$XNET core biz is no longer a corpse: subs growing, overseas audio/live ripping, op income flipped positive. Probably worth $10.
But the real setup is Arashi.
Last quarter mgmt said realized Arashi gains could “drastically strengthen” the balance sheet and create more options for shareholder return.
This quarter: they’re actively monitoring the stake because of 1940 Act risk and may adjust holdings to keep investment securities below the threshold.
Translation: the market is treating Arashi like trapped Chinese holdco noise. Management is telling you it may have to / will become cash. To get below 45% of assets — the threshold — they’d have to sell 3/4ths of it….
And that they’ll return money to shareholders…
China risk is real, but easy to underwrite against ~$18/share book + a core biz worth maybe ~$10/share.
Stupid asymmetric with neater catalyst and a good print.
Appearing in my DMs today: a full @Groupon app redesign from a university student in the Mispriced Assets army. Really cool stuff.
We walked through the proposal on YouTube — cleaner UX, better checkout flow, and a few low-lift ideas that could actually move conversion.
GitHub link in the comments.
I spy a future rainmaker. @AdamBrasso2802
$GRPN
@Groupon@dusenn@josefburyan@PaleFireCapital
https://t.co/XmrIoQRZhT via @YouTube
Fuckers in the office telling me, always on the trading floor
“Chirayu Rana ain’t ‘bout this, Chirayu Rana ain’t ‘bout that”
My boy a straight sex slave by that JPM exec and them
He, he, they say that bhai just makin’ it up
Shut the fuck up
Y’all bhais ain’t know shit
All y’all motherfuckers talkin’ about
“Chirayu Rana ain’t no victim
Chirayu Rana ain’t this
Chirayu Rana a fake”
Shut the fuck up
Y’all don’t live with that bhai
Y’all know that bhai got drugged with roofies and Viagra
Forced into it night after night and shit
Bhai been filing complaints and gettin’
retaliated on since fuckin’ I don’t know when
Motherfucker, stop fuckin’ playin’ him like that
Them Wall Street savages out there
If I catch another motherfucker talking
sweet about Chirayu Rana
I’m fucking beatin’ they ass
I’m not fucking playin’ no more
TL;DR – Brookfield ($BN/ $BAM):
A tiny group of insiders (Jack Cockwell + Bruce Flatt) controls a trillion-dollar empire with just 85,000 special Class B shares. The 1.6 billion public shares you can buy? Zero voting power.
They rebuilt the exact same ultra-complex spiderweb (Edper) that collapsed in the 1990s. Same accountants. Same tricks. Different name.
The Flywheel Teacher buys annuity → premium flows to Brookfield insurance → money goes into BAM-managed funds → BAM collects fat fees → dividends back to BN → sell more annuities. Fees at every turn. The teacher gets her guarantee. Brookfield gets the marks and control.
The Problem Everything runs on internal “marks” blessed by Deloitte — even when contradicted by market prices, partners (Kinder Morgan wrote down the same pipeline while Brookfield marked it up), or later defaults.
•$4+ billion in related-party asset sales at “existing valuations” (Brookfield as seller, buyer, and appraiser).
•$7.8 billion insurance money funneled to Brookfield PE/RE in 2024 alone.
•93% of PE portfolio independently rated junk or bankrupt (Healthscope & Altera collapsed — yet “growing contribution” language right until default).
•Office defaults: Chicago tower bought for $306M sold in foreclosure for $41M (87% loss). $3B+ defaults since taking property arm private.
Insurance Red Flags Statutory filings show collapsing surplus, heavy Bermuda/Vermont captives, and reinsurance counted as capital. One filing admits: without the captives, they’d fall below minimum regulatory capital. A $1.48B “backstop” from a counterparty that booked zero reserve against it.
The Numbers
•Distributable Earnings (the hyped number): $6.3B
•Actual GAAP net income: $641M (nearly 10x gap — way wider than Blackstone/KKR/Apollo)
•ROIC < WACC (every new dollar supposedly destroys value)
•Trades at huge premium to peers despite declining revenue and massive debt.
What’s Coming 5B+ office debt due 2026, Oaktree lock-up expiring, institutions net selling (Fidelity cut 23%), failed S&P inclusion, open SEC probes.
This isn’t a bankruptcy call. It’s simpler: when the market stops believing “our marks are gospel” and “complexity = sophistication,” the valuation rerates hard toward peer multiples. No Armageddon needed — just math winning.
The author is short BAM (puts) and BN equity. Full thread is a forensic deep dive sourced from filings + FT investigation.
If you wouldn’t let one guy appraise his own house, underwrite his own mortgage, and insure it… why trust 45 executives doing the same with a trillion of other people’s money?
Worth the read if you own it or just like seeing how these machines really work. The marks always break eventually.
Don’t fall for the “never sell” psyop.
Credit @citrini for similar comments to those that I’ve been making for over a month.
The top 100 substacks are going to change a lot during a bear market and no matter how well I articulate,
I expect my ARR to go down.
TLDR:
Your retired neighbor saved for thirty years and bought an annuity. She was told it was safe. What she actually bought was exposure to a balance sheet levered 69-to-1, stuffed with private loans that don't have real prices, rated by an agency with 20 analysts that the SEC is currently investigating for putting its thumb on the scale.
The company managing her money — Athene, owned by Apollo — reports a capital ratio of 419%. That number is real. What it doesn't tell you is that the underlying requirement is so small — less than $1 billion to backstop $282 billion — that the ratio is essentially measuring the distance from a speed bump, not a cliff. The actual distance from insolvency is 1.45%. A bad quarter in credit markets closes that gap.
The capital Apollo will point to when challenged? Most of it is in Bermuda. In entities that file 8 pages a year. Athene's own legal documents say the annuity is solely the obligation of the US entity. The Bermuda capital cannot be compelled to pay her. It is a number on a org chart, not a check she can cash.
The real filing is 9,612 pages. That's 7.85 War and Peaces (a book you would never read).
Nobody is watching. 602 examiners cover an industry holding $9.3 trillion in American savings. The last time Congress wrote rules for any of this, Harry Truman was president and the atomic bomb was new technology.
Athene is considered one of the better operators. The ones who aren't this transparent are harder to see and almost certainly worse.
The fees are already collected. The leverage is already on. The only thing left to determine is who pays when it breaks — and the answer is you.
Fact check with Gemini deep research or any tool, but please actually read and if you feel inclined, share.
I think $JAKK will earning $3-4 of EPS in 2026, $5-6 2027 w 10-12x PE.
It currently trades at $22.4
If you’d like more than that go to Substack.
Chips shot vs PE guys telling us car washes should trade at 12-15x EBITDA
https://t.co/RFvX3OJRtE