Amazon’s $38 Billion OpenAI Deal — And Why We Were Already Bullish on the Stock

0:00:06 Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine.
0:00:15 Quantum computers, the next great frontier of technology, offering endless possibilities that stretch the human mind.
0:00:23 But for Roscoe Cadulian and the Phoenix Colony, quantum computing uploads the human mind with life-altering consequences.
0:00:34 Audible’s hit sci-fi thriller, The Downloaded, returns with Oscar winner Brendan Fraser, reprising his role as Roscoe Cadulian in The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine.
0:00:41 This thought-provoking sequel from Robert J. Sawyer takes listeners on a captivating sci-fi journey.
0:00:47 A mind-bending must-listen that asks, what are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?
0:00:53 The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible.
0:01:06 Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine.
0:01:09 The Earth only has a few days left.
0:01:15 Roscoe Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer.
0:01:20 But a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.
0:01:29 Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Roscoe Cadulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded.
0:01:35 It’s a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.
0:01:40 Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,
0:01:44 What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?
0:01:50 The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible.
0:02:04 Support for this show comes from the Audible original, The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine.
0:02:07 The Earth only has a few days left.
0:02:13 Roscoe Cadulian and the rest of the Phoenix Colony have to re-upload their minds into the quantum computer.
0:02:18 But a new threat has arisen that could destroy their stored consciousness forever.
0:02:27 Listen to Oscar winner Brendan Fraser reprise his role as Roscoe Cadulian in this follow-up to the Audible original blockbuster, The Downloaded.
0:02:33 It’s a thought-provoking sci-fi journey where identity, memory, and morality collide.
0:02:38 Robert J. Sawyer does it again with this much-anticipated sequel that leaves you asking,
0:02:42 What are you willing to lose to save the ones you love?
0:02:47 The Downloaded 2, Ghosts in the Machine. Available now, only from Audible.
0:02:57 Today’s number? 95,000.
0:03:02 That’s how many Japanese citizens are more than 100 years old.
0:03:07 That makes Japan the second-oldest region in the world, just behind D.C.
0:03:11 Money market’s mad.
0:03:14 If money is evil, then that building is hell.
0:03:15 The show goes on!
0:03:19 The folks are never watched the show, show!
0:03:22 Welcome to Property Markets. I’m Ed Elson.
0:03:24 It is November 4th.
0:03:26 Let’s check in on yesterday’s market vitals.
0:03:33 The S&P and the Nasdaq rose to start the month with gains from Amazon, boosting the indices more on that later.
0:03:38 The Dow declined as most stocks outside of big tech ended the day lower.
0:03:43 The yield on 10-year treasuries increased as the government shutdown reached its fourth week.
0:03:46 Bitcoin sank amid a broad crypto sell-off.
0:03:54 And finally, Palantir stock popped in after-hours trading on better-than-expected earnings and strong guidance for the current quarter.
0:03:57 Okay, what else is happening?
0:04:04 The Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments tomorrow on whether Trump can use emergency powers to impose tariffs.
0:04:10 Trump’s challengers will argue that the trade deficit is not an emergency and the tariff power belongs to Congress, not the White House.
0:04:20 Meanwhile, the government will argue that the president does have broad authority to impose these tariffs and that rolling back the tariffs would hurt the U.S.
0:04:23 Three lower courts have already ruled against the administration.
0:04:31 The Supreme Court will have until June to issue its decision, but most expect a ruling to come by January.
0:04:37 While the justices consider whether any of this is actually legal, the tariff announcements continue to roll in.
0:04:46 On Thursday, Trump established this framework for a deal with President Xi Jinping just three weeks after threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese imports.
0:04:49 The U.S. agreed to reduce tariffs on Chinese goods by 10%.
0:04:54 And in return, Beijing pledged a tougher crackdown on fentanyl.
0:04:59 Meanwhile, new tariffs on medium and heavy-duty vehicles and buses took effect on Saturday.
0:05:09 All told, consumers are still facing an average effective tariff rate of 17.9%, the highest since 1934.
0:05:21 Okay, here with on-the-ground experience navigating these tariffs, we are speaking with Ryan Peterson, founder and CEO of Flexport, a global logistics and supply chain management company.
