Outlook 2024 | Roundtable Economic and Financial Discussion

Welcome to a special episode of the podcast, Outlook 2024 is a collaborative effort between us and our founding company, Wealth Stewards Inc..

Our lineup of experts panelists include: 

Bill Chinery FSA, FCIA, ICD.D - Retired Chairman of Ontario Teachers Pension Plan’s Investment Committee
Topic - Recent Economic and Investment Trends

Sasha Cucuz - CEO Greybrook Securities Inc. & Partner of Greybrook Capital
Topic - Ontario Real Estate

Prathna Ramesh - Vice President of Operations FutureSight
Topic - Artificial Intelligence Trends in the Economy

Today's questions of interest:

3:21 How do you anticipate equity market changes over the next 12 months?

5:33 Should we be watching the short or long terms rates?

7:27 Do you see a recession?

8:04 Does the Fed watch the equity markets?

9:08 Do you see a reversion back to the real low rates that we saw during COVID? 

11:02 Looking inside the market, where should we be focusing our attention?

12:06 Should we be looking at healthcare as an opportunity, with an aging baby boomer 
economy?

13:10 With North America's large millennial group, will we see more manufacturing happening here?

14:29 Should we diversify nationally or internationally?

16:59 What is your view on the state of Canadian Real Estate?

18:17 Could you address your thoughts on immigration, especially during recent changes in real estate?

19:36 If you compare Canadian immigration rates to U. S. immigration rates, how do they compare?

20:47 So although it's concentrated, what we're seeing especially in the GTA is that boundaries are expanding?

21:55 With constant changing, what is has been happening with permits and approvals? 
Where do they stand?

23:43 With Ontario having the best farmland in the world, what do you think about the expansion of agriculture?

25:38 Could you talk about single family communities and condo market opportunities available to investors?

27:37 How has rate shifts affected the market, developers’ perspectives and plans of action for private equity firms in real estate?

31:18 Can you please give us some insights into your view of the current landscape of AI technologies?

36:41 Are we going to see the large, multi-national companies become major players in this area of AI?

39:29 Could you touch upon the negative and positive aspects of technological advancements in AI?

43:13 For sites like ChatGPT, could you explain the advantages of using these tools?

44:33 Could you give your insights when it comes to AI and real estate?

46:54 Can you comment on any trends in institutional towards private debt and equity versus public market investment?

49:48 With housing valuation metrics, is it sustainable, with evergreen's collapse and the highlights of highly concentration of real estate in individual holdings?

54:40 As AI evolves, how can financial professionals and investors stay informed on the changing landscape? 

57:51 The private investor, the individual investor hasn't really kept up with the shift to private markets. What's your view on that?  

59:44 What is your viewpoint on the buzz around AI and the teacher’s position on this?

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and visit our website at https://www.privatedebtandequity.ca/ for any questions or to learn more!

Transcript

Bob Simpson: 0:15

Welcome to the Outlook 2024 event taking place on this not too chilly January 31st, 2024. I'm your host for the evening, Bob Simpson, serving as Vice President of Portfolio Strategy at Well Stewards. Appreciate your presence here tonight. And whether you are an existing client, you've discovered us through one of our accounting affiliates. or by any other means, we extend our gratitude to you for joining us despite your busy schedules. Outlook 2024 is a collaborative effort between Wealth Stewards and Wealth Stewards newest venture, PrivateDebtAndEquity. ca, a platform dedicated to educating investors about opportunities in private markets. This marks our fourth Outlook event, and as in previous editions, We've curated a compelling lineup of topics. These include discussions on investment management trends, real estate markets, and the ever increasing world of artificial intelligence. For these topics, we've gathered a panel of experts to provide valuable insights. Tonight's webinar will be recorded. It is actually at the current moment being recorded for your convenience. And will be accessible through both private debt and equity. ca and wealthstewards. ca As we delve into these engaging discussions, please make yourself comfortable. You know, we're here for an hour or so, you know, just, just sit back and, and, uh, see what you can learn. If you have any questions during the presentations, please utilize the zoom control panel to submit your questions. Um, we have allocated time at the end of the sessions for our panelists to address your inquiries to become familiar with how the Q& A panel functions. If you want to just do something for fun right now, just click the Q and A at the bottom of your screen and type in hi, and uh, be nice to hear from you. So once again, welcome to Outlook 2024 and let's make this an informative and interactive evening. Now without further ado, let me introduce our first guest. Bill Chenery. Bill is the retired chairman of Ontario Pete, Ontario Teachers Pension Plans Investment Committee. And as you would imagine, he has a great deal of experience in the investment industry. He's going to be addressing recent economic and investment trends. So Bill, welcome. Thanks for coming out this evening.

Bill Chinery: 2:53

Well, thanks, Bob. And thanks for inviting me. It's a pleasure.

Bob Simpson: 2:57

Yeah, let's have fun. Um, we're all here tonight to discuss The outlook, the outlook 2024, right? Looking into the future to get some ideas on trends and what to expect over the next 12 months. So diving in, just take a look at, you know, looking at equity markets bill and how you anticipate they might change over the next 12 months. What are you seeing? What do you see?

Bill Chinery: 3:21

So, um, if we start from the end of October to the end of January, the last three months, Uh, you'll note that the S& P 500, the U. S. stock market is up, uh, over 20%, and that's been driven mostly by tech stocks. Canada is falling short. We're up 10%. We haven't got the tailwinds of, of the tech industry for Canada. But what's caused that? So, um, what, what happened in late 2023? As we had the Fed indicating that interest rates were going to be, uh, that they've stopped quantitative tightening and that in 2023, they're going to start cutting rates. So, of course, uh, the market loved that and, um, and in fact, the market's pricing in a cut in March of 2024 this year. Um, now, I don't know if you saw, uh, uh, Chairman Powell today, but he. Uh, indicated that he doesn't look like, uh, we're going to cut in, in March of this year. And so immediately the stock market fell off one and a half percent in the U S and 1 percent Canada. So, um, that's an interesting signal. Um, so what, what do we think will happen in 2024? I think if the fed can, can cut, um, appropriately get inflation under control, get it between the two and two and a half percent that they wanted at. Get, um, unemployment where they wanted at, get the GDP growth at 2 percent or so and, and hit that, that, uh, what they call the, the perfect soft landing, then I think we could see, um, single digit, uh, rates of return in equity. So I think they've already priced in a pretty high rate of return for, uh, 2024 with the 20 percent increase. So, so if they can do that, I think we could get. Um, uh, five to 10 percent rate of return. If not, we're probably looking at flat to perhaps negative interest rates, or rates of return for equities and in, uh, in 2024.

