Unilever Food Arm to Join McCormick in $44.8 Billion Deal

Summary

Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast — Episode Summary

Episode: "Unilever Food Arm to Join McCormick in $44.8 Billion Deal"

Date: March 31, 2026
Hosts: Paul Sweeney & Scarlet Fu
Guests: Diana Gomes (Senior Equity Analyst), Sam Fazeli (Director of Research, Pharmaceuticals), Mandeep Singh (Global Tech Research Head), Hannah Levitt (Senior Finance Reporter)

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Overview

This episode delivers sharp analysis of major market-moving corporate actions:

• Unilever’s $44.8bn merger of its Food Division with McCormick
• Healthcare M&A, including Eli Lilly’s and Biogen’s latest acquisitions
• Nvidia’s deepening tech alliances
• JP Morgan’s major push into small business banking through its new American Dream Initiative

The conversation is driven by expert Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. They contextualize deals within broader sector strategies and dissect investor and market reactions.

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Unilever & McCormick: $44.8 Billion Food Business Merger

Guest: Diana Gomes, Bloomberg Intelligence
Segment Start: [02:05]

Strategic Rationale for the Merger

• Combining Strengths:
  • McCormick brings expertise in natural ingredients.
  • Unilever delivers iconic global brands, especially protein-rich and topping categories.
  • "It's really a combination of bringing the expertise from McCormick on the natural ingredients side...with Unilever’s foods' iconic brands." (Diana Gomes, [02:32])
• Market Expansion:
  • The deal gives McCormick reach into emerging markets not currently penetrated, except India (which is excluded from the deal).
  • Enhanced scale is aimed at accelerating growth for both companies.

Investor Skepticism and Stock Reactions

• McCormick Shares Drop:

  • Immediate market response: McCormick down 3.7%.
  • Investor concerns about integration risks and the challenge of reaching ambitious growth targets ("...execution risk is quite high. And it's going to be a much more complex organization..." – Gomes, [03:20])
  • Targeted sales growth: 3–5% within three years, up from 2%.

• Unilever Shares Down:

  • Unilever stock fell 5.5% on the day; 12% year-to-date.
  • Gomes points out the deal is "stock heavy," with only $16bn in cash for a business generating $22bn in revenue.
  • "It’s not going to be a clear-cut exit and it also comes at the time of heightened uncertainty." (Gomes, [05:59])

Implications for Rivals and the Broader Sector

• Competitive Impact:
  • The combination strengthens both companies not just in consumer brands, but also in food service (B2B), intensifying competition for global giants like Nestlé and Kraft Heinz.
  • "Definitely, it’s going to build their competitive force compared to rivals in that space as well." (Gomes, [05:16])

Unilever’s Forward Focus

• Strategic Shift:
  • Unilever pivots to personal care and wellbeing, a less price-sensitive (inelastic) segment, accelerating a strategy spearheaded by new leadership (Fernando Fernandez).
  • Move expected to reduce exposure to volatile food commodities and macro risks.

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Healthcare M&A: Eli Lilly & Biogen Build Their Pipelines

Guest: Sam Fazeli, Bloomberg Intelligence
Segment Start: [09:50]

Eli Lilly Buys Sentessa Pharmaceuticals

• Deal Details: $6bn for a company developing novel sleep disorder drugs (orexin pathway).
• Strategic Rationale:
  • Lilly is not facing an urgent patent cliff; this is "offensive rather than defensive."
  • "So Lilly’s doing exactly what he should be doing, just slowly padding its pipeline…" (Fazeli, [12:02])
• Relative Scale:
  • $6bn is "a week’s worth of cash flow for Lilly" (Fazeli, [10:15]); not transformational, but keeps the neuroscience pipeline fresh.

