Carol plus, a defiant Boris Johnson dragged back to parliament to explain why he broke the law. We take a look at what a hard brexit might look like. President trumps political future among the topics front at center at bloombergs forum in new york. When you added together, i think what it leads to is not a recession, but a slow down growth globally, which is what we are experiencing. Carol more on that ahead. First up, here is editor joel weber on this weeks cover story. Code. Lds in the age of this is one of the hallmarks of businessweek, these strategy stories that we sometimes do. It is a look at how mcdonalds has been thriving for the past five years or so. Share price keeps going up under the ceo. In the past six months, he has really doubled down on tech. Carol that is something that i did not realize. He has made a bunch of acquisitions in ai, Voice Recognition technologies. Earlier this month was his latest. What we are seeing is mcdonalds transitioning from being a Fast Food Company to looking more and more like a tech company. There are cameras at drivethrough that can scan your license plate and maybe even remember what you ordered last time, or understand your voice and help translate that to the kitchen. We are seeing a real effort to streamline how mcdonalds can use technology. There is always resistance to that. Carol expensive to do this, right . The franchisees have been pushing back. Carol what i love about these stories is you get some inside details. They take us to the old headquarters. It was kind of drab, kind of boring. That is in part to try and retain and enlist technology. My favorite part is how the company transitioned to be able to do delivery. Its like, lets do this right now. Carol we can see the ceo doing this. Another great read. This is a company, maybe we take it for granted that it has been around for a long time, but it is a huge company. Massively global. They feed on any given day 1 of the worlds population. Mcdonalds actually has a new secret sauce and thats big data. Carol another great cover story. Thank you so much, joel weber, editor of the magazine. Democrats launch a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump his conversation with the ukrainian president to investigate democratic frontrunner joe biden. What a week in terms of news out of washington. A lot of press conferences. We have got hearings, a release of the transcript of that phone call. Where are we in terms of this process . Well, this has been really amazing. If the Mueller Report was just a very slow moving drip of information, this has been a deluge. Very fast. There is the progress from hearing about this scandal to seeing the transcript of the phone conversation with the ukrainian president , to reading the whistleblower complaint cannot literally be measured in hours compared to how long it took to find out some of the information from the previous investigation. Carol right, the rapidity of all of this coming out blew all of us away. What is at stake for the democrats . What is at stake for the president . I talked to some people involved in the impeachment of nixon and clinton. They both said, you know, at the end of the day, you have to put the politics aside. If the majority of the house believes that the president has committed an impeachable offense, then they have to do it. I think a big factor is that a lot of the more vulnerable House Democrats finally came forward and said, we think this is over the line. Especially those who had a background in National Security and intelligence. Carol what are we hearing from the white house at this point about it . I think the press conference on wednesday of this past week, Big Press Conference with the u. N. General assembly. President trump has been in town a lot. We all observed a much more subdued President Trump. His speech to the United Nations was the text of his speech to the United Nations was very militant, but the delivery was very subdued. I think you are seeing some of the same tactics he has used to push back against the previous scandal, basically arguing that he did nothing wrong, that anyone would do what he did. What we saw was a little bit faster cooperation once the impeachment word was raised with handing over the primary documents, i think the white house had been stalling while in congress for a long time on even sort of routine information that past president s would have given. Once the impeachment word was dropped, they quickly cooperated. Carol thank you so much. Appreciate your insight. Coming up, what a no deal brexit might look like, plus Business Leaders weighing in on navigating global instability at bloombergs Global Business forum. