YouSaid · the spoken record

Nicolas Namias

lines on the record: 21
first: 2019-02-25
most recent: 2019-02-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Companies in the country. So that's very exciting. And obviously, given the fact that these corporates are very focused on growing scale, on expanding outside of their home market, we can be really a channel in sort of sourcing opportunities and helping them develop and take their business to the next level. And so that's really part of the excitement.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I actually started out in the civil service and I spent five years there and I was looking for another opportunity in my career. I actually met with the Goldman teams. I had many interviews, as I'm sure you did. Always the case. And I was certainly very, very impressed by the quality of the people, the culture and values coming from the public sector. That was really important, having a sense of purpose. And I would say the most surprising part of my career journey so far is that every year I sort of look back on the achievements and there's always something I didn't find myself capable of doing and that I managed to do. So it's every year is actually a new challenge in a way, which is fascinating. And frankly, I don't think you could find any other place offering an opportunity to interact with such an incredibly talented pool of people and where you're having fun, also engaging into the most significant transaction for the leading”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There's a lot of opportunities also to be captured in our private wealth management, where there's definitely room to grow and to increase our onshore presence, which obviously has an ability to materially move the needle of where our business can be. On the IMD side, there's also a lot to do given the whole pension fund environment. And on the MBD side, investing side, that's also a significant upside. All these businesses, all these divisions grow the platform locally. I think that the expectation is that that will also create a virtuous circle and that our brand and our presence will be more felt in the local community and that we will collectively all benefit as a result. So it's, again, very, very exciting time.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The New York office, the Madrid office, the Frankfurt, etc. And so I'd say 10 to 20 years from now, my expectation would be that our activity will have moved in line with what the firm's priorities are today, meaning, A, we're going to be going deeper into the client base. So footprint expansion where we've already done a lot, I think there's still more to do in going to tap these mid-market, small market corporates. So footprint expansion will be key, but also I think it's going to mean we're going to be closer in terms of what we offer to a full suite of commercial banking products would be. And so that would include lending where we're already very active, but there's more to do, cash management, other potential services. The other thing where I feel that we have a lot of opportunities to scale up is in other divisions. We talked about equities, which Marc and Olier would tell you that there's a lot of upside also from penetrating and going deeper into the client base.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Outlook is very exciting. We've had a fantastic run over the past few years just growing our business. We have a fantastic team. My two partners, Selene Michel, Antier Essancier, Mark Dandlau and Olivier Belaish run FIC and Equities on the Security Side. So the leadership team is strong. We've got a fantastic group of managing directors, VPs all the way down. We really have a world-class talent and team on the ground. We've been rebalancing our model a lot as the rest of investment banking has done from what used to be a very M&A and ECM focused to a sort of full-fledged investment bank where M&A capital markets financing risk management all contribute very significantly to our business. And our business is not being operated as a Gaelic village. We're very interconnected with the rest of the organization and there isn't a single week where we don't have dozens of visitors from the London”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now, that has been, as you rightly point out, a key tenet of President Macron's policy. There's just an amazing amount of energy, of ideas, of talent, notably on the engineering front in France, given the focus on this and the recent step change in the administration's policies. The ecosystem has improved a lot on seed funding.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Scale, yeah. Because Every country wants to have a more vibrant technology industry. And President Macron's been a pretty vocal proponent of France's startup industry, and he's done well in attracting new tech companies, but also getting some big tech companies to do more investing in France. So what's the future for France as a place to attract startup talent?”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, absolutely. I think it has not been the case historically in France, but we've seen a number of recent transactions, we've seen carrying, for example, spinning of Puma, we've seen very recently Atos and WorldLine being separated. So I'd say this is part of a broader European trend, an US trend that's reaching French shores. I don't think personally it has yet reached its full potential. So I think we would expect to see very systematic thinking around the portfolios and optimization and potential simplification across the R client base. I mean, the sort of flip side to that is the comment I was making earlier on scale. Scale, yeah. Because, you know, shrink to grow in environment where you're sort of concerned about being able to compete with companies that are two or three times your market cap as you compete for capital, for assets, et cetera. That's also going to be a consideration.