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XPO, Spotify, and AI

Dec 04, 202339 min
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Episode description

Brad Jacobs, Executive Chairman of XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO), joins to discuss his new investment venture, the delivery industry and founding XPO, and his new book “How to Make a Few Billion Dollars.” Ashley Carman, reporter with Bloomberg News covering the audio industry, joins to discuss Spotify cuts. Rania Sedhom, Managing Partner at Sedhom Law Group, joins to discuss legal concerns in how businesses use AI in marketing, and how content creators/actors are aiming to protect their services from artificial intelligence. Chris Ailman, Chief Investment Officer at the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), joins to discuss prepping for a recession and pressures on public funding. Hosted by Paul Sweeney and Jess Menton.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg is now on your dashboard with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. It gives you access to every Bloomberg podcast, live audio feeds from Bloomberg Radio, print stories from Bloomberg News in audio form, and the latest headlines of the click of a button with Bloomberg News. Now it's free with the latest version of the Bloomberg Business App. That's the Bloomberg Business App. Get it on your phone in

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Speaker 2

Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside my co host Matt Miller.

Speaker 1

Every business day we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along with essential market moven News.

Speaker 2

Find the Bloomberg Markets podcast called Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and at Bloomberg dot Com slash podcast we talk about serial entrepreneurs. I gotta throw our next guest into this category. Brad Jacobs. He's the executive chairman of XPO. You know that logistics company. XPO is a ticker on your Bloomberg Terminal.

Speaker 3

Mirrork Sockey more than one hundred and seventy percent.

Speaker 4

Not bad.

Speaker 2

It's got a ten point five billion dollar market cap, all right. But before that XBO, he was chairman and CEO of United Waste Management, United Waste Systems, I'm sorry, former chairman and CEO of United Rentals. And he's CEO of XBO from twenty eleven to twenty twenty two before becoming executive chairman. So this is somebody who just can't sit still quite the CV Brad Jacobs. He's in our

Bloomberg andheract the Broker studio today. So Braday, I know you've got a new fund out there, a billion dollars. I'm guessing most of it. I it's not all of it's your money. What are you guys looking to do with this new fund? What's next?

Speaker 5

So only nine hundred million is mine, okay.

Speaker 6

The other one hundred million is from friends and family okay, the largest one being Sequoy Heritage.

Speaker 2

Oh nice, that's a good family.

Speaker 6

Being real family.

Speaker 5

Yes, I'm a sister of my brother nephews.

Speaker 6

So we're taking that billion dollars and we're putting it into a small cap about fifteen to twenty million dollar market cap. Well it was, it's double the stock price today, so maybe it's thirty or forty million market cap now called silver Sun Technologies. And we're then going to spin that company back off to the legacy shareholders of silver Sun. So in a few months when the deal closes, the

silver Sun shareholders with other their company back. They'll also get a two and a half million dollar dividend, and they'll get a about a zero point three percent share in my new company.

Speaker 2

And your new company is going to do what Well, we haven't announced the industry yet. I wanted there, are you gonna use this shell, this publicly, this entity, this vehicle to make an acquisition? Absolutely, so tell us.

Speaker 5

What this company.

Speaker 6

This company will be publicly traded, it'll have billion dollars in cash, and we'll do the same playbook that I've been doing for decades. I'm going to consolidate an industry. I'm going to buy companies, I'm going to assimilate them. I'm going to improve them. We're going to going to get synergy from them. I'm gonna symbol the world class team and applied technology, improve the business, and we'll.

Speaker 5

Be off to the race.

Speaker 2

So you've identified the company, you just haven't announced it yet, that's correct, So.

Speaker 5

We can you've identified the industry.

Speaker 2

You've identified the industry.

Speaker 6

We don't have a companies per se that we're about to buy, although we're talking to several of them.

Speaker 3

Can you tell us what the industry is here?

Speaker 6

Well, we'll play bigger than a small bread.

Speaker 2

So I got to get your back again. And you're like, what a week's time or something something like that. All right, all right, So what do you look for? I mean, waste management logistics. I mean these things aren't sexy, but what are you living more sexy? They essentially for your bank accounts.

Speaker 6

It means making a lot of money for shareholders, that's right. And United Rentals we got in it was it was three dollars and fifty cents a share when I started the company in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 5

And on Friday it was over five hundred dollars a year.

