Locations. All that and more. But first, lets get headlines. Leinenkugel. I like how you say that. Lets start with seaworld. The companys stock is falling in afterhours trade. The themepark company has come under scrutiny ever since the documentary blackfish. The reason behind the earnings miss seaworld saw a 13 decrease in attendance. Cisco thirdquarter sales and profit topping analyst estimates driving data traffic from smartphones and traffic fueling demand while the company cut costs. Macys today retained its annual profit forecast. They repurchased 1. 5 billion more in stocks than originally planned while raising the company dividend. Those are a look at the top headlines. Back to you. Thanks very much. We begin with the situation in ukraine. As the Russian Foreign minister said today, the country is as close to a civil war as you can get. With an exclusive interview with bloombergs Ryan Chilcote today, he added that sanctions by the west might not reach the desired effect. If the west, just for the sake of revenge is ready to sacrifice its reputation for the as a reliable partner for the entire world economy, if the United States is prepared to sacrifice its reputation as the holder of the key reserve currency, then it is up to them to decide. Lets go to washington, d. C. , now and bring in the former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine, now the new Eurasia Center director at the Atlantic Council. Ambassador, thanks for being with us. What do you make of Sergey Lavrovs comments . He has a very difficult job. He has to defend russia against economic sanctions in the face of its aggression in the ukraine. There is not a civil war going on in ukraine. You have a russianfinanced and led and supplied insurgency. The United States is responding by sanctioning individual russians and perhaps the russian economy and sending troops. Mr. Lavrovs job is to try to prevent the west from doing that. Explain if you can russias role in the region, and if you can, the specific. There is crimea but also Eastern Ukraine. Russian troops without insignias on their lapels seized crimea. Then they held a farce of an election, which according to a Russian Human Rights Organization only had 30 turnout, and of that, anywhere from 50 to 60 voted for joining russia. By this data, you have 25 or 35 of the population voting to join russia, yet, they joined russia. In Eastern Ukraine, you have Russian Special forces, fsb, which is their postkgb secret police agents, running and financing a small insurgency involving maybe hundreds of ukrainians. With that, they are able to establish control in some buildings in luhansk, donetsk, and slovyansk. The referendum that was held last week was a complete farce. What is Vladimir Putin and russias desire . I would distinguish between the kremlin and russia and the russian people. The kremlins desire is to prevent a ukraine which has an open society, which has democratic and fair elections, which looks to the west for at least economic and political inspiration. This is something which for some reason the kremlin does not want, even though a ukraine which merges with eu not necessarily becomes part of the eu but the but establishes close relations with the eu would not be good for russia. Is there a historical precedent for russian behavior in ukraine . It is certainly true that for many russians, ukraine is not a real country, that the ukrainian people, to the extent that they have an illegitimacy, are real russians or partners with russia this historical understanding which does not match the reality of the ukraine of the past 25 years, provides some support within russia for mr. Putins progressive policies. Is there a reaction to russias activity in other countries of Eastern Europe . Whether it is belarus, poland, or the baltic nations . The real focus now is on ukraine, but certainly poland and the baltic nations and, for that matter, most of the states almost all the states of the former soviet union are very concerned about russias aggression in ukraine, and they are concerned that it might apply to them, too. This is particularly true in the country of moldova. How would you analyze the future movements that the president of the United States can take based on what russians have so far done . I think, in fact, the Obama Administration has very strong cards to play if it chooses to use them. We have taken economic sanctions and helped persuade europeans to take economic sanctions, although, frankly, they have not been strong enough. If the russians disrupt president ial elections, and i think theres a good chance they will, if we take strong sanctions, it will give mr. Putin reason to reconsider. Even if europeans do not want to do this, if the United States wants to take on sanctions with the same determination and the same focus with which we pursued sanctions against iran, europeans would have no choice but to follow us. However important russia is to the european economy, the United States is much more important. Ambassador herbst, what is the relationship now between germany and russia . Complicated. I think that there are many businesses in germany that would prefer not to make sanctions against russia. A substantial part i would not necessarily say a majority, but a large number of the german public has some sympathy for russia. They just have no understanding of what has happened in ukraine over the past 25 years, but i think chancellor merkel understands the russian seizure of crimea, the continuing aggression in Eastern Ukraine is a grave threat to the postcold war order in europe, and for that matter, a threat to global security. I think she understands the west has to take resolute actions to persuade