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"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

submitted by Tharnite to GlobalOffensive [link] [comments]

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time
​
The Bubble
It’s February of 2021, and let’s be completely honest: We’re in a bubble. It’s kind of like 1999 but not the same. In 1999, interest rates were much higher. Today, they are nearly zero. In some countries, they are even negative. From a long-term perspective, this is very bad.
The Federal Reserve is completely to blame for this. Their policies are entirely reckless, and officials refuse to acknowledge what is going on here. The Coronavirus hysteria caused by the media and enabled by officials made the crash last summer the worst man-made disaster in the history of our financial system. The Great Depression was caused by over-speculation and a lack of regulation in an emerging financial system. The Great Recession was caused by greed and fraud (strangely, no one is in jail for this). This market collapse was caused by elected officials and the fed, who got trigger-happy and cut rates to zero back in the spring of 2020.
Whatever we wind up calling the burst of this bubble is to be determined. It will, however, be entirely manmade because the fed refuses to acknowledge the speculative behavior currently going on in SPACs, Cryptos, Penny Stocks, and anything else that serves as a legal Ponzi scheme for inflating the bubble. Even real, dividend-paying stocks have gotten way overvalued in some sectors. Also, since the fed has no plans of raising rates within the next two years (so they say for now, at least), if you’re searching for yield, you have nowhere else to look than the equities markets or one of these legalized forms of Ponzi schemes. It’s extremely unfair to conservative or retired investors looking for an honest return on their savings. This all is actually why it is a great time to look at Dogecoin, as I will get to in a moment. So long as rates are near zero, the bubble will continue to go on for longer and longer. And while it continues, people will constantly look for the next big thing.
For How Long?
Now, this may sound all doom and gloom, but that’s not my point. One day the bubble will burst, but I’m not making a prediction of when that will happen. Anyone making up dates for when the bubble will burst is either clueless or a con artist. No one knows when this bubble will burst. It could be weeks, months, or even years. One thing is for sure, the bubble will not burst just because things are overvalued. That’s not how bubbles work.
There needs to be a catalyst to burst the bubble. A major military conflict. An unexpected move or comment by the fed (raising rates, calling out the bubble for what it is, etc.). Another nationwide lockdown. I can go on with examples, but a little selloff here and there (August 2020) that causes the financial media to lose its mind is not enough. Just because you claim the bubble is bursting isn’t enough either. If you follow the media, you will get burned over and over again. That’s how it works. They want you to go to their sponsors for help, and once they burn you (sell you gold, overcharge you for poor investments, etc), you’ll come back to them hoping to figure things out. It’s a shell game. When the bubble burst, it will happen extremely fast and unexpectedly. There’s nothing wrong with playing the bubble, but you need to be mindful of when it ends because once the music stops, there will be a mad rush for the exits. You don’t want to be stuck holding the bag because everything will get crushed when the bubble burst. Even the blue-chip stocks that pay solid dividends will get hammered.
Fundamentals Don’t Matter (For Now)
In this bubble environment, fundamentals don’t make sense and, quite frankly, they don’t matter. You can argue back and forth all day long about whether something has a practical future or whether something is overvalued. I’m not here to do that about Dogecoin, Bitcoin, or any other crypto. The same could be said about Penny Stocks right now. (Hint: virtually all of these companies are way overvalued). You can find tons of articles of that nature, and I’m not likely to change your preconceived notions anyway. If we look at all the irrational bubbles that have occurred lately, you are a complete fool if you believe that TSLA or BTC is worth nearly a trillion dollars. It’s worth nowhere near that valuation.
How do I determine what something is worth, and who do I mean? It is called the market cap. In layman’s terms, that is where you take all the stock shares and multiply it by the share price. And I’m not recommending buying or selling TSLA or BTC, I’m just pointing out that these valuations are absurd. Does that mean they will not pass 1 trillion dollars? Of course not. There’s a very reasonable chance they do pass a $1 trillion market cap. That sounds absurd to write but it’s true. When the bubble bursts, you better believe fundamentals will be back in play. This disconnect can’t last forever. But it can go on for a while. And while it lasts, we all want to make some money
A Quick Word About ALL Cryptos
While I don’t believe Cryptocurrencies are going anywhere (as in, people will always buy and sell them), I also do not see any APPLICABLE future in them other than trading with other people. In fact, the biggest use I see of Cryptocurrencies is for illegal and untraceable transactions. The government will do all they can over the next several years to bring in lost tax revenue and track transactions better, but that’s the extent to which Cryptos will have relevance. How do I know this? Because the federal reserve, which is backed by the taxing authority of the US Government and the might of the US military, isn’t about to let some alternative currency usurp the US dollar. How do you think we can afford to provide all this government stimulus to fight Covid? If you think about this, you will see why other countries are much worse off. They must play by our rules, while we get to export our inflation to other countries because they must use the USD to buy commodities on the international exchanges (look at what happened when Saddam tried to circumvent this). If they print more money, their currency gets devalued. That’s why as bad as things look, relatively speaking, the US isn’t in terrible shape compared to the rest of the world.
If your financial future is so married to Bitcoin, ask yourself this: what happens if your account gets hacked? Who will you call? Who will make you whole again? If you have a brokerage account with legitimate stocks, there are regulations in place. There is the SIPC which protects again brokerage failure. With Bitcoin, you are completely gambling. This lack of regulation and lack of price stability means that there is no viable path to Bitcoin being a legitimate currency. Does it mean people can buy and sell it? Of course. But if you are in the cult of believing that Bitcoin is the future world reserve currency, you need to get your head examined.
