In short
Bending Spoons’ IPO and strategy (including AOL), plus two additional Bloomberg Business Week Daily segments: Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser’s relationship-building with President Trump, and U.S. rare-earth supply-chain efforts (Realloys/Army), plus a Cleveland industrial-redevelopment update.
Guests (and backgrounds)
- Luca Ferrari: co-founder/CEO/chair of Bending Spoons; runs a digital-business acquisition platform with 50+ proprietary technologies.
- Bailey Lipschultz: Bloomberg News IPO reporter.
- Todd Gillespie: Bloomberg News banking reporter (interviewing about Citigroup).
- Lippi Sternheim: CEO of Realloys, mine-to-magnet rare-earth company.
- Justin Bibb: mayor of Cleveland, Ohio.
Key claims
- Bending Spoons integrates acquired digital businesses onto one shared tech “platform,” aiming to improve retention and monetization; only ~2% of ~500M monthly users pay.
- No data selling or training third-party models on its data; no plans to partner with OpenAI/Anthropic for LLM training.
- AI is a “tailwind” for operational transformation; revenue per “spooner” rose from ~$1M (2023) to ~$4M run-rate (Q1 2026).
- AOL: ~30M monthly users; monetization via ads vs subscriptions; plans to improve email client, web portal, ad tech stack, and recommender system.
- Citigroup: Fraser (registered Democrat) built goodwill with Trump; Trump posted praise after misreading M&A rankings; internal discomfort after rolling back DEI/firearms policies.
- Realloys: public-private partnership with the U.S. Army; targeting DFARS deadline Jan 1, 2027; hydrofluoric-acid-free processing; “non-Chinese nexus” supply.
- Cleveland: attracting manufacturing via “shovel-ready” land; NMY U.S. modular housing HQ; 150 jobs; $50M Site Readiness Fund.
Notable examples
- AOL bought from Apollo (~$1.5B).
- Eventbrite copying as a SaaS “clones” example; AI makes replication easier but doesn’t change winners’ brand/network effects.
- Trump’s Truth Social post claiming Citi was #1 in M&A advisory (report says it was outside top five).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOBending Spoons Overview
0:30 to 1:30
Luca Ferrari discusses the unique operational model and integration strategy of Bending Spoons.
“So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises.”
Bending Spoons Overview
2:16 to 3:14
Luca Ferrari discusses the unique operational model and integration strategy of Bending Spoons.
“We've got Luca Ferrari, the co-founder, CEO, and chair of Bending Spoons, joining us from the NASDAQ.”
Monetization Strategies
3:14 to 5:00
Luca explains the current monetization of their products and the potential for improvement.
“Now what we do with this engine is we go and acquire digital businesses with our Express potential and we integrate them very deeply onto this platform in a way that I haven't seen anybody do before.”
Public Company Challenges
5:00 to 7:40
Luca shares insights on operating as a public company and pressures from investors.
“So yes, going forward, hopefully we can improve the percentage of our users who choose to pay for our products.”
Acquisition Insights
7:40 to 11:28
Discussion on the company's acquisition strategy and challenges in the current market.
“We try to be excellent stewards of these businesses, again, with a 10, 20-year view, as long as we can project out.”
AOL Acquisition
11:28 to 13:06
Luca discusses the acquisition of AOL and plans to improve its monetization.
“Well, Luke, we don't have a ton of time left, and a few more questions we want to get to.”
Future Plans and Investor Relations
13:06 to 14:00
Luca talks about governance, shareholder influence, and long-term plans.
“We've seen this with some other tech companies.”
Transitioning to Public Company Challenges
14:00 to 15:16
Discussion on the pressures and challenges of becoming a publicly traded company.
“Hey, listen, as you know, it's very different to be a private entity and a publicly held company.”
IBM's AI Solutions for Business
15:44 to 17:10
IBM discusses how their AI can streamline business operations and reduce costs.
“Across all fund share classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor shares, and Fidelity ETS as of 6-15-2026.”
Show Promotions and Highlights
17:18 to 17:47
Information on how to catch Bloomberg Businessweek Daily live.
“Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC.”
Show all 32 chapters
CEO Jane Frazier's Political Maneuvering
17:47 to 18:29
Discussion about Jane Frazier's approach to building relations with political leaders.
“It's one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg Terminal.”
Trump's Unintended Praise for Citigroup
18:29 to 20:35
Exploration of Trump's misstatement regarding Citigroup's M&A rankings.
“He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio.”
Impact of Political Relationships on Banking
20:35 to 22:53
Examination of how Citigroup's relationship with the Trump family affects its business.
“But we know that Trump basically misread a league table that said it was top in power M &A in Q1 that was on Fox News.”
Internal Reactions to Political Alignments
22:53 to 24:27
Discussion on how Citigroup employees feel about the bank's policy shifts.
“I think it's hard to say for sure that this kind of move helped them, you know, helped win over this level of goodwill.”
Political Risks and Business Strategies
24:27 to 26:39
Speculation on the risks of aligning with political families across administrations.
“So internally in the bank, there is some, obviously some discomfort with the fact that the bank has been among the leaders to U-turn on these issues.”
Kent Luckin: A Key Player at Citigroup
26:39 to 28:00
Profile on Kent Luckin and his significance in Citigroup's private banking sector.
“Unfortunately, Jane Fraser wasn't there either, which would have made a nice lead.”
Leadership and Revenue Generation at Citigroup
28:00 to 29:20
Explore how Kent Luckin's leadership has driven significant revenue for Citigroup over the years.
“I don't want to, you know, over-exaggerate, but it is growing.”
Transition to Business Week Daily
29:20 to 29:40
A brief transition segment highlighting the upcoming content.
“Glad we could bring it to you or bring it to everybody.”
G7 Meeting and Rare Earths Policy
29:40 to 31:52
Discusses the G7's agreement on limiting rare earth imports and its impact on global dependencies.
“You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast.”
Realloys and the Future of Rare Earths
31:52 to 36:24
Lippi Sternheim discusses Realloys' ambitions and partnerships in the rare earth sector.
“Are there certain Army bases that you've already identified where you will be building your facilities?”
Rare Earths: The New Oil
36:24 to 39:59
Insights into the growing importance of rare earths in technology and defense sectors.
“We're in touch with them, qualifying materials with them and things like that.”
U.S. Policy on Rare Earths and Industry Outlook
39:59 to 41:26
A discussion on U.S. policy regarding rare earths and its implications for the industry.
“touch, the humanoid robots of the future, the computers, the AI, the GP, everything.”
Cleveland's Economic Revitalization Efforts
41:26 to 42:00
Mayor Justin Bibb discusses initiatives to revitalize Cleveland's industrial landscape.
“More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.”
