Private Equity, EVs, And Rails (Podcast)

you go? How does your alternative investment portfolio looking. Let's check in with some folks on the private equity side. Andrea our Back, she's the head of private investments at Cambridge Associates. Andrea talk to us about the private equity markets. I mean, is it tough to get deals done? Do you have to mark down your existing portfolio? How's the private ecto market dealing with this volatility this year? Yeah, a great question. Good good morning to you both um.

In terms of the private markets at the moment it is today, tough to get deals done is an interesting question. I think all parties have moved to the sidelines to try to see what exactly is going to happen as market conditions continue to infer in front of us. Right, So a lot of transaction activity is stalling at the moment um, and so folks are investors are waiting to see, how do I make adjustments to my projections, what price am I willing to pay, et cetera. In terms of

the markdowns, though, great question. Private equity UM is a fairly a liquid asset class, right. You you invest, the group you invest with, buy something presumably works with that asset, and that company holds it for a number of years privately, and then sells it at some point in the future. Right, So things unfold over a multi year period rather than on a daily, monthly or quarterly period as you as you all obviously observe in the public markets. And so

in terms of markdowns um. And the other element that I should note for you and your listeners is that private equity be because it's it's private, it's a little it's a liquid we often have a bit of a lag in the reporting. Right, So the quarterly marks, if you will, a bit of a reference point for one

cube um private equity. The private equity benchmark that we track was down roughly thirty five basis points relative to what the public markets were down in one queue, just to give you a sense, so it will take it. What do you think it is right now? I mean, um, I had a friend who invests big sums in private equity and he said he's worried they're not marking the market. Well,

it's a great question. And what happens is in private equity is you mark to market in different ways, right, instead of just taking what the public equity markets are telling you. There are multiple ways to value a private business, and most investors take a look at all the different ways you can you can value that private business and thread the needle through all of those valuations. So we don't involve precincts reporting, so Cambridge Associates track asists on

a quarterly basis. We don't have all precincts in yet for two Q, but preliminary returns look like private equity will be down four hundred basis points from our benchmark. So our benchmark is looking like it's going to come down again about four hundred basis points. Still not in lock step with the public markets though for the reasons I just told you, all right, so, Andrea, I mean, I guess the theme over the last twenty years has just been, you know, in terms of asset allocation, a big,

big move into alternative investments. I'm thinking about the average you know, UM university endowment for for example. So there's a tons of equity capital. Uh, there is this a buying opportunity of inordinate magnitude. And if so, can you get debt capital to fund the deals as well? M

m yeah. The amount of dry powder, right, the amount of capital that's been committed by endowment foundations, pensions, UM families, right, every You know, there are many types of investors that that put capital into the private equity markets, the private investment markets. There is a lot of dry powder waiting to get in, right, hundreds of billions of dollars. I think in the US we are tracking it around seven hundred billions. To give you a sense of what there's

always a lot of dr power. I mean I go to Superinturn every year and they're always like one point seven trillion dollars of dry powder. You know, Yes, the yardstick. What does Foxo Tony fail I'm going to say about it today, Yes, But I mean, is that dry is that just is that just always there is there always going to be a trillion plus of capital ready to go.

I mean a bigger let me let me pan out to give a slightly bigger perspective, right, So, the institutional private markets are in their fourth decade, so it's it's a growing space that continues to attract capital regardless of prevailing market conditions because it is a productive place to earn a good return. So to your point, yes, I agree with you. I think every year that amount of dry powder is going to grow. Is it a good buying opportunity in front of us compared to what it

was over the last two years? I would argue most likely. But you've got to pick your way through this market taking in all of this information that we that's continually getting updated every day. Inflation, interest rates, supply chain or all of these factors can drive the long term value of whatever company you're going to buy in the next year. So you've got to be careful, all right, Andrea, great stuff. I always appreciate getting your perspective on the private equity market.

