The Most Valuable Esports Companies 2020 - Forbes

largest gaming companies uk

largest gaming companies uk - win

Global video games giants avoiding millions in UK tax - A UK tax policy intended to boost the domestic video games industry has been used by some of the world’s largest entertainment companies to avoid paying tens of millions of pounds in corporation tax, a Guardian investigation has found.

submitted by ManiaforBeatles to worldnews [link] [comments]

it's massive for the game that UK's largest betting company now recognise LoL as a sport you can bet on

Yeah sorry if this is late - http://sports.williamhill.com/bet/en-gb/betting/t/19013/League-of-Legends.html
submitted by raston93 to leagueoflegends [link] [comments]

Comprehensive Guide about BB and how it shall take off in coming years

Alright folks, here's the comprehensive guide about the BB products, revenue details, customers, and what's in the store in the future. It's quite a lengthy one, please bare with me as you read and this is the first time I looked up regarding a company at this depth.
Some background on the John Chen, who took up a massive challenge when he was the CEO for Sybase where the stock price was around 4-5$. But when he sold off to SAP it was around 65$, although it took 10 years to accomplish. He understands the business quite well and knows where to focus to generate more revenue and certainly be the best in what they do and provide the best to their customers.

Why should companies embrace BB products?

Achievements:
Ref: https://imgur.com/OgrCGNg
Achievements in 2019 (According to 10-k report):
Certifications
Let's highlight the security certifications BB got in 2020.
Before you read about the certifications which BB got, let this statement sink in deeply
No other software vendor in the cybersecurity space has been awarded more security certification by the US Government than BlackBerry.
In Q3 2020, BlackBerry UEM achieved the National Security Agency, NSA, commercial solution for classified program approval. This adds to the portfolio of US government certifications we have received for BlackBerry UEM including the NIAP-certification, the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Product List, which I think we talked about last quarter, DoDIN APL, FedRAMP and FIPS 140-2.
Context from Q3 2020 earnings call:
Recognition
As you see from multiple research firms, BB stands out in what are they doing
Ref:
https://imgur.com/2CMg3OV
https://imgur.com/qE13Y32

Which Markets BB has and will be targeting?

What Products are offered by BB?

I'll share brief info about the below products specific to QNX itself
QNX OTA:
QNX Over the Air (OTA) is a customized remote software update solution addressing the increasingly complex requirements of embedded system manufacturers. It can be tailored to seamlessly and securely update and manage endpoints on a variety of embedded systems.
QNX Acoustics Management Platform:
Design and manage the total vehicle sonic experience with a pure software solution designed to run on general-purpose application processor cores for cost-effective high-fidelity sound.
QNX Multimedia Suite:
If the OEM or developers would like to use a framework to build multimedia players.
QNX Black Channel Communications:
It provides reliable data transmission and consumption and greatly reduces the scope of certification while eliminating the need to have a safety certified network stack. It's critical across automotive, robotics, industrial controls, and medical device industries. It can run on QNX® OS (SDP 7.0 or QOS 2.1), Linux® or SafeRTOS.
QNX ADAS:
Integrates sensor feeds from diverse sources (Camera, Radar, LiDAR, IMU, GPS sensors, etc.) into your critical embedded systems, including autonomous driving applications.
RADAR:
Launched in 2016, it is a complete asset tracking solution providing reliable visibility to trailer, chassis, containers and equipment. These ruggedized devices are easy-to-install, low maintenance and long-lasting to minimize operational disruptions and maximize your ROI.
How it’s different from rest of the competitors:
Do check this post about description of the below products: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l4ehan/blackberry_dd/

How can the BB retain leading position in different sectors?

The Company’s goal is to remain a leader in regulated industries and other core verticals by continuing to extend the functionality of its secure BlackBerry Spark® software platform (UEM + UES).

How does the EV Sector Exponential Growth help BB?

Well, the 2020 to 2022 is a period for gaining significant momentum in the Smart EV sector and which shall rapidly accelerate from 2023 to 2025. As we are noticing multiple companies in EV sector trying to launch their products.
Most of the companies would love to be part of the growing EV sector as it just the beginning excluding TESLA. They will eventually develop products/platforms for OEM's and Tier1 and provide it as a service.
As EV sector evolves more, we should see more partnerships across other companies which aren't part of BB yet might be inclined to use at least one product. As the BB product offerings are diverse and the customer success stories about how they have played a role while manufacturing their own EV products with minimal efforts can boost the marketing efforts.
Chen stated they are going after the other 6 OEM's which aren't using the Blackberry yet. Currently, BlackBerry QNX has design wins with 19 of top 25 Electric Vehicle OEMs, who together have 61% of EV market.

How is BB coping up during the COVID?

The company expects BlackBerry QNX revenue to be negatively impacted by a slowdown in automotive market related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of which could be partially offset by increased customer demand for the Company’s endpoint security and productivity solutions that support business continuity and remote working environments, including the BlackBerry Spark platform, SecuSUITE and BlackBerry AtHoc.

What's upcoming and where is BB focusing strategically?

The Company is developing a concept system to integrate BlackBerry Spark capabilities, including AI and machine learning technologies, with BlackBerry QNX automotive solutions. Have to watch out for more information during the earnings calls.

How was the Customers growth among BB products?

QNX:
QNX was acquired by BB in 2010, right from that moment, BB started its journey in Automotive industry. Initially, it has launched Infotainments and Telematic under QNX product category and it was deployed on leading car manufacturers. It started branching out and was able to offer more products under QNX. Now it is has aligned itself very well for the next gen EV cars.
Adoption of QNX products from 2016 to 2020:
As we see, the growth has been substantial, and we can expect it grow more as we see more cars from new manufacturers and from existing ones and also automotive driving platforms especially in EV sector. There are currently 1.4 billion cars approximately. In 2018, approximately 4.2 million heavy commercial vehicles and just over 20 million light commercial vehicles were produced throughout the world.
It’s estimated to have at least 470 million cars by 2025.
Link: https://www.itsdigest.com/470-million-connected-vehicles-road-2025.
The market share is about 10% in total across automotive
Customers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NQQ6lkby32kHu2tWqbfYqlDEYy90KI6QfsyYd8moYjo/edit?usp=sharing
IVY:
KARMA Automotive is the first customer to use this product.
Link: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/newsroom/press-releases/2020/blackberry-collaborating-with-amazon-web-services-to-demonstrate-safe-secure-and-intelligent-connected-vehicle-software-platform-for-in-vehicle-applications
Chen stated that there won't be much of the revenue growth from IVY until 2023.
Under the terms of our agreement, BlackBerry will own all the commercial relationships with customers and will share revenues with AWS.
The target is to be in the 2023 year’s auto model, with possibly potentially some professional services prior to it. While it is too early for us to provide a revenue outlook, we are confident that BlackBerry IVY addresses a very large market opportunity that will greatly increase our ASP.
Cylance:
It is part of the Blackberry Spark product under UES category
Typically, Cylance subscription period is 1 to 3 yrs. based on the deal’s BB made.
Leader in EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform) and they are able to catch with competitors in EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)
Customers:
Added 279 new customers and new active subscription customer growth was about 15%. Notable new customers include General Motors, Becton Dickinson, Phillips Healthcare, SKF, which is one of Sweden’s largest manufacturers, the New Zealand Defense Force and the United States Census Bureau, just to name a few.
Verizon launched their business internet secure offering, which includes our BlackBerry smart AV antivirus product and Cisco’s Umbrella security service.
Blackberry Spark:
Spark is collection of BlackBerry Cylance, BlackBerry® UEM, BlackBerry® Dynamics™ and BlackBerry® Workspaces products. BB to pushing its efforts for customers to choose this product in 2021.
Spark, as a reminder, is a combination of UEM and UES, the Unified Endpoint Security offerings. In the 2020 Q2, Q3, BB made good progress in both the government, and financial services verticals with customer wins
In addition, they had success in verticals including healthcare and manufacturing sector.
Up on the acquisition of Cylance company, BB was able to integrate it with its existing products which will be part of UES suite. Customers are inclined to upgrade from UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) to UES (Unified Endpoint Security)
Customers are eager to get with UES:
UEM Suite
UEM Suite was added to the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (DoDIN APL). BlackBerry is the only UEM vendor that has achieved this level of approval to date. This achievement is based on the completion of cybersecurity and interoperability certifications. This approval will provide us better access and a more streamlined approval process. This should naturally lead to greater revenue opportunities going forward. The latest release of UEM has also recently achieved NIAP accreditation
AtHoc:
Zoom was one of the customers who is using AtHoc product, after we know what happened to the stock when street found out that it wasn't secure. In this way, Zoom can highly secure way to hold virtual meetings in this new work-from-anywhere environment.
Even, Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow’s Now platforms are on AtHoc. As we know, Teams market leader has 116 million active users and Service Now 51%, IT Service management.
Customers:
BlackBerry Radar:
In 2020, Canadian Pacific Railway agreed to deploy product on 2,000 of its domestic intermodal chassis.
In 2019, one of the top three U.S. retailers specializing in home improvement. The customer placed a 2,500 unit’s order.
In 2019 fiscal year, they have added 50 new customers and recurring revenue from the existing customers.
A big part of our competitive advantage is the BlackBerry legacy experience in designing a reliable, secure solution,” Plaat said. “That’s an important issue in this industry with high capital assets that you keep for years. The ROI is very good for a reliable solution like ours.”
Customers:

BB Revenue:

Check the Spreadsheet for the Revenue Sources.
2021 Fiscal year
Note: Software and Services include these products IoT, QNX, BlackBerry Spark, AtHoc, Radar.
The revenue got impacted due to 2020 chaos especially on the QNX product side. According to the earning calls. There are still on track to maintain the gross margin over 70% and dollar net retention rate is above 90%.
As you see, the gross margin has been consistent past few years and revenue is steadily increasing every year.
Revenue, Gross Margin, Net Income, EPS for years 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016
Growth in Revenue from Products from 2019-2013
Notes:
In 2019, due to restructuring, BB was unable to close deals, we should see +ve in 2020.
IoT: Comprised of QNX products, UEM, & Radar
Other: Handheld Devices and Service Access Fee (SAF)
Since BB was moving away from manufacturing of devices gradually, in 2020 most of it done by third party companies. That’s why we have negative growth under Other.

