S2E6: Timeless advice with industry stalwart Bob Stein

In today's episode, I am joined by Bob Stein. Bob was previously the Senior Vice President of Non-Ferrous at Alter Trading.

He was also the President of the Non-Ferrous Division at the BIR and he is a great storyteller!

In todays episode we talk about:

• How to feel better about a big loss
• Buying against the market
• Choosing who to sell to
• Taking back your time
• And so much more!

WHO IS STU KAGAN ANYWAYS?

25 years in the metal recycling game and still learning and growing...

I learnt from the best and worked my way up from yard labourer to Executive Director of Trading and Operations for the largest metal recycler in sub-Saharan Africa. Responsible for 4,500 employees, 85 sites, and the overall profitability of a multi-billion dollar operation.

I brought my breadth and depth of knowledge to bear and co-founded the fastest growing, most-loved, and most awarded metal recycling company in New Zealand. No small feat in a country where people are outnumbered 4:1 by sheep (spoiler alert: sheep don’t produce much metal waste).

I thought it was time that tech worked for our industry, so I took all of my experience as an operator and trader and leveraged that to build THE killer scrap app, Buddy. That’s right - built for scrappies, by scrappies.

Father of two crazy-awesome boys. Husband to Lisa. Under 9 rugby coach. YPO member. Lifelong learner. Mentee. Mentor. Chief dog walker. Committed Stoic. Undefeated dance-off champion.