0:05:24 Ryan, thank you very much for joining us.
0:05:25 It’s great to be here.
0:05:28 Yeah, something bad must be happening in tariffs world when you call me.
0:05:29 Yeah, exactly.
0:05:35 You’re the only one who’s actually experiencing this and understanding what’s really going on here.
0:05:43 So, obviously, there’s the Supreme Court, which is having the hearings on whether these tariffs are actually legal.
0:05:45 That is ongoing.
0:05:48 We will have a decision by June.
0:05:50 That is the rule.
0:05:52 Perhaps we’ll have one earlier.
0:06:02 But last time we had you on, it was about six months ago, we were talking about tariffs, and the word you used to describe the business environment was paralysis.
0:06:05 Where are we now, and is that still the word?
0:06:15 Yeah, it’s, you know, and the reason I said paralysis is it was just very difficult for people to make decisions because it was all changing so fast in terms of which countries were being hit with what duty rates.
0:06:18 I think we have a lot more information than we did.
0:06:19 When was that?
0:06:20 Four or five months ago.
0:06:23 It’s a little bit more clear.
0:06:29 I mean, this latest deal with China, where they’ve really lowered China down to the levels even below India and Brazil,
0:06:32 it gives you, I guess, a fair amount of clarity.
0:06:35 And by the way, it now shows you that being paralyzed before was the right answer.
0:06:41 Because if you did move your production to India, then all of a sudden your tariffs are higher than if you would have kept it in China.
0:06:46 So, people are still in a bit of a wait-and-see mode, maybe more than before.
0:07:00 And there’s probably some degree of regret of people who acted too quickly who are now going, oh, I’ve met at least a couple of companies who started shifting manufacturing to Indonesia and Vietnam and are now saying, wait, it’s not worth it.
0:07:01 China’s got lower duty rates.
0:07:04 So, what does this mean for prices?
0:07:10 I mean, I think what you’re describing here is a state of paralysis, maybe a little bit of taco.
0:07:16 Does that result in people actually not changing prices?
0:07:24 Does that mean that the tariff costs aren’t being passed through because they don’t really know what’s going to stay and what isn’t?
0:07:30 Well, the brands that we work with largely did pass through some degree of price increase.
0:07:34 Remember that the tariffs, although high, are only on the wholesale cost.
0:07:42 And brands tend to mark their wholesale cost up three to five times by the time a consumer is buying it.
0:07:51 So, a 20% duty, you know, it’s really divide that by three or by five in terms of what the price increase will be.
0:07:54 And you have seen that in the e-com world in particular.
0:07:58 So, you have seen some degree of price increases coming through.
0:08:05 Brands are always very reluctant to increase price because they don’t know what’s going to happen to their demand and can’t afford to shrink.
0:08:08 You’re also seeing a real goods recession right now.
0:08:17 And the economy is not in a recession probably because of services, data, AI, data center buildouts.
0:08:21 There’s a lot of incredible amount of stuff happening in the energy sector to meet the demand for that.
0:08:28 But if you look at the movement of goods, it’s freight movements are way down in the economy.
0:08:40 Some of these leading indicators, you know, the volumes at the ports are down quite a bit, especially from China, which is our biggest import partner from an ocean standpoint, down about 20% year over year.
0:08:53 Now, ironically, a recession in goods might actually decrease prices because it gets very competitive and brands, you know, they have to accept less margin and they’ll start selling stuff cheaper.
0:08:56 So, it’s always a very complex dynamic to just depend on one metric.
0:08:56 Yeah.
0:09:02 When we look at just the inflation, which was 3% in September, it’s going up.
0:09:07 It was at 2.3 and then it’s been continually rising after the tariffs.
0:09:11 But it is still lower than some expected.
0:09:15 Some people were expecting it to be higher than 3%.
0:09:29 And I have heard the argument made that because it is lower than expected, tariffs are not that big of a problem or they are not causing the pain that we really thought.
0:09:35 I’m suspicious of that because my view on it is it seems to be that, as you say, there’s paralysis.
0:09:41 So, brands are reluctant to pass the cost through, but they are passing them through and eventually they will pass the full cost.
0:09:54 But as someone who’s on the supply chain side, what do you think when you hear that argument, when people say, well, look at inflation, tariffs aren’t as bad as all the naysayers said?
