weren't showing them going deep enough, remember? Yeah, that's what I remember. On the corner, they were short cutting a corner or something? Or yeah. But that was all along Lightning Ridge. And I don't know what, and you guys are right about that. It's totally underground, from Gray Road, right to Sylvia's house. But what I'm not clear on is what, if any, what is the resolution and how does it get from Sylvia's house across the road to Ron and Maggie's? Both of which were on those sketches that they brought to the meeting. Why is this coming on board so we can settle this? OK, good. Well, my understanding was that Doug Lilly encumbered that property and required a number of things, including that the utilities be buried. So it was just meeting up those requirements out of respect to those easements, not easements, conditions on the deed. Covenants. Covenants, there you go. That their honorees, not that the cable company wanted to do that or that the property owners necessarily would have done it at their own. It's that they were required to do so. And so my guess is beyond that, the other people aren't going to do that. But that's only a guess. There's Rose, who can clear up their confusion. I got supper. OK, so we have a question for you on the September 14th minutes when we were talking about Eustace Cable. Right. And you had put in not underground overhead, but we're all remembering that they were talking about putting all of the cable underground. What are we missing that you meant by that comment? What I meant was that Alfred's response was he will ask them if they can go overhead over the pasture instead of underground. And see, we're all remembering that. We're all remembering that he was talking about going underground. Across the field. Alfred was talking about them going underground across the field. Oh, I'm sorry. Then I misunderstood what he said, because how could you bury cable under a field that gets plowed and mowed? And I thought he meant that he would see if they would go over the field, run the line above ground. So I guess I'm not sure. So put in whatever the correct answer is. Yeah. And you know, thinking about this. Your hope for knowing what that was, Rose. Yeah, you were supposed to clear up our confusion. But they've withdrawn the application anyways. But the minutes would be nice if they were correct. Right. Could that one word be removed to say, but rather go across a field and not be specific? Yeah. Or traverse the field. Oh, another fancy word. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that means that means I go over it, but you don't know if it's overground or underground. Yeah. Yeah, let's do that. We can keep it vague. Yeah. OK. All right, moving along. Yes, October 12th. Yeah. OK, we're missing a word here. The chair replied that the board is aware of the appointment is outstanding. And we will reply when we have an answer. Just missing a word or two in there. Yeah, just put and after outstanding. Yeah. No, no, no, not there, Cliff. No, that's Katie. Chair, the chair. Not there, Katie. Get right here, Katie, where it says that appointments were outstanding. And right, you got it. Or I just clicked Katie. Yep. OK. Anything else? So did you rewrite that paragraph, Sharon? Yeah, I did. What was the matter with the way it was? I don't remember. It wasn't it. I think it was just far less information, right? That could be right. I feel like when I saw that you added the details of like how many pages of I remember my brain trying to keep up at the end of that conversation and adding what the gist was rather than the details there. So I figured. And I wouldn't have had the pages in my notes. You must have had that. But maybe I did. But just knowing exactly what they did, what kinds of records are scanned. Yeah, I just read it and said, oh, I can really clean this up. So in the last sentence, adding more volumes to our scan, to our online, to our, don't we want to say, these are all going to be online? Digital. Right. We were digital. We were digital because this will make it so that people like Sharon can do research without having to go into the offices, right? Right. Right. And this is an expansion of something we already started. Right. So we want to say adding more volumes to our digitally scanned records. This is one of the things that I really wanted to be clear, because it felt a little muddy. And Katie's, as she said, trying to get it all just get the gist, we're both, we're doing a lot of scanning and making it digital. But Judy's spending a lot of time as a copier. But she's not scanning. So then you're like, well, why? Well, I know why. Because with COVID, she's spending time at the copier with all the stuff that it wasn't scanned yet to get it out to people. So I wanted that all to be really clear. So when town clerks do that, like Judy doing that, once she's taken them out of the books and copied them, does she then scan them and send them to the attorney or mail them? Oh, she scans it and sends it to the attorney. So it was two steps. You have to copy the document, then you have to scan it, and then you have to send it. Oh, she might be able to scan directly. I mean, usually. Oh, maybe. Maybe. But what she was telling us is that we're sending a lot more things out to be scanned so that she doesn't have to spend as many hours on the copier. But because of COVID, she's spending anyway. So I tried to make all of those points much more clear. OK, and can we say, and after records, can we say, this will make the town office function much more efficient or something like that? Instead of a lot easier. Yeah, we'll make the town office staff more efficient. Yeah. So actually, I mean, this is a blessing in disguise getting this all done. Yeah, town of Moortown, after the flood, back whenever after Irene, they had to scan everything, right? Because it was all flooded. So yeah. So just a question just out of curiosity. When you look at the records that way, does that I mean, you're not actually pulling the files and looking to make sure there isn't anything else that you need to see? Is it considered legal? When you when you use the record from such like this? Well, different attorneys will approach it differently. What I if I'm not able to actually be in the records and I have to rely on the clerk. So usually what you'll do is you'll ask what I would do is ask the clerk for copies from the cards and for the index. So you're starting with what documents are in the records. And then and then you want to know from the index and the cards, am I getting everything? But if it's all in the cards, they're not going to do that. They're not going to go through their card index and scan all the cards and send them to you. So that's where you have to anyway. So if I so if I get like an electronic index and then I go back and forth and get stuff from the clerk electronically or I'm able to pull some of it electronically and then say, would you mind? I know you're so busy, blah, blah. I still always say in my title report that due to the restrictions of COVID-19, this is my process. This is these are these are records as I relied on them. Okay. Okay.  