Biogen Acquires Apellis for $5.6bn

• Deal Size: More significant for Biogen than Lilly’s acquisition is for Lilly.
• Strategic Fit:
  • Biogen pivots from neurology focus to a broader immunology and rare diseases platform.
  • "I think Apellis is a reasonable fit from that strategy perspective." (Fazeli, [14:28])

Patent Expiry Dynamics

• What Happens When a Drug Goes Off-Patent?
  • For small molecules:
    • First: small drop during initial exclusive generic entry (6 months).
    • Then: "catastrophic drop" as many generics flood market. Companies may retain some revenue via branded generics.
  • Biologics:
    • Drop-off is smoother due to complex replication and limited biosimilar entry.
  • “A little drop, six months later, catastrophic drop.” (Fazeli, [13:06])

---

Tech Sector: Nvidia & Marvell Partnership

Guest: Mandeep Singh, Bloomberg Intelligence
Segment Start: [18:18]

Nvidia’s $2 Billion Stake in Marvell

• Deal Significance:
  • Meaningful for Marvell. For Nvidia (“not meaningful” at their cash generation scale).
  • "Nvidia may end up generating $150 billion in cash for 2026." (Singh, [18:42])
• Ecosystem Playbook:
  • Nvidia seeks to make its GPUs ubiquitous across cloud and enterprise stacks, even forging ties with ASIC/networking chipmakers serving Amazon and other cloud giants.
  • “Nvidia by giving Marvell $2 billion is saying, 'Hey, we want to integrate with your ecosystem.'” (Singh, [19:12])
• Relentless Lead:
  • Strategic acquisitions (like Mellanox) keep Nvidia ahead of AMD, Intel.
  • “Jensen is like three steps ahead of everyone in terms of thinking through what is coming next.” (Singh, [20:20])

Market Position & Valuation

• Nvidia’s Dominance:
  • The “Intel of AI,” Nvidia is seen as indispensable for AI infrastructure.
  • "Everyone is using Nvidia when it comes to AI now." (Singh, [22:26])
• Valuation:
  • At 20x earnings, “It’s a cheap stock.” (Singh, [21:50])
• Who isn’t using Nvidia chips?
  • The main parallel: Google’s TPUs (Broadcom ecosystem), otherwise it’s “inevitable” that enterprises will touch Nvidia.

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Banking Sector: JP Morgan’s “American Dream Initiative”

Guest: Hannah Levitt, Bloomberg News
Segment Start: [25:38]

What Is the American Dream Initiative?

• 10-Year, $80 Billion Commitment:
  • Focuses on local communities in 6 core areas — small business, housing, financial health, etc.
  • Immediate emphasis: lending to small business; target is to grow clients from 7 to 10 million.
  • “They will be investing $80 billion over 10 years in lending to small businesses…hiring a thousand more small business bankers.” (Levitt, [25:52])

Bigger Strategic Picture

• Reasserting Small Business Banking Roots:
  • JP Morgan seeks to reclaim and expand its traditional small business prowess, reminiscent of the Chase Manhattan era.
  • “I think…they're trying to maybe reestablish that part of the business for themselves.” (Interviewer, [26:52])
• Branch Strategy:
  • Maintains national branch presence for both functional and advertising purposes.
  • "They’ve been adding branches for years…they’re the only bank to be in all lower 48 states." (Levitt, [29:03])
• Competitive Landscape:
  • Not just targeting big banks (BofA, Wells Fargo), but also embracing local and regional banks.
  • “In some sense it’s not an effort to take out community banks; it’s more an effort to grow the pie for everyone.” (Levitt, [28:14])

Banking Industry Sentiment

• Growth Optimism:
  • Despite global uncertainties, banks are positive about continued deregulation and loan growth.
  • “They’re definitely enthused about the level of deregulation and the ability to chip back at areas that non-banks have chipped away at over the years.” (Levitt, [30:09])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Unilever/McCormick merger:

  • “Execution risk is quite high. And it’s going to be a much more complex organization.” – Diana Gomes, [03:20]

• On healthcare deal scale:

  • "Six billion is, you know, I don’t know, a week’s worth of cash flow for Lilly." – Sam Fazeli, [10:15]

• On Nvidia's dominance:

  • "Everyone is using Nvidia when it comes to AI now." – Mandeep Singh, [22:26]
  • “Jensen is like three steps ahead of everyone in terms of thinking through what is coming next.” – Mandeep Singh, [20:20]

