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Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

reuters.com

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Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#251

Post by elzbardico »

xp84 wrote: post #90
c2h5oh wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of EU population. Even in US debit is more popular than credit in 18-25 age bracket.

(Frame of reference: US only) That's a shame, given 18-25 is just the age where a credit card skimmer or online card fraud causing a big fraudulent withdrawal from your checking account, and weeks of waiting to get it back, could be devastating. This has happened to people in my family (likely from gas stations) but we only use credit cards except to pull cash from ATMs, so we only suffer a temporary dip in our avail…

Really, this is a non-existing problem in most places outside the US. Are you still using magnetic stripes?????

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#252

Post by steveBK123 »

marssaxman wrote: post #101
steveBK123 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are young, you want to use a credit card to protect yourself and build credit history. Using a debit card, in the event of fraudulent charges, the money is already gone from your bank account and now you are negotiating with your bank to get it back. With a credit card, you file the claim and its generally resolved before your statement closes and anything is due. Your card will also be immediately cancelled, so…

That has not been my experience at all. I've been using debit cards for all my everyday non-cash purchases for about thirty years now, and it's worked just fine. I expect to keep doing it indefinitely. I have had exactly one encounter with fraud: a vindinctive ex-girlfriend stole my card info and had herself a little shopping spree, emptying my checking account. I walked into the credit union branch, filed a report,…

> All the stolen money was restored within a few days. It was not a big deal.

You just agreed with my premise but that in your case the dollar amount was low enough to be inconsequential. If someone ran up $5k of charges on your card right before you needed to pay rent/mortgage/whatever, this would have been far more annoying.

Also - credit card protects you from this scenario, for free, or in fact pays you money with any of the cash back cards.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#253

Post by jgalt212 »

pm90 wrote: post #204
yalogin wrote: post #183

Wow why did it go for so much less than the last valuation? Is the overall market turning bad or is it just a Brex thing?

Investors will only invest in AI plays. They don’t seem to care for fintech.

Probably true, but our fintech still gets tons of unsolicited emails from growth equity shops. I don't respond because as you mentioned this sector is out of favor, and as such the multiples are not worth my time.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#254

Post by hopelite »

zamfi wrote: post #198
itake wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how the employees faired. Seems like they may bet getting nothing out of the deal if the investors get their money back.

These days, most employees getting nothing out of the deal is par for the course for acquisitions, unfortunately. The acquisition price is almost never exchanged directly for shares in the company as implied, often a chunk of it is kept for key personnel retention, etc. Typically just enough goes towards the share purchase to make investors happy, and the rest is structured as incentives for founders and key execs wi…

[dead]

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#257

Post by weird-eye-issue »

yurishimo wrote: post #248
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your moral dilemma your assertion is that the credit card companies are only making money off of people who aren't paying off their cards each month which must mean that people like me are costing them money by paying off each month. Since I'm costing these evil companies money then don't I have a moral obligation to continue using my credit card? As for saying that the argument that using credit cards because the…

Credit card companies make money from interest on debt. That is undisputed. To pay out your rewards, they need to make a profit above and beyond what it takes to run the business such that they can afford to give you 2% back. This leads to higher interest rates for everyone that are approaching usurious (imo). Your circular argument about costing the evil company money therefore makes your purchases justified, doesn'…

> Your circular argument about costing the evil company money therefore makes your purchases justified, doesn't make sense.

You are saying they make money off of interest which of course is correct. But I don't pay any interest so by your own logic I'm not contributing to this evil company's profit so how is it a moral dilemma? And how is my argument circular?

> The rest of the western world is proof that you do not need debt to participate fully in society.