Speaker 6

And XPO Logistics when we started in twenty eleven. Are the investors who came in with me made thirty two times in money as a last year, So I can save that very very sexy.

Speaker 2

When you put it that way. So what legit. What characteristics do you look for in a business when you go to acquired because you remind me of a a gunging off to think of his name again, who did this in the cable industry, the radio business and then entertainment business up in Boston. Anyway, What do you look for in a company or an industry?

Speaker 6

So I look for very specific things. They've all been in industrial services, that's my okay. I look for large industries. I look for industries that are hundreds of billions of dollars in size. I look for ones that there's lots of interesting companies to buy. It's not consolidated so much as there's not a whole lot to buy. It's still fragmented and at reasonable prices at multiples less than what we're going to trade out, so we get some accretion.

Speaker 2

From what we're buying.

Speaker 6

And I look for an industry where it's not totally tech forward yet and I can take our tech prowess and apply it to the industry to get an advantage.

Speaker 3

So what industries do you see that have opportunities?

Speaker 2

At this point, you're not going to give up, so stay tuned.

Speaker 6

I will definitely tell the whole world, what industry we're going to consolidate but not today.

Speaker 2

What kind of capital structure do you think is appropriate today versus maybe when you did United Reynolds, when you did XPO. Debt is not free anymore. Talk to us about that, and talk to us about maybe if there's any other external equity you need, can you get.

Speaker 6

It so in the first instance, will be debt free. We'll have a billion dollars of equity that we're putting into the company, and we'll have no debt over time. To answer your question, I think one or two turns is probably a conservative way to approach it, given the world and the turbulence and the risk risky nature of what's going on in geopolitics, and in terms of it available, there's no never any problem raising money if you've got a good track record and you have a good team,

and you have a good business plan. So I'm not worried about access to capital.

Speaker 3

What do you think that tells us about the direction of the economy right now?

Speaker 5

Well, I don't.

Speaker 6

I'm not going to give it prediction because my prediction has been bad last year and a half, like most everyone else year and a half two years ago, I thought a recession was coming, and no recession camp so I've withdrawn my convey on particular the economy. Having said that, I do see it being generally soft out there in Europe and the United States, and I see it slowing. I don't see it picking up.

Speaker 2

So in your investments, let's say, what you're looking at coming forward? Is it Do you prefer to stay in the US, You're looking for a global business? How do you just think about g geography? Because a lot of folks are saying, I can't go to China, Europe's to the growth isn't there in Europe for me? How do you think about it?

Speaker 6

Well, Asia has an extra level of risk because what's going on with China, So I'm not eager to get into Asia. I liked North America a lot, like the United States a real lot for all the obvious reasons. But I don't mind Western Europe, France, UK, Spain, Germany. These are great countries with big economies and.

Speaker 2

The rule of law. So what we saw during the pandemic was a sense of reshoring or friend shoring, that type of thing. Did you see that? Do you see that at XBO? And how does maybe how does that change our supply chain because I kind of grew up in an era that was all about globalization, more and more globalization that seems so installed a little bit.

Speaker 6

Ins stalled a lot. I see that more in our supply chain spin off GXO Logistics, which has about two hundred million square feet of warehouses across a thousand warehouses around the world. There you've seen a lot of our customers who had a lot big part of their supply chain originating in China migrate to Malaysia, to Vietnam, to India, to Mexico back to the United States. So that's trend that's probably not going to turn around. I think people want to de risk being dependent on China.

Speaker 3

And especially when it comes to the supply chains and what we just went through because of the pandemic. Where are you seeing improvements and where are there still some lags there that are issues for the broader global supply chain.

Speaker 6

Oh, the supply chain has normalized quite a bit. It's not anything like it was a couple of years ago during COVID, when it was hard to get anything and things move very slowly and the prices were real high. The price of freight transportation and logistics in general has come down a lot, and it's capacity. The availability of transportation is available quite a bit.

Speaker 2

So what's the biggest challenge as you think about it. I mean, you're going to put some capital to work here. What do you think, just broadly defined out, some of the biggest challenges that you're going to have for again, redoing your playbook, growing, maybe through acquisition and so on and so forth. What do you think some of the challenges over the next several years for you?

