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How do you think the FED is looking at tariffs? The uncertainty of terriffs.
Let's take a look at the sectors and how they performed.
A lot of investors getting whipsaled every day by news events, breaking market headlines.
And corporate news from across the globe.
Could we see a market disruption of market event?
So people just too exuberant out there?
You see some so called low quality stocks driving this short term rally.
Bloomberg Intelligence with Scarletfoo and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio, YouTube and Bloomberg Originals.
On today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big business story is impacting Wall Street and the global markets.
Each and every week we provide in depth research and data on some of the two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries are analysts cover worldwide.
Today, we'll look at the outlook for US railroad, transportation, telecoms and cloud computing business for twenty twenty six plus.
We speak with the writer and producer of the film Ball Run on capturing the excess and high octane world of Wall Street.
First, we lean into the world of luxury. According to the most recent Bloomberg Intelligence research, the recovery of luxury goods makers in twenty twenty six hinges on limited price increases and a shift toward volume led growth.
For more pollen guest host Normal and I spoke with deb Acon, Bloomberg Intelligence luxury goods analysts.
We started out twenty twenty five with an expectation that we'd move back to growth, and that certainly didn't materialize through the first half of the year, but we seem to be ending at around three to four percent growth as we exit twenty twenty five. Now, the US has been robust, Middle East doing very well, but particularly in the first half the year, it was China which was the drag. And what we've noticed is we end the year.
We've actually just heard on a fireside chat over the last few days from Laurel where they're mentioning high end beauty doing very well out of the US, but also in China too, So they're adding to what we've heard from the luxury companies, where we've seen two thirds of luxury companies and most of the top ten switching to growth in China in Q three from a low base from negatives a year ago. But actually that we're calling green shoots into the end of year.
How are these companies holding up as it releads to tariff overhangs.
Yeah, so we did a lot of work around May time and again through July and August with the different tariff rates moving around, and what we've actually seen it
was less detrimental overall in our numbers. We probably think that EPs won't be pulled as much as was expected because there have been some cost savings and the biggest companies and those that were where brands were really in favor, have managed to pass on price, and generally because these companies operate on high gross margin, the cost in the US, they've moved around two to four percent on additional price into the US as well as two three percent from
the beginning of the year, So some of those brands have absorbed passing through six seven percent pricing to the US consumer, and we think into twenty twenty six that moves nearer to two to three percent overall, so it should be less intimidating for the consumer overall twenty twenty six. So it's one of our drivers for the year ahead.
Dev talk to us about the Chinese consumer. Are they not traveling? So is that an impact for New York and London and Paris and things like that.
We actually have a survey out of our Asia office that we've just incorporated into a travel document which will be producing. But this piece of work has already produced and actually on October versus May. The China consumer is looking to travel more into Europe to start with, So that's the first big positive. I think part of that is is just on the way the tariff situation has gone maybe so that would be the first time that we're looking for them to come back so versus three
months ago. They're looking to traveling outside of Asia. But overall what we call the China cohort that's actually really operateing more avidly across the Asia region. We're not seeing so much travel from Chinese into Japan, and of course we know that there are there's some political commentary there as well, so we wouldn't expect that to pick up
next year. But we are seeing Korea, Singapore, Australia and others being positive and the first move to Europe should hopefully indicate that towards the end of the year and as tariffs settle more in twenty twenty six, that we see some of that return to the US as well.
And sticking with China, how are we thinking about supply chain operations as it releads to a lot of these luxury firms, especially stemming from China.
Yeah, so if we think about maybe if we if we look at it from some of the aspirational or entry level luxury companies, then they will have some production moving around the Asia region. But if we think about the heritage traditional higher end luxury companies, then most of their production is France, Italy, some Portugal, some parts of southern Spain. Not so much going on in the Asia region, and so they've been able to manage on the twenty percent tariff from made in Europe over to the US
more so than some of the peer group. For example, one of our entry level that we call branded affordable jewelry Pandora producers out of Thailand, it's really suffered in terms of share price this year versus some of the Asian retail jewelers who've done very very well on the price of gold.
So you got to explain this whole handbag thing to me, dev I was in Italy in September towards some place factors and artisan shops where they make these handbags and they sell them for tens of thousands of dollars in euros? What is going on there? Who buys that?