Bob Simpson: 5:23

Yeah, Bill, I, one of the things, one of my barometers that I watch really closely is the U. S. 10 year, 10 year bond yield, the treasury yield, right? And, you know, we all make predictions and, you know, predictions are about as good as the, uh, you know, the paper that they're on. Um, but my prediction was that, you know, we should be buying equities when, uh, the 10 year bond yield hits 5 percent and it hit 5 percent and then just immediately dropped from five down to 4. 8. And now it's kind of hanging in there trying to figure out what to do next. Um, is that, you know, how much of that can we, uh, anticipate? You know, should we be watching the short term rates? Should we be watching the longer term rates?

Bill Chinery: 6:07

So, uh, you're right. The, the 10 year is now, uh, hovering at about 4%. Um, now, of course, it's an inverted yield curve. So, what do we mean by an inverted yield curve? It means short term interest rates are up around 5%. Um, and, uh, the long term rate, the 10 year is at, at 4%. So, generally, that says we're looking at a recession in 2024. So, so something has to normalize those rates. So So what's going to happen? Oh, well, hopefully the Fed cuts so that we get that yield curve to go, uh, to, to steepen is what, which is what we want in a normal economy. So, um, I think the Fed will be cutting in, in 2024. So there should be at least, I think, one or two or three cuts. And if that happens and we get that curve, as you say, get up around 5 percent for the 10 year. I think we're looking pretty good. I don't know if that's going to happen, but that's kind of what we're looking at.

Bob Simpson: 7:02

Yeah, but that's what we really saw just in the end of October, wasn't it? That the, the tenure moved up and flattened out the yield curve at around 5 percent and then, and then start to anticipate the rates were coming down and then it, it just inverted again, right? So. Correct. I think everybody's been watching that inverted yield curve, looking for a recession is, you know, do you see a recession, uh, in the near future?

Bill Chinery: 7:27

So my bet is no, simply because 2024 is an election year. I think the Fed is cognizant of that. And, um, it will, it will do its darndest to make sure that, um, the economy doesn't go into recession. So if they see unemployment spiking at all. Um, I think they'll, they'll worry more about that than say inflation and I think they'll, they'll start to cut. So I, I would, I would see, uh, less than 50 percent chance of a recession in 2024.

Bob Simpson: 7:59

Does the Fed watch the, uh, does the Fed watch the equity markets?

Bill Chinery: 8:04

Um, they say they don't, um, they say they look at, um, they say they look at really unemployment. They look at GDP and they look at, uh, inflation and, and inflation is still stubbornly above three. Um, unemployment is actually working nicely right now and, uh, the growth in the economy is good. So, um, that, that's why they're still hesitant to cut because inflation is still reasonably high. The economy still. Moving along nicely. And so, um, they're, they're just waiting to see what happens.

Bob Simpson: 8:39

When you and I spoke a week or so ago, I used the, the term high interest rates, you know, that we're experiencing that I made the comment that to me, 5 percent interest rates, those aren't high, you know, what 14 and 15 percent mortgages, that's high. Do you see in the interest rate market moving forward, do you see that we're going back to the real low rates that we saw during COVID? Where do you think rates are going to settle in?

Bill Chinery: 9:08

Well, I, I think, uh, a four to 5 percent tenure is perfectly placed. Um, so you're right. Um, I remember the early eighties when I took my first mortgage, it was like 15, 16%. Our kids now don't even understand that when they have houses. Um, but the sticker price, of course, of our houses is a lot different than, uh, today, today than it was back when we were there. But I, I would say we can land at 5%, 10 year. Um, I think that's the Pollyanna scenario, uh, for the future and then if the Fed can keep it four to 6%, I think that's great.

Bob Simpson: 9:47

Yeah. And, and usually that's what interest rates do. They like to sort of find that stable area. Uh, they don't really move around a lot. They'll sort of shift from one area to another. Is that what you, is that your experience as well?

Bill Chinery: 10:01

That's exactly right. I mean, there's few times in history where you can predict exactly when interest rates were, where they're going. But for instance, a few years ago, of course, when they were zero, there's only one way they could go, which is up. So that was one of those, uh, seminal moments where you knew that it was going to, interest rates were going to rise. And then of course, right now, uh, at least for the next year, I think you're pretty sure certain that short rates will be cut by the Fed. So that's another, um, seminal moment where you're pretty sure, uh, we'll have, uh, a lower Fed fund rate at the end of the year than we do at the beginning of the year.

Bob Simpson: 10:37

Yeah. Now in your initial comments, you talked about, uh, the, you know, we had that big move. I think it was 18 percent in November and December, and then we've had a little more follow through right now. Um, and you said there was a leadership in the area of technology. Um, what, if you look inside the market, uh, where are the opportunities? What are you, what are you seeing? Where, where should we be focusing our attention?

Bill Chinery: 11:02

Well, of course, and we're going to hear this later on, uh, about AI. I mean, AI is the buzzword now in technology. If you have any kind of venture capital fund and you're starting out in technology, the first thing you talk about is. AI, and the question really is, uh, is it AI or isn't it AI? Um, but, but I think that, I think that's going to be revolutionary. It will be as big as the internet. It will be big as, uh, the creation of electricity. It will be, it will be that type of event. Um, and so I think looking at anything associated with AI is what's going to drive technology for the next, uh, five years.

Bob Simpson: 11:43

Yeah. Now, if we look at the, uh, if we look at the aging economy, you know, the baby boomers are all reaching, uh, retirement or they're, you know, I think I saw that they're reaching old age, right? That the oldest baby boomers are now in old age. Um, is that, do you look at areas like healthcare as, as opportunities there?

Bill Chinery: 12:06

Absolutely. Healthcares, retirement homes, um, um, sad to say, uh, funeral homes. I mean, those areas are going to be, uh, uh, big, um, going through the next, uh, couple decades. And you're right. The baby boom, our population around the world, and, and one only needs to look at Japan as a population where actually less, um, kids are being born than die, which is nobody's actually encountered that yet. Um, the population is aging in North America, but. We still have more babies born than people dying. So, so those are going to be the areas, uh, for sure that will, uh, in the long term do well, and you just have to figure out which areas within healthcare and, uh, retirement homes, et cetera, are the best place to be.

Bob Simpson: 12:53

So with the, um, you know, the large millennial group, it is North America becoming a, rather than sending business off to other countries. Are we going to see more, more production, more manufacturing, uh, in North America?