Gold and Silver con artists have been trying for decades for people to get on this alternative currency train. At least gold and silver have some practical industrial applications. And hundreds of years of history on its side. Crypto isn’t anything but something people agree upon as having value. Why do I point this out? Because the one thing you need to do is separate yourself from what you think you know about Crypto and Blockchain, etc. While it all sounds cool and revolutionary, it really doesn’t matter. The US government could easily create their own form of Crypto that gives them more control. The decentralized part just doesn’t jive with our current global hegemony. If you don’t understand this, you should think more and read less. Once you accept this, you can start to see all Crypto as fundamentally worth the same: virtually nothing. The technicals, however, are why we want to look at Dogecoin.
Relative Valuation of Dogecoin
Now that you understand a little more background into where we are, I believe Dogecoin is extremely undervalued. Why? It’s simple. Relative valuation. This is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to compare investments. Ok, so maybe this isn’t really investing anymore; it’s gambling. Still, we can apply the same concept. Imagine two companies: they are in the same industry and have similar margins, earnings, growth prospects, etc. One company is valued at $50 billion and costs $120 per share, and one is valued at $85 billion and costs $80 per share. Which one would you invest in? Of course, you would invest in the one that is worth $50 billion at $120 per share. The cost per share means absolutely nothing. It is psychological.
Now, you say Dogecoin isn’t on par with Bitcoin and that where I’m going with this isn’t a fair comparison. Go back and read the last section. That’s why I wrote about the practical applications of Cryptocurrencies in general. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is the general sentiments shared by people that buy and believe in Cryptocurrency. So, let’s look at the current valuations:
Bitcoin – Price $40,500, Market Cap $755B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
Dogecoin – Price $.05, Market Cap $4.4B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
Now, I’m not saying Dogecoin is worth what Bitcoin is. I’m not even saying it's worth half or a third of Bitcoin. Who really knows? No one does. You certainly cannot say for certain that one is better than another. One is more “established” and has more name recognition. What I am saying is this: if Dogecoin goes to $1, it will have a market cap of just over $85 billion. Even at Bitcoin’s current market cap, that’s just over 1/10 of its value. And that isn’t even pricing in more appreciation of Bitcoin’s value over time. This means I see tons of room for Dogecoin to run. (I know some will mention dilution via minting of new coins, but that’s another discussion and not entirely relevant to the points I am trying to make in this piece.)
Could Dogecoin match Bitcoin? That sounds absurd, but let’s look just for fun: if Dogecoin were to have the same market cap as Bitcoin, that means it would have a current price of $8.55. So, what am I saying here? You must know the range of possibilities (within reason, if that even exists anymore) before you start thinking about price targets. To say Dogecoin is going to $100 is just absurd; things need to be put in the proper context.
Why Dogecoin?
Using relative valuation, I believe you could make a case for any Crypto. Will they all run to Bitcoin’s level? Of course not. The last question is why Dogecoin? This is the most important one that we have to answer before deciding on buying Dogecoin. The answer is simple: hype and name recognition. If I look at the most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap, Dogecoin is number 12. I have taken an informal survey of probably 100 people over the last two weeks. I showed them the top 15 Cryptocurrencies by market cap to see which they were familiar with: Stellar, Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot, XRP . . . almost all of these were completely unheard of. But, somehow, they have valuations of 2-3 times Dogecoin.
Dogecoin has a few things going for it. First, hype. Elon Musk and many other prominent celebrities are pilling in. Mark Cuban has said he’d buy it over a lottery ticket. That alone can help aid a very quick lift off. Second, the name Dogecoin is very easy to remember and a trendy thing. What the heck is Cardano anyway? XRP? I mistakenly called it XPR before I edited this piece. And if you are still hung up on the practical use of Dogecoin or other Cryptos, you are missing the point of this piece entirely. Look at the story behind Bitcoin. An anonymous person online created a decentralized platform for money movement or something like that. What? How in the world did that idea ever take traction? It’s just like people online arguing over which Penny Stock is the next big thing. Neither person is right, but the perception is really all that matters.
Third, stimulus checks will be hitting within weeks or months. This naturally promotes price inflation when people have more dollars chasing few goods. People will inevitably pile into whatever they think is the next great thing. Dogecoin has momentum right now. And this brings me to number four.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, FOMO is very powerful right now. There are people all over the world that know people who have won big money in this bubble. Penny stocks, GameStop, Bitcoin, and many others that you can name. How many people do you personally know that have won big in the lottery? Probably none. This is a unique time in history. People have won big in this market and are looking for the next thing.
Dogecoin is something that could pick up steam quickly. It could blow up overnight. It may not, and that is the risk you take. At the end of the day, it’s just money that you can always make more of. Life-changing money is worth the risk when you find the right risk-reward ratio.
Do your due diligence, but also think ahead to a scenario that you could imagine. Would you be that surprised if Dogecoin reached $1? And if it did, would you be surprised if it started running towards multiple dollars? $1 is a psychological number that typically leads to a further breakout. The current market cap suggests this is all very possible. Now imagine getting in at four or five cents.
Disclosure: Long Dogecoin with Diamond Hands. No positions in any other things mentioned. -BJ
submitted by brayjones1985 to dogecoin [link] [comments]

