Wednesday, December 20, 2017

A Holiday podcast....and the World's Biggest Pawn Shop!

Well, we've had a great year here in Cleveland and we hope that you, wherever you are, had a great year too!  That said,  it's now that time of the year where we reflect on our lives and become, formally, officially thankful.....I'd like to take a minute to wish everyone a Happy/Merry:

Christmas 
Hanukkah
春節 (In advance)
Kwanzaa
Pancha Ganapati
Diwali (Belated)
Boxing Day
Las Posadas
Feliz Navidad
Eid al-Adha (Belated) 
and, of course
Festivus (for the rest-of-us)

Most of all, I'm honored and blessed that you, my wonderful readers have chosen to spend some of your precious time, apparently on a regular basis, reading and contemplating our favorite, cutting-edge genre....

"Financial Comedy"  

I'm also really grateful that some pretty important, savvy thinkers are taking notice of my work as well.  (Don't worry, I won't name names....but you know who you are!)  

In that light, I'd like to attach a link to a podcast (Episode 11) I did with Anne Stevenson-Yang just before Thanksgiving this year.  I've known Anne for years, and frankly, without mincing words, I think she's brilliant.  What else can I say?  She's done everything I'd ever want to do, seen everything I'd ever want to see, and she's much more polished than I could ever hope to be. (As you will experience first hand from my sometimes rambling/mumbling dialogue on the podcast)  

I am flattered that Anne chose to spend some of her valuable time chatting with me on "tape".  When reviewing some of her other podcasts, you'll also note that she has interviewed some pretty heavy hitters, for example, one of my all-time heroes, Roger Lowenstein (Episode 9) ("When Genius Failed") gives his thoughts on the economy and investing in a prior podcast.....tough act to follow!   

In any case, I hope you enjoy, and can get through, my extemporaneous musings (45 min.) relentlessly framed by Anne's best effort to keep me on topic.  I must say, when I first heard the finished product, my immediate reaction was "Hey! I've got a future in Presidential Politics!"....followed by "Yeesshhh....stick with the blog..."  But, as they say, it is what it is.  I hope you enjoy my/our thoughts.

Finally, a note to all of you trolls out there that are just waiting to pounce at every one of my slip-ups. Since this is an unedited, shoot from the hip interview, I freely admit that there are a few errant "facts", and dare I say, outright misstatements in what I had said.....my memory fades from time to time.  Forgive me.

I've already identified these miscues, but I'll leave it up to you good folks to find them and report them in the comment section, like I know you are itching to do....consider it a Christmas Quiz!  There might even be a prize for the most thorough troll-job!  

All the best!

DT


OK....One last bit of Financial Comedy for the Year

I just couldn't let this one go without mention.  From a reader.....here's another page from TaoBao....


You might want to point out that Alibaba has a whole site dedicated to selling non-performing assets: 

https://www.taobao. com/markets/paimai/zc_npl?spm= a213w.6688509.0.0.fhERXC

The banner says "Marketplace for collateralized assets. Recommended by banks! Starting from 50% off."

You can buy financial assets, real-property collateral, or valuables like cars and watches (https://paimai.taobao.com/? spm=a219w.116665.a214uxf.9. 879aa89TjPtx4), 

Participate in court-organized auctions. Today the featured offering is discounted parking spaces.
(https://sf.taobao.com/?spm= a219w.116665.a214uxf.8. 879aa89TjPtx4 



Isn't that wonderful!  "Well.....if these deals are recommended by banks!....they've gotta be a good!"

There are hundreds of thousands of these "asset" listings...So Alibaba's fastest growing business segment is "Winding down the busted Chinese economy"??  Alibaba is a giant on-line pawn shop?

I wonder why they don't showcase this huge, lucrative,  gold-mine business segment in the 6-K/20-F, Investor Calls, Press Releases, Presentations or the filings?  Why do they keep focusing on all that low margin cookware, socks, coats and underwear?....and I thought these guys knew how to market?.....Samsonite!.....I was way off!


Saturday, December 2, 2017

Friday, November 24, 2017

A Thanksgiving Miracle.....


