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On Today's Bloomberg Intelligence Show, we dig inside the big business stories 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 our analysts cover worldwide.
Today, we'll take a look at the telecommunications company Comcast and how it's benefiting from its theme parks.
Plus we'll look at how oil and gas companies are investing in low carbon technologies.
Well.
First, we begin with some news in tech and energy.
This week, Constellation Energy agreed to sell power from a Clinton Nuclear Plan in Illinois to the tech giant Meta Platforms. It's a twenty year contract starting in mid twenty twenty seven.
And this comes as nuclear power has emerged as one of the biggest winners from the AI fueled search and electricity demand.
For more on the tech side, we are joined by man Deep saying Bloomberg Intelligence in your tech industry analyst, and we first ask man Deep why Meta needs this deal with Constellation.
If they're raising their capex, which they did it in their last earnings, that capex is going towards you know, getting more AI chips, and you know, if you are putting more AI chips, you need more power. So clearly that is where the shortage is right now. And look, if this is an AI supercycle that we all believe it is going to be the case, and I think you will see a power supercycle as well. And in this case, all the higher scalers will be looking to
procure power for their data centers. I mean, Meta serves over three billion monthly active users across their family of apps. Now, granted, those users right now are using more CPU compute, but if you're rolling out AI tools and LLM searches, you need more power for the AI chips, and I think that's the intent here.
And Mandy, let's be honest here.
I mean, all you tech guys, you Silicon Valley guys, you always think you're the smartest guys in the room.
But let's be honest.
You guys don't know anything about the oil and gas business and the nuclear business. Why is Meta And I'm guessing some others are going to kind of get more deeply and strategically involved in the energy side of their business.
Is this a trend here?
Just look at how far they have come in terms of you know, infrastructure, like a company like Google. Not only are they designing their own data centers and you know, creating their own chips, and now they are you know, procuring power to the extent that they want to make sure that these AI chips, which can have volatile power needs, are most optimized when it comes to the efficiency of their infrastructure. And that's why these hyperscalar companies really have
got so many different aspects to their mode. So it's not just about the search algorithm or in the case of Meta, you know, their social media knowledge graph. It is about the entirety of how they run their infrastructure, and that is what is a long term mode, because nobody else can operate at the scale at at which these hyperscalers are operating right now.
This is a fun fact in the article Bible Rate from Bloomberg. So Meta first of all, has a global energy head.
They have a global energy head. Okay, all right, so they do.
They're really kind of ramping that out, and they were looking at proposals. They announced in December they were looking at proposals for as much as coore gigawatts of new US reactors, and it received fifty from a range of companies,
including Constellation. To that point, I'm also wondering Mande the significance of when they're building data centers and hyperscalers for lllms, a large language model and that training versus when they have to build stuff for inference, which could be smaller and more co located, so closer to the cities, closer to our Paul and I have our phone. Does that tend to look different than in terms of their power needs.
Absolutely, And I think so far the market was concentrated towards training. Every year you would have a ten times larger model, which was more intelligent and it could do more in terms of you know, answering your queries. But with inferencing your right. I mean, the traffic patterns may vary depending on the population, and so if you're serving traffic in New York, it's very different from serving traffic
somewhere else that may not have the same concentration. And with that, I think the challenge these companies have had is the transfer lines can be upgraded. I mean you need, you know, a pretty lengthy review process and the whole thing may take years. So right now they are trying to procure power wherever they can to offset the increased consumption, and some of it may come at the expense of
power usage for some other purpose. Then you know why data center is being prioritized here, and that is what will be interesting because with inferencing, the power needs can be variable. I mean, one trend we have seen is with reasoning, you need more compute, so you know, the model is thinking a lot more at the time you are putting the prompt in, as opposed to training, where all of the training is happening in background over a
period of a few weeks. So reasoning is per query and depending on how complex your query is the model is doing more work and that's why it may need more power.
Another data point from this new Bloomberg News article, Meta is contracting for more power after the company's total electricity consumption nearly tripled from twenty.
Nineteen to twenty twenty three. So yeah, I guess they need some more energy man deposition in the.
