#ADANI-GROUP

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The long bezzle

Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” on Saturday at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!

https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826

When it comes to the modern world of enshittified, terrible businesses, no addition to your vocabulary is more essential than "bezzle," JK Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/09/accounting-gimmicks/#unter

The bezzle is contained by two forces.

First, Stein's Law: "Anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop."

Second, Keynes's: "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

On the one hand, extremely badly run businesses that strip all the value out of the firm, making things progressively worse for its suppliers, workers and customers will eventually fail (Stein's Law).

On the other hand, as the private equity sector has repeatedly demonstrated, there are all kinds of accounting tricks, subsidies and frauds that can animate a decaying, zombie firm long after its best-before date (Keynes's irrational markets):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/02/plunderers/#farben

One company that has done an admirable job of balancing on a knife edge between Stein and Keynes is Verizon, a monopoly telecoms firm that has proven that a business can remain large, its products relied upon by millions, its stock actively traded and its market cap buoyant, despite manifest, repeated incompetence and waste on an unimaginable scale.

This week, Verizon shut down Bluejeans, an also-ran videoconferencing service the company bought for $400 million in 2020 as a panic-buy to keep up with Zoom. As they lit that $400 mil on fire, Verizon praised its own vision, calling Bluejeans "an award-winning product that connects our customers around the world, but we have made this decision due to the changing market landscape":

https://9to5google.com/2023/08/08/verizon-bluejeans-shutting-down/

Writing for Techdirt, Karl Bode runs down a partial list of all the unbelievably terrible business decisions Verizon has made without losing investor confidence or going under, in a kind of tribute to Keynes's maxim:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/08/10/verizon-fails-again-shutters-attempted-zoom-alternative-bluejeans-after-paying-400-million-for-it/

Remember Go90, the "dud" streaming service launched in 2015 and shuttered in 2018? You probably don't, and neither (apparently) do Verizon's shareholders, who lost $1.2 billion on this folly:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/02/verizons-sad-attempt-to-woo-millennials-falls-flat-face/

Then there was Verizon's bid to rescue Redbox with a new joint-venture streaming service, Redbox Instant, launched 2012, killed in 2014, $450,000,000 later:

https://variety.com/2014/digital/news/verizon-redbox-to-pull-plug-on-video-streaming-service-1201321484/

Then there was Sugarstring, a tech "news" website where journalists were prohibited from saying nice things about Net Neutrality or surveillance – born 2014, died 2014:

https://www.theverge.com/2014/12/2/7324063/verizon-kills-off-sugarstring

An app store, started in 2010, killed in 2012:

https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/5/3605618/verizon-apps-store-closing-january-2013

Vcast, 2005-2012, yet another failed streaming service (pray that someday you find someone who loves you as much as Verizon's C-suite loves doomed streaming services):

https://venturebeat.com/media/verizon-vcast-shutting-down/

And the granddaddy of them all, Oath, Verizon's 2017, $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo/AOL, whose name refers to the fact that the company's mismanagement provoked involuntary, protracted swearing from all who witnessed the $4.6 billion write-down the company took a year later:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/12/12/if-youre-surprised-verizons-aol-yahoo-face-plant-you-dont-know-verizon/

Verizon isn't just bad at being a phone company that does non-phone-company things – it's incredibly bad at being a phone company, too. As Bode points out, Verizon's only real competency is in capturing its regulators at the FCC:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/05/02/new-verizon-video-blatantly-lies-about-whats-happening-to-net-neutrality/

And sucking up massive public subsidies from rubes in the state houses of New York:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/03/14/new-york-city-sues-verizon-fiber-optic-bait-switch/

New Jersey:

https://www.techdirt.com/2014/04/25/verizon-knows-youre-sucker-takes-taxpayer-subsidies-broadband-doesnt-deliver-lobbies-to-drop-requirements/

and Pennsylvania:

https://www.techdirt.com/2017/06/15/verizon-gets-wrist-slap-years-neglecting-broadband-networks-new-jersey-pennsylvania/

Despite all this, and vast unfunded liabilities – like remediating the population-destroying lead in their cables – they remain solvent:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/verizon-sued-by-investors-over-lead-cables-environmental-statements-2023-08-02/

Verizon has remained irrational longer than any short seller could remain solvent.