Not your parents PLAYBOY: How Playboy is reinventing themselves and why you should Invest $MCAC

I know what you're already thinking. Playboy is a dead porn brand that publishes a magazine and doesn't appeal to millennials or gen z right?
Wrong.
Leadership
Let's start with Ben Kohn, the CEO. Kohn has worked in private equity for 25 years and started a firm called Rizvi Travers which invested in pre IPO tech companies. They were the largest investor when Twitter went public and invested in Facebook, Snapchat, Square, SpaceX, Instacart, and Uber.
In 2011, Kohn partnered with Hugh Hefner and took Playboy private. Kohn became the CEO in 2017 with the goal of revitalizing one of the largest, most recognizable brands in the world. Since becoming CEO, Kohn has been shutting down most of the legacy business and most recently discontinued producing a domestic magazine. He's focused most of his attention so far on growing the high margin licensing business and direct to consumer business, transforming Playboy into a consumer lifestyle brand focusing on 4 categories:
Kohn is also placing a strong emphasis on appealing to women and young people, something that Playboy had never done in the past. Over the last 3 years, the female audience has grown by 70% and 90% of their audience today is under the age of 40. Out of the total e-commerce sales, 40% of customers are women.
Financials
Playboy is already a profitable business. They have a highly efficient, high margin business model that accelerates with growth.
For the first 9 months of 2020, Playboy grew revenue by 78% from 57 million to 101 million and grew adjusted ebitda 129% from 9.5 million to 22 million. For 2021, they reaffirmed guidance of 167 million of revenue and 40 million dollars of ebitda. By 2025, Playboy is conservatively projecting 296 million of revenue and 140 million in ebitda, but expects it to be much greater. It's also important to note that they have over 400 million of forward booked minimum guaranteed cash flow, but they only recognize 67 million of that today, so the actual revenue numbers are much higher.
Playboy's business is monetized in two primary ways, licensing and direct to consumer. Licensing is a key part of the revenue stream and they anticipate it more than doubling moving forward. However, Playboy is extremely excited about its growing direct to consumer business as well which I will dive into in the next section.
Growth
Playboy has huge growth opportunities in each of their 4 product categories. First I want to point out that Playboy is HUGE in China and it's growing rapidly in India. In China, Playboy is one of the leading men's apparel brands with over 2500 brick and mortar stores and over 1000 e-commerce stores. Playboy sells products in over 180 countries and is the 17th most licensed brand in the world.
Style & Apparel:
Over the last 3 years, Playboy has partnered with Pacsun, Misguided, Supreme, and others. The Pacsun and Misguided businesses have increased almost 15x over the last 3 years. Playboy also launched Playboy Labs and partnered with Steve Aoki to promote the brand. Playboy intends on transitioning this business from a pure licensing business to a direct to consumer business going forward. They have future collaborations with Yandy planned as well.
Sexual Wellness:
The sexual wellness category is a 240 billion dollar industry today and is projected to grow to 400 billion by 2024. Currently, the industry is fragmented and made up of small businesses with no ability to scale. Playboy is poised to become the leader in this category through strategic acquisitions of existing companies and by growing its product offerings. Yes, I'm talking about lingerie, condoms, sex toys etc. They recently acquired the sexual wellness retailer Lovers for 25 million and expect them to add 45 million in revenue over the next 12 months. They are planning on making more strategic acquisitions in this space moving forward to become the leading direct to consumer brand in this field. They also began offering online sexual wellness classes for women, which have seen large growth since inception.
Gaming & Lifestyle:
The growth opportunities in this category are huge. Playboy is diversifying into online gambling, mobile gaming, CBD/Marijuana, and virtual reality. They have a social club/poker room opening in Houston this year in addition to their casino in London. They currently have partnerships with Microgaming as well as Scientific Games for mobile gambling apps like slots and poker, with plans to build more. They are also planning on entering the sports gambling market through partnerships with well known sports betting operators.
Moreover, they recently launched an exclusive furniture collection on Wayfair and plan on offering more in the future. They currently offer 3 CBD products and have plans to enter the legal marijuana market when it's legalized at the federal level, which might happen soon under the Biden administration. As of now they sell Playboy branded smoking materials like ash trays and grinders. They are planning on launching 4 more CBD products in 2021. Lastly, Ben Kohn said that experiencing Playboy through a virtual world format is something that is "extremely interesting to us". He gave an example of the Travis Scott and Unreal Platform collaboration.
Beauty and Grooming:
Currently, Playboy offers men's and women's fragrances and color cosmetics in Europe. They have plans to expand their product line and enter the North American market this year. In China, a place where Playboy has a large market presence, Men's grooming is one of the fastest growing categories and an area that Playboy is not in today. They are planning on entering this market in the near future with Playboy branded skincare and grooming products.
SPAC Merger
Playboy has a DA with Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp, $MCAC, with the shareholder vote taking place THIS TUESDAY 2/9/21. Once it's approved, the ticker will change to PLBY shortly after. One of the great things about this deal is that there are absolutely no warrants outstanding, meaning there will be very little dilution. They only have 1/10th of a right per share outstanding which automatically convert to common stock. Upon completion of the merger, PLBY will have only 37 million shares outstanding, which is a very low float. Any increase in volume and demand will send the stock price higher.
After the merger, PLBY will have a market cap of approximately 413 million. For comparison to other global brands, Nike's market cap is 185 billion, Disney's is 329 billion, and Lululemon's is 45 billion. Now I'm not saying Playboy is near those companies today. However, if they continue growing and realize their potential, they're massively undervalued.
Additionally, the management team all signed 12-month lock ups, preventing them from selling for at least one year. This is not a transaction sale, but a true capital raise to accelerate growth. They are in this for the long haul.
Conclusion
Playboy has big growth opportunities in multiple product categories to become a leading consumer lifestyle brand. They have a high margin profitable business model and a very healthy balance sheet. They have 100 million in free cash right now and only 40 million in net debt, or one times 2021 adjusted ebitda. They already have global brand awareness and the bunny logo alone has tremendous value. Ceo Ben Kohn knows what he's doing and has a proven track record of success.
It might be flying under the radar right now because all the hype is surrounding GME and EV socks. I believe when the ticker changes to PLBY and people realize that Playboy is no longer what it used to be, this has huge long term upside.
FYI: All of the statistics I mentioned are directly taken from the CEO Ben Kohn in his 1 hour webinar interview with SpacInsider.
Disclosure: Long 500 commons $MCAC
Disclaimer: Do your own due diligence too
submitted by pucklife21 to SPACs [link] [comments]

