[00:02:28] Clay Finck: So LVMH, it’s a fairly well known company. My co host, Stig Brodersen actually pitched it in his mastermind discussion back in Q4, 2023. That was episode 586 for those that would like to check that out. So LVMH, they own 75 luxury brands. They have a market capitalization of 350 billion euro. They’re led by Mr. Bernard Arnault, who, shockingly, is worth around 200 billion. So to start this discussion on LVMH, I thought the best place to start would be with Mr. Arnault. And I’m reminded quite a bit of Warren Buffett when studying this individual. We’ve spoken plenty about Buffett on the show, you know. Some of the traits that sort of stick out to me about Buffett are incredibly patient, exceptional capital allocator, and then just an extraordinarily high level of just ethics and honesty in the way he does business.

[00:03:21] Clay Finck: Similar to Buffett, Arnault has this massive conglomerate that he’s built, except he focuses specifically on the luxury industry. What are some of the unique skill sets you think Arnault has that have just made him such a successful business person and entrepreneur? So in some ways it’s more difficult to answer than for Buffett just because we know less about Arnault or certainly we know less from, you know, interviews and public appearances and he’s a very private man.

[00:03:53] Clay Finck: And so I think you have to look at what he has done in building LVMH over the last, say, four decades in answering that question. I think there are a few unusual or unique features about Arnault that have contributed to that success. I think one of them is that he’s an unusual combination of a, an engineer and an artist.

[00:04:11] Clay Finck: So, you know, his training is that of an engineer. And I think when you look at the way he has gone about building LVMH, it’s certainly, there’s certainly a sort of an engineering precision to that process. But equally, clearly, you know, he’s very involved in and interested in the creative side of, and the art side of things.

[00:04:31] Clay Finck: So I think you have that unusual combination, which strikes me, and I think that’s been important. I think you also have another interesting, not necessarily contradiction, but sort of combination of short term, I think he calls it short term paranoia and long term optimism or short term pessimism and long term optimism, where he talks about managing risks on a short to medium term basis, right?

[00:04:52] Clay Finck: So whether it’s looking at the balance sheet or diversifying the portfolio brands and businesses and all these things, or investing sufficiently in marketing and brand building, But equally, having a sort of long term view to the opportunities, allowing yourself to be exposed to the long term growth trends that have been driving LVMH and the industry for so long.

[00:05:13] Clay Finck: So, the short term pessimism, long term optimism thing, I think is very important, and I think you see some of that with Buffett as well. Where he’s all about, you know, having a fortress balance sheet and all these things, right? But at the same time, he is fully invested in, you know, owning great businesses, right?

[00:05:28] Clay Finck: So that these guys are happy to live with the volatility over time. But they do everything they can to stay in the game. And then I think he’s been lucky. Clearly some of the deals he has done, and especially I think early in his career, you know, he was the right person at the right time and the right place.

[00:05:43] Clay Finck: And so some of these deals came to him early on. They still come to him, but I think these days it’s because of who he is. So there are some of the unique features and maybe a third or a fourth one would be this idea that he seems to combine an obsessive attention to detail. Certainly at the personal level, as in he exercises that with his brand managers and lots of other people in the group on the one hand and on the other hand, you know, very high degree of autonomy and decentralization.

[00:06:11] Clay Finck: So you could argue that’s a feature of the group as opposed to a sort of a characteristic of Mr. Arnault. But I think that in a business like this, it’s 1 is an extension of the other. So there are probably a handful of things that I would say have contributed to that success.

[00:06:26] Clay Finck: Sticking with the theme of comparing Arnault to Buffett, Arnault and LVMH, similar to Buffett, he’s taking a lot of this cash and redeploying it into new opportunities or potentially even taking cash from one of the subsidiary names and maybe even allocating it to another one that has attractive opportunities to reinvest, but are no obviously is much more focused on the luxury industry, whereas Buffett more so is willing to go in a lot of different industries.

[00:06:52] Clay Finck: What are some of the high level ways that LVMH might be different than Berkshire and the ways they’re similar seem pretty obvious? What are some of the ways you think they’re different?

[00:07:03] Christian Billinger: Yeah. So apart from the, what you touched on, the fact that LVMH is clearly focused on one vertical, although they have sort of broadened their exposure over time.

[00:07:11] Christian Billinger: So they’re now increasingly moving into experiences, for instance, including hotels and other things. So I think that’s becoming a, you know, they’re less focused than they were, but still, I think one important difference is that Arnault seems to have, or clearly has dynastic ambitions, whereas Buffett has built Berkshire and he is now in the process of.

[00:07:31] Christian Billinger: You know, the people who are sort of left to oversee the business when he is no longer there. You know, the money will be going to charitable purposes, right? As he says, that money will go back into society. Mr. Arnault clearly has a different idea of what he wants to do with the sort of incredible amount of wealth he has generated.

[00:07:47] Christian Billinger: So he is very intent on passing that on to his children and building a multi generational business in the same vein as an Hermes or others in this space. So I think that’s one important difference. You know, although Buffett is very long term, he clearly sells businesses or at least financial holdings from time to time.

[00:08:05] Christian Billinger: And I think we’ve seen perhaps more of that in recent years. Mr. Arnault almost never sells anything. He’s a real collector, right? So when people say Buffett is long term, you know, you should really look at Arnault because he is incredibly long term. And in fact, he, I think part of his sort of philosophy is that he holds on to the good and the bad businesses because The bad businesses sometime become good businesses or come back in fashion.

[00:08:27] Christian Billinger: So we’ve seen that at the personal level, clearly they’re very different types of personalities. Buffett is very, what comes across as very accessible and very sort of Midwestern in the way he communicates. And he’s very open about how he runs the business and how he thinks he’s a real educator. And I think Mr. Arnault has an entirely different persona. He’s very private. He’s very steely. He doesn’t like to speak in public and when he does at the results announcements, it’s very, it’s usually relatively sort of scripted. And so he leaves the communication side of things to CFO and some of the brand managers. So, you know, you could argue that’s at the personal level, but I think it probably, it does reflect in the way that for instance, his, the people who work for him running the brands, I think have somewhat more apprehension in dealing with him than the people who work for Buffett.

[00:09:14] Christian Billinger: So you know, in many ways, they’re strikingly similar. In some ways, they are strikingly different. My understanding is that they’re good friends, and I think they clearly respect and admire each other. But I think it’s an interesting case study and how you can do things quite differently. And, you know, and we see so much of this in the investment world, right?