0:10:01 Yeah, well, you have to remember that the tariffs were paused on Rest of World and there was a hiatus and it didn’t really come live until the end of August.
0:10:08 So, this is pretty new and it does take these brands time to decide their positioning, their pricing strategies, what to pass through.
0:10:12 The other thing is that we’ve seen just a huge rise in fraud.
0:10:28 And our analysis, we’re going to publish soon, but our analysis is around 10% of all freight that’s coming into the United States from China has shifted terms to where the Chinese companies are importing it into the U.S. instead of the American companies importing.
0:10:29 Wow.
0:10:36 And it’s a subtle distinction, but the United States is the only country in the world where foreign countries can import goods into the country.
0:10:40 Every other country on earth, you need to have an entity, foreign companies.
0:10:43 We’re the only place that allows foreign companies to import goods.
0:10:45 Every other country in the world, you need to have an entity.
0:10:51 You could be wholly owned as a foreign company, but you have to have an entity that serves as the importer.
0:10:52 In the United States, you don’t.
0:11:01 So, a foreign company can just import goods, and if they lie about the valuation and they say, hey, these goods that are worth $100,000, they tell customs are only worth $10,000.
0:11:10 If they are caught, we don’t have agents in foreign countries like China to go and prosecute trade compliance violations like that.
0:11:17 So, we’re seeing around 10% of U.S. trade has shifted terms in a way that indicates just massive amounts of fraud.
0:11:25 But it’s 60% of all the Amazon sellers are Chinese, what’s called a non-resident importer, meaning the overseas companies imports the goods.
0:11:31 So, I think, you know, markets find a way, and black markets also tend to pop up when the incentives are there.
0:11:35 And so, we’re just seeing a huge amount of fraud and evasion of these customs duties.
0:11:40 And that could also be partially to explain why it hasn’t hit inflation, is if they’re cheating and not paying the duties.
0:11:46 When you think about how this is playing out, who are the winners and the losers in tariffs right now?
0:11:59 It sounds like foreign importers are, in a sense, a winner because they have a fraudulent network that allows them to evade the tariffs in a way that perhaps American importers can’t.
0:12:03 We should caveat that, say, fraudulent foreign importers are benefiting.
0:12:08 There’s plenty of good ones and plenty of companies that are above board, regardless of where they’re from.
0:12:10 But, yeah, that would be an obvious winner.
0:12:16 I think, generally, companies that are – maybe it’s – you say agile companies.
0:12:19 It doesn’t always mean that you make a rapid-fire decision.
0:12:21 It might be the best thing to do is to stay still.
0:12:27 And, you know, paralysis is probably the wrong answer, but staying still can be okay if that’s your interpretation.
0:12:33 But businesses that are able to adapt quickly to change have done the best.
0:12:37 By the way, customs brokers are doing very well, Flexport being one of them.
0:12:44 People that – the reason is we provide advisory services and solutions for companies dealing with customs.
0:12:53 So, obviously, the more regulated and challenging those regulations become, the more demand there is for that kind of advice and consultants and things like this.
0:12:57 So, I think that that’s a category of businesses that’s doing well.
0:13:01 And Latin America is reasonably well off here.
0:13:05 Their tariffs have been much lower than those imposed on Asia, other than Brazil.
0:13:12 But the tariffs around Latin America, besides Brazil, are at lower levels than Asia.
0:13:14 And so, they’re gaining a leg up there.
0:13:17 We’ll see how good they are at taking advantage of that.
0:13:23 They don’t have the same manufacturing scale, capability, quality as China does.
0:13:26 But there’s a big opportunity for them if they can seize it.
0:13:27 And then losers?
0:13:32 I would say American e-commerce companies, the e-commerce brands are really suffering,
0:13:37 especially people that were using what’s called the de minimis – some people call it a loophole.
0:13:44 I think it was just a law, but – de minimis exemption, which meant that there were no duties on goods under $800.
0:13:54 So, the Trump administration killed that on goods from China effective May 2nd and goods on rest of the world at the end of August.
0:14:04 So, those people were paying no duties and had a huge leg up and have now gotten – now they’re paying full duty, which are at high rates.
