BC BUSINESS
Saved by @WebbDarrrel

There’s rumour about confidential negotiations btn the Biden admin and the German gov. Their goal: to find a way out of the mess in which the whole transatlantic community finds itself because of Merkel’s support for Putin’s pipeline—Nord Stream 2

 2/ The preferred solution for the Biden team would be to deny Putin the ability to exercise energy blackmail against Central Europe and Ukraine, while at the same time foregoing sanctions against Germany.
3/ Early in his career, Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony @SecBlinken had analyzed the decision of the Reagan administration not to levy sanctions against West Europeans for building the Siberian pipeline with the Soviets.
4/ See for example: https://t.co/boZefawDEV
5/ Reagan decided to take a step back, calculating that the unity of the West was more important than the gas pipeline. Not even Lady Thatcher supported Reagan’s policy.
6/ It is no surprise that Biden is seeking a way out of a rather uncomfortable dilemma—how to protect Europe’s energy security without sanctioning a crucial ally. But drawing inspiration from a policy rooted in circumstances typical of 1980s could be a fool’s errand.
7/ The political map of Europe looks much different today. Germany’s credibility, after it pushed for building #NS2 despite Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, is in tatters. Berlin is no position to offer cover from the grave threats associated with NS2.
8/ Perhaps crucially, unlike the Siberian pipeline, Nord Stream 2 is a project that is deeply divisive and has long been opposed by U.S. allies in Europe.
9/ The German government went to great lengths in creating a body of lies about the true nature of #NS2 to silence allies, its own public opinion & EU institutions. In 2019 in Munich, Chancellor #Merkel argued that halting NS2 would mean „loosing” #Russia to #China.
10/ Fast forward to 2021–is Berlin trying to buy American consent to finish NS2 in exchange for holding back from sealing a deal between China and the German car industry? CC: @bueti @AnnaFotyga_PE
11/ It would be worth the effort, because the truth is ugly. NS2 is a vintage tool of Kremlin’s business model, a nexus of politics, business & crime.
12/ Soviet Union was not as capable of exporting corruption to Europe and of money laundering as Putin’s Russia is. I doubt whether instead of sanctioning NS2 Americans would be willing to blacklist Gerhard Schroeder—a true icon of Putinist brand of corruption.
13/ And yet to ignore it would mean to seriously undermine the credibility of the 46th president of the United States who vowed that on his watch, America would lead a global struggle to root out corruption. What exactly would this mean, if NS2 is allowed to go forward?
14/ America’s credibility would be further damaged if safeguards from Putin’s attempts at energy blackmail were negotiated only with Germany, without the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland. „Nothing about us without us” is the region’s oldest democratic principle.
15/ If the Biden administration wants to avoid sanctioning Germany, it should be talking to Warsaw, Tallin and Kyiv, asking them about necessary guarantees. Without it, the U.S. officials would become mere subcontractors for the Kremlin.
16/ Central Europeans and Ukrainians do not desire Russian gas. And yet Germany is going out of its way to ensure that it would be indispensable, revving up EU climate policy and opposing Poland’s plans to add nuclear power to its energy mix.
17/ The uneasy truth is that sanctions against Nord Stream 2 are the best tool to hold in check Kremlin’s (and indirectly also China’s) attempts to wield influence over Europe.
18/ If Biden administration decides to shelve this tool, it will find itself in need to fill the credibility void orchestrated by Berlin. It will become an involuntary custodian of all that is wrong in German-Russian energy alliance. It will be endorsing a toxic relationship.
19/ And it will make America irrelevant as an energy player in this part of the world. With additional 55bcm of gas available annually via Putin’s pipeline, who would care about marketing additional deliveries of LNG?
20/ Furthermore, America’s support for the Three Seas Initiative—currently enjoying bipartisan support in Congress, and rightly so—would ring hollow. NS2 is completely incompatible with all the TSI stands for. A policy pursued by all U.S. admins since 1989 would be put to rest.
21/ The prevailing view among analysts and commentators is that Biden is not interested in another „reset” with Putin’s Russia. This may well be accurate, these aren't Biden’s instincts. But he might just be sleepwalking into one if he allows NS2 to proceed—at a hefty price. END.

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My top 10 tweets of the year

A thread 👇

https://t.co/xj4js6shhy


https://t.co/b81zoW6u1d


https://t.co/1147it02zs


https://t.co/A7XCU5fC2m
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The basics: Rs 6017 Cr being raised by new shares (Rs 3750) & re-selling (Rs 2267). Face value Rs 2 offered at Rs ~1000 per share is one of a kind. Who decides the price? Examine the valuation ladder below.
With ~$ 150 Mn invested till 2017, we see $ 525 Mn rushes in after 2018


So, a company valued $1 Bn in 2018 & $ 1.5 Bn in 2019 by key investors like Tencent, suddenly “needs money” in March 2021. Falcon Edge “invests” all of $ 75 Mn in March at valuation of $ 2.65 Bn.
Enter IPO bankers a couple of months later & they value the company at $ 6.2 Bn

Why does PolicyBazaar need $ 75 Mn just 6 months before IPO & give away 2.5 times in returns? And it doesn’t even use that money as the B/S reflects appx Rs 1000 Cr in cash lying around.
What kind of a favor is that? Why do they need US investment bank for this just before IPO?

Notice 50% rise in shareholding of promotors here & a 1: 500 bonus share issue. After all, how do you print money & still keep share price at “reasonable” Rs 1000?
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Time for a stiff drink and some stuff you might not want to hear.

A thread 👇

Most real estate influencers spend 99% of their time trying to sound smart.

They purposely make things too complicated.

When you do this for a while you can tell if a property is worth buying with a napkin and 30 seconds.

The problem with being a big real estate PE firm:

You need to do good deals year after year and deploy 10s or 100s of millions in capital.

It’s a hamster wheel making others wealthy.

The advantage of being you:

One building like this can change your life.


Buying real estate that doesn’t cashflow well because values have risen 10% / yr for 10 yrs while wages have risen 3% / yr for 10 yrs is very risky.

I don’t care how long your interest rate is “fixed” for.

Markets are cyclical. Trends change. Bankruptcy is real.

If you don’t know anyone with money and you have less than $250k of your own cash real estate isn’t the best way to make money.

Even a $500k property (like the one pictured above) requires $150k down and another $100k in cash reserves.
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Nadya Ivanova
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Some key takeaways from the report & my personal observations a/t #NFTs. A long-ish 🧵👇:

MARKET SIZE: The NFT market had a historic 2020 - tripled in value, reaching $250m (in terms of value of all #Ethereum transactions on chain, so actual market size is even bigger). This is rapid growth for a space that’s just a few years old.


Market is still volatile & prone to speculation but more sophisticated use cases are emerging based on utility, community, competitive elements. All are prerequisites for a more mature market. For all the hype around crypto, it is #NFTs that offer some of the more promising uses.

USERS: # of users transacting NFTs is up. So is interest in NFTs more broadly - using Twitter activity as a proxy, the uptick in interest is clear & rose 5x in Nov 2017- Sept 2020 (similar trajectory for #DeFi btw). BUT it's important to remember this is still a niche ecosystem.


PROFIT: Some NFT #Traders are commanding profits in the 100s of thousands. Again, this is still a niche activity. There are high barriers to entry (incl. technological) for non-crypto enthusiasts + asset prices are going up very fast. It's still hard to price and value NFTs.
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[THREAD]


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