00:00Tom, two sides to this. There's the Berkshire side and the J.P. Morgan side. Starting with J.P. Morgan, this hire for this, what is it, a security and resiliency initiative. What exactly are they throwing Todd Combs behind?
00:14It's really interesting from both sides. On the J.P. Morgan side, they basically picked him to effectively lead this 10 billion sort of direct equity investments that the bank is planning to do into stuff for areas like security, defense, critical minerals.
00:31And this is all part of that $1.5 trillion financing commitment that they've said, you know, they're going to basically roll out over the coming years.
00:39It's about 50 percent more than they expected given the change in geopolitics. But it's a really intriguing hire. He's one of the sort of most influential people I'd say
00:47behind the scenes in finance works with Buffett obviously basically ran the equity investments along with Buffett and other executives at Berkshire.
00:55And as well as that sort of specific role, he's going to be a senior advisor to Jamie Dimon and just generally, I guess, add to that sort of very strong bench of
01:02expertise at J.P. Morgan. Just to get to the Berkshire exodus for a moment.
01:07It does look like that's happening, doesn't it, Tom? I mean, we've had a lot more personnel changes than we normally do for Berkshire Hathaway.
01:16Yeah, a complete change. Obviously, you've got Buffett heading out the door at the end of the year, and that seems to be precipitating, basically a changing of the guard, I suppose.
01:23So as well as Todd, you know, they're changing out their CFO. And, you know, I think it's going to be really interesting.
01:30That's probably one of the momentous change any company will have to go through.
01:33And obviously under Greger Bell, they're looking to kind of maybe just start with a fresh set of characters.
01:39Yeah, it does just raise questions, I guess, in general of what Berkshire actually looks like post-Warren Buffett if a lot of his deputies are leaving.
01:48Tom, on this idea of J.P. Morgan, their plan, $1.5 trillion, pour that into sectors that are crucial for the security and national economy of the United States.
01:58How much of this is also a J.P. Morgan reading where the winds are going, reading a White House that has really tried to do the same and is looking to the private markets and private players to help fund some of it?
02:12Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know, in part, I'm sure it's done with one eye towards the White House.
02:16It's probably exactly what the Trump administration would like to see.
02:19You know, basically, before, you know, this recent announcement, it was going to be 750 billion, or that's what we expected.
02:26So a significant uplift. But of course, it also just reflects the reality, right, moving into a more turbulent, more geopolitical world.
02:33And this is the kind of thing, you know, you've seen it in defence sector shares, particularly in Europe, where, you know, this kind of commitment is probably going to be, you know, gobbled up by the market.
02:42And as part of today's announcement, J.P. Morgan also said there's going to be this advisory board that's going to be helping out Todd Combs.
02:49And, you know, you've got literally a who's who of finance politics in that business.
02:53You've got Jeff Bezos in there. You've got former Secretary of Defence Robert Gates.
02:58Basically, you know, whoever's a big name in business seems to have been tapped for this thing, which just goes to show just generally how much Wall Street and the wider business world is lining up behind initiatives such as this.
03:08So it's kind of exciting for J.P. Morgan, for Jamie and for Todd.
03:14When do we expect to start seeing action out of this group?
03:18So Todd should join in January, according to the statement.
03:21And then obviously, you know, how quickly do they want to deploy that particular, you know, 10 billion?
03:25I mean, that's literally J.P. Morgan's capital. So I'd be curious to see, you know, if it's, you know, the sort of momentum, the kind of sort of metabolism of that is extremely quick,
03:34or if it's going to be quite steady and, you know, particularly maybe won't see any real world impact for a while.
03:40But, you know, if they're looking to get in terms of the financing, 1.5 trillion out the door, you're going to expect to see that, you know, starting, if not now, very, very soon.
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