh listen, Morgan Freeman, he's saying where I'm asks, Keep Morgan safe, Keep all of us safe. Listen. I now know that if we get viruses like this in the future, like right away, I bet most of us will put on

a mask. Its little mask I was wearing in the office yesterday. It's like a It's like a festive Darth Vader mask. You're so cool, Jason Killen. Thank LUs Bader over at n y u Lando Medical Center. Really a great go to voice for us who are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Well, I love this pairing Max Chafkin and Joel Webber. Doesn't get much better than that on

a Friday. Plus Palintier it is a nutty company. And to use a term of art, as it were, Max Chaffkin wrote the story Palenteer bad mouthing big tech while taking its tech public checks out. We are talking about Peter Till after all he joins us on the phone from Queen Joe Weber. He joins us from Massachusetts. All right,

JW set this up for us. So, so, I think Max has been um really uh just one of these watchers of Silicon Valley for years, and he spoke up about this one because Palenteer has been really interesting company in one that Business Week has covered uh more than once. Um. And you know, he reminded us that there's a direct listing coming because this has been a company that's been privately held, uh, and now it will become public just around the corner. But in the process of sort of

you know, it's walk up to its direct listing. It's opting to go public via direct listing rather than an I p O. It's also a little ironic because of the company's um uh sort of anti Silicon Valleys stance that it's also taken uh and that kind of also speak to U. Uh. You know, the company's a little bit of its heritage because obviously it's um, you know, Peter Teel backed. So so Max talked to us about what Palanteer uh it's business looks like and why it's

so relevant in this moment. Yeah, I mean, so so it's really interesting. It's been, as you say, it's been around for a long time, seventeen years. The company UM most people probably don't know much about it. If they do know about it, they know it's vaguely controversial, it's vaguely sort of wrapped up with UM intelligence work. Uh. The company was founded by Peter Teel, the the venture capitalist founder PayPal after UM after nine eleven, and and and and was famously used by the c I A. Uh,

you know during that period. I mean, what's What's what's pretty interesting here, besides all the all the sort of hot button issues, is you have this company that when you look at its finance chills look not especially great. I mean, you know, it's it's it's it's losing hundreds of millions of dollars and it's been around for seventeen years.

That's kind of the skeptical case. The more positive case that you hear from investors from the company UM is that COVID and and kind of the the way that COVID has shifted the economy has been you know, a really big boon to palent here in a couple of different ways, it's led to new contracts. Obviously, Talent Here has all these relationship relationships and governments. So they have a contract with the h h S, the US Departments

Health and Human Services. It's worth like twenty one million bucks. They've been doing a lot of sort of government work, and it's dramatically changed, um the numbers. I mean, in other words, that they're their cost structure because in the past Talent Here, the big knock on this company is that, hey, it's not a tech company. Is actually a sort of

a consulting company. They're flying people all over the world to sell their products and to set up these sort of software Uh, these are big expensive software engagements, and that's super expensive. And you've seen there they're sort of costs go way down over the line, um six months or so. You know what's interesting, Max, There's a couple of things that really jump out for me. First of all, I mean, this is a company that has thrived, as

you say your words, under President Trump. It's also a company though, and we get critical of companies and tech companies in particular, that's controlled by a trifecta. Yeah, this is another one of these kind of uh, you know, founder controlled arrangements and It shouldn't be surprising because you know, Peter Thiel was involved in the original kind of founder controlled ring, which is the is the one that Mark Zuckerberg enjoys and which is really the model for all

this stuff. I mean, he started a venture capital firm called Founders Funds that's basically all about this um. So no surprise, but the structure is is pretty weird. I mean, you have the three co founders there, they own a special classes of share it in a trust that trust control.

There's some probably some additional stocks owned by Peel and these guys on top of that, plus a board that is you know, it's I'm not sure what the legal um sort of definition of independences, but these are a lot of people with close relationships with the with Peel and the founding team, so there's sort of a lot of questions on independence. Anyone who's buying into this company is not going to expect to have a huge amount

of of input and volunteers. Sort of being straight up with that and saying, you know, this is you know, this is a situation you know, taking or leave it, which we've seen from Silicon Valley. You know, a lot over the last fifteen years and um, it's mostly worked out, and sometimes it doesn't work out, so you know, well, we'll see once the once the listing happens. I think that that's a really important and fascinating element of this. It's that, you know, the way that this company is

going public is untraditional. It's opting for a direct listing over the I p O. But then on top of it, it's like there's this wedge that the company is opting to put between itself and its potential shareholders and the shareholders share you get shares in the company and like, you know things to Max's earlier point, like on paper, this company has been around for a while, but also hasn't had great financials, so you know what what is

in it for investors? Uh? Kind of maybe remains to be determined here, um, since there there could be very little oversight. But Max, that brings me to the other thing I want to say, which is, you know, while other tech companies in particular have used similar kind of share class arrangements, one thing that's interesting about Palenteer is back to the headline, the bad mouthing of Silicon Valley.

