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Resources for those interested in bankruptcy, with a primary focus on consumer Chapters 7 and 13.This subreddit is established to discuss bankruptcy in the United States. If you are posting ANYTHING regarding bankruptcy in a country other than the United States, you MUST identify the country about which you are posting. If you are posting from within the USA, please list your [state] in the title of your post. Questions about Canadian Bankruptcy are best directed to /PersonalFinanceCanada/
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2024.05.22 02:12 Puzzleheaded_Fix7560 How to (safely) find out what I currently owe on an old medical debt?
I'm in a state of rebuilding financially after some serious health issues over these past few years. I had surgery a few years ago (out-of-state and out-of-network) and my post-op surgical bill was massive-- like, $300k massive, despite everything having been approved and green-stamped by my health insurance company beforehand. I got boned by my health insurance in like 8 different ways, but most notably by the Maximum Allowable Fee-- so instead of owing $10,000 (my OON out-of-pocket max) I was billed $300,000 while my insurance only paid a few thousand toward the debt. I was billed $300,000 by my doctors while my insurance's out-of-network out-of-pocket max was not even considered "met" yet. :/ And I did everything I knew to do at the time to make sure everything was cleared with my insurance beforehand (hours on the phone making sure the hospital was in-network, making sure all the surgical codes were approved, getting estimates, etc etc), so now I feel a little ill-equipped in my ability to protect myself against future debt.
Anyway.
After the surgery, I was profoundly disabled for a couple years, stopped paying on any medical bills, totally destroyed my finances, and lost track of the status of the various insurance appeals I had submitted at that time. So I have no idea what I currently owe my former medical providers (vs the $300K I was billed 4 years ago), and I would like to know the best way to find out what I actually owe them without potentially resetting any debt clocks or putting new activity on an account that might otherwise be written off by my doctor-- the debt is nearly 5 years old now, so it's possible it might be getting close to that point.
Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before, or have any resources they can point me to on how to protect myself? Without knowing how much I actually owe my surgeon and his team, the decision of medical bankruptcy vs negotiating the debt down (settling for less) is kind of an impossible one.
Many thanks!
submitted by Puzzleheaded_Fix7560 to Debt [link] [comments]
Anyway.
After the surgery, I was profoundly disabled for a couple years, stopped paying on any medical bills, totally destroyed my finances, and lost track of the status of the various insurance appeals I had submitted at that time. So I have no idea what I currently owe my former medical providers (vs the $300K I was billed 4 years ago), and I would like to know the best way to find out what I actually owe them without potentially resetting any debt clocks or putting new activity on an account that might otherwise be written off by my doctor-- the debt is nearly 5 years old now, so it's possible it might be getting close to that point.
Has anyone ever dealt with anything like this before, or have any resources they can point me to on how to protect myself? Without knowing how much I actually owe my surgeon and his team, the decision of medical bankruptcy vs negotiating the debt down (settling for less) is kind of an impossible one.
Many thanks!
2024.05.21 21:10 BleepBlimpBop $RILY DD: Long List of Short Seller Claims --- DEBUNKED with proof!
Ever-shifting Short Seller Claims
The short sellers attacking RILY in 2023-2024 have been relentless (currently 57% of float sold short per FinViz), with an ever-shifting list of wild accusations.It's sickening to watch them compile a never-ending list of baseless wild theories and claims to support their short positions, which are demonstrably false. But as each is proved false, they pivot to new claims, and/or change the goalposts.
The sheer volume of shifting claims makes it hard to track how despotic they are with their "platform," and how many falsehoods they've spun. Even for someone who watched it in real-time, for almost a year
Compiled & Debunked
Sunlight kills vampires. To that end, I've compiled a list of (i) claimants (ii) claims (iii) reality (iv) definitive source proving reality.Why Did They Target RILY?
One of the most vocal short sellers, Nate Koppikar (who also introduced Marc Cohodes to the "opportunity") has a fund Orso Partners. Based on their SEC registration document, this is their investment thesis:"The Account’s investment objectives are to achieve capital appreciation primarily by identifying and selling short marketable equity securities of underfollowed and complex companies with misleading or corrective disclosures through a research-intensive process. The Account employs a short-biased investment strategy with an emphasis on primarily small to mid-cap companies that are underfollowed and complex (i.e., companies with market capitalizations of less than $5 billion which the market does not yet have a wellformed bull and/or bear perspective)."
RILY fits their description. The icing on the cake was the relatively large market cap, and the relatively small float. Given extremely high insider ownership (32.9% of shares per the proxy), and limitations on when and how insiders can trade, the "free float" of the stock (i.e., the shares that regularly trade) is very small for the size of the company. Moreover, the setup would only get better - given insiders have consistently used their free cash to buy additional shares hand-over-fist (further reducing the float).
That meant, with relatively small amounts of capital, the short sellers could shove around the stock price. That ability to move price opens another profit avenue - taking large derivative positions (buying puts, and selling calls), and shoving the price (or allowing it to drift up) to profit all along the way. It looked so good, the stock has been the highest-shorted on the US indices for several months. Even after the release of the 10-K, shares remain "hard to borrow" with elevated borrow fees.
Debunked Claims
The claims made by vocal short sellers could fill a book. Most were outrageous and fanciful when they were proposed. Virtually all have objectively debunked. This isn't a comprehensive list, as their claims are too numerous and varied. But it paints an illuminating picture.With a track record this poor, one would expect the short sellers to exit - rather than continuing to spin new narratives. Perhaps the continued attacks are their exit strategy to avoid bankruptcy... Well, #Bullish.
With the highest short interest of all US stocks (albeit likely decreased from the highs of ~76% of the float), I think this is more than ripe for a return to fair value - or well above, if a short squeeze occurs.
Note: this sub disallows image posts. There is a similar post in the RILYStock sub which contains virtually all source images for the claim in the comments (too many images to embed in the post). The source images are illuminating.
Note that the list below deliberately excludes three types of posts/claims from the short sellers:
A) Juvenile personal attacks and attempts to character assassinate and dox a long list of people (RILY CEO, RILY new hires, RILY clients, Marcum the auditor, Marcum's lead audit professional, any firm or individual publicly posting a bull thesis on RILY, etc.).
B) Those that make no objective claims, but simply exist as a product of malicious degeneracy (like pictures of roasted pigs in ovens labeled Bryant Riley the CEO, photoshopped pictures of the CEO in prison chains next to convicted felons, video of an obese woman barely able to walk being gored by a bull labeled Mrs. Riley the CEO's wife, etc.).
C) Those that are impossible for short sellers to know, and impossible to objectively verify (e.g., Marc Cohodes claiming a single RILY trader front runs the CEOs personal short trades in front of clients taking following the firm's bullish advice on those stocks, to guarantee profits).
| Claimant | Claim | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| 1) Wolfpack | Wolfpack “RILY will record investment losses of up to ~$700 million in 2023” FALSE 10-K | FALSE |
| 2) Wolfpack | “new loan to CORZQ will work out just as badly as the last and end in default (again) before June 2023” | Repaid in fullFALSE , early, on 1/6/2024. |
| 3) Wolfpack | “The coupon rate on RILY’s seven issues of baby bonds ranges from 5% to 6.75%, which we believe to be far too low to compensate investors for the existential risk that accompanies these securities.” | Full redemption FALSE of May 2024 came early. Far more than sufficient cash to cover debt payments. |
| 4) Wolfpack | “According to our analysis, 4 of RILY’s largest 7 corporate borrowers with outstanding loan balances of $295.3 million are at a high risk of default, or in the case of CORZQ, is already in default.” | Core Scientific IncExela Technologies Arena Group Holdings FALSE a. . repaid early and in full ($111MM of the “risk”) b. repaid term loan in full ($55.8MM of the “risk”) c. debt retired in full ($99MM of the “risk”). Publicly disclosed in the most recent 10-K for each company (search for "Riley" in the filing) |
| 5) Wolfpack | “RILY’s NAV is Far Below the $1.1 Billion Minimum NAV Requirement That Is Required for the Nomura Credit Agreement Putting RILY at Risk of Collapse in 2023” | is in full compliance FALSE RILY with the Nomura credit agreement. Moreover, reflecting the strength of the relationship, Nomura even granted a no-fee extension when the 10-K filing was delayed. Also see 10-K for current status. |
| 6) Wolfpack | “Over $200 Million of the Goodwill and Intangible Assets on RILY’s Balance Sheet is Attributable to its Telecom Rollup, which is Centered on Dial-up and DSL Internet:” - criticizing them as dying businesses with no value | extremely valuableFALSE Segment is . From just 2020 to 2023, the communications segment has returned over $212.2MM in adjusted EBITDA. |
| 7) Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | RILY committed fraud with loans and closing the FRG acquisition. "The fact $RILY closed the FRG deal while hiding the Kahn loan - an all PIK defaulted loan backed by $FRG shares - is a Hall of Fame worthy act of fraud. I thought after Enron/Sarbox we couldn't have something like this happen in US markets." | FALSE A law firm led an internal investigation, and an independent external investigation both found “The review confirmed what the Company previously disclosed: that the Company and its executives, including Bryant Riley, had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Prophecy.” “The results of the independent investigation confirmed that the Company and its executives had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Mr. Kahn or any of his affiliates. This independent investigation was conducted subsequent to the Company's February 22, 2024 disclosure of the internal review performed with the assistance of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP as outside counsel.” Also see 10-K |
| 8) Marc Cohodes (AlderlaneEggs), ParrotCapital, Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | The 10-K will never be filed. They can't produce audited financials. | Audited 10-K FALSE was filed. Delay was due to Audit committee fulfilling its responsibilities and proactively conducting investigations (internal and external). |
| 9) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) + Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate) + ParrotCapital | Sullivan and Cromwell knew about Massive Fraud, and did a "sham investigation" | Sullivan and Cromwell FALSE is one of the most respected law firms, in the US and worldwide. "Sullivan & Cromwell continues to lead all law firm advisers in announced and completed global deals in 2023, according to Bloomberg and LSEG. The Firm advised on global announced deals totaling more than $345 billion, representing a 12.1 percent market share, per Bloomberg, and on completed global deals totaling more than $431 billion, representing a 16.9 percent market share, per LSEG." They're not compromising themselves for a relatively small client. |
| 10) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear), Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Parrot Capital | Marcum is enabling Massive Fraud | MarcumFALSE is a respected audit firm, and 13th largest by revenue. "Marcum LLP advanced into the Top 15 in the 2023 Vault Accounting list of top-ranked accounting firms. Marcum climbed six levels to the No. 13 ranking overall and earned a ranking of 14 in prestige. The Firm also won Top 20 rankings across all Practice Area, Quality of Life, and Diversity categories, including several new classifications added this year." |
| 11) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | Nomura is enabling Massive Fraud | NomuraFALSE is a global financial services company, and the oldest brokerage firm in Japan. They operate in a highly regulated industry. They're not putting themselves on the line for a relatively small client. |
| 12) Parrot Capital | "The list of $RILY enablers is massive: Marcum LLP, Sullivan and Cromwell, Seeking Alpha, Holbrook Holdings, $AX Axos Bank, Many, many more." | FALSE There's no global conspiracy whereby these companies - all respected law firms, auditors, banks, and media outlets - are collectively colluding to enable RILY to commit fraud. Requires only two brain cells and one functioning synapse to know there's no grand collusion cabal between these disparate companies. |
| 13) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Jonathan Weil at WSJ | Franchise Group shares used to secure Kahn loan: "It is unclear whether Kahn pledged the same shares twice—to both Prophecy and B. Riley." | stated by the company UCC search FALSE As , Simple disproves this. UCC # 202302295747 |
| 14) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | “Bryant Riley is on the Road, telling people the ‘audit partner at Marcum left’ and that ‘I have made mistakes’ “ | hit the 5yr SEC ruleFALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had , so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 15) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "So it turns out James La Rocca was Fired by MarcumLLP If nothing was wrong with prior $RILY Audits, why is he gone? This will be great in discovery of what exactly went on. | hit the 5yr SEC ruleFALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had , so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 16) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “So Bryant Riley did disseminate MNPI back in March” in response to Cohodes claim that he told people the Marcum partner left | 5 consecutive yearsFALSE Cohodes claimed Bryant Riley was telling people the Marcum auditor left. Koppikar called that disseminating MNPI. Cohodes statement was false (and thus Koppikar's derivate claim is also false). A different auditor worked on RILY, as Marcum follows the SEC rules; the lead auditor can only serve the client for . As such, Koppikar’s derivative claim of disseminating MNPI is false. |
| 17) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “He appears to still not be familiar with the voting interest model of consolidation… why is a life science and tech partner signing an extremely complex investment company / broker dealer audit ???” i.e., auditor is unqualified | Marcum is a highly respected auditorFALSE The auditor is fully qualified. ; they don't hire unqualified people, or assign them to clients they're unqualified to audit. RILY is continuing to use Marcum as the 2024 auditor. |
| 18) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "Now that the $RILY dividend is going away, this omission is serious stuff" | reduced 24Q1FALSE The dividend did not go away. It was from $1.00/share to $0.50/share, to allow them to opportunistically allocate capital. 23Q4 and |
2024.05.21 20:52 Region-Formal At The Market offerings and stock dilutions: why there's more here than initially meets the eye...
 | submitted by Region-Formal to Superstonk [link] [comments] |
2024.05.21 18:28 BleepBlimpBop $RILY DD: Long List of Short Seller Claims --- DEBUNKED with proof!
Ever-shifting Short Seller Claims
The short sellers attacking RILY in 2023-2024 have been relentless (currently 57% of float sold short per FinViz), with an ever-shifting list of wild accusations.It's sickening to watch them compile a never-ending list of baseless wild theories and claims to support their short positions, which are demonstrably false. But as each is proved false, they pivot to new claims, and/or change the goalposts.
The sheer volume of shifting claims makes it hard to track how despotic they are with their "platform," and how many falsehoods they've spun. Even for someone who watched it in real-time, for almost a year
Compiled & Debunked
Sunlight kills vampires. To that end, I've compiled a list of (i) claimants (ii) claims (iii) reality (iv) definitive source proving reality.Why Did They Target RILY?
One of the most vocal short sellers, Nate Koppikar (who also introduced Marc Cohodes to the "opportunity") has a fund Orso Partners. Based on their SEC registration document, this is their investment thesis:"The Account’s investment objectives are to achieve capital appreciation primarily by identifying and selling short marketable equity securities of underfollowed and complex companies with misleading or corrective disclosures through a research-intensive process. The Account employs a short-biased investment strategy with an emphasis on primarily small to mid-cap companies that are underfollowed and complex (i.e., companies with market capitalizations of less than $5 billion which the market does not yet have a wellformed bull and/or bear perspective)."
RILY fits their description. The icing on the cake was the relatively large market cap, and the relatively small float. Given extremely high insider ownership (32.9% of shares per the proxy), and limitations on when and how insiders can trade, the "free float" of the stock (i.e., the shares that regularly trade) is very small for the size of the company. Moreover, the setup would only get better - given insiders have consistently used their free cash to buy additional shares hand-over-fist (further reducing the float).
That meant, with relatively small amounts of capital, the short sellers could shove around the stock price. That ability to move price opens another profit avenue - taking large derivative positions (buying puts, and selling calls), and shoving the price (or allowing it to drift up) to profit all along the way. It looked so good, the stock has been the highest-shorted on the US indices for several months. Even after the release of the 10-K, shares remain "hard to borrow" with elevated borrow fees.
Debunked Claims
The claims made by vocal short sellers could fill a book. Most were outrageous and fanciful when they were proposed. Virtually all have objectively debunked. This isn't a comprehensive list, as their claims are too numerous and varied. But it paints an illuminating picture.With a track record this poor, one would expect the short sellers to exit - rather than continuing to spin new narratives. Perhaps the continued attacks are their exit strategy to avoid bankruptcy... Well, #Bullish.
With the highest short interest of all US stocks (albeit likely decreased from the highs of ~76% of the float), I think this is more than ripe for a return to fair value - or well above, if a short squeeze occurs.
Note: this sub disallows image posts. There is a similar post in the RILYStock sub which contains virtually all source images for the claim in the comments (too many images to embed in the post). The source images are illuminating.
Note that the list below deliberately excludes three types of posts/claims from the short sellers:
A) Juvenile personal attacks and attempts to character assassinate and dox a long list of people (RILY CEO, RILY new hires, RILY clients, Marcum the auditor, Marcum's lead audit professional, any firm or individual publicly posting a bull thesis on RILY, etc.).
B) Those that make no objective claims, but simply exist as a product of malicious degeneracy (like pictures of roasted pigs in ovens labeled Bryant Riley the CEO, photoshopped pictures of the CEO in prison chains next to convicted felons, video of an obese woman barely able to walk being gored by a bull labeled Mrs. Riley the CEO's wife, etc.).
C) Those that are impossible for short sellers to know, and impossible to objectively verify (e.g., Marc Cohodes claiming a single RILY trader front runs the CEOs personal short trades in front of clients taking following the firm's bullish advice on those stocks, to guarantee profits).
| Claimant | Claim | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| 1) Wolfpack | Wolfpack “RILY will record investment losses of up to ~$700 million in 2023” FALSE 10-K | FALSE |
| 2) Wolfpack | “new loan to CORZQ will work out just as badly as the last and end in default (again) before June 2023” | FALSE Repaid in full, early, on 1/6/2024. |
| 3) Wolfpack | “The coupon rate on RILY’s seven issues of baby bonds ranges from 5% to 6.75%, which we believe to be far too low to compensate investors for the existential risk that accompanies these securities.” | FALSE Full redemption of May 2024 came early. Far more than sufficient cash to cover debt payments. |
| 4) Wolfpack | “According to our analysis, 4 of RILY’s largest 7 corporate borrowers with outstanding loan balances of $295.3 million are at a high risk of default, or in the case of CORZQ, is already in default.” | FALSE a. Core Scientific Inc. repaid early and in full ($111MM of the “risk”) b. Exela Technologies repaid term loan in full ($55.8MM of the “risk”) c. Arena Group Holdings debt retired in full ($99MM of the “risk”). Publicly disclosed in the most recent 10-K for each company (search for "Riley" in the filing) |
| 5) Wolfpack | “RILY’s NAV is Far Below the $1.1 Billion Minimum NAV Requirement That Is Required for the Nomura Credit Agreement Putting RILY at Risk of Collapse in 2023” | FALSE RILY is in full compliance with the Nomura credit agreement. Moreover, reflecting the strength of the relationship, Nomura even granted a no-fee extension when the 10-K filing was delayed. Also see 10-K for current status. |
| 6) Wolfpack | “Over $200 Million of the Goodwill and Intangible Assets on RILY’s Balance Sheet is Attributable to its Telecom Rollup, which is Centered on Dial-up and DSL Internet:” - criticizing them as dying businesses with no value | FALSE Segment is extremely valuable. From just 2020 to 2023, the communications segment has returned over $212.2MM in adjusted EBITDA. |
| 7) Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | RILY committed fraud with loans and closing the FRG acquisition. "The fact $RILY closed the FRG deal while hiding the Kahn loan - an all PIK defaulted loan backed by $FRG shares - is a Hall of Fame worthy act of fraud. I thought after Enron/Sarbox we couldn't have something like this happen in US markets." | FALSE A law firm led an internal investigation, and an independent external investigation both found “The review confirmed what the Company previously disclosed: that the Company and its executives, including Bryant Riley, had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Prophecy.” “The results of the independent investigation confirmed that the Company and its executives had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Mr. Kahn or any of his affiliates. This independent investigation was conducted subsequent to the Company's February 22, 2024 disclosure of the internal review performed with the assistance of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP as outside counsel.” Also see 10-K |
| 8) Marc Cohodes (AlderlaneEggs), ParrotCapital, Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | The 10-K will never be filed. They can't produce audited financials. | FALSE Audited 10-K was filed. Delay was due to Audit committee fulfilling its responsibilities and proactively conducting investigations (internal and external). |
| 9) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) + Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate) + ParrotCapital | Sullivan and Cromwell knew about Massive Fraud, and did a "sham investigation" | FALSE Sullivan and Cromwell is one of the most respected law firms, in the US and worldwide. "Sullivan & Cromwell continues to lead all law firm advisers in announced and completed global deals in 2023, according to Bloomberg and LSEG. The Firm advised on global announced deals totaling more than $345 billion, representing a 12.1 percent market share, per Bloomberg, and on completed global deals totaling more than $431 billion, representing a 16.9 percent market share, per LSEG." They're not compromising themselves for a relatively small client. |
| 10) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear), Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Parrot Capital | Marcum is enabling Massive Fraud | FALSE Marcum is a respected audit firm, and 13th largest by revenue. "Marcum LLP advanced into the Top 15 in the 2023 Vault Accounting list of top-ranked accounting firms. Marcum climbed six levels to the No. 13 ranking overall and earned a ranking of 14 in prestige. The Firm also won Top 20 rankings across all Practice Area, Quality of Life, and Diversity categories, including several new classifications added this year." |
| 11) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | Nomura is enabling Massive Fraud | FALSE Nomura is a global financial services company, and the oldest brokerage firm in Japan. They operate in a highly regulated industry. They're not putting themselves on the line for a relatively small client. |
| 12) Parrot Capital | "The list of $RILY enablers is massive: Marcum LLP, Sullivan and Cromwell, Seeking Alpha, Holbrook Holdings, $AX Axos Bank, Many, many more." | FALSE There's no global conspiracy whereby these companies - all respected law firms, auditors, banks, and media outlets - are collectively colluding to enable RILY to commit fraud. Requires only two brain cells and one functioning synapse to know there's no grand collusion cabal between these disparate companies. |
| 13) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Jonathan Weil at WSJ | Franchise Group shares used to secure Kahn loan: "It is unclear whether Kahn pledged the same shares twice—to both Prophecy and B. Riley." | FALSE As stated by the company, Simple UCC search disproves this. UCC # 202302295747 |
| 14) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | “Bryant Riley is on the Road, telling people the ‘audit partner at Marcum left’ and that ‘I have made mistakes’ “ | FALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had hit the 5yr SEC rule, so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 15) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "So it turns out James La Rocca was Fired by MarcumLLP If nothing was wrong with prior $RILY Audits, why is he gone? This will be great in discovery of what exactly went on. | FALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had hit the 5yr SEC rule, so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 16) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “So Bryant Riley did disseminate MNPI back in March” in response to Cohodes claim that he told people the Marcum partner left | FALSE Cohodes claimed Bryant Riley was telling people the Marcum auditor left. Koppikar called that disseminating MNPI. Cohodes statement was false (and thus Koppikar's derivate claim is also false). A different auditor worked on RILY, as Marcum follows the SEC rules; the lead auditor can only serve the client for 5 consecutive years. As such, Koppikar’s derivative claim of disseminating MNPI is false. |
| 17) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “He appears to still not be familiar with the voting interest model of consolidation… why is a life science and tech partner signing an extremely complex investment company / broker dealer audit ???” i.e., auditor is unqualified | FALSE The auditor is fully qualified. Marcum is a highly respected auditor; they don't hire unqualified people, or assign them to clients they're unqualified to audit. RILY is continuing to use Marcum as the 2024 auditor. |
| 18) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "Now that the $RILY dividend is going away, this omission is serious stuff" | FALSE The dividend did not go away. It was reduced from $1.00/share to $0.50/share, to allow them to opportunistically allocate capital. 23Q4 and 24Q1 |
2024.05.21 18:23 BleepBlimpBop $RILY: Long List of Short Seller Claims --- DEBUNKED
Ever-shifting Short Seller Claims
The short sellers attacking RILY in 2023-2024 have been relentless (currently 57% of float sold short per FinViz), with an ever-shifting list of wild accusations.It's sickening to watch them compile a never-ending list of baseless wild theories and claims to support their short positions, which are demonstrably false. But as each is proved false, they pivot to new claims, and/or change the goalposts.
