S3E11: Playing the long game with Alter Trading's Dave Klein

In today's episode, I chat with Dave Klein, Senior Vice President of Nonferrous Marketing and Trading at Alter Trading, one of the largest privately owned metal recyclers in the US with over 75 locations across the country.

He has spent the better part of three decades in the metal recycling industry, and has years of hard-won wisdom from his experience.

In today's episode, we talk about:

👉 Buying against today's price
👉 Learning from your failures
👉 Honoring your contracts
👉 Taking it slowly
👉 And more!

Listen to the full episode. Wherever you stream your podcasts.

Born Scrappy. Brought to you by Buddy.
The only marketplace and trade OS built for scrappies, by scrappies.

https://www.tradebuddy.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tradewithbuddy/

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/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/born-scrappy/

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 talking to Dave Klein. Dave is the senior vice president of non ferrous and trading at Alta Trading. Alta is one of the largest privately owned metal recyclers in the US and has over 75 locations across the country. In today's episode, we talk about learning from your failures, honoring your contracts, buying against today's price, taking it slowly, and so much more. So let's jump into it with one of my favorite guys in the industry, Dave Klein. But first, intro. Hey Dave, how are you? Good, Stu. How are you doing? Yeah. Awesome. Um, Dave, Dave Klein. Um, we chat a lot, but first time on Born Scrappy. I'm excited. I'm happy to be here. Thanks. Thanks for asking. I'm honored. You, um, you aren't the first from Ultra Trading. No. Um, I don't think you'll be the last, but, uh, I think this is going to be lots of fun. I think third is right, right in line of where I should probably be. Yeah, no, that's awesome. Tell us a little bit about how you got involved in the industry and I guess what you do on a day to day basis now at Ulta Trading. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I got into the business because my father was in, uh, the aluminum business his whole career. So, um, about the time I graduated from high school, a little before I graduated from high school, he started his own trading company after a long career. Working for various different aluminum companies. And then when I was graduating from college, he needed to hire another person. And even throughout college, I knew he was an aluminum trader. I did not really understand exactly what that was. So I told him as I was getting ready to graduate, I'd love to be the person that he hired and work for him and learn what he did. Um, and, uh, had some interviews and job offers, but told him I'd rather work for him if he thought it would work. And, uh, thankfully he thought it would work and I went to work for him. So, uh, started in 1997 working for him and his trading company and learn the business, uh, from there. So I left, I left, uh, working for him. That was in Chicago, uh, when I moved to St. Louis and was out of the business for a couple of years. Pretty soon after I got out, I knew I wanted to get back in. But it took a couple of years. I was going to school at night to get MBA and decided I wouldn't change jobs again until I was done with that. Once that was done, I was, uh, through a mutual, a friend, uh, was lucky enough to be hired on alter about 21 years ago, started as a non ferrous trader. And, uh, now I'm senior vice president of non ferrous marketing. Responsible for the group that markets all of the scraps. So you, you made a comment about, um, you left, but then you wanted to get back in, which I think we hear so many times from so many people in this industry that, you know, once you get in, you'll, you'll never want to leave. And if you do, you will rush back in. Um, it's just crazy, but I hear the same stuff about alter, which is so interesting, like the amount of people there, 40, 50 years, um, brought in their own family. Um, so I guess it's not only just the industry, certain companies, actually, I can't think of many more than Alta, but, um, you know, Alta has an amazing track record of once you join them, you don't seem to want to leave there either. No, certainly, uh, Alta is, is the best. Uh, it's the best in the industry. I'm biased, but I think it's true. And, uh, when I started here. 21 years ago, I was very amazed at the number of people, uh, at the yard level. And that's where all the hard work is done, right? In the scrap yards, in the recycling yards, uh, that had been with the company for such a long period of time. And quite honestly, it didn't take long to understand why, um, the Goldstein family are amazing people and, uh, starts with them and it just flows down. Everybody at the company, good people work hard, want to be successful. And, um, Yeah, that's why, that's why I'm going to be here until they tell me I can't be here any longer. So they kick you out the door. I don't think that's happening anytime soon either. So, yeah, let's, um, let's jump into some of your experiences. You've had actually, um, I guess, majority of it will be trading with alter. Can you think of, um, a really tough trade that you've gone through that's, you know, kind of evolved the way you trade out there and something that's kind of never left you. Yeah, for me, that's actually an easy question to answer. Uh, I've been with alter for four years, four and a half years. So, uh, almost when the financial collapse at the end of 2008 hit. And, uh, that has very much led me to how I act today. Uh, I'll never forget what we went through. I'll never forget how some. Uh, buyers, some customers did right by us and did what we consider the right thing, and some did not do the right thing. So it's kind of my guiding light since that, uh, we want to make sure that we're doing business with people that we know are going to honor contracts and are going to work with us if