Fire and ice. A real-life business case.

I keep going along the frontier between my scientific research, my small investment business, and my teaching. In this update, I bring you two typically educational pieces of content, one sort of astride educational and practical investment decisions of my own, and finally I give slightly educational an account of a current business decision I am taking.  

In the video entitled ‘My investment experience, my teaching and my science #3  BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen’ [ Invest 3 2020-08-26 14-02-22 ; https://youtu.be/Vot6QMXp7UA  ], I discuss those three investment positions in my portfolio. Three German automotive companies. Same industry, same country, same macroeconomic environment, and yet three different performances in terms of return on investment. In this video, you can see me developing on the distinction between long term-trends and short-term variations, as well as trying to connect technical analysis of price trends with fundamental analysis of their half-annual reports.

I have place on You Tube two pieces of content in the stream of teaching designated as ‘Urban Economics and City Management’. ‘Urban Economics and City Management #1 Lockdowns in pandemic and the role of cities’ [ Cities 1 2020-08-27 08-57-15; https://youtu.be/fYIz_6JVVZk  ] recounts and restates my starting point in this path of research. I browse through the main threads of connection between the pandemic of COVID-19 and the civilisational role of cities. The virus, which just loves densely populated places, makes us question the patterns of urban life, and makes us ask question as for the future of cities.

In ‘Urban Economics and City Management #2 Case study of REIT: Urban Edge and Atrium [Cities 2 2020-08-27 11-00-52 ; https://youtu.be/BURimdfpxcY ], I study the cases of two REITs, i.e. Real Estate Investment Trusts, namely Urban Edge (U.S.) and Atrium (Central Europe), with two assumptions. Firstly, cities can grow and evolve, when the local humans master the craft of agglomerating in one, relatively tiny place, the technologies of construction, sanitation, transportation, energy supply etc., and to parcel those technologies into marketable goods. Secondly, rental and lease of real estate are parcelled, marketable urban technologies.

In the video ‘My investment experience, my teaching and my science #4 The Copernic project’, [ Invest 4 Copernic 2020-08-30 08-57-54 ; https://youtu.be/_6klh0AwJAM  ], I am developing on a topic exactly at the intersection of those three: the Copernic project. Honestly, this is complex stuff. I hesitated to choose this topic as educational material, yet I have that little intuition that good teachers teach useful skills. I want to be a good teacher, and the s**t I teach, I want it to be useful for my students. Life is complex and brutal, business is complex and brutal, and, as a matter of fact, each of us, humans, is complex and brutal. Fake simplicity is for pussies.

Thus, whoever among my students reads this update and watches the accompanying video material, is going to deal with real stuff, far beyond textbooks. This is a business which I am thinking about engaging in, and I am just starting to comprehend its patterns. This update is a living proof and test how good I am, or how I suck, at grasping business models of the digital economy.

In educational terms, I am locating the content relative to Copernic project in the path of teaching which I labelled ‘My investment experience, my teaching and my science’, as I am entertaining the idea of investing in the Copernic project. The subject cuts comprehensively across and into many aspects of economics and management. It can be considered as useful material for any educational path in these major fields.

It started when I reacted to a piece of advertising on Facebook. Yes, many interesting stories start like that, nowadays. It was an ad for the Copernic project itself. Here you have a link to Copernic’s website – https://copernic.io/ – but keep in mind that it is only Polish version, at least for the moment. I will do my best to describe the project in English.

Copernic is both the name of the project, and the name of an LLP (Limited Liability Partnership), incorporated under Polish law, in Krakow, Poland. The commonly used Polish acronym for an LLP is ‘sp. Z o.o.’, however, as I write in English, I will keep using the name ‘Copernic LLP’. I checked this company in the Judicial Register (of incorporated entities) run by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Poland, under the link https://ekrs.ms.gov.pl/web/wyszukiwarka-krs/strona-glowna/index.html . A business story emerges. On December 6th, 2019, Copernic LLP is founded, under the register #817764, in Gdansk, Poland, technically by two partners: a physical person and another LLP, i.e. TTC Trade LLP (register #788023). Yet, after scratching the surface, the surface being the Judicial Register, I discovered that TTC Trade LLP is wholly owned by the same physical person who was its partner in Copernic LLP. Anyway, the physical person apported 1000 PLN and took 1 partner share, whilst her LLP paid in 4000 PLN in exchange of 4 partner shares. By the way, PLN stands for Polish zloty and it comes like PLN 1 = $0,27.

On May 6th, 2020, the physical person who founded Copernic LLP steps out of the partnership, and her own LLP, TTC Trade, sells two of its two partner shares in Copernic LLP, to Sapiency LLP (https://sapiency.io/en/, register #789717) incorporated in Krakow, Poland, at their face value of 2000 PLN. On the same day, the partnership contract is being reformulated entirely and signed anew, including a change of headquarters, which move from Gdansk to Krakow, Poland. By the same occasion, another corporate partner steps in, namely Reset Sun Energy LLP (Konin, Poland, register #802147) and takes 2 partner shares in Copernic LLP, for a price of 2000 PLN. By the same means, the total partners’ equity in Copernic LLP moves from 5000 PLN to 6000 PLN.

On July 20th, 2020, TTC Trade LLP and Reset Sun Energy LLP both sell their partner shares in Copernic LLP to Sapiency LLP, at face value, i.e. 6000 PLN. We have an interesting legal structure, when one Limited Liability Partnership (Copernic) is wholly owned by another Limited Liability Partnership (Sapiency), which, in turn, is 50/50 owned by two gentlemen, one of whom I had the honour to meet in person. Cool guy. Fire and ice in one. A bit like me.   