Pricing for BB products

QNX Pricing:
As there are many modules under QNX, like hypervisor, ADAS, clusters, cockpit, IVI. The cost ranges anywhere from the low-single digit dollars to literally high-single digit or low-double digit dollars per module.
Trefis estimates BlackBerry generates about $4 in QNX revenue per vehicle. Automakers are only expected to ship about 62 million new vehicles this year, according to Statista Research. Assuming QNX is installed on at least half of those vehicles, BlackBerry would generate about $120 million in annual sales -- or nearly a fifth of its trailing 12-month software and services revenue -- from QNX this year.
Link: https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/12/07/investors-overreacting-blackberry-deal-with-amazon/
Unfortunately, we don't know the exact price the QNX OS costs or per say other modules under QNX. If more modules of QNX are used, then it's adds up and the Average Rate for Per Unit might be 4x or 5x.
This gives us an idea about how to get more revenue from QNX itself when the manufacturer would use other modules under QNX apart from OS.
We have already seen list of the OEM's from previous posts and in the above spreadsheet you saw list of the QNX products certain OEM's are using
IoT subscription period is typically 4 yrs.
Radar Pricing:
Estimation in 2017:
BlackBerry charges $10 to $20 per month for every trailer connected to Radar.
The Go-to-Market objective is to have approximately a 50-50 split in Radar sales between BlackBerry’s channel partners and its direct sales force. BlackBerry Radar partners typically sell only this particular solution.
Recently, BB was able to expand channel ecosystem to more than 12 channel partners, this new partnership might help BB capture more of the logistics and transportation area.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blackberry-radar-expands-channel-ecosystem-with-new-partners-301052631.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-recovery/born-again-blackberry-canadian-icon-hopes-to-ride-trucks-to-growth-idUSKBN1901P1
Cylance Pricing:
Cylance might charge 55$ per endpoint per year.
Announced that Forrester found that BlackBerry Cylance’s AI-driven endpoint security products delivered a 99 percent return on investment. We will see more revenue in 2021 as we shared earlier that customers who bought UEM are excited about UES too.
At present, the market share is below 1%.
Ref: https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/ep--359
The outlook of the Cylance in 2021 and further
Projected Product Sector Revenue Growth by 2025:
QNX:
According to survey, the Global In-Vehicle Infotainment Market size is expected to reach $42.7 billion by 2025 (This is where we shall see more competition from different OEM manufacturers as they build their own products)
Global Market Insights, Inc. has recently added a new report on automotive operating system market which estimates the global market valuation for automotive OS will cross US$ 4.5 billion by 2026
And the QNX OS (Just the OS) segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 15% from 2020 to 2026
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/24/2132346/0/en/Automotive-OS-Market-to-hit-USD-4-5-Bn-by-2026-Global-Market-Insights-Inc.html
Endpoint Protection (Cylance):
The global endpoint security market is expected to grow from 13.58 billion $ in 2020 to 19.24 billion $ in 2025 at a CAGR of 7.6% during the forecast period.
https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/endpoint-security-market.
Assuming the market share in endpoint increases to ~3%. It can be around 577 million
Asset Management (Radar):
Global asset tracking market will reach $36.3B by 2025, growing at 15% CAGR
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/04/1995009/0/en/Global-Asset-Tracking-Market-2020-2025-Insights-Into-Technologies-Solutions-and-the-Ecosystem-Including-Major-Players.html
We have to know what the priority level for BB for this product and how much market share they are targeting in the upcoming years. It’s quite early to say about it and the contribution to the revenue is insignificant compared to other products.
Challenges:
QNX:
Toyota, VW, Mercedes Benz have started taking route of AGL (Automotive Grade Linux) which is an open source (free to use) which implies the QNX market share in OS is waning. These are big manufacturers and how blackberry shall adapt is wait and see game.
There is always a case where companies might decide not to use more of the QNX modules just the OS, this will impact the Average Selling Price (ASP) per car as well as the revenue since those modules add up 4x-5x ASP.
IVY:
Revenue from Blackberry IVY shall be more reflective from 2023, stated by Chen. So, there is uncertainty in this area and no revenue estimate. We have to see how this partnership plays out how companies are willing to adopt cloud platform for insights and management of the automotive software’s.
Cylance:
Currently, the market is highly competitive, and BB has to make it way to top 10 and capture more market share. In 2021, it shall unfold more about it as we are seeing rapid growth in IoT sector across various sectors.
The BB is in the right position to capture more of the automotive market and we have to see how it shall play out in coming years when EV sector is full blown and more cars are delivered, and security threats increase. Also, it offers the endpoint protection, which certainly companies can benefit but not necessarily the SMB which are driven through e-commerce platforms.
Radar:
It’s barely scratching the surface in this sector and as there are bigger sharks who have been in the market for long time.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2019, the Company previously stated that it expected to generate $100 million in cumulative revenue from its BlackBerry Radar asset tracking solution over the next three years. The Company no longer expects to generate this revenue within this time frame. (This is a set back and there are other competitors who have been in the Logistics and Transportation Industry for quite some time).
In general, BB has to pitch itself more aggressively in other sectors especially in Medical, Industrial, Oil and Energy. Considering the certifications they have and the clients they serve.
Thanks to OP's and go give a read at these DD's too:
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/ks4s3s/bb_king_the_blast_from_the_past_with_the/
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l37ktg/bb_weekend_due_diligence_confirmation_bias/
Target Price in 2021: 25-30 (by not considering crazy valuations into account). I personally believe if the IVY platform and Spark product revenue increases then we can certainly see the stock price 4x-5x in coming years.
Positions: 400 shares @ 12 and 2 Jan 20 2023 SP 15. I plan to add more as I see the potential and growth in the newly introduced products.
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice, I'm merely a random person who loves BB and would like to see this company fly to new heigths. Cheers to everyone!!
Edit1: thanks u/melbogia, added the date which I missed earlier for the calls.
submitted by whatisgf to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

Comprehensive Guide about BB and how it shall take off in coming years

Alright folks, here's the comprehensive guide about the BB products, revenue details, customers, and what's in the store in the future. It's quite a lengthy one, please bare with me as you read and this is the first time I looked up regarding a company at this depth.
Some background on the John Chen, who took up a massive challenge when he was the CEO for Sybase where the stock price was around 4-5$. But when he sold off to SAP it was around 65$, although it took 10 years to accomplish. He understands the business quite well and knows where to focus to generate more revenue and certainly be the best in what they do and provide the best to their customers.

Why should companies embrace BB products?

Achievements:
Ref: https://imgur.com/OgrCGNg
Achievements in 2019 (According to 10-k report):
Certifications
Let's highlight the security certifications BB got in 2020.
Before you read about the certifications which BB got, let this statement sink in deeply
No other software vendor in the cybersecurity space has been awarded more security certification by the US Government than BlackBerry.
In Q3 2020, BlackBerry UEM achieved the National Security Agency, NSA, commercial solution for classified program approval. This adds to the portfolio of US government certifications we have received for BlackBerry UEM including the NIAP-certification, the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Product List, which I think we talked about last quarter, DoDIN APL, FedRAMP and FIPS 140-2.
Context from Q3 2020 earnings call:
Recognition
As you see from multiple research firms, BB stands out in what are they doing
Ref:
https://imgur.com/2CMg3OV
https://imgur.com/qE13Y32

Which Markets BB has and will be targeting?

What Products are offered by BB?

I'll share brief info about the below products specific to QNX itself
QNX OTA:
QNX Over the Air (OTA) is a customized remote software update solution addressing the increasingly complex requirements of embedded system manufacturers. It can be tailored to seamlessly and securely update and manage endpoints on a variety of embedded systems.
QNX Acoustics Management Platform:
Design and manage the total vehicle sonic experience with a pure software solution designed to run on general-purpose application processor cores for cost-effective high-fidelity sound.
QNX Multimedia Suite:
If the OEM or developers would like to use a framework to build multimedia players.
QNX Black Channel Communications:
It provides reliable data transmission and consumption and greatly reduces the scope of certification while eliminating the need to have a safety certified network stack. It's critical across automotive, robotics, industrial controls, and medical device industries. It can run on QNX® OS (SDP 7.0 or QOS 2.1), Linux® or SafeRTOS.
QNX ADAS:
Integrates sensor feeds from diverse sources (Camera, Radar, LiDAR, IMU, GPS sensors, etc.) into your critical embedded systems, including autonomous driving applications.
RADAR:
Launched in 2016, it is a complete asset tracking solution providing reliable visibility to trailer, chassis, containers and equipment. These ruggedized devices are easy-to-install, low maintenance and long-lasting to minimize operational disruptions and maximize your ROI.
How it’s different from rest of the competitors:
Do check this post about description of the below products: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l4ehan/blackberry_dd/

How can the BB retain leading position in different sectors?

The Company’s goal is to remain a leader in regulated industries and other core verticals by continuing to extend the functionality of its secure BlackBerry Spark® software platform (UEM + UES).

How does the EV Sector Exponential Growth help BB?

Well, the 2020 to 2022 is a period for gaining significant momentum in the Smart EV sector and which shall rapidly accelerate from 2023 to 2025. As we are noticing multiple companies in EV sector trying to launch their products.
Most of the companies would love to be part of the growing EV sector as it just the beginning excluding TESLA. They will eventually develop products/platforms for OEM's and Tier1 and provide it as a service.
As EV sector evolves more, we should see more partnerships across other companies which aren't part of BB yet might be inclined to use at least one product. As the BB product offerings are diverse and the customer success stories about how they have played a role while manufacturing their own EV products with minimal efforts can boost the marketing efforts.
Chen stated they are going after the other 6 OEM's which aren't using the Blackberry yet. Currently, BlackBerry QNX has design wins with 19 of top 25 Electric Vehicle OEMs, who together have 61% of EV market.