Right. Yeah. I mean, it's I always unless I actually don't go out and do very, very often anymore. I don't because I'm too busy. I don't go out and do the research myself. Yeah. I have somebody who does that who's really skilled at it. Yeah. But unless we're actually able to get in the office. Yeah. Because even then, in fact, Callis is one of the more difficult ones because we are being Uber. Careful. Careful. Yeah. Sorry, sorry to deviate. I was just curious. It's been a question I've been wanting to know the answer to for a while. So thank you. All right. What's next? Conservation Commission. Isn't that what we had that the committee was going to serve on a see when, when you do it, when you do it that way, Sharon, I don't know what it used to say. Because I thought it said that before that the next steps where the conservation commission will, because I think I read them before you did. Sharon there. No, I'm here. I'm looking at it. I think a lot of it is just copied and then filling in or outside. I think what did I do? Katie, I cut it from here and moved it up there because like I said before, it went back and forth between content and then process. So I just put all of the content and substance in one place. Oh, I see. Okay. I know very much. Okay. All right. Next. Very good. All right. Is there a motion to approve with changes? I'll move. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Any further discussion? What are you eating, Madam Rose? That looks like a dessert. It is. It looks yummy. Thank you. All those in favor, Rose? Aye. Cliff? Aye. Sharon? Aye. John? Aye. Aye. And I'm an aye, Captain. All right. Next. This is a real short one. Right. I didn't see any edits in it. Right. That was that one about when Bruce was out. Okay. Is there any comments or changes to that? I would move to approve. Okay. I'll second it. All right. Are you ready to vote? All right. Cliff? Aye. Rose? Rose was absent that meeting. Aye. Okay. Are you abstaining, Rose? Oh, I'm... You can vote. It doesn't matter. Which date are you on? September 22nd, when we had the special meeting about Bruce. Okay. Yeah, I'll abstain. Okay. John? Aye. Sharon? Aye. And I'm an aye. Okay. We're moving to the minutes of 9.28. Yep. Can you speak about these minutes? Because when I was editing them, I was like, I'm not sure if I'm saying too much. There was so much content in that meeting. I guess I would like to know if there's a thumbs up that this level of detail should be included or if there's an area that you wish I would be more vague or generalized. I'd like to know. I like it when the minutes say more rather than less because then you can remember what actually happened and the public can know what happened. I agree. Okay. Yeah. And then Katie, just, yeah.   No, I won't read it all, but I can't even do that. I do that based on your, you know, I don't very often bring anything independent in unless it was something I felt really strongly about. Okay, what's the auditors gave the board the opportunity? Yeah. Yeah, it was the fiscal year that we were talking about. Okay. That was going to be a deficit in the town hall in the, you know what I'm talking about, that they are in the paragraph. Yeah, was for FY20. And that's the audit that the auditors just did was FY20, because we're currently in FY21, just for clarification. How's that? We'll put it there. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Okay. And then on the curb cut thing, the one, two, three, four, five, six, I think it's the six. It says on the south side BU, is that supposed to be butt? Only south side of the building only, maybe. I don't know what's supposed, what somebody meant to put there. On the south side of Chicago. There you go. This is Sharon's edit, but maybe it should say but only probably. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. It should be but only 120 feet. Oh yeah. Okay. Yes, that is what I meant. Thank you. Oh, you guys are on curb cut now. That's where I was. Yeah. That one, right? Yeah. Okay. I had a question. Yes, ma'am. The last sentence of that yellow highlighted paragraph. He noted it is a class four road and the board noted class four roads are included in the ordinance. I think class four roads are not included in the ordinance. No, they are roads. They are. We hoped they were not and we absolutely confirmed that they are. Okay. Yeah. That's why I took out. Town Highway Traffic Ordinance? No, in the curb cut ordinance. Oh, in the curb cut ordinance. Well, maybe we should write that because I was thinking Town Highway Ordinance. And that's why I struck the part where we were using about, oh, maybe they're not because we don't need the question to be in the minutes when we confirmed that they are. Right. Yeah, good. No, yeah. Put curb cut ordinance in there. It probably should be capitalized, Katie. Uh-huh. Okay. And the next paragraph, it says Rose Petzl reviewed the site and reminded the board curb cut permits for the creation of an ADA parking area, not a parking permit. Where are you? Where are you, Rose? The first sentence of that next paragraph. What do you want it to say? If you want permit to be changed to area. Yeah. No, it's already done. Parking area. Okay, I see. Yeah, Katie's got it. Katie's on it. Yep. Okay. And on the, on the, the should instead of May, I'm not, it's there's a place in the ordinance where it says we have discretion. John and I argued about how and whether it applies. And so I took, I mean, the fact is we decided we're gonna just pretend for that it does. So I put exception should be possible. Where are you? I'm just in that same paragraph. I don't know where you guys, oh, nevermind. You guys have already moved on. Sorry, I'm looking at different set. All right, nevermind. Keep going. You're good. We're, we're still there. I was just complaining my thought process, explaining my thought process. Okay. And we'll keep going. Yeah, go keep going. And then down here, I struck the operations manager suggested because is Orca still on? Yes. Because I felt like that input was not, yeah, I thought it was better struck. Okay. And Katie were, I didn't get this far in my advanced review, but where it's, I'm just down here. Oh, nevermind. I'm just, I'm gonna move back and watch what you guys are watching. Okay, are you ready to move on? Okay. But here, but we've all, I didn't get this far, but in my editing, the motion was voted and passed forward. Oh, Denise, this is a technicality, but Denise didn't abstain. She was recused. Oh, thanks. You could, I would even say was recused and not participating, just to make it really, really clear for people. And did not participate. And did not participate. Yeah, either way. That makes sense. Katie, different than abstaining? Yes, I didn't realize that. I don't think, I don't think there's any changes to with jippers and all those other things. We skipped one. Denise had made a comment about a sentence about the North Calis Memorial Hall's time limitations. Yeah, I think you put in a word. Okay. I wasn't sure what the, what we were looking for there. It just seemed like it was missing a word. When I read it, it made sense to me. So. Yeah, maybe I added something. Yeah, somebody added a word. So then it made sense. Can we have John read the. John, did you read the stuff about Santa Vermont Solid Waste Management? I did not. We're, let me pull it up here. Can we have him read it while we talk about some other things? We can do that. That might get confusing. What other things would we talk about? Oh, just move on. No, no, no, move on and circle back and approve the minutes later. Well, I think we're almost, it won't take John long. What's that? What's after central Vermont to look at on the other pages? Appointments, reappointments, IT update, town hall update, other updates. Okay. Did anybody have any? Give me a couple of minutes. Yep. Did we haven't, did anybody have anything on the end of these minutes? I didn't get that far. Okay. But Cliff gave the town hall update, right? Yeah. You read it and you're satisfied. I'm sure that it's fine. Yeah, it was fine to me. So did, I saw, did we get a camera ordered for Jay? He didn't respond to me.  