Yeah, this team keep it clean. What's going on? It's engraving here with another video another episode of NFL questions from subscribers But this is another special episode because it features a very special special guest highly requested guests as well But before we get into this episode of questions from subs, I gotta say I appreciate y'all shout out to all the team Oh, man, I'm getting so hype. I don't hit the mic shout out to all the team keeping clean patrons I love y'all. Thank you team keeping clean We are getting through this slow season we getting there it ain't slow down over here But it we getting through it together all together. I love y'all. I appreciate y'all without any further ado Oh If you want to be part of NFL question from subscribers and you can send me an email to team keep it clean at gmail.com And we'll answer your question in the video just like this or for the patrons If you want to be part of NFL question from subscribers, you just send it directly on patreon Y'all already know what time it is love all y'all appreciate all y'all. Sorry to the mic. Let me fix that my apologies Anyway, let's do you to team keeping clean the special guests in this episode of questions from subscribers a highly requested guest to We got sift to tally aka coach Evans. So coach Before you get into it Why why do you do YouTube? Well, what was your reasoning for doing it? Okay? It's a little story time since you asked it started off as a straight podcast similar to to what you do and There was a podcast here in town and they talked about local high school athletes and I thought it was Not a good podcast over speak. It was more politics And so my words I wanted to get one with local coaches We talk about the local athletes and then maybe even give the athletes a platform to talk about their recruitment and stuff like that And so I'm gonna start off as a podcast if simply tell the podcast I did maybe 12 or so episodes then we had think how tally up the points was a couple coaches and we talked about Their schedule and games and kind of summarized it up like a Monday morning quarterback type deal. And so I'm I don't know if you know, but vice-lembard actually played Center for me and while he was in high school and he was doing his thing with the Cowboys He's a cowboy you too. So he was he was a center for me and like maybe oh nine ten eleven like that I never know he played for you. Yeah, and so he was doing his thing at Cowboys and he asked me, you know Try it out and I say and at the time I didn't really see any Ravens presence on YouTube but I wasn't really looking either and So I did it and I liked it the fact that No, people would ask questions and was intrigued by what I had to say Maybe you're hungry to to do more then I think I came across your channel and kind of saw what you was doing I say, well, I'm gonna do a little something different because I always don't need to do the same thing And then I start seeing other different guys and coming in and once I got a thousand thousand script No, not a thousand subscribers. It was going slow And then when Lamar took over and the fact that I was able to break down some of the stuff Lamar was doing and channel took off So I went from maybe 300 subscribers to a thousand in Lamar's breakout time And I just feel hungry to keep going and it's now just a part of my daily life. I just love doing it Yeah, man, it is fun. And I appreciate your perspective and like you said It's a lot of people that do the Ravens content and whatnot But everybody got their own different viewpoints and they they all bring something different to the table and you You are an actual coach So right you know the X's and O's you know your stuff You could break this and that down and watching the film and all that and see what went right What we're wrong and all that which I appreciate about you But how is it coaching? How is it when you actually watching the Ravens player watching whatever team play? Do you look at it in a more analytical view your viewpoint or whatnot? Or do you just enjoy the game and relax? Well, I'm pretty sure you don't just enjoy the game I Enjoy other people's games But when it comes when I watch us play It's I try to relax But when things aren't going right, I start my eyes start going to different places like no normal normal people just watch the ball Yeah, I don't when it when if we if we belong somebody we don't we moving good I watch the ball and enjoy the game and relax But if it's if it's crunch time. It's a close game. I'm watching certain people that I think a Certain ears why I think we we get to see who doing what Okay, that's that's kind of how I look at it But I really would love to just you know the last time I just relaxed and watch the game was the one game. I went to Pittsburgh Week 17 week 17. Yeah, I just Chill and Ken was able to give me a lot better seat than I had Because a lot of people didn't come because it was raining. Yeah, and I just chilled and watched again. I enjoyed That's what's saying that was a chill game too because it it didn't mean anything Yeah, so that was super chill. There's no pressure, right? All right, so um, where can everybody find you a YouTube channel Twitter anything else wait Where can they find you a so on YouTube is a scepter tally films on Twitter is co-chairman's nine and on Instagram is scepter tally So those are the three platforms that I'm fairly active on Instagram being the least active But I need to pick that back up myself So the links to all of his stuff will be down below in the description and without further ado Let's get into it. The first question came from my guy air ferrick He said you have a suspect pass rush where you have to go up against the likes of them I'm a Holmes who has the best offensive line that KC has ever put in front of them But PFF already has them ranked number seven and it could get ugly for the Ravens Not only in that game, but going forward and he said this is why he thinks the Ravens team will give up a lot of points so um, I'll get started with this one I I Can see what you're saying, but I don't necessarily agree Because we'll wink. We know wink. He loves to bring pressure And that's where whether it's coming from a veteran past rush or a younger past rush or from the cornerback safety He'll bring pressure from anybody now Another thing that he said he thinks the Ravens are gonna give up a lot of points because of that because of the lack of a pass Russian whatnot I Think something that sort of counters that and we don't know what the Ravens pass rush is gonna be yet We don't know how a daffy away is gonna be Daigle and haze McPhee Ferg all in Bowser. We don't know how they're gonna be yet because we haven't seen him on the field, but With the Ravens the last two years they've led the league in points So that means they're scoring a lot. So in turn that can actually help the defense Make it easier for the defense make it easy for the pass rush to make it easy for the cornerbacks Make it easier for everybody on defense because they'll be having to play catch up But coach what what do you think about this with the the pass rush as it is right now on June 18th? When y'all see this video, I don't know but on June 18th with the pass rush the way it is Do you think the Ravens should be concerned that they're gonna give up a lot of points? First part first time answer that question is on any given Sunday Anybody can can can get made to look because if I'm not mistaken the Raiders beat the Chiefs last year I think so and the Raiders were not very good. But as far as our pass rush The main thing with my homes, I feel is going to be pressure You can't let him sit there and you know go to a second and third read because those second and third reads are burners So he has to he has to be one read and get off his rocker And even though we don't want him running and throwing but that's probably gonna give you the best chance to get him You got to get pressure on the edge and you might you don't have to get this That you got to get pressure off the edge and push up in the you don't have to get the set But long as you get pressure off the edge and push up the middle You can you control him and don't don't give him enough time to let Tyree get behind you because no matter What the combination is no matter who the DB is if you give him Three and a half to five seconds Tyree's gonna run past anybody in an NFL Yeah, man, it was cold man, but I agree that with Adafi and Hayes and them other guys We don't know we're gonna get but the way wink draws up pressure and the athleticism of just those two guys Not to mention the other guys we got Wink plus that speed is is different. And you know, most people know I wasn't a fan of Adafi at first But just think just thinking about how we draws up pressure What camera can do what Williams can do and then you got a guy that's maybe not as good as you don't yet But it's probably faster and quicker twitch than you don't and maybe get home where you don't get so many pressures This dude make and turn those pressures into QB hits and then eventually into sex, which is what we don't need You know eventually next question came from my guy Jerome. He said just a thought about something Every year teams Ravens included juggle the cap and let players go while signing others EDC will give Lamar Andrews and others money, but with the drafting of Rashad Bateman He doesn't have to overpay to keep Hollywood Eric Dacosta isn't just feeling needs. He's got his eyes way down the road Predicting obstacles. What are your thoughts and I'll let you get started with that I didn't think about it like that But that's an interesting take Especially if Hollywood doesn't turn out to be what we all want him to be now, you know I personally think, you know, he's gotten better each year. He's gotten stronger He's got in his his quickness back from when he came in with the injury But um EDC and I think Lamar said this the other day every dollar counts, right that He he don't make all the moves that we want but he's thinking so far ahead of what we're thinking We're thinking 2021 he looking at 24 25 and what is captain gonna be on down the line when Lamar's big-time money kicks in and I And I love him for that because you know a lot of us just think right now and then we'll stuck, you know year two year three with Who's the team that paid all those people the Eagles that year when they paid Vic and Didn't look how long they were stuck with with cap issues, but with Dacosta. He's a Analytical guy strategic He's making every dollar count and I believe that if Hollywood is not paying out to be Worth of a huge contract that you have baiting then, you