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. Join us for Bloomberg Businessweek everyday on the radio. You can always catch up on our daily show by listening to our podcast. You can also find us online at businessweek. Com and on our mobile app. This week, Boris Johnson cut his visit to the United States short, returning home to Face Parliament and the never ending brexit story. Here is what a hard brexit might look like. He tries to set out what that first 24 hours might look like if it is the case we end up in a no deal brexit. This is what Boris Johnson is promising to do if he cannot get the deal with brussels. He says that u. K. Will leave the eu on october 31. What would happen next . We have followed various individuals who would find themselves in fairly dramatic situations if it were to be the case that there was a no deal brexit. For example, we follow a lorry driver making a Time Critical delivery. We follow a farmer on the irish border who has to cope with that change in ireland. We follow a musician on tour in europe, so all these individuals who could face meaningful and significant disruption if a no deal brexit were to occur. Carol lets talk about the ports in particular because thats really questionable. How do they operate the port of dover . We are talking about the channel crossing. 10,000 trucks go through the fairies every day at these ports carrying almost 1 6 of all trade and goods to the european union. This is huge. Exactly. It is probably the most important crunch point for britain when it comes to trade and it is the area where the government is keen to make sure there is not disruption. There is a certain limitation on what the British Government can do to keep that traffic flowing. The british cant control what the french will do. What will the french officials customs do when the trucks start coming over in a no deal brexit scenario. The fear is that the french government will be quite strict in its application of the rules and that will mean trucks end up being pulled over if they dont have the right documentation. They will need new documentation in a no deal brexit scenario because the u. K. Will no longer be in the eu. Thats the worry and whether disruption could occur. Carol lets talk about that farmer on the irish border. He could be in violation, not in violation, in violation, explain that. The irish border is not a straight line. It is a squiggle. You have individuals with farmland on both sides. It may end up crossing the irish border on several occasions. If he has a sheep in Northern Ireland and wants to move them 100 yards down the road to another field, it would have to cross into the republic of ireland. In a no deal brexit, that would be illegal. That would be smuggling. He would have to go through a customs checkpoint to declare these animals because the rules say if you are moving livestock into the eu from a noneu country, you must have it checked. It is a question on whether the government would actually enforce those checkpoints. Carol lets go to our bigger, broader take away here. It sounds like initially it is not a doomsday scenario. Dont necessarily expect significant, visible disruption on the first day of a no deal brexit. I think many of the impacts that have been talked about could occur. If they do occur, they would happen in the days and weeks after. That is mainly because if there is disruption at the ports and trucks get held up and so on, it would be at least two, three days, a week before the rest of the supply chain feels that affect. If companies have stockpiled goods, they can run those stockpiles down. After that, it would start to go from paying if that disruption continued. Carol President Trump using a speech at the United Nations this week to reiterate complaints about chinas trade practices. President trump as i have made very clear, i will not accept a bad deal for the american people. Carol the expanding global trade war is already hitting close to home. Lets bring in our reporter who follows trade and globalization for us at bloomberg. Great to have you here. Your story this week in the magazine, i feel like we need to get ready for maybe trade war number three. It is expanding in terms of concerns about trade with europe. Absolutely. We are getting ready for the next round that will start to unfurl in the coming days as the Trump Administration starts to rollout new tariffs on the eu. Those are the result in the first wave that we are going to see in a longrunning battle between airbus and boeing. We are expecting the wto to authorize the u. S. To levy Something Like 8 billion in tariffs on the eu. That is going to hit the eu hard, but it is also going to blow back in the u. S. Some states like alabama have pretty close ties with not only the eu and european businesses the eu and european businesses more broadly, but airbus pretty directly. Carol it is a big deal and certainly you talk about the state of alabama. The biggest one is from the eu, correct . Absolutely. They are the biggest investor in a number of states, including alabama. Down in mobile, there is an airbus plant where they assemble planes and they will start assembling a220 planes. There is a big mercedes plant in tuscaloosa. They turn out a lot of those new Mercedes Suvs you see on the street. A lot of those suvs get exported from mobile im sorry, from alabama to places like china. Carol convening heads of state and government and hundreds of ceos in new york. We spoke with anand mahindra, chairman of mahindra group, and brian moynihan, ceo of bank of america, on the u. S. China trade war. What you have seen over the last 2. 