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Why I hate hedge funds

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by bwilson4web, Sep 19, 2017.

  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    Source: Toys ‘R’ Us files for bankruptcy, crushed by online competition – The Denver Post

    Much of the toy merchant’s debt is the legacy of a $7.5 billion leveraged buyout in 2005 in which Bain Capital, KKR & Co. and Vornado Realty Trust loaded the company with debt to take it private. Since then, the Wayne, New Jersey-based chain has struggled to dig itself out.​

    Great debt sucks the profits and capital needed to invest and improve. So the subsequent 'management' cuts what led to the original success. In effect killing the golden goose.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #1 bwilson4web, Sep 19, 2017
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  2. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    couldn't agree more, should be no tax deductions for that kind of debt. wasn't bain one of mitt's interests?
     
    #2 bisco, Sep 19, 2017
  3. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    He was not alone but copied the same nonsense that has destroyed so many companies in the past. Martin Shkreli is another fine example. To me, they look like legalized, loan-sharks.

    Bob Wilson
     
    #3 bwilson4web, Sep 19, 2017
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  4. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    unfortunately, the ftc has allowed too much of this stuff over the last 30 or forty years, and congress has been complicit.
    as i've stated before, when goldman sachs got their foot in the door, all heck broke loose.
     
    #4 bisco, Sep 19, 2017
  5. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    Toys 'Were' Us, surely?
     
    #5 hkmb, Sep 19, 2017
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  6. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    exactly. amazon is now 'us'.
     
    #6 bisco, Sep 19, 2017
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  7. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    Toys R Them?
     
    #7 hkmb, Sep 19, 2017
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  8. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    toys are cheap!
     
    #8 bisco, Sep 19, 2017
  9. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    That, I suspect, may be more of a problem than the tax and hedge-fund issue. Bain, KKR et al totally failed to see that toys were one of the markets best suited to e-commerce.

    I have two kids who are very much of the Toys R Us age demographic, and both of whom have lots of school friends for whom we must buy birthday presents when the kids are invited to parties. I buy a lot of the kind of toys that Toys R Us sells. (I have probably trodden barefoot on more Shopkins than Toys R Us sells in a year.) There are 12 Toys R Us stores within a half-hour drive of our house. And I haven't been into a Toys R Us in the last ten years.
     
    #9 hkmb, Sep 19, 2017
  10. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    that's amazing. i never think of these companies as international. how hard is it to open a toy store?
     
    #10 bisco, Sep 19, 2017
  11. hkmb

    hkmb Senior Member

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    Oh, yes, they're everywhere. In Shanghai, there was one within a ten-minute walk of my office and another two within a 20-minute walk of my house, and all of them were enormous, but I would imagine that Tmall and JD.com are killing them now.

    I have read books and watched documentary films about this. It is very difficult. In general, you have to be a very old man with magic powers, and you have to be able to bring the toys to life. And you have to be a bit lonely but then rediscover the magic of love.

    This may be the other area (aside from the threat of e-commerce) in which Bain and KKR misunderestimated the challenge and failed when Mr Magorium made success seem so easy.
     
    #11 hkmb, Sep 19, 2017
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  12. Trollbait

    Trollbait It's a D&D thing

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    Colbert's Super Pac ran an ad comparing Mitt to a serial killer.

    Colbert Super PAC - Mitt Romney Attack Ad - The Colbert Report | Comedy Central
    Starts around the 35 second mark.
     
    #12 Trollbait, Sep 20, 2017
  13. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    still better than trump.:cool:
     
    #13 bisco, Sep 20, 2017
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  14. RCO

    RCO Senior Member

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    You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment! :censored:
     
    #14 RCO, Sep 21, 2017
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