[HN Gopher] Deliveroo to offer 50M pounds of stock to customers
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       Deliveroo to offer 50M pounds of stock to customers
        
       Author : prostoalex
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2021-03-07 17:33 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.fidelity.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.fidelity.com)
        
       | gogopuppygogo wrote:
       | If the delivery as a service model was unprofitable at the height
       | of a global pandemic when it was a necessity how does this
       | business model ever achieve profitability.
        
         | thom wrote:
         | A charitable theory would be that a large amount of their stock
         | comes from restaurants, many of which (but obviously not all)
         | were closed, as opposed to takeaways, which largely continued
         | operating as normal.
        
           | mytailorisrich wrote:
           | Actually many restaurants that would have completely closed
           | continued to operate only through Deliveroo and others.
        
       | asperous wrote:
       | This is based on the narrative that IPOs are systematically
       | underpriced and those able to participate walk away with gains as
       | a rule. If IPOs are actually accurately priced or overpriced,
       | then this doesn't benefit customers in any way.
       | 
       | With that in mind it seems much more likely to me this is just a
       | way to push the stock.
       | 
       | Retail trading is booming [1]. I hope this leads to financial
       | literacy and more people benefiting from democratic ownership of
       | capital (more profits going to worker class).
       | 
       | https://finance.yahoo.com/news/retail-investor-stock-market-...
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | The last few times retail trading was booming didn't work out
         | so well for the retailers. The traders did well, however.
        
       | Invictus0 wrote:
       | Wow, that's some heavy news!
        
       | barbegal wrote:
       | I really hate the idea of using a food delivery app to promote a
       | complicated financial product.
       | 
       | Retail investors will only be able to purchase IPO shares through
       | the app after making a purchase through deliveroo so maybe they
       | are just trying to use this as a small promotional tool for the
       | app.
        
         | mattmanser wrote:
         | How's this different to brewdog selling shares to its
         | customers?
         | 
         | They've been doing that for years, you get a free beer on your
         | birthday, etc.
         | 
         | Been successful for them and their customers.
         | 
         | Wouldn't be too surprised if they directly inspired deliveroo
         | to do the same, that someone in Deliveroo's UK head office is a
         | brewdog shareholder and suggested it off the back of that. They
         | seem to be trying to build a similar kind of brand.
        
           | leipert wrote:
           | You got me so excited. But then reading through the fine
           | print, I realized my excitement is about three months too
           | late.
           | 
           | > Therefore, subject to the following paragraph, the Offer
           | will be closed in all of the Approved Jurisdictions, except
           | for the United Kingdom, on and from 10:59 p.m. (GMT) on 31
           | December 2020 ("EU Closing Date").
           | 
           | One needs to reside in US, AU, UK, Ireland or Spain? to be
           | able to participate.
        
         | bidirectional wrote:
         | What's the complicated financial product? It's just equity.
        
           | lazide wrote:
           | Equity is one of the most complicated (and easiest to mislead
           | buyers with) financial product out there?
           | 
           | Are the books cooked? Who knows. What are the share classes,
           | and how do they relate to each other? Who knows. What are the
           | bylaws, and how is board composition determined? Who knows.
           | 
           | All of these are huge. People get misled by far simpler
           | products (like loans) all the time, let alone something like
           | this.
        
             | ahepp wrote:
             | Usually when people talk about "complicated financial
             | products" they mean some kind of derivative.
             | 
             | Yes, you can cook the books. That doesn't make the product
             | complex.
             | 
             | It is fair to point out that some tech IPOs (We work comes
             | to mind) had pretty sketchy corporate structuring and stock
             | classes.
             | 
             | But I don't think there's any simpler financial product
             | than equity.
             | 
             | You can do the same kind of financial engineering with
             | bonds. Do you really know what's in the covenant? Is there
             | even a covenant to speak of? People have been getting burnt
             | for decades now by companies finding creative ways to
             | separate the collateral from the loan.
        
       | nixass wrote:
       | Deliveroo is one of prime examples what's wrong with gig economy
       | and why it should be heavily regulated. Same as Doordash, they're
       | disastrous for local food business'
        
         | easytiger wrote:
         | Many of those who use it a month or two a year in one region
         | (then go back to another) would disagree.
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | Deliveroo has increased sales of local food businesses. E.g.
         | they " _boosted the industry 's revenue by PS460 million in the
         | year to June 2017._" [1]
         | 
         | This is not too difficult to believe and to guess the mechanism
         | at play: Before Deliveroo (and similar) services many local
         | restaurants could only be reached by actually visiting them and
         | eating them. Now they can reach people who want to eat at home
         | (and who previously could only order from some pizza/kebab
         | places that were the only ones to deliver). Therefore, all in
         | all, I can believe that they made people order more than before
         | and effectively consume more restaurant food than before. For
         | my household that has certainly been the case.
         | 
         | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deliveroo
        