How is BB coping up during the COVID?

The company expects BlackBerry QNX revenue to be negatively impacted by a slowdown in automotive market related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of which could be partially offset by increased customer demand for the Company’s endpoint security and productivity solutions that support business continuity and remote working environments, including the BlackBerry Spark platform, SecuSUITE and BlackBerry AtHoc.

What's upcoming and where is BB focusing strategically?

The Company is developing a concept system to integrate BlackBerry Spark capabilities, including AI and machine learning technologies, with BlackBerry QNX automotive solutions. Have to watch out for more information during the earnings calls.

How was the Customers growth among BB products?

QNX:
QNX was acquired by BB in 2010, right from that moment, BB started its journey in Automotive industry. Initially, it has launched Infotainments and Telematic under QNX product category and it was deployed on leading car manufacturers. It started branching out and was able to offer more products under QNX. Now it is has aligned itself very well for the next gen EV cars.
Adoption of QNX products from 2016 to 2020:
As we see, the growth has been substantial, and we can expect it grow more as we see more cars from new manufacturers and from existing ones and also automotive driving platforms especially in EV sector. There are currently 1.4 billion cars approximately. In 2018, approximately 4.2 million heavy commercial vehicles and just over 20 million light commercial vehicles were produced throughout the world.
It’s estimated to have at least 470 million cars by 2025.
Link: https://www.itsdigest.com/470-million-connected-vehicles-road-2025.
The market share is about 10% in total across automotive
Customers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NQQ6lkby32kHu2tWqbfYqlDEYy90KI6QfsyYd8moYjo/edit?usp=sharing
IVY:
KARMA Automotive is the first customer to use this product.
Link: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/newsroom/press-releases/2020/blackberry-collaborating-with-amazon-web-services-to-demonstrate-safe-secure-and-intelligent-connected-vehicle-software-platform-for-in-vehicle-applications
Chen stated that there won't be much of the revenue growth from IVY until 2023.
Under the terms of our agreement, BlackBerry will own all the commercial relationships with customers and will share revenues with AWS.
The target is to be in the 2023 year’s auto model, with possibly potentially some professional services prior to it. While it is too early for us to provide a revenue outlook, we are confident that BlackBerry IVY addresses a very large market opportunity that will greatly increase our ASP.
Cylance:
It is part of the Blackberry Spark product under UES category
Typically, Cylance subscription period is 1 to 3 yrs. based on the deal’s BB made.
Leader in EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform) and they are able to catch with competitors in EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)
Customers:
Added 279 new customers and new active subscription customer growth was about 15%. Notable new customers include General Motors, Becton Dickinson, Phillips Healthcare, SKF, which is one of Sweden’s largest manufacturers, the New Zealand Defense Force and the United States Census Bureau, just to name a few.
Verizon launched their business internet secure offering, which includes our BlackBerry smart AV antivirus product and Cisco’s Umbrella security service.
Blackberry Spark:
Spark is collection of BlackBerry Cylance, BlackBerry® UEM, BlackBerry® Dynamics™ and BlackBerry® Workspaces products. BB to pushing its efforts for customers to choose this product in 2021.
Spark, as a reminder, is a combination of UEM and UES, the Unified Endpoint Security offerings. In the 2020 Q2, Q3, BB made good progress in both the government, and financial services verticals with customer wins
In addition, they had success in verticals including healthcare and manufacturing sector.
Up on the acquisition of Cylance company, BB was able to integrate it with its existing products which will be part of UES suite. Customers are inclined to upgrade from UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) to UES (Unified Endpoint Security)
Customers are eager to get with UES:
UEM Suite
UEM Suite was added to the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (DoDIN APL). BlackBerry is the only UEM vendor that has achieved this level of approval to date. This achievement is based on the completion of cybersecurity and interoperability certifications. This approval will provide us better access and a more streamlined approval process. This should naturally lead to greater revenue opportunities going forward. The latest release of UEM has also recently achieved NIAP accreditation
AtHoc:
Zoom was one of the customers who is using AtHoc product, after we know what happened to the stock when street found out that it wasn't secure. In this way, Zoom can highly secure way to hold virtual meetings in this new work-from-anywhere environment.
Even, Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow’s Now platforms are on AtHoc. As we know, Teams market leader has 116 million active users and Service Now 51%, IT Service management.
Customers:
BlackBerry Radar:
In 2020, Canadian Pacific Railway agreed to deploy product on 2,000 of its domestic intermodal chassis.
In 2019, one of the top three U.S. retailers specializing in home improvement. The customer placed a 2,500 unit’s order.
In 2019 fiscal year, they have added 50 new customers and recurring revenue from the existing customers.
A big part of our competitive advantage is the BlackBerry legacy experience in designing a reliable, secure solution,” Plaat said. “That’s an important issue in this industry with high capital assets that you keep for years. The ROI is very good for a reliable solution like ours.”
Customers:

BB Revenue:

Check the Spreadsheet for the Revenue Sources.
2021 Fiscal year
Note: Software and Services include these products IoT, QNX, BlackBerry Spark, AtHoc, Radar.
The revenue got impacted due to 2020 chaos especially on the QNX product side. According to the earning calls. There are still on track to maintain the gross margin over 70% and dollar net retention rate is above 90%.
As you see, the gross margin has been consistent past few years and revenue is steadily increasing every year.
Revenue, Gross Margin, Net Income, EPS for years 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016
Growth in Revenue from Products from 2019-2013
Notes:
In 2019, due to restructuring, BB was unable to close deals, we should see +ve in 2020.
IoT: Comprised of QNX products, UEM, & Radar
Other: Handheld Devices and Service Access Fee (SAF)
Since BB was moving away from manufacturing of devices gradually, in 2020 most of it done by third party companies. That’s why we have negative growth under Other.

Pricing for BB products

QNX Pricing:
As there are many modules under QNX, like hypervisor, ADAS, clusters, cockpit, IVI. The cost ranges anywhere from the low-single digit dollars to literally high-single digit or low-double digit dollars per module.
Trefis estimates BlackBerry generates about $4 in QNX revenue per vehicle. Automakers are only expected to ship about 62 million new vehicles this year, according to Statista Research. Assuming QNX is installed on at least half of those vehicles, BlackBerry would generate about $120 million in annual sales -- or nearly a fifth of its trailing 12-month software and services revenue -- from QNX this year.
Link: https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/12/07/investors-overreacting-blackberry-deal-with-amazon/
Unfortunately, we don't know the exact price the QNX OS costs or per say other modules under QNX. If more modules of QNX are used, then it's adds up and the Average Rate for Per Unit might be 4x or 5x.
This gives us an idea about how to get more revenue from QNX itself when the manufacturer would use other modules under QNX apart from OS.
We have already seen list of the OEM's from previous posts and in the above spreadsheet you saw list of the QNX products certain OEM's are using
IoT subscription period is typically 4 yrs.
Radar Pricing:
Estimation in 2017:
BlackBerry charges $10 to $20 per month for every trailer connected to Radar.
The Go-to-Market objective is to have approximately a 50-50 split in Radar sales between BlackBerry’s channel partners and its direct sales force. BlackBerry Radar partners typically sell only this particular solution.
Recently, BB was able to expand channel ecosystem to more than 12 channel partners, this new partnership might help BB capture more of the logistics and transportation area.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blackberry-radar-expands-channel-ecosystem-with-new-partners-301052631.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-recovery/born-again-blackberry-canadian-icon-hopes-to-ride-trucks-to-growth-idUSKBN1901P1
Cylance Pricing:
Cylance might charge 55$ per endpoint per year.
Announced that Forrester found that BlackBerry Cylance’s AI-driven endpoint security products delivered a 99 percent return on investment. We will see more revenue in 2021 as we shared earlier that customers who bought UEM are excited about UES too.
At present, the market share is below 1%.
Ref: https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/ep--359
The outlook of the Cylance in 2021 and further
Projected Product Sector Revenue Growth by 2025:
QNX:
According to survey, the Global In-Vehicle Infotainment Market size is expected to reach $42.7 billion by 2025 (This is where we shall see more competition from different OEM manufacturers as they build their own products)
Global Market Insights, Inc. has recently added a new report on automotive operating system market which estimates the global market valuation for automotive OS will cross US$ 4.5 billion by 2026
And the QNX OS (Just the OS) segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 15% from 2020 to 2026
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/24/2132346/0/en/Automotive-OS-Market-to-hit-USD-4-5-Bn-by-2026-Global-Market-Insights-Inc.html
Endpoint Protection (Cylance):
The global endpoint security market is expected to grow from 13.58 billion $ in 2020 to 19.24 billion $ in 2025 at a CAGR of 7.6% during the forecast period.
https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/endpoint-security-market.
Assuming the market share in endpoint increases to ~3%. It can be around 577 million
Asset Management (Radar):
Global asset tracking market will reach $36.3B by 2025, growing at 15% CAGR
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/04/1995009/0/en/Global-Asset-Tracking-Market-2020-2025-Insights-Into-Technologies-Solutions-and-the-Ecosystem-Including-Major-Players.html
We have to know what the priority level for BB for this product and how much market share they are targeting in the upcoming years. It’s quite early to say about it and the contribution to the revenue is insignificant compared to other products.
Challenges:
QNX:
Toyota, VW, Mercedes Benz have started taking route of AGL (Automotive Grade Linux) which is an open source (free to use) which implies the QNX market share in OS is waning. These are big manufacturers and how blackberry shall adapt is wait and see game.
There is always a case where companies might decide not to use more of the QNX modules just the OS, this will impact the Average Selling Price (ASP) per car as well as the revenue since those modules add up 4x-5x ASP.
IVY:
Revenue from Blackberry IVY shall be more reflective from 2023, stated by Chen. So, there is uncertainty in this area and no revenue estimate. We have to see how this partnership plays out how companies are willing to adopt cloud platform for insights and management of the automotive software’s.
Cylance:
Currently, the market is highly competitive, and BB has to make it way to top 10 and capture more market share. In 2021, it shall unfold more about it as we are seeing rapid growth in IoT sector across various sectors.
The BB is in the right position to capture more of the automotive market and we have to see how it shall play out in coming years when EV sector is full blown and more cars are delivered, and security threats increase. Also, it offers the endpoint protection, which certainly companies can benefit but not necessarily the SMB which are driven through e-commerce platforms.
Radar:
It’s barely scratching the surface in this sector and as there are bigger sharks who have been in the market for long time.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2019, the Company previously stated that it expected to generate $100 million in cumulative revenue from its BlackBerry Radar asset tracking solution over the next three years. The Company no longer expects to generate this revenue within this time frame. (This is a set back and there are other competitors who have been in the Logistics and Transportation Industry for quite some time).
In general, BB has to pitch itself more aggressively in other sectors especially in Medical, Industrial, Oil and Energy. Considering the certifications they have and the clients they serve.
Thanks to OP's and go give a read at these DD's too:
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/ks4s3s/bb_king_the_blast_from_the_past_with_the/
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l37ktg/bb_weekend_due_diligence_confirmation_bias/
Target Price in 2021: 25-30 (by not considering crazy valuations into account). I personally believe if the IVY platform and Spark product revenue increases then we can certainly see the stock price 4x-5x in coming years.
Positions: 400 shares @ 12 and 2 Jan 20 2023 SP 15. I plan to add more as I see the potential and growth in the newly introduced products.
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice, I'm merely a random person who loves BB and would like to see this company fly to new heigths. Cheers to everyone!!
Edit1: thanks u/melbogia, added the date which I missed earlier for the calls.
submitted by whatisgf to stocks [link] [comments]

