He believes that shares of Rallye are likely going to zero. )For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P. London stocks struggled for traction on Monday, boosted by shares of mining companies as commodity prices climbed, but were held back by a strong pound. A sustained breakdown in late 2018 and March 2020 foreshadowed losses that exceeded 20% from peak to trough.Viewed from a wider lens, the picture is no better. For the first four months of the year, the fund is up 8.4%, while its benchmark returned 9.8%. Should you wish to regain investors’ confidence or change our minds, you should answer these questions fully, openly, and without caveats. Short-seller Carson Block is placing more bets against SPACS, according to a Bloomberg report. On a LTM basis, and on the Company’s 2016 forecast, did / will Casino generate Free Cash Flow per the following formula (all items pertain only to wholly-owned subsidiaries and the parent, unless otherwise noted): EBITDA (excluding gains / losses from asset sales), - interest expense Short interest on the biggest ETF tracking the Nasdaq 100, or QQQ, increased to 3.6% of the stock outstanding, the highest level since August and up from 0.9% in December. The relationship between the world's two biggest economies deteriorated rapidly over the past few years over issues ranging from trade to China's response to COVID-19. + dividends (from non wholly-owned subsidiaries). We would think these errors would have been evident to Casino. An ... His campaign against French retailer Casino saw the regulator open an investigation into Mr Block in 2016. He won first prizes in France's high school Latin and Greek exams, completed his baccalaureate degree at 15, and earned a PhD in math in only one year. Later, it emerged that the cryptocurrency is apparently being used to pay for a lunar satellite launch with SpaceX, Musk’s commercial rocket firm.Dogecoin Used to Pay for Lunar Satellite Mission With SpaceXBitcoin was up 1.7% Monday at about $58,887 as of 8:30 a.m. in London. EXCLUSIF. Casino disagrees. They aggressively seek to grow earnings through debt financing. He added that with more than $2 trillion now invested in virtual currencies, “a meaningful reset lower could also affect more traditional financial assets like equities.”For the JPMorgan team, the possible retail-driven froth in cryptocurrencies is a reminder of late 2017, when a crypto boom peaked.Ether RecordAmong the most notable moves in the crypto market Monday was Ether’s jump past $4,000 for the first time after a climb of more than 2,000% in the past year. Teladoc Inc., also heavily weighted in the ETF, dropped less than 1%.The stock rotation out of expensive-looking tech names is proving tough for Wood and her firm, Ark Investment Management, with investors pulling more than $500 million from the main fund in May so far.Big bets on the likes of Tesla and Bitcoin lured billions to Ark’s products, but more recently investors have been souring on the kind of pricey shares the money manager favors in companies with often unproven technologies. That may make sense after the index’s 92% gain since its pandemic low.The largest companies, loosely known as Faamg, last September saw day traders flocking to bullish options for quick profits. The New York Stock Exchange FANG Index fell 3.6%, putting the gauge on track for its worst month since March 2020. JPMorgan will step up the return of all of its employees in England to working at least part of their week in its offices from June 21st, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Tuesday. After an eye-watering 150% gain in 2020, ARKK has dropped 16% so far this year.But damage wasn’t limited to tech’s speculative fringe. Depuis, Carson Block et sa société d'analyses financières Muddy Waters font profil bas. The International Monetary Fund says Britain will have the biggest shortfall among major industrial nations.In recent years, Britain has had no problems funding the gap. Cole at RBC points out that recent inflows have shifted toward loans and deposits -- “hot money” that could quickly leave the country if sentiment on Britain soured.“Seemingly unsustainable deficits can be sustained for a very long period and they don’t seem to matter until they do matter,” he said on Monday. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The legendary investor says these are the key lessons for investors and consumers. We therefore can only interpret Casino’s steadfast refusal to date to provide this information as a tacit acknowledgment that investors should not in fact view them as operating activities, and should not attach a multiple to their EBITDA contributions. (Bloomberg) -- Parabolic jumps in digital tokens such as Ether, Dogecoin and Binance Coin are outshining Bitcoin, prompting more questions about whether that segment of the cryptocurrency sector is ripe for a reckoning.The rallies have contributed to a slump in Bitcoin’s share of the $2.6 trillion crypto market to 43% from about 70% at the start of 2021, a metric that for strategists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and DataTrek Research LLC may be a warning sign of investor excess in a range of digital tokens.Bitcoin’s waning dominance carries echoes of “froth” to the extent it’s being fueled “by a rally in other cryptocurrencies driven more by retail demand,” a JPMorgan team led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou wrote in a note Friday. Sony announced a buy back up to $1.8 billion (200 billion yen) shares after