Andrea our back. She's head of private Investments at Cambridge Associates that's located up in Boston High Street. I believe if I recall, uh, lots of good pe up there Cambridge. She went to school there as well, so I understand, Yeah, exactly right, they got them smart folks up there. Now I'm very excited because I get talked to one of my favorite reporters that ever and about one of my

favorite things. Um So Elizabeth Behrman covers runs the auto coverage for US in Germany, and she's covering the Volkswagen sale along with a team of really great journalists. Uh. This the I p O of Porsche. Um. She joins us now out of Munich. Elizabeth, thanks so much. Tell us what we what we know about, just the details, the sort of headline details. When is this ip A going to happen, how much are they gonna sell? And

how popular is it right now? Well, it's one of the most exciting deals in Europe today and also for some years. UM. If Porter or v W Rad gets this away at the top of the target range, which we understand to be evaluation of as much as eighty five billion euros um, it will be Europe's biggest ever um I p O. And this is happening at the time of course, you were just talking about it. Markets

at tanking conditions are really really difficult. But this is an iconic spotsmaker and known around the world, and obviously there is a unique opportunity to invest. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say they make the single greatest sports car in the world. Well that's big and um, you know, almost at any price. And at one time I remember covering poor show when I first started at Bloomberg and Frankfurt, it was the most profitable car maker in the world.

This is before the whole debacle where they tried to sort of behind the back of the market by Volkswagen and then backfired and then Volkswagen ended up buying them. But um, they still are. They still have to be, Elizabeth, one of the most profitable carmakers out there, right, they absolutely are. Usually their their returns around fifteen to eight um. That's still quite away below Ferrari obviously, and that's one

of the car makers they're tasting as well. Um, probably they won't get to you know, Ferrari levels, but they have in terms of valuations. You mean, no, in terms of returns on some selling cars. Okay, okay, I was just thinking in terms of because everybody has used Ferrari is kind of a measuring stick. Um when comparing car makers. I think they are worth like twenty times earnings, and other car makers like in the US or worth like five to six um. And then you've got a company

like Tesla that just comes and blows things away. Um, where are we excited to see Porsche? And we're not exactly sure yet, but they are certainly targeting that luxury premium where Ferrari is settled at. And that's also what they've been telling investors that they can add certain features that they can translate the excitement that obviously with you

as well. These vehicles generate into a much bigger evaluation than where they currently are inside the v W stable, and if they get to that evaluation of eighty five billion, that would be roughly on par with the entire value of the W. So, Elizabeth, I understand that there's some weird shareholder structure thing here, the Porsche family and all that kind of stuff. You and some people think that that might be or could be a little bit of a drag on valuation. Can you explain that? Yeah, it's

I mean, it's it's hellishly complex. You you would know about this because you were around at the time of the big takeover battle between Porsche and b W. But essentially m v W is a family run business and Porsche before the takeover was also a family run business. And this deal is very much driven also by the Porsche p a billionaire family clan trying to get back a medicum of influence on decision making um At Porsche.

It's too complex to get into this in this radio and TV right now, but what the family will emerge with if the steel goes ahead is a blocking minority stake which will allow them to influence decisions on where to make cars, for instance, on on the key decisions in future, so they'll be they'll own it again. By the way, John Tucker was talking about Ferdinand Porsche earlier. He's the original family members designed the Volkswagen Bug and

then the three fifty six and so on. Then he had a son, Fairy, who designed UM I think the which is what Tom Cruise drove in Risky business, and then Wolfgang Porsche as the grandson. But his cousin um what was Pisha's I'm blanking on Friedrich. What was PISA's first name? I'm blanking on Pisha's first name. Pe Okay, So Pieche was uh Wilkins cousin. He ran Volkswagen. He's the one who made all these huge takeovers. He bought all these marquis brands like Bugatti and Ducati. And it'll

be interesting to see how Porsche um does. It won't be completely outside of the Volkswagen family. They're going to have the same CEO for Porsche and for Volkswagen, and they'll still be able to use the same resources. Yeah. Absolutely, And that your role. Just to come back to your earlier question as well. Um, that's also triggering governance concern because the question that is raised, of course that well, how independent is Porsche really ever going to be if

you've got the same guy running the show? I know, the the economy in Europe in particular is rough. Is anybody buying these expensive cars? I mean, what's the forecast for who's not g T three right now? You'll be on a two year waiting list? Really let you on it? Yeah wow, um, I mean the less expensive cars are bigger set are you know, easier to get? But yeah, tell us about the sales right now, and we have some positive sales news out of in terms of cars