What's that about? Yeah, I mean, I think You're seeing this a lot in you know, just across the economy honestly. But but where there's a lot uncertainty right now and around the around the election and Palenteer um obviously that is a huge bearing on Palenteer's future because Palenteer has has these gigantic contracts with the U. S government. US government is currently can role by President Trump, who has close relationships with Teal and you know, and and and

other members of the sort of Talenteer team. And and so what's happening is Palenteer about a year ago um was was getting hit really hard by protests of where work it was doing for um ice basically, uh, you know, providing software systems for you know, for for for the US immigration authorities that lead to protests and and and this is kind of the way they've decided to play it.

Whereas a lot of these other companies have tried to sort of you know, work with their employees or you know like basically you know, bend to their employees, uh, you know wishes. Palenteer is taking a different road, which is much more like NOE. This is what we're doing.

You can you can take it or leave it. You can have a good faith disagreement, but we do business with the US government, and this is the US government right now, which is you know, obviously a position that's probably you know, more popular with conservative than than with

liberals and Silicon Values a liberal. So so I think we're served seeing a bit of a political play right where they declaring themselves allied in some sense with you know, with with moderates and conservatives, you know, at the expensive of goal. Fascinating and all eyes will be on Palanteer next week with that direct listing. Thank you so much, Max Chafkin, You're the best. Great hear your voice, features editor for Bloomberg Business Week, joining us from Queen's. Joe Webber,

the editor of the magazine. He joined us from Massachusetts. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, talk to you a little business week economics, and you just heard a little bit of the big interview this morning that are on Michael McKee. You frequently hear the dulcet sounds of his voice on this radio program. He did catch up with Atlanta President Raphael Bostick down in the A T. L. Earlier.

Michael mckeugh is in New York, of course because it's a remote world. But Raphael Bostick, of course runs the Federal Reserve Bank down there, and he said US needs to provide additional fiscal support for the US economy. That economy obviously has lost momentum. Let's take a listen to what he has to say before we get into a conversation with our in house expert. Check it out. What I would tell a policymaker is, look, there are lots of sectors where there's still a lot of pain and

disruption that's going on. There are a lot of families who have a significant amount of uncertainty, and those things will wear on our psyche and our ability to grow. So I would encourage them to think about ways that they might provide support to help those who are in more precarious positions, Uh, not have to struggle and worry, right, provide some more aid for those who really needed. Of course, that's Mike McKee a Bloomberg his interview with Atlanta Fed

President at Raphael Bostik. Let's get into this, uh, and what are Yelena Shiltieva has to say Senior US economist at Bloomberg Economics joining us on the phone from Long Island. Uh. This for our segment of Business Economics Business Week in Mix on this Friday. So, Elena, I mean, man, I feel like everybody agrees we need some more aid, We need some more federal assistance because of the impact of the virus. Um Your thoughts on what Pasta had to

say and how you see it. I know we've talked about this before, sure, but basically he is, uh um saying the same thing a lot of Federal Reserve members to have already told us, including Chair powow Is that Uh. Well, it has to do with the exploration of the six hundred dollar ad on two benefits to claims to job with claim benefits that expired at the end of July, and the three hundred dollar add on um that was a result of the executive borders signed by President Trump

in the beginning of August. They have also expired. So now the most vulnerable layoff the population, uh does not get those extra benefits. And these are the people who actually spend more of their income than the rest of the population. So what happened is that people who have higher propensity to consume UH in a much worse position right now, and we will see the impact of this um UH you know, exploration of extra income on consumer spending. It just we will not see that in the third quarter.

We will see it in the fourth quarter and going into next year. And that's why we need this extra support from physical authorities. And yet, what if we don't get it, what's the what's the worst case scenario that we're facing or likely scenario if we don't get it. It's a great question, Jay, excellent question. Indeed. So our estimates indicate that the impact of that would be in

the order of several percentage points of GDP. So if you think about it in the car fixt of the twenty eight percent rebound in the third quarter that we are projecting, well, that's not a big deal. But if you think about it in terms of potential growth or average growth over the last several years of roughly tore, if you subtract five percent from growth in the fourth quarter,

you may end up with negative growth. So our projection is for a very slow growth in the fourth quarter, and we'll see what happens in the first quarter if things get worse and they see negative growth again. St. Louis said. President Jim Bullard also making some comments he is quote optimistic that the US can get growth all the way back. Are you as optimistic? I mean, I

