Inside the AI Revival of the Infamous Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant

Summary

Bloomberg Businessweek – May 8, 2026

Episode Title: Inside the AI Revival of the Infamous Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant
Hosts: Carol Massar & Tim Stenovec
Main Guests:

• Will Wade, Bloomberg Energy Reporter
• Christel Rondelent, Co-CEO of Vontobel
• Danielle Barcelo, CEO of T1 Energy
• Michael Gross, Co-founder and Co-CEO of SLR Capital Partners

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the transformation of the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, driven by skyrocketing energy demands from AI and data center growth, and examines the broader energy, investment, and economic landscapes this shift is creating. The hosts are joined by specialized guests to discuss nuclear’s reputation and resurgence, global investment trends, innovations in renewable storage and manufacturing, the boom and risks in private credit markets, and evolving consumer behaviors highlighted by Mother’s Day spending.

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1. The Three Mile Island AI Makeover: Nuclear’s Second Chance

Segment: [02:14–10:45]
Guest: Will Wade, Bloomberg Energy Reporter

Revisiting the 1979 Disaster

• Historical Recap: Carol Massar details the partial meltdown and radiation scare at Three Mile Island, recalling worldwide panic and the nuclear industry's PR crisis.
  • “The accident was front page news around the world... fully shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. But the economic times... have certainly changed.” – Carol Massar [02:29]
• Actual Impact: Wade explains that the radiation exposure for locals was “significantly less” than a chest X-ray, but fear outweighed the facts.
  • “The amount of radiation that was released was not deadly, it was not huge. But just the idea of radiation is terrifying to everybody. You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't feel it, and you don't know what's happening. It's scary.” – Will Wade [03:36]

The Nuclear Revival

• Drivers for Revival: Shifting economics and surging power demand from AI data centers have reversed decades of nuclear decline.
  • “These data centers just need so much electricity, and they want it as fast as they can get it, and they want as much as they can get. And nuclear can deliver a lot of power.” – Will Wade [04:43]
• Global Perspective: Many nations are reconsidering nuclear (aside from Germany). Only Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima are cited as major nuclear accidents.
• Relative Risk: Discussing studies, Will highlights that, including past disasters, nuclear power remains much safer than coal or natural gas on a deaths-per-terawatt-hour basis.

New Tech and Future Risks

• High Stakes: Rapid demand could breed “sloppy” development, but vigilance and regulation remain high.
  • “If there's one problem, it will shut down the industry again.” – Carol Massar [07:48]
• Efficiency Uncertainty: If AI tech suddenly becomes more energy-efficient, overbuilding nuclear capacity could pose economic risk.
  • “If they come up with a way to make it more energy efficient, all of a sudden that is a concern.” – Will Wade [09:13]
• Small Modular Reactors (SMRs): Not commercially viable until early 2030s, with several companies in development, but initial models won’t be inexpensive.

Memorable Quote:

• “Living on this planet will kill you. If you live next to a coal power plant, you're probably... more likely to get asthma. Natural gas has things. Everything is dangerous.” – Will Wade [06:33]

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2. Global Wealth Management and AI’s Economic Ripple

Segment: [13:22–19:33]
Guest: Christel Rondelent, Co-CEO, Vontobel

AI’s Role in Global Markets

• Strong Macro, Rising Caution: AI is likened to “unconditional liquidity” (QE), driving markets up but also stoking fears of excess.
• Productivity vs. Employment: Debate around whether tech-fueled productivity will depress employment is unresolved but “still far out.”
• Demographic Offsets: Aging populations in the developed world may balance out job losses from automation.

Investment Strategy in an AI-Centric Era

• Diversification: Christel stresses concentration risk in the US equity market, especially with “a third of its valuation in seven stocks.”
  • “As an investor you don't want to have all your eggs on one theme only. So pick your theme... The key call for your wealth is how you allocate across asset geographies, etc. It's the most underrated call.” – Christel Rondelent [17:09 & 17:41]
• Global Preferences: New opportunities are present in US markets, but she remains “neutral-positive” on American equities. Defense spending in Europe and continued interest in fixed income are noted.

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3. Solar, Renewables & the American Energy Transition

Segment: [20:02–28:21]
Guest: Danielle Barcelo, CEO, T1 Energy

The Surge in Renewables

• US Renewable Landscape: Renewables are expected to make up “over 90% of US utility additions in 2026,” mainly solar and storage.
  • “Solar is just a form of [energy]. It is extremely competitive on a cost basis. It is rapid to scale and it's what we need.” – Danielle Barcelo [20:48]
• Global Competitiveness: US has advantages in support and OPEX for renewables, but faces higher capex compared to China or Southeast Asia.

Manufacturing, Technology, and Supply Chain

• Vertical Integration: T1 aims to become a fully integrated manufacturer, focusing on both module- and cell-level production, with local partnerships.
• Manufacturing Shifts: Speed to scale is critical; innovations like lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries (lower toxicity, cost) are game changers.
  • “The pricing has collapsed. You’ve seen pricing of batteries go from $150 a kilowatt hour... down below $50 at the cell level.” – Danielle Barcelo [27:17]

Nuclear’s Limited Role Going Forward

• Skepticism on US Nuclear Growth: Barcelo sees nuclear “staying where it is,” while natural gas, solar, and storage dominate future US energy.

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4. Private Credit’s Risks and Shakeout

Segment: [28:44–39:28]
Guests: Michael Gross (SLR Capital Partners), James Crombie (Bloomberg News)

Market Stress & Investor Perceptions

• Current Fears: The sector is facing negative headlines similar to 2007, trust problems as retail investors discover liquidity and valuation risks.
  • “We haven’t been through a cycle in 17 years, so everyone's gotten spoiled... when you started to see cracks in the system and retail investors being unable to get their money back... brought private credit to the forefront.” – Michael Gross [30:34]
• BDC Vulnerability: Business development companies (BDCs) are seeing declining net asset values, mainly due to software loan markdowns.
  • “In credit where we're making 8, 9, 10, 11%, we have to be close to perfect.” – Michael Gross [32:57]
• Interest Remains: Despite market volatility, institutional and high-net-worth interest in private credit stays high—especially for specialized, asset-based lending beyond “vanilla” cash flow lending.

Too Much Retail Money Too Fast?