out of Europe today, didn't we Yeah, exactly. I mean, on the face of it, it looked as though the market is getting better across Europe, but I mean it's been a year declines, mostly because there weren't enough A semiconductors to build cars. Um. But now what we're seeing is that the inflation concerns, the concerns about energy build

are increasingly driving and consumer behavior. So while we had arise this month and last month, that's still way below what we had in twin And just to turn back to Porsche, I mean, this is what the bankers on the deal and what the Porsche exacts will have been telling investors as they've been road sharing this, which is they would have been telling them, well, we're Porter, we're Todd luxury car make and were an iconic brand. We're kind of exempt from all of that. And to an

extent that's true as well. I would I suppose it's when is it still happen? When when can I buy my start? What day are we looking at? Elizabeth? Um? It's not completely officially yet, but it will be very very shortly at some point in this month. A good stuff gonna be really interesting. I think a lot of people are gonna just go nuts over this deal. All right, Elizabeth,

thanks so much for joining us, Elizabeth Berman. I gotta tell you a team quality also of these cars, it's just it's another level, right because I got my uh nine eleven Carrera s in two thousand fourteen. Never had any kind of mechanical never have any mechanical issue or

even electronics issues. Right. Meanwhile, a lot of people you go out and you buy a new truck and then two weeks later, your front collision warning light is on, your trus control isn't working, the lane split lane keep assist isn't working, and you know, two weeks into your purchase and you've got these kind of problems. We'll see about it, all right, Porsche, I p O. That's gonna be fun. All right. It looks like the railroad guys that got a deal done with their unions, so the

freight will continue moving. That is good news for everybody depends on that kind of stuff, and good news for the US economy. Let's bring on Tony Hatch. Tony has been covering the railroad and trucking industry for decades on Wall Streets guy's own consulting company, ABH Consulting. Um, he's the guy to go to, Tony. Thanks much for joining us here. It seems like a pretty good deal. It seems like the workers got a lot of what they were looking for. And I guess it's good for the

railroads because they continue to move stuff around. What do you think? So I never thought there would was going to be a strike? Um, you recall the process. This is just a part of the product. This is just the ongoing wage negotiations and how the process plays out with under the Rail and Labor Act, where it goes on forever and they're all these cooling off periods. What's different about it this time is that labor had a

lot of cards to play. Labor shortages in general, supply chain issues, Democratic House, Democratic White House, rail service issues, making railroads already in the penalty box in Washington, right. So the the rail labor leaders did the smart thing, which is go to the very end of the of

the story, why settle early? Every day you wait is pressure on them, and by waiting until almost the last minute, they were able to secure an additional eleven bonus and some changes in work rules about how attendance is kept literally and uh sick days. So they've got a pretty fine package. Hopefully they'll ratify it. From the From the rail point of view, all of their service issues and their lack of growth issues come down to labor shortage,

high attrition, the great resignation, um, etcetera, etcetera. It takes nine months to two from hiring to putting somebody in the field. Uh, it's a network business. Or shortages and small regions can affect the entire continent. So the for railroads, if they get labor peace, that's a big victory. They need to get people into the field and pick up

pent up demand. So, Tony, one of the things I learned about, you know, kind of reading all this stuff about you know, the conditions for the workers is this percision railroading has really been tough on rail workers. Explain that side of the story. What precision railroading is. So this is you know, I could take up the rest of your time, and I know you have the pown

to talk about, but decision schedule railroading is um. You know, Hunter Harrison was a famous now a late rail CEO, and it's really a way of of doing more with less and trying to bring full schedule into a railroad. Railroads were only semi scheduled before you would hold a train to get more volume to justify moving the train because of the high costs of a train. Start and Hunter reversed that said, move the trains, that if we will them regularly, will get the volume eventually. Uh. And

in so doing we need fewer of everything, including people. Uh. That process, which we worked so well in Canada, was brought to the US starting and I was just gonna say that it was mostly over with. It is being used as the as the boogeyman by labor and by Washington regulators and whatnot. It's not the cause really of this issue. The the the relads have really gone beyond the cost cutting phase by the beginning of the pandemic.