Bill Chinery: 13:10

I think so. Um, for a couple of reasons, first of all, the globalization, which is, uh, everybody's, um, started to pull back, uh, around the world. You saw that in the U S tariffs created, um, during the Trump administration. So that, so that everybody, and then the supply chains that got choked during, um, during COVID people realize that you, we've got to start building. The chip plants on in North American soil, so yes, I think we're going to see a lot of that and it's going to be driven a lot by robotics. So we won't need as much labor. And so we'll be able to generate the chip plants in North America because the labor will be limited and not as extensive as it was in the past. So robotics is going to be the other thing. That will compliment AI, um, to allow, um, everybody to build things in, in North America again.

Bob Simpson: 14:04

Now, you know, one thing that, you know, we, we have questions about is, uh, you know, our, our focus has primarily been in North America, uh, as opposed to being international, uh, we've just identified that, you know, the best companies in the world happen to be in North America. What's your view of. Uh, we all should diversify but uh diversifying internationally.

Bill Chinery: 14:29

Yeah for sure. Um, um, Canada is only three percent, uh of the world gdp And also the stock market. So of course you want to be diversified canada's Is dominated by financials, by, uh, utilities, by, uh, by oil and gas. Um, so, um, you, you want, if you want tech, you're going to have to go outside of Canada and you see that with the Magnificent Seven. I mean, so, uh, an interesting, I think I mentioned this to you a week ago. Um, if you look at Microsoft, it's larger than the Toronto Stock Exchange. One stock is. Larger capitalization than Toronto stock exchange. If you look at Microsoft, Apple, it's larger than those two stocks are larger than Canada, the UK and Japan stock markets. I mean, that, that to me is mind boggling.

Bob Simpson: 15:19

Yeah. Yeah. You threw that number at me the other day and that's a, and it wasn't something that I'd ever contemplated. That's, that's an amazing number. Anyway, Bill, thank you for, thank you for this. Uh, we're going to, we try to keep it real tight. You're going to hang around for a bit so that you can answer some questions at the end. So thank you. Our next, our next guest, uh, Sasha Kukuz is CEO of Greybrook Securities. Greybrook is one of, uh, the leading real estate private equity firms. Uh, with more than a hundred large scale developments across Canada, the United States serving over 10, 000 investors worldwide. Sasha's leads the firm, his firm's capital markets and investment strategies. And under his leadership, it's investment portfolios grown to be valued at over 35 billion. Uh, he will be providing insights into the Ontario real estate market. Now, before we get started there, um, Sasha was on a plane, got on a plane in Dallas this morning in Texas at 5 30 AM. And, uh, so we're, we, we want to keep things moving so we can keep them awake here as we do this. I'm good. It was sunny there. Yeah, so Sasha, let's just start you know what we want to focus in on this evening And I think a lot of people are interested in the ontario and canadian real estate markets Uh, what do you see? You know, what's what's your view and you know, I know? I've heard you quote lots of stats over the, over the years about what's happening, but what's your view of real estate in Canada right now?

Sasha Cucuz: 16:59

Well, my, my purview is primarily residential. That's where we focus, uh, most of our investment strategies. I would answer the question. This way, real estate is inherently a long term investment, right? When, when you talk about equities, when you talk about many asset classes, it's a long term investment. And I don't know that from my vantage point, any of the fundamentals that we rely on when we make investments have changed. In the least there, there are certain exogenous factors today, interest rates are higher than they've been. We've, we've seen that shock. We just went through a pandemic, which constricted constricted some of our labor supply and cause material prices to get a little bit distorted. So that's an exogenous shock. But we have a tremendous amount of population growth and an inability as an industry to supply that population growth with adequate housing. So that imbalance puts a general and pretty unrelenting upward pressure on pricing over a long term.

Bob Simpson: 18:05

I've seen you do, you talk a lot about immigration too, and I've, I've read, I think there've been some changes in, uh, uh, in the way that real estate is being viewed by the governments right now. Can you just address that?

Sasha Cucuz: 18:17

There is, I mean, I think if anything, the, the population growth we've seen, uh, over the years has highlighted the fact that our infrastructure has, has simply not kept up at the same pace. Part of that has to do with the fact that immigration policy set federally. And then at the end of the day, when the rubber hits the road, housing is a new provincial or municipal ultimately function, and they don't always communicate particularly well. So we have an underserviced housing market. And as a result of that, it's turning a lens to immigration. And are we doing it the right way? What kind of changes can we make? Can we, you know, put some guardrails on our immigration policy? But the one thing I would just say to that is that, you know, whatever side of the political aisle you're on, our reality, and Bill mentioned the fact that we have, you know, the poorer population that's now sort of the exiting the workforce and going into the years where they require pensions and social assistance and all of the things that we provide. We have to replace those folks with the working age population that's sufficient enough to be able to keep up with our growths. And with organic, you know, household sort of, uh, birth rates being lower than they've ever been, immigration is really the only way that we can do that efficiently.

Bob Simpson: 19:29

If you compare Canadian immigration rates to U. S. immigration rates, how do they compare?

Sasha Cucuz: 19:36

On a nominal level, they're similar. Um, as a per capita, you know, on a per capita basis, obviously we have a much more aggressive policy in Canada. Uh, so we're, we're, you know, 600 to a million people on a base of 34 million people, whereas in the U. S. they may see those numbers on the base of 10 times that population. So it's absorbed a lot differently. The other key difference is the fact that in Canada, Um, you know, we have three metros that have over 2 million people in them. So people that are coming from places where they live in urban context and want to live in urban context in Canada, where the jobs are and where their lifestyle is accommodated. You really have a couple of choices. One of, one of them has some language barriers in Montreal. So the U S has 40 metros that have over 2 million people. So the dispersion of. Immigration is a lot different in the U. S. It's a lot more concentrated in Canada. And we're seeing the impacts of that because we have a, not only a high nominal rate, or a per capita rate, but also it's very concentrated on where that immigration settles.

Bob Simpson: 20:38

So although it's concentrated, what we're seeing is, we're seeing, especially in the GTA. We're seeing that the boundaries expand, aren't we?

Sasha Cucuz: 20:47

Well, it's required. I think, you know, um, the types of housing that, you know, just to put it simply is you have ground related, which are things like single family homes and townhomes and semis and things of that sort. And then you have high rise, which is higher density. Families require all different types of housing, right? You have people that are students and single people. You have people that have families of 4, 5, 6, whatever that number may be. So, in order to be able to achieve these targets to accommodate the level of growth that we're seeing, we need various types of housing. So it's not enough to just keep urban boundaries as they are and rely on density or intensification to fulfill those. Requirements because that will only lead to high density formats of housing. So it usually has to be a combination of urban boundary expansion to, uh, increase the amount of land available so that you can have ground related options for people as well.