The sheer volume of shifting claims makes it hard to track how despotic they are with their "platform," and how many falsehoods they've spun. Even for someone who watched it in real-time, for almost a year
Compiled & Debunked
Sunlight kills vampires. To that end, I've compiled a list of (i) claimants (ii) claims (iii) reality (iv) definitive source proving reality.Why Did They Target RILY?
One of the most vocal short sellers, Nate Koppikar (who also introduced Marc Cohodes to the "opportunity") has a fund Orso Partners. Based on their SEC registration document, this is their investment thesis:"The Account’s investment objectives are to achieve capital appreciation primarily by identifying and selling short marketable equity securities of underfollowed and complex companies with misleading or corrective disclosures through a research-intensive process. The Account employs a short-biased investment strategy with an emphasis on primarily small to mid-cap companies that are underfollowed and complex (i.e., companies with market capitalizations of less than $5 billion which the market does not yet have a wellformed bull and/or bear perspective)."
RILY fits their description. The icing on the cake was the relatively large market cap, and the relatively small float. Given extremely high insider ownership (32.9% of shares per the proxy), and limitations on when and how insiders can trade, the "free float" of the stock (i.e., the shares that regularly trade) is very small for the size of the company. Moreover, the setup would only get better - given insiders have consistently used their free cash to buy additional shares hand-over-fist (further reducing the float).
That meant, with relatively small amounts of capital, the short sellers could shove around the stock price. That ability to move price opens another profit avenue - taking large derivative positions (buying puts, and selling calls), and shoving the price (or allowing it to drift up) to profit all along the way. It looked so good, the stock has been the highest-shorted on the US indices for several months. Even after the release of the 10-K, shares remain "hard to borrow" with elevated borrow fees.
Debunked Claims
The claims made by vocal short sellers could fill a book. Most were outrageous and fanciful when they were proposed. Virtually all have objectively debunked. This isn't a comprehensive list, as their claims are too numerous and varied. But it paints an illuminating picture.With a track record this poor, one would expect the short sellers to exit - rather than continuing to spin new narratives. Perhaps the continued attacks are their exit strategy to avoid bankruptcy... Well, #Bullish.
With the highest short interest of all US stocks (albeit likely decreased from the highs of ~76% of the float), I think this is more than ripe for a return to fair value - or well above, if a short squeeze occurs.
Note that the list below deliberately excludes three types of posts/claims from the short sellers:
A) Juvenile personal attacks and attempts to character assassinate and dox a long list of people (RILY CEO, RILY new hires, RILY clients, Marcum the auditor, Marcum's lead audit professional, any firm or individual publicly posting a bull thesis on RILY, etc.).
B) Those that make no objective claims, but simply exist as a product of malicious degeneracy (like pictures of roasted pigs in ovens labeled Bryant Riley the CEO, photoshopped pictures of the CEO in prison chains next to convicted felons, video of an obese woman barely able to walk being gored by a bull labeled Mrs. Riley the CEO's wife, etc.).
C) Those that are impossible for short sellers to know, and impossible to objectively verify (e.g., Marc Cohodes claiming a single RILY trader front runs the CEOs personal short trades in front of clients taking following the firm's bullish advice on those stocks, to guarantee profits).
| Claimant | Claim | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| 1) Wolfpack | Wolfpack “RILY will record investment losses of up to ~$700 million in 2023” FALSE 10-K | FALSE |
| 2) Wolfpack | “new loan to CORZQ will work out just as badly as the last and end in default (again) before June 2023” | FALSE Repaid in full, early, on 1/6/2024. |
| 3) Wolfpack | “The coupon rate on RILY’s seven issues of baby bonds ranges from 5% to 6.75%, which we believe to be far too low to compensate investors for the existential risk that accompanies these securities.” | FALSE Full redemption of May 2024 came early. Far more than sufficient cash to cover debt payments. |
| 4) Wolfpack | “According to our analysis, 4 of RILY’s largest 7 corporate borrowers with outstanding loan balances of $295.3 million are at a high risk of default, or in the case of CORZQ, is already in default.” | FALSE a. Core Scientific Inc. repaid early and in full ($111MM of the “risk”) b. Exela Technologies repaid term loan in full ($55.8MM of the “risk”) c. Arena Group Holdings debt retired in full ($99MM of the “risk”). Publicly disclosed in the most recent 10-K for each company (search for "Riley" in the filing) |
| 5) Wolfpack | “RILY’s NAV is Far Below the $1.1 Billion Minimum NAV Requirement That Is Required for the Nomura Credit Agreement Putting RILY at Risk of Collapse in 2023” | FALSE RILY is in full compliance with the Nomura credit agreement. Moreover, reflecting the strength of the relationship, Nomura even granted a no-fee extension when the 10-K filing was delayed. Also see 10-K for current status. |
| 6) Wolfpack | “Over $200 Million of the Goodwill and Intangible Assets on RILY’s Balance Sheet is Attributable to its Telecom Rollup, which is Centered on Dial-up and DSL Internet:” - criticizing them as dying businesses with no value | FALSE Segment is extremely valuable. From just 2020 to 2023, the communications segment has returned over $212.2MM in adjusted EBITDA. |
| 7) Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | RILY committed fraud with loans and closing the FRG acquisition. "The fact $RILY closed the FRG deal while hiding the Kahn loan - an all PIK defaulted loan backed by $FRG shares - is a Hall of Fame worthy act of fraud. I thought after Enron/Sarbox we couldn't have something like this happen in US markets." | FALSE A law firm led an internal investigation, and an independent external investigation both found “The review confirmed what the Company previously disclosed: that the Company and its executives, including Bryant Riley, had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Prophecy.” “The results of the independent investigation confirmed that the Company and its executives had no involvement with, or knowledge of, any of the alleged misconduct concerning Mr. Kahn or any of his affiliates. This independent investigation was conducted subsequent to the Company's February 22, 2024 disclosure of the internal review performed with the assistance of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP as outside counsel.” Also see 10-K |
| 8) Marc Cohodes (AlderlaneEggs), ParrotCapital, Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Various | The 10-K will never be filed. They can't produce audited financials. | FALSE Audited 10-K was filed. Delay was due to Audit committee fulfilling its responsibilities and proactively conducting investigations (internal and external). |
| 9) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) + Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) + Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate) + ParrotCapital | Sullivan and Cromwell knew about Massive Fraud, and did a "sham investigation" | FALSE Sullivan and Cromwell is one of the most respected law firms, in the US and worldwide. "Sullivan & Cromwell continues to lead all law firm advisers in announced and completed global deals in 2023, according to Bloomberg and LSEG. The Firm advised on global announced deals totaling more than $345 billion, representing a 12.1 percent market share, per Bloomberg, and on completed global deals totaling more than $431 billion, representing a 16.9 percent market share, per LSEG." They're not compromising themselves for a relatively small client. |
| 10) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Nate Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear), Bill Abbate Jr. (JrAbbate), Parrot Capital | Marcum is enabling Massive Fraud | FALSE Marcum is a respected audit firm, and 13th largest by revenue. "Marcum LLP advanced into the Top 15 in the 2023 Vault Accounting list of top-ranked accounting firms. Marcum climbed six levels to the No. 13 ranking overall and earned a ranking of 14 in prestige. The Firm also won Top 20 rankings across all Practice Area, Quality of Life, and Diversity categories, including several new classifications added this year." |
| 11) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | Nomura is enabling Massive Fraud | FALSE Nomura is a global financial services company, and the oldest brokerage firm in Japan. They operate in a highly regulated industry. They're not putting themselves on the line for a relatively small client. |
| 12) Parrot Capital | "The list of $RILY enablers is massive: Marcum LLP, Sullivan and Cromwell, Seeking Alpha, Holbrook Holdings, $AX Axos Bank, Many, many more." | FALSE There's no global conspiracy whereby these companies - all respected law firms, auditors, banks, and media outlets - are collectively colluding to enable RILY to commit fraud. Requires only two brain cells and one functioning synapse to know there's no grand collusion cabal between these disparate companies. |
| 13) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs), Jonathan Weil at WSJ | Franchise Group shares used to secure Kahn loan: "It is unclear whether Kahn pledged the same shares twice—to both Prophecy and B. Riley." | FALSE As stated by the company, Simple UCC search disproves this. UCC # 202302295747 |
| 14) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | “Bryant Riley is on the Road, telling people the ‘audit partner at Marcum left’ and that ‘I have made mistakes’ “ | FALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had hit the 5yr SEC rule, so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 15) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "So it turns out James La Rocca was Fired by MarcumLLP If nothing was wrong with prior $RILY Audits, why is he gone? This will be great in discovery of what exactly went on. | FALSE Marcum audit partner was working on the audit the whole time; the original audit partner had hit the 5yr SEC rule, so he was never working on this year’s audit. |
| 16) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “So Bryant Riley did disseminate MNPI back in March” in response to Cohodes claim that he told people the Marcum partner left | FALSE Cohodes claimed Bryant Riley was telling people the Marcum auditor left. Koppikar called that disseminating MNPI. Cohodes statement was false (and thus Koppikar's derivate claim is also false). A different auditor worked on RILY, as Marcum follows the SEC rules; the lead auditor can only serve the client for 5 consecutive years. As such, Koppikar’s derivative claim of disseminating MNPI is false. |
| 17) Koppikar (TheFriendlyBear) | “He appears to still not be familiar with the voting interest model of consolidation… why is a life science and tech partner signing an extremely complex investment company / broker dealer audit ???” i.e., auditor is unqualified | FALSE The auditor is fully qualified. Marcum is a highly respected auditor; they don't hire unqualified people, or assign them to clients they're unqualified to audit. RILY is continuing to use Marcum as the 2024 auditor. |
| 18) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "Now that the $RILY dividend is going away, this omission is serious stuff" | FALSE The dividend did not go away. It was reduced from $1.00/share to $0.50/share, to allow them to opportunistically allocate capital. 23Q4 and 24Q1 |
| 19) Marc Cohodes (AlderLaneEggs) | "$RILY doesn't make it till Easter... I will say it again and again.." | FALSE They made it, filed a 10-K and paid a dividend, filed a 10-Q and are paying a dividend, and are chugging along. With stock price 50% higher than when this claim was made. |
2024.05.21 15:01 FelicitySmoak_ Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - Jackson v. AEG Live Day 15
 | Trial Day 15 submitted by FelicitySmoak_ to WhereWasMJToday [link] [comments] Katherine, Rebbie and Trent Jackson are at court. LA Times reported that the Jacksons offered a settlement. Kevin Boyle , a lawyer for Katherine Jackson and Michael's kids , said they offered to settle the lawsuit against AEG, but that they never got an answer. Kevin Boyle said the family made the offers in January & March. Boyle would not provide details but said AEG's insurance would have paid, which means they could have settled the case without them paying a dime of their money. He said AEG has never offered to settle & they haven't apologized. Marvin Putnam, an attorney for AEG, said it was inappropriate to discuss settlement discussions: "We don't settle matters that are utterly baseless. We believe that is the case in this matter. I can't see why we would consider a settlement as anything other than a shakedown"CNN Reports there was a snack controversy during trial: AEG lawyers gave a bag of peppermint candy to the bailiff to hand out to the jury this week. Even Katherine Jackson enjoyed the treat but Jackson's lawyer raised an objection, suggesting jurors might be influenced if they realized the source of the sweets. A compromise was reached. Each side can provide snacks for jurors, but they'll be placed at the bailiff's desk before jurors enter court so they have no clue who brought it. Shawn Trell Testimony Jackson direct AEG Live General Counsel, Shawn Trell, told jurors that he had forgotten that Kenny Ortega was working under a signed contract. Trell said he met with his attorneys last night and reviewed one doc -- Kenny Ortega's contract. "He had a written contract," Trell said. "I remember the email dynamic. I'm not too proud to admit that I didn't recall the cover contract," Trell said he was changing his previous testimony to add that Ortega had a written contract, not only emails between him and AEGNext topic was Insurance: Cancellation/Non-Appearance/Sickness. Trell said he started working on insurance for the tour in November of 2008. Panish showed several chains of emails where the parties talked about the insurance for the tour Email from Bob Taylor insurance broker to Trell on 1/7/09: "Prior to speaking with carriers we ask the artist to attend medical with a doctor...A full medical with both blood/urine tests. The doctor also wants to review the medical records over the last 5 years to ensure full disclosure. Insurers require further medical examination to be carried out by their nominated doctor. They may restrict illness coverage or death from illness coverage until this examination has taken place"Email from 4/30/09 - Wooley to Trell : "We have no coverage against Michael sickness unless and until he submits to another medical in LondonEmail from 5/28/09 - Trell to Taylor: "We really need to get that medical done"Email from 6/23/09 - Trell to Taylor : "Any update on the availability of Term insurance?" (life insurance)Trell said if they secured life insurance, they would get money if Michael died. "We would get the money owed to us, yes," Trell testified.Trell also said he continued discussions with an insurance broker about additional coverage to recoup AEG Live's investment if the tour had to be canceled. Email from 6/24/09 -Taylor to Trell : "Insurers have refused to move on this. Huge amount of speculation in the media regarding artist's health. They feel if they're to consider providing illness to cover this particular artist, they must have very through medical report"Email from 6/25/09 - Gongaware to Taylor : "If we don't get sickness coverage, we are dropping this policy"Email from 6/25/09 - Taylor to Gongaware : "The consultation in London is critical. The doctor is holding the afternoon of the 6th July open at Harley St. But keep in mind the visit could take 2 hours plus"Next topic: Budget/Costs. Panish showed an email from AEG's Rick Webking to Michael's estate with 1st report of artist advances/expenses. This was a letter sent to the estate containing the expenses incurred, Trell said. "It seems to me we submitted this report for their review, I don't see any request for payment," Trell said.Trell said he spoke with Randy Phillips and Paul Gongaware about Michael's physical condition prior to coming to testify. "I had heard about rehearsals in which Mr. Jackson was fantastic," Trell saidTrell said he's aware of email from Ortega saying doctor was not allowing Michael to attend rehearsal on June 14, 2009. "I was aware of the doctor not allowing him to attend rehearsal," Trell saidEmail from 6/17/09 from Phillips: "...Ortega, Gongaware, Dileo, and his doctor Conrad from Vegas and I have an intervention with him to get him to focus and come to rehearsal"Email from 6/17/09 from Gongaware to Phillip's assistant: "We need a physical therapist and a nutritionist"Email from Production Manager - Gongaware/Phillips on 6/19/09 : "Paul/Randy I'm not bring a drama queen here. Kenny asked me to notify you both Michael was sent home without stepping foot on stage. He was a basket case and Kenny was concerned he would embarrass himself on stage, or worse yet, be hurt. The company is rehearsing right now, but the DOUBT is pervasive"Email from Randy Phillips to Tim Leiweke on 6/19/09 : "We have a huge problem here."Trell agreed with a statement by plaintiff's attorney, Brian Panish, that company executives knew by then there was a "deep issue" with Jackson Does Trell consider that exchange a "red flag" that AEG Live should have noticed, Panish asked. "I would take it seriously, as I believe Mr. Phillips did," Trell answered. "I don't know I would use the word 'red flag'One of the emails shown to the jury was from Jackson estate co-executor John Branca, sent 5 days before Jackson's death & marked 'confidential': "I have the right therapist/spiritual advisosubstance abuse counselor who could help (recently helped Mike Tyson get sober and paroled) Do we know whether there is a substance issue involved (perhaps better discussed on the phone)The email was sent the same day that a meeting was held at Jackson's home with Murray. No further info given to jury. Trell said Mr. Phillips never told him about this email Email from Ortega to Randy Phillips on 6/20/09: (chain of emails) "I honestly don't think he is ready for this based on his continued physical weakening and deepening emotional state"Trell said he didn't see these emails. He said he spoke with Randy Phillips about Phillips' perception of Michael, in order to prepare for testifying, but not about specific emails. Trell has been designated as the most qualified person to speak on behalf of AEG Email from Phillips to Gongaware on 6/20/09 at 1:52 am : "Tim and I are going to see him tomorrow, however, I'm not sure what the problem is Chemical or Physiological?"From Gongaware to Phillips, on 6/20/09 at 5:59 am : "Take the doctor with you. Why wasn't he there last night?"From Phillips to Gongaware, on 6/20/09 at 2:01 pm : "He is not a psychiatrist so I'm not sure how effective he can be at this point obviously, getting him there is not the issue. It is much deeper"Trell said Randy Phillips went to a handful of rehearsals, three at the Forum and two at Staples Center. The head of the marketing department attended rehearsal on June 23, 2009. "She was blown away by it," Trell testified.He said he was unaware of issues with Jackson at rehearsals. "I knew of no problems with Michael Jackson at all",Trell testified.Trell said he never saw the emails from Phillips directing people to exclude images from This Is It of Michael looking "skeletal" while rehearsing. "What were his observations of Michael's physical condition during rehearsal," Trell said. "I asked for his (Phillips) personal opinion."Next line of questioning is about human resources and background checks. Trell said they can be valuable and useful tools when hiring. Background check costs around $40 to $125. Trell said AEG Live could afford this fee. "We don't do background checks on independent contractors," Trell said. Trell said he was involved in the hiring by AEG Live for the This Is It tour. His department was responsible for retaining independent contractors. Trell said he is not familiar with background check process for hiring. "I am not familiar with the process of doing background checks," Trell said. "No training." Panish: "There was no hiring criteria for the This Is It tour, correct?"Trell: "Not to my knowledge" Trell testified that when it comes to independent contractors, they have either worked with the artists, AEG or known in the industry. Trell agreed that no background check was done on anyone working on the This Is It tour. AEG Live General Counsel Shawn Trell told jurors that no legal or financial checks were done involving Conrad Murray or anyone else who worked as an independent contractor on the This Is It shows. Depending on the nature of the position, a background could be done, Trell said, like for potential employees in the financial area. Trell said he thought a background check would be appropriate for people working in financial roles, but not tour personnel who weren't employees of AEG As to independent contractors, Trell said there's no supervision and monitoring like there's for employees Panish: "You don't do anything to check into background, supervise or protect the artist?"Trell: "No, safety is a concern" Trell said that AEG did not hire Murray, that the doctor was like many independent contractors, "When they leave the environment, what they do on their own time is their own business"Trell testified he doesn't believe the artist is more at risk because AEG Live doesn't do background checks "We did nothing to monitor Dr. Murray," Trell said. "We did not monitor whatever it was that he was doing, no.""It called for Michael Jackson being able to terminate Dr. Murray at will," Trell said about the contract. "If the concerts didn't go forward, and he was terminated under this provision, Dr. Murray would not be paid going forward," Trell explained As to Dr Murray being under dire financial straits, Trell said that he doesn't know if he agrees with it, everyone's perception is different Trell: "I certainly wasn't aware of it at the time"Panish: "Because you didn't check, right?" Trell: "That's right" "I don't think conflict of interests are a good thing, and we would want to prevent it," Trell said Email from Kathy Jorie to Shawn Trell on 6/24/09 at 12:54 am: Subject: Revised agreement with GCA Holdings/Dr. MurrayIt had two attachments Attachments: Revised Michael Jackson -AEG GCA Holdings Murray Agreement 6-18-09 Final MJ -- AEG GCA Holdings Agreement (Dr. Murray) 6-23-09Email chain from 6/23/09, 5:39pm from Jorrie to Wooley, Murray Subject: RE: Michael Jackson - Revised Agreement with GCA Holdings/Dr. Murray Email:"I have redlined the Word version so that you can see all of the revisions. In addition, I've attached clean PDF version for execution" (The email says that if Dr. Murray approved it, he was to print it, sign and send it back to Jorrie) Panish: "Did Ms. Jorrie call this contract a draft?"Trell: "She called it a Final Version" "Every document is a draft until it is executed," Trell said. Panish showed emails exchanged among AEG executives that contained drafts of Murray's contract. Although Murray had signed a contract with the company, neither Jackson nor anyone from AEG had added their signatures. Trell testified that a copy of the contract had never been sent to Jackson With Trell on the stand, Panish played part of an interview that AEG Live President Randy Phillips gave to Sky News television soon after Michael's death. "This guy was willing to leave his practice for a very large sum of money, so we hired him," Phillips said.Panish also showed jurors an e-mail between AEG lawyers suggesting that Phillips told other interviewers AEG Live "hired" Murray. Panish: "Isn't it true that Randy Phillips made numerous comments that AEG Live