And I didn't hear anything after that. Yeah. Sometimes when he's been working all day, he doesn't, you know, sometimes they work in the evenings, afternoon, evening shift kind of thing. Hey, I'm sure he'll get back to you. He did 12 hours. Yeah, I'm sure he'll get back to you. Yep, that's what I figured. Yeah. But just so everyone knows the camera that we're looking at, we'll be able to save some money. Oh, good. And yeah, because we want it to be so that it's kind of usable so somebody else might need to borrow it for a town-related thing. And it doesn't have to have a choice of whether it's a Mac or a PC. No, that's the nice thing about this camera. It has a built-in Wi-Fi connection. So you can upload the pictures to a personalized photo album that exists in the cloud. And you can access it from whatever, whether you're on Windows, Mac, anything. Download the photos, print them, whatever you want to do. So I got a question as long as we're not talking about minutes right now. So I still, not every day or every other day even, I still get calls from Seacoast. It almost seems like it's more, like on a Sunday, early, early Sunday morning, or towards the end of the week, is there a reason for that? That it would be more towards one part of the week than the other? It's because they don't get a response. And we all know what the answer is because I've asked enough times why they don't get a response. They have a script that the alarm system runs through and it runs any number of routines and self-checks. And it's probably set, there's some random element to it, but it's just the way it breaks down. Okay, so there's no reason for that. Yeah, no particular reason as to why it would be more likely to happen at one time versus another, other than it's constantly rolling through the script of self-tests. Yeah, I've just been kind of making a mental note that it always, it seems to be like on a weekend. So maybe they do some kind of other testing on a weekend. I don't know. It could be that they figure, well, buildings are less likely to be used on weekends, municipal building less likely to be used on weekends. So they run a more extensive battery of tests. I know there's been times I've walked in there, gone into the building on weekdays and the alarm is beeping with that same error code. And it could also be that, I don't know if John was there doing some work or something and he didn't wanna hear the beep, he would disable the, tell it to ignore the error. And then it's not gonna come on again until the next time it runs that test. Okay. And everybody knows that the tours never took place over the weekend at fall foliage because there wasn't enough help to be had. Yeah, we decided to reconvene with the friends group and decide upon if there was still strong interest in doing that set a date that more volunteers could be available to help orchestrate the whole event. And do you, Katie, do you see the paragraph that says the board decided to deviate under the town hall update stuff? I remember it, let me, yeah, I'm going. Further, it's, I can see where it says because the nature of the event, it's missing a word because of the nature. There you go. I didn't see that before. All right, John, are you done? There's a lot here, I'm almost done. It's a lot. Under section 12, under appointments, three appointments, I just added one, two, three. The fourth line down when it talks about Ruth Porter's three year term that began in March and then you could insert in expires in 2023. Okay. So I got a question for the other board. Do you want me to see if I can get Jamie? We talked about having Jamie come and talk to us about the edible garden because they were supposed to provide us with annual updates or whatever. Do we want to try to see if we can get her on for the next Monday regular meeting? What else, how aggressively packed is that agenda already though? I'm working on it. We've got, if we're gonna put something on there about the speeding on County Road, that's gonna take quite a while. We're gonna have, I would think, a lot of people interested in participating in that. So that's gonna take at least a half an hour, I would think. You know, we could ask her to come. Yeah, if we've got a big fat topic that I would say no. Yeah, I'm trying to think what else we have. I made some notes. Does anybody remember anything else? October 12th is when Alfred's supposed to come and Toby, so that's gonna be big. Oh, the road crew UVM study thing. Sounds like it's gonna be a lot of road stuff. So maybe it would be better to... I mean, it's not gonna, nothing's gonna happen this season anyways because everything's dead, but she could come even in November. Yeah, talk about that. Okay, the road crew UVM study, and then we have County Road. County Road speeders, I can see that. I can see that taking a really long time to discuss that. So I've completed reviewing it. There's only one correction I think is necessary. It's the very last sentence before we get to paragraph, the paragraph number 12. It says the board questioned how the town will go forward. Knowing their district is on top of things. I think it should say the board questioned how the town will go forward. Knowing their district has not been on top of things. I think that was the question. Yeah, you're right. I think that makes sense. Because when I read that sentence, I thought, hmm, is that right? Oh, I see. Yeah, I meant what you're saying, but I see how it doesn't read that way. Oh, Kati, you're good. She is good. You nailed it. I was like, oh, I'm angry about this whole recycling thing. I better say it fairly. I was like, they buried, okay. You were as angry as us, huh? Yes. Is the way that I should say it, the board questioned how the town will go forward. Knowing their district has not been on top of things. Yeah, that works. Or is not. Yeah. Is not, that's bold. Yeah, good. Or has been unresponsive to these concerns and the issue or?  I think if you read everything before this, you know exactly what we're referring to. Yeah. Nice job, Kati. Thank you. All right, with that, is somebody ready to make a motion to approve these minutes with changes? Hang on, I actually, I'm sorry, you guys. Did we all, there was this part where we, okay, operations manager is working with the state regarding, there was a place where I said, where is this? What are you talking, where are you?  Where are you? I'm up item five that we already went past. Working with the state. Did it used to say state people, Kati, regarding solar powered speed sign permit on item five? Yes, I mentioned that you're met with the state right of way. That right of way people. And you could say employees. Because they're actually the, they're state V trans, they're V trans personnel. Yeah, so my question that I think I didn't like save properly is we don't actually say where in town we're talking about. So isn't this East Calis somewhere? Yes. Route 14. Right, so, and work. We could just say on route 14 in East Calis. Regarding East Fort. I'm gonna need to tidy up that sentence now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you gotta move some, move this, yeah, move some phrases around. But I think they're all in there. Yeah, another there. Yeah. Okay, that's a good catch. So let's do that. All right, are we ready to approve? Yeah. All right, somebody want to make a motion? I'll make a motion to approve the minutes as noted with changes. Is there a second? Second, and even some continued cleaning up from Kati. Yeah, in that paragraph five, it says Barry Cable on Ridge Road and forgot the word lightning. Okay. Thank you. All right, are you ready to vote, Rose? Aye. Cliff, I can't hear you. Aye. Okay, Sharon? Aye. John? Aye.