CAPEX numbers for Meta and for these other tech companies, or they need to take those CAPEX numbers up even more if they're going to get deeper into the energy space.
I mean, all signs are the CAPEX numbers may continue to go up, but right now, the biggest component of the CAPEX is still the spend on the GPU chips. Obviously, the power needs will take some portion of the CAPEX, but it's still not as big as the chips. And think of it this way. If you're getting you know, twenty thousand Nvidia chips, the cost of keeping them idle or not being able to utilize them one hundred percent is way higher than anything you are spending in terms of,
you know, the energy deal that they had. So clearly they are focusing on utilizing the chips that they have already, and that's why they are proactive with you know, these power deals.
Our thanks to Man Deep Seeing Bloomberg Intelligence senior tech industry analyst.
We recently focused on a Bloomberg Big Take story entitled A fatal Tesla crash shows the limits of full self Driving. You can find it on Bloomberg dot Com and the Terminal.
The story looks at how federal regulators are investigating whether Tesla's robotaxi system is dangerous even with the human behind the wheel.
From where we were joined by Craig Trudell, Bloomberg Global Autos Editor. We first asked Craig to walk us through the details of what the issues are with completely autonomous vehicles.
I guess maybe the thing to start with is the Teslas that you can buy today that are on the road now are not that right. They are not autonomous. You can pay extra for a system called full self driving, and yet it's a miss snowmer. It's a system that you have to pay attention to at all times. You know, if you get into a crash, it is it is on you. And we've seen that, you know, play out when Tesla customers have you know, tried to come after the company. The company says, look, you know, we we
warned you. We told you that you know, you're you're responsible for driving while using this system. The company is trying to make this leap, that's been trying to make the sleep for years, to eventually get to a point where you do not have to to supervise and you know, even to take it further than that, you know, take
the human out from behind the wheel altogether. And we hear Musk, you know, talk about that quite a bit lately because it's something that they're actually trying to commercialize, even just in the next matter of you know, next week or so. There's a lot of questions about how exactly they intend to do that, whether they can do it, especially after he's predicted, you know, year after year that they're on the cusp of doing it. And part of the reason there are doubts is is because of the hardware.
And I think that's kind of an important aspect of today's story is is this particular crash involves, you know, an incident where a driver was using full self driving driving into the sun, and that appeared to play a part in the crash, which resulted in a fatality, and it led to a federal investigation that is ongoing.
I mean, this is all very much feels as part of the growing pains as we kind of understand this technology and how it works itself out. So what are the steps that Tesla's taking and that the regulators are taking at this time.
Yeah, so you know, we should acknowledge that this incident happened in November twenty twenty three. You know, Tesla has has changed. They've they've made upgrades both to hardware and software. You know, hardware for certain customers, they should say, but you know, in terms of their approach to the sensor system for their vehicles, Elon Musk has been you know, really sort of out on a limb and having this you that all you need is cameras and company companies
that are also in this space. I think the one people recognize the most is Weimo, the Google company, and they use a mix of camera, radar and wide R and their sensor set is much more expensive. It's more extensive. You know, these sensors are placed all over the vehicle. But you know, the sort of bet here on the part of Weimo is that is worth it. It will
mean this system is safer. What Musk has tried to do is go with the cheaper route, go with the you know system that he can afford to put in every Tesla, and make this bet that you know, he can develop his way to autonomy faster by sort of leveraging the broader Tesla fleet, even if it means putting you know, cars on the road that you know, draw scrutiny from federal regulators as to whether or not that this is you know, unreasonably unsafe.
So, Craig, I think Elon Musk is back at the company.
What does that mean?
I mean, are you hearing anything like, Okay, now we can get back on track.
Now we can really move forward, maybe at you know, higher velocity. What's that mean?
Yeah? I'm you know, I think it's difficult to tell at this point because he's kind of coming back to business means coming back to so many businesses, right, and so on a day to day yeah, we're you know, we're seeing him travel to to his various companies, you know, devoting some time and attention to to them. But it's not as though he's sort of one hundred percent, uh, you know, focusing in on Tesla and neglecting all of
his other businesses. We see him, you know, regularly engaging with you know, users on x about you know, troubleshooting problems that they have with that service. You know, I would say he is you know, more actively engaging there on on teslas and definitely is trying to sort of send this signal that you know, okay, it's it's time to get back to business here. But whether or not that's you know, resulting in sort of tangible changes at the company, I think remains.