COME SAY HI ON LINKEDIN

https://www.linkedin.com/in/stukagan/

Transcript

0:00

Hi, I'm Stu Kagan and welcome to Born Scrappy, the podcast for scrap metal exporters and traders. Join me in conversation with some of the most experienced traders and operators that have helped shape this incredible industry. In today's episode, I'm joined by Bob Stein. Bob was previously the senior vice president of non ferrous at Alter Trading. He was also the president of the non ferrous division at the BAR and he's a great storyteller. In today's episode, we talk about How to feel better about a big loss, choosing who to sell to, buying against the market, taking back your time, and so much more. There's so much gold in this episode, so let's get into it. But first, intro. Bob, how are you doing? I'm well, thank you. And I hope you are too. I'm great. Thank you for asking. Um, it's great to have you on Born Scrappy. We only spoke about this just two days ago and we're making it happen right away. At my age, I like to do it quickly because I start forgetting things. Yeah, well, I'm really happy to have you on the show, mate. With the amount of time you've been in this industry, I'm sure we can learn heaps and heaps from you. So, so thanks for joining us. So Bob, you obviously spent a lot of your time at alter trading and you also previously, am I right? The president of, uh, the non ferrous president at the BIR. I was. Yes. 11 or eight years. Fantastic. And you, um, you now, can you run us through what you do now, um, with your consulting business? Well, I had been doing some consulting for, uh, uh, old friend of mine and decided that, uh, probably what I knew and they needed didn't necessarily mesh. So I called him one day and said, I'm happy to do this free. So, uh, do some of that and, uh, any other consulting that I do. And I, I really don't push it. Um, I donate the net proceeds, proceeds from payment to charity. Uh, it's my way of paying back without having to dip into a bank account. So yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome, Bob. And it's, I'm guessing it's obviously all, um, scrap metal consulting. Yes, for the most part, a little bit of outright international trade consulting also. Yeah, that would make sense. So, Bob, can you run us through your journey so far? How you got into metal recycling? How long you've been doing it for? What's it been like, um, in the industry that we all love? Well, I started, uh, my grandfather had a scrapyard in Vancouver, Canada from just after the First World War. And as a kid, I worked there. I literally swept the warehouse floors, I licked stamps, and I remember taking the little silver bearing balls out of the end of the old switchboards. That, um, we don't use anymore. Uh, went to university, went into my dad's business for a very short time, and literally, I don't like machines, I don't like walking around in the mud, and scrapyards in Vancouver, Canada are full of both of those. Uh, I, uh, had a chat with my father one day, and he said, well, maybe I'll just retire. He was 52, and he did. And I went to work for a company called Brandeis Goldschmidt in New York, which was an old, gilt edged metals trading house, if you will. One of the founding members of the LME, owned by S. G. Warburg and Company. So, um, left them and joined Commercial Metals, and, uh, in California, then in Dallas. And then went to work for my very good friends in Holland, Michigan, the Padmas family, uh, before, uh, joining, uh, alter trading, uh, around 2001. I think so. It's been a ride. That's that's for sure. Yeah, it sounds like you've been doing this for quite a while. I can, I can only imagine the amount of trades you've seen go through, and the amount of bad experiences and learnings. You know, we often say that the most expensive lessons are the ones best taught. So, Can you think of, um, a trade or an experience that happened to you in the past or you witnessed that kind of helped you shape the way you traded or help, um, ensure you did things in a certain way? I think, um, it would have been in the early nineties, I believe, and copper in the United States went into a backwardation. There was no copper around, and one of my very large customers, I said, Bob, we need scrap. We need a thousand tons of some astronomical amount. And I said, okay. And I sold them increments over the course of about six months and then picked myself up by the back of the neck and said, my God, if the back widens, I am in trouble. And I literally sat at the kitchen table at three o'clock in the morning. I had remembered from my days at Brandeis. That we used to do cash and carries all the time that we buy the nearby sell forward and realize the net profit or net gain, uh, you know, percentages from doing that and I thought, boy, I can protect myself. By doing cash and carries and wow, it actually worked and the scrap spreads went out so wide that we made quite a bit of money, a lot of money, actually. But again, it was like being at the bottom of the dung heap, if you will, looking up and saying, what? What can I do? And copper has stayed in a backwardation almost on a continuum basis. I, I don't look at the charts much, but what we used to call a normal market, which would be your contango market. Um, it seems to be a thing of the past, at least in copper, which is what I traded. Um, and that really taught me to be a little bit more careful, a little bit more mindful of the structure of the market. Okay. And the risks that can be associated associated with that. I think the other pivotal event or series of events was when the Chinese came into the market, really, in the early 90s, and you've heard it described as the Wild West and whatever. And