Hi everyone, Joe for JasperiesCaseRakes.com coming at you with 2022-23 Panini Court Kings basketball eight box pick your team number two all-card ship. This is the second half of the court kings case we popped open. I don't know when we popped it open, but no. Some time ago. Big thanks everybody here. Thanks for getting in. Thanks for staying into the break. Nathan, the last spot mode. Joe, thank you for grabbing the Pacers. And congrats to the people who won their teams in the filler. Is Jack in the Box own Del Taco? Jack in the Box is a good San Diego company, I think. I think their headquarters are in San Diego. Jack in the Box tacos aren't even tacos, says Jilo. Right. That's probably what they're selling at Del Taco. Although if Del Taco wants to advertise on Jasperies case breaks on our stream, I will gladly change my tune. So Del Taco, you know where to find us. I'll sell out. I'll sell out for that sweet, sweet advertising money. Grab it. An auto there. Air apparent. Caleb Houston. Okay, so there's, are there, are there, I think I grabbed it early, but that's going to go to Orlando. That's going to go to Mark. That's to 49. I think the Anthony Simons is to 49. And that Andrew Nemhard is a level three rookie card, I think four is the shortest print. That's going to go to Nathan. And Simons will go to Portland. That'll be for Nicole. And then we've got O'Shai Agbaji, Art Nouveau Relic, a little bit of stitching on the side there. That will be for Joe and Utah. And we've got some little mellos right there. I'll sleeve the Keegan's that are worth sleeving for, oh, Oliver has the Keegan's. All right. I'll sleeve the Keegan for you. Let's find a level four Keegan. James is not a fan of both. Well, if you had to choose though, what would it be? So where's the hit? So the hit is there. Okay. There's another level three rookie. DeMar DeRodin to 25. That'll be for the bulls. That's going to go to DY. And your hits. Let's do the Relic first, which is on the bottom. It's Clay Thompson. Piece of his jersey going to Michael and the Warriors. Gilo saying the Doritos pizza at Papa John's isn't that great.  You actually tried it. And the auto is for the Raptors. 51 out of 99 Christian Coloco. Fresh paint rookie autograph for Toronto, DY. Now I have tried the Doritos shell tacos, but I feel like I don't think they're, I think they fall apart too easily. Right? Don't they just crumble easily? They're way too fragile. I think they're bringing Cool Ranch back though. Elyne Green, their Sohan, Marjon Beauchamp, level one. And there's Osha Agwaji, level four. Nice, that's a cool looking design there. That's going to go to Joe and the Jazz. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no time, there's no time to chew those. They just crumble in your hands. They got to improve that Doritos shell technology. It's Caranthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins. Wiggins is to 99. I mean, let's quit trying to get to Mars. Let's work on improving Doritos taco shell technology. There's Agwaji again, piece of the jersey going to Joe. I think those level four parallels actually do pretty well. Eric used to, when Eric makes tacos, he pops a soft shell outside of the hard shell. That's a double decker from Taco Bell, but the best thing ever, they dropped it. Here's a Wendell Moore Jr. rookie auto, heir apparent rookie auto for DY and the Timberwolves. Who's running things over there? Taco Bell, bring that back. I feel like that's one of the, at Taco Bell I just get tacos. Or a different Doritos shell taco. Not even a taco supreme, just a taco. But I think I have had a double decker before and I think those are actually pretty good. Davis, RJ Barrett, Jaylen Brunson. Can never tell which ones are numbered or not. Is that numbered? That's numbered, not hard. No, that's just a level two. All right, there's Paul George. Paul George reveals the relic AJ Griffin, piece of the jersey for the ATL that's gonna go to DY. Frank says, if Taco Bell needs to be rebanking, it's the chili cheese burrito. And the auto behind Paul George is Peyton Watson, heir apparent rookie auto for the Nuggies. That's gonna go to Matthew and the Denver Nuggets. Chili cheese taco sounds fun, let me make some. Eric, are you gonna send some tacos for all of us, for the entire group? Paul George, 99, that's numbered. Yeah, Gabe saying all I need in my taco is the meat, cilantro, some onion. We've got some pretty good, obviously, some great local taco shops, you know, around here, family-owned places. So, thankfully, I don't have to rely on the Taco Bell so much, but nice. Voters are now at 60% Taco Bell. Take that, Chris Jaskey. Take that. People have spoken, the people know what they're talking about. They're on the right side of things. Ooh, there's first steps, Palo Bancaro. That's for Orlando, that's gonna go to Mark. And a work in progress, Keegan for Oliver. We got a Palo Bancaro, rookie expression, Relic. What's he doing? Is he calling a play or is he doing a no, no, no? And then we've got a master strokes autograph, Colin Sexton, Utah Jazz, Joe Andreessen. Joe with the Jazz, 62 out of 75. And there's Jimmy Hardin to 149, watercolor. We had some movement on that, Eric. I feel like some people were buying into that filler. That's an easy one to do tonight. That's the final four boxes of that case. Jillo's had enough of America putting cheese in everything, leave the taco alone. I don't mind a little cheese. Are we an over-cheese society? Jillo is cheese off at the cheese situation in today's food. Got a Jaden Ivy Maestro's card for Justin and Detroit. Another Palo Bancaro, Relic, Art Nouveau, Relic. We're over a cheesers. That should be the name of your podcast, Jillo. Over a cheesers. And every episode will be about a food that is just getting way too much cheese. There's Nikhil Alexander Walker, another Utah Jazz autograph for Joe. Nine out of 35. And there's a Jalen Duran with a little dent in the corner, unfortunately. That'll go to Detroit, that'll be for Justin. One card right on top there, yeah. Got Jaden Sharp. And then behind Kyrie, let's get the Relic first. That'll be Jaden Ivy, Art Nouveau, Relic. That'll be for Justin and Detroit. And behind Kyrie is the auto, and it's gonna be a Laker, it's gonna be Lonnie Walker the fourth. Brushstrokes autograph. Lonnie Walker with some bright moments in the playoffs. 23 out of 35. They'll try to re-sign him. Maybe he just got too expensive for the Lakers. Six out of 99. There's Kyrie, Nets edition that's gonna go to Joe. Final box, good luck. Yeah, I kind of wish they would've used him more, Lonnie Walker, Eric, I agree. They're definitely bringing Austin Reeves and Hachimura back. I think they're intending to definitely match any offer that comes their way. So then they gotta figure out who else to bring back. They're kind of up against the cap, so they gotta figure out things money-wise. They do have a draft pick this year. Maybe they'll do something interesting there. Another rookie expression, Paolo Banquero-Relley. I don't know how well these relics are doing on the secondary market, but pretty nice. Mark with the magic. And behind Yannis is BJ Armstrong. 