I'm not advocating for debt. In fact I have no debt, I even own my house outright. Don't try to argue against things that I never even said :)

The main argument that people who seem upset at my original comment keep making is about how they don't want to take on debt to buy something. Well I absolutely agree. I save and invest the majority of the money I make and I've never bought anything on bad debt in my life. But if you learn the absolute basics behind credit cards you can treat it the exact same as a debit card but you get extra benefits. Not sure what is so hard to understand about that lol

> I'm also American and have had various amounts of credit card debt throughout my life

I think this is the key here. You are probably upset about the poor mistakes that you made in the past and you want to blame other people for it. I fully realize that the majority of Americans can't use a credit card responsibly so I'm glad that you are able to see that for yourself but you shouldn't make wide sweeping arguments about why other people shouldn't use them

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#258

Post by Intermernet »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #223
Intermernet wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't enjoy debt?

What do credit cards have to do with debt? I've used them for over a decade and never a carried balance

That's like asking "what does rent have to do with property prices?". Just because you've managed to be on the top of this perverse social summation of usury doesn't mean it isn't predatory and a net negative for society.

Credit cards are one of the most insidious ways that banks extract money from those living closest to the margins of poverty. The benefits you gain are a fraction of the profits gained from raking the most vulnerable over the coals of bankruptcy. They're a financial instrument of torture and I refuse to have anything to do with them. I'm not by any means rich, but I'm 48 years old, have zero debt, and will spend the rest of my life avoiding debt.

Finance is not a zero sum game.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#259

Post by lotsofpulp »

neilv wrote: post #222
zamfi wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, most employees getting nothing out of the deal is par for the course for acquisitions, unfortunately. The acquisition price is almost never exchanged directly for shares in the company as implied, often a chunk of it is kept for key personnel retention, etc. Typically just enough goes towards the share purchase to make investors happy, and the rest is structured as incentives for founders and key execs wi…

> Typically just enough goes towards the share purchase to make investors happy, and the rest is structured as incentives for founders and key execs with milestone payouts. So they're getting the employees' shares without compensating the employees? And there's incentives paid to the people who approved the deal, separate from their shares? (I've heard of liquidation preferences, but never by the person making a job…

Because “shares” are not all the same. Preferred vs common, so unless you negotiated some kind of preferred share terms, assume your shares are worthless. For a non publicly listed company. For a publicly listed company, the details are all publicly available, so the different types of shares will have their different prices be easily available to see.

Re: Capital One to acquire Brex for $5.15B

#260

Post by lotsofpulp »

Intermernet wrote: post #258
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do credit cards have to do with debt? I've used them for over a decade and never a carried balance

That's like asking "what does rent have to do with property prices?". Just because you've managed to be on the top of this perverse social summation of usury doesn't mean it isn't predatory and a net negative for society. Credit cards are one of the most insidious ways that banks extract money from those living closest to the margins of poverty. The benefits you gain are a fraction of the profits gained from raking t…

It has been legal for sellers to ask buyers to pay more if they use a credit card for 15 years now.

There is no "moral" quandary. Sellers that have the same price for credit and non credit payment methods are simply betting that people using credit will be more willing to pay higher prices overall and still buy from them compared to their competitors' with lower prices who charge more for credit cards.

Every year, fewer and fewer of my expenses are paid with a credit card because more and more sellers are not betting on this. My kids' gymnastics class/tutoring/daycare charges 3% or more for credit cards. My home wired ISP and mobile network provider charges 5% more for credit cards. My property tax, insurance, water/sewer utility, all charge 3% or more. Even Target charges 5% for credit cards. Basically all tradespeople that come to fix things on my house charge extra and ask for Zelle/Venmo electronic cash payments instead.

So in all these cases, I do not use a credit card to pay. But the point is, it is up to the seller to decide what price they want to charge for credit and non credit, so there is no "moral" quandary for buyers. No one's hand is being forced.

Edit: to respond to comment below due to hitting posting limit, the extra charge does not go to the card issuer, the seller collects the higher price. If I choose to pay with a non credit card payment as a result of the extra charge for credit cards, then the credit card issuer gets nothing.

Whether or not credit card interest rates and terms are usurious or otherwise morally problematic is not a credit card user's moral responsibility. When I use a credit card, I do not ask or enable or incentivize someone else to be taken advantage of.

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