[00:09:31] Christian Billinger: You can come at things from so many different angles and run so many different types of strategies and portfolios and still achieve remarkably similar outcomes. So. I think he’s a man worth of study, and certainly in the last few years there’s been much more light shone on him, but he’s not documented in the way Mr. Buffett is certainly.

[00:09:51] Clay Finck: Yeah, and it’s quite interesting when I think about these two, Buffett’s in his 90s, whereas Bernard’s 75, yet their net worth is in a similar ballpark. Yeah, to me, you know, I see like Buffett so much more in the limelight and so many more people talking about him, whereas Arnault, I think due to him just being more of a private person is just kind of compounding silently, you know, building this massive conglomerate, but maybe that’s me.

[00:10:13] Clay Finck: You know, I’m from the Midwest, whereas, you know, you’re from Europe and maybe it’s the opposite over there where Arnault is sort of this business titan oVer there..

[00:10:21] Christian Billinger: He’s become more visible in, in recent years, right with his wealth, you know, reaching the kind of levels where it is now. And I think certainly with the Olympics, which we may get back to, but I think with the Olympics, the whole group is becoming much more visible, certainly in the investor community.

[00:10:36] Christian Billinger: And Mr. Buffett is certainly even as a European, you know, there’s much more attention paid to him. And I think that’s probably the way Mr. Arnault prefers it.

[00:10:44] Clay Finck: So when was it that you first purchased shares in LVMH and talk a little bit about what made it a compelling investment for you?

[00:10:52] Christian Billinger: So we’ve been invested for six, seven years.

[00:10:54] Christian Billinger: I had been familiar with the business for a number of years, but the timing of it was that there was an opportunity sort of valuation wise. It was a bit of a sell off and we started buying. I’ve always thought it’s a very attractive space for a long term investor because we talked about the luxury business model last time, right?

[00:11:11] Christian Billinger: And I think when you execute it well, it’s the kind of business model that can generate what long term investors are looking for, which is high returns for sustained periods of time. So you have tried and tested brands with You know, significant pricing power. You’ve also had very healthy organic growth rates, as opposed to most consumer goods sectors or categories.

[00:11:32] Christian Billinger: It’s a space where you’ve seen much higher organic growth rates, certainly for the likes of LVMH and Hermes and the sort of strong or quality players in the industry. It’s a combination of high returns, durability, healthy growth rates, very strong governance, right? So some of these groups, including LVMH are family owned and controlled.

[00:11:50] Christian Billinger: On the one hand, they take a very long term view and they get exposure to all of these growth opportunities. And on the other hand, as we touched on already, they’re very good risk managers. So for someone like myself, who’s looking to buy these exceptional businesses and hold on to them for hopefully for decades in the hope of generating well over 10 percent returns, this just sort of fit those criteria and we could buy it at a valuation, which at the time was actually very attractive. Certainly, if you look at where it’s gone today.

[00:12:17] Clay Finck: So diving more specifically into the business model here. I have a number of questions to talk through. How about we just start with a broad overview of what they do, what industries are in and what that looks like for LVMH.

[00:12:30] Christian Billinger: So I think the way to think about LVMH is as a holding company, right?

[00:12:34] Christian Billinger: Because they operate something like 75 or 80 brands. And so the brands you need to analyze at brand level or possibly at category level, and they operate these 75 brands within a handful of categories, the most important being fashion and leather goods. And then you have wines and spirits, watches and jewelry, you have retailing, and you have some other activities in there, and you also have perfumes and cosmetics.

[00:12:57] Christian Billinger: So those would have to be analyzed at the brand level. Now, two of those account for a very significant proportion of revenues and earnings. So, The LV brand, which is in fashion and leather goods, is almost half of group operating earnings. And then Dior is another meaningful number. So if you look at the two of those, you’re probably at something like two thirds of earnings or something.

[00:13:17] Christian Billinger: And then you have a long tail clearly of brands. But I think if you look at LVMH at the group level, you can, you know, coming back to Berkshire, you should think of LVMH at the group level, and that’s what you’re buying if you invest in LVMH, you know, the listed company, you are buying into the holding company where capsule allocation takes place and where R& R exercises influence through very sort of direct engagement with the people who run these businesses.

[00:13:43] Christian Billinger: So that’s sort of, I would think of LVMH group as, I think the Berkshire analogy is very useful, right? They make decisions on clearly acquisitions or clearly major acquisitions, you know, they’ve, if you look back at the Tiffany acquisition or Belmond or Bulgari, if we go back a bit further, clearly in terms of organic capex, so, you know, they’re spending very heavily, especially on real estate and that’s accelerated in recent years.

[00:14:10] Christian Billinger: So those types of decisions are, there’s clearly involvement at group level. And then of course, less importantly, but still when you look at dividends and share repurchases, which are not significant, but certainly when you look at, you know, those types of decisions, they’re also taken at that level. And I think also the group is super important in terms of the culture.

[00:14:27] Christian Billinger: So attention to detail, long term vision. You know, we often talk about Jeff Bezos and his, you know, the idea of being obsessed with the customer or the customer experience, but Arnault is obsessed with the idea of brand equity and nurturing and developing that for the long term. So there are a number of things you’re getting at group level, in addition to the quality of the underlying businesses, such as LV or Dior or any of these other assets.

[00:14:51] Christian Billinger: And finally, I think as an investor or from an investor’s point of view, one important aspect of this is if you’re buying into LVMH, you’re getting a very diversified set of businesses where you get a diversified exposure to luxury goods more generally, as opposed to if you buy into our mess or some other groups in the sector.

[00:15:09] Christian Billinger: Now, people would often argue LVMH is very dependent on LV and Dior. True, but if you look at Kering with Gucci, or if you look at Richemont with Cartier, or some of the other groups in the industry, they are even more, or much more, dependent on one or two brands, so It’s a one stop shop in a way you get very broad exposure to lots of these trends in the industry and you get great management and governance at group level.

[00:15:33] Clay Finck: It was interesting in researching LVMH it seems that a lot of people in France almost see Bernard almost as an American even though he’s not American and it sort of turns them off. But he’s still been able to acquire all these various luxury brands. So that leads me to the question, you know, why is he seen as almost like an outsider, but he’s still been able to buy these, like what’s the motivation for someone to sell the LVMH, especially in the early days when he was maybe perceived a lot differently then.

