Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts, radio, news. So something we've already touched upon, and this is this letter from 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies, more than 60, I should say, have called for an immediate de-escalation of tensions between state, local, and federal authorities as the state is reeling from another fatal shooting of an American by immigration agents.
The chief executive officers of companies, they include Target, Best Buy, Land O'Lakes, Cargill, General Mills, United Health Group, as well as professional sports teams, including the Minnesota Vikings, among the signatories of the letter that was shared yesterday, Sunday, by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. We're laying that out for those who are watching on streaming and TV.
Just to get to the crux of it, though, the open letter says, we are calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local, and federal officials to work together to find real solutions. This is why Tom Homan is headed to Tennessee.
Chapter 2: What prompted over 60 CEOs to call for de-escalation in Minnesota?
Minnesota.
Our next guest is head of a company in the great state of Minnesota. We're talking about Fastenal. Recently reported earnings, the stock selling off on the day of the report, but rallying the day after the most in nine months. That trade reaction had us scratching our heads. So we're grateful, Carol, to have back with us to talk about the release of the outlook.
The CEO of the close to $50 billion market cap company, Fastenal, Dan Flournes, is back with us.
Yeah, so delighted. Let's get to it. Dan, good to have you here. Happy New Year. We do love talking with you. We feel like we get a great read on the US economy, the manufacturing world. You've seen a lot in your career. We want to get to all of this. But I really do feel like we'd be remiss to not ask you about what's going on in your home state.
And I feel like those who are listening might be curious if you were asked to sign this letter of CEOs who want a de-escalation of what's happening in Minneapolis specifically. So were you aware that this letter was happening or were you asked to sign it?
First off, Happy New Year, and thanks for allowing me to participate today. I was not aware of it. We're outstate Minnesota. We're about two and a half hours from the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, and so it's not uncommon. It's a pretty tight-knit group up in the Twin Cities, and was not aware of it going out.
With that said, was not surprised by it going out, and it seemed to be pretty common sense of, hey, let's dial down the heat.
So would you have signed it, though, if asked? Yeah, I would have signed that.
We talk so much about leadership at this time, and I am curious what you see as the responsibility of leaders in the United States when we see situations happening where it feels like, and again, I don't want to get political, I don't want to take sides, but it does feel like Americans are being what some would say is targeted unfairly.
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Chapter 3: What is Daniel Florness's perspective on the CEO letter regarding Minnesota unrest?
Are you seeing that happen? Are you hearing discussions of that?
Yeah, I guess, you know, anecdotally, yes. I can't say that we've seen a tremendous influx What I would say is I hear less about stuff leaving than maybe I would have 10 years ago or five years ago. And that in itself is a win from the standpoint of production. But a lot of it is folks are getting closer to where the end customer is for a lot of our customers.
And so when I see customers expanding production facilities in North America, and I'll say more broadly than North America rather than just the United States, it's usually to service more efficiently the local market. Mm-hmm.
Which makes sense, which we've seen that trend happening, I feel like, over time. Hey, Dan, you mentioned about maybe less companies leaving the U.S. Speaking of leaving, you are stepping down as CEO come July. You've been CEO since 2016. You were CFO before that going back to 2002. You've been there a long time.
And I know last time you were on, I asked you a question about this cycle and I was not very kind. I got yelled at by my team because I think I gave you 20 seconds, but we do get yelled at.
You get 25 seconds now.
No, no, no. You've got almost two minutes. How do you describe this cycle? Because it feels unusual.
Well, it's unusual in that, you know, you hear about everything, whereas in years past, There was so much of this political stuff that went on. But most of it, if you weren't in the midst of it, you were oblivious to. And you just went around about your life. Now everybody hears about everything when it happens. So that's just a lot more noise.
On the flip side, what's really different is I mentioned on that conversation with the team in Atlanta this morning, we were talking about data centers. And one of the people on the call, he leads our business in the southern U.S., he said, hey, Dan, I'm going to flip you something.
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