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The other really amazing story that we've heard of the last twelve hours is what happened over in Brazil.
So President Louis.
Lula underwent emergency brain surgery and is now awake and conscious in the ICU. Apparently he'll stay in the hospital for about forty eight hours. We want to get more on this on the ground with Danielle Carvallo, Bloomberg Government reporter.
Can you just walk us through the chain.
Of events that has happened and let us here and kind of what this does to the government.
Hey, are you well, Lula? In October Lula was at tom and he fell and hit his head. After that he was submitted to some exams. He was doing well, but last night, by the end of the day he started with some headache and he decided to go to the hospital here in Brazilia, the capital uh And after some exams, they found there was a hemorrhage, and decided to transfer him to Saint Paulo where you have a
better uh better hospitals there. Uh and well, and he underwent surgery in in the morning they announced much more complex surgery. Uh tranny outo meat. But then and at a presser they explained it was trapping where they used a drain to to drain the blood that was between the skull and the and the brain, and doctors saying he is now well.
Uh.
He will spend forty eight hours in the intensive care units. Uh, but he will spend the whole week at the hospital just for precausion.
Was there an actual transfer of power to his vice president during this process.
No, Gerald WelCom and his vice president, he was in San Paolo. He would have some agendas there, but he traveled back to Brazilia and he will replace Lula and house in Slovakia's Prime minister Robert Fikeel who's here today but as a vice president, So Lula, there was no transfer of power yet.
When nevertheless, when you see these headlines, it does come as quite a shocker. What is the political backdrop aac and I'm a backdrop of Brazil right now?
Well, Lula seventh is a seventh nine year old man. He will be eighty one and twenty six, he will when he intends to run again for Present for a fourth term. And what happened, what is happening hah Now, what happened in October and what happened today brings us a big question mark on his polytical future. Will he be able to run for present in two years? And age became something very difficult in politics, especially after what happened to Joe Biden in the United States. And there
isn't a clear successor for Lula in Brazil. There are some people that brings the name of his finance minister Fernanda daddy. And actually he is having some leading uh in the country. Two weeks ago he was the star of address on TV to announce suspending cut package to the nation.
All right, Danielle, thanks so much, Yeah, thank you so much, Danielle. We appreciate getting your reporting there, Danielle Carvallo. He's a government reporter for Bloomberg News in our Brazilia, euro which I forgot was the capital of Brazil. I would have just said South Powell or something.
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All right, let's get back to boy the other news story that it certainly transfixed, I think not only New York City, but kind of the country here and knows that the murder of that senior executive of United Healthcare. And now we have the arrest in charging of the suspect. Hel Michelle Cortez Joints is here, Bloomberg, Senior editor covering healthcare. Michelle, We've seen all the news, We've seen the tape. We now have a murder suspect. How about from the other perspective,
how about the perspective of the company. How's the company been reacting to this news again, the tragic loss of one of their senior executives. What have we heard from United Healthcare?
Well, it's absolutely been a crisis for the company. It's a crisis not only in terms of the individual person. Right, they have lost a senior executive, so a person that many of them were co those two. Also, they have a hole for the company that they need to fill. But also there's this huge ground swell of animosity towards the industry and they have to grapple with that as well. Honestly, what we have heard from the beginning is that they
were shocked when this happened. I don't think this was on anyone's being go card for twenty twenty four and they just didn't know how to react initially when this happened. The first things that we saw was increased security at the United Health campuses in Washington and Minneapolis and in New York, and we have seen them taking executives off
of their web pages that type of thing. But in terms of actual communication to the outside world, there's been exceedingly little from United Health, and even internally, some of the reports that we have seen have essentially downplayed the situation and told employees to not really pay attention to social media, to not take this outpouring to heart. They do have an awful lot of work that's going to have to come. They have not yet done it, and it's going to be interest to see how it plays out.
There's really not an awful lot that they can do at this point, given how much antagonism, animosity, and straight up hatred towards the company from people who have suffered in terms of not being able to get the kind of health care and coverage.
That they've needed.
I think that it's been really shocking for many people, which.