hired Dr. Murray?"Trell: "I know he has made that statement" Panish said AEG higher-ups became concerned after Phillips made such admission. Trell said he didn't know if that was true. Bruce Black is the General Counsel for parent company of AEG and AEG Live. Michael Roth is AEG's media relations Email from Kathy Jorrie to Bruce Black and Michael Roth on 8/25/09: Subject: AEG Live president says AEG Live hired Dr. Conrad MurrayPanish shows Trell a deposition, under oath, given by insurance broker Bob Taylor on another case. Trell said he has never seen or read it. Trell denied having a telephone conversation with Mr. Taylor where Trell asked him if a doctor's compensation was covered in the insurance. Panish: "Does that refresh your recollection that AEG was employing Dr. Murray?"Trell: "Mr. Taylor has this completely wrong" After lunch break, Brian Panish asked if Shawn Trell wanted to change anything else in his testimony, to which he said "No" Bruce Black, attorney for Anschutz, was present in the meeting with LAPD. Trell met with the police on 1/12/10. Trell told the police that day that Dr. Murray would receive $150,000 compensation per month. Trell also said that Dr. Murray requested and AEG would provide necessary medical equipment and a nurse. More than five months after Jackson's death, Trell said, he informed LAPD detectives that Murray initially requested $5 million to join the tour but eventually agreed to a salary of $150,000 a month for 10 months. Panish: "As far as you know, all the agreements written for TII tour was done under AEG Live Productions, right?"Trell: "Yes" Panish: "Was Dr. Murray trying to help AEG get insurance?" Trell: "The policy was in both names, so he was helping both parties" Trell said Dennis Hawk, who represented Michael, was in touch with Taylor regarding the insurance Panish: "As of June 2009, you don't even know whether Mr. Jackson had a personal managerTrell: "Well, my understanding at the time there were a couple of people acting in that capacity" Email on 6/2/09 from Randy Phillips to Jeff Wald: "Jeff, remember getting Michael to focus is not the easiest thing in the world and we still have no lawyer, business manager, or, even real manager in place. It is a nightmare!"Trell said the only time he saw an artist's signature required to retain an independent contractor was for Dr. Murray. Trell said his understanding was that Dr. Murray worked for Michael for 3 years; didn't know how many times MJ saw Dr. Murray. "I've never spoken with Dr. Murray ever. And I met/spoke with Mr. Jackson once," Trell said. "He was a significant expense," Trell testified about Dr. Murray.Trell said AEG Live didn't do anything to check Dr. Murray's competency as doctor, other than checking his physician license. Trell said AEG didn't do anything to determine Dr. Murray's financial conditions in 2009. Jury was shown an email that Phillips sent to Kenny Ortega on night of June 20, 2009. It was email urging Ortega to stand down. Email on 6/20/09 Phillips to Ortega : "Kenny it's critical that neither you, me, anyone around this show become amateur psychiatrist/physicians. I had a lengthy conversation with Dr. Murray, who I am gaining immense respect for as I get to deal with him more. He said that Michael is not only physically equipped to perform & discouraging him to will hasten his decline instead of stopping it. Dr. Murray also reiterated that he is mentally able to and was speaking to me from the house where he had spent the morning with Michael. This doctor is extremely successful (we check everyone out) and does not need this gig so he is totally unbiased and ethical"Panish asked Trell whether Phillips "characterization to Ortega, given no background check was done, was a lie". Trell responded that he didn't know what Phillips knew or was thinking when he wrote that email to Ortega. Trell also said he expected Randy Phillips to testify at some point during the trial, so he could address the email himself Panish then asked Trell, "Sir, you never checked out one single thing about Dr. Murray -- you've already told me that, correct?""As of the date of the email, that would've been correct",Trell said. When pressed by Panish, Trell said that Phillips' statement that Murray had been checked out, along with the executive's claim that the doctor 'does not need this gig' were inaccurate. "I don't know where Randy's understanding or impression comes from", Trell said.Trell testified that Phillips might have been "misinformed" or simply was stating his impression of the Las Vegas cardiologist Panish: "But no one at AEG checked Dr. Murray to see if he was successful or not, isn't that true?"Trell: "Yes" Panish then asked several pointed questions about whether Shawn Trell agreed with Phillips telling Ortega they'd checked Murray out. One of Panish's questions was whether Trell thought Phillips' email was 'acceptable conduct' Panish called Phillips' statement "a flat out lie" and asked Trell whether he agreed with it or if it signified how AEG did business. Trell said he didn't know what Phillips thought he knew when he wrote the message. "I know this statement is not accurate, but you'd have to speak with Mr. Phillips about what he thought or meant in saying it," Trell said. Panish: "That's a flat out lie, isn't it sir?"Trell: "I don't know what Mr. Phillips intended to say, this should be a question to him" Panish: "You don't know if he was successful or facing bankruptcy, did you?" Trell: "No" Trell: "I know the statement is not accurate. You have to speak with Mr. Phillips about what he meant to say" Panish: "Do you agree with the CEO of your company making untrue statements?" Trell: "I don't know that he didn't know it wasn't true when he said it" Trell said Phillips never told him that he checked Dr. Murray out. As to reference in Phillips' email about Dr. Murray being unbiased, ethical, not needing this gig, Trell said it was Phillips' impressions. He said AEG typically only runs background checks on candidates applying for full-time jobs with AEG, not independent contractors. Panish: "Isn't it true AEG Live does not do background check on independent contractors?"Trell: "That's true" Trell said that no one from AEG interviewed Dr. Murray because he was an independent contractor. "Did anyone from AEG ever at any time interview Dr. Murray", asked Brian Panish"No", Trell replied. Panish showed a document used by AEG entitled "Disclosure and Authorization to Conduct Background Check". Doc is used for employment, promotion, retention, contingent or the rate staffing, consulting, sub-contract work, or volunteer work. Panish asked if there was any reason why Dr. Murray was not given a background check. "He wasn't an employee, he wasn't applying for a full time position with the company," Trell explained.Trell said theoretically they could've asked to check Dr. Murray's background and credit. AEG Cross Jessica Bina began her examination by showing the letter submitted by AEG's CFO to the Estate of Michael Jackson for their review. She asked Shawn Trell about the estimate presented to Jackson's estate that included Murray's $300k fees. She asked why it was prepared. Shawn Trell said it was done at the request of the estate. He said Jackson's estate wanted to know state of tour finances when Jackson died. Trell said the report was requested by the Estate after a series of meetings after Michael's death. "The purpose of the meeting was to wind up the business affairs of the tour due to Michael's death", Trell said. "It was my understating in June Tohme was back in the picture in some capacity. I'm not sure which, Mr. DiLeo was in it too," Trell saidBina: "Is there any request for payment?" Trell: "No, there's no demand for payment, it's for review" Stebbins Bina asked about the inclusion of Murray's fee in the document. Bina showed the report that was attached to the letter. Murray's fee on the document had a footnote. Trell read what that footnote said, and explained why estate wasn't asked for Murray's fee. Next to "Management Medical" there's a reference to footnote 3. Note 3: 'Contract is not signed by Michael Jackson and such signature was condition precedent to any payment obligation' - Footnote on Murray fee.Trell testified Webking, the CFO for AEG, did not ask Michael's Estate for payment of Dr. Murray's salary "You testified you were somewhat confused (by the inclusion of the $300,000)?", Bina asked Trell as she projected the list, dated July 17, 2009, on a screen for jurors."Do you see there's something in parentheses?', Stebbins Bina asked, zooming in to blow up a footnote from AEG CFO Frederick Webking that stated Michael Jackson never signed Murray's contract, so its terms were not enforceable. "Is Mr. Webking asking the estate to pay?", Stebbins Bina asked Trell. "No", he replied, explaining that upon reflection he believed Mr. Webking was just being 'thorough' by including the $300,000 as a budgeted cost. "Did Mr. Webking make a mistake as you thought yesterday?",she asked. "No, he did not", Trell answered Second report made to the Estate on 9/18/09, there was no amount next to management medical. Stebbins Bina then showed a Sept. 2009 report of This Is It's finances to Michael Jackson's estate. Murray's fee is not listed in that document Trell went through his job description with AEG. He said he has five lawyers in his department and has worked on thousands of agreements. Trell explained what PMK is -- Person Most Knowledgeable, identified by the company to testify on its behalf. Trell said he didn't know about all the topics he was designated, so he had to do some studying and interviews with people As to Ortega's contract, Trell said he was aware of a string of emails being at least a part of the original agreement with Kenny. "When we were done here yesterday, I looked at Kenny Ortega's original agreement," Trell said.Trell noted he hadn't looked at Ortega's agreement since it was entered into in 2009. Before the afternoon break, Trell and jury were shown Kenny Ortega's tour agreement. It was signed in April 2009. The agreement was three pages of legalese, with several pages of emails attached that confirmed the terms. The first three pages included some paragraphs that described who owned the rights to This Is It content. A large number of emails are part of the agreement as exhibits. Trell said he recalled the emails exchange and admitted again not being proud of forgetting the cover contract portion. Bina showed Ortega's executed contract with everyone's signature on it. Trell said Kenny Ortega was paid after his contract was signed. Trell, Phillips and Kathy Jorrie were involved in drafting and negotiating the contract with Michael Jackson. For MJ, Trell said Dr. Tohme Tohme and attorneys Dennis Hawk and Peter Lopez represented him. He said there were multiple drafts. "It's my understanding they were talking to, or at least receiving offers from, a competitive of ours, Live Nation," Trell said.Trell also said that before signing an agreement with AEG, Jackson had been considering a tour offer from its main competitor, Live Nation. Bina showed the jury the final tour agreement. Trell said he went to MJ's home at Carolwood to sign it. Upon arrival, Trell said Mr. Jackson got up from where he was seated, and said 'Hi, welcome, I'm Michael." Trell said it was pretty funny, since he was a very distinct person. Trell said they shook hands, he had a good firm handshake and his voice was not what people think "He popped up, came over, introduced himself, was very cordial, there was a real positive energy, good vibe in the room," Trell said. "He seemed genuinely enthused," Trell added. "He had the contract in front of him, said he read every page, seemed very enthused." Trell said they all signed it and Mr. Jackson was really keen on the 3-D stuff, that he was already down the road in his mind. "I was probably there just a little less than an hour. And that was the only time I met him," Trell recalled.Bina discussed the contract for the tour agreement: A first class performance by Artist at each show on each of the approved itineraries. Contract: Artist shall perform no less than 80 minutes at each show, and the maximum show length for each show shall be 3.5 hours. Artist shall approve a sufficient number of shows on itineraries proposed by promoter or producer as to recoup the advances made.Trell said compensation was agreed on 90-10 split. Artist received 90% of what's defined contingent compensation. Trell explained to jury how concerts get paid for. One scenario is artist pays for production up front. A second scenario is that the promoter gives artist an advance, and then they use the money to put together the show. The third option, Trell said, is the artist pays someone like AEG Live to produce and promote the show, with costs to come out of their pay. Trell called the second and third option like an interest-free loan. In Jackson's case, AEG agreed to a 90/10 split of show's proceeds. Jackson would have received the 90% portion, Trell said. Jackson was also on the hook for a 5% production fee AEG Live was promoter & producer. "We advanced the money necessary to mount the tour," Trell explained. "It's interest free money".Trell testified that Jackson's advance, which covered his $100,000-a-month rent on his mansion and a $3-million payment to settle a lawsuit that would free up his performance rights, was considered a loan to be paid back to AEG. Part of the advance was to pay off the settlement agreement of $3 million in London court. The underlying dispute was that a company owned the rights for Jackson's live performance. "The rights needed to be freed up," Trell said.The advances were to be paid back to AEG Live before the split of revenue. Production Advances were capped to $7.5 million. Contract: Artist was responsible for all the production costs in excess of the cap and had to reimburse promoter. "Michael Jackson was known to have very elaborate productions," Trell said. "Production values can get significant, for lack of a better word, it really depends on how many bells and whistles they want," Trell said.Trell said AEG would not advance money without the artist requesting it. Trell said it's not only typical and customary, but standard and artist needs to secure either non-appearance or cancellation insurance. Their interest in the policy, Trell said, was to cover the advances and production costs incurred with the production of the show. "If the were no obligations to AEG, the payout would go back to the artist", Trell explained, "It just recoups our loan made to the artist."Trell was also asked about elements of tour insurance policies and an agreement with former manager Tohme Tohme. Jackson's contract called for him to represent to AEG that he didn't have any health conditions that would keep him from performing. Contract: Artistco hereby represents and warrants that artist does not possess any known health conditions, injuries or ailments that would reasonable be expected to interfere with Artist's first class performance at each of the shows during the termOh Tohme's $100k per month agreement, Trell was shown a January contract that Jackson signed to pay that amount. However, Trell said Tohme's agreement was predicated on Jackson getting tour cancellation insurance by a certain date. Deadline passed and by that point Tohme was no longer Jackson's manager, so he wasn't entitled to be paid his monthly fee. January 24, 2009 -- agreement entered with Dr. Tohme Tohme. Trell said Michael was involved and signed this agreement. "This agreement was entered into January 26, Trell testified. "There are conditions that needed to be met before any payment could be made."One of the the conditions was placement of non-appearance insurance, Trell said. That placement was done in late April, early May. In May, AEG received letter from MJ saying Tohme didn't rep him anymore. "No payments were ever made under this agreement," Trell explained.Court Transcript Rebbie Jackson attending court https://preview.redd.it/mmatrsug5o1d1.jpg?width=443&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b2bb18c8e5e6bca215719208409346bccaf96bc4 https://preview.redd.it/h6ywhnug5o1d1.jpg?width=443&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4576d97371141a308ad6300fb33400f28ed009e3 https://preview.redd.it/wd14srug5o1d1.jpg?width=508&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=31ded1abac7f1916fc67b5d0b264dd231b96f275 https://preview.redd.it/pvrb3vug5o1d1.jpg?width=423&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e4e93a20eccf030747d4ee60a95365b5e41e9ce https://preview.redd.it/yexbwrug5o1d1.jpg?width=419&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c26155b8478e7c48f8863d946b836f1ab2a13fe8 https://preview.redd.it/o6nzk0vg5o1d1.jpg?width=483&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f146baaaa738ec5fe700fa42aaf58e138f21165f https://preview.redd.it/vuozioug5o1d1.jpg?width=431&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f229517cb96a8f80571439f6f0e27f8c6c7852bc |
2024.05.21 14:10 zytukin Is bankruptcy my only option? Self employed and went out of business
I was a self employed truck driver, my own truck, my own company. Was doing great for several years, paid off all my previous debts, and at the beginning of 2022 I bought a house for my mother. She couldn't get approved for the mortgage but I did due to my income, so I bought the house and she is the one paying the mortgage.
Halfway through the year things took a turn for me. Income dropped, I was having trouble staying profitable. Then near the start of 2023 my semi had a major breakdown costing me $13k and I had to take out a loan with Vader Mountain Capital to pay most of it. Then it broke down again, and again, and again, costing me over $40,000 between tows, repairs, and hotel stays. Not to mention lost income.
Ended up having to give up and close my company around this time last year after spending so much trying to keep the truck running and simply not being able to afford it. Final breakdown was around 250 mil;es from home and after a week of trying to secure yet more funding ended up calling my mother to come pick me up. Truck got repossessed in September (I called the finance company and voluntarily surrendered it), lost my CDL in August because the financial issues had been preventing me from affording my diabetes pills, and I'm almost $100k in debt between credit cards (19k, 8k, 1k), line of credit with my former bank (18k), the loan with Vader (14k), and whatever else I might still owe towards my truck (was 34k but the finance company finally picked it up last month and hasn't gotten back to me yet). I also owe 9k to my brother who took out a loan to pay for one of the repairs because I was considering abandoning the truck and trying to walk 1200 miles home (and at the time I honestly thought suicide was a better option, just leap off the highway overpass outside the repair shop I was at).
Now I'm working full time for $15 an hour at a local department store, bringing home maybe $20k a year after taxes. The only bills I'm paying monthly are for my cell phone and satellite TV (combined under $200 a month), and food. I have started the bankruptcy filing with a lawyer who charged me $1,800, but I'm really putting it off because the bankruptcy lawyer said the house would be taken. But my mother is also on the title and both her and brother are the ones who have paid most of the mortgage so far so if the house is taken it would be stealing equity from them and making them homeless, not just me.
So far everybody has been basically ignoring me except Vader who keeps threatening to sue and demanding payments that I simply can't afford (over $400 per week, unless I argue with them for 20-30 mins and they finally settle for much less).
Annoying thing about all this is that although my truck was repossessed, I still own the trailer that I could possibly sell for for 20 thousand or more to at least pay off Vader, but it's still sitting 250 miles away where my truck broke down last. It'll cost close to $4,000 to have it towed close to my home to sell easily, which I almost have the money for after saving for 6 months. Selling it where it sits is of course a cheaper option, except I also don't have easy access to a vehicle to go there and potentially sell it if somebody is interested.
submitted by zytukin to debtfree [link] [comments]
Halfway through the year things took a turn for me. Income dropped, I was having trouble staying profitable. Then near the start of 2023 my semi had a major breakdown costing me $13k and I had to take out a loan with Vader Mountain Capital to pay most of it. Then it broke down again, and again, and again, costing me over $40,000 between tows, repairs, and hotel stays. Not to mention lost income.
Ended up having to give up and close my company around this time last year after spending so much trying to keep the truck running and simply not being able to afford it. Final breakdown was around 250 mil;es from home and after a week of trying to secure yet more funding ended up calling my mother to come pick me up. Truck got repossessed in September (I called the finance company and voluntarily surrendered it), lost my CDL in August because the financial issues had been preventing me from affording my diabetes pills, and I'm almost $100k in debt between credit cards (19k, 8k, 1k), line of credit with my former bank (18k), the loan with Vader (14k), and whatever else I might still owe towards my truck (was 34k but the finance company finally picked it up last month and hasn't gotten back to me yet). I also owe 9k to my brother who took out a loan to pay for one of the repairs because I was considering abandoning the truck and trying to walk 1200 miles home (and at the time I honestly thought suicide was a better option, just leap off the highway overpass outside the repair shop I was at).
Now I'm working full time for $15 an hour at a local department store, bringing home maybe $20k a year after taxes. The only bills I'm paying monthly are for my cell phone and satellite TV (combined under $200 a month), and food. I have started the bankruptcy filing with a lawyer who charged me $1,800, but I'm really putting it off because the bankruptcy lawyer said the house would be taken. But my mother is also on the title and both her and brother are the ones who have paid most of the mortgage so far so if the house is taken it would be stealing equity from them and making them homeless, not just me.
So far everybody has been basically ignoring me except Vader who keeps threatening to sue and demanding payments that I simply can't afford (over $400 per week, unless I argue with them for 20-30 mins and they finally settle for much less).
Annoying thing about all this is that although my truck was repossessed, I still own the trailer that I could possibly sell for for 20 thousand or more to at least pay off Vader, but it's still sitting 250 miles away where my truck broke down last. It'll cost close to $4,000 to have it towed close to my home to sell easily, which I almost have the money for after saving for 6 months. Selling it where it sits is of course a cheaper option, except I also don't have easy access to a vehicle to go there and potentially sell it if somebody is interested.
2024.05.21 07:32 Darkrye786 Your thoughts on this?
 | I been working here for a year and a half, Should I consider a job change? submitted by Darkrye786 to Serverlife [link] [comments] |
2024.05.21 03:11 BikkaZz What happened to the Red Lobster of the ’80s and ‘90s? Like so many beloved brands, it got caught in the net of private equity before being reeled in and gutted.
First, Red Lobster got screwed by private equity. Then, it got screwed by its own managers.
Back in 2014, the Darden restaurant group spun off Red Lobster to a private equity firm.
It cost Red Lobster $11 million over three months.
What happened to the Red Lobster of the ’80s and ‘90s? Like so many beloved brands,
But recent mismanagement, competition, inflation and other factors brought down Red Lobster, analysts and former Red Lobster employees say.
submitted by BikkaZz to economy [link] [comments]
Back in 2014, the Darden restaurant group spun off Red Lobster to a private equity firm.