[00:16:01] Christian Billinger: It’s a great question, because if you look at the parallels to Berkshire, of course, I think it’s clear to most people why you would sell to Berkshire, right? If you worry about the sort of ultimate destiny of the business you’re selling, Berkshire is possibly one of the best places to leave that business.

[00:16:14] Christian Billinger: You’re leaving that business in very good hands. I think most people have this sort of intuitively trust buffered to do the right thing. I think with Arnault, it’s different, certainly. Now, we should keep in mind that he has also had a couple of very high profile failed attempts at acquiring businesses in the case of Gucci and in the case of Hermès, right?

[00:16:34] Christian Billinger: And that has certainly, I think, contributed to his reputation. I think the idea that he is more American than the rest of the, the sort of the French establishment or certainly the luxuries establishment is partly because he’s not an insider, so he did not grow up in a family that were in this industry, right?

[00:16:50] Christian Billinger: He moved or shifted money into this industry when he had already been running a couple of other businesses. And he also spent some time in America, but I think even apart from that, I think clearly his personality and his business sort of tactics are perceived as quite American. I mean, to your question, why would you sell to LVMH?

[00:17:07] Christian Billinger: There’s a few reasons, but if you look at some of the Italian businesses they’ve acquired, for instance, so Bvlgari is a good example. I think in their case, they clearly had a very good or great brand, but they did not have the resources in terms of financial resources or human resources to expand the brand internationally.

[00:17:24] Christian Billinger: I think often these companies have constraints in terms of building out the store base, which is still super important in this industry. And so LVMH at group level can provide the financial resource and other resources to accelerate growth, which I think is very important. It should also be said that in some cases it’s been very whole.

[00:17:42] Christian Billinger: So if you look at Tiffany, for instance, you know, it’s unlike Berkshire in that sense. And I guess going back to your earlier question about some of the differences, clearly Buffett is less likely or highly unlikely to employ those sorts of tactics. Arnault has been very happy to and ready to do so. And so in the case of Tiffany, for instance, there was a lot of tension before that deal ultimately closed.

[00:18:03] Christian Billinger: So I think in some cases people do not choose to sell to him, right? He comes in anyway. And certainly in the early days, I think he was also perceived as being misleading in the way he acquired shareholdings in some companies, almost against the wishes of some family members, or certainly without people having the full picture, right?

[00:18:22] Christian Billinger: And so he would secretly sort of build stakes in some of these businesses, and he would use derivatives and what have you. But I think in the cases where there’s been a sort of conscious decision to sell to Arnault, it’s because he has been able to provide resources that usually family owned businesses haven’t got themselves.

[00:18:39] Christian Billinger: And I think if you take the case of Bulgari, clearly, you know, he’s done incredible things with that business, and the early evidence is they’re adding a lot of value to Tiffany. By taking the business off the market and providing resources and also a lot of breathing space in the way that Buffett often does, right?

[00:18:53] Christian Billinger: So, I think there’s a couple of things they do that can create enormous value in these businesses, which often have great brands, but they’re under managed.

[00:19:00] Clay Finck: I’ve heard different versions of the attempted takeover of Hermes. And it’s just quite an interesting story. And I’ve heard some people call Arnault the Terminator.

[00:19:11] Clay Finck: You would never see Buffett, you know, just quietly acquiring shares on the open market and then using these various entities to acquire more shares, just to hide the fact that he’s buying into the company and. I believe I heard that he had acquired like essentially all of the free flow of Hermes and, you know, to get full control of the company, then need to pick off the sixth generation of family members one by one.

[00:19:33] Clay Finck: It’s just like to have the guts to try and do that with a company that size. I mean, man, it’s just like such an interesting character. When I hear that story, it’s just so fascinating.

[00:19:43] Christian Billinger: Agreed. I mean, it makes for a great story. And I think there’s such a sharp contrast between the family behind Hermes. The mass family, because, of course, they’re 6th generation and they’ve been in this business for a long time.

[00:19:54] Christian Billinger: And they clearly they’re much more French, right? And so it becomes this sort of almost good versus bad kind of narrative. Now, having said that, clearly, they’ve been incredibly successful in what they do. I don’t think that they’re over that still, but they’re 2 interesting case studies and how you can build a successful business, right?

[00:20:11] Christian Billinger: We may get back to these differences, but you know, one clearly being a very organic development and the other being sort of aggressively acquisitive.

[00:20:20] Clay Finck: So Arnault’s managed to acquire around 75 luxury brands since the 1980s. And part of the appeal for him, I think, is being able to buy them. Maybe it’s distressed.

[00:20:31] Clay Finck: It’s a good business, but it’s distressed to some degree, or he sees some ways in which he can improve the business. But he’s certainly not looking to turn something around and trying to buy a dud, so to speak. So maybe you could talk about sort of his track record in doing this, because one could think, you know, if he’s so consistent in being able to buy these others would try and replicate that strategy.

[00:20:52] Clay Finck: So talk more about this strategy of purposefully making acquisitions, maybe seeing opportunities where he thinks he can improve the business to some degree.

[00:21:01] Christian Billinger: I think certainly in the early days, he bought not very good businesses at all because they were bargains. So in a way, like, similar to Buffett in a way, I think there’s been a real, I wouldn’t say transition, but there’s been a gradual sort of evolution of his thinking and the way he implements his sort of empire building.

[00:21:19] Christian Billinger: I think in recent years, he has been looking more, as you suggested, more at better businesses. So take the case of Tiffany, where clearly there’s a very strong brand and you know, there’s a very strong distribution network, but it’s under managed in their case, possibly partly or largely because it’s in the public trading in the public markets.

[00:21:36] Christian Billinger: And, you know, the governance isn’t there and everything. So I think there has been an evolution there, which is important to keep in mind. And actually that’s possibly another parallel to Buffett, right? I think as the whole business has Has grown and as the stakes have become higher, I think he’s becoming increasingly focused on quality and robustness and, you know, building something durable, building something multigenerational.

[00:21:59] Christian Billinger: But Bulgari is a good case study where, you know, when they acquired the business, that was a very good brand. But as we touched on earlier, the resources and possibly the sort of know how just wasn’t there. Certainly when it came to making the business truly international and sort of improving the retail experience.

[00:22:15] Christian Billinger: And so I think at the time of acquisition, the EBIT of that business was 60 million or something euros. And I think 10 years later, that number was up to something like half a billion. Now, you could argue earnings were depressed at the time of acquisition, but of course, the, the multiple on the way it looked expensive, and I think he was challenged at the time, similarly with Tiffany, but 10 years later, you know, you’ve done 10 X on the earnings as, of course, the multiple no longer looks expensive and hopefully we’ll see something similar with Tiffany.