there's a problem and we'll work with them. So without a doubt, the toughest month of, of my career with alter was October of 2008, as we were dealing with many issues in the U S all throughout the world and having to work through all that. So. I will never forget that and make sure that we do what we should to protect the interest of alter Who was leading the team then? Uh bob stein Actually, you had him on the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. I was thinking about um, I mean the learnings that you have from going through those sort of tough times are very difficult to teach Right, I mean you bring on now new traders you Probably brought on a, I mean, I can only imagine in your time there, how many new traders you've seen come and go at Alta, but to try and teach them that I find very difficult. I don't know about you. Yeah. I don't think, uh, I don't think you can teach someone what we went through. You just had to experience it. Um, yeah, I spent a couple of, uh, weeks of that, of October, 2008 in Hong Kong with our Hong Kong office, dealing with some of the issues that we had in that region. Yeah. Um, many of our customers were fantastic and we work things out, but a few weren't. And, uh, you know, you learn a lot and you, and you learn that most importantly, you don't want to go through that again. And what could we do differently to protect ourselves? Um, you know, when we were going through it, everybody was very supportive. You just got to do what you got to do. If someone reneges on a contract, resell the material, but if it happens again in five years or 10 years or 15 years. And the same issues occur and you have no further protections. They're not going to be as congratulatory. They're going to say, what, what the hell did you do that for again? So yeah, you gotta learn, you learn from your successes, but you learn from your failures. And, uh, yeah, I will, I will live with that forever. And I think it's made me better at my job and it's, it's helped protect alters interest better. Yeah, no doubt. Um, Can you think of one example, and you don't have to obviously mention names. In fact, we would like you not to, but can you think of an example of a trade that was really tough at that time and how you renegotiated it or a loss that was taken during that time that, you know, just to give people a better example, not everybody was around at that time. Yeah, I'll give you two, two examples. One, a good example. One, maybe one, a negative example on the good side is we had, uh, more than a couple of customers throughout the world, us, uh, Asia, India, everywhere come to us and say, the market has dropped so much. Uh, we can't afford to take this on. We think you should give us a break on the price. And, um, you know, we said, we appreciate what you're saying and what you're going through, but for much of the last few years, the market's been raging upwards and we never came to you and said, Hey man, the market is much higher than we actually sold this container. We can't afford to ship it. Can you give us a higher price? So our expectation would be that, uh, the market went against you. But we had a contract. It was the right price the day we agreed and you should honor it. And, and the vast majority of them, you know, listened, we talked and they agreed. So, uh, again, in our opinion, that, that was the right way to handle it. Um, We had many customers or a few customers that didn't look at it that way. And, um, so we did have some cancellations and I think what we learned from that experience was, um, once the loss was there. Resell it as quick as you can. Uh, many people have said this, but your first loss is your best loss. So that was not the time to say, well, let's wait a week and see if the market improves. Maybe the price will go up from where it is today. Uh, we did not do that. If it was canceled, we sold it as quick as we could to attract to someone that we knew was honoring current contracts and therefore we could trust and we just moved on, took our licks and said, we'll live to fight another day. Yeah. Yeah, I think, um, to explain to everybody, you know, who wasn't there, um, the market had dropped so drastically, number one, it was difficult to sell. So if you did have the material now, um, you had to sell it at a huge discount, not only to what you sold it at originally, but now to even to the market, because it was moving down so quickly that nobody was paying you what today's market was. They were, they were taking an even bigger discount. Also, they. They knew you were in trouble, they knew what else were you going to do? So there were massive, massive discounts on everything. So, um, making that call to sell immediately was a huge call for, for some companies. Um, I had Michael Movsas, who was our CEO. Um, he ended up, he was the president of Sims North America, um, a few years ago. And. You know, he was onto it immediately, reselling everything, made sure everything moved with a smaller discount as possible. And we took knocks, but let's be very clear. There were people that took huge knocks for the exact reason you just said, hold on, this market's got it. Correct. I'm just going to leave it there at the port for another few weeks, which let's not talk about the cost that we're getting as well, right? Yeah, it was crazy. So people were just, you know, And I think the learnings going forward is exactly that. Like rip the bandaid off, take the knock and move on to the next deal. Yeah, right. There was, there was, there really wasn't a better option, but, uh, again, hope is not a strategy and at that point, if you didn't sell, you were just hoping that the markets would go up or someone would, would, uh, be your saving grace and give you a better price, but not dealing with the merge, not dealing with containers languishing at the port was, was a better move. And, and again, we do things differently from back from then because of the lessons learned. So. If you're going to get, you know, punched