I was looking at the stats on my blog on Wednesday and wondered why my page views skyrocketed.....10x my usual daily volume and accelerating.....I followed the trail of referring sites, really not understanding what was going on, and here's the question I couldn't come to grips with:

What are the odds that three years ago, an Insurance Agent in Cleveland, Ohio (me) would research a Chinese Internet stock (Alibaba) in contemplation of buying some shares.  His (my) research would prove to be so fascinating to him (me) that he (me) would start a blog about this rabbit hole, starting relationships with wonderful, enlightening smart, talented people all over the world.... and eventually (earlier this week), Mark Cuban would read it and cite it as his sole source to begin a dialogue with the White House on global financial/systemic risk.

I'd thought the odds of something like that happening might be roughly zero.....until I confirmed, with Mr.Cuban, that it actually happened.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-22/mark-cuban-asks-trump-if-he-knows-about-alibaba-s-impact-on-u-s

















I've also posted Tim Culpan's analysis of the Tweet.  I enjoy Tim's work and he seems to enjoy my take(s).  We've tussled with this before, but Tim, as an investor and an analyst, when I see misrepresentations as silly as Alibaba's, how can we be sure that anything (Revenue, Carrying Values, etc.) are even remotely accurate?  As an Auditor, I've never felt the urge, after quantifying and documenting a significant, material misrepresentation, to say "well...that was just one error......I'm sure the rest of the financial statements are Ok."  I always look further....and nearly always find more issues.   Anyway, food for thought....

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-11-23/mark-cuban-is-right-but-a-tweet-s-not-enough?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=headline&cmpId=yhoo.headline&yptr=yahoo


The Alibaba Response

Apparently, the Alibaba PR machine got wind of this and pumped a ton of effort into making sure that the Bloomberg page on which Mr. Cuban initially made his comment, is now filled with Jack Ma & Alibaba PR videos.  The initial article simply had a the above stock photo of Mr. Cuban sitting in a chair wearing a dark sweater.  That photo from the original  Gerrit De Vynck "Mark Cuban Asks Trump If He Knows About Alibaba's Impact on U.S." piece is long gone.

Going further, the Alibaba PR Department presented their stunning explanation (again through Bloomberg) on Wednesday.  Apparently this GMV hullabaloo is all a huge misunderstanding.  It's all about the definition of  "Fast Moving Consumer Goods" (FMCG).   They provided a link to a Taobao auction which clears things up.  They recently sold two (2) "broken" 747 Jumbo Jets (4 engines included), apparently sight-unseen, for the bargain price of just US$ 24 million each!  To the chagrin of US Aviation enthusiasts, the auction just closed, so if you were in the market for a deeply discounted Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet as one of your Black-Friday stocking stuffers, you are out of luck.

The inescapable logic here is that, Jumbo Jets are  really "fast moving" (600 mph) and they are purchased by a "consumer", so they, of course, by definition, are "Fast Moving Consumer Goods".

The value added by Taobao to this transaction must be enormous......without Taobao how would potential buyers around the world even know that there are not one, but two "broken" 747's for sale?  A "broken" Boeing 747 could be hiding just about anywhere.

The article also mentions how the website has lots of "bad assets" like real estate, industrial equipment and repossessed vehicles.   I really wish they would have explained this a little better in the Investor Call and the filings.  I don't remember them discussing "Broken Jumbo Jets", "Bad Debts" and "Foreclosed Property" at all.  Honest mistake I guess. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-22/alibaba-s-taobao-just-auctioned-off-two-boeing-747-planes






















As an aside, an "un-broken" 2016 747 Cargo Jet, if purchased directly from Boeing would cost about US$500 million depending on options, so $24 million for a "fixer-upper" is quite a deal.  I'm just hoping, based on the way this deal was put together, that neither of these two potential flaming meteorites find their way into US Airspace.

So Let's Dig a Little Further....Oh Look!....There's More.....

If we examine the above we see two (2) more excellent categories for boat-loads (or should I say Jumbo Jet loads) of even more great GMV.   These categories are, of course "Litigation Assets" and "Monetary Assets" (i.e. foreclosures, bad loans, etc.)

