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Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

bbc.com

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Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#41

Post by pwdisswordfishy »

ericmay wrote: post #34
roughly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As George Carlin said, “it’s a big club, and you’re not in it.” Capitalism is not for the little guy, or at least not the version we’ve built.

It's a good quote, but it is misapplied here. Nothing is stopping you from investing in a company, or putting your money into a stock or other investment. If anything, over the years the club has become a lot less exclusive. When did Carlin say that? Think about how much more access any given person, at least in the United States, has to financial products.

... it's from 2005, at the height of such access, so much so that a glut of "toxic assets" led to a worldwide recession.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#42

Post by IncreasePosts »

bix6 wrote: post #14

From the guardian: “But about 220,000 investors, who contributed £75m in crowdfunding across seven “equity for punks” rounds, could walk away with nothing.” I used to love the idea of crowdfunding but then I watched a bunch of people buy worthless common stock and get hosed over and over.

Well, the "investment" came with perks like free beer occasionally, 15% off your tab, invite to private events, etc. Stuff you don't get when you buy a share of MSFT. In my mind if an investment comes with perks like that it's more of a donation than an investment

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#43

Post by roughly »

ericmay wrote: post #34
roughly wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As George Carlin said, “it’s a big club, and you’re not in it.” Capitalism is not for the little guy, or at least not the version we’ve built.

It's a good quote, but it is misapplied here. Nothing is stopping you from investing in a company, or putting your money into a stock or other investment. If anything, over the years the club has become a lot less exclusive. When did Carlin say that? Think about how much more access any given person, at least in the United States, has to financial products.

Right, just like all of those people who put their money into Brewdog and then got nothing for it, while the larger investors potentially got made whole. It's almost like there's two classes of investors or something - common people, and then another smaller set - a club, say - that the common people are not part of.

You do not have access to the investments or financial instruments that the ultrawealthy do. Your investments are not like their investments, your returns are not their returns, the rules and regulations you face are not the ones they face. They are playing a different game than you, even when they're doing it with your money.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#44

Post by crmd »

20+ years in tech and finance and I still can’t believe liquidation preferences are legal.

Even among shareholders, a group of insiders in a conference room can self-deal to keep all the money for themselves and screw common stockholders who had no representation in that room.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#45

Post by klustregrif »

TheChaplain wrote: post #8

No conspiracy here. Brewdog had a loss of 37m GBP last October, and went into something similar to Chapter11(?), american company bought the remains and saved what had any value left. So not really "evil company buys good company and fires everyone" IMHO. edit: useless at spelling...

Evil company took money from customers with promises of a different kind of company, too their own fortune in hiding and let the company explose the face of the customers is the news.

You might say "but that's nothign new" but that is what makes it news because Brewdogs campaigns where exactly focues on selling cutomers the idea that they where inf fact something new.

The fouders are rich any any customers who invested is left with nothing. That's the news.

I know the times are changing and people now take it for granted that a cab driver might be selling heisenbergs securities while he drives around customers, for someone to pick up a bit of crypto gambling while they wait to reach their destination. But it used to be that financial investment was somewhat protected exactly to avoid these types of companies defrauding non-investment savy customers, but brewdog did just that. They claimed that getting a couple of shares along with your beer was ok because it was a new type of company sticking it to the man, but at the end of the day they wheren't punks they where just capitalists putting on customes to scam as much money from their customers as possible.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#46

Post by roughly »

TimFogarty wrote: post #25
roughly wrote: post #17

Is “have been made redundant” normal phrasing in the UK, or did the BBC just decide to use that kind of bloodless phrasing for “fired?”

Being made "redundant" isn't just an synonym for being fired. It has a specific legal meaning in the UK [1]. When employees are made redundant they are entitled to certain rights including statutory redundancy pay [2]. So it's not just a euphemism in UK contexts. And yes this is normal phrasing in the UK. [1] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights [2] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay

Cool, thank you - it was an awkward enough phrase that it was either a legal term or a management euphemism, glad to hear it was the former and the BBC wasn't just parroting MBA-speak.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#47

Post by [deleted] »

pwdisswordfishy wrote: post #41
ericmay wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good quote, but it is misapplied here. Nothing is stopping you from investing in a company, or putting your money into a stock or other investment. If anything, over the years the club has become a lot less exclusive. When did Carlin say that? Think about how much more access any given person, at least in the United States, has to financial products.

... it's from 2005, at the height of such access, so much so that a glut of "toxic assets" led to a worldwide recession.

[deleted]

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#48

Post by dmurray »

TheJoeMan wrote: post #35
bix6 wrote: post #14

From the guardian: “But about 220,000 investors, who contributed £75m in crowdfunding across seven “equity for punks” rounds, could walk away with nothing.” I used to love the idea of crowdfunding but then I watched a bunch of people buy worthless common stock and get hosed over and over.

Part of the issue is that somehow you can buy just the "assets" half of a company and ignore the "liabilities" portion. And the assets include all the branding and brand name. So an essentially new copy of the previous company is made while fleecing all on the liabilities side. For the bars that are being closed, they are less closed and more like abandoned remnants of the now-dead previous company. Perhaps the share…

> Part of the issue is that somehow you can buy just the "assets" half of a company and ignore the "liabilities" portion.

You really can't and they didn't.

If Brewdog has creditors who lent it money or suppliers who are waiting on payment, then they will be getting paid as part of the deal or they will have agreed to a restructuring, up as far as being offered first refusal on the company's assets.

Brewdog's existing management could have made the exact same closures without selling the company.

If retail investors lost out here, it's because they were overly optimistic in the first place, or just unlucky, not because they're getting cheated in this deal. You can tell this because the institutional investors are also getting nothing out of it.

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#49

Post by KellyCriterion »

crmd wrote: post #44

20+ years in tech and finance and I still can’t believe liquidation preferences are legal. Even among shareholders, a group of insiders in a conference room can self-deal to keep all the money for themselves and screw common stockholders who had no representation in that room.

Well, thats what "free markets" (tm) allow you to do (-:

Re: Bars close and hundreds lose jobs as US firm buys Brewdog in £33M deal

#50

Post by general_reveal »

crmd wrote: post #44

20+ years in tech and finance and I still can’t believe liquidation preferences are legal. Even among shareholders, a group of insiders in a conference room can self-deal to keep all the money for themselves and screw common stockholders who had no representation in that room.

By the time most of us are dead, I think we’ll have enough evidence that human systems mostly don’t work (this is a personal realization, just for ourselves, no one will be able to strip you have the realization). If it worked for you, congrats, you were lucky.
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