Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 250 posts

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#131

Post by bfgoodrich »

skippyboxedhero wrote: post #67
nostrademons wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually not. Typically in a bankruptcy the debtholders become the new shareholders and then replace existing management with ones more friendly to their interests.

That wouldn't happen in this case because there would still be residual value in the equity. Is Twitter worth $45bn? No. Is Twitter worth more than the $13bn in debt? Yes. In this case, they can file, rollover the debt into a new company with no financial loss and then recap the equity with Musk (who obviously has the money to do so) and other shareholders. Also, the banks who own the debt do not want to run Twitter.…

If Twitter fell like every other social media, it would have barely been worth $20B when Musk closed the deal. Add the mass destruction Musk has wrought, coupled with the fact that the debt holders have been trying to offload the debt at a discount, and there is a very real probability Twitter, if independently valuated, is worth less than the debt.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#133

Post by CottonMcKnight »

chasing wrote: post #36

Reputation matters.

The Trump Organization got away with doing this in New York for decades. He'd stiff one real estate developer figuring there was always another who would be star-struck by the "opportunity" to work with him. (He was right.)

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#134

Post by amalcon »

oneoff786 wrote: post #127
amalcon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Twitter currently has loan payments in excess of last year's profits could be a factor. Delaying means they will be more likely to be entangled in a bankruptcy and potentially get a worse outcome if they are. Even a low probability bankruptcy would encourage some urgency.

I don’t know anything about Twitter’s books but Loan payments in excess of profits doesn’t mean you’re insolvent. It doesn’t even mean you’re losing money. You can be gaining money each year while paying more in loans than you take home in profit.

The key thing here is that the loan payments are new, and are greater than profits were before the loan payments. That doesn't necessarily mean they are losing money -- revenue could have increased, or costs decreased, to make up the difference. Losing money also wouldn't mean they're insolvent -- that only happens once liabilities exceed assets.

Still, it's definitely a signal that creditors will take note of. Good luck renting an apartment as an individual with books that look like that.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#135

Post by kurthr »

api wrote: post #92
Someone wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their policies aren’t exactly written in stone. Yes, on November 11, it was ( https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-... ) “an email to employees from Musk on Wednesday night ordering workers to stop working from home and show up in the office Thursday morning” , but that was ages ago. Last week, we got ( https://nypost.com/2022/12/30/twitter-closing-seattle-office... ): “Twitter is closing down…

Didn't they do that trick of pretending to end remote work to make people resign so they don't have to pay severance?

Pay severance... hahahahah!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/twitter-m...

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#136

Post by Retric »

mikro2nd wrote: post #43
hn_go_brrrrr wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At which point Musk wouldn't own Twitter anymore, like he wanted. It sounds crazy, but is this his exit strategy?

How does he recover 44B this way?

He “recovers” the value of the loans he defaults on, which could easily be worth more than Twitter at this point.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#137

Post by spamizbad »

criley2 wrote: post #95
phpisthebest wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be interested in knowing how many other tenants this landlord has chosen to file suit on when the tenant is 7 days over due (in default in 21st, filed the suit on the 29th)? Seem very aggressive. I wonder if politics has any bearing on their choice to file? Or the fact that Elon has publicly been considering closing the SanFran HQ?

[flagged]

It’s really not just an Elon or Trump thing. I used to work for a firm that did market feasibility studies and we had some multi-millionaire developers that didn’t pay us for our work despite having the cash to do it. And we are talking about a mere $9000.

You couldn’t send it to collections so you had to just politely nag them until they got sick of you calling and paid their bills. The process took about a year and maybe 50 very nice phone calls.

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#138

Post by drc37 »

My biggest question is: who cares? Lot’s of people in this community (and the media) love to pounce on people and companies who don’t think the same as them. These people/groups talk about being inclusive right up and until the others don’t share their points of view. It’s exhausting

There are 1,000s of companies across the country do this very same thing without any fan fare.

Just stop it!!!

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#139

Post by darth_avocado »

starkd wrote: post #79
jmyeet wrote: post #69

Some claim Twitter is attempting to renegotiate. That may well be true. But this doesn't fit in well with the greater narrative. Since Elon's takeover of Twitter, it's been one PR disaster after the next. Mass layoffs, begging people to come back, cutting remote work, cutting in-office catering, the whole Twitter Blue debacle, unbanning some of the worst, the drop of advertising spend on Twitter (which, at least in p…

They had to cut costs to keep away from the "fast lane to bankruptcy". When not pulling in enough revenue, you have to act quickly. https://youtu.be/HE5CTKqWEV0?t=3570 Wasn't twitter supposed to stop working by now? They are still functioning, despite the layoffs. Maybe it worked?

> Wasn't twitter supposed to stop working by now? They are still functioning, despite the layoffs. Maybe it worked?

It is mostly because the people left are working twice as much, long hours, holidays, weekends. And if you actually use the app, half the things aren’t working. Plus, your argument is more like “I fired the gardener after he tended the yard, it’s been a week, the yard looks just fine. Maybe I didn’t need the gardener?”

Re: Twitter Sued for Nonpayment of Rent on San Francisco Office

#140

Post by rubyist5eva »

nrp wrote: post #104

It’s not made obvious by the article, but this lawsuit is for non-payment on a lease of one floor of 650 California St, not for non-payment on the 1355 Market St headquarters. They are also not paying rent at the latter, so presumably another lawsuit is coming. My assumption though is that they have already vacated the now extraneous space at 650 California and will settle with the landlord to break the lease.

[flagged]
Post reply on HN