in the gut, you might as well learn from it. Look, if you are gonna keep giving quotes this entire episode, we're only a few minutes in. I don't know if you've ever listened to this before, but at the end when I ask you for your favorite quote, you're not gonna have one. So stop using all of them. I have. I might have one because I've listened to, I've listened before. Don't work. Well stop using all of them now'cause you're gonna need one at the end. You got it. Can you think about, um, some form of collaboration that you've, um, done over the years? You've been in this industry for a long time. Some examples of how you've collaborated. Um, either with people in the industry, outside the industry, what you've done and what do you think people could really, um, learn from? Yeah, I mean, I think one that we're very proud of is, uh, is a joint venture that we started, um, about five years ago. The operations and up and running a little over three where we take, uh, the Zorba that our shredders produce and, uh, the joint venture companies called Alltech. It's a, it is a heavy media plan. So it takes Zorba, which is the non ferrous shredder residue. And separates the aluminum from all the other metals. And our partner, um, melts all the aluminum is a Toyota to show. So we melt all the aluminum. Uh, we provide it to them. We sell the heavies and, uh, it really allows us to differentiate ourselves and maybe have a leg up on pricing and whatnot to help us purchase material, which is what it's all about, but, uh, we're always proud of when we can, uh, team up. With others. That allows them to get what they need and for alter to get what we need. The best partnerships are one where it's a win win, right? So that that is a very obvious 1 for me. Uh, the altar is very proud of to have that relationship. But on a smaller scale, we look at most of our consumers as partners in 1 way or the other. And so we do certain things for some of them that maybe other companies don't do. To make a certain package, uh, shred things in a certain way that makes it easier for them to melt. Um, so that, uh, again, maybe it gives us a little bit of a leg up on our competition and it makes their melt capacity better, their throughput better, things like that. Yeah, I think if you consider all of your, um, partnerships, um, a collaboration, or I guess anybody you're doing business with, whether you're buying or selling, if you consider that a partnership and a collaboration. Um, you see it in a very different way. We speak about this a lot in board scrappy about the win win process. Right. Um, and it's exactly what you're saying, whether you are, um, you're looking to supply Toyota to shoe and you come up with a deal together because you consider them a partner and, um, you know, there are many different directions you can go once you consider yourself a partner, but as soon as it's just transactional, um, it's extremely difficult to, um, Go anywhere else after that transaction. Like you don't get the next step, like these, you know, like the, um, this joint venture that you guys created, if you weren't a partnership, that would never have come up. So, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, we, it's important to us. We, we don't want to be someone that just sells one time because you happen to have the best price today, but it's the only time you're going to have the best price. We try to deal directly with consumers. We try to make sure we're making a package. That they can melt if we can't make the package and we're not going to sell it to them and cause issues for them and for us. So, yeah, you got to know who you're selling to. And, um, and if we can do it month in and month out, we're much happier. We don't sit on scrap. We buy, we sell, we don't speculate. So we feel like that helps our customers because they know that we're going to be there month in and month out. Why is it then, and I'm going off on a tangent, but why is it that The large middle recyclers believe they should sell everything they buy. I'm including alter and essay recycling. We had George Adams on here who spoke about having to, you know, clear your stock on a monthly basis, get it down to zero as often as you can. Um, and you guys are talking about, we buy and we sell in the same market. Um, the company I was with in South Africa with the 85 yards, we, we removed all the stock, you know, we sold in packs as much stock as we could all the time to get rid of it. But then when I arrived in the U S. And I spend some time, um, visiting yards. I see huge stockpiles and then I ask how much they're purchasing in a month. And it's like 10 percent of what they've got sitting on the floor. And when I then delve into that, and that will people that haven't seen some of these us, um, yards. I mean, this, this is, these are actual true stories. I mean, I'll walk in there. The one yard I went to had, had 30, 000 tons, probably easily on the floor, if not more in one yard, but he had so much space that it didn't really matter. Yeah. And when I asked, why don't you just sell it? I'm like, well, I don't really need to, but the money's going to sit in the bank. My, my answer, I had so many reasons why he should sell it. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him how to run his business. And he's obviously done really well for himself and multi generational, but. Um, yeah, it's quite an interesting topic. I often speak about, like, you shouldn't have to worry about the market too much. If you're just turning the metal all the time. I mean, obviously I think it's harder for larger companies to sit on scrap because you're not sitting on a million pounds or 5 million pounds or sitting on 50 million pounds and that, you know, that doesn't really work. I don't think, but, uh, I, yeah, I, I make this joke sometimes that I thought I liked gambling until I got into the scrap business because like you, you know, we have suppliers or we know other companies that that's real gambling. Cause that's. Whether you get to, you know, eat tomorrow night or not, you know, sort of thing. Uh, but you know, it, it works for us to buy the material, get it processed as safely and as quickly as we can and to get it sold to our customers. So, um, it's hard enough for us for me, for us to run our business. So I try not to tell people how to run theirs, but, uh, we are, we, you know, we have our, our metrics and one of them is absolutely inventory turns and keep it in place. It's interesting because, um, often I'll make a comment like, um, I like to sleep at night, like, why do you sell your stock right away? Cause I like to sleep at night. And, and for those that like think that that's just a random comment, how many of you have been stuck in a situation where the copper price is dropping and you don't have a sale in place and everybody else is going to sleep and you're sitting there and like, hold on. I have. 25 containers of Birchcliffe, which I haven't sold yet, or five containers of it, or one container of a copper grade or so, and the, the price is dropping and you're like, if I wake up tomorrow and this price hasn't corrected, we are in big, big trouble. And that, and it's, it's a literal, I like to sleep. This isn't just figurative. I, it's how do you sleep at night when you speculate like that? And, and people are doing it. Like I'm seeing on LinkedIn, like copper is going to climb and we're going to hit this and that. So hold don't sell. And it's just, it may, I struggle to sleep when I see other people posting about it. Yeah. I mean, uh, uh, again, if it's, if it's your own company, if it was Dave Klein, metal recycling. You can make those choices, but we, we have a lot of employees and we, uh, we're very comfortable buying and selling. Uh, you know, sometimes some of the traders will say, uh, man, it's sales not very good. And I said, you made the sale two days ago. What do you mean? It's not very good. Yeah. But look at this, I don't care. Two days ago, was it the right sale? That's all that matters. Like we can't, we can't play that game. We'll drive ourselves crazy. I mean, I'm so glad you said that that happens every day in this industry. And especially when, um, so depending on you guys are quite big to have this experience, but if I think about the own business, my own business in New Zealand, um, we would take a sale and then we would pass that on to, um, the team that were buying from all the other dealers, the other metal recyclers, and, You know, it'd be two, three days later, and then the buyers would come back and go, Oh, you took a terrible sale because they're now selling at this. I'll be like, but the markets moved, like I took the right sale at the time. It wasn't a terrible sell. And then they'll often question and you get this kind of like in, you know, in fighting with the world, that trader isn't good enough. He's taking this out. But. It's just about the price at the time of the sale. Are you, have you offered it to enough people? Right? I mean, it's one thing if you just giving it to one person at an auction and it might be a bad trade, right? If you are offering it to enough people and you're putting it out to enough geographies and you're making sure you're getting enough words on this. There's no secret markets anymore. Um, the material is going to go for the price. The material is going to go for, and then just move on to the next stage. I've heard you say that, uh, on some of your other podcasts. And I agree with you. There is no, there are very, very few secret markets now. Uh, you know, obviously we have 77 yards. We process a lot of our own metal. We also have a trading company or a trading business. We broker some material as well inside. And, uh, yeah, sometimes we, we, we can win loads. Sometimes we can't. It's not necessarily because someone has a better, uh, a better market. It's just maybe they're working on less margin. Maybe they did time it better. But, um, yeah, I mean, our big theory here though, is you buy against the market. So it doesn't matter if we sold some copper two days ago and the price went up, we're buying against today's price. If it went down, we're buying against today's price. You can't go wrong buying against the current market. Uh, and so. We shouldn't lose metal because the market went up and we sold yesterday and we shouldn't be giving away a good order If the reverse happens, so if we keep doing that and it's proven over time to work and we try our best to keep on that Did you before you said you had 77 yards? Did you have to like Check an email or check the website because the speed you guys are growing and getting yards I'm, just wondering how every morning is there like a group email that goes out that says today We are on 76 yards. We'll let you know in the next half an hour if there's any change No, when we walk in there's a little digital counter It ticks up every time we buy so I see it every time I walk so good so good Tell me um For the listeners out there that are looking to be better at trading. You've done it for a while. You've done it at one of the largest metal recyclers in the world. Um, what are ways that traders or companies can optimize their trading strategy and, you know, this can range from whether it's putting it out to more people, whether packing the right material, it's such a vast array. So what would you recommend? Uh, my first thought on that is, is know who you want to be and then work to be that person, to be that company. So for some people, they're better off taking, making combo loads of various different commodities and different product classes of metal and selling it to a dealer, a bigger dealer in the area. They, if they want to turn their inventory, uh, if they need cashflow at a certain time. So you got to know who you are. On who you're comfortable being and start there after that. Uh, you got to do the work the due diligence to find companies that that you can Trust know they're going to pay their bills are going to treat you the way that you