Welcome to our special third episode that comes to you live from our Global Credit and Risk Symposium. Join Yashi Yadav as she speaks with our four business leaders about what is top of mind for them in this volatile financial market. Our business leaders included Jacob Yahiayn, CEO of ULAS, Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, Managing Principal at MRV Associates, LLC., Carl Schecter, CEO of Staunton, and Mark E. Jennings, Jr. , Managing Director, Head of Capital Introductions of Bite Investments. This is an episode you do not want to miss.
Statements made by persons who are not S&P Global Market Intelligence employees represent their own views and are not necessarily the views of S&P Global Market
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Yashi Yadav
Welcome to Masters of Risk, the podcast where we uncover what is top of mind for business leaders today. I'm Yashi Yadav, and I will be your host every month. Let's get started.
Hi, everyone. I am so excited to share that today's episode will be a special edition as we are live in New York City at our Credit and Risk Symposium. Joining us here at the event are global leaders from various disciplines, attending panels on a range of topics from sustainability to modeling market risk. I am thrilled that I will be joined by some of our attendees to share their thoughts and opinions around the markets of today.
First up, we have...
Jacob Yahiayn
Jacob Yahiayn.
Yashi Yadav
Joining us. Thank you, Jacob, for being here today. So Jacob, thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. My first question for you is, what are you most excited about in regards to the risk symposium today?
Jacob Yahiayn
Well, I think S&P does an incredible job of having peer-to-peer discussion whenever there is volatility in the market. And clearly, there's volatility in the market again, in my case, since the '80s when I started my career. And it's very important to get professional inside S&P as a leader in that.
Yashi Yadav
That's great. I'm glad that we can contribute to your experience in that way. What, in your opinion, has been the biggest risk this year?
Jacob Yahiayn
I don't think there is one. In the case of year-over-year, it really has been fiscal policy and monetary policy that I think has shown everyone for a loop in the multinational and small, medium enterprises. And the great recession was a factor of liquidity issues in this scenario when a base rate goes from 325 basis points to 800 basis points inside of 6 months, it causes systemic shock waves and even the best of circumstance experience challenging ALCO issues, and that's what we're facing. And that's quite challenging that we're all addressing collectively in the private industry as well as regulatory bodies.
Yashi Yadav
And conversely, where do you see the largest opportunity this year?
Jacob Yahiayn
Excellent question. So if you look from a global treasury standpoint, the opportunities are really going to be an arbitrage weighted average cost of capital funding. For example, in the United States, the base rate is 8%. However, in the European Union, it's 325 basis points. But then you look into Asia and in Japan, it's 150 basis points.
So for those companies that can drive liquidity from an Asian platform and reverse fund, you have a major, major arbitrage opportunity, right? If you're cooling stockpiling your cash in Japanese theater of operation and then reverse funding operations in the United States on selective exposure, that's a major, major risk of the adjusted return upside. Although we're not a CLO fund. We're a strategic investor in our verticals of expertise. But it's just such an obvious opportunity. It's hard to miss right now.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. I just think it's probably not a focal point in today's market because everybody is so focused on tracking all of the noise that we're seeing from all the different risk indicators where people get focused on those negative components as opposed to how do I make money?
Jacob Yahiayn
Well, I agree. I mean, money is fungible, right? And the world is much more interconnected than it was 35 years ago. And those companies that can create theaters of operation capabilities in Asia or EU or the Americas are the ones I wouldn't like. For example, we're a New York, Texas company, but our operations are in U.S., EU and Asia. So we're -- as a CEO, that's something I'm definitely looking into. You may be restrictive in liquidity in the Americas, but there's a liquidity in the Asia theater of operation, and you can reverse fund, right? Wouldn't you rather borrow in Japan when it's 150 basis points and then reverse fund your intercompany operations? Well, here, your prime rate and base rates are 8%. I mean, it's almost obvious.
Yashi Yadav
Obvious, yes. You would think of common sense, right? So something I did want to ask you is I see that you have a pretty significant amount of banking experience in the Middle East, right? And that's obviously been a market and just geographic area that's kind of grown and really hit the world stage from a financial standpoint. Are there other emerging markets that you see as being growth areas that maybe historically have been risky? And what specific risks do you think have kind of been mitigated that have pushed them up and up per se?