Revitalizing Cleveland: A Mayor's Vision
42:00 to 48:07
Learn about Cleveland's initiatives to attract businesses and improve local conditions.
“Got to balance budgets and figure out that stuff.”
The Importance of Immigration
48:07 to 49:16
Discover the role of immigration in boosting local economies and community resilience.
“And so you don't get an America that has survived 250 years as we celebrate our birthday in a short couple of days on July 4th without the backbone of American immigrants.”
Attracting Families to Cleveland
49:16 to 53:39
Explore the strategies to retain families and improve education in Cleveland.
“And we're showing Ohio and the Midwest what's possible in terms of reimagining a legacy American city.”
Attracting Families to Cleveland
53:50 to 55:12
Explore the strategies to retain families and improve education in Cleveland.
“The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works.”
Attracting Families to Cleveland
55:18 to 55:40
Explore the strategies to retain families and improve education in Cleveland.
“Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC.”
Venture Capital and Women-led Companies
56:16 to 57:20
Discussion on the disparity in venture capital funding for women-led companies.
“Well, it will come as no surprise to any of you that venture capital money doesn't go to women-led companies at the same rate it goes to male-led companies.”
Interview with Joanne Corkin from Golden Seeds
57:20 to 1:00:51
Joanne Corkin shares insights on angel investing in women-led startups.
“Yeah, Joanne Corkin knows all about this.”
Success Rates and Trends in Investing
1:00:51 to 1:06:01
Joanne discusses the success rates of startups and current investment trends.
“They've returned themselves because they make their own decision.”
Success Rates and Trends in Investing
1:06:05 to 1:06:32
Joanne discusses the success rates of startups and current investment trends.
“companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth, and Michigan delivers on that promise.”
Transcript
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2:08The Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio. We've got Luca Ferrari, the co-founder, CEO, and chair of Bending Spoons, joining us from the NASDAQ. Also with us, Bailey Lipschultz, Bloomberg News IPO reporter, who joins us here in the studio. Luca, I want us to start with what exactly the portfolio is and sort of how you want to communicate to investors what you're going to do with assets that many people remember from the world of Web 1.0. Thank you for having me, first of all. Let me explain how we operate because it's quite unusual, perhaps unique.
2:48We've spent the last 13 years building what I consider an exceptional platform, very high talent density, a culture of high performance and rationality, 50 plus proprietary technologies and operating system for running digital businesses as effectively and as efficiently as possible, and a lot of data that helps us make better decisions at this stage of acquisition and operations. Now what we do with this engine is we go and acquire digital businesses with our Express potential and we integrate them very deeply onto this platform in a way that I haven't seen anybody do before. They share the same technological layer.
3:30We have a core team that moves fluidly across all our businesses, and we transform them deeply. We rebuild the org, the technology, the monetization. We accelerate innovation, launch new features. So it's a pretty unique model. And as you were describing, we have established over time a portfolio of brands, some of which are very well-known and some of which are more dated. We also have bought more up-and-coming companies, but there's a bit of both. We win, we do well, not necessarily when the company we buy is young or old, growing fast or more stagnating, but when we can make that trajectory a lot better.
4:11So that's where we try to excel. Luca, we were talking earlier about this, and I'm just interested if you can explain for viewers kind of the path to better monetization. Again, you have about a half a billion monthly active users, but only a small fraction of that are actually deriving value from. What does that mean for the company going forward, and how do you grow that? Yeah, exactly. Half a billion people use our products. Quote-unquote only 9 million people, so roughly 2 % pay for them, which obviously is an opportunity. We also believe that it's important to provide excellent value to our customers, so we're not looking to monetize as much as possible.
4:47and we're happy to have a vast population of users who use our products without paying. They bring value through word of mouth, and that will probably continue to be the case. But yes, we have an opportunity to monetize better, and we have a history of doing that, I think, quite successfully. So yes, going forward, hopefully we can improve the percentage of our users who choose to pay for our products. And Luca, just thinking through, though, kind of what changes when companies go public, Now you have to answer to public investors, and obviously that draws the potential towards partnering with AI companies, letting them train their LLMs off of their data.
5:27How are you guys thinking about the potential partnership opportunities? Again, it's no longer a company where you and your friends are running it. Now you have to answer to the public investors. Is there any sense of pressure from them that you would need to better monetize and therefore partner with, say, an open AI or Anthropic? I think ManySpoons hasn't been a company run by friends like that in a long time. We feel we are a highly professional organization. We've had blue chip investors on board for many years. Bailey Gifford Durable Capital have been with us for many years at this point.
5:58We have operated as rigorously and seriously as it gets for as long as I can remember. Obviously, the constituents will be a little bit different as a public company, but I don't think we're going to change our views. We're trying to maximize value 10 or 20 years out, and we'll continue doing that. In terms of data, we have never sold any data. We've never enabled any third party to train their models on our data. We don't have any plans to do that. I'll let you know if that changes, but right now that's our stance. Luca, I'm trying to understand a little bit more, too, about the business model.
6:31You guys have identified more than 1 ,000 digital businesses in Europe and North America that could be attractive acquisitions over the next few years. That's according to your listing document. it feels like are you just buying your way to growth and masking perhaps a slowdown in retention is that the strategy well i mean we yes we are buying as a key engine of growth i think there's no difference in putting dollars against marketing driven growth or r &d driven growth or mna driven growth they're just different levers you can pull we found that with our platform M &A has been by far the most efficient we have doubled the company roughly speaking every year for as long as I can remember so it's not too shabby and we've barely raised any equity in the past certainly much more efficient than we would have achieved through more conventional means and having said that almost every time the companies we've owned, we've improved retention, monetization, organic growth.
7:36So we're managing these assets for the long run. We've never sold a company we've bought, nor do we plan to. We try to be excellent stewards of these businesses, again, with a 10, 20-year view, as long as we can project out. But yes, we do anticipate that the vast majority of our growth will come from acquisitions. And as long as that's where the highest returns come, will take it. We like it a lot. Luca, the next acquisition... Look, tell us what it'll be. If you can, feel free. If you don't, I'm going to give you a gimme. Or you're going to give me a gimme, I guess. What's the theme and the theme that you're looking for?
8:17We're not thematic as an acquirer. If you look at our portfolio, we have enterprise businesses, we have consumer businesses, we've got ticketing, we've got video platforms, a little bit of everything. So what we look for is businesses that we can improve tremendously, whether it's the product as a loyal customer base, but it's a bit dated that you could overhaul the user experience, add features, improve the technology, whether it's the monetization is inefficient. Maybe the cost base is bloated, maybe a bunch of these at the same time. And let's say the customer facing side of things can vary, but those fundamentals, at least one or two of these have to be in place for us to be interested.