it was just prior to that, the Russians. USSR was breaking up. All of the Eastern Bloc countries were dumping scrap into Europe, mostly. I was okay with that. We did okay, but, uh, it, again, frightening, but the Chinese changed the market tremendously. And, you know, I used to go to the board at Alter, and they say, well, you've opened up an office in Shanghai. Was this a good idea? I said, absolutely. It's a great idea, but I want you to keep in your mind that 20 to 30% of what we pick up by direct sales into China, we're going to lose. It's just the way it works. Fortunately, we didn't lose anything like that, but we dropped a few million dollars in whatever year it was when everybody else did. 2008. Yeah, in 2008. And the last one I would share is that we had an office in Shanghai, and our office was raided twice by the Anti Smuggling Bureau of China. Not because we were doing anything, but people that we were selling to were misdeclaring what goods were to get a favorable duty rate, or they were altering our documents. I think we followed Sims out of China, and then we all just went to Hong Kong. And now a number of left Hong Kong as well for the likes of Singapore or whatever. The bottom line to all of that is that oceans don't create credibility. Just because someone is ingratiating in a country where they'll wine you and they're dying you doesn't mean they're going to hurt you. So we learned a lot. Wow. That went on a, I just went on a full journey with you there because on the first Point where you were talking about, you know, being at the bottom of the dung heap, looking out and finding a window. I had a whole angle to discuss with you about sometimes, um, The obstacle is the way sometimes you find yourself in a position, but actually, um, you can turn it around and make it extremely positive. Michael Lyons, our good friend in season one, told us a very, very similar story that bought a huge amount of cable. Um, and they ended up making money in a way that they shouldn't have. Um, and it was purely due to understanding how they could trade it on the market. And that's exactly what you were saying there, but then last bit. That you spoke about right now was very interesting for me. So yes, I've been wined and dined thousands of times in different countries. And you know, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be honorable at a later stage. Is that what you're saying? Absolutely. And look, when, when China in particular started buying so much scrap, those companies were government owned. And as its economy changed. Into a quasi free market economy, the incestuous relationship between the government and corporations was still there and it was the same people. And some of the stories of less than forthright dealings, uh, not just by Chinese consumers, but by overseas suppliers, a number of whom certainly not going to mention names absolutely took huge advantage by cheating Chinese buyers. So it wasn't just them walking out on us. There were a lot of instances of suppliers just I don't know what the good word is. Screwing comes to mind. Yeah, I mean, I guess ruining, screwing is a great term. Um, it's, it, I guess in general, ruining our reputation as a whole as well, right? So now it's the industry comes across really poorly when somebody buys a container of Birchcliffe and they open it up and it's got bricks in it. Um, and that I hear is, was happening quite a lot. More, more likely to happen, you know, in the nineties than it is now, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen anymore. If you take a look at the evolution of the scrap industry in this country, say from the fifties and the sixties forward, there were generally proprietorships. And individuals doing business often through merchants who had communications and contacts that the smaller dealers didn't have, uh, but as consolidation came into the picture. I would think most notably that the first was probably commercial metals of Dallas, who expanded and had scrapyards. And it was an example of a company putting non family members in their scrapyards to run them, modeled after what Zales Jewelers did in the jewelry business. Because Morris Zale and the Feldman family were very close and shared offices for a number of years. Thank you very much. And as that morphed into huge companies, uh, I think to a degree our industry got better and there was added legitimacy to what the companies that we see today, many of whom are public, many have family names on the front door that they don't want to be smirched. So it's changed and it's better from this side, I think. Yeah, I totally agree. I was going to use the exact same word. Um, legitimacy is, is exactly that. Um, our industry has become more legitimate, 100%. It, your last point that you made about, um, you know, um, just because they, you know, whining and dying you, it leads me to ask the question about how do you then choose who to sell to on a daily basis? Now you've got a party who's, seems they're your best friends. Whether they're in China or Korea, you know, in Europe, wherever they might be. It's a commercial relationship, right? We all in this industry and I can assure you, I would say it's almost every person I interviewed in season one spoke about that our industry is all about relationships and I totally agree. However, is that what comes first when you're choosing who to sell to? It is, but how you form those relationships and be comfortable within those relationships is important. I always made a point of. Having people into my home. I mean, people travel all over the world. Well, someone who works for an aluminum smelter in the middle of China has never seen an American home. I've been to China 30 or 