Jacob Yahiayn
Well, if you look at different cycles of opportunities, sure, Middle East, North Africa is an important hub, you can never not pay attention to Asia. I mean there's just so much of opportunity from South Asia to ASEAN countries. And this goes back to even when I started my career in the east and lived in Asia, whether it was Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, India, China and the list is pretty long. But the opportunities are your correct combination of media and Asia.
Selectively, there are some opportunities in certain Latin American countries. And then selectively, there are pockets of excellence in Africa as well. So you really have to, A, understand it's either by opportunity and the market you're in. And you really need to understand your vertical centers of excellence. In our case, it's energy, aerospace, mechanical, electrical, sustainable design, engineering and deep tech from edge computing to software. So we look across the globe in those 4 verticals that we're good at and then we go behind those companies and bring them on to our urban logistics advisory services platform.
Yashi Yadav
Got it. That's very interesting, Jacob. And to close out, what, Jacob Yahiayn, are you doing when you're not being the CEO?
Jacob Yahiayn
I missed my grandchildren every day of the week. So that's why I -- we have our domicile both in New York and in Texas where they are. So I'm blessed to have 3 grandkids.
Yashi Yadav
Beautiful.
Jacob Yahiayn
Nothing more than anybody, in my case, could ask for.
Yashi Yadav
Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Jacob, it was great chatting with you.
Jacob Yahiayn
Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Yashi Yadav
Enjoy the rest of the conference.
Jacob Yahiayn
Thank you. Cheers.
Yashi Yadav
What an interesting global perspective from Jacob. Staying on track with the global story, let's continue our conversation with the global citizen. Having traveled to 74 countries so far and worked across multiple continents, joining me today is...
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares of MRV Associates.
Yashi Yadav
Great to meet you, Mayra. So happy that you've joined us today. To kick things off, what has brought you to the risk symposium this year?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
I've always loved the different kinds of S&P conferences I've attended because I need a lot of different people with a different perspective, and the presenters also very different. And this morning, certainly has not disappointed at all. I think it's incredibly important to always be thinking not just what are the risks that we just saw yesterday or the day before, but to be thinking what's coming next. And I think it's always important to be thinking both of the qualitative and the quantitative elements of risk.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. No, that definitely makes a lot of sense. And so in light of that, what, in your opinion, has been the largest risk so far of 2023?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
Well, I think the largest risk of 2023, unfortunately, has been that a lot of market participants, especially, unfortunately, executives at some major banks as well as investors, have forgotten the basics of risk identification, measurement and control at banks. I would have anticipated perhaps that geopolitical situation, particularly the work as Ukraine would have become worse? I was maybe expecting a massive problem with cybersecurity. And instead, what you had with Silicon Valley Bank ignoring very, very basic interest rate risk identification and measurement.
And I think the problem is that you always -- by definition in just the virtue of being humans, we always have younger people coming in to the industry. And people who have not been around more than 10 years forget that whatever goes down will go up and whatever it goes up comes down. And so this idea that, wow, interest rate risk rising was so anticipated and a lot of these blaming the Fed has frankly taken me by surprise because these are your very, very basic aspects of any kind of financial institution. It's always identifying at the very least interest rate risk and liquidity risk.
Yashi Yadav
Right. And just the cyclicality of the markets, really. So converse to that, what is the biggest opportunity that you foresee this year?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
I think that there are a lot of opportunities in the area of taking the crisis and looking inward to -- at every organization to see what professionals do you have there, what skill sets do you have, what do you need to upgrade. And the same thing with technology. Do you have the correct technology for the specific portfolios you're running if you're an asset manager? Or do you have the correct systems for good risk data aggregation and analysis at a bank, for example?
I think it's very easy these days because we do have so many looming geopolitical concerns, both with China and Ukraine, and we're worried about what are called the nonbanks, the shadow financial institutions. It's important not to get that gloomy and say, "Wait a minute. Let's be really honest about potential shortcomings we have in our organization and let's figure out how to solve that." And if you are at a financial institution where you don't have people who have been through a crisis, then maybe you do need to get a little bit of gray hair.