0:14:11 And then closely related, they were doing that out of fulfillment centers in Mexico and in Canada.
0:14:21 You know, there’s some big Chinese e-com providers, Xiying, Timu, TikTok, that fly the goods in from China under this exemption, or they used to.
0:14:28 But actually, a huge number of American brands were setting up fulfillment centers in Tijuana and in Canada.
0:14:33 And then if you ordered something from them, it would be made in Vietnam, but shipped from Mexico direct-to-consumer.
0:14:35 So, there was no duty on that.
0:14:36 That’s gone away.
0:14:40 It’s really hit hard, these fulfillment center jobs in Mexico.
0:14:49 And I suspect you’ll probably see some bankruptcies from the fulfillment companies themselves that have set up on the border, lost a huge amount of customers.
0:14:55 That’s getting reshored so that there’s now – because there’s no reason to do fulfillment from Mexico.
0:14:56 It’s going to slow you down.
0:14:59 You’re better to put that fulfillment center closer to your customer.
0:15:01 So, that’s a loser.
0:15:04 Probably the consumer.
0:15:08 Yeah, I do think there’s more inflation that’s being shown there in the stats.
0:15:13 I think that if you look at e-commerce products in particular, prices have gone up.
0:15:16 So, yeah, probably more we could list out.
0:15:19 But free trade in general, Milton Friedman’s rolling against the grave.
0:15:22 Yes, exactly.
0:15:27 Just looking ahead here, we’ve got the court decision.
0:15:30 I’d like to know what you think the court is going to rule.
0:15:33 We’ve had the lower courts say that it’s illegal.
0:15:36 We’ll see what the Supreme Court says.
0:15:41 And I’d also like to just get your views on how this will play out long term.
0:15:46 Like, will we see these tariffs a year from now, two years from now?
0:15:47 Are these here to stay?
0:15:57 Yeah, you know, I get a lot of different reads from different lawyers who are experts in what will the Supreme Court say and do.
0:16:00 I’m sort of a market maximalist here.
0:16:02 I’m going to go with polymarket right now.
0:16:06 It’s got a 35% chance that the Supreme Court rules in favor of Trump.
0:16:09 So, 65% chance that everybody gets a refund.
0:16:11 It probably seems as good as anything.
0:16:16 It’ll be very interesting to follow that one real time and see if it leaks at some point, right?
0:16:20 If that market moves very quickly before it’s announced.
0:16:29 The other indicator there is the currently you can sell your right to these refunds and there are investment banks that are brokering these transactions.
0:16:34 And you’re getting about 25 cents on the dollar if you sell your refund now.
0:16:40 So, that’s probably your range that, you know, somebody’s trying to make a profit on that.
0:16:45 They’re not doing that just to, like, to get their, that’s not saying there’s a 25% chance.
0:16:49 It must be higher than that, that it gets turned over or they wouldn’t buy it.
0:16:50 Smart money.
0:16:50 Yeah.
0:16:57 It sounds like you think that a year from now, probably not looking as affected by tariffs as we are today.
0:16:58 Or maybe there are no tariffs.
0:17:00 Yeah, I’m just going off the markets.
0:17:02 I don’t really have a good insight into the Supreme Court.
0:17:07 Or, I think the Supreme Court is more of a political body than it is a legal one in a lot of ways.
0:17:12 So, the counterargument to that is just, well, you know, Trump appointed a lot of those people.
0:17:16 And it is a right-wing court at this point.
0:17:17 So, you would, but who knows?
0:17:18 Yeah.
0:17:21 I do know that the Trump administration will spin it as a win either way.
0:17:22 Right?
0:17:25 The non-market will boom and they’ll go, look what we did.
0:17:27 Exactly.
0:17:28 There’s always a way.
0:17:31 I think Ben Franklin is good to be a reasonable person.
0:17:33 You can come up with a reason for anything you want to do.
0:17:37 I think that’s the right prediction there.
0:17:38 All right.
0:17:41 Ryan Peterson, founder and CEO of Flexport.
0:17:43 As always, really appreciate your time.
0:17:43 Likewise.
0:17:44 Thanks for having me.
0:17:49 After the break, the maker of Tylenol gets acquired.
0:17:52 If you’re enjoying the show, give Prof G Markets a follow.