40 times. I think I've been in two homes and the same with people from India. I mean, they're genuinely interested. And I got to know them, their families, because it's really hard to tell somebody the hell with you when you have a personal relationship. The other thing is, is you need to go there. And, and I've said this in interviews before, and I've said it in articles that years ago, Northwest Airlines, who's now swallowed up by Delta, Had a simple commercial on TV and it showed two hands shaking and underneath it just said Northwest Airlines because you can't fax a handshake and it's so true and I, I told colleagues here when they would come to work for me as younger traders, I don't care. If our brass goes to a brass mill on the other side of the Mississippi River, or it goes to Jamnagar, India, it doesn't matter. It's just understanding the logistics, the cost equations, and the risk. So, it's tough sometimes to understand what's in a person's mind, and you can't do it with text. And you can't do it by emails. You need to know your customers. And then of course there's money in the bank and forms of deposits. That's also very, you know, it's very helpful. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And in the day to day, I realize you don't do it anymore, but in the day to day. Would you recommend the traders, um, you know, people trading for the scrap companies to auction out their material, to offer it to multiple amount of people, to have a relationship with one party and make sure that you're offering and negotiating with that one party. What is the day to day practice that you would recommend to actually sell your material for the best price? Diversity, so that all of your material is not bound to one consumer or one trader, even one country. I was going to say geography is hugely important. Yeah. Or even the case of China, we measured it locally. How much do we have that's going to this port or that port or wherever? Uh, and we watched it carefully. A trader has to know what his end user needs and be able to source those needs within his system or through brokerage or whatever you need to know what they're making. So in terms of a strategy, I'd say, you know, know what they need, know who they are. And it's all due diligence, Stuart. It's kind of easy. Up until we had some disasters in China, I went 40 plus years without suffering a bankruptcy. Somebody not paying me. Yeah. And subsequently, um, probably had one a year. Oh, I don't know if they went bankrupt, but they kind of had this habit of disappearing. One guy walked away from us. And he wrote to me and he said, Hey, we don't have to pay you. My company is registered in Hong Kong. Stupid. Our lawyers in Hong Kong filed a writ and, uh, basically the man paid up, but he was barred from ever sitting on the board of a company in Hong Kong again. So we're not stupid. But it, it, it is interesting though. And it leads to, you know, diversifying your portfolio, diversifying where your material is flowing. Because if you become beholdens on one buyer, which can often happen, and let's just take an owner operator. He's busy, he's wearing 20 different hats in the day, but one of those hats might be trading and he's trying to make sure that he's optimizing for the best price all the time. But there's one party that just makes his life easy and he feels comfortable selling to that. And it could be into China. It could be even through a trader who knows, but the point is, once you're doing that, you need to know that the amount of risk you take on by having a huge percentage. Going to one buyer is so much bigger than if you have it spread out over me it is And you've got to keep in mind that his risk transfers to you. Yeah, everybody walks Out on him. He has no money. You're out of luck. And I've seen that happen. Absolutely seen that happen. And he's not selling his house to pay you off to help you. He's looking after himself. Like when that situation happens, he's out for himself. No matter what you think your relationship was, it was a commercial relationship, whether you like it or not. Um, he's going to look after himself. We all would, we have to look after our family. And it's a commercial relationship that the two parties have. And I think it can work two ways. Look, in those horrible years, we had a very big customer in India for some of our shredder residues. And he came and he said, look, I can't do this. It sails to me, I don't know, almost a dollar a pound or whatever it was, and I can only afford to pay 70. And I said, okay, then pay us 70. And when things get back that you can pay us over time for that, you'll pay us back. Didn't put anything in writing, paid everything back. Uh, as we watched other companies selling hundreds of containers at a third of what they had been originally sold to in China, we didn't have to do that. We were very fortunate, very fortunate. Yeah. You do get those relationships. You can't get the ones that, and they're looking, it's more that they're not At risk themselves, but what they're doing is they're looking for a long term relationship and they're going if we look after you now We know you will continuously so it's still a commercial decision that they're building this relationship with you Um by doing this, um, it's okay. It has to work both ways. Yeah, absolutely On the other hand when things were really bad and my colleague David klein has has my job now at uh at altar. I sent him to our shanghai office I guess at the time to deal With all these cancellations, I said, you know, we have a very capable manager there, but she doesn't necessarily feel comfortable in making all these decisions. I get this call at the middle of the night and it's