           | objclxt wrote:
           | > Before Deliveroo (and similar) services many local
           | restaurants could only be reached by actually visiting them
           | and eating them.
           | 
           | The counterpoint to this is that one of the more profitable
           | parts of Deliveroo's business is to do away with these local
           | restaurants entirely in favour of ghost kitchens (which
           | Deliver refers to as "Deliveroo Editions").
           | 
           | So Deliveroo enters a marketplace, sees which local
           | restaurants are doing a brisk trade, and brings in a ghost
           | kitchen that they own and operate (with the higher margins
           | that cutting out an additional party entails).
           | 
           | And to the end user - yourself - this can be very hard to
           | determine, and you can believe yourself to be supporting a
           | local eatery when in fact you're not. In some regards this is
           | not dissimilar to Amazon's approach (find out what third
           | party products are selling well, release their own version
           | and undercut).
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | mytailorisrich wrote:
             | That's not how it works.
             | 
             | Ghost kitchens are a good way for restaurant chains to
             | expand by opening these types of kitchens for delivery only
             | instead of having to open a full-blown restaurant at a
             | premium.
             | 
             | For customers it does not matter that their Nando's (just
             | an example, I don't know if Nando's do ghost kitchens)
             | comes from a Nando's full restaurant or a Nando's ghost
             | kitchen. It's exactly the same food and it creates the same
             | number of jobs for people working in kitchens...
             | 
             | It's not Deliveroo that can decide that " _Oh, Nando 's do
             | a good business here so let's create a fake one by
             | ourselves..._".
             | 
             | Now, on the other hand for independent restaurants
             | Deliveroo (and other similar services obviously) can be a
             | good way to expand their customers base by offering
             | delivery without having to invest in the infrastructure.
        
             | prostoalex wrote:
             | Ghost kitchens are good at mass-producing generic
             | undifferentiated dishes. If you crave "California roll
             | sushi" or "some kind of vegetarian pizza", ghost kitchen
             | would work, but so would a grocery store takeout section.
             | 
             | Any restaurant that went through the effort of
             | distinguishing themselves and specializing in a few
             | signature dishes is unlikely to be threatened by ghost
             | kitchens.
        
         | dash2 wrote:
         | I would think that in my city, most restaurants would have
         | struggled to survive through lockdown without Deliveroo and
         | similar services.
        
       | mnd999 wrote:
       | Or are they peddling their overvalued shares to unsophisticated
       | investors?
        
         | bellyfullofbac wrote:
         | Smells like it, they probably want to GME themselves.
         | 
         | I remember reading someone's opinion how the current SV
         | companies are basically ponzi schemes (e.g. WeWork), the big
         | institutional investors hype them up and get the first stocks,
         | retail investors would come in next, and the big institutions
         | can then cash out. I wish I can remember where I read this...
        
           | llampx wrote:
           | I have read this too a long time ago, and it always struck me
           | as true. That's why I stopped wanting to invest in new IPOs.
           | You're not "getting in on the ground floor" with them,
           | they're usually for sale a few months after the IPO. Look at
           | SNOW and ABNB for recent examples or GPRO for one from a
           | while ago.
        
         | bidirectional wrote:
         | No, they are clearly not, and that's a very strong accusation
         | to wantonly throw around. It's a 7.5 billion dollar IPO, this
         | represents less than one percent of that.
        
       | Gaelan wrote:
       | Amusingly, this headline is ambiguous: are they giving their
       | customers PS50m worth of shares, or 50M lbs of food (that they
       | have in stock)?
        
         | brian-armstrong wrote:
         | It's 50M pounds of soup stock. Hope you like tomato bisque.
        
         | ALittleLight wrote:
         | I had this same confusion. It's PS's of shares.
        
       | deft wrote:
       | This kind of offering is only a very small step above a straight
       | up ponzi scheme. We are at the top of the bubble and no one knows
       | what to do with their dollars that are rapidly losing value.
       | Order your shitty fast food and get a discount on your shitty
       | stock.
        
         | Cola wrote:
         | What do you mean by "dollars that are rapidly losing value"?
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | danieldisu wrote:
           | They are implying that we inflation is rising (even if the
           | official numbers doesn't say so) because of the actions of
           | the Fed
        
             | ALittleLight wrote:
             | Is there an analogous situation in the UK?
        
               | dfgdghdf wrote:
               | The UK government must be more careful with inflation
               | than the US government because the pound is not a serious
               | reserve currency used across the world as the US dollar
               | is. That said, the UK government has borrowed
               | significantly to pay for coronavirus relief programs.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-07 23:02 UTC)