So I think it's -- from every crisis, it's really important to quickly try to draw some lessons. And I think what I see a lot of right now is a lot of blaming. Let's blame bank regulators. Let's blame social media. I think we need to be a bolt to say, "You know what, we shouldn't have missed it, but we did. And so how do we solve making sure we are looking at the very least at interest rate risk, foreign exchange risk, liquidity?" I think people have been lulled into the fact, for example, that the dollar has been very, very strong and not so much now this quarter. So I think people need to look at the -- take a good look again at all the aspects of market risk and credit risk.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. No, I completely agree with you. And a follow-up to your comments that I have is, why do you think so many firms are overlooking such fundamental risk management components? What's triggering that?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
It's -- my answer is going to sound very simple, but I've been in the market for a couple of decades. I've had the opportunity to work not only in the United States, but in other countries. And it's incredible, as different as these different countries and cultures are, there is a unifying theme, and that is that people don't value history. Every new crop of professionals, and I was one of those 2 at one point, said, "Oh, yes, those people made mistakes or those people didn't see that particular risk. But this time, it's going to be different."
And I hate to tell everybody, no, this time is not going to be different. In other words, you always need to be looking for risk. It doesn't mean I'm a negative person at all. I'd like to think of myself as a well-informed optimist. I think when you have people who are all saying, "Oh, everything is great and we have everything under control, everybody starts to enjoy asset growth, everybody starts to enjoy increasing revenues," it's precisely when things look so good. You need a couple of people in the room to say, "Oh, wait a minute, if we've had this massive growth in deposits, what would happen if that were to reverse?" Or wow, we've had a lot of increase in leverage loans because companies have been borrowing right, left and center. That's when you say, "wait a minute, what were to happen if some of those loans were to start to default?"
But when you don't have a couple of the so-called well-informed optimist looking to see what kind of dark clouds might be out there, that's when we get into trouble. I've been through so many crises in Asia and Russia and Latin America and the U.S. And every time is the same, just people don't want to look at those dark aspects. And I think that's at the very essence of credit risk is finding those potential problems and not being negative in doing anything about -- just sitting there, it's about, wait a minute, here are potential issues, are we prepared to face them and hope that they don't show up. That's great. But if they do show up, you're prepared.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. No, of course. And I guess given your background in all of these different seasons that you've had being in the markets, what crisis would you say was your favorite in the context of learning from?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
I have a favorite, yes. Funny, the one with being what's a favorite crisis. I would have to say the global financial crisis in one way because there were so many aspects about that. There was this completely unreasonable idea that the laws of gravity would somehow be suspended, meaning that housing prices always go up. It's like no, what goes up must come down.
We have certainly had lots of crisis before that in my lifetime. We had the Mexican crisis. The Argentine crisis more times than I can count. The Asia crisis, I myself was the Russian equity analyst precisely when -- during the Russian debt moratorium. So we have lots of crises, but nobody wanted to take that plumbing of asset prices in those crises or our own domestic regional real estate crisis and put them in a model and say, okay, if all of these crises were happening at once, what would that do to asset values? What would that do to our portfolios? I think up until that point, I would say that Americans were very, very optimistic people. I think since then, I think a lot of people have been a bit more beat up. And in a way, sadly, that helps that you now are a little bit more careful and you look for risk.
The global financial crisis also demonstrated that, unfortunately, there was a tremendous amount of fraud, both on the part of borrowers who lied about their actual net worth to get a loan, but there was also a lot of fraud and a lot of the banks. And so in that way, favorite and big quote, we also realized that very, very little these days as a domestic crisis. Certainly, whatever happens in the U.S. where we get a cold, there's lots of other countries that not only are going to get a cold, but frankly, could get pneumonia.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. Well, thank you for that feedback. I think it was definitely extremely insightful for myself and I'm sure for our listeners as well. So to close out our conversation today, can you share with us what has been your favorite place to have lived throughout all the different places that you've worked, lived, experienced?
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
Oh, my gosh. I want to say, I'm very partial to living in the U.S., obviously, maybe because I was born here and raised here. But I lived in London for 4 years, and that was a great experience as well because that was a place where I didn't even think about the fact that, yes, we have the same language, the 2 great countries divided by the same language, as Churchill said. And so I certainly learned a lot there in terms of markets. That's a very vibrant place.
