🍋 BBBY CFO's Scandal

Together With

Good Morning! Hope you're enjoying the long weekend so far. Maybe you've been one of the 25 million people globally that watched "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power." If not that, hopefully you've been hanging out with friends. Mark Zuckerberg said that social media is for "building relationships," not just devouring the extremely addictive content he helped design. Thanks, Mark.

Soccer is seeing some changes as the cost of streaming all Premier League matches is now over £800/year since Amazon entered the chat in 2019 (~£540/year). Also, RedBird Capital Partners and the parent company of the Yankees are buying AC Milan in a $1.2 Billion deal.

Finally, Bed Bath & Beyond CFO, Gustavo Arnal, fell from a Manhattan skyscraper to his death. We hope his friends and family find some peace in this devastating time.

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1. Story of the Day: BBBY CFO's Scandal

Although there was no note found after BBBY CFO, Gustavo Arnal, fell to his death from a Manhattan skyscraper (the "Jenga tower"), authorities believed the incident to be intentional. News of a recent lawsuit might help explain why.

Arnal was apparently being sued for inflating BBBY's share prices in a pump-and-dump scheme. Arnal was listed as one of the defendants in a lawsuit brought to a district court in DC. It claims that Ryan Cohen, of GameStop notoriety, approached Arnal to control shares of BBBY so that they could both profit.

Arnal supposedly "agreed to regulate insider sales by BBBY's officers and directors to ensure that the market would not be inundated with a large number of BBBY shares at a given time." He also allegedly issued, "Materially misleading statements made to investors regarding BBBY's strategic company plans, financial condition... and reports of shares holding and selling."

JP Morgan is also being mentioned in the lawsuit, which says that Arnal and Cohen discussed their exit strategy with JP Morgan Securities, before selling off shares. So JP Morgan allegedly aided and abetted "to launder over $110 million worth of illegal insider trading proceeds."

Short Squeez Takeaway: No jokes today as this is a very sad situation. Not only did a man apparently kill himself, but there's a community of people who have lost enough money to pursue a class action lawsuit in search of some sort of reparations. Surrounding all of it, like a black cloud, is the greed and manipulation that underlies Wall Street.

2. Markets Rundown

Equities reversed early gains thanks to worries about European gas, and crypto was slightly up from lower levels while no one was looking.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Kohl's ($KSS) +6% after it was reported that PE firm Oak Street Real Estate Capital made an offer to buy $2 billion of Kohl's property in a lease back deal.

• (+) Lululemon ($LULU) +7% on earnings beating analyst estimates for Q2.

• (–) Beyond Meat ($BYND) -5% after investment firm Baillie Gifford reported a 6.61% stake in the company, down from a 13.38% stake as of December 31, 2021.

Private Dealmaking

• JenaValve, an artificial heart valve developer, raised $100 million

• Bridger Phonotics, an oil and gas tech company, raised $55 million

• Alloy, a risk fintech platform, raised $52 million

• Ascend Elements, a lithium-ion battery recycler, raised $50 million

• Aleph Farms, an alternative meat products producer, raised $40 million

• Blue World Technolgies, a methanol fuel cell developer, raised $37 million

3. Top Reads

• How ‘quiet quitting’ became next phase of Great Resignation (CNBC)

• The paradox of entrepreneurship (Axios)

• Why the Federal Reserve matters to you (YF)

• Chobani withdraws IPO plans after yogurt maker filed to go public (CNBC)

• Can zombie firms survive rising interest rates? (HBR)

• Why there aren’t enough workers (Axios)

• CVS takes lead in talks to acquire Signify Health (Fox)

• Where Snap goes from here (YF)

• Credit Suisse looks to cut around 5,000 jobs (Fox)

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4. Book of the Day: Precipice

If all goes well, human history is just beginning. Our species could survive for billions of years - enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice, and to flourish in ways unimaginable today. But this vast future is at risk.

With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, where we face existential catastrophes - those from which we could never come back. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pathogens and artificial intelligence. If we do not act fast to reach a place of safety, it will soon be too late.

Drawing on over a decade of research, The Precipice explores the cutting-edge science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies that can safeguard humanity.

An Oxford philosopher committed to putting ideas into action, Toby Ord has advised the US National Intelligence Council, the UK Prime Minister's Office, and the World Bank on the biggest questions facing humanity.

In The Precipice, he offers a startling reassessment of human history, the future we are failing to protect, and the steps we must take to ensure that our generation is not the last.

“Of course, such experiments are done in secure labs, with stringent safety standards. It is highly unlikely that in any particular case the enhanced pathogens would escape into the wild. But just how unlikely?”

5. Short Squeez Picks

• 5 habits that can solve 80% of your habits

• A couple’s Amazon-themed wedding celebrates how e-commerce brought them together

• This chart captures the generational divide on silent quitting

• Deep dive into the labor shortage

• 5 ways to manage your career ahead of a recession

What Else To Read

If you love getting Short Squeez (which we'll assume you do), you must value getting crisp insights and actionable intel without all the BS.

The Daily Upside, founded by a team of bankers and journalists, is another great newsletter for big-brained readers. Built with investors in mind, The Daily Upside is packed with heavy-hitting analysis and stories you simply won’t find elsewhere.

It’s the perfect addition to your media diet, striking that elusive balance of gravitas and wit. There’s a reason 700,000+ readers start their days with The Daily Upside. Sign up for free here.

6. Daily Visual: Monthly Cost of Streaming Services

US price for each service's cheapest package

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen: Where Are The Einsteins?

"Not everything improves with time. There are a number of things that people did better in the past, both because of lost wisdom but also simply because in the past things weren’t mass-produced.

Beautiful older dresses, hand-stitched rugs, even kitchen appliances used to be sturdier and last longer. You can go purchase a mass-produced cheap samurai sword online, but you’d be a fool to use it in a fight against a blade of 20-times folded steel, even if the latter were ancient.

Stradivari violins, hand-crafted by members of the Italian Stradivari family, are legendarily considered to have a superior and unique sound compared to violins made with even the most modern techniques.

A child going from governesses teaching them multiple languages to renowned scholars tutoring them in advanced mathematics is similarly not replicable in today’s world. In turning education into a system of mass production we created a superbly democratic system that made the majority of people, and the world as a whole, much better off.

It was the right decision. But we lost the most elegant and beautiful minds, those mental Stradivari, who were created via an artisanal process."

Source: Erik Hoel

8. Crypto Corner

• How the upcoming Ethereum Merge could change crypto’s rewards, costs and reputation

• Bitcoin rises on jobs data, Snap axes web3 work, and developers prep for Merge

• Paul Krugman slams Bitcoin as pointless, wasteful Ponzi scheme

• Crypto prices are down, but it's not scaring away investors

• How Ethereum aims to become the ‘Internet of Crypto’

• Congress aims to crack down on $1 billion crypto fraud

9. Memes of the Day

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