Speaker 6

The most important thing that has to be accomplished in any business plan, but particularly one that's going to be high growth and where we're aiming for the stars in terms of very high returns to shareholders is people. You've got to assemble a world class real world class, not even first class, a world class management team that's hard working, that's honest, that gets along well and plays well in the play in the sandbox together, is super smart, very focused,

really understands what they're doing on top of everything. And if you can get a management team assembled, it's got those kind of superstars.

Speaker 5

The rest.

Speaker 6

I won't say it's super easy, because nothing's super easy, but it's relatively easy.

Speaker 3

What's one of the top questions that you get from shareholders.

Speaker 6

Well, shareholders are always thinking about well depends which sheholder you're talking about.

Speaker 5

So there's two categories there.

Speaker 6

You have short term and long term. So the hedge funds and some of the high velocity funds, they're very interested in the quarter, maybe the next quarter right the most, the outlook for the next year. But the long only institutions who own five, ten, fifteen percent of a company and are owning it for several years, they're seeing way past that. They're not so interested in the quarter. That's interesting, but it's not the real focus. The focus is how

are you going to grow the business? How are you going to grow this business over the next five years, over the next ten years, how you what kind of organic growth a you're going to have, what kind of margin expansion you're going to have, What are you looking at in terms of return on capital? And what is the specific business plan and the levers we should watch in order to hold you accountable. Those are the kind of questions that the serious shareholders at all.

Speaker 2

Right, we'll be paying attention. We're watching the Bloomberg terminal to see if that headline go across Brad Jacobs. He's executive chairman for now of XPO, which is in New York. Stock executive just say, okay, he's gonna end. He's got a new he's got a new fund out there, folks. So you know, keep an eye out on your Bloomberg criminals. See what the Brad and his team go for next. Brad Jacobs, executive Chairman XPO. In our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio.

Speaker 4

You're listening to the team. Ken's a live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3

Paul, as we were talking about earlier, taking a look at Spotify, reducing its workforce by seventeen percent in the company steves cuts yet this year is part of an aggressive effort to shrink costs and drive profitability. If you look at that stock ticker symbol spot up about eight percent this morning, on pace for its best day since late October. If you look at your date, up over

one hundred and forty five percent. Who better to chat with us about the latest news with Spotify than Ashley Carmen, reporter with Bloomberg News covering the auto industry, joining us on zoom. Ashley walk us through the latest with Spotify. What do we need to know here?

Speaker 7

Yeah, so, I mean, obviously the big headline seventeen percent of employees fifteen hundred people. Really awful, really really awful. It's a third cut this year. Spotify has really been under pressure from investors to cut costs achieve profitability. Spotify invested heavily in the podcast space, and investors believed that that was a bad one and we're really seeing the repercussions of it into this year.

Speaker 2

All right, So, I mean the stockstone great. I'm looking on the FA function of the Bloomberg terminal. Analysts are expecting this company to turn profitable in twenty twenty four. So it seems like the company's in good space. Do you feel like this is an announcement of coming from a point of strength or not.

Speaker 7

It feels like it's coming from a point of strength. Although it is surprising. It does make me wonder about the status of the podcast business. We've already seen them cut significantly in that department. They cut two percent of the workforce in June primarily in podcasting. So it does make me wonder if that bet continues to just not pay off and they continue to recognize it, or if they think that they're just going to have to brand into new areas and that they'll have to cut costs to do so.

Speaker 3

Talk to us about the issues they've had with losing money just in due to terms of when it comes to licensing agreements with music right holders.

Speaker 7

Yeah, so they have to pay a substantial portion of their revenue to the rights holders, of course, because in order to have a music streaming service, you have to license the music, and of course the labels want their fair share. So that has been a real challenge for Spotify, which is why it has attempted to diversify its business by moving into podcasts and then most recently, it began offering audiobooks as part of premium subscriptions on its service.

Speaker 2

Talk to us about the I guess the competitive environment here for streaming music. Just if you get set out kind of where Spotify fits in this. I'm not a big streamer of music, but you know, I don't know, I mean, there's a lot out there. I mean, iHeart and everything. Just give us a sense of what the competitive landscape looks like.