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it's a great question. I think a lot of these companies who have historically felt they were under the umbrella of this large shareholder and that whatever happened, if there was a proxy fight, they would not lose just because the math at a general meeting just made it impossible for them to see an activist impose its own agenda. But these corporates are also realizing that a lot of the power of the activists today is in influencing the narrative and that even though you may have a very large shareholder, be it a family, be it the French state, be it some other corporate holding the stake, this is not offering you protection because these activist funds, as we have seen, have actually done a lot of work. They've generally talked to the institutional, a long-only base, and they have talked about some of the issues that these funds wanted corporates to focus on. And in a way, they are acting as a channel for discontent among the broader investor community and the sort of”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As a matter of policy. And so for a number of French clients who are very sensitive to conflicts of interest, we need to be able to demonstrate that in what can potentially turn out to be a nasty public campaign, we will be in their corner and not holding back punches just because we're thinking about the next mandate with Fund XYZ.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is really top of mind. This is really something that we're seeing a lot of CEOs and boards focus on. There's an increasing awareness among the corporate community on this topic of activism, notably because a number of situations, and I won't be name specific, have shown that a large reference shareholder was not necessarily a protection against activism. So people are taking note, and activism, defense management is really becoming a key part of risk management strategy of a number of corporates. It wasn't the case historically. We're now in this environment where this is going to be looked at like any kind of risk, such as liquidity risk or cyber risk. And processes need to be in place to deal with that. With the French clients, we're very well positioned. One of the differentiating factors is obviously the experience we bring from the US market where they have been much more active, but also the fact that we don't advise activists”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not sure it will. Obviously, very little MA is being done with China for a host of reasons, but the US has been a very active market for French corporates looking to acquire platforms. And my personal expectation is that this will continue to be the case going forward based on the sort of dialogues we're seeing and the focus at the board level and CO level for a number of our French clients. There's obviously downside scenario where the current tensions turn into an all-out trade war, which would lead to a rise in protectionism, significant volatility in the equity markets. So overall, that's going to hurt our M&A activity, but that's not going to be a franchise. That's not a French issue.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is still a lot to do relative to other countries in terms of cutting that down. And the question will be whether these protests create an opportunity to accelerate the reforms on that front, where it's been so prominent in the reform agenda relative to other things that the Macron administration are doing, or whether we're not in a position to actually do that. But this is potentially an opportunity to accelerate the reforms. And on your question regarding the attractiveness of France for foreign investors, we have not seen any incidents at this point from these protests. I think what people will be continuing to focus on when they consider investments in France is really going to be the pace of reforms, how that's going to be progressing on public spending. We talked about on retirement reform, on the healthcare reform, and other things, but that's really the focus. And I'd say more broadly, France, foreign investors remain a place where political influence.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The important point to make here is that the protests were not challenging the reforms of the microadministration. They were really focusing on the tax burden that the French individuals are supporting, which is not a Macron issue. It's been an issue that has been accumulating for decades now. To give you a sense, tax and social contributions as a whole represent 44% of national wealth that compares with 40% for the rest of Europe. So that's really a very significant gap. And obviously the frustration was widespread among all the social categories, but I think where it's probably hit the hardest is for a lot of these people who are working hard but still struggling to make ends meet. And the people who are protesting were very active and had the jobs in their”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of global supply chains in a number of industries where you have some strong French players and I'm thinking specifically about the automotive sector and aerospace and defense. So that's going to be an issue. That being said, as you referred to, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. So hopefully this is also an opportunity not only to attract more business in the continent and hopefully in Paris and the rest of France, but also for the EU project to find some new momentum and take Europe to the next level in terms of integration and being more responsive to the needs of European people as a whole in terms of what the day-to-day benefits of the European project are. Because I think there's a fair amount of confusion and obviously we'll be watching very closely the European elections coming up in May.