Dave and he just doesn't sound good. And I said, what's up? He said, well, so and so just walked away from yellow brass. And I said, okay, sell that stuff now, because if you wait, it's just going to get, he says, Bob, it's going to cost us half a million dollars. And I said, so here's what you do. You go downstairs and you go to that big park by the museum across from our office. You eat a bunch of grass and you puke because dogs do it and they always feel better. Just do it. You know, I mean, you can't wait around for everybody else to get in line to, to self bargain. Act and deal with it. Oh man, when you see it falling, if you can get in there first, everybody else is going to have this material. Everyone else is stuck with it. Everyone else is looking for the best that they can and the buyers can see that, right? It's a simple supply and demand, right? They can see this available. They'll wait and they'll take the cheapest. If you can sell it, you sell it as fast as you can. My ex CEO, um, Michael Movsas, who went on as the president of North America Sims, he, um, he used to always teach us that. Your first loss is your best loss. So true. Yeah. So when somebody offers you a loss, take it because the longer you wait, there's something happening. The longer you wait, um, the more that loss is going to become. It's all part of the discipline of the business of trading and realizing that one day you'll get hurt, deal with it and move on, just swings and roundabouts, right? You know, you might get hurt today, but tomorrow you're going to make, you're going to make some extra money somewhere else. Right. It's about staying in the game. Yes. You know, I think that's the whole thing. If you can be in the marathon, you're okay. If you're trying to do a short sprint and you're going to get, and it comes down to, you know, this affects also relationships that you want to fight with somebody and pick a fight, um, how long is this going to last for you? You can easily end up ruining your reputation. You know, you're not going to accept a claim and put up a really big fight that can, you Affect your business very negatively and I think I used to have a little sign in my office. I wish I still had it. It was from the Texas State Fair and the Texas State Fair. They had all these little games where you could like, throw darts at a balloon or try to get a little teeny thing over the top of a coke bottle. But every booth. Have a sign. If you don't understand the game, ask the clerk. If you still don't understand, don't play. I love it. That's exactly right. That's brilliant. I really like that. That could be your quote for the end of the episode. I think I'm going to use that one. It's very good. You worked for some really large companies. Ed, when we talk buying strategies, right now, how do you recommend that Scrap businesses focus on their buying? Is it all about location and just let the material come in? Is it about marketing? Um, should they have buyers on the road? You know, is that something you always recommend, that there's reps out there buying as much as possible? How would you recommend somebody sets up their buying strategy? I think it depends on what kind of a scrap yard you are. If you're a scrap yard that buys from smaller dealers. You know, you go knock on their doors and you know them. And if you're dealing with industry, it takes some savvy. I mean, you need to understand the needs of the industrial concern. They know what their intake costs for new metal, whether it's sheet or whatever, they ought to know what their scrap factors are. And they ought to be wise enough to allow you to make a decent enough profit to make them an account that's important. If you are. What we used to call a wholesaler deal, buying huge quantities of scrap into your place, truckloads at a time. Again, it's a different story, but you must never buy what you can't sell profitably, at least on paper. You know where you can sell it. And again, with most markets, it doesn't necessarily hold true with the things like ferro alloys or whatever, but at least to the degree that a lot of these are pretty liquid commodities. traded on exchanges, you know, or should know what price you can sell something, you know, what your costs are, your finance, et cetera, and your margin that determines your price. And that price is adjusted depending on just how sophisticated the seller is or his place in the market. So it's all about as a buyer, knowing what those costs are, understand what moves them. As an example, uh, last year, certain grades of aluminum scrap became ridiculously expensive. Why? Well, you look around a bit and you say, Oh, look at the imports into Korea. Where's that coming from? It's coming from the West coast. So West Coast scrap got expensive enough to ship to the Midwest, to the West Coast to feed the smelters who, you know, couldn't buy in that competitive field. So it's all about knowing the markets and the value of what you're buying. The value being at which price it can be sold. So then, would you recommend that you buy against a fixed sale? Because the markets can move. So you might know what the market is. If you don't have that set already, you can still lose on it. So operationally, how do you recommend that people do it? I think, uh, you know, that's a really a good question to my mind. I've always bought against the market and I think it has to do with inventory turns as well. Okay. If you're always buying and you're always selling, you're keeping that stuff moving. Depending on the volumes that you have, you should be able to. At least do that. There are going to be times when you end up paying more for the scrap at the fixed price at which you sold it, but