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0:19:09 Scott, we’re hitting the road, bringing Pivot Live to the people.
0:19:16 Seven cities, Toronto, Boston, New York, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and L.A., of course.
0:19:17 You went to Oasis.
0:19:18 You went to Beyoncé.
0:19:21 You saw the remake of Wizard of Oz and The Spear.
0:19:25 All those suck compared to the Pivot Tour.
0:19:28 This is the biggest tour.
0:19:32 Same people that are organizing our tour that organized Taylor Swift’s tour.
0:19:35 They are much more excited about our tour.
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0:19:37 That’s enough, Grandpa.
0:19:38 It’s going to be so good.
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0:19:57 A few years ago, this researcher was trying to get people to relax by sitting in a silent room for 15 minutes.
0:19:59 But they hated it.
0:20:04 People would rather listen to sounds of people vomiting, nails on a chalkboard, etc., rather than simply sit in silence.
0:20:08 I got obsessed with this experiment.
0:20:13 So I decided to make a whole series for Unexplainable about the way our brain processes sound.
0:20:15 Like tinnitus.
0:20:17 It’s like you’re just trapped.
0:20:19 There’s nothing else to do.
0:20:22 Like, no way to escape it.
0:20:25 Or what audio illusions show us about how hearing works.
0:20:29 It just seemed that the world had just turned upside down.
0:20:33 Or how astronomers are making new discoveries by listening to space.
0:20:36 I thought those sounds were bothersome.
0:20:40 And at that moment, everything transformed into beauty.
0:20:44 The Sound Barrier from Unexplainable.
0:20:48 A four-part series about the limits of hearing and the ways we can break through.
0:20:54 Follow Unexplainable for new episodes every Monday and Wednesday.
0:21:00 We’re back with Prof G Markets.
0:21:06 Kimberley Clark announced it is acquiring Kenview in a deal valued at $48 billion.
0:21:11 The deal would bring together some of the most recognizable consumer health brands in the world,
0:21:15 such as Huggies, Kleenex, Band-Aid, and Tylenol.
0:21:22 And if approved, the combined company would generate an estimated $32 billion in net revenue next year.
0:21:24 Kenview shares jumped 20% on the news.
0:21:28 Kimberley Clark shares fell 15%, the most in a quarter century.
0:21:33 As a reminder, Kenview was spun off from Johnson & Johnson just last year.
0:21:37 Since the IPO, the stock has fallen 35%.
0:21:40 The company has struggled to gain momentum on its own,
0:21:45 weighed down by softer consumer demand, price cuts, and inventory reductions.
0:21:47 Then came the Tylenol controversy.
0:21:51 U.S. Tylenol sales fell 11% last quarter
0:21:53 after Trump linked Tylenol use to autism.
0:21:59 And shares in Kenview, the Tylenol maker, fell 22% in the weeks that followed.
0:22:02 Now comes this buyout from Kimberley Clark.
0:22:04 The company is paying $21 per share.
0:22:08 That is a 46% premium to where the stock closed on Friday.
0:22:12 But it is worth noting, Kenview traded at roughly that same level
0:22:17 just a few months ago before the Tylenol controversy.
0:22:22 So, here to help us unpack this acquisition, we are joined by Dan Primack,
0:22:27 business editor at Axios and the author of the daily pro-rata newsletter.
0:22:30 Dan, thank you very much for joining me on Prof G Markets.
0:22:31 Thanks for having me.
0:22:35 So, Kenview, which was spun out of J&J,
0:22:40 there are a lot of questions about how this company was going to fare.
0:22:45 Where it is now being acquired, or Kimberley Clark has announced it is acquiring it for $48 billion.
0:22:48 Let’s just start with your top-line reactions.
0:22:50 Any initial thoughts on this deal?
0:22:53 Well, I mean, from Kimberley Clark’s point of view,
0:22:56 even though their investors hated this deal today when it got announced,
0:22:59 the strategic rationale does make a certain amount of sense, right?
0:23:01 Kimberley Clark is known for selling things like
0:23:06 Huggies and toilet paper, and it wants to move into or expand into health and wellness,
0:23:08 particularly as Americans get older.
0:23:12 So, that makes sense for them, kind of, you know, own the entire life cycle.