5 years is the u. S. And warning them as a leader of the developed world. On the chinese side, they are trying to figure out how far and how fast they want to get someplace. You know, the two countries got quite close in may, at which point the chinese just withdrew. They had agreed to a variety of things, we thought, then they look at the hole, and they said, my goodness, lets not do this. This is starting again. Meanwhile, what has happened in these 2. 5 years is that the two countries have started, as a result of false starts and a variety of other tactical stuff, are starting to decouple, which is very dangerous. I do wonder, i think increasingly we are expecting this world where it is china and its allies and the United States and its allies. You are at a very interesting place between china and the United States. How do you see it . As a situation of enormous opportunity. Carol wait, you mean the spat you do . Absolutely. I am just being truthful here. For a long time, it was not kosher for anyone in american policy positions to admit that there was a kind of conflict with china and that india in fact could be one of the players in this game as a buffer against china. That was just a nono. No one would admit that. I think now it is in the open and President Trump has made it more in the open. Going to houston made it very clear what kind of alliance he had. I think there is nothing but opportunity for india. We have to play our cards right and see that we are viewed now as a very appropriate ally for the u. S. As a buffer, both in defense terms, frankly. If you look at the number of defense exercises between the u. S. And india, they are proliferating dramatically. We never used to buy, we used to buy from the russians. This is a democratic country, a country that values i. P. R. A country that values growth. I think india has nothing but a unique opportunity right now. We just have to play those cards right and i think it will be a winwin for the u. S. And india. I actually agree. Having been with a bunch of ceos, prime ministers this morning, all of them talking about their business expanding in india. I think some of the bureaucracy and things that were difficult to operate have been dealt with. They can be approved and Everybody Knows it. I think the broader context here is global trade. If you go back and say the chinau. S. Situation will take longer, the question is, what can we resolve in the interim . Im not sure what happens given the politics and situation this week, the usmca, and things like that, which are critical to get done. As much as india is a beneficiary, mexico and canada is a beneficiary. The weight scale in mexico is actually lower than parts of china. They could use the jobs. There is already integrated manufacturing supply chains. Canada is a different situation. I think to keep the u. S. Moving forward, there are three or four things to knock out. Everybody hopes for chinau. S. , but there are a couple of things to knock out first, and one of them is the usmca. I dont know if they can politically push it through, even though both sides seem to want to. Carol you can hear more of that conversation on this weeks extra podcast. Up next, softbank has a problem, wework. Plus, lovin it, meaning i. T. Mcdonalds in the days of code. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. You can also listen to us on the radio, sirius xm china 119 and in new york, am 960 in the bay area, in london on dab digital and on the Bloomberg Business app. Weworks plan to go public hit a fall. The ceo has stepped down under pressure from his board. This Weeks Technology section looks at one of weworks biggest investors. We are talking about softbank. We have seen the reduced evaluation of wework. Will softbanks founder have to reduce his valuation and bite down this investment . Thats right. We are hitting the end of the quarter, the end of september. Throughout recent months, banks have taken down their estimates of what wework was worth. Softbank got in at 47 billion valuation. Now, looks like it could be worth 15 billion or less. How does softbank handle that . Thats the big question. Carol you pointed out, or the story points out that he is very quick to write up a valuation. Will he be as quick to write it down . There is a lot of leeway in how they account for things. He could argue that wework is just as successful as it has always been. Just because investors on wall street are debating the value ahead of an i. P. O. , they are still bringing in the same amount of revenue as when we got in. If you want to think about, do people have faith in softbank . Carol i think thats the big issue. You think about softbanks vision fund, a credible amount of money investing in technology. Uber was one of their main investments. That valuation has gone down. Same thing with wework. You do wonder what fate future investors will