Yeah?
It has I always say, if you bought a Ermez, you have a just as good or a better correlation than if you'd have held gold. So I think that you know, these bags, particularly for sought after material, the craftsmanship and the fact that they have continued value, are seen as investment pieces, and so we have the middle ground.
You know, if we look over the last year and one of the things that we think for twenty twenty six bags from Tapestry, from Coach, Ralph Lauren, others as well as ready to wear have done very very well, resonated with a consumer who's been a little bit more skeptical on the consumer sentiment side and maybe shopped around one thousand dollars or so. But at the very high end there hasn't been much of a move. So we've seen Mmes, Brunello, Kuche you others doing very very well at that high end.
All right, thanks to Debacon Bloomberg Intelligence luxury goods analyst. We move next to a conversation with Jonathan Goldstein, co founder and CEO of Kine International. It's an alternative asset manager specializing in real estate investment solutions.
Jonathan's real estate and experiential investments have helped him morph into sports related investments. In twenty twenty two, he also became director and co owner of Chelsea Football Club, a prominent soccer club in the English Premier League.
He shares details about his new club and what it means to be part of a growing ownership group.
While I'm on the board of Chelsea and obviously the buyout was led by my partner Todd Bowley and in partnership with clear Lake. Back in twenty twenty two, teams doing well, obviously huge success in the summer in New York, winning the Club World Club Championship, which was a proud moment for the fans. The women's team don't extraordinarily well, winning the Women's Premier League for multi times in the
a row last summer. So you know, we're very proud of the development since we've been involved in twenty twenty two. We think there's more to come. We're very excited.
So the valuations on some of these franchises, whether it's huge franchises like in the English Premier League or the National Football League here in US, just beyond the realm of arguably even one hundred millionaires. These are billionaires, if not private equity corporate money. So that leads some people to say, Hey, I'm going to go to some of these smaller sports where I can maybe get some better value.
How about cricket Trent Rockets. What's the play there? And I don't know that's all I got from cricket.
First of all, let me explain that the way that the one hundred competition works that we've invested in and try and put in an American language. Please, Let's assume you have a baseball game, YEP, where you have one hundred pitches per side, and the objective is to score as many runs of those one hundred pitches as you can.
It's short form nature of the game two to two and a half hours, exciting every pitch is important and this is what the English Cricket Board created five years ago in London in the UK with one hundred with eight franchises around the country. Now it modeled itself on the Indian Premier League, which obviously has been a phenomenal product for the Indian population and globally for those who like cricket. It has the second most valuable broadcast rights a game in the world, behind the NFL on a
per game basis. There are larger broadcast contracts, but not on a per game basis. So we have watched this competition in the UK and we thought there was a significant opportunity for us to get involved add value, and we watched other people get involved obviously, and there's you know, of the eight teams, four of them are owned directly by Indian Premier League teams. One of them is owned by a group of what they call themselves the tech Titans on the West coast of America, you know, the
Microsoft CEO by way of example. And then so you know, a lot of you know, Indian heritage love cricket, and so we thought, you know, here it's a significant opportunity to create the baby product to the IPL and over five to ten years grow that. It's a great window of the summer in the UK. Obviously, you have to, just like in America, a good external climate to play cricket because you want to outdoors. You can't play in
the rain, just like baseball. So it's a great time mid July to mid August where there's a window for an opportunity to build huge product and broadcast and spectator. And I think what's really important is that you're building it in a country which has an undercurrent of love for the sport.
So therefore you for a good base thing for me to go see. I'm not looking out to see a cricket match.
Well right, professional, I'm going to invite you next summer. I think what we're doing here and what playing back to your initial question, we've watched the valuations of the NFL teams of the you know, the baseball teams. I mean Todd obviously led the way with the Dodgers, you know, over ten years ago at just around two billion dollars. And we've seen what trades are happening today. You know, we saw, you know, the valuation has been put on the NFL teams recently, and even the MLS is training
at very high levels. So you know, you try and see a situation where you think you can add value and grow a franchise and grow a Business.
Jonathan, Do you see a future for cricket in the US.
