Steve Cohen, Bally’s Picked to Run Casinos in NYC

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1:02Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Three casinos are coming to the New York City market. One of them includes Steve Cohen, the New York Mets owner. He was one approval to operate a casino next to Citi Field. Remember, Steve Cohen, again, owns the Mets, the stadium. And so that is big for Queens. Randall Williams joins us here as a U.S. sports business reporter for Bloomberg News, joining us from Indianapolis via that Zoom thing.

1:48So this is a big deal for that part of Queens, Randall, because, again, it looks like Steve Cohen wants to build a big, big multi-use kind of area there, hotels gaming the mets oh yeah the u.s tennis centers there as well what do we know it's going to be if he's able to fulfill his vision it's going to probably be magnificent and the reason i say that is because this is a sports a sports owner's dream if you have a team there you have hotels you have a casino there then of course this becomes similar to a resort life you can go and catch a mets game in the summertime then you can go and gamble then you can go and go to the hotels at the pools and things like that.

2:26So if he's able to do everything that he wants to do and he has more than enough money to do it, then I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of people that are going to enjoy this. Randall, can you please walk us through the timeline here? When is this going to be fulfilled? And what do you see in terms of perhaps the job creation that this might cause? I think there's going to be a lot of job creation just because of the sheer construction, all of the tech stuff that's going to have to happen with the gambling machines that he's going to be buying, as well as, you know, you think about the pools, you think about all of the potential things that he's going to be building in terms of the timeframe.

3:04I think it's to be determined. And the reason I say that is because a lot of these hotels, a lot of these different facilities that are often, they put up, they say, oh, we're going to be done by 2030. And then it's 2032. Rarely ever do these things get done on time. And again, this is just one of three projects that were approved. The other two projects are the Genting Group's Resorts World, which proposes to expand the casino next to the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens. So another good day for Queens. And Bally's, which plans to operate a gaming facility at the site of a Bronx golf course. So again, more gambling coming to the city of New York.

3:41Are there any financial contingencies here? We know Steve Cohen's got a lot of money, but for what he wants to build here, it's going to be really expensive. Do we know if he has partners here or how's it we know anything about that yet? Not just yet. I think that, like you said, Steve Cohen is almost the perfect person to do this. And there are several other bids that came in hoping to do similar things. There was a bid that included Jay-Z and Times Square. And so with that in mind, I think Cohen, like you said, has a lot of money. I think that, you know, when people have a lot of money, that it can potentially leap some guardrails and some hurdles that are in front of most people.

4:20But when you can have money move people out of the way, then I think that Steve Cohen could very easily make this look a lot easier than it could be with someone else. Randall, you've touched on this already, but Steve Cohen, hedge fund manager, Mets owner. What's in it for him to build this casino now, too? What is this ad tip for him? It's a dream come true. I mean, everyone that I've talked to about sports gambling and marrying that with the sports business, if you can own a sports team and a sports gambling in the exact same environment, then it does create a playground of sorts. You know, I hear you.

4:55But, you know, from the business angle, there's going to be a lot of people who are looking at this and say, just spend all day at the Mets and at the U.S. Open and all these different things. If you can walk from one thing to the next to the next to the next and have a fabulous time, And there are going to be plenty of people that want to do that. So for him, it's huge. And Randall, I kind of joked a little bit there, tongue in cheek about what could go wrong, but there was not a time very long ago, measured in just a couple, three, four years, when professional sports leagues would not want to get within a thousand feet of anything related to gambling.

5:26Boy, times have changed, haven't they? Yeah, they have. And I think, you know, we just saw a baseball investigation with the feds and revolving two Cleveland Guardians pitchers. I think that this sort of thing is something that sports owners where they can sports owners are going to see where they can marry their sports business with the casino and the hotels and all of those things. We see some of that in Dallas without the casinos and the gambling, you know, Jerry World down with the Cowboys. He has several real estate properties around there. And in Minnesota, they have something similar, several other properties as well.

5:58But this one is going to be probably bigger and grander than anything that we've seen yet. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

6:09You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Sam Fezzelli joins us here. He's Bloomberg Intelligence Director of Research for Global Industries. Not sure what that means. Senior pharmaceutical analyst. I know what that means. He's kind of one of the top guys in the business on big pharma and on the biotechs here. Sam, what do investors think of just the broad health care space here, given this administration and its views on maybe just broader health care policy issues, whether it's vaccine or other other issues?

6:49How are investors kind of thinking about that? So I think, Paul, if you look to the share prices of pharma companies, in general, you will be able to see that there is an upward momentum in the past few weeks, few months. And that's all because there's been some more clarity, particularly the thing that really worried people was this pharmaceutical tariffs. And in fact, today we heard that the UK and the US have agreed on a framework that doesn't to apply any tariffs, although a lot of companies have also done individual deals with the administration where it delays any tariffs by three years and then who knows what happens then.