8:55But so we're always looking at a bunch of companies. Hopefully we'll acquire additional companies during the rest of the year. But yeah, even if I wanted to, I couldn't share any theme. We don't think that way. Yeah, we aren't surprised by that. A good one by Tim, though. Luca, one question, though. When you hear SaaSpocalypse, does that present opportunity or does that present risk? just thinking through the portfolios of companies doesn't seem that difficult to me as someone who's not that smart to replicate some of the portfolio companies using a Claude, for example. Oh, I totally agree. I mean, it's very easy.
9:35I'd say it's been very easy for at least 10, 15 years replicating, take AOL, writing a mobile or desktop email app. You know, there's probably several hundreds of them out there. Eventbrite has been copied a million times. AI doesn't change that. It was already very easy. It makes it even easier. But there's so many clones at this point that it doesn't make any difference. There's a world, not the world that we live in, where building a ticketing platform is impossibly difficult, and Eventbrite is the only one to exist, and it's maybe worth a billion dollars or 50 billion dollars. And now with AI, it becomes easy and that's a bad news but that's not again that's not the world we live in it's been very easy to replicate a product like eventbrite for a decade um so the the any success that these companies are having right now is not based on a lack of technically viable alternatives they win because they have a brand or a network effects or switching costs and so i don't think that will really change going forward um we haven't seen any degradation whatsoever in any metrics if If anything, AI has been a major tailwind for us.
10:50Ultimately, the main disadvantage of our model is that these transformations are very operationally intensive. We need a lot of excellent people to work really hard to rebuild, again, the software and features monetization. So we can do a million of these acquisitions per year. Not that AI solves that entirely, but it loosens that bottleneck substantially. Our revenue per spooner is like our core team of people who help us transform the companies. went up from about a million dollars in 2023 to a run rate of roughly$4 million in Q1, 2026, with AI being clearly the main reason for that massive growth.
11:28Well, Luke, we don't have a ton of time left, and a few more questions we want to get to. I want to focus in on the AOL part of this. You bought that from Apollo, $1.5 billion approximately last year. AOL, in full disclosure, many years ago, I worked at a version of AOL. It's known for still having people who actually pay for it, but it's just a shadow of what it once was. When you say you're trying to get more people to pay for the products and services that you own, how do you get more people to pay for AOL? So AOL currently has approximately 30 million man-collective users, only a small percentage of these pay.
12:06Others are monetized through advertising, unlike most of our user base, where often we don't use ads at all. unlike people think actually OL has been growing for several years I can't really speak as to what happened 10 or 20 years ago but at least the last three or four years it's been on a slow growth trajectory we expect it to continue maybe accelerate a little bit going forward there are multiple opportunities to improve this business as you could imagine the product I think the product is better than people think it is but it's not on par with some of the competition So we look forward to improving it substantially, both the email client and the web portal.
12:45Yeah. We believe that there is plenty of opportunity to improve the underlying technological foundations, especially the advertising tech stack and the recommender system that chooses what content you see on the web platform. I think it's one of the most exciting acquisitions we have carried out in recent years. Hey, listen, you and your co-founders, Luca, hold 100 % of the Class A shares and almost 83 % of the voting rights. We've seen this with some other tech companies. You're coming to market with a controlled company structure and a highly acquisitive strategy. What decisions, if any, should public minority shareholders realistically expect to influence over time?
13:32I think we will take input to heart. I'd like to think we have a history of intellectual honesty and open-mindedness. These are key values internally and externally for us. Naturally, if someone chooses to invest right now, we'd have to trust that we'll make the right call. That's what it is with this sort of governance. But I certainly can promise we'll be listening. Not necessarily agreeing with everything we're told, but listening for sure. Hey, listen, as you know, it's very different to be a private entity and a publicly held company. What's top of mind the pressures you think you might feel, though, now as a publicly held company?
14:10I don't know. I haven't done it before. I don't presume to know. I'm sure it's going to suck in many ways. We'll try to do our best not to succumb to the pressure and noise and stay focused on execution. We have a plan for the next 10 or 20 years. It's going to be a challenge. we can't afford to lose focus. So that's the goal here. Stay head down, work hard, stay rational. We'll see. We're optimistic, but I'm sure we could make mistakes. So we've got to be careful. Well, I'll just tell you, every quarter, those earnings reports, we love to go over them. So we're looking forward to your first earnings report.
14:46Luke, are you going to go check out a World Cup game while you're here? I'd love to. I don't think I'll have time, but I hear it's been great. people are talking about repeating, you know, again in the States in four years. So maybe that time I'll be able to. I think the folks at FIFA will have something to say about that. Luca, thanks for joining us. Appreciate your time. Luca Ferrari, CEO of Bending Spoons, the company going public today. Luca joining us live from the NASDAQ. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
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16:01But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off. deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Support for the show comes from public.com. If you're actively involved in your portfolio, you probably catch yourself repeating the same actions, buying the dip, manually sweeping idle cash, putting on a hedge. On public, you can now create AI agents that handle all these tasks on your behalf.
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17:17Paid for by Public Investing. Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA and SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors, LLC, SEC Registered Advisor. Complete disclosures available at public.com slash disclosures. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. Well, it is today's Big Take. It's one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg Terminal. It's about how Citigroup CEO Jane Frazier has used her political savvy to quickly build the kind of steady rapport with President Trump that has eluded many of her peers atop the largest U.S.
18:00banks. We have seen her in a lot of video on various events that President Trump has done as he's moved around the world. It's kind of interesting to see. She's not alone. We see other execs. But I think her presence is interesting, which is why we want to get into this story. Her quiet maneuvering, in fact, in recent months has opened up a new era for a firm once renowned for its deep network of Democratic allies and for later adopting diversity, climate and firearms policies that President Trump would blast as woke. Todd Gillespie wrote the piece. He's Bloomberg News banking reporter. He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio.
18:32Jane Frazier, I learned in your piece that she's actually a registered Democrat. How has she gotten in the good graces and how has the bank gone in the good graces of President Trump? Yeah, it's a really curious situation, Tim. I mean, we're talking about a 58-year-old Scottish woman who is a registered Democrat, who has somehow won over the most, you know, hard right president in recent years, ahead of a group of, you know, alpha male, white, older men, banking execs, many of whom are Republican. in one of the most important moments for U.S. business to be close to Washington in recent years, right?
19:14With an administration that is changing tariff policy, trade policy, trying to change so much and getting in the mix with economic issues so deeply. And one of the things that essentially we've, you know, we really was sort of blast out there was Donald Trump just a few weeks ago posted on Truth Social. We have the graphics. He's going to pull it up. Basically, inaccurately congratulating Citigroup for topping M &A league tables when, in fact, it's actually outside the top five. We know that he basically misread a headline on Fox News that he was watching that morning and ended up inadvertently basically praising the bank for something that it hadn't accomplished.