Well, I think there's a future for most sports in most places. It depends upon the depth of demand and the depth of local participation. I don't think you can just pick up a sport and put it in each country unless there is an underlying desire. But in my view, there's a much greater opportunity in the UK because of the inherent nature the love of cricket that people grew up with. And I think there's so much competition in the US for again, no basketball and baseball and football
and all the major sports. I think the MLS has made a breakthrough, but it hasn't really gone up to the top table. And I think if you look at how many years that's been at it, I think cricket will find itself even harder to get to that top table in the US.
Go to any of the parks in Yes, Queens Brooklyn.
Across the street from my house.
World class cricket dudes out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're playing every Sunday and every Saturday.
It's crazy everyone.
Well, let's say, you know, I think Americans have had a view of cricket overall, which is wrong, right. It's an amazing sport. Even the five day variety is probably the most the most enthralling sport you could ever watch. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I think that cricket is a growth area and that's why we put some money behind it.
Our thanks to Jonathan Goldtein, co founder and CEO Caine International.
Coming up, Railroad's on the move, telecoms in orbit, and gaming in the cloud. As we look ahead to twenty twenty six, you're.
Listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries.
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via bi go on the terminal. I'm Scarlet Foo and.
I'm Paul Sweeney, and this is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Scarlet Foo and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
Start on the rails. Heading into twenty twenty six, North American railroad companies are betting on precision technology and cost control as a navigate steadier demand.
According to the latest Bloomberg Intelligence research, North American railroads earnings growth look poised to pick up next year, but may fall short of double digits because of President Trump's tariffs.
For more guest hosts, Christine Aquino and I are joined by Lee Klascow, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Transport, Logistics and Chipping analysts.
We are thinking that next year is going to be a better year, but it's not going to be a great year. So earnings for the rails broadly speaking increased by mid single digits. We expect that to accelerate to high single digits. I think investors would really like to see it get it into the double digits and even mid teens, but I think we might be a ways out for that for a while. And that's really being driven on the demand side. We're really expecting tepid demand
across the board at low single digit growth. You know, some rails might do slightly better than others, like CSX, which has easier comparisons versus this year in Canadian Pacific, which is has a lot of synergy opportunities following its merger with Kansas City a couple of years ago, and they're still working through some new business opportunities following that merger.
So those two rails will probably outperform when it comes to volume growth and you could see flat growth from a rail like Norfolk Southern, which is dealing with possibly some loss share on the intermodal side and some tougher comparisons when it comes to export coal.
Yeah, well, very interestingly, of course, still a challenging outlook. It seemed like for the rail sector next year. How do tarriffs play into that outlook because we still don't have a lot of clarity on whether terrors are going to stay, But if they do, how could that disrupt the outlook for rail in twenty twenty six.
Yeah, So it's impacting rails differently. It's impacting the Canadian rails, Canadian National and Pacific, Kansas City or Kansas City Southern, they're impacting them, you know, kind of on if you think about it, forest products or metals or photos that's being negatively impacted. And if you look at Union Pacific, you know, if you have inconsistency with imports coming into southern California.
That's impacting them.
So you know, it's really creating a level of uncertainty among shippers and that's creating, you know what I would say, not allowing the rails to operate as fluid as they possibly can. Because of that stop and go demand.
Well, one of the big topics in the railroad industry, and I think it'll be most of the year, is the proposed Union Pacific Norfolk Southern m and A transaction here creating the first east west coast to coast railroad in the United States. Is this even going to get approved?
Do you think we're we're kind of cautious on that, you know, I think we have like a forty percent probability that the deal gets done and we're well below consensus. We admit we might be a little naive thinking that, you know, the STB will remain you know, neutral when they take a look at this deal because the parties have to prove that it's in the public interest and
it's going to enhance competition. Some could argue that some of that enhanced competition is going on right now because you've seen Burlington Northern, which is a competitor in the West, teaming up with CSX to provide coast to coast services not through an acquisition but through more of a collaborative effort. And you are seeing CSX winning some share from Norfolk Southern based on that.
Yeah, Well, if that does not clear the regulators. Lee, what do you think that will say about the future of potential consolidation or strategic partnerships across the rail industry. Is it kind of do you think people are going to see as a one off sort of situation or is it kind of a harbinger of challenges to come when it comes to M and A in this space.