know got wireless too So you got you got two guys that could be in a running to be a one and two if we don't resound Hollywood when his time comes Yeah, man, that is um That's something real interesting to think about and that's never I'd never really even thought about that Either until Jerome brought it up Especially with both of them being first-round picks to with with them being first-round picks The expectation is a lot higher and they expected to deliver a lot sooner And with Rashad being a rookie. This is 2021 Hollywood came in what? 2019 this is third year So next year will be his fourth year, but next year during next year. Well after next season We'll find out if the Ravens end up picking up that fifth year option or not so that will Tell start to tell a big part of whatever this story is gonna end up being But yeah, that's just something to watch out for in the future and that will put That would put Bateman what? 2026 maybe 2025 Yeah, for his fifth year. Yeah for his fifth year. Yeah So 21 2 3 4 yeah and 5 yeah, so we got we got time to figure it out and then with Wallace He's he got three years if I'm not mistaken, right? I think they get four years. Yeah, okay So we set up every receiver spot for us cat-wise. I think for me next question came from my guy Nick brick He said engraving. I hope you're doing well. It's been a minute since I asked the question Now I was thinking about that PFF running back less than about the Lamar effect that they used to diminish JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards talent, but that made me think wouldn't it be the opposite? I get that Lamar draws attention But they also face eight to ten man boxes every week Wouldn't someone like Aaron Jones benefit from the Rogers effect in which teams have to worry about the Vonte Adams and Aaron Rogers so much that they would have to sacrifice people in the run game to protect themselves from being hit over the top That's a good point. I never thought about that in reverse This applies to a lot of teams that throw 30 plus times per game My point isn't that one running back may have it harder than another But I just think it's weird that every running back stands on his own except when they talk about the Ravens backs Who I think could go toe-to-toe with a lot of these running back duos. What do you think about this? Is this something I'm missing Why I'd never ever thought about that any time I think about the Ravens run game and that Conversation I think the same thing. Oh, yeah Lamar makes it easier for other people because Lamar he poses the threat of running as well But the way that you put it with teams, they know the Ravens are gonna run a ball They know Lamar is gonna get here.  That's their bread and butter So teams they stack the box they crowd the box and they wait for the Ravens to run And like I said, they a lot of times they still don't even stop it But they still crowd the box and do that But with other guys like a like you mentioned to Aaron Rodgers and teams that may throw the ball a lot more than the Ravens Especially if they have a legitimate outside wide receiver There's that chance that if you crowd the box that receiver they could beat you up top So there's that fear that so um, I Love the way that Nick put it because that actually makes a lot of sense and yeah I've never thought about that that way before. What about you? so football in general is a numbers game and if you got a guy like Devonte that Probably there's not one corner that can cover him. You got to have safety help So now you know for the rest of the fear you're playing 10 on 9 or 9 on 10 make whichever way it is and then you can run the ball That's what Aaron Jones benefits from that and I imagine if Green Bay had another threat even a good tight end I mean they got one guy, but I just a big name guy Aaron Jones would have you know two miles to run But it's still it's a team concept and you got to have Guys that make the other part of the game better. So it like you said, right Ravens get a lot of stack boxes so if we get to the point it's funny that This question came up because I talked about it last night on mine. Whenever you see this a Lot of the runs that we have are reruns especially in third-down situations I talked about third-down situation with JK and most of the runs were either Counter-bash, which Lamar has an option to keep it or power II which Lamar has an option to keep So him, you know being a running threat does help Our running backs because you have to be disciplined in your and your gap integrity And you can't just sell out and go tackle the running back because Lamar come out and probably hurt you You know worse than JK or Gus or whoever's running the ball wheel now looking forward if We produce in the passing game like I think we will and we don't have to just blow it out the water and throw for 4,500 yards, but we throw for 35 to anywhere around at 35 The run game you probably you're probably going to see more runs honestly We'll even had to throw for 35 if we come out early and hit deep to intermediate routes and people have to Play too high, which is too safe to high. We're gonna run the ball all day Which you know as much as we running out people complain because we didn't get over top We'll be running the then with huge leads and people be trying to play catch up which will help the defense So it all goes back to the team concept The front end in the back end I worked together on defense often gotta help the defense and people that forgot When Lamar first came in our defense was not playing great The fact that Lamar could come in and he can run it and the running backs can run it and we control the clock So when Susan them came back on the field, they were resting they weren't as tired when Joe was a corn out They're going not three and out every play But you know throw on three passes and getting stuff on third down and then they come right back retired So when the mark got in we start controlling the clock and then the defense got better That's a whole the whole team concept and we really have to talk about special teams we've had the best special teams for a while and about tomorrow with the We had a monster even though one of them go now next question came from my guy Jimmy He said what's good engraving is Jimmy with a question from subscribers This team is looking like they're finally ready for a trip today FC championship and maybe even a Super Bowl But we all know the past rush is still a concern due to the unproven Commodities which brings me to this. Would you be okay with the trade for one Chandler Jones? And what do you think it would take to get a deal like this done? I recently read that he has one year left on his deal and has average double-digit sex For the last five out of six years and we know the Ravens were legit Try to trade for any top defender that they can get their hands on as opposed to the Offense appreciate your time and the service you provide us to hope that you and the family are blessed brother appreciated Jimmy So trade in for Chandler Jones. This is one that uh, I talked about a lot last year Obviously before the unique and got quite trade. Um, I just I don't see it happening though I don't see them attempting. I don't see Arizona letting him go. I mean you never never say never but I just don't see it happening, especially Especially since they got JJ why so I think Arizona is gonna want to really do everything that they can to keep those guys intact keep those guys in place and have those guys as their primary past rushes and Not let Chandler Jones end up going. What about you coach? Yeah, I feel like Arizona won't let them won't even seek a trade or try to get rid of unless they have a horrible start They have a horrible start if they're one in five and week six or something like that And then they can try to move off of them so they can get something in return whether just losing them in free agency But if they're competitive, which I foresee them being competitive and they're probably in the You know dare I say the hardest division in in the NFL that that division is pretty stacked one through one through four if I'm at San Francisco at Seattle is Arizona and And the Rams and the Rams so they're probably in the hardest, you know the vision In NFL so they're probably gonna play that out till right at the twig trade deadline if they're competitive I think they'll keep them especially if he's healthy and watch help it because that's that's gonna be tough Yeah, you can't double both of them. That's gonna be tough. Especially if they got any kind of Pressure up the middle. I don't know who their interior lime and all but both of them on different ends. That's that's that's gonna be tough But I see him staying unless they're they're not competitive early in the season That's a good point. I didn't think about it like that. The next question came from my boy Kevin He said ain't great. What how's it going? It's Kevin. Hope all is well got a business question for you since I know you love that side of football Oh so much Ever since Gus got that nice $10 million extension I have seen so much buzz around social media and fans about how underrated Gus Edwards is With many media accounts putting him on post calling him the most Underrated running back in the league My question engraving is do you think that the Ravens and Eric the Costa did this on purpose to drive up his trade stock? I know we all love Gus But we also know that JK Dobbins is our running back number one and the Ravens love their draft picks What are your thoughts? This could also explain stuff like Todd girly visiting maybe I Never thought about that like that. Ah and But the way that the contract is it's extremely cheap Like two years. It's a contract extensions for two years for for five mil a piece like that's that's really really cheap and for Gus Edwards Ah Initially when I when I first read this question like I was thinking like no I I don't think they would do that and I still don't even think that they would do that But at the same time It's a cheap deal. So I just feel like for Gus to be on the move Ravens would have to have something that an offer that they just absolutely could not refuse I definitely don't think anything would happen this year. The deal doesn't kick in until the following This I don't I just I don't see it happen. You never know but Yeah, I I don't see Gus that was being traded. I do like your Extra thinking though, like this was like deep like he yeah We talked about offline like you mentioned like air the cost to be thinking like no, you know That was actually online on a video But anyway, how you to talk about air the cost to