7:28So that's all fine. Share prices have moved according to that. The issues of most nation, most favored nation has gone and or at least it's there, but it seems to be manageable. So what's left here is regulatory worries. And we see some of that, particularly for vaccines. And I'm wondering, we're all wondering whether there's going to be a few situations where standard drugs, biologics or drugs for cancer could end up in those kind of difficult situations. But vaccines seem to be bearing the brunt of the pressure from the health authorities at the moment. Sam, when I think health care, I think GLP-1s.

8:06They're the hottest drugs on the market right now. And there's some news today that Eli Lilly is cutting prices again, heating up competition with Novo Nordisk. Does that kind of cement its place as one of the winners in this space? Yeah, I mean, so the data that the companies have presented so far suggests that the Eli Lilly drug, ZepBound, is more active or more effective when it comes to weight loss than NovoNodis drug, although these are always trials that are designed by one company trying to show that their drug's better, and I'm sure some other trial will show that someone else's drug is better.

8:43But that is where we are today. Z-Bal seems to be more effective based on the data that we have in hand. And so what these companies are now doing is trying to fit with getting more and more people onto their formularies, onto their drug. And these early, these price cuts for the first doses or the starting doses, et cetera, or a vial versus the pen are designed to try and get the patients onto the drugs. And then hopefully they lose some weight and they enjoy it and they keep buying and moving up to the next doses, which are more expensive. So, Sam, where are we just in this whole GLP-1 game?

9:20Like in terms of the addressable market for these medications, what percentage is taking the drug right now? It feels like it's still really early, potentially. Yeah, we're very, very, very few. I mean, if you look at the numbers, we're in the low percentages still. So you don't need a particularly massive number of percentage of people who would benefit from these drugs to take them to get into the 100 billion number. 10 % of patients would easily get you there, depending on the price, of course. You keep dropping the price, you need to push the volume up to get to that total addressable market number.

9:55But the deals that they've been doing, the data that we're getting from the drugs in terms of the other effects that they have, sleep apnea, cardiovascular disease, etc. They all support the idea that these drugs should be used by people who need them. Of course, we all hear stuff about people who don't actually need them. They just want to have it look like they've got a nice six pack. You know, that's a different conversation to have. But they are very beneficial for people who are genuinely overweight or obese and cannot control their weight with the standard way of most people doing, which is dropping eating and increasing exercise, it's not easy for everybody.

10:31What about finding other use cases for these drugs? We had Novo Nordisk with its Alzheimer's trial. That wasn't successful. Do you expect companies to find other areas of use or continue these trials that are often very costly for them? They are. But I think the things that are related to obesity, so cardiovascular risk, kidney function, sleep apnea is one of them. I think those are the ones that are clearly working. One could question whether the trial that Novo did was good enough. The drug that they used was obviously oral semaglutide. And you wonder whether there's enough drug there to have had an effect on Alzheimer's or whether these drugs just won't help Alzheimer's patients at all.

11:17I think there'll be more data coming. I'm pretty sure this is not over in the discussion about GLP-1 function in a role in treating or preventing or reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

11:36You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. Airbus. I'm taking a look at Airbus here. Some continued reports about some quality issues at their A320 plane, which is kind of their backbone plane. So let's see what's happening with that stuff. We kind of became used to that type of news as it relates to Boeing and their 737 Max's over the last several years. But now it seems like Airbus may be having some headwinds, to say the least here.

12:13George Ferguson, senior aerospace defense and airlines analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence joins us here. George, what's going on at Airbus? They've been able to kind of fly under the radar quality concern issue wise till just recently. Yeah, I mean, I think they've also had their challenges in the supply chain along the way. Just Boeing's challenges were so much greater that they stole the spotlight, if you will. But I mean, look, the aerospace supply chain is a bit thin, right? It doesn't have the same redundancy as like you'd get in an auto supply chain. And so when you just have some little problem at one of your suppliers, you know, it can really interrupt your ability to deliver airplanes.

12:52And I think right now what you're seeing is that Airbus already has a really tall order to meet the something like 820 airplane guidance or delivery guidance they've got for this year. We don't think they're going to make it. I think they need 70 plus A320s in the last two months of the year, November, December. We haven't seen November's numbers yet, but we'll see them soon. We think that's pretty hard given they've kind of delivered 55-ish most months in the last couple months. And so I think a quality problem here probably really places in doubt their ability to make that guidance. And that's going to hurt their profitability for the year.

13:37So I think you've seen the market react to that. George, you mentioned that really ambitious target for 820 aircraft deliveries by the end of this year. How disappointed could investors get if it fails to meet that target on top of the headwinds that this company is already facing? Well, I mean, so I think you're starting to see the disappointment here. Again, I'd be surprised if most investors weren't already concerned that the target was too high. I think Airbus has really put out a bunch of very ambitious build rate targets. I think our latest number in A320 is that we would be going to something like 75 a month, and that's consistently throughout the entire year, right, by the end of 2026, which to us just seems far too high.