27 out of 35. Old school Chicago Bull. Going to D, Y, and Da-Bulls. And there's Yannis to 149. There you go, gang. Eight box break. Court Kings basketball. Pick your team two in the books. Thanks, everybody, for getting in. Now, a wax party invite being given away here. So let's gather everybody's names. One down to 30, and everyone in between. New dice, new list. One winner, one invite. Name on top after four and a six. 10 times. We'll get an invite. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and 10th and final time. I'm just going to be a lot of sad faces here. I didn't realize that. None more sadder than this spot. Kyle. My apologies. Very close, but just not quite. Appreciate you trying, though. Appreciate everybody trying. Plenty of invites left, though. If you check the schedule, there's a wax party tab and keep track of all the winners, and keep track of how many invites are left. All right, so after 10, apologies from two to 30, but congrats to Michael Hughes. Congrats to you. Appreciate you getting in. After 10, your name's on top. You got a wax party invite. You're automatically going to win some kind of wax. The whole prize list is on jaspeyscasebreaks.com. Check it out. Thanks, everybody. I'll see you next time for the next break.


Hello and welcome back to the second episode of this four part series where Steven and I are going to unpack the topic of mergers and acquisitions M&A. In this particular episode, we're going to look at different reasons that drive the decision to acquire another company. So putting that simply, whether it to be to gain political influence, or to make the most of a potential revenue or cost energy. We're going to examine some of these and incorporate real life examples of people or companies that I'm sure you might have heard of. So it's really super easy to understand and follow. So Steven, hope you are well and where would you like to start first? Yeah, good to be on the pod again. Yeah, so we're going to cover soft power. We're going to start with that and then we're going to look at some revenue synergies. That's a bit of jargon. And then we're going to look at cost synergies, which is every M&A bank is favorite thing to talk about. But let's start with soft power. And I'm going to use a practical example, but I want to bring this up more to discuss and more to make people aware that M&A mergers and acquisitions. It's an advisory industry because we are dealing with humans. And behind every spreadsheet and behind every corporate entity is a combination of different human emotions that want to have different outcomes. And the average CEO, the average major investor, they're not necessarily short on confidence and they're not necessarily shy about wanting to have more power. Sometimes that's hard power in the form of money and sometimes that's soft power in the form of social, cultural, political or in this case, sporting influence. So the example that I wanted to use to represent M&A buying a company as a means of attaining soft power is the Saudis. We love talking about the Saudis because, hey, we're a finance podcast and where's all the money? It's in Saudi. So we haven't spoken about Saudis for a few weeks, so let's get into it. The article that I wanted to raise this week was about the Saudis basically making a pitch for the Indian Premier League.  It goes on for eight weeks, massively, massively culturally important and becoming one of the most lucrative sporting events from a broadcasting revenue on the planet. I think only the NFL gets a higher dollar per match broadcasting fee than the Indian Premier League. So this is big money and the Saudis having spread their wings to football and to the PGA Tour and obviously they've got the 2034 World Cup coming up. They're trying to get a slice of the Indian Premier League, which is valued at $30 billion. And this is a brilliant way for the KIF and the Saudi Royal Family to continue to extend their influence.  And now this is more to the south. And obviously India is a huge market from a commodities perspective, but also a huge political, military and cultural power that it makes sense to get involved in. So this is a great example of acquiring for soft power. Yeah, and you have this idea that with Saudi being very active in North America in Western Europe, it's interesting. They obviously have this vision 2030, this idea of having this ability to diversify their income stream, essentially away from oil. So there is a long term agenda here, but it's interesting. They're getting that short term impact by deal making in the developed world. And then they're looking to hedge themselves with getting some exposure to what is going to be an increasingly more affluent and the largest populous area of the planet. So yeah, it seems so interesting. Yeah, and if you've ever watched an IPL game, I'm a bit of a cricket fan. I've seen plenty and my gosh, the support is fanatical. I'm just looking here on the website. Bidders paid $6.2 billion for the right to broadcast games through to 2027 and they only run for eight weeks every year. The IPO is a very, very short form tournament. So it is quite remarkable. And it's only a very young franchise as well. You think of cricket being a very old school sport, but the IPL has only been around for 15 years, something like that. And that's where the money's going. If you want to follow the money, especially when it comes to cricket, go to India. And I think that's what the Saudis have seen. Yeah, so when we talk Saudi, we often talked a lot about these kind of cultural assets and sports being very, I guess, specific for Americans as well. But let's talk a little bit about the influence of media. And I know your Dean of the Week this week was talking about the Barclay Brothers and the Telegraph Media Group. So what's the situation there? Yeah, so this is a brilliant heel of the week and it's got a lot of elements to it. But the Telegraph Media Group owner of the newspaper that we all know one of the only crew, broadsheets remaining in the UK. So the Barclay Brothers, who are a pair of identical twins, famous for buying and then selling the Ritz, not famous for owning Barclay's, the bank, very different family. They got into a bit of a hot water owning the Daily Telegraph by basically pumping it full of too much debt that they ended up not being able to service and not being able to pay. The result being the banks took ownership of the Telegraph and it's now owned in Inverter Commerce by Lloyds Banking Group, who have restructured the debt and are now looking to sell it again. Barclay Brothers are once again very interested in buying back their prized cultural asset. But it's interesting you were telling me about some of the names from the hedge fund world that are sniffing around this particular asset. And you've got to be thinking to yourself, Telegraph Media Group, this is not going to be an acquisition for just sheer financial common sense. There's got to be more to it than that. So the Barclay Brothers are interested. Who else did you say was interested in the Telegraph Media Group? So Ken Griffin, who's basically the name synonymous with Citadel, which is the world's most profitable hedge fund. And yeah, there's some interesting bits with that because timing is so clear to me in a sense of we're a year out from a US political race at the moment. And someone like Ken Griffin has been particularly involved. He's quite influential already in his current status in the media in right wing politics. So on both sides of the Atlantic, he kind of says his piece and he's been a big Republican donor. The problem here is he's he's vocally said he gets very he's very tired of Donald Trump.  