[00:22:44] Christian Billinger: But yes, I think generally he buys good quality assets that are under managed. Now, in some cases, he buys good quality assets that are already well managed. So for instance, if you look at wine and spirits, for instance, they own things like Château d’Yquem or Colgin Cellars in California, or you know, these are incredible assets that are also well managed.

[00:23:02] Christian Billinger: But I think when you look at the large deals, I think there’s been money left on the table for him. And I think that evolution is also important to keep in mind when you try and analyze the sort of acquisition track record.

[00:23:14] Clay Finck: I also wanted to mention China here. It seems like you can’t talk about so many of these luxury names without talking about China.

[00:23:22] Clay Finck: It’s both a major part of the overall conglomerate today, but it’s also a major part of the growth story. What are your thoughts around China and sort of their strategy around that country and how they’re looking to grow in China? Yeah.

[00:23:37] Christian Billinger: So China has been, and it’s super important, right? So I think Chinese consumers account for, if you look at the overall market, say about a third or a little bit over a third of spending.

[00:23:46] Christian Billinger: So that’s Chinese consumption within and outside of China. And I think over the last two decades, China or Chinese consumption has accounted for something like two thirds of growth in the industry. So clearly hugely important now that it’s become less of a driver in recent years. I would argue in some ways that it’s a real show of strength that LVMH and Hermes and some of the other quality or sort of top end players in the industry like Chanel have continued to grow so strongly throughout that period, right? You could argue on the one hand, it’s a real issue that China’s is not growing at the rate it once was. But you could argue on the other hand, that it’s a real sign of strength that, you know, at the group level, they can carry on growing at a very healthy rate, despite the fact that China isn’t growing at the rate it once was.

[00:24:32] Christian Billinger: So I think that’s very important to keep in mind. If you speak to these companies, they will tell you that the next China is still China. I mean, that remains to be seen is certainly and will now remain a very important market. Of course, a lot of people are excited about India, possibly some markets in Africa, like Nigeria, you know, some parts of Latin America, but I think for the foreseeable future, we will have to worry about what happens in China because it’s become such a significant part of the business.

[00:24:59] Christian Billinger: But I’m encouraged by the fact that they have this sort of robustness. And I think in the case of LVMH, they are also consciously diversifying the business at so many levels, whether it’s geographically or in terms of categories or in terms of price points, Any of these things, so I think they’re less exposed certainly than they were, although it’s become a bigger part of the business, but I think the risk profile is probably I’m more comfortable with than I might have been, say, 10 years ago.

[00:25:24] Clay Finck: Just the international markets looking at that landscape is sort of what really intrigues me about the luxury space because not only is it difficult to replicate some of these brands under LVMH. I heard the phrase once selling Europe to the world. It’s not like Chinese company can start like LVMH 2.

[00:25:41] Clay Finck: 0 or it’s just a copycat essentially with different branding and whatnot. I find that just so fascinating. And I also heard in Japan, this market is just loves Louis Vuitton and some of these other brands. Like I think I heard a stat that almost all women in Japan just love the Louis Vuitton bags.

[00:25:57] Clay Finck: And it’s just like so fascinating to me how Europe is able to sell these products to the world. Yeah. I don’t know if you have any comments around that and just how well these brands travel.

[00:26:07] Christian Billinger: The only comment I would make there is that certainly compared to some other or most other consumer goods subsectors, luxury goods, when they are true luxury goods businesses, I think are more resilient and are better protected against, you know, the threat of new entrants.

[00:26:23] Christian Billinger: So if you look at cosmetics over the last, you know, until three or five years ago, you look at Estee Lauder and L’Oreal and, you know, I think they clearly their growth rates in China and Asia more generally sort of camouflaged the fact that you saw a lot of new entrants in that space. Certainly at the sort of lower end of the market, but I think the dynamics are potentially changing there a bit now with, you know, domestic brands becoming much more important.

[00:26:47] Christian Billinger: I think in luxury goods so far, we haven’t seen nearly as much of that or actually very little when you look at the kind of products we’re referring to here. So that’s probably the only thing that I would add that the sort of heritage. And the legacy or the sort of fact that these are such enduring brands really matters here and that provides real protection.

[00:27:05] Christian Billinger: We’ve seen in cognac, for instance, in the U. S. market, you know, in recent years with that you can move into these markets and take significant share. But I think. So far, I think certainly compared to almost any other consumer goods category, the idea of selling Europe to the world and actually in LVMH’s case, sometimes selling the U. S. to the world, if you look at Tiffany, for instance, seems to be a very successful and enduring strategy.

[00:27:30] Clay Finck: So turning back to the luxury strategy here, Kapfer, he laid out what we can call the playbook to succeed in the luxury space, which we covered extensively in our previous conversation. You know, certain luxury companies follow these rules to luxury more than others, and to some degree, if companies are thinking too short term and not following these rules too well, then it can come to bite them over the long run.

[00:27:54] Clay Finck: How well do you think LVMH follows the playbook Kapferer laid out for us?

[00:27:59] Christian Billinger: So I think with LVMH, you have to look at this at the brand level, right? Because they own 75 or 80 brands. So, you know, unlike Chanel or Hermes, you actually have to analyze the brands individually. So some of the brands, I think, follow the playbook closely.

[00:28:12] Christian Billinger: So if you look at Loro Piana, for instance, you know, that is a brand that is much more MS like in its DNA and the way they run the business. So I would argue there, they probably follow that playbook quite closely. If you look at some of the other brands, like a Mark Jacobs. Clearly, you know, some or many would argue it’s more of a fashion brand in some respects.

[00:28:31] Christian Billinger: I guess the important thing is to look at the big brands. If you look at LV especially, there are some rules that they seem to be breaking. Now, they may very well argue otherwise. And in addition, I don’t think they care if they’re breaking Kapferer’s rules as long as they’re growing the business, right? But if you look at things like keep the non enthusiasts out or dominate the client or, you know, only dispute on the internet very selectively or at the margins, you could argue they are breaking those rules to some extent or to a large extent, right?

[00:29:02] Christian Billinger: Because it’s become, in some ways, relatively easy to access these products. If you look at the way they advertise the products, or certainly they don’t advertise the product, but the way they advertise the brand, the idea of not involving celebrities in your advertising, you know, no longer holds true. And certainly the Olympics is an interesting case study in how, in some ways, you know, it seems like this is now beginning to look a little bit more like a more traditional consumer goods model, right?