the March quarter profit fell short of analyst estimates. Mission: Providing a framework to improve your investing PROCESS, while collecting newsworthy information about trends in business, politics and tech areas. When I drove up it has all changed. S&P’s calculations contain material arithmetic errors that we did not previously discuss. © 2011-2021 VALUEWALK LLC. Control person(s) have significant equity stakes and / or equity incentives. The gain or loss arising from the derecognition of an asset is determined as the difference between the net sale proceeds, if any, and the carrying amount of the asset. Muddy Waters Research LLC is an American privately held due diligence based investment firm that conducts investigative research on public companies while also taking investment positions that reflect their research. Alphabet shares are trading at eight times revenue, the highest in more than a decade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, while Facebook’s price-to-sales multiple is nine -- nearly twice that of the average Nasdaq 100 company.Roaring BearsBears boosted bets against tech stocks as the industry’s leadership faltered amid a flight to the reflation trade. Carson Block is a short-seller, investor and the founder of Muddy Waters Research. As debt grows, their focus grows to include gaming credit metrics – particularly operating cash flow. 8. Many of the questions get to the heart of whether there is truly a recovery in Casino’s France retail business. document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(jo); Carson Block: meet the man who took down UAE's NMC Health. Le gestionnaire de fonds de Muddy Waters a lancé une attaque éclair en décembre. This answer should individually cover 2014, H1 2015, H2 2015, and 2016. var r = Math.floor(Math.random() * (9999 - 0 + 1) + 0); Carson Block is arguably the world's "most feared short-seller and fraud-sniffing dog", whose ten-year "reign of terror" spread from China to France, says Jon Shazar on Dealbreaker. Therefore, Casino’s response appears to be an attempt to further mislead investors. Unsubscribe at any time. The JPMorgan team said an analysis of activity on the affiliated Ethereum blockchain suggests a lower fair value of $1,000 for the token.Dogecoin -- which started as a joke in 2013 but is now a dominating Internet meme and sitting on a 20,000% advance in the past year -- captured the headlines over the weekend.First off, billionaire Elon Musk cited the token again, this time in a much-touted television appearance on the U.S. show Saturday Night Live. As Via Varejo generated €737 million of EBITDA in 2014, this error results in a €164 million overstatement of proportional EBITDA. Carson Block, in particular, has been effective in corroding value. Why did the company’s response imply that it has always included gains on property sales to Mercialys in EBITDA, when in 2013, the vast majority of the gains did not flow into EBITDA (because they were booked as Other Operating Income in accordance with the company’s disclosed policy for derecognition of assets)? After soaring 44% on its first day of trading, the stock declined more than 7% in the next two sessions and was on pace Monday for its third straight drop.The slump is an inauspicious start for a company looking to capitalize on elevated demand for packaged-goods and cleaning supplies during the pandemic. This response reminds us of the reaction from Noble Group (NOBL SP) to our April 2015 short thesis, calling it “inaccurate, unreliable, and misleading”.3 When we shorted Noble it was rated BBB- (like Casino). We strongly suspect the reality of what can be upstreamed is far less rosy than the consolidated financials would imply. The confidence you and the company have expressed in 2015 France guidance could be explained by Casino generating an abundance of EBITDA through property transactions. It is likely that Casino’s OCF includes proceeds from the sales of properties to Mercialys. Flows to the ETF were negative in April and would’ve been this month, too, if not for a jump on Friday. In activist short selling, such a kneejerk reaction from a company is often a strong validation of the short thesis. The ETF is on track for its first yearly outflow since 2016.Troubling TechnicalsCharts on the Nasdaq 100 look precarious. Recording buying pressures on Ethereum and some altcoins have pushed the crypto market valuation to about 2.5 trillion. Subscribe to ValueWalk Newsletter. Muddy Waters peels back the layers, often built up by seemingly respected but sycophantic law firms, auditors, and venal managements. Data on Wednesday will likely show that the U.K. had one of its biggest trade deficits on record in the first full quarter since completing the withdrawal deal with the EU.“A big jump in the trade deficit can put into question whether it can be sustained by capital flows,” said Sonali Punhani, European Economist at Credit Suisse. Either because of or in spite of Block’s reputation, the French market regulator, the AMF, decided to take a closer look at his practices after he began his focus on Casino. Your complete and intellectually honest answers to the following questions will go a long way toward allowing investors to determine whether our opinion, that Casino is a highly-levered, poorly performing business being hollowed-out and managed primarily to buy time for the massive debt its controlling shareholder has amassed, is reasonable. It is now Max Casino instead of Carson Station. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Casino (But Were Afraid to Ask) by Muddy Waters, Get The Full Henry Singleton Series in PDF, Get the entire 4-part series on Henry Singleton in PDF. Price action: SONY shares traded higher by 0.96% at $97.97 on the last check Monday. - cash taxes 10. Chipotle just dropped the hammer on its rivals by lifting its hourly minimum wage to $15 an hour. In a statement, Rallye said that the Muddy Waters' report "contains grossly erroneous allegations that the Group will not fail to answer in detail.". BMO Capital Markets, BofA Securities, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Scotiabank and TD Securities are arranging the deal.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P. 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We stated that S&P’s operating lease adjustment methodology greatly understated the proportional debt because Casino’s contracted future lease obligations do not realistically reflect the lease payments Casino should expect to make in order to substantially maintain its existing business profile, revenue, EBITDA, profits, etc. Carson Block is betting against Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA, saying the French supermarket operator is using “financial engineering” to mask a … Carson Block, « short-seller » activiste, patron de Muddy Waters, fait trembler les géants de l’économie. Average market share in H2 2015 was only seven bps greater than in H2 2014 (11.58% vs. 11.51%). In reviewing transcripts, we note that you told questioners six times in calls held during H2 2015 that the items they wanted to know about were not the purpose, objective, or subject of the call. Shares of French retailer Groupe Casino plunged after short-seller Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Research, issued a … The Fitch rating poses another question: How easily could a ratings analyst find the courage to downgrade a company when the chairman of her ratings agency is a long serving board member of the company she rates? To throw down the gauntlet, we think it highly likely that Casino’s discounting strategy has not generated much of an increase in profitability, and that the company is using property sale gains to cover this up. Odey’s Special Situations Fund highlights Formula One and Shaw, Sheeraz is our COO (Chief - Operations), his primary duty is curating and editing of ValueWalk. Our point is that while the S&P methodology might work well for understanding the effective debt of many retailers, due to Casino’s idiosyncrasies, it understates the debt. Data and research company New Constructs called Honest “overvalued” and said the stock is “worth no more than $7” a share.Honest didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P. Andrew Zimmern, a James Beard award-winning chef, says that $28.6 billion is not sufficient to help the ailing restaurant industry recover. Dans une interview à Challenges, Carson Block, le fondateur du fonds activiste Muddy Waters, accuse Jean-Charles Naouri, patron de Casino, de le faire espionner depuis un an. Muddy Waters then went on to compare the company's largest shareholder, Jean-Charles Naouri, to the "geniuses" who founded defunct hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management: Jean-Charles Naouri is a genius. What this means is S&P only reduces Adjusted Net Debt by the non-controlling share of Adjusted Debt without regard to the cash that is not owned by Casino. If management is aware of these errors, we do not think it’s appropriate to direct investors to S&P’s rating as assurance of Casino’s financial profile. One of the potential consequences of recovering earlier and more quickly than the rest of the world is the U.K.’s current account deficit widens even further as export growth lags imports. Carson Block: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Casino. Last week Nintendo Co Ltd (OTC: NTDOY) warned regarding a production impact from the component crisis. While the currency has rallied this year amid a brightening economic outlook, strategists say further significant gains are unlikely.The current-account gap, which also includes flows of investment income, may almost double to 6.4% of economic output this year, according to the U.K.’s fiscal watchdog. Unless the company has a rationale we haven’t considered, this practice seems to directly contravene its policy on accounting for asset de-recognition. Neither Casino nor its more vocal defending analysts have given us reason to adjust our estimate of Casino’s equity value of approximately €7 per share. The firm has exposed accounting problems and fraud at several companies, primarily in China but also in other countries in Asia, Europe and North America. "In light of this dissemination of misleading information, Rallye has filed a claim with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers and reserves the possibility to exercise its rights before national courts, including criminal courts," the company said. Sony’s monthly active users on PlayStation Network declined 4.4% Q/Q to 109 million during the March quarter. Despite the retail genius behind Casino’s aggressive discounting strategy, which you were touting on calls as early as January 2013, Casino’s 11.6% market share as of November 29, 2015 is lower than the 11.8% share as of March 24, 2013. Is Casino’s very temporary reduction of commercial paper outstanding at the end of 2015 an attempt to window dress the balance sheet? Bottom line: if there’s nothing to hide, then stop hiding it. The survey sees