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For a lot of French people, there was a real sense of shock and sadness, including for myself personally, when we heard about the results of the Brexit referendum. Why? Because the founding fathers of Europe always perceived the EU as a means to an end not only to achieve economic prosperity, but also to preserve peace on the continent after several centuries of infighting, culminating with World War II. So that's, I think, the first data point. Second, in terms of economic impact, the French economy is fairly shielded from Brexit in any scenario. Why? Because the UK, in terms of trading with France, is a fairly modest trading partner. It's about 4% of imports, 7% of export, whereas the EU27 is about 50%. So that gives you a sense of how exposed we are there. But I personally think that in the scenario of hard Brexit, these numbers actually may be understating the potential for disruption.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And this is very tied, I would say, to the situation in the labor market where a number of the reforms that have been enacted by the micro-administration are not giving their full effect. And although we've seen a significant decrease in unemployment over the past three or four years, there's still some uncertainty that's affecting the spending decisions that are made by households. Another factor on the unemployment front is the fact that a lot of the hiring that's being done is done on short-term contracts as opposed to long-term contracts. But we are, I'd say, fairly encouraged by a number of green shoots, notably the pickup in consumer confidence that we're witnessing early in 2019, and the fact that a number of the scheduled cuts in housing tax and social contributions are going to help purchasing power into this year. So that should turn out to be positive, but that's really the main driver of where we end up, where we reach this 1.6% or are able to trend at a higher level.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've seen in 2018 was a clear deceleration from 2017. We're ending up at about 1.5% growth that compares to 2.3 in 2017, but that's broadly consistent with what we've seen in the rest of the Eurozone and Germany. It's been driven by decelerating global growth, but also the fact that in 2017 you had a number of tailwinds, notably on the oil side and on the FX side, which have turned into headwinds in 2018. And obviously the slowdown of the global economy has been a factor. Looking forward, I'd say 2019, our research is forecasting 1.6% of growth. That's broadly in line with where the consensus is. And the big unknown, I would say, for this year, this coming year, is really consumer spending, because that has trended at about 1% since the financial crisis. It used to be a big engine of growth at about 2.5% in the prior decade before the financial crisis.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The Premier League. Yeah, thank you for that. And so achieving scale and being able to compete, notably with the US players, which are massively consolidating, and the Chinese players who are benefiting from their home market is really top of mind for these corporates. And I'd say the second thing in terms of what's driving the strategic agenda is really the technology disruption you're seeing in every single industry from the auto sector to industrials, anything that's B2C and has a retail component is being disrupted. So how to respond to that? And that's really also very high on the list of things that we're talking about with our corporate clients.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Funding as I think about looking at MA opportunities, et cetera. So that's in terms of really focusing on the downside risk, but it doesn't prevent a lot of our clients from keeping to their strategic agenda, which is really focusing number one on scale, because the perception in a number of industries is that in the sort of global leak cables, the French corporates have lost a bit of ground. You have a number of industries where the French player used to be number one, number two, number three, and is now in the top ten, bottom of the top 10, or is no longer in that.”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Key issues which are top of mind for our clients, so BD clients today. Number one, geopolitical macro outlook, very focused on the US and the China business cycle, very focused on the situation in Italy, very focused on Brexit, very focused on the rise of populism and the potential threat to the global world order, climate change, defense, et cetera, et cetera. So that would be topic number one. Topic number two, I would say activism is definitely top of mind. This is certainly a change from what it has been and we'll have an opportunity to talk about that as well. Number three, I would also emphasize overall market stability, people going into the end of 18 were quite focused on the level of volatility that we were seeing in the market. Obviously, it's been a sort of 10-year bull run. The question among a lot of our French corporate clients is, when is this ending? What are the implications for me as I think about”
2019-02-25 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · France in Focus: CEOs Playing Offense and Defense · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT