We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode Perpetual Motion Machine: Adani, MSTR, OSTK

Perpetual Motion Machine: Adani, MSTR, OSTK

2024/11/22
logo of podcast Money Stuff: The Podcast

Money Stuff: The Podcast

AI Deep Dive AI Chapters Transcript
People
K
Katie Greifeld
M
Matt Levine
Topics
Matt Levine详细解释了Adani集团被指控行贿印度政府官员以获得太阳能合同的案件,并指出Adani巧妙地将贿赂伪装成合法的商业交易,例如支付给邦电力公司的激励措施。他还强调了美国检方介入此案的原因,主要是因为Adani Green曾在美国发行债券,部分债券出售给了美国投资者,而Adani Green在债券发行文件中做出的ESG承诺与其行贿行为相悖,涉嫌欺诈美国投资者。此外,Levine还分析了Adani的商业策略,指出其先赢得印度联邦政府的巨额绿色能源合同,然后再对各邦政府进行行贿,以确保合同的顺利执行。 Katie Greifeld补充了Adani如何通过在煤炭行业的积累财富,并将其用于投资可再生能源领域,实现其自身的转型。她还对Adani与印度政府的密切关系提出了疑问,并指出Adani的行为构成“漂绿”。

Deep Dive

Chapters
The chapter discusses the U.S. prosecution of Adani for bribery charges, the intricacies of the case, and how it ties into Adani's broader business and political connections.
  • Adani is accused of promising $250 million in bribes to Indian government officials.
  • The case involves complex financial dealings, including Adani Green's bond offerings to U.S. investors.
  • Adani's political connections and influence in the Indian government are highlighted.

Shownotes Transcript

Translations:
中文

Exchanges the goldman sex podcast features exchanges on the forces driving the markets and the economy, exchanges between the leading minds of goldman sex new episodes every week. Listen now.

Bloomberg audio studios, podcasts.

radio news. Hello and welcome to the money stuff podcast. You're weekly podcast where we talk about stuff related to money. I'm not live in and I read the money stuff column her blimber g opinion and i'm kd.

Gray felt a reporter for blimber c news and an anchor for blipper television.

What are we talking about today?

We're onna. Talk about a donny. What's going on? We're going to talk about microstrip gy. There is a lot to say there and were going to talk about short selling, which is one of the favorite topics in the money is of universe .

good saying, yeah, you don't .

care about IT. I'm going to politely agree. This was interesting, so gotten a doni. U. S. Prosecutors accused a doni who is one of the world's richest people of promising to pay more than two hundred and fifty million dollars in bribes to indian government officials to win solar energy contracts. This was very interesting on a number of different levels.

Yeah and a lot I love primary. I read about them. Some is so interesting. One thing that's interesting is like usually when you have a bribery case, it's like and then they handed the value of cash to the official right? Or like there's emails being like the official would really like to buy his mansion.

Now here it's like all of them like emails they quote sound legitimate because what he says is like for with these power contracts, they had to pay incentives to the state power companies. And so they would say things like, we need to pay incentives to these day power companies and so like, well, that sounds fine to pain this day power companies rebate for buying power seems fine. Now paying the state power company executives two hundred billion dollars is that.

But so one of the stuff they quote makes IT clear that is going to these people. Personally, I read a lot about, like how if you were to pay bribe, none of this is our legal advice. I read a lot of about half you were to pay bribes. You should try to make them look business like and not like a sack of cash and like winking EMS saying I given you the chickens but just like, yes, we're paying incentence to make a commercially viable contract to the state park company if you happen to you could person .

hearing you describe that kind of reminds me of the arga s emails with the airline and one of his staffers was like, no, you've ttl make IT look a little jet right? You put in SHE I don't .

know email I documents from the cc and from the development and Justin so one assumes they have evidence and testimony is saying, oh yeah, we gave them the money personally but it's actually wear it's like like for one thing, these numbers are so large. If you're paying two hundred million dollars, that does sound like you're paying two hundred million dollars to the power company because like that's a big .

oh yeah two hundred fifty million yeah and the .

right weird because like one of them was like they did deals with different indian states and so one of them it's like they paid several hundred thousand dollars yeah it's something right and one of like they paid several hundred million dollars like that sounds like a little business expense ah and I also the guy you got two hundred thousand dollars must be annoyed reading this indepth like I could have got ten, two hundred million dollars .

strange something that maybe you can um expand upon is how this ties into the us. Like U. S. Prosecutors are alleging that he braved the indian government. Like why is the U.