guess yeah, anything can happen. It just depends how long it takes to get there, right, Elena, absolutely agree with you, Carol. Where will get there? The question is when? And uh, you know, the physical physical packages just needed because uh that will help us to get there faster. So the longer we wait, the more permanent these lasses in economic momentum will become. So it's not going to be just about the pandemic, but it will be more of uh

lasses in income, in in growth overall. Just think of because this is a recession. And so what's the next sort of most important data point that we're going to get? Obviously the higher frequency data we've come to rely on, Lena when it comes to jobless claims, and we heard retail sales earlier this week. I believe, like what else are you guys looking for that will help you start to synthesize this latest picture? So you you name those, uh the next basels reports we'll see if we get

if we still continue to get positive employment reading. So what happens with the data, and that's a very important into to remember, is that we are answering the season when seasonal factors will become unfavorable to economic growth. So, in other words, UH, seasonal factors would expect pick up in personal consumption because we're approaching the holiday season, uh so, as well as seasonal factors will expect more hiring because

of this holiday season. So it will be much harder to overcome these expectations for raw economic data to pick up as strongly as UH needed. So what that means is that we may start getting negative surprises in terms of the data, just simply because this whole thing disrupted seasonal factors to secual degree that it was supporting growth earlier, and now as we end in the final stages of the year, that may start to wait on economic growth. All right, Elena SELETI have a thank you so much,

really good to catch up with you. Great context, especially given what we've been hearing from the FED. Was it really just two days ago that we were I know. That's why there's one day this week where I'm like, it is welcome to Bloomberg Business Week. It is really it is next Thursday. Yeah, I mean it's just it's bananas, all right, have a great weekend. Elana Sletti of a senior US economist for Bloomberg Economics. This on the phone

from Long Island. Think about how much we talk about the wealth gap, right and trying to fix it especially. This is something that has been such an important topic that we understand. You know, it is such a big part of our society, is such a big problem. You know, we're just gonna forget about fixing that. We're just gonna try and make sure people can put food on their table. Uh, if we don't kind of get this one right. Yeah, looking forward to speaking of economics, this is a deep

tease or forward tease. We are going to catch up, i believe, next week with Peter Atwater right from William and Mary. And you know, he is the economist, very smart who has put forth this notion of the K shape recovery. I feel like I talked about the K

shape recovery just about every day now. I mean I find ways to enter it into the conversation, even from a personal perspective, in terms of like understanding our own consumption patterns versus other people's and you know, and and candidly like seeing it as lens for different companies and different activities and different regions and all these different things that it's really critical. Well, isn't it crazy? Because for so long we were like, is it the Nike Swush?

Is it you? Is it a V? Is it a W? Is it a what? And then when Peter came out and you talked about the K shape recovery, it was like, snap, that explains so much because we agreed. We know people, We have been very lucky that our lives have not changed too much. There are others who their lives I've been turned completely upside down and they don't know what their future looks like a journal. Yeah, but you let me drive? No, no, please, I'll do the right vel me.

I want to drive, Just drive, baby question trying. This is the Drive to the Globe Commune. Thanks, we'll drying us down on Bloomberg Radio, all right, every one time for the Drive to the Closed. George Schelty is with US founder Schelty Acid Management, based in Rye Brook, New York, and that's where we find him on this Friday. George, nice to have you here with Jason and myself. Happy Friday. How are you well? Thanks? Good to be back Carol.

How are you doing okay? It was kind of a hefty lift this week between M and A activity, some market pull back, um, just a lot going on FED meeting. So tell us about you know, kind of how you see the outlook. I mean you specialize in distressed an event driven to situation. So how does the distressed world first of all, um look to you? And when it comes to a venture of into situation to have a lot with all that M and A this week, Yeah,

the distressed world has been pretty busy. There's been a lot of activity, especially in the energy space, and you know, there's just been so much leverage out there that's now getting restructured. A big catalyst, of course has been COVID and the slow down in the economy due to all the quarantines. So there's been a lot of activity, but I would say energy is sort of ground zero for

distressed land these days. And what is the M and A activity Because we had sort of a merger Monday like we haven't had in quite some time, uh, this week? What does it tell you? And is it representative? I guess of what you're seeing out there. In terms of the broader deal landscape. I think the deal landscape Jason is very good right now. Um, you know, the outlook is for a continuing recovery from the COVID pandemic days

and crisis. Um. You know, Power this week said he's going to you know, basically hold interest rates down, you know, at super low levels for possibly two to three years. So companies have access to capital and there's an opportunity for them to merge. There's a lot of stuff going on in different industries. There's a lot of reasons for merging, you know, whether it's cost savings or growth. Um. But

but you know, we would certainly expect that to continue. Well, it's interesting you said, so energy is ground zero for distress today. What kind of energy are you looking at and want to be investing in? So there's a lot of that opportunity, I would say in the oil patch as well as a natural gas patch. Um. In terms of energy, both of those sectors had really sold off.

