years and we talk about this often is it the hair it is well that's why I'm on
because he wanted someone with less hair than I'm a foil for him for that I just
read a report this week in one of you or not that you have appear in a journalism
but a another news outlet indicating there's about 1.6 three trillion of
capital that's been remediated to private equity in this market so when
you think about that as buying power and you put three four or five times
leverage on that that is a substantial amount of capital that's going to look
for a home and private equity is in the business of doing transactions and
there's some great great stewards of capital so when I think about where the
deals are going to come from yes there will be strategic but by definition
private equity will be a large large component of that and then add on to the
fact that Blackrock potentially will be seeking to raise more than ten billion
to buy and hold stakes and companies I mean that's gonna be part of the story
too how do you look at those kind of headlines well the way we think about
private equity we'd like to think of private equities are as a partner and as
a partner they are as much as a strategic investor as corporates are the
amount of buying power they bring to bear you have to think of them as a key
component just like GE back in the day or Berkshire currently Blackrock you
know and I that one of the headlines I read this morning was Blackrock hoping
to be the next Berkshire everyone wants to be the next Burke right so I'm
regarding right Southbank Softbank vision not talking about vision two
three four so I think the markets moving that way and the the importance and the
scale of that capital cannot be ignored and from a when you talk to CEOs when
you talk to directors did they feel like they're excited to do deals there's a
lot of cash sitting on the sidelines but we are in an era at least this week it
feels like of a little more volatility how aggressive do you think the
conversations are in those boardrooms well so the volatility mentioned I
actually think that we're going to be in a period of slightly more evolve and
we've had I mean look we've been through several years of virtually no volatility
and I think people got complacent as it relates to corporate CEOs boards of
directors I was with a CEO of a tech company
weeks ago in Silicon Valley and they're expecting 50-plus billion dollars to be
returned post the tax reform act and when and when inquiring what they were
going to do I think the answer was ostensibly not certain but I know we're
going to invest it alright so I think the tax reform act is a great thing for
stimulating deal demand but I think people are going to be markedly more
thoughtful they're not going to rush into it I think they're because we're
talking about a large amount of capital Joe tell us about your mission here in
New York I mean as I understand you're coming to UBS was a strategic move on
their part we think often about UBS particularly on wealth management terms
you have some not peers you say you know many peers but you have some competitors
in the investment banking area what's your comparative advantage when
you go in and they and they're already banking with somebody else what's your
pitch what do you say you should come with us well first I say I was on
Bloomberg TV this morning but always do it generally I think there are a couple
of things that when when we I or we'd as a management team to think about what we
bring to bear the fact that we have 2.4 + trillion of assets under management in
our wealth business is a strategic advantage it gives us distribution
muscle I think from a strategic standpoint our access to family offices
and global family offices is unparalleled the reality is most of
these family offices are institutions both because of the size of capital that
they have under management as well as the talent they've hired to oversee and
run these businesses so investment banking is a very very challenging and
competitive environment but I feel very confident that that we will do extremely
well we've got great partners great tools etc you mentioned talent in that
context but talent is something we're hearing a lot about in Investment
Banking right now I would imagine that you are like everybody else or jockeying
for the best up-and-comers but also you know the best veterans of the business
but what's your pitch to people to come work for you well it's funny so I've
been in the in the industry for over 30 years and I think in that 30 or window
I've seen 800 year crises and and during every crisis or every period of
dislocation I always hear the same refrain it's a terrible time to be an
investment banker just terrible that may be true and yet it still seems
to be a career that I provides a great opportunity set and my
pitch to young professionals it's one of the if it's one of if not the only
places where you can come and in your first week on the job you can be sitting
in front of a CEO or a man or woman running a hedge fund with 40 billion of
AUM or someone at Blackstone or Blackrock or a large multinational you
don't get the kind of exposure that we can provide and and I think it's the
industry at large and I think it's just as it's an opportunity for young
professionals to really grow quickly as opposed to with no offense to cubicle
sitting in a cubicle and pounding away at keyboards say it's not bad so quickly
when you wind up looking at the landscape do you have to compete on
salary and compete on fees I mean what is that gonna do for your margins and
investment-banking as you try and compete with the likes of a Goldman and
JP Morgan well competition comes in many forms and it's not just quantitative
it's not just salary it's not just fees on the client side I think you need a
balance you need to provide people a real opportunity to grow and I think we
have that we have a lot of white space on a relative basis we have a real
upside here in terms of capturing market share