Yo,
I hope everyone had a great week. Tuesday kicked off a series we’re going to call “from, you” where I’ll give readers a chance to write about certain ideas or topics that are of interest to them. In other words, create your own content. Right now, it’s looking like it’ll last a few more weeks, unless more of you are interested in writing, then I may just quit and y’all can write the blog forever.
Anyways, if you got any cool ideas or topics let me know.
The past few weeks I have been cruising through the Netflix documentary about Bernie Madoff. The production of it was meh, but it’s been pretty informative in terms of outlining his fraud.
And almost as if it was divine intervention, we have another accused fraudster per Hindenburg Research: Gautam Adani.
As if we needed any more fraud
First it was Ponzi, then it was Madoff, then it was Jho Low and most recently it is Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. Has nobody learned?
And they keep getting bigger and bigger. 50 cents by Ponzi, then 4.5 billion by Jho Low then 19 billion by Madoff, and now 32 billion by SBF. If you wanna read more about them, check out my post about it.
Now we have Hindenburg Research accusing India’s richest man of “pulling the largest con in corporate history”. Just to clarify, this is just an accusation and there are still a lot of details to uncover, but if true this could top them all.
Luckily for most of y’all the US has minimal exposure to Adani, so it won’t be a huge impact to us, but get your popcorn ready while I set the scene.
What is Hindenburg Research?
Hindenburg Research is an investment research firm with a focus on activist short selling through forensic financial research blah, blah blah… AKA they’re like white collar FBI agents and they’re pessimists.
It was founded by Nathan Anderson in 2017 and has pioneered the idea of auditing really big companies trying to find “man-made disasters”. On one end it’s good because they uncover fraud through objective research, but on the other end it’s annoying because they’re just waiting for businesses to screw u before pouncing.
They’re track record? Well, here’s who they’ve previously targeted (taken short positions in):
- Nikola
- DraftKings
- 14 others
They have a decent history, and their most recent target? Adani.
Who is Adani?
This is Guatam Adani:
He is the third richest man in the world (now fourth because of Hindenburg), with a net worth around 118 billion. Only behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
He started the Adani Group, which owns and operates major ports, airports, coal mines, and gas stations in India and across the world.
Kudos to him for being almost 100% self-made, but if I had to wake up to this
and this,
and this,
every morning I think I’d be miserable.
Bernie Madoff x2
True or not true, when I was reading some articles on this, I couldn’t help but think of how similar Adani’s situation is to Madoff’s. So much so, I made a table.
Sure it’s obviously not a huge Ponzi scheme, but come on, if that’s not eerily similar then I don’t know what is. My Madoff meter is blinking right now.
And if it does turn out that Hindenburg is right, and this is fraud, then expect major, major blowback and debris. Families will lose savings, people will go to jail, and we’ll have another fraudster to add to the list.
Flavor & Fire
I would consider myself a hot sauce savant. My taste has grown from the boring Frank’s Red Hot, and Flavor & Fire is what has filled their void. They have over 20 hot sauces ranging from tasty with a kick to some that are hotter than the drama in this week’s newsletter. Their hottest, Knock Knock, puts Hot Ones to shame. My personal favorites are Taco Cat (Satan attacking your tongue) and North Market (good on eggs), so go check em’ out. #ad
We’re in the finger pointing stage
While Hindenburg Research has accused Adani of stock price manipulation, accounting fraud, wire fraud, bribery, and tax evasion, the Adani Group has denied any wrongdoings.
So, for now, let the legal battles begin. Adani has suggested that they will sue Hindenburg and I’m sure Hindenburg will lawyer up.
I predict that we won’t hear much more about this for a while due to the legal battle that will ensue, but regardless the similarities were too much to ignore.
Who knows, maybe Adani is clean and did this all the right way, or maybe he’ll take a seat in the cell that used to belong to Madoff.
Let’s have ourselves a weekend.
from, matt
