Gregmal

^ Yup. Its one of the purest exercises in trading and market psychology Ive ever seen.

While I havent sold, I am kind of sharing the same sentiment and definitely considering it. I dont have any problem with the business risks, or even the China risks, but the US approach to these things under Trump and now carrying over with Biden is very off-putting. As is how kind of consensusy this became after all the Munger followers jumped in. I hate being in crowded trades. We should have got more of a run than we did, and had a lot of money come in and soften the fall. Many of which I assume dont fully understand or appreciate what theyre dealing with. In absolute terms, I actually think the China tech cos are extremely attractive. But part of that is likely because its so difficult and will continue to be difficult for a US investor to navigate them.

ACND looks interesting, but there's a certain irony to phonies and frauds teaming up with a SPAC. Ive always thought the newsletter stuff was scummy. I have subscribed to a few over the years, but the stuff you run from is always the get rich quick or sensational story crap. Everything I see from them is "legend who called TSLA at $5" showing a picture of Tilson who ironically lost a fortune shorting Tesla, and those "Guy who called the tech crash and GFC makes huge call!" click bait.

Shorted some PSTH 6/18 $22 and 22.5 puts

^^ yea I kind of concur and if nothing else, in a simplified way, at worst it seems current warrants are basically just potentially getting converted from this deal to the next one with some free carryover to remainco. I mean further down the rabbit hole theres the question on the rights....do they entitle you to units(IE shares plus warrants) or just shares? There would definitely be some nuances to the rights that dont apply to the warrants. For instance a right generally has to be exercised when the capital is getting raised. IE in a typical spac I'd imagine that you'd have to exercise by deal close. In other words you dont really get any free leverage on the post close entity. Which is negative. However thats traditionally what happens. Traditionally spacs dont do insane deals like this. Traditionally you dont have stub spacs, traditionally your warrants get adjusted all every aspect of the corporate actions, IE you should theoretically have gotten UMG warrants too or be compensated for not getting them. So IDK. Guess we will see.

More thoughts tying to hammer out the scenarios regarding warrants should you avoid the tender.... Say strike is indeed 23-14.75.....one, this largely doesnt makes sense and kind of screws the warrant holders...is there anything preventing a company from making an $18-19 deal, excluding some from benefiting from that deal, and then having a stub at $1-2 with a warrant at $4-5, IE as much of several hundred percent OTM? Its dumb, and kind of defeats the purpose of the warrant to begin with. However, if this is the case, maybe the PSTH stub warrant is worth IDK 50c -$1. But whats interesting is should the warrant entitle one to buy a PSTH share per the original terms, the PSTH share is entitled to the right. The right IMO should easily be worth $2-3....if its less than its highly undervalued. I would be interested to see if the rights have a conversion trigger. If not they are basically mini TARP warrant type instruments then, which is awesome. So in that worst case scenario you'd have a FV IMO on warrants post tender of $3.50-4, but realistically probably pretty close to something in the ballpark of the tender itself. You'd have a high hurdle on the PSTH warrant portion but be reasonably close if exercising the warrant at NAV because of the right. IE buy the shares at $8, theyre trading at 5s, get a $2-3 right as well. If this isnt the case, say strike can readjust to same 15% premium to NAV...which given the incentives and reset taking place with everything else, I dont see why they wouldnt do that...your PSTH stub piece is probably worth a few bucks if applying the same implied breakeven as they traded pre deal. Which then including the rights, makes them a bit undervalued. Ive seen a lot of places saying the rights are only worth $1-2, but I fail to see how this makes sense. Not totally apples to apples but the PSTH ws despite a 15% premium to NAV broke off trading at $6.5. Your breakeven being almost 50% premium to NAV. Why would your rights only be worth $1-2 despite being ATM? Sure, if you are forced to buy into the deal immediately after, you arent getting the torque you would but are rights able to remain trading post a PSTH 2 deal the way warrants do. Dont know there. If its an automatic deal then decision type of thing, the right would then kind of be a stable trading vehicle that simply marks the expected deal pop and nothing more. IE if one thinks there's 0 premium to NAV and 0 deal pop with rights would be worthless. Also as the fellow in the YT video mentioned, its important to determine whether stub PSTH has a redemption at NAV feature. Will the new warrants on stub PSTH have the same expiration and also what is the adjusted auto call strike? What if they do away with that? Kind of just brainstorming and throwing shit against the wall here because there are a bunch of unknowns. But still pretty fascinating and fun diving into all this.