I do still have a personal soft spot for all of what's called the former Soviet Union. I spent so much time all over Russia, Ukraine, most of the stans. But I think that if I -- in terms -- of course, Mexico, very partial to my family, multiple generations have come from there. I just feel very fortunate that I have been able to work and study in other countries. It's just such an eye-opening experience. I mean, I once worked in South Sudan and lived in a tent for 2 weeks while rebels were shooting each other across the Nile, even that was like a, boy, am I lucky that just, by accident, I was born in the U.S. And I think that sometimes you really do have to look at some of these extremes to realize never take your one good fortune for granted. So I try to learn even from some of the tough places I worked in like -- I would say South Sudan was my toughest. I spent 2 weeks and laid those Nigeria. That was also really tough.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. Well, definitely, it sounds like quite a series of unique experiences. This was an amazingly unique conversation. So thank you, Mayra, for the time.
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
No, thanks for including me.
Yashi Yadav
And I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference, and I hope to chat with you soon.
Mayra Rodriguez Valladares
Thanks so much.
Yashi Yadav
We have just reached our lunch break here at the event, and I can hear the buzz of energy behind me. Tapping into some of that peer engagement, I am pulling aside our next guest. Joining me now is...
Carl Schecter
Carl Schecter, former risk arbitrager, who spent 20 years as a portfolio manager in that area. So risk is something I've dealt with for many years.
Yashi Yadav
Very exciting, Carl. I'm very excited to have you on our brief segment today. So to kick things off, what has brought you to the risk symposium today?
Carl Schecter
As a risk arb, I spent my career looking at idiosyncratic risk of deals and of companies. But as we've seen with the pandemic and then more recently with Silicon Valley, I think we've never been in an environment where risk gets transmitted more quickly from more different corners of the globe. When the invasion of Ukraine happened, it affected everything from the cost of bread in Cairo to natural gas in Europe. So I think pulling back and needing to really have a broader understanding of risk is important in almost all of my personal investing now.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. Just having that 30,000-foot view almost before you dive deeper. Makes sense. What, in your opinion, has been the biggest risk that you've seen in 2023?
Carl Schecter
Well, coming into the year, I just want to backtrack and say, I didn't have the wisdom to anticipate the banking crisis, although I was aware of the disintermediation of deposits by higher returning treasuries and money markets. So that was something I noted, but I didn't see this bank run. But that's not the biggest risk that I saw, and it's still not the biggest risk. I think the Fed will handle that. I think that the debt ceiling debate upcoming is actually getting underplayed. Only now are we beginning to see headlines. But with the polarization of our political environment and the beginnings of hardened positions on this very important subject, I'm quite concerned, despite everyone's view that we won't default, that we will get to a crisis environment. And I think only in a crisis environment will compromise be possible.
Yashi Yadav
Got it.
Carl Schecter
I'm alluding back to 2011, which was the last time we had a serious standoff like this when the VIX went to 40. The VIX at 17 credit spreads at rather blaze levels do not speak to me that the market is concerned about this as I am right now.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. So you still think that there's further down to go.
Carl Schecter
I think that we are going to find out that Janet Yellen is serious when she says she doesn't have rabbits to pull out of the hat. And the Congress needs to get real perhaps by as early as June when the tax receipt numbers get solidified.
Yashi Yadav
I guess, converse to that question, where do you see the largest opportunity being this year?
Carl Schecter
Okay. If you don't mind me hitting that with a 3-part answer because...
Yashi Yadav
Absolutely. Take your time.
Carl Schecter
I think there's tremendous opportunities. One of the biggest areas, speaking generally, is that in the era of 0-ish interest rates, it covered up many flaws in many companies and sort of the rising tide lifted all ships. As we get into a higher interest rate environment, as Warren Buffett famously observed, you sort of see who is swimming without the swimsuit. And so many bad business model or companies are going under, while good businesses sometimes are being pulled down in sympathy with them. And so I might mention that there are several financial companies that are not deposit-taking companies, and they've dropped 25% along with the regional banks. So I'm focused on several of those. Probably this is not the venue to mention specific names. But I would just say that is an area good quality financials that are not going to be caught up in the potential ongoing concerns around regional bank deposits.
I think that the second area that I would want to highlight is in hedge funds for those who are able to invest in them that have the ability to exploit volatility books and play these dispersion games. While those were not very profitable in the preceding years, I think more and more, there will be a lot of money to be made in long-short fundamentals as those start to reassert themselves.