19:54But big picture. Wait, we just want to read it because it was so enthusiastic. It was June 10th. It was on his Truth Social, and he said, Wow! Exclamation mark. Citi was ranked number one in topping M &A advisory market by value in the first quarter. Congratulations to Jane F. and all of her great people. They've worked really hard. Big comeback for Citi. Yeah. First of all, they're not number one. No, they're outside of the top five. They're currently seventh, I think, actually, on Bloomberg's league table right now, year to date. In Q1, I think these numbers move around a lot. And by and large, they have actually been doing better.
20:31But everyone has been doing better in M &A because M &A has rebounded this year. But we know that Trump basically misread a league table that said it was top in power M &A in Q1 that was on Fox News. Give us behind the scenes here. Is that what got you looking into this? Yeah, it basically is what got us into it. And we know that, you know, I actually know from our reporting that the bank's top team, the executives, were together on an off-site retreat in upstate New York when this post hit. And they were all together in a room and were kind of like bewildered by what's going on. But deep, you know, you know, sort of bottom line, they're obviously encouraged by the post.
21:05And it shows a deeper goodwill because of the kinds of posts that Trump has written about the other bank CEOs. You know, he's mocked David Solomon for being a DJ on Truth Social because the bank said, you know, made a negative forecast about the impact of tariffs on U.S. consumers. He's also said publicly he's never been a fan of Jamie Dimon. He's also come after Brian Moynihan and the CEO of Bank of America and Jamie Dimon as well, personally sued Jamie Dimon and JP Morgan for$5 billion over allegations that the bank severed connections with him for political reasons, which the bank disputes, obviously.
21:40So maybe members of the city team that were on a retreat when that post came out might have been like, whoa, would Jane Frazier have been surprised? Or has it kind of been smart, strategic, necessary for her to develop this relationship? Yeah, I think that's a good question, Carolyn. One of the really curious things about Jane and this story more broadly that's really hard is Jane Fraser is someone who's very hard to read. She is a very private person. She does not talk about politics. She is really not as outspoken politically as some of the other bank CEOs. She's not a Jamie Dimon figure who writes a long investor letter and comments on big policy choices.
22:13So it's actually a tough thing to see. Yet, as you write in your piece, she communicates regularly with politicians of all stripes across the country who are known to get in touch with her on her cell phone. So we do know that she's actually probably the most active texting CEO of any of the finance executives for senators and staff in Washington. We know that the bank onboarded Eric Trump as a client back in October. We know that Ivanka and the Kushner family are also clients for Citigroup. Was that the key to getting into the president's good graces? was post-January 6, 2021, rather than distancing themselves, they did business with the family.
22:53I think it's hard to say for sure that this kind of move helped them, you know, helped win over this level of goodwill. But it certainly helped the bank in that they had a clean slate. When Trump was elected in 2024, and we know that Fraser personally congratulated him, reached out to him to congratulate him on his win. this was someone an executive who was reaching out to him who understood him understood his Miami world because she had lived in Miami as the head of the Latin America business for for Citigroup this was a bank CEO who's reaching out with no real recent history with the Trump family at all and therefore a relatively blank slate as opposed to JP Morgan and Bank of America and other execs who have been lambasted by the president but she's a golfer right and she is a golfer she's a long-time golfer first of all not just a golfer but a caddy but early on but I think for to be fair in the world of business especially wall street it's a lot of men and they play golf yeah and it's a great way to talk business kind of out of the boardroom so so i'm told i don't know not just that but jane fraser was born inst andrews in scotland which is you know the home of golf a lot for a lot of people in scotland anyway you know she knows about turnbury you know trump's estate trump's golf estate there you know she knows well that she took her son to golf tournaments at Doral in Miami, which is owned by the Trump family.
24:12This is an ecosystem that despite being a 58-year-old Scottish Democrat, she does understand. What has it done inside the bank to the rank and file? And how do they respond? Or have you heard anything since publishing this piece from people who work at Citi that is either like, hey, love this or hey don't love this so much well one thing that the people some of the people inside the bank certainly you know have taken some ire at is the swiftness with with which fraser you turned on some of the bank's diversity policies their firearms policy you know in the wake of the sandy hook uh you know um shooting the bank specifically instituted a policy basically saying that they would limit work with new uh clients who are involved in firearms they have since rolled that back as one of their, you know, basically olive branches to the Republican administration now, similarly with DEI too.
25:07So internally in the bank, there is some, obviously some discomfort with the fact that the bank has been among the leaders to U-turn on these issues. Let's do a little thought experiment here. Just, you know, let's, let's say that a bank got very close to the Biden family. And look, there's very different, big differences between the Biden family and the Trump family. But I'm just thinking of political risk here and how this works during one administration, but may not work during the next administration. And we have no idea who will become president and to what extent. But I can imagine had a bank gotten really close with the Biden family, they might be paying the price right now during this administration.
25:45I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you could be right to some degree. I mean, it is hard to say with a president that's as mercurial as trump who wavers on his allegiances um and his policy positions it's also worth bearing in mind that trump's the two trusts that trump has that he put his money into his wealth into largely when he became president both run by jp morgan so you know there are other banking relationships that he can lambast the ceo on one hand but still do business with him on the on the other um and this you know this sort of uh you know what's what's the word sort of dichotomy, duality of man, this duality of Trump that we see, you know, very regularly in his politics.
26:24It's very real. To be fair, duality of Wall Street. I mean, whether it's a Republican in the White House or a Democrat, you have seen big bank CEOs certainly befriend who's ever in the White House. I'm not, this isn't a judgment call, but it's just good business. And you know, I always preach this, but it's like, if you are running a publicly held entity, you need to think about you have a fiduciary responsibility to your investors to think about relationships policies and things that might impact your company or your bank and you can totally see that even in the most you know intimate political engagements which are personal donations that some of these executives have made carol as well yeah i mean yeah we got even david solomon uh as well jane fraser herself as well these people have donated to people on both sides of the aisle you know john warden i think as well similarly the next ceo of goldman sachs most likely who was at the cage fight on the White House lawn, you know, the only, I think, most senior bank executive.
27:17You weren't there? I wasn't there. Unfortunately, Jane Fraser wasn't there either, which would have made a nice lead. But the kicker of the story, the kicker of the story, if people read to the bottom of the story, which you should, has a very nice, colorful detail about John Waldron being there, which also just shows you there are other ways rather than just going overseas and going on nice trips with Donald Trump that you can ingratiate yourself in Washington. Before you get to the bottom of the piece, though, you read a little bit about Kent Luckin, a rainmaker at Citi. Yeah. Who is he? Yeah, so Kent Luckin is a very enigmatic figure, let's just say.