Extensive DD post - $BBRRF (CSE: BBM) - Long-term MJ play

Extensive DD post - $BBRRF (CSE: BBM) - Long-term MJ play
Highlights:
  1. Cultivation costs substantially below Canadian/US growers. Yield substantially higher.
  2. Recently began revenue generation. Exports to multiple markets, including EU market where regulatory environment is more stable (i.e. long-term cash flow benefit, imo). Diverse set of revenue streams including proprietary genetics, cannabis derivatives, cosmetics, CO2 oil extraction. Continued to expand facilities and raise capital despite COVID.
  3. Just closed $1M capital raise, bringing in Facundo Garreton, well-known venture capitalist.
  4. Holds licenses for both THC and CBD products. Operations in both Colombia and Argentina.
  5. Strong leadership team with South American regulatory/political contacts, pharma sales, and startup experience. However, some senior management churn indicative of activist investing.
Operations:
Multiple developing revenue streams across cannabis industry, including: CO2 oil extraction services and sales, genetic research and licensing of both low- and high-THC varietals, cloning and sales to growers, and cosmetics production.
2019: Basically a dedicated production-scaling year. Engaged in the expansion of cultivation area, development of contract grower relationships, and establishing CO2 oil extraction line w/ capacity of 75000kg/year dried flower at EU-GMP standards. Secured a distribution agreement with EU pharmacies.
2020: was marked by the establishment of product lines (oil, cosmetics) and the initial generation of revenue from selling cloned cuttings of proprietary genetic strands to growers and some initial cosmetics. Additional capacity expansion from the purchase of BBV labs in Argentina, a joint venture with Argentinian state cannabis company, Cannava.
2019-2020 marked harvesting of first commercial crop.
2021: 1H 2021 forecast to begin sales of CBD-only and CBD/THC extractives, final approval of proprietary THC genetics, sales of tolling services for oil extraction, and ramp-up of cosmetics sales.
Cultivation Costs/Yield:
Long-term cultivation costs at $0.13 CAD/gram compared to $1+ for ACB/Aphria and $3.50+ for TLRY. Outdoor cultivation - which is where BBRRF is focused long-term - is $0.06 CAD/gram.
Why is this possible? Climate advantages, Outdoor cultivation and contract growing. South American producers have a tremendous long-term advantage over indoor growers in the US and Canada, due to extremely low labor costs (pre-existing sharecropper models in other agricultural goods drive prices down), and a warmer, drier climate than their North American counterparts. Plus outdoor growing has lower capital investment requirements per gram produced.
Broader macro political note: Colombia is trying to integrate previous FARC members into mainstream society. IMO, this means exportable cash crops are likely to be pushed by the government. Cannabis cultivation stands to gain substantially in that environment. The reason isn't the prettiest - lots of farmers that depended on or were forced into the FARC-sponsored drug trade will be looking for new crops - but it is a durable reason to think the political environment will favor cannabis to reduce US drug war pressure, and integrate former FARC members and dependents into the Colombian economy.
Financials:
  • Recent capital raise of $1 million from Garreton when brought in on Board/Interim CEO provided significant bump to cash runway.
  • Just began revenue generation in Q3 2020 - sales of cloned cultivars to associate growers @ 40% gross margin + some introductory cosmetic sales. Still small but compares with 30% gross margin in the legal cannabis industry. Bulk oil sales expected 1st half 2021.
  • Substantial loss/cash burn reduction over 2020. Quarterly loss of $1.1mln Q3 2020 vs. $2.5mln Q3 2019. Picture is similar for 9-month period (loss of 3.7 mln 2020 vs. 9.2 mln 2019). Prior losses attributable to capacity expansion initiatives.
  • Debt/Equity Ratio: 0.44 ($2.35 million liabilities, $5.30 million equity).
Note: All dollar values are $CAD as primary stock exchange is the CSM.
Licenses/Regulatory:
Summary of licenses and regulatory risk from most recent financial report
Leadership Team:
  1. CEO and Board President: Facundo Garreton - "Mr. Garreton is a successful entrepreneur in the fields of innovation, technology and life sciences, and a former member of Congress in Argentina. His successful track record as an entrepreneur includes founding InvertirOnline.com, one of Latin America’s largest online brokerage firms, as well as founding and serving as director of SociaLab and Sistema B, the most important platform for social entrepreneurs in Latin America. Mr. Garreton also has strategic involvement with other cannabis companies including YVY Life Sciences in Uruguay and Flow Kana in California. Mr. Garreton is a director of various successful companies such as: YVY Life Sciences, Pachama.com, VU Security, Untech.bio, Bulltick, GoodPeople, Inipop.com and others. Also, he is an investor in companies such as ClaraFoods, TheNotCompany, Blue Planet Ecosystems, Memphis Meat, Cambridge Crops, Electro-Active Technologies (EAT), Unbox Robotics, Prellisbio.com and MycoWorks."
  2. CFO: Ian Atacan - " Mr. Atacan is a finance leader with more than 25 years of experience in business strategy development, valuations of M&A, debt and equity financing, divestitures and investment transactions, financial modeling, project management, competitive analysis and developing strategic investment recommendations. He has worked with renowned international companies such as Sprint, DHL Worldwide Express, and Procter & Gamble. Most recently, Mr. Atacan was the Chief Financial Officer of Natura Naturals Holdings Inc., a Canadian cannabis company licensed for cultivation, production and bulk sales under the Cannabis Act of Canada, until its acquisition by Tilray Inc. (NASDAQ: TLRY) for $82 million. As Chief Financial Officer of Blueberries, Mr. Atacan brings entrepreneurial and financial acumen cultivated through business start-ups, recapitalizations, and expansion projects to drive national and international business growth."
  3. CMO - Eduardo Molinari: Formerly with Abbott Labs and AbbVie (Abbott's pharma spinoff) in roles of steadily increasing responsibility. Indicates lots of experience marketing pharmaceutical products and contacts across the industry.
  4. Experienced technical team including VP of Operations with experience at GlaxoSmithKline/Abbott (Carlos Maldonado); Medical Director with experience at Merck (Dr. Andres Vidal); and R&D Director with experience at PharmaCielo (Cristina Tora).
Note: One possible trouble spot - company has had a number of prior CEOs, including Patricio Stocker (formerly @ PharmaCielo), and then Camilo Villalba (resigned family issues) and Christian Toro (interim, was COO). I get the impression there has been some activist investor activity due to 2019 cash burn rate being excessive, but this is just a guess as there haven't been any clear corporate statements of why Stocker or Villalba left. I suspect Stocker was pushed out after building some initial contacts with export markets. However, the CFO and CMO are both quite experienced and bringing in Garreton is a major plus. Also the R&D Director from PharmaCielo is still there, as are both longer-term ex-Abbott senior people, so this may have been mostly amicable activist investing. There were also some board resignations/replacements when Garreton became CEO, one of which was Andres Vidal, still employed as medical director, so I suspect some of these moves were transparency/governance-based as the company scales up.
Note 2: Former Board Member: Fabio Valencia Cossio - former Minister of the Interior under Uribe. Resigned from board when Garreton was named CEO, along with a few others. But to my knowledge he hasn't disposed of his shares. Coupled with Garreton, and BBRRF's partnership with a state-owned Argentinian cannabis company, I see this as a sign of broader political support for the company.
Sources:
  1. Analyst Research (FRC, need an account to view full reports, but free)
    1. https://www.researchfrc.com/blueberries-cse-bbm-large-latin-american-cannabis-low-cost-producer-intro-note/
    2. https://www.researchfrc.com/blueberries-medical-corp-cse-bbm-otc-bbrrf-fra-1oa-latin-american-cannabis-producer-with-a-flexible-cultivation-footprint-and-low-production-costs-initiating-coverage/
    3. https://www.researchfrc.com/blueberries-medical-corp-cse-bbm-otc-bbrrf-fra-1oa-achieving-milestones-revenue-generation-imminent-update/
  2. Financials: https://blueberriesmed.com/en/financials
    1. Most recent: https://blueberriesmed.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/BBMMDA2020Q3%28FINAL2020.11.30%29.pdf
    2. Margin comparison: https://csimarket.com/Industry/industry_Profitability_Ratios.php?ind=509
  3. Investor presentation (Jan 2021 update): https://blueberriesmed.com/sites/default/files/inline-files/Blueberries%20Medical%20-%20Master%20Deck%20January%2020%2C%202021_0.pdf
  4. News:
    1. Fundraising and Garreton Chairman/Interim CEO: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/01/20/2161422/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Closes-1M-Strategic-Financing-Led-by-a-Leading-Latin-American-Private-Equity-Group-with-Extensive-International-Cannabis-Industry-Expertise-Appoints-Facundo-Gar.html
    2. Approval of 9 psychoactive strands & prior CEO resignation: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/10/26/2114178/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Announces-Approval-of-Nine-Psychoactive-Strains-Corporate-Update.html
    3. 2019 Capacity Expansion: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/07/18/1884520/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Makes-Significant-Advances-Towards-Commercial-Production-Provides-Operational-and-Corporate-Update.html
    4. December BBV labs acquisition: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/12/04/2139778/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Announces-Closing-of-the-Acquisition-of-BBV-Labs-A-Milestone-in-its-Argentina-Project.html
  5. Board/Management
    1. https://blueberriesmed.com/en/leadership-team
    2. https://blueberriesmed.com/en/equipo/junta-directiva
    3. https://www.weforum.org/people/facundo-garreton
    4. https://www.linkedin.com/in/eduardo-molinari-51344713/
    5. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/04/17/1805364/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Appoints-Former-Abbott-Laboratories-AbbVie-Pharmaceutical-Executive-Eduardo-Molinari-as-Chief-Marketing-Officer.html
    6. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/03/19/1756981/0/en/Blueberries-Medical-Appoints-Former-Colombian-Minister-Ambassador-Fabio-Valencia-to-Board-of-Directors.html
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. All investment decisions taken at your own risk.
Position: Currently long 38,000 shares @ $0.105. Previously was long 70,000 shares @ $0.04. (Did some profit taking @$0.115 in my IRA in case of a re-trace, rebought).
submitted by Delavan1185 to pennystocks [link] [comments]