To be seen.
What's the rush for autonomous driving?
You know, I think forty thousand people die on US roads every year, right, and so the rush of course is to bend that, you know, to to change that. And I think one of the challenges that you have if you're a company in this space is we've now you know, seen a lot of companies pursue this for you know, roughly a decade. That number has not budged. So you know, we still have a long way to go to where this capability is you know, making putting a dent in those figures.
All right.
Thanks to Craig Drudell, Bloomberg Global Autos editor coming up a conversation with the CEO of Tay Technologies and the company's approach to commercial fusion power.
You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence on Bloomberg Radio, but riding in depth research and data on two thousand companies in one hundred and thirty industries. You can access Bloomberg Intelligence via b I go on the terminal.
I'm Paul Sweeney, an amalk Steel, and this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
We move next to the telecommunication space.
The cable provider Comcast recently opened its newest theme park in Florida, called Universal Epic Universe. The goal is to keep guests staying longer and spending more in the competitive Orlando market.
And according to research from Bloomberg Intelligence, Comcast theme parks are poised to become of its most valuable assets, with revenue and IBADASA to jump around forty percent from twenty twenty four to twenty twenty six.
For more on what this means, guest host John Tucker and I were joined by Githa Rong Andathan Bloomberg, intelligence US media analyst, who first asked Githa to talk about Universal's new park.
May twenty second was the grand opening of Epic Universe in Florida. This is the first big park that has opened in Florida in twenty five years, and it was the biggest investment by Comcast in a theme park. They spent over seven billion dollars on just this park. So, as you said, huge investments by Comcast in their theme park business. This is really an area of growth for them, especially now that their broadband business is struggling actually quite a bit.
So what is this likely to do for their earnings?
So, you know, you kind of think about Comcast and you think about Disney. For Comcast, so let me start with Disney. So for Disney, parks is actually sixty percent of their profits. For Comcasts, it's really maybe less than six percent. So again for Comcasts, you know, eighty percent of their of their money, of their profits still comes
from the cable business. But really, as we kind of think about what their strategy is here and you look at all of their portfolio of assets, I mean, we're really excited about the theme park business because growth is great, returns on investment are great, and this is really a fantastic way for comcasts, just like what Disney has done with kind of deepening all of those relationships with those
universal characters. You think of all the ip that they have with Minions, with Jurassic Park, now with Wicked, you know, and some of the other franchises that they have with Harry Potter. You know, this is just such a great way to build on that fan engagement.
How much can the theme park business, how much do you think that could be worth for comcasts? Because again you mentioned that some of their core businesses, like the video business, the tridtional cable business, even the broadband business, they're facing some headwinds here. Theme parks are going to become more and more important important for investors I think going forward. So what do you think the valuation could.
Be absolutely, Paul, So that's a really really important point that you bring up. So you think of the cable business, which is really their mainstay. Cable valuations have actually dropped pretty significantly over the past few years. We've gone from about ten x to around six and a half to seven times EBITDA multiple you think about the park business though,
it's actually quite the opposite. You know, most of the some of the pure play pure play park operators are treating it about you know, twelve to fourteen times IBADA. So again this is an area of growth. You know, experiential businesses are seeing this huge upswing. And so we think that just based on about five billion in ibitdah, which we think Comcasts can get to in a few years time, that business could be easily worth you know, forty five fifty billion dollars or upwards of that.
So my takeaway is there are Disney wanna be at this point. I got to wonder if like they're going to start poaching Disney executives too.
That's very possible. I mean, right now, there's still a pretty small player John when you compare them to Disney. So you just kind of think about Disney in terms of theme park visitations. We are looking at about one hundred and fifty million global visitors to Disney parks every year. Compare that to Universal or Comcast sparks it's about sixty million, So still much smaller than Disney. But what they're doing now is a lot of expansion. So we had this
new park, Epic Universe, which opened just last week. They're actually opening a new park in London in a few years time. They're expanding with new properties in Las Vegas in Texas. So basically, when you put all of that together, we're thinking that they are basically going to expand visitation from about sixty million to by fifty percent to about you know, eighty to ninety million. So they're really kind of closing in on that gap with Disney stepping back.