Why Index Funds are Not as Safe and Bubbles are Not as Destructive as You Might Believe

Why Index Funds are Not as Safe and Bubbles are Not as Destructive as You Might Believe
According to Morningstar research in the middle of 2019 almost half of all US stocks were part of some passive index fund. This number almost doubled since 2009. In the meantime, active management is on a steady decline, especially active managed funds. Around the same time Dr. Michael Burry compared index funds to CDOs. Let’s look into this case and try to draw something from it for our benefit.
1. How come index funds are compared to CDOs if they only track industries or sectors of economy?
What we often miss is that the index fund, instead of being a neutral observer, is an active participant in the fundamentals of the companies that compose a particular index. The fund does so by providing capital and influencing market value of a security (this also opens a window of opportunities for the company behind the ticker to raise capital via bank loans or private investments). What’s so bad about this? Well, passive funds don’t go through balance sheets, there is no fair value assessment, no analysis and no risk taking. They just buy whatever company is big enough to make it into the index. This company can then use provided capital to stay afloat or influence it’s price by share buybacks, dividends or simply pay huge bonuses to it’s management. Just like banks didn’t care about subprime mortgages that were packed into CDOs, index funds managers don’t care about what exactly goes into their ‘soup’. With the banks it was just greed and ignorance – in case of index funds it’s by design.
When there is a stable influx of new capital into passive funds, zombie companies are dragged higher and higher. WSB goddess Cathie Wood called this the greatest misallocation of funds in the history. But why is so much cash flowing into index funds? Is it a trend? Is someone incentivized to promote them? Well, yes, but the main reason is different: boomer psychology and our friend, the FED. See, boomers have massive capitals. All those pension funds, retiring firefighters, trust babies, capital heirs – they all seek safety. They don’t try to get 500% returns YOY or lose it all. They are very content with just beating inflation. Throw few percents above inflation and they will be over the moon. For a long time their favorite asset class were treasuries.
2. What is happening to the bond market?
In 2016 US bond market was almost $40 trillion in value, compared to less than $20 trillion for the domestic stock market. Now, I haven’t seen yet the data about the size of US bond market of 2020, but everything points that it’s ratio to stock market is deteriorating. The US 10-year government-bond yield fell from nearly 2.00% at the beginning of the year to an all-time low of just 0.31% in early March. That’s what Rick Rule called ‘return free risk’, since allocating capital into these treasuries almost guarantees you to lose money to inflation.
https://preview.redd.it/q6r2fhqfu6961.png?width=1372&format=png&auto=webp&s=b72fad038a47ee1a0adca587881f46bafc25cc89
Look at what is happening in Europe: “The ECB, which added 500 billion euros ($606 billion) to its pandemic bond buying program, is set to own around 43% of Germany’s sovereign bond market by the end of next year and around two-fifths of Italian notes, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. That’s up from around 30% and 25% respectively at the end of 2019... Trading volumes in bund futures have collapsed 62% since the ECB started buying bonds, according to Axa, while ranges the lifeblood of traders have nosedived across Europe. In both the safest and riskiest nations, this quarter’s spread between the highest and lowest yields is the tightest it’s been since at least the global financial crisis.”
The FED is doing quite the same. Buying bonds (including corporate) all over the place and lowering interest rates to the ground. What’s even more devastating for boomers is that there’s no hope on the horizon: the FED promises to keep interest rates low for the next few years. We are really heading towards Japan situation where the central bank is that fat ugly bully kid playing all by himself in the sandbox.
3. Where to go if the bonds are not so hot?
This all causes big money to chase the next best thing. What do people consider safe? Real Estate. And indeed it rose: according to Knight Frank Global House price index US housing prices rose 7% from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020. But that’s a lot of hustle for big money. And that is hardly a passive income, rather a career. So the next best thing is index funds. What can be better than tracking the whole US economy? Never bet against America, am I right? Even if we stumble upon a market crash sending S&P down – the economy will recover, it always does, right? The influx of cash into ETFs is basically a self fulfilling prophecy: it drives prices up and those yearly returns get even more lucrative compared to sexy 0.31% provided by treasuries.
The data shows that 2019-2020 saw again a spike in passive management allocation, but I couldn't find more up to date graph
Even worse is that actively managed funds and bank investments start to, basically, replicate index funds. That is due to the risk/reward factor: if the funds outperform the market - they get some good rep and few new customers; but when they underperform the market – they get absolutely obliterated. Only few outsiders can risk picking deep value stocks or plays, that are not common portfolio dwellers. Or it takes someone with huge authority like Warren Buffett or Howard Marks.
4. Bubbles everywhere
Now, at this point you might be on the edge of your seat, banging your fist and thinking that this is nothing but a bubble and the boomers, index funds and the FED are to blame. Well, it is. Hard truth is that fundamentals in the long run always kick-in. So-called Buffett indicator (total stocks market cap to GDP) is almost at a record high. And on top of that we have Dot.com bubble 2.0 with crazy tech enthusiasm. And a second real estate bubble too. But I urge you to notice, that bubbles are not all the same with the same outcome. Well, they all go burst, but that’s not the point. There are bubbles that I would call ‘General Market Heat’ - situations when too much money goes into the market, causing it to overheat. Then some sort of event, panic, fear, or rumor, not necessary caused by declining fundamentals, sends the market to downward spiral. As an example: panic of 1857, 1929, 1987, etc. The better the fundamentals were and the least the government gets involved – the faster it rebounds. Those bubbles do nothing but attract more speculators and their only result is the number of bankruptcies. Then there are bubbles that I would call ‘Thematic Bubbles’ - those are dedicated to some specific industry or a number of particular stocks that are expected to grow enormously. Tulip Mania in Netherlands (1637), Railway Mania in UK (1840s), Video Games Crash of 1983, Dot Com Bubble (2000). They all chased some particular novelty and all landed on their faces. But doing so they provided huge capital to developing industries. Dot Com Bubble gave us rapid growth of internet usage. Video Games chase of the late 70s and early 80s gave us the golden age of arcade gaming and huge inventions in graphics and game tech. Railway Mania left Britain with the largest system of railroads in the world. And guess who is the biggest exporter of tulips and holds 49 % of the global flower market? Yep, Netherlands, to this day, almost 400 years since the mania!
This did not in any way benefit the majority of investors who went down with the bubble. But you can view this as a sacrifice of dumb and greedy people for the benefit of the progress. I get a sense of pride in this noble cause, as a member of WSB community.
Back to boomers and index funds. By pouring money into index funds they provide capital both to disruptive industries and to zombie companies. The good thing is that the tech gets the majority of it, since it has the biggest share. Just look at the SPY top 6 holdings:
https://preview.redd.it/ien160wku6961.png?width=361&format=png&auto=webp&s=b4fb8528478110ff0f2d5f9e1a793d7b5e5a9085
It’s genuinely good that companies like Tesla will get allocation of billions and billions which they (frankly) do not quite deserve at current fundamentals. This will accelerate their growth. The bad thing is that such allocations cement big tech monopolies, damaging competition. And it also provides liquidity to zombie companies big enough to make it into indexes.
Difference is that innovative companies use this cash to reinvest into future growth. That’s exactly why their P/E ratios are so bad. Zombies spend cash on buybacks and management bonuses. Because of how all these companies are tied together in index funds and due to the nature of modern margin calls – once any segment of the stock market falls, there will be a massive dip. Tech can drown any industry stocks with them and vice versa. But the Tech will be able to cut investments, R&D and expansions and become profitable, while zombies with a big debt will go bankrupt. Either way it’s investors, who will bear the pain.
5. What shall we draw from here:
​
  1. There are huge inflows into the stock market. And the blame is not so much on the kids with RH as it is on the boomers and ‘smart money’ chasing index funds;
  2. If you want to short any of the bubbles as a hedge – do not short the most growing and volatile sectors and ETFs like QQQ, because they benefit from the current market in a long run. And also the premiums are huge due to IV. Rather short slow and steady industries, because they will get nuked just as much in case of a crash, but the premiums you pay now will be much lower;
  3. Passive index funds investing makes ‘price discovery’ and a search for deep value so much more challenging. But not impossible. Basically, Peter Lynch’s advise to look for companies with smaller institutional ownership still lives up today. Does this mean that prices can’t be good or go up under big index allocation? Hell no. But the chance to find a ten-bagger declines.As an anecdote: look into our champion’s GME institutional ownership: on Jan 31 2020 it was 96.6 % and declined to relatively low 66.7 by Sep 30. Exactly before it doubled in the next 3 months;
  4. Some bubbles provide needed capital to developing and hyped industries causing structural change. Unfortunately, it is paid by investors who rarely see any return;
  5. FED is to blame for everything (as always);
  6. WSBers will lose money either way (as always).
​
TL;DR:
The bond market is similar to boomers wives: sexy in the 80s, not so much today. Constant intrusions by their relatives (the FED) into their relationships makes things even worse. That sends boomers chasing young girls - the stocks. But their dongles aren’t so active anymore, so boomers prefer passive approach, using a dating app - index funds. Unfortunately, there are only so many hot girls among young ladies on the app. This leads to ugly ones receiving attention and money from boomers, which they otherwise wouldn’t deserve. Some of those ladies spend money wisely and will be good to go once the boomer dies out. Others immediately waste it on shopping. Now, if a young man wants to find a truly beautiful lady with reasonable expectations – he has a better chance searching outside of the boomer dating app.
Obligatory pictograph of a rocket for those of us who are not yet fully developed for an alphabet
🚀 🚀 🚀
submitted by negovany to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

I wrote my legislators about Comcast/Xfinity's new data caps in Connecticut, and you should, too.