Well, the SDB raised the bar for large Class one railroads to merge back in two thousand and one, and that was really driven on some service issues from a mergers and so you know that's why the bar has been set so high. All the other railroads obviously they're talking in their book, but you know, they think that they can create a better network through collaboration. You know, we think that it can happen through a merger or
through collaboration. But you know, like I mentioned earlier, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern still have to you know, clear that high hurdle that it enhances competition and it's also in the public interest, which is again it's it's really
tough to prove. Also, you know, we expect that you know, we probably get an answer about whether or not the STB or the Service Transportation Board will approve this deal in early twenty twenty seven, so we'll be talking about it all year, and I hope to talk to you guys about it all year.
Our thanks to lead Clasical Bloomberg Intelligence, senior Transport, Logistics and Shipping analyst, we move next to the telecom and satellite space. Bloomberg Intelligence recently put out as out Look for US telecoms and satellites in twenty twenty six.
To their research, slowing wireless service revenue gains and mounting cable competition are prompting a deeper push into broadband for growth as US telecoms enter next year.
For more guestos, Alex Semonova and I were joined by John Butler, Bloomberg Intelligence senior telecom analysts.
So I think the big thing to keep in mind here, Paul, is as we roll into twenty twenty six, I think we're going to see price promotion take a modest step up. The bullets are really flying in wireless right now. I think part of it is AT and TM Verizon both have new CEOs. Both CEOs are going to want to make their mark. I think the one to watch is Dan Shulman at Verizon He is very focused on volume.
He wants to get Verizon back to subscriber growth, and I think the only way to do it is going to be by promoting a little bit more aggressively than they have in the past.
John, Where do you see the strongest incremental demanding from. Is it going to be mobile data? Is it going to be broadband?
Two areas, alex One, as you touched on, is broadband. That's a real growth factor for the telecoms. If you look at fixed wireless access, which is delivering broadband over a wireless link into the home, that has proven to be exceptionally popular with people. So I think the all three telcodes are going to lean into broadband in order to supplement the slowdown in wireless growth. But the one area I'm watching as we move into next year is satellite.
Starlink is partnered with T Mobile. The two of them are already offering limited texting service on a nationwide basis. It's sort of early stages. They are early innings, if you will, for them. Verizon, an AT and T are partnered with AST Space Mobile, which is in the process of launching its constellation. Now they actually have more better satellites than starlink, and so the space race is on.
As I like to say, it's going to be really interesting to see once for Verizon and AT and T are able to launch services early next year, how that market segment unfolds.
So the wireless operators the verizons of the world, AT and TS, John, they they're partnering with some of these space satellite services.
Yeah, I mean, I think the way to think about it, Paul is it's almost like cell sites in space at this point yep. So the major carriers have partnered with starlink and AST to provide that infrastructure and the transmission capability up in space to be able to provide coverage outside the range of terrestrial networks now, so essentially that concept of coverage everywhere is going to become a reality as we move through next year.
We will say it was getting a new iPhone in T Mobile. I'm still grandfathered into my father's plan, very Lucky's still paying for my cell phone.
But they immediately got on comment by the way, to get Wi Fi.
With them with T Mobile, So it's really interesting and a new offering from them.
As you mentioned, is there a six G out there, because we I think I've grown up and we've had three G, four G, five G. Is there a six G out there?
Not yet.
I think six G is going to move onto the horizon probably as we move through next year. It's a development process by the industry, and so that standard, if you will, is getting developed now by industry committees. It will then move into tests probably in twenty twenty eight and become a reality for us by twenty thirty. Right now,
we're mid cycle with five GS. So if you think back to when four G was originally launched, it was much lower speed than it is today, So that standard those generations of mobile evolve over what are typically ten year cycles. So we're mid cycle with five G. Expect better speeds and better performance there as we move through the next five years, and then ultimately six G will appear, probably again in the twenty thirty timeframe.
Our thanks to John Butler, Bloomberg Intelligence senior telecom analyst. Now we move to the cloud gaming space. Bloomberg Intelligence has recently put out a deep dive in cloud streamed gaming and specifically how AI could accelerate game development with a shift toward cloud based games.