Is so surprising because you would have thought when you have a tragic event like this, it would be the opposite that you'd see an outpouring of support, right, and that's just not been the case. How has it reflected in United health but also just in other companies as well, like there was a debacle with Anthem last week and paying and enthusiologists.
Right, Absolutely, this is not something that's specific to United Healthcare at all. It is something that comes from the health insurance industry.
Obviously.
The way these companies operate they do when you talk to them about it. What they're doing is they're trying to make healthcare more efficient, more afordable, making it possible for people to get access to the care that they need. But in fact, the way that a lot of them make money is by reducing the expenditures for healthcare insurance. And then again, not specific to g United Healthcare. We've
seen other companies dial back there in person appearances. They've had executives pull back events that were going to be public that we're closed, moved online. Everyone is reevaluating their security at this point, and the way that they move forward at this point is just uncertain. How you can actually rectify something that is systemic to the industry. This is how it operates. So they're going to need to rethink and how they go forward. I don't think that
they know yet. They're still trying to figure that out.
Red headline just crossing the Bloomberg Terminal, Saudi's piff PIF said to near deal to invest in PGA Tour Enterprises. So we'll have some more reporting on that for our golf fans out there. And Michelle, you know, I think when this news first broke, we said, you know, the headlines were United Healthcare CEO, but we came to learn later that it was a CEO of a subsidiary, not
the overall global CEO. And some people were saying, how could a CEO not have security, But again, he wasn't the CEO of the entire corporation, just of a subsidiary. I guess they have to rethink some of their security for some of their mid level executives and leadership as well.
Right.
Well, let's so, Brian Thompson was the CEO OFED of United Healthcare, which is not United Health Group, right, It is the insurance subsidiary which is the biggest of United health If you actually line that up with other SMP companies, it is one of the biggest. It would be independently. Is kind of like, you know, the economy of California or Texas is a massive, massive company. He made ten million dollars a year. I mean, this is not a small, low level person. It is shocking that he didn't have
any kind of security. Many people don't have security. I mean, you can drive up to his house. It is I used to just live down the road from them in Minneapolis. It is a lovely, lovely home, but certainly not gated, no restrictions around it. And I don't think that people
in this industry realized the animosity. And again, no one thought that this could have ever possibly happened, and so, you know, not maybe low level employees, certainly, I think everybody who's affiliated with the industry at this point is rethinking their own security, their own you know, morality, their own you know, how they're working forward with what they do professionally, but in terms of security, this is an
area where everybody is reaching out now. They absolutely have to get this square.
Away, Michelle, what could be changes that the industry could take to sort of mitigate this animosity like that? I'm sure we could list a lot of issues, but what's like a main issue that needs to be really looked at and corrected.
It's such a good question.
It really does go to the fundamentals of the industry itself. The way that it works is insurance companies put up hurdles to make sure that people are getting the appropriate care and only the care that they need. And sometimes the argument is is that they're going too far, and we're seeing these reports coming out on social media, people talking about how they haven't had access to care, how they have been turned down for policies for their kids,
their family members, their loved ones. There was a huge outrage about how United Health particularly was using artificial intelligence to turn down insurance requests, and then they make people and doctors jump through these hoops over and over in order to get access to these kind of what many people would say, arguably are things that should be covered and it is just part of the process. Now, we could certainly see some type of a reconsideration of that.
I don't know that they would want to be doing anything like that, and this current moment, right you don't want to actually respond in any way that might be giving kind of fuel to the fire of the people
who are coming out against the industry. So I would imagine, you know, in the weeks and months to come, we might see some kind of reaction in terms of prior authorizations, in terms of denials, in terms of appeals, in terms of these boards that they have that are set up to actually evaluate whether people should be covered or not. All of those things I'm sure are going to be under consideration.
Hi, Michelle, thank you so much. We appreciate that. Michelle Cortez, a senior editor covering in the healthcare for Bloomberg News, coming to us from our Washington, DC bureau. You put up the stock of United Healthcare. You NH is the ticker.
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It was the news that we heard all around the world weekend. Of course, Asad's fall in Syria just putting the world in the Middle East into much more chaos, and we wanted to break down what to expect, what some key smilestones a hard to look at with Ned Lazarus, Associate Professor of International Affairs over George Washington University, what's the TikTok? What's a timeline that you're going to be watching to judge the state of Syria?