S. Getting involved? So part of the answer is the us. involved.

There are much crazier cases than that, right? I love like olympic doing cases were like, yes, you know, in paris of foreign athlete ts drugs for a foreign doctor. And the us. Is like that's undermining international sport.

They'll bring charges. Well, you know, in american athlete could .

have won that race.

Thank you. I think about this a lot. Anyway, come on.

toping your horse. But everything sort of flows through you, you know, like part of the answer is that a doni Green, which is the a doni grip entity, that of the paid, the babes, like they had I A partner on these paradise, and that the company called this your global power. And that was for a while, listed in new york.

But the main answer, particularly in like the sec case, is that a donny Green issued bonds, they did like a international dollar, and I made a bond offering, and some of those bonds were sold to U. S. investors.

And so allegedly they have fruited us. investors. And it's very interesting for that.

I went that this is basically Greenwashing case because what happens is the issue, these bonds in twenty twenty one, when they're playing the babbs and allegedly back the brush, and they paid the balls back in two thousand and twenty four. So like nobody loves any money, investors, fine. The U.

S. Investors were found, chill. Well, how they provided, well, they were deported because the S. C. C. Makes a big point of saying look at all like the esg promises that are donny bits in the bond offering like they're like not only are we a renewable power company, but we're also one that works in developing countries and doesn't pay rips. And think you can imagine being esg investor in twenty twenty one and say, I would love to put money into a company that does like renewable power, which is Green and and very like e and also works in developing countries. So it's like to providing clean power to places not as easy to fine so that so it's like as and then IT doesn't pay bridge because like a new energy projects and removing .

countries you worry good.

good g and like the cc says that a omi Green position itself as a leader in environmentally conscious, socially and responsible and good corporate governance principles. And IT sought to differentiate itself from its peers and other potential investments or issues in developing countries that might be success table to corruption and bribery issues.

If you yes, invest like you're looking at solar projects in developing countries like oh, these people pay bribes and that's not very yes. But then I done is like we do solar projects in india and we don't pay drives and you know great. And those people were arrested because allegedly invested in company that did bribe.

yeah. So there you go. I do tell that I love about this whole thing. You talk about a di Green, are you think about garden a di himself? The reason why he is so rich and like, so systemically important to the government and their ambitions, and also the indian stock market, he made his money and call my name and like this is all part of .

his broader reinvention. Yeah like like a lot of like energy and infrastructure companies are like we also do Green energy because like if you're in the energy business, you have some advantages and and during energy contracts .

Better I yeah I just like that he became Greener and .

also allegedly .

tribes yeah yeah well.

so you say started doing that.

We don't know that's .

true obviously like there is like hindi berg alias while back .

yeah genre twenty .

three yeah so I don't think this is like confirmatory of those, but it's sort of general .

like I was wondering about that. I was trying to do rock my brain for that information and I guess I could looked IT up.

But yes, the inbreds up is like great missiles ious it's I like a doni is bad because of this. One bad thing they did is like, and look at this nappy, right? So so little hard, like somewhere in the ended report, there might be like something about this, but it's hard to tell .

something .

bribes.

We could talk about Donald trump a little bit, but you will be interesting to see what happens here with a new U. S.

Atterley in new york. I to go, I want to go say I himself is very closely associated like power, and he really like he. He's a political figure as well, a business figure. And it's interesting to me, if you read this case, the way that the deal works is that, step one, a Green wins this enormous contract with the indian federal government Green power thing.

And then step two to like make that contract work that's to go and when contracts with each indian states power company and like allegedly, they win the party contract, the federal contract first and then they go out and start babbling the state governments. There's no suggestion that they won the federal contract illegitimately, which is like this is a little interesting. I don't know they're so politically connected in the indian federal government. It's like it's like interesting that they're plan babbs that say it's just that is a my donal trump.

Donald trump a donny really likes Donald trump, at least according to his social media presence after trump I think yeah I think if .

you are a business person, this is not true in twenty sixteen. But it's true in in twenty twenty four business person you really like anal trap .

according to your social media yeah that's that's very .

true across nationality.

