In Three Days of the Condor, when professional killer G. Joubert is asked “Why” he kills people for a living:
I don’t interest myself in “why”. I think more often in terms of “when”, sometimes “where”; always “how much”.
Do you ever have one of those days? When you feel like you might just default at any second? It could be spurred on by a liquidity crisis, like Ford took away your factoring, or has contractual price downs that are killing your margins and is ordering less volume to boot, and your revolver is maxed out, and good luck raising any more money in this market. Suffice to say, you’re regretting your decision to be a consolidator in the auto supplier space. Or it could be a liquidity crisis where you had one too many jaeger bombs and the smell of your toilet indicates you may have also had too much tequila, but you have no memory of having ANY tequila. Either way, you could default at any second and you don’t like where things are headed.
That is when you need to restructure and find yourself a personal CRO. What can he strip out? What can he improve? Well, well, you’re in store for it. You spend your weeknights doing what? Why don’t you use lean manufacturing while performing your job? You should consolidate your suppliers. And lose that contract with that girl, you know the one, she negotiated terms at the top of the market and you find yourself spending significant capex to maintain your supply of her goods, goods which are worse and worse and of which she is putting out less and less.
I found myself at this point, on the veritable verge, and I needed outside help. Luckily, Long or Short Capital has a very generous and unique health package that allows its employees to be extremely healthy and notably more efficient. You think the firm with the SAAP based financial results doesn’t have generous fringe benefits? Come on!
I have just brought my CRO in (pictured above) so he is busy getting getting dug in and up to speed on me. I will update as he begins producing actionable recommendations.
Lam Sai-wing is the head of Hang Fung Gold Technology, a retail jewelry company based out of Hong Kong, famous for its Swisshorn Gold Palace. The WSJ caught up with him to talk about his golden romper room.
Corporate speak:
Building a gold toilet, I realized…would be like an investment, plus we could let people see it for an admission fee, and we could use it to launch our brand. [Besides gold prices were so low they could only go up; buying gold at $200 an ounce would hedge against inflation]
-Lam Sai-wing
Translation:
This was the perfect way for me to stoke my ego plus it was a sizable risky speculation in a commodity which, as a retail jewelry business, is not what we should be doing — another reason it was a great idea! I knew that if gold went up, I would look like a genius and likely get a nod from the Wall Street Journal who eats up these zany stories; if gold went down or stayed the same, I would look like the guy with the crazy big ego but I’d still be rocking a gilded room. A classic win-win situation for me, win-lose for the shareholders. It’s all in the game.
Corporate speak:
The toilet and the Guan Yin statue are the most valuable pieces[.] As for the toilet, that’s the cornerstone of our company[.] It’s an icon. It will never be taken apart.
-Lam Sai-wing
Translation:
As for the toilet, that’s my throne. It will be taken apart if the price is right.
Freedom is the last, best hope on earth.
-Abraham Lincoln
No man loves America more than Neil Diamond and no man wants your 4th to be better and freer than Neil does.
Except the staff of Long or Short Capital.
In its recent presentation to investors, Yahoo correctly pointed out that Carl Icahn has not had much success in recent battles with corporate management. In fact, his track record looks miserable. But they made a key error in their analysis. Where is Yahoo on this list? As one of his largest and most public failures, shouldn’t Yahoo be included in the list of his underwater investments?
Highly controversial for racial and cultural reasons, and that’s likely the only reason why it’s unpublished in academia, the Mexican Woman Theory of Women suggests that once a woman locks a man down, things change dramatically, namely into a pear (Spanish Editor’s Note: pera en español, muchachos!). Women in such situations turn into pears, or at least change their shape to be more pearlike than before. My body of research canvassed all the women I have seen in my life who are Mexican, or whom my naivete and racial insensitivity suggested were Mexican, so they might not all technically be Mexican, but for all intents and purposes, I will consider them to be daughters of Mexico.
The evidence suggest that there is a startlingly high number of attractive Mexican women between the ages of 18 and 24 (seriously, they are really hot and seem awesome in every way and I have no way of accessing that market legally domestically). But there is also a huge amount of pear shaped not attractive Mexican women aged 27+.
Why the discrepancy? What happens? Simply put, women require manipulation (and incentives) too.
Recommendation: Keep them on their toes. Literally, it’s great exercise.
Dear Yahoo!,
About a month and a half ago, we provided you with a free report on how to increase your value. Since then, you have not followed any of our suggestions. In particular, our suggestion #8 — “Let the company be bought by Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) at a 50% premium to YHOO’s closing price before MSFT’s February bid” — went unheeded.