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

ACAC Spac (PlayStudios): A Solid Risk Reward Longer Term Play (Long)

Hey guys, I have a bit of a long DD on ACAC / Playstudios. You can read the text below. If you want to see the full post with all the nice pictures, you can check it out here. I was too lazy to upload each picture individually to Imgur. Apologies in advance.
I've seen numerous people on Reddit compare the ACAC / Playstudios SPAC to Skillz, and some even to Draftkings. I think this is mainly because they're all in the online gaming / gambling industry, but aside from that, the companies themselves are quite different.
I think a more apt comparison should be between Playstudios and Playtika (Ticker: PLTK), since they operate in the same vertical, compete against one another in mobile slots games, and Playtika has publicly available financial data in which I will be making comparisons against.
Playtika Analysis
You can find Playtika's prospectus here
First and foremost, Playtika is one of the leaders in the mobile casino space. They have an assortment of games, and they themselves are diversifying into more casual games (similar to what Playstudios says they are trying to do), but their bread and butter are casino games, and the ones that make the most money for them are slots.
Slotomania, House of Fun, and Caesars Slots are all mobile slots games, and as you can see from the above, they generate a significant portion of Playtika's revenues (roughly 50% of their 2020 revenues).
OK, so why do I keep bringing up Playtika? Well, they had a very interesting graph that shows how much of their revenues come from different segments of their user base, based on when they acquired those users.
What this chart is saying is that 45% of their revenues came from users acquired from 2013 and earlier!
This is insane! They have such high user retention and user LTVs, that they're still monetizing a portion of their users that they acquired from 7 years ago.
If we go up to 2017, then roughly 75% of their revenues come from users acquired 2017 and earlier!
This is important because Playtika's oldest games are all slots games. So this is telling us that users that play mobile slots games, they tend to stay with those games for extremely long periods of time, and if they do stick with them, they spend a lot of money! This is great news since the vast majority of Playstudio's revenues come from mobile slots games.
If you look at Playtika's financials, you'll notice pretty nice revenue growth. However, a lot of that is non-organic, and was accomplished through M&A. This was because in 2016, Playtika was acquired by a consortium of Chinese game companies for $4.4 billion (including Giant Network, a well known gaming company in China), and they need to make revenue numbers higher to have a better story to sell for the IPO.
And part of their strategy was to diversify into casual games, and they did so by acquiring about 15 companies since 2016, including Wooga (developer of June's Journey, a very profitable find hidden objects mobile game) and Supertreat (developer of Solitaire Grand Harvest, a profitable card game).
However, one of the caveats of casual games is that the ARPPU (average revenue per paying user) is lower, and retention is lower than casino games. I did my own calculations on Playtika's ARPPU for 2018, 2019, and 2020, and you can see the noticeable downtrend. This was obviously not disclosed in the prospectus. Only ARPDAU (average revenue per daily active user) was disclosed.
My belief is that even though ARPPU and retention are lower, maybe the market is giving a higher multiple to casual games. I believe that even though online gambling is beginning to see legalization in many states, and more and more people are starting to be open to it, there is still a bit of a social stigma associated with it, and certain investors may be wary to investing in a pure "casino" play. That's why Playtika is making such a concerted effort to move away from purely casino games, and positioning itself as an mobile entertainment company. Another reason is also the immense competition and high user acquisition costs, but Playtika has shown that they are more than able to execute on a long term strategy here.
Playstudios Analysis
Before jumping into anything else, I want to go straight to Playstudio's financials.
The reason is because I think there's a lot of fluff here, and I want people to know the bullshit. But even when you see through the bullshit, the downside is still mitigated enough to warrant this play.
So first off, take any numbers you see from 2022 with a grain of salt. No one knows what's going to happen this year, let alone two years in the future, and in my eyes, those 2022 numbers look extremely unrealistic. Revenue growth will probably not be that high, unless they make some big acquisitions, and EBITDA margin expansion probably won't be that fast.
Revenue Growth
Playstudios is planning on launching a Bingo and an RPG game, and their plan is to aggressively spend on UA (User Acqusition) in 2021. Their hope is that revenues will scale up with their UA, and by 2022, they can lower their UA spend a bit, and continue to monetize the new games exceptionally well, maybe at an even better rate than 2021.
I think this is a bit farfetched, especially in such a competitive space as Bingo. I've done analysis on Bingo games before, and some of those games have also been around for 8 to 10 years, and they can't expect to just launch a game and have it ramped up to their expected revenue in a year's time. Development for those games requires game designers, people who are very good at math, product designers, and a many other people, which can make the development timeline quite long (at least a few months, for a more finished product, I think at least half a year for these guys). I think a more plausible scenario is that they acquire a smaller Bingo player, and then begin optimizing that game, and add in their own loyalty rewards, as that's the quickest way to ramp up revenues post IPO.
My guess is revenues are not going to ramp up as quickly as they expect, and they'll see limited revenue growth here, and still mainly see some growth from better monetizing their slots players. I think by 2022, somewhere between $350 million to $400 million in revenues is more reasonable, and I'd probably lean towards the lower end of that range.
Margin Expansion
In terms of margin expansion, I think the decrease in cost of sales is doable. It seems like there is some extra fat there that they can trim as they scale. The cost of sales is mainly the tax that Apple and Google charges when users make a purchase through their respective stores, and this is a flat 30%. I doubt they'll get it less than 30% any time soon, but that will probably be through getting their whales to make purchases outside of the Google Play Store or App Store, and using a much cheaper payment processor.
I think a long term goal of 20 - 25% for UA spend is reasonable. I'm OK with these numbers, though they may need to spend more initially to ramp up new games. One of the benefits of their loyalty rewards program is that they can have higher retention, and this might be a way for them to lower their UA spend, since people may be more willing to tell their friends about a free trip or prize they won through a mobile game.
Another reason I'm OK with the UA spend is because it seems like they have a pretty knowledgeable UA team. I have access to App Annie, a data analytics company that tracks mobile apps, and I checked out the download history for POP! Slots, one of Playstudio's mobile games.
You'll notice that US downloads spiked quite a bit in March. This is right when COVID-19 was beginning to spike in the US, and people began working from home. In the mobile app world, many apps had spikes in downloads in March and April 2020 because there was a much larger pool of users looking to download apps. CPAs came down, and companies that had strong UA teams were able to capture a lot of these new users. Thus, this tells me that Playstudios UA team was at least aware of ongoing trends in the mobile app space, and they were able to capitalize by gaining more users during that period of time.
The biggest issue I have is with the "All Other Expenses." I don't know why it's this high (R&D and G&A shouldn't be that high), and Playstudios definitely needs to do some expense cutting here. While this has the most room to cut, it may be the hardest since I'm guessing a lot of that cost is from legacy employees. But if they can get this to around 30% by 2022, I'll be happy.
Playstudios Has No Daily Active Users (DAU) Growth
This is a common issue I see raised on Reddit and I want to address it here. Below is another chart from App Annie, which has DAU estimates.
As you can see, DAU has remained pretty flat for the past 2 years, roughly between 150K and 200K users.
But have you considered that revenues were actually increasing during this time? This means that Playstudios is becoming more efficient at monetizing their current users (getting more money out of older players), or their user acquisition team is targeting more profitable users.
And this is just how the game is played in the mobile apps world.
Users will eventually get sick of a game and stop playing. Not many games can count on users organically finding their game, and continuing to play indefinitely. To maintain a certain DAU, companies generally have to spend money on UA to maintain that user base. It becomes a business where you are calculating how much you are spending on UA, and whether the LTV and retention are good enough that you can make money in the long run from those users. You can think of it as an ROI on your marketing spend.
And this is especially true for mobile game apps. If it were a social app, then yes, something like the network effect can come into play, and UA spend would be much lower. But for Playstudios, maintaining a steady DAU is actually a sign that their UA team knows what they're doing, and they're able to maintain a profitable and highly efficient business. It's actually a positive that they can maintain their DAU, and even INCREASE their revenues during that period.
End Game?
I don't actually know how this will end up. I don't give price targets cause I have no idea how the markets will value this company. But I can provide a few data points so that you can make your own decisions.
From a multiples standpoint, Playstudios is cheap on a revenue multiple basis compared to Playtika, and is about the same from an EBITDA multiple basis.
I personally don't think that Playstudios is a play that's going to 5X. Hell, even 3X I think will be a stretch. But, they do have a loyalty program that will help lower their UA costs, and extend the lifespan of their users. And they are moving into more types of games to diversify their revenue source.
The reason I like this play is because I think the downside is heavily limited. The lifespan of casino slots players are so long, and the revenues are pretty stable (even growing), that there isn't an immediate risk that revenues will all of a sudden drop 30%, as is the case with lots of other mobile game companies. Add on top of this the potential for new revenue growth drivers from Bingo and RPG games, and the potential for margin expansion, that this is an easy 30-50% upside from current prices with almost minimal downside.
One last minor bit, is that I'm sure lots of people missed out on the hype surrounding Draftkings and Skillz, and I'm sure there are some retail investors that will look for any type of casino / mobile gaming / gambling deals, and may jump on this as well. My feeling is that there is also a potential upside from the hype or FOMO factor.
Anyway, this is my analysis on Playstudios / ACAC, hope you guys enjoy.
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. These are my personal views and analysis on Playstudios. Please do your own due diligence.
Disclosure: I own 400 shares of ACAC.
submitted by bananainbeijing to SPACs [link] [comments]

$GME Governance Board - Why are they Silent?

There are some heavy hitters on GME's Board and in the C-Suite. IMHO, the company should have spoken out about what's happening regarding their stock. They should also have a plan to address changes in the marketplace re Covid19, the push for digital and cryptocurrency, etc. Positive statements from them would improve the stability of the stock.
Why have they been silent throughout this entire event? Wouldn't they speak out against the disparaging remarks from various HF reps in recent weeks which have negatively impacted the value of the stock? Or, do they agree with the HFs that the stock is worthless, which would suggest that GME is behind a pump and dump which has enriched them and left us holding the bag? This is the kind of letter we need to send, en mass, to the Chairman of the Board: Kathy Vrabeck, and to the media.

