#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]

[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.

[bihar-ujala]

Bihar Business Connect 2024: बिहार को मिलेगा 1.80 लाख करोड रुपए के निवेशक, अडानी हल्दीराम समिति यह कंपनियां करेंगी बिहार में निवेश

Bihar Business Connect 2024: बिहार की राजधानी पटना में आयोजित हुई दो दिवसीय ग्लोबल इन्वेस्टर्स समिट – बिहार बिजनेस कनेक्ट 2024 (Bihar Business Connect 2024) में बड़े-बड़े इन्वेस्टर बड़े पैमाने पर निवेश प्रस्ताव पर हस्ताक्षर किए हैं. इससे साफ जाहिर हो रहा है, कि बिहार में नौकरियों की बाहर आने वाली है. सन पेट्रोकेमिकल्स कंपनी ने रिन्यूएबल एनर्जी के क्षेत्र में 37700 करोड़ रुपए का निवेश बिहार में…

[rightnewshindi]

बॉम्बे हाई कोर्ट ने अडानी समूह को दी बड़ी राहत, धारावी प्रोजेक्ट के खिलाफ याचिका खारिज; जानें पूरा मामला

Mumbai News: बंबई उच्च न्यायालय ने मुंबई में धारावी झुग्गी बस्ती पुनर्विकास परियोजना को अडानी प्रॉपर्टीज प्राइवेट लिमिटेड को दिए जाने के खिलाफ दायर याचिका को शुक्रवार को खारिज कर दिया। मुख्य न्यायाधीश डी. के. उपाध्याय और न्यायमूर्ति अमित बोरकर की खंडपीठ ने कहा कि याचिका का कोई आधार नहीं है इसलिए इसे खारिज किया जाता है। संयुक्त अरब अमीरात (यूएई) स्थित सेकलिंक टेक्नोलॉजीज कॉरपोरेशन ने यह याचिका…

[trendynews2]

U.S.-India relationship ‘very strong’ despite Pannun, Adani indictments: U.S. officials Readmore

[adanicase]

By making use of industry-leading solutions and innovative techniques, the airport has set a benchmark for various other airports across the country as well as in other countries. Under the management of the Adani Group, even amidst the Adani Group Controversies, the airport continues to drive aviation excellence in aviation safety while also taking care of safe and sustainable airport operations. 

[gujaratinews]

Adani Group's big announcement today. Adani Group has announced to invest 7.5 lakh crore rupees in Rajasthan. 7.5 lakh crore is a huge amount. This is good news for Rajasthan in such a situation. The announcement was made at the "Rising Rajasthan Global Investment Summit" held in Jaipur. Ahead of this summit, the Rajasthan government has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for an investment of Rs 30 lakh crore.

[adanistockmanipulation]

We expect the Adani Group to take up similar ventures in the upcoming months as well which will cause it to rise above the controversies of Adani Stock Manipulation and strengthen its presence in the dynamic business sector

[newshare24]

Gautam Adani breaks silence on US allegations to say his group is committed to compliance By Reuters

By Arpan Chaturvedi NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Adani Group founder Gautam Adani responded for the first time on Saturday to allegations by U.S. authorities that he was part of a $265 million bribery scheme, saying that his ports-to-power conglomerate was committed to world class regulatory compliance. The indictment is the second major crisis to hit Adani in just two years, sending shockwaves across…

[financia012]

Resilience in the Face of Adversity: Gautam Adani’s Take on US Indictments

Introduction Gautam Adani, one of the world’s leading business magnates, has often found himself at the center of controversies. Recently, his enterprise faced scrutiny with allegations stemming from the United States. Demonstrating steadfast resilience, Adani assured his stakeholders that such challenges only serve to strengthen the group’s foundations and determination to excel. A Strong…

[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

[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