This development could in theory make physical gaming consoles obsolete for more. We talked to Nathan Nadu, he is Bloomberg Intelligence technology research analyst.
Consoles will decline gradually and that's what I mean, and no kind of remaining over the long term as a NICHS device for loyal fans, the really hardcore gamers. As advancement in cloud infrastructure and we see what's happening with data centers as well as a wider spread of mobile gaming playing games from mobile device is whether smartphones or tablets. As that game wider spread and people become less interested, you know, in playing games at an unportable gaming hardware
that's stuck at home or living room. If they can do so and have the same experience on momor device, why not right?
So where are we in kind of that evolution in terms of really putting more and more of the content of the technology, of the capabilities in the cloud. How is that changing the gaming experience the gaming business?
Yes? So the key pain point to cloud gaming is network latency because that literally depends on the distance between the user's hardware, whether a mobile device or console, to the nearest cell tower. And we know that five G network coverage are improving not just in emerging markets, but also becoming better in even develop markets including China and the US and so as that infrastructure and also cloud improved because the proximity to data centers also is factor
in determining the experience of cloud. So far, you know, in emerging market there is a pain point, but we're seeing really huge uptick in coverage footprint, whether five G or four glte in markets like India and Middle East and Latin America. So that just support our conclusion that you know, in the next ten years, the experience that pain point would become better. And also let's not forget that you know, mobile phones, mobile screens capture you know,
a lot of our attention economy. Actually, there's a study according to Harmony Harmony Healthcare it that it captures more than five hours of our time every every day, at about twenty percent of those times actually go to gaming among Generation Alpha and Generation Z and the other bulk of the gamers. And also these gamers don't really care about playing games at home anymore if they can play on mobile because what they care about is access and also be able to do things on their mobile devices.
So I feel like with this generation coming up and entering into the workforce, and they're the one who would see spending power increasing. And I feel like there's a lot less inclination to actually play games on a console. If down ten years downline, you can have the same experience playing games on a mobile device.
Thanks to Nathan Nadu, Bloomberg Intelligence technology research.
Analyst, coming up from factory floors to farm fields, how US machinery makers are positioned for twenty twenty six.
You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio for writing in depth research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries.
You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via bi go on the terminal. I'm Scarlett Foo and.
I'm Paul Sweeney, and this is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Intelligence with Scarlet Foo and Paul Sweeney on Bloomberg Radio.
Let's turn out to US machinery heading into twenty twenty six. The outlook is defined by softer demand but steady investment, and manufacturers focus on automation, replacement cycles and cost discipline.
For more on this, Paul caught up with Chrispherchilino, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior US machinery analyst.
We believe that the US machinery earnings are likely approaching a inflection point in twenty twenty six, really after a multi year downturn. You know, despite lingering tariff headwinds, the prospect of lower interest rates, policy and regulatory clarity, normalizing inventories, and better pricing have really provided a favorable setup for most machinery producers heading into twenty six. I would say the outlooks do vary a little bit by end market.
You know, we're most constructive on the outlook for construction equipment next year, particularly as non residential construction markets approach to trough. You also have favorable secular trends around power generation, infrastructure and mega projects as well as some of these reshoring investments. So we have really good visibility in terms
of twenty six and really even beyond. On the flip side of that, we're a little more cautious on the ad equipment outlook, and then I throw, you know, commercial vehicles somewhere in between.
There equipment companies. I think about Caterpillar, for example, and that stocks up fifty four year to date. So has the market already discounted the cyclical up turner ors or more to go.
Yeah, I think there's a lot of runway here. You know, there's been a lot of optimism around their power gen and exposure to the data center market. But I think we're still very early innings in this story playing out. They're going to double their large engine capacity here through the end of the decade. Gas turbines are going to
be up two and a half times. You're just beginning to see some of these products come to the marketplace, and really there's just insatiable demand for power generation, and I would say Caterpillar and Cummings are somewhat uniquely positioned within the machinery space to kind of capitalize on these these longer term secular stories.
Yeah, that is a long term secular story power generation. So did do they disclose backlog information or anything like that to get a sense of kind of how big this business could be for them?