He didn't just congratulated him. He also committed to invest ten billion dollars in the us.

created many ten thousand s incentives .

sometimes are in other word for bribes.

But yeah though again, it's like if you committed invest ten billion dollars in the united states, that's a good incentive. That's like the united states in this relationship is the principle. If you committed to invest ten hours in trumpet media, that would be bad.

That's that's the agent. But now I I don't think that's something I remember in the first trump administration being interested in what sort of foreign rpp practices that prosecutions there would be given trust thing. And I remain interested in the second travel istra's about that because in the first administration, try going to hotel or foreign governments put people up at high rates. But now there's a is from media, there's like a lot going on. So see see.

Exchanges the goldman saks podcast features exchanges on rates, inflation, a us. Recession, risk exchanges on the market, impact of A I for the sharpest analysis on forces driving the markets and the economy, count on exchanges between the leading minds at goldman sex new episodes every week. Listen now.

Hi, i'm ron Chris, el ski chairman and cee of Steven financial advisers. If you're not growing your practice, you're losing market chair. Stephen is a growing entrepreneurs, advisor centric firm built for successful advisors like you.

Imagine having resources of the largest warehouses and the support of the british e shops. But none of the bureaucracy to get in the way of you serving your clients at Stephen. It's your business, your book, your clients.

I always tell the advisers were recruiting. I want you to come to Stephen and double or triple your business. Most of them laugh and shake their heads, but i'm serious. Don't take IT from me. Take IT from number one finish in J D powers twenty twenty three us financial advisor satisfaction study. So there's a reason why one hundred and forty eight when the antil advices joined for last year, tom, join us and find out why step is the firm where success needs success. Visit W W W that .

choose S I F L.

Oh my gosh, microstrip gy microsecond is buying so much bitcoin microchip shares are going up so much microstrip gy has another short selling after IT. Where do you want to start?

Strategy is so different.

like, but is so simple.

It's so simple. When we were talking to john calls them, I remember on this pocket, he argued for the view that companies should focus on doing their business well and that a company that spends too much time focused, i'm like doing stuff with stock, like optimizing its stock. I just think doing stock trades is probably a really bad idea. And you should focus on being at the great business, make sure you have a business .

yeah but try .

software has a business. 对。 But one gets the sense that most of what it's exactly is focused on that day is, is showing lots of stock and using the process to buy lots of bit kind.

How do we get more bitcoin and .

then talking up the fact that they more bitcoin with the persons from songs stuck. And I don't know how that is affected. The customers are the enterprise software business. I don't know if .

like the enterprise, I don't.

but as a shareholder value x musician strategy right now, they were the right ice. Like clearly like they have made their stock go up so much by doing this insane perpetual motion trade where their stock trades are like I like hundred fifty two percent premium, the value of the underlying, but going it's actually more than that because you've taken to leverage and step, let's say, their status like three times the Price of like they're underlying that kind. And so they just sell a dollar worth of stock.

They use IT to buy a dollar worth of bitcoin, and the stock goes up by three dollars. So they're just perpetual expanding their market cap. And like when I think about that trade, you know we tried about the dusty attack one hundred funt where like he was trading like a thousand percent premium to the underlying private company shares because you could get the shares.

And so as I got this to stock, because that will compressed the premium, right, like you sell more stock that put selling pressure your stock. Your stock is down. Meanwhile, you buy the underlying assets.

The underlying assets go up. You sort of eventually get to a place where you're fairly died. That's what microsoft is doing, but the people keeps going up like IT doesn't work. IT works great for them, but IT doesn't like actually compressed the premium. So eventually, they will have a market cap greater than like the entire worlds economy because they found .

a and I look forward to that reality. IT is interesting. I mean, I have my glasses on all the time, but there's all of these.

But now there's .

leverage microchips in utf that are doing incredible trading volumes, which is nuts. There's been a couple days where like theyve been the most traded stock, which is crazy. And there is a theory out there that you know some of the people I follow, twitter or x are entertaining that whether all the money that's coming into the etf is like just part of the reason why you have that big premium like my Green over IT simplify has made the case that yes, like some of these E T S have powered microsoft, just like this incident, premium may be bad to why it's not getting arbitraged away.