be thinking way down a road like this guy might be like air the Casa Thinking like way down a road. How you feel about this and like we spoke about a million ago I can only think right now. And so what I'm thinking is I don't think they did that on purpose But you think about it We had three quality running backs to start and you want those all those guys to get carries and you want to be fresh You had a in room you had JK and you had good and so, you know Obviously inkrum was the starter until he wasn't and they just all play they had different packages You know different times or if somebody was tired or certain plays They were good at or certain skill sets of that that they wanted them in and and normally you have what I'm saying the past You've had one guy to do everything Like a girly when he first came in girly could run between the tap was he can run outside the tap was he Catch the ball and you know a lot of the guys can't can't do all that right now And I think JK has the better hands out of the tooth but Gus and catch the ball now and he wants to be a part of the Russian game as somebody mentioned about a week ago and He he's just it wasn't I don't think it was intentional It's just we had three quality running backs And so you get paid in my opinion based off numbers and he because he didn't have 1200 yards Russian and whatever he ain't gonna say didn't deserve a huge contract But they kind of do it based off production and you know because he doesn't have 200 carries He's not gonna have that that top tier production So that's why I think they were able to to get him at the price. They got him it now Like your your question came in that's some upper-level thinking if that was if the cost to send that down Hey, look, he only needs six cares this game. We've got a resigning and then we could give smoke it that's That's some some back to the future type stuff right? Now is it one thing that I will mention though, I have heard some people I remember last year I have heard some people that that thought about that like oh, maybe the Ravens because it happens Especially when players have those incentivized contracts where it's like oh you get X amount of yards X amount of catches Then you'll get this bonus So I have heard people think that maybe the Ravens one of the reasons why they kept Gus carry So low because they wanted to keep his value low So when it came to them potentially resigning him, they wouldn't have to break the bank for yeah Yeah, yeah, I would hope that um, I mean it's business man It's it's a business. I was gonna say I would hope that would not be the case But it NFL is a business So if that could be a possibility and in this case it certainly worked out when you keep Gus Edwards on an extra for five It'll a year man. That's his second contract. All right, man. That's filthy, man It's a great bargain making every dollar


talofa lava and warm greetings from the people and the government of Samoa please allow me to convey our sincere gratitude and faculty to the government and the people of Romania for their hospitality and hosting the ITU planning part 2022 excellent seats let me start by echoing the reality that the world has changed and the changes were driven by the communication technologies instigated from this very assembly decided by you the leaders and delivered by our ITU family ICT is now an agent that all member states must have in order to achieve their sustainable development goals by 2030 and it is encouraging knowing that ITU priorities is targeting to connect the unconnected 2.7 billion people promoting meaningful connectivity developing genuine partnerships and digital inclusive preaching the digital divide mr president some of those unconnected places are the remote islands of the pacific with small populations minimal revenues to service providers developing states left with a challenge to secure sustainable connectivity the youth in those unconnected areas are the next generations of leaders of our islands who have yet to realize the power of internet access some of the unconnected are the schools in our villages facing high cost of equipments and devices due to the price of oil and freight the impact of wars and global economy the cost of natural disasters do our developments the impact of climate change with pandemics small economies are more vulnerable now than ever however mr president we have faith in our union as the kikali declarations affirm the commitment to provide support for developing countries addressing their constraints considering new and emerging technologies and the integration of technologies to all sectors to leverage full economic potentials the ITU commitment promoting international corporations at partnership among members and key stakeholders partnerships between developed and the developing countries to share technologies share knowledge and the best practices more importantly digital inclusive and the preaching of digital divide the barriers in is the low digital capacity and skills in the islands like samoa education and capacity buildings for youth is critical access to skills and tools are essential for the future your excellencies the samoan government remains committed to ITU and its mandates leaving the way introducing innovating solutions for connectivity we will continue working with our regional organizations multilateral and bilateral partners and support our industry pursuing our targets for a better future last but not least for the first time in 155 57 years of ITU a pacific islander is nominated for an ITU management position miss nissan for tired herself for your deputy secretary general and we seek for your support vote for missa the pacific island's nomination a voice for the vulnerable states thank you and so forth


Welcome, welcome, welcome to the deal room. This is my debut. This isn't Anthony. If you're not watching on YouTube, Piers Curran here, stepping in for Anthony Chung to join Steven to chat all things M&A. So welcome to the latest episode. Hi, Steven, how's it going? Pretty well. Good to see you, Piers. I was just discussing, we've just dated our, and I've got the newest version of the Amplify T-shirt which I'm quite proud of. I've actually been wearing it every day this week. And you've got the other one. What's going on there? Well, you know, as I said, I like to go retro every now and then. I've actually got, I think, I'm the only owner of the original Amplify T-shirt, which dates back over a decade. I'm pretty sure not even Will has one of those. So as collectible items go, that's right up there. I would say valuable. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good asset that we could probably borrow against in the future. We can probably talk about that a little bit later on. Yes, indeed. But look, let me lay out the sort of, well, kind of three broad talking points for today. So we're going to talk, well, J.D., this is a Chinese monster conglomerate. And well, they've decided to split up, split up into seven different parts. It kind of suspiciously in some ways comes on the coattails of Allie Barbar announcing pretty much the exact same thing a few days prior, where they're looking to break up into six parts. So yeah, we're going to talk about, I guess, unlocking value through spin-outs, but thinking about the logic of conglomerates and this thing called verticalization. And then the logic of breakups and spin-outs, and does it make sense? So we'll discuss and tackle that. Number two, we're going to go UK mobile phone networks. You might have heard in the news that Vodafone is looking to merge with three. Three is actually owned by a company called CK Hutchinson, Hong Kong-based company, actually. But look, these two are looking to merge. The issue is this will create the world's, sorry, the world's, the UK's biggest mobile network. If they did merge, I think they'd have 28 million customers. So yeah, we'd love your thoughts, Stephen, on what this means from the regulators and the competition commission's point of view. And really what size market share is appropriate and is it a good thing for the UK mobile phone network that we get such a giant player or not? And will it get through the regulators' scrutiny or not? And then finally, we're gonna chomp into a bit of subway and talk buyouts because we've got certain suitors weighing up, I think it's a three billion securitization sort of buyout fund. So we're gonna talk about that and really delve into things like capital structure and use this as a sort of case study to talk about leverage financing and so on. So there are kind of three big topics. But yeah, let's talk, let's talk JD. And before you wade into it, there's a thing called 618, which is a Chinese dropping day. You might have heard of Singles Day, which is the number one retail event of the year in China, Singles Day. I think, is that in November? Correct me if I'm wrong. Am I right in saying it's in November? I'm wrong. I think it is, but, and this is the day where, yeah, comfortably the largest amount of money gets spent on online shopping. Just behind that in terms of biggest shopping days of the year is the 618 day. It's the 18th of June. And again, it's used as this kind of monster, kind of marketing excuse for the e-commerce giants to run campaigns and try and drive traffic to their sites and get people snapping up bargains and kind of stuff like this. It's a bit genius, I have to say, because JD are behind this 618 thing, phenomenon, it's actually their anniversary as a company. They were founded in 1998 by this guy called Liu Guangdong. And they were founded between the 18th, 1998. And they managed to kind of basically use their birthday as an excuse to flog a load of stuff at cut-down prices. And it kind of gathered momentum to the point where all other retailers then jumped on the bandwagon. And it's just exploded to become this kind of massive sort of national annual event. But yeah, so JD are kind of behind that big event, which was of course earlier this week. So they've used this anniversary to also make a big announcement. So what are they up to? They're gonna break up, what's going on? No, no, good, I didn't know that about the 618. So that's really interesting. Reminds me of the invention of Valentine's Day. It's apocryphal, but the marketing executives in 1950s America thinking we need to generate some cash between Christmas, that head spot between Christmas and Easter, let's create something. So be genius, as you said. But this is, yeah, I love this story because it's a story of conglomerates. And it's also a story that links back to if you did economics at A level or even at university. This is all about economies of