If you were not aware, Comcast (which is a de facto monopoly in many parts of the state) instituted new data caps of 1.2 terabytes per month for internet starting Jan 1. Customers will be charged if they go over 1.2TB, but deceptively, these fees are waived until March 2021 (I presume so no one catches the policy change until months into effect). This may seem like a lot of data, but even a small household with HD-4K streaming, video chat like Zoom for school/work, maybe some video gaming (many games have huge downloads), etc will easily put the average household over the cap and cause fees.
Comcast clearly did this to make more money off of us. It's 2021, the internet is not a "luxury" but a completely necessarily utility (try maintaining a job, or hell even finding a job, without the internet). The fact that we are being charged more than our already high rates is absurd. We're already being fucked by the lack of competition in high-speed (don't tell me Verizon or Frontier with their 40mbps max speeds compares to what Comcast/Xfinity and Cablevision/Optimum offer, it's incomparable).
I recommend that you look up your reps and write them IMMEDIATELY to act to ban these data caps. There is no reason the largest entertainment conglomerate company in the country needs to nickel and dime us for more money.
Here is what I wrote my reps, Rick Lopes (Senate) and Manny Sanchez (House):
Hello Senator Lopes, Congratulations on being elected to the Senate, I am happy to say I was one of your voters. I am writing because I am deeply concerned about Comcast’s new data policies, and action is needed by yourself and your colleagues (I’ve also written to Rep. Manny Sanchez as well) to protect consumers. As you are likely aware, Comcast under their Xfinity brand is a de facto monopoly in many parts of the state. If a resident needs high-speed internet there are often no alternative options except slow, dial-up options falsely advertised as “high speed” – I live on Shuttle Meadow Ave for example, and other than Comcast at 100+ mbps, the only option is Frontier at “up to 40 mbps” which would suffer even in my 2-person household. There is frankly an illusion of choice, and anyone wishing to have competent internet for work and school is forced to take the local high-speed provider. Recently, Comcast announced a 1.2 terabyte monthly data cap taking effect Jan 1, 2021 which would charge users for overages. This is DEEPLY alarming for CT residents especially during a pandemic, but will persist beyond COVID-19. Over a terabyte seems like a lot of data, but for a family using video chat, streaming entertainment, and/or video games it is very easily surpassed. The net effect of this policy will be a majority of Connecticut families will be forced to pay even higher rates to Comcast/Xfinity. You need to pass legislation banning such data caps immediately. There is no actual justification for Comcast creating data caps. This is merely a response to “cord-cutting”; with more customers leaving cable in favor of streaming video, Comcast is looking to make internet their profit puppy. The issue, however, is that unlike cable which is primarily for entertainment, the internet in 2021 is an essential utility—try finding a job or staying employed without internet access. Comcast says they need the data cap to promote network infrastructure stability, but Connecticut users already pay far more for internet than those who live in areas with greater ISP competition. Moreover, Comcast is a massively profitable company which just acquired NBC/Universal. It is the largest cable TV and home internet company in the United States. There is absolutely no need to listen to their lobbyists, because they will only continue to act in the company’s best interests rather than those of your constituents like me. I respectfully request that you pass legislation banning such data caps for home internet. Moreover, I would love to see legislation that increases competition in some way. In the UK, for example, legislation was passed to force ISPs to rent out their network infrastructure to competitors—similar to how CT residents can “choose” their energy provider, which rents on Eversource infrastructure. This kind of solution both promotes competition and better prices for consumers, and removes barriers to entry for new businesses (namely setting up an entire network). Moreover, I would love it if we passed a state net neutrality bill. It is clear that the federal FTC has abandoned the best interests of the American people, for example the exiting chairman Ajit Pai is a former Verizon lawyer and has demonstrated his loyalty to them time and again in office. Net neutrality is supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and is in the best interests of consumers, to the detriment of service providers who are looking for more ways to make money off of us. I would love to discuss this issue in more depth, and help research other states’ approaches to similar legislation if you need it (I am a law student at UConn).
Regards, [NAME]
Also, I need to rant about why I hate Comcast so much. They are an absolutely horrid company. To name a few:
  1. They rebranded as "Xfinity" to create the illusion of being a different entity. Deceptive as hell.
  2. They offer insane prices compared to places with greater competition (no duh).
  3. They are a massive conglomerate who uses this vertical integration not to reduce costs for consumers, but to drive them up. (You would think based on basic economics that they would use economies of scale to save money, which they do, but they don't pass these savings on).
  4. They sell your internet usage data to advertisers and it's a cost of having internet with them.
  5. By default they force your router to offer Xfinity wifi hotspots to passers by.
  6. Like most monopolies, they offer better rates to new customers than loyal, existing customers.
  7. They have repeatedly argued that internet is not a utility and instead argue it's a luxury.
I can pull citations if needed.
submitted by colenotphil to Connecticut [link] [comments]

Story Time: Silver short squeeze

How the Hunt Brothers Cornered the Silver Market and Then Lost it All

TL:DR: yes its long. Grab a beer.