Speaker 7

Yeah, So Spotify is the largest streaming service pretty much globally, and they're independent. They are not tied to a tech platform, which their primary competitors are. So you have Apple Music, Amazon Music. You mentioned iHeart. I mean, that's obviously a big US company in radio, but their primary competitors here are Apple Music and Amazon Music, and those two really

have the benefit of being tied through tech companies. So Spotify is trying to make it on its own as an independent and make the economics work, which is a challenge.

Speaker 3

So do other players in the industry face similar issues just Spotify or is it just more unique to that company given what you were talking about when it comes to another platform like Apple Music, when you're a part of a much bigger technology company, maybe you're more immune.

Speaker 7

I think it could be that there may be more immune. But Spotify really came out to get I mean, they spent over a billion dollars on podcasting, so they were the ones that made that huge, huge bet and push on that space, which I think puts them in a really unique position. And I do think that they also have to diversify to survive. Where is it as possible that Apple Music and Amazon Music can kind of they squarely focused on music and be Okay, how much of.

Speaker 2

Their business is subscription versus advertising and where does the market feel like maybe the most growth can come from.

Speaker 7

They've continued to grow their subscriptions, which quarter or over quarter has just been a wild, amazing testament to the strength of Spotify. They continue to grow subscribers the advertising business. They have free users, of course, and I think as they move into more developing countries like India, those users, of course are going to potentially beyond cheaper plans or free plans, so advertising could become a bigger part of

the story. But really they are subscription business and investors want to see subscriptions.

Speaker 3

And this does come during a year where Taylor Swift had quite the momentum on Spotify. So how is it when you have someone that's successful on that's still maybe not enough to prevent Spotify from having to go through these different cost cutting efforts.

Speaker 7

Yeah, I mean Taylor Swift, of course, super successful, Beyonce Drake, all of them. But at the end of the day, Spotify has to pay royalties every single time someone listens to those songs. So they're not getting to necessarily benefit from that. I mean they get subscribers and they make some money, but not enough to offset just the fact

that people are obsessed with Taylor Swift. I mean that's why that podcast that where they don't have to pay royalties whenever someone listens to a podcast with smart But the question is can they actually build business around it? And isn't working?

Speaker 8

Right?

Speaker 3

So Taylor Swift is actually going to earn more than one hundred million dollars in Spotify royalties for twenty seven yes, oh my good, breaking it in.

Speaker 2

So where are we with the podcast business? Actually? I mean are they still committed to it? How did they phrase kind of how they're going to invest in that going forward, because I know that was a concern as you mentioned before for a lot of investors.

Speaker 7

You know, they still have at least prior to these cuts, they still had a podcast department that was dedicated to doing original programming. I think after these cuts will find out more about what the state is of those shows. But really where I have seen the company focus has

been on advertising. They really want to not only put podcast advertisements behind their own programming, but also behind their third party partnerships with people like Joe Rogan and Dak Shepherd, as well as people who use one of their hosting services, So that could be places like MPR, for example, uses their service they put ads on their shows. So that has really been the focus moving forward for Spotify, and

that was a newer goal. So I think we're still trying to figure out whether that's going to pay off.

Speaker 3

We only have about a minute left. But do you see further job cuts coming in the next few months or the next year, or do you think this will be limited to what we saw today.

Speaker 7

In his blog post, the CEO Daniel X said that this decision was made to avoid further cuts into the next year or two, so that's where he's at with it. I would hope for the sake of the employees that's the case, because this has probably been a pretty traumatic year for them. But yeah, as of right now, that that's kind of what we know.

Speaker 2

All right, Ashley, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it, appreciate the reporting there. Ashley Carmen, reporter for Bloomberg News, talking about Spotify again, one of the bigger stories today on the Bloomberg terminal cutting fifteen hundred jobs. You take a look at the stock and it's been all over but it's had again up you.

Speaker 3

Know, up over one hundred and forty five percent a year to date.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but he just pull up the max chart here. I mean, it's obviously well, it's spiked and got up to three hundred and fifty dollars three hundred and fifty five dollars a share, you know, back in kind of the beginning of twenty twenty one. So it's got a lot of work to retrace, so it's not nearest all

time high, but it's definitely moving higher. And again this is another tech story, much like meta, where you're getting rewarded for cutting your costs and focusing on profitability, which was different from you know, just several years ago, when a lot of these text stories were rewarded simply for growing top line growth with whether that's reven or even subscribers or anything like that. Now the metric has become profitability kind of the way it probably always should have been.