scale. And it's all about specialization and focus and all of these really interesting business principles. So, a little bit of background on what a conglomerate is and some examples of pretty famous conglomerates. So conglomerate is essentially a holding company, a company that sits above a number of different subsidiaries that either wholly or partially owned by the holding company can exist in almost every different or any different industry. So the traditional old school conglomerate, and I think an example is, you know, the Hong Kong conglomerate Swire and Jardines. So Swire, it's an old school conglomerate that sits atop Cathay Pacific, which is an LA. Swire Properties, which is a property company. They own a shipping division. They own a part four courts and our sales distributors. You know, what is the rationale between this diverse mix, this hodgepodge of different industries? You'd even say Barcha Hathaway is a bit of a conglomerate in that sense, right now? The reason why you would find conglomerate is a kind of holding company, kind of two reasons. Firstly, you can access the capital at a cheaper price because you're a bigger entity and therefore you can borrow cheaply and distribute down to any part of that holding company that you wish. Obviously, there are potential issues with where you put that money, but you have these economies of scale, you know, in terms of the cash flow going up to the holding company. The second is diversification. If Cathay Pacific's not doing well one year, then maybe it will get onto balance by why property's doing very well the next year. So you've got this kind of portfolio element as an owner, as a holding company, that's quite attractive. So to bring it forward to JD.com, it's exactly the same story with Alibaba. You start off with a really nice kernel of a business, the e-commerce business, okay? And then, you know, as you grow, as you get more excited about scale, as you recognize different areas of opportunity in different adjacent business areas, you start thinking, well, you know, I've done this job pretty well. Why don't I just start a business here? You know, why don't I just start a logistics business? Why don't I just start a health business? Why don't I just start a property business? Why don't I just start an industrial business? You know, and these are all businesses that JD.com has started. But there comes a point where sound business sense, you know, if I'm an e-commerce company, maybe it makes a lot of sense to own a logistics company because I'm owning a different chunk of the supply chain and taking margin. But does it really make sense to own an industrials company? You know, is that too adjacent to be core to the business model and also the pitch that you make to investors as they're looking to invest in you and obviously increase the share price. So JD.com and Alibaba basically become kind of slightly ugly monsters in the sense that they've got these sprawling business units employing hundreds of thousands, actually over a million people. And there's not necessarily a lot of logic to some of these business units. And Piz, you'll know this really well. If I'm an investor, I've probably got a remit or a mandate or a sector or a theme that I'm looking at. Right. You know, with, you know, a company needs to have minimum percentage revenues in X area in order for me to kind of include it in my universe. These big conglomerates start looking a little bit unwieldy and they start falling out of buckets instead of into buckets. Yeah. Furthermore, what happens, you know, this happens across startups and big businesses. What happens when you're basically running seven businesses, you lose focus. So what's happened with JD.com and Alibaba and we might counterpoint this to Amazon in a separate discussion. What's happened with JD.com and Alibaba is, you know, due to macro events but also due to internal business model their share prices have been absolutely falling off down 60, 70% since highs in 2021. Now again, that's partly macro. That is partly because investors are trying to figure out where growth is coming from. So when JD announced that it is spinning its business into seven different business units or majority of the owned by the holding company. So this isn't them getting rid of the family silver. This is them creating these individual nimbler leaner business units that can go out, you know, IPO, raise separate funds, you know, be hungry and take market share in those businesses. When they announced that they were splitting and spinning off, you know, getting rid of maybe the diseconomies of scale that they were seeing, JD.com share price popped by 7%, Alibaba's when they announced it and actually popped by 14%. So investors are kind of breathing a sigh of relief and going suddenly, you're doing something that makes sense and potentially unlocking a lot of value because these are good businesses just in a relatively unwieldy structure. Okay, so like when you see a headline, like Alibaba or JD are breaking up into seven entities. Okay, when you get under the skin of it and that's not actually, so if the holding company maintains majority ownership of the new seven entities, then I guess it's the best of both worlds and so much as they're retaining some of those economies of scale elements, not just from, I guess, well, I don't know, a financing point of view with each of the seven entities now go out and raise funds individually, maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't, but I guess that there are other economies of scale factors, like, you know, you can have centralized functions, right? And so I assume they can retain functions like, I don't know, HR or finance or whatever and maybe they can retain all the good stuff on the economies of scale, but then they won't suffer from, yeah, they kind of fall out of these sector buckets because they're too unwieldy, as you said. So yeah, I guess makes sense. So I got two questions, I guess. Number one is, well, why now? And I'm a bit suspicious, why is it like, literally within sort of three days of each other, Ali Baba and JD have made pretty much the exact same announcement. So what is it about June 2023 that has suddenly triggered both to pull the trigger on this? Yeah, it's a really interesting question and it's one that I'm certainly not an expert on, but there's definitely a macro element to this, you know? So over the last few months, China, which has been shunning tech and kind of closing its door to these big, slightly maybe too big to control tech companies within the country, it started to kind of reopen the door and to invite Jack Ma back from wherever he was staying. And sometimes it'd be a bit more business friendly, right? And I think probably the macro quo, one can speculate that the reason why the door was shut on the likes of Jack Ma was because there was a concern that he was becoming better than the state and a bit of a statesman-like figure. You know, if he comes back and says, not necessarily groveling, but saying, look, actually would bring you more favor if we created a slightly more decentralized structure with individual CEOs and individual boards of directors, IPOing with their separate entity, would this make you feel more comfortable and would this make you feel more inclined towards supporting e-commerce and tech businesses? That is a pretty compelling argument to the Chinese government. So, maybe there's a macro element to this. I'm sure there's a lot of investor pressure when a lot of people bought into JD.com and Alibaba a few years ago and it's listed in the US, it's dual listed. So, US investors are thinking, where's my 70% gone? You used to be trading at X, now it's 70% off. There's going to be investor pressure hence why you saw both stocks jumping on the announcement. It just seems like good news. If and only if it can be done successfully. Well, that's it. I mean, it sounds good on paper and share prices pop. But I mean, what are the risks? I'm sure there's some pitfalls along the way here in terms of execution. Yeah, it's really interesting. So, we talk in the world of M&A about synergies, right? So, when one company acquires another company, we're very good on our spreadsheets to create these synergies from combining two entities, right? You know, post synergies, we might be able to combine our HR function as you mentioned. We might be able to combine a head office function, shut multiple one industrial manufacturing plant because we've got this bigger, more efficient one. And you save money and you add to your bottom line. When you're talking about a breakup or spin offs, the danger is you have the inverse of that, right? You've put synergies by unifying centralized functions and then you're going to have to, you know, from a regulatory and governance perspective, you're going to have to start to create these individual functions within these seven businesses. And suddenly the profit that you see at a top coat or a holding co-level, you know, which is, you know, which is relatively, relatively strong. I mean, daily.com's profits, you know, only $3 billion a year, but it's still in a kind of aggressive growth phase of its business. Suddenly you'll see that at least in the first few years, you'll see that strong as the business units. Hopefully it will be more than made up with renewed focus and, you know, and a look for market share and things like that. So I'd say that, you know, that has got to be, it's hard to break these things apart and it's going to cost money. Yeah. Well, I guess now you mentioned their profit because I think revenues are $150 billion, right? And they only generate around $3 billion of profit. That's a way that they're in margin, right? So when you start saying this could cost a bit to kind of, you know, one off costs fine, but still to kind of execute this. So yeah, there's not a lot of room there on the sort of bottom line to execute this without having a year of loss. Of loss. Yeah, it's a good opportunity to bring Amazon here, you know, maybe to bring this little piece to a close. To Amazon, Amazon is a brilliant case study of kind of semi-conglomerate through verticalization, lots of jargon in there, right? So Amazon has been the most amazing company looking at its costs. And I can just imagine Basel's back in the day going, you know, why are we paying so much for data centers? You know, why are we paying so much for cloud computing? Why don't we do it ourselves? Why are we paying so much for distribution? Why don't we do it ourselves? And actually Amazon's margin on, a profit margin on e-commerce is way for thing. Yeah. It's really, really hard, you know, they were loss making for