Read the full transcript
27:50He's a very discreet guy. He is a private banker who's based in Boston, but he is the most successful private banker, the largest rainmaker at Citigroup's private bank. And Citi's private bank is not the biggest on Wall Street. I don't want to, you know, over-exaggerate, but it is growing. It is an important part. It is a unit of the bank that Jane Fraser herself used to run directly. She used to be CEO of the private bank. But Kent Luckin solo has brought in over$100 million of revenue per year annually for the bank, you know, consistently over his 20 plus years. That's a lot, right? That is a lot.
28:21That is a lot of money. I mean, most, you know, some of the top brain makers you'd expect in private banks would maybe be, you know, 60, 70, 80 million. But to consistently produce over$100 million, he is someone who's brought in for some of the most sensitive clients. He's now working with Eric Trump. He's someone who's also very politically connected. He used to be a Romney advisor. He advised Romney's campaign. He took time out of Citi to go and work on Mitt Romney's campaign previously. So, you know, he has this political savvy as well. And he's someone who, you know, was assigned to obviously one of the most important clients that Citigroup now has.
28:56It's a great read. It's just, you know, fascinating in terms of an individual, a leader of certainly a well-known bank. and it's had its ups and downs if you go back to the great financial crisis. But it's interesting to say, I mean, some would say, man, it's kind of tough getting hurt in Washington. And she has done it. And I think especially for a woman. So, you know, there's so many different facets to this story. Great stuff. Thank you so much. Glad we could bring it to you or bring it to everybody. Todd Gillespie. We love it when he joins us. I want to say, read the entire thing on the Bloomberg Terminal and at Bloomberg.com.
29:32Stay with us. more from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
29:40You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube. Hey, you might recall last month, we talked about this, I believe, the G7 meeting of global leaders. The group agreed that no single country should supply more than 60 % of their imports of rare earths by 2030. It's all an effort, Tim, to reduce their reliance on China. Yeah, the G7 leaders will aim for further reduction in their dependencies with a view to limiting exposure to 50 % as soon as possible beyond 2030.
30:18Meantime, last week, U.S. Pentagon, allowing critical minerals plants to build on U.S. Army bases, leasing land to companies that will build and operate critical mineral processing plants. I think a lot of people are wondering how long that takes and sort of like what the timeline is for that. And what's the structure between the government and really public-private sector? But it's a way to get around the environmental review. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So there's a lot going on in this space. We've got a great voice on this. Lippi Sternheim is president and CEO of the U.S.-based mine-to-magnet rare-earth company, Realloys.
30:49It's about a$923 million market cap company. Stocks up about 86 % year-to-date, rallying nearly 6 % in the past two days. Still down more than 20%, though, since late June. Stock was added to the Russell 3000, Tim, just on Monday. The company also appointing a new CEO last week. Lippy joins us from Boca Raton, Florida. Lippy, good to have you on the program. You last joined us back in mid-May. How has your world changed since then? So far, so good. Thanks for having me on again. Last week, as you know, we announced that we partnered with the Army, which is very exciting. We raised$100 million in equity, also exciting.
31:27You mentioned the new CEO, but it's actually a CFO. Craig Cunningham just joined us with a very good background in this business. And he joins us now. And as we shuffle around and get ready for the next push in what we're doing in the rare earths. You mentioned the army and you asked the question about how long. I mentioned to you guys last time it's not an overnight business to get 40 years of Chinese dependency off the table. But we're working really hard to make the 2027, January 1st, DFARS deadline and help revitalize the government organic industrial base by partnering with them and building our facilities on Army bases.
32:06Are there certain Army bases that you've already identified where you will be building your facilities? please? So right now we're talking about Tool Utah, which is us and another company, I believe they're in the boron business that the Army is putting in that Army base. But there's a few Army bases and it's continuous talks of which is the best locations for the manpower, the power. One of the big issues, as you mentioned, is environmental when it comes to these things. So wherever it's most best and most convenient to do so, the Army is looking for a big push to get this to the finish line and to make America in its strategic rear earths and its stockpiles and all of that in-house and on the shore.
32:48How does all this work? The funding, the ownership rights, the time to build? Like, who's in charge if you're building an Army bases? so obviously it's a it's a an art at least with the army it's a new it's public private partnership which this is new to have it on the army basis but it tells you about how strategically important it is for the government and the army the military to actually have the supply under their purview in their hands as we go along here i think in the next few weeks in the next few months we'll give updates obviously exactly specifics and things like that right now it's about where their best capabilities are and where their best buildings are.
33:24And in kind, they get to access for them and all their advanced industrial based customers, the final products. But who owns it? Are you going to spend money to build it all? Yes, we will. Like I said, that's why we did a fresh, we have 100 million funding. We're pretty well funded for this. It's a public private partnership with the army's benefits So the land, like I said, environmental, as mentioned, it's not that you can just shoot through because it's the army bases. You still have to go through things, but you're dealing with the army and you're dealing with government sites. It's obviously a lot more efficient and easier and the people behind it want it done.
34:01So hopefully that'll help, especially in our case, as you know, we're doing it in a way that's helpful and better for the environment in the first place, as I mentioned last time I was on. But contrast that with how long it typically would take if you weren't doing this on an army base. And you did have to work with different stakeholders within a municipality or within a local government. It would take much longer. Nobody in the government moves at the speed of light. The army, on the other hand, is its own. I would guess it's its own entity in some way, shape or form. And they can move things and they move fast.
34:35Army is the, you know, the best we have. You talked about the environment and, you know, we were talking with our own Joe Doe, who like follows all this space. And one of the questions that came to mind is if you guys plan to metalize yourself. And this is where you strip away the oxygen, you convert the raw rare earths, right, and the mind earths into, you know, metallic elements. But you guys have been working, I think, on a process that is better for the environment. So what can you share with us on that? So we've come up with a way of hydrofluoric acid-free processing. As you know, I mentioned last time on the show, the processing currently that we do is in Saskatchewan.
35:11Saskatchewan, as I mentioned, rare earth, we're mainly focused on heavy rare earths. I believe we're the only one that's specifically focused on the military defense industrial base, which is what they need. It's the heavy rare earths, and most of those have uranium and thorium radioactive materials. Saskatchewan is permanent for that. That's where it's easy to do. The metallization that you mentioned, which is taking it once it's in powder form to turn it into metals, and then from there into magnets, that's definite that it's going to be here in the U.S. The processing for the moment is still in North America, but still in Canada at the moment.