• Risks of Retailization: Rapid retail influx led managers to sacrifice discipline, pressuring deal quality.
  • “Too much money was raised, too much quickly, and that caused certain managers to lose discipline and put money out quickly just for the sake of putting it out.” – Michael Gross [37:16]
• Outlook: Gross argues that smaller, focused private credit managers may outperform mega-firms by pursuing overlooked niches.

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5. Mother’s Day Retail & the “Amazon Effect”

Segment: [42:46–50:03]
Guest: Meenakshi Lala, CEO of Urban Stem

Consumer Behavior & Economic Signals

• Peak Sales Window: 60-70% of sales come during the week of Mother’s Day, showing intense last-minute demand.
  • “We definitely see that there is economic pressure. ...We are seeing, you know, the big shoppers are shopping bigger… However, we are seeing slowness in the opening price points, indicating the masses are struggling with purchasing.” – Meenakshi Lala [43:58–44:52]

Gift Trends & Logistics

• Add-on Gifting: Alcohol, chocolates, cookies drive up average order values; flower orders increasingly bundled with food and drink.
  • “Partnerships have been a big driver... Alcohol and food bundles are driving a third of our revenue.” – Meenakshi Lala [48:22]
• Supply Chain Challenge: Urban Stem sources flowers from 13 countries, assembles and ships them within five days, tailored to last-minute e-commerce expectations.

Memorable Moment:

• “Do you want to get flowers for Mother’s Day or do you want something else?”
  – “I do not want to get flowers. I want to get a good night's sleep after ensuring all the moms in United States of America have received their flowers.” – Meenakshi Lala [49:50–49:56]

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "The idea of radiation is terrifying to everybody. You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't feel it, and you don't know what's happening. It's scary." – Will Wade [03:36]
• “These data centers just need so much electricity, and they want it as fast as they can get it.” – Will Wade [04:43]
• “I feel like in the last couple of years we've done nothing but talk about nuclear.” – Carol Massar [04:19]
• “If they come up with a way to make it more energy efficient, all of a sudden that is a concern.” – Will Wade [09:13]
• “You don't want to have all your eggs on one theme only... The key call for your wealth is how you allocate across asset geographies.” – Christel Rondelent [17:09 & 17:41]
• “Solar is just a form of energy. It is extremely competitive on a cost basis. It is rapid to scale and it's what we need.” – Danielle Barcelo [20:48]
• “The pricing has collapsed... from $150 a kilowatt hour all the way down below $50 at the cell level.” – Danielle Barcelo [27:17]
• “Too much money was raised too much quickly, and that caused certain managers to lose discipline and put money out quickly just for the sake of putting it out.” – Michael Gross [37:16]
• “Partnerships have been a big driver... Alcohol and food bundles are driving a third of our revenue.” – Meenakshi Lala [48:22]
• “I do not want to get flowers. I want to get a good night's sleep after ensuring all the moms in United States of America have received their flowers.” – Meenakshi Lala [49:56]

---

Key Takeaways

• AI data centers are fundamentally reshaping the economics of nuclear power, overcoming decades of stagnation due to expense and safety fears.
• Nuclear is re-emerging, but with caution: the industry’s ‘zero tolerance’ for mistakes remains, with a slow path toward next-gen SMRs.
• Global markets are benefitting from AI and tech growth, but concentration risk and macro-economic headwinds urge diversification.
• Renewables, especially solar plus storage, are overtaking the US electricity grid, while nuclear is likely to remain flat.
• Private credit faces its first real stress test since the Great Financial Crisis, with concerns about excessive retail growth and discipline.
• Consumer behaviors for occasions like Mother’s Day show continued bifurcation: luxury add-ons thrive while entry-level sales soften—real-time evidence of a K-shaped recovery.
• Logistics innovation in floral and gift e-commerce highlights rising consumer expectations set by the “Amazon effect.”

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For listeners seeking a snapshot of energy’s future, investment strategy in an AI era, and change at the intersection of technology and the real economy, this episode offers a broad yet nuanced deep dive.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News this is Bloomberg businessweek Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead. Insight on the people, companies and trends shaping today's complex economy, plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg businessweek Daily Podcast with Carol Massar and Tim Stanweck on Bloomberg Radio.

[Tim Stenovec]

You mentioned one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg it's about the Three Mile Islands AI makeover. It's all in a Bloomberg businessweek exclusive about the energy demand largely fueled by the AI data center buildout. And yeah, it's happening not too far from here at Three Mile Island.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah, it's that Three Mile Island. You know. Remember, go back to March 28, 197936 seconds after 4:00am Water pumps feeding the steam generators of one of Three Mile Island's two reactors shut down, kicking off a series of mechanical failures and human errors that would Cascade into a partial core meltdown. Excuse me. And the release of radioactive gases into the ear. The accident was front page news around the world. Partially shut down at the time. It was fully shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. But the economic times, Tim, have certainly changed.

[Tim Stenovec]

And that's the gist of Bloomberg's Will Wade and Drake Bennett's most recent story and exclusive. Will is Bloomberg News energy reporter. He joins us here in the studio. So lots of detail in here about the rebirth to nuclear. I want to start with just what happened in 1979 and, and that nuclear disaster here in the U.S. i was surprised to learn, reading your story, that even people who had been exposed in the area to what was released as a result of that, according to a study, really only received as much radiation as would would happen in a chest X ray. Less. Actually.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Less.

[Will Wade]

Significantly less.

[Tim Stenovec]

Yeah.

[Will Wade]

I mean, obviously it was a huge public relations disaster for the nuclear industry. And that led to all kinds of heightened oversight, new safety policies, lots of scrutiny. It really slowed down the nuclear industry in the US and it was justifiably a disaster. People were terrified. Thousands and thousands of people fled the area. But when they eventually went and studied it and measured it, the amount of radiation that was released was not deadly, it was not huge. But just the idea of radiation is terrifying to everybody. You can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't feel it, and you don't know what's happening. It's scary.

[Carol Massar]

And yet here we are in 2026. Well, and I feel like in the last couple of years we've done nothing, I think, about that NJIT event that we did and we did a panel up at Stage and what they wanted

[Tim Stenovec]

to talk about, 2022, 2023.

[Carol Massar]

It's a few years.

[Tim Stenovec]

Yeah.

[Carol Massar]

Nuclear. And I think it caught us by surprise. You've been talking about it and reporting it out here. Is the whole difference just the big tech community, the AI craze and the.