[00:29:29] Christian Billinger: And so I think, to me, it seems like they may be breaking some of these rules. Does it matter? I don’t know. And it’s too early to say, I think. For some of the brands it’s easier. So if we go back to Loro Piana, I there, I think it’s more a question of current growth rates aren’t sustainable because we’ve gone through a phase of what people call quite luxury, having been sort of really in Vogue and you know, I think some of the other brands similar to Loro Piana have benefited from that as well, if you look at Chanel or Hermes. I find it more difficult to assess the future of a brand like LV, especially because it’s such a big chunk of earnings and the value of the business. And that is something I worry about.

[00:30:05] Christian Billinger: It sort of remains to be seen. I mean, in some ways, like, you know, I was a Buffett or Munger who said about Bezos, I wouldn’t want to bet against Jeff Bezos. And similarly, you know, who am I to say that Bernard Arnault hasn’t got it right this time as well. But I think it’s one thing to keep a real close eye on because certainly according to the playbook we discussed last week, Clay, this is beginning to look slightly different from what it probably has done historically.

[00:30:29] Clay Finck: I’m glad you mentioned the Olympics there. The 2024 Olympic Games are in Paris. I want to mention one of the key aspects of luxury brands is to avoid ubiquity or to avoid essentially just being everywhere because it sort of loses its exclusivity and it loses some of its appeal. LVMH, their premier partner for the 2024 Olympic games, which to some degree makes sense because it’s in Paris.

[00:30:54] Clay Finck: I took a look at the anti laws of marketing Kaffir laid out to see if maybe some of these anti laws were broken. I wanted to mention number 9 and 10 here. So number 9 states that the role of advertising is not to sell. And then number 10 states to communicate to those you’re not targeting. So it seems like, you know, to some degree, it might look like it’s breaking some anti laws, but it could also apply that they’re following the luxury playbook to some degree in other ways.

[00:31:22] Christian Billinger: And I think that’s a very good point, Clay, because I think that’s been their response, actually, from the family. I think their response has been, it’s all about sort of keeping that dream alive. And it’s all about not necessarily visibility, but awareness. It’s not about selling, right? You know, I think the idea is that you increase, we talked about this last week, you increase awareness at a higher rate than you increase sales of your products.

[00:31:44] Christian Billinger: And that’s how you keep that sort of dream equation working for you. So I think it’s possibly a fair argument, but I think it’s too early to say what the impact on brand equity and desirability will be in the longterm.

[00:31:57] Clay Finck: So I had taken a look at the stock performance of a number of different luxury companies over the past 20 years or so.

[00:32:03] Clay Finck: And I think it helps me sort of distinguish who are the true luxury players and who falls in what we can call aspirational luxury. So, to share some numbers here, Hermes, they compounded at over 21 percent per year over the past 20 years, LVMH has compounded at over 16%, and then Kering and Burberry have really a lackluster overall performance relative to these other two names.

[00:32:28] Clay Finck: And then when you zoom into the past couple of years, we’ve especially seen quite a wide divergence in the performance of the stocks, at least other than simply saying Hermes and LVMH are just better businesses, better brands and whatnot. What do you think are some of the drivers of this divergence?

[00:32:44] Christian Billinger: I mean, partly it is the fact that they’re just better businesses and better brands, right?

[00:32:48] Christian Billinger: I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to. And obviously a lot of things go into that, but I think in some ways it’s a very fair reflection of the divergence in performance. And the fact that clearly LVMH and, and Hermes have been much more true to this luxury business model we discussed last week.

[00:33:05] Christian Billinger: You could argue that at some point that might revert, at least partially, and certainly you could see periods when these so called turnarounds, potential turnarounds like a Burberry or a Swatch may do better, right? So ultimately, so what has driven that? I think the governance has been a real key difference.

[00:33:21] Christian Billinger: If you look at the family. What the family, and it’s not necessarily families, but the sort of shareholder structures of the likes of LVMH and Hermes have enabled them to do is to really take a long term vision to care about brand desirability, to do what’s right in the long term interests of the business.

[00:33:40] Christian Billinger: And they’ve been much less concerned about short term financial delivery, right? And of course, it also means they’ve been much more true to the model we’ve discussed as compared to a, say, a Burberry, which I think in many ways would be regarded as much more of a fashion business than much of what LVMH has in their portfolio.

[00:33:57] Christian Billinger: You know, if you look at the organic growth rate, and this is reflected in the financials. So, if the overall market grows at, say, low to mid single digits, you know, LVMH has grown organically at something like 10 percent over the last, certainly if you look at the decade between the financial crisis and the pandemic.

[00:34:12] Christian Billinger: So, if we’d sort of take some of the volatility or noise out that we’ve seen in recent years, but they averaged about 10 percent organic growth. I think they ranged between 5 and 14. You know, they’ve seen meaningful margin, well, for a long time, they saw very little margin expansion, but in the last 3 4 years, they’ve seen meaningful margin expansion, and so their earnings growth rates are vastly superior to some of the other names we’ve mentioned, so.

[00:34:36] Christian Billinger: Now, of course, when you talk about a 20 something percent total shareholder return CAGR, the starting point in terms of the rating was clearly much different, right, for both of these businesses. So that is not to be repeated, but it’s similarly to Berkshire in a way. We don’t need a 20 percent plus CAGR from these types of businesses for them to be attractive investments, I think.

[00:34:57] Clay Finck: It makes a lot of sense to me. Similar to Berkshire, one of the problems with LVMH is just the complexity with number of brands and all the different markets they’re getting into. What are some of the key metrics or KPIs you’re tracking to assess the performance of LVMH over time?

[00:35:13] Christian Billinger: I guess ultimately, in terms of shareholder returns, what you need to look at are the same kind of metrics you’d look at for any business that will drive, you know, free cash flow growth.

[00:35:20] Christian Billinger: So you would look at organic growth. You would look at margins and underlying EPS growth and what have you, but I guess that’s just asking a different question. What drives these metrics? What drives organic growth or margins in this case? And so the things I would keep an eye on here are often more difficult to quantify.

[00:35:37] Christian Billinger: So certainly culture is one, and that becomes increasingly important as we sort of get close to some kind of a succession event in this, in this business, right? But culture, I would certainly try and understand, and I would try and assess how that might evolve in terms of what is their willingness to invest up front?