The pandemic is the cause that when people didn't come back, the rail workers who had to deal with the recovery. If you remember in the second all the people are out there who were working, we're working doubly hard. Uh. It was they were just stressed. They were massively impacted by only Crown. You can line up rail, labor and vaccines in a in a complete opposite order, right, and you can they So all of this stress has been attributed to PSR PSR like any kind of just in

time system. And this instead of by a just in time by a shipper, this is by a carrier. If you will that that makes the system a little more fragile. And I won't say it didn't contribute to the problems once they got a shock, but they aren't the cause of the problem. The shock was. Yeah, I want I wanted to ask you about the conditions because I suspected that the media to which I listened is mostly just super lefties. But I heard you know, they weren't getting

any sick days. There's like one guy running a whole train, um and uh, they haven't gotten a raisin forever. It just seem like they were due for a for a good deal. Well, here's the deal under the rail labor actor. You know, they didn't get a raised because once your contract, the terms are out the contractors in perpetuity, the terms are up, it's ready to go. You're you're working under the old rules. They didn't get a raise every three years.

They go through this process and it actually turns into a five year process where you get back pay. So they got back pay. That is a normal I mean for seventy years that's going on. They didn't not get a raised because they the rail managers were cheap. They couldn't give them a raise because they didn't have a new contract yet. Until they ratified this contract, they won't

get the raise. That is, they wouldn't have accepted a raise when rail was tried to give them some in fact, in order to get people to go, because they didn't want that to impact this national round of negotiations. They were working harder, there is no doubt about it. They also were politically a student enough to see the railroads had become public issues as part of the supply chain crisis.

You know that so dominated say the spring and summer, they were called in three separate hearings to be taken to the woodshed by their regulator, the STB. So rail labor has definitely been pounding the table about this because they know that if they had gone on stripe, the ultimate arbiter of their wages is Congress. Jeez, you know, publicly in all those lefty publications that I like to read. That's right, exactly, all right, Tony, thank you so much.

Next time, we'll get you in the studio because we've got a whole supply chain thing we want to go down. Tony Hatch, consultant and analysts at a B H Consulting. Let's bring in Lee Classgow. He's the finally senior analysts covering all the transportation stuff for Bloomberg Intelligence. Lee, we got a million things to talk about. We spoke with your old buddy Tony Hatch earlier this morning about the trained stuff. Lee. Everybody, I gotta tell you, everyone for

days has been like, get Lee Classo on the horn exactly. Well, he's probably on a beach somewhere knowing him. But Lee, thanks so much for joining us here. Let's start with FedEx. Man that stocks taken a beating today. Didn't people know there's kind of recession to She's out there supply chain issues out there. Yeah, but you know there are all

those things. But you know what I would say about FedEx and the pre announcement, which was extremely disappointing to say the least, is that you know a lot of what FedEx is facing is not the macro it's really company specific. Their express business, which is a lot of their international stuff has really suffered because of an integration

with TNT. It's an acquisition they bought six years ago, uh, and it's really having problems because they didn't mention specifically in their release that uh, you know, they were dealing with some service issues in Europe and we just you know read that as you know t n T and you know, uh, the fact that it's going to take

even longer for this acquisition to pay off. And the whole you know, genesis of the acquisition back in sixteen was to put it on better footing against UPS and deutsch A Post and and just just on on those two other competitors. You know, Deutscha Post held a capital markets day in September eight and they didn't see anything as terrible as fed X as seeing, and UPS at a sell side event on September nine, and they maintain

their two outlook. So a lot of this, you know, listen, I'm not going to say that everything is fantastic and the world is great. Well, you know, the world is great, but like demand, demand is moderating, the economy is moderating. Inflation is real. It's impacting demand, but you know it's not in a way that you know, we're seeing in the shares of fed X because we just think that that is really company specific. And you know, FedEx has

had a long line of um of disappointing announcements. To be frank, uh, you know, they really need to focus on their operations. A lot of a lot of analysts kind of question the ground and Express separate models, uh networks being more like a UPS and more integrated provider. You know, the fact is that the Express margins from the release and in in the one the first quarter are about one point seven percent versus five point two

percent last year. UM the ground, you know, their goals get double digit margins, it was only eight point five. And what I will say is that they're less than truckload business, which is FedEx fright is on fire. They've had margins of at FedEx right um and in the first quarter, and a lot of that is not because the volumes, because they have great pricing power in that business and and that's a real strong business and some of its competitors or or companies like Old Dominion and XPO.