To finance the deal, that PE firm sold off most of Red Lobster’s property assets and then leased them back to the restaurants. But, as we learned in the bankruptcy filing, the vast majority of those restaurants were being charged rent at above market rates.Red Lobster was hit with “financial and operational challenges” — namely, the one-two punch of the pandemic and the price inflation it set off, followed by
the bone-headed strategic blunders that left the restaurant with $1 billion in debt and less than $30 million in cash on hand. The all-you-can-eat shrimp deal alone didn’t doom Red Lobster,The promotion had historically been a limited time thing, and it was a huge hit. Twenty bucks, for all the shrimp? Sign me up! Of course, that’s how every other crustacean-consuming American responded. Because in this country, “all you can eat” is as much a dare as it is a deal. And the lingering hangover of inflation left everyone hungry for a $20 meal that could conceivably provide a week’s worth of sustenance in a single sitting.
It cost Red Lobster $11 million over three months.
What happened to the Red Lobster of the ’80s and ‘90s? Like so many beloved brands,
it got caught in the net of private equity before being reeled in and gutted.https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/investing/red-lobster-restaurants-bankruptcy/index.html?
But recent mismanagement, competition, inflation and other factors brought down Red Lobster, analysts and former Red Lobster employees say.
“Years of underinvestment in Red Lobster’s marketing, food quality, service and restaurant upgrades hurt the chain’s ability to compete with growing fast-casual and quick-service chains.”Aka....The quickie paper profits that far right extremists libertarians bros call ‘free market ‘ ....🤔 Dismantling America economy system.
2024.05.20 23:07 AblePost7537 What credit score do you need for a Kentucky mortgage loan approval in 2024?
Credit score needed to buy a house
Mortgage lending is risky, and lenders want a way to quantify that risk. They use your three-digit credit score to gauge the risk of loaning you money since your credit score helps predict your likelihood of paying back a loan on time. Lenders also consider other data, such as your income, employment, debts and assets to decide whether to offer you a loan.Different lenders and loan types have different borrower requirements, loan terms and minimum credit scores. Here are the requirements for some of the most common types of mortgages.
Conventional loan
Minimum credit score: 620A conventional loan is a mortgage that isn’t backed by a federal agency. Most mortgage lenders offer conventional loans, and many lenders sell these loans to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac — two government-sponsored enterprises. Conventional loans can have either fixed or adjustable rates, and terms ranging from 10 to 30 years.
You can get a conventional loan with a down payment as low as 3% of the home’s purchase price, so this type of loan makes sense if you don’t have enough for a traditional down payment. However, if your down payment is less than 20%, you’re required to pay for private mortgage insurance (PMI), which is an insurance policy designed to protect the lender if you stop making payments. You can ask your servicer to cancel PMI once the principal balance of your mortgage falls below 80% of the original value of your home.
FHA loan
Minimum credit score (10% down): 500Minimum credit score (3.5% down): 580
FHA loans are backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), a part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The FHA incentivizes lenders to make mortgage loans available to borrowers who might not otherwise qualify by guaranteeing the federal government will repay the mortgage if the borrower stops making payments. This makes an FHA loan a good option if you have a lower credit score.
FHA loans come in 15- or 30-year terms with fixed interest rates. Unlike conventional mortgages, which only require PMI for borrowers with less than 20% down, all FHA borrowers must pay an up-front mortgage insurance premium (MIP) and an annual MIP, as long as the loan is outstanding.
VA loan
Minimum credit score: N/AVA loans are mortgages backed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The VA guarantees loans made by VA-approved lenders to qualifying veterans or service members of the U.S. armed forces, or their spouses. This type of loan is a great option for veterans and their spouses, especially if they don’t have the best credit and don’t have enough for a down payment.
VA loans are fixed-rate mortgages with 10-, 15-, 20- or 30-year terms.
Most VA loans don’t require a down payment or monthly mortgage insurance premiums. However, they do require a one-time VA funding fee, that ranges from 1.4% to 3.6% of the loan amount.
USDA loan
Minimum credit score: N/AThe U.S. Department of Agriculture guarantees loans for borrowers interested in buying homes in certain rural areas. USDA loans don’t require a minimum down payment, but you have to meet the USDA’s income eligibility limits, which vary by location.
All USDA mortgages have fixed interest rates and 30-year repayment terms.
USDA-approved lenders must pay an up-front guarantee fee of up to 3.5% of the purchase price to the USDA. That fee can be passed on to borrowers and financed into the home loan. If the home you want to buy is within an eligible rural area (defined by the USDA) and you meet the other requirements, this could be a great loan option for you.
What else do mortgage lenders consider?
Your credit score isn’t the only factor lenders consider when reviewing your loan application. Here are some of the other factors lenders use when deciding whether to give you a mortgage.- Debt-to-income ratio — Your debt-to-income (DTI) ratio is the amount of debt payments you make each month (including your mortgage payments) relative to your gross monthly income. For example, if your mortgage payments, car loan and credit card payments add up to $1,800 per month and you have a $6,000 monthly income, your debt-to-income ratio would be $1,800/$6,000, or 30%. Most conventional mortgages require a DTI ratio no greater than 36%. However, you may be approved with a DTI up to 45% if you meet other requirements.
- Employment history — When you apply for a mortgage, lenders will ask for proof of employment — typically two years’ worth of W-2s and tax returns, as well as your two most recent pay stubs. Lenders prefer to work with people who have stable employment and consistent income.
- Down payment — Putting money down to buy a home gives you immediate equity in the home and helps to ensure the lender recoups their loss if you stop making payments and they need to foreclose on the home. Most loans — other than VA and USDA loans — require a down payment of at least 3%, although a higher down payment could help you qualify for a lower interest rate or make up for other less-than-ideal aspects of your mortgage application.
- The home’s value and condition — Lenders want to ensure the home collateralizing the loan is in good condition and worth what you’re paying for it. Typically, they’ll require an appraisal to determine the home’s value and may also require a home inspection to ensure there aren’t any unknown issues with the property.
How is your credit score calculated?
Most talk of credit scores makes it sound as if you have only one score. In fact, you have several credit scores, and they may be used by different lenders and for different purposes.The three national credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax and TransUnion — collect information from banks, credit unions, lenders and public records to formulate your credit score. The most common and well-known scoring model is the FICO Score, which is based on the following five factors:
- Payment history (35%) — A history of late payments will drag your score down, as will negative information from bankruptcies, foreclosures, repossessions or accounts referred to collections.
- How much you owe (30%) — Your credit utilization ratio is the amount of revolving credit you’re using compared to your total available credit. For example, if you have one credit card with a $2,000 balance and a $4,000 credit limit, your credit utilization ratio is 50%. Credit scoring models view using a larger percentage of your available credit as risky behavior, so high balances and maxed-out credit cards will negatively impact your score.
- Length of credit history (15%) — This factor considers the age of your oldest account, newest account and the average age of all your credit accounts. In general, the longer you’ve been using credit responsibly, the higher your score will be.
- Types of accounts (10%) — Credit scoring models favor people who use a mix of credit cards, installment loans, mortgages and other types of credit.
- Recent credit history (10%) — Lenders view applying for and opening several new credit accounts within a short period as a sign of financial trouble and it’ll negatively impact your score.
2024.05.20 19:20 HeyItsGhost Red Lobsters Bankruptcy statement to employees
I work for one of the Red Lobsters that didn't close and got this message today:
Red Lobster Team, Last night, we announced that Red Lobster has filed for voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy code. Chapter 11 is a legal proceeding that allows companies to reorganize their finances through a court-supervised process. Most importantly, Chapter 11 encourages daily business operations to continue as usual. As such, Red Lobster is continuing to serve guests by providing high quality, freshly prepared seafood as we always have.
As you are aware, we closed a number of restaurants last week and our Chapter 11 filing will further facilitate this real estate optimization process by allowing us to renegotiate many of our restaurant leases with our landlord partners through the court-supervised process.
We also announced that, with the assistance of our professional advisors, we have begun a process to sell Red Lobster as part of the Chapter 11 proceeding. Our Board and management team determined that pursuing a sale of the business is the best path forward for the long-term financial success of our Company. As part of the process, Red Lobster has entered into a stalking horse purchase agreement pursuant to which Red Lobster will sell its business to an entity formed and controlled by its existing term lenders.
As we kick off this process, there are a few things I want to highlight:
· Employees will continue to receive pay and benefits as usual. Red Lobster has filed various motions with the Court, one of which authorizes us to continue paying wages and providing benefits. We expect those requests will be approved in the coming days and we will communicate with you when they are. · Your day-to-day responsibilities will not change. Our menu and promotions have not changed, and team members should continue to come to work and ensure our loyal guests receive the high-quality service they expect. · We have received a commitment of $100 million to ensure we are meeting our operational needs.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the hard work and dedication you bring to work every day and assure you that this plan was carefully crafted for the long-term success of Red Lobster. Our goal is to continue to be the world’s largest and most-loved seafood restaurant company, and I am confident that this process will help us continue towards that goal. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Thank you, Jonathan Tibus, CEO Consistent with company policy, if you receive any inquiries from the media or other outside parties, please do not comment and forward them to Lori Cherry at [lcherry@redlobster.com](mailto:lcherry@redlobster.com) or 407 734 9347.
submitted by HeyItsGhost to redlobster [link] [comments]
Red Lobster Team, Last night, we announced that Red Lobster has filed for voluntary reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy code. Chapter 11 is a legal proceeding that allows companies to reorganize their finances through a court-supervised process. Most importantly, Chapter 11 encourages daily business operations to continue as usual. As such, Red Lobster is continuing to serve guests by providing high quality, freshly prepared seafood as we always have.
As you are aware, we closed a number of restaurants last week and our Chapter 11 filing will further facilitate this real estate optimization process by allowing us to renegotiate many of our restaurant leases with our landlord partners through the court-supervised process.
We also announced that, with the assistance of our professional advisors, we have begun a process to sell Red Lobster as part of the Chapter 11 proceeding. Our Board and management team determined that pursuing a sale of the business is the best path forward for the long-term financial success of our Company. As part of the process, Red Lobster has entered into a stalking horse purchase agreement pursuant to which Red Lobster will sell its business to an entity formed and controlled by its existing term lenders.
As we kick off this process, there are a few things I want to highlight:
· Employees will continue to receive pay and benefits as usual. Red Lobster has filed various motions with the Court, one of which authorizes us to continue paying wages and providing benefits. We expect those requests will be approved in the coming days and we will communicate with you when they are. · Your day-to-day responsibilities will not change. Our menu and promotions have not changed, and team members should continue to come to work and ensure our loyal guests receive the high-quality service they expect. · We have received a commitment of $100 million to ensure we are meeting our operational needs.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the hard work and dedication you bring to work every day and assure you that this plan was carefully crafted for the long-term success of Red Lobster. Our goal is to continue to be the world’s largest and most-loved seafood restaurant company, and I am confident that this process will help us continue towards that goal. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Thank you, Jonathan Tibus, CEO Consistent with company policy, if you receive any inquiries from the media or other outside parties, please do not comment and forward them to Lori Cherry at [lcherry@redlobster.com](mailto:lcherry@redlobster.com) or 407 734 9347.
2024.05.20 17:40 Jerseyracks The Wrap Up Report - Summary of the Crypto World
Suspects post below does a great job of summarizing every Hoge update we covered this week… here is the other half. The Weekly Wrap Up Report covers news and information from the entire crypto world. Below is word for word, apologize for the typos and run on sentences. I don’t proof read this but the info is worth hearing. Tune into the Wrap Up to get fully updated each week!
What is going on everyone!!! Where the heck do I start this week. What an insane week of news in the crypto world. Year one of industry adoption is in full force! Before get into crypto… Roaring Kittys back! Haha what a legend. After three years of no posts on Monday he posts a picture of a guy in a gaming chair going from a relaxed sitlayed back sitting position to a forward facing intense gaming sitting position, to say let’s go it’s game time! If you’ve ever been a gamer u know when ur sitting forward your intensely focused on winning the game your in. If you live under a rock maybe you don’t know who Roaring kitty is but he is the Reddit legend that sent game stop to hundred of dollars, he started the retail traders vs hedge fund crazy run that happened in 2020. Truly one of the most exciting things to be a part of as you watched how hedge funds really work behind the curtain. It’s sickening how they are able to loot companies and force bankruptcy’s to fill their pockets and ruin so many lives in the future. Roaring kitty followed up that post with a serious of great movie and show clips that rallied the retail traders. And in one day it went from $18 to $68 costing hedge funds billions of dollars in the process. I’m not gonna lie I paid my mortgage over night scooping some GameStop in after hours on Monday. Fight the power baby! You gotta love when someone stands up to the corrupt rules, us regular people don’t get to play by. Game stop trading was halted 32 times on Tuesday as they tried to control the crazy price movement. Let’s see where it goes from here but he’s back and that was exciting to see!
But to the real news of the week… we just found out which companies are holding Bitcoin! On May 15th companies had to disclose their Q1 13f reports to the SEC. A 13F is a quarterly report that institutional investment managers must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose their equity holdings. The form is required for managers with more than $100 million in assets under management.
Guess how many 100m asset companies disclosed that they hold the Bitcoin ETFs? … did you guess do you have a number in mind? Looney go ahead take a guess
1,028 of these high value firms disclosed they hold Bitcoin worth a whopping 10.9 billion dollars in total! And this is only Q1 of this year. Before January 11th of this year that number was under 25. We are so early and this is year one of industry adoption of the strongest form of property ever invented. A brand new asset class has been legitimized and it’s called scarce digital property. It isn’t just companies like Microstrategy, square, and Tesla holding Bitcoin, it’s banks like Wells Fargo and Susquehanna, it’s massive hedge funds and small hedge funds. Probably the most exciting part is pensions now hold Bitcoin! The State of Wisconsin Investment Board discloses it holds almost $100 million of BlackRock's spot #Bitcoin ETF. This is the 9th largest pension fund in the US and a top 50 pension fund in the world. 35 trillion dollars is the sum of all pension funds in the world. Sadly most pensions will not be there when someone wants to retire in ten years from now. But now that Bitcoin introduces hard money to the world, these pension funds can possibly be saved for its current employees looking to retire in the future, the same goes with social security and our insane debt issue we are facing. Bitcoin solves the money printer issue. This is just the first quarter after the ETFs launched…. And Guess what the Bitcoin ETFs aren’t going anywhere and have just started opening the door to trillions of dollars of funds looking for the best alpha to store their value. The game theory is about to get insane. El Salvador the first country to adapt Bitcoin as its countries currency has mined 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcano-fueled geothermal power in the last three years. They turned the free energy coming off their volcano into 29 million dollars. And that’s at today’s price. If Bitcoin goes to 200k next year like most predict that’s almost 100 million dollars their volcano gave back to the country. Every country can do this with the free energy they have.
Bitcoin is so scarce, besides TIME, it is the only other probably scarce thing in this world. As of 2023 there are 626,619 Ultra High Net Worth Individuals in the world. An Ultra High Net Worth Individual is someone who has investeable assests of at least 30 million dollars. And there are only 21 million Bitcoin forever, which is only 18 btc per UHNW in the world. And as you now over 4 million are lost for ever, one million coins are in the satoshi wallet, and thousands of holders already hold more then 18 Bitcoin…. What happens when they want to accumulate.
Scary Fact of the Day: this ones really scary I apologize…. But If your salary was $500,000 per day, every day (weekends/holidays included) since The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built. Which was 2600 BC so 4,624 years ago. and you spent nothing… you'd still have LESS money today than the U.S Government borrowed in March to operate through Sep of 2024... This is why we need Bitcoin.
Luckily some of our elected officials are realizing this can’t be sustained. This week US Congressman Thomas Massie introduced a bill to abolish the Federal Reserve. Stating they hurt the American citizens every time they print new money. The federal reserve is not ran by elected officials and they do not have to answer to the president or congress. They get to push the magic money printer money whenever they want to.
Once someone understands bitcoin they don’t go back.
I’m having alot of fun in my new craftsman program at work. I have a great group of guys going through it with me, and we will all be together for the next 10 weeks. My boss is the man and gave me ten minutes to explain Bitcoin to everyone during lunch and boy did they have some questions! I also let them know I will only bring it up if someone asks about it, so they don’t have to avoid me. Haha Explaining Bitcoin to someone for the first time might be my favorite thing to do on earth. To see the gears turn as they started to understand how Bitcoin actually works and what issues they thought were there actually weren’t. Like many people a few of the guys blended crypto as a whole with Bitcoin. And it’s important to understand they are not the same. Bitcoin is its own fundamental new element in the world.
We all face our own issues in life, if you’re lucky enough to be healthy then most issues revolve around finances. And sadly we don’t all have the rich uncle that will randomly say hey Sam I know the worlds tough and things are more expensive here’s 10 thousand dollars to make your life easier. Haha we all wish that would happen but we all know it never will. So without a random act of kindness out of no where people find themselves trapped financially making just enough to get by or just enough to feel comfortable. If your not investing your not keeping up with inflation and if your not keeping up with inflation your money will be drained. That is a fact, as food and good prices continue to go up. Bitcoin is that life raft that reprices your time and increases your moneys value. If you’re able to get one more person off of 0 because they actually understand what Bitcoin is now you may have changed their life forever. It’s no one’s fault that they don’t understand how money works. This stuff isn’t taught, you need to go out and learn it on your own. And who the heck has time or even wants to do that. The problem is that so much that worked for our parents generation will not work for us. I know I say it every week but this is the . Com era of money and property and it’s just getting started.
I know that was a lot there was just so much important stuff to cover this week.
Solana went on a nice run this week. Going from $137 to $164. Robinhood Europe announced they now offer Solana staking. In the 24 hours after this staking went live the total value locked in Solana jumped by 5%. So that may of had something to do with the price jump. I live in New Jersey where it’s still illegal to stake my tokens for a yield. Thats some bums. You want to hear an absolutely insane stat. On Monday May 13th this week, 23,110 tokens were created on Solana. Yesss take a second to grasp that ridiculous number. 23,110 new tokens launched in one day on Solana. The previous record was 16,000 tokens Degens are getting out of control, many were made to try and ride the GameStop roaring kitty news. But the best part is Solana handled it well with no interruptions. This is by bar the consensus chain so far this bull run and when FireDancer launches at the end of this year it could cement them as the future of micropayments.
The only other token I see giving them a run for their money is you guessed it Internet Computer Protocol, ICP. While they do not have the hype or the volume Solana does, frankly absolutely no chain expect Etherium can say they have the volume Solana does. They have built an entirely unique form of blockchain that is evolving quickly. They call it the only third generation blockchain. If you tune in here then you understand the reverse gas fee model they have introduced. Canisters are filled by the developers and users can interact with the dapps and platforms without needing to hold ICP to use it. These canisters are also tamper proof and unhackable. No need fire firewalls or security teams protecting your data. That waste of money and threat is gone forever with this technology. DFINITY announced this week that half a million canister smart contracts are now deployed on #ICP. In a span of just 72 days, the number of canister smart contracts deployed on #ICP surged from 400k to 500k.
Yesterday DFINITY launched their Year 4 roadmap and key milestones for ICP. How crypto YouTubers aren’t all talking about this I really don’t understand. I feel like crypto is already confusing enough that when you try and grasp what ICP has actually built it’s hard to take it all in. I’m not going to deep dive this for you. But if you follow DFINITY here on X go give it a read it’s worth it! The future is going to be insane, with much of today’s waste gone from the system.
Last thing before I get to the Hoge updates, the stock of stocks Micro Strategy our generations Berkshire Hathaway will be added to the MSCI World Index fund, effective May 31. It stands for the Morgan Stanley Capital International and includes a stock index designed to track broad global equity-market performance. This index comprises the stocks of nearly 3,000 companies from 23 developed countries and 24 emerging markets. This is the first of constant buy pressure as we all await for micro strategy to be included into the S&P 500. If your going to get it make sure your in before that news!
submitted by Jerseyracks to hoge [link] [comments]
What is going on everyone!!! Where the heck do I start this week. What an insane week of news in the crypto world. Year one of industry adoption is in full force! Before get into crypto… Roaring Kittys back! Haha what a legend. After three years of no posts on Monday he posts a picture of a guy in a gaming chair going from a relaxed sitlayed back sitting position to a forward facing intense gaming sitting position, to say let’s go it’s game time! If you’ve ever been a gamer u know when ur sitting forward your intensely focused on winning the game your in. If you live under a rock maybe you don’t know who Roaring kitty is but he is the Reddit legend that sent game stop to hundred of dollars, he started the retail traders vs hedge fund crazy run that happened in 2020. Truly one of the most exciting things to be a part of as you watched how hedge funds really work behind the curtain. It’s sickening how they are able to loot companies and force bankruptcy’s to fill their pockets and ruin so many lives in the future. Roaring kitty followed up that post with a serious of great movie and show clips that rallied the retail traders. And in one day it went from $18 to $68 costing hedge funds billions of dollars in the process. I’m not gonna lie I paid my mortgage over night scooping some GameStop in after hours on Monday. Fight the power baby! You gotta love when someone stands up to the corrupt rules, us regular people don’t get to play by. Game stop trading was halted 32 times on Tuesday as they tried to control the crazy price movement. Let’s see where it goes from here but he’s back and that was exciting to see!
But to the real news of the week… we just found out which companies are holding Bitcoin! On May 15th companies had to disclose their Q1 13f reports to the SEC. A 13F is a quarterly report that institutional investment managers must file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to disclose their equity holdings. The form is required for managers with more than $100 million in assets under management.