​
Until his dying day in 2014, Nelson Bunker Hunt, who had once been the world’s wealthiest man, denied that he and his brother plotted to corner the global silver market.
Sure, back in 1980, Bunker, his younger brother Herbert, and other members of the Hunt clan owned roughly two-thirds of all the privately held silver on earth. But the historic stockpiling of bullion hadn’t been a ploy to manipulate the market, they and their sizable legal team would insist in the following years. Instead, it was a strategy to hedge against the voracious inflation of the 1970s—a monumental bet against the U.S. dollar.
Whatever the motive, it was a bet that went historically sour. The debt-fueled boom and bust of the global silver market not only decimated the Hunt fortune, but threatened to take down the U.S. financial system.
The panic of “Silver Thursday” took place over 35 years ago, but it still raises questions about the nature of financial manipulation. While many view the Hunt brothers as members of a long succession of white collar crooks, from Charles Ponzi to Bernie Madoff, others see the endearingly eccentric Texans as the victims of overstepping regulators and vindictive insiders who couldn’t stand the thought of being played by a couple of southern yokels.
In either case, the story of the Hunt brothers just goes to show how difficult it can be to distinguish illegal market manipulation from the old fashioned wheeling and dealing that make our markets work.
The Real-Life Ewings
Whatever their foibles, the Hunts make for an interesting cast of characters. Evidently CBS thought so; the family is rumored to be the basis for the Ewings, the fictional Texas oil dynasty of Dallas fame.
Sitting at the top of the family tree was H.L. Hunt, a man who allegedly purchased his first oil field with poker winnings and made a fortune drilling in east Texas. H.L. was a well-known oddball to boot, and his sons inherited many of their father’s quirks.
For one, there was the stinginess. Despite being the richest man on earth in the 1960s, Bunker Hunt (who went by his middle name), along with his younger brothers Herbert (first name William) and Lamar, cultivated an image as unpretentious good old boys. They drove old Cadillacs, flew coach, and when they eventually went to trial in New York City in 1988, they took the subway. As one Texas editor was quoted in the New York Times, Bunker Hunt was “the kind of guy who orders chicken-fried steak and Jello-O, spills some on his tie, and then goes out and buys all the silver in the world.”
Cheap suits aside, the Hunts were not without their ostentation. At the end of the 1970s, Bunker boasted a stable of over 500 horses and his little brother Lamar owned the Kansas City Chiefs. All six children of H.L.’s first marriage (the patriarch of the Hunt family had fifteen children by three women before he died in 1974) lived on estates befitting the scions of a Texas billionaire. These lifestyles were financed by trusts, but also risky investments in oil, real estate, and a host of commodities including sugar beets, soybeans, and, before long, silver.
The Hunt brothers also inherited their father’s political inclinations. A zealous anti-Communist, Bunker Hunt bankrolled conservative causes and was a prominent member of the John Birch Society, a group whose founder once speculated that Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent” of Soviet conspiracy. In November of 1963, Hunt sponsored a particularly ill-timed political campaign, which distributed pamphlets around Dallas condemning President Kennedy for alleged slights against the Constitution on the day that he was assassinated. JFK conspiracy theorists have been obsessed with Hunt ever since.
In fact, it was the Hunt brand of politics that partially explains what led Bunker and Herbert to start buying silver in 1973.
Hard Money
The 1970s were not kind to the U.S. dollar.
Years of wartime spending and unresponsive monetary policy pushed inflation upward throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. Then, in October of 1973, war broke out in the Middle East and an oil embargo was declared against the United States. Inflation jumped above 10%. It would stay high throughout the decade, peaking in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution at an annual average of 13.5% in 1980.
Over the same period of time, the global monetary system underwent a historic transformation. Since the first Roosevelt administration, the U.S. dollar had been pegged to the value of gold at a predictable rate of $35 per ounce. But in 1971, President Nixon, responding to inflationary pressures, suspended that relationship. For the first time in modern history, the paper dollar did not represent some fixed amount of tangible, precious metal sitting in a vault somewhere.
For conservative commodity traders like the Hunts, who blamed government spending for inflation and held grave reservations about the viability of fiat currency, the perceived stability of precious metal offered a financial safe harbor. It was illegal to trade gold in the early 1970s, so the Hunts turned to the next best thing.
📷
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; chart by Priceonomics
As an investment, there was a lot to like about silver. The Hunts were not alone in fleeing to bullion amid all the inflation and geopolitical turbulence, so the price was ticking up. Plus, light-sensitive silver halide is a key component of photographic film. With the growth of the consumer photography market, new production from mines struggled to keep up with demand.
And so, in 1973, Bunker and Herbert bought over 35 million ounces of silver, most of which they flew to Switzerland in specifically designed airplanes guarded by armed Texas ranch hands. According to one source, the Hunt’s purchases were big enough to move the global market.
But silver was not the Hunts' only speculative venture in the 1970s. Nor was it the only one that got them into trouble with regulators.
Soy Before Silver
In 1977, the price of soybeans was rising fast. Trade restrictions on Brazil and growing demand from China made the legume a hot commodity, and both Bunker and Herbert decided to enter the futures market in April of that year.
A future is an agreement to buy or sell some quantity of a commodity at an agreed upon price at a later date. If someone contracts to buy soybeans in the future (they are said to take the “long” position), they will benefit if the price of soybeans rise, since they have locked in the lower price ahead of time. Likewise, if someone contracts to sell (that’s called the “short” position), they benefit if the price falls, since they have locked in the old, higher price.
While futures contracts can be used by soybean farmers and soy milk producers to guard against price swings, most futures are traded by people who wouldn’t necessarily know tofu from cream cheese. As a de facto insurance contract against market volatility, futures can be used to hedge other investments or simply to gamble on prices going up (by going long) or down (by going short).
When the Hunts decided to go long in the soybean futures market, they went very, very long. Between Bunker, Herbert, and the accounts of five of their children, the Hunts collectively purchased the right to buy one-third of the entire autumn soybean harvest of the United States.
To some, it appeared as if the Hunts were attempting to corner the soybean market.
In its simplest version, a corner occurs when someone buys up all (or at least, most) of the available quantity of a commodity. This creates an artificial shortage, which drives up the price, and allows the market manipulator to sell some of his stockpile at a higher profit.
Futures markets introduce some additional complexity to the cornerer’s scheme. Recall that when a trader takes a short position on a contract, he or she is pledging to sell a certain amount of product to the holder of the long position. But if the holder of the long position just so happens to be sitting on all the readily available supply of the commodity under contract, the short seller faces an unenviable choice: go scrounge up some of the very scarce product in order to “make delivery” or just pay the cornerer a hefty premium and nullify the deal entirely.
In this case, the cornerer is actually counting on the shorts to do the latter, says Craig Pirrong, professor of finance at the University of Houston. If too many short sellers find that it actually costs less to deliver the product, the market manipulator will be stuck with warehouses full of inventory. Finance experts refer to selling the all the excess supply after building a corner as “burying the corpse.”
“That is when the price collapses,” explains Pirrong. “But if the number of deliveries isn’t too high, the loss from selling at the low price after the corner is smaller than the profit from selling contracts at the high price.”
📷
The Chicago Board of Trade trading floor. Photo credit: Jeremy Kemp
Even so, when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that a single family from Texas had contracted to buy a sizable portion of the 1977 soybean crop, they did not accuse the Hunts of outright market manipulation. Instead, noting that the Hunts had exceeded the 3 million bushel aggregate limit on soybean holdings by about 20 million, the CFTC noted that the Hunt’s “excessive holdings threaten disruption of the market and could cause serious injury to the American public.” The CFTC ordered the Hunts to sell and to pay a penalty of $500,000.
Though the Hunts made tens of millions of dollars on paper while soybean prices skyrocketed, it’s unclear whether they were able to cash out before the regulatory intervention. In any case, the Hunts were none too pleased with the decision.
“Apparently the CFTC is trying to repeal the law of supply and demand,” Bunker complained to the press.
Silver Thursday
Despite the run in with regulators, the Hunts were not dissuaded. Bunker and Herbert had eased up on silver after their initial big buy in 1973, but in the fall of 1979, they were back with a vengeance. By the end of the year, Bunker and Herbert owned 21 million ounces of physical silver each. They had even larger positions in the silver futures market: Bunker was long on 45 million ounces, while Herbert held contracts for 20 million. Their little brother Lamar also had a more “modest” position.
By the new year, with every dollar increase in the price of silver, the Hunts were making $100 million on paper. But unlike most investors, when their profitable futures contracts expired, they took delivery. As in 1973, they arranged to have the metal flown to Switzerland. Intentional or not, this helped create a shortage of the metal for industrial supply.
Naturally, the industrialists were unhappy. From a spot price of around $6 per ounce in early 1979, the price of silver shot up to $50.42 in January of 1980. In the same week, silver futures contracts were trading at $46.80. Film companies like Kodak saw costs go through the roof, while the British film producer, Ilford, was forced to lay off workers. Traditional bullion dealers, caught in a squeeze, cried foul to the commodity exchanges, and the New York jewelry house Tiffany & Co. took out a full page ad in the New York Times slamming the “unconscionable” Hunt brothers. They were right to single out the Hunts; in mid-January, they controlled 69% of all the silver futures contracts on the Commodity Exchange (COMEX) in New York.
📷
Source: New York Times
But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
“In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.”
According to a Washington Post article published that March, the D.C. police warned residents of a rash of home burglaries targeting silver.
Unfortunately for the Hunts, all this new supply had a predictable effect. Rather than close out their contracts, short sellers suddenly found it was easier to get their hands on new supplies of silver and deliver.
“The main factor that has caused corners to fail [throughout history] is that the manipulator has underestimated how much will be delivered to him if he succeeds [at] raising the price to artificial levels,” says Pirrong. “Eventually, the Hunts ran out of money to pay for all the silver that was thrown at them.”
In financial terms, the brothers had a large corpse on their hands—and no way to bury it.
This proved to be an especially big problem, because it wasn’t just the Hunt fortune that was on the line. Of the $6.6 billion worth of silver the Hunts held at the top of the market, the brothers had “only” spent a little over $1 billion of their own money. The rest was borrowed from over 20 banks and brokerage houses.
At the same time, COMEX decided to crack down. On January 7, 1980, the exchange’s board of governors announced that it would cap the size of silver futures exposure to 3 million ounces. Those in excess of the cap (say, by the tens of millions) were given until the following month to bring themselves into compliance. But that was too long for the Chicago Board of Trade exchange, which suspended the issue of any new silver futures on January 21. Silver futures traders would only be allowed to square up old contracts.
Predictably, silver prices began to slide. As the various banks and other firms that had backed the Hunt bullion binge began to recognize the tenuousness of their financial position, they issued margin calls, asking the brothers to put up more money as collateral for their debts. The Hunts, unable to sell silver lest they trigger a panic, borrowed even more. By early March, futures contracts had fallen to the mid-$30 range.
Matters finally came to a head on March 25, when one of the Hunts’ largest backers, the Bache Group, asked for $100 million more in collateral. The brothers were out of cash, and Bache was unwilling to accept silver in its place, as it had been doing throughout the month. With the Hunts in default, Bache did the only thing it could to start recouping its losses: it start to unload silver.
On March 27, “Silver Thursday,” the silver futures market dropped by a third to $10.80. Just two months earlier, these contracts had been trading at four times that amount.
The Aftermath
After the oil bust of the early 1980s and a series of lawsuits polished off the remainder of the Hunt brothers’ once historic fortune, the two declared bankruptcy in 1988. Bunker, who had been worth an estimated $16 billion in the 1960s, emerged with under $10 million to his name. That’s not exactly chump change, but it wasn’t enough to maintain his 500-plus stable of horses,.
The Hunts almost dragged their lenders into bankruptcy too—and with them, a sizable chunk of the U.S. financial system. Over twenty financial institutions had extended over a billion dollars in credit to the Hunt brothers. The default and resulting collapse of silver prices blew holes in balance sheets across Wall Street. A privately orchestrated bailout loan from a number of banks allowed the brothers to start paying off their debts and keep their creditors afloat, but the markets and regulators were rattled.
Silver Spot Prices Per Ounce (January, 1979 - June, 1980)
📷
Source: Trading Economics
In the words of then CFTC chief James Stone, the Hunts’ antics had threatened to punch a hole in the “financial fabric of the United States” like nothing had in decades. Writing about the entire episode a year later, Harper’s Magazine described Silver Thursday as “the first great panic since October 1929.”
The trouble was not over for the Hunts. In the following years, the brothers were dragged before Congressional hearings, got into a legal spat with their lenders, and were sued by a Peruvian mineral marketing company, which had suffered big losses in the crash. In 1988, a New York City jury found for the South American firm, levying a penalty of over $130 million against the Hunts and finding that they had deliberately conspired to corner the silver market.
Surprisingly, there is still some disagreement on that point.
Bunker Hunt attributed the whole affair to the political motives of COMEX insiders and regulators. Referring to himself later as “a favorite whipping boy” of an eastern financial establishment riddled with liberals and socialists, Bunker and his brother, Herbert, are still perceived as martyrs by some on the far-right.
“Political and financial insiders repeatedly changed the rules of the game,” wrote the New American. “There is little evidence to support the ‘corner the market’ narrative.”
Though the Hunt brothers clearly amassed a staggering amount of silver and silver derivatives at the end of the 1970s, it is impossible to prove definitively that market manipulation was in their hearts. Maybe, as the Hunts always claimed, they just really believed in the enduring value of silver.
Or maybe, as others have noted, the Hunt brothers had no idea what they were doing. Call it the stupidity defense.
“They’re terribly unsophisticated,” an anonymous associated was quoted as saying of the Hunts in a Chicago Tribune article from 1989. “They make all the mistakes most other people make,” said another.
p.s. credit to Ben Christopher
​
submitted by theBacillus to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

