#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.

[sharemarketinsider]

Adani Group Faces U.S. Bribery Allegations: What It Means for Investors

Is Adani's renewable energy empire at risk? 🌏💰 U.S. bribery allegations could reshape India's corporate landscape, impacting stocks and investment. Discover what this means for investors and the energy sector. #AdaniGroup #StockMarket #RenewableEnergy #Investing #CorporateGovernance

[infographics2]

Stock Market LIVE Updates: GIFT Nifty signals a negative start; Zomato, HUL, Adani Green in focus

#UnlimitIndia #MumbaiTerrorAttack #StockMarketUpdate #LiveUpdates #ArjunTendulkar #CskAuction #RajasthanRoyals #StockMarketIndia #AdaniGroupStocks #HandeErçel #Arcane #India #Instagram #facebook #niftyfifty #negative #postoftheday #trending #stockmarket

[rightnewshindi]

अडानी ग्रुप की बांग्लादेश के साथ हुई डील की भी होगी जांच, अंतरिम सरकार ने किया समिति का गठन

Gautam Adani News: गौतम अडानी समूह की मुश्किलें बढ़ती जा रही हैं। दरअसल, बांग्लादेश में अपदस्थ प्रधानमंत्री शेख हसीना की सरकार द्वारा भारत के अडानी समूह सहित अलग-अलग व्यापारिक समूहों के साथ हस्ताक्षरित बिजली समझौतों की जांच के लिए एक एजेंसी नियुक्त करने की सिफारिश की गई है। इस संबंध में अंतरिम सरकार ने एक समीक्षा समिति का गठन किया था, जिसने अब यह सिफारिश की है। 7 प्रोजेक्ट्स की समीक्षा कर रही…

[todayworldnews2k21]

Adani row: What Azure whistleblowers flagged in alleged bribery scandal

The Adani Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, is facing serious allegations of corruption as US prosecutors on Wednesday accused Gautam Adani and others of orchestrating a $265 million bribery scheme to secure state energy contracts. The bribery accusations have triggered a political storm in the country. But the seeds of the bombshell indictment were planted back in May 2022 when an…

[dreamerroy]

The indictment

[karmaastro]

Astrological Perspective on Adani Share Loss: Planetary Factors Behind the Plunge

The Adani Group's incredible market capitalization condensation of roughly Rs 2.60 lakh crore worth of shares has caused much loss and dramatically affected the economy. The share depreciation can be attributed mainly to the legal troubles that afflict the firm, advertisement interference, and bribery charges that have been labelled against Gautam Adani and a few other executives. Still, one can also view the effects of these events from an astrological perspective and try to point out the planets, if any, that have to do with such financial happenings. This begs the query: Was the ongoing slump of Adani Group shares in 2024 one of the adverse consequences that astrological transits, in some way, brought about?

How Astrological Transits Affected Adani Shares

Adani Group's share price backlash can partly be attributed to several astrological transits of several planets, which have had an impact on a global scale and currencies, thus various countries and their economies. When transiting with certain signs or positions in the sky, several planets tend to influence the actions that occur here on Earth, including the movement of money. Concerning the recent fall of shares for Adani Group, several planetary transits could have lent credence to the fall of the shares. In share market astrology, all twelve houses participate and contribute to this remarkable growth, and here are just a few of them.

Saturn's Transit: Everyone knows Saturn is associated with delays, obstacles, tough lessons, and karma. The planet has an aggressive quality and forces one to always face the battle.the worst days come during a Saturn transit, which gives Sadesati and Dhaiya. Adani Group's acquisition of assets, legal troubles around a $250 million bribery scheme, and, more recently, Gautam Adani's indictment can all be viewed as a period aligned under a certain energy force. The trends powered by many Jupiterian energies come alright with a huge amount of capital returned. Certainly, for a country able and willing to capitalize on Saturn while having a corporation conglomerate like Adani that could not quite fit within Saturn transit, the timelines brought about by the transits were not in favourable positions over their most recent expansion.

Martian energy is another significant player in periods of sharper market movements. Mars is the planet that is most aligned with aggression, war, and anything over-action-related. Such market aggression seen lately, such as the recent huge selloff round, must have a Mars touch. Another possibility that worsened the volatility in the Adani Group stocks was the energies around Mars, which psychologically affected investors in space. Mars brings rapid market movements, and when it was in a stronger position when the news was released, its energies may have assisted with the market freefall. As panic set in, marketers were already looking at unloading their positions, pushing the stock depreciations more.