So essentially where I am getting on the warrants is you could take the easy road and just tender in which case you get converted and the pre UMG distribution PSTH currently translate to like $5 and change which is basically where its at now. or You hold tight and in that case it breaks down into what sort of conversion rate you get as a function of strike reduction and trading of rights/remainco once they get distributed....IF I am sifting through all this correctly!

So the more Ive given this some time and thought, the more I am appreciating this ridiculousness of the transaction(s). I stand by the characterization of the UMG shares as a high quality return of capital. From there it basically resets the clock on everything and removes all the typical "SPAC" shackles....brilliant. However what I am still trying to grapple with is the warrants. They could potentially be very interesting. Are these not now de facto super warrants? IE holding warrants on both remainco and nextco? Except nextco warrants/rights strike at $20...so they'll basically be in the money right off the bat....if PSTH is any indication, there could be as much as $3-4 of intrinsic value. I am also trying to understand the potential strike reset. It would seem logical, especially since PSH holds a ton of warrants, pitches the tontine value, and also excluded UMG from impacting the warrants, that they should reset not to the mathematically derived 23-14.xx....but to a typical 15% premium to NAV...so low $6. You also can kind of get a glimpse at the value of the rights, $22 current price less 14.75 so the remainder is basically NAV +(right value + SpAckman premium).... I see ALL of the incentives here at PSTH aligning favorably. I also wouldnt be shocked if he has a deal done by YE. Both fascinating and intriguing nonetheless. To quote the Batman movie...this may not be the hero we deserve, it was the hero we need. In a frothy market and crazy spac landscape...we need to let Bill be Bill. And Bill is one of the most gloriously opportunistic investors Ive even witnessed. Here's some high quality pre-IPO UMG shares(I dont buy that its not pre IPO bc theres public owners...PYPL wasn't priced into Ebay, among other examples) and now not one but two vehicles ready to roll. One vehicle completely removed of its restrictions.

Its not really about China anymore, at least in terms of holding them accountable. It can likely never be proven to a degree they'll cop to it, and even if it was, there's few realistic paths at this point. The point is to seek accountability from the scumbags in the press and the politicians who covered it up, who lied, who censored the truth. There also should be accountability from the shitbags, normal folks, who basically used this as an outlet for their derangement and created a situation where the politicians and media could do something like this. Isnt it insane that we had numerous politicians and publications matter of factly stated that the lab leak was "debunked"? "Fact checking it"? Are you kidding me! It was all an active fraud on the American people and a widespread politically charged aggression. Here's some new stuff: https://nypost.com/2021/06/05/trump-wanted-to-publicly-grill-fauci-on-wuhan-lab-funding/ Evidence China had a vaccine before the first cases were acknowledged. Evidence Fauci was scheming back in January. this gem: The meeting objective was to assess what data is needed to understand the evolutionary origins of COVID-19 and respond to “resulting misinformation”. Fauci gave a 10-minute presentation. By April, the intelligence community had concluded there was no chance that COVID-19 had been manipulated in a lab. “The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in the April 30, 2020 statement. The statement was false; there was no consensus. More than 30 internationally renowned scientists signed letters to call for an inquiry into a potential lab leak. So get this! The POTUS wanted to investigate it....THERE WAS ZERO BIPARITSAN SUPPORT! There was also the determination that it would be impotent because the media would actively undermine it! And then craziest of all, the second the new guy, who has rampant history and ties ton China...comes in and immediately shuts down any remaining inquiries into it and continue appeasing/covering up for China! And while we needed 3 years to investigate some bogus Russia conspiracy....he's giving this, which is immensely greater in significance....90 freakin days! Gee, I wonder what conclusion this "inquiry" will have? People should be outraged and holding these folks accountable. However many of them, the ones who expressed fake outrage a year ago, the ones basically just using covid as a derangement outlet...like many of this ones who were posting on this very thread...are long gone and dont care anymore. Its disgraceful. As I said over a year ago(to which many of these pompous chumps said was an improper and selfish statement) fuck everyone else. Take care of you and your friends/loved ones. When something like this can happen, and you have the government and media actively lying and scheming and so much of the country wrapped up in "AHH I HATE HIM!!"...that they too become complicit in it...watch out. Thats very dangerous. So much of this could have been avoided...especially all the skepticism around it if there's wasn't so much of an effort to hide it and paint a political narrative around it.