have if you are not rethinking the valuation. Consider that these Big Investments have been driving the vision fund, they have been driving softbanks profits. It is not the oldschool telecommunication businesses. There is a lot riding on his big bets. Carol he does not have to write it down, right . Technically, he does not have to. Thats right. His tone around wework has changed in the last few weeks. Softbank was one of the key reasons weworks ceo stepped down. They were pushing for him to step down. Carol i have to wonder, we have talked so much about the vision fund and the influence it is having on the Investment Community because they can make such Big Investments. Typically in an investment fund, some investments will pay off, some will not. We are really looking at it very different. Thats right. The other thing that has come out is masayoshi sons leeway for founders to behave in a certain way. He is starting to send out this message that you going to have to be profitable sooner if you want my money. Carol i feel like this week there is a lot of news going on in general, but i feel like everything surrounding wework, we have really started to rethink i. P. O. s and start up companies and how we look at them and really accountability. Rebecca, thank you so much. Also front and center this week, climate change, as heads of state gathered in new york along with some of the worlds top Corporate Leaders at a United Nations climate summit. This weeks business section looks at how companies are addressing their travel policies due to something called flying shame. It is a real thing. Here is this weeks business week explainer. 90 minutes from stockholm to berlin by plane. When a swedish startup celebrated them going public, they banned virtually all employee air travel within europe and discourage longer distance flights. The goal is to become carbon neutral. This week, they have a name for it. It means flying shame and they are not alone. Companies and nongovernmental associations across europe are taking a hard look at their travel policies. Travel fell 2 in july. Swedens airport operator says domestic flights have carried 9 fewer passengers this year than last. There is not Much Airlines can do to push back. For jets, the Carbon Dioxide output per passenger mile is at least 4 times that of trains. European airlines have the most to lose. Highspeed rail is a viable alternative. Carol mcdonalds has a new secret sauce. Burgers to beer. We hear from the ab invbev ceo. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Devices are like doorways that could allow hackers into your home. And like all doors, theyre safer when locked. Thats why you need xfinity xfi. With the xfi gateway, devices connected to your homes wifi are protected. Which helps keep people outside from accessing your passwords, credit cards and cameras. And people inside from accidentally visiting sites that arent secure. And if someone trys well let you know. Xfi advanced security. If its connected, its protected. Call, click, or visit a store today. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Im carol massar, inside bloomberg headquarters in new york. Still ahead, our guest on where he is deploying capital, plus, brookstones ceo on business since brexit. All that to come from bloombergs Global Business forum. We begin, though, with our cover story. Mcdonalds ceo wants big macs to keep up with big tech. In 1948, mcdonalds had its first big technological breakthrough. It offered a simple menu of hamburgers and soft drinks, all produced quickly and cheaply on an assembly line. This helped spark the 600 billion modern fast food industry, and one of the most iconic brands of alltime. In 2013, earnings began to stagnate as diners deserted the golden arches for new burger upstarts. Two years later, Steve Easterbrook came on as ceo and pushingerse course by mcdonalds to make its next big tech leap. So far, his plan seems to be working. At some locations, orders placed on the mcdonalds app are automatically prepared the moment a customer comes within 300 feet of a store. Over in the drivethrough lane, the company is Testing Technology that can scan your license plate and suggest food based on previous orders or shape the menu based on the days weather. From touchscreen kiosks inside the stores, diners can customize their burgers into thousands of different variants. Mcdonalds is adopting the approach of amazon, facebook, and google by using technology to personalize the consumer experience. Powered by this data, it is not crazy to expect mcdonalds will someday know that you want a big mac without onions, a large fries and an oreo mcflurry, even before you do. Carol staying with our cover on mcdonalds, we now head to the reported behind the story, Thomas Buckley in london, who looks into whether big data is the secret sauce. Steve easterbrook, the current ceo who has made technology his focused during his tenure of the company. He was traveling in spain and realized that burger king was offering delivery to the spanish market. And on the nights when