Speaker 4

You're listening to the tape. Can's are Live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio. The tune in app Bloomberg dot Com and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven.

Speaker 2

Jess and I have talked about a big, big story in the stock market, in the economy in twenty twenty three has been AI can nowhere, and now every company talks about it. I don't care what business they're in, the trans transform, disruptor and I don't know. But there are legal issues associated with this which I think we're just starting to get our arms around, and that is includes an area of in marketing and advertising, So that's a big issue. The question is is it a slippery

slope or a good idea? The person has the answer to that question is Ronnie is set Home. She's a managing partner set Home Law Group. So Ronnie, when I think about I'm just reading your stuff here. Only something this is according to the US Copyright offic is only something generated by a person can be copyrighted, and AI is not a person under copyright or patent law. So if AI is used to come up with an advertising campaign,

a marketing campaign, who owns it? And aren't they using maybe stuff that was created by a human that's protected by copyright. And how's all that work?

Speaker 8

Yeah, it's complicated. It is only protected if it's written by a human being, and the application will denote who owns it. Typically they'll put a company name. Anyway, we may never know whether it was written by AI. But some things that can happen is that as AI is learning whatever that means, it may be overly inspired by something that was written by somebody else, and that's a landmine. Also, the voice of the person may change slightly, and the

messaging may not be exactly what you want. Right. We're emotional creatures as humans, and marketing just hits that nail right on the head. I'm not sure if AI has honed in on our feelings just yet.

Speaker 3

What are some examples of some companies that may have run up against some legal issues here when it comes to AI in marketing.

Speaker 8

Well, I think we spoke previously a little bit about Sarah Silverman saying that whatever they're doing with her book is is a copyright infringement because AI is learning her book and other people's books, of course, and then they're going to market something as a result. We don't know what it is yet, But she recently found herself in a setback in court and the court said that she did not prove her case and she didn't allege the

facts needed to proceed. So I think everyone is still having this huge learning curve and we all need to study hard to figure out where our options lie.

Speaker 2

What you use in your note here, you just had as an example of where this could be is that these machines go out and start aggregating information. They may go out and if they're looking for an advertising tagline, nothing gets between me and Mike Calvin's, which was just a kind of campaign starring Brookes Shields. Im it worked because that's all people talked about for a very long time about this this product. But let's say a machine goes out there and grabs that, yes, and somehow that

gets incorporated into a marketing campaign. Somebody owns that copyright too. Nothing gets between me and my Calvins. I don't know if it's kaviakline or the ad agency or whatever. Somebody's got to do the homework on that.

Speaker 8

Yes, it is very important if you're going to use machines to help you that you have to check the machines work you can't just accept whatever it is generated.

Speaker 2

Do you think that's happening?

Speaker 8

Uh? Not really. I think that AI is making a lot of things easier and streamlining a lot of processes. And again we like that right as people. I mean, look what happened with computers. Everybody was against them. Oh my goodness, y two K we're all going to die. I think that happened and it was wrong. So we love things that are convenient.

Speaker 3

What industries are using AI and marketing the most right now?

Speaker 8

I think all industries are using the board across the board, and we just don't know it. I think that you know, they take aggregated information. For example, a hospital, right, how many I don't know how many people are going to that hospital for some kind of sports injury. Well, they're going to start marketing about sports injury because it's difficult for one person to sit there and examine each and every commercial, each and every posted ad, everything, but a

machine can do it. Leakidy split all right.

Speaker 2

So AI was once again in the forefront of some of the Hollywood strike issues between the writers and the studios and the actors in the studios. And I guess there's new language in those agreements, and is what language was incorporated in there to kind of give protection vis a VAI.