I hope that that just seems like such a waging the dog thing. yes.

yeah. It's like one of exerting.

have heard, are good. Is that microstrip gy is a part of coin. Why would you buy IT at a three times spend to the underlying bitcoin rather than buying bitcoin or a biton etf or something like that? One answer is like you want to see where this is going and you think the prem expand? Da, just like.

you know like like you could have a .

theory that the premium expand, like microsoft is argued that we're actually a Better way to hold the time because we can get leverage. You can get leverage. You like you leverage your bit ground delight, you're trading at three acts that bitcoin.

So it's like it's it's not really lever place. You would have a fundamental of view that the premium will expand. I know the thing is like for some reason, you cannot own any other bitcoin instrument and saw you own this thing.

I don't know. I don't know who that would be. I have heard people say I R S, like you can a, can T F in your I R A, but you can buy microscope R A IT sounds terrifying.

This is perhaps a less institutional health stock than like a lot of other stock, perhaps that there are some institutional investors in IT. And you could imagine being an equity fun manager commanded as you can really buy etf and you're equity fun. But like can you buy this corporate stock? Yes, you and like if you really, really like quite fine matures like really have a bit right.

This is like your best way to the three x leverage. Yes, maybe, but like there's something amazing going on. Oh yeah. And they are like capabilities to the health.

Well, to that point, maybe one of the reasons why you microsoft at this premium is because you would love Michael sailor like he does have a cold following.

is not doing that with Michael seller sAiling stock.

Yeah, that's true. And I know there's this deli malcom from like march two thousand that's been making the rounds on x about him losing like six billion dollars in a day on microgravity and is just amazing to think that just the evolution of this company and the evolution of Michael sailor, and he's now obviously a very wealthy man.

To be clear. I really respect which like maybe not the word .

I really cherish.

admire I cherish and am amazed by the idea of like we run to software, our company, but that's boring. So we're just going to get all in and dying as much bit coin as we can.

And I so you said, you know, it's a pot of bitcoin. And so IT owns about thirty billion dollars worth of bitcoin at its market. Cap is one hundred and five billion dollars and I think it's interesting to compare that to like a traditional asset manager like a black rock who has a market cap of like one hundred and fifty three billion dollars with eleven something trillion dollars in assets yeah .

but this is not the market of of the manager. This is the market cap of the fund yeah, this is a fund that trades at three x, the value of its under line stuff yeah yeah.

not actually fun.

It's actually is this a is a software company.

is a fun flash software company that now sit on, is trying to short, yes.

so is like a famous winter maker, right? Because people noticed this for a long time, shit, and been Carried out.

Carrie did IT just in march, and I was seeing a look at that. They did the same thing, long bitcoin short. Their reasoning at the time was that they are treating history and basic common sense suggests the current sense for me um will contract much as IT has on prior occasions providing a compelling opportunity for a portrait since that bloomberg news article microstrip gy is up one hundred and seventy five percent, and the kind is up thirty eight percent.

I mean, they're right. Like, yeah like before the end of the universe.

that breath of universe.

But like before, carrots doll gets out of the trade. Who knows yeah right if is such a famous water maker situated didn't like put out a report being like we're all in on and that microbial like we're hedging our long the kind of but IT you but the same basic ah and the look down which I was yeah impressed by yeah I write a Better out where this is nobody else so I don't know amazing maybe you didn't .

tweet about IT enough because that looks at around did IT was cool to see that but you I don't know I want to make the common sense argument that oh, maybe I went down on this specific one just because it's come up so much but I feel that never stopped .

yeah I who know like there's a lot going on including you know my good strategy is in the middle of selling twenty one billion dollars of the stack. They all like four point six billion dollars of stack last week. It's now last week. Yeah.

actually was last week. How was this week? But time is a flood circle.

But the point is like they like this monday is a point six billion dollars of stock last week. They're probably doing roughly that clip this week. So like maybe like that like so a bunch of stock. In any case, there's sign stock buying. The kitchin is going up to hundred thousand dollars.

There is no reason that what they're doing should increase to bring him, but they take us that back if you're all in on bitcoin having enormous firepower to buy, a lot of the queen makes Better go up and that makes your strategy you look Better, right? If microstrip gy was buying biton and biton is going down like the annoying, 因为 but they are a bit on big, is Young up people. I go their genius is like they keep buying big and keeps going up. So it's like there is like a virtuous cycle component to at where like their enormous buying firepower give them some moments like both in terms of like the value of their assets and also in terms of like how they looked to the market because they looked like they're buying a thing that goes up.