Here are a few of the 561,680 "Litigation Assets" that are out there.  The "asking price" is, presumably included in GMV when it's listed, as per the SEC filings discussed in the prior "Blob" post that started this whole discussion.  The asking price of each of these are millions of US$.
https://zc-paimai.taobao.com/list/0_______56950002_6.htm?spm=a219w.7474998.miniNav.2.dUtufm&st_param=1&auction_start_seg=-1























Let's drill down into the second listing above.  RMB 198.8 Million.  or US$30.6 Million asking price (at RMB 6.5 = US $1.00).  Sadly, it's yet another failed development project.    Unfortunately, this listing also closed a while ago, so if any of you US construction company managers were looking for additional overseas work to keep your crews busy over the holidays, you were too slow on the trigger.  In the new global economy it's important to snap these deals up without even thinking about it.  After all, you'd have the full faith and credit of Alibaba and the Chinese Judicial system behind you.  What could possibly go wrong?

https://sf.taobao.com/sf_item/527253527706.htm?spm=a219w.7474998.paiList.2.iu1Vg2





















When we dig into it, this was yet another amazing deal that US Investors missed out on.  The original developer managed to complete 50,000 sft. (82 Residential Units) that were either sold or seized.  The remaining 3.8 Million sq. ft. is just waiting for an enterprising, industrious, well-capitalized developer to jump in, complete and sell off at a huge profit.  It's a shame that the original developer could only complete 1% of his dream before he went bust.....they must have made an error two on those tricky cash flow projections, but hey, that happens.  Here's a snippet from the Court Announcement per Google translator.  The full order/announcement is still available on the site, at least for now......you should probably look at it quickly since once the Alibaba PR department sees this post, I'd imagine that this listing will disappear as quickly as the developers equity did.

Auction notice (real estate)

      Fourth Beijing Intermediate People's Court will be held at 10:00 on March 2016 to at 10:00 on March 2016 8th 9th stop (except for delays) in Beijing Fourth Intermediate People's Court carried out judicial auction network platform Taobao public live auction action, now announced as follows:
      First, the auction target:
      Located in No.77 Wulihe Street, Heping District, Shenyang, No. 81 Wulihe No., No.348 Youth Avenue and construction in progress, it is located in the core of Shenyang City with convenient transportation and complete supporting facilities. This auction excludes the gross floor area that has been sold and seized by other courts. After deducting 82 units sold (with a gross floor area of ​​5131.62 square meters), 6 sets of waiting-to-be-checked building area of ​​409.81 square meters.
      The auction total construction area of ​​429902.57 square meters.
      Among them, the total ground floor construction area is 319,808.57 square meters (including 134968.57 square meters for houses, 183840 square meters for commercial buildings, 1,000 square meters for office buildings, property houses and event rooms).
      Underground total construction area of ​​110094 square meters (including 19300 square meters of underground business, garage, equipment and other space 90,794 square meters); share of construction area of ​​41570.46 square meters.
      Starting price: 1981586800 yuan, margin: 100000000 yuan, price increase: 500000 yuan.

Keep in mind that this is only one (1) of 561,680 listings. I selected it because it was one of the biggest (by dollar value) out there and thought, after reviewing a few of these, that it had a sufficient amount of detail to effectively describe what's really going on here.  Also, it is indeed a holiday weekend, so family events, visits with friends and turkey dinner(s) prevented me from reviewing all 561,680 listings to document the oddities and anomalies that I'm pretty sure I'd find.  As always, I invite all of my readers to "click away".  If you find something interesting feel free to let me know.

I've also received many comments from readers, similar to Tim's take above, that Alibaba is a media and advertising company and GMV just doesn't matter that much.  In other words "So what if it;s overstated?"  My last two posts focused almost exclusively on GMV, primarily because the representations in the Investor Call and the filings are just so outrageous when we compare them to what's actually being sold and reported.  I'd again refer you to my "Finding Inner Peace in Dharamsala..... and thoughts on the Alibaba 20F" where I describe the laundry list of things I'd be digging into if I were the SEC or a PWC auditor.  Again, when I find one cockroach, I don't immediately assume that "that's the only one."