spanish football teams or soccer teams were competing in the local league, mcdonalds was losing a lot of customers to burger king on account of that. Carol so lets talk about what mcdonalds has done to be more digital. Current corporate culture, calling itself a Technology Company is a bit of a throwaway line. Everybody left, right, and center in every industry is trying to do it. In mcdonalds case, theres something very tangible about their efforts. For example, they acquired back in march a dynamic yield, a tel aviv and a new yorkbased Artificial Intelligence startup for 300 million. That was largest deal in two decades. The purpose of that really serves to suit easterbrooks vision, which is to eventually have license plates scanned to record previous purchases at the drivethrough. It is going to suggest items based on similar purchases or similar locations and the weather and all sorts of other variables. It will really allow mcdonalds to process a lot of data and gauge what is best at any given time. Carol they are also, though, redesigning stores as well. They are kind of rethinking their physical outlets. Absolutely. Initiativean easterbrook had been shuttling since he became ceo called experience of the future. It requires franchisees who own and operate over 90 of Mcdonalds Stores globally to completely imagine the function of the store and services they offer. Now, the cost of remodeling is between 160,000 and 750,000 for the more comprehensive remodels. And so naturally, the owners and operators are having to fork out quite a bit of cash to see these through are protesting the vision somewhat. Carol mcdonalds didnt really have a choice, right . Because in the face of increasing competition, there are lots of burger joints out there, and there are also trends, food trends specifically are changing in terms of platbased alternatives. People are interested in that. Mcdonalds, they are huge, but they were seeing their growth slow down and also market share pullback. Thats absolutely right. It is one of those classic examples of a deeply, deeply iconic american brand that was really fueled by baby boomer loyalty for a very long time. It rested on its laurels somewhat and has undeniably lost its way with the customer. And i think that easterbrook had been probably on the sidelines for a lot of his career at mcdonalds. He spent 17 years in the business and thought, you know, this is how we ought to change things for the better. He was the head of the u. K. , head of europe, observing all of towardsfferent trends organic, towards healthier styles, and thinking maybe we can bring some of that innovation to mcdonalds. Not necessarily on the health side, but more on the technology side. Carol im here with kailey leinz, she has more on if easterbrooks strategies are working. We want to see the results. Are good if you think about they are good if you think about the key metrics, being samestore sales. If we take it back to 2014, you can see mcdonalds at sales were not doing so well, the blue bars. Easterbrook took the helm back in march of 2015, and since then, the trend has reversed. Sales have been accelerating, while the pace of growth has ebbed and flowed a little bit, it has been growing nonetheless. Especially in the most recent quarter, when samestore sales grew 6. 5 . It is the best since back in 2012. And as you can see, they have been outpacing competitors. That would suggest he does have the secret sauce. Carol quite a big turnaround. Kailey leinz, thank you. So from burgers to beer we go back to bloombergs Global Business forum, where my cohost jason kelly caught up with brito, rita carlos the ceo of ab imbev. We see a Good Environment for our business. It is not without challenges, but that is always the case. We dont see what we read sometimes in papers. The other thing is that our production is very much localized. Jason right. A lot of these things about trade, about flow of goods, that does not necessarily affect us. Always a little bit, but 95 of what we produce we sourced locally, brew locally, we sell locally. Its a bit different. We are brewers, so we are always paying attention to what is happening to our consumer. We are not economists, so i dont have an opinion on some of these trade conversations, but if it is good for consumers, we are happy. Jason lets talk about asia. You pulled off an ipo there after false start. Onethe second biggest ipo outside uber. Only behind uber this year. What does that tell you about that market and what does it tell us about the strategy Going Forward . Our business in asia is an amazing business. We are a number one brewer, especially in the premium segment. In china, we are number three in volume but number one and in profitability by a wide margin, and that is because the Premium Brands are sold at a premium with higher margins. The idea of the ipo has always been to establish and create a local champion. That could be a part of console editions and other things it could do in southeast asia, mainly. That is done now. Shares will start trading next monday. Yeah, so