Yeah well, good game. Michael sailor, ever. You are on your yard in miami.

Exchanges the goldman sax podcast features exchanges on rates, inflation and us recession risk exchanges on the market impact of A I for the sharpest analysis on forces driving the markets and the economy, count on exchanges between the leading minds at goldman sex new episodes every week. Listen now.

Hi, i'm ron Chris, skii chairman and city of Stephen financial advisers. You're not growing your practice. You're loosen market chair.

Stephen is a growing entrepreneurship advise centric firm built for successful advisors like you imagine having the resources of the largest warehouses and the support of the batik shops. But none of the bureaucracy to get in the way of you serving your clients at Stephen. It's your business, your book, your clients.

I always tell the advisers were recruiting. I want you to come to Stephen and double or triple your business. Most of them laugh and shake their heads, but i'm serious. Don't take IT from me. Take IT from number one finish in J D powers twenty twenty three us financial advisor satisfaction and study. So there's a reason why one hundred and forty eight financial advice join Stephen last year, tom, join us and find out why steel is the firm where need success is A W W W that choose S T I F V L that .

come corporate members, I P C N Y S C.

Shall we keep talking about short selling and short squeeze and europe this week that short squeeze are .

illegal now so this week about appeals card decision from last month this week yeah.

I was wondering like what's what's the yes.

things just sit on the backburner for around. And like, well, today I read about.

let's look at what happened last month.

You know, you can .

always be IT makes for .

a great podcast. Yeah, right? We love to be time. When I read this week about something, something husband, which is the appeals court IT, decided that it's okay to do a shirts.

So IT is is like companies most prominent over style com. I thought they ended that. Someone failed me with them.

This is companies do this thing from time to time where they try to freeze out their shorts. The company will get mad at shorts shells. They think, oh, there's naked shorts sell like theyll just be mad like people betting against them. And so they will say what we're going to do is we're going to give each shareholder some magic token.

Now it's a crypto thing like always like that, the cypher thing IT doesn't as we accurate to think I can be like a paper certificate saying you're entitled, you know ten percent of the company and you give them this magic thing in a way that can't be traded. So people who get the magic thing can't sell IT. And what that means is that short sellers can't buy IT.

And so if here a shirt tell you barred stack from someone else, you sold the stack shot and you owe the person, you barred the stack from the stock back and whatever else comes with the stocks. So of type is a divided. You have to pay them a dividend.

If there's a spin off, you have to give them chairs of the if the company gives out this magic token, then the shirt sellers, oh, the magic token back to their shared lenders. If they can't get the magic token because IT doesn't trade, then they can't fulfill their obligation and they fall into a black hole. That's the idea.

And so the effect of this is that you announce. So I we're going to pay this magic token in like a week. And then before token all the shirt, I say, oh, wait, if that happens, then i'll be in this black hole.

And so I have to buy back my stock now to avoid that. And so the short sellers all buy back their stock and the stock goes up. And the short seller is our side. And you as the CEO are happy because one, your stock went up. And Frankly, you are probably selling stock into that really because, of course, use this kind of see you but then to the short tellers lost money and like that's what you really wanted because you hate them.

And this is like a controversial thing because IT just so IT clearly is like a form of market, like you're creating artificial demand for the stock by doing this weird non trade a dividend that they clearly have the corporate finance purpose, like clearly giving people a non traded thing is not good for your shared lers prepared to giving the a traded thing. But you do IT to host the shirt sellers. And the S.

C. Hates IT and has brought frag charges against the company something like this. And when over stuck tried to do this a couple years ago, the S.

C. C. Kind of told them to pack IT off and said that to delay the dividend, ultimately, overstuff decided what is to a trade, a dident. And so what happened is they announced this weird magic token thing.