Guess how many 100m asset companies disclosed that they hold the Bitcoin ETFs? … did you guess do you have a number in mind? Looney go ahead take a guess
1,028 of these high value firms disclosed they hold Bitcoin worth a whopping 10.9 billion dollars in total! And this is only Q1 of this year. Before January 11th of this year that number was under 25. We are so early and this is year one of industry adoption of the strongest form of property ever invented. A brand new asset class has been legitimized and it’s called scarce digital property. It isn’t just companies like Microstrategy, square, and Tesla holding Bitcoin, it’s banks like Wells Fargo and Susquehanna, it’s massive hedge funds and small hedge funds. Probably the most exciting part is pensions now hold Bitcoin! The State of Wisconsin Investment Board discloses it holds almost $100 million of BlackRock's spot #Bitcoin ETF. This is the 9th largest pension fund in the US and a top 50 pension fund in the world. 35 trillion dollars is the sum of all pension funds in the world. Sadly most pensions will not be there when someone wants to retire in ten years from now. But now that Bitcoin introduces hard money to the world, these pension funds can possibly be saved for its current employees looking to retire in the future, the same goes with social security and our insane debt issue we are facing. Bitcoin solves the money printer issue. This is just the first quarter after the ETFs launched…. And Guess what the Bitcoin ETFs aren’t going anywhere and have just started opening the door to trillions of dollars of funds looking for the best alpha to store their value. The game theory is about to get insane. El Salvador the first country to adapt Bitcoin as its countries currency has mined 474 Bitcoin worth $29 million using volcano-fueled geothermal power in the last three years. They turned the free energy coming off their volcano into 29 million dollars. And that’s at today’s price. If Bitcoin goes to 200k next year like most predict that’s almost 100 million dollars their volcano gave back to the country. Every country can do this with the free energy they have.
Bitcoin is so scarce, besides TIME, it is the only other probably scarce thing in this world. As of 2023 there are 626,619 Ultra High Net Worth Individuals in the world. An Ultra High Net Worth Individual is someone who has investeable assests of at least 30 million dollars. And there are only 21 million Bitcoin forever, which is only 18 btc per UHNW in the world. And as you now over 4 million are lost for ever, one million coins are in the satoshi wallet, and thousands of holders already hold more then 18 Bitcoin…. What happens when they want to accumulate.
Scary Fact of the Day: this ones really scary I apologize…. But If your salary was $500,000 per day, every day (weekends/holidays included) since The Great Pyramid in Egypt was built. Which was 2600 BC so 4,624 years ago. and you spent nothing… you'd still have LESS money today than the U.S Government borrowed in March to operate through Sep of 2024... This is why we need Bitcoin.
Luckily some of our elected officials are realizing this can’t be sustained. This week US Congressman Thomas Massie introduced a bill to abolish the Federal Reserve. Stating they hurt the American citizens every time they print new money. The federal reserve is not ran by elected officials and they do not have to answer to the president or congress. They get to push the magic money printer money whenever they want to.
Once someone understands bitcoin they don’t go back.
I’m having alot of fun in my new craftsman program at work. I have a great group of guys going through it with me, and we will all be together for the next 10 weeks. My boss is the man and gave me ten minutes to explain Bitcoin to everyone during lunch and boy did they have some questions! I also let them know I will only bring it up if someone asks about it, so they don’t have to avoid me. Haha Explaining Bitcoin to someone for the first time might be my favorite thing to do on earth. To see the gears turn as they started to understand how Bitcoin actually works and what issues they thought were there actually weren’t. Like many people a few of the guys blended crypto as a whole with Bitcoin. And it’s important to understand they are not the same. Bitcoin is its own fundamental new element in the world.
We all face our own issues in life, if you’re lucky enough to be healthy then most issues revolve around finances. And sadly we don’t all have the rich uncle that will randomly say hey Sam I know the worlds tough and things are more expensive here’s 10 thousand dollars to make your life easier. Haha we all wish that would happen but we all know it never will. So without a random act of kindness out of no where people find themselves trapped financially making just enough to get by or just enough to feel comfortable. If your not investing your not keeping up with inflation and if your not keeping up with inflation your money will be drained. That is a fact, as food and good prices continue to go up. Bitcoin is that life raft that reprices your time and increases your moneys value. If you’re able to get one more person off of 0 because they actually understand what Bitcoin is now you may have changed their life forever. It’s no one’s fault that they don’t understand how money works. This stuff isn’t taught, you need to go out and learn it on your own. And who the heck has time or even wants to do that. The problem is that so much that worked for our parents generation will not work for us. I know I say it every week but this is the . Com era of money and property and it’s just getting started.
I know that was a lot there was just so much important stuff to cover this week.
Solana went on a nice run this week. Going from $137 to $164. Robinhood Europe announced they now offer Solana staking. In the 24 hours after this staking went live the total value locked in Solana jumped by 5%. So that may of had something to do with the price jump. I live in New Jersey where it’s still illegal to stake my tokens for a yield. Thats some bums. You want to hear an absolutely insane stat. On Monday May 13th this week, 23,110 tokens were created on Solana. Yesss take a second to grasp that ridiculous number. 23,110 new tokens launched in one day on Solana. The previous record was 16,000 tokens Degens are getting out of control, many were made to try and ride the GameStop roaring kitty news. But the best part is Solana handled it well with no interruptions. This is by bar the consensus chain so far this bull run and when FireDancer launches at the end of this year it could cement them as the future of micropayments.
The only other token I see giving them a run for their money is you guessed it Internet Computer Protocol, ICP. While they do not have the hype or the volume Solana does, frankly absolutely no chain expect Etherium can say they have the volume Solana does. They have built an entirely unique form of blockchain that is evolving quickly. They call it the only third generation blockchain. If you tune in here then you understand the reverse gas fee model they have introduced. Canisters are filled by the developers and users can interact with the dapps and platforms without needing to hold ICP to use it. These canisters are also tamper proof and unhackable. No need fire firewalls or security teams protecting your data. That waste of money and threat is gone forever with this technology. DFINITY announced this week that half a million canister smart contracts are now deployed on #ICP. In a span of just 72 days, the number of canister smart contracts deployed on #ICP surged from 400k to 500k.
Yesterday DFINITY launched their Year 4 roadmap and key milestones for ICP. How crypto YouTubers aren’t all talking about this I really don’t understand. I feel like crypto is already confusing enough that when you try and grasp what ICP has actually built it’s hard to take it all in. I’m not going to deep dive this for you. But if you follow DFINITY here on X go give it a read it’s worth it! The future is going to be insane, with much of today’s waste gone from the system.
Last thing before I get to the Hoge updates, the stock of stocks Micro Strategy our generations Berkshire Hathaway will be added to the MSCI World Index fund, effective May 31. It stands for the Morgan Stanley Capital International and includes a stock index designed to track broad global equity-market performance. This index comprises the stocks of nearly 3,000 companies from 23 developed countries and 24 emerging markets. This is the first of constant buy pressure as we all await for micro strategy to be included into the S&P 500. If your going to get it make sure your in before that news!
2024.05.20 15:38 lissy51886 I (38F) just found out my fiancé (38M) is in a massive amount of debt... can I even move forward?
My fiancé and I met in person when he was at a military base near my home when he was on exchange from his country's military. We have been in a long distance relationship since he had to go back to his country last September. My bridal shower is Saturday and we are 39 days from the wedding and we've been excited about starting our life together.
This marriage involves immigration, me selling everything I own, quitting my job, leaving behind my family that I'm close with, leaving a part of my country that I'm so happy in, renting out my home, and relying on him for complete financial support until we get to a point in the immigration process where I'd be allowed to work. And yes, I have to go to him due to his military commitments.
At the start of our relationship I made him aware that I had been through a bankruptcy in my 20s due to medical issues (I'm super open about it because yes it sucked, but I'm better for it) but that I pulled myself out of it and had good credit again within a couple years and have been very financially stable since. We had also talked about previous relationships where I made it known that my last 4.5 year relationship ended after catching my ex talking to women online, and then digging through his life to find the many other things he lied to me about - including finances which kind of left me with some traumas (including financial abuse) that I worked on intensely with a therapist. My ex and I weren't officially engaged yet... I wouldn't accept a ring as we were building a new home and wanted to wait until all was situated with that, but we were full blown wedding planning and I called it off.
My now fiancé and I have had at least 10 serious conversations about finances as we talked about getting engaged and all that immigration entails, and he never once mentioned that he was in any debt.
But last night, just after a visit with me... and we won't see each other until wedding week... he decided to blurt out over the phone that he's been hiding that he's in $37,000 of debt - a CC and a credit line with a bank. He was telling me now because there was no way to hide it further as we had added each other as authorized users on CCs to prove "financial support" for immigration and I needed to gather his statements.
The debt is big enough to be a big deal on its own, but it can be mitigated by wiping out some CDs of his and then paid off in a year or two so I'm less concerned about that and more concerned about the dishonesty.
I've already been understandably struggling with leaving my life behind... but now how am I supposed to make the sacrifices I am and move to another country for someone that has been hiding something like that from me for so long? How am I supposed to count on him to financially support me? We were going to start trying for kids ASAP in the new year, how am I supposed to have kids when we're struggling to make ends meet? How am I supposed to trust that there's no other big secrets?
I feel like I know the answer is that there's enough doubts here that I realistically can't proceed with this marriage and huge move. But also I love him so much and until yesterday I've never been happier... so how am I supposed to call off a second wedding? Especially one where (while small), so many people are traveling from all over the world to be there and they have everything booked already?
Worth noting that postponing and working on things aren't really an option because clearly he can't afford visits and I've burned through most of my miles which allow me to visit as much as I do. And even if we could continue the visits I feel like there's no way to realistically work on trust issues like this when you can only see each other a handful of days every couple of months.
No one can decide this but me, I get it. I just needed to let it out I guess... I'm so distraught.
submitted by lissy51886 to relationship_advice [link] [comments]
This marriage involves immigration, me selling everything I own, quitting my job, leaving behind my family that I'm close with, leaving a part of my country that I'm so happy in, renting out my home, and relying on him for complete financial support until we get to a point in the immigration process where I'd be allowed to work. And yes, I have to go to him due to his military commitments.
At the start of our relationship I made him aware that I had been through a bankruptcy in my 20s due to medical issues (I'm super open about it because yes it sucked, but I'm better for it) but that I pulled myself out of it and had good credit again within a couple years and have been very financially stable since. We had also talked about previous relationships where I made it known that my last 4.5 year relationship ended after catching my ex talking to women online, and then digging through his life to find the many other things he lied to me about - including finances which kind of left me with some traumas (including financial abuse) that I worked on intensely with a therapist. My ex and I weren't officially engaged yet... I wouldn't accept a ring as we were building a new home and wanted to wait until all was situated with that, but we were full blown wedding planning and I called it off.
My now fiancé and I have had at least 10 serious conversations about finances as we talked about getting engaged and all that immigration entails, and he never once mentioned that he was in any debt.
But last night, just after a visit with me... and we won't see each other until wedding week... he decided to blurt out over the phone that he's been hiding that he's in $37,000 of debt - a CC and a credit line with a bank. He was telling me now because there was no way to hide it further as we had added each other as authorized users on CCs to prove "financial support" for immigration and I needed to gather his statements.
The debt is big enough to be a big deal on its own, but it can be mitigated by wiping out some CDs of his and then paid off in a year or two so I'm less concerned about that and more concerned about the dishonesty.
I've already been understandably struggling with leaving my life behind... but now how am I supposed to make the sacrifices I am and move to another country for someone that has been hiding something like that from me for so long? How am I supposed to count on him to financially support me? We were going to start trying for kids ASAP in the new year, how am I supposed to have kids when we're struggling to make ends meet? How am I supposed to trust that there's no other big secrets?
I feel like I know the answer is that there's enough doubts here that I realistically can't proceed with this marriage and huge move. But also I love him so much and until yesterday I've never been happier... so how am I supposed to call off a second wedding? Especially one where (while small), so many people are traveling from all over the world to be there and they have everything booked already?
Worth noting that postponing and working on things aren't really an option because clearly he can't afford visits and I've burned through most of my miles which allow me to visit as much as I do. And even if we could continue the visits I feel like there's no way to realistically work on trust issues like this when you can only see each other a handful of days every couple of months.
No one can decide this but me, I get it. I just needed to let it out I guess... I'm so distraught.
2024.05.20 11:17 mrsauravthakur ⚠️ RED LOBSTER SEEKS BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION WITH $100 MILLION IN FINANCING COMMITMENTS
Full Story → https://PiQSuite.com/reuters/red-lobster-seeks-bankruptcy-protection-with-100-million-in-financing-commitments
U.S.-based restaurant chain Red Lobster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Florida court after securing $100 million in financing commitments from its existing lenders, the company said on Sunday.
submitted by mrsauravthakur to PiQSuite [link] [comments]
U.S.-based restaurant chain Red Lobster has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a Florida court after securing $100 million in financing commitments from its existing lenders, the company said on Sunday.
2024.05.20 04:40 Etymologicalist Gemini conveniently ignores how
 | A big "Fudge You" to all GUSD holders who received 20% depreciation due to inflation! submitted by Etymologicalist to Gemini [link] [comments] Congratulations GUSD investors... you financed the gains for all the other investors at 0% interest. https://preview.redd.it/3f4i8066th1d1.png?width=1002&format=png&auto=webp&s=51eba3c875e5667a5b2e9753c0919611a2d53fa2 This settlement essentially violates bankruptcy law to return assets in kind at their various current valuations. Very nice for BTC and ETH holders while GUSD holders get the minimum payment required by bankruptcy law. Furthermore, the collateral being used to repay everyone exists mostly due to GUSD investors... without their investment there would be about 1/3 the collateral (GBTC shares)... BTC/ETH holders would be getting back only half of their coins. |
2024.05.20 03:57 Obsidi4nEMC Advice for a Bankrupt in progress
I am currently awaiting my 341 hearing and subsequent discharge of debt hopefully in a chapter 7….
I told my lawyer I will keep the 13k car debt and 21k suv debt as I really need vehicles because I’m rural and the used market is terrible.
Anyway, upon taking my car to the dealership they inform me that I need a new engine, and the warranty company won’t cover anything until I pay 2000 to tear down the engine and prove it wasn’t lack of maintenance, which I don’t know because I just bought the car in December and it could’ve been neglected.
So I paid to get my car back instead of tearing down and now I’m looking at discharging the 13k car since it’s a gamble I don’t wanna take.
My question is should I truly be debt free and discharge the 21k SUV? I kinda want to but my wife doesnt….. and also I will be entering the used market desperate which is bad because there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything good unless I finance something….
Do I finance a 10k car for the wife after bankruptcy and go find myself a beater for commuting? Idk what to do
submitted by Obsidi4nEMC to DaveRamsey [link] [comments]
I told my lawyer I will keep the 13k car debt and 21k suv debt as I really need vehicles because I’m rural and the used market is terrible.
Anyway, upon taking my car to the dealership they inform me that I need a new engine, and the warranty company won’t cover anything until I pay 2000 to tear down the engine and prove it wasn’t lack of maintenance, which I don’t know because I just bought the car in December and it could’ve been neglected.
So I paid to get my car back instead of tearing down and now I’m looking at discharging the 13k car since it’s a gamble I don’t wanna take.
My question is should I truly be debt free and discharge the 21k SUV? I kinda want to but my wife doesnt….. and also I will be entering the used market desperate which is bad because there’s no guarantee I’ll find anything good unless I finance something….
Do I finance a 10k car for the wife after bankruptcy and go find myself a beater for commuting? Idk what to do
2024.05.19 22:04 CardamonTheWizard 5/19/2024 Rollercoaster of a year leaving me with whiplash
2024 has been a rollercoaster of a year and I think it's finally caught up with me.
In January there was some drama at work involving a toxic supervisor and a chill manager and I had to bear witness to most of it. This was also the month my crappy car decided to finally die on me a month before I was planning on buying a new one.
In February the the toxic supervisor left with only a 3 days notice. On one hand my work places mental and emotional states got better but on the other hand we had to fix a lot of stuff they left behind. Also, the chill manager wound up getting promoted, like we all wanted.
I was able to buy a new used car. I had been saving up for 2 years and was able to use a majority of my saving to pay for most of it. Now I just have to worry about the remaining balance through a car loan. Now I have more chances to simply go places.
March was creatively beneficial for me. I started and finished multiple little personal projects.
April was the most chaotic. The company I work for decided to declare bankruptcy and close all of its locations by summer time. We found out when everyone else did. Mind you, I was already planning on quitting this job by Summer time, but not like this. Many loyal customers offered us jobs and I applied for a retail job on a federal landmark. The paperwork is currently processing.
Because I have a car and more free time I decided to create a tinder account to finally date more people casually. I really connected with this one person but because we have chaotic life schedules we haven't met up yet. At most we chat every 2 weeks or so but we're both really chill about that.
May is a decompressing but mind boggling month. My last day of work was about a week ago. I'm waiting for the ID credentials to process with my new job. I have more of an option on my end to hang out with people.
I spent time with one parent but, even in the best of circumstances, they are emotionally draining. I reminded myself of why I don't visit them often. They kind of triggered some of my minor mental health spiraling.
I plan on hanging out with a childhood friend who I haven't seen in person in years.
I have yet to meet up with my Tinder match but I'm scared that I've become to attached to the idea of someone I've never met. When we do chat it's always fun and I feel like myself. When I genuinely am interested in someone I become avoidant and fear I'm bugging them by simply messaging "Hi". Even if there's clear signs on there end they are not bothered by me. This is what's sending me in a spiral the most. I plan on forcing myself to message them tomorrow.
Despite all this, I am still grateful for many things.
I live with understanding family. I have built up enough savings to still help with certain finances, pay my car loan and have a little fun. I have more of an option to simply see people. I'm relearning to enjoying the little things in life. I had a great relationship with most of my former co-workers & great memories have come from that. I pretty much have another job lined up with better pay, benefits & a more consistent schedule. Even if it's just for one date, I will have new simple yet exciting experiences with a new person.
It technically hasn't been half a year yet, but hopefully the rollercoaster settles down soon.
submitted by CardamonTheWizard to TheBigGirlDiary [link] [comments]
In January there was some drama at work involving a toxic supervisor and a chill manager and I had to bear witness to most of it. This was also the month my crappy car decided to finally die on me a month before I was planning on buying a new one.
In February the the toxic supervisor left with only a 3 days notice. On one hand my work places mental and emotional states got better but on the other hand we had to fix a lot of stuff they left behind. Also, the chill manager wound up getting promoted, like we all wanted.
I was able to buy a new used car. I had been saving up for 2 years and was able to use a majority of my saving to pay for most of it. Now I just have to worry about the remaining balance through a car loan. Now I have more chances to simply go places.
March was creatively beneficial for me. I started and finished multiple little personal projects.
April was the most chaotic. The company I work for decided to declare bankruptcy and close all of its locations by summer time. We found out when everyone else did. Mind you, I was already planning on quitting this job by Summer time, but not like this. Many loyal customers offered us jobs and I applied for a retail job on a federal landmark. The paperwork is currently processing.
Because I have a car and more free time I decided to create a tinder account to finally date more people casually. I really connected with this one person but because we have chaotic life schedules we haven't met up yet. At most we chat every 2 weeks or so but we're both really chill about that.
May is a decompressing but mind boggling month. My last day of work was about a week ago. I'm waiting for the ID credentials to process with my new job. I have more of an option on my end to hang out with people.
I spent time with one parent but, even in the best of circumstances, they are emotionally draining. I reminded myself of why I don't visit them often. They kind of triggered some of my minor mental health spiraling.
I plan on hanging out with a childhood friend who I haven't seen in person in years.
I have yet to meet up with my Tinder match but I'm scared that I've become to attached to the idea of someone I've never met. When we do chat it's always fun and I feel like myself. When I genuinely am interested in someone I become avoidant and fear I'm bugging them by simply messaging "Hi". Even if there's clear signs on there end they are not bothered by me. This is what's sending me in a spiral the most. I plan on forcing myself to message them tomorrow.
Despite all this, I am still grateful for many things.
I live with understanding family. I have built up enough savings to still help with certain finances, pay my car loan and have a little fun. I have more of an option to simply see people. I'm relearning to enjoying the little things in life. I had a great relationship with most of my former co-workers & great memories have come from that. I pretty much have another job lined up with better pay, benefits & a more consistent schedule. Even if it's just for one date, I will have new simple yet exciting experiences with a new person.
It technically hasn't been half a year yet, but hopefully the rollercoaster settles down soon.