35:43And we'll see how that goes in as far as bringing it here. But you will be doing it. And I'm just curious if you do, how do you work alongside in conjunction with companies like Vulcan, USA Rare Earth and Energy Fuels? So some of the companies you mentioned are in the magnet business, some of them are in the mining business. We work with some of the ones you mentioned and some of the ones are just irrelevant to us. But for the most part, this is not I've always said that Realloys was not a company, you know, with a mine and trying to make a business at the end. We're more of a consortium of all the right partners.
36:13And now with the army, the best partner of all. And that brings the government as well and all their capabilities, et cetera, to make this a mine to magnet story. So all of the above with all of the companies that can help us or be, you know, like I said, some of them are magnet makers. We're in touch with them, qualifying materials with them and things like that. So it's not it's not a, you know, a non-competitive thing where you have your own thing and you can't talk to anybody else. One thing I want to ask you, and if you go back six, eight months, I feel like Tim and I were nonstop talking about this in terms of rare earths and the government just so in talking about it a lot, too.
36:49Is the U.S. government for this area and beefing up production here in the United States, is the support the same? Is it more or is it a little bit less? the support from the government is from all different sides and all different factions of the government it's all there they're happy to help they're eager to help and this uh again with this deal with the army it's them helping behind the scenes and anything that can help us with the partnership is things that they're offering again it'll take time but i think you'll see more from us on that later but the u.s government under this administration has done has created this business where it's a viable business you know the the the g7 and the caps that they put on with the 60 % that helps the, you know, the China dumping, which I was asked about that previously.
37:37It helps them on the light side. Definitely. In our case, there's a law of defaults on January 1st. Anything and everything that the government can do to make sure that in the next few years, this is a North American business. This is an alloy, Western alloy business they're doing. There's no question this administration has done more for this sector than anybody else. I couldn't imagine anybody doing more. So that's what I wanted to talk about. and I want to try to get specifics about your expectations from how the U.S. government is going to help. And certainly we have the army basis element of this.
38:07But I mean, does it get to the point where members of the U.S. armed forces are actually doing work for you? I think that's still to be ironed out. So I don't want to speak ahead of myself, but the answer I think is yes. They will be involved. They want to know the processes. They can follow. I mean, it's on their base ultimately, so they can see how, what, when, and where it works. I think it's in the best hands when it's there, but it's still a private company, private operation as a partnership. It's a public private partnership. What are you waiting to hear still from the government about commitments?
38:39At the moment, we're just seeing all that it's going to take. And as I said, first step one is figure out where the best place is, what's there, what the capabilities are, what they can help with, whether it's the environmental side or other sides. And then we're always talking to them about funding to scale up in a bigger and bigger way. You know, they want as much as possible in their purview and they want as much as possible in America, obviously. So anything they can do, and it comes down to funding as well from various departments, they're eager to help. And we're in talks to try to get done on the scale that we want to get done in the time frame that we want to get done.
39:14You know, the production that we'll do this year and the production we'll be doing in the beginning of next year is a start. But there is still quite a there's quite a defense space with all the wars going on, with everything that's going on. Every missile that goes out a little more rare earth was depleted. Every AI system, every GPU, all of that needs heavy rare earths. Every GPU has 13 grams of dysprosium in it. So all of these things need rare earth. And there's a lot of it. Every time I ask how to cook something for dinner, Carol, I'm using a rare earth, I guess. Sorry about that. Every time you pick up your phone.
39:49Literally, the vibrator in your phone is made from that vibration, the shutter on the cell phone. all of that is rare earth. Everything in our way of life, and this is why it's so important for the country, everything in our way of life, not just militarily to fight wars, but everything you touch, the humanoid robots of the future, the computers, the AI, the GP, everything. It's all rare earth. This is the new oil. I said it to you last time. Just about a minute left here. The U.S. ban on Chinese-sourced rare earths. We kicked off this segment talking about kind of the G7 and what they are looking to do to limit the reliance, if you will, on China.
40:25Without these, would your business be viable? So again, in our business, we're mostly focused on heavies. So the law in January 1st is you can't buy with a Chinese nexus. And we have a non-Chinese nexus. I think we're the only ones today that have a non-Chinese nexus completely. That's already in operation. But there's the other companies, as you mentioned, some of them that are in the light business. The G7 is helping that with their caps and curbs and other things that they're doing. I think ultimately what you'll see is in the next, let's call it three years, I think you'll see that this is not a Chinese-American thing anymore.
41:03Western allies have their business, and China can help themselves to all that they want. But they're doing everything in their power, and they continuously meet and try to figure out new ways to do this. But we're in reality's case. Got it. We're good. The law is in our favor. All right. Well, we've said this before, and we'll say it again. Stay in touch. Love to hear what you guys are up to. Libby Sternheim, he is president and CEO of Realloys. Joining us. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Business Week Daily coming up after this.
41:33You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Or watch us live on YouTube. We love talking to mayors here on Bloomberg Business Week Daily. Love it, actually. Well, it is where the rubber meets the road, right? Literally. I mean, they're working on problems as small as potholes. Yep. And as large as economic development. Got to balance budgets and figure out that stuff. I just feel like we have, as a society, we don't have as much local news coverage.
42:08So we really don't always know, except for major, major stories, always knowing what's going on literally on the ground in cities around the country. So love it, love it, love it. Well, one of those mayors is the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, Justin Bibb. He joins us from Cleveland on Bloomberg Business Week Daily. We should note that back in 2024, Cleveland was selected by Bloomberg Philanthropies as one of 25 U.S. cities to join Bloomberg American Sustainable Cities. Bloomberg Philanthropies is the philanthropic arm of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. Mayor Bibb, good to have you on the program.
42:40Let's talk a little bit about revitalizing the Rust Belt, the industrial comeback. Our colleagues at CityLab write that the city of Cleveland is launching a redevelopment initiative to bring manufacturing back to historically disinvested neighborhoods. You're focusing on the midline, 350 acres of rail-adjacent former industrial land. How are you attracting businesses and people to the area? Well, I'm so glad you guys teed up the conversation about the importance of mayors leading the country right now, getting stuff done from fixing potholes to hiring more cops to keep our streets safe, to building more housing to address their housing affordability crisis across the country.
43:22Because unlike our leaders in Washington, D.C., we don't have the luxury of passing a buck to the next Congress. Our residents want to see a real change immediately. And that's what we're doing right now in Cleveland in terms of bringing our economy back and showing the nation what it's like for an American city to have an urgent, proactive, bold vision around our industrial policy for the country. And so yesterday we made the first major announcement that NMY U.S., a global modular housing manufacturer, has chosen Cleveland to be their new manufacturing headquarters. And so they're going to be creating 150 good jobs in our city, but also allowing us to ramp up the on-site production of affordable homes in Cleveland as well, too.