The Comcast stock story, I mean, how do people view it here, because again, cable TV business just in secular decline. The broadband business, which had saved it for a good decade or so, that seems to be stalling because a competition and the cable networks, I don't know what they're doing with them. What do investors think about Comcast.
Yeah, it's really a tough story right now, Paul, as you rightly point out, I mean, broadband is again majority of this business is really tough to how broadband does. So you know, any stock movements are directly correlated to the health of the broadband business, which actually is in a very very tough spot right now. So this is a business that was gaining about one to two million
subscribers every year. They are still one of the largest broadband providers at about thirty million subscribers in the US, but they are going to lose close to about a million subscribers this year. As you know, the telecoms kind of really intensified competition. So it's really a tough story right now. The one thing that we are kind of looking at in terms of a positive catalyst is the spin off of the cable networks. So this is something
that they announced last year. It probably happens a little bit later this year. They're calling it Versut. What's going to be interesting is not just the spin but what happens after the spin. So will Comcast really look to become kind of this consolidator of media assets and that would, I think be a little bit of an interesting story in media. But unless they can really revive growth in their broadband business, I think it's going to be a little bit of a tough sell.
What's Disney's response to Universal to Comcast?
So Disney a huge response in terms of what they have planned over the next few years. John, So they are really kind of doubling down on their parks business. Again, this is really the bread and butter for Disney. Sixty percent of their profit comes from the parks business. So they have about a sixty billion investment planned for parks
over the next you know, seven to eight years. And it's not just the theme park experience, it's you know, they're having parks on water, what they call parks on water, which are the cruises, and that's a huge investment for them. You know, we think that that business basically doubles triples revenue as they keep on adding these new cruise ships, you know, to their fleet. So are they are doubling down on parks as well?
All right?
Thanks together, mang An Athen Bloomberg, Intelligence analyst on US Media.
We've moved next to the energy space this week.
We looked at a company called Tay Technologies. Tay develops commercial fusion power with the cleanest environment profile.
The company also recently raised more than one hundred and fifty million dollars in its latest funding round, exceeding the company's initial target for the round.
For more and what the company is doing, host Paul John Tucker and I were joined by Michael Binderbauer, CEO of Tay technologies. We began the conversation by asking Michael to break down exactly what fusion power is.
So it's basically what nature does, based right, It keeps us our life and energy here on the planet from the Sun son any star you look up suffusion reactor basically right. So what we're trying to do is to replicate that terristrially to make essentially copious power, carbon free, clean and sustainable for the future of humanity.
Where are you in the process at tay So.
We're very close. We're just one machine a way to get to a point where we actually harvest more energy than what we're putting into the facility. This has been obviously a long journey. It's hard to do terristrially. The stars have a lot of gravity. We don't have that. We have to use other means, magnets and all sorts of things, and as you've probably seen over the last few years, has been a playthrow of news inching really really close to the goal line across multiple efforts on
the planet. So we're about a three year way to get tonate energy and somewhere early twenty thirties we hopefully have a power plant online.
What would be if you're able to achieve it and have a power plant, Like, what is that? Is that just tremendous amount of energy with like no footprint.
Yeah, it's very small footprint. So it's the highest energy density fuel you can have, by the factor of five to ten, higher than fission. Even it utilizes hydrogen or light species that are ubiquitous. So there's infinite fuel supply if you will, and you would harvest clean energy out of that at probably starting in a scale of a gas fired turbine, so something like four or five hundred makawatts per plant, and it would literally be able to distribute wherever you needed it in the grid.
Is there?
Can you talk about the economics surrounding this technology? Gee, who would be the who would be the users, the buyers, the developers of this technology?