But the issue you're saying, so FedEx is worse off than Deutscha Post and UPS still um, the world as awesome as it is, has seen or at least, let's say, the Port of l A has seen a plunge in shipments, the biggest plunge. Um. The story came out yesterday the l A Port saw the biggest plunge and shipments since um the pandemic early in the pandemic era. So things

are slowing down. Yeah, And what I'll also say to that, and I don't mean to always find a silver lining or the or the positive, because at least really not that positive guy. Yeah, I think I might say I like it. I like it, But like on the ports, if you think about it, you know, the peak season is probably going to be relatively muted this year, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that retailers were ordering way aheaded in advance because they

were afraid of the delays. I mean, the poort backup used to be I think it was the peak was one of a hundred and nine ships. Now it's like, uh ten or eleven year or eight. Uh So it's it's down significantly, and so a lot of that freight probably came in probably in July for the holiday season. I know that sounds crazy because p's usually starts around September. Uh, and and so we're facing more difficult comparisons from last year. Um,

you know, and some of that inventory. I was at a conference earlier in the week and uh someone from the National Retail Federation was speaking, and he pointed out, like a really interesting fact that inventory our levels are high at certain retailers and certain parts of the market, but also inventory levels are low at other parts of the market. I know, Math's gonna like to talk about it.

The automotive industry, you know, they have low inventories. So it's it's not there's some definitely weakness in the market, but there's also pockinsive strength that people didn't look towards. Thirty seconds. Where are we in terms of getting through the supply chain problem? Honestly, Um, since the pandemic, it's been one thing after the next. You mentioned the rail strike, you know, the fact that the rails kind of started closing shop ahead of a strike. It's going to take

weeks before that even gets back to normal. Before that, the war in Ukraine, it's just it's just one thing to yes that that is a tragedy. Um. Just it's also may just really slow down business in Britain, right, I mean, no one's doing anything there except for queuing

out to see your coffin. Yeah, and and and Britain also had a couple of port strikes over the last I think eight weeks, so you know, so they're facing their own internal kind of um stri striking, which is impacting freight flows not only with them, but around the globe because if you know, if one port has a strike, means that's going to impact everybody. People have to reroute freight. Right, Lee,

great stuff. We're gonna get you back on with Tony Hatch with a little roundtable here and supply chains Lee Classgo bloomorgan Intelligence. I am very excited and I'm honored even to bring in a legend in the automotive public. We've got a lineup today just by the way, we got a great lineup. But this guy Um is someone I've been kind of looking up to for ten years now, and so is everybody else Um that covers cars. He is the founder, CEO, chairman, and editor in chief of

Motor Trend magazine. Ed Low joins us to talk about a new award that they're going to a new awards program that they're going to bring in so and thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate having you today talk to us about the Software Defined Vehicle Innovators Award, which I hope you have a better name for that that yes, really and I can't believe that the introduction.

Thank you so much. I'm probably watching into the opposite different characters, you know, take the channel as here catch up. We are launching at voter trend Um a ton of content around this stage of the software divince view focus is yes, a mouthful, but it's basically about how yourr car is going to become smarter and your the smartest smartphone out there. All of the over ther updates, all of the new features that are coming, you know Tesla to this dancing car mode last Christmas. All of these

new features are coming throughout the industry. It's massively disruptive. It's going to fundamentally change the way you know, you know, actiss by drive riding, and they become autonomous, these these new vehicles and you know, some of the future technologies way off. It's autonomous for instances just quite a far ways off. But we thought it's really important to focus on the innovators the pioneer and the leaders and highlight them, just like we've been doing with our like Power List

and our Person Year Award. But this is specific to the automotive side. So we just saun this and it's it's We're hopeful it's gonna get construction, all right. I'm very excited about it because I have only recently realized how important and how difficult the software side of this is. I'm gonna ask my producer, Eric Molow, though, to just quickly disconnect and call you right back because the line

is bad. Paul. It's it's interesting. Here's my pitch. Yeah, you and I go out to CES this January and we do a couple of days of shows there because the CS show has only gotten bigger and more important in this economy, for example, the auto industry. I mean, if they have four huge auditorium set up for CS, I'm gonna say two are for the auto industry. It's unbel it's an auto show with some computers around it. I'm with you, And they have SEEMA also in Vegas,