[00:35:55] Christian Billinger: What is their, as you might say, capacity to suffer, right? And then, of course, the other key aspect related to the culture is brand desirability. So you really need to understand, you know, how they manage these individuals, 75 or 80 brands. One way of looking at it is to employ the luxury playbook we talked about last week.

[00:36:15] Christian Billinger: Now, some of these, it’s dynamic, it’s not static, right? So some of those rules might fall out or some of the things that used to characterize the luxury business perhaps no longer do. But I think on the whole. There are probably the two aspects of the business that I would really pay attention to. Some of that is difficult to put numbers on, but ultimately that should be reflected in the higher organic growth rates and the margins and the returns and all of those metrics.

[00:36:39] Clay Finck: You had mentioned some aspects on culture and succession there. Bernard today is 75 years old. Do you have a sense of what the succession plans are when he does eventually retire and pass the torch to a new CEO?

[00:36:53] Christian Billinger: I don’t think anyone knows. I don’t even know if he knows at this point. Alright. And certainly the expectation is that one or more of his children will be running the business.

[00:37:02] Christian Billinger: I think there are, you can make a sort of qualified guess to who it will not be, but you know, I think there are one or two of them are seen as more likely candidates. Having said that, I think he’s very pragmatic, right? And he will ultimately, he cares about preserving the business. The empire he has built, I think he is also in principle open to the idea of someone coming in as an outsider to run the business, or at least outsider to the family, this, you know, I would expect that to be someone who’s already sort of working within the group, but I think that’s as much as we know, and as much as possibly he knows.

[00:37:32] Christian Billinger: And once again, if you look at or make a comparison with Berkshire, there’s a good chance the acquisition side of things will be less exciting and add less value over the next 10 or 20 years. But that’s not to say that it can’t be a good investment, right? So it may certainly change character somewhat.

[00:37:46] Christian Billinger: So some people, for instance, speculate about the fact that the whole group is too difficult to manage for anyone other than Mr. Arnault himself. It’s become a very sort of diversified, sprawling group of brands across so many categories. Peace and soul. There’s a possibility that you could see a partial or, or sort of largely a breakup of the group into different divisions.

[00:38:07] Christian Billinger: We’ll have to see. I think just like in the case of Berkshire, you might also see a change in the way they think about returning cash to shareholders, right? It’s been a very high growth, high reinvestment rate business, just like Berkshire. And I think in both cases, you may very well see higher cash returns in the form of dividends or share buybacks.

[00:38:24] Christian Billinger: But I think it’s far too early for that. And on top of that, Mr. Arnault could be around for a long time. I think he increased the retirement age to 80 years, but I wouldn’t put it past him to do that again. So I think we may very well see him running this business for a while, and I would be delighted as a longstanding shareholder.

[00:38:41] Clay Finck: Yes, very, very similar to Buffett in that aspect, in that we can expect him to be around for a while. Given LVMH’s massive size, you talked about capital allocation there, 2023 they generated nearly 90 billion euros in revenue, 23 billion euros in operating income. How does he manage to put this capital to work?

[00:39:02] Clay Finck: How does he approach capital allocation?

[00:39:05] Christian Billinger: Yeah, so they had a very high reinvestment rates. Certainly, if you look at the last time I did the exercise, I looked at the period between the financial crisis and the pandemic once again to sort of take out some of the noise or volatility we’ve seen and on my calculations, he deployed something like 20 billion euros of incremental capital.

[00:39:23] Christian Billinger: And earned a 20 percent return on that, which I think is very impressive for a business this size. And so some of that is organic capex. And I think certainly the real estate sort of aspect or the physical retail aspect has been consuming increasing amounts of investment recently. But of course, much of it is also acquisitions.

[00:39:42] Christian Billinger: Tiffany was a very big chunk of that. But you also had things like in that timeframe, like, Loro Piana and Belmond and so I think the 20 percent number is very impressive when you look at the overall amount of capex being redeployed. So it’s really acquisition spend, it’s a store network to some extent.

[00:40:00] Christian Billinger: And then of course they do pay a dividend and share repurchases have been at least insignificant or sort of immaterial. So I don’t think anyone at this point at least buys into LVMH for the dividend payout, right? But so. You know, he clearly he’s looking for more deals. That’s how they deploy the sort of excess cashflow they have.

[00:40:17] Christian Billinger: And I hope he can find a few more sizable deals before he steps back. Because when you look at the record, that’s how much of the value is being created, taking good assets and buying them at a good or very attractive price and then improving the way they run.

[00:40:32] Clay Finck: Turning to the valuation, I just pulled up chart of just the PE multiple just to get a broad overview of how that’s sort of changed over time.

[00:40:39] Clay Finck: It looks like 2016 or 17 around the time you purchase is around 20 ish, maybe slightly lower or higher, depending on what month you’re looking at exactly. And it seems like it’s averaged around 25 ever since then, and now it’s around 23. Yeah, and that seems pretty reasonable given the reinvestment rate, given the return on capital.

[00:40:58] Clay Finck: I’m curious to get your thoughts on the valuation.

[00:41:01] Christian Billinger: I think you have to look at the earnings. Where are we in the earnings cycle? Right? So because a low valuation could either or seemingly, if you look at 25, I think it’s, they’re trading at say, 20 times earnings, 5% cashflow yield. You know, in some cases that’s because investors have concerns around the business model or the growth outlook, or in some cases it’s because it’s for another reason, which is that earnings are seen as being sort of unsustainably high at the moment.

[00:41:26] Christian Billinger: I don’t necessarily think that’s the case here, but clearly they’ve had an incredible run. And by they, I mean, the industry, LBMH and Hermes specifically, the strong have been getting stronger in this industry. So they’ve clearly outperformed, but the industry as a whole have had a very good three to five years.

[00:41:41] Christian Billinger: And certainly through the pandemic and coming out of the pandemic earnings growth was exceptionally strong. And so I think that needs to be, you need to sort of take that into account when you look at where they’re trading, where the rating is currently because I think some investors might have concerns.

[00:41:57] Christian Billinger: Certainly we saw that over the last 18 months or longer in the US, you know, luxury spending in the US, the recovery in China. So that’s one thing to consider. I still think that certainly in the case of LVMH trading at say 20 times earnings that we could argue if the earnings are slightly above or below trend.