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Mercury Retrograde

Mercury retrograde is a known time when negotiations, agreements and court practices are prone to hitches. Most of the time, deal-making when Mercury is retrograde tends to be characterized by distortion, sluggishness, or ambiguity, especially in contracts or other legal entities. The period surrounding the legal imbroglio surrounding the Adani Group and the fact that Mercury was in retrograde motion may have added to some level of chaos and uncertainty, particularly with the presence of US prosecutors. The market misread or reacted in a knee-jerk manner to some of the interpretations, and as a result, adverse consequences on the stocks were witnessed. Besides, there always seem to be hitches in business transactions during this time, such as a moratorium or withdrawal of announcements like bond premium offering, for instance, in the case of Adani Group, in which a 600 million dollar bond was called off.

Read Also - Mercury Retrograde November 2024-25

Rahu and Ketu

The two shadow planets are constantly accountable for sudden and drastic changes. In particular, Rahu is the planet of controversies, unmasking destructed words of concealed reasons. The bribery scandals of Adani executives who kept some US investors in the dark could generally be a case of Rahu's direction. This cosmic force tends to surprise in the form of shocks and even chaos, which may suffice for a short-term change in the investment mood or valuation of stocks. In this case, Adani's international publicity of litigations may have been caused by Rahu's influence in all astrology houses, changing fortunes and prices of stocks sharply in the downward direction.

Astrological Reasons for the Unraveling of Adani Shares in 2024

Several astrological factors have contributed to the downfall of Adani Group stocks in 2024. The lawsuits that acted as the immediate trigger to the stock drop could also have been created by the astrological situation back then. The following factors likely contributed to the downfall

The Restrictive Power Of Saturn: Saturn's aspect may have revealed problems and impediments that strained the Adani Group, experiencing a phase of endurance, including legal issues. Leos are often made to carry the burdens of the past, and Saturn's interference may be due to Sankara's maleficent influence on an organization. This makes the images in particular. Regarding astrological science, this may be why Saturn, in relation to the charts of the Adani Group, was in this situation of petty financial losses and struggle.

The Communication Crisis Affecting During Mercury Retrograde

Certain legal, bribery or bond dealings might have been lost or misconstrued within the Mercury retrograde. However, these periods are notorious rifts within business dealings, and the market reacts so chaotically due to communication barriers typical concerning this period phase. The interruption of the bond offering considered 600 million, and its potential destruction of investors' confidence might have had to do with mercury retrograding.

Rahu's Influence on Issues Within a Blackout

The schemed bribery charges, the bribery allegation, and the loss of esteem in the firm from both shareholders and regulators can be put in the context of Rahu. Financial and economic destruction, adding to earlier losses, must also result in enhancement in quick and fickle markets, like when Adani Group lost its voice in the market.

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[trendynewsnow]

Federal Charges Filed Against Gautam Adani for Fraud and Bribery

Federal Charges Against Gautam Adani In a significant legal development, federal prosecutors in New York have brought multiple fraud charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, widely recognized as one of the richest individuals globally. The indictment, announced on Wednesday, accuses Adani and several associates of engaging in a scheme that involved bribing Indian officials and…

[indizombie]

Adani Group has grown remarkably during Modi’s time in power. Adani himself has been a cheerleader for the politician since 2002, when deadly riots undermined business confidence in the state of Gujarat—where Modi served as chief minister between 2001 and 2014. The state is known for its enterprise, but in the wake of communal violence, investors began to turn away. Adani came to Modi’s rescue, bringing Gujarati business leaders together to invest in the state’s resilience. Modi doesn’t forget those who criticize him, but he also remembers those who stand by him. While Modi was chief minister, Adani invested in several plum projects in the state, including India’s largest private port in Mundra, Gujarat. By early 2019, Adani controlled one-quarter of India’s port capacity and had won the rights to manage six government-owned airports; he later added a 74 percent share in Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, India’s second-busiest.

Salil Tripathi, ‘Gautam Adani and the New Indian Capitalism’, Foreign Policy