Bob Simpson: 21:40

No, I, I try to keep up with these things, but you know, things are changing so much. What's going on with, uh, with approvals right now, um, with permits. And that's the thing. Are they. Has that tightened up, uh, or, or where are we stand?

Sasha Cucuz: 21:55

I, I would say on balance, uh, we're slightly better than we've seen over the, over the past few years. I think that the provincial government, uh, through policy has, has certainly shown an intent to try to accelerate these approval and permitting periods in order to be able to cut the red tape and get things built quicker. But at the end of the day, you're, you're dealing with. Many different levels of government for provincial down to municipal and drilling down. Even, you know, you're not dealing with a mayor. You're dealing with every single ward and its constituency, and because it's a very inclusive process development, you're consulting with, you know, neighborhood groups and businesses in the area. And, you know, Bob, if you and I were in a room, it would be hard to get us to agree on everything in a concise manner. So when you're trying to round up so many different constituents and get to a place. It takes a very long time. So notwithstanding that the best efforts of government, both municipal and provincial, we've seen marginal improvement, but hopefully it's trending in the right direction.

Bob Simpson: 23:00

Yeah, in one of the areas, you know, I was in Texas, like you fairly recently. And if you look at the city of Dallas, it's just spreading like crazy, but if you look at the quality of the land that is, that it's expanding on, you know, you're not going to grow a lot of stuff on there. Whereas in Ontario, uh, you know, we have some of the best farmland in the world. Right. So, you know, is that, is that a factor, you know, I know that we're seeing the expansion of the agricultural and, you know, I don't want to open up like the, the most crazy, uh, upsetting discussion, but, um, you know, how do you, how do you view that?

Sasha Cucuz: 23:43

Uh, you know, I don't think it's a hard discussion at all. I mean, I think it's a balance and we have, we have needs based on our growth, based on the infrastructure and housing requirements. And unfortunately those needs. Involve different types of housing and land is required for that. Um, as it relates to other uses of land, you know, there's an abundant amount of of arable land in Ontario. We're finding more and more ways to make it productive. Um, and I think the development community, you know, largely, um, wants to work together with with other industries as well as the government to be able to find solutions that make sense. And a lot of times it's not a function Bob of like. More and more land, sometimes as cities expand, sometimes is, uh, as their, uh, population disperses. Sometimes some parts of land that are not developable today make more sense as developable land, whereas others that might be developable may not make as much sense, right? Because sometimes these decisions were made many, many years ago, and as cities have changed, it makes sense to trade these lands. So even in this whole, you know, Greenbelt scandal, not going to comment on the process and all the various things that could have been done better. It was really a trade at the end of the day, right? So they weren't necessarily just taking land out of the greenbelt, not replacing it. They were swapping it for other land that was being put into the greenbelt. So I think it's always a combination of being able to maintain enough land to maintain our agriculture sector and all the things that we need from that perspective, as well as to be able to create, as I said, the various types of housing that you require.

Bob Simpson: 25:22

So as a, as a private equity firm in real estate, you know, you're doing single family communities, you're doing condos. Uh, just talk about those couple of markets first and, you know, where do you see the greatest opportunities right now?

Sasha Cucuz: 25:38

Well, I think again, going back to the whole long term mindset that we operate within and if those fundamentals have not changed systemically, which I don't believe they have, our, our appetite is as it was a year ago, three years ago, five years ago to buy different types of. Development opportunities that fulfill different housing types because they all have their place. What I'd say is that the dynamics of these markets are very different. So if you think about, uh, a condo market is largely driven by investors, right? And people, you know, think of that and it's a bad word. The government has made that a bad word. But I've been very careful on the committees that I've been a part of with, with government officials to help them distinguish between speculation and investment, because investors are a very valuable part of the ecosystem in the production of housing. Uh, for example, a high rise building from the time you buy it and pre construction to the time it's delivered can be four or five years or sometimes longer. People aren't generally making life decisions on five year intervals. It's usually an event driven circumstance. I have to move because of a job. We had a child or whatever the case may be. So as a result of that, investors fulfill that function on the high rise side, whereas on the low rise side, uh, investors are, are just less. Required because the time to delivery from the time when you buy a new house and pre construction to the time it's built is about 12 or 16 months. So a lot of times people can make those plans. So it's a very end user driven market, as opposed to the investor driven, uh, condo market, not one is better than the other. And that's something that I have to be very careful when I'm explaining to members of the government. We sometimes try to vilify the role of the investor when at the end of the day, it's an essential part of the ecosystem that produces housing.

Bob Simpson: 27:24

We've had the shifts from lower rates to higher rates. Uh, how has that affected the market how our developers looking at that, how our private equity firms in real estate, uh, dealing with that.

Sasha Cucuz: 27:37

To call it a shift is, is that you're stating it in my mind, it was like, you know, really the, the, the magnitude of the increase more than the absolute number you were mentioning, you know, but back in a different time, they were higher. And even five years ago or seven years ago, we had rates that were at near either near the same level. It's. Where we've come from and how quickly and what that's done from a market that's repriced over the years. And I think that the way we think about it is, um, you know, obviously there's some, some cost issues on the construction side because you have construction loans and various forms of financing. And obviously those, those forms of financing are more expensive, but that's generally been really manageable. And I think as we relate, uh, as it comes to acquisitions today, you know, we, we don't like to try to forecast too far into the future. That's why our acquisitions cadence has been slower because we're looking at the rate environment today and saying, look, we, we don't know if it'll be 12 months or 24 months. Where we start seeing a little bit of a, uh, a rollback in, in rates. And, you know, Bill, I think is, I agree largely with Bill's perspective on this, but what that's done is effectively just slow down our acquisitions. We're taking the time to digest what we have, make sure, you know, we're well capitalized to be able to absorb the costs and the projects that we're continuing to build and deliver. And then in the new acquisition route, we're kind of taking a wait and see approach. And then when we get comfortable enough that. We'll see some relief on the horizon. I think that that's when we will be turning the taps back on. And in our mind, that's, that's kind of started. And we've been very, um, aggressive on new acquisitions, uh, over the last month or so, so we should be ready to go with a couple in, in the next month or two.