0:23:13 That makes sense strategically.
0:23:16 But there’s these massive litigation risks,
0:23:19 which is what I think the investors were freaking out about,
0:23:23 not just Tylenol, but also some old talc lawsuits that are tied to J&J.
0:23:26 As you mentioned, Kenview spun out of it a couple of years ago,
0:23:30 but it remains on the hook for those as a defendant in lawsuits,
0:23:31 not just in the U.S., but also in Europe.
0:23:38 Yeah. How much are those lawsuits driving the stock right now?
0:23:41 I mean, it’s down 35% since the spinoff.
0:23:43 Is that the real story with Kenview?
0:23:46 Is that why the stock has suffered so much?
0:23:47 I think that’s a big part of it.
0:23:49 You know, look, it’s a big price tag, right?
0:23:51 If you include debt, it’s nearly $50 billion.
0:23:55 So, that’s a huge swing, and some people reflexively react to that.
0:24:00 There’s always what they call kind of like a short arbitrage that sometimes traders play
0:24:04 whenever there’s a big deal, which can just drive stock down almost no matter what the deal is.
0:24:06 But the multiple is actually pretty reasonable.
0:24:09 It’s a high premium to where Kenview’s stock was trading,
0:24:12 but the multiple is pretty reasonable compared to other deals in the sectors.
0:24:15 Yeah, to me, I think it’s the litigation risk, right?
0:24:21 You know, you’ve got this weird Tylenol situation here where, depending on what RFK and Trump and HHS
0:24:27 eventually say about Tylenol, you’ve already got a lawsuit in Texas from the Texas Attorney General.
0:24:30 You can have hundreds, thousands of lawsuits.
0:24:35 And even if Kenview slash Kimberly Clark could win every single one of them on the merits
0:24:41 and wins every single one of them on the merits, it’s still a massive cost, and it’s a massive time suck.
0:24:45 Yeah, what do you think is the strategy for Kimberly Clark right now?
0:24:48 Why does this make sense for Kimberly Clark?
0:24:51 Yeah, as I said, I think it makes sense because they want to move into health and wellness,
0:24:53 and that’s what Kenview is, right?
0:24:58 It’s got a huge portfolio of products that are health and wellness products,
0:24:59 some of which might get divested.
0:25:03 Kenview and Kimberly Clark kind of talked about that a little bit on the analyst call
0:25:07 after this deal was announced, although not with any specifics on what might get divested.
0:25:09 But look, Americans are getting older.
0:25:11 Americans need more health and wellness products.
0:25:15 And so if you’re Kimberly Clark, it’s kind of a growth area to move into.
0:25:18 They use the word tailwinds a lot.
0:25:23 And also, I think this is a CEO who wants to really put a big acquisitive stamp on his company,
0:25:30 which again, it’s a very—Kimberly Clark is the sort of company that will always survive, right?
0:25:33 Even in the age of AI, people are still going to need toilet paper.
0:25:34 That’s not going to change.
0:25:37 But it’s not a high-growth sort of business.
0:25:39 This could really bulk them up on the top line.
0:25:41 Final question here.
0:25:46 Kimberly Clark and Kenview, they both sell household staples.
0:25:47 Consumer health.
0:25:50 Are there any antitrust concerns here?
0:25:51 Is that something that we should be looking at?
0:25:53 Traditionally, I would say no.
0:25:55 I don’t think so.
0:25:59 You know, there might be one or two very, very niche areas I’m not aware of, you know,
0:26:01 that FTC or DOJ might look at.
0:26:05 Although, again, Kenview did kind of volunteer today this idea of divestiture.
0:26:09 So I think clearly there’s no major product lines that are overlapped.
0:26:13 If the U.S. government came and said, look, we have antitrust concerns, this is how you
0:26:17 could remedy them, I think Kenview and Kimberly Clark would be pretty happy to put whatever
0:26:19 those assets up for auction.
0:26:24 And so far, this FTC and DOJ under Trump have favored divestiture remedies.
0:26:25 Biden’s didn’t.
0:26:28 Biden’s didn’t really like negotiating these deals out.
0:26:28 Trump’s has.
0:26:33 The wild card in all this, of course, is that is the Tylenol situation and namely that
0:26:36 Kenview is in Trump’s crosshairs.