Electronic Arts to buy Glu Mobile

My commentary:
Glu is mobile games developer best known for, as they put it, games enjoyed by female gamers. Their main franchises include Diner Dash Adventures, Kim Kardashian Hollywood and Design Home. Although they also develop sport games that would compliment EA's portfolio well. Their sport games include Tap Sports Baseball, Deer Hunter and others. They also develop licensed games like WWE Universe and Disney Sorcerer’s Arena.
We all know EA so I wont bother. However, important to know that recently EA is having some hard time. They lost Star Wars franchise exclusivity, their loot boxes are facing regulatory pressure in Europe and their first party IPs are recently failing. EAs biggest revenue driver is EA Sports live services revenue which in plain English are FIFA loot boxes. Also, with failing first party IPs EA is at a mercy of their sports games licensors. Not great position to be in. EA has also recently announced quarterly dividend which was understood by some analysts as indication of slowing growth. EA's other recent acquisition was Codemasters who are UK racing games developers. Codemasters games include Dirt, Grid and Colin McRae Rally. However, it seems like EA does not care much for Codemaster's original IPs. Instead they rather wanted to acquire Codemaster's F1 licensing deal. As they have admitted during the last investors call, they see great potential for monetizing F1 franchise in similar ways to FIFA games.
Overall, markets seem to like EA's acquisition of Glu as shares are up post market. I'm more bearish on EA even with gaming sector growing at record speed. I think there are better game developers to invest in. Although, I will admit that current EA's valuation is quite tempting and dividend makes it even more so. Also, whether you like it or not if they manage to monetize F1 franchise and release more casual mobile games these acquisitions could be major revenue growth drivers.
Edit: It seems like many investors are not happy with $12.50 per share offer which they believe significantly undervalues the company. On the other hand this sounds like done deal so not much to be done.

Edit: EAs strategic rationale for the acquisition includes:
Creating a Leading Mobile Portfolio Across Key Genres. The complementary nature of Electronic Arts and Glu’s successful products will create a portfolio that spans many of the biggest and most popular genres of mobile games, including sports, RPG, lifestyle, casual, and mid-core games. The combined organization will have a demographically diverse audience, with significant opportunities for franchise and market expansion.
Expanding Successful, Scalable Live Services. Both Electronic Arts and Glu have proven success creating mobile live service games that deeply engage large communities over many years and deliver strong recurring revenue. The combined expertise of the two organizations unlocks potential for further success. Glu’s franchises like Design Home, Covet Fashion, and MLB Tap Sports Baseball will benefit from Electronic Arts’ global licensing and distribution capabilities to bring them to new markets and more players. Glu’s expertise in building and monetizing sports and casual mobile games, combined with Electronic Arts’ industry-leading IP in sports and beyond, will accelerate the creation of exciting new experiences for broad audiences.
Experienced Creative Leadership & Enhanced Team Capabilities. Glu brings a talented team including more than 500 mobile game developers (and nearly 800 total employees), adding significant scale to Electronic Arts’ mobile-focused organization. Glu’s creative leaders are established and well-known to Electronic Arts, with similar focus on creating highly successful mobile games with longevity. The combination of proven mobile leadership, deeply talented teams, genre expertise, long-running franchises and IP, and technology across the two organizations will be a catalyst to delivering new experiences and further growth.
Accelerating Growth. The combination of Electronic Arts and Glu will be a mobile growth engine. With strong, recurring revenue across a leading portfolio of live services, strength in key mobile genres, a deep roster of owned and licensed IP, access to a large-scale and growing player network, and ability to reach into new regions and markets, the acquisition will be immediately accretive to EA’s total net bookings and is expected to grow underlying profitability beginning in its first year.

Edit:
My comment here is that consensus amongst analysts is that EA actually got very good deal here. Private Glu investors seem to feel a bit ripped off as they were expecting higher takeover bid.
submitted by Ironleg01 to investing [link] [comments]

Comprehensive Guide about BB and how it shall take off in coming years

Alright folks, here's the comprehensive guide about the BB products, revenue details, customers, and what's in the store in the future. It's quite a lengthy one, please bare with me as you read and this is the first time I looked up regarding a company at this depth.
Some background on the John Chen, who took up a massive challenge when he was the CEO for Sybase where the stock price was around 4-5$. But when he sold off to SAP it was around 65$, although it took 10 years to accomplish. He understands the business quite well and knows where to focus to generate more revenue and certainly be the best in what they do and provide the best to their customers.

Why should companies embrace BB products?

Achievements:
https://preview.redd.it/cz63xa3mpdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=6d43da67de4b0ed5c4ed30205b8f95aaeec0551a
Achievements in 2019 (According to 10-k report):
Certifications
Let's highlight the security certifications BB got in 2020.
Before you read about the certifications which BB got, let this statement sink in deeply
No other software vendor in the cybersecurity space has been awarded more security certification by the US Government than BlackBerry.
In Q3 2020, BlackBerry UEM achieved the National Security Agency, NSA, commercial solution for classified program approval. This adds to the portfolio of US government certifications we have received for BlackBerry UEM including the NIAP-certification, the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Product List, which I think we talked about last quarter, DoDIN APL, FedRAMP and FIPS 140-2.
Context from Q3 2020 earnings call:
Certifications
Recognition
As you see from multiple research firms, BB stands out in what are they doing
https://preview.redd.it/gzh9ledvkdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=78121316772b69e9337623695dfde2a7e58cb44a
https://preview.redd.it/f7ygjt9wkdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a3207f447c23954e2fdb6236baea642373dc6cf

Which Markets BB has and will be targeting?

What Products are offered by BB?

I'll share brief info about the below products specific to QNX itself
QNX OTA:
QNX Over the Air (OTA) is a customized remote software update solution addressing the increasingly complex requirements of embedded system manufacturers. It can be tailored to seamlessly and securely update and manage endpoints on a variety of embedded systems.
QNX Acoustics Management Platform:
Design and manage the total vehicle sonic experience with a pure software solution designed to run on general-purpose application processor cores for cost-effective high-fidelity sound.
QNX Multimedia Suite:
If the OEM or developers would like to use a framework to build multimedia players.
QNX Black Channel Communications:
It provides reliable data transmission and consumption and greatly reduces the scope of certification while eliminating the need to have a safety certified network stack. It's critical across automotive, robotics, industrial controls, and medical device industries. It can run on QNX® OS (SDP 7.0 or QOS 2.1), Linux® or SafeRTOS.
QNX ADAS:
Integrates sensor feeds from diverse sources (Camera, Radar, LiDAR, IMU, GPS sensors, etc.) into your critical embedded systems, including autonomous driving applications.
RADAR:
Launched in 2016, it is a complete asset tracking solution providing reliable visibility to trailer, chassis, containers and equipment. These ruggedized devices are easy-to-install, low maintenance and long-lasting to minimize operational disruptions and maximize your ROI.
How it’s different from rest of the competitors:
Do check this post about description of the below products: https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l4ehan/blackberry_dd/

How can the BB retain leading position in different sectors?

The Company’s goal is to remain a leader in regulated industries and other core verticals by continuing to extend the functionality of its secure BlackBerry Spark® software platform (UEM + UES).

How does the EV Sector Exponential Growth help BB?

Well, the 2020 to 2022 is a period for gaining significant momentum in the Smart EV sector and which shall rapidly accelerate from 2023 to 2025. As we are noticing multiple companies in EV sector trying to launch their products.
Most of the companies would love to be part of the growing EV sector as it just the beginning excluding TESLA. They will eventually develop products/platforms for OEM's and Tier1 and provide it as a service.
As EV sector evolves more, we should see more partnerships across other companies which aren't part of BB yet might be inclined to use at least one product. As the BB product offerings are diverse and the customer success stories about how they have played a role while manufacturing their own EV products with minimal efforts can boost the marketing efforts.
Chen stated they are going after the other 6 OEM's which aren't using the Blackberry yet. Currently, BlackBerry QNX has design wins with 19 of top 25 Electric Vehicle OEMs, who together have 61% of EV market.

How is BB coping up during the COVID?

The company expects BlackBerry QNX revenue to be negatively impacted by a slowdown in automotive market related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of which could be partially offset by increased customer demand for the Company’s endpoint security and productivity solutions that support business continuity and remote working environments, including the BlackBerry Spark platform, SecuSUITE and BlackBerry AtHoc.

What's upcoming and where is BB focusing strategically?

The Company is developing a concept system to integrate BlackBerry Spark capabilities, including AI and machine learning technologies, with BlackBerry QNX automotive solutions. Have to watch out for more information during the earnings calls.

How was the Customers growth among BB products?