I personally never let taxes influence a buy or sell. If something is worth buying, buy it. If its time to sell, sell it. Part of being successful is paying taxes. Its just part of the game. Wonder how many people held GE or old GM way too long because they didnt want to pay taxes?

Meanwhile, I'm like yo where's pupil at? In my head I picture...looking forward to his take.

So after a good bit of pondering I think I ve got to where I need to get in terms of the simplification of all this. What changed between yesterday and today? Well, its complicated! But in simplest terms... I view this as a return of capital. Cash is trash though. Say what you want about how its "cheaper" to maybe buy this through some other vehicle with its own problems...but in a very simplified way, pre IPO shares in an iconic company/trophy asset are probably worth more than the current 8% premium to NAV or whatever. Additionally, for all the copycatting or cloning or whatever people call it that folks do, I am aware of no investor who buys mid-large cap, high quality names that you can immediately follow and over the longer run make a very respectable amount of money, on a more consistent basis, than Bill Ackman. Back when everyone hated him Chipotle still popped like 15% when he announced the position. Even super expensive DPZ popped like 6%. So again, put this into that perspective and its worth more IMO, not less than NAV. Otherwise, not much else really changes all that much. Folks had no problem paying 50% premium to NAV here in anticipation of a deal...well guess what? Thats still entirely in play. They're still doing a deal, they're just derisking your position and if anything, through the mechanisms of the redemptions, your value getting in has been enhanced. I get this needs to deflate though. There was a lot of retard money in this thing. When I started this thread I had gotten the units for something like a 7-8% premium to NAV. Added to warrants at 6.50 on separation. Sold the warrants between 8-9, and sold the common at about a 15-20% premium to NAV. Now we are right back at square one so just now I bought a good slug of PSTH shares at $21.70. I think this is poised to deliver and create a lot of value after this big reset and retard shakeout. Just my 2c.

I'd also add that I think the issue he was trying to solve was too much cash. The remainco will still be a relatively large spac. But I like my odds a whole lot better with him picking smaller companies than big ones.

My understanding on the warrants is that they'll tender for those outstanding, and then settle in shares with the remainder becoming remainco warrants after some conversion features. A lot to read so I'll probably get a more in depth handle over the weekend. But first thought was that the warrants were the inflated by speculators(traded at like $15 at one point) so they'll come down the hardest(a wee bit early at 7.50 lol but live by the sword die by the sword). But you'll effectively still have your exposure to the upcoming vehicle if my understanding is correct, alignment with the sponsor. Lot to break down here. Havent adding anything because I wanted exposure(which I now have) and also have sold puts with strikes between 20-22.5 spread over the next few months.Not really sure what type of investment I want to make of this whole thing, and would like to get a better understanding of where I think Bill's head is at with all of it. But its also so damn complicated that theres got to be an opportunity in there somewhere.

Discipline is the biggest thing for me. Then its retraining your body to get used to a new routine and portion sizing. I dont have any set diet, but rather seasonally adjust based on what I expect to eat. IE summer I expect lots of burgers and hot dogs so I try to do high fat, low carb stuff, just not religiously. Moderate portions Ive found the most important. Packing a cannon LOL is so true. I noticed that with pizza. I could eat half an everything pie in 5 minutes and when I analyze it, its cuz 5 bites clears a sliced. So chill out and break it up. Ive never paid much attention to the BMI stuff....its horribly outdated. How do you feel and how do you look and what do your annual lab results say...thats what I focus on. At my peak physical condition probably in college I was 6'0 190 with a 6 pack(good genetics, nothing of my doing LOL) which is apparently overweight. I now fluctuate between 205-215. When I start getting to the top of my range sometimes good old fashion trash talking to myself works well. "Put the 3rd piece of pizza down fatty", "Fat people shouldn't be having dessert", "Thats enough food on that plate to feed the whole family you fat fuck", "have some respect for yourself Greg".....which mentality get me back in line.

Yea I actually like this. I also like that the market doesnt.