Bob Simpson: 29:18

Yeah, no, it's awesome. Well, I know it's been a long day. Hopefully you can hang around, answer a couple of questions. I'll be here. Have a, have a little 15 minute nap. I wanna. Well, we, uh, well, we shift our attention to. Perfect. Yeah. So thank you. Thanks for doing this. Thank you. Yep. As we shift our attention to Prathna Ramesh, uh, now Prathna is, uh, is vice president of operations at FutureSight. Uh, which is a venture builder that backs, that backs North American software and AI entrepreneurs as institutional co founder with capital. Uh, Prath that has a great deal of experience in early stage investor and operator in the B2B software and AI, just to throw some, uh, Some letters at you, and she's going to be speaking about artificial intelligence. So Pratna, thank you very much for, for joining us this evening.

Prathna Ramesh: 30:17

Hi, Bob. Thank you. I'm a little bit, you know, that, uh, you told Sasha he can take a nap for 15 minutes during my session.

Bob Simpson: 30:27

He could take a nap, but he's not going to want to, because you're actually going to talk a little bit, maybe even AI in the world of, uh, In the world of real estate, right? So I think it might be something he wants to tune into. So I'm going to start you with question number one, which is interest in AI. You know, both, you know, really, as Bill said there, it just has exploded. You know, it was almost like the equity markets were going nowhere. And all of a sudden, AI just jumped out of nowhere. Like, that's the way it seemed, right? It had been there, it had been growing, but it was almost like one day, holy jeez, have you seen AI? That's something interesting, maybe we should go. Um, can you take a quick look at, you know, give us some insights into your view of the current landscape of AI technologies.

Prathna Ramesh: 31:18

Yeah. And it's interesting that you say that all of a sudden it was, it wasn't there. And then it was, um, one thing I would want to state up front is that AI is not new. Um, I've been investing in software and AI for the past seven years and And back then when we were just starting out, um, we were living under the halo of Marc Andreessen's words, um, software will eat the world, right? And, um, we were starting to see more AI companies, um, as AI startups were pitching for funding for, um, from venture and angel investors. And, uh, We had gotten to a point where we were starting to see, it was almost like a checklist that we felt startups had in their head, which is present AI, blockchain, or IOT technology without really a sense of exactly how to implement that in their business. Um, so it's, it's, I think over the past. Five or six years more. So I've started to see a shift where it's no longer software is eating the world, but rather AI is eating software. You're hearing that more now. Um, I'll give some examples of investments that we had made around 2015, 2016, which. You know, I, I don't know if it would have been in the press, but there was meaningful capital deployed behind it. So for example, one was a computer vision company that does sports analytics for, um, the NHL or different sports teams to just help using footage to help players get better. You know, that, that's an example of an application of AI. Or of course, you have your Alexa and your voice assistants at home. Um, and we were doing sort of more nuanced and, um, more accurate versions of those voice investments. So what I would say about AI broadly is there's been a lot of buzz, a lot of great chat about it, and, um, this explosion has occurred since 2023, basically, right? And, and that was because of open AI and chat GPT. Um, so if we were to just think about the technology, I would look at it as It's predictive AI and generative AI. Um, predictive AI has been around for a while. It's, it's those examples that I listed. You know, when your, um, model is able to recognize a pattern and is able to make an outcome or a suggestion or a prediction based off of it. Um, this, uh, generative AI, which is newer, is when, um, the machine is creating net new content from scratch. So text, videos, um, Uh, you know, audio or code, even whatever it might be. And it's, it feels like it's not different than the time of the internet. Exactly how Bill was saying at the start. Right. Um, but there's, there's definitely some fear mongering happening. Um, the thing I will say though, with chat GPT, what they did is, um, they made it so user accessible. They were able to get, um, a hundred million users in two months, right? And if you look at Instagram or Uber, these, these companies reach that sort of threshold in a span of 30 or 50 or 80 months, right? So it's getting more and more common. And, um, you know, people like Mark Cuban are coming out and saying, you have those companies that are great at AI and everybody else, there's no in between. Um. So, and the last thing I'll say, Bob, is you got to follow the money a little bit and, and see sort of how the investments have been tracking over this last period. So there's record shattering numbers around investments in AI over the last few years, especially in 2023. Um, but a few considerations, right? Most of that. Capital that was invested went into these large foundational models like open AI, which require a great deal of investment and a great deal of time. Um, a lot of the new, um, capital that's going in investors don't have the time and, uh, or the money, frankly, to, to compete there with a Google or an open AI. So they're going to start looking at these vertical specific AI. And I'll talk about that as well. Another, um, consideration as to why you've seen, um, the, the level of investment is a lot of capital was raised by these private funds and given, given the risk free rate, there was a lot of pressure as well from LPs. Uh, institutional and individual that, hey, you need to deploy the capital. And, and, and it's, it's possible that because of that as well, you saw like a pretty big uptake in it. And it is it very well aligned with this, uh, new tectonic shift basically in technology. Um, yeah, which is at the magnitude of the internet, to be honest.

Bob Simpson: 36:11

Yeah. So based on your comment about Mark Cuban, Is it, are we going to see that the, the large, uh, multinational companies, the Googles of the world are going to be the major winners, major players in this area, others just won't be able to compete with the big guys. Is that why we're seeing such explosion in, you know, the, the sort of large seven there to Bill talked about.

Prathna Ramesh: 36:41

Yeah. Um, it's a great question. And, you know, initially, um, you know, before I started really diving in and learning about this, my answer would have been yes. But now that I've spent time sort of studying the industry, um, you know, Um, you quickly understand that there's actually four different areas where you can play when it comes to AI. You have the hardware layer, think of that as like the core of the foundation. That is where you have your supercomputers or the semiconductor chips and that kind of thing with the NVIDIA. Google, et cetera. Then you have a layer above that, which is you need cloud computing power to run. Um, and so that would be Azure or um, AWS. Then you have the layer, which is developing these models like um, GPT or Bard from Google, or Meta, uh, Meta's Lama. Um, and those. require a crap ton of data, um, in order to be able to be effective because they're basically mimicking like, uh, they're mimicking the Google search, right? So they need to be effective and they need a lot of time and capital to be effective. And then you have this layer of the application layer, which is more like something you and I would be able to use. If we went on a mid journey or a Jasper to have, um, you know, instead of me, you writing your notes for this event, you might input that with information and say, um, these are some past events Bob has run. This is his tone. You train that to sound like you, and then you say, here's, I'm hosting Outlook 2024 with these people. Give me the list of questions. Um, Uh, so I would say these are the four and when it comes to the first three foundational layers, I think you're absolutely going to see the big players win. Um, it's this, um, last layer in the application space where all the, you know, private capital that is not at the mega zillion dollar level is focusing on to see if, um, we can find some winners, winners, but the truth is you don't know it's, it's still too early.

Bob Simpson: 38:52

Yeah. And it's always difficult to predict, isn't it? Now, anytime there's something new. Anytime there are dissenters, right? People who say this is bad. This is going to change the world. They've got to shut this down. It's going to ruin education. That's going to ruin a lot of things, right? What are your views about, you know, the positives? Um, you know, computers, you know, you don't want computers. They're going to take jobs away. Computers can do the work. Where's AI? Like what's your view on, on possibly some of the negatives and how they're not really negatives.

Prathna Ramesh: 39:29

Um, well, on, on the job displacement piece, robots have been about to take over human jobs for almost a hundred years and, uh, uh, really since the introduction of electricity. So I think that someone said, um, someone framed it well for me and it, it has stuck. Um, AI won't replace humans, but humans with AI will replace humans not using AI. And so that's interesting to me. Some jobs will get lost, but I don't think the challenge is going to be, um, like trying to understand how to implement AI in your business. If you are as a business working with software and technology, it's likely that if you're the software companies that you're dealing with, like even if you're. A massive legacy business working with SAP, um, you're going to start to see AI in your life every day. And that's the very cool and exciting part about the life. Um, I said the time that we're in, uh, the real challenge, I think when it comes to, um, you know, Mark Cuban's comment about those that will be really good at it. And. Um, those that will not is when it comes to organizational change, like people's willingness, um, for learning and change management. Um, and then, yeah, I've also heard, will AI kill us all? That's, that's an interesting question. Um, I've, uh, or yeah, are we going to. Is humanity going to be taken over by robots, basically? I think everyone's afraid of this really super intelligent AI being created that will, um, destroy humanity. The truth is that, I mean, it's, it's not a very, um, sophisticated answer, but we can either spend our time, uh, minimizing the. Uh, the harm that could come from this potential devil or, um, uh, or we would, you know, just prevent the, the systems from existing at all and the good that can happen. So my view is, is quite bullish. Obviously I'm a believer in the industry. Um. And it's one off, uh, AI has the potential to solve real problems like climate change as, but I think the, um, and you're hearing this for sure, um, the ethical guidelines have to, um, come together. And you see this with any new technology, be it nuclear, you have, um, anything that has like a massive impact potential, you see regulation come into play. Um, so I feel bullish about that. And then I guess the other. Um, important thing that people are starting to think more about is, um, executing ChatGPT takes about a hundred times more energy than doing a Google search. And so that in combination with our, um, uh, issue related to climate change is going to be an area where people have to spend energy.

Bob Simpson: 42:29

Yeah. You know, it's interesting that, uh, there's a software program called StoryWorth where you can write. Have you ever seen that?

Prathna Ramesh: 42:36

No, let me look it up.

Bob Simpson: 42:37

It's where you sign up and you write your own book and they send you questions every week.

Prathna Ramesh: 42:42

Right.

Bob Simpson: 42:43

You know, I go in and answer the question. I do the best I can. And then I take it and dump it into chat GPT and say, rewrite this so that it sounds, you know, halfway, uh, you know, like I'm a decent writer. Does an amazing job. Right. Right. And I think. You know, just little things like that are nice in that they sort of introduce a positive thing that pretty much anybody could use. Um, and just keep, uh, just keep moving things forward. So, um, yeah.

Prathna Ramesh: 43:13

I had come across, I mean, there's, um, it's now getting like increasingly, uh, less expensive and easier to build businesses. I think that's an important thing. Um, for everybody to keep an eye out for it, that we said that when, um, you know, it was the era of cloud and, um, we were seeing software being created. Now you're having these other functions. Like for instance, you might be able to get an initial version of your product out to market without really having a team of developers. Um, you, and you might need some, you might still need a layer of, um, oversight. So you, you might have that taken care of. You might also, you might have all sorts of marketing content and branding them creating websites for you. Um, so it really is an exciting time, um, which means that, uh, you know, you, you either, um, you either pick a few people that you're going to follow when it comes to thinking about how to invest, um, or just be curious about it because it's going to impact all of our lives meaningfully.

Bob Simpson: 44:16

Yep. And the rate of change is going to be, is going to be tremendous. Isn't it?

Prathna Ramesh: 44:20

Yeah.

Bob Simpson: 44:22

Yeah. No, when we talked a week or so ago, you mentioned the use of AI in the area of real estate and we, you know, we're discussing real estate. Tell me, just tell me about that.

Prathna Ramesh: 44:33

Yeah. Um, many, many applications actually. Um, So if I were to just think about, I think from end to end, every step of the process and, um, you know, Sasha should also be one to weigh in here, any problem that you're dealing with through that cycle AI can support. So one interesting application is, uh, to support with the. Um, sales and lead conversion and lead closing and, and assist basically homebuyers and sellers with the entire process. Um, increasingly in this day and age, people don't want to talk to agents, um, or they're busy or they don't want to pick up the phone and that kind of thing. And so. You can have a really effective conversational AI agent and a team of agents and a mortgage agent, which are all synthetic, um, AI based, which have been trained well, uh, communicating with you. Now you often hear when it comes to real estate, if people are making this home purchase or a sale, this is, you know, an important, uh, financial transaction and can they get, can they get through it without, uh, any human intervention. So some of the startups that I'm seeing That are doing, you know, these AI based solutions are also concurrently building a, um, a human base to support with that. So this is, this falls under the category of co pilots when you look at AI and how it's maturing. So you, where you have a human being assisted to do better, um, and be more effective with their time using AI.

Bob Simpson: 46:08

You know, great insights. We appreciate you coming and taking time tonight. We're going to address some questions right now. If anybody has questions, uh, remember down at the bottom of the screen, there's a little thing says Q and A. I've got a number two. So we've got a couple of questions there. Um, you know, remember they're not really bad questions. If you're interested, just, uh, just type up and send us, send us what you're thinking, we're going to open up this, uh, the Q and A panel and just see. Um, one, one question we have is, can Bill comment on any trends in institutional towards private debt and equity versus public market investment?