44:13So this is a great example of a city having an industrial policy that works, a housing policy that works. And I believe cities like Cleveland and states like Ohio can really lead America's industrial comeback now more than ever right now. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, like, you know, it can be tough in terms of what needs to come first. You need to have the jobs there to support people or attract people. But then you also have to have affordable housing so that when they come, they can live in affordable housing in good neighborhoods or comfortable or nice neighborhoods. So they feel safe and sound. So it's like a lot of moving parts that you've got to manage.
44:52How do you do it? Well, in this job as a mayor, you've got to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. And when I took office four years ago, we had some headwinds in Cleveland. We were ranked the poorest, one of the poorest big cities in the country. One out of two of our children were living in poverty. We were ranked by your magazine, Bloomberg City Lab, as the worst city in America for black women. And there was headline after headline after headline questioning whether or not a city like Cleveland can emerge better coming out of the pandemic. And so we had to really get to work on day one with a bold vision for Cleveland's economic future.
45:36And as you all know, for cities to win in this highly competitive global economy, we need two important things. We need great talent and we have some of the best talent in Cleveland from Case Western Reserve University to Cleveland State to Cuyahoga Community College. But we also need land, shovel ready land because companies want to build quick. They don't have time to remediate the land, to build a new factory or to expand their business. And one of the biggest pain points we had in Cleveland was we didn't have any shovel ready job sites, 10 acres or more. And so that was really the driver of a 50 million dollar fund that we started called the Site Readiness Fund for Good Jobs.
46:25That fund has now raised 80 million dollars a year to date. Our goal is to raise a 100 million dollar fund over time. So we're 20 million dollars short. I think we'll close that gap soon. And over time, our goal is to convert a thousand acres of brownfield vacant land that's predominantly located in Cleveland's inner city and make that land shovel ready, attractive sites for the jobs of the present and the jobs of the future. And this is personal for me because my grandparents came up to Cleveland from the south for jobs in the auto plants, for jobs in the steel mills, because Cleveland was a walk to work city.
47:07And now we're showing the nation how to revive these legacy industrial sites to be magnets for hope and magnets for opportunity once again. I'm glad you talked about your family's history of migration because I want to talk about immigration. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported earlier this year that Metro Cleveland gained 5000 residents through international moves between July of 2024 and July of 2025. This, again, according to the Census Bureau cited in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. What happens when immigration shuts off in the U.S.? A lot of negative things happen. We lose our economic diamondism as a economy.
47:52We lose the spirit of entrepreneurship. And, you know, the data, our entrepreneurs and our immigrants have created so many competitive companies that have fueled America's free enterprise for generations. And our immigrants make our cities safer. They make our cities more diverse. They make our cities more resilient. And so you don't get an America that has survived 250 years as we celebrate our birthday in a short couple of days on July 4th without the backbone of American immigrants. You know, just yesterday, I spoke to 2000 Greek Orthodox Christians that came from all across the country to Cleveland.
48:35And the theme of their conference was rise and build. And that's been the American story for generations. And that's the story of Cleveland right now. We are rising and building a city that's showing the nation how to get things done, how to work together. And it's hard. I'm a Democratic mayor in a red state, and I don't have the luxury of having all this protection as a blue city mayor in a blue state. But isn't the population, even though the population of greater Cleveland is going up, isn't the population of Cleveland as a city going down in the last couple of years? No, no. For the last three years, we've seen consecutive increases in our population.
49:13So our population has stabilized. We are growing again. And we're showing Ohio and the Midwest what's possible in terms of reimagining a legacy American city. Mayor Bibb, what type of companies and industries do you want to attract to actually develop for longer economic impact? And who are you or what can you share about who you are talking to? Well, Cleveland has a strong legacy history in manufacturing. And we have so many great companies in advanced manufacturing all across Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, from Eaton to Sherwin-Williams to Parker Hannafin to Lou Brazal. The list goes on. We're also very strong in aerospace and defense.
50:00You know, we have one of the only NASA research centers located in the Midwest with NASA Glenn and NASA Glenn help fuel the latest Artemis to mission. And, you know, we take care of the sickest people in the world here in Cleveland with the Cleveland Clinic, home to the only quantum computer dedicated to health care. And so whether it's aerospace and defense, advanced manufacturing, health care or food and beverage manufacturing, we have some strong growing sectors that's powering Cleveland's economy right now. Can you maybe can't share specific companies, but are you actively talking with, I don't know, five companies, six companies, 10 companies, two companies who are seriously considering some kind of development within your city?
50:48Yeah, there are about two dozen companies actively in our pipeline that are strongly considering Cleveland. I'm actually going to Farm Barrel in the United Kingdom at the end of this month for the Farm Barrel International Air Show, talking to companies in both advanced manufacturing and aerospace. And we're really excited to showcase Cleveland and showcase Ohio to those companies from around the world. And even just today, we broke ground on the first phase of our nearly$2 billion modernization of our airport. Because as you know, a city's airport is one of the most important front doors that you can have to show companies that you are ready and open for business and that you're a world-class city.
51:29And so there's a lot of excitement going on in Cleveland. And it's time for the world to take notice that a new giant is emerging in the Midwest. So Chicago and Columbus, watch out. Well, it's funny you say that. I have some good friends who live there. and they um i was texting with one of them today asking hey what question should i ask your mayor uh a little later and and and he replied with a really good question i think which is like because he's been trying to get me to move my family to cleveland for years like he loves it there and he said ask the mayor what he is doing to get more to get you know more people to move here what specifically are you doing apart from attracting the jobs and attracting the companies Yeah.
52:10Like, how are you getting how are you getting people to say, wait a second, Cleveland is a place where I want to raise my family? Well, number one, you talk about raising a family and growing the tax base and making sure we keep families in the core. You know, I've had to make some hard choices around public education as mayor. We have moral control of our schools and like many big cities across the country, we've seen a decline in our student population. We've lost so many kids because folks in my generation as an elder millennial, we're not having as many kids as we used to. And so we went from having 75 ,000 students in our school district to roughly 35 ,000 now.
52:47And so we've consolidated our footprint in our schools to reinvest so that every kid has access to AP credits before they graduate high school and band and sports and PE classes. We want to make sure that every eighth grader takes algebra one. And those are the investments and hard decisions you got to make to make sure you have a thriving urban school district that creates a thriving urban core. But we're also making some big investments on our waterfronts. Cleveland sits on two bodies of water. We sit on Lake Erie, which is in the Great Lakes, which is home to 20 percent of the world's freshwater.
53:28and we sit on the banks of the Cuyahoga River. Mr. Mayor, no, don't be sorry. We unfortunately have to run, but let's stay in touch and let us know how it's going. Thank you so much. Because it sounds like you've got a lot of initiatives underway. He is Justin Bibb. He is the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, and he's joining us, of course, from Cleveland. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.
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56:05You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Or watch us live on YouTube. Well, it will come as no surprise to any of you that venture capital money doesn't go to women-led companies at the same rate it goes to male-led companies. Not even close. However, last year was a really good year. But there's a huge asterisk, okay? Last year, female-led companies are companies with mixed gender founding teams accounted for just over 24 % of total US VC deals.
56:39That's according to data from the VC from Female Founders Fund and also PitchBook covers this data. But these two entities note that that figure is skewed. Okay. Because two AI deals were responsible for 40 % of the total money raised. Anthropic, co-founded by Daniela Amadei. A woman. A woman who's been on Bloomberg many times, including at the Bloomberg Tech Conference last month. And then also Scale AI, co-founded by Lucy Guo. We interviewed her back at Screen Time in October. So it was these two massive deals that really skewed last year's statistics. So great to see some big deals, women-owned or women-founded, out there.
57:19But nonetheless, if you look at the numbers overall, it's still really tough for women to often get VC money and get noticed. Yeah, Joanne Corkin knows all about this. She's the co-CEO managing partner of Golden Seeds. It calls itself, quote, the largest angel network that invests exclusively in women-led startups in the US. She's back with us from New York. Joanne, it's been a while since we spoke to you. I feel like the last time we spoke, we weren't even talking about Anthropic or some of these now trillion dollar names that are out there. Remind everybody where you and the Golden Seeds team get in on early stage investments.
57:51Okay, so we are angel investors and we are at the beginning of the companies. We are typically the first professional money in. So we are people who were not your friends, were not your families. We're investing not in the personality of the founders, we're investing in the idea that they've put together, the team they've brought together and the business that they tell us that they're going to create. So we're at the first and second rung of the ladder. And there has been lots of change for women in those first and second sets, steps of the ladder. And in fact, we've been investing since 2004 when we started, 2005, and we just crossed $200 million invested in women-led and co-led startups.
58:51So that's a pretty big number for any angel group, but certainly for one that only invests in teams that have women. No, it's an interesting statistic. And you certainly have some perspective on this industry and how it goes. I'm always curious too about like so many of the companies, listen, angel investing, you can throw a lot of money at a lot of different companies, and maybe there's only a handful that actually pay out. But what can you tell us about, for lack of a better word, Joanne, the success rate? What happens to a lot of the companies that you start to invest in? Do they then get larger funding rounds, any of them going public, or do they get acquired?
59:34Give us some idea of kind of the runway off of your initial investment. Okay. So I'm going to give you our experience, but our experience doesn't differ much from the experience that I know of in the angel industry overall. So, somewhere between a third and a half of startup companies do not return the capital. And that's true for angel investing. That's also true for venture investing. Okay. About 90 % of your total return, whatever it may be, comes from somewhere between 20 and 15 % of your companies. And that's true for Golden Seeds. That's true for the angel, all the angels in the US from our trade associations.
1:00:27And from many of the reports I've seen about venture. That's also true. If you're asking about our experience, if you, I can talk about that if that's what you want to talk about. Yes, please. Okay. So we just crossed 200 million in total investments. We've returned to our collective investors. They've returned themselves because they make their own decision. 92 % of that total amount. And if we add to that the unrealized gain in the operating companies that are in the collective portfolio, there's about 90 of them. Add those two numbers together, and that's about 210 % of$200 million. In terms of count of our two, not quite 200 companies, we've had 30 positive exits and secondary transactions.
1:01:31So 30 divided by two. Yeah, that's right in there in those percentages. And those transactions have had multiples between, you know, a little over one up to 90X. And like us, you know, all angel groups, because we're continually investing, You know, of our 90 operating companies, 12 of them are maybe 14 of them are new in the last, you know, 14 months. So we don't know what's going to happen to them yet. What thematically, apart from these being women-led companies, thematically, what are the companies that are most exciting to you and the network right now? Well, you were just talking a little bit about it.
1:02:20I knew you were going to go there. It was sort of a rhetorical question because I don't know anyone who wouldn't say AI right now. Yeah. Well, that's not what I was going to say. I was going to say that if you only looked at the headlines, you would think that we were drowning in liquidity because there's so much venture capital happening right now. But it is very skewed to mega deals. So, you know, in AI infrastructure, if you take those out, the amount of money going into non-AI stuff is, you know, 24 to 25. Even now into 26, it's about the same. And we have seen some rotation, though, in those deals.
1:03:03We're actually seeing more investment in B2B technologies and a little bit less in anything B2C or healthcare related. I can speculate on why that is, but we're not sure. I mean, one thing is that, you know, women are continuing to, you know, they get all, you know, 40 % of the STEM degrees and they are continuing to innovate and come up with some incredible ideas and start to personalize them. And, you know, our reach and reputation means that we see a lot of that stuff. We're sort of like some, you know, the first port of call for some of these people. Hey, Joanne, just got about 25 seconds left here.
1:03:49You know, your read, you know, VC, we are constantly looking at different metrics to get a read on kind of the business environment and macro. Just very quickly, from what you are seeing, describes what kind of economy right now. I would say that nobody wants to invest in SaaS and people are really looking for technologies that with a little bit of money can be highly levered in climate, energy and green tech. All right. That's what we're seeing. Interesting. Interesting. All right, Joanne, thank you so much. Joanne Corcoran, co-CEO, managing partner of Golden Seeds. This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.
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From the publisher
The people, companies and trends shaping the global economy. Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Bending Spoons shares surged 40% above their initial public offering price after the company and some of its backers raised $1.68 billion. The trading gives Bending Spoons a market value of $25.7 billion. That compares with a valuation of about $14.5 billion in 2025, after a funding round comprised of $270 million in primary capital and $440 million in secondary capital and a $2.8 billion debt package, according to PitchBook data.
Bending Spoons was formed in 2013 and derived its name from a scene in the 1990s science-fiction film The Matrix. The company brings a private equity-style playbook to distressed software apps, buying largely subscription-based services, trimming their staff and handing operations to coders
On today's show, Carol and Tim speak with:
Luca Ferrari, Bending Spoons CEO AND Bailey Lipschultz, Bloomberg News IPO Reporter
Todd Gillespie, Bloomberg News Banking Reporter on today’s Big Take: Citi CEO Jane Fraser Brings Troubled Bank Into Trump’s Favor
Lipi Sternheim, CEO, REalloys on a US Army processing facilities partnership
Justin Bibb, Cleveland, OH Mayor (D) on CityLab story: Cleveland Plots an Industrial Comeback on East Side 'Midline'
Jo Ann Corkran, Co-CEO & Managing Partner, Golden Seeds on $200 Million milestone
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