GME Governance

Management

Board of Directors

submitted by Timelord1000 to GME [link] [comments]

AirBNB & DoorDash IPOs | CHEWY & GameStop EARNINGS | APPLE news| STOCK MARKET NEWS [12-09]

Chewy crushes earnings reports, while GameStop disappoints. What is the latest news on Apple and the new AirPods Max? Should we buy AirBNB or DoorDash when they launch tomorrow? Let’s talk about this and more about the stock market
Hey everyone and Good Morning! So, let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we saw the Nasdaq Composite leading the way up half a percent, the SP500 up .28%, both of them closing at new record highs with the Dow Jones also up .35% to close Tuesday. The VIX also showed a steady decline through the day as it dropped almost 3%. This moves in the market were caused by the latest hopes for a stimulus deal to be agreed on by the end of current session in congress as there seems to be a lot of ground on which parties can agree on. Things have gotten worse in the economy since this hole stimulus talk has been going around, so, if both parties would have been more willing to give up some ground, people would have already gotten more support and we would probably be talking about other bills or measures that would have helped even more. So, maybe this latest Mnuchin proposal with maybe minor tweaks would be the best chance of anything happening by the end of this year.
We saw more companies advancing yesterday as over 3 thousand companies were moving up, continuing the huge bull run started in November as more than 84% of companies are moving above the 50 and 200-day moving averages. The best gaining sectors yesterday were Energy and Health Care while Real Estate and Utilities lagged behind as Large-Cap Growth companies were the only company factor analysis that lost ground yesterday, with small-caps, especially small-cap growth companies largely outperforming the markets.
You can see in this HEAT MAP that there were gains to be made yesterday in a lot of parts of the stock market, with only a few big red spots on the map.
Today we will get some numbers on the November Job openings, MBA mortgage applications and Petroleum inventories.
While we got some earnings yesterday from Chewy which dazzled again in earnings with the only small miss coming in net sales per customer, but as the number of customers keeps increasing, this might continue to go down, as not every pet owner spends the same amount of big money on pets. The company reported an EBITDA of $5.5M vs a loss of over $9M expected with the gross margin increasing to over 25% while also giving great guidance for Q4 of $1.94B to $1.96B vs less than $1.8B expected by analysts.
The company also turned around to a positive cash flow of over $30M. I really like this company and I expected it to be a good own at least for the next quarter until they reach more hard earnings comps next year.
Meanwhile, as I expected GameStop had another bad quarter despite beating some earnings estimates with a smaller loss than expected, the revenue still continued to drop over 30% on a year over year basis while comps where even worse missing the expectations by quite a margin.
Though e-commerce sales rose by more than 250% in Q3, this did not offset the comparable store sales. Margins also declined with hardware margins being the biggest reasons why. I think this company has a very though challenge on its hands with e-commerce being such a though place to compete in, I think the shift to online has been delayed for this company and I think it will struggle to survive, even though it might see a boost next quarter from the sales of the new gaming consoles that were released last month from both Sony and Microsoft. GME EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
I wouldn’t touch this stock as I think there are far better plays out there than betting on this struggling company.
The only company that I am interested today which will release earnings results is ADOBE which is expected to have the best results ever for the company with an increase of over 12% in both EPS and Revenues. Last go around despite posting great results, the stock fell more than 4% in September and have just recovered to that price point. I expect it this time to go higher and stay that way if they manage to deliver the best quarter on the books.
Meanwhile DoorDash is pricing its initial public offering at over 100$/share which I believe is ridiculous, and it is an flat out joke of a valuation, this company has benefited a ton from this economy and still, this valuation implies that they will have over 50% of the total addressable market not in the US, but in the WORLD in the next couple of years, I don’t think this is a good investment opportunity, they will have increasing competition that offer the same thing for free or cheaper, this is a very though business to try and take over as one single company. People will also be way more likely to start going to restaurants maybe not in 2021 but for sure starting 2022 or whenever the vaccines are widely available in the entire world. I wouldn’t touch this stock at such high valuations, especially over 110$, even if I was looking for short-term gains which might end up being the case, I think there are better opportunities out there.
In contrast to DoorDash, I might be interested to buy some AirBNB if the price is right after the IPO, I think it will have a much better future, as personally I really like to rent out apartments or homes whenever I go on a vacation rather than a traditional hotel. And even though it might have a tough Q4 and Q1 next year, I expect by Q2 next year more people will be vaccinated, so more people will start and go out and travel, and with especially low comps for next year as bookings are way down in 2020 this might make the company look much more attractive by this time next year. So, between DoorDash and AirBNB, I clearly like AirBNB a whole damn lot more.
In other IPO news, RBNHD is expected to go public as soon as Q1 next year as they seek a valuation of over $20B.
Some other Boeing came for companies like Boeing which made its first 737 MAX delivery since the ban ended, as it is expected to start rolling out deliveries and upgrades for current planes at a very good rate with more good news coming from the UK which will suspend the tariffs imposed on US Goods.
While PENN gaming ran to an all-time high yesterday after news that sports betting may be launched in Michigan as early as six weeks from now, as legalization of gambling is moving faster and faster in the US, this also bolds well for DraftKings and other gambling stocks.
Also, ETSY keeps getting upgrades from analysts as they are expected to have a great Q4 suggested from the most recent November sales data.
And finally let’s talk about Apple, as they just revealed the new AirPods Max headphone yesterday, with a huge price tag of 549$, this seemed to gain a pretty bad reaction from consumers as they complained about the huge price tag with competitors like Bose and others selling similar headphones for 350$ or less. These headphones, also have a bigger price tag than even the new PS5 videogame console so we will have to wait and see if this is a successful product from Apple, I think they have gone a little overboard with the price, but rich people do tend to pay a premium for brand names. This can also be seen in the latest analyst call from JPMorgan as customers appear to favor high end models as delivery times have been increasing for the 12 Pro and 12 PRO MAX.
On the better side of things for Apple, the Fitness+ service is expected to launch on the 14th of December and it will cost $9.99/month or $79.99$/year. I expect this to be a better success for the company and to drive an even more stable increase of revenues, as subscription-based revenues are better than one-time sales.
So, I still like this company the most in the long-term and it might see a spike in the near future, especially moving closer to Q4 results and earnings. Apple is still the biggest position in my portfolio and I am not planning on changing that anytime soon.
Good luck to everyone in the stock market as the futures are mixed while writing this post with the DOW and SP500 gaining ground while the Nasdaq futures are just down for the moment.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market!
Have a great day and see you next time!
submitted by 0toHeroInvesting to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

AirBNB & DoorDash IPOs | CHEWY & GameStop EARNINGS | APPLE news| STOCK MARKET NEWS [12-09]