over 20 years, but it's by verticalizing, by basically owning margin throughout the supply chain and Amazon has been able to jump its profit margin. We all know that AWS, Amazon Web Services is the key driver of growth for that company. So it's kind of, they own a lot of different business units, but they're all contributing to the margin and also contributing to the kind of logic of the business model. So it's just quite an interesting way, you know, you can do it well and you can certainly do it badly. Yeah. Well, interesting stuff. Well, let's shift across from China. Let's bring it home. And well, let's bring it semi-home because I guess we're going to have one foot still a little bit over in the Far East with the fact that Vodafone and three merging. I didn't quite realize, maybe we'll touch on this not immediately, but CK Hutchinson is a Hong Kong-based business. So I don't know if there's any political element to all of this from the regulators point of view, but before we kind of talk about politics of it all. Yeah, this is a really interesting one. I guess they've been China. There's been, I guess, ambitions of consolidation sort of right up the top of the tree of the UK's mobile network space for a long time and it's never quite happened. And so I guess this is the latest episode. So yeah, talk me through it. Vodafone and three merging. What's the rationale? Will it happen? Will it happen? Yeah, well, we can definitely talk about regulation. That's a big part of this story and we can talk about natural monopolies and oligopolies and things like that. All good stuff that we all remember studying. Way back in the day, just a little bit of a highlight on the deal because it was probably the major deal that was announced last week. So this is a 15 billion pound deal to merge Vodafone UK. This is not Vodafone PLC. Vodafone PLC operates across the world and generates a lot of its revenue in the EU. Vodafone UK and three, which is a subsidiary of Hutchison, which is the Hong Kong listed conglomerate, you know, going back to conglomerates. So this is a 15 pound deal where the equity of the two businesses is valued at nine billion and six billion of the enterprise value of the deal is going from debt from the existing entities fed into this merged entity. Again, enterprise value is not just equity value, it's also the value there. And this becomes a brand new new entity. It becomes a brand new entity. It is going to be owned 51% by Vodafone. And there's a reason why there's 51% by Vodafone, which we can talk to a little bit later with regards to regulation and 49% from Hutchison. And the rationale, you know, I thought a little bit about its rationale. So Vodafone, I don't know if you followed the story, but over the last year or two, there's been an activist shareholder campaign basically saying, look, Vodafone, you're not performing anywhere near what we expect you to be performing at. You're still investing money into loss-making businesses. You're not focusing on the real jewels in the crown of your business, just basically Germany, UK, Spain, et cetera. And A, we want to get your CEO out because we don't think he's good enough. Right, Reid. B, Reid's been responsible for a 20% decline in the share price. So something. So, you know, Vodafone had to make some moves, right? And by merging with three, what they're trying to do is create an entity that's got the firepower to invest across the 5G spectrum, which is, again, the big land grab in this industry, a bigger entity with more ability to raise capital and receive investment from the parent companies is going to give them a war chest to go out and what compete, E, E, et cetera, in this market. They also say that the deal is going to unlock two, this is quite staggering, the deal is going to unlock up to 7 billion pounds in synergies. Right. So 7 billion pounds in synergies, when you think about an equity value or an enterprise value of the business of 15 billion pounds, you're basically saying that this is going to be the world's greatest value creator by just unlocking all of these amazing synergies from things like marketing, unification, enhanced mass sharing capabilities, which is something that the industry does quite a lot of. So, again, who knows where that number came from and often these numbers are whatever they need to be in order to work from a deal rationale perspective. But I think that that is going to be 7 billion coming out of, coming out to you quickly. That's ambitious. Sounds like a lot of job losses. Which is going to be some job losses. Yeah. The regulators might feed into the kind of regulators list of things to be concerned about here. Yeah, this is really interesting. We can move on to regulation. And as you said, there have been four big players in the market, in the mobile phone operator market, EEO2, 3 and Vodafone. Already that's quite a concentrated market when it comes to choice, consumer choice. And back in 2016, the EEO regulators blocked just in its first attempt to link three with Vodafone 2. There's only four is okay. Three is too small a market to give consumers the choice that they need. But there are certain markets. There are certain markets that are naturally oligopolistic. That's a great word, by the way. Can you just say that? I try and say it about 10 times a day. So an oligopoly is a market with three or four major players. And sometimes that is a bad thing because it restricts competition, and places are driven up and consumers don't get choice. But often these markets, as goes the argument from Vodafone and Hudson, these markets can only support three or four big players because in order to be a big player in this market, you need scale.  You need to have access to significant capital to improve your network through time. There are not that many companies, sub-scale companies will not survive in this industry. And what Hutchison's saying is, since 2019, we've been operating, our profits have been below, not just capital. So cost to capital, how much it costs to raise new money, our profits are not basically covering that. That is a clear example of a sub-scale business. And what they're basically saying is, if you don't let us do this, then it will be three anyway because we won't be able to survive. So regulators, take a little look at this. And by the way, we are committed to investing 11 billion pounds in the 5G network, which you're already lagging the US and other countries in. So come on, please come back to the table, talk to us, take another look at this.  So what's your sense? If you had to put a bet on it today, what's, would you bet that this is gonna pass and they will merge and it will go ahead? Or do you think it'll get kiboshed like it did a few years back? So if you've asked me that yesterday when I was doing the research, I would have said, probably I would put it more likely that it would pass. I think they've got a relatively strong argument. And the murmurings are that the CMA may look slightly more favorably on this deal than they have on certain deals in the past. But then I started looking into, I started looking into this market. And so a lot of the argument for this combination is, look, two sub-scale businesses, we can't operate independently. We need to team up together in order to share resources, right? But actually in this industry, resource sharing already happens, right? So co-location is a big thing in this industry, basically sharing infrastructure. So mobile phone operators will team up together to share their masks and their cell sites. So they're already doing these deals to kind of benefit from shared capacity, which slightly, not completely, but slightly kind of undermines the argument that they need to merge together in order to do this kind of stuff, in order to realize these economies of scale, in order to realize these synergies. So whether the CMA lands on the side of, actually better three big beasts than three big beasts and a sub-scale beast. I'm on the fence, 50-50, come back to me in a year's time, because it will take a year plus, probably to go through. Right, yeah, I was gonna ask on timescale. So yeah, maybe a year, 18 months. So maybe finally then, 51% Vodafone, 49% Hutchinson. So why those numbers? Should we be reading anything into that? Yeah, so there's a couple of reasons for this. So the first is Vodafone, also they slightly want to be the senior partner because, well, they have an option that if the business, the combined business, reaches a certain enterprise value, they have the option to buy the whole thing. So if the business exceeds an enterprise value of 16.5 billion, which is not kind of inconceivable, they get the right to buy the whole business up three years. So they already kind of want to be the senior party in this. They're a slightly bigger network in the UK. They're actually putting in a little bit more equity as well. So there's that argument that they should be the senior party, but also from a national security perspective, it is seen as quite important that a critical piece of British infrastructure is owned from a percentage ownership and a control perspective by a UK DLC. So we're still in this Huawei national security. Let's try and make it as easy as possible to get this deal through, hence we'll make Vodafone the senior party. And I think it makes sense for a number of other reasons as well. Okay, interesting stuff. We shall track that story. As you said, it could be rolling for many, many months, a year plus. So we'll keep track of this as things play out. Let's move on to our final topic. And well, let's talk Subway. Did you know, fun fact, there are 37,000 Subway branches globally. That's a lot of one foot sandwiches that are getting sold there. So talk to us. What's going on? There's a buyout in the offering. Yeah, so Subway's up for sale. Subway's up for sale. There's a few more and there's a leading the sell side process to sell Subway. They initially wanted $10 billion for the organization, but they're now aiming to reach about $9 billion. There are a lot of private equity firms slipping around. The first round saw 20 PE firms interested. The way that a process like this will work is that you winner it down 20 down to five if you're preferred and then that's exclusive and then you get the transaction. So from 20, we now have four or five private equity firms that are interested in buying this company. And this company is a really interesting one. Obviously we all know it from virtually every high strength, but it is not just, it's a franchise or. So it doesn't run the company. It doesn't run at the stores. It is a franchise or that provides material, expertise, brand, marketing to individuals that want to set up and the franchisee pays a franchise fee to set up 10 to 15K. It's actually really quite low compared to McDonald's or something like that in hundreds of thousands of dollars. And then they pay 12.5% of gross sales minus tax every week back up to several, right? So Subway, the business model, a franchise business model is quite a nice one if it works. You're up there, you're doing the marketing, you're giving the important, you're helping stores upgrade, you're making sure that quality standards are uniform but you're not actually taking on the risk of an individual store, that's the franchisee.  