A Final Note

I'd of course like to acknowledge and thank the Alibaba PR Machine (through Bloomberg) for their presumed contribution to this post.

As an aside, and you, my readers, can do this too, I typed "747", "Jumbo Jet", "Litigation Assets" and "Monetary Assets" into the EBay and Amazon search boxes and nothing relevant was returned.  Oddly, you can indeed by a 747 brake drum and lots of books on bankruptcy on Amazon/Ebay, but no "real" planes, failed construction projects or bad loans.  That's so weird!.....how can Amazon and Ebay possibly survive without these huge money making FMCG categories?

Finally, since Mr. Cuban cited my blog, I've been inundated with replies/comments that, to put it mildly, disagree with my analysis.  If you disagree with me, that's fine, I always enjoy hearing alternative points of view.  I'm happy to post any relevant content.  However, based on the amount of work this is causing me, I feel compelled to repeat my rules for posting reader comments:

1,) No profanity.  This is a family friendly site.  i.e.) if your comment is simply "You are a F-ing moron" or something similar, your comment will not get through and you've wasted your (and my) valuable time.

2.) You MUST tell me why you believe I am a moron.  The correct format is: "You are a complete moron, and here's why".....followed by your non-profane take and applicable citations.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
















Friday, November 17, 2017

The Blob.....

As many of you know, I've been off the grid in rural India for the last few weeks.  As I've also mentioned, I love my trips to India....I get a chance to regroup, reset, meet wonderful people and think about things I rarely take the time to think about.  It's all about perspective.

Anyway, while I was traveling, I had a chance to peruse the Alibaba September Quarter figures, Press Release, 6K, Investor Presentation and of course, took some time to listen to the always entertaining Investor Call.  Shortly thereafter, Alibaba had reported their amazing "Singles Day" sales figure of  $25.3 Billion of fake GMV.

To put this figure in perspective,  this year, "Singles Day" GMV came in at just a few billion more than the annual revenue of Sears/K-Mart (140,000 employees and 1,500 locations world-wide)..... again, I'll repeat that..... Alibaba sold, shipped and delivered the annual, global, sales volume of Sears/K-Mart in just one day!  ....800 Million orders to deliver!  Incredible!  Bravo!.....all those guys on the tuk-tuks, scooters and bicycles must be exhausted......


The Alibaba business model has triumphed once again.  It's now obvious that UPS, FedEx, DHL, et al, have it all wrong.  Why in the world would anyone invest in all of that expensive GPS, scanning, package tracking automation and logistics hardware when you can just dump your packages on the sidewalk and let homeless people figure out how to get them where they are supposed to go?  Again, the wizardry of Alibaba's ecosystem  has rewritten the global-logistics playbook.  Absolute genius....

Photos Courtesy of the NYT & Getty Images

The Investor Call

The Investor Call, with all of its suspense, of course, reminded me of one of the greatest motion picture epics of all time.  Many Cinephiles consider this flick to be the late, great, Steve McQueen's quintessential work. That's right, I am of course referring to that trans-generational, 1958 classic, "The Blob"

From the trailer:

....."It's kinda like a mass that keeps getting bigger and bigger...."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkOfeSNsWpM 

Like the Blob, Alibaba's financial misrepresentations, as absurd as they are, have grown to the point where its oozing tentacles of slime have crept into every corner the world's financial system. 

I won't bother to dissect the numbers any more than I have in the past, but suffice it to say that the same accounting shenanigans I've discussed herein, every quarter since the IPO in September of 2014 are still alive and well.  (See my last 20F analysis for a little more detail: "Finding Inner Peace in Dharamsala....and thoughts on the Alibaba 20F....")

Everything is steady as she goes.....Gigantic, unbelievable "asset-lite" growth, huge fake efficiencies and synergies abound.  Asset write-ups and inflated carrying values of "Questionable Assets" scattered across the books of more than six hundred (600) un-auditable, consolidated entities are omnipresent.  Alibaba Pictures and Alibaba Health are carried on the books at roughly $3 Billion more than their current, publicly traded market caps would support.  A Billion dollars of loans to insiders (See: Wasu Holdings, Simon Xie & Shi Yuzhu) are outstanding with a good chance that they will be looking for even more Alibaba shareholder money soon.