Speaker 8

Well, I think that they're both winners and losers with the provisions that are in their contract now. So one thing that's a win for the actors is that if you use AI to create a fake Ranya, for example, I still get paid even though I may not have worked on it. Because you're using my likeness. Everyone thinks it's me, so I'm going to get paid. That's certainly a win. The producers are permitted to create synthetic characters that may not look like anyone you recognize, and no

one gets paid for that. They can also make a double of me and use it for satire, So think of I'm going to date myself again. We'd al Yankovic all right, what he was doing, like a surgeon or whatever. So you can use it for parody. You can use a double of me or anyone else for parody, and you can use it for some kind of biographical data, and the actors won't get paid for that. So there are some winners, but there are also some losers. And

there's a wide availability of new characters out there. If we've ever wanted to figure out what a baby would look like if it was had two parents that we both think are pretty We can create this image in AI moving forward.

Speaker 3

How much of an issue is going to be, especially for marketing if AI still has a lot of question marks surrounding it, and how it's going to be used by companies, Well, I think.

Speaker 8

To protect yourself as a company. I mean, that's who I'm usually working with as the company. I tell them to have review rights in all their contracts. So before the agency just posts your advertisement, check it. Make sure it sounds like you, or if it doesn't, you like the new sound, and make sure that whatever is stated is factual. Because there's sales puffery and then there's misrepresentation, and it's a very fine line, and then.

Speaker 3

The Hollywood strikes. As far as what that means for potential jobs, talk to us.

Speaker 8

About that, well, I think what can happen. What I do see happening is if some stars either want to make too much whatever that means, or they have attitudes that the producers or directors don't like, they'll just create a synthetic character that doesn't look like them or anyone else, and then they just pluck them out.

Speaker 2

All right, let's switch gears. Let's talk another New York specific issue, which non compete agreements, which are in financial services industry here in New York and the legal industry in New York, lots of them really prevalent. What's the status of non competes in New York.

Speaker 8

Well, Kathy Hockel just last week rejected the bills as given to her. And this was a bill to This was a bill that says all non competes in New York will be prohibited. And she said, no, that's not going to help businesses out. And she has until December thirty first of this year to redline it. Maybe she's going to add some limitations to it. One limitation I've been listening to is if someone is making more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, you can enforce a

non compete. Otherwise maybe not. So we're going to wait and see the power of the pen and how she uses it until the end of the year.

Speaker 2

How important is this to like, what's the business community in New York saying.

Speaker 8

Well, everyone is frightened. I mean, think about it. If I purchase your company and then tomorrow you can open up another company and tell all your previous customers, who I just thought were going to be my customers, that you're doing the same thing under a new name.

Speaker 2

So who's backing the passage of this just labor groups? Yes, okay, so this is a question just I mean, this is kind of a new issue, but it's you're either pro business or your pro labor. It's at its basic fundamental level. I guess.

Speaker 8

Well, I think that's what we're seeing across the United States, either your four or again something and the world is very nuanced and it's a difficult position to be in to always just say yes or no.

Speaker 2

So again, we'll hear from Governor Hokel by the end of December, or is that the plan?

Speaker 8

Maybe if she does not make any changes, then it'll just disappear. However, President Biden has something similar in the works on a federal basis, so it may be irrelevant soon.

Speaker 2

Interesting, Okay, lots out there. That's why we talk to people like you, Rania set Home, she's a managing partner set Home a law group, talking about AI and it's impact on a lot of businesses, including marketing and advertising and all that kind of stuff. And then just more broadly find on the on the employment front, just non compete. It seems like non competes have been around forever.

Speaker 3

They have been, especially in financial services.

Speaker 2

Yeah, exactly, garden leaf. I mean, you know how many people have taken up a new skill just by playing out playing with their garden leave a little bit s and P five hundred off six tenths of one percent here in the market. So we got a little bit of solve, but that was after I guess five weeks of big time performance.

Speaker 4

You're listening to the tape cans are live program Bloomberg Markets weekdays at ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio, the tune in app, Bloomberg dot Com, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, just say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Speaker 2

There's a little place out west called California. They have a lot of teachers they do California and they taught My youngest son actually graduated from my California high school. And those folks say for retirement, somebody's got to manage that money.

Speaker 3

It's a lot of word.

Speaker 2

Our next guest is that does that Chris Allman, he's the CIO of Cowster's California State Teachers Retirement System, got a little lost between the sixth and fifth Florida. We found you, Chris. That was a heck of a November for these markets. What happened there?

Speaker 5

That was the soft landing. The soft landing rates are done?

Speaker 2

You know, do we see peak rates? Do you think we saw peak rates?