Short-sellers – who bet against companies and get paid when their stock prices go down – get a bad rap: billionaire shorts were the villains of the Gamestop squeeze, accused of running negative PR campaigns against beloved businesses to drive them under and pay their bets off:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/30/meme-stocks/#stockstonks

But shorts can do the lord's work. Writing for Bloomberg, Kathy Burton tells the story of Nate Anderson, whose Hindenburg Research has cost some of the world's wealthiest people over $99 billion by publishing investigative reports on their balance-sheet shell-games just this year:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-06/how-much-did-hindenburg-make-from-shorting-adani-dorsey-icahn

Anderson started off trying to earn a living as a SEC whistleblower, identifying financial shenanigans and collecting the bounties on offer, but that didn't pan out. So he turned his forensic research skills to preparing mediagenic, viral reports on the scams underpinning the financial boasts of giant companies…after taking a short position in them.

This year, Anderson's targets have included Carl Icahn, whose company lost $17b in market cap after Anderson accused it of overvaluing its assets. He went after the world's fourth-richest man, Gautam Adani, accusing him of "accounting fraud and stock manipulation," wiping out 34% of his net worth. He took on Jack Dorsey, whose payment processor Square renamed itself Block and went all in on the cryptocurrency bezzle, lopping 16% off its share price.

Burton points out that Anderson's upside for these massive bloodletting was comparatively modest. A perfectly timed exit from the $17b Icahn report would have netted $56m. What's more, Anderson faces legal threats and worse – one short seller was attacked by a man wearing brass-knuckles, an attack attributed to her short activism.

Shorts are lauded as one of capitalism's self-correcting mechanisms, and Hindenberg certainly has taken some big, successful swings at some of the great bezzles of our time. But as Verizon shows, shorts alone can't discipline a market where profits and investor confidence are totally decoupled from competence or providing a decent product or service.

I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/10/smartest-guys-in-the-room/#can-you-hear-me-now

[nando161mando]

[the-lady-maddy]

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[indizombie]

Businesses close to Modi and his political circle have done especially well. The most prominent examples are Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and the Adani Group, conglomerates that reach into numerous areas of Indian life. Their combined market power has grown gigantic in recent years: The flagship stocks of each company are worth about six times more than they were when Modi became prime minister. Some smaller companies have been the target of high-profile raids by tax-enforcement agencies. "If you’re not the two A’s” — Adani or Ambani — it can be treacherous to navigate India’s regulatory byways, said Arvind Subramanian, an economist at Brown University who served under Modi’s government as chief economic adviser from 2014 to 2018. "Domestic investors feel a little bit vulnerable,” he added.

Alex Travelli, ‘India is chasing China’s economy. Something is holding it back’, Japan Times

[anarchistin]

At the core of the issue in the protests is that the decision to improve the lives of Dharavi’s million-strong residents doesn’t take their agency into account.

“People like me have nurtured Dharavi for decades. Now suddenly we’re being told that we’ll be shifted to a ‘better home’. But has anybody even bothered to ask us if we really want to do that? We’re happy here only,” Kanta Bai, 70, who has been selling vegetables in the area for over three decades, told Nikkei Asia.

Dharavi’s proposed redevelopment, then, is a conjugation of two elements: first, the exploitation of the economically underprivileged; second, a top-down definition of development that imposes life-altering changes on marginalized citizens.

[cresceragroup]

Land for Sale in Third Mumbai: KCS New Town Development

Explore prime land and plots in the emerging Third Mumbai, known as KCS New Town. This extensive development project by the MMRDA encompasses 124 villages, creating a modern urban landscape around the Navi Mumbai International Airport. Here’s a closer look at some key areas within this exciting development:

Chirle: A strategically located hub that is rapidly transforming, Chirle offers excellent opportunities for residential and commercial development, leveraging its proximity to the airport.

Vindhane: This picturesque area is ideal for creating residential complexes and green spaces, making it a sought-after location for families and investors alike.

Ranjanpada: With its enhanced connectivity, Ranjanpada is an attractive investment destination for infrastructure and housing projects, set to benefit from the ongoing development initiatives.

Chirner: Positioned near the airport, Chirner presents ample land for industrial and logistics facilities, capitalizing on its strategic location for business growth.

Jui: A vibrant locality that offers mixed-use development opportunities, Jui is perfect for those looking to invest in both residential and commercial properties.

Pirkone: Emerging as a residential hotspot, Pirkone is appealing to families and individuals seeking a suburban lifestyle with access to urban amenities.

Vasheni: This area is gaining attention for real estate development, making it a promising investment option for those looking to capitalize on urban expansion.

Sarde: Transitioning from its agricultural roots, Sarde is opening up to urban development, presenting opportunities for investors looking to develop residential and commercial projects.