[Will Wade]

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, for a while, nuclear was really kind of waning, but mostly because it's expensive. It, you know, these plants are big, they're complicated. They take a long time to build. Like I just said, there's tons of scrutiny. So they're expensive to build and operate. So until about like 2019, 2020, 2022, they were just shutting down for economic reasons. They were just more expensive. You could get cheap natural gas, you get cheap wind and solar. But now we need electricity. And it is, it's big tech, it's AI they need. These data centers just need so much electricity, and they want it as fast as they can get it, and they want as much as they can get. And nuclear can deliver a lot of power.

[Tim Stenovec]

Well, you point out in the piece, this is not just about the United States. I mean, there are countries all over the world that moved away from nuclear. From nuclear in Europe, Japan, after Fukushima. And now they've all changed their minds, too.

[Will Wade]

They haven't all changed their minds. Germany is.

[Tim Stenovec]

Many of them have changed their minds.

[Will Wade]

Excuse me.

[Tim Stenovec]

Thank you.

[Will Wade]

I've been tracking this for a long time. There's been a huge reversal, and people really are starting to embrace nuclear. I mean, not everyone in the world, but it's really getting a lot of acceptance. And I should point out, I mean, there's Three Mile island, there's Chernobyl, there's. There's Fukushima. Oh, that's it. There have been three major accidents.

[Tim Stenovec]

How does that compare to.

[Carol Massar]

But Chernobyl was really bad.

[Will Wade]

Chernobyl was really bad. I don't want to downplay.

[Carol Massar]

Fukushima was really bad.

[Will Wade]

I mean, Fukushima was really bad. But nobody died from radiation. They died from the flooding.

[Carol Massar]

But Chernobyl, like, we've seen, you know, that whole area just numbering.

[Will Wade]

That's true.

[Carol Massar]

You know, so when it goes bad, it goes bad.

[Will Wade]

When it goes bad, it goes bad big.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah.

[Will Wade]

Which is why it is so heavily regulated. And we looked at some death statistics because, I mean, let's be real, living on this planet will kill you. If you live next to a coal power plant, you're probably, you know, more likely to get asthma. Natural gas has things. Everything is dangerous.

[Tim Stenovec]

So then how do you quantify that danger and those dangers from burning fossil fuels to produce electricity to using nuclear energy?

[Will Wade]

There's been some studies, and they really do come down. Like, coal has a lot more deaths per, like terawatt hour. Power produced. Natural gas has more deaths. Nuclear power even, including the deaths from Chernobyl, much, much lower on the scale.

[Carol Massar]

I'm gonna just randomly say this, but I'm assuming you get into a car and you probably are more likely to get in an accident.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Oh, yeah.

[Carol Massar]

Than a nuclear. So not.

[Will Wade]

That's what I mean. This planet is dangerous for us.

[Carol Massar]

What I want to ask you about is micro. Its vast power needs, and this is kind of like the subtitle on the story, and how it's bringing together two transformative and risky technologies. Will I always get nervous when there is such demand and a rush in need for something that I wonder if people get sloppy in the development process. Now I realize everybody's got to be careful because if there's one problem, it will shut down the industry again. Probably.

[Will Wade]

Fully legitimate question.

[Carol Massar]

Okay, so what, what's going on? That's risky.

[Will Wade]

That's a good question. Yeah, I mean, I mean like you said, Chernobyl was indeed a catastrophe with nuclear. I've been to several nuclear plants and everywhere I go it is just so carefully monitored and screened. But you know, radiation does have, you know, the potential to be dangerous. So you have to be careful.

[Christel Rondelent]

What?

[Carol Massar]

Go ahead, Tim.

[Tim Stenovec]

Well, what I noticed in your piece was that there was, there was this idea that electricity demand had kind of peaked because we had become more efficient with energy usage. LED bulbs were actually a part of that pre2019. And then this happened. And by this I mean the demand for AI. And I'm wondering about the possibility of overbuilding here because what if it turns out that all of these technologies do become more efficient? Because that's the big bottleneck right now. So you have to think that that's what everybody is working toward, making this stuff more efficient. What happens if we over build here and we just shoot too far?

[Will Wade]

Then we spent a lot of money. Yeah, that's the question that we've been talking about. So I mean power demand in the US has pretty much been flat for like 20 something years and now it's going up like the projections are insane on how much power we're going.

[Carol Massar]

There's a chart in the show.

[Tim Stenovec]

Projections are projections.

[Will Wade]

Exactly. So I mean like here in like second quarter 2026, it's not crazy higher than a year ago. But the forecast through 2030 and 2035, they are. But yeah, we AI is brand new. This is like a trend I've been following for about two years. But if they come up with a way to make it more energy efficient, all of a sudden that is a concern. And people are like allocating billions and billions of dollars for power plants. And if they overspend, well, we'll see

[Carol Massar]

in the stock price the next generation though, just to wrap up here, we've talked about the smart small modular reactors, this kind of next generation of technologies. Right now we're doing a lot of right, like existing facilities. Getting three, there's three. So how long is that and is that going to be even more efficient, more safer? But what's the timeline?

[Will Wade]

The timeline on SMR is I'm going to go with like early2030s, maybe a couple before 2030. There's dozens of companies that are working on them. There's like maybe a half dozen company I could name that are making really solid progress and they're not that far away.

[Carol Massar]

Right.

[Will Wade]

But it's going to take some time and the first ones are not going to be cheap.

[Carol Massar]

All right. So we got to be patient. Anyway, it's just, it fits into this big narrative that we keep talking about every day. It's just the spend on building up these data centers. But folks are worried about is the supply chain there and is the energy there to actually fuel them. Well, wait. Thank you. So appreciate it.

[Tim Stenovec]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily coming up after this.

[IBM Representative]

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[Podcast Host]

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[Tim Stenovec]

Joining us in the studio, Christel Rondelent, the co CEO at Vontobel. It's a global wealth management firm. They've got approximately $240 billion Swiss francs in assets under management. That's about $308 billion U.S. she joins us here in the Bloomberg Businessweek studio. Do you see the momentum continuing?

[Christel Rondelent]

That's a timing question. What I see is that the macro is very resilient and there's no reason for the stocks to turn down for as long as we have such a resilient macro economy. We have. Of course, AI is super powerful. You know, I'm starting to think that I feels a little bit like qe. It's almost like unconditional liquidity coming to the market all the time.