[00:42:15] Christian Billinger: But to me, that seems like a perfectly reasonable or even somewhat attractive valuation for a business of this quality. When I do a sort of full valuation, you don’t need to assume anything like the 10 percent organic growth rate they’ve had over the last decade to get upside here. You can assume mid single digit organic growth and mid to high single digit underlying earnings growth.

[00:42:36] Christian Billinger: And it still looks relatively fair. Now we can perhaps get back to some of the risks or uncertainties. There are a few things that I’m sort of concerned about or a few significant question marks, but when I look at the business today, it just seems to be that the valuation, you don’t need to make aggressive assumptions here.

[00:42:53] Christian Billinger: And of course, there’s a very wide range when you look at Hermes trading at 45 or 50 times. And then on the other hand, you look at Burberry and the likes trading in the low teens or 10 to 15 times. You would expect, you know, high level, you would expect LVMH to be somewhere in between the two because it’s a very high quality asset you’re buying, but of course it’s diversified and it’s large and all these things.

[00:43:15] Christian Billinger: So it probably means that this will grow upside when it comes to growth is perhaps not quite the same as it is for some of the smaller players or some of the turnaround cases here. But I haven’t been buying this for a while. We sold a little part of our holding, but I’m perfectly happy holding on to most of it.

[00:43:30] Clay Finck: So I wanted to talk a little bit about the cyclicality piece you mentioned there. When I think about, okay, what’s driving sort of this huge growth in 2021 that’s declined ever since then, I think about all the government support and stimulus that was given to businesses post COVID. I would think that would maybe drive some of these business owners going out and purchasing more from the likes of LVMH and Hermes.

[00:43:53] Clay Finck: 2023, these two are still growing. I see revenue growth of 15 percent for Hermes in 2023. LVMH is around 9 percent top line revenue growth. Are there any other factors at play here within the cyclicality, the luxury space, or what else should investors be thinking about?

[00:44:11] Christian Billinger: I think they should be keep in mind that it is a cyclical industry, right?

[00:44:15] Christian Billinger: Because it’s easy to forget that one, I think, because it’s part of the sort of wider consumer goods space. And one might think that there’s sort of robustness there. Certainly luxury goods companies are cyclical. I think if you go back to 2020, now that was a very unusual year. That’s not necessarily the cycle.

[00:44:30] Christian Billinger: That was the pandemic, right? But Because the other thing to consider is that when you have a down cycle, there’s also meaningful operating leverage in these businesses. So I think in 2020, LVMH revenues were down 14 or 15 percent and EBIT was down almost 30 percent because there’s a lot of fixed costs in these businesses.

[00:44:47] Christian Billinger: So yes, I think you want to keep in mind, one, that they are cyclical. Two, that there’s meaningful operating leverage. So if you get a downturn, that can be quite sort of noticeable in terms of earnings. And thirdly, there’s a lot of divergence. So when you refer to Hermes and LVMH and their growth rates in 23, they did incredibly well.

[00:45:06] Christian Billinger: And so I mentioned earlier, the strong have been getting stronger in this industry, and that has remained the case, actually. So the likes of Chanel, Hermes, LVMH. And so even in a down cycle or in a softer market, they tend to perform better. Now, that’s not to say that you’re always better off investing in the likes of LVMH and Hermes, but I think it’s important to understand what you’re buying into, right?

[00:45:27] Christian Billinger: Are you buying more or less earnings volatility? And maybe finally, on that point, yes, there is a cycle, but if you look at something like LVMH, they’re so diversified and so large, and they’re across categories and geographies and price points and distribution channels, that you would probably expect less earnings volatility over time than you would for, say, a Kering or a Richemont.

[00:45:49] Christian Billinger: And so depending on, you know, how comfortable you are with that volatility and, and also what type of investor you are, do you have permanent capital, right? Do you rely on distributions? All of these things. So it’s not just about, is this a good business or not, but does it sort of fit my portfolio and my return objectives and my risk sort of tolerance and

[00:46:07] Christian Billinger: all these things.

[00:46:08] Clay Finck: I also wanted to touch on the risks here at this point, you know, it does remind me given, you know, how big and diversified there are very much like a Berkshire type entity. So presumably the bigger risks are have passed them by to some extent. I’m curious to get your take on this.

[00:46:25] Christian Billinger: I see probably a couple of key risks as always, you know, the most important risks are probably things that we can’t imagine at that point.

[00:46:31] Christian Billinger: But if we look at the ones that I think a lot of people are sort of looking at, well, these two are related. One would be brand equity. So if you look at the individual brands, especially the big drivers, LV, Dior maybe one or two other ones and especially LV coming back to what we sort of discussed earlier.

[00:46:49] Christian Billinger: I’m not necessarily saying that I have major concerns, but I think it’s a real question mark because it’s so significant in terms of scale. And because it’s become in some ways quite different from the way some other brands in the industry are run. If you compare LV to an Hermes, for instance. They are relatively different these days, and so that would be one of my concerns.

[00:47:09] Christian Billinger: Can they maintain desirability? Can they protect and grow brand equity? You know, when do you sort of come up against the whole growth paradox that we’ve discussed? And of course, Arnault would say, you’ve been saying this for the last 10 years. But of course, at some point, it will become a real sort of restriction.

[00:47:27] Christian Billinger: He often says, all I care about is desirability. And actually, as an investor in the business, that’s what I care about as well. And so let’s hope it gets it right there. The 2nd 1 related to the 1st one is succession, of course. And in a way, similarly to the question around brand equity, It’s almost impossible to say today, one, what it will look like and two, whether that’s a good or a bad.

[00:47:50] Christian Billinger: So even if you had the answer, even if you knew who was taking over the business, will that be good or bad for us as investors? It’s hard to say. I think the 1 thing we can say will probably change the profile of the business. If nothing else, due to the sheer scale and sort of maturity of some parts of the business, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not an interesting place to invest.

[00:48:08] Christian Billinger: Right? So it may be that you’re getting distributions. There’s other ways of creating value in a business than being highly acquisitive. So we’ll have to see. But there are the two things that I worry about now. Most of what you hear relates to things like, you know, what’s going on in China, what’s going on with US consumption.

[00:48:25] Christian Billinger: Of course, in the short to medium term, that really matters. I keep an eye on that. But in the long term, I think we probably adopt a similar mindset to Mr Arnault himself. Although the difference being he’s actively sort of influencing those sort of dimensions of the business and we’re looking in from the outside, analyzing them.