Chewy crushes earnings reports, while GameStop disappoints. What is the latest news on Apple and the new AirPods Max? Should we buy AirBNB or DoorDash when they launch tomorrow? Let’s talk about this and more about the stock market
Hey everyone and Good Morning! So, let’s start with the recap of yesterday as we saw the Nasdaq Composite leading the way up half a percent, the SP500 up .28%, both of them closing at new record highs with the Dow Jones also up .35% to close Tuesday. The VIX also showed a steady decline through the day as it dropped almost 3%. This moves in the market were caused by the latest hopes for a stimulus deal to be agreed on by the end of current session in congress as there seems to be a lot of ground on which parties can agree on. Things have gotten worse in the economy since this hole stimulus talk has been going around, so, if both parties would have been more willing to give up some ground, people would have already gotten more support and we would probably be talking about other bills or measures that would have helped even more. So, maybe this latest Mnuchin proposal with maybe minor tweaks would be the best chance of anything happening by the end of this year.
We saw more companies advancing yesterday as over 3 thousand companies were moving up, continuing the huge bull run started in November as more than 84% of companies are moving above the 50 and 200-day moving averages. The best gaining sectors yesterday were Energy and Health Care while Real Estate and Utilities lagged behind as Large-Cap Growth companies were the only company factor analysis that lost ground yesterday, with small-caps, especially small-cap growth companies largely outperforming the markets.
You can see in this HEAT MAP that there were gains to be made yesterday in a lot of parts of the stock market, with only a few big red spots on the map.
Today we will get some numbers on the November Job openings, MBA mortgage applications and Petroleum inventories.
While we got some earnings yesterday from Chewy which dazzled again in earnings with the only small miss coming in net sales per customer, but as the number of customers keeps increasing, this might continue to go down, as not every pet owner spends the same amount of big money on pets. The company reported an EBITDA of $5.5M vs a loss of over $9M expected with the gross margin increasing to over 25% while also giving great guidance for Q4 of $1.94B to $1.96B vs less than $1.8B expected by analysts.
The company also turned around to a positive cash flow of over $30M. I really like this company and I expected it to be a good own at least for the next quarter until they reach more hard earnings comps next year.
Meanwhile, as I expected GameStop had another bad quarter despite beating some earnings estimates with a smaller loss than expected, the revenue still continued to drop over 30% on a year over year basis while comps where even worse missing the expectations by quite a margin.
Though e-commerce sales rose by more than 250% in Q3, this did not offset the comparable store sales. Margins also declined with hardware margins being the biggest reasons why. I think this company has a very though challenge on its hands with e-commerce being such a though place to compete in, I think the shift to online has been delayed for this company and I think it will struggle to survive, even though it might see a boost next quarter from the sales of the new gaming consoles that were released last month from both Sony and Microsoft. GME EARNINGS HIGHLIGHTS
I wouldn’t touch this stock as I think there are far better plays out there than betting on this struggling company.
The only company that I am interested today which will release earnings results is ADOBE which is expected to have the best results ever for the company with an increase of over 12% in both EPS and Revenues. Last go around despite posting great results, the stock fell more than 4% in September and have just recovered to that price point. I expect it this time to go higher and stay that way if they manage to deliver the best quarter on the books.
Meanwhile DoorDash is pricing its initial public offering at over 100$/share which I believe is ridiculous, and it is an flat out joke of a valuation, this company has benefited a ton from this economy and still, this valuation implies that they will have over 50% of the total addressable market not in the US, but in the WORLD in the next couple of years, I don’t think this is a good investment opportunity, they will have increasing competition that offer the same thing for free or cheaper, this is a very though business to try and take over as one single company. People will also be way more likely to start going to restaurants maybe not in 2021 but for sure starting 2022 or whenever the vaccines are widely available in the entire world. I wouldn’t touch this stock at such high valuations, especially over 110$, even if I was looking for short-term gains which might end up being the case, I think there are better opportunities out there.
In contrast to DoorDash, I might be interested to buy some AirBNB if the price is right after the IPO, I think it will have a much better future, as personally I really like to rent out apartments or homes whenever I go on a vacation rather than a traditional hotel. And even though it might have a tough Q4 and Q1 next year, I expect by Q2 next year more people will be vaccinated, so more people will start and go out and travel, and with especially low comps for next year as bookings are way down in 2020 this might make the company look much more attractive by this time next year. So, between DoorDash and AirBNB, I clearly like AirBNB a whole damn lot more.
In other IPO news, RBNHD is expected to go public as soon as Q1 next year as they seek a valuation of over $20B.
Some other Boeing came for companies like Boeing which made its first 737 MAX delivery since the ban ended, as it is expected to start rolling out deliveries and upgrades for current planes at a very good rate with more good news coming from the UK which will suspend the tariffs imposed on US Goods.
While PENN gaming ran to an all-time high yesterday after news that sports betting may be launched in Michigan as early as six weeks from now, as legalization of gambling is moving faster and faster in the US, this also bolds well for DraftKings and other gambling stocks.
Also, ETSY keeps getting upgrades from analysts as they are expected to have a great Q4 suggested from the most recent November sales data.
And finally let’s talk about Apple, as they just revealed the new AirPods Max headphone yesterday, with a huge price tag of 549$, this seemed to gain a pretty bad reaction from consumers as they complained about the huge price tag with competitors like Bose and others selling similar headphones for 350$ or less. These headphones, also have a bigger price tag than even the new PS5 videogame console so we will have to wait and see if this is a successful product from Apple, I think they have gone a little overboard with the price, but rich people do tend to pay a premium for brand names. This can also be seen in the latest analyst call from JPMorgan as customers appear to favor high end models as delivery times have been increasing for the 12 Pro and 12 PRO MAX.
On the better side of things for Apple, the Fitness+ service is expected to launch on the 14th of December and it will cost $9.99/month or $79.99$/year. I expect this to be a better success for the company and to drive an even more stable increase of revenues, as subscription-based revenues are better than one-time sales.
So, I still like this company the most in the long-term and it might see a spike in the near future, especially moving closer to Q4 results and earnings. Apple is still the biggest position in my portfolio and I am not planning on changing that anytime soon.
Good luck to everyone in the stock market as the futures are mixed while writing this post with the DOW and SP500 gaining ground while the Nasdaq futures are just down for the moment.
Thank you everyone for reading! Hope you enjoyed the content! Be sure to leave a comment down below with your opinion on the stock market!
Have a great day and see you next time!
submitted by 0toHeroInvesting to StockMarket [link] [comments]

$DMYD & Genius Sports: Index for Sports Betting with Strong Tail Winds

$DMYD & Genius Sports: Index for Sports Betting with Strong Tail Winds

DMYD & Genius Sports: Index for Sports Betting with Strong Tail Winds

SPAC's nowadays run up to $15, $20, $25 on merger announcement. Shitty, obscure SPACs with poor fundamentals and obscure business models are all the rage the past few weeks.
Investor presentation linked before the DD: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e33152a051d2e7588f7571c/t/5f98173a9643aa67a4ced693/1603802943090/GSG+PIPE+Presentation+%2827-Oct-2020%29.PDF As everyone has noticed, SPACs have put investors on notice in 2020. With massive liquidity in the markets today, tons of money has been flowing into speculative SPAC investments this year.
Given that retail investors have no chance to profit from traditional IPOs that hit the market after a 100% run up (ABNB, DASH, AI, U, etc.) SPACs have presented an excellent opportunity to evaluate and invest in new companies before they actually hit the market. Personally, I have made fantastic returns through a number of SPACs.
That being said, not all SPACs are created equal. Some legitimate mature companies and high growth disrupters have emerged through SPACs: UTZ, DraftKings, ChargePoint, OpenDoor, Virgin Galactic, Eos Energy, and Butterfly are just a few examples.
However, many SPACs are performance chasing the EV hype by pursuing multi billion dollar acquisitions of EV start ups with 0 revenue for the forseeable future. I say good luck.
However, how often do you find a diamond in the rough? A SPAC with a definitive agreement, near NAV and outstanding fundamentals? Oh, and did i mention that they only have one competitor?
One SPAC with massive upside potential at a conservative valuation is DMYD-Genius Sports.
First, who is DMYD? dMY Technology Group https://www.dmytechnology.com/team is led by CEO Niccolo de Masi, the former CEO of Glu Mobile.
De Masi has consummated 25+ mergers and raised more than $1B in funding for various ventures. He seems to have a knack for the mobile/gaming sector, as his first SPAC: DMYT is taking Rush Street, an igaming company, public. De Masi is a veteran of this sector, which makes Genius Sports Group an interesting target.

Meet Genius Sports. ($DMYD)

(TL;DR at bottom)
​
Logo

Who is Genius Sports?

Genius Sports Group is one of two large sports data providers (the other being SportRadar) that collects and sells live data to sports books. This is incredibly important, as live betting needs constantly adjusted lines to reflect real time game updates. Genius Sports currently has contracts with the NCAA, PGA, NASCAR, FIBA, EPL, Bundesliga, and NBA, among other leagues, to be their sole or primary data provider.
These partnerships have staying power, as these leagues are unlikely to change partners once they are locked in for multiyear contracts. Additionally, acquiring rights to official league data is expensive, thus making a high barrier of entry for new competitors. They have 220 customers including DraftKings, FanDuel, William Hill, MGM, PointsBet, and Caesars. Important to note: Genius takes 5% of revenues of events they cover from ALL sports books. https://geniussports.com/home/partners/

Genius is above other SPACs due to its mature market position and strong financials.