mr. Putin to take a different path. We would all love to see mr. Putin go in a different direction so we can restore relations with him and his country. You are former u. S. Ambassador to ukraine. What would be the current role of the u. S. Ambassador in terms of connecting with groups or with parties or officials . Where would you get your best information . Who would you have a dialogue with right now . We have an excellent ambassador in kiev right now, and im sure he is pursuing all possible angles. My view is it is important to be in constant dialogue with everyone. That would include some of the separatist groups, though im not sure they would want to be in dialogue with the u. S. Government, but when need to understand the perspective of all players in the ukraine, although, again, it is worth noting that separatists are a tiny, tiny fraction of people in the ukraine. According to a poll, 70 want to remain in ukraine. One of the comments by sergey lavrov, the foreign minister of russia, today to Ryan Chilcote was that russians do not feel like foreigners when they go to ukraine. Is that a valid assessment . Im not certain what to make of that. You could be positive or deeply negative things in that, but it is true that you crazy and people share the same religion you could read positive or deeply negative things in that, but it is true that ukrainian and russian people share the same religion and cultural elements, but there is no question that the ukrainian people consider themselves an independent people and an independent custard country. I want to thank you for joining me, john herbst, currently Eurasia Center director at the Atlantic Council coming up next, we will travel to a more tranquil location. I will speak to the chief executive of sandals resort, and we will talk about rubbing his allinclusive vacation empire. Details next. Summer yes, it is around the corner. It will happen, so, just relax. Maybe get a little relaxation at an allinclusive resort. How does that sound . Adam stewart joins me, the chief executive of Sandals Resorts international. They have 24 locations. Good to have you with us. Tell people a little bit of history of the Sandals Resorts business. We have an awesome history. My dad founded the company in 1981. He is a caribbean beach bum, and he took his philosophy of going beyond with Customer Expectations and satisfaction levels. One hotel at a time, we have grown to 24 and are now the caribbeans largest employer. Ay, that isals b where it all began. That is where it all began. In the early 1980s, he said he did not know what he was buying. He bought a Rundown Hotel with 99 bedrooms. We kept building, put in new services. We were the first to put hairdryers and rooms in the early service, the first to put a la carte service. Weve been voted the worlds best 18 years in a row. You have a couple of ways to look at holiday making in the Sandals Resorts group. Not only Sandals Resorts, but you also had beaches and you have adventure holidays. Tell us about that. Absolutely. All the time, people are coming year after year. We have married over a quarter Million People in our 33 years. The customer wanted vacation experience to bring their families, so we founded each is resorts in 1997. We have a partnership with sesame street. We do Microsoft Xbox game garages. It is something for everyone. It is an incredible product. You can see big bird up there now. It is amazing. What distinguishes Something Like the grand pineapple resorts versus the adventure resorts . The grand pineapple is a more entrylevel product. Sandals and beaches are full of bells and whistles. Scuba diving is included. We have butler services. In some of the hotels, you are picked up in a rollsroyce from the airport. The list of inclusions is we include more quality inclusions than any other resort on the planet. The grand pineapple product is a more entrylevel, threestar, traditional Family Vacation experience. Without the bells and whistles of a sandals resort beach. Give us an idea if you can of the caribbean. Economye of the caribbean. The caribbean economies are struggling. They have too much debt tied to them. Debt to gdp ratios are upside down. We are now the largest employer in the caribbean. We have over 12,000 team members throughout the islands we operate in, and we just tried to do as much as we can to gain Foreign Exchange and lay a huge economic footprint in our region and the caribbean. Explain your expansion lands. Plans. You just opened something in grenada. Last year, we opened three hotels. We opened in barbados. We opened a Magnificent Hotel in grenada on december 21, and we opened a new resort called key west village. 168 new bungalows. It has been a busy few years. Where is the best ways that adam stewart place that adam stewart likes to go . We have a Beautiful Hotel in the bahamas. Used to be a four seasons. We purchased the hotel. We spend 40 million on it, putting in huge pools and six additional restaurants. For me, it is only a 40minute flight from florida, but you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. You can escape the world and the water is like nothing you have ever seen before. All of this does cost money. Can you give us an idea of how you are paying for all of this . Privately held. As a private organization, there are no dividends paid to anyone beyond the business itself. We reinject literally everything we make in this company back into the Business Year after year. And of course, we do bank financing, typical bank financing. We have very little debt to asset ratios, and we just keep reinvesting. This is what we do. We roam the caribbean. We know the beaches better than anyone, and our entire life is creating