Well, Syria is multiple things happening at once. It's been multiple wars within a war. There are things we have to watch. One is the establishment of post war governance. Are the rebels led by the faction Hayataharrira Sham able to establish a functioning transitional government. They have nominated a prime minister who was governing their sort of self administered zone in northwestern Syria before, Ahamad al Bashir is his name.
They have ordered the state offices to continue functioning. They've
asked the government to continue working. They have also crucially declared amnesty for you know, regular soldiers of the regime, meaning they're not going to arrest people who were fighters in the Syrian army, in the regime's army, and that's that's an important declaration of intentions, though they have said that they will absolutely attempt to prosecute leaders, both military and political, who were responsible for the horrific atrocities committed
by that regime. That's one one area to watch, But there's also a lot of military action continuing in Syria. Israel has undertaken several hundred attacks attempting to destroy essentially the arsenal of the Syrian army. Today, the Israeli Navy and Air Force destroyed the Syrian naval fleet in the port city of Latakia, and chemical weapons facilities, research facilities, weapons storage facilities are being bombed from the air all
across the country by the Israelis. There's also another war within a war in Syria, which is in the north where Turkish forces and Turkish backed Syrian forces are fighting Kurdish Syrian forces, and that has been going on for a while, but that is also escalating right now. And finally, we have our own deployment of US troops in the desert in central eastern Syria where they are have been stationed for years to try and prevent the re emergence
of ISIS. Now, when you have a total breakdown of order like this, that's fertile ground group like ISIS to reconstitute, takeover territory, et cetera. So the US forces right now, the administration has said we're going to keep them there in order to try and prevent ISIS from reconstituting.
What do you think the do we have any indication what the income incoming Trump administration, what its policy may be to Syria Syria, given what we've just seen over the last few days.
Well, I guess the best indicator for a Trump policy is his Twitter account, right or truth social His post on this issue was that this is none of our you know, this is not our our business and we should stay out. And I imagine that he's aware that we have nine hundred troops there and that you know that ISIS was a problem for us and you know, probably would be again. But that was that was his
statement on it. Another important dementia, and you know it was Russian forces that Russian and Iranian forces and has Belah of course that helped asad uh, you know, retake power.
Uh.
Just a few years ago, and Russia had cultivated Syria as its strategic base in the Middle East. It had you know, ships in the port of Latakia on the Mediterranean, and you know, good amount of air air force at station in Steria for a time. But the Russian ships are reported to have left the port of Tartus in Syria.
So that is another thing to watch, is whether Russia makes an effort to retain its foothold and influence in the country or whether because it's so preoccupied with the Ukrainian War, it has really you know, it's ready to see that.
All right, Well, we appreciate that. Thank you very much for the update.
D Lazar, Associate Professor International Affairs at George Washington University. And in the markets, Paull, it's just obviously, how do you price to you a political risk? Like no one had on a bingo card that this was going to happen on the geopaul sector, So like how do you price it? And in some ways many analysts say, we've just become very complacent in how he priced to you apolitical risk.
Yeah, and you see that in the oil market, which I know you follow closer to you know, Brent still at seventy two dollars a barrow. Didn't really see any major spike here, so we'll keep an eye on that.
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We bring you all the top news in business, economic and finance. There are lens of our Bloomberg Intelligence folks, and if we're lucky enough, sometimes we get to tap the amazing c suite outside of Bloomberg Intelligence and get their take on the real economy and what's happening with their business. More enough to have one of them with us right now. So, for those of you who don't know,
Glencore is a metal behemoth. They basically produce and trade all the metals that everyone needs in daily life, whether you're looking at a transition metal like lithium or something straight up like copper. They also have a recycling business that maybe lesser known. They like to recycle end of life Electronics, lithium. I own batteries and other critical metal containing products which will be key by the way in the energy transition, as we just run out of the
stuff in the ground. So we're lucky to be joined now by Kunal Sinha. He's a global head of recycling over at Glencore.
Kunall, thanks for joining us. How has the Glencore.