very happy to be where we are. Jason is that a playbook you might use in other places around the world, say in africa, maybe . The same sort of model you set out in asia, or is this a different sort of thing . It is very much a mirror of what we had in latin america. We had latin america for many years, in which we had a local champion listed and controlled by us. Ambev was an amazing vehicle to stock and get deals with local families in Different Countries and really expand in the region. We think that same magic could happen now in asia. Jason ok. And when you think about part of the reason to do this deal was to pay down some debt. How far along are you in that process and what are some other moves you might consider . The main reason for the idea the ipo was really to create a local champion. Because as we said from day one, we dont need to get to that by the end of next year, 2020. But we felt we needed a local champion to mirror what we have in latin america. The proceeds from the us 11rom the sale, around billion from the australia sale. Jason thinking about the cannabis market, how is that going . You and i have talked about this for a couple years now. Tell me where you are in testing that out . You have a relationship with tilray. How is that going . What do we expect to see next . What we have is this. We have a relationship, a joint venture with tilray in canada and for canada only because that is where it is legal. At this point, we are only doing r d. We are not commercializing a thing, we have not made a decision to commercialize anything. Were only trying to solve issues of beverages, nonalcoholic beverages infused mainly with cbd. But we have not made the decision towards commercialization. Carol still ahead, blackstones Jonathan Gray on his three threes to measure economic growth, and more on the 5 billion oaktree deal. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Im carol massar. Join us for Bloomberg Businessweek every day on the radio starting at 2 00 p. M. Wall street time. You can also catch up on our daily show by listening to our podcast at apple podcast, soundcloud, and bloomberg. Com. You can also find us online at businessweek. Com and on our mobile app. We return now to bloombergs Global Business forum, heres jason with blackstones Jonathan Gray on navigating economic uncertainty. Jonathan youve got some uncertainty in the world. You certainly have some friction from the china trade. You have got the brexit situation and geopolitical concerns making everybody nervous. Businesses are responding by pulling back a bit. You see that in manufacturing, industrial data, capital investment, and you are beginning to see that in earnings from companies. So that is one side of the equation. On the other side of the equation, the consumer is actually doing pretty well around the world, particularly here in the u. S. I was talking to a friend about what i think of as the three threes. We have 3. 7 unemployment, wages are growing north of 3 , and home prices are growing north of 3 . So if you think about the consumer, they have a job. Wages are going up, and their biggest assets are appreciating in value. That is why you see this bifurcation. I say when you add it together, what it leads to is not a recession but a slowdown in growth globally, which is what we are experiencing. Jason how much does it slow down and when . Are we in that now . Jonathan i think we are. It is hard to say. The good news is that Central Banks have decided to lower rates and continue to stimulate. That has helped soften the blow of it. And its possible that some of these issues, like china trade, get resolved. That would take a little bit of this uncertainty away. I think as investors, though, you dont want to get caught up in the heat of the moment, you want to take a longerterm view. Jason so where are you spending money . I know your investors asked that every time they get on the phone with you. Where are you deploying capital . You have 500 billion plus in assets. Jonathan thats the big question. I think at this point in the economy, we have slow growth, you also have high multiples. The low Interest Rate has created expanded multiples. So you have to be cautious in where you invest. What we are looking at our places where technology is creating change and where they are really in the path of growth. Industries in the path of growth. Globally, in logistics, we have talked about it before, we have been the big buyer of warehouses in the world on the simple premise that goods are moving from physical retail to online retail. We are doing things around content creation as a result of the cost of distribution of media coming down. You want to service that industry. Software as a solution, things migrating to the cloud. We bought a big business that does things in the Human Resource area online. India, another area that is benefiting from i. T. Services. So i think as the Global Economy transforms, even though the growth rate is not that high, trying to find those industries and sectors that have the wind at their