That's how he's referred to him. So it's interesting that obviously Trump is very much at this point in the running and still looking like although he has to fend off as he always does multiple lawsuits coming his way. But it's looking like he's going to run again and be a firm challenge to what appears to be Biden, but can Griffin get in and start to shape the narrative into what is we know. No one's really paying too much attention to US politics. Now there's a lot of stuff going on geopolitics and so forth, interest rates, inflation, recession risk.  So it now is quite optimal to start making some moves and you know you look up and register political donors in the UK. And many of the top donors, no surprise for the conservative party are hedge fund managers. So Chris Rokos or Alan Howard, the co founder of Brevin Howard, big backers of the Tories, for example. So it's not unusual this but I guess one thing I wanted to just quickly do is to just quickly run through. You mentioned the word soft power, and you hear this a lot, I guess, particularly in the current Saudi context, where it's kind of covert influence, if you like, hence the soft. But I just wanted to break down a little bit about the political side of this, because I think it will help with your understanding about the intersection then with economics and markets. So the first thing is editorial control. And that's probably the most kind of obvious one. It means that you can frame certain political issues. And I was just talking offline a moment ago that Ken Griffin, the Citadel chat, he was at a major keynote speech talking about AI. And that AI, it's like a race at the moment and who can dominate that conversation piece that you rightly said where she's sonac was kind of tried to engineer this big platform where he had all the best talking minds Elon Musk and the US come out and make their moves so they're not falling behind so the kind of framing of political issues is really quite pivotal the selection of open editorial contributors to remember Boris Johnson was a writer for the telegraph if you remember. So you can use these people as pawns to kind of shape that that conversation piece and get certain emphasis to highlight certain topics more than others. Then there's agenda setting. So determining which issues are given attention and considered important by then public and policymakers. If you continue to tell a story, we as humans will think well that's the main story, and then policymakers will have to react to the main story at hand, because that's of my grave as concern, maybe not something else. So I can kind of steer you in one way. There's reputational management. I mean, Ken Griffin's just come off his most profitable year in history.  He's just made a record 16 and a half billion for his investors last year. So that's never it's a good thing behind closed doors. It's never a particularly good thing publicly when you're living this extravagant lifestyle. That doesn't fare well in a cost of living crisis where the man on the street is is experiencing the exact opposite. So that's the sort of thing you'd love to have a little bit of PR management on, of which you can obviously create the stories and the narrative a little bit. Then there's access to policymakers. Now, if you think about media coverage or media executives, they have direct access to top politicians and policymakers. So how much can you have in terms of control of back channel communications where you have got this direct line to these people because it's a reciprocal relationship. Politicians need you and you need them. What can you do for me? Well, what can I do for you? So therefore you get kind of horse trading in that respect, which can set the kind of agenda for policy. Then there's public opinion influence. I think that one's quite self-explanatory election influence, as I've just mentioned, and then ideological influence. So beliefs, ideological beliefs that might use their platform to promote those and shape those learnings of their audience over a longer time frame. And then there's business interests, of course. I mean, a hedge fund owner might use that media influence to support policies that will benefit them from a regulatory perspective and other perspectives as well. So yeah, I thought there is lots of rationale here of why our dear friend Ken wants a little slice of that action, I'm sure. Yeah, and that was a great explainer, by the way. There's so much there to potentially unpack, but to bring it back to, yeah, to deal rationale. Whenever you become a billionaire, I would assume, hasn't that? It's never happened to me. It's coming, Steve. It's coming. When you become a billionaire, what else is there to do with your money? And it's that translation, as we said, from hard power into soft, and all of those amazing things, setting the agenda, ideological input. That's probably more fun than another yacht. Again, I don't have any experience for this. Yeah, I'll take the yacht for now, just a down payment. All right, so let's talk about revenue synergies then. Yeah, absolutely. This one's a little bit different, and this one is probably straight from the textbook as well. And synergies, again, it's one of those M&A jargon-y words that we like to roll out as bankers to make ourselves sound very clever. But whenever I see the word synergy, I always just think benefit is a simpler word. So a revenue benefit from one company acquiring another company. And actually what we mean by revenue synergy or revenue benefit is more about what's called complementary goods. So two products that when sold together have a complementary nature and therefore can potentially be bundled to the advantage of the consumer and to the marketability of the company. A classic economics textbook example is, well, I own a toothbrush company, why don't I also buy a toothpaste company and then I can bundle the two together and you've got a complementary good. But that's not really enough. The toothpaste example is useless because that doesn't happen because the production lines are totally different.  