3 ms·

There are many secrets in business, especially in realestate. Found out, from some "unnamed source" that there will be a new bus stop and a new aldi store acro

There are many secrets in business, especially in realestate. Found out, from some "unnamed source" that there will be a new bus stop and a new aldi store across the street from a building where some apartments are for sale? Don't mention it to anyone, secretly buy them, because their value will go up a lot, and do it discreetely, so other companies don't notice.

Rinzler89 2y ago
That should be classified as corruption/insider trading and punished as such. In my country that's how politicians and their friends get filthy rich. They know ahead of time where a new highway will be planned so they buy up all the rural land in that area for cheap so that the government will have to buy it from them at inflated prices to build the highway. Then, if a new government comes to power before the highway starts construction and realize they don't have any land where the highway will be built, they cancel the project and re-plan it on another route so that this time they can be the ones getting a cut. So this keeps getting repeated and the country ends up with no highways, but at least some people get obscenely rich.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Insider trading is only when you're the insider. If you happen to walk past a geodetist (land surveyer?) on the street measuring something, ask him what'll be built there, and he tells you, you're still not the insider. Otherwise I agree, but in my country they do it differently,... government needs a building for X, someone close to someone in the government buys it for eg. 2mio eur, holds on it for a year or two, before a tender comes out (governments are slow), and 'coincidenetally' that building is the best match and the government buys it for eg. 7mio eur from that guy. (and then they split the difference).
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    Insider Trading is not even a crime (in the US). You can buy and sell stock for companies you have a relationship whether its employer/employee or a contractual relationship. The actual crime is using "Material Nonpublic Information" [1] and it does not matter how you obtained it. So, asking an employee what they're building and they ignore the confidentiality agreement to tell you - Nonpublic. Stalking surveyers from public land to find the lots they're commonly around - public. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformation.asp#:~:text=Material%20nonpublic%20information%20refers%20to,trading%20stocks%20or%20other%20securities https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformat....
    - ahahahahah 2y ago
      Warning: random anonymous commenters on the internet will confidently make claims about all kinds of legal matters. do not trust them. > it does not matter how you obtained it Yes, it does. It's just that it's more nuanced than the naive interpretation would lead you to believe. > asking an employee what they're building and they ignore the confidentiality agreement to tell you In the parent's description of this, it is almost certainly the case that you would have no duty of trust or confidence to the person that told you. In that case, it would be fine for you to trade on it (well, assuming you weren't otherwise restricted from such trading). You can learn more here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.10b5-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.10b5-1
      - lesuorac 2y ago
        Did you read your own link? It literally doesn't matter how you obtained it. > (b) Awareness of material nonpublic information. Subject to the affirmative defenses in paragraph (c) of this section, a purchase or sale of a security of an issuer is on the basis of material nonpublic information for purposes of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 if the person making the purchase or sale was aware of the material nonpublic information when the person made the purchase or sale. Not a single word describing "how". Its just did you have nonpublic information.
lesuorac 2y ago
If your business is easily (commonly?) going to wire $25M across 15 transactions you should have a process in place. This is pretty much the whole point of multi-factor; although I'd argue you want the multi to really represent two people. The requester attests that "yes I want $25M" and the sender attests that "yes I am this person". The wild west ways of the banking sector is finally catching up to them.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  I co-own a lot smaller company, so it was more in a range of 4 figures (euros), but more than once I've been in a situation where I've just signed a deal for some business with some company, called one of the 'hardware guys' from the car (external companies that eg. import hardware, are distributers for lenovo/dell, whatever), got an offer for a set of hardware that we needed (a few servers, etc.), forwarded the email to our ceo, called him (without faked AI voice in my case... for now), told him "pay this today, so we can get them by the end of the month", and he did. If someone knew I was negotiating some business that day, phished an email with whatever account number he wanted and AI faked my voice, he'd get the money transfered. So yeah... another thing to worry about.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    It would be nice if the article had additional details. Did the email come from within their own domain? Like a properly set-up domain isn't going to let you spoof their employees so your emails to the CEO will be authoritative since they came from the correct domain (assume your CEO checks its ycombinator.com and not ycombimator.com). At 4k though I suspect it's not that worthy of a target when you can do the same effort to net 25 million. Although I'm a bit surprised there isn't some internal page to add/remove the hardware requests so that it can be easily accounted for by accounting.
jfoster 2y ago
It's a bit surprising that Aldi (and other supermarket chains) generally don't invest in residential real estate.
- dudinax 2y ago
  That really would be insider trading.
  - jfoster 2y ago
    Does insider trading apply to real estate in the same way that it does to securities? It doesn't seem so different to any mixed-use project where a developer might construct a tower that is partly residential, partly commercial. Pretty sure a lot of large companies purchase residential around any major new HQ they intend to open, too.
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  Who knows, maybe they do :)
- mschuster91 2y ago
  Over half of Aldi's locations actually belong to them [1]. Keeps them safe from the usual landlord racket. [1] https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/handel/nachrichten/immobilien-aldi-sued-baut-eigentum-aus-169772 https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/handel/nachrichten/immob...
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    I think op meant more in a way, where Aldi would buy apartments near their new store, since having an aldi nearby raises realestate prices (in some specific cases of course).