back is really important. Jason are you a net buyer or are you a net seller at this point, across all of your empire . Jonathan i would say its a bit of both. I would not say there is one clear path. When we find businesses that have stabilized, with the buy it, fix it, sell it approach, we exit. On the other hand, there are plenty of things that we still have conviction in and we hold. So you are seeing us sell, but at the same time deploying a lot of capital. We put out 56 billion of capital in the last 12 months. It is more selective, and tends to be in larger situations. Jason right. Carol jason also caught up to toce glad at bloomberg ebf talk about investing at a time of instability. Bruce politically, many countries are up in the air in pretty extreme politics. But on the ground in business, actually it is pretty constructive. Most countries in the world are doing ok. And as value investors, we look for places where you can put money for the longterm, make decent returns in the full amount of time, and instability sometimes brings opportunity. So you just need to think longterm in these situation. Situations. Jason lets talk about opportunities. As you say, maybe some of this uncertainty drives valuations down, because valuations have been pretty high, it feels like, for the past couple of years. Are you seeing that yet . Bruce not in the developed markets. Valuations are still high. So our focus is special situations in those places. But europe is being driven by Interest Rates that are really low today. India has a situation where the Financial System needs capital. So theres a lot of opportunity there. In china, we are seeing more opportunities because of the deleveraging going on in the country. And thats a positive and creates opportunities. Jason all right, so you mentioned china. Trade, obviously top of mind, continues to be. How does that play into your investments or thesis about the world . Bruce our business is about buying real things, real assets. We buy pipelines, toll roads, real estate, Renewable Power plants. And they are local investments in every country. So we are in 35 countries and we are a local investor in every single country. So trade does not really affect us. On the margins, it does. If it affects a countrys economy, it obviously affects investments, currencies, your investment as a global investor, but we are an on the ground investor, trade is not as important to us. Jason lets talk about one specific localnational situation, and that is brexit. Had Boris Johnson, sort of the u. K. President , sort of leave here early to get back. We will be hearing from him later on today. You are a big landowner and a big landlord in london. Canary wharf has been a big project. You have got a lot invested there. How does that play through . Bruce we do. Business has been good since brexit happened. Every day this gets extended and nothing happens, fewer decisions get made and that is not helpful for business. In the fullness of time, getting something resolved will be good for everyone and london will be a center of commerce for a long time. And we just need a solution, thats all. Jason you are about to combine officially with oaktree. That combination. What should we expect in the near term in terms of opportunities that presents. Presents . Bruce we have announced closing on monday. We are excited and thrilled to partner with their team. They are going to run the business, we are going to help them in any way we possibly can. We think it is an added benefit to our institutional clients to offer their products. In the world we are in, where low rates are pushing money into alternatives, i think our general private equity, real estate franchise will benefit and we have a Credit Offering to add to that. Carol up next, pursuits, and how surfing is splashier then ever in the land of the rising sun. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Im carol massar. You can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a. M. 1130 in new york, 106. 1 in boston, 99. 1 f. M. In washington, d. C. A. M. 960 in the bay area, london on dab digital, and through the Bloomberg Business app. We turn now to this weeks pursuits opener. Here is our editor on japans surfing sensation. Our opener is a profile on kenoa igarashi, the sixthranked surfer in the world who grew up in huntington beach, california. But he is actually going to be surfing for japan in the 2020 summer olympics, the first time that surfing is actually an olympic sport. And he is a phenomenon in japan and has launched that sport to popularity that is only rivaled in the United States. And even on a per capita basis, it sounds like there are more surfers in japan. Yeah. There is about 2 million surfers there are about 2 million surfers in japan and about 126 Million People there, percentagewise, more than the United States. Surfing in japan has been big for a long time. The waves there are very reliable and there are great, remote beaches. But he has transcended the fame of surfing. Like, he is famous for anyone. He is movie star famous