You know, again, we talk a lot about Microsoft and Activision, Microsoft buying Activision because it's got the console and it wants the games and it wants to bundle the two together. But the new story that came out this week that I thought was quite interesting just from a revenue synergies perspective. It's a company called Cedar Fair, two companies called Cedar Fair and Six Flags, both US amusement park operators. Together they own a collective 27 amusement park, and they've just agreed to merge with each other pretty much a merger of equals as opposed to one company buying another. And part of the rationale for this is to achieve the scale, remember economies of scale from last week, to rival the likes of SeaWorld and Walt Disney. But actually, part of this is revenue synergies. And I read a really interesting report from a Macquarie analyst who said that a combined footprint, remember a combined 27 amusement parks could potentially make a national pass network offering quite compelling. This is the classic bundling I've now got. I bought another company or I've merged with another company and I've now got a better offering so that I can bundle together into a single more lucrative, potentially more stable revenue stream while into the future. So that is a classic revenue synergy. Yeah. And from a content perspective, which is where I sit from that angle. I mean, I remember buying a cup from the Disney store for my daughter recently and it had all the different princesses from all the Disney films. So what's the synergy there from a content perspective of characters between Cedar and Six Flags? Yeah, it's a good question. You've always wanted this, I think. And so this is going to be a mashup between Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Bumps Bunny, and Batman. All very old school. Then you throw in Batman. It's a strange combination of licenses that they hold across these parks. Some of them are extremely old school and maybe either due for retirement or a bit of a kind of renovation. But then they've got, as you say, they've got some of the DC comics. They've got some Warner Brothers. There's some pretty intellectual property positive licenses that they've got there. So again, yeah, you could potentially cross pollinate the theme parks with different popular characters that maybe some of them are more zeitgeisty and maybe some of them are more likely to attract the crowds. So there's definitely that revenue synergy there as well from a kind of content perspective, as you said. And how about then looking at the complexion of costs rather than straight revenue? Yeah, so cost synergies. I have to say that over the next couple of episodes, I'm probably going to talk about cost synergies more than once. So I'm going to give myself a little caveat and say that I'm going to be talking in this example about marketing based cost synergies. The reason why I think cost synergies are so important, cost benefits from one company acquiring another is because in the world of M&A. Let's just get a little bit theoretical just for one second. If I'm an M&A banker advising a company that's looking to acquire another company, and I'm doing all the valuation of this other company. I'm trying to add this all up and say look, the valuation is X, the free cash flow that you're going to get as a firm or the profitability that you're going to get as a firm is Y. Now, if Y doesn't look attractive enough, the profitability relative to the valuation, maybe we need to start thinking about the cost synergies of buying this other company. The cost benefits of me buying one company and then happily shutting down one of the offices because we already have a customer service center, or we don't need two CEOs and two CFOs so we can get a rid of a load of cost there. It's a really nice thing and that actually boosts my EPS, my earnings per share, which is what we look at a lot when it comes to the theory around one company buying another. But this example here, cost synergies are so important, we spend so much time looking at it in the world of M&A, but this example is a little bit more specific. This is an example of Hilton Grand Vacations buying Blue Green for 1.3 billion earlier this week. Now Hilton Grand Vacations, it was spun out of the hotel group that we all know. And what it actually does is it does time shares. What a time share is that? I don't feel like I'm wealthy enough or I'm in those affluent circles enough to be talking time shares, but I think I know, but yeah, it nightened me. So time shares are fractional ownership of holiday properties.  It's quite an old school concept. It always reminds me of my parents. Not that they have one, but it's that kind of generation. I think it's particularly cool, unless I'm missing out on something. Well, I don't think it cuts to that idea that if you're young, the idea is that you want to travel and you want to experience culture and cuisine and meet new people. It kind of flies somewhat counter to that, which is why it makes this hookup particularly interesting, I guess, whether the time share thing will fly. Yeah, yeah, it's got a kind of vague error of the shuffleboard and bridge club, but maybe maybe I'm being maybe I'm being too cynical. But anyway, so Hilton Grand Vacations, they made a tie up with this company Blue Green. There is complementarity again from a revenue perspective, or at least from a portfolio perspective. I say Hilton have properties in some parts of the country. Blue Green have properties in others. Blue Green are more focused on outdoor adventures. Hilton are more focused on beach resorts. So you can see the rationale there. I just wanted to, I just wanted to talk about this marketing synergies piece. So we're going to read a little bit of blurb from the from the deal announcement saying potential synergies played a key role in the valuation. Hilton Grand Vacations Chief Financial Officer Dan Matthew said Monday on a call that Blue Greens pipeline of new buyers and their partnership with Bass Pro made the company an attractive target. And then they go on to say that because Hilton such a well-known brand, what they're just going to do is they're going to plug Blue Green into their marketing system. Right. Hilton have got the marketing firepower. Hilton have got the brand reputation. They spent a lot of money generating this synonymous with hotels and then synonymous with time shares. So why not buy a company that doesn't really have much of a market presence or as big a market presence, cut their marketing budget by 100%, saving loads of money and just plug them into their words, not mine. Plug them into the marketing engine. You've got a marketing flywheel that works. You know, this is going to be not only a massive massive marketing synergy from a cost perspective, but also potentially has revenue benefits as well. So it's a really to really neat little example of a particular type of synergy or a particular type of benefits that we can talk about when it comes to deal rationale. And one example I wanted to highlight was one that's more relevant for finance in terms of the companies and asset management, but to highlight a potential problem to get your thoughts on, which is some or something that a lot of the students in the UK at the moment might be familiar with