So it's an interesting business model and it's important this business model because it goes into how this thing is going to be fired. So when private equity firms or any acquirers are looking at buying an asset, buying a business, they have a range of options available to them in terms of how to finance this. And we've spoken previously on the part about the blend of debt and equity and you possibly want as much debt as possible so that your equity could be multiplied upon exit. But actually the reality of a capital structure is much more complicated. So the way it works is it's all about risk of return. So at the very, very top of a capital structure and I say capital structure basically the 100% of financing that goes into a business that the very, very top, the most risky form of capital that you can put into a business is ordinary equity. The reason why that's most risky is because if the company goes fast, they are the last people to get the dreads of the business. They are paid out the last. So that is proper risk capital. Right down at the bottom of the spectrum, the most secured, the most safe asset capital is what we would call senior secured lender. This is where a bank or an institution lends to a company but is secured on the assets that that company has. Bit like taking out a mortgage. The bank lends me money but they are secured against the value of my property. So I'm pretty safe. I don't get a great deal of upside. The equity only has got the big upside if this thing goes into space, grows very quickly but I'm pretty safe. And then all the way in between you have these different levels of risk and return from senior secured all the way to like common stock, ordinary equity. And why this is important for the subway story is because they have got a really interesting source of revenues that can be what we call securitized. So the article that came out in Bloomberg a couple of days ago was about this thing called whole business securitization. And the fact that potential buyers of subway can get access to up to $3 billion, up to $9 billion purchase price in whole business securitization. What this means is that banks will lend to these private equity firms, these private equity buyers banks will lend at based on the royalty payments or the franchise payments that are filtering up to the business. So every week there is some certainty that instead of 7,000 stores are going to pay 12.5%. That's the thing that can be securitized. I've got access to that security. I'm pretty confident that that thing is gonna get given. And if subway goes bust, I still get those fees coming to me as a business. So I can lend you a lot more than you would otherwise be lent because I've got security through those royalty streams. Whole business securitization doesn't exist outside of a kind of royalty fee model. You can have secure businesses but this notion of whole business securitization is quite unique. And I think why it's quite an interesting story when we're trying to learn a little bit more about capital structure. So can I ask then? So that sounds like, so let's just take that franchisee who's operating their business. They're at the coal face, customer facing, coming in, trying to sell sandwiches, whatever, right? But so they're a business like a normal business they're generating sales and revenue and a portion of that's getting sent up to find the subway business. But I don't understand like from a bank who's lending, why would they see that royalty fee? Why is that less risky than a normal company's revenue and therefore profits? Is it just because there's a, you've got 37 pounds and off them. So perhaps the risk is therefore diluted. Is that how it works? Yes, it's a really good question. It's quite a tough one to unpack. So if I was a bank and I was looking at these royalty payments, I would see the agreement between the franchisee, the individual store and the franchisor as an asset. That long-term agreement, five to 10 years, 12.5% relatively stable income streams across a 37,000 portfolio. As I could see that as an asset, I would be willing to lend against. So that if the top go went bust, I still can get that revenue stream because those companies are still existing underneath. So the kind of the risk is certainly spread and the contract length is quite visible. So there's visibility of income. And what you're essentially doing is you are packaging millions of subway customers into 37,000 consistent revenue streams. As a bank, I would feel so much more confident lending against than lending against the 2.5 million buyers of a subway sandwich every lunch. So it's just a different risk profile. And it has it mirrors a little bit of the mortgage-backed securities kind of combinations that we saw back in the dark days, pre-2008. So I guess then thinking back to your capital structure, then this comes, it's more down towards the sort of senior secured debt end of the spectrum. And therefore I would assume then that the interest rate on that level that the interest rate on that loan is lower. Absolutely, absolutely. And you will be able to potentially borrow more. Right. So the article goes, there's potentially up to 3 billion available in whole business securitisation and an additional 2 billion available in traditional bonds and loans. So you're getting five nights of your capital structure potentially in debt. And actually weirdly enough, just to kind of move this onto the second interesting part of the story, that five billion number is the amount of money that JP Morgan, remember JP Morgan is advising subway, not advising the buyers, is the amount of money that JP Morgan is offering as what's called staple or bridge financing. So this is a really common thing in private equity or in deal-making in general. If I'm a bank with a big banner sheet active on behalf of Subway and we wanna get this sale done by July, I can sweeten it by saying, you're buying Subway, but you're also buying this $5 billion financing package that we as JP Morgan have bespokely put together for you for this acquisition. So the buyers don't need to scramble around certainly for the first year, thinking about that five billion, they just buy Subway and have the debt that's already arranged. And then JP Morgan can work with the eventual buyer to see how to, maybe turn that into a longer term debt instruments or whatever it might be. So really smart. So there's no like half of me wants to say, well, hang on, isn't there a bit of a conflict of interest there where JP Morgan wanna get this deal done ASAP really because of the fees they'll generate from the financing product which the buyers are gonna be paying for. And therefore a bit of a conflict maybe in terms of representing Subway the seller. Yeah, it's a really good point and you'll find this all the way through corporate finance. And you may not call it an explicit conflict of interest but the best representation of this kind of packaged offering is if you work for a big lender that isn't an amazing M&A advisor, you might well get a little ticket on the M&A deal not right at the top as the leader ranger but maybe somewhere, a little tune stone for your work even if your M&A team didn't do a great deal. It's because you're the biggest lender in the syndicate. So there is a little, well, there's definitely overlap. If I have to provide you the financing I wanna get a bit of advisory fee. If I'm gonna be the lead advisor well, why don't I help lead the financing as well? So it's not necessarily a conflict of interest but there's certainly J.P. Morgan is gonna benefit both from the advisory, the arrangement of the debt and then working with the buyer to sell down the debt and restruct it afterwards. So they've got a nice ticket here. They do and I guess, yeah. I mean, thinking back to like competition commissions and stuff is almost like J.P. Morgan. I mean, we're veering off into a different conversation here so we won't go down this path but J.P. Morgan, they're such a beast that they do have maybe that power to kind of demand whatever fees they want, right? Cause there's just no one else as big as them that can kind of pull off these deals. And I guess for Subway, thinking about the competition sorry, that point about them, the conflict of interest point, maybe I guess for Subway the attraction is we wanna just get this deal done. We wanna get it done. Now we've decided to sell, let's sell. I'm right. If J.P. Morgan can provide that financing bridge it just speeds up the deal, I guess. So that's the- I'd be more likely to get if I wanted a relatively quick efficient process why not go with J.P. Morgan if they're gonna provide the stable financing? Obviously J.P. is not the only organization that does this but they're certainly too big to fail as we've discussed before. Who owns Subway now? Is it, yeah, who's the current owner? Is it public, do you consider or is it? It's not publicly listed, private equity backed. Okay, so is private equity backed just wanting to cash in on, well, it's time to exit and return funds, I guess. So they're just kind of rolling it over to a new set of private equity firms. I see. It's actually owned by the DeLuca family. So it's kind of privately owned. Oh, okay, fine. Okay. It's not private equity but privately owned. So they obviously wanna cash out. Yeah, it's just time. Yeah. Cool. Well, very interesting. So next time I step into a Subway which I confess I don't do on a regular basis but I'll ask the franchise owner, not that I'm sure they won't be behind the counter but maybe they will, I'll ask them. I wonder what the franchise owner thinks about all of this. I guess for them it doesn't really matter, right? Who are the big bosses upstairs? You just gotta send them the money. Yeah. It could not care less. It could not care less. Cool. Very interesting stuff. Well, thanks very much for your insights and we'll leave it there for this week's Deal Room episode and we'll be back next week for more interesting insights. Thanks very much, Stephen. Take care. Bye. Thank you, Piers.