needed to be you need to be treated A lot of companies in the u. s. They'll sell direct to u. s based companies, but maybe they're not set up to sell exporters because they They need cash You Prior to loading, or they need cash against documents, or they don't have a transportation company that can facilitate those things. So once you realize what you can and can't do, it's just hard work. Uh, marketing is not as hard as processing scraps. Certainly the people in the yards are the ones that are really working it and making alter successful. And I suspect most other scrap companies successful, but yeah, you know, marketing is, is not always easy either. One of the hardest parts is finding. A customer that can pay you the right price, but has all the other intangibles that you need to facilitate it being a real price. Anyone can quote a high price, but if they can't pay you or pay you on time, it's not really a good price. So you just got to spend some time learning who you're dealing with. Um, check credit ratings, see if you can get credit insurance on them. Um, if you can go visit them, if it's in the country that you're, you're located in, go visit, make sure it's a real company and they do real things. Um, there's nothing, uh, that replaces that, that personal touch and getting a comfort level with who you're dealing with. Yeah. You touched on something really important there, which no one has before. And that's really knowing who you are yourself and knowing your own company. No one's ever brought that up. Like it's one thing to have a trading strategy and you can copy other people's trading strategy. And we can sit here and say, well, make sure when you're selling on export, you are getting credit checks and make sure, you know, you're offering to five people in three different countries every time you sell, you know, whatever your process might be. But out of interest. You know, it's really important to just first identify, are you looking to grow your exports? Are you quite comfortable with selling domestically and your material moves faster and you're not pushing, you know, it's not affecting your cashflow, et cetera. And it allows you to be strong and pay really quickly for your material that comes in. So I think the first place to start, if you want to optimize your training strategy is to. Just identify who you are and who you want to be before you even work out what your strategy is and how you're going to try it. No. And we deal with that with some of our own yards. We have various size yards and some yards that are in the, in that middle ground, want to try to ship material direct, uh, as often as they can. And sometimes it works out, but sometimes we discuss it and say, look, you, you You're better off shipping to the hub yard in your region. You're not helping yourself by trying to sit on inventory longer and ship direct. I knew I invited you on here for something Dave. This is obviously what it was. Your flattery works. So, um, what about bring on a new buyer? You touched on that briefly, you know, do your credit checks, make sure, you know, if you can't go and visit them and that's great, is there any other tips you've got for an exporter considering growing their buyer base? Um, what are the ways have you, have you used to bring on or to be, you know, Sure. The people that you're bringing on can be trusted. I mean, we, we have a due diligence process. We have a form that any new potential X, you know, export buyer has got to complete, we run some checks on them just to make sure they clear all the regulatory and financial hurdles that, that we might have. Uh, and we ask for references and then it's all about a comfort level. Like when people call and introduce themselves and maybe right after they pass due diligence. They'll say, all right, what can I buy? And I, and I'll say, we need to slow down a little bit. We still don't know each other. Um, so, you know, I can't tell you exactly what that is, but there's a, there's a feeling that you get, right? You're comfortable that they've provided prices enough. They seem to be in tune with, with what we're trying to do, how we sell. And then, you know, we give them a shot, we'll sell them a couple loads, one load, two loads or something and see how it goes. It's, you know, I think it's frustrating sometimes for some of the new buyers cause they want to buy more right away. Uh, but again, going back to lessons learned, we're going to take it slowly. We're fairly conservative when it comes to things like that. I think that standard in the industry, that there's a, A slow buildup period. Um, you know, obviously with Buddy, we look to handle the vetting for you, which allows you to build that relationship quicker, but in general, that was something we were trying to solve because it is quite difficult. You know, you could meet a fantastic buyer at the BIR. But there's no way you should just go and jump into bed. Right? I mean, um, even after a credit check and some references, you really need to make sure that these people are reputable and if you can visit, that's great. And if we can use technology to help, well, that's fantastic because some of the guys are great and some of them you do want to be doing more volume with, and some of the prices are fantastic, but we all unfortunately have to go through that process. What? What separates the good exporters from the bad exporters? I think a lot of things we've already talked about for anybody. You got to do what you say you're going to do. Um, as the shipper alter, if we're selling somebody in another country, we got to ship what we sold. And if we didn't ship what we sold, and we got to be honest with ourselves and work that out. But if, uh, if an exporter is going to, it says they're going to pay you cash prior loading, then they got to pay you cash prior, prior loading. They're going to pay you cash against documents. They have to pay you when you provide the correct documents. Um, aside from that, uh, most of our export sales are