Yeah, So Caterpillar's backlog for the enterprise is at a record level and it just continues to, you know, set new records with each passing quarter. In terms of their actual power generation business. Uh, No, they keep that pretty close to the vest, but it does expend, It does extend multiple years and the fact that they're making you know, essentially more than doubling their large engine capacity through the
end of the decade. Just I think uh lends support to they have very good visibility for several years out and same thing I would allude to that as Cummings as well. You know, they have very good backlog visibility in terms of their power generation business. And then you throw on, you know, the cyclical recovery that we should see in these businesses. It's a pretty favorable set up, not only for twenty six but beyond all.
Right, you mentioned the other part of the business are a different part of the business, one that focuses on the agricultural sector of the economy. We know the farmers in a really tough spot these days, and when they face financial difficulties, they're not buying deer tractors and things like that. So what's the outlook there over twenty six Yeah, right.
Now, we anticipate that the large ag market here in North America will be down another ten to fifteen percent in twenty twenty six, So this is going to mark the third year of a downturn. And really, to put things into perspective, assuming we're down in other you know, double digits in twenty six, we're going to be volumes are going to be at the lowest level in more than four decades as long as we've been tracking the industry. So I do think there's pretty high degree of confidence
that this will mark the trough of the cycle. And we actually think that downside risk is probably limited here and relative to a lot of the other sectors that we cover. The problem is, you know, farm fundamental still remain quite weak, crop prices are still low, while the government still continues to hand out additional aid payments. Farmers historically don't use this to go out and spend on new machinery. But we think really the bigger overhang here
is still the lingering export market uncertainty. You know, we did have a US China trade agreement. I think farmers are really just going to take a wait and see approach, and until we get tangible progress on you know, China executing on some of these purchase orders and commitments, I think farmers are just going to be hesitant to go
out and spend on equipment. When we do see that come to fruition, hopefully then you'll start to see a rebound and crop prices, and then maybe we could become a little bit more constructive on the equipment outlook there.
So just to put a bow on that, Chris weig about thirty seconds off, what is the export market for the US farmer generally on average? And what is it today?
Yeah, so we export the vast majority of particularly our row crops soybeans. China is still the largest buyer of our beans. We do send a lot of corn to Mexico in Japan as well, but put those big row crops corn, soy wheat. That's what really drives farmer profitability. It's more than half of US crop cash receipts and we need to start to see some kind of a rebound there before. I think we've become a little bit more positive on the outlook.
Thanks to Chris Cheerle, you know, Bloomberg Intelligence senior US machinery analyst. We shift gears now to the creative side of financial storytelling.
Wall Street has long been a backdrop for films exploring ambition, excess and high stakes drama, from The Wolf of Wall Street to Margin Call and The Big Short.
Now you can add another to your list. It's called bull Run, a film based on the memoir entitled Discussion Materials Tales of a Rookie Wall Street Investment Banker. For more, we caught up the film's writer and producer, Bill Keenan.
So like all those movies classics, right, they, bull Run has an outsider as a protagonist, So we kind of have that journey of someone entering this world trying to figure out what to do and where they fit in. I think the difference is a lot of those films follow that story of kind of there's this crazy excess, there's ultimately this corruption that happens and then redemption, and the protagonist in bull Run really retains this outsider's perspective,
which is the way I experienced it. I kind of saw life through the eyes of a storyteller and tried to maintain this distance, and I think we tried to do that in this film. So it's not so much about the corruption as it is about just observing the absurdity that goes on in this world.
So you were on Wall Street. Tell us what you did in Wall Street and how that might have influenced kind of this product.
Yeah, what I did, well, my title I was an investment banking associate in the Industrials group at Deutsche Bank. We parted ways after about two years. I think it was mutual. It wasn't for me, and it wasn't They weren't sad to see me go, but it was I mean, the beauty of Wall Street is that again as a storyteller, it's such a combustible environment. So everything is so urgent and is life and death. But then it's like this
is a specialty lubricin's deal, and like it's not. It's okay if it doesn't go through, but it's fun to be a part of it. I knew the second that I started this would be so ripe with anecdotes and characters that it was you know, I need to stay long enough that I could get enough material to write about it.
