• CircuitGuy@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I wish it said what the effective yield will be for bond purchases if they sell for the expected price. Is that yield consistent with other bonds with similar ratings?

  • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 days ago

    In a January email to staff, Musk pointed to the company’s growing influence and power, but said the finances remain problematic.

    “Our user growth is stagnant, revenue is unimpressive, and we’re barely breaking even,” he said in the email, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

    Geee I wonder what could have caused this?

    • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
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      2 days ago

      it was bought by musk at the behest of saudi royals who never again wanted to be raked over the coals globally for doing something like butchering kashoggi, the blowback cost them face which they were not prepared for spending billions on things like soccer leagues and stadium to curry favor with the west, and elon wanted saudi markets open for his rocket ships and electric cars, they invested, he invested, but mostly he took out loans from sucker banks which had made money from tesla and space x. i don’t think he intended to become the nazi poster child when he bought twitter, but water finds it’s own level, and this was always his.

      • Mrfiddles@feddit.nl
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        2 days ago

        See, I’ve always maintained that he bought Twitter with the specific intention of earning his spot as the Goebbels in the upcoming Reich. It was never about money, it’s always been a power play.

        • FreakinSteve@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Seriously, does nobody remember that he was forced to buy it by the SEC because he manipulated the stock value?

          • Mrfiddles@feddit.nl
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            1 day ago

            That was just a shitty negotiating tactic. From day one he’s rolled out the red carpet for Trump. Twitter was just his foot in the door so that he’s already on Trump’s good side and can get his company town going in Texas.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      1 day ago

      They’re talking getting 5 or 10 cents for every dollar of debt. Which roughly means the buyers need a 5 to 10 percent chance of getting their money back for the deal to make sense (interest rates complicate the EV calculation, and it’s not clear what those are).

      This is the banks writing it all off and getting whatever they can out of a bad deal. The buyers will probably make money on the deal, even if Xhitter goes into liquidation.

      • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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        1 day ago

        But what could there be to liquidate? Server racks? They don’t even own the offices, it’s all rented.

        • frezik@midwest.social
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          1 day ago

          Liquidators go through everything. Five toilet rolls in what was an 8-pack? Liquidate it.

          IIRC, bankruptcy puts creditors in order, with employees getting whatever pay they’re owed first in line, then debtors, and whatever might be left goes to investors. When you paid 5 or 10 cents on the dollar, you don’t have to get much back for the deal to be profitable.

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
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            15 hours ago

            I think you’re missing the point. There are no physical assets. There is users and engagement. That can be used to push a narrative or to sell advertising. As users leave, neither works and there is nothing to sell.

            • frezik@midwest.social
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              12 hours ago

              There are physical assets, though. Hopefully enough to pay employees, and possibly enough for this deal to be profitable. It’s a risk, but not a crazy one.

    • clutchtwopointzero@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Banks will be lucky to sell for as much as 10 cents on the dollar, especially as all loans might be unsecured.

      Banks should package in a shitcoin, that would pay itself out, since those investors are used to losses now 😜

  • shoulderoforion@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    as an outsider knowing nothing about nothing, sounds like they’re trying to offload subprime mortgages to anyone who’ll bite

    • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      Musk is currently in the limelight, sort of. They know they have a short window of opportunity to unload those non-performing assets while minimizing their losses. And the way Donny burns bridges with virtually everyone, that window is closing rapidly.

    • db2@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Pretty much spot on. They’re looking for bag holders to swindle.

  • recursive_recursion they/them@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    This could potentially be another title for this:

    Wall Street Banks Now Looking for Right-Wing Plebs to Hold the Bag🧑‍💼🗣️ 🤗…💰💸😱😢🙃

  • tisktisk@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    Any econ majors able to give me their best tldr of what this means or will result in if anything? I can’t wrap my head around how money and debt works sry

    • Breve@pawb.social
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      1 day ago

      Only the banks know their exact reasons for trying to sell off these loans and they will most certainly not say because they don’t want to scare off potential buyers. It could be that the banks need money right now and don’t want to wait for the borrower to repay the loan, or it could be that the banks are having doubts about the borrower’s ability to pay back the loan at all.

      Whatever their reasons, the banks are currently willing to take a flat 5-10% loss in addition to the ongoing interest in order to get their cash back immediately and offload the risk to someone else.