Speaker 9

Maybe twenty five just for but I know we've hit peak grades. Oh yeah, But I don't think they need to ease anytime soon because that would imply a recession. They'll gradually step down, but the streets ahead of itself, and I think November was the signal that was a soft landing.

Speaker 3

So how do you view markets heading into year end? And what's your outlook for twenty twenty four as far as when we're talking about that soft landing scenario.

Speaker 9

Yeah, that's the interesting question is I don't think anybody's happy about this soft landing and very worried because normally you would think that that means the economy is going to take off, but you don't get that sense. We had a bit of a merger Monday, so maybe the market's coming back that way, but cautious and absolutely neutral on the asset classes. We're not going to take a bet fixed in comes back. There's no bonds are back, so you can buy and hold. I wouldn't trade, but

private credit, there's just not a lot of opportunities. Everything's priced to perfection.

Speaker 3

It's interesting because there still is a lot of pessimism out there from a sentiment standpoint, and when you square that away with a lot of the consumer spinning data that's still really strong. What is it that's really pushing people who have a call going into next year thinking that the economy is going to substantially slow. What is going to be the catalyst?

Speaker 9

You know, that's a tough question because I've been predicting a recession for sixteen months.

Speaker 5

So I've been wrong the whole time. And I think are.

Speaker 3

Also in that camp and who have not admitted that they are.

Speaker 7

No.

Speaker 5

No, I'll fess up.

Speaker 9

I've been wrong a lot in my career. It happens, So I don't know what would cause that catalyst. I think the lower end consumer is running out of money. When you have a weakness out of Walmart, out of dollar store, Sprint, Airlines, Frontier, having a few open seats. Maybe they're going to spend at Christmas, they're going to overextend, and so maybe we have a bit of a debt hangover in January February. That's where we feel it. I'm getting nervous because you still see like Spotify today, you

still see layoff notices and reductions. We'll wait to see the employment numbers on Friday. They have been surprising us on the upside. So this is also called muddling along, and I think in a large extent that's what twenty three was about and twenty four will be about.

Speaker 2

All Right, You've been doing this a long time here. I'm not commenting on his age. I'm just saying you've been around this a few times. When you see a stock market up eighteen nineteen percent, what are the smp is here? But when you back out six seven names and it's basically got four or five percent, what does that tell you?

Speaker 9

Whorries the heck outomy? I listen to you guys every day, So just a plug, I really do. I listen to you every day driving into work California.

Speaker 2

Times.

Speaker 5

You've been around along as I've been around.

Speaker 9

I will just say that they that no that always causes for concern because we've seen that before in some technology names, and this is so extreme with that magnificent seven. So it's not healthy breadth in the market. I think that's another downside. Jess As you said, what would cause the market to down turn down? I think it's a high inflation number or an up to inflation, a worry about employment, and then everybody resettles their expectations.

Speaker 3

Gina Martin Adams have to bring her up, who over at Bloomberg Intelligence, who leads the equity side. She and her team did research on the concentration when you are looking, especially with megacap TAC and even when there is heavy concentration, there's still time to make money between that concentration and

when obviously there could be a flip and leadership. But from your point of view, I mean, is there still time where people will lose out if they're too concerned for too long, Well, they end up losing out on making money. I'm concerned about.

Speaker 5

To concern for too long.

Speaker 9

Compt My staff will tell you I've been a permanent bear through all of this and it's not worked. Paul, I thought a global pandemic was a bad thing. But I've found out now in my career it's a good thing. So I have been a bear and that has not been the place to be. We're neutral on our equity waiting and we have been over this sixteen month bear market prediction and recession prediction because it's too expensive to be out. So I think you have to be fully invested.

You have to pay attention to asset allocation again.

Speaker 5

And be balanced.

Speaker 9

You can't just be in the magnificent seven.

Speaker 3

Nobody realzed what are you advising clients.

Speaker 9

I've been telling people pay attention to fixed income again. It's back rates are up, It's at a decent place to invest.

Speaker 5

You know, we're not putting new money to work in real estate.

Speaker 9

Are in private equity at these levels, just to steady investor in private equity, but really private credit, it's hard to find opportunities again because the fren credit.

Speaker 3

Paul's very private credit.

