SPAC Gives $150 Million To Fake Greek Company

In this video we go over the case of Akazoo, a Greek music streaming company that went public via a SPAC in 2019. They claimed to have tens of millions of users and 4.4 million paying subscribers. As it turned out, they were a near total fraud and the vast majority of their users were non-existent. When the fraud was exposed the stock price went to zero and investors lost $150 million.

#WallStreetMillenial

Music courtesy of:
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

[christiansantos]

I would demand an investigation into their SPAC sponsor, Lew Dickey’s finances. His lack of due diligence was either complete incompetence or he was getting a kickback to push this deal through. An obscene amount of missed red flags to be missed by a SPAC sponsor, especially one with an Ivy League education.

[maxfuchs]

“It’s much harder to fake cash.”
Wirecard: Hold my beer 🍺

[ynmol]

It's kinda funny a teen with a laptop can perform better DD than professionals in some cases

[RiseUp_Again]

Akazoo is a properly executed organised financial crime

[zcollincollin]

I'd really like a video on some really garbage SPACs that are going to have huge share dilution

[samsonsoturian]

This isn't a matter of sophistication. The SPAC sponsor is incentivized to make a deal, any deal, and investors are really trusting.

[reinplat]

"Lew Dickey" sounds like a name made up by an adult entertainment actor.

[januszkurahenowski]

Poland was supposedly one of the biggest markets for akazoo but I have never heard of it whatsoever. Besides that, I don't get the point of a streaming app that targets the local tastes of a specific population if the artists that were most popular Polish artists listed on akazoo were on spotify. For that to make any sense it would have to have a very broad range of Polish music from the past 50 years or so with a much more niche and specific library than spotify and I don't think that a small Greek company is capable of doing that. Maybe streaming apps targetic a specific population make some sense but it would be very hard to do and you'd have to know the market very well and have a very good library. And most Polish people don't care about a very broad and niche library of polish music, they'd rather have the polish bands popular enough to be on spotify and have the rest of spotify's catalogue. It was clear from the getgo that it doesn't make any sense at all, but the investors didn't understand the cusomers in countries like Russia, Poland, Brasil so they maybe thought that a niche catalogue of their country's music is what they want. But spotify has those bands as well so I don't see the point.

[InfamousKicker]

Remember guys it’s us retail that screws up

[Javier-kxzm]

Its obvious they were in the scam with them.

[Hanky]

More red flags than at a comunist parade and they still fell for it.... "Smart Money" my ass.

[emekae]

So the founders got away with the proceeds of their crime? What happened to them after the stock was delisted?

[killerrabbit]

The world is filled with consultants, specialists, investors, managers…and they all spend their time studying a pond of piss.

[homeskol]

They had to have known it was a fraud but money from a fraud spends just as good as nonfraud money

[SuperKingemperor]

You have good content. Like the Sherlock Holmes of Financials.

[markusd.]

Akazoo being a Greek company would have sufficed as a red flag with me. I enjoy Greek food. However, my family has only had negative experiences when doing business with Greeks

[Callingnone]

Remember, these are the people managing your 401K

[nunyabizznizz]

the company doesnt matter in a thing that matters is to get someone to pay more than they paid

[SafarWIP]

8:00 sponsor gets fee for their "service"

[DylanMaddocks]

First video I've seen in a while with thousands of views and no downvotes. That how you know you make good content. Maybe the next step is touch up the audio idk it seems too echo-y, in a cap type stuff. Regardless the content is unique and entertaining