[Carol Massar]

What can cause too much liquid, too much problem.

[Christel Rondelent]

Exactly. And that's the conversation we want to have with our clients is don't get lulled into it.

[Tim Stenovec]

But that brings up a lot of questions about the association or the ramifications of increased productivity. And that has to do with fewer people. And if there are fewer people needed, then fewer people will be working. And it opens up this whole question about what that economy ends up looking like.

[Christel Rondelent]

Yeah, absolutely. I think, I mean, honestly, this is really still far out. So we're going to take it one after the other for now. What we're seeing and you can't disentangle, you know, the normal economy with what's already coming from AI. But what you see is unemployment rates are still low, the growth is still strong. And so we let's take it one at a time.

[Carol Massar]

Are you talking unemployment, US Unemployment, US

[Christel Rondelent]

and you know, on this you have to also put against the trend that's allegedly going to take out so many jobs, the fact that the demographics in most parts of the world, let's say of the developed world, are also pretty negative. So I'll wait and see a little bit on this one.

[Carol Massar]

Chris, you guys are a global wealth management firm. You're based in Switzerland. Right. And I'm just curious you know, I'm Looking at the MSCI World Index up about 7% year to date. World Index ex U S up about 6 and a half percent S&P is up 8% year to date. The NASDAQ 1/ hundreds up 15% year to date. Emerging markets are up 22% year to date. I didn't even break it down in terms of European markets and so on and so forth. You can presumably look at the world. Which parts of the world do you like the most?

[Christel Rondelent]

What I like the most, diversification. Honestly, that is the conversation to be had.

[Carol Massar]

So what is diversification from a global perspective?

[Christel Rondelent]

So I'll tell you what, what is the conversation that I want to have with the clients is about three C's concentration, currency custody. And the concentration is that we have one of the largest market in the world, the US equity market, which has a third third of its valuation in seven stocks. That's a historical high. And that trend is so powerful that you actually find ripples into other asset classes. You have corporate debt from tech firms now, you know, when I left managing fixed income, there was no debt from tech firms. And now there is actually quite a substantial problem though.

[Carol Massar]

I mean, great. The debt markets largely seem to like it. Yeah, right. Their investor interest. But I do get a little nervous. These guys have deep pockets, lots of money.

[Christel Rondelent]

I don't know, you know, it's not a problem per se is just as an investor you don't want to have all your eggs on one theme only. So pick your theme. And if I picked one, I picked the equity part probably for the. Because that's. It's a growth story.

[Tim Stenovec]

So underweight or overweight us.

[Christel Rondelent]

What did you say?

[Tim Stenovec]

Underweight or overweight us.

[Christel Rondelent]

Neutral. Can I say that? Yeah, I'd say neutral, to be honest, that's a neutral, but I wouldn't be on the weight. So it's a neutral positive.

[Carol Massar]

So are you then skewed? Because I know what you said about market concentration here in the US but you like the AI play. So are you skewed though towards those big tech names?

[Christel Rondelent]

This is not, in a sense. I mean, that is a very. It's a very hard call to be made. I think what I'm skewed toward is saying the macro theme is real. You don't want to over concentrate around that. And that are the conversation. This is precisely the conversation we're having with the clients is where do you express that view, how much and what other asset classes, other geographies, other currencies you want to hold because ultimately, remember, the key call for your wealth is how you allocate across asset geographies, etc. It's the most underrated call.

[Tim Stenovec]

Even in the with the decline of energy prices that we've seen in the past few days, oil is still up more than 65% this year. Could that derail what you view as a resilient macro environment?

[Christel Rondelent]

It could if it lasts long enough. And I don't have, I don't know. You're going to ask me how long is this? Too long. I don't know either.

[Tim Stenovec]

We'll know.

[Christel Rondelent]

Well, no, we'll know what it is.

[Carol Massar]

We'll see it in Europe, certainly in Asia to this conflict that was started by the US And Israel. They are feeling the pain more than we are.

[Christel Rondelent]

Yes, that's true. In terms of the energy dependency, I would say the consumer headlines might actually be stronger in the US because of the tank, you know, price at the tank, which is always a very sensitive topic in the U.S. but yes, you're right. And the longer it lasts, the more it will have an impact on the economy.

[Carol Massar]

Is there another market that you like though? I am curious. Like we've talked a lot about defense spending that seems to be increasing throughout Europe and other places. You like it. It's very clear. You do like the US market, but you're kind of neutral.

[Christel Rondelent]

I like the, I like the fixed income as well, to be honest, because I didn't buy that argument in 2022. This is the end. 6040. I think it was just the, I

[Carol Massar]

feel like it never goes away.

[Christel Rondelent]

Even though it was a nice reminder that, you know, rates can go up and in that period, when you call the economy, everything goes down at the same time. Doesn't mean you don't. We want to do without. And the other part of the like is can you do something with the volatility in the market? And I think you can.

[Carol Massar]

I think we have to run.

[Tim Stenovec]

We got to run.

[Carol Massar]

Hope you back soon. We would love to, we would love to continue this. A really good conversation. Christel, thank you so much. Randu Delint she is of course co CEO at Vontobel. It is a global wealth management based in Switzerland. But she found her way. She's spending New York this week. She's heading home soon. But glad she made a stop with us.

[Tim Stenovec]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily coming up after this.

[Podcast Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Tim Stenovec]

The story of the New York Times today grabbing our attention. The headline, how energy prices are driving demand for solar panels and heat pumps.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah, I mean, it's about the sales of EVs, heat pumps, solar panels, they are surging over in Europe and this is all it makes sense, Tim. It's a result of those higher energy prices that is caused by the US war in Iran.

[Tim Stenovec]

On that we've got with us Danielle Barcelo. He's chairman and CEO of the renewables energy equipment manufacturing company T1 Energy. The firm has a market cap of around 1.6 billion doll shares this year, down around 15%. He joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Welcome. How are you?

[Danielle Barcelo]

I'm great. Thanks for having me.

[Tim Stenovec]

How so? The European demand is certainly one story. In the US there's a different story playing out because there's not as much support from the federal government, from the central government as there is in other parts of the world and as there have been in the past. How is that and what does that mean for, for where you sit?