Speaker 9

Well, you know, variable rate returns, You've got to do your homework, You've got to look at your credit and analysis. Absolutely, But that's been a very nice place to be because the banks are out, so a lot of the big pinsion plans. The Maple Layton, Canada, are investing in that area.

Speaker 2

So what is it for cowsters? A typical asset allocation? You know, equities, fixed income, alternates, what's typically been your model.

Speaker 9

You know, we've adjusted it over time. We're going back into fixed income. Our fixed income got all the way down to twelve percent. We're going to oh yeah, because there was just no return out of fixed income. So you know, equities for a long time was over fifty percent. That's coming down a little bit into the forties. We're going to go to fifteen in fixed income. But we're also heavily invested fifteen in real estate, fifteen in private equity.

We've got some inflation sensitive assets, and we have another category we call risk mitigating strategies, a bucket of things publics and privates that diversify the portfolio. So if you go back to the big picture, we're eighty twenty and we always have been. It's just the subcomponents have changed over time.

Speaker 2

How concerned are you about this private credit business, because it just feels like we're one or two big blow ups away from everybody's eyes going to private credit saying, oh my goodness, how much capital do these people have over there? I just feel like there's no really anybody kind of the wild West. Nobody's really looking at it.

Speaker 5

I hear you. I think that, and you will.

Speaker 9

If you have a recession, you'll have some blow ups and credit because people didn't do their homework. Covenant light will come back as a real concern paying attention. Credit work has always been about the underlying credit, the due diligence on the construction of the loan. That all still matters and always has. The big banks have stepped away from that middle market lending, and that's why we've been

able to come in. Yes, you're now seeing this wave of capital going in, but it's been going in place for about four to five years. It's not brand new, it's just using that term as more recent. I think it's going to be an investable area, but it will always have its stories. You're gonna have your Silicon valley banks and your first reserves.

Speaker 5

That's just natural life.

Speaker 3

So no red flags brewing in private credit from your purview.

Speaker 9

I don't think so, because you know, spreads are tight, so that's a concern, But spreads are tight in the corporate bond market. But no, I don't think it needs added regulation, and I think people. I will just constantly caution people, do your homework on your credit analysis. Don't loan money to people who can't pay it back. Ultimately they won't.

Speaker 2

California, how's the economy out there?

Speaker 5

You know, very mixed. People don't like an inflations.

Speaker 2

That's a big state.

Speaker 5

Oh yeah, very diverse.

Speaker 9

Well, and you guys, you know, San Francisco is in the spotlight with APAC not as bad as some people made it out. All the big cities are having trouble with homelessness. Southern California is doing okay. We get hit by higher fuel prices and higher energy prices, and I think we're going to be continually impacted by climate change and people aren't paying enough attention to that. Stronger storms, aberate weather.

Speaker 2

How do you incorporate that? Because we have a like everywhere else, we have a big ESG focus at Bloomberg. We allocate a lot of resources to it. But it's become politicized in the US, and I kind of feel like it's losing some of its time in the spotlight, at least here in US. I know it's different in Europe. How does ESG go into your investment process?

Speaker 9

Absolutely integrained ingrained into everything we do. It's part of our core and our center. Larry Fink said he won't use the letters E, S and G. That's become politicized. The idea of governance risks, environmental risk, employment, social risks still matter, and they're just part of long term investment risk. And so I think we've got to get away from the initials and the political side and really focus in

on long term business risks, which absolutely matter. CEOs pay attention to this, they just don't use those initials.

Speaker 2

Just real quick twenty seconds. Do you think there's a positive correlation between climate change in your investment process and returns?

Speaker 9

I think there will be over time. I think it is the biggest mega trend, Paul, that we're going to see in the next ten years. It is absolutely going to dominate the investment lands safe we have to go through a huge energy transition.

Speaker 2

I would love to be at a table. Maybe I'll get this dinner, him saying his kind of part in Texas is kind of part in Florida.

Speaker 5

Hey, I talked to Jason Alby Texas.

Speaker 9

Good friends with Florida. Let me hit your tea time on Freddy.

Speaker 2

Exactly, very good chrisy Almen, thank you so much for Journey's really appreciate it.

Speaker 1

Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews in Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three, and I'm Fall Sweeney.

Speaker 2

I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney for the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio

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