Bill Chinery: 46:54

Um, okay, Bob. So on that question, I saw that in the Q and A area. Um, so when I joined teachers board eight years ago, about 30 percent of the assets were what's called private. So. Let's call that real estate, private debt, private equity, and infrastructure. Um, now those are over 65 percent of the balance sheet of teachers. And so obviously there's been a big trend there. Um, now why would they invest in those areas? Um, well if you take at least three of them, uh, debt, equity, debt, um, infrastructure, and uh, real estate, I mean they throw off income. Um, a pension plan like teachers have one active for every retiree. So they need. To have that income, um, to balance off their liabilities and, uh, so it fits in very well. And I think also the question is, um, uh, that I saw in the Q and a was, does that fit in with, uh, your investors, some of your, your wealth, uh, investors, and of course it does. I mean, it. It's an older population. Um, they have liabilities that, that are very similar, uh, uh, the, to teacher's liabilities. And so they would fit in. The challenge for, um, private wealth people is to. To do it in such a way that it can fit into a series of funds teachers don't have funds They buy private equity directly. They buy debt directly. They buy real estate directly, so they don't have that challenge So as long as you can overcome those hurdles it fits in very nicely with uh, a high net worth individual

Bob Simpson: 48:31

Yeah, I think you talked about three year volatility when we talked the other day.

Bill Chinery: 48:35

Yeah If you look at teachers for instance in 2022 If you remember, the equity market was down 10%, the debt market, uh, bonds were down 10%. Teachers made 4%. Why did they make 4 percent positive when everything else was down 10%? It's because these, these don't move as quickly as public markets. You could smooth out the returns. And again, that fits in very nicely with, uh, with, uh, high net worth individuals.

Bob Simpson: 49:05

Yeah, no, I think so. Looks like we might have some questions over in the, uh, In the chat area. Let me just see if I can open that. Um, and while I do that, uh, question with housing valuation metrics, such as rent to ownership priced income multiples. And many other metrics at historical highs. Is it sustainable, uh, with evergreen's collapse and the highlights of highly concentration of real estate in individual holdings as estimated 70 percent and also being very high. You have concern session.

Sasha Cucuz: 49:48

Um, I mean, we have concerns every day about a lot of different things. So it's never a straight line. As you guys would all know, as as investors, I think that, um, you know, the the price to affordability in general is always a concern. And you got to think about real estate as. An asset class, but it also has to be accessible to its users and its users being either those that own it or those that rent it. Um, and you know, expensive global cities as they transition from ones where most of the people who live in their real estate own it. They over time, you know, become asset classes, stores of value, you know, the London's, the New York's, the Paris's, different places like that. And there sometimes can be a disconnect and, and, and when that disconnect gets too wide, obviously there's concerns we, we look at rents a lot. So oftentimes the ownership of real estate can be out of reach for sort of an average household income. That doesn't necessarily mean that rental rates are, are not accessible. So, so, you know, ultimately there's a lot more renters in the market when it comes to ownership and price to income. As a, as a measurement to me, it's always been a little bit of a flawed measurement. I'm not going to say that it's not useful, but if you think about it, it's measuring your income in one calendar year to your obligation of a house over 30 years in some cases with the amortization schedule. So it's not necessarily always a fair or accurate way to determine affordability. The second thing I think that more importantly. Affordability comes, uh, it can be discussed in terms of the payment and is the payment affordable, but the way to lower the payment is to increase the deposit in some cases. And the, the, you know, we, we, as we talked about the boomers, um, becoming the larger proportion of the population, we have some of the highest, or if not the highest ever wealth transfer that's going to be occurring, uh, or started occurring and is going to continue occurring over the next 10 to 20 years. That comes in the forms of. Transfer of jobs, transfer of assets, transfer of housing and the equity that's been built into housing. So there are ways to mitigate affordabilities as cities become older and attract sort of, uh, investors into these markets. So when I say it's a concern, definitely. Do I think it's sustainable? Um, yes. I mean, I think this is not atypical of any major city around the world where we've seen similar phenomena. Um, the question about Evergrande, which is a Chinese property developer, I believe that that's the reference. Um, you know, there are a couple of things, notwithstanding the way the property market in China works is very different than the way it works in Ontario or Canada. But the biggest difference is, to me, it's all in the way that you capitalize. Your projects in the way that you capitalize the, the developer at the end of the day. Evergrande took on a lot of debt. It took on many multiples of debt, uh, to ratios that probably were not sustainable in the best of times. And then when things started to get rocky in the market, in the property market, they were just simply on, uh, you know, not able to keep up with those obligations and that was a function of, I think, poor financing, uh, on the part of their management team and board. Ready access and cheap access to capital probably. But that doesn't mean that you, you know, like if you're, if you're in a kitchen and you have 15 hot dogs, you don't have to eat them all. So if you, if you capitalize yourself responsibly, the way we do it here, for example, is we don't take on any balance sheet debt. Every project is its own special purpose vehicle. It's uniquely capitalized and we're very equity heavy. So at the end of the day, that might, that might hurt your equity multiple because you're not using as much leverage as you, you probably could, but you're also. Decreasing your risk profile at the end of the day. So we're very careful about the way that we capitalize our projects to not end up in situations of insolvency again. The Evergrande thing was a little bit different because it's at the balance sheet level, but even at the project level, you probably read in the news in Canada. There's been developers who have got themselves into trouble with, uh, over leveraging their projects and having to, you know, avail themselves of bankruptcy protection. That's something that you, of course there's concerns around it, but if you do it responsibly, you're sacrificing some upside, but at the same time, you're protecting yourself on the downside.

Bob Simpson: 54:15

Yep. So don't chase returns, but look at the, look for quality deals that are properly levered. That, yeah. Prathna, um, as AI continues to evolve, how can professional, financial professionals, business owners, investors stay informed on the changing, on the changing life, uh, changing landscape?

Prathna Ramesh: 54:40

Oh, uh, staying informed is there's, um, I mean, there's plenty of airtime that AI is getting, um, from the media. I think that if you wanted to critically analyze the opportunities that make the most sense for you, then yeah, I think it's, it's very real. Like people are thinking about. How do you use AI to become better investors? Um, uh, you are, banks are investing meaningfully in using, um, AI co pilots to provide advice to, uh, clients. Um, you might also be able to, as retail investors, search for these, um, sort of AI, uh, financial education tools where you can have a. Chat like conversation over an interface and just get better educated. I know in the crypto space, they do have a few good products like that. Then you think about how to use. AI to become better operators, there are, um, like a plethora of, uh, uh, changes that you can make within your operating business, um, be it sort of tool management, data management, email software, um, and then if you've got, you know, you should probably take an assessment in each of your departments and think about, um, and, and have your department leader come up with some thoughts around, um, How they think, uh, maybe you want to list out what some of the biggest pain points are today, but also you just got to force people to do the work and, and read and learn. Um, because all of this is kind of changing in real time. And then the next big question I guess people have is. How, how you can invest in AI, right? And there's the, um, public route and there's the private route. And, um, the only, um, I mean, there's pros and cons for both, for sure. We talked about the different layers, but on the public side, you have some of the hype, uh, priced in already, but, you know. Information, of course, is readily available, um, on the private side. I think you, you can have good opportunities for high multiples, but there's a lot of noise. Um, and so I think that how to win on the private side, which is what we've been focusing on is. Create a process, um, to learn how to kind of cut through the noise and understand, um, for this technology now that's out there that people are using again, you know, what are the commercial opportunities and what pain point is it solving today for the end user, the end customer. And some of this only time will play out, but in the next, um, few years, this is. The adoption is going to double, triple, quadruple. And, um, I think following where the investment dollars are going, um, VC and later is a good idea.