and look there. You know, from most of my life, the Detroit Auto Show was the pinnacle event of the year. It was what I looked forward to, you know, after I was seven, even more than Christmas. And now, I mean, nobody even knows that the Detroit Auto Show is happening right now. It's just like no one even goes to the Detroit Auto Show. Vegas is where it's at, and really it's all about CS and that's where Motor Trend is gonna hold this new awards program. They're gonna do

it at CS in January. So yeah, I'd love to get down there if I can. Out there, if I can, hopefully we have ed back on the line and we can just talk about why this is so difficult. You know, Herbert Deee, retiring from Volkswagen the other day, was saying, the shift to electric is no problem. That's a slam dunk, super easy. I mean, yes, Tesla does it better arguably right now than anyone else. But they'll catch up, UM, and they're gonna make leaps and bounds. The shift to

UM new software oriented systems. That's hard. That's where everybody's failing right now. And UM, those who figure out how to do it right are going to be the leaders for sure. And hopefully we have you back on the line here. Who are who is doing the best in terms of the software side right now. You know, the industry leader has always been the actual example of the

software to find vehicle would be Tesla. Despite a lot of their you know, there's some quality concerns on the vehicles, but from the start, they actually built the world's first software to find a vehicle. That is the story that's gonna be emerging as you go into automotive history. Everybody thinks that like the big EV producer, but they put software, They put all the micropost decision, the chips all talking to each other into their very first products from the start,

and everybody is playing catchup. And if you ask any of the on the ends, they would admit this. And you know, when you talk to card geeks like Matt, like you, you guys talk about aspirated engines and horsepower and on this kind of stuff. I kind of feel like in the next few years you're gonna be talking about electronics as the differentiator between cars. How big is

it gonna get? It's a good point. You know, this is a massively Again I hate to use the word it's very overused disruptive time, but I will tell you, as the cars are all coming that the O E M s are clearing the decks of internal combustion, gas power, you know, vates, manual transmissions, all the stuff we know and love is going away. There's a lot of people

really not happy about that. So while this future of electrified vehicles, of software to find deals this is coming, there's a narrative taking place a bit like in n RA. You'll know, you'll take take this from my cold dead hands.

But the future that's promised, and the efficiencies and all the things you can do with making the cars better through over the air updates, that's the part, along with to reduced part complexity and taking away you know, you've gotta take away vowels and pistons and cans and all these parts. All the stuff goes away when you just need a battery and a motor and single speed transmission. The efficiency, these and the creative opportunities with these new

cars are really compelling. And that's what we're going to be talking about. Going to be fast. Yeah, yeah, no, yeah, this is exactly why I think that the that your awards program is so important and so cool. Um, the there's there are gonna be fewer distinctions between electric power trains. Right, everyone's going to have a fast car. They're all gonna be, um pretty much maintenance free. Um. The power train isn't

the issue. What's gonna make or break you. Um. The reason that we're going to prefer a car, one car over the other or not is the design obviously, which has always been the case. But the software and the way it works with you on the inside. And that's what I think no one gets. Everybody knows we're going to electric. Nobody understands, or fewer people maybe understand. UM. And now you're highlighting it the importance of UM the code exactly, and I mean you nail that. You should.

Can you want to go like the you have absolutely crystallize it, which is everybody knows. Evs are quick, lucid ready, and they've all shown this. Right, we're going to solve for the range issue. And there are cars now we're gonna easily three hundred even five miles of electric trains. We're sovolving for the recharge time. You go to twenty eight percent of some of these batteries in thirty minutes,

so evis once all of that. Unfortunately, all that performances, all all of these car brands have to figure out how do I differentiate from the other side, And it's going to be about the experience that's delivered to reap the code, and we are trying to highlight the people

that are driving that change and doing the best. All right, And all I want is BMW to bring back my five six speed to my BMW five series, but so far that's not really getting much traction ed Low head of editorial at Motor Trend Magazine, I think we gotta go out to see Yes January, I'm gonna make a phone call. Yeah, I think anybody. I think we definitely want to want to go down there as well. That's gonna be where well, all of the most powerful executives

in the industry will be there. In every industry, it seems like tech and media. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three. On Fall Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio