Vesper

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@InvestSpecial It's been a potential multibagger for 10+ years. Always on the cusp of making money, with huge potential. Company loses money, sharecount goes up. Hope springs eternal.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@calvinfroedge Sure are a lot of reply-guys on here who didn't bother to educate themselves on how the caverns are operated.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@longcastadviser Ditch the primaries entirely and run a rank choice general election. But neither party wants that because it dilutes their power

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@moseskagan Just gave $143. I live in CD4 just a few blocks from CD13 and would love to see Dylan get to work on her agenda.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@DeepDishEnjoyer Sounds like a Jeffrey Epstein quote

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@TheRealDavey2 Appears the takeovers panel opened themselves up to this when they backed off forcing sale of the 15M shares purchased when a bid was known. No legal expertise here and no idea how court might rule.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@_FlipMan 24" cabinet ~100lbs, 36" ~130lbs, including packaging

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@puppyeh1 And they still have the EGM scheduled for May 1. Surely that will have to be delayed again? With the order to divest 15M Abercrombie shares pending review it would be wholly unfair for the EGM to proceed as scheduled.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@blondesnmoney

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@puppyeh1 Interesting, did not know that this was a possibility. Looks like a bit of a pain to do from a starting position at IBKR, but would you consider transferring to direct registration in future to stop this from happening?

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@orrdavid @MrBDelany The recent UKR successes are largely because Russians lost access to Starlink in February.

https://t.co/G1lK7iIgny

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@puppyeh1 Love the way this was documented, laying out all the lies plainly. Criminal behavior really

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@shawngorham 3/8" oak. We had the same in our house and had to replace it because it had been refinished prior and the nails were already showing. Too thin to refinish more than twice

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

A $20M distribution would result in an 8.4% yield on A (with B's converted). What level of distribution do you think would be needed to rerate?
An alternative is to publish a plan to re-initiate distribution in future based on hitting milestones (similar to NRP) which would generate some interest, similar to actually instituting one. Go out there and say distribution will be initiated at 5.5x Debt/EBITDA and it should be positively received.
The other reason to hold off is you never know when a warm winter could happen and if they've locked in a distribution they have no current cushion to manage a lower cash flow year.
Finally, if as you say they really can pick up a 25M EBITDA acquisition for a turn or two under the current ~7x EV/EBITDA that would be great and I will happily be wrong about that topic.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@moseskagan Guy doesn't deserve politeness, even in death. Good riddance.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

@amandaorson Probably left over plume from upper stage of this Ariane 6 launch
https://t.co/FBYnq2ajCI

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

I sure hope they use a big chunk of the DCF to pay down debt after that. Annual cash interest just increased $25M with this refi, and 2028 is just around the corner when the 5.875% $850M notes will need refi. At 9.25 that's another $29M/yr. It's a blessing their bankers limited acquisitions to $50M/yr because it forces some discipline. Speaking as an A unit holder reward me with lower leverage and I'm happy to wait on the distributions.

[Moses Kagan @moseskagan]

Re-upping this post, in light of the eviction moratorium under discussion in LA County:

What every voter should know about housing policy:

1. Rents reflect the balance of supply of apartments and demand for those apartments in a given area. That’s it; there’s no magic. If you want lower rents, you can hope for a recession that destroys jobs and, therefore, demand. Or you can add supply.

2. There is no amount of money that any big city government could feasibly spend that would add materially to supply. This is because, depending on the location, new apartments cost $250,000-1,100,000 to develop… building even a few hundred of those starts to stress any city budget, and many big cities need tens or hundreds of thousands.

3. On the other hand, investors (including pension funds and endowments, insurance companies, rich families, etc.) can collectively **easily** provide enough capital to build as much housing as we need **so long as they are confident they can get a reasonable return**.

To get those investors to fund the creation of the housing our society so desperately needs, we must do two things:

1. Dramatically reduce the time & complexity associated with securing governmental permission to develop housing. This means reviewing and simplifying the overlapping regulations that constrain housing production: zoning codes, building codes, parking, ADA, etc. But it also means changing the cultures within the relevant governmental agencies from “default no” to “how can we help you?”.

2. Provide certainty around on-going regulation of apartment operations.

The way investors get a return from building rentals is as follows: They hire managers to lease the apartments, collect the rents, pay operating expenses and any mortgage payments, and then send the investors the cashflow that remains.

But governments all over the country have been restricting the manner in which apartment buildings can be operated in all kinds of ways. For example: Cities have been making it harder to screen tenants, while also making it much harder to evict tenants who don’t pay.

You can see why both of those measures are politically popular. After all, who doesn’t want people to get second chances? And who wants anyone to get evicted?

But, as a manager, the combination of those two regulations makes it much harder to predict, with any certainty, that the rent will get paid… and that makes it very difficult to get investors to provide capital to create more housing.

Another example: Rent control. Again, I understand why renters love rent control and why politicians want to give it to them. But, if, as has been the case in NY, LA and San Francisco, city governments hold annual rent increases below the rate of growth in the operating expenses of the buildings, the cashflow payable to the investors shrinks… making them much less likely to invest capital in building more apartments.

In conclusion: For ~every other good or service in the economy, we allow the market to function, and the result is that we have a surplus of choice at all price points (think of food or clothes or cars), which is spectacular for the consumer. If we want a surplus of choice at all price points in housing, we need to get comfortable with the idea of allowing the market to provide it.

And that means allowing investors to build rental apartments *and* allowing them to operate those apartments in a manner consistent with making a reasonable profit.

[Vesper @VesperMusing]

+hamburger from cattle that ate only grass. No row crops. Ruminants evolved to eat pasture plants, not soybeans and corn.

Typical diner beef input cost is probably ~$4/lb or $2 or a 1/2lb burger. True grass fed beef hamburger meat is closer to $10/lb making beef input cost $5 for that burger. Using similar principle for the other ingredients makes the raw ingredient cost for the "real and fresh" burger around double a typical diner burger. If the restaurant were to pass on that difference at cost the $10 middle-America diner burger is now a $13-$14 diner burger. I'm happy to pay that, and I do for my homemade burgers. Unfortunately many are more interested in saving a buck than eating real food.