• On JP Morgan's branch approach:

  • “Jamie Dimon…has always been a believer in the power of the branch. They’ve been adding branches for years.” – Hannah Levitt, [29:03]
  • “It is advertising. And also, they do…events at the branches...” – Hannah Levitt, [29:42]

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Key Timestamps

• [02:05] – Unilever/McCormick deal breakdown
• [09:50] – Healthcare M&A: Lilly/Sentessa, Biogen/Apellis
• [18:18] – Tech: Nvidia’s investments and ecosystem strategy
• [25:38] – JP Morgan’s American Dream Initiative

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Takeaways

• Major deals in food, pharma, and tech reflect companies’ efforts to scale, diversify, or remain dominant amid changing economic landscapes.
• Unilever’s pivot away from food, McCormick’s execution challenge, and skeptical investor response highlight the risks in mega-mergers.
• Healthcare M&A is often about systematic pipeline reinforcement, not just plugging patent gaps.
• Nvidia’s strategic ecosystem expansion keeps it central to the AI revolution, with little sign of disruption.
• JP Morgan is doubling down on small business banking, leveraging community presence and optimism about ongoing industry deregulation.

This episode provides in-depth, actionable intelligence for investors tracking structural shifts in major sectors.

Transcript

[Host]

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[Interviewer]

Lots of corporate actions in the marketplace today, lots of M and A activity and in a packaged goods space. One of the giants out there, Unilever, the food business for Unilever is going to join with McCormick in a $44.8 billion transaction. We want to break down this deal. Diana Gomes joins us. Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Equity Analyst Diana, what's the strategy here of these two companies in combining their food businesses?

[Diana Gomes]

Hi. Thank you. It is really a combination of bringing the expertise from McCormick on the natural ingredients side of things with Unilever's food's iconic brands and in that protein rich toppings. It's one of the areas where it makes sense to combine for that added scale and also reaching markets that corcoramic doesn't have access at the moment, particularly in emerging markets. If we exclude India, which is out of the equation in this, in this

[Host]

combination we're seeing shares of McCormick fall 3.7%. What might investors be skeptical of in this combination?

[Diana Gomes]

It is a really transformational deal for McCormick. It is quite a sizable group of assets that they are taking in. So the execution risk is quite high. And it's going to be a much more complex organization to really push through the sales growth targets that they are envisioning for 3 to 5% by year three of the combination compared to about 2% where the the companies have been growing to in terms of these foods business. So it would be quite a lot of work to, to get there

[Interviewer]

before Unilever here. Where do they want to focus going forward?

[Diana Gomes]

Unilever has been Unilever, Unilever, depending where in the country. It's really been focusing more in the personal care wellbeing categories which tend to be less price elastic as well. It's something that can bode well given the geopolitical macroeconomic risk environments we are sitting on. But even before that this was the strategy for Fernando Fernandez was bringing that side of the business, making it a much larger proportion of Unilever's revenue as well. These split would fast forward that plan even though we are at least one year to go for the expected completion date.

[Host]

Diana, what does this combination mean for the other big food companies globally? For the Nestle for instance, for Kraft Heinz, which decided not to split up its businesses as it had once been entertaining under its new CEO.

[Diana Gomes]

One of the interesting parts of this combination of McCormick with Unilever Foods is also beyond the consumer facing business, but also the food service. So they bring strength from both. So definitely it's going to build their competitive force compared to rivals in that space as well.

[Interviewer]

So I'm just looking at Unilever down 5.5% today, down 12% year to date. It's at a 52 week low here. What's the call around this stock? What's the challenge for this stock? Is it just simply the group consumer products or is there something specific to the company?

[Diana Gomes]

There's definitely some skepticism about the terms of the way the foods business is going to be split. So we are seeing some reaction today to that. It's a deal that is stock heavy. It's mostly stock. The cash consideration is only $16 billion or thereabout for a business that was generating about $22 billion in revenue. So there is some skepticism from that perspective. It's not going to be a clear cut exit and it's also comes at the time of heightened uncertainty. So I believe that's all playing out a little bit in that sense.