But I'll finish with what I think is the very best -- saving the best for last, if I may, which is I really have a high conviction trade in the LNG, liquid natural gas sector, specifically smaller companies in Canada that have exposure to the soon-to-be completed export terminal in Kitimat. And this is something that I think the market suffers from myopia as a general comment. And so that if you look ahead to 2025, this will be lifting more than 10% of Canada's entire gas production and shipping it to Asia. It's the last commodity where there's not one clearing price in the world. Instead, we have $2 natural gas here and $24 gas in Japan. So that arbitrage will be narrowed. And I think that this will inure to the benefit of the smaller gas companies with good balance sheets now and high yields while you wait in particularly Alberta and British Columbia.
Yashi Yadav
Got it. I love that answer, actually. And that leads me to a follow-up I have, which is in -- I guess, for our listeners, one, and maybe I should have asked this earlier, but can you just very simply define what arbitraging is? And two, after you go ahead and do that, would you be able to share with us what's like -- if you're able to, are there specific asset classes that you arbitrage with in? Or what is -- generally speaking, what is your strategy behind that?
Carl Schecter
To answer the first part in its simplest form, arbitrage is the simultaneous purchase of a given asset in one market while selling it in another at a profit. And in the beginning of my career, this was possible in the options markets in strategies that might sound complicated, but are not conversions and reverse conversions. Picking up the phone in New York, shorting something in Chicago, selling a put on the Amex, that is how I began. Then the markets are very efficient with respect to that kind of arbitrage, but less so with respect to risk arbitrage. Now we're talking about betting on events such as will Elon Musk be compelled to complete his purchase of Twitter. You can have a big spread to make there if that event goes through. It doesn't matter what the stock market does. So that's event trading or merger arbitrage.
And finally, as to the asset classes where that's possible, I think that for most people, it's probably not appropriate to try to do merger arbitrage themselves because you need to diversify over a large number of different industries and events to capture the, let's say, actuarial expectation. What I am looking for thematically, and perhaps I'm using the word a little bit loosely, but is something along the lines of what I described with that LNG trade where there's a gap in a price of a commodity between 2 different places that will be narrowed. And it invites investment. And $30 billion is being invested in this terminal to narrow that gap. So it's more of a way of looking at the economics of a pending trade than perhaps the original definition, which was the simultaneous purchase and sale.
Yashi Yadav
Thank you for that. Switching gears here. I did want to pivot. I know that you give guest lectures at a number of universities, Rutgers University being one of them, my alma mater. And so given that you've chatted on the topics of business ethics, right, can you share with us maybe what can be the financial impact of having a poor ethical framework in place for a business or not having sort of an ethics framework in place?
Carl Schecter
Well, I feel I can't answer the question without getting into specifics. So I'll give you one example from the lectures that I do give at Rutgers and elsewhere. Because corporate culture is such a vague word, and I think what you're asking is, well, what does it mean, and I will start by saying that Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett's partner, said, "You show me the incentives and I'll show you the outcome."
And so going back several years when Wells Fargo heavily incentivized its branch representatives to cross-sell products so that you came in to open a checking account and they would try to sell you a mortgage and car loan and so forth, they were very pressured to do so. Thus, when the customer didn't want it, they did so anyway. I'm not making excuses for their individual actions. I'm just saying that, that particular corporate culture caused a massive problem. And the CEO at the time was eventually forced out, and it was a blight on the company's reputation.
Whereas companies like Berkshire Hathaway or Buffett himself, the way he handled, again, going back a number of years, the Salomon Brothers cornering of Treasury scandal where he went before Congress and was very open and transparent and said, "Come in. We have nothing to hide." And he said very importantly at that moment, "Lose money for me now, I will be understanding. Cause damage to my reputation, and I will be ruthless."
And so that spirit is what makes, I think, a distinction that's visible, and I encourage the students at Rutgers and elsewhere to do reverse due diligence when they offer jobs and make sure that they are headed towards a company that has the kind of corporate governance, the kind of employee-friendly policies and the kind of incentives in place that will encourage ethical behavior.