The short tellers got nervous, and I covered some of the shorts on the stack, went up, and the see of our sex saw a lot of his own personal stock into that, right? And then ultimately over x said that when I to do that, and they like when that time and they said, never mind because the ecc stopped them. But it's never been clear that it's illegal. And so some short sellers who got squeeze by overstock suit overstock and they lost. And the court said, well, this maybe create an artificial Price, but there is no deception involved like they said very clearly what they were doing and so if there's no deception at camping mark manipulation, we have nothing to do for so that's that's the current did that thinks .

so like you said, legal now yeah.

you know it's like it's the time circuit. It's not like where most security cases are brought. Is that clear what would happen at the sec? Radic ase, like this is private short sellers who no one really simplifies with. But yeah, kind of it's like this.

I feel like you wrote about this just so you could write about that guy that you love.

Yeah people come did an amazing short squeeze with these bonds that are detective's called the max zipes in like two dozen seven he body distressed pose because he thought they're going investment and then like he found out that his prime worker was also shorting them and he got so mad, which was rude.

And he got so mad that he bought up more and more bonds until he he owned like one hundred and thirteen percent of the bds because I know we buy all the bonds and then the the prime worker would be like, i'm going to short some more bonds and fell out kind of the guy bothers to and he ended up owning more than one hundred percent of the bonds and then he like called in his bar, like he called the prime vikrant said, I want on my bonds that you owe me and the prime broker is like, okay, i'll to find them and the praying worker tried to buy them, and there was no one selling. And so ultimately they got on a call with filth on, and I just keep a beating sometimes you are just on the wrong side of the trade, which is amazing. yeah.

And then pillow also said, somebody owns more than one hundred percent of these bonds, which is part the way you can buy them. And the pm workers like, what? How do you know that?

Because I god.

And then the cc suit and said he was and he got troll.

I do love him sending them on just a wild goose chase.

Only just, just keep .

hitting a lot of life lessons there. Did he make money? ultimately? I mean.

the suit like this subject and problems, we were probably not worth the time in the long round. yeah. D that's good.

And also he did win something which is very real and that is frequent mantons .

in the money. So colum, well, the problem is that, like, I don't think he did anything really deceptive, but he wasn't like going around telling everyone that he was in more than all of the bonds until he'd actually done that was in. But there is some difference between that.

And like over that case where it's like these companies are really, really clear and they like we're gonna ta get those shirts. And so there's like no deception at all there. Sometimes there is like sometimes there like a little coy about IT because dcc doesn't like I just say i'm going to go out and turn the shorts, but like they can be that code because they really hate shorts sellers. And so they really twitter excited for us learned about this decision.

and I feel like he's a little bit easier now.

I think he is not spending a lot of time thinking about how much he hates short sellers right now, but I am fairly confident that the time will come again when elan musk spends lot of time thinking about how much hit short sellers yeah and when he does, there's like a whole new technology for him. Be good at IT.

To that point, carston block for muddy waters was on bloomberg television sometime on thursday, and he said that he does expect more and t short seller retour c under trump the exact quotes we've already had some rhetoric, we might have some more anti short cellar rhetoric he didn't note. He doesn't think that trump h and muscle ve, that short sellers are sponsible for their company socks fallowing. Ea, but we know the mate shorter, yeah.

by the way. P no eons yeah. The chief executive officer of trump, dian teos gy group, has like written letters to congress about all the naked short sellers are getting our stock, which I think that is very, very, very hard to argue that this stack of trap media and technology group has been systematically manipulated down to refit less than it's one in a little value. But you know there's like go there's weird files, there's naked short selling. So you've already seen from the truth cap a increasing at a short telomeres and including, like the government say they go just happened in my financial career Better, right? And now with the money stop the cast, I not love .

you and i'm kid grave.

You can find my work by subscribing to the money stop news letter blimber er dot com.

And you can find me on bloomberg TV every day on open interest between nine to eleven, a esten we'd love .

to hear from you. You can send an email to money part. I blumberg T T ask you a question and we might answer IT on there.

You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening right now and leave us a review. IT helps more people find .

the show the money the fox is produced by animals or acas and moses on .

on our the music was composed by black. Maples brand Frances.

thanks for listen to the money stuff podcast will be back next week with more stuff.

Banks, we're listening to the money south podcast. If you never want to a miss a story, become a bloomer dock comes subscriber today. Check out our special intro offer right now a blooming er docs flash podcast offer or click the link in our showers. Tes, you're also unlike deep reporting data and analysis from reporters around the world.