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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

#91

Post by aaronax »

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 about Cooperative business models?

Tech industry examples:

NISC, makes software for electric and telecom cooperatives (disclosure, I am a new employee here)

Tessitura, makes software for event ticket sales

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

#92

Post by ceejayoz »

robomartin wrote: post #73
regularfry wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even charities have to operate at a profit. Without this they would not have people, offices, marketing and the means to perform their stated charitable objectives. This is factually incorrect. Charities (at least in the UK) are legally prohibited from making a profit.

How do they pay for salaries, operating expenses, building rent, vehicle purchases, electricity, marketing, etc? They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover these expenses. Right? Well, this is semantics. A conventional business does exactly the same thing. They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover the cost of doing business. Laws for non-profits generally allow for such things. Which…

> How do they pay for salaries, operating expenses, building rent, vehicle purchases, electricity, marketing, etc? They take a percentage of their income and use it to cover these expenses. Right?

Sure. Revenue minus expenses = profit/loss. "Net income", "bottom line", etc.

Make more than you expend, and you've got a profit. Spend more than you make, and you've got a loss. Equalize them, and you've got no profit and no loss.

Businesses can optimize for profit. Charities are allowed to have a profit, but they don't get to distribute it to shareholders like a business can; it stays with the charity. It's legal for a charity to have a rainy day fund and a positive bank balance, but their legal purpose is not to run it up.

Churches in the US get funky at times, and I'm of the opinion that the IRS should be empowered to crack down the abuses of the non-profit status you highlight, but if they're spending their revenue on buildings, staff, etc., they're eating into their profits when they do so.

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

#93

Post by SirSourdough »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #66
mywittyname wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10% of their income is likely the majority of their profits, which are probably in the neighborhood of 10-15%.

A charity does not make any profit. The point being that, approximately, for every £10 that they get through donations or any other source, £9 goes to costs and £1 to actual charitable activities. Personally I would not donate to such a charity.

How does the fact that RPi produces a physical product factor into this? If I contribute money to a charity that distributes that money directly to people in need, then I expect a high portion of that money to go to charity, but I don’t know that that is a fair expectation when most people “donate” to RPi by buying a low margin physical product. It’s not a pure charitable contribution to buy a Pi. But maybe I don’t understand how the costs are broken out between the foundation and RPi Trading.

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

#94

Post by adrian_mrd »

regularfry wrote: post #67
adrian_mrd wrote: post #62

So what is the distinction between Raspberry Pi Trading and Raspberry Pi Foundation from an organisational/legal perspective? Is Raspberry Pi Foundation an entity or sub-entity of Raspberry Pi Trading, or just an affiliated organisation where Ebon Upton has roles in both organisations?

Other way round. Raspberry Pi Trading is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Thanks, so why would Raspberry Pi Trading become a publicly tradeable company then?

Or would the Foundation then have to divest of its ownership of Raspberry Pi Trading once it is listed?

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

#95

Post by gertrunde »

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 mentioned in the article itself, the RPi Foundation is the charity at the root of the organisation, and RPi Trading is a wholly owned subsidiary of that charity.

I have no links whatsoever to any RPi organisation of any sort, so this is purely guesswork, but I could imagine that operations have grown to the point where they are interfering with (or at least a distraction from) their original educational mission.

Perhaps this move is to offload that distraction and allow them to re-focus on the original idea?

Why must it be assumed that this is a greedy move that works against their mission?

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

#96

Post by SirSourdough »

robomartin wrote: post #82
et15 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I have self-funded, founded and run multiple businesses in the last 40 years. What I post does not come from a 30 second google session. It comes from having had significant skin in the game, succeeding and failing. Most people think they understand business. And most people have never run a non-trivial business. It's like trying to explain what it is like to fly like a bird without being a bird. Most simply can't ge…

If you had just Googled for 30 seconds to learn the definitions of literally the most basic business terms when someone told you you were wrong, maybe you wouldn’t have had to mortgage the house.

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

#97

Post by gchadwick »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #69
gchadwick wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spend a few minutes digging into the accounts ( https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFounda... ) this appears to have a reasonable explanation. The other 90% gets classed as 'fund-raising', what is actually is is money going into raspberry pi trading. rpi trading made a profit of around £10m which goes back as income into the charity and has mostly been spent on charitable activities. I'm not…

Your explanation does not make sense. If the commercial subsidiary is here to make them money then it should appear under "income", not "expenditure", and it probably does just not explicitly in that pie chart (it's probably under 'other' or 'other trading activities'). Expenditure is what the charity spends its money on, that is, costs (offices, personel, fund-raising activities, etc) and charitable activities. Anyo…

The explanation comes from the accounts I linked to which give more details than the pie chart.

> If the trading arm is there to make them money then it should appear under "income", not "expenditure"

It does see page 15 (PDF page 17), the foundation lists an income of £71,436,388 from 'Other trading activities', if you follow the note (3) it clarifies that this is entirely from rpi trading.

A bunch of money then goes on to expenditure to cover the trading arm's costs. Which are indeed substantial as it's an engineering organization with lots of production to pay for along with staff salaries and other R&D costs, these are broken down in note 6, page 28 (PDF page 30).

The profit the trading arm makes then comes back to the foundation which is shown in note 5, page 27 (PDF page 29) as 'other income'

So yes it is a little complex, you've got the flow of revenue coming into the foundation, out to trading then back in again but it doesn't look like there's any untoward going on. Simply the charity is taking the strategy of running a profit making company to fund its charitable activities.

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

#98

Post by mytailorisrich »

gchadwick wrote: post #97
mytailorisrich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your explanation does not make sense. If the commercial subsidiary is here to make them money then it should appear under "income", not "expenditure", and it probably does just not explicitly in that pie chart (it's probably under 'other' or 'other trading activities'). Expenditure is what the charity spends its money on, that is, costs (offices, personel, fund-raising activities, etc) and charitable activities. Anyo…

The explanation comes from the accounts I linked to which give more details than the pie chart. > If the trading arm is there to make them money then it should appear under "income", not "expenditure" It does see page 15 (PDF page 17), the foundation lists an income of £71,436,388 from 'Other trading activities', if you follow the note (3) it clarifies that this is entirely from rpi trading. A bunch of money then goe…

OK, so the accounts of the foundation conflate the foundation and the trading subsidiary. That's complex, indeed.

Considering that the raspberry pi product is developed by the commercial subsidiary and sold commercial this at best muddies the water, and is very misleading.

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

#99

Post by blacksmith_tb »

aaronax wrote: post #91
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…

How about Cooperative business models? Tech industry examples: NISC, makes software for electric and telecom cooperatives (disclosure, I am a new employee here) Tessitura, makes software for event ticket sales

Can't float the idea of worker cooperatives without tossing Mondragón[1] into the mix!

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

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

#100

Post by my123 »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #74
my123 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost of production/R&D of the Raspberry Pis.

My understanding is that this is what Rapsberry Pi Trading Ltd does.

The accounts as shown by that side are consolidated, and include the trading subsidiary.
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