The company has been growing at a 30% CAGR over the last several years, with revenue growing 250% from 2016 to 2020 ($42M to $145M). 60% of revenue is recurring due to multi year contracts, and the top 10 customers only account for 30% of revenue, thus lowering flight risk of any particular customer.
Genius is already EBITDA positive with 10% margins this year, and anticipates $68M in adjusted EBITDA (adjusted to ignore stock based compensation, a non-cash expense) with 29% margins in two years.

Why Genius Sports?

Genius has a clear economic moat built around:
Proprietary technology to track and record in-game statistics on behalf of major sports leagues, in exchange for data rights
7,000+ statisticians and agents on the ground, managing 240K+ events per year
Highly customizable software that manages every aspect of a sportsbook’s data and trading offering, including advertising and streaming services
Long-term contracts with sports leagues and customers
Significant opportunity for inorganic growth via M&A
Highly fragmented market for technology, content and media within sports ripe for consolidation to boost growth outside of plan.
​
Genius Sports

Genius Sports

Genius is above other SPACs due to its mature market position and strong financials. The company has been growing at a 30% CAGR over the last several years, with revenue growing 250% from 2016 to 2020 ($42M to $145M). 60% of revenue is recurring due to multi year contracts, and the top 10 customers only account for 30% of revenue, thus lowering flight risk of any particular customer.
Genius is already EBITDA positive with 10% margins this year, and anticipates $68M in adjusted EBITDA (adjusted to ignore stock based compensation, a non-cash expense) with 29% margins in two years. In a year where sports were disrupted by Covid, Genius still grew revenue from $116M to $145M. They also successfully resigned their contract with the NBA, ensuring a multi-year partnership with the premiere US basketball league.
Outside of the betting market, Genius’s ability to aggregate data has led to an interesting agreement with the NCAA. Until 2018, live data with college sports was incredibly inefficient. Genius signed a contract with the NCAA to create a new software: NCAA Live statistics https://geniussports.com/sports/sportsmanagement/ncaa-case-study/.
This is a uniform software for all divisions of college sports. As a former college athlete myself, I reached out to some of the athletic support staff from my University. They raved about how Genius has improved efficiency and accuracy for college athletics. NCAA Live statistics has overhauled the entire industry.
And as New York is in the works of legalizing sports betting, this will explode soon.
Genius Sports also has an impressive amount of customers and partnerships, and even more exclusive ones coming each week. Which ones below do you recognize?; with over 700 partners you're bound to know a few of them.
​
Some of Genius Sports major customers.
Basketball: NBA, NCAA, March Madness
Soccer: FIFA, Premier League, Serie A, Bundesliga
Golf: PGA, LPGA, European Tour
Racing: NASCAR
Online Sportsbooks: DraftKings & Fanduel
Traditional Sportsbooks: MGM, Caesars, SkyBet, William Hill
Likely Future Partner: Rush Street Gaming (DMYT)
  • Currently up 63% YTD, also went public with the same deal team (DMY)
​
More and more customers coming in each week.
they only lost 1 customer in last 3 years, and shortly after that customer RETURNED to Genius Sports. talk about real life FOMO, 'eh?

Financials & Trading Dynamics

Financials
  • Already makes $140M+ in revenue AND is profitable, with $14M in 2020 EBITDA
  • Growing at 30% CAGR, with $230M revenue and $68M EBITDA by 2022
  • $500M+ EBITDA potential in the horizon
  • Customer contracts have guaranteed minimums with upside on usage. The majority of 2020 revenue is locked in for 3-4 years on average
  • Only ever lost one customer in the past three years
Trading dynamics
  • Deal was overlooked because it was announced just before the election (10/27/20), one of the worst trading weeks for the entire market
  • Reddit following has been limited and Stocktwits nonexistent
  • If Genius Sports were to trade at similar 2022E revenue multiple of 19x as Draftkings, it would imply a stock price of $24-25
Additionally, with Pfizer’s vaccine approval, there is little to no risk of massive sports cancellations in the future. Genius still grew revenue during Covid’s massive disruption. I imagine that the revenue numbers for 2021 will be fantastic.
Now let’s focus on the stock movement and valuation.
Genius is valued as $1.4B, or 7.4x 2021 revenues. For a company with high CAGR and an industry with massive tailwinds, this seems like a fair, or cheap valuation. Note that Genius is trading at a steep discount to lower margin businesses such as sportsbooks Golden Nugget, DraftKings, and Penn.
https://twitter.com/ShortsHoward/status/1336686975554744320?s=20 Thanks to @ShortsHoward on Twitter.
While investors have been chasing the next hot EV IPO, Genius has slowly climbed from $10 to $13. Last summer, a rumored FEAC-SportRadar merger led to FEAC pumping to $15+. SportRadar was worth $2.8B in 2018, presenting 60% upside from Genius’ current price to reach its competitor’s 2018 valuation!
DMYD and Genius announced their merger in late October during a market downturn, thus letting it go overlooked. I think this is a sleeper SPAC that will have a massive influx of news in Q1, as its merger aligns with the climax of college basketball and the beginning of March Madness. A single Benzinga article pumped the stock by almost 20% last week.
​
https://preview.redd.it/h27vod4pet461.png?width=1048&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e7aad17d449e85642fd43b4919d025fbd42f4e9
Consistent growth
Last week, Genius Sports scored an exclusive partnership with the German Tennis Federation:
  • This is just one of the many partnerships Genius bring in. For example, a few days prior to this they scored a deal for Beach Soccer data. Over 700 partnerships and counting.
​
Exclusive partnership
​
Do you know who captures and provides the biggest sports betting event of the year - NCAA March Madness - data to sports betting sites?
  • It's Genius Sports and they'll be closing their merger with $DMYD right before that huge event. ESP March Madness for NCAA Basketball; One of the biggest gambling events of the year. The event occurs in Q1, which perfectly ties in with the merger with DMY Technology Group, Inc. II, $DMYD. Merger Q1 2021.
I also think the NCAA presents the biggest upside catalyst for Genius: March Madness. March Madness was cancelled due to the pandemic last year, but betters placed $4.8B in bets on the tournament in 2019. Who has a monopoly on NCAA data? Genius.
Who gets a 5% revenue share from ALL sports books for NCAA events? Genius. With the number of states with legalized betting doubling from 2018 to 2020, we could see upwards of $10B spent on March Madness this year. Along with March Madness, secular tailwinds for sports betting suggest high upside for Genius moving forward. 46 out of 50 states have either passed or presented legislation to legalize sports betting.
As states such as NY, CA, TX, and FL legalize betting, revenues streams will swell. Data will become increasingly important in this industry as live updates are constantly moving betting lines for books. With multi-year contracts with half of the US’s professional leagues, Genius serves as an index for the entire industry.
On top of that; just a few weeks ago Canada legalized sports betting; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-26/trudeau-government-moves-to-legalize-single-event-sports-betting
​
NCAA

Positions:

​
166K worth, 100% of portfolio.
Personally, I am long $166k in DMYD stock, and have no intention of selling anytime soon. Always do your own DD, but I hope this post helps. PT $18-20 EOM.
TLDR: Long DMYD as its a sleeping giant near NAV. There are currently no Arbs holding this down, so its primed to explode. Small float aswell. Only one competitor, Sportsradar. And SR is not even publically traded on any market.
Merger Q1 2021.
Market cap around $2B currently
"it's as undervalued as Tesla, both should go up at least 50% from here" - Warren Buffett.
submitted by zech_meme to SPACs [link] [comments]

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