[Danielle Barcelo]

Yeah, I actually think the US has been very supportive and is currently still supportive of even renewable energy. I tend to think of T1 energy and renewable energy is the wrong word almost. It's just energy. I spent decades in oil and gas. Solar is just a form of it. It is extremely competitive on a cost basis. It is rapid to scale and it's what we need. When you look back at Europe a few years ago when they had the whole crisis with Russia, natural gas prices, you had extreme pain there.

[Tim Stenovec]

How can you say the US is supportive right now given the President? I mean, look, the president, he, it seems like he hates windmills the most and wind energy the most, but he really likes coal and he sort of the Pentagon to buy coal power.

[Danielle Barcelo]

OABBA kept in place incentives for batteries,

[Tim Stenovec]

but with a lot of fighting from, from lawmakers to try to keep that language in there. That was a, that was a challenging part at the end of that in

[Danielle Barcelo]

July and T1 was, was involved there and we were pushing to say, look, we need, we need certain support here in order to levelize, particularly the capital formation of it. Because I do think when you get these assets running in the US they're extremely competitive because a lot of this, these, these assets, particularly in solar manufacturing, it's a function of electricity prices as an input water, specialty gases. So you can have OPEX cash, OPEX costs that are extremely competitive. US still struggles on a levelized cost in terms of capex. Because when you're, when you're building in America, it's expensive. This fire code, there's OSHA code, of course, you have to do things the right way and build the right way, but we build very slow in America and we build very expensively. So I really think the story here is about how do we build manufacturing capacity, bring jobs back and bring, bring the production of the solar assets into the United States.

[Carol Massar]

Well, Dan, some might say if you want to ask how it's done, just ask China. Like, how do we think about China in the midst of all of this and whether or not, you know, how, what they do in terms of pricing and market destruction, we could have a debate about that. But what are you watching in terms of what China is doing in their position in this world and what the US Needs to do to also be super competitive?

[Danielle Barcelo]

China and for that matter, Southeast Asia is extremely competitive on manufacturing in the solar and storage space. It is a manufacturing play rather than a drilling play, rather than an ore extraction play.

[Carol Massar]

Right.

[Danielle Barcelo]

And for America to take back that manufacturing, I think is, is the right step to do. We did that by purchasing our asset in Dallas from a leading Trina Solar, a leading company at the time. We bought it, we own it now we run it, we're building, we build modules, which is the panel. Now we're building the cells which go into the panel and we're bringing that in. You know, we're doing that others.

[Carol Massar]

Do you want to be vertical? Is that what we.

[Danielle Barcelo]

We have a partnership with Corning and with Hemlock. Hemlock Semiconductor sells us poly, Corning will sell us wafers. We're focused on the cell level and the module level right now. That's where our main focus is. And look, when we look at the announcement from Elon from about a few months ago where he's saying, you want to do 100 gigawatts over 18 months. That is a clear signal of how manufacturing has to come back into the space, into solar.

[Tim Stenovec]

You're building this massive solar plant in Austin, made in America solar cells. When will those actually roll off the line?

[Danielle Barcelo]

We expect to start production by the end of this year.

[Tim Stenovec]

Okay.

[Danielle Barcelo]

We've started production late last year. We have equipment coming, coming in, sites down, foundations good. You know, we're tracking so far.

[Tim Stenovec]

So starting production end of end of this year, does that, does that mean that those will be rolling off the line at the end of this year?

[Danielle Barcelo]

Yes.

[Carol Massar]

Okay, well, one of the things we wanted to ask you Is I think just looking at some data. Renewables are expected to be over 90% of US utility additions in 2026 this year. What does the American energy landscape look like in your view?

[Danielle Barcelo]

5 now, particularly solar and storage. It was about 80% of the net electricity grid in the last two years. That's a phenomenal number, you know. Yeah, and I think that's going to continue because it's scalable. It's speed to market. Speed to market. Speed to market. I like to say that before an oil and gas or an energy, you know, we were always governed by technology, 3D seismic fracking, all this incredible, you know, technology to help drill. But now technology is driven by how much energy you can get on the grid as fast as possible. One part is generation, the other part is transmission, which is a different part. But in terms of the generation, solar and storage. Storage can move the time around the solar. It just adds tremendous generation to the grid fast when you're talking storage.

[Carol Massar]

So five years from now, what do you think the energy here in the landscape look like in America?

[Danielle Barcelo]

Combination of natural gas and solar and storm storage will dominate the American power grid. I think nuclear will stay where it was. Maybe we'll have more advancements in smarts better as you go out longer term. But when you look less, 20, 30, 40 years, you've seen nuclear kind of pinned where it is. I don't. We're not going to have more.

[Carol Massar]

You don't buy into the hype around nuclear today? I think interest, I should say.

[Danielle Barcelo]

I think there's a lot of complexity in regulatory aspects and cost structures and ongoing parts for it. America hasn't had the growth in nuclear that they've seen for decades. Look what natural gas did. It took coal down from over 50% in 20 years. It did that through risk taking, capital investments, fracking, and it was distributable. You could put natural gas turbines anywhere you want.

[Carol Massar]

It comes down to at some point, math, right, Tim?

[Jeff Gundlach]

Right.

[Carol Massar]

Like you look at the different prices

[Danielle Barcelo]

and costs of things and that's exactly it. And one can argue that, oh, subsidies helped on the capex side or not. But when you get to levelized cost of energy and bringing it out, solar and storage prices have come down to round the prices of where natural gas is.

[Tim Stenovec]

Whenever you're saying storage, you're just saying batteries, right?

[Danielle Barcelo]

Correct.

[Tim Stenovec]

Okay, how much has the technology improved and how much will it improve in the next few years? So these batteries become less expensive, they're less reliant on critical minerals that are difficult to come by critical materials that are difficult to come by because they're very expensive.

[Danielle Barcelo]

Right now the world, the world has shifted a lot from NMC towards lfc, which removes cadmium and other.

[Carol Massar]

Wait, what are those acronyms mean?

[Danielle Barcelo]

Lithium, iron phosphate, removing nickel, manganese, cobalt. Okay, so cobalt in terms of having, we'll say more toxicity and issues there. Okay, so, so when you switched from NMC to LFP batteries, you've actually seen now to your answer, some more abundant minerals. So less of a concern when you're getting to, to that.

[Tim Stenovec]

What about cost?