Yashi Yadav
No, I definitely agree with all of those statements, and I definitely did that when I was doing my career shopping a few years ago now. My last question for you, Carl is, when you're not profiting off of these arbitrage trades or guest lecturing at universities, how do you enjoy spending your free time?
Carl Schecter
I have a wonderful dog named Bula, and we work with the Good Dog Foundation and visit medical schools and old age homes and even army veteran hospitals where people are recovering from PTSD. So that's what I do.
Yashi Yadav
That's beautiful. It's beautiful to hear. Well, thank you so much, Carl, for joining me today. I really appreciated having you on. Hope to have more conversations with you in the future, and enjoy the rest of the conference.
Carl Schecter
Thanks very much. It's my pleasure.
Yashi Yadav
It is so fascinating the materiality that FX has on business and the financial burden it can create what improperly monitored. What a great conversation with Carl. Moving into our final segment now, I have...
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Mark Jennings from Bite Investments.
Yashi Yadav
Really excited to have you here, Mark. So just to kick things off, what are you most excited about in regards to the risk symposium today?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Yes. So look, it has been a great event and a great turnout. SP Global is an amazing firm, and thank you for having me. And I was just interested in hearing what -- keep my finger on the pulse and hear what everyone has to say and what they think the biggest risk is so far this year.
Yashi Yadav
Definitely. Yes, I'm sure you've heard a lot of interesting opinions throughout the past few sessions.
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Yes, you can say that again.
Yashi Yadav
So of that, what, in your opinion, has been the biggest risk so far in 2023?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
I think asset allocation. Everyone being in kind of same equities, bonds, used funds, ETFs, not having diversification of the portfolio. I think that's what we've seen is, at least on our side of the business, is diversifying in alternative type investments.
Yashi Yadav
Interesting. Okay. So with that in mind, conversely, where do you see the largest opportunity then this year?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Yes. So we see opportunities that, traditionally, alternate investments were for endowments, pensions, large family offices, smaller family offices, high net worth, credit investors haven't had access to alternate investments in the past. And now with the technology that we represent, we are helping people diversify their portfolio. So they're not all aggregated in the same publicly traded investments.
Yashi Yadav
So I guess my follow-up question to that would be from -- within the alternative investment space, how does credit risk play into that? Or does it play into that for your clients?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Yes, credit risk is obviously on everyone's mind these days with everything going on in the world we're living in. So I think it's important to educate the consumers, educate the advisers, right? 7% advisers don't understand alternatives low on the 0.05% high net worth investors. So we're here to kind of help make sure it's appropriate. So we kind of weed out the people it's not, and then we help educate them on the opportunity and offer them something different that they can't get at the traditional buyer houses or broker dealers.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. Yes. No, that makes sense. Following up to that, with us seeing sort of increasing debt across the market amongst both consumers and also corporations, do you see certain asset classes or sectors being hit more aggressively, conversely to others?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Yes. Obviously, real estate has been an interesting topic this year. Everyone seems to be in this credit space. And there's a lot of -- when banks can't lend, institutions or companies and -- we're here to kind of -- I offer that to the moms and pops, but people that are appropriate, right? It's important for people to know about all the opportunities at their disposal and not just the traditional investments that they've been offered. Our job is to use technology to scale that business and offer it across the board.
Yashi Yadav
Yes. No, that's great. Thank you so much, Mark. And to close things out for our conversation today, what vacation are you most excited for in 2023?
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Let's see. So I've been begging -- go back to Bermuda. I lived there for 5 years. My daughter is born there. So I've been promising her we'd get back there. We have some clients, investors there as well. So looking forward to getting back to Bermuda at some point this year.
Yashi Yadav
Oh, that's awesome, yes. Definitely, can't complain. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you enjoy the rest of the conference, and it was great having a quick little chat with you.
Mark E. Jennings, Jr.
Thank you very much. Have a great day.
Yashi Yadav
Wow, what an action-packed day. Engaging with these leaders has really widened my perspective on all the spheres of influence that impact the risk management of firms today. I'm so glad I was able to grab some time with these incredible individuals, and I'm really looking forward to diving deeper and having more elaborate conversations with them in the future. The event has wrapped up for today, but stay tuned for future S&P events. They happen globally and frequently. So please see below for a complete list. Thank you all for joining and listening in today, and I hope to see everybody here next time.
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