QNX:
QNX was acquired by BB in 2010, right from that moment, BB started its journey in Automotive industry. Initially, it has launched Infotainments and Telematic under QNX product category and it was deployed on leading car manufacturers. It started branching out and was able to offer more products under QNX. Now it is has aligned itself very well for the next gen EV cars.
Adoption of QNX products from 2016 to 2020:
As we see, the growth has been substantial, and we can expect it grow more as we see more cars from new manufacturers and from existing ones and also automotive driving platforms especially in EV sector. There are currently 1.4 billion cars approximately. In 2018, approximately 4.2 million heavy commercial vehicles and just over 20 million light commercial vehicles were produced throughout the world.
It’s estimated to have at least 470 million cars by 2025.
Link: https://www.itsdigest.com/470-million-connected-vehicles-road-2025.
The market share is about 10% in total across automotive
Customers:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NQQ6lkby32kHu2tWqbfYqlDEYy90KI6QfsyYd8moYjo/edit?usp=sharing
IVY:
KARMA Automotive is the first customer to use this product.
Link: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/newsroom/press-releases/2020/blackberry-collaborating-with-amazon-web-services-to-demonstrate-safe-secure-and-intelligent-connected-vehicle-software-platform-for-in-vehicle-applications
Chen stated that there won't be much of the revenue growth from IVY until 2023.
Under the terms of our agreement, BlackBerry will own all the commercial relationships with customers and will share revenues with AWS.
The target is to be in the 2023 year’s auto model, with possibly potentially some professional services prior to it. While it is too early for us to provide a revenue outlook, we are confident that BlackBerry IVY addresses a very large market opportunity that will greatly increase our ASP.
Cylance:
It is part of the Blackberry Spark product under UES category
Typically, Cylance subscription period is 1 to 3 yrs. based on the deal’s BB made.
Leader in EPP (Endpoint Protection Platform) and they are able to catch with competitors in EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response)
Customers:
Added 279 new customers and new active subscription customer growth was about 15%. Notable new customers include General Motors, Becton Dickinson, Phillips Healthcare, SKF, which is one of Sweden’s largest manufacturers, the New Zealand Defense Force and the United States Census Bureau, just to name a few.
Verizon launched their business internet secure offering, which includes our BlackBerry smart AV antivirus product and Cisco’s Umbrella security service.
Blackberry Spark:
Spark is collection of BlackBerry Cylance, BlackBerry® UEM, BlackBerry® Dynamics™ and BlackBerry® Workspaces products. BB to pushing its efforts for customers to choose this product in 2021.
Spark, as a reminder, is a combination of UEM and UES, the Unified Endpoint Security offerings. In the 2020 Q2, Q3, BB made good progress in both the government, and financial services verticals with customer wins
In addition, they had success in verticals including healthcare and manufacturing sector.
Up on the acquisition of Cylance company, BB was able to integrate it with its existing products which will be part of UES suite. Customers are inclined to upgrade from UEM (Unified Endpoint Management) to UES (Unified Endpoint Security)
Customers are eager to get with UES:
UEM Suite
UEM Suite was added to the Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (DoDIN APL). BlackBerry is the only UEM vendor that has achieved this level of approval to date. This achievement is based on the completion of cybersecurity and interoperability certifications. This approval will provide us better access and a more streamlined approval process. This should naturally lead to greater revenue opportunities going forward. The latest release of UEM has also recently achieved NIAP accreditation
AtHoc:
Zoom was one of the customers who is using AtHoc product, after we know what happened to the stock when street found out that it wasn't secure. In this way, Zoom can highly secure way to hold virtual meetings in this new work-from-anywhere environment.
Even, Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow’s Now platforms are on AtHoc. As we know, Teams market leader has 116 million active users and Service Now 51%, IT Service management.
Customers:
BlackBerry Radar:
In 2020, Canadian Pacific Railway agreed to deploy product on 2,000 of its domestic intermodal chassis.
In 2019, one of the top three U.S. retailers specializing in home improvement. The customer placed a 2,500 unit’s order.
In 2019 fiscal year, they have added 50 new customers and recurring revenue from the existing customers.
A big part of our competitive advantage is the BlackBerry legacy experience in designing a reliable, secure solution,” Plaat said. “That’s an important issue in this industry with high capital assets that you keep for years. The ROI is very good for a reliable solution like ours.”
Customers:

BB Revenue:

2021 Fiscal year
2021 Fiscal year Revenue
Note: Software and Services include these products IoT, QNX, BlackBerry Spark, AtHoc, Radar.
The revenue got impacted due to 2020 chaos especially on the QNX product side. According to the earning calls. There are still on track to maintain the gross margin over 70% and dollar net retention rate is above 90%.
As you see, the gross margin has been consistent past few years and revenue is steadily increasing every year.
https://preview.redd.it/147chgljmdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=af6ade569cac42d01dcef342390394b79e588e0b
Revenue, Gross Margin, Net Income, EPS for years 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016
https://preview.redd.it/52xi873qmdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=8643de72c426efc2f08fa9cf431bbb2c5fbbb26e
Growth in Revenue from Products from 2019-2013:
https://preview.redd.it/aen6tm7tmdf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=69907fd3fc1ed299f100fde92c68e5a5665ebd6f
Notes:
In 2019, due to restructuring, BB was unable to close deals, we should see +ve in 2020.
IoT: Comprised of QNX products, UEM, & Radar
Other: Handheld Devices and Service Access Fee (SAF)
Since BB was moving away from manufacturing of devices gradually, in 2020 most of it done by third party companies. That’s why we have negative growth under Other.

Pricing for BB products

QNX Pricing:
As there are many modules under QNX, like hypervisor, ADAS, clusters, cockpit, IVI. The cost ranges anywhere from the low-single digit dollars to literally high-single digit or low-double digit dollars per module.
Trefis estimates BlackBerry generates about $4 in QNX revenue per vehicle. Automakers are only expected to ship about 62 million new vehicles this year, according to Statista Research. Assuming QNX is installed on at least half of those vehicles, BlackBerry would generate about $120 million in annual sales -- or nearly a fifth of its trailing 12-month software and services revenue -- from QNX this year.
Link: https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/12/07/investors-overreacting-blackberry-deal-with-amazon/
Unfortunately, we don't know the exact price the QNX OS costs or per say other modules under QNX. If more modules of QNX are used, then it's adds up and the Average Rate for Per Unit might be 4x or 5x.
This gives us an idea about how to get more revenue from QNX itself when the manufacturer would use other modules under QNX apart from OS.
We have already seen list of the OEM's from previous posts and in the above spreadsheet you saw list of the QNX products certain OEM's are using.
IoT subscription period is typically 4 yrs.
Radar Pricing:
Estimation in 2017:
BlackBerry charges $10 to $20 per month for every trailer connected to Radar.
The Go-to-Market objective is to have approximately a 50-50 split in Radar sales between BlackBerry’s channel partners and its direct sales force. BlackBerry Radar partners typically sell only this particular solution.
Recently, BB was able to expand channel ecosystem to more than 12 channel partners, this new partnership might help BB capture more of the logistics and transportation area.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/blackberry-radar-expands-channel-ecosystem-with-new-partners-301052631.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackberry-recovery/born-again-blackberry-canadian-icon-hopes-to-ride-trucks-to-growth-idUSKBN1901P1
Cylance Pricing:
Cylance might charge 55$ per endpoint per year.
Announced that Forrester found that BlackBerry Cylance’s AI-driven endpoint security products delivered a 99 percent return on investment. We will see more revenue in 2021 as we shared earlier that customers who bought UEM are excited about UES too.
At present, the market share is below 1%.
Ref: https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/ep--359
https://preview.redd.it/abqz6zscndf61.png?width=468&format=png&auto=webp&s=632f51e1c860000c77f238cff6e1db4c0ccaea19
Projected Product Sector Revenue Growth by 2025:
QNX:
According to survey, the Global In-Vehicle Infotainment Market size is expected to reach $42.7 billion by 2025 (This is where we shall see more competition from different OEM manufacturers as they build their own products)
Global Market Insights, Inc. has recently added a new report on automotive operating system market which estimates the global market valuation for automotive OS will cross US$ 4.5 billion by 2026
And the QNX OS (Just the OS) segment is expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 15% from 2020 to 2026
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/11/24/2132346/0/en/Automotive-OS-Market-to-hit-USD-4-5-Bn-by-2026-Global-Market-Insights-Inc.html
Endpoint Protection (Cylance):
The global endpoint security market is expected to grow from 13.58 billion $ in 2020 to 19.24 billion $ in 2025 at a CAGR of 7.6% during the forecast period.
https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/endpoint-security-market.
Assuming the market share in endpoint increases to ~3%. It can be around 577 million
Asset Management (Radar):
Global asset tracking market will reach $36.3B by 2025, growing at 15% CAGR
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/03/04/1995009/0/en/Global-Asset-Tracking-Market-2020-2025-Insights-Into-Technologies-Solutions-and-the-Ecosystem-Including-Major-Players.html
We have to know what the priority level for BB for this product and how much market share they are targeting in the upcoming years. It’s quite early to say about it and the contribution to the revenue is insignificant compared to other products.
Challenges:
QNX:
Toyota, VW, Mercedes Benz have started taking route of AGL (Automotive Grade Linux) which is an open source (free to use) which implies the QNX market share in OS is waning. These are big manufacturers and how blackberry shall adapt is wait and see game.
There is always a case where companies might decide not to use more of the QNX modules just the OS, this will impact the Average Selling Price (ASP) per car as well as the revenue since those modules add up 4x-5x ASP.
IVY:
Revenue from Blackberry IVY shall be more reflective from 2023, stated by Chen. So, there is uncertainty in this area and no revenue estimate. We have to see how this partnership plays out how companies are willing to adopt cloud platform for insights and management of the automotive software’s.
Cylance:
Currently, the market is highly competitive, and BB has to make it way to top 10 and capture more market share. In 2021, it shall unfold more about it as we are seeing rapid growth in IoT sector across various sectors.
The BB is in the right position to capture more of the automotive market and we have to see how it shall play out in coming years when EV sector is full blown and more cars are delivered, and security threats increase. Also, it offers the endpoint protection, which certainly companies can benefit but not necessarily the SMB which are driven through e-commerce platforms.
Radar:
It’s barely scratching the surface in this sector and as there are bigger sharks who have been in the market for long time.
In the second quarter of fiscal 2019, the Company previously stated that it expected to generate $100 million in cumulative revenue from its BlackBerry Radar asset tracking solution over the next three years. The Company no longer expects to generate this revenue within this time frame. (This is a set back and there are other competitors who have been in the Logistics and Transportation Industry for quite some time).
In general, BB has to pitch itself more aggressively in other sectors especially in Medical, Industrial, Oil and Energy. Considering the certifications they have and the clients they serve.
Thanks to OP's and go give a read at these DD's too:
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/ks4s3s/bb_king_the_blast_from_the_past_with_the/
https://new.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/l37ktg/bb_weekend_due_diligence_confirmation_bias/
Target Price in 2021: 25-30 (by not considering crazy valuations into account). I personally believe if the IVY platform and Spark product revenue increases then we can certainly see the stock price 4x-5x in coming years.
Positions: 400 shares @ 12 and 2 Jan 15 2023 calls. I plan to add more as I see the potential and growth in the newly introduced products.
Disclaimer: This is not a financial advice, I'm merely a random person who loves BB and would like to see this company fly to new heigths. Cheers to everyone!!
submitted by whatisgf to BB_Stock [link] [comments]

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

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