[Danielle Barcelo]

The pricing has collapsed. So you've seen pricing of batteries go from $150 a kilowatt hour all the way down below 50 at the cell level. That has come through with a massive amount of supply out of Asia and China.

[Tim Stenovec]

Do how much lower does that go? Like is it, is it like, I think sort of technology law type thing.

[Danielle Barcelo]

I was going to go into that. Yeah, it's just, it's just grinding down. You know, we were in the battery space before we pivoted to solar and when you look left you see Samsung and then this way you got lg and then you got Catl, the big Chinese and then you got Panasonic and then oh, here's Tesla. I mean the dominance of those players to just grind down, grind down, grind down battery technology in the solar space, which has historically been all Chinese, you see the same grinding down. What's very also interesting, I noticed you coming in the semiconductor space.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah.

[Danielle Barcelo]

There is this large connection of semiconductors being polysilicon based and solar being supportive of the industry from poly perspective as well.

[Carol Massar]

Cool stuff. Come back soon. We really love it. Dan Barcelo, chairman and CEO of the renewables energy equipment manufacturing company T1 Energy, joining us.

[Tim Stenovec]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Coming up after this.

[Podcast Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Tim Stenovec]

We got to talk private credit. It came up when Katie and Romain were speaking yesterday to Double Line CEO and CIO Jeff Gundmark, who compared the present moment in private credit to the conditions seen in 2007, highlighting significant risks and potential domino effects.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Trust problem is pretty significant. I mean, it appears that many of the investors in the interval funds didn't quite understand what was going on with the gating possibilities. The investors are being sold to through intermediaries. In many, many cases, those intermediaries get paid A very large commission. I read reporting that there were billions of dollars paid to intermediaries selling private credit by the private credit firms. Billions of dollars. So they have a lot of incentive to not, not focus exclusively on the negatives, let me put it that way.

[Tim Stenovec]

That was Jeff Gundlach of double Line yesterday on Bloomberg. For more on private credit, we've got a great duo joining us. Great to have. Back in the studio, Michael Gross, co founder and co CEO of SLR Capital partners, independent asset manager that's focused on delivering flexible debt capital solutions to U. S based middle market businesses. Also one of the co founders of Apollo Management, now Apollo Global management. He's not the only one.

[Carol Massar]

He's not. Also with us is James Crombie. He's Bloomberg news senior editor credit. He joins us here in our Bloomberg interactive broker studio as well. We lean on James a lot when it comes to private credit. But Michael, I want to kick it off with you. On the earnings call this week you said that these dynamics have triggered a speculative and often negative global conversation about the industry unlike anything we've seen in our 20 years of operating SLR Capital Partners and decades of experience managing BDCs that were designed to match the ownership of illiquid private credit assets with permanent equity. That's pretty strong.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Well, first of all, thank you for having me today and good to be with you again, James. Yeah, it is pretty strong and it comes from the fact that we haven't been through a cycle in like 17 years, so everyone's kind of gotten spoiled. And to Jeff Gundlach's comments earlier, there are a lot of investors out there who don't quite realize what they were sold in terms of liquidity. And so when you started to see cracks in the system and retail investors being unable to get their money back, the media kind of picked up on that and brought private credit to the forefront. At the same time that all happened, all the concerns about AI and the impact on software came to roost. And all of a sudden we're sitting here having come through earnings seasons where for the first time in 10, 15 years you have BDCs reporting negative ROEs for the quarter. Why? Because their net asset values have been written down to reflect the mark to market of these software loans and other loans to the point that it more than exceeded their investment income for the quarter. And so this set off a whole

[Carol Massar]

set of nervousness like a mortgage being underwater. Right. Ish, ish, ish. Anyway, go ahead.

[Jeff Gundlach]

But you know, I think the discussion that should take place is Whether this is kind of a permanent change or whether this is a mark to market change which has the ability to come back.

[Carol Massar]

What do you think?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I think both. I think the narrative that the public BDCs are talking about when they talk about their navs decline for the quarter is that reflects spreads widening. Now yes, spreads did widen this past quarter. People should mark their portfolios accordingly to take that into effect. But I would argue some of that spread widening or discounts have been put in place, is permanent and can actually become lower. Why? Because all these software loans we're talking about, which are 20, 30% of people's exposure, still has real downside. Just the fact they're trading lower doesn't mean that's the bottom.

[Tim Stenovec]

But is that, is that downside? And this is, you know, a part of a broader conversation, Michael. But is the downside, is that warranted, like the potential downside warranted right now? Because there's a whole group of people that says, you know, this, this, these software as a service companies are not going to be replaced by Claude or by what you can build on cloud.

[Jeff Gundlach]

They're not. And here's the issue as a private equity investor. If you have a portfolio of software companies, five of them can do well and three can be zeros and you could still be okay.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah.

[Jeff Gundlach]

In credit where we're making 8, 9, 10, 11%, we have to be close to perfect. We have to make money on our loans 99% of the time so we can get net returns for investors. So if you're lending to software companies and three or four of them go belly up, that's a problem. It kind of doesn't matter what the rest of portfolio is. You've put a real dent in it.

[Carol Massar]

James, come on in.

[James Crombie]

I'm interested, Mike, in the response from investors to this news, to your results. The stock is down a lot. When we spoke, we were talking about outperformance in your portfolio because of the relatively low exposure to software. You're certainly outperforming on that basis. But now I'm looking at the stock, I think it was down the most since March 2020 and it's down at a four year low right now. What do you make of that?

[Jeff Gundlach]

It's obviously disappointing. I can control a lot of things. I can't control how our stock trades. What I will say is when I think about the fundamentals, this quarter we had zero non accruals. Our net asset value was down 50 basis points, whereas the peers were down 200 to 1,000 basis points. And our ROE for the quarter was 7%. We were one of four or five public BDCs who had a positive ROE for the quarter. And the reason we're able to accomplish all that is. To your earlier comment, we have 2% software exposure and the vast majority of our loans are asset based loans in specialty finance strategies as opposed to the traditional cash flow loans which are exhibiting this volatility.

[Tim Stenovec]

So you think investors are getting it wrong?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I think investors are partially getting it wrong. I think we, we lowered our dividend to reflect what our current earnings power is. We want to take the pressure off the investment team to go do investments just for the sake of supporting a dividend. Because we are very conservative. We have tools in place to kind of rebuild our income. And importantly the fact that we start dividend was not credit related, it wasn't loss related, it was voluntary based on what we think the current earnings levels are.