On Tuesday August 31st the Ministry of Education held a virtual meeting and that's with stakeholders in the education sector. Now at that meeting Jam's registrar went on to Professor Ishaq Oluwede, went on to announce that the cut of Mac for Jam is no longer uniform. This has basically been scrapped. He had earlier told different institutions to go ahead and decide on their own cut of Macs and the lowest should be 120. 120 should be the basic minimum and different states, different institutions developed and decided on their own cut of Macs and they submitted that to Jam. So Jam has gone ahead to adopt this, say this is now what it would be. University of Meduguri proposed 150 as its cut of Mac. It's Mandan Fodyo University, Sokoto proposed 140. The Pan-Atlantic University proposed 210. University of Lagos, Unilag proposed 200. Lagos State University, Lasso proposed 190. Covenant University, Otta proposed 190 and Bayero University, Kansas State Buk proposed 180. So these different cut of Macs that varies from school to school has been adopted. So no more uniform cut of Mac unlike when before, it's like 180 across all schools. Let's discuss this with a professor, a bigger pardon, a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, Mr. Dan Ikere. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Thank you so much. So I want to get your initial reaction to this. Would you say this is good news or is this a sign of a declining education standard in Nigeria? Thank you. I will look at it from different angles. We need to understand very clearly that over the years, universities have actually always fixed their own cut of Macs. What Jam has been doing at Marapa is that Jam will simply fix one we can call the past Mac. The Mac that will qualify you to either take a cost UGME, which is the newly introduced for UGME, that with respect to cut of Mac is the event that I've always decided on cut of Mac. And that is influenced by the performance by year. Now, this time around, Jam will say that individual universities should decide on what it is. What I find difficult to understand is whether they are saying that the university should choose the past Mac and as well decide on cut of Mac. If that is the situation, beautiful, then what would be the relevance of Jam? Even at the end of the day, the universities are taking all the decisions with respect to everything admission. If Jam's responsibility is just to conduct exam and maybe use your admission letters, that the universities can as well do. So, and one major effect that will come out of this is that some particular places can decide that their cut of Mac or past Mac is tricky. And we all go to the same national youth service. We all are in the same degrees. We go to the government and we show you that the ones that we were very interested with 50 will be the first to get a job. Okay. Mr. Danikere, that's why I was asking you at first that the fact that the sims are cut of Macs are no longer uniform across schools and that secondly, these institutions decide their cut of Macs and it's been lowered. Do you think this is going to have an impact on, you know, standards of education in the country? I think that has already been made from my presentation because clearly you will find situations in which some places who decide that their cut, okay, look at the unity schools, for instance. You find that the cut of Mac for some states is as low as five, three, ten. You know why for some places it is more than seventy, more than forty, more than thirty. So what do you make of that? That's the same situation that has been introduced by Jamp right now. And I think that the best would have been that as long as Jamp still exists as a body, it should fix the past Mac. The past Mac is not necessarily cut of Mac. So it is on the basis of that past Mac that selection programs can be done by the various universities for post UTME. It's on the basis of the post UTME and the general performance in Jamp that individual universities will now pick their cut of Mac to admit students. But to say that everything should be decided by various universities, I'm sure there's something going wrong somewhere. Let's go back and look at the system the way it was run before. Danny Carrick, do you think that the system, the way it was run, was the best way to do it? Was the post UTME really very, very necessary even after passing Jamp? And also with the way that it is currently structured, do you think that maybe that removes the need to write post UTME? Thank you. If I got you correctly, I want to believe that the post UTME is very necessary. It's very important because at the end of the day, Jamp will simply be a sufficient pool for the few that you seek for post UTME, where you see those that have what it takes from those at the notch. Now that will create a clearing house that will create that opportunity so that you'll be able to moderate in terms of numbers. Now at that point, universities will equally set their own exams to be sure of those who actually would jump themselves and pass. Although the challenge can be even with the position you see some ladies here and there, but then at that level it will be minimized. And it will be more specific. So I think that yes, without being there post UTME is necessary. Yes, it's necessary. So that the universities can actually set their own standards at that point. You must recall that they are all not at the same level or the universities are not at the same level. As we speak today, the universities are already looking at operating 60% postgraduate programs and 40% undergraduate. So we must develop along that line. And the best way to get it done is for as long as Jamp remains a body to be a clearing house where this selection process will start and end with the universities themselves. Therefore, universities will decide on both past marks and cut off marks. My worries might just eventually clear up in a different time. Okay, just to clarify that Professor Isha Koloyode said that with this new arrangement, the minimum cut off marks for universities is 120 and 100 for polytechnics and colleges of education. And then these institutions went ahead to fix their own marks at, you know, above that figure just to ensure that clarity there. But I want to ask you about the quality of graduates that are being churned out of the Nigerian university system vis-à-vis these cut off marks that are currently in place right now. Do you think that the standards, you know, for entrance into secondary schools, into universities should maybe even be increased? And do you think the examination should be more rigorous? Well, generally, you know the way examination is done. As a matter of fact, it tells an aspect of not necessarily everything. The idea is that what we have been taught, we have been subjected to examination to know whether you have any understanding of what's going on. The fact that people say like that does not mean that they are useless, does not equally mean that they are totally dull, is not unlikely that you might focus on a different aspect or whatever. Now, when it comes to issues of admission, it is critical that we look at it comprehensively. The unity schools, like I said, will just be a typical case in point where they are all supposed to be unity schools, where standards are supposed to be the same, and yet the entrance to these schools, you have various levels, the various standards, may why they are all coming out with the same certificate. In some cases, tomorrow you will find out that these ones, even when they are not better than others, might be the ones who end up being directors here and there in government establishment. So, my take is that as long as these things are of the same level, the entrance examination that Jam usually conducts should be the clearing points, and the standard should be the same. Even bringing things down to what we need is lower in the standard, and I am not surprised that that is happening. It is not that because Nigerians are getting dull by the day, but it is quickly because 30 political parties have played. So, we must look at all these issues, and I think that Jam should have the same. Can you be more specific regarding the political interest you mentioned regarding the law in schools? That will be open to everybody to examine. There is nothing specific about it. What specific issues again are you looking at when you see the exact people are these? Some people are actually with three, some are actually with 50, some are actually with 150. What else do you want to look at? That is a political interest. Otherwise, if all of us are going into a school, why should somebody from A point have a different score from my own who is coming from B? The other one is coming from C. The school is the same. Everybody should measure their standard. Danica, what figure would you recommend that Jam places as its cut-off mark? If you say 120 is too small, would you suggest that they stick with 200? Yes, thank you. There has been a standard before. There has been a standard before. The six-owned universities, the pass mark used to be 180, and the standard used to be 200. Even at that, you see people whose cut-off mark would still not find admission because of competition. You discover that sometimes if 200 is the pass mark, the cut-off mark would be around 250. And for that 250, you find a lot of persons who are qualified. So now bring it to 180. I think people are no longer scoring higher figures. It makes me so worried. So I think we should go back to the normal. We should, because of any particular individual and lower the standard, let everybody