14:25And I feel like Airbus keeps trying to lead the supplier base by pushing these higher numbers out and trying to pull the supplier base along. And then over time, lowers some of these expectations. So look, I think anything they miss now isn't going away. It gets pushed into the next year and the next year. And again, I think the bigger challenge here is investors have to ask themselves, are a lot of these Airbus targets for delivery rates, are they just too ambitious? And don't we have to sort of knock them down when we build our consensus for what we think the company is going to be able to do?

14:59Because, George, I mean, a number like 70 seems really high to me because when we talk about Boeing, it's like, gee, I hope they can get to 40, maybe to 50. Does Boeing typically run that far behind on a production schedule than an Airbus? So I would say that if you would consider normal the end of the last decade when both were building and Boeing wasn't having the problems with MCAS, Airbus was up in the higher 60s and Boeing was in the higher 50s. And so we have traditionally seen Airbus be able to put out more airplanes than Boeing. I think their supply base may be a little bit more robust.

15:39And I think they have sort of multiple final assembly areas around the world. I think those are some of the reasons why Airbus just has the infrastructure to put out more airplanes, more narrow-body airplanes per month. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

16:01You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. I'll tell you, one of the more competitive businesses that I've seen out there as a telecom business, particularly the wireless business. You think about the three big carriers that we all have a choice from, and then there's some other carriers out there. But boy, it is just price competitive like you wouldn't believe. And the churn of customers is a big, big issue for all the carriers.

16:35So we want to get a sense of what's going on in the world of telecoms, satellites, all that kind of stuff. John Butler is our go-to person there, senior telecom analyst from Bloomberg Intelligence. John, I know you Bloomberg Intelligence analysts, this is the time of year where you guys publish your 2026 outlooks. What's key in your space of telecoms and satellites? So I think the big thing to keep in mind here, Paul, is as we roll into 2026, I think we're going to see price promotion take a modest step up. The bullets are really flying in wireless right now, as you suggested. I think part of it is AT &T and Verizon both have new CEOs.

17:16Both CEOs are going to want to make their mark. I think the one to watch is Dan Schulman at Verizon. He is very focused on volume. He wants to get Verizon back to subscriber growth. And I think the only way to do it is going to be by promoting a little bit more aggressively than they have in the past. John, where do you see the strongest incremental demand coming from? Is it going to be mobile data? Is it going to be broadband? I think two areas, Alex. One, as you touched on, is broadband. That's a real growth factor for the telecoms. If you look at fixed wireless access, which is delivering broadband over a wireless link into the home, that has proven to be exceptionally popular with people.

18:07So I think All three telcos are going to lean into broadband in order to supplement the slowdown in wireless growth. But the one area I'm watching as we move into next year is satellite. Starlink is partnered with T-Mobile. The two of them are already offering limited texting service on a nationwide basis. It's sort of early stages there, early innings, if you will, for them. Verizon and AT &T are partnered with AST Space Mobile, which is in the process of launching its constellation now. They actually have more better satellites than Starlink. And so the space race is on, as I like to say. It's going to be really interesting to see once Verizon and AT &T are able to launch services early next year, how that market segment unfolds.

19:05So the wireless operators, the Verizons of the world, the AT &T, John, are they partnering with some of these space satellite services? Yeah, I mean, I think the way to think about it, Paul, is it's almost like cell sites in space at this point. So the major carriers have partnered with Starlink and AST to provide that infrastructure and the transmission capability up in space to be able to provide coverage outside the range of terrestrial networks now. So essentially, that concept of coverage everywhere is going to become a reality as we move through next year. I will say I was getting a new iPhone in T-Mobile.

19:48I'm still grandfathered into my father's plan. They're very lucky. Still paying for my cell phone. But they immediately offered me to get Wi-Fi with them, with T-Mobile. So it's really interesting. A new offering from them, as you mentioned, John. So what's next? Sorry, Paul. Go ahead. Is there a 6G out there? Because I think I've grown up and we've had 3G, 4G, 5G. Is there a 6G out there? Not yet. I think 6G is going to move on to the horizon probably as we move through next year. It's a development process by the industry. And so that standard, if you will, is getting developed now by industry committees.

20:28It will then move into test probably in 2028 and become a reality for us by 2030. Right now, we're mid-cycle with 5G. So if you think back to when 4G was originally launched, it was much lower speed than it is today. So that standard, those generations of mobile evolve over what are typically 10-year cycles. So we're mid-cycle with 5G. expect better speeds and better performance there as we move through the next five years and then ultimately 6G will appear probably again in the 2030 time frame. This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts.

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