amazing resorts. What is the biggest challenge working in a Family Business . I get on amazingly well with my dad. He has been a mentor my entire life. It can be tough when you have differences of opinion. He is our chairman. I am the ceo. You would be amazed how much we work through them together. We have been able to build a Family Business. The flipside is when it is all working, nothing holds a business better than having the family still involved and having that access at all times. It has made us a hugely strong company. Is there anything the government in the countries of the caribbean could do in order to spur further torus Tourist Development . You know, some of the governments get it better than others. Just understand the business better. You have to be connected, tied into the airlines. You need to take an airplane to get to these islands, and i am promoting the islands. Tourism is the number one industry of the caribbean by a long shot. Will be the future. Want to thank very much adam stewart, the chief executive of Sandals Resorts international, coming to us from los angeles. Coming up, i will introduce you to the app that wants to outfox the big wholesale stores. You will never have to physically stock your shelves again. All right, the bulk store brick and mortars such as costco and sams club may feel threatened by my next guest, but he is a very nice guy. Chieh huang is the founder and chief executive of a Company Called boxed. It allows you to order bulksized goods for delivery to your door in one to two business days. Unlike amazons pantry service, boxed membership is free. I want to welcome chieh huang. Thanks for having me on the show. I have to start with the free business. How do you make money . Theres a lot of retailers out there that do not charge membership fees and make a decent amount of money. Or us, we always felt like there is inherent markup in the goods that we sell, and i think thats good enough. We are building a very light infrastructure so that we can generate profit even though we are not charging 99 for a yearly membership. You talk about yearly membership because we know that costco, you have to be a member. Sams club, membership, and so on. That back for a second and tell us how you go from the world of Online Gaming and the zynga world and the world of into the world of Online Retailing and soap flakes. Thats the fun part marrying the Digital World which we know so well in the physical. We are only an app right now, native on android and ios devices. The most mature vertical within mobile is gaming. Most apps are actually games. Over the last 5, 6, seven years, game makers have realized how people interact with mobile devices, how to build very compelling, beautiful experiences, and we take from that and translated into mobile commerce. Into mobile commerce, but you are taking the fun away from going to costco and sams club, right . The idea is to replace that trip you will get the same stuff, you get the discount, you get the bulk purchase, but you do not have to actually show up at the store. Thats right, but like you said, i would take a step back i dont know about replacing the trip, so if you enjoy that trip, costco and sams club are great companies. They are not going away anytime soon. For us, we are for people who do not have the time, the means, or the patience to go to one. You grew up in new york, so you do not have the means, usually, to get to a big rocks store. They do not exist in many parts of the country. Or urban areas, as they say. Exactly. Urban areas do well for us. We are only about six months old, so as we launched the service, we found incredible what i call heat around people who did not have the free time of the patients. We do very well in the suburbs and do very well surprisingly in rural areas where people literally do not have a costco within an hour or twohour drive would you partner with these companies if they are not getting the traction that they want . It is a small world. We all know each other and talk to each other to see how the consumer is reacting. We are finding that our demographic is very different from the usual demographic that goes in clubs. Again, people who generally do not have a car or do not have the time or the patience. Thank you very much for sharing your story. Best of luck to you. Chieh huang is the chief executive of boxed. Coming up, how about renting office space or maybe even a little nook in the lobby of a hotel . There is a company for that. This is taking stock on bloomberg. Im pimm fox. For a look at todays market moving headlines, i want to go to my radio cohost, carol massar. Citigroup has fired people for failing to prevent or discover loan fraud at the companys mexican unit and said more will face punishment. The dismissal includes two headed Business Units in mexico. Citigroup said the fraud involved 400 Million Dollars. Sears is considering a sale of its canadian stores. The struggling store chain may invest its stake in canada. Sears holdings will hire an investment tanked to study options. Check this out u. S. Crude production climbing to a 20year high. Output rose to eight point 4 Million Barrels a day, the most since october 1986 according to the Energy Information administration. Back over to you. Thanks very much. Liquidspace is an online and mobile platform, of course, but it is approaching the Real Estate Market in a whole new way they allow users to track down available offices and meeting rooms, and then they rent the spaces out by the hour or the day. The marketplace includes more than 5000 workplaces in more than 530 cities. Its founder and chief executive, mark gilbreath, joins me now. Thank you very much for being here. Descr