go to the universities. Let those who are qualified for universities go for universities. Those who are qualified for other institutions, other levels, should go there. At the end of the day, everybody is going to universities. We do not have, you know, a couple of hands in other technical areas. We have stood down, greeted them because of the wide passes on universities. Universities are not meant for everybody. Even though we encourage everybody to try. One of the things you just mentioned is the fact that even when people score 200, you know, there's still no, you know, space for all of them to fit in. So is this one of the fears that you have? Reducing the code of mark to 180 or to 150, it increases the number of people who would, you know, reach that pass mark and wouldn't be able to find a space in the university. If I got you correctly, the idea of 120 for me is just to create a wider pool where a lot of things will not happen. I think with 180, 200, we see a lot of people meeting up and some are being dropped because of issues of maybe space and, you know, establishment or whatever, then why bring it up to 120? Why bring it up to 120? So in my thinking, which is my kind of opinion, rather than lower the standard to meet the position of those who are not doing well, increase it for people to rise up to that level, people to aspire, people to work harder, so that the idea of, oh, because we can't do this, then they will come to our level, should be varied. The investment must be in place for standard measurements. Mr. Ikere, according to a recent university ranking of, you know, universities globally by Webimetrics, it showed that no Nigerian university ranked in the top 1,000 at all. When we saw University of Ibadon Covenant University above Himiawala University, they're ranking 1,196, you know, and so on and so forth.  Thank you. Now, the issue of ranking of universities, for me, is the one of his own. Yeah, it's in the one of his own, because the parameters being used to do this judgment sometimes can be questionable, because when you look at the way this is articulated, you want to find out if maybe Nigerians are doing well, then you come to Nigeria, for example, 10, 20, 30, even 100,000 and these people, hundreds of millions, you don't get the full account. Now, even if the standard is so low here, for instance, is it not Nigerian doctors and the rest that are going out and doing exploits? The school here, you know, from the places that are not making their first 100 and the rest of them, when the graduates of this decision go out, they meet up with whatever people surpass them. So the challenge we have really, is the question of the environment, not that the standard is low. So forget about whatever evaluation they are doing and the run came and the rest. Yes, I agree that we seem to do more, we need to, you know, continue to put resources in place to ensure that we fortify ourselves, you know, for the point of producing the best. The fact that we are not among the so-called non-bolts that are ranking does not mean that we have to wear. Alright, I also want you to share your thoughts on the, you know, the space for growth, you know, of other institutions of learning. Like you mentioned, you know that everybody needs to go through the university. There's polytechnics, there's other, you know, smaller institutions that exist that Nigerians can also learn very important life skills. You know, is this also an opportunity to get into that discussion and see ways that we can better equip these other institutions of learning to be more valuable to Nigerians? Well, if only it would play out in that way, it would have been good. The challenge is that, it's not going to push this report to those teachers who are talking about. We still have this challenge of everybody wanting to be in the university because the way we do things here is we are not the university graduating. There seems not to be any value placed on the president. We don't look at what you are able to do. We look at certificates. So that's the challenge. If somebody with a higher national diploma for instance is in a particular establishment, there's somebody with a degree, and even when the world with higher national diploma is doing better, is the degree they are looking at. They are not looking at the production. They are looking at productivity. They are not looking at any of those things. The effort is on the certificate. So as long as we apply certificates, you will continue to have that talent. Why would I say my title is polytechnic? When after everything has acquired, even when it's better than somebody with a degree, you will raise the degree higher. So it will not affect so many things. And it will continue to be like this. Until the trend is reversed. By way through the activities, it's equally constant. So when you apply for a certificate, you don't look at confidence anymore. And I think that is part of the problem. But how do we change this? Danika, you can hear us. I'm asking, how do we change this in the Nigerian educational space? Okay. One way of doing it, because a lot of this at the end of it boils down to the issue of employment. Yes. You know, at the end of the day, others are advertising for the green holders. Instead of those with confidence and no constitution is given to those with national diploma, higher national diploma at the rate, then we will continue to have that. But I think the trend is made open that they are looking for qualified hands who are capable of doing this kind of job. Then you allow everybody to come. You test. But from the ADBAT, you have already limited so many people. In some cases, you will find that they are asking for not only the degrees, they are equally asking for years of experience. So where do they gain the experience from to join you all? You know, so these are the challenges we are having. So employment is part of it. But if we can make it open, in such a manner that you are looking for competence, not certificates, test everybody who is coming on board. So that will reduce, because already if you give the issue of the recruitment to reactants to do for you, they will go through all of this. But if you assess your data, if everyone has already agreed, then obviously you are going to be meeting a lot of things. And so many people practices to continue to have. So everybody will fight to get a degree. So from the point of employment, we must begin to address these issues. I also want you to speak on the fact that, ASU currently is threatening that they might go back to another strike. Or they will have a meeting and decide on striking. The meeting is meant to be held today. And this is mostly because of the failure of government to fund institutions better, equip universities better. So we have had this conversation for a long time. When and during universities don't seem to have the funding and the equipment. The last time we spoke with the ASU president, he spoke about certain universities using stoves, kitchen stoves as bouncing burners. That's just an example of the level of infrastructure in universities. Now we are adding that to a situation where it's likely that people who scored 130, 140 in jam will be gaining entry into universities that are still poorly equipped. So is that a huge challenge with regards to the quality of graduates that eventually get into the labor market four years later? In fact, you are good. A workman is as good as his tools. So even what you have in the future, is this kind of challenging case of infrastructure. Then you will always have challenges even with the outcome. Another of the countries, a lot of people do understand this is for ASU strikes. ASU members are committed to intellectuals and academics. It's like, look at the fish. The fish can never be happy outside the water. Lecturers are never happy outside their working environment. So global strike must be the last resort. The challenge again is that the question of those uses, stoves and the rest of it that might just even be a better situation because when you look at the issue of funding respect to universities, it goes beyond that. And until you fund your system, it doesn't bother anybody why our products will go outside. And outside that they are doing fantastic. It's because of the environment. So once you put the facilities in place to get the best out of it, we have the best hands. And our students are equally very brilliant. But when the work man's tools are so challenging, the product of that is going to have a challenge as well. So we must make sure that we don't leave this crusade to even ASU alone. The entire country must continue to demand that the government funds education adequately. Absolutely. That is the only way you can get the best. We are trained in these schools. So until you put the best facilities in place, you are not going to get the best results. All right. That's my take on that really. We'll say thank you for sharing your thoughts with us this morning. Thanks for your time. We wish you a very interesting Friday ahead. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Of course, we had initially scheduled a conversation this morning on Zamfara and the current situation there, but it's been a little trouble getting in contact with our guests. So we're going to have to move that interview to a later date and maybe just share a little bit about it this morning. And right after that, we're going to be talking sports. So take a short break. When we come back, just a little bit on Zamfara and Scott will be joining us to share his views on the Transfer Window in the EPL currently. We'll be back.