direct to processors or consumers and other, in other countries, but what we would look for Uh, or what we try to do from the people that we buy from and ship their materials to other countries is be their representative we're working together. So if there is a problem, uh, we need to be working for them with them to solve that problem. That doesn't mean that it's nothing's their fault, the shippers fault, and the exporters just not doing right by you. Uh, that involves working both sides. So we don't ever say to. To the buyer. Hey, we didn't ship it. You got it. If they won't give us the money, we're not giving you the money. We don't do that and we don't tell the supplier. Don't worry about it or make them pay us and then not give the money to the buyer. It's all about, you know, treating people the way that they should be treated, right? Yeah, that's going to be that's going to have long term business, not like you said, just transactional. Yeah. One at a time that doesn't do anybody any good. So you just, uh, you got to do what you said you were going to do. And I think if you do that, then that builds a trust and that can build more business and longer term business. Yeah, I think, um, I, uh, I was at a talk just the other day and somebody was speaking about how, um, when they had a mentor, they used to work with, uh, we kind of worked for a guy and. Guy leaned over his desk one day and said to him, he was still a youngish trader and he said, um, stop going for the jugular. So you don't have to make every last cent, take it away from the other party. Right. It's like, how do you see your counterparty as a partner is to make sure it's a win, win. And, you know, you spoke about, well, you're not going to go get a claim and not pay it back on the other side. Right. It's like. You need to do business with each other that you think both parties are going to want to come back and do business again. And if you go for the juggler each time, we'll try and literally drain of every single dollar that you possibly can. Um, yeah, you might win now, but just don't expect that that person will be there in the longterm and they might be a fantastic buyer or great supplier. Um, and there's a good chance they won't be around because they're going to find somebody they just prefer to do business with. It doesn't, you know, haggle to every single set. Now. Just to clarify, I'm not saying you don't push for the best price. I'm not saying I'm just saying it's, yeah, there's a, there's a win win in every single situation. Everybody needs to make money. Everybody needs to eat. Otherwise, unfortunately you'll be left all by yourself. Um, and you'll have nobody, um, to partner with and build relationships. You can't, um, You can't maximize your margin on every purchase and expect your supplier to take less every time because they're going to quickly find somebody else that doesn't do that. And, um, the market is the market, so you can try to make anything you want. But if, if you're trying to pay below the market, you know, that's not much of a business long term. Yeah, exactly. Talk about business long term. How have you seen this industry evolve? Um, in your, well, 21 years, but actually longer since you first started, it's been longer than that. So it's probably 27, 28 years since you started, how have you seen everything evolved since, I guess, since you joined your dad's business? I think a lot of that change has been in the last five, 10 years, which is all the technology. I think that's, um, plain to most people that the technology has made it, uh, easier to process some, some metals. And I think, um, like in aluminum in particular, you're seeing, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago, it was hard to sell shredded items because all the consumers wanted to be able to see a bail and test the bail, shoot it with a gun and say, it's the right alloy or it's the wrong alloy. Now, I think you're getting, you might get away from that and it's, who's going to shred and put it over these new technologies that are being developed because that's going to, uh, be easier to prove out an alloy. As the technology changes and can shoot each piece on a belt and put the 5, 000 series there and the 6, 000 series there. So certainly the technology is, um, is by far the biggest. Uh, change I've seen also just the success that the scrap industry has had the success that many scrap companies have had. So it allows them to do more things. It allows them to speculate if they want, like we were talking about earlier, but it also allows them to put in more processing equipment. So it's not just larger companies like alter that can do this processing. You're seeing smaller companies with a handful of yards or even just one or two yards, be able to, to put equipment in that processes it. And so that changes the landscape for all of us. We buy from a lot of dealers and if they process it to a certain extent, maybe that allows them to go direct to a consumer. Sometimes it doesn't work out well for them and they come back to us. But you know, technology and how metals are being processed has definitely changed an immense amount over the years. And I think we're hitting a point where it's going to accelerate like in the next five years, I can't wait to see what we're doing. Yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be a different world. I honestly believe in the recycling industry, um, what it's going to look like in the next five years. That's why I'm playing in it. Um, and, and I love to try and create what the future is going to look like. I mean, that, that's one of my favorite things to do. Um, but out of interest, it's kind of twofold. The one comment that you made, you know, people are being successful. So middle recyclers are successful and they then have more capital to put into more equipment. But actually over time, the technology gets cheaper as well. So, um, when, when, um, First technology comes out on something, it's usually quite expensive. Um, it's