Henry Schwartz • 1st Owner, Trade Alert LL1d 714 lot of weekly calls swept in $TSLA for 85c closed near $17 - that'll buy a few model 3s. hashtag#optionshashtag#newsbot
I changed my mind on TSLA. Musk is not realling trying to pull an LBO, since that is impossible. He is trying to convince a lot of equity people to accept dropping their liquidity needs and join a dream. He is a pretty good dream seller, so I wouldnt want to bet against that. I mean, if every single large shareholder today accepted to own private shares, well, the company would be private, because all they would need would be to raise $10-$20B to take out the smaller shareholders and that's it. They would pull this off without having to raise a single dollar in debt capital. I wouldn't bet againt Musk convincing people, obviously he already suceeded with that soverign wealth fund (and I suspect that fund wants more shares that they bought, they disclosed a 5% stake, the first threshold for disclosure, there is no reason to think they stopped buying) My mistake was confusing the word 'funding' with debt funding, Musk got equity funding, that's how he will get this done. To me, now its very telling that Musk tweeted right after the Saudi stake was disclosed and how he is trying to come up with ways for small shareholders to own private shares, thats all the funding that he needs
That's a very astute observation. Like you I'd say that while it's crazy for a small shareholder to embrace the loss of liquidity that comes with owning shares in a private company, Elon is good at selling dreams.
i'm glad you see this...it was so amusing to watch others wonder how he was going to raise 80b. the hecklers do zero DD; but no reason to as they never have a horse in the race in either direction.
If Tesla becomes private, they still would have to file with the SEC. further they would lose an important funding source. If rates rise or credi markets get more finicky they might end up in trouble. Further, most of the page 1 shareholders can’t own Tesla if it’s private. The largest holder after musk is t row price with 10percent of the company. Most of that is probably in mutual funds that require daily liquidity. The next largest is fidelity. Clearly they can’t own an illiquid company : another 8percent. Then a mutual fund in the U.K. with 7percent. Black rock, capital group, bmo, and state street round out the page one. The only other page 1 investor is tencent. They could probably agree to private ownership but who knows if they want that.
You are right, the thing is, these firms can always accept to be taken out at $420. All Musk needs to do is to convince them to vote for what he wants. The man was able to get rockets in space and land them back down, if he says 'this is the only way forward, otherwise this company might not be viable (or some other such exaggeration)' it will be hard for them to vote against. The Saudis easly have $20-$40B to cash out anyone that wants. This seems similar to Warren Buffett bringing a matter for a vote at BRK, its hard for him to lose a vote because the shareholder base is full of believers. He did get that $50B pay package approved this year afterall
Drove it back from Fremont and charged in Truckee last night. There is a supercharger in the parking lot of my kid's dentist.