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I think the shenanigans they were pulling (crazy governance, conflicts of interest enriching the founder and wife, bad acquisitions) were obvious to the HN and
by Hongwei 7y ago
I think the shenanigans they were pulling (crazy governance, conflicts of interest enriching the founder and wife, bad acquisitions) were obvious to the HN and analyst community, but possibly they hoped it would be over the heads of retail investors.
Now obviously, in this case, it was too blatant and stunk bad enough that even retail investors shied away.
- harryh 7y agoThe vast majority of shares purchased at IPOs are by institutional investors writing very large checks, not retail investors. Retail investors shying away had nothing to do with the IPO getting pulled. And even if this wasn't the case it's still not fraud: if retail investors have all the data (which they did) but still want to buy something, it's not deception.
- xkcd-sucks 7y agoMost of the ethical red flags seem to be identical to municipal government corruption, e.g. enriching family members and giving contracts to companies one owns. It's been going on for hundreds of years, you'd think retail investors would be wise at this point
- fullshark 7y agoWell speaking for myself it was obvious to me, but it was NOT obvious it wouldn't work. A lot of companies had successful IPOs with those issues.