[James Crombie]

Last time that we talked also you told me you were buying the stock because it was so cheap. Are you doing the same now?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I likely will.

[Carol Massar]

But not yet.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Not yet. I haven't yet.

[Tim Stenovec]

Why wait?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I have to have the window period opened up.

[Carol Massar]

Okay, okay.

[Tim Stenovec]

But at these levels you're buying, I think it's interesting.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Okay, for sure.

[Carol Massar]

How closely do you watch the macro in terms of maybe putting additional pressure on your investments and just the private credit world overall?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I mean, of course we watch it. You know, we watch what's going on in Iran, we watch what's going on with oil prices. But fortunately for us, given that we're not predominantly a cash flow lender, we're not really impacted. The value of the receivables that we lend against and the inventory lend against really aren't impacted by these factors because importantly, this collateral turns over quickly. These aren't five year assets. The rest of the turnover in 30 to 60 days.

[James Crombie]

I think if you step back and look at what was being reported out of Milken, there was a lot of talk about private credit and we had a lot of discussion around trust and I think Jeff mentioned that as well, that trust is hard to win and very easy to lose and it's lost. Now. How do you get it back?

[Jeff Gundlach]

By performing by following through what we say and continue to show people that we have a very defensive portfolio. It's extremely conservative. That's going to perform in good markets as well as bad markets.

[Tim Stenovec]

To piggyback off of James's question, is there a chance with the volatility that we've seen and the negative headlines that we've Seen when it comes to private credit, it's turned off a class of investors that you might have thought would be available to buy in.

[Jeff Gundlach]

It's a great question because if you think about the vast majority of investors in public BDCs are retail investors. Yeah, those people get scared first and those people that follow trends. We are seeing incredible interest still in private credit and specifically what we do from institutions and high net worth family offices. There's a real desire to be in private credit. People realize that this is a long term asset class that makes sense if you invest. The right managers and the sophisticated people are saying to themselves I already have exposure to traditional cash flow lending. Where can I get differentiated exposure within private credit that's not correlated to the rest of the market.

[Carol Massar]

But do you think opening it up to more and more retail investors or individual investors that ultimately you're going to have so much money chasing ultimately pressured to do deals that really just don't make sense?

[Jeff Gundlach]

It's already happened.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah.

[Jeff Gundlach]

I mean with the proliferation of these non traded BDCs, too much money was raised too much quickly and that caused certain managers to lose discipline and put money out quickly just for the sake of putting it out.

[Carol Massar]

So should we slow it down in terms of the exposure?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I think the manager should slow it down and have the discipline to not take in capital if there's not a good place to put it.

[James Crombie]

In any shakeout there's a kind of a gravitation towards scale and liquidity and the safety of brands that you kind of know. We've done a piece that came out today just on how your old shop Apollo is actually benefiting, it seems by this turmoil and they're taking advantage. They have the scale to do that. Is it a question of size matters at this point and you have to be big to survive.

[Jeff Gundlach]

I actually think personally it's the opposite. I think we've gone into a world where there's a disecount of scale by being too large and having targets of 1 trillion or 2 trillion of assets. Your focus is on accumulating assets and not investing it. And you need to go after bigger companies which have more options in liquid market. By being a niche player, assuming you have the right resources and capital base and cost of capital, you can go after different seams within private credit that offer differentiated and better return with actually with less risk.

[Carol Massar]

So do you think that Apollo year old firm is setting itself up for some problems in the future just because of its size and forcing it?

[Jeff Gundlach]

I don't. I think you know you know, I'm biased because I came out of Apollo.

[Carol Massar]

I didn't mean to put you on

[Jeff Gundlach]

the spot, but I'm just curious and I'm a big fan of Mark Rowan. I think he's one of the most brilliant people in the business. He's an investor first.

[Carol Massar]

Yeah.

[Jeff Gundlach]

So he has these public goals, but he's not going to be willing to sacrifice returns for doing it.

[James Crombie]

The redemptions we saw in May. Sorry, not made last month and the month before, we're setting ourselves up for another round of that very, very soon. We Groundhog Day in June and just

[Carol Massar]

got about 15, 20 seconds.

[Tim Stenovec]

Yes, you will see, you will see

[Jeff Gundlach]

similar redemptions because once people start, they're not going to stop.

[Carol Massar]

That is an investor who knows his mind. He knows how to answer quickly. Michael Gross, thank you so much. Generous with your time. SLR Capital Partners co founder here in studio, James Crombie, always generous with his time for us, Senior editor of Credit here at Bloomberg News.

[Tim Stenovec]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg businessweek Daily Coming up after this.

[Carol Massar]

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[Jeff Gundlach]

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[Podcast Host]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week daily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 Eastern Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app or watch us live on YouTube.

[Carol Massar]

Guess what day is coming?

[Tim Stenovec]

It is Mother's Day on Sunday.

[Carol Massar]

Just saying.

[Tim Stenovec]

What's the plan in the master household?

[Carol Massar]

Actually, the daughter is not gonna be there.

[Tim Stenovec]

So what does that mean for the husband?

[Carol Massar]

I don't know. I don't know. He's, he's always like, he always says this to our daughter. Aggie's like, this is your day that you've got to, like, make sure you take care of Mom. So.

[Tim Stenovec]

Okay. Well, maybe, hey, it's not too late for a surprise visit from, you know, the other city that she lives in.

[Carol Massar]

I know. That's true.

[Meenakshi Lala]

Yeah.

[Carol Massar]

Okay.

[Tim Stenovec]

So maybe it could happen.

[Carol Massar]

I think she's coming next weekend.

[Tim Stenovec]

Okay. If you don't have your plans together, you gotta.

[Carol Massar]

Are you ready for your wife?

[Tim Stenovec]

Yeah, of course. Always.

[Carol Massar]

Okay.

[Tim Stenovec]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Jeff Gundlach]

Okay.

[Tim Stenovec]

Mother's Day is actually one of the biggest sales periods for flowers here in the United States. States. It's great to have back with us Meenakshi Lala, CEO of the online florist Urban Stem. She joins us from Hyattsville, Maryland, where Urban Stem has the largest distribution center in its business. Meenakshi, it's been a more than a year since we last spoke. It's good to have you on the program. First off, how are sales going into this holiday this year?