Yeah, so I think what we're seeing and this gets to what we just announced, you know, raising capital. We really have a long partnership with Google and they've been deep with us on machine learning and tools to help make this more efficient and more economic, and in fact, they would be a great first off taker for that, right, all the hyperscalers, everybody that has high energy, intense applications growing at tremendous rates right with a gap between supply
and demand. Developing is looking for electrons and particularly green electrons. So those would be probably the first off takers for the technology.
Oh, I got to ask, what sets you with John Tucker?
He likes his fusion?
What sets you apart from ETR in terms of the reactor itself, the containment that's act fusion reactor or what?
Yeah, so good question. So Eater and others are working on tokamacs, we actually are not. We're working what you see if you have a visual and even have a compact machine not the size of gas turbine that can make about the same output as those other plants. It's
much more efficient to uses smaller magnets. There's various tricks in the physics that allow you to do that, and that brings something that's more compact, cheaper to produce, of course, more economic to deploy, easier to maintain, etc. And you can essentially centralize these. We think we can build those sort of cookie cutter in the factory and deploy on site. And the other thing I should add is that sighting on this compared to the other nuclear cousin which is fission. Right,
It is a lot easier. There's no meltdown possibility, there's no sort of nuclear accident of substance that people would have to worry about. It's truly clean and benign, and so you can deploy it where you need it in a much more straightforward way.
And there's no use of beryllium in that reactor, no, No.
In fact, ours is using hydrogen and boron, both of which are light and super ubiquitous.
Well deterium as the fuel, right.
So tritium is one fuel cycle that's used by some of us in the fusion community, and we can burn that too, but we're really focused on hydrogen and boron. Ultimately, that turns out that only makes helium, so you have no neutrons, you have no radioactivity to speak of. It's just a nirvana of energy. Essentially.
You get ubiguous.
Fuel in no radioactivity or pollution in the process, totally sustainable, and we think it will be competitive from a cost perspective. It will be probably starting out midfield in current generation asset costs, so you're not as cheap as you know, gas or renewables, but you're not as expensive as fision is today. Is somewhere in the midfield and then trending down.
Okay, let's pretend that neither of us understood what any of you guys were talking about in terms of brilliant. That's why we have him right. He knows a lot about a lot of different things. Before we let you go, just how hard is it to have gotten to where you are?
Like?
What has been like the biggest hurdle?
Oh gosh, it's been an enormous journey. I mean, I have aged.
I started this out at graduate school with my really in PhD mantour and then it took us about twenty plus years to amalgamate the technology around it. There's a
lot of esoteric, absolutely extreme things. You've got a master power supplies, accelerator technology, diagnostics, feedback loops, you know, use a lot of machine learning and AI, a lot of that we developed together with Google in the last decade that can react on the blink of an eye to make changes in what happens inside and do that reliably and consistently. And so those are all the technologies we now have. So now we're putting in the last machine.
So it's been a.
Long journey and developing lots of technology to do that.
Thanks to Michael Binderbauer, CEO Take Technologies.
Coming up in the program, we're going to look at oil and gas companies and how they're investing in low carbon technologies.
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, Umpaul.
Sweeney, an amlex deal, and this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
Each week we look at research from Bloomberg and EF previously known as New Energy Finance.
They're the team at Bloomberg that tracks and analyzes the energy transition from commodities to power, transport, industries, buildings, and agricultural sectors.
This week we looked at oil and gas companies and how they're investing in low carbon technologies.
For more, we were joined by David Dhugherty, BNEF, head of Natural Resources Research.
We first asked David what US oil companies are thinking with regards to investing in fossil fuels and more green friendly technologies.
Yeah, economically friendly is a great choice of word versus environmentally friendly. Two separate things sometimes, and the story's very different if you're looking at a US major versus a European major, and even the technology they'll invest in. In general, the group of big oil companies talk about investing about seven eight percent in low carbon technologies things like wind, solar, carbon capture, renewable fuels. Yeah, and it's plateaued around there for the last two three years.
Yeah, it's something I mean like that. But what we learn is that the Trump administration is taking back some of the loans and the money that a lot of these oil companies are using for some of those projects. Xon in particular, they have a project in Texas it's going to use hydrogen, and that funding is poof gone.