    • manicdave@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      I’m not an econ major but I’m going to give you my theory anyway.

      We’ve been circling the drain on a major global recession for two years. We’ve been avoiding it through sheer denial.

      Nobody ever mentions it, but tech stocks were the first to take a beating in 2008. The reason is that they’re actually kinda worthless and just a place where billionaires gamble the way trust fund kids do with cryptocurrency. There’s just not really that much collateral in digital property. Unlike land, it’s value can just disappear overnight if people decide it’s uncool.

      When asset managers are about to be called on their bets and have to find money somewhere, the first thing they’ll do is sell tech shares to bail out other investments. Houses will always have some value even if you end up having to manage it yourself, whereas any social network risks going the way of MySpace.

      Twitter being in trouble isn’t just a sign that twitter is in trouble, but that investors need that money for something safer, and if they’re looking for something safer that may mean sheer denial isn’t working anymore.

      • IHeartBadCode@fedia.io
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        2 days ago

        Exactly. What the banks are doing are selling “loans”. Musk has to pay those loans back quote/unquote someday. If the loan is good, you hold on to it as a bank because the interest makes you money. If the loan is bad, you sell it so that you can get some of your money back and make the collection of the loan someone else’s problem.

        Banks will do this for a number of reasons:

        • To manage their balance sheet. Every loan not paid in full is bad and you need to balance good (income/good loans/etc) and bad.
        • Generate immediate liquidity. Banks need to have some hard cash on hand, sometimes they sell to do just that, have hard cash.
        • Free up credit lines to lend to new borrowers. Banks only have so much resources, sometime you cut losses to get new gains.
        • Diversify the risk pool. You want a nice balance between “loans that might default” and “loans likely to not default”.

        Now for everyone else, what the parent to this comment is indicating is the second option in that list. Having to create some cold hard cash suddenly. Usually, there’s a cyclical nature to needing greenbacks by the fistful, but like everything that’s not always true. Something can “happen” and you have a sudden need to have cash in hand pronto. Good way to get that cash is to start selling low hanging fruit if you have it.

        Something like the Twitter loan is a good pitch for low hanging fruit. Musk is terrible at paying the loan back, Twitter is likely to default one day, but Musk suddenly has direct access to some pretty corrupt as fuck ways to actually pay that loan back. From what I’ve read in the article, the sell price is something like 90 to 95 cents on the dollar. So not a huge discount, this ain’t a fire sale.

        But banks might want to offload Musk from their sheets just in case that money is something someone might later investigate. Like that 95 cents on the dollar price is “We think Musk is good for it, but we likely don’t actually want his money.” So you can make that federal investigation in 2033 someone else’s problem, by selling the loan today. The big bank makes about 95% of the original amount back and when Musk goes to pay his loan in Russian Blood Rubles, it’ll be to a bank that get investigated that isn’t <<insert some large bank that would “NEVER” think to take conflicted money>>.

        That’s one theory. But there could be something on the horizon. Something that isn’t right around the corner, but coming up in the distance that the banks want to have cash on hand for. Usually you see a much larger discount, like 60 cents on the dollar, for “holy shit, this stuff is toxic but we need to offload it discreetly before everyone else wises up.”

        I don’t think point one and three apply to Musk’s particular set of loans. But who knows?! Only the bankers do.

        • gianni@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          I’m sorry for being a pedantic loser but you don’t need to use quote/unquote in text form—you can simply put quotes around the word. We use it in speech to convey that a word or phrase is quoted.

          I.e. ”someday”

          • Deacon@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            On the one hand, yes.

            On the other hand, even if it is unnecessary effort, spelling it out can be a form of rhetorical emphasis distinct from simply putting it in quotes.

        • manicdave@feddit.uk
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          2 days ago

          My theory is more based on vibes and multiple continuous layoffs from the majority companies over the last few years.

          The only thing that we can be pretty much certain on is that the banks think twitter is overvalued and think other Investors see it as undervalued.

    • subversive_dev@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Hard to say right now. The article suggests that the banks are just trying to free up cash on their balance sheets. However, this could instead be an indication that they are looking for a “bigger fool” to take the losses. I personally think the bottom won’t fall out of Xitter until the tesla share price crashes. Elon bought some time with credulous fools with the ridiculous cybercab demo, but that can’t last forever. At that point I think the only question is whether SpaceX gets pulled down with all the rest of the musk ventures