2024.05.19 19:38 dnelson2408 Summary of this channel, data, and news for the last 3 weeks.
 | Afternoon all, submitted by dnelson2408 to RILYStock [link] [comments] I thought it might be fun to try and take the last three weeks and have a recap of the data and news surrounding RILY. I just searched this sub and news outlets and such for the last 3 weeks and took notes then fed them into an AI software asking it to summarize everything. In no way is this Financial Advice just a fun task. "The financial landscape for B. Riley Financial, Inc. showcases a dynamic narrative of operational resilience and strategic positioning. The company's recent activities reflect a strategic focus on managing debt obligations effectively while optimizing business segments for sustainable growth. The strategic review process for Great American Group retail liquidation and appraisal businesses is progressing, indicating a commitment to enhancing operational efficiency and value creation. In the earnings summary, a net loss of $51 million was reported, primarily driven by investment-related losses and professional services expenses. Despite these challenges, the company's strategic initiatives and operational performance remain robust, as highlighted in the earnings call. Executives Bryant Riley and Tom Kelleher emphasized the company's operational excellence and strategic direction, underscoring a commitment to shareholder value and sustainable growth. The company's strategic reviews and commitment to shareholder value remain steadfast amidst market volatility caused by short manipulation. Furthermore, the full redemption of $25,000,000 aggregate principal amount of 6.75% Senior Notes due 2024 signifies a proactive approach to managing debt and strengthening the company's financial position. This strategic move aligns with the company's focus on optimizing its capital structure and enhancing financial flexibility. Overall, B. Riley Financial's narrative is one of resilience, strategic foresight, and operational excellence in navigating market dynamics and challenges. The company's commitment to financial prudence, strategic reviews, and operational performance positions it well for sustained growth and value creation in the evolving financial landscape." Below is the data the AI used to create the summary. Just copy and pasted from a very quick and crude gathering of information into a word doc. I also enjoyed the earnings summary the AI did. The last line made me feel happy thoughts. - In summary, B. Riley Financial's first-quarter 2024 results underscore its strong operational foundation and strategic foresight, positioning it well for future growth and shareholder value creation. 1. Cohodes being loud and classless examples https://preview.redd.it/xymj94vp5f1d1.png?width=637&format=png&auto=webp&s=3d9f18f4f877f7fb518039bc78198e77e3fcd190 https://preview.redd.it/bxacg0bp5f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a4eba6a4a39457cc47661be5836008976b37fc6 https://preview.redd.it/q5kdr5qo5f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=14dcb5473ed7dcac4646eaba2b983806f32bd875 https://preview.redd.it/ky1hlc1o5f1d1.png?width=789&format=png&auto=webp&s=4c603719820d06ea91d9181ad3c41734a603b795 https://preview.redd.it/soco7bjn5f1d1.png?width=969&format=png&auto=webp&s=dfbcf20f984e391c51afcc89e46597d1d9dff6ad https://preview.redd.it/pwbnnwwr5f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe06146b727540c291825eda8db5f33b11e9e992 2. Discussion about FUD and shorts deception I see the shorts (Marc Cohoded and Co.) are still at it, trying to l use a fake psychological twist to cause doubt. Let's stick to the facts and let the price go where it will in the long term. Short thesis was and is there was fraud, both proven wrong by independent investigation and a clean independent audit if the 10-K and now 10-Q. You can slap that one around anyway you want, but both came up clean. First, they have stated their intentions of a sale of a carried undervalued asset (Great American) by a third party for a massive realized gain. Good for the investors and bond holders as they said they would use funds to deleveverage the balance sheet and buy back stock which already has very little float. Second, I have never seen a company that is paying dividends go under whith out, completely eliminating the dividends first (RILY still pays a dividend and baby bonds are all current--none are in any default). Third, business has been good with lots of new hires, new capital makets raises and fees and their business seems to be thriving. Shorts will try to mislead all of us with their lies and deciept but if we hold strong I believe that the stock will go to at least 50 ish in the short term where they did their secondary. I believe at that point, RILY may run into a bit of resistance. However, a squeeze could easily send us through that to new highs. Patience is the key as they have stated all this in their press releases in the recent past. If we al on this sitel just buy 100 to 1000 shares on Monday and hld through the 29th to get the dividends. this will rocket to new heights. This is not a recommendation, simply my thoughts. Do your own due diligence. 3.Stop lending shares=pain for shorts = short squeeze If all longs can stop lending shares at least I believe we can cause shorts to cover. There is no valid short narrative, both longs and shorts know this. Now it’s purely who can hold out longer. Shorts have been very active as of late trying to push share price lower and with many of us loaning shares out we are actually helping the shorts hurt us. I believe if we stopped lending out shares borrow rate skyrockets and that added cost combined with dividend and gradual upward movement will force shorts to cover. Granted news release can help but we don’t need news we just need to stop lending and wait and see. 4. Link to short sale volume post https://www.reddit.com/RILYStock/comments/1ctwe9q/smoking_gun_thursday_dropped_because_shorts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button https://preview.redd.it/hopdxkbt5f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=3945adf69a00addb0c2da4ea0c26b2a4de2749b3 5. Article showing RILY coming back https://www.investmentnews.com/broker-dealers/news/b-riley-bouncing-back-after-tough-winter-253448 6. Rily - Day 3 of short attacks - There's a positive Our favorite shorts cohodes&co is on overdrive releasing as much fake accusations as possible, they now have been adding a lot to their position at a higher price point with shares in the 30s, now the shorts cost basis has gotten worse for them. With more shares at a worst cost with dividends coming due as well as borrow fees , shorts have less wiggle room especially if stock goes to 40 again. Now at 40 I believe they will be losing money. With insiders hopefully buying soon and the company continuing their share buy back program , that can lead to upward movement in share price leading to the “squeeze “. 7. $RILY Earnings Summary Not financial advice. It was an interesting investor call, an almost boring call which was refreshing. The company had a net loss of $51m driven by non-cash items including $29m unrealized loss on investments and a $30m fair value adjustment on their loans. Cash flows were pretty good, with operating cash flows of $135m and adjusted operating EBITDA of $66m. Targus and American Freight contributed nothing this quarter, both companies are historically strong businesses but have been working through a business cycle post-COVID after many Americans bought the things they needed. Those companies should improve in the next year. The company previously announced a potential sale of Great American Group. Q-1 earnings for that segment increased to $35m of EBITDA, so at 10-12x a potential sale is looking like $350-$420m. On the call they said that is expected by early Q3. They also mentioned possibly looking at a sale in their Brands division later this year with the goal of retiring their discounted debt, citing it as an opportunity. The short thesis crumbled last month with a clean 10-K and two internal investigations which added an additional $7m in expense but presumably were quite thorough and completely debunked claims by bears. There are no shares available to borrow per Fintel: https://preview.redd.it/ukhk0tou5f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=0622973216e0293d7f2699c1b6eee3216824305e And short interest remains at approximately 65% with 9 million shares short, though the retail float is thought to be much smaller, maybe 2m shares. The company has $34m available at quarter end for buybacks from a previously approved program. I see value here, and I liked what I heard on the call. 8. Misconceptions - Rily Share Structure [THIS POST IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY] mumen_rida There seems to be a lot of confusion about the company’s share structure and I would like to use this post to help not only my own understanding but also help others. It’s a bit confusing but let’s tackle it together. I got this information from marketwatch: Total Float = 30 million shares Public float = 16 million shares Shares sold short = 9 million shares % of public float sold short = 56.38% According to fintel: Institutional ownership = 14.18 million shares So let me get this straight, there is 16 million shares in the public float and institutions own 89% of that (14.18 million shares). So that would mean retail investors collectively only have about 1.82 million shares to trade around amongst ourselves. Let’s call that retail float. So, retail float = 1.82 million shares. Let’s wrap up all the most important information (imo) regarding the current share structure and please correct me if any of the information I presented here today is false: Total float = 30m Public float = 16m Shares short = 9m Retail float = 1.82m Where I think it gets the most interesting is when you divide shares short by retail float. 9/1.82= 4.95 or 495% of retail float. Hope this helps clear up any confusion regarding the share structure. REPSONSE TO THIS BELOW EnvironmentalBreak48 •3d ago THIS RESPONSE IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NFA. Do your own DD, make your own decisions. Based on OP calculation. 1. Total Float: About 30 million shares. 2. Public Float: 16 million shares. 3. Shares Sold Short: 9 million shares. 4. % of Public Float Sold Short: 56.38%. 5. Institutional Ownership: 14.18 million shares. 6. Retail Float: 1.82 million shares (calculated as Public Float - Institutional Ownership). Given this information: Understanding Short Interest· Shares Sold Short: About 9 million shares.· Retail Float: 1.82 million shares. · Short Interest as a Percentage of Retail Float: 9 million shares/1.82 million shares≈495% This high percentage indicates that the short interest is nearly five times the available retail float, which could lead to a short squeeze if investors hold onto their shares and/or demand increases. Days to Cover (Short Interest Ratio)The Days to Cover metric gives an estimate of how many days it would take for short sellers to cover their positions based on the average daily trading volume. Here’s how to calculate it:1. Determine the average daily trading volume (ADTV): This information is usually available on financial websites like MarketWatch or Yahoo Finance. Let’s assume the ADTV is 1,000,000 shares (this is an example, you should use the actual ADTV for a more precise calculation). 2. Days to Cover: Shares Sold Short/ADTV Using our example ADTV: Days to Cover=9,000,000 (short shares)/1,000,000(Avg. Daily Volume)=9 days Days to Cover Potential Implications· High Short Interest Ratio: A high Days to Cover ratio suggests it would take a significant amount of time for shorts to cover their positions, which can lead to increased volatility.· Potential for a Short Squeeze: With a high percentage of the retail float sold short, if retail investors decided to hold their shares and the stock price rises, short sellers may be forced to buy back shares at higher prices, leading to a potential short squeeze. · Limited Retail Float: With only 1.82 million shares available for retail trading, any significant buying pressure from institutional investors and/or retail investors it could quickly drive up the stock price. 9. Why Even the Joker Thinks You’d Be a _____ For Not Taking A Look at RILY Stock Batman here. You might know me as the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, or the guy who really, really, really wants to own a spaceship. Today, straight from the Batcave, lets talk about something as exciting as racing the Batmobile or the return of Roaring Kitty—RILY stock. First off, let’s talk numbers, because even a superhero knows the importance of a strong financial foundation. RILY has been buying back shares like Alfred buys Bat-gadgets—strategically and frequently. This move isn’t just a nifty trick; IMO it’s a signal that RILY is confident in its value. When a company buys back its own shares, it’s like Batman investing in more Batarangs—it’s a smart play that shows belief in future performance. But that’s not all, folks. The recent buzz around RILY isn’t just cat signals in the sky—it’s grounded in solid developments. RILY had to work hard to file their 10K after all the mudslinging from the shorts, but got it done. The first big catalyst domino to fall. Now, let’s get to the juicy part—earnings and dividends. RILY’s about to drop their Q1 earnings tomorrow, and you know what that means? Dividends! That’s right, folks. RILY is likely to declare a dividend, that our short friends will be paying. Dividends are like the Batmobile’s turbo boost—an extra kick that gets you excited and propels you forward. Plus, once they file their Q, a few days later insiders should be able to start buying again. Form 4s anyone? Here’s where it gets really interesting: meme stocks are back with a vengeance, wow talk about a left jab, and shorts are on their heels. The RILY squeeze might start very soon or it might not, but with shorts potentially facing margin calls due to price movements in various holdings, and especially if they’ve been shorting RILY all the way down it has not been a good week for the shorts so far. Just look how RILY stock popped this morning on about 200k in volume. To add insult to injury, to date, NONE of the short thesis has come to fruition or has been confirmed by independent information. They’re in quicksand, and it’s time to gas up the rocket. There are still several catalysts that may come into play here: Q1 Earnings Release: Scheduled to be filed tomorrow, providing insights into the company's recent performance. The deal flow on their website was up YoY. Dividend Announcements: Anticipated dividends right around the corner. Insider Buying: Once the Q1 earnings are filed, insiders should be able to buy stock again, expect to see some Form 4s in very short order. Sale of Great America Division: If RILY sales Great American, they have said the proceeds from this sale are expected to be used to reduce debt and fund further stock buybacks, potentially enhancing shareholder value. Low Float: With a limited number of shares available for trading, increased demand can lead to significant price movements. Buybacks: Ongoing buybacks can continue to support the stock price. Meme Stock Momentum: With meme stocks making a comeback, there's increased interest and activity in stocks that are short and that could drive up RILY’s stock price. Short Squeeze Potential: Low public float, company buybacks, insider buying…mix that up and you have the recipe for a potential squeeze. Roaring Kitty's Return: The return of Roaring Kitty, a key figure in the meme stock movement, brings renewed attention and excitement to the stock market in general. And, guess who just chimed in on RILY earlier today? That's right—JeffAmazon from the GameStop meme trade and Netflix documentary! He made a little tweet tweet on $RILY Additional Catalysts: What do you all think….. Stay vigilant, stay smart, and just my thoughts—do your own due diligence and make your own decisions. NFA. 10. FAKE ARTICLE BULLSHIT FUD………… Well, IMO even Stevie Wonder can see that the latest article on FRG is just another hatchet job. IMO the problem with creating a narrative is that the facts can’t keep up, and boy, did they fall behind here. RILY conducted not one, but two independent investigations and found zilch issues with its FRG investment or loans made to Kahn. And guess what? No connection with Prophecy either. FRG did their own investigation and also found no connection with Prophecy. So, to call the relationship between RILY and FRG controversial is like calling a puppy dangerous—laughable. In RILY's 10k, they marked up their FRG investment FMV $281 million to $286 million… FRG's FY23 financials are public, and the attached table shows the maturities of their debt. In 2024, about $10.5 million in debt is maturing. Big deal. Looming debt? Hardly. The real kicker is in 2026 when about $1.5 billion of debt matures—not this year, not next. LOL. The FRG financials clearly state they were in full compliance with their debt covenants in FY23 and fully expect to be in compliance in FY24. Yet, "the people" say FRG is down double digits in Q1. Funny timing with RILY's Q1 financials coming out on Wednesday, huh? And by the way, FRG's adjusted EBITDA for Q1 FY23 was $66 million, not the $62 million the article claims. Why not use the actual FRG public company number? Maybe because when you're rushing to write a hit piece, you just pick random numbers. https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2023/05/10/2665414/0/en/Franchise-Group-Inc-Announces-First-Quarter-Fiscal-Year-2023-Financial-Results.html So, according to the article, FRG is down 63% in revenue ($66 million vs. the alleged $25 million). Sure, FRG sold Badcock and Sylvan Learning, so they might be down YoY, but down 63%? FRG sold in FY24 Q1 Sylvan for $185 Million cash….and they’re worried about paying $10.5 million in long term debt due this year. Got it. https://www.franchisetimes.com/franchise_mergers_and_acquisitions/unleashed-brands-buys-sylvan-learning/article_a568813e-d4c7-11ee-bb32-1f85230cfdda.html https://preview.redd.it/lry689p16f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=0714b3b378abb528f0abb470ade0deb3d34c2d39 11. Post talking about NT-10Q• https://www.reddit.com/RILYStock/comments/1crb1gp/new_filings_nt10q_13fh?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button 12. Friendly PSA: Manage your emotions Great Post Below talking about managing emotions during this trade. https://www.reddit.com/RILYStock/comments/1cqzskg/friendly_psa_manage_your_emotions/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button 13. RILY RS Article 76 to 83 https://www.investors.com/ibd-data-stories/b-riley-financial-shows-rising-price-performance-with-jump-to-83-rs-rating/ B. Riley Financial (RILY) saw a welcome improvement to its Relative Strength (RS) Rating on Thursday, with an increase from 76 to 83. IBD's proprietary rating tracks share price performance with a 1 (worst) to 99 (best) score. The score shows how a stock's price performance over the trailing 52 weeks stacks up against all the other stocks in our database. Over 100 years of market history reveals that the stocks that go on to make the biggest gains typically have an 80 or higher RS Rating as they begin their biggest climbs. Now is not an ideal time to jump in since it isn't near a proper buy zone, but see if the stock manages to form a base and break out. The company showed 0% EPS growth last quarter. Revenue rose -9%. The company is expected to report its latest earnings and sales numbers on or around May 15. The company earns the No. 24 rank among its peers in the Finance-Investment Banking/Brokers industry group. Interactive Brokers (IBKR), Piper Sandler (PIPR) and Ameriprise Financial (AMP) are among the top 5 highly rated stocks within the group. 14. Announcement of 2024 Annual Meeting June 21st https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgadata/0001464790/000121390024041725/ea0205510-01.htm 15. Repost: $RILY DD: The real price potential...when the stock is a solid/growing company (not just a squeeze). https://www.reddit.com/RILYStock/comments/1cnzff7/repost_rily_dd_the_real_price_potentialwhen_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button 16. $RILY- “They can win by doing nothing 12 days ago Outrageous_Appeal_89 “ Whitebrook capital assessment addressing cohodes&co BS at the peak of their false accusations and in a polite way stating short funds were making things up (misinformation & manipulation ). It seems $RILY is executing on some of the recommendations Whitebrook capital had - share buy back and bond buy back has been executed and continues to be executed on. Whether you invest in $RILY for the long term prospects or the short squeeze that can be triggered any day as lie after lie is exposed. Bottom line is the fair value of $RILY is a lot higher then where it currently trades. We will get a better idea whether share prices deserves to be in the 50s or 60s as we get an update on GAG valuation. Seems many here forget that $RILY creates value by turning companies around and then monetize, this process takes time , they have been able to do this successfully, repeatedly over the years. https://preview.redd.it/uiisruq36f1d1.png?width=792&format=png&auto=webp&s=e6c32c04877ae21b51cb8a99cee0aef17cdb32c4 17. 3 Videos from Value Don’t Lie on Youtube talking about Financials of RILY and overall company valuation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRenvff8duE&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoaCZw7AmpA&t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_Ayoox3fvM 18. Getting around the NBBO and Longing the Box So let this sink in… the market opens and in 5 minutes we rally to $34.42, then over the next 15 minutes we drop to $28.80 at which point SSR was triggered and sell volume slows WAY the hell down. That drop was ALL short sellers and NO longs selling shares (otherwise the sell-off wouldnt have stopped literally minutes after SSR triggered). NOW, what the scumbag shorts are doing is going Long Against The Box. 19. Steve Cohen and Point 72 buy 24,917 shares long on May 15th https://preview.redd.it/fhdhyco46f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=6600f6a9a3f0bc5bc8823cddb5f52defdf282063 20. Summarize this earnings call and keep pertinent quotes and data in the summary. https://filecache.investorroom.com/mr5ir_briley2/925/RILY_1Q24_Earnings_Release_vFINAL.pdf Chat GPT Summary of the full report below B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: RILY) reported its first-quarter 2024 financial results, showcasing resilience and operational strength despite facing challenging market conditions and unique internal events. Here's a summary with a positive outlook: First Quarter2024 Highlights:1. Quarterly Dividend Declaration:
Leadership Insights:
Looking Ahead:B. Riley's strategic initiatives, such as debt reduction and selective investments, position the company for continued success. The ongoing strategic review of its Great American Group retail liquidation and appraisal businesses indicates a proactive approach to optimizing its portfolio. The firm remains committed to delivering value to its shareholders through dividends and operational excellence.In summary, B. Riley Financial's first-quarter 2024 results underscore its strong operational foundation and strategic foresight, positioning it well for future growth and shareholder value creation. 20. State of the Stock 15 days ago UF_Secret_Account Not financial advice, do your own research. Don't take advice from the internet, consult a professional financial advisor. On April 19th, the stock closed at $19.99. Today, it is over 50% higher after a positive 10-K clearing the company of fraud allegations. The stock touched $40 on April 26 and 29, a 100% gain from a week prior. The short interest has remained relatively consistent during the move, with 10-11 million shares still short. However, given the time lapsed, I think it's safe to assume that most of those shares were covered and re-shorted in the last two weeks. For future research, we should assume they have an average $35 entry on their short positions. 1st quarter earnings are coming soon. Like many of you, I am a little curious that it hasn't been announced yet, but I have no concerns with everything the company has on its plate. 10-Q's are unaudited and it's very unlikely there is anything to be concerned about, in my opinion. The company could be coming to the end of their strategic review for GAG. That will eventually result in some additional financial statement adjustments for presentation. I would expect 1st quarter earnings to be good based on their deal flow and reported transactions. In November 2023, the board approved $50m for stock buybacks. The company repurchased 728,330 shares at an average price of $21.85, but mainly bought shares in November. That's $16 million spent, and means the company had $34 million approved to buy back stock at year end. The program continues through October 2024. At our current price, that would be 1.1 million shares (3.3% of the outstanding stock). That is significant for a stock with this many outstanding shares, but more significant for the number of freely traded shares which is far less. How many times have we seen huge price moves on small blocks of shares? If the company adds $10-15 million to that program, that's another 300,000-500,000 shares. Again, it doesn't sound like a huge number but it would add pressure to what will become a dire situation for the shorts. The shorts may decide not to cover, or to continue the strategy of taking their losses and re-shorting, but their ability to influence the stock back to a level where they truly profit is nonexistent in my opinion, particularly when volume dies between market-moving events. I am eyeing the $50-$55 range as my price target in the next move up. 21. NOTE on FRG Independent Auditor’s Report One of the positive things I see IMO was for the billion dollar loan that matures in 2026. “On July 2, 2021, the Company repaid $182.1 million of principal of the First Lien Term Loan using cash proceeds from the sale of the Liberty Tax business. The prepayment also satisfied the requirements for the quarterly principal payments so no additional principal payments with respect to the First Lien Term Loans (excluding the Incremental First Lien Term Loan) are due until the First Lien Term Loan maturity date.” To me this gives them some flexibility for their cash as there isn’t much long term debt due in 2024 or 2025. https://preview.redd.it/ib92t7e66f1d1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=df286021b0653db92122e33df0ed37f1068a0c6c 22. on May 3rd Cohodes or someone else got media to report 4th quarter from last year as q1 earnings this year. Which was a lie and FUD https://preview.redd.it/nlau48276f1d1.png?width=623&format=png&auto=webp&s=832695b6c331c3df6dbcb861dc90551ee42a036a 23. B. Riley Financial Announces Full Redemption of 6.75% SR Notes Due 2024 17 days ago Wolfiger LOS ANGELES, May 1, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- B. Riley Financial, Inc. (NASDAQ: RILY) ("B. Riley" or the "Company") today announced that it has called for the full redemption equal to $25,000,000 aggregate principal amount of its 6.75% Senior Notes due 2024 (the "Notes") on May 31, 2024 (the "Redemption Date"). The redemption price is equal to 100% of the aggregate principal amount, plus any accrued and unpaid interest up to, but excluding, the Redemption Date, as set forth in each notice of redemption delivered to noteholders on May 1, 2024. https://ir.brileyfin.com/2024-05-01-B-Riley-Financial-Announces-Full-Redemption-of-6-75-Senior-Notes-due-2024 24. 8k filed May 1st for Nasdaq Compliance 25. Found management bonus if above 136 by October. Did anybody else know that a part of managements comp was in the form of Performance-based Restricted Stocks Units with a vesting date of 10/27/24 AND A HURDLE PRICE OF $135?!? https://preview.redd.it/wo2uh54k5f1d1.png?width=547&format=png&auto=webp&s=8b6dedf28ec845b2170647674f5b39b6eaac96a1 |
2024.05.19 19:30 Dwi_Princess Managing an incarcerated person’s debt
I have a family member whose finances (and other affairs) I’ll be handling while they are incarcerated. I’ve obtained a power of attorney on their behalf.