the U.S. economy, Canada’s largest trade and investment partner, expanding by 6.3% in 2021 after a 3.5% contraction in 2020. This information is crucial for investors to understand how much cash Casino really has to service debt at the parent, and to pay dividends. He has, as a result of this harm, been a successful trader. Schultz, who was part of the team that ran a ruler over Bombardier's supplier relationships when Airbus rescued it from cash shortages, is currently a senior vice president in the Airbus procurement office, which runs its global supply chain. Noble Group followed the same pattern. We find two aspects of Casino’s response to our short particularly interesting, which is part of why we’re writing this open list of questions. Given that the Fitch Group’s chairman has sat on Casino’s board since 2003, and that Mr. Naouri is on the board of the controlling shareholder of Fitch, how is it appropriate that Fitch rates Casino? How is booking gains on sales of property so that they’re included in EBITDA consistent with Casino’s disclosed accounting policy or IFRS? With Rallye’s NAV less than zero at Casino’s current share price, we similarly have not seen a reason to change our estimate of its value. "The basic problem with Casino is that its financial statements are literally meaningless to understanding the company's (poor) health. Futures on the Nasdaq 100 slid as much as 1.4% in early Asian trading on Tuesday.“Inflationary pressures are becoming harder to ignore,” said Adam Phillips, managing director of portfolio strategy at EP Wealth Advisors. British Airways-owner IAG said on Tuesday it would raise 825 million euros ($1 billion) from a convertible bond, the group's latest move to strengthen its balance sheet as travel remains at very low levels during the pandemic. However, as shown below, in 2013 Casino accounted for these gains outside of EBITDA (by accounting for them as Other Operating Income). Casino seems to be following the financial engineer’s handbook, which generally goes as follows: Usually this ends quite badly for companies and investors. Casino’s disclosed asset de-recognition policy, which mirrors IFRS policy, reads as follows: “An item of property, plant and equipment is derecognized on disposal or when no future economic benefits are expected from its use or disposal. We continue to believe that despite Casino’s view the property sales are operating activities, when combined with Casino’s leaseback or repurchase, the sales are in fact financing transactions. CFO Hiroki Totoki does not expect to catch up with the demand surge despite securing additional devices and additional production of PS5 next year. Block is known for documenting and alleging fraudulent accounting practices in publicly traded Chinese companies.. The table below showing Casino’s market share versus its “Real” EBITDA (i.e., excluding our estimate of gains on sale in 2014 and 2015) strongly casts doubt on the notion that there’s any relationship between Casino’s present market share and EBITDA generated by selling products in stores. Shares of French retailer Groupe Casino plunged after short-seller Carson Block, founder of Muddy Waters Research, issued a report calling the company "one of the most overvalued and misunderstood" he has ever seen. (Spoiler: we estimate Casino's LTM leverage ratio at 8.9x. Carson Block: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Casino. 5. Carson Block: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Casino, Please speak to a licensed financial professional, The Texas Storm: Understood With Peter Kelly-Detwiler, Hoarding Wealth: Seven Deadly Economic Sins, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, CitiGroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs – Earnings Preview, Bronze Age Pompeii Discovered In Peterborough, Britain. jo.src = 'https://www.financialjuice.com/widgets/voice-player.js?mode=inline&display=1&container=FJ-voice-news-player&info=valuewalk&r=' + r; Instead, Casino defended S&P without condition or caveat. (function () { See more from BenzingaClick here for options trades from BenzingaSony Targets .8B Share Repurchase To Make Up For The Profit Miss: Bloomberg© 2021 Benzinga.com. However, the company’s continued sensitivity about discussing the numbers makes us concerned that the property sale gains included in EBITDA might be even greater than we estimated. This answer should individually cover 2014, H1 2015, H2 2015, and 2016. Google Pay users in the United States can now transfer money to app customers in India and Singapore, with plans to expand to the 80 countries available via Wise, and 200 via Western Union by the end of the year. Casino guichard: Carson Block confirme le retour des fonds activistes en France. But the worry is hard to shake in a sector that defies traditional investment analysis.The share of the largest cryptocurrency could be declining because investors are getting more comfortable with a wider array of tokens. We invite the company to show otherwise. The 1967 devaluation of the pound that humiliated Harold Wilson’s Labour government followed years of balance of payments problems.Now the pound floats freely, meaning that the exchange rate can fall to a level where foreign investors once again find British assets attractive, sparing Britain an abrupt funding crisis.With British assets owned by foreigners now worth around six times the size of the economy, an adjustment may not be without pain, however. 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