Since then, you have chosen to take a few other actions including:
However, I must give credit where credit is due. Congratulations on:
Had we known here at LoS that this type of success was possible, we would never have issued our initial recommendations. Our apologies for failing to see the bigger picture.
Sincerely,
LoS
This headline teaser caught my eye this morning on WSJ.com:
“Russian Investor Backs Fortis
Fortis is tapping a Russian billionaire for a $630 million capital injection, a sign that banks are looking beyond Asian and Middle Eastern investors for help shoring up their shaky finances.”
Recommendation: Read the linked Wikipedia article on the Russian investor, Suleyman Kerimov, it’s mindblowing. His nickname is “Russia’s Richest Civil Servant”, the source of his significant wealth cannot actually be determined and he has a yacht named “Ice.” Oh and he is also tapping the oligarchbait above (with his liquidity).
I don’t consider myself a home-run hitter. But when I’m seeing the ball and hitting it hard, it will go out of the park.
-Ken Griffey Jr.
In light of the fact that Carl Icahn has recently begun blogging, we thought we should point our reader in the direction of the time Carl tried to take us private and started his own blog (formerly located at liquidiconcapital.com).
Recommendation: Historical perfomance may not guarantee future performance (or so some claim), but fake reality can be a useful guide to future reality.
The following is an actual User Submitted email, possibly a request that we generate such a report
Subject Line: Cutting edge Bio-Tech Opportunity: Potential to make a killing.
Industry: Baby Farming
Need help evaluating the PVGO of the industry.
I suspect the “plant” needs to be located pretty close to both India and China from a raw materials acquisition stand point. With live cargo the risk of dead-loss via ocean freight and air transport is too costly. Please include possible suitable locations for the facilities (Andaman & Nicobar Islands?). Also, please discuss the perceived need to capture advantages in avoiding costly American and European regulatory environments.
We have a great idea that will make you (and us) lots of money. I mean boatloads. You know that scene in the beginning of Ducktales, after they talk about how “Life is a Like a Duck Blur” when Scrooge McDuck is swimming in his vault of gold? That will be you, but that vault will contains gold coins and Russian models, liquid swimmable Russian models. Think about it. Awesome right? Ok well let me get to this way for you to make millions. But first, look at this picture.
Now my plan is simple. You and I, we, WE get together and we send out letters to everyone we know, asking them to give us $100 each but also instructing them to send the letter on to other people, who will send $100 to them and $50 to us, and so on. If we pool our resources and our contacts, I’m sure we can make a lot of money. What do you think? After you consider that, I have another can’t lose moneymaking idea that just involves you flying between Colombia and Miami carrying flour for my Colombian grandmother who loves to bake with fresh Colombian flour.
Recommendation: The time is ripe for investment banks to start putting in gratuitous pictures of scantily clad women into prospectuses. We smell opportunity to finally get deals like Classmates.com done.
Relationships as a whole would be improved if this was made clear that the relevant trade-off to not putting out or meeting your significant other’s needs is that the relationship has to be dissolved. Inertia and fear of change are powerful forces, so incentives should be contractually outlined to minimize their deleterious effects on your life. Most people dawdle or settle or both
To rectify these inefficiencies in the love market, we recommend contractually allowed cheating contingent upon putting out not happening enough. A requirement of some sort of formal notification and a cure period (30 days or so) would resolve fair warning obligations. Additionally, the contract would also provide (but not make mandatory the exercise of) the option for the counterparty to terminate the relationship upon the commencement of cheating. This ensures that there will be an adequate level of putting out or a faster resolution to the relationship — a veritable “win-win” situation for each side of the contract and also for society which would benefit from improved relationship velocity.
Problem Scenario Example: Bob loves to get it on. Bobette, Bob’s right hand, gets tired after only a few rounds and sometimes “she” just doesn’t “feel like it.” Normally, Bob and Bobette would stay together in a sexless and loveless relationship for months on end, until one or the other was “fed up.” This could take months, possibly even years if kids were to enter the picture. With a well drafted love contract, Bob could put Bobette on notice and the cure period would begin, allowing for Bobette to fulfill Bob’s needs. Were that not to take place in the given 30 days, Bob would be free to start seeing Bobetta, Bob’s left hand (Bob describes “her” as “like hooking up with someone else”), and/or Bobette would have the legal right to immediately terminate the relationship.
Recommendation: Long love contracts. There is nothing that a properly designed contract cannot improve, or at least make less worse. Not even love.