0:26:41 And could there be some sort of antitrust action, which doesn’t seem to really pass the smell
0:26:45 test as a regular antitrust action, but is being informed by other things?
0:26:46 Yeah, I think that’s possible.
0:26:51 And each company has basically a billion dollar plus termination agreement written into this
0:26:52 deal with the other one.
0:26:56 Although, interestingly, there’s no litigation carve out in here for Kimberly Clark.
0:27:02 In other words, if this deal closes, it assumes all the liabilities or all the litigation risk.
0:27:07 Every now and then, when you’ve seen mergers like this with a company, and particularly given
0:27:12 the talc lawsuits, they’ll kind of carve those out and say to the company being bought, your
0:27:14 shareholders actually continue to assume this risk.
0:27:17 You know, we take this pot of money and it stays over here.
0:27:18 Kimberly Clark isn’t doing that.
0:27:20 They’re taking the whole kit and caboodle.
0:27:21 Yeah, it’s very interesting.
0:27:26 I mean, do you think it’s possible that they looked at what happened with Tylenol and
0:27:30 they, and because it’s, it’s fascinating the extent to which this Tylenol situation has
0:27:33 been the main driver of the stock price.
0:27:36 Do you think it’s possible that they looked at the Tylenol situation and they said,
0:27:38 actually, the stock’s at a discount.
0:27:41 We’re not so worried about the litigation.
0:27:43 We think we’re going to be fine.
0:27:45 And therefore, we’re going in.
0:27:51 In other words, was what happened with Tylenol a big piece, do you think, in the decision
0:27:52 process for this acquisition?
0:27:54 It’s possible.
0:27:57 What we need to do is we have to wait a little bit to get kind of the history of the merger,
0:27:59 which will get filed with the SEC.
0:28:00 We haven’t seen it yet.
0:28:04 The CEO, both CEOs kind of got asked a bit today about the background of the deal and
0:28:05 they both hedged on it.
0:28:06 So we really don’t know.
0:28:10 I mean, this could be something that’s been worked on for the last 10 months for all we
0:28:15 know before we found out that RFK was going to zero in on Tylenol as a potential autism
0:28:15 cause.
0:28:21 The CEO of Kimberly Clark did talk about having kind of had his eyes on Kenview, I think he
0:28:26 said, for years, maybe since the spinout got announced by J&J back in 22, 23.
0:28:27 But we don’t know.
0:28:31 And what will be very interesting to find out when we do get the history of the merger, because
0:28:34 these things get fairly granular, is did it change the price?
0:28:35 We don’t know.
0:28:37 You know, and what were those conversations?
0:28:42 Kimberly Clark said that they had medical experts and legal experts advising their board about
0:28:46 this issue, but we don’t know how it impacted the actual offer price, which is whatever, a
0:28:49 50, 60 percent premium on where Kenview was trading.
0:28:53 Yeah, certainly the elephant in the room that we all need to hear more about.
0:28:58 OK, Dan Primack, business editor at Axios and author of the daily ProRata newsletter.
0:29:00 Dan, really appreciate your time.
0:29:01 Thank you very much.
0:29:12 So, Amazon struck a seven-year, $38 billion deal to supply computing power to none other
0:29:14 than OpenAI.
0:29:21 OpenAI will run its AI models on NVIDIA’s GPUs, but in Amazon’s data centers, the news sent Amazon
0:29:27 stock up 4 percent to a record close, while NVIDIA ended the day 2 percent higher.
0:29:32 So, another week, another blockbuster deal involving OpenAI.
0:29:39 We’ve seen OpenAI partner up with Microsoft and Oracle and NVIDIA and AMD, practically every
0:29:40 big tech company.
0:29:43 But now they will partner with Amazon.
0:29:47 And once again, the market is very, very excited about this.
0:29:53 Amazon added nearly $100 billion in market cap on news of this deal.
0:29:57 Now, what makes this different from other deals?
0:30:00 Well, not much other than the size of it.
0:30:04 Compared to the other deals, this one is relatively small.
0:30:07 Yes, it’s still $38 billion, and that is a big number.
0:30:14 But compare that to AMD, which was more than $200 billion, or Oracle, which was $300 billion.