your next sale will be higher. You can widen out your margins, et cetera. So for me, it's always been buying against where it can be sold. You know, everybody gets stuck with a bad order or an order that's not as good as another one. It happens. And to the extent that you can buy some of incremental parcels of that material against that now lower price sale, that's fine. But some of it might cost you more money, because the markets have changed. And conversely, when the markets fall precipitously, and you have a Sale is looking for a dollar a pound. Don't go pay 99 for it if the market's going down to 80. You know, yeah, it looks great. Look, I made a penny. Buy it at 88 or 78, whatever it is. That takes us back to swinging and roundabouts, right? The market also will swing in roundabouts if you're buying against the market. Now, there's no right answer for anybody's listening. There is no right answer because. I've had many people say buy against the sale always other people say buy against the market always and it'll flush out at the end. So there is no right answer. I like to ask the question because I like to hear the reasoning behind it, right? Um, and yeah, I've always been somebody who bought against the sale. So when we were doing really large volumes of ferrous in South Africa, um, and large volumes of copper, I always, you know, selling almost every single day in the market and setting up the prices to go buy a gainset for the week or, or the day on, on non ferrous. Um, also in South Africa, your currency fluctuates a hell of a lot. So, um, we're putting our prices almost every single day. Um, so it was very, very important that we bought against the sale. But we could have also had the strategy of buying against the market. And I'd love to not to know which way, which one would have been better. I mean, at the end of the day, um, I reckon that would have been the exact same because you know, it's going to move like that in theory. So I've been involved in a number of MNAs acquisitions, actually. with smaller companies. So I've seen that model of hoarding and selling, and I've seen the other, some of the more sophisticated companies that the hoarders, these were smaller dealers that these weren't the big, huge companies. I often did better because I could sit for three years. I didn't care. But if you're into inventory turns, All of your listeners should be. For my mind, it's you buy and sell against the market. More difficult to do in certain geographies. And with certain commodities, the export focused products that don't change prices often, then I'd say, okay, let's consider just buying against what our sales are and they don't fluctuate as much, say, as those commodities that are directly terminal market related. It's, um, One of the things you said, it depends on commodities. It depends on the speed that you can buy certain commodities at. So, you know, if you're buying a hell of a lot of it, it's easy to go buy against the sale because you're pretty much in the market anyway, if it's something and you're a smaller dealer and it's taking you two months to buy yellow brass. All of a sudden buying or selling in the beginning of a month becomes very risky because you might not be able to pack it within the 30 days or whatever the period is, right? And then you want to lock in the copper, so we won't go too far into that. But, um, yeah, it's always an interesting conversation. I used to marvel at my colleague. Who handle all of the Ferris trading and sales at Alter. And I'd say to him, Don, how on earth do you do this? These guys come up with a price at the start of the month. And then you got to go replace like 10, 000 tons. And how do you know where it's going to come from? And, and they would sit in a room and talk about every dealer. And he's going to have this much. And I think. Oh, this would make me crazy. You know, it was just wow. But there again, you're buying against a market over which, at least in those days, you had no way of determination. You didn't know. What was going to happen? We had, um, 85 yards through sub Saharan Africa and we had a war room was our big trading room. Um, and I was a general manager of trading for a while before I went on to run operations. And I would sit there with the traders and we'd be calculating the beginning of every single month. What is the volume we're going to sell now for the whole month? And it's going to come in, as you can imagine, like a flood. It's going to come in from all these different regions. Some of it's going to be going into bulk vessels. So someone's going to go to the port. Other ones are going to come inland and it's going to go to the mills. Um, but you've been planning your whole month, like beginning of the month, you've got non ferrous. It's the complete opposite. It's day to day. I, they also called it Don Martin, who was my colleague in the fair, called it the war room also, you know, because it feels like you go to war at the time. I tell you what, Oh my God. And they would get excited when the market went up 50 bucks at times. That's two and a half cents a pound that that happens during breakfast. But you know, it brings to mind, you know, how do you know what the market is? A real true mentor of mine was Seymour Patniss, whose company is still there, and he was one of my best friends. We had a slight age difference. Seymour would be a hundred and, God, a hundred and a lot now. And one day he's going to Chicago. I said, what are you flying or what? No, I take the train. I'm thinking, okay, he's not a cheap man. He's a wealthy man. The hell's he taking the train for? Because the train went right by all the yards of the steel mills and he could see what those