This person has lots of debt, over $40,000 in credit card, personal loan, and vehicle financing. I’m at a bit of a loss as to what my first course of action should be. There is no income and no one would be able to take on any of the debts. The person doesn’t have any dependents.
I sort of looked into filing for bankruptcy, but not really clear whether this would be the best option. If I let all his debts default, then his credit history would zero out anyway, correct? The person won’t need any credit any time soon anyway and in the future when the time comes, I may be the one who makes decisions and responsible for them (they will be my dependent).
Any and all suggestions welcome.
submitted by Dwi_Princess to FinancialPlanning [link] [comments]
This person has lots of debt, over $40,000 in credit card, personal loan, and vehicle financing. I’m at a bit of a loss as to what my first course of action should be. There is no income and no one would be able to take on any of the debts. The person doesn’t have any dependents.
I sort of looked into filing for bankruptcy, but not really clear whether this would be the best option. If I let all his debts default, then his credit history would zero out anyway, correct? The person won’t need any credit any time soon anyway and in the future when the time comes, I may be the one who makes decisions and responsible for them (they will be my dependent).
Any and all suggestions welcome.
2024.05.19 18:42 Reality_hurts_srsly Thoughts on higher income people going to the food pantry?
I have a less anonymous username that I post here under to give advice on coping with poverty as I grew up on welfare, went to college on Pell grants, and have been eeking out a middle class existence for well over a decade.
My spouse has been struggling with mental health and addiction. He hasn’t worked for 2 years, but as the primary “stay at home” parent for 12 years this wasn’t a financial shock. What WAS a financial shock was he suddenly stopped proactively managing debt, doing things like saving up thousands in cash for months instead of pay credit cards and letting the interest get out of hand for no reason. There was no logic to it, he has something like OCD and was obsessing/ruminating over a $7k debt he was hiding from me and let $25k debt accumulate over 2 years; much of it just interest from paying minimum payments only until the cards were maxed.
Anyways, it’s so bad I’m thinking we need to sell our only vehicle and to pay a few things down. I cannot quality for a debt consolidation loan even, nor can I qualify for bankruptcy because my income and total debts don’t make it possible (to protect against defrauding creditors you have to be TRULY f-ed and I’m not quite there). I have no idea how to dig out of this hole; I can try to negotiate with each creditor but this happened to me when I was 22 with a single credit card and it took about 5 years for my credit score to recover…that’s almost as bad as bankruptcy without the advantage of discharging much debt.
At least one significant debt from a Lending Club loan is willing to go to “interest only” for 90 days, and my husband started a job this week, so I’m trying to form a plan where we’re pay enough down over 3 months to then be able to get a debt consolidation loan.
I researched food pantries and found a church with no income requirement. I am mortified to do this but they have a USDA disclaimer—it’s the same as the government food boxes I grew up on. They also do a “produce giveaway” once per month. I estimate I could save $500, this is huge to me right now.
My one vehicle is newer, like 2020. I have to drive up in this shiny late model truck; it feels so shameful. Should I leave this food for the truly poor? I do have an alternative: I can close every credit card one by one and negotiate the interest and repayment, but I will be left with a trash credit score and may not be able to refinance my home when interest rates come down or buy my next vehicle with decent financing.
Honest opinions are welcome. So is advice on debt management.
submitted by Reality_hurts_srsly to povertyfinance [link] [comments]
My spouse has been struggling with mental health and addiction. He hasn’t worked for 2 years, but as the primary “stay at home” parent for 12 years this wasn’t a financial shock. What WAS a financial shock was he suddenly stopped proactively managing debt, doing things like saving up thousands in cash for months instead of pay credit cards and letting the interest get out of hand for no reason. There was no logic to it, he has something like OCD and was obsessing/ruminating over a $7k debt he was hiding from me and let $25k debt accumulate over 2 years; much of it just interest from paying minimum payments only until the cards were maxed.
Anyways, it’s so bad I’m thinking we need to sell our only vehicle and to pay a few things down. I cannot quality for a debt consolidation loan even, nor can I qualify for bankruptcy because my income and total debts don’t make it possible (to protect against defrauding creditors you have to be TRULY f-ed and I’m not quite there). I have no idea how to dig out of this hole; I can try to negotiate with each creditor but this happened to me when I was 22 with a single credit card and it took about 5 years for my credit score to recover…that’s almost as bad as bankruptcy without the advantage of discharging much debt.
At least one significant debt from a Lending Club loan is willing to go to “interest only” for 90 days, and my husband started a job this week, so I’m trying to form a plan where we’re pay enough down over 3 months to then be able to get a debt consolidation loan.
I researched food pantries and found a church with no income requirement. I am mortified to do this but they have a USDA disclaimer—it’s the same as the government food boxes I grew up on. They also do a “produce giveaway” once per month. I estimate I could save $500, this is huge to me right now.
My one vehicle is newer, like 2020. I have to drive up in this shiny late model truck; it feels so shameful. Should I leave this food for the truly poor? I do have an alternative: I can close every credit card one by one and negotiate the interest and repayment, but I will be left with a trash credit score and may not be able to refinance my home when interest rates come down or buy my next vehicle with decent financing.
Honest opinions are welcome. So is advice on debt management.
2024.05.19 09:45 Barumamook $LUMN might be worth looking into
What’s up everyone, I know GME is the big stock here, but I also know everyone here buys for the long haul, may I present to you Lumen aka centurylink.
Right now their SI sits at about 14%, they have 1 billion shares on the market, so the HFs are sitting on about 140 million shorts.
Since lumen is at $1.32, that’s about $183 million short.
Two things about this stock, Lumen used to be worth $11-20 pre 2022, however, due to their failure to modernize their networks, poor management, and market pressures, it has fallen greatly. Note this was not due to stock splits (citation 1)
That was the case, as of 2024 Lumen has entered into a new TSA (citation 2), what does this new transaction support agreement mean? Well lumen owe a lot of money, and it was all due very soon, what the TSA does is restructure that debt to keep the company from going bankrupt, it requires a plan of action and company transformation to be approved by its creditors.
What does that mean? It means that Lumen’s creditors believe the company’s plan to become profitable is sound, it means that the stock price will go up, potentially exponentially. So much so that the company which was on the edge of bankruptcy announced 2+ billion in investment and credit in order to begin their business revamp.
Following this Lumen announced that they are planning for 500,000+ new fiber addresses this year. Fiber to the home is specifically a very profitable sector due to the lost cost of materials and devices, and the fact that that lumen has its own in house construction and deployment teams, with construction and deployment being some of the highest cost pieces of deploying fiber to the home networks.
All this said, Lumen is both set for a small but significant short squeeze and meteoric rise in stock prices if the right market conditions are met.
Citation 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/could-underperforming-stock-become-millionaire-135131313.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALBHm70tc-mwlpgzulJT1KkgEZxBGz2JlBYHlnsblG0g-XX6VdDk60v6etIuHq4Hcr2dDtc6RSj3SGkUM-kRD47uBiczA4L4DlrHHNBYOF4xuCyg5OtZPxBlL4fr8ny6Yfb3Gy8Kqv1lOWVnJyS6efKrMck7m_idCevKhIGiGiyh#
Citation 2: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lumen-technologies-completes-tsa-transactions-enabling-transformation-strategy-302097110.html
submitted by Barumamook to DeepFuckingValue [link] [comments]
Right now their SI sits at about 14%, they have 1 billion shares on the market, so the HFs are sitting on about 140 million shorts.
Since lumen is at $1.32, that’s about $183 million short.
Two things about this stock, Lumen used to be worth $11-20 pre 2022, however, due to their failure to modernize their networks, poor management, and market pressures, it has fallen greatly. Note this was not due to stock splits (citation 1)
That was the case, as of 2024 Lumen has entered into a new TSA (citation 2), what does this new transaction support agreement mean? Well lumen owe a lot of money, and it was all due very soon, what the TSA does is restructure that debt to keep the company from going bankrupt, it requires a plan of action and company transformation to be approved by its creditors.
What does that mean? It means that Lumen’s creditors believe the company’s plan to become profitable is sound, it means that the stock price will go up, potentially exponentially. So much so that the company which was on the edge of bankruptcy announced 2+ billion in investment and credit in order to begin their business revamp.
Following this Lumen announced that they are planning for 500,000+ new fiber addresses this year. Fiber to the home is specifically a very profitable sector due to the lost cost of materials and devices, and the fact that that lumen has its own in house construction and deployment teams, with construction and deployment being some of the highest cost pieces of deploying fiber to the home networks.
All this said, Lumen is both set for a small but significant short squeeze and meteoric rise in stock prices if the right market conditions are met.
Citation 1: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/could-underperforming-stock-become-millionaire-135131313.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALBHm70tc-mwlpgzulJT1KkgEZxBGz2JlBYHlnsblG0g-XX6VdDk60v6etIuHq4Hcr2dDtc6RSj3SGkUM-kRD47uBiczA4L4DlrHHNBYOF4xuCyg5OtZPxBlL4fr8ny6Yfb3Gy8Kqv1lOWVnJyS6efKrMck7m_idCevKhIGiGiyh#
Citation 2: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lumen-technologies-completes-tsa-transactions-enabling-transformation-strategy-302097110.html
2024.05.19 05:13 kayenano The Villainess Is An SS+ Rank Adventurer: Chapter 241
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Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 241: Until Now
The doors to the Hartzwiese Adventurer’s Guild opened.
Before, the sound of raucous laughter could be heard flooding the street outside, filling the quiet of a spring night with all the debauchery the local drunkards had to offer.
Despite the halls of adventurers not being formal drinking establishments, those within were ready to compete in boisterousness with all the taverns, inns and pubs of the town combined. And also win. Handily.
And yet–
The moment the doors parted and I stepped within, a hush as quiet as any grave fell over its inhabitants.
A woman balancing with her derrière upon the head of another became still, the alcohol in her cup the only movement as it dribbled onto a stunned face below her.
A man slurping from the communal cauldron stared wordlessly, the stew pouring in, and then out of his mouth as the muscles of his throat forgot the means to swallow.
A bartender asleep upon a row of kegs quietly rose, the sudden din of silence waking him where the sound of debauchery and those drinking from the taps beside him had failed.
Here, there, and everywhere, eyes widened as the sudden silence was filled with the sounds of my footsteps as I strolled past, my loyal handmaiden and my brother’s attendant in my wake.
And also–
Mreow.
Mrewowow.
Meww.
Cats.
Tabby cats.
Calico cats.
Ragdoll cats.
Cats with twirly whiskers. Cats with puffy faces. Cats with slightly rounded ears.
Behind me, skipping around my legs while taking turns to sit upon my shoulders and very occasionally my head, were a legion of cats of various shapes, sizes and colours.
But no matter the springiness of their whiskers, the shine of their coat or the liveliness of their tails, one thing to bring them all together was the anarchy they caused.
This was no neat line of ducklings following after their mother.
This was a barbarian horde.
With no sense of organisation other than a shared drive to claim everything as their own, they immediately skipped amidst the stunned adventurers, scavenging for all the copious scraps while still turning their noses away from the alcohol forming sticky traps upon the floor.
Saying nothing, I allowed their demanding cries to fill up the hall as I swept forwards, pausing before a wall plastered from end to end with faded notices and requests long gone unanswered.
One by one, I systemically tore every request featuring a crudely drawn image of a cat, gathering into my arms a pile of parchment large enough to reach my chin.
Then, I made my way to the wooden desk.
A receptionist waited with a smile at the ready.
“Greetings! Welcome to the Hartzwiese branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. I see you’ve removed several notices from the–”
Poomph.
Silenced but unperturbed, this latest clone watched as I dropped the stack of requests onto her desk, before promptly topping off the stack with a copper ring.
“Do what must be done,” I said, my voice defiant. “I am ready.”
The receptionist answered me with a smile more permanent than the wall the notices were torn from.
A moment later–
“[Identify].”
A green hue appeared in her clasped palms as she assessed the ring.
“Juliette. B-rank. Your registered branch is Reitzlake.”
The sound of several cups clattered against the floor.
“Welcome again to Hartzwiese. I see from your commission history that you have an extraordinary amount of completions for recovering lost cats. May I assume the significant number of cats now roaming the branch hall relate to the notices removed from the wall?”
I pursed my quivering lips.
“Maybe.”
“Wonderful. And how many cats is it that you’ve rescued?”
“... Lots.”
“I see. Please give me a moment while I confirm the requirements of our commissions.”
The receptionist swiftly retrieved a stack of parchment from a drawer.
As she flicked through, her eyes simultaneously went to every cat roaming, napping and clawing in the hall. A skill not even monstrous overseers from the abyss with their dozens of eyestalks could match. But that’s only to be expected.
Wherever these receptionists were found, it was from a level deeper than any monster dared roam.
Eventually, she gave a nod.
“Thank you for waiting. There appears to be an excess of cats in relation to the number of commissions we have available. We’ll endeavour to ensure that every cat is rehomed at the earliest opportunity through our partner agencies and charities. But unfortunately, I can only provide official acknowledgement for cats rescued through a formal commission.”
I sucked in a deep breath, hoping that patience was one of the things I accidentally inhaled.
“Fine. And how many commissions does that end up being, then? … 10? 15?”
The receptionist flicked through her bundle of parchments once more.
“94.”
“... Excuse me?”
“I can confirm the successful completion of 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions. Congratulations. This is a new record, breaking what appears to be one earlier set by yourself. A remarkable achievement befitting a B-rank member of the guild.”
The receptionist’s professional smile never wavered.
I thought that would be the worst of it.
But then–
She slowly brought her hands together … and started applauding.
It was the leak which broke the dam.
At once, she was joined by all who were present to witness this crowning moment of regret.
I turned around in time to see a riot in motion.
“W-Wooooooooooo!!!!”
“In … Incredible …”
“A new record … I … I heard it was broken in Trierport … to think I’d witness it broken again!”
“A B-rank adventurer … ?! Where … Where did she come from … ?!”
There was no polite, respectful applause here.
It was the wild cheering of a crowd at a tournament. The whooping cries of theatregoers calling for an encore. The acclaim of my father as he elbowed others to delight in the poetry I’d written when I was 6 and thus now regularly attempted to burn.
Everywhere I turned, I saw and heard the acclaim mixed with shouts of horror as mugs of alcohol were spilled on purpose and by accident. The layabouts stomped on the floor, doing their best to murder decorum under the strain of unbridled emotion.
Only a few falling teardrops formed any hint of more dignified revelry, the glimmer of admiration running down cheeks as sniffles were hidden amidst the raucous cheering.
And then I bore witness to the most morbid sight.
Like a tidal wave of soiled clothes and snotty faces, they suddenly came as one, hands reaching out for me with dripping mugs still in their grips. Horror struck at my soul. And unlike a farmer who’d scarpered into the night, I had nobody who could heal a wound caused by hooligans accepting me as their own.
“A-Amazing!! Take my drink! Take anyone’s drink!!”
“So many cats rescued … even my allergies can’t believe it!”
“My gods, it’s a legend! An adventurer among adventurers!”
This.
This right here.
This was the lowest point of my life … were I not an unparalleled genius.
“Oho … ohoho …”
At once, the wave halted.
Faces which were lit up in unabashed delight turned to looks of mild confusion against the tinkling music of my laughter.
They needed to cycle through the expressions until they reached horror and shame.
“Ohhohohohohohoho!!”
… For I was no drunkard seeking to join their ranks!
No … I was Juliette Contzen, 3rd Princess to the Kingdom of Tirea!
And that meant every action I took, every word I spoke, and every cat I saved was for a reason beyond the hopes and dreams these hoodlums had of wanton debauchery and rusting swords!
Indeed!
A lesser princess than I may slink away into the night, cowed by the utter shame, humiliation and disgrace of completing so many F-ranked requests that I somehow broke a record I’d only just set!
But I was made of greater things!
Of schemes and subterfuges so deep that it would take too long to explain! The plots I weaved were a silken web more intricate than any cogs which made up Coppelia as she doubled up, desperately trying to stop herself from succumbing to more pain from laughter!
And that meant with every cat request now denied to these louts … they would finally do some work!
“Ohoho … ohohohohoho!! Behold and be afraid! Witness before you the coming of a new dawn, here to lift you from your days of boundless reverie! Unfurl the shutters and gaze upon a radiance so pure it brands your dallying minds! The scorching sun has come to test the snail’s back, and all that your bleary eyes see is a great salt lake to devour you whole! Shrivel as you cling upon the sweat which drips upon your brow, for that is the proof you’re yet alive!”
A sudden silence met my proclamation of their coming ordeal.
And then–
“Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“I don’t understand! But what a speech!”
“If she can do it, so can we!”
I raised a hand to my lips, barely covering my smile.
“Ohhhohohohohohohoho … !”
Here it was!
Operation: Gainful Employment!
An entirely new strategy, as bold as it was uncharted!
By removing what was surely the vast majority of missing cat quests available to the adventurers of this town, they would have no choice, utterly none whatsoever, but to engage in actual work! The type of work adventurers openly advertised themselves as doing!
Monster subjugation! Crime prevention! Fetching artifacts from hidden dungeons and then succumbing to their wounds at the entrance while the Royal Treasury pocketed the treasure!
Yes, this was clearly a highly experimental tactic.
But what was I, if not a bastion of creativity?
At the very least, I utterly refused to accept the status quo! An organisation dedicated exclusively to rescuing lost cats or elbowing into my kingdom’s sovereign affairs was no good to me!
Thus … I could not cower like some towngirl nauseous from the smell of their revelry.
Instead, I would squeeze the Adventurer’s Guild dry until the day I replaced them with an army of trained poodles. Until that joyous day, I could never tear my eyes away when they waited to be robbed.
To do so was more than a dereliction of duty …
Why, I’d be an accomplice to their drunken escapades!
My vow remained unchanged. For my goal, I would brave any indignity. The ring I was hoping the receptionist would forget to return was proof of that.
And thus–
I stood tall as a summer reed, proud in the knowledge that I had no need to feel even an inkling of embarrassment over completing 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions! …
“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.”
“S-Stop at once! You are not to laugh!”
“Pffffttt~”
“C-Coppelia!!”
Clearly not seeing the angel of self-sacrifice who I was, Coppelia held one hand tightly around her mouth. Even so, she failed to stop either the sound of her amusement or the tears falling from her eyes.
My only salvation was that it came at significant cost to her. Even now, she careened between laughter and painful regret.
I decided to offer both her and myself mercy.
Turning to the receptionist, I found a modest pouch already waiting upon the wooden desk. As well as a copper ring waiting beside it.
“Thank you for your service to the Adventurer’s Guild,” said the receptionist, her professional smile undaunted by the commotion. “Your total remuneration is 102 gold crowns, 7 silver crowns and 9 copper crowns. I’ve taken the liberty to compile all your separate payments together.”
I took the pouch and ignored the ring.
The receptionist pushed the ring forwards.
A long moment later, I collected it, uncertain what a receptionist would do if I tossed it into the communal cauldron, but knowing it would somehow still end up on my finger regardless.
With my head held high, I bravely ignored the chorus of voices unknowingly cheering for their own hardship as I swept past. Renewed tears and applause filled the hall. A few cats attempted to follow me. I stopped to shoo them away.
And then I was outside, the door closing behind me.
“... Goodness, that was quite the sight,” said Renise with a bemused smile. “It reminded me somewhat of the inns of Reitzlake’s docks. I wonder if all the halls of adventurers are like that, or merely those which you frequent?”
“Please don’t insinuate I’m responsible for the debauchery which occurs wherever the Adventurer’s Guild is concerned. That’s something I can claim no credit for.”
“You say that … but to me, it seems that you caused quite a stir. That really is a remarkable number of cats you rescued, after all. Even I can tell that 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions–”
“Miss Renise.”
The maid’s smile wavered against whatever fatigued expression I was making.
A moment later, it fell away entirely as she switched to her role as my brother’s attendant and the leader of whatever scoundrels he’d charged her with herding.
“... Yes, I suppose there’s time for idle conversation later. There’s a guardhouse nearby. We should report on all that’s happened tonight.”
I gave a nod of agreement.
Hopefully, the baroness hadn’t woken from her stupor yet. But if she had, I was certain the single portrait of myself I’d returned to the wall of her gallery to smile down at her gagged and bound state would calm her nerves.
Renise hummed towards the direction of Hartzwiese’s centre, before returning her attention to me.
“If you wish to keep your identity incognito, I can see guards sent to where they’re needed using my own authority, and arrange for the appropriate seizure of the goods and crowns we’ve discovered.”
I beamed at once.
My, so prudent! It’s little wonder she was chosen by Roland!
“A judicious offer. And one I’ll accept gladly, providing the burden isn’t too severe.”
“This is merely an administrative task, and little burden compared to what both yourself and Miss Coppelia regularly perform. In any event, it is only efficient. I expect I’ll be spending a significant amount of time at the baroness’s farmstead. It is quite extensive. If possible, I would like to make use of it for Rose House. I imagine having such a facility close to the Granholtz border would have its uses.”
