Challenges facing all of society. , 50 of Household Wealth is managed by women. Resolve. , reflection,. We need to cooperate how are we going to get consensus on that is tricky. It is all ahead on bloomberg asked. Hello. Welcome to a special edition of bloomberg past featuring highlights from the 2017 Bloomberg GlobalBusiness Forum. They will address the most pressing Economic Issues facing the world today and begin the work of solving challenges and charting a path forward. Our review starts on stage with the ceo of the most valuable company, apple. Them for ained conversation about business and civic leadership. All companies should have values. As a ceo one of your primary responsibilities is to decide what the values of your company his, and lead accordingly. I think the thing that president originallyd to say, from the bible, to whom much is given much is expected. Apple had success. A responsibility to give back, to help in some of societys greatest problems. For us, we tried to look deeply is government working on, are key in society. We think about the skills we have. Are not going to be able to help realistically that there are some we can amplify doernment efforts or we can ourselves. Thee has always been at core of changing the world. You cant change the world if you are ignoring the world. That is the way we look at it. Not only today but in the past as well, i think silence is the ultimate consent. If you see something going on that is not right, the most powerful form of consent is to say nothing. I think that is not acceptable to your company, to the team that worked so hard for your company. For your customers or your country. For each country that you happen to be operating in. That is the way i see it. I am more optimistic today than i have ever been. I mean that sincerely despite sometimes not feeling like that. Havell i think we incredible opportunity. Never before have i seen the world toall across the Work Together on these common issues. Companies are a collection of people. Have a responsibility to do something for the world. Our employees care what the Company Values are when i support a cause or dont. I hear from our customers. I hear it from my family. We dont live in a vacuum. He has his values, and doesnt sit around and say profit is the only thing. For business,good if you do the right thing it will help the bottom line. The first thing is to do the right thing because you have to look in the mirror, the last thing you see before you go to bed is yourself. You have got to be proud of that. The Global Business forum brought together heads of state. Remarks from bill clinton opened the event. Clinton the most important thing, economic performance, and political power , flow from division or multiplication. From subtraction or edition. You are all here because you know this. Fromests and viewers heard political leaders around the world beginning with emmanuel macron. I am a strong believer in europe. A lot of people told me, you are crazy. Think you can win in france . I did believe it was feasible. People do understand we need europe in this current environment. We have european values. Now the challenge is how year can be with the United States and china. It is a lack of projec ambition. We had a pessimistic approach trying to fix crises at the last minute without any prospects. Scale to the relevant deal with energy. A european cinema Single Energy market. We have french leaders and european leaders, and europe has to be stronger. Investment economy. What does it mean . We have to have 10 year objectives for europe. Reach the subjective. This because for more a generation there is just one alternative. Do we want the dismantling of europe . Which is an ongoing process. Tensionsve a lot of regarding overflow in europe. In a few months or years you will have older countries there is justying a lot of constraints. 10 yearmore vision, objectives. And a national process. I will refer to that next week. Need new missions. That is the best way to address the brexit issue. Editorinchief with president erdogan of turkey will have that interview later in the program. Lively panels with financial leaders including lloyd blankfein, and bill gates. Next, conversations with investors on the markets and more. Maybe what the president does is not as important to the markets as many once thought. This is bloomberg. This is bloomberg past. Globalng the bloomberg Business Forum, many of wall streets most respected investors took part in shared insights with my busy colleague erik schatzker. What are you seeing in the economy . The economy is in reasonably good shape. A recession is due at some point. Point, i will be right and we will have a recession. Right now the economy is doing pretty well, growing at two and a half percent. I would say i dont see any signs of a slowdown. Aboute people are talking synchronize global growth. There is more synchronization than before. Dont see any recession anywhere in the world. Does that surprise you . It does. Right now, things are in good shape. The deepest recession has been in brazil. You have described a private equity paradox. Returns,es, declining accelerating inflows. Paradoxes cant continue indefinitely, or can they . Sometimes they can for longer than people think. Invate equity is attracting amounts of money. Private equity has outperformed every other asset class and that is likely to continue. We cant continue to get these attractive rates of return. Have you ever seen this level of interest . I have not ever seen it at this level of interest. Everything will probably slow down at some point. If something cant keep going on forever it eventually wont. Right now the interest is high. People get elected promising to preserve your Social Security benefits, but nothing happens. People have been talking about this problem for many years. Nothing happens. Not only do decisions not get made, you dont even hear any