Yeah, right, so now what happens? Now? What happens? I mean, you know, a tax BIK would be great for somebody like an Xcell. They could probably go ahead without it. Arguably, the pro oil Trump administration isn't necessarily ticking the boxes for the oil companies to the moment, we're seeing these tax breaks, we're seeing really low prices, not necessarily all down to policy. It's worth highlighting, but not not beautiful.
If if you're a US oil company, for example, or with exposure to US production, particularly on shore shale for example, it's not a great time for them. It's not the worst time, but it's not a great time.
Are the European energy companies or are just outside of the US energy companies, Are they stepping up and trying to fill that void for some more environmental friendly technology because.
They got so punished.
For that just like a yep, they made some decisions. Maybe I'm not sure they would make again. That said, some of the biggest players are still at the European with equinor for example, last year wind Solar made a comeback that's really interesting. They've got really per cassular stories, much lower returns, center of traditionals. So you're definitely seeing a split between the US and the European majors for sure, But the environment's completely changing for all of them.
So I hear your point, particularly in the US, like then Exon, they can probably still push ahead in Texas even without the loan. They might not like it, but they can manage it. But a lot of these companies can't. So what happens to the projects that are already underway to deal with you know, carbon capture, director capture, decarbonization.
They go looking for more money or they stop.
Is the money there ex government?
I think so? I think so, Like this jitter is for sure, right, this is a four year window. And is it a four year window or is it an eight year window? Nobody knows. Nobody's going to bet on that or guess, but you know, for the right anything will happen for the right price. I guess the is the the bottom line. But it's a huge question mark for us in the in the next four years for sure.
But if we have oil down here in the low sixties for an extended period of time, what are the oil companies? I mean, do they have capital to invest back into fossil fuels or do they just give it back to shareholder?
It's a mix. If you look at like the players that don't have let's say a family presence, right, you know your mom knows, I know, Chevron, Exxon. If you think of an EOG or any of those companies that don't have less necessarily a like a household name, they've got a very different way of operating. At around sixty dollars, you're getting into territory where it's going to start to hurt a lot of the US shale players. Fifty five is where you'll see bock and start to fall out
of profitability. That will go down, and you're about twelve dollars below that for a break even for some something in the permium. So there's still space to play. But you know, the guidance we're seeing for CAPEX quarter on quarter is down about three four percent, whereas production is down marginally like one percent. So the impact of the actual production will happen a lot later than the CAPEC story.
But they're starting to, you know, tighten their belt a bit when it comes to spend, and we'll see that in barrel terms later like more delayed. You will see it come through. You're not seeing it yet.
I also have to wonder too, what winds up happening with say offshore projects, so onshore is much more reactive, but say Gulf of Mexico, a lot of production is going to come online that investment decision was made years ago, so you can do nothing about it. But then if you're making decisions today with this oil price, looking at the curve for twenty twenty seven, twenty eight, that's when you get some question marks.
One hundred percent. Yeah, and that plus like all this actual barrel's coming off from OPEC new projects in Guyana for example, coming on line and ramping up short term looks like pain. Longer term, this investment still needed. Otherwise you get into territory of price spikes or causing short supply. So it's a really delicate balance for the moment.
So if I were to go to the oil patch down there in Texas, would they be happy today or not so much?
Yeah, it's been worse, and I think we have a habit of saying crazy times, crazy times. It's not really that crazy at the moment. Sixty dollars if you think about it, we had fifty five flat for about what two years, just two three years ago, and Texas was booming. When you're in Houston, it's flying right. So we're not
in the territory of fear just yet. And no one makes for great headline, but data wise, we're still a bit away from the pain, and ushal always surprises to the upside when it comes to efficiencies and when it comes to how resilient it is.
Right, and then to your point, the production is only down fractionally whereas capex is down more speaks to that point. But I feel like the difference this time is that oil companies went into this administration super pumped. I mean super pumped is actually an understatement.
Pumped is a great choice, yeah, exactly.
But then the reality has been so much different. It feels like that's the differentiation versus underlying oil price and a little confusion. I mean, what was a billion dollars the oil industry gave to or the energy industry gave to President Trump? And then they're like wait what, So it feels like that's a little bit different. There is there one form of low capture, a low carbon investment that's.