is a newsletter community based finance newsletter called minimize and very popular in recent years, in regards to teaching, I guess, the bright intelligent university based students about teaching them about how to manage their, their funds, how to invest in the stock market and introduce them to other products that they might be interested in in time. And these companies being ETFs or mortgages or things of that nature. And so they had a really big following I think their following is more than this now but it got up to a million people on this newsletter which is phenomenal. And they did a they got bought out probably 18 months ago by Aberdeen asset management, which is itself you probably know has gone through a massive rebrand Aberdeen now. But they decided to refresh and become more modern their logo is had a lot of criticism actually it's almost so modern you can't really tell what it is modern. But they decided to buy minimize in order to get access to tomorrow's affluent kind of user of financial services and products. And one thing there is and I know from the inside that they used to be a wee work he kind of brick wall, bring your dog into work kind of vibe, because the their voice was that of a young person so you have to speak in that way. The asset management is coming to the absolute polar opposite. So they were sensible enough to understand that, look, we, we can't pivot that much ourselves with our marketing department. Let's just buy someone who can, but then when they get absorbed that we work offices gone well literally and metaphorically it's gone now. So they've been absorbed and then they have to go into an office where I've got my, I've got my crocs on, and my, my little mini greyhounds going to work. And then everyone else is wearing belt and braces, and is about 60 years old looking at me going, who the hell is this joker. Yeah, so surely there's a that can be often friction or do you just run them as two separate entities. Is that the secret to keep a harmonious relationship, rather than actually forcing them together in terms of a cultural fit. It's a really interesting point we can maybe do a podcast at some point in the future about how and why acquisitions fail post integration and cultures one of the biggest things and and obviously, theoretically you would love in the majority of circumstances to fold the acquired company into your company, because you get to benefit from these, these lovely synergies and you get to integrate Keck systems and IT and IT systems and marketing and all of that kind of good stuff. The flip side is you could keep them separate, and that's obviously got the benefit that you can keep two separate cultures. But then the danger comes well firstly you may not be able to benefit from synergies, certainly some of the cost synergies that we speak about. But secondly, you start potentially looking like a kind of like a conglomerate and conglomerates never get a particularly favorable treatment from investors that often see it as a kind of hodgepodge of different strategies, legacy companies from different owners and things like that. So it's a really, really tricky one to get right. And actually, I would contest that culture is probably the biggest reason why acquisitions tend to fail, especially as you said between a an incumbent and a new upstart with the differences in their outlook and their speed of work and things like that. Maybe to finish, I could ask you like a quiz question. I've not prepped you for this. So I'm not expecting you to be right, but just ballpark finger in the air. If we were to take all MNA deals on mass, what's the percentage probability that they might fail? Yeah, it's a really good one. So it depends. It depends what you count as failure. And what I would count as failure is that it is that the acquisition, if we can measure this, the acquisition is earnings per share dilutive and not accretive. So that would be the kind of solid rule of thumb. Then if I'm being a nicotine, I'd say, well, after one year, after three years, after five years, and what other, how do you isolate the impact of the acquisition from all the other stuff going on within the business. So it's very difficult to actually say whether acquisitions failed or succeeded, depending on who you speak to and depending on the stat that you hear. I've heard everything from 50% to two thirds of acquisitions end up not being EPS accretive. Now that is a massive number and it kind of slightly causing to question the whole notion and rationale behind MNA. So let's also think about all of the other stuff that goes into buying a company and all of the other benefits that may come out that may not necessarily hit the bottom line, certainly within a short, medium or measurable term. So it's a question that we think about a lot in the industry, because it certainly is a higher rate. Let's not assume that because one company buys another, that's going to be, you know, they're going to sail off into the sunset and have a wonderful relationship. But there's certainly obviously some fantastic cases of brilliant acquisitions. Yeah.  I thought I thought the interesting is what I love is when you explain it is the process the rationale of the thinking to get to them. The reasons of why you don't need a specific number. And I thought that was actually that was a really good example for any of students listening of how to go about an interview question. When you're asked for a specific number but they know you can't give one. But just the logical sequence of events that you described make complete sense. So, yeah, I thought that was great. But look, we'll wrap up episode two or four. So next week, number three coming don't forget you can go back and listen to the first one you definitely should. And we also continue to have on a rolling weekly basis now every Thursday are MNA finance accelerator simulation I'm going to drop the registration link in the show notes. If you've never done anything like that before fear not you don't need any prior knowledge at all, we welcome everyone and anyone from all backgrounds that doesn't matter what you study. Take part have a go and see if MNA is for you but Steven, thanks as always. Thank you very much.


All right guys, this is rich from rich to be live. We are at the villa villa 613 kazalinda There's mr. Kittam And we're gonna make a little video here just to give you guys a little tour of paradise See when you come here everything is stainless steel just like back home We got bottled water here because you can't drink the water It's green TV I'll show you guys the Bedroom here. I just got up. So my bed's not made, but I'll show you guys my view from my bedroom It's pretty cool So when you go to your bed, we got everything here. We got fans We've got air conditioning We got a safe in each room and then this is my view from my bedroom. Just walk out to the pool Five-bedroom six-bathroom villa I see it looks like outside Yo, what's up rich and so the adventure begins So rental is what the villa looks like from the outside 613