[Host]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

[IBM Representative]

So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Interviewer]

IBM Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called Generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend, small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on Public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by

[Public.com Advertiser]

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[Host]

business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all all in one place with their digital tools looking for tips and advice. Their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn [e-mail] business chase for business Make More of what's yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JPMorgan Chase Bank Naomi Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JP Morgan Chase Co.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.

[Interviewer]

A lot of M and A in the marketplace today, particularly in the health care space. What else is new there? But let's break it down with the resident expert Sam Fazeli, director of research for Global Industries and a senior pharmaceuticals analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence. He is based in London. Sam, let's start with Eli Lilly. They're acquiring Sentessa Pharmaceuticals. Who is Sentessa and why is Lilly making this acquisition?

[Sam Fazeli]

So Sentessa is a company developing a sleeping sleep disorder product. So it's a novel mechanism of action, not entirely novel because there's already a drug on the market that targets the same mechanism orexin pathway in the brain. But it's not the usual kind of drowsy type of drug that puts you to sleep like the ambience of this world. It's not at all the same mechanism of action. So here's a drug that's in development for those for that indication and we have a proof of concept already on a product on the market, not necessarily flying off the shelves but doing fine. And so here comes Lily with a neuroscience business and it's a bolt on to their business. I mean 6 billion is, you know, I don't know, a week's worth of cash flow for for Lilly. I have to do the math. So don't please multiply that by 54 and tell me Sam, you got it wrong, but it's not a lot of money. I mean the interesting thing, Paul, is this with if you look at our analyst forecasts in MODL or consensus forecast is around the $2 billion business in 2020, 2033, 2034. Guess what? Lilly's top line revenue would be at that point approaching 150 billion. Of course this is seven or eight years away, so it's probably all wrong. Nevertheless, that's what consensus has got. So doesn't make a huge difference, but it's a nice little add on.

[Host]

Okay, so it sounds like this is A nice to have, not a need to have. We've seen companies like Merck make a lot of acquisitions because Merck faces patent expiration on some of its best selling drugs like Keytruda. Lilly is not in that position, is it? So this feels like it's very offensive rather than defensive.

[Sam Fazeli]

Yeah, I mean, pharma companies tend to scrabble or scramble, sorry at the end, in the final yards of the, of the, of the game to try and get their pipelines all organized so that they can cope with it. You know, it takes time to develop these franchises. So Lilly's doing exactly what he should be doing, just slowly padding its pipeline, adding more into it. Now, how do you manage to deal with a drug or a drug group that is going to go off patent at some point and you're selling 100 billion of it? I think it's very hard to know which one of these drugs is going to be there. But you need a lot of products to be able to backfill that. And at some point people will start worrying about that. But it's way too soon for us to worry about that with Lilly. Let's just see how they do with the current business that they have in terms of the growth that they're getting.

[Interviewer]

Sam, when a drug goes off patent, what's the timeframe for sales to fall and to what degree do they fall? Is there a predictable pattern?

[Sam Fazeli]

Yes, there is. And we have blueprints that we follow when we're doing all our modeling. It depends on what sort of deals they might have done. So as you know, Paul, we have a very strong patent team led by Ord Gerspacker in our group and they've done some work on some of these drugs. You know, where people expect Keytruda from Merck, for instance, to, to expire in 2029, they're thinking, thinking 2033. Right. So there's room for companies to push these things out a little bit, but eventually they happen. If you're a small molecule, you tend to give, have some exclusivity. With one generic company, which is legal, they have a six month exclusivity period when they launch. They make a lot of money by dropping the price a little bit. That six month ends and suddenly you get 10 of those drugs, the small molecule type pills that we all swallow, that's the pattern. A little drop, six months later, catastrophic drop. So and then the companies themselves make branded generics, etc. To keep some of that biologics a little bit different because it's harder to make them. And sometimes it's more complicated to make sure that you got the right bits and bobs in there. So a little bit smoother.