[00:48:42] Clay Finck: Another question came up in my mind related to capital allocation, given the, just the strength of many of these brands and the growth and the luxury sector overall and how it’s expanding to new markets. I would think that, you know, he’d be able to deploy a lot of capital in terms of just, you know, expanding to new markets or releasing new product lines within the existing brands.

[00:49:03] Clay Finck: Do you know how he sort of thinks through that, you know, if he can achieve a high return, just reinvesting internally, then maybe acquisitions aren’t as attractive. So I would also think that the acquisitions might have more risks embedded in that, because if you’re making changes to the underlying business, I’m curious to get your thoughts on that as well.

[00:49:21] Christian Billinger: I think the challenge for the big brands in terms of reinvestment is international expansion. You know, more of that has already been done right for a brand like LV than for many of the smaller to medium sized brands in the portfolio. So I think that is one challenge, certainly the so called space race that we used to talk about in retail, and I think even in luxury in some markets, like certainly in some parts of China, you know, much of that has already been done.

[00:49:45] Christian Billinger: But I think you’re right in principle. I don’t think they’re any different from most companies we look at in that. If they can reinvest organically at reasonably high rates, then that would be their preference. Because as you say, it’s the risk profile is very different. I think the reason they clearly there’s a limit to how much they can reinvest, especially in an industry like this.

[00:50:05] Christian Billinger: And so the sort of residual they’ve spent on acquisitions, anything from small to quite large in the case of Tiffany. And then thirdly, I guess with some of the acquisitions they make, apart from the fact that they can improve the running of the business as such, there are also benefits of running those businesses within LVMH.

[00:50:23] Christian Billinger: But I would think they’re not super explicit on this, but my assumption would be that they operate similar to many other or most other businesses in that, you know, it’s organic investment first and then acquisition. And then thirdly, returning cash to shareholders. They haven’t really been buying back shares meaningfully.

[00:50:39] Christian Billinger: So you get a dividend. Will that change at some point possibly? But I think for now my focus is on trying to understand when it comes to capex, trying to understand store network expansion and acquisition. They’re thinking around acquisitions.

[00:50:53] Clay Finck: The dividend piece with a lot of these European companies is always interesting.

[00:50:57] Clay Finck: A lot of American companies have a bias towards doing share repurchases, where it seems like European companies have more of a bias of doing the dividends. I saw the same thing when I was looking at Hermes. They reinvest a decent amount of capital in their business. And also pay a pretty large dividend that’s been increasing each year, and they do some special dividends.

[00:51:16] Clay Finck: I’m actually going to be speaking about Hermes on a future episode with Sri Viswanathan. It should be out in two or three months or so. And I believe you own both LVMH and Hermes in your fund. So I’d like to also just give you the opportunity to just talk about how you contrast these two companies, given you own both of them in your fund, and they’re both in the luxury industry.

[00:51:37] Christian Billinger: I’ll do it briefly because I think Sri is a good friend, I think will do a better job at that. But so what are the key differences? 1 is that if you’re buying Intel, the major getting this sort of broad, diverse exposure to different categories and brands, right? Some investors and once again, so this is from an investor’s point of view.

[00:51:54] Christian Billinger: What are the differences? Some investors prefer that, right? Because you may not have strong views on 1 category or 1 brand or. Right. You know, in the case of our mess, you’re buying one brand. They are much more dependent on one category or one or two categories of products. If you have a strong sort of views on the outlook for that category for that brand, then of course, that’s probably the place you want to be.

[00:52:16] Christian Billinger: Well, assuming it’s a positive outlook, then that’s probably where you want to be invested. But so the sort of diversification versus concentration, I think is key. I think the culture is another one where we’ve talked about the fact that WMH is clearly what you would think of as a holding company, which acquires and owns a number of brands, and so you need to analyze the brands at brand level, but it’s a holding company, and so you’re partly also buying the capital allocation and all of that, right?

[00:52:41] Christian Billinger: Whereas in the case of our mess, it’s all about organic developments. So you’re buying the business as is, as you need to be very comfortable with that. And so I think from an investor’s point of view, they’re probably the two main differences that I see. There are similarities. They both seem very strongly focused on risk management.

[00:53:00] Christian Billinger: Clearly our mess more. So if you look at the balance sheet, I mean, they would appear to be super conservative. And, you know, culturally, perhaps more sort of European in many ways. I think both of these groups are very, very good at managing risk and building a sort of robust structure. I think they’re both very long term in that they’re willing to invest up front to nurture and develop these brands.

[00:53:21] Christian Billinger: So I think there are also a number of similarities. If you look at some brands within LVMH, they are actually somewhat similar to Hermes. So if you look at Loro Piana to take a well known example. I don’t think the DNA and the way they operate is so different from Hermes. And so that’s why I say that you almost need to look at this at a brand level, because when you look at group level, it becomes a whole sort of different discussion.

[00:53:43] Christian Billinger: And in a way you’re not comparing like for like, you know, I think there’s a lot of investors who will be invested in one of these two because they either like the capital allocation sort of angle and all of that when it comes to LVMH. And there are some people who just love the inherent qualities of the Hermes business.

[00:53:57] Christian Billinger: And then in some cases, like myself, there’s room for both in my portfolio. Yeah.

[00:54:02] Clay Finck: Well, Christian, I really appreciate you joining me for the second time here to talk about the luxury space and talk about LVMH before we close it out. I wanted to reiterate that Christian and I recorded a discussion on the luxury strategy that was last week’s episode, episode 643.

[00:54:18] Clay Finck: So if you enjoyed this one, you’re likely going to enjoy that one as well. I thoroughly enjoyed this book from Kapferer. He really dives in deep to the DNA of a lot of these luxury businesses and sort of why these businesses are able to operate so much differently than any other industry, practically. So, Christian, thanks again.

[00:54:36] Clay Finck: I’d like for you to please give a handoff for the audience to get connected with you or how they can learn more about you and your work if they’d like to.

[00:54:44] Christian Billinger: Yeah, sure. So we have a website. I’d be delighted if anyone goes on there, has a look at our holdings, our philosophy and everything. And there’s contact details there.

[00:54:52] Christian Billinger: If anyone wants to discuss any of these, you know, anything we’ve talked about today, clay or anything else for that matter. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me on again.

[00:55:01] Clay Finck: Wonderful. Well, I’ll get that linked in the show notes for anyone that’s interested in Christian. I really enjoyed this and it’s been a lot of fun.

[00:55:07] Clay Finck: So thanks for the book recommendation and thanks for sharing all you did today.

[00:55:11] Christian Billinger: Likewise. Thank you.

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