#Gautam Adani

[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

[indizombie]

In the recent past, reputed foreign publications reported three explosive news stories but none of them made it to the pages of Indian newspapers. A follow-up investigation, or questions for the government, is unimaginable. On 12 December, Bloomberg reported that Taiwan's Chang family, which was charged by the Indian government in 2014 of being used by billionaire Gautam Adani's empire to siphon money overseas, has now resurfaced under a new name and is again working with the conglomerate. Two days later, the French newspaper MediaPart reported that the Modi government is refusing to cooperate with French judges who have requested India's assistance in their ongoing investigation into alleged corruption in the sale of 36 Dassault-built Rafale fighter jets to India in 2016 for €7.8 billion. This has been highlighted in a diplomatic note written in July by the French ambassador to India, Emmanuel Lenain. Only last month, The Caravan published an in-depth investigation into kickbacks received in 15 major arms deals which, too, saw no coverage by the Indian media. On 10 December, the Washington Post reported on an organisation set up and run by a serving intelligence officer to research and discredit foreign critics of the Modi government. This blurs the line traditionally observed by the country's security establishment between operations that serve India and those that advance the ruling political party's aims.

Sushant Singh, ‘Fire and Smoke’, Caravan

[dreamerroy]

The indictment

[colitcomedia]

Gautam Adani is a self-made billionaire and chairman of the Adani Group, a multinational conglomerate with diversified interests. Born into a middle-class family in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, Adani dropped out of school at 16. He later moved to Mumbai to work in the diamond trade.

[todayworldnews2k21]

Six Adani Stocks Recover; Adani Green, Adani Energy, 2 Others Still Under Pressure

New Delhi: Shares of six Adani group firms bounced back on Friday from the previous day’s sharp drubbing, in tandem with a bull rally in the equity market wherein the BSE benchmark Sensex zoomed 1,961 points. The stock of Ambuja Cements jumped 3.50 per cent, ACC climbed 3.17 per cent, the group’s flagship firm Adani Enterprises advanced 2.16 per cent, Adani Ports rose 2.05 per cent, Adani Total…

[sharemarketinsider]

Gautam Adani’s U.S. Fraud Charges: Impact on Indian Markets and Global Investments

📉 What does Gautam Adani’s U.S. fraud indictment mean for global markets and India’s economy? A $34 billion market drop, accusations of bribery, and high stakes for investors—this case could reshape India's financial landscape.

👉 Read more to explore the risks, opportunities, and what’s next for the Adani Group!

[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…

[krishna1124]

Kenya Cancels Adani Group Deals Amid Scrutiny

Kenya has terminated multiple contracts with the Adani Group, citing concerns over irregularities and transparency. This decision marks a significant challenge for the Indian conglomerate's global operations, as it faces increasing scrutiny over its business practices.

This was originally posted on India weekly. Read the detailed report here

[memenewsdotcom]

U.S. charges Gautam Adani with fraud

[latestgujaratinews]

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.

[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

[todayworldnews2k21]

Adani US Bribery Charges Credit Negative For Group Companies, Says Moodys

New Delhi: International rating agency Moody’s has said that US prosecutors’ indictment of Gautam Adani, his nephew Sagar and other defendants for paying over USD 250 million in bribes between 2020 and 2024 to Indian government officials to win solar energy contracts can be Credit Negative for the group companies. “The indictment of Adani Group’s chairman and other senior officials on bribery…