Just toast ooh. Green hydrogen csis book cards to justify without some form of a tax break, and the knock on impact for that's pretty pretty significant if you think of it, and things of like e fiels or synthetic fuels, all of that is needed to make those things down the line. So those two kind of toast the other ones wind Solar there could have stune in their ground a bit.
More thanks to David dharerty bn EF, head of Natural Resources Research.
We move next to some news from the financial sector.
This week, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Sharp cleared the Federal Reserve seven year old cap on assets, allowing the bank to grow and compete larger rivals.
For more.
In this we were joined by Hannah Levet Bloomberg, senior finance reporter.
First asked, Hannah, how Wells Fargo is now positioned for its next stage of growth.
Yeah, so this has truly been such a long saga for them. Like I started covering Wells Fargo more than seven years ago, they had just gotten put under this cap. At the time, I was still enjoying my mid twenties, and you know, now we are no longer there. For Charlie Sharf, this means that he can finally play offense. He can you know, they're not capped in size to their level at the end of twenty seventeen anymore. And remember that's been a huge deal for them along the way.
I mean, some of the businesses that he's marked for growth like the trading business most notably that's been constrained because it's more balance sheet heavy and they haven't been able to allocate that balance sheet because they're restricted. And like just for context, JP Morgan, the biggest US bank, has grown almost an entire Wells Fargo in terms of assets in the time that Wells has been capped.
Wow, all right, Hanna, I you know a full discorder.
I have my account with Wells Fargo, but I'm guessing the CEO and the management team there they want.
To do something more than that. They think they can do a little bit bigger and better than Paul's and needs checking account.
So what are some of the the businesses you mentioned trading? Are there other editors where they think they can really grow by allocating more capital there?
Yeah, absolutely, so the businesses that Charlie Sharff marked for growth, you know in this time while he was running the firm, but it was still under the cap where investment banking and trading and wealth management and credit card. But virtually every business aside from mortgage, which they've said they're shrinking. And remember Wells Farga used to be huge and mortgage at one point they were churning out one in every
three home loans in the country. Every business other than that should grow now, and they have room to do that. But I think those businesses where they've already said that they're targeting growth, that may be where the earliest moves are. You know, we've reported that they're working on a high end credit card, so that could be something that people see. But yeah, so it really just it goes across all of those and beyond now because they don't have this constraint anymore, so.
How quickly can they scale in the other parts of their business.
Yeah, well, it's an interesting question, right because we've seen, you know, the tales of banks trying to grow too fast and then having you know, a calamitous blow up, and so that's something that they definitely want to avoid.
And Charlie Sharff has talked about that that it's not like an on switch day one, but it does give them more flexibility so they can you know, the most immediate thing is the trading business where they just have capacity, but besides that, it's more being able to lean into more enthusiastically those growth initiatives that they've already kind of outlined, right.
So Hannah.
They now have them regulatory capability to maybe do more, to maybe grow a little bit more quickly.
Did they have the balance sheet to do that? Did they have the capital to do that?
Yeah, they have a ton of excess capital, and that's been a theme throughout. I mean even in the earliest days of the asset cap like, they couldn't deployed that capital, so they gave investors a bigger dividend and more buybacks than they were expecting. It was sort of like a you wouldn't think that would be the outcome, but it
was at the time. So they've had excess capital. And also because the banks in general were preparing for the possibility of tougher capital rules that have not panned out, so they were a lot of them been hoarding capital anyway, sitting on a bunch of.
Extra Well, we're seeing in Wall Street it's definitely a competition for talent, particularly if you wrap in hedge funds as well as huge asset managers are private equity. Can Weill's Hargo play in that game.
Yeah, they already have been. I mean they hired Fernando Rivas, who is the head of the Corporate Investment Bank there. He was a major hire from JP Morgan, so that that was huge for them, and you know they've made other hires over the years. Doug Bronstein is there, another former JPM executive and he's vice chair. They have very summers running wealth, so they have you know, they've been able to get talent at the highest level and then you know even further down as well.
All Right, Thanks to Hannah Lovit, Bloomberg Senior Finance Reporter.
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