I kind of think of your book Discussion Materials as a twenty twenty version of Liars Poker, except instead of bond Trader, as you're writing about investment bankers. So when you were there, I mean, you kind of sounds like you decided early on that you're going to take notes and observe everything. What were you doing in meetings? Were you taking notes on what people were saying, or were you kind of engaging in you know, the lubricant steal.
Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think you know like this. I was always commended at the beginning by like the staffers and the senior bankers because they saw me with the notepads and every day it was a new notepad. And of course they didn't necessarily know that I wasn't taking notes on the content as much as like who was doing what and what would lend itself to a story. But it was, you know, it felt like it was a lot longer than two years, but I got I got enough out out of those two years to you know.
They pack a lot in two years because you're working around the clock.
You're working, Yeah, And you know, I'd like to kind of the way that I try to capture what the experience was like. The first day that I showed up, I didn't even know where my desk was, and I'm kind of going around this maze of cubicles and I get called over to the staffer and he says, here's an address, and here's three names. And ultimately what I was tasked with doing that first day was taking around
these three energy executives through midtown Manhattan. They start were starting a new venture and they were looking to raise like a couple hundred million dollars from these private equity firms. And so I said to the staffer, you know, we just met. You know, I don't know what's going on. And his response was definitely, don't tell that to these guys, like as far as they know, you're a full timer and you've been here for a long time. And so
you know, being thrown in the deep end. Then ultimately meeting these guys and and feeling that responsibility, it was, you know, you feel accountable. Tuesday, I show up, I gets AFT on a fertilizer deal and I had two tasks that day. I do find my desk. I sit at my desk for twelve hours. And the first task is to chart the cow dung spot prices historically over time. And the second thing is the managing director in that
sector he had recently undergone gastric bypass surgery. He lost about eighty pounds, and so I had to change the photo of him in the team pages of all the decks. And I'm thinking, Monday, Tuesday, what's Wednesday going to bring? But like this is this is like two, this is gold.
It is gold. But you know, and this is why it's so great talking to you and the book is so fantastic. You also chronicle participating in these odd meetings with managing directors, updating sell spreadsheets at two in the morning, reformatting the font in pitch books. I think about all this and how open AI in twenty twenty five is hiring former investment bankers to train its models and presumably replace the need for to hire people like you to handle these mundane tasks. Is that a good thing.
I think all these things are going to need oversight, like we know. But I mean, the reality is we were sort of outsourcing it, not to AI, but to all these other companies and other countries, and they did a lot of my work. To be honest, I kind of took credit for most of it and change the names and made sure all the everything appeared as though I had done the work. But anything that makes it more efficient and gets kind of people out of the
way when they don't serve a purpose, that's additive. I think it is useful.
Yeah, I've been telling Scarlett, you know, the first two or three years of my I was in investment banking associate as well. After business. Well, I felt like most of what I did can be I'm sorry to say, but I mean, though I need to be sitting at the printer at two o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, I can't AI do this with me.
But totally the fact is though to have that experience as a human to pay or use their huge value to that, and you hope that there's a way. I think the way humans are, they always find a way to go towards struggle.
My kids are in the workforce now and the whole work from home versus I'm like, go to the office. All my memories are sitting at the printer and the guys I sat at the printer with at two o'clock in the morning on a Tuesday, and they're still my best friend, the guys that I can call up and they will I need anything.
Boom.
Yeah, that's how it goes with Band of Brothers. Really, So, Bill, when you adapted this into a film, what was that process like? Was that I mean, I'm sure you could write a book about that process too.
Yeah, I mean.
There were practical issues. We shot it during the pandemic, so this was an independent film shot in one location. So we're all over each other. We got the mass on. We had to shut down production in fact for a couple of days, so there was that. We got through it. As far as the story, you know, so much of my experience was me versus Excel, me versus PowerPoint me, and the phone with somebody telling me the numbers didn't tie.
I just screwed this up. And so there's a lot of internal drama that's great for a book but does not lend itself to a visual medium. So the director did a great job of really retaining the spirit of the book and the humor and how I viewed that world, but then putting it in a visually compelling, commercial sort of feel.
Our thanks to Bill keenan writer and producer of the film Bull Run. That's this week's edition of Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, providing in depth research and data on two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries.
And remember you can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b I go on the terminal. I'm Scarlett Foo and.
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