Vernimmen.com

Comment, question or quotation of the day

11-12-2025 : The Bitcoin Society (TBSO) IPO, episode 1

TBSO is a project led by Éric Larchevêque, a renowned entrepreneur (co-founder of the unicorn Ledger), with the aim of acquiring bitcoins, offering freely accessible resources on finance and entrepreneurship, and developing a community with paid services around these themes.

Rather than choosing the traditional route to go public, TBSO first identified a listed company (Tayninh), a 98% subsidiary of Unibail Rodamco Westfield, with €18.5 million in cash financed by €18.5 million in equity. 

• Before acquiring Tayninh, the founders of TBSO obtained Tayninh to pay a €18 million dividend distribution, reducing Tayninh's intrinsic value to €0.5 million.

• A takeover bid at €1 million will then be launched. This resulted in a €0.5 million premium representing the price of the shell company, which made it possible to avoid the long and uncertain process of a traditional IPO.

• Tayninh will rename itself TBSO, adopt the status of a limited partnership with share capital, and raise funds to acquire bitcoins and develop its new activities.

Three comments on the structural choices made in this project:

1/ The terms chosen for the IPO contrast sharply with the grandiose nature of the project ("the first listed company in the world to offer a Network Society coupled with a Bitcoin Treasury Company"). Going public through the back door, as TBSO has done, allows the company to circumvent the requirement to publish three years of audited accounts in order to go public through the traditional route, and avoids being subject to in-depth scrutiny by the market authorities.

2/ While the project is presented as a societal change, the second decision is to reduce the size of the shell company purchased by 95%, as if the founders of TBSO did not have the financial means to invest more than €1 million (including the cost of a highly polished communication campaign). As if TBSO were not going to raise funds afterwards. The magazine Challenge estimates Éric Larchevêque's fortune at €340 million; that of Tony Parker, another founder, is estimated at €200 million.              

3/ While É. Larchevêque's presentation of the project is an ode to freedom, the third decision is to abolish the usual rule of one share = one vote, in order to establish a limited partnership with shares that will give full powers to the founders and none to investors who become TBSO shareholders. This is a third negative signal. Indeed, if TBSO's market value were to fall below its net asset value on a sustained basis, then the pullback effect of a takeover bid would not be able to function. The absence of this potential constraint is the best guarantee of trading at a discount in a controversial sector.

The last three companies to go public this way in 2020-21:

•    Two experienced volatile share prices in the first few months before stabilising around their IPO price.

•    The third is in receivership.

29-11-2025 : Warren Buffett's final message to shareholders as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Published in anticipation of Thanksgiving Day, this eight-page document provides amusing insights into the philanthropist's early years, but above all reminds us of the obvious facts that most successful people tend to want to forget or deny. Namely, that picking the right number in the lottery of life is a key factor in future success, without the individual in question having anything to do with it. Why him and not his sister, his cousin or a stranger? 

Of course, being blessed with abundant talents (intelligence, health, beauty, etc.) does not exempt you from having to work hard, take risks and show courage, but it is so much easier for those who have been given these talents than for those who have been less fortunate. Fundamentally, the personal merit of the former is less than they tend to think, hence their responsibility towards the latter, which leads Warren Buffett to distribute most of his fortune to philanthropic causes to offset some of the effects of the inevitable inequalities of birth. 

To those who are far from having his fortune, Warren Buffett believes: « Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior. »

And as he reminds us at the end of his letter: "Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman." 

Modesty? Perhaps, but above all lucidity, an essential quality for investors, which Warren Buffett has demonstrated in abundance throughout his 95 years of life. This is not unrelated to the fact that he has been the best capital allocator in human history, as well as being a great guy.

Happy retirement and long life to you, Mr Buffett.