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re: Greatest CON EVER; DOW DUMPING TRUMP- Stock Plummets AGAIN & Going Lower
TRUMP Hopes To Raise $Billions as Stock Market Deal Passes -Trump Media (Truth Social) is Listed on The Nasdaq Stock Exchange With Letters DJT, TRUMPs' Initials
BAD MOVE - A step that once BANKRUPTED another of his companies
BBC 24 MAR 2024
Donald Trump appears to be scrambling for funds to pay a $464m (£365m) fraud fine. Could the stock market ride to his rescue?
Trump Media, which runs the social media platform Truth Social, is poised to become a publicly listed company, after a majority of shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corp voted on Friday to acquire it.
Mr Trump is due to have a stake of at least 58% in the merged company, worth nearly $3bn at Digital World's current share prices.
It's an astonishing potential windfall for Mr Trump in exchange for a business whose own auditor warned last year it was at risk of failure.
Never mind the many red flags associated with the deal, including unresolved lawsuits from former business partners. There's also an $18m settlement that Digital World agreed to pay last year to resolve fraud charges over how the merger plan came together.
Shares in Digital World dropped more than 13% on Friday after the approval, ending the day at $36.94.
Backers of Digital World - the vast majority of whom are individual investors instead of Wall Street firms, many apparently Trump loyalists - seemed unfazed.
"This is just the start," Chad Nedohin, a deal supporter, said on his show DWAC Live on the video platform Rumble after the approval was announced. "There's no reason to freak out."
Digital World, or DWAC (pronounced D-whack), is what is known as a SPAC, or a shell business created expressly to buy another firm and take it public.
The company will now be renamed Trump Media & Technology Group and could start trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the ticker DJT as soon as next week.
The deal is unlikely to immediately resolve Mr Trump's most pressing financial issues, such as his New York fraud penalty.
The former president is barred from selling or transferring his shares for at least six months - though the new company could grant him an exemption.
Mr Trump could also try to get a loan, backed by the value of the shares. But in this case, analysts said a bank would probably lend him significantly less than the shares are worth on paper, given the potential risks of the business.
That hasn't stopped some of his supporters hoping their backing will help.
Mr Nedohin, who describes himself on his website as a Canadian "worship leader" and goes by Captain DWAC on Truth Social, declined to be interviewed.
But on his show this week he urged investors to approve the deal, speculating it could help the former president in his legal battles.
"If the merger is complete Friday at 10am and Trump all of a sudden has... shares of DJT that's worth three, four, five $10bn, who knows? He could easily leverage that to get a loan," he said.
He added: "This is putting your money where your mouth is for free speech, to save your country, potentially losing it all."
The risk that Digital World shareholders will lose money on their investment is significant, according to analysts.
Share prices are down from the highs they reached after plans to purchase Trump Media were announced in 2021.
But even after Friday's slide, they still imply Trump Media has a value of almost $5bn, which is a lot given it brought in just $3.3m in revenue in the first nine months of last year and lost nearly $50m.
**Truth Social Co-Founders Are Suing The Company..Accusing TRUMP of Trying to Rip Them Off in Merger Worth Hundreds of $$ in a Scheme to Dilute Shares
BAD MOVE - Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts;
Trumps' decision to go public with his right-wing social media company mirrors a move he made with Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts, according to CNBC.
"While a 2016 Washington Post review found that Trump made over $44 million, the company — Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts — lost more than $1 billion and ended up in bankruptcy," the report states.
Trump Media, will be listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange with the letters DJT, Trump’s initials," according to the outlet. "Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts used the same stock ticker when it went public with great fanfare in 1995."
According to the report, that company "lost money every year, but its stock prices did well — for a time. In the initial public offering, the company raised $140 million, selling 10 million shares at $14 each."
Even that success eventually faded.
"By 1996, the stock reached a high of $35 a share before plummeting later that year, in part because the company bought another casino for $100 million more than its estimated $400 million value, The New York Times reported in 2016," according to the report.
"The company, meanwhile, kept bleeding cash. The year the stock peaked, it lost $66 million. In 1999, it lost $134 million. And in 2004 — when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange — it lost $191 million, according to a CNBC review."
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