0:30:16 It is not quite the same.
0:30:23 In addition, this is clearly a pivot away from Microsoft, which has historically been OpenAI’s
0:30:24 largest partner.
0:30:28 But also, Microsoft is AWS’s largest competitor.
0:30:33 And as we learned recently, there have been some tensions between OpenAI and Microsoft.
0:30:38 They seem to quell those tensions with this new deal they announced last week.
0:30:44 But still, this is clearly an attempt by OpenAI to wean itself off of Microsoft for cloud computing.
0:30:49 Now, perhaps the more interesting question is, what does this mean for Amazon?
0:30:54 On Monday’s episode, we talked about Amazon, and we briefly suggested why we are bullish
0:30:55 on the stock.
0:31:00 And since then, since we talked about Amazon, the stock has risen about 5%.
0:31:05 So, now seems as good a moment as any to unpack exactly why we are bullish on Amazon.
0:31:08 And it comes down to a few reasons.
0:31:10 And one of them is indeed AI.
0:31:16 Despite the fact that Amazon is, in fact, an AI leader, AWS is the largest compute provider
0:31:17 in the world.
0:31:18 It’s larger than Microsoft Azure.
0:31:20 It’s larger than Google Cloud.
0:31:22 And of course, cloud is essential for AI.
0:31:29 Despite that, Amazon has, for whatever reason, been viewed as an AI laggard.
0:31:33 When you think about AI, you think of OpenAI, you think of NVIDIA, you think of Microsoft.
0:31:37 Generally speaking, you don’t think of Amazon.
0:31:39 But you should think of Amazon.
0:31:43 Not just because of their cloud business, but also because of their chips business.
0:31:49 Amazon is investing heavily into building its own Tranium chips, sales of which grew, as
0:31:53 we discussed on Monday, 150% last quarter.
0:31:58 So, our view is that the market will soon view Amazon as an AI winner.
0:32:01 And of course, this OpenAI news comes out.
0:32:06 This is the perfect example of that, which is why the stock is ripping right now.
0:32:08 Another reason we’re bullish, efficiency.
0:32:15 You might remember Meta’s very famous year of efficiency in which costs were cut dramatically
0:32:18 and revenue just continued to grow organically.
0:32:21 And the stock rose more than 100%.
0:32:24 Well, Amazon is headed for something similar.
0:32:28 They’re already cutting down their corporate workforce dramatically, as we’ve discussed.
0:32:32 And they also have plans to cut down the broader workforce, too.
0:32:34 This is not great news if you’re an Amazon employee.
0:32:39 But if history is any guide, it’s great news if you are a shareholder.
0:32:49 Now, the final important reason is mean reversion.
0:32:56 Despite everything that’s going for Amazon, AWS and its role in the AI story, the Tranium chips,
0:33:03 even its satellite business, Project Kuiper, despite all of that, Amazon is trading at a historically low multiple.
0:33:07 Over the past five years, it has traded at 60 times earnings.
0:33:10 Today, it trades at 34 times earnings.
0:33:18 Now, yes, 60 is very high, probably too high, but there’s not a lot of evidence right now to support the notion
0:33:21 that Amazon’s growth potential is historically low,
0:33:25 that it is historically lower than it should have been several years ago.
0:33:27 So those are just a few reasons why we are bullish.
0:33:31 The stock, of course, immediately ripped right after our episode came out
0:33:34 and after we said that we are bullish on Amazon.
0:33:39 So there is, unfortunately, a little less room to run than there was, say, last week
0:33:40 or at the beginning of this week.
0:33:47 But still, at $254, we like the stock in some long Amazon.
0:33:51 Okay, that’s it for today.
0:33:56 This episode was produced by Claire Miller, edited by Joel Passon, and engineered by Benjamin Spencer.
0:33:58 Our associate producer is Alison Weiss.
0:34:02 Our research team is Dan Shalan, Isabella Kinsel, Kristen O’Donoghue, and Mia Silverio.
0:34:05 And our technical director is Drew Burrows.
0:34:07 Thank you for listening to Prof G Markets from Prof G Media.
0:34:10 If you like what you heard, give us a follow.
0:34:10 I’m Ed Elson.
0:34:12 I will see you tomorrow.