In the call, management reinforced their philosophy that they never manage a business to a profit/margin or apparently any sort of target/metric so they, of course, never feel compelled to offer any detailed explanation or meaningful guidance on the numbers, product mix or how they make their money....... except that everything will most likely be really good forever.  It's all about delivering nebulously defined "value".  The call was, of course, capped off with the usual, odd, irrelevant, softball questions posed by the religiously devoted cadre of analysts.  Note that the analysts all refer to the business as "our segments" or "our strategy" or "how are we going to expand...."....as though they are part of the Alibaba management team.  Call transcript posted below courtesy of Seeking Alpha.  Using our patented Dick Fuld Banker-Speak Translator (BST), I'll just take a minute to analyze the first analyst's question.  I'm not necessarily picking on Eddie Leung here, he seems like a really nice guy, but he happened to ask the first question.  No need to go deeper into the Q&A unless you are a glutton for punishment, It just gets worse from here:

Eddie Leung - Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Good evening. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions. One is on Cainiao. Could you share your thought on the long-term positioning of Cainiao? Again, as the professional logistic service providers in China and globally, how to differentiate and perhaps cooperate in logistics?
And then secondly, on New Retail, have we seen any change in the way that we cooperate with some of our brands and merchants across our multiple channels after we developed our offline channel recently? Thank you.
BST: "First, how the hell are you going to deliver $25 Billion of merchandise using push carts, bicycles and homeless people?  When you dump the packages on the sidewalk, what percentage of the merchandise is stolen?  Second, this is the first full quarter you've consolidated InTime as your "new retail"... the InTime acquisition?.... you know, where you just paid $3 Billion for a bunch of broken down department stores and vacant shopping malls?.... so you can dump fake knock-off merchandise and overstock junk in these stores?....that way photographers from the New York Times won't snap pictures of homeless people picking through the stuff scattered all over the sidewalks?" 
DT Note:  The correct response to this question should have been:  "Regarding Cainiao, I'll refer you to the detailed schedule XX of the 6K (which unfortunately doesn't exist) describing, by region/zone the packages/deliveries, product mix and associated costs by product category.  As for Intime, I'll refer you to the segment P&L's & Balance Sheets in Appendicix XX of the 6K (also doesn't exist) which describe, in detail the breakdown between On-Line and Off-Line GMV, Revenue and cost of operations, showing precisely what we're selling, where we're selling it and how profitable it is compared to our detailed projections. (which also don't exist)"  
This is what we got:
Response: CEO Daniel Yong Zhang - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
"Eddie, this is Daniel. I'd like to answer your questions. For the first one, Cainiao. Actually, Cainiao is positioned as a smart logistic platform. Why smart is because this should be a data-driven logistics platform. We truly believe that the data is the most important asset which can generate value for the partners in the Cainiao ecosystem. And so what we do is that we work closely with our partners in not only warehousing, but also delivery network to enable them to optimize their operation. So we will continue this strategy and which is the partnership strategy and continue to work closely with our partners in China and in the world.
And the key thing is that the data-driven logistic network, actually we are – Cainiao is not going to be a logistic company and we are not interested into building another logistics company. Instead, we will work with a lot of logistic companies, delivery companies to build a network across the world.
And for your second question, New Retail, I would say actually, our New Retail strategy is very clear and we will continue to execute our New Retail strategy and to partner with the offline retailers in key categories such as in fashion categories, we work with Intime. In consumer electronics, we work with Sony. In food and FMCG categories, we work with Bailian and Sanjiang. And recently, we invest another regional retailer, which is (29:13) and we will work closely with them to empower them with our prospective (29:19) technology.
Second is about – is a valid New Retail form or format to enable them to operate efficiently. So I think this is our New Retail strategy, but we're still in early stage. And our goal is to help the whole New Retail (29:40) world to be upgraded into a digital operation. So actually we are on our way. Thank you."
BST: "I have no F-ing idea what I'm talking about and I can't give you any detailed information because it doesn't exist, all of these numbers are made up, so I'll just use words like 'partner', 'digital', 'data' and hope that you think I'm brilliant.  We don't need to build a logistics company since our homeless people on bicycles are doing just fine. Our retail strategy is very clear, you should already know what it is, I think, maybe not, but anyway, it's all about data.....data, data, data.  We have lots of smart, logistics data, and on-line, off-line data logistics partners and we are global across the world because of  our data.  We are going to ship things to all sorts of dumpy convenience stores, kiosks and partners for people to pick up.  It's a better model than dumping the stuff on sidewalks. When it rains, packages get soggy and customers bitch.  We're going to ship $25 billion of fake GMV in one day next week, Nicole Kidman will be at the party, we paid her big bucks to show up, ooopsss Jack told me to not to say that, but we are at the beginning stages of helping the world.  Our on-line, off-line data-driven-big-data will allow us to sell more data-driven fake junk to everyone on the planet on mobile apps, which will track everyone so the CCP knows exactly where they are and what they are doing.  Did I mention that we are experts at big data?  Oh....and Amazon sucks.  Thank you."   