prototyping there's, there's equipment that comes out that, um, haven't made it in a huge amount of volume yet. And then as soon as that starts getting manufactured in volume, the price comes down, uh, and then the technology carries on advancing, but, you know, You find that because technology is constantly getting cheaper as well. Um, it's now available at the small. I mean, if you remember, um, dumb 12 years ago, maybe, I mean, any currents were only really maybe 15 years ago, only really when the bigger shredders and the bigger companies. And, and now I don't think I've seen a shredder without one. Yeah, right. And that's because they're now more cost effective. And yes, people have been successful, but you'd be crazy to not have one because there's an array of prices you can pay for one. And they're all going to do a job. Of course, you've got better ones, but you know, 15 years ago, if you had one, you spent a lot of money. That's where you have to be careful. So again, going back to the know who you are. If you're going to put technology in, you probably need to think through the whole process. So it's very difficult to be successful. If you put in, uh, old technology, but you expect to compete with the companies that have the new tech or you only put in half a line instead of a full line because of the cost. So, um, you know, I'm not an ops guy in any way. It's, it's fun having equipment and it's fun processing scrap and saying, Oh, I have a million pounds. If I, if I put this in, I'll be able to buy another million pounds and it's cost effective. It's not that easy. Finding another million pounds. We'll, we'll not be an easy thing. So you can't make those assumptions. You gotta be careful with what you're going to process and where it's going to come. Yeah, completely know who you are. I mean, it just goes back to that again, Dave, you're a hundred percent right. I am in New Zealand, um, for a few reasons, we had to go a mobile shredder and we had all this volume of shredder feed. So we're like, well, you know, I can turn this into that. And I had been doing this, I'd been in this industry already for almost 20 years at the time. And I made the fatal flaw of just going, well, surely these mobile shredders are now by now. Much better than they were when I checked them out five or seven years ago at the time. Um, and you know, we couldn't get the permit to put in a fixed machine and it's funny how if you have a mobile machine all of a sudden environmentally, you're doing a much better job. That's what I think. But I mean really you're doing a very similar thing. Um, So we went to mobile shredder and yeah, nothing but headaches. Like I wish then we had just said, well, who are we? Um, if we can't get a fixed shredder, well, then let's just be somebody who supplies one of the largest shredders in the area they feed. Um, and it would have made probably a lot more sense in hindsight, but I'll tell you what, going into it, um, all my forecast looked fantastic because I turned every piece that I bought. I turned into shred and I pulled out all the shredded non ferrous out of there. Um, on paper, it made a lot of money. Yeah, the forecast normally does absolutely um What do you think this industry is going to look like in the next 10 years? I mean, you said it's going to be very different. Can you, I mean, I think, I think I'll absorb a material is going to be very different, right? I shredded non ferrous is going to come out much cleaner. Is there anything else you can think about, um, which is going to have an impact? Maybe stuff that you guys have probably looked at. You guys are cutting edge. Maybe you can't even talk about it, but, um, there's a lot that's coming out that the next five to 10 years might look like any ideas. I think, uh, I think consolidation is probably going to continue. So you're probably looking at a smaller pool of larger companies. You know, I mean, you made the joke about Alter growing really quickly, but SA has grown incredibly quick and there's other companies that continue to acquire. So I think it'll be a changing landscape because there'll be less independent companies around, uh, it seems, but yeah, with technology, uh, again, things that we thought we wouldn't process any further, we're going to, we're going to be processing further, um, our heavy media plants that make Twitch, I imagine in five years we'll be, we'll be further processing the Twitch between raw and cast. And then probably processing it further to specific alloys in the wrought grade and the, and the cast grades, and maybe the same with copper or brass. So, um, I don't know that we know what it's going to look like in five years. Uh, but I imagine it has a lot to do with processing scrap in the States that previously thought you could never process. None of Musk's robots are going to be, um, gas cutting for us. Uh, They might be, I don't know what they're gonna be doing. Off, off offloading customers maybe. Yeah. Sorting the metal people, you know, kind of, uh, getting it all done for us. I think, uh, we're in for a, an interesting, I think that's way further down the line. I think. I think metal recycling's gonna rely on people for a long time. You can't, the buy, you can't have a machine figure out what you should pay for something. So I think our people at the yards are pretty safe for quite a long period of time. Literally our post today, um, and now people can probably work out when we recorded this, but our post today on buddy is a large container that says chat GPT, please load this container. Um, and that's exactly it, like our industry, we're going to be around, our people are going to be doing things for us for, we're all going to be doing things ourselves for a long time. There are, don't get me wrong, obviously I'm in the space. There is a lot technology will do for us, but, um, people and relationships are safe in this industry, that's for sure. What I'm talking about is technology is doing things that the people aren't currently