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Taking Tesla Private

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Re: Taking Tesla Private

#151

Post by ChicagoDave »

Tomte wrote: post #123
S_A_P wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Your last sentence seems to sum up the motive here in my opinion, not so much to screw the short sellers, but to limit/stop the ability of them to influence the value of the company through whatever means.

Short sellers aren‘t evil. They are a mechanism how the public trade exchange improves its estimate how much a company is worth. After the very ugly financial news over the last months (but probably true — nobody has credibly refuted them), it‘s not hard to see why Musk and the less rational part of his supporters would love to see short sellers disappear, and „punished“.

I wouldn't say "evil" either. I just think some of the short sellers have motivations beyond straight financial business modeling.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#152

Post by gknoy »

orcdork wrote: post #138
gameswithgo wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just go ahead and like the guy!

He's smart, and also a monumental dickwad. I'd expect people that dislike him to do so for the latter, not the former. (i'm on that boat too)

> also a monumental dickwad

I admit that I've never scrutinized his actions very closely, but I've never gotten that impression. Would you be willing to elaborate on why you feel that way?

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#153

Post by stcredzero »

dangjc wrote: post #103

It's a sign public equity markets aren't structured well that companies aren't encouraged to think long term. The most successful companies in today's markets don't even allow common shareholders to control the company, ie Google and Facebook with their special classes of controlling shares. We might need to reconsider changing laws around choosing board seats or requiring shareholders to have minimum holding times i…

The public won't get to participate.

It's already partly to this point. The general public can participate in a meaningful way, so long as they start to scrimp and save directly out of school.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#154

Post by explorigin »

Elon fashions himself a super hero: Batteries to Australia and Puerto Rico, A pledge to fix Flint's water quality and a submarine to rescue the boys in the cave.

Super heroes rock when they really do super things, but Elon flew off the handle with the last one when he called the master diver a pedophile all because his idea wasn't the one they used.

Having someone at the helm that is volatile like this is bad for a public company, but a private company would be able to shrug off embarrassing events such as these much easier.

Elon might be doing it to save his job.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#155

Post by Keyframe »

Interesting. Bloomberg's Sebastian Boyd said:

Incidentally, Tesla has a free-float of 127.5 million shares. At $420 a share, that would cost you $53.6 billion. The company already has net debt of of $8.8 billion and an adjusted net leverage ratio of 13 times. Were it to be bought in a management-led LBO, a back-of-the envelope calculation would give it a leverage ratio of over 90 times, worse on a trailing 12-month basis. You can't run a company on math like that.

So, either it's happening based on persuasion and belief (with Saudis as rumoured) or it's an attack against shorts and a bluff in which case SEC's rule 10b-5 might come into play and then... In any case, interesting.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#156

Post by dunpeal »

sulam wrote: post #81
dunpeal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of things can go wrong with a deal this size, but yes, unless he's bluffing, this most likely will happen.

He has to find financing. There’s not that many entities that can finance a deal of this magnitude.

Of course, but everything he says implies he has the funding. Announcing this before funding is in place (the most crucial piece of this puzzle) would be incredibly irresponsible.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#157

Post by jonknee »

CydeWeys wrote: post #117
take4 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CNBC reports that none of the Wall Street banks it contacted were aware of any transaction or had committed to funding a leveraged buyout of Tesla.

Does that prove anything though? Let's imagine a bank is working on this deal; why would they tell a reporter? It's common for companies to deny things to the press even when they're true.

It's Wall Street and there would be rumors if someone was shopping the largest LBO ever. It's not like there are a lot of places you can go for this service, Tesla isn't going to back out on the deal because it leaked your bank has met with Elon.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#158

Post by mehblahwhatevs »

ISL wrote: post #62
peeters wrote: post #35

The main question I have is about financing. If Elon owns 20% of the company now, and he doesn't intend for that to change, and he is giving the option of public shareholders to sell at $420, then who is financing this? Usually a private takeover requires a partnership with a huge private equity firm. Wouldn't releasing this without having (or identifying) that partner be premature? And wouldn't the resulting stabili…

He wouldn't make such an announcement without having backers lined up.

Have you seen his tweets in just the past month or two?

He's called a rescue diver a pedo and cried "fake news" when journalists have questioned Tesla's financials.

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#159

Post by gvb »

patrickaljord wrote: post #78
nine_k wrote: post #16

> As a public company, we are subject to wild swings in our stock price that can be a major distraction for everyone working at Tesla, all of whom are shareholders. Being public also subjects us to the quarterly earnings cycle that puts enormous pressure on Tesla to make decisions that may be right for a given quarter, but not necessarily right for the long-term. > SpaceX is a perfect example: it is far more operatio…

Isn't SpaceX success due to the fact that most of its orders come from the US government while Tesla has to compete in the free market and isn't that successful there?

By my count, there have been 25 US Government (including NASA) launches and 38 other launches - about 40% US Government, 60% other.

Ref: https://www.spacex.com/missions

Re: Taking Tesla Private

#160

Post by RankingMember »

peeters wrote: post #130
Diederich wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, totally random thought, but I figured I'd record it, even though it doesn't seem to make sense. Bezos?

What, timed with an announcement of a merger between Blue Origin and SpaceX? :)

That wouldn't be the worst idea in the world considering the cost of spaceflight to begin with and the duplicate work they're undoubtedly doing.
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