So really, what is this gigantic "blob" of "China Commerce" GMV  and the related revenue comprised of?  Who knows?

Alibaba management incessantly references their huge investment in infrastructure that enables them to sell supposedly gigantic volumes of Consumer Electronics, Fast Moving Consumer Goods, Clothing, Grocery, etc. yet they have never disclosed how much of same is sold through their platform(s).  How can they publish a gigantic $25.3 Billion, one day GMV total and not know what its components are?  I thought that Joe, Daniel and Maggie were the ring masters of this big-data circus?  They should know these numbers off the top of their head and disclose them.

For example.....

You can buy a million dollar yacht......just put it on your MasterCard/Visa or Alipay.....it would be nice to know how many yachts they sell on-line.

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?pm=a230r.1.14.203.2221f271xw1ITD&id=555642734072&ns=1&abbucket=7#detail


Or perhaps you'd like a luxurious Prada hand bag.....apparently sold by authorized and licensed Prada distributors like "wishload flagship store" and "buyfine overseas flagship store".

https://s.taobao.com/search?q=prada&type=p&tmhkh5=&spm=a21wu.241046-us.a2227oh.d100&from=sea_1_searchbutton&catId=100&sort=price-desc



Or maybe you need a few hundred tons of steel pipe......

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=steel+pipes


...or sheet steel.....
https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=steel+sheet

Perhaps a new building?...put a skyscraper on Visa/Mastercard!
https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=commercial+building



Or land for sale in Estonia or Iran?....note the "smart data" algorithm on the right of the page.....people who liked "land in Estonia" also apparently liked "kitchen cleaners and car wash soap"....and I actually could have "chatted" with the creepy looking guy shown in this listing, but my IT Department advised against it.....

https://www.alibaba.com/trade/search?fsb=y&IndexArea=product_en&CatId=&SearchText=land


None of the above ridiculous transactions have anything to do with consumer goods and never "close" on the platform, yet they are there for a reason.  They are included in GMV.  They are "reported" by the seller (presumably for a fee?).....Think Craig's List....not Amazon.

The SEC correspondence from 2014 was illuminating......everything about this business is a misdirection or a half truth.....See pg 5, where Alibaba management opines that the GMV metric is a critical part of their fake operating/reporting framework and that it's perfectly legitimate for them to report transactions that were never shipped or closed.


We might ask, if GMV is so important, why have they never provided any detail as to its composition/mix, or oddly enough, are only reporting GMV twice a year now. (on "Singles Day" and an annual "Blob" in the 20F)   Is it somehow no longer important?

In fact, back in 2016 under Mary Jo White, the SEC started looking into, among other things, the possibility that there are issues with Alibaba's GMV reporting.  You'll also notice that, on page 60 of the above answers to the SEC correspondence, one of the signor/architects of the aforementioned, dubious Alibaba responses, was a Sullivan & Cromwell Attorney by the name of Jay Clayton, who also now happens to be the newly appointed Chairman of the SEC.  As they say....a fortuitous coincidence indeed.

