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Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

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Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#61

Post by thornewolf »

thornewolf wrote: post #40
adastra22 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to understand why a coffee shop should be taking sides on geopolitical conflicts.

everyone takes a side on everything. explicitly or implicitly. intentionally or unintentionally. due to the interconnected nature of the world, it is impossible to construct a true-neutral position. the appearance of neutrality becomes more difficult the more important an issue is to those you interact with. so, it's not really well-defined to ask whether or not a coffee shop "should" be taking sides, it will take on…

I'm actually surprised this went negative, I thought HN was gonna love this

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#63

Post by terminalshort »

jerlam wrote: post #49
givemeethekeys wrote: post #14

We have many more good locally owned coffee shops today.

It's only a matter of time until those locally owned coffee shops become popular, expand, over-expand, then get acquired.

Southpark had a great episode on this where they burn down the Walmart and then this happens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scTjHvot3Uo

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#64

Post by asadm »

adastra22 wrote: post #51
asadm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. No idea why Starbucks, McDonalds, Zara etc. came out shouting support for Israel out of nowhere. Requiring a boycott from sane people.

> Requiring a boycott from sane people. It sounds like you don't agree.

i guess we don’t agree on sanity itself.

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#65

Post by contingencies »

branperr wrote: post #26

Is there any good reason why preferred stock exists? It just seems like another tool to screw people over in favor of investors.

If you raise money, sometimes you just want the money. Other times, you are happy to cede some ownership and/or control. If things go pear shaped, investors want some protection. If things go really well, sometimes they band together and kick you out of your own company. At some point rules have to be codified: the systems for doing this are share classes, voting rights, information rights, articles of association, board resolutions, etc. While you can start a totally new system and run your company using a magical talking stick and rubber duckies on the blockchain, the reality is that just makes it unfamiliar and hard for conventional institutional capital to invest in, it also makes it hard for slow-moving conventional institutions such as banks and lenders to grok your operational process and internal structure, which in both cases generally limits your upside.

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#66

Post by School-Cotton »

asadm wrote: post #55
School-Cotton wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently not all that pro-Palestine, if Wikipedia is to be believed: > At the end of 2023, five employees were sent home from the Gilman Street location for wearing Pro-Palestine pins. Despite asking for a written statement from management about why the pins were not allowed, the employees never received any information from management. The employees were sent home and the entire staff unionized.

i assume this was AFTER this takeover?

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, the takeover has still not happened.

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#67

Post by jwatte »

branperr wrote: post #26

Is there any good reason why preferred stock exists? It just seems like another tool to screw people over in favor of investors.

Because someone who might invest some money, maybe wouldn't invest that money if they didn't get the preferred class protections?

This is similar to how different credit risks get assigned different interest rates.

Companies failing (or close enough to failing that they restructure and wipe out common) is not uncommon in start-ups. If you want a more or less sure thing, you'll have to work at a more or less sure employer, and the risk/reward will be different.

Now, whether those who exercised their Philz options and paid for the shares, were really aware in what they were doing -- I don't know! But there doesn't seem to be anything explicitly sinister about the way this was set up, or went down -- simply, the business didn't do well enough. Which is too bad, because I think their coffee is actually good.

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#68

Post by jwatte »

ubermonkey wrote: post #46
branperr wrote: post #26

Is there any good reason why preferred stock exists? It just seems like another tool to screw people over in favor of investors.

The big answer is "no." I mean, look at Meta. The stock you can actually buy through your broker is not actually a stock that can control the company, so in a very real sense it's not a "share" in Meta. Zuck controls nearly all the "preferred" shares that have supervoting privileges, so he can operate it as though it's essentially a private firm. The board, which in a conventional public company could exercise contro…

Voting rights in founder-led public companies, and liquidation preference rights in private investments, are very different things.

Re: Philz Coffee close to closing deal to sell to private equity firm for $145M

#70

Post by quickthrowman »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #22
stagger87 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In a liquidation, common stockholders receive whatever assets remain after creditors, bondholders, and preferred stockholders are paid." Coupled with what sounds like an already bad financial state of the company... I'm not claiming no foul play, but it looks like there is a reasonable avenue for what is happening.

The article implies that it's not a liquidation or bankruptcy, though, just a sale. I don't know how you can buy a company without buying its stock from the shareholders, given that they are the owners of the company, but there must be some special circumstance that's not mentioned in the article.

This is precisely the reason for accredited investor requirements to invest in private companies, it’s extremely easy to be screwed over as a small-time shareholder in a private company.
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