doing it. It's, it's sorting small bits of metal that have been shredded, uh, with x ray or whatever that technology is. No, a hundred percent. So I want to ask you, um, who's pushing the boundaries in the industry? Who do you like to keep an eye on? And it also leads me into who do you want to see next on Bourne Scrappy? Uh, who's pushing boundaries? That's a good question. I think I think we are in a lot of the big scrap companies are. I think it's really interesting what a lot of the consumers are doing. Um, whether it's just building new facilities here, um, or putting in processing, uh, equipment that once thought a consumer would never do that. They're going to rely on scrap metal companies or recycling companies to do that. So, uh, without being too generic, we try to keep our eyes on as many people as possible. To see what they're doing and if something they're doing works investigated ourselves and see if it's if it's what we should do. Who would I like to see? I have a great idea for who I would like to see on this podcast. But I haven't asked him yet if I can say his name. So that's not a part of the rules. You don't have to ask them. We, now we drop them here and then they're forced socially to peer pressure. We'll get, no, let us know it is. Um, and obviously they're not forced to do it at all. In a general sense, though, I think some of the consumers, some consumers would be good for you to get. Their take on, um, how they buy, why they buy, what they buy, who they buy from. Uh, we can all learn from them as to why they can't handle certain scrap and not certain scrap. But I got one guy in particular that I'll talk to, and then I'll get, get it to you on the side. Yeah. Cause, um, Um, so secretive that, but anyway, um, that there's a, the problem with the consumers is, and it is our, it is an aim of ours to do, we want to do an entire season of consumers. The problem is they're, they're quite, well, they're very corporate usually. Yeah. And to be able to be on a podcast, everything needs to be passed through like the communication team. Um, so even though I'm, I'm willing to share questions beforehand to them and then kind of be like, Hey, you know, this is the question you're going to, they're often like, sorry, unfortunately, um, we've been vetoed and we're not allowed to do that. So give me a, I'd love to make an introduction to whoever you think it should be, and, um, I would love to have them on the episode. I'll give them a shot. Awesome. Decline. Let's hear a little bit about you quickly. Favorite TV show or movie. Um, a favorite movie. I have a few, but the one that comes to mind for this podcast is Glen Gary, Glen Ross, it's old. Um, or maybe when I was younger, is it about single, is it about single malt whiskey? No, it's about, uh, uh, group of guys that telemarket trying to sell real estate property. And it's got Kevin Spacey, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin's in one scene and Kills in the movie. Uh, anybody in sales should see it. Uh, there's a lot of great lines that I quote from it all the time, but I love that movie. Alright, it's on my list. Come on, you should watch it. I think you'd get a kick out of it. Awesome. Um, favorite place to visit? Uh, you know, I live in St. Louis now, but I'm from Chicago. Uh, I've been lucky enough to travel a lot for this job, but downtown Chicago in the summertime, when the weather is nice, I think that's still my favorite place, favorite place to be. I was there last week. I was visiting. Good friend, uh, cozy, cozy recycling. I was seeing Anthony. Yeah. Yeah. Chicago is a great place. I only was there for the first time for the round tables to be honest. Loved it. Happy to go back there. So I'll meet you downtown sometime. Yeah. I mean, the weather was great for the round table. I just love walking around the city, seeing all the people. Um, but yeah, so I'd go with Chicago. Maybe that's a easy answer, but I still love it. Well, it's different to, well, I want to go to Hawaii or Fiji or you just want to go to Chicago. You're nice and easy. That's that's simple. Cheap date. Favorite book. Uh, favorite book. I don't read a whole lot. Um, but when I do, I love reading, um, biographies. I'm a big sports fan. So I read a lot of, uh, books about different, uh, sports personalities from over the years. Name me one, one good one. Okay. Right. Once there was a really good one on Mickey Mantle from a number of years ago, that, that it's always stuck in my head. Have you read the open by Andre Agassi? No, I haven't. I've heard of it, but I've not read it's probably the best sporting autobiography or best sporting biography out there ever. It was written very long ago. Um, it's incredible. An incredible book. You really should read it. I'll look it up. Lastly, you've given us a whole bunch already. We've written down, but, um, favorite quote. Uh, this hits on sports and Chicago growing up. Uh, when I was younger, Michael Jordan was in his heyday. So I'm a big fan of this. Uh, there's a lot of good quotes, but this one's my favorite. I'm going to read it. I knew you were going to ask this. So I wrote it down. Uh, Michael Jordan is known as one of the most competitive people ever. And everybody always says, um, he hated failure, but that's that based on his quotes, that's not really true. So he's got one that says I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I cannot accept not trying. I love, I love that because no one's successful all the time. If you are, then, then you're really not putting yourself out there. So it's okay to fail as long as you did your best and learn from it. I love it, man. Um, that's awesome. Dave, this has been a great show. Loved recording this with you. Um, I do always enjoy hanging out with you as well, so this was lots of fun, Dave. Yeah. Appreciate it, man. I, I loved it as well. Thanks for asking me. I'm honored to be, uh, to even be asked. So thank you very much, Stu. Awesome Dave. Have a good one. Cheers buddy. Bye. You too.