[Host]

Sam, before we let you go, got to ask you about Biogen buying a pellet for 5.6 billion. If a Lilly acquisition for 7.8 billion is kind of a drop in the bucket for that company, meaningful, is this acquisition for Biogen?

[Sam Fazeli]

Yeah, clearly a lot bigger for Biogen on a relative basis in terms of market cap or money expenditure. But it fits in with what the new CEO Christopher Becker has been saying about where he sees the company going. Company was broadly viewed as a neurology business, as a company that's focused on neurodiseases. And I think they're pivoting to call it an immunology and rare diseases. Now neurology still fits in there. A lot of the disease drugs that you're using for neurology in multiple sclerosis, et cetera do target the immune system because they're autoimmune diseases. So but rare diseases, sure, you get some neurological diseases that are rare, so you could treat them there. So it fits in this, in that bucket. And I think Apelis is a, is a, is a reasonable fit from that strategy perspective.

[Interviewer]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

[IBM Representative]

So there's a lot of noise about AI, but time's too tight for more promises. So let's talk about results. At IBM, we work with our employees to integrate technology right into the systems they need. Now a global workforce of 300,000 can use AI to fill their HR questions, resolving 94% of common questions, not noise. Proof of how we can help companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Interviewer]

IBM Support for the show comes from Public. Public is an investing platform that offers access to stocks, options, bonds and crypto. And they've also integrated AI with tools that can assist investors in building customized portfolios. One of these tools is called generated Assets. It allows you to turn your ideas into investable indexes. So let's say you're interested in something specific like biotech companies with high R and D spend small cap stocks with improving operating margins or the S&P 500 minus high debt companies. Chances are there isn't an ETF that fits your exact criteria. But on public you just type in a prompt and their AI screens thousands of stocks and builds a one of a kind index. You can even backtest it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks, go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by

[Public.com Advertiser]

Public Holdings Brokerage Services by Public Investing Member FINRA SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors SEC Registered Advisor crypto services by ZeroHash sample prompts are for illustrative purposes only, not investment advice. All investing involves risk of loss. See complete [e-mail] disclosures being a small

[Host]

business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place. With their digital tools looking for tips and advice, their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn [e-mail] business chase for business Make More of what's Yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates. May apply JPMorgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Co.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.

[Host]

Let's switch gears and take a look at what's happening in the tech sector. Nvidia it feels like it's been quite of late, but it is taking a $2 billion stake in Marvell Technology and it's deepening an existing partnership that it has with that company. Mandeep Singh is our global tech research head here at Bloomberg Intelligence. Mandeep how meaningful is this for Marvell? How meaningful is this for Nvidia?

[Mandeep Singh]

I mean at this point of time I feel Nvidia may end up generating $150 billion in cash for 2020650 billion. So they keep giving, you know, 2, 3 billion to pretty much everyone. Not meaningful for Nvidia, not meaningful for Nvidia. And look, their playbook right now is to create an ecosystem where Nvidia GPUs are pervasive. Everyone uses them in some capacity. And in this case, Marvell is an ASIC chip maker that does a lot of networking work for an Amazon. So think of how Google has ramped up on Broadcom. Amazon similarly uses Marvell for their custom chip work, networking, etc. So Nvidia, by giving Marvell $2 billion, is saying, hey, we want to integrate with your ecosystem and you know, we'll make Nvidia GPUs compatible with whatever custom chips that you have. And that is their best way of, you know, really spreading their tentacles in terms of enterprise public cloud providers. Even though it's Amazon has their custom chips, Nvidia is finding a way to, you know, sell something to their ecosystem.

[Interviewer]

Nvidia for I guess calendar 26. The fiscal 27 year forecast is $250 billion of EBITDA and CapEx. Get this, $7 billion. There's only, I think I might have more CapEx in 7 than Nvidia.

[Host]

660 billion for the hyperscalers for this

[Mandeep Singh]

year, Nvidia is the beneficiary. They are the ones who are taking

[Interviewer]

the three guys sitting in garage. Is that Nvidia? And they're just selling chips to everybody. It's unbelievable.