inventories were like. You know, just simple stuff. Classic. I'd love to show him now. Um, I realize that's not possible, but I'd love it if he could now see, um, navigate commodities, which is satellite tracking of stockpiles and all the ports. I was actually in a meeting last night with Attila, the CEO there. And then we were just having a look at a few things and gauging what the commodities were. It's crazy now. There's no need to jump on trains. You've got satellites that can tell us what stock is in everybody's yacht or drones, presumably, I guess. Absolutely. Well, I mean, you've got the satellite. So let's talk about technology then, you know, from what you've seen. Right. It's progressed. I'm assuming substantially since you started. So talk us through that and where you think it's going. Well, when I started international business was done by a Telex machine. Um, Which, uh, The lines told us the same thing. Oh my god. And when I lived and worked in Tokyo, sometimes I had to send the telexes, and it was this machine that punched out yellow tape, and this big long thing would get tangled in my feet, and it, it was horrific. And then along came the fax machine. And the merchants and traders of the world of scrap thought, this is gonna kill us. Because anybody will be able to send our suppliers. a fax or our consumers a fax, you know, whatever it might be. Well, that didn't happen, but it did bring about those options about which you spoke, which I think are lousy that I don't like them at all. Uh, often there are companies on there buying that you don't know. Maybe it's changed. I think I sold three loads to a buyer on an auction once and said, this is never happening again. I think that it really takes the personality out of the business. And that personality is important to the trade. After the fax machines came emails in the internet and, Ooh, look, we can find out exactly what they're paying for this and that all around the world. We don't know who these people are, but, and there were hundreds upon thousands. Of fake companies and I remember once getting a telephone call from a man in London who sounded rather dubious, told me all about his company and I said, Oh, you were scrapyard now. Uh huh. I said, well, let me just take a look at your address. And here he is besides some park, nice park, somewhere in Hackney in London, that condominium thing. I said, it's a really a nice operation you've got there. I see you, you know, you got a nice car sitting there, but it's not a scrapyard, but keep in touch, but not with me. So technology has added a degree of transparency and with a very high degree of creativity. I think in the way one markets metals in it, there's an efficiency. To the way we meet people now that I think is nurtured by those types of contacts. It works if you know how to work it, and if you are sophisticated enough, perhaps, to always go back to the basics. Who is this guy? How is he going to pay me? Et cetera, et cetera. And there's so much. You can find out these days. I mean, even 15 years ago, when Alter was looking for an agent for Southeast Asia, and because of very strict anti corruption laws in the United States, as are evident places like the UK and elsewhere, we had to do a due diligence. And some of the things we found out, we knew more about this man's company by the time we found out than he knew. He had no idea that in his office in Shanghai, someone else was running a company. Look at that, you know, it just, and that's a difficult part of the world is, you know, much more about it than I do. Technology is there to make things more efficient. And it's done that. Um, it doesn't replace your KYC. It doesn't replace your due diligence. You still need to know because the clever people out there are just going to use technology to cook you. You know, I say the clear view of the crooks out there, right? The dodgy folk, they're going to use technology. So if you're not doing your due diligence, if you don't know who is on the other side of the trade, You know, don't do that trade. It's important to really be able to trust the other party. I agree. And it's scary that the new, the next generation have moved from, you know, you went from Telex, fax, emails, websites, phone calls. Now there's no more phone calls. Like I speak to some of the juniors and I say juniors, I mean in age younger than me. And they don't want to make that phone call. It's just much more efficient for them to just type a message to somebody. It's, you know, they can do it while having dinner. They can do it while, you know, we always laugh while I read a book to my child in bed, I can be text messaging, getting the latest prices from Southeast Asia. So it's about efficiencies and the next generation are going to look for those efficiencies more and more. But I think Stuart, as you mentioned with other things, these things are cyclical. And at some point, you know, the. 22 year old with his little baby isn't going to tolerate that intrusion all the time. I mean, it was bad enough before that existed with telephones. And when I lived in Japan and would get a call from the president of Brandeis that the markets are this and this, please sell as much platinum as you can. So this was at three in the morning. And I found out how to avoid that, those kinds of calls. I unplugged the phone. But yeah, and that's very interesting because it is going full circle. People want their time back. The fact that we trade globally doesn't mean we have to be available 24 hours and they're using technology to change that, right? Putting their phone on silent at 6 PM, 7 PM, maybe more likely 8 PM, right? And not being available until the next morning, five or 6 AM. That's a form