I'd invite all of my readers to check this out for yourselves.....take a few minutes to browse the Alibaba sites, Tmall, Taobao, Alibaba.com, AliExpress, 1688, and type in luxury brands (Gucci, Prada, Coach, etc.) industrial goods, etc., sort by price (high to low) and see what you get.  It's a hoot....you can buy single malt Scotch and Kentucky bourbon made in China!.....who knew?  Let your eyes be the judge as to whether Mr. Clayton's position, while representing Alibaba, had any merit at all.

My guess is that "real" consumer goods GMV actually delivered is probably less than a third of what they report......yet investors believe these inflated numbers...... I suppose, because it's "China"....and in hindsight, perhaps because Jay Clayton got a (presumably) sizable paycheck to sign off on it.

Show Me The Money!

Finally, with all of this Revenue and activity, all of this purported income and cash flow....a little bird told me that Alibaba will be looking to the US Bond Market for more funding in the very near future, riding the wave of the latest fake numbers.  They'll be looking for something in the range of $5 Billion to $8 Billion.  The big question is, if the business is actually generating dump trucks full of money as they claim, why have they maxed out their bank lines of credit and why do they once again need to go running to the US credit markets for cash ???....in addition, why in the world don't Chinese Banks want a piece of this gold mine?  They should be clamoring to lend money to this national treasure.  There isn't one Chinese Bank materially involved in financing this mess, at least that I can see.  This, to me, is incredible.  Ninety percent (90%) of Alibaba's business is in China, they need RMB....not dollars....what gives?

Perhaps their "Authorized Representative" Don Puglisi would know the answers.  Every foreign company listed on a US Exchange must have an Authorized Representative in the United States and Don is Alibaba's man, per the original F-1.   Per Bloomberg, Don also seems to be a serial "Authorized Representative", collecting checks to represent dozens of foreign businesses in the United States, all run out of his three (3) person office in Newark, Delaware.    Lots of irons in the fire.  I can't imagine how, at his age, he can keep it all straight.  He's a busy man.  If I were him I would have retired long ago, but apparently "80 is the new 50"!  On the other hand, I, for one, think it's absolutely marvelous that a gigantic global enterprise like Alibaba was able to give a "little guy" like Don the chance to become a big time international player.  It must be a dream come true for him. 

Looking at the big picture, perhaps Don's job as an Authorized Representative was just the first of the "Million US Jobs" that Jack told the White House he was going to create!  Only 999,999 to go! Of course, Don's great new Alibaba administrative job pales in comparison to the half dozen or so high paying executive jobs that Jack had already created at his new (2014) Alibaba headquarters in the Caymans.  As our political leaders often say, "it's all about the jobs".  I couldn't agree more.

Anyway, I'm sure that Don is a great old guy and if asked, he could bring some clarity to what Alibaba is up to. Perhaps Mr. Clayton (after waiving attorney/client privilege) could lend some insight as well.  After all, if you are representing someone, I'd think you should have at least some idea as to what's going on with their business.


Additional Reading

Press Release
http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/news/press_pdf/p171102.pdf

6K
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1577552/000110465917065677/a17-25090_1ex99d1.htm

Webcast
https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/2r9yjiwq

Presentation
http://www.alibabagroup.com/en/ir/presentations/pre171102.pdf

Alibaba Singles Day
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/business/alibaba-singles-day.html?_r=0


The SEC correspondence from 2014
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1577552/000119312514237452/filename1.htm

Lazada - pg 105 12/31/15 EUR 247 Million Revenue & EUR 312 Million loss.
https://www.rocket-internet.com/sites/default/files/investors/Rocket%20Internet_Annual%20Report%202016_English.pdf

Intime Financial Statements
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/intif/financials

Alibaba buys InTime
https://www.wsj.com/articles/alibaba-seeks-to-take-intime-private-with-founder-1484005494

Selina Wang Interview with Mike Evans
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-11-10/alibaba-s-evans-on-singles-day-strategy-in-u-s-video

Don Puglisi - Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=11324972&privcapId=60047155

Jack Ma to Create 1 Million US Jobs.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/09/alibaba-to-discuss-expansion-plans-with-trump-company-aims-to-create-1-million-us-jobs-over-the-next-5-years.html


Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) Q2 2018 Results - Earnings Call Transcript
Investor Call Transcript

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