[Mandeep Singh]

They've been ahead and partly that has to do with what they did with Mellanox acquisition back in the day. It was a company like Marvell that they bought five, six years back, integrated it really well and they've just stayed ahead of everyone else, whether it's amd, intel or anyone else in terms of offering the best performance per watt, which is what everyone cares about in the world of AI and partnerships like this, or even the Aqua hires that they made with Grok, you know, that $20 billion aqua hire. Again, you know, Jensen is like three steps ahead of everyone in terms of thinking through what is coming next. And he's thinking about what is the bottleneck when it comes to AI performance. And he's saying it's memory. I mean, some of that has to do with by creating an ecosystem, you'll be able to improve the performance slightly for your chip relative to what Google TPUs will be able to do with other chip providers. And these small increments is what has really kept Nvidia in the lead.

[Interviewer]

It's not an expense, it's a cheap stock. 20 times earnings.

[Host]

Nvidia.

[Interviewer]

It's a cheap stock.

[Mandeep Singh]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Unbelievable.

[Host]

So who has Nvidia not hooked up with? Nvidia not partnered with yet.

[Mandeep Singh]

Right now it's a Google ecosystem, the Broadcom Google TPU ecosystem. I would say that's like a parallel alternative to Nvidia Stack. But again, see that.

[Host]

Do you see there being any kind of synergy between those two at all? I mean, or are they just developing separately on their own paths?

[Mandeep Singh]

They. They are. I mean, Google TPUs are in their seventh version, so from that perspective, they have had a ton of progress on their own. But again, if you're an enterprise and you are using Nvidia GPUs, you want compatibility and now it's inevitable that you will be using Nvidia GPUs in some form given how spread Nvidia is at this point. They're like the intel, you know, 20 years back. I mean they everyone used to use intel. Everyone is using Nvidia when it comes to AI now.

[Interviewer]

Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.

[IBM Representative]

The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM we've seen this firsthand. But by embedding AI across hr, IT and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slashed repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business.

[Interviewer]

IBM Support for the show comes from Public Lately it feels like there are two types of investing platforms. Some are traditional brokerages that haven't changed much in decades, and others feel less like investing and more like a game. Public is positioned differently. It's an investing platform for people who are serious about building their wealth on public. You can build a portfolio of stocks, options, bonds, crypto without all the bugs or the confetti. Retirement accounts? Yep. High yield cash? Yes again. They even have direct indexing. Public has modern design, powerful tools and customer support that actually helps go to public.com market and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com market ad paid for by

[Public.com Advertiser]

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[Host]

business owner isn't just a career, it's a calling. Chase for Business knows how much heart and effort go into building something of your own. That's why they make business growth their priority. The Chase team takes the time to understand your mission, where you are now and where you want to go. Their broad range of solutions is designed with you in mind so you can bring your ideas to life. From banking to payment acceptance to credit cards, you can conveniently manage all your business finances all in one place with their digital tools. Looking for tips and advice, their online resources are always available to give you the solutions you need to help your business thrive. See how your business can get stronger and go farther with Chase for Business. Learn [e-mail] business chase for business Make More of what's Yours the Chase Mobile app is available for select mobile devices. Message and data rates may apply JP Morgan Chase Bank NA Member FDIC Copyright 2026 JPMorgan Chase Company.

[Podcast Announcer]

You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10am Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube.

[Interviewer]

JP Morgan, they announced something called the American Dream Initiative. I don't know what that is, but our next guest does. Hannah Levitt, senior finance reporter for Bloomberg News, joins us here in our studio. Hannah, what's JP Morgan Chase doing there with their American Dream Initiative?