Recycling business changed over the last sort of few years?
Like where were you guys? Where are you guys now?
Thanks Alex, thanks for having me. Yeah, I think it's a less known part of Glencore. I would say over the last four or five years, it's changed in a few different ways. Increasingly the recycling, if you think about recycling traditionally, is a very linear sort of value chain
activity like everything else used to be. I think it's headed more towards a circularity sort of concept, so it will still be recycling, but the focus is how do you put those critical metals that you recycle back in the loop into the battery supply chain or the auto supply chain, or copper back into the green manufacturing supply chain. So that's sort of one change and then the other changes. We are pretty pretty substantially present in the copper value chain.
With we recycle things like end of live electronics. We've been doing that for since the eighties. We've been recycling lithium and batteries for twenty years. I think the other thing that changed is we've made a lot of investments in the lithium and battery space, especially recognizing the need to recover lithium, the need to handle large battery packs, the need to address the fact that there will be a lot of giga factories they already are and will
be that will produce a lot of scraps. So just keeping an eye on the industry and how it's changing and hence how our recycling business needs to change to address. And then some of the more near term recent areas that we are adapting to, our recycling of solar panels,
recycling of electric motors from electric vehicles. So we're always keeping an eye on the next big pile of post consumer stuff that comes along, and we'll make sure we stay ahead of the game in terms of getting it and recycling it.
Can you give us a sensitive to what extent kind of just industry wide recycling is impacting the supply of the metals we need and use.
Yeah, I think it varies by metals. If you look at copper, which is a bell weather metal and very heavily talked about, no matter whether you look at the green aspect or energy transition or just simple AI which will need a whole huge amount of electricity, and hence the great copper is always in need. If you look at copper, you know, it's roughly a little less than thirty million terms a year of defined supply twenty eight
twenty nine. Of that already, about six to seven million every year comes from recycled sources, so it's not insignificant. When you look at some of the other medals like nickel, cobordi, lithium, they're not as far along as copper, but there had been a lot of posh so those metals, the recycled portion is coming, especially in Comora, there's a lot of
recycled supply now. So it's you know, it's a function of how important the metal is, how much post consumed post manufacturing feedstock is on the market to be able to be recycled. So copper just benefits from being a very mature and old sort of if I can call it met some of the newer medals will get there with.
Time gonell is recycling for Glencore a profitable bulb business.
Yeah, it's a good question for us. Yes, it's a profitable business. We've we've shared some numbers in the past. I mean through the cycle we make somewhere between two hunred and fifty million ABIDUK contribution from our recycling business, which is recycling a whole bunch of these things. Of course,
compared to glend Courzoni, that's a very small fraction. But if you look at any independent recycling company, I think, you know, you'd be hard pressed to find too many with that level of profitability as a pure play recycling company.
Any reason to believe that the recycling I guess trends in the metals business broad they'd find. Will that change with a new administration coming in? Do you believe?
Don't think so.
I mean we've been looking at recycling for in North America over the last you know, thirty forty years, so we've been through a lot of changes in administration, policies, lens and then the good thing about recycling is it's truly an evergreen business. It's sort of it hits some good policy points on both sides of the aisle. I think if you look at where policy priorities seem to
be headed, it's a profitable business. It will create a domestic source of critical minerals, It creates domestic manufacturing jobs. We have discussed the importance of things like semiconductor and electronics manufacturing the go to national security issues. So there's a lot of tailments for recycling that I think would align well with where policy making is headed in the US.
In just thirty seconds, can you tell me what kind of price you might need for copper for a cycling to be profitable and if that's lower than the actual mind cost?
So funny enough, I mean the actual copper price doesn't really matter so much. It does matter when you're buying that's a very high grade copper scrap. We tend to not do a lot of that. There is this phenomena where when the copper price spikes, there is this notion that some secondary supply will come into the market. And that's just because there's a lot of the art sitting a lot of material with that price, it's opportunistic to now I'll sell it, right, But it behaves more like
copper concentrates. If I can drop attlee where it's more the tcsrcs that matter on the metal price, all right.
Elliate there canal, Thanks lack Canal.
Sin Hat's go behind a recycling over at Blankworm.
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