there. Carol it is so much fun, you guys detail in the article a typical day for him, signing autographs and doing press conferences. Tell us about all the things he is involved in. He wakes up in the morning and hes in california, surfing with kelly slater. Hes doing a photo shoot, then he flies the tokyo and he does flies to tokyo and doing another photo shoot, all in 24 hours, signing autographs. It never ends for him. He has a ton of energy, hes a young guy and he thrives on the fame. Some athletes dont always love that, but this is like his thing. Carol he loves it. Jason this is a guy who is literally bred to achieve what he has achieved. It is an amazing story. It is very similar to Richard Williams and his daughters. Venus and serena, its exactly like that. His parents were kind of hippies , they were living in california and they decided their thing was that their kids would be incredible surfers. When he was seven years old, he was out on the water by 5 45 so that he could surf for a couple of hours and be in school by 7 20 for second grade. Carol isnt that amazing . I mean, his parents left tokyo and went to california to do this. They were in california when they had him and he is going back to surf for japan. A little bit of homefield advantage, actually, because the beach where they are doing that competition is in chiba prefecture, a beach where his dad grew up surfing. So he has sort of really an insider advantage there. Carol maybe if he wins the olympics, gets more endorsements, maybe he can buy this next car by ferrari. It is pretty cool. At least according to hannah elliott. Hannah elliott, continuing to have the best job, we sent her to italy where she tested the ferrari, which replaces the 488 gtc, which is the big sports car that you would see and think oh, thats a hot ferrari. It has the same twin turbo v8 engine, it is redesigned, its lighter, faster, she had a great time. Her review is that it is an incredible car, the most beautiful ferrari they have made in a decade and all the critics agree. Jason she even goes to the way it sounds and makes comparisons to almost a musical note it strikes. Yeah. You know, if youve ever been in a car like that, it can sound like a ripping noise. It can be not beautiful, though it is a very powerful sound. She said the sound of this car is truly beautiful. Jason a great book review as well, a new book by bob iger. Its not really a tell all because bob iger is not that kind of guy, but there are some Pretty Amazing details in there about his career, not just running disney for the past 15 years, but how he got there. And candidly, what he endured in that see sweet. C suite. The book is called the ride of a lifetime Lessons Learned from 15 years as ceo of the walt disney company. It sounds like [snoring] but its a wild ride. It has details of following michael eisner, what happened with ovitz and how brief that was and what that was like to watch, and even when he was competing to get the role for himself, how he was treated. Carol by a headhunter. I love that story dont give it away ok, youve got to read it, but he is basically humiliated by headhunter. And its not like he hasnt been at disney. It is not like he wasnt somebody jason a known commodity. Exactly. And in dealing with rupert murdoch, the whole fox deal and all the drama behind that. There is a lot of juice in there and its fun. Carol it comes at a time when we feel like some really wellknown folks in the financial community, and in the Business Community are out there writing books about their time. Jason and he is not done. Part of the deal with foxs that he has to stick around. They are launching a streaming service, and all of the stuff he has accomplished with pixar and things like that. The streaming service may be the period at the end of the sentence of his legacy. Carol Bloomberg Businessweek is available on newsstands now and online and through our mobile app. And definitely check out our podcast, available on apple podcasts, soundcloud, and bloomberg. Com. Lots more highlights from gbf there. More Bloomberg Television starts now. Beyond the routine checkups. Beyond the notsoroutine cases. Comcast business is helping doctors provide care in whole new ways. All working with a new generation of technologies powered by our gigspeed network. Because beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. To do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. David a lot of Young Lawyers who are not happy practicing law would love to go work for the commissioner of the nba. How did you do that . Adam honestly, i got incredibly lucky. David you said players have depression and melancholy. Adam they are no more immune from Mental Illness than any other sector of our society. David you encourage your players to be involved in social media. Adam it is in our business interest to demonstrate to our fans and the Greater Community these are multidimensional people. Would you fix your tie, please . David people would not recognize me if my tie was fixed, but ok. Just leave it this way. All right