Punade: Ideal for affordable housing, Punade caters to the growing demand for budget-friendly living spaces, making it a strategic investment choice.

KCS New Town is poised to create a well-planned urban ecosystem that prioritizes sustainability and connectivity. Investing in land in this developing area not only promises future growth but also positions you at the forefront of Mumbai’s expansion. Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of this transformative project in Third Mumbai! Crescera Group

[todayworldnews2k21]

Navi Mumbai Airport To Start Operations In First Half Of 2025: Adani Group CFO

Navi Mumbai Airport Details: Group CFO of Adani Group, Jugeshinder ‘Robbie’ Singh on Tuesday said the Adani Group’s newly built airport at Navi Mumbai will start operations in the first half of 2025. Earlier this month, Adani Group successfully managed the landing of Indian Air Force aircraft at a Navi Mumbai runway. “With this, we are on track to start operations in the first half of next year…

[adanicase]

Union Minister Jitendra Singh has recently unveiled the indoor air quality monitoring facility at the domestic terminal of this world-famous airport. By installing this facility, the airport authorities aim to address the health concerns of the travellers. With this extraordinary initiative, the Adani Group Controversies will also gradually subside

[abhishekjhaseo]

Adani Group Latest News in Gujarati. Where there were few buyers to buy a power company, now other giants are ready with the Adani group also entering the race. Adani Group has submitted a bid of Rs 12,500 crore to buy this bankrupt company. However, there is a noticeable increase in the number of bidders. The final bid number may be higher than the opening figures.

[jasminewilson143]

Parliamentary Panel Summons SEBI Chief and Officials Amid Allegations of Conflict of Interest

Parliamentary Panel Summons SEBI Chief and Officials Amid Allegations of Conflict of Interest The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Indian Parliament has issued a summons to the chairperson of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Madhabi Puri Buch, and top officials from other key government departments. The officials, including representatives from the Department of Economic…

[nepalenergyforum]

Adani to Invest in Overseas Hydropower, Targeting 10 GW in Nepal, Bhutan, Africa, and Asia

NEW DELHI, Oct 10 (Reuters) – India’s Adani Group plans to build 10 gigawatts of overseas hydroelectric projects over the next few years, four sources familiar with the plans told Reuters, helping the conglomerate reach its net zero carbon emissions goal by 2050. Billionaire owner Gautam Adani, whose businesses span from rice to cement, announced in 2022 the group would invest $100 billion over…

[adani-lushlands]

Adani Lushlands | Sector 2, Gwal Pahari | Gurgaon

Adani Group, renowned for its iconic real estate ventures across India, proudly unveils Adani Lushlands in Sector 2, Gwal Pahari, Gurugram. This extraordinary residential development offers much more than just homes—it delivers a lifestyle steeped in nature and modern comforts.

By choosing Adani Lushlands, you're embracing a life defined by luxury, sustainability, and a sense of community. Every aspect of this development is crafted with meticulous attention to detail, ensuring that residents experience the pinnacle of contemporary living.

Nestled in the serene surroundings of Gwal Pahari, Adani Lushlands presents a unique opportunity to enhance your quality of life. Here, luxury effortlessly coexists with environmental sustainability, creating a harmonious living environment. Elevate your lifestyle and be part of a vibrant community where tranquility and sophistication meet.

Key Highlights of Adani Lushlands:

4 BHK + Lounge + Powder Room + Utility/Servant Room - 2659.71 sq. ft.

6 BHK + Lounge + Powder Room + Utility/Servant Room - 6483.99 sq. ft.

World-class amenities catering to all your needs.

Sprawling across 12.356 acres of prime land.

RERA registered for peace of mind.

Excellent connectivity to major locations.

Experience the perfect blend of luxury and sustainability at Adani Lushlands, where your dream home awaits.

[arjasrikanth]

As climate change accelerates, the world must prioritize *decarbonization* .

India's *Adani Group* is emerging as a trailblazer, reshaping the course of the green revolution.

Recognized by the *World Economic Forum* , Adani is positioning itself as a global leader in *sustainability* .

Through visionary projects and innovative strategies, the company is driving India's energy transition and lighting the path to a sustainable future.

Adani's partnership with the WEF to develop the Adani *Mundra Cluster* marks a watershed moment in the fight against climate change.

By embracing *green hydrogen and renewable energy,* Adani is proving that *decarbonization* is not only possible but also economically viable, with profound implications for *global prosperity and environmental stewardship.*

http://arjasrikanth.in/2024/10/06/decarbonizing-the-future-adanis-mega-role-in-leading-the-global-green-revolution/