And you know, the overall energy space just has sort of a disproportionate amount of high yield and junk rated debt and so now you're seeing a mad dash to the courthouse for all sorts of restructurings, and I think it coming out of that, there'll be a lot of interesting opportunities with companies are extremely low evaluations. So you are in the midst of participating in one of our favorite things about here in blank chat companies got a spack. You're one of the cool kids, uh doing this, UM,

tell us about it. Tell us about your acquisition in particular. I love the name clever Leaves. Yeah, clever Leaves is a is a disruptive business. UM. We like it a lot. And it's it's, uh, you know, our our selected spack target. UM. We looked at dozens of different companies and we found this one to be the best one for our spac. UM. It's it's got a great management team, and its business plan is really to disrupt the whole cannabis industry with

super low cost production, global footprint. UM. It's really exciting, you know, and and we're looking forward to seeing this merger closed into the fourth quarter of this year. The company will be listed on NASDAC and uh, you know, I think the outlook for it in terms of market share, you know, penetration with you know, exceedingly low costs is excellent,

and so why are SPACs so hot? I mean it literally, I mean and then and not taking anything away from you, but it's like we have joked, like, dude, everybody's got us back. I mean Baron Davis, the two time NBA All Star. We have news on him doing us back today, Billy Bean for Moneyball fame. Like what is it about this particular um method and methodology I guess of getting something public or making an acquisition more to the point, is so attractive right now? Yeah, SPACs fit a void, Jason.

I mean they really offer investors a combination of equity upside potential if the right deal is found the right company like Clever Leaves, as well as downside protection for an investor who wants liquidity and it's frustrated with you know, exceedingly low interest rates which have been low for so long. That's why SPACs are popular. It hits both of those requirements downside protection that you get in the fixed income market.

UM SPAC trust. You know the cash and the SPAC trust sits in a in a trust and you know it is invested in treasuries, and you know there's your downside protection. Then when and if a good deal is found, you can vote on it and get equity upside like we're looking to get and deliver to our shareholders with

with clever Leaves. If the if the sponsor or management team fails, the good news for the investors that they can still walk away and and get power plus accrude interest, you know, even though it's a low rate of interest. So that's why they're popular and we think they'll continue to be popular. The proof though, is you know how good the acquisitions are and how good the management teams are and the companies that you bring to market because

basically you're bringing you know, private company to market. Well we're found here with clever Leaves. Is just you know, it's phenomenal. Well why is it phenomenal? Because forgive me and my skepticism, but you know, in terms of the cannabis market, we've seen the boom, we've seen the bust.

Trying to figure out where we are. You have had a fair amount of CEOs on and some certainly seem to be stronger players, no doubt about it getting bigger in the marketplace, and some of the smaller players, especially in the consumer side, consumer product side. UM we see some come out strong and then they fold. So I'm just curious, what is it about you know this one that you said, Okay, it's a go. It's a go again because of the management team, but but really because

of the business plan behind it as well. It's exceedingly low cost production model. They produce at about twenty gram by the way they're they're they're just a legal cannabis producers, so they they sell uh, cannabis only for the medicinal market in market where it's legal. Um, so they actually don't sell in the US, but you have the optionality for you know, expansion into the US when and if

that market opens as well. But the I think the lower cost production element of it is so important because it's disruptive and because of that they're taking away market share and even getting some of their competitors to give them significant business, like Canopy Growth recently did. Right, is it though your expectation this is a takeout play once it goes public? Just got about forty seconds here. Yeah,

I'm not projecting that just as of yet, Carol. I think I think once who goes public it's an execution story, and you know, the the projections are conservative, but you know, outstanding. So so we're gonna let this management team do their work, and you know, potentially there'll be some M and A activity in the future, we don't know, but for now they're going to keep growing this business and and you know, really proving themselves as public company operators. Yeah, it's interesting.

We never know sort of what side a company might be on, especially in this business, this cannabis business, that's for sure. Will congrats on that. Really good to catch up to you. George Schiltzy is the founder of Shalty Asset Management, also a part of the special purpose acquisition company Cleverly's. Love the name, well, very cool name. And I just think about seven cents Botanical therapy with CDB Body and Skincare. We've had their CEO on, I've tried

their products, loved it. They shut down during the virus and now I don't know if they're I don't know that they're bankrupt, but they're not operating UM and so I'm just saying it's it can be a tough go. But again he's in the medicinal so um and where it's legal, and that's certainly different business model. Thanks so

much for listening. To Bloomberg Business Week, download the podcast on iTunes, South Cloud, Bloomberg dot com, but 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