Bob Simpson: 57:36

Yeah. Now, Bill, um, the private investor, the individual investor hasn't really kept up with the shift to private markets. What's your view on that?

Bill Chinery: 57:51

Well, that's true, Bob. Um, they haven't kept up, but as I mentioned, um, it, it's, it's a little harder for, um, a mutual fund, for instance, or even an ETF to have a real infrastructure fund. The ones that do have infrastructure ETFs. They're the public market ETF, so it's not really what I consider infrastructure. So, so the, the private equity firms have to figure out how to, or sorry, the, the private wealth firms like, like Wealth Stewards need to figure out the challenges of creating pools of money that can be valued, um, on, on the basis they need to be valued, um, and put in funds for, for the individual investor. So that's a challenge. Jen. And I think Well Steward's done that, so, you know, kudos to Well Steward's to, uh, figure out that, uh, to crack that nut.

Bob Simpson: 58:48

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Appreciate those thoughts. Um, we just had a, uh, one of our guests, uh, just send us something saying, can I please get a link to the recording? I want to review it again later. Um, of course, in our closing comments, we will, uh, we'll address that for sure.

Prathna Ramesh: 59:06

Could I ask a quick question to Bill? Absolutely. Um, that was awesome, Bill and Sasha. Um, Bill, I was, uh, one of our Uh, friends in the Canadian ecosystem is actually, um, so we're a venture builder, uh, and a similar player in the space is, um, an org that started, that's backed by, uh, teachers, which is also a venture builder, um, called Koru. So I was just wondering in your time, did you start seeing a lot of, um, buzz around AI and, and what was teachers position around all of that?

Bill Chinery: 59:44

Yeah, so that's a, that's a great question. So Koru. What KORU is, um, so we, teachers went to all the private equity companies and said, look, give us your best ideas in technology, AI, and we'll fund it. So come up with all these ideas. So they just asked the, and they have a hundred companies come up with the best ideas. And of course they don't have the capital to do it, but teachers does. And they've come up with just some fascinating, um, ideas that, uh, that came out. For instance, I'll just give you one, um, for retirement homes. They created, um, avatars for, so people in retirement homes don't get to see all their family members that often. So they created avatars for the family members to talk to, um, to, to, to the people in the retirement homes much like without them being there. So it just took on the personality of the, the daughter or the son. And, and so this is. Fascinating stuff. Um, and that's what Corey did, um, with, with, uh, I think it was Amica. So there you go.

Bob Simpson: 1:00:49

I think that's interesting.

Sasha Cucuz: 1:00:51

And, and, and for the record as a real estate guys, people think of us as neophytes, but to, to your point, Prathna, I did not take a nap. The number one, very interesting, uh, your discussion. And we, we have been very bullish on the applications of different AI in our business, whether it be. Things on the capital market side that make us more efficient on the underwriting side, we're looking at and experimenting with, uh, different technologies, obviously, you know, the copilots and things like that to help with our reporting, but we, we, we look at this, you know, I'm not qualified to talk about whether, you know, the end of humanity is in our sites, but. I certainly can look at this as a tool that will make, uh, us more efficient as a firm and, and make all of the people in the business, like, you know, the, the scare that we're, you know, going to replace people really. I just look at it as another very effective tool in the toolbox to help people do their job more effectively. And that's how we're looking at it. And it's something that, that our team, our tech team has been on for the last year, at least a year. So maybe we're a little bit late to the party. But, uh, you know, not, not like you guys six or seven years in, but, but certainly very excited about the future application and how it can change business.

Prathna Ramesh: 1:02:05

Yeah, just like on the mortgage side, even, um, what normally would take a human and, you know, 10 hours of work can be done in a matter of minutes. Um, so yeah, it's very cool.

Bob Simpson: 1:02:16

Yeah. They need to teach bankers when you, uh, when you go to open account that they don't take four hours to put you through, whether you could, you could do it with AI a little bit quicker than that. Anyway, one of the rules of doing, uh, these kind of events is start on time and end on time. Uh, and I appreciate everybody's, uh, everybody's interaction. So, uh, just let me just check on my own closing remarks. So we at Wow Stewards, uh, really appreciate the time that, uh, everybody, both attendees and our, and our guests this evening have taken from their busy schedules, uh, people like. Sasha on no sleep, uh, you know, joined us and did that now today's round table. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, it's been recorded. Uh, it will be sent a link will automatically be sent out to each of you. Um, so you can listen again, pass it on to a friend, family member, business colleague. Additionally, um, you know, I talked a bit about private debt and equity. ca. Uh, which is our new, uh, website, which is developed to educate investors about this. And we interview people like Sasha, uh, who, uh, you know, our suppliers of products and services to our industry on a regular basis. We just, uh, we just did, uh, podcast number eight. Uh, this week, uh, we've been doing them since December. Um, those are, so this will be a podcast. If you want to go there, just listen to it in your car. It'll be available on Apple, Spotify, any of those, uh, networks that you use. So if you want to, you can go and subscribe to, you know, listen to this or subscribe to any of the podcasts. Uh, when this webinar ends, there'll be a brief survey, uh, sent out, which will appear in your browser. Uh, we would appreciate if you take a moment to share your feedback with us. It really helps us to make sure that we're putting on the best possible events for you. Uh, as I like to say in the closing remarks of my podcast, uh, I'm Bob Simpson. It has been my pleasure to steer you through this enlightening conversation. Keep in mind that knowledge equips you to make well informed investment decisions and progress towards your financial objectives. That's really our goal tonight is just to provide you viewpoint from a number of, uh, uh, of our guests tonight. And, uh, you know, so thank you to, to all of our guests. It's been a lot, been a lot of fun tonight. I've enjoyed this and I hope everybody else did. So until we meet again, stay, stay focused and disciplined on your financial journey. Thanks for coming out and enjoying it and, uh, and being with us this evening. Thank you. Okay. See y'all. Bye.