discussion. One step american states might consider is following with the canadians and australians have said. Create professional investors. Do you think that would fix the problem . I think it would contribute. Be one decisions would of the important ingredients in a solution. Thatieve it is fair to say one thing you left out, when they hire staff for these investment organizations they pay them salaries that are competitive in the business world. In our political system that cannot be done today. Want to reason people not be people who work for the government making a lot of money. To say how can those jobs attract people smart enough to solve problems we have . I wrote a memo called economic reality and i think there is an example. If you pay people more you would whichme better decisions would contribute to the solution. I do believe candidate trump and i, President Trump interacts with his constituents in a way using twitter that should add volatility to the marketplace. The only conclusion i can come up with is maybe, what the president does is not as critically important to the markets as many of us once thought. Arounduch of the noise certain aspects of the presidency arent as relevant to the marketplace as many of us once thought. Does that realization surprise you . It does. Prognosticator i think i wouldnt get high marks. I thought volatility would be higher. We have been wrong on both. The good news about being wrong is that it forces you and us at our firm to buy higherquality assets and Better Companies that can withstand higher levels of volatility. In a strange way we have been wrong and it has helped our investment focus. Would you not say it is hard to find anything under price today . Absolutely. Look at our stockmarket. Most people tell you it is overpriced. Yet it still keeps going up. Everybody believes youre going to have huge billion coming in from offshore. Thats going to bring more jobs. And you will get tax reform done. If none of that happens youre going to see this market take a big hit. We have to wait how long to find that out . Six months. Donehas got to get otherwise the market is going to start saying we dont think any of this is going to get done. Brazil is a place you have gone shopping. I presume you have a short position on south korean cds. We dont view we think that right now is not fairly priced. What else is not fairly priced . Valuations have gone up in developed markets. We talked about that. Where else does it pay to do the work . You could still be in europe. You could make 1015 . In asia today because of the slowdown in china and what is happening out there you can do direct lending deals in asia for high teens to 20 percent. Given the state of the world and where you think it might be headed, where do you see best opportunities . Our business is raising large sums of money. Having operating people in many countries of the world. Availabletal is not and we have put a lot of money in south america, specifically brazil. We move our capital and we never know where it is going to be. It is going to be one of the countries where we can make opportunities into reality. We will move it where it is most important. Does that mean you are deploying capital at a slower pace than you might otherwise . Everywhere, all the time somewhere there is an opportunity to put money to work. We are cautious in the United States, and have been for a wild. We have 20 billion at work in other parts of the world. It is a big market. There is lots of addon opportunities but we bought general growth in 2009. Where else do you feel it is time to sell were might be soon time . Developed markets where theres lots of money, leverage lending markets are strong. Outside the u. S. . The u. S. In particular. Canada is good. Even though commodities have been tough. , there isnd europe opportunity to sell things. You are watching bloomberg best. Lets continue our look act at the 2017 Bloomberg GlobalBusiness Forum. Blankfein, head of the and the head of the Saudi Investment Fund talk about the transition and the future of energy in the middle east. Considering saudi arabia as a focus. What are the metrics you want to see . , foralistically today financial institutions, it is skill, a net exporter of capital. It is becoming clear to was. Influential in that country and had those concerns i want to make sure the people doing this for us were doing things for us that would and bringob creation new industry and diversified the economy. , there are two major changes,using structuring of the energy market. That is pricing. And the supply side. That, a compulsion of the demographic situation. Invested,t has been and i think the region needs the commitment and the help in getting investment done and creating jobs in the region. What are your priorities . Itwe say this guy made happen, how different this saudi arabia look . It is really different than before. 2030, it is a good start. Now we have targets. Targets for the middle, mediumterm and the longterm. We have the National Transportation plan. The vision 2030. Innovation. We have 543 different initiatives with 376 Key Performance indicators. It is not only about the vision which is very complicated, but also the execution of these initiatives. We have everybody in the government from different ministries, looking at their own initiatives. The council for economic development, shared by the crown prince. They meet on a weekly basis looking at these initiatives and the Key Performance indicators. , publicck to the pif investment fund, managed by me , we haverown prince another seven ministers. Lot of these initiatives. They will be part of the pif program. Much more still ahead from the bloomberg Business Forum. Ceo share thoughts on the future of business. Bill gates and others have plenty more to say about technology. Community, they are looking for a level playing field. They are looking for an advantage but they will take