of them. Using technology to not be available and to give them time back. It's healthy. I agree. Absolutely. We have to find ways to give everybody back their time. I agree. And you know, I spent enough time traveling around the world with a young family. Well, the young family was in the States. At some point at the ripe old age of 62, I told my wife, I had enough of this. I gave alter two years notice. And that's really where I got out of it. I didn't have that time anymore. Absolutely. Look, Bob, this has been awesome. And I have a feeling we could speak for a few days, but let's, let's be wary of each other's time as we talking about now, make sure we get time to go back to our family. So before we leave my last question, before we go get to know you a little bit, um, is who do you want to hear next on Born Scrappy? Who should I interview? You know, they always leave the toughest one to the end. It's like a job interview. They always leave the money till the end. I know. No, they get tougher. There's five more, four more very quick ones. And they're way tougher than this. Hang on one second. I thought of one. And maybe you've had them on before. But the history of Mike Giampaolo at Triple M in Toronto fascinates me. I haven't had him on. Is it Mike Giappola? Yeah. He started a small scrapyard in Toronto or Mississauga, you know, run together. It was just a small scrapyard and he grew very rapidly. I used to buy all his copper and brass and whatever from him. And as with many of those smaller companies, he grew, he didn't need me anymore, but we still did things together, his growth, it's unbelievable. They're in the aluminum billet manufacturing business. I mean, it's a fascinating story. Whether he'll do it, I have no idea. Well, I'm not shy. I'll reach out and we'll see whether he's up for it. So let's get to know you a little bit better, Bob. Um, before we run, do you have a favorite movie or TV show? Oh boy, that's a good one too. Well, I think the best thing, if anything good could be said about COVID, we learned a lot about what was on TV. Some of it pretty boring. In fact, at one point, I said, I've watched it all. I'm going to watch it again in Chinese. Don't understand it, but that's okay. There was a wonderful story called the righteous gemstones, and it was. Parody of a evangelical Christian family, and their, route through raising money and it was very commercial, and it was just funny. It's one of the better TV shows that I've seen in a very, very long time. Right. I haven't heard of it. I might go look for it. Would you have a favorite book? Favorite book? Yeah, I'm really, when it comes to reading, I'm really boring. I'm just finishing up a huge story about the Sassoons, another book I read recently was on Sir Sigmund Warburg, who was my great, great, great, great, great boss at Brandeis. There were a lot of people in between us. Although I did share a tuna sandwich with him in our Tokyo office once. Um. But anything that's business related is of interest to me. Uh, the book recently, on the trading companies, oh gosh, Trading the World? Um, no, World for Sale. The World for Sale. The World for Sale. Excellent, excellent book. Fantastic book. Yeah. Anything that I can identify, I'm not much of a fiction reader. I recommend Cold Steel. If you like business books, I've recommended a few times on the show. It's the story of Lakshmi Mittal. You'll be able to relate to it. Oh yeah. And it's a really, really good book. I think the best book I ever read over the years was a book called the power of one, which I did it at school. I think it was written by a South African. Yes, it was. It's about South Africa. Yeah, absolutely. I did it at school. Don't know what attracted me to it, but it was fascinating. Um, have you got a favorite place to visit? Oh boy, there's lots of them. I've always loved Hong Kong. I'm reluctant to go back there. I don't want to go back. Uh, just for political things. um, and Tokyo, I lived in Tokyo, I still love it and enjoy it, and the Japanese culture has always infatuated me. So I could go live in Tokyo well, my wife might not want to. Uh, and certainly the bigger cities, Paris, Jerusalem is a favorite for its historical, uh, but yeah, Hong Kong and Tokyo were great. Right up there. And have you got a favorite quote? Everybody in our industry loves. Quotes. Have you got one that you've maybe thrown around a few times in the office? Well, I liked the one about from the Texas state fair. Uh, yeah, I love it. I agree. So if you didn't hear it, you're going to have to listen to the whole episode and rewind and listen to it again. Um, well, there's another one. It may be too crude. For this, you can go, you can do it. I'm New Zealand. We can say what we like. So I had a very, very direct boss, direct in every manner of that word at Brandeis, who was just famous for belittling people and yelling at them. I got along with them fine because I just yelled that. But one day I said to him, well, what if we had. And I mentioned some trade that we did. It could have been done differently. He looks at me and said, If my grandmother had balls, I wouldn't be here. And, you know, I say it's crude, but when you think about it, it's a little, what if, what if, what if? Yeah, no. You know, you can certainly edit that for a different word. No, no, no. We're going to keep that one for sure. Bob, thank you so much for being on Born Scrappy. We've gone over the time and might have lost some attention from some of the people who can't make it past 40 minutes. So thank you for being on. I've loved every second of it. Pleasure. And I have as well. And I'll look forward to seeing some more of your podcasts. Thank you, Bob. Cheers. Take care.