[Meenakshi Lala]

Yeah, thanks for having me again. It has been a year. Good memory, Tim. Sales are good. I've always said this, that last, last minute consumers, 60 to 70% of our sales come in this week, the week of Mother's day, and about 30% come in within 48 hours of the holiday. So it's a very, very busy week for us.

[Tim Stenovec]

Are sales as Good Meenakshi as they have been in recent years. And you know, never bring up a competitor when you're interviewing someone. But I'm going to do it. We talked to Christina Stembel of Farm Girl Flowers a few weeks ago and she told us, you know, things are a little slower than they have historically been going into this holiday.

[Meenakshi Lala]

You know, I expected this because you did this exact thing the last year I came on your show. So I was prepared for it.

[Tim Stenovec]

Okay, you have a good memory.

[Meenakshi Lala]

Yes, I do. And Carol called you out on it too. But you know, look, sales are definitely becoming more compressed. We definitely see that there is economic pressure. So we are seeing a lot of the K shaped economic behavior where we're most definitely seeing, you know, the big shoppers are shopping bigger. Our average order values are up double digits year over year. We are seeing customers add more additive products in addition to flowers. They want caviar, they want cheese boards, they want premium chocolates, they want Levine cookies, they want alcohol. We're seeing 30% of our orders get additive components, premium components added, which is increasing the average order value. However, we are seeing slowness in the opening price points which is definitely indicating the masses are struggling with purchasing and we are seeing softness in that opening price point here.

[Carol Massar]

Actually remind us who your customer is like because as you said, you're seeing some distinction or differentiation in terms of customers and what they can or what they are doing.

[Meenakshi Lala]

Yeah, our customer is that busy city girl. She is on her on the move. She is in, you know, 30s to 50s, she is working, she is a mother. She's, you know, carries a lot of mental load doing a lot of things. About 70 to 80% of our demographic is female shoppers. We do see a mix, you know, of men shopping as well, but a large, the large segment is definitely female dominated.

[Tim Stenovec]

How does delivery work on Sunday?

[Meenakshi Lala]

Sunday definitely stretches us with Monday because we rely on third party delivery services to deliver in most of the country. The uniqueness about urban stems is we have built a distribution and logistics network where we have fulfillment centers around the country. We fulfill from seven distinct locations around the country. That gives us a very broad reach. We do educate and train our customers to understand the limitations around centimeters delivery and hence Friday and Saturday are also significant days for us. We see we are seeing over 25,000 orders that will be delivered for Saturday delivery this Mother's Day.

[Carol Massar]

I'm always a last minute or it's

[Meenakshi Lala]

like, yeah, you and me both.

[Carol Massar]

It's like crazy. So these numbers though, this compressed timeline that you Guys have to deal with that. I think you share this with our team. You guys see 60 to 70% of the customers shop the week of and 30% of that shop within 48 hours of the holiday. I mean, this is where I'm sure you'd love to send a message. Folks, order earlier. How do you, how do you then buy and make sure your supply chain and everything is in place for what you need to fulfill those orders?

[Meenakshi Lala]

Yeah, you know, for years we, we tried to train the customer, educate the customer to order early, you know, talked about the nuances and the complexities of what it takes to ship perishable product, especially, you know, but what we call it the Amazon effect. Right. Consumers expect fast and seamless deliveries even in whether it's a high volatile environment or on these big seasonal days. And the approach we've taken as a business is we are going to gear our supply chain and logistics to meet that customer demand. And we do that. We are in market for nationwide delivery. Any zip code in the United States, we can ship until 9pm Eastern tonight and in big metros, nine same day cities until Sunday afternoon. So we have developed that coverage and that logistical, logistic, agility and expertise to meet our customer demand. So, Tim and Carol, I heard you say your last minute order. We are here for you.

[Tim Stenovec]

So I'm one of four and we kind of go all in together, which is good. So we have the sibling. I shouldn't talk about this because my mom's probably listening. But yeah, we have, we're taken care of. But you know, we can always send more. It's funny, you were, you were mentioning caviar, levain, cookies, alcohol, and Carol was just Levain. Yes, yes, yes. Oh, chocolate. Yeah, that's another good one.

[Carol Massar]

I just love good, yummy, like a good cookie, a good chocolate, a good glass of wine, Prosecco, you name it. Nice bouquet of flowers. Anybody listening?

[Tim Stenovec]

Hey, you didn't say caviar. Yeah, it's been right now.

[Meenakshi Lala]

I know.

[Carol Massar]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Tim Stenovec]

You could try it.

[Carol Massar]

Do people buy a lot of caviar?

[Meenakshi Lala]

Absolutely. We are seeing food and alcohol gift sets that are averaging just under 200. $200 AOV, significantly above our core business this holiday. So partnerships have been a big driver of that. Our collaboration with levain represents 50% of our food and gifting business. At alcohol attach rates are roughly 25% of those orders. So customers, customers are buying flowers, they're adding cookies and adding alcohol or adding a cheese board from Baudry and adding Aveline, Prosecco or Rose depends on your taste. But we alcohol and food bundles are driving a third of our revenue, which is huge for this time period for us.

[Tim Stenovec]

Where do the flowers? I just we only have about a minute left but the flowers that are most popular, where? Where are they coming from?

[Podcast Host]

From?

[Meenakshi Lala]

So we source from 13 countries around the world and the intent of doing that is to bring you the best seasonal flower from that region. So we have the roses from Ecuador, we have peonies and tulips and hyacinths coming from Holland, we have sunflowers coming from Colombia. So we have product coming from 13 countries and we assemble those, plant those, grow those and assemble those with our firms, with the best firms in the business and the inventory in 20 bring the inventory in and we have about five days to sell and ship that product from the time it arrives in the country.

[Carol Massar]

Meenakshi 10 seconds. You're a mom. Do you want to get flowers for Mother's Day or do you want something else?

[Meenakshi Lala]

I do not want to get flowers. I want to get a good night's sleep after ensuring all the moms in United States of America have received their flowers.

[Carol Massar]

Well, happy Mother's Day to you. I'm so appreciate it. Meenakshi Lala she is a great course CEO of Urban Stems. Happy Mother's Day everybody.

[Podcast Host]

This is the Bloomberg businessweek daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify and anywhere else you get. Your podcasts listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5pm Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business App. You can also watch us live Every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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