a level playing field. Welcome back to bloomberg best, im shery ahn. We are looking back at the 2017 bloomberg mobile Business Forum on september 20 and new york. A conference dedicated to solving economic challenges and charting new paths forward. Let us hear from some of the top is as leaders who spoke at the event, starting with the alibaba founder and executive chairman, jack ma. Shiftingk the world is from Big Companies to small companies. Small Companies Make extra partnerships and i am passionate about entrepreneurships. I am passionate about Small Business, i think it is the solution for this country, creating jobs, innovation. Are not creative in a Small Business and innovative, you do not have a chance. That is my passion and i believe that it is also the future of this country. You heard President Trump speak at the u. N. What is your relationship like . He is a very unique president. We had a very good discussion the first time that should the last time, talking about chinau. S. Trade. I think the chinau. S. In thisship is critical country, especially on the business side. I think they are making progress on that. Next really . Really . The president blocked the takeover of a u. S. Chip company by a private equity firm from china, what do you make of that . That happens. Then,nd there, now and this is a way i think that if you see optimistically or positively, they are countries that should understand each other better. Years, the next two orther it will be a disaster relying on the wisdom of leaders. When it comes to your business in china, the president has been taking more steps to put restrictions on the internet. This is your business. What do you make of that . Really . Yes, he has been shutting down vpns, that is one example of late. We probably see a different view of that. This is the way that i see business. In the past 18 years, this is our 18th anniversary, in the questionsars i got about internet censorship all the time. Internet guyfirst in china, since 1995. Americans have been enjoying democracy for 250 years, and china just started in the past 30 years. Past 30say in the years, china is learning a lot of things, making progress. Things, if there is control here and there, what we should do is focus on the 95 of the positive things. When i think i think that thee government governing or regulation of the internet is a new thing to any government. People like me, i have been talking to thousands or hundreds of government officials every year, because i think it is my responsibility to tell them, do not worry about it, this is the way to do it. I never complain, and i try my best to educate them. Emily do you think they will ultimately be on the right side of history . The Chinese Government . Yes come imf slowly sure. Nobody can stop this government revolution. The ceo needs to beat aware of issues out there and integrate them into corporate strategy. That is what i call earning a seat at the table. It may mean moving to green energy, making sure your materials are well supplied and treating your people fairly. Then you work on your value chain, these are easy things to do because these are your suppliers. Extend your influence on the value chain, you cannot outsource it. You cannot outsource the value chain and outsource your responsibilities as well, consumers do not accept that anymore. You have toing is work with Industry Associations on more transformative initiatives. There has beeny, something on that, now there is a Transportation Initiative to go to limited combustion engines, initiatives on human rights and the value chain, there are many industry initiatives that are happening right now which you have to attach yourself to. The final point is to be proud of advocacy and helping in the political process. Isis very difficult it difficult to blame the politicians if youre actually not part of the solution. You are one of the spear headers of this. Has it gone more quickly than he thought it would . Or slower . Six or seven years ago, it was the nas revolutionary, and we were a little bit geared. ,e had goals and ambitions increasing or social impact, doing that across the total value chain. Unfortunately, and importantly, it turns out that what we were trying to do was not even ambitious enough, with the way that the world is going. We were definitely on trend but it is an everchanging thing. One of the experiments we are very, very interested in an optimistic about is in the city in india where we are supplying the cars, the drivers have signed onto a Ridesharing Company there and that government has provided a charging station initially. It is working well, and if it continues we will replicate it. That is an example of a government stepping in actively and participating. More than that needing a Publicprivate Partnership to work, it can happen. The second thing, and i really do not believe in government sidies of at all subsidies at all, isnt you need the leader of the country to give direction. One Prime MinisterNarendra Modi laid out his vision for solar power and wanted to make india a leader in solar power, he set a ofar goal of 175 Gigawatts Renewable Energy by 2022, 100 gigawatts of each were solar. Which look for stability, they look for direction and you do not need that much more if you are just moaning opportunity. In three years, we built the company which is now the second largest builder of solar power plants. We were just saying, tell us which direction to follow, and if you do that, there is money to be made. How would you consider the growth of africa, especially nigeria, at the moment . I think the growth has been a little slow. Everything is in a cycle. We have breached the bottom, and mos bounceback we have bounced back. The majority of countries today, were making more money than last year when we had a recession. We have actually bounced back, because we have good fundamentals. We believe in what we are doing, when we