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President Donald J. Trump, taking a page out of “The Art of the Deal,” is turning heads on Wall Street and across corporate America by taking unprecedented steps in the boardroom, in cross-border commerce and even the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as the administration turns the world upside down and transforms the Oval Office into a War Room, or should we say, the War Room.
“Has Donald Trump effectively become the C.E.O.-in-chief, in addition to commander-in-chief and president of the United States?” asks William Cohan in Puck. “To the annoyance of a lot of people on Wall Street, it’s starting to look that way, as the litany of convention-defying examples of overreach become de rigueur…despite laws designed to prevent that kind of thing, to more substantive power plays, such as relentlessly pushing for the removal of Fed chairman Jay Powell.”
Yet the stock market is rallying, interest rates may be heading down and the M&A and IPO markets are running hot. It’s “Morning in America Again,” but not Reagan, free-market WSJ editorial page style. This is proto-capitalism driven more by state diktat. Greg Ip’s piece in The Journal is a must-read on “State Capitalism with American characteristics.” He points out that the executive branch’s fingerprints are everywhere, from demanding CEO resignations, taking a “golden share” as part of deal concessions and even tinkering with Coca-Cola’s secret recipe.
As Andrew Ross Sorkin noted in DealBook, “Will companies no longer be viewed as independent businesses but as arms of the U.S. government? If so, is the brand of capitalism that the U.S. has promoted for decades now in question?”
We sort of knew that M&A was becoming political, but in this climate it’s clear that all of business must be viewed through that lens. Figuring out how to engage with the open-door administration, and come out ahead, is the new Art of The Deal.
Speaking of deals, the newsletter will be taking a break for the next two weeks as GPP goes remote (but always on) for the end of summer. We will hope to see our readers either at the beach, around town at our favorite restaurants or at the U.S. Open for their signature Honey Deuce (a glass of bubbly or an Espresso Martinis are also our drink of choice at the event). Our favorite NYC restaurants was the topic of our weekly all-hands huddle, and we have given our loyal readers two weeks’ worth of restaurant ideas below. And feel free to send us yours!
See you all after Labor Day,
GPP Team
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