[Hannah Levitt]

Yeah. Hey, so thanks for having me. Another initiative from JP Morgan, they've been, you know, kind of full of initiatives and acronyms lately. This one, American Dream Initiative, or adi, they're going to be investing in local communities across six areas and that includes small business and housing and financial health and, you know, a few others. And so what it is is small business was the one that they focused on today in the announcement. And I think, you know, they'll be rolling out further announcements as this thing goes. But small business was the focus of in today's announcement. And for that they will be investing 80 billion over 10 years in lending to small businesses. They're trying to grow their roster of small business clients from 7 million today to 10 million. They're hiring a thousand more small business bankers. So they have 3,000 now. Yeah. So really just trying to dig deeper into communities and bring together, you know, business and in some cases philanthropy that

[Interviewer]

they do because of one of the many firms on Wall Street. I worked at JP Morgan back when they were the Chase Manhattan bank for the merger of JP Morgan. And they had a real small business retail focus. The Chase Manhattan bank did. I felt like now that they merged with JP Morgan, that kind of got lost a little bit. You get a sense that they're trying to maybe reestablish that part of the business for themselves.

[Hannah Levitt]

Yeah, I mean, they've stayed huge in the consumer side. Their credit card business is ginormous. They are the biggest bank mortgage lender. Of course we've had like the non banks grow in size of the crisis, but so they're big across the consumer. But I think what they're trying to do here is they've had these targeted initiatives in places like Detroit where over the past, it's been over a decade now it's been hundreds of million dollars that they've plowed into Detroit. And that's not, you know, some of it's flown through, but it's business stuff where it's, you know, lending to affordable housing, things like that. But where they, they bring together, you know, various aspects of the behemoth that is JP Morgan to have this targeted effort in, you know, in that case, Detroit. But now they're trying to kind of replicate and go beyond that in local

[Interviewer]

communities across the country is this, I mean, this feels like it's the business. I'm trying to think who they'd be really competing against. I think it's Citi bank of America. Those are the ones I think about retail consumer small business. Is that kind of who they're going to be going up against or increasing?

[Hannah Levitt]

It's kind of everyone. I mean, B of A and Wells Fargo are both big and small business, but then you also have the regional banks and even, you know, the more local community banks that are huge forces in their communities. Although, you know, in some sense it's not an effort to kind of take out the community banks, it's more an effort to, you know, grow the pie for everyone.

[Interviewer]

Interesting. Like, I wonder when I see a branch open up, particularly like the one just downstairs in our building here, I can think of the bank, what it is with all the technology when we do all of our banking. I can remember the last time I was in a branch because you can do everything on your phone, yet I see branches popping up left and right. What's the business strategy behind that? What did the banks tell you?

[Hannah Levitt]

It's funny because I have covered banking for eight years and I went into a branch recently and like got scared. I was like, I don't know how to be in here.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Hannah Levitt]

But JP Morgan has really. Jamie Dimon, who's the been CEO for more than 20 years at this point, has been always been a big believer in the power of the branch. And so they kind of zigged when the rest of the industry zagged a bit on the branch stuff. And they've been adding branches for years and now they're in, they're the only bank to be in all lower 48 states, right? Yeah.

[Interviewer]

So I kind of view it as advertising if nothing else. I mean again, I think it's a capital one. Downstairs in our building, they got a little cafe down there, people are in there, there's always a lot of people. So it feels like it's a billboard, a different type of outdoor advertising for these banks.

[Hannah Levitt]

Totally. That's part of the thinking that I've heard, you know, from them and others is that it is advertising. And also they do some of these things that they're going to do, you know, as part of the American Dream initiative, but that they already do like some of the coaching stuff and where there will be events at the branches and things like that.

[Interviewer]

So what's a big theme that you're working on just for the banks? It seems like they've got an administration that's supportive of the banking system in general and banks all over the place is this. Do you get a sense of optimism from the companies you cover?

[Hannah Levitt]

Absolutely. I mean I think, you know, there's a lot going on in the world but if, if you look beyond that for a minute, to the extent that you can, I mean I wrote a story at the end of last year about how it was really, you know, banks fighting back against the buy side in private credit where banks were growing their, the big banks were growing their loan books at the fastest rate since, in at least a decade. It may have been since pre crisis but you know, so they're, they're definitely enthused about the level of deregulation and the ability to kind of chip back away at the areas that non banks have chipped away at over the years.

[Interviewer]

Yes, I agree. I mean, God, we used to make a fortune off those syndicated loans we did back in the day.

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