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Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

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Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#51

Post by consumer451 »

detaro wrote: post #8
Digory wrote: post #7

Obviously, this gets handled under UK charity law, not US — but I wonder if this would fly in the US. Charities can own for-profit entities, but pay taxes on the Unrelated Business Income. But this is closer to a for-profit hospital conversion on steroids, where the driver becomes the profit, not the the charity. There’s a very obvious conflict of interest between the charity, management, and the public investors, wh…

Related: Some US states have "public benefit corporations", that can (have to) put other goals over stockholders. Can those IPO?

User m-watson's comment made me look up if any B Corps have gone public and there certainly are IPOs. [1] Including subsidiaries of majors like Coca Cola. The few I looked up listed on NASDAQ and had overall flat performance. Which I guess is what you would expect?

Disclaimer: I am an investment neophyte, would love to be corrected or expanded upon.

[1] https://kb.bimpactassessment.net/en/support/solutions/articl...

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#52

Post by advisedwang »

jt2190 wrote: post #24

I’m deeply confused by this article: Is there a single entity acting as both a producer/seller of computers, and as a not-for-profit? Or are there two distinct entities? (This would be a similar to the Kellogg Trust/Foundation here in then U.S., owner of the cereal company.)

Two separate entitites (you can see the two separate registration numbers on https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/). The charity owns the for-profit.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#53

Post by robomartin »

ceejayoz wrote: post #40
robomartin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission. You cannot have any kind of a company without profit. Period. I am not sure where the vilification of profit comes from (not addressing you in particular but rather the general concept), its just silly. Companies have layers upon layers of costs in their financial equation. Employees and ongoing operational expenses being the…

> Provide the names of ten companies of non-trivial scale who have operated with zero or near zero profit for, say, 25 years, without external donations or other financial inputs to make-up for the lack of profit. Most restaurants. Many did, indeed, "instantly lay off massive numbers of employees, shut down operations, cancel leases and contracts, etc." during the pandemic as a result. Amazon made basically no profit…

Your example is a precise representation of just how little people understand business.

Restaurants: Shitty business. Most are constantly gasping for air. Yet, they do make a profit, which they use to hire people, pay for supplies, rent, etc. and keep the doors open. If they do not make a profit their choices are reduced to two simple paths: Close the doors or go get money (loan or investor). A lot of restaurant operators are up to their necks in loans, second mortgages, etc.

In many ways restaurants are the best example of why good profits are important. Those who do not generate substantial profits are nothing but a brutal slog. Those who do, thrive, grow and expand.

Amazon: C'mon. Please. They plowed PROFITS back into the business. Their annual net revenue was zero or near zero for a long time. It should be way beyond self-evident that you can't grow a business like Amazon without profits. Are you suggesting Amazon grew WITHOUT PROFITS? Seriously?

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#54

Post by cmeacham98 »

missedthecue wrote: post #29
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

As if companies aren't profit/growth motivated prior to floating their shares...?

I'm not sure how it is over in the UK, but here in the US publicly traded companies are expected to always do whatever makes their shareholders money. Investors can even sue companies if they believe the company is acting against their financial interests.

Companies have some leeway in how to interpret this goal, but publicly traded companies will only ever do the "right thing" if it is a net positive (or at least neutral) for their shareholders.

Owners of privately owned companies, on the other hand, can choose to do things they believe are good, even if it will be a net negative after factoring in the potential good PR.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#55

Post by et15 »

robomartin wrote: post #53
ceejayoz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Provide the names of ten companies of non-trivial scale who have operated with zero or near zero profit for, say, 25 years, without external donations or other financial inputs to make-up for the lack of profit. Most restaurants. Many did, indeed, "instantly lay off massive numbers of employees, shut down operations, cancel leases and contracts, etc." during the pandemic as a result. Amazon made basically no profit…

Your example is a precise representation of just how little people understand business. Restaurants: Shitty business. Most are constantly gasping for air. Yet, they do make a profit, which they use to hire people, pay for supplies, rent, etc. and keep the doors open. If they do not make a profit their choices are reduced to two simple paths: Close the doors or go get money (loan or investor). A lot of restaurant oper…

I think you're still confusing revenue and profits. This guide is a good overview of the difference: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/122214/what-differe...

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#57

Post by beckman466 »

0des wrote: post #30
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO? It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen.. We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the custome…

> How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO?

venture communism instead of venture capitalism?

peer-to-peer communism instead of the client server state?

http://media.telekommunisten.net/manifesto.pdf

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#58

Post by devmor »

0des wrote: post #30
jacknews wrote: post #9

RIP RPi. I thought the whole idea was to produce boards, priced near cost, for educational/inspirational purposes? ie to give today's kids the same kind of intro to computers (you have to program it) as kids enjoyed with the home computers of the 80's. The profit motive inherent to a public company does not seem compatible with that mission.

How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO? It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen.. We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the custome…

>It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen..

Because it is, and you explained exactly why:

>We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the customers/users/supporters that got them there.

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#59

Post by marktangotango »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #26
mikewarot wrote: post #10

It would be nice if they where an open source hardware company. They don't publish the full schematics of anything, which makes it impossible to do low level programming of the thing in a reasonable manner. I'm going to use up the hardware I bought in ignorance, and find better stuff for the future. https://github.com/raspberrypi/documentation/issues/347

> They don't publish the full schematics of anything, which makes it impossible to do low level programming of the thing in a reasonable manner The schematics aren't so much the issue. It's the lack of documentation for the SoC and other components. The Raspberry Pi is a great learning platform and I think the Raspberry Pi foundation made the right choice in using the Broadcom parts, even if they are relatively close…

> documentation for the SoC and other components

Exactly; they're basically reselling discount (or below cost) Broadcom SOCs. I'm pretty sure Broadcom will not continue that arrangement!

Re: Raspberry Pi Trading plans £370m+ stock market IPO

#60

Post by 0des »

brighton36 wrote: post #47
0des wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we stop this cycle where it's a (well-deserved) reluctant goodbye every time a company we like seeks to go public and IPO? It's like the writing's on the wall and we already know what's going to happen.. We're in a segment of time where companies are so over-valued by VC that when they go public they have no choice but to engage in egregious practices to maintain the stock price. It often alienates the custome…

Imo, it's a flaw in our model. If 'fighting them' failed, then, we should join them. Here, that would mean participation in the ipo, in the style of gamestop. Push the p/e ratio to something completely absurd. Maybe it'll fail as a result. (Thus begetting a libre office, response to an open office initiative.)

Hello, I think your account's ability to post and be seen is being interfered with, as all your comments are greyed as soon as you post, and I had to 'vouch' for this post in order to reply, thought you should know, because this was an otherwise insightful comment.
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