Rinzler89 2y ago

That should be classified as corruption/insider trading and punished as such. In my country that's how politicians and their friends get filthy rich. They know ahead of time where a new highway will be planned so they buy up all the rural land in that area for cheap so that the government will have to buy it from them at inflated prices to build the highway. Then, if a new government comes to power before the highway starts construction and realize they don't have any land where the highway will be built, they cancel the project and re-plan it on another route so that this time they can be the ones getting a cut. So this keeps getting repeated and the country ends up with no highways, but at least some people get obscenely rich.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Insider trading is only when you're the insider. If you happen to walk past a geodetist (land surveyer?) on the street measuring something, ask him what'll be built there, and he tells you, you're still not the insider. Otherwise I agree, but in my country they do it differently,... government needs a building for X, someone close to someone in the government buys it for eg. 2mio eur, holds on it for a year or two, before a tender comes out (governments are slow), and 'coincidenetally' that building is the best match and the government buys it for eg. 7mio eur from that guy. (and then they split the difference).
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Insider Trading is not even a crime (in the US). You can buy and sell stock for companies you have a relationship whether its employer/employee or a contractual relationship. The actual crime is using "Material Nonpublic Information" [1] and it does not matter how you obtained it. So, asking an employee what they're building and they ignore the confidentiality agreement to tell you - Nonpublic. Stalking surveyers from public land to find the lots they're commonly around - public. [1]: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformation.asp#:~:text=Material%20nonpublic%20information%20refers%20to,trading%20stocks%20or%20other%20securities https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/materialinsiderinformat....
  - ahahahahah 2y ago
    Warning: random anonymous commenters on the internet will confidently make claims about all kinds of legal matters. do not trust them. > it does not matter how you obtained it Yes, it does. It's just that it's more nuanced than the naive interpretation would lead you to believe. > asking an employee what they're building and they ignore the confidentiality agreement to tell you In the parent's description of this, it is almost certainly the case that you would have no duty of trust or confidence to the person that told you. In that case, it would be fine for you to trade on it (well, assuming you weren't otherwise restricted from such trading). You can learn more here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.10b5-1 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/17/240.10b5-1
    - lesuorac 2y ago
      Did you read your own link? It literally doesn't matter how you obtained it. > (b) Awareness of material nonpublic information. Subject to the affirmative defenses in paragraph (c) of this section, a purchase or sale of a security of an issuer is on the basis of material nonpublic information for purposes of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 if the person making the purchase or sale was aware of the material nonpublic information when the person made the purchase or sale. Not a single word describing "how". Its just did you have nonpublic information.

lesuorac 2y ago

If your business is easily (commonly?) going to wire $25M across 15 transactions you should have a process in place. This is pretty much the whole point of multi-factor; although I'd argue you want the multi to really represent two people. The requester attests that "yes I want $25M" and the sender attests that "yes I am this person". The wild west ways of the banking sector is finally catching up to them.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago
I co-own a lot smaller company, so it was more in a range of 4 figures (euros), but more than once I've been in a situation where I've just signed a deal for some business with some company, called one of the 'hardware guys' from the car (external companies that eg. import hardware, are distributers for lenovo/dell, whatever), got an offer for a set of hardware that we needed (a few servers, etc.), forwarded the email to our ceo, called him (without faked AI voice in my case... for now), told him "pay this today, so we can get them by the end of the month", and he did. If someone knew I was negotiating some business that day, phished an email with whatever account number he wanted and AI faked my voice, he'd get the money transfered. So yeah... another thing to worry about.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  It would be nice if the article had additional details. Did the email come from within their own domain? Like a properly set-up domain isn't going to let you spoof their employees so your emails to the CEO will be authoritative since they came from the correct domain (assume your CEO checks its ycombinator.com and not ycombimator.com). At 4k though I suspect it's not that worthy of a target when you can do the same effort to net 25 million. Although I'm a bit surprised there isn't some internal page to add/remove the hardware requests so that it can be easily accounted for by accounting.

jfoster 2y ago

It's a bit surprising that Aldi (and other supermarket chains) generally don't invest in residential real estate.

dudinax 2y ago
That really would be insider trading.
- jfoster 2y ago
  Does insider trading apply to real estate in the same way that it does to securities? It doesn't seem so different to any mixed-use project where a developer might construct a tower that is partly residential, partly commercial. Pretty sure a lot of large companies purchase residential around any major new HQ they intend to open, too.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
Who knows, maybe they do :)
mschuster91 2y ago
Over half of Aldi's locations actually belong to them [1]. Keeps them safe from the usual landlord racket. [1] https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/handel/nachrichten/immobilien-aldi-sued-baut-eigentum-aus-169772 https://www.lebensmittelzeitung.net/handel/nachrichten/immob...
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  I think op meant more in a way, where Aldi would buy apartments near their new store, since having an aldi nearby raises realestate prices (in some specific cases of course).