Funny. Sell the news totally fits given all the hype around this. Bought a few warrants at 7.50 AH

Just my opinion but I believe the US is also quite culpable in this. There's always finger pointing involved, but the truth is its typically for show. The US and China were hardly in the dark on this. We hear tons about "China covering it up" but nothing about our own public servants and supposed watch dogs doing the same here. Or the scientists who inexplicably chose self interest out of fear of potentially losing funding or getting a bad rap...lots of things were exposed and supposed checks and balances failed the American people. The media should be a watchdog and it says something that a "tabloid" as many people call it, like Daily Mail or NY Post, were the only ones doing their job. Whereas, even on these very forums, you had tons of arrogant people sneering those publications while linking to crap like the NY Times and the like, or "scientific" journals and sites, which were all either actively deceiving everyone, or willfully negligent and complicit. I recall posts here to respected scientists who were publishing shit(or tweeting lol) basically saying the genome sequencing proves its impossible for this to have been lab originated....something we now know is just bogus interpretation of the "science"... Imagine how much less confusing and controversy there would have been if in February 2020 they had just been honest with people? Hey, a lab manipulated virus accidentally got out of a research lab...its been tinkered with to be highly contagious...here's what can be done to take precautions? LOL instead they all lied and scrambled and made it a political thing and forced people to focus on Trump sucks/Fauci is awesome/hoax/mask/no masks.....and then wonder why people are all over the place with this! Imagine if the "respected" journalists and firms had put in 1/10th the effort into getting to the bottom of this as they did stupid tabloid shit like tax returns and fear porn?

I think there is little doubt much of the administration and tentacles of government were aware. Why hold top secret task force meetings in January of 2020, mere weeks after word of this broke? One so informative that there was bipartisan support for massive repositioning of said members stock portfolios! I dont ever recall such measures, certainly not to the same extent, occurring for Ebola in 2014 or H1N1... But "Kung Flu" was a great example of this coverup. Same for the travel ban to China. Rather than actually looking into why these things were being said/done...they(media and politicians) just redirected the narrative and called it racism.

$20 CLF calls a few months out.

I just dont get what the point is of owning a shitco if you dont have an exit strategy. And I say this as someone who is all for flipping the worthless or overvalued sardine to a higher bidder. But buying these type of things and then locking into a long term illiquidity issue just seems hard to understand. I mean we might not expert FFH to pull off clever moves like Mudrick did the other day, but expecting some sort of exit lever to get pulled isnt crazy, is it?

https://nypost.com/2021/06/03/state-dept-staffers-were-warned-against-probing-covid-origin-report/ Pretty stunning. As is a ton of the other stuff now leaking out. Especially little liar Fauci who knew all along and was colluding with China. Granted, this is America and there is no accountability anymore....but I think there should be severe fines, loss of licenses, and repercussions for any politician, scientist, or media outlet that had a role is covering this up or keeping it under wraps. Everyone from FB and TWTR to guys like Fauci need to be held accountable. It was obvious from the beginning...my favorite was all the "its so contagious/highly transmissible" statements...Hmmmm, almost like it was designed to be!

Ultimately the problem with this whole situation, the missing variable that once fixed will allow shares to rerate significantly, is Prem. People use the "fat pitch" analogy a lot with investments. The issue with Prem, is that everyone is lining up and T-ing off on slow pitch softballs getting lobbed down the middle. They're hammering them with massive aluminum bats. Meanwhile, by choice, Prem is on the sidelines refusing to participate, because he's waiting for the guy who throws 100 mph and goes up there not with a bat but a broomstick handle. Except when he gets up there and swings, its not like his average is .400....its like .150. Stop trying to be special or cute and just get back to basics please. At that point FFH will become investable for me. Until then, its just so much less headache owning BAM(who seemingly never has any issue monetizing whatever type of invests they've made) or BRK which is just stubbornly patient but ultimately gets to where it needs to go.

I actually think its pretty awesome seeing companies like this, and GME basically trade their way into a longer existence. Its good for employees, good for people who enjoy their products, and ultimately an example of how astute management can really create something out of not much by paying attention to their share price; something many dipshit NEOs completely ignore.

Xerxes is on the money. You dont often get a second chance at something like what happened late January/early February. Prem has made some absolutely boneheaded investments...and it is also glaringly egregious to me that its becoming apparent that they dont even have an opportunistic exit strategy. His response to the above question says it all.....just oozes arrogance and condescension when really, the analyst/speaker is right. There is no way to spin BB as anything but a failure of an investment and getting this miracle gift from the market and sitting there pretending its the right move to do nothing exhibits that making money/maximizing value is not the primary objective anymore. FFH has a lot of very good things going for it right now, but its also important to learn from mistakes and not let some positive developments all of a sudden become deodorant for a decade long stench.