hugin

Money, markets & business. Explained simply.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@ilar0x As a business decision, Toronto was right. One season of Kawhi bought the franchise its only title, and that keeps paying off in tickets, sponsors and team value for years. The cost just landed on one person instead of the company.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@Veltrixmoon Sixth place, a $128 million loss, and the shareholders still got paid. Every investor’s dream club.

[hugin @huginalpha]

Nicolas Cage once owned 15 homes, two castles and a stolen dinosaur skull. reports put his tax debt at around $14 million. on 60 Minutes he said it was about $6 million, and that he paid every dollar back.

at his peak his fortune was estimated at around $150 million. his former business manager, Samuel Levin, later described in court where a lot of it went.

according to Levin’s filing, in 2007 alone Cage bought three homes for more than $33 million, 22 cars (nine of them Rolls-Royces), 12 pieces of jewelry and 47 pieces of art and “exotic items”. he kept four yachts: one for the Caribbean, one for the Mediterranean, one for Newport Beach and one for Rhode Island.

the skull cost him $276,000 at auction. it turned out to have been smuggled out of Mongolia, and in 2015 he gave it back. “I never got my money back. so that stank.”

he also bought a nine-foot pyramid tomb for himself in a New Orleans cemetery.

in 2009 Cage sued Levin for $20 million. Levin answered that he had told Cage he needed about $30 million a year just to keep up his lifestyle, and that Cage signed every check himself.

Cage never filed for bankruptcy. he moved to Las Vegas and made three or four movies a year until the debt was gone. on 60 Minutes he called it a dark period and said work was always his guardian angel.

his version of what went wrong: he over-invested in real estate and the market crashed before he could get out. “it wasn’t because I spent $80 on an octopus.”

15 homes, four yachts, one stolen dinosaur: did the manager fail him, or was there nothing left to manage?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@ESC__AI exactly. the skull was $276K. three homes in 2007 alone were over $33 million. the boring purchases did the real damage

[hugin @huginalpha]

Nicolas Cage once owned 15 homes, two castles and a stolen dinosaur skull. reports put his tax debt at around $14 million. on 60 Minutes he said it was about $6 million, and that he paid every dollar back.

at his peak his fortune was estimated at around $150 million. his former business manager, Samuel Levin, later described in court where a lot of it went.

according to Levin’s filing, in 2007 alone Cage bought three homes for more than $33 million, 22 cars (nine of them Rolls-Royces), 12 pieces of jewelry and 47 pieces of art and “exotic items”. he kept four yachts: one for the Caribbean, one for the Mediterranean, one for Newport Beach and one for Rhode Island.

the skull cost him $276,000 at auction. it turned out to have been smuggled out of Mongolia, and in 2015 he gave it back. “I never got my money back. so that stank.”

he also bought a nine-foot pyramid tomb for himself in a New Orleans cemetery.

in 2009 Cage sued Levin for $20 million. Levin answered that he had told Cage he needed about $30 million a year just to keep up his lifestyle, and that Cage signed every check himself.

Cage never filed for bankruptcy. he moved to Las Vegas and made three or four movies a year until the debt was gone. on 60 Minutes he called it a dark period and said work was always his guardian angel.

his version of what went wrong: he over-invested in real estate and the market crashed before he could get out. “it wasn’t because I spent $80 on an octopus.”

15 homes, four yachts, one stolen dinosaur: did the manager fail him, or was there nothing left to manage?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@fineprnt and his money wasn’t infinite, it just looked that way for a while. Levin said the lifestyle alone needed about $30M a year. one bad stretch of movies plus a property crash and the math stopped working

[hugin @huginalpha]

@wadeledger fair, but if your manager watches you buy 22 cars in one year and says nothing, is that on him too? where do you draw the line?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@Zyron5m two Oscar-level actors fighting over a smuggled skull is peak 2007 money. what’s the dumbest thing you’d buy if you had Cage money?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@fomoliver Selling puts feels like free money right up until the day it isn’t.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@dangijpeg no bankruptcy either. he could’ve filed and walked away, he just kept taking roles until it was gone. critics called them paycheck movies, he says he cared every time

[hugin @huginalpha]

@klilvi the wild part is the real estate is what sank him. he said himself it wasn’t the octopus, the market crashed and he couldn’t sell in time. 15 homes sounds great until you need cash

[hugin @huginalpha]

@0xlexlab The uncomfortable part: $25 billion is less than two months of Meta’s revenue. When the fine is smaller than the profit, it’s not a punishment, it’s a cost of doing business.

[hugin @huginalpha]

Would you have kept working with a manager who let you buy 22 cars in one year, or fired him on day one?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@twinedon0 Six bots with clear roles beating sixty doing random stuff makes sense. It’s the same reason a small team with one manager ships faster than a big one with no structure.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@fineprnt The real lesson isn’t about boxing. Never let the person who negotiates your deals also be the one who keeps your books. That’s how 30% cuts and “charge it to Mike” happen without anyone noticing.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@fineprnt only investment in history where the asset got a movie role after the buyback

[hugin @huginalpha]

Stallone had about $100 in the bank when he told Hollywood to f*ck off.

Studios wanted his Rocky script and offered him over $250,000 for it. The catch was that a real star would play Rocky: Burt Reynolds, James Caan or Ryan O’Neal.

His wife was pregnant. He’d already sold his dog because he couldn’t afford to feed it.

He said no.

He agreed to work for minimum pay just to play the lead himself. They shot the movie for about $1 million.

Rocky made more than $200 million and won Best Picture. Once the money came in, Stallone bought his dog back.

Here he is telling the story himself in 1976 👇

Would you have taken the $250K or bet on yourself?

[hugin @huginalpha]

@kryneeex Losing 10% of your cash a year to rats is a worse return than holding through most recessions. $3 billion is useless if you can’t move it, bank it, or spend it without getting caught.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@klilvi Yes. I'm too

[hugin @huginalpha]

@fomoliver He could buy railroads and politicians. He couldn’t buy off the daughter of a refiner he’d crushed.

[hugin @huginalpha]

@levifizg funny how it works. the more you have in the bank, the more scared you get to move