I nodded, already forgetting the barn’s existence.
“I encourage you to use your discretion as required. My brother has put his trust in you, and so I both expect and know that you shall not disappoint in furthering the kingdom’s prosperity.”
The young woman smiled. One filled with appreciation, but also lacking ambition.
Good.
An excellent combination as far as retainers were concerned.
“Thank you. Although I worry you place too much trust in my abilities. In truth, those like Baroness Arisa would have made for a greater asset to the kingdom. Her resourcefulness must be acknowledged.”
“It is not resourcefulness my kingdom requires. It is loyalty. And hers is a pit so empty it drains others.”
“That’s true. But at least we were able to acquire some useful things from her nonetheless.”
Renise pulled out a tiny vial from the belt around her thigh.
A golden liquid was stored within, glimmering with an unnatural light.
“These were in her chamber,” she said, her eyes lacking emotion as she surveyed the bright liquid. “When we met, she actually attempted to purchase my loyalty with this.”
“A suspect vial. How quaint. And what miracle did she promise?”
“One that would wake my parents from their curse of eternal slumber.”
“... And is it?”
“I don’t believe so, no. This is one of many identical vials I found in her chamber’s desk drawer. All prominently labelled with instructions to only drink as required to stave off the effects of bloating.”
Renise returned the vial to her belt with a slightly embarrassed smile.
“It’s still useful,” she admitted. “But just not for what I require.”
I gave a simple nod as my reply.
Nothing else needed to be said.
She hoped to see her parents wake from their prison of dormancy. An understandable wish. And one I wasn’t required to supplement with the comment that no pair named the Smuggler King and the Smuggler Queen were likely to receive as light a sentence as their daughter.
I could not speak on behalf of Roland. Although I imagined that as a kind man, he would prefer not to pass judgements which were total. But as the Crown Prince, he did not have the luxury of kindness.
It would take much to change their fate.
But perhaps that’s why Renise was here, still proving true, and not accepting stomach ailment potions from a baroness.
A moment of silence followed.
Renise gave a short sigh. And that was that.
She set her eyes on the task ahead–at least until whatever words she’d parted her mouth to say were interrupted by Coppelia’s humming instead.
“Sooooooooooooooo … you just want to wake up two people eternally sleeping, right?”
A small smile met her optimistic voice.
“If a cure were readily available, I’m certain I would have found it by now. I believe one might be possible, but it would take skill and ingredients beyond any apothecary I know of.”
“Well, sure, you could go that way. But what about going straight to the source instead?”
“The source?”
“Sure. They’re asleep, right? So just ask the one in charge of where they are now.”
“I’m … not quite sure I follow?”
Coppelia clapped her hands together and beamed.
“The Spring Court is the realm of dreams. Chances are, they must have shown their faces around a few times by now. If you ask the Spring Queen nicely, she might do you a favour.”
“The Spring Queen? … The fae?”
“Mmh~ luckily, we have someone with connections here!”
Renise was startled out of her reply.
It was nothing compared to me. The one being pointed at.
“Coppelia!” I said, truly aghast at the suggestion. “The fae are not to be taken lightly. Why, I still have nightmares about my conversation with the Winter Queen! I learned a side to royalty that day which I shall never forget … and I’m quite poorer for it!”
“You met … the Winter Queen?” asked Renise, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Unfortunately, yes, but I had zero intention of meeting her, and I’ve just as little intention of meeting any other fae as well. Including the Spring Queen.”
I waved away the coming query to declare what was just as important as my lack of enthusiasm.
“Besides, I’ve not the foggiest idea how I would even hope to use these supposed connections I have.”
“Oh, that’s the easy bit,” said Coppelia, her casual disregard for what counted as ‘easy’ more terrifying than any lout I’d met today. “The hard part is getting them to do what you want. But meeting them? The fae are creatures of stories. If the time is right, they’ll speak to you–one way or another.”
“Then they must book an appointment. One which I can formally reject.”
“I mean, I don’t think you have much choice. You didn’t last time, right?”
“The last time, I was sat beside the Winter Queen’s crown. I see no fae artifacts to hook me away. And that means utterly no scenario in which I could be abducted without my express–”
I suddenly stopped, clasping my hands around my mouth.
A moment later, I raised my arms in a martial art I’d just invented, turning repeatedly on the spot.
Renise blinked at me.
“Excuse me, but what are–”
“Shhshhshh!!”
I paused, gazing intently around at the quiet, dark streets of Hartzwiese, all the while ignoring Coppelia’s giggling at my near miss.
That … That was close!
“O-Oho … oho … I almost invited something terrible. Truly, it’s perhaps best not to needlessly voice things which Fae Queens and their deviant brand of magic could use …”
Coppelia nodded at me, as proud as she was clearly disappointed.
“You’re lucky. If the Spring Queen had a sense of humour, she’d have snagged you right there and then.”
“No. If the Spring Queen had a sense of humour, she’d wait until–”
Click.
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submitted by kayenano to HFY [link] [comments]
Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 241: Until Now
The doors to the Hartzwiese Adventurer’s Guild opened.
Before, the sound of raucous laughter could be heard flooding the street outside, filling the quiet of a spring night with all the debauchery the local drunkards had to offer.
Despite the halls of adventurers not being formal drinking establishments, those within were ready to compete in boisterousness with all the taverns, inns and pubs of the town combined. And also win. Handily.
And yet–
The moment the doors parted and I stepped within, a hush as quiet as any grave fell over its inhabitants.
A woman balancing with her derrière upon the head of another became still, the alcohol in her cup the only movement as it dribbled onto a stunned face below her.
A man slurping from the communal cauldron stared wordlessly, the stew pouring in, and then out of his mouth as the muscles of his throat forgot the means to swallow.
A bartender asleep upon a row of kegs quietly rose, the sudden din of silence waking him where the sound of debauchery and those drinking from the taps beside him had failed.
Here, there, and everywhere, eyes widened as the sudden silence was filled with the sounds of my footsteps as I strolled past, my loyal handmaiden and my brother’s attendant in my wake.
And also–
Mreow.
Mrewowow.
Meww.
Cats.
Tabby cats.
Calico cats.
Ragdoll cats.
Cats with twirly whiskers. Cats with puffy faces. Cats with slightly rounded ears.
Behind me, skipping around my legs while taking turns to sit upon my shoulders and very occasionally my head, were a legion of cats of various shapes, sizes and colours.
But no matter the springiness of their whiskers, the shine of their coat or the liveliness of their tails, one thing to bring them all together was the anarchy they caused.
This was no neat line of ducklings following after their mother.
This was a barbarian horde.
With no sense of organisation other than a shared drive to claim everything as their own, they immediately skipped amidst the stunned adventurers, scavenging for all the copious scraps while still turning their noses away from the alcohol forming sticky traps upon the floor.
Saying nothing, I allowed their demanding cries to fill up the hall as I swept forwards, pausing before a wall plastered from end to end with faded notices and requests long gone unanswered.
One by one, I systemically tore every request featuring a crudely drawn image of a cat, gathering into my arms a pile of parchment large enough to reach my chin.
Then, I made my way to the wooden desk.
A receptionist waited with a smile at the ready.
“Greetings! Welcome to the Hartzwiese branch of the Adventurer’s Guild. I see you’ve removed several notices from the–”
Poomph.
Silenced but unperturbed, this latest clone watched as I dropped the stack of requests onto her desk, before promptly topping off the stack with a copper ring.
“Do what must be done,” I said, my voice defiant. “I am ready.”
The receptionist answered me with a smile more permanent than the wall the notices were torn from.
A moment later–
“[Identify].”
A green hue appeared in her clasped palms as she assessed the ring.
“Juliette. B-rank. Your registered branch is Reitzlake.”
The sound of several cups clattered against the floor.
“Welcome again to Hartzwiese. I see from your commission history that you have an extraordinary amount of completions for recovering lost cats. May I assume the significant number of cats now roaming the branch hall relate to the notices removed from the wall?”
I pursed my quivering lips.
“Maybe.”
“Wonderful. And how many cats is it that you’ve rescued?”
“... Lots.”
“I see. Please give me a moment while I confirm the requirements of our commissions.”
The receptionist swiftly retrieved a stack of parchment from a drawer.
As she flicked through, her eyes simultaneously went to every cat roaming, napping and clawing in the hall. A skill not even monstrous overseers from the abyss with their dozens of eyestalks could match. But that’s only to be expected.
Wherever these receptionists were found, it was from a level deeper than any monster dared roam.
Eventually, she gave a nod.
“Thank you for waiting. There appears to be an excess of cats in relation to the number of commissions we have available. We’ll endeavour to ensure that every cat is rehomed at the earliest opportunity through our partner agencies and charities. But unfortunately, I can only provide official acknowledgement for cats rescued through a formal commission.”
I sucked in a deep breath, hoping that patience was one of the things I accidentally inhaled.
“Fine. And how many commissions does that end up being, then? … 10? 15?”
The receptionist flicked through her bundle of parchments once more.
“94.”
“... Excuse me?”
“I can confirm the successful completion of 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions. Congratulations. This is a new record, breaking what appears to be one earlier set by yourself. A remarkable achievement befitting a B-rank member of the guild.”
The receptionist’s professional smile never wavered.
I thought that would be the worst of it.
But then–
She slowly brought her hands together … and started applauding.
It was the leak which broke the dam.
At once, she was joined by all who were present to witness this crowning moment of regret.
I turned around in time to see a riot in motion.
“W-Wooooooooooo!!!!”
“In … Incredible …”
“A new record … I … I heard it was broken in Trierport … to think I’d witness it broken again!”
“A B-rank adventurer … ?! Where … Where did she come from … ?!”
There was no polite, respectful applause here.
It was the wild cheering of a crowd at a tournament. The whooping cries of theatregoers calling for an encore. The acclaim of my father as he elbowed others to delight in the poetry I’d written when I was 6 and thus now regularly attempted to burn.
Everywhere I turned, I saw and heard the acclaim mixed with shouts of horror as mugs of alcohol were spilled on purpose and by accident. The layabouts stomped on the floor, doing their best to murder decorum under the strain of unbridled emotion.
Only a few falling teardrops formed any hint of more dignified revelry, the glimmer of admiration running down cheeks as sniffles were hidden amidst the raucous cheering.
And then I bore witness to the most morbid sight.
Like a tidal wave of soiled clothes and snotty faces, they suddenly came as one, hands reaching out for me with dripping mugs still in their grips. Horror struck at my soul. And unlike a farmer who’d scarpered into the night, I had nobody who could heal a wound caused by hooligans accepting me as their own.
“A-Amazing!! Take my drink! Take anyone’s drink!!”
“So many cats rescued … even my allergies can’t believe it!”
“My gods, it’s a legend! An adventurer among adventurers!”
This.
This right here.
This was the lowest point of my life … were I not an unparalleled genius.
“Oho … ohoho …”
At once, the wave halted.
Faces which were lit up in unabashed delight turned to looks of mild confusion against the tinkling music of my laughter.
They needed to cycle through the expressions until they reached horror and shame.
“Ohhohohohohohoho!!”
… For I was no drunkard seeking to join their ranks!
No … I was Juliette Contzen, 3rd Princess to the Kingdom of Tirea!
And that meant every action I took, every word I spoke, and every cat I saved was for a reason beyond the hopes and dreams these hoodlums had of wanton debauchery and rusting swords!
Indeed!
A lesser princess than I may slink away into the night, cowed by the utter shame, humiliation and disgrace of completing so many F-ranked requests that I somehow broke a record I’d only just set!
But I was made of greater things!
Of schemes and subterfuges so deep that it would take too long to explain! The plots I weaved were a silken web more intricate than any cogs which made up Coppelia as she doubled up, desperately trying to stop herself from succumbing to more pain from laughter!
And that meant with every cat request now denied to these louts … they would finally do some work!
“Ohoho … ohohohohoho!! Behold and be afraid! Witness before you the coming of a new dawn, here to lift you from your days of boundless reverie! Unfurl the shutters and gaze upon a radiance so pure it brands your dallying minds! The scorching sun has come to test the snail’s back, and all that your bleary eyes see is a great salt lake to devour you whole! Shrivel as you cling upon the sweat which drips upon your brow, for that is the proof you’re yet alive!”
A sudden silence met my proclamation of their coming ordeal.
And then–
“Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
“I don’t understand! But what a speech!”
“If she can do it, so can we!”
I raised a hand to my lips, barely covering my smile.
“Ohhhohohohohohohoho … !”
Here it was!
Operation: Gainful Employment!
An entirely new strategy, as bold as it was uncharted!
By removing what was surely the vast majority of missing cat quests available to the adventurers of this town, they would have no choice, utterly none whatsoever, but to engage in actual work! The type of work adventurers openly advertised themselves as doing!
Monster subjugation! Crime prevention! Fetching artifacts from hidden dungeons and then succumbing to their wounds at the entrance while the Royal Treasury pocketed the treasure!
Yes, this was clearly a highly experimental tactic.
But what was I, if not a bastion of creativity?
At the very least, I utterly refused to accept the status quo! An organisation dedicated exclusively to rescuing lost cats or elbowing into my kingdom’s sovereign affairs was no good to me!
Thus … I could not cower like some towngirl nauseous from the smell of their revelry.
Instead, I would squeeze the Adventurer’s Guild dry until the day I replaced them with an army of trained poodles. Until that joyous day, I could never tear my eyes away when they waited to be robbed.
To do so was more than a dereliction of duty …
Why, I’d be an accomplice to their drunken escapades!
My vow remained unchanged. For my goal, I would brave any indignity. The ring I was hoping the receptionist would forget to return was proof of that.
And thus–
I stood tall as a summer reed, proud in the knowledge that I had no need to feel even an inkling of embarrassment over completing 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions! …
“Pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft.”
“S-Stop at once! You are not to laugh!”
“Pffffttt~”
“C-Coppelia!!”
Clearly not seeing the angel of self-sacrifice who I was, Coppelia held one hand tightly around her mouth. Even so, she failed to stop either the sound of her amusement or the tears falling from her eyes.
My only salvation was that it came at significant cost to her. Even now, she careened between laughter and painful regret.
I decided to offer both her and myself mercy.
Turning to the receptionist, I found a modest pouch already waiting upon the wooden desk. As well as a copper ring waiting beside it.
“Thank you for your service to the Adventurer’s Guild,” said the receptionist, her professional smile undaunted by the commotion. “Your total remuneration is 102 gold crowns, 7 silver crowns and 9 copper crowns. I’ve taken the liberty to compile all your separate payments together.”
I took the pouch and ignored the ring.
The receptionist pushed the ring forwards.
A long moment later, I collected it, uncertain what a receptionist would do if I tossed it into the communal cauldron, but knowing it would somehow still end up on my finger regardless.
With my head held high, I bravely ignored the chorus of voices unknowingly cheering for their own hardship as I swept past. Renewed tears and applause filled the hall. A few cats attempted to follow me. I stopped to shoo them away.
And then I was outside, the door closing behind me.
“... Goodness, that was quite the sight,” said Renise with a bemused smile. “It reminded me somewhat of the inns of Reitzlake’s docks. I wonder if all the halls of adventurers are like that, or merely those which you frequent?”
“Please don’t insinuate I’m responsible for the debauchery which occurs wherever the Adventurer’s Guild is concerned. That’s something I can claim no credit for.”
“You say that … but to me, it seems that you caused quite a stir. That really is a remarkable number of cats you rescued, after all. Even I can tell that 94 simultaneous F-ranked commissions–”
“Miss Renise.”
The maid’s smile wavered against whatever fatigued expression I was making.
A moment later, it fell away entirely as she switched to her role as my brother’s attendant and the leader of whatever scoundrels he’d charged her with herding.
“... Yes, I suppose there’s time for idle conversation later. There’s a guardhouse nearby. We should report on all that’s happened tonight.”
I gave a nod of agreement.
Hopefully, the baroness hadn’t woken from her stupor yet. But if she had, I was certain the single portrait of myself I’d returned to the wall of her gallery to smile down at her gagged and bound state would calm her nerves.
Renise hummed towards the direction of Hartzwiese’s centre, before returning her attention to me.
“If you wish to keep your identity incognito, I can see guards sent to where they’re needed using my own authority, and arrange for the appropriate seizure of the goods and crowns we’ve discovered.”
I beamed at once.
My, so prudent! It’s little wonder she was chosen by Roland!
“A judicious offer. And one I’ll accept gladly, providing the burden isn’t too severe.”
“This is merely an administrative task, and little burden compared to what both yourself and Miss Coppelia regularly perform. In any event, it is only efficient. I expect I’ll be spending a significant amount of time at the baroness’s farmstead. It is quite extensive. If possible, I would like to make use of it for Rose House. I imagine having such a facility close to the Granholtz border would have its uses.”
I nodded, already forgetting the barn’s existence.
“I encourage you to use your discretion as required. My brother has put his trust in you, and so I both expect and know that you shall not disappoint in furthering the kingdom’s prosperity.”
The young woman smiled. One filled with appreciation, but also lacking ambition.
Good.
An excellent combination as far as retainers were concerned.
“Thank you. Although I worry you place too much trust in my abilities. In truth, those like Baroness Arisa would have made for a greater asset to the kingdom. Her resourcefulness must be acknowledged.”
“It is not resourcefulness my kingdom requires. It is loyalty. And hers is a pit so empty it drains others.”
“That’s true. But at least we were able to acquire some useful things from her nonetheless.”
Renise pulled out a tiny vial from the belt around her thigh.
A golden liquid was stored within, glimmering with an unnatural light.
“These were in her chamber,” she said, her eyes lacking emotion as she surveyed the bright liquid. “When we met, she actually attempted to purchase my loyalty with this.”
“A suspect vial. How quaint. And what miracle did she promise?”
“One that would wake my parents from their curse of eternal slumber.”
“... And is it?”
“I don’t believe so, no. This is one of many identical vials I found in her chamber’s desk drawer. All prominently labelled with instructions to only drink as required to stave off the effects of bloating.”
Renise returned the vial to her belt with a slightly embarrassed smile.
“It’s still useful,” she admitted. “But just not for what I require.”
I gave a simple nod as my reply.
Nothing else needed to be said.
She hoped to see her parents wake from their prison of dormancy. An understandable wish. And one I wasn’t required to supplement with the comment that no pair named the Smuggler King and the Smuggler Queen were likely to receive as light a sentence as their daughter.
I could not speak on behalf of Roland. Although I imagined that as a kind man, he would prefer not to pass judgements which were total. But as the Crown Prince, he did not have the luxury of kindness.
It would take much to change their fate.
But perhaps that’s why Renise was here, still proving true, and not accepting stomach ailment potions from a baroness.
A moment of silence followed.
Renise gave a short sigh. And that was that.
She set her eyes on the task ahead–at least until whatever words she’d parted her mouth to say were interrupted by Coppelia’s humming instead.
“Sooooooooooooooo … you just want to wake up two people eternally sleeping, right?”
A small smile met her optimistic voice.
“If a cure were readily available, I’m certain I would have found it by now. I believe one might be possible, but it would take skill and ingredients beyond any apothecary I know of.”
“Well, sure, you could go that way. But what about going straight to the source instead?”
“The source?”
“Sure. They’re asleep, right? So just ask the one in charge of where they are now.”
“I’m … not quite sure I follow?”
Coppelia clapped her hands together and beamed.
“The Spring Court is the realm of dreams. Chances are, they must have shown their faces around a few times by now. If you ask the Spring Queen nicely, she might do you a favour.”
“The Spring Queen? … The fae?”
“Mmh~ luckily, we have someone with connections here!”
Renise was startled out of her reply.
It was nothing compared to me. The one being pointed at.
“Coppelia!” I said, truly aghast at the suggestion. “The fae are not to be taken lightly. Why, I still have nightmares about my conversation with the Winter Queen! I learned a side to royalty that day which I shall never forget … and I’m quite poorer for it!”
“You met … the Winter Queen?” asked Renise, her eyes suddenly wide.
“Unfortunately, yes, but I had zero intention of meeting her, and I’ve just as little intention of meeting any other fae as well. Including the Spring Queen.”
I waved away the coming query to declare what was just as important as my lack of enthusiasm.
“Besides, I’ve not the foggiest idea how I would even hope to use these supposed connections I have.”
“Oh, that’s the easy bit,” said Coppelia, her casual disregard for what counted as ‘easy’ more terrifying than any lout I’d met today. “The hard part is getting them to do what you want. But meeting them? The fae are creatures of stories. If the time is right, they’ll speak to you–one way or another.”
“Then they must book an appointment. One which I can formally reject.”
“I mean, I don’t think you have much choice. You didn’t last time, right?”
“The last time, I was sat beside the Winter Queen’s crown. I see no fae artifacts to hook me away. And that means utterly no scenario in which I could be abducted without my express–”
I suddenly stopped, clasping my hands around my mouth.
A moment later, I raised my arms in a martial art I’d just invented, turning repeatedly on the spot.
Renise blinked at me.
“Excuse me, but what are–”
“Shhshhshh!!”
I paused, gazing intently around at the quiet, dark streets of Hartzwiese, all the while ignoring Coppelia’s giggling at my near miss.
That … That was close!
“O-Oho … oho … I almost invited something terrible. Truly, it’s perhaps best not to needlessly voice things which Fae Queens and their deviant brand of magic could use …”
Coppelia nodded at me, as proud as she was clearly disappointed.
“You’re lucky. If the Spring Queen had a sense of humour, she’d have snagged you right there and then.”
“No. If the Spring Queen had a sense of humour, she’d wait until–”
Click.
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