Sapiency is mostly active in cryptocurrencies. They make Blockchain-based tokens for whoever asks, and I think their main technological platform is Ethereum (https://ethereum.org/en/). The marketing model is membership-based, thus oriented on long-term relations with customers. The business model of Copernic LLP is logically connected to that of Sapiency LLP. Copernic builds solar farms in Poland, and markets Blockchain-based tokens labelled Copernic1, at a face value of 4 PLN apiece. Each such token corresponds to a share in the future leasing of solar farms, and those farms, by now, are under actual or planned construction. Later on, i.e. after the solar farms become operational, those lease-connected Copernic1 tokens are supposed to give their holders a claim on secondary tokens CopernicKWH, which, in turn, correspond to claims on electricity generated in those solar farms. The first attribution of CopernicKWH tokens to the holders of Copernic1 tokens is supposed to take place within 14 days after the first photovoltaic farm becomes operational with Copernic LLP, with a standing power of at least 1 MW. That day of operational capacity can be a movable feast, and thus the official statute of those tokens stipulates that the first attribution of CopernicKWH will take place not later than January 1st 2021. After the first attribution of  CopernicKWH, subsequent attributions to the holders of Copernic1 are supposed to take place at least once a week.

The CopernicKWH tokens can be used as means of payment at the Kanga Exchange (https://kanga.exchange ), which looks cool, on the whole, with one exception. According to Kanga’s own statement, ‘Kanga Exchange is operated by Good Investments Ltd, registered in accordance with the International Business Companies Act of the Republic of Seychelles, Company Number 192185’ (https://support.kanga.exchange/company-information/ ). Just for your information: I can incorporate a business in Seychelles without getting up from my desk, 100% online, for the modest sum of 399 British Pounds (https://www.offshoreformations247.com/offshore-jurisdictions/seychelles). I am fully aware how bloody hard it is to set up any business structure connected to cryptocurrencies in the European legal environment, however… Seychelles? Seriously?

The average price of electricity in Poland, when I am writing those words, is around 0,617 PLN per 1 kWh. One Copernic1 token, with its current price of 4 PLN, corresponds to 4/0,617 = 6,48 kWh of energy. Assuming that every week, starting from the day 0 of operations at the solar farm, Copernic LLP attributes me 1 CopernicKWH token for each Copernic1 token in my possession, I break even after 7 weeks, and each consecutive week brings me a net profit.

I do my maths according to the logic of the capital balance sheet. First of all, I want to compute the book value of assets that corresponds to the planned solar farm of 1 megawatt in standing power. In a report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA https://irena.org ), entitled ‘Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019’ (https://irena.org/publications/2020/Jun/Renewable-Power-Costs-in-2019 ), I can read that the average investment needed for 1 watt of power in a photovoltaic installation can be cautiously estimated at $0,38, thus PLN 1,40.

Building a solar farm of 1 MW, thus of a million watts in terms of electric power, means an investment of at least PLN 1,40 * 106 = PLN 1 400 000. To that, you need to add the price of acquiring land. At the end of the day, I would tentatively put a PLN 2 million capital tag on the project. Supposing that capital for the project comes from the sales of Copernic1 tokens, Copernic LLP needs to sell at least 2 000 000 PLN/ 4 PLN = 500 000 of them Copernic1.

Looks like a lot, especially for a Limited Liability Partnership with partner equity at 6000 PLN. Assets worth PLN 2 000 000 minus PLN 6000 in partner equity means PLN 1 994 000 = $ 538 919  in capital which is not clear at all where it is supposed to come from. The sole partner in Copernic LLP, namely Sapiency LLP could pay in additional equity. Happens all the time. Still, Sapiency LLP as a partner equity of PLN 5000. See what I mean? Another option is a massive loan, and, finally, the whole balance sheet could rely mostly on those Copernic1 tokens. Only those tokens are supposed to embody claims on the lease of the solar farm. Now, legally, a lease is a contract which gives to the lessee (the one who physically exploits), the right to exploit things or rights owned by the lessor (the one who graciously allows others to exploit). In exchange, the lessee pays a rent to the lessor.

There are two things about that lease of solar farms. A lease is not really divisible, as it is the right to exploit something. If you divide that something into smaller somethings, you split the initial lease into as many separate leases. If I buy one Copernic1 token and that token embodies claims derived from a lease contract, what specifically is the object of leasing? There is another thing. If I buy Copernic1 tokens, it gives me claims on the future CopernicKWH tokens. In other words, Copernic will pay me in the future. If they pay me, on the basis of a lease contract, it is as if they were paying me a rent, i.e. as if they were leasing that solar farm from me. Only I don’t have that solar farm. They will have it. Yes, indeed, WTF? This is the moment to ask that rhetorical question.

A few paragraphs ago, I wrote that I am entertaining the idea of investing in those Copernic1 tokens. I think the idea has become much less attractive, business-wise, whilst becoming much more entertaining. There is an important question, though. Isn’t it ethically advisable to invest in renewable energies, even if the legal scheme is a bit sketchy, just to push forward those renewables? I can give an answer in two parts to that question. Firstly, renewables grow like hell, both in terms of power supplied, and in terms of attractiveness in financial markets. They really don’t need any exceptional push. They walk, and even run on their own legs. Secondly, I worked through my own ideas for implementing new technologies in the field of renewable energies, and, notably, I worked a lot with a tool called ‘Project Navigator’, run by the same International Renewable Energy Agency which I quoted earlier. The link is here: https://irena.org/navigator . There is one sure takeaway I have from working with that tool: a good project needs a solid, transparent, 100% by-the-book institutional base. Wobbly contracts translate into wobbly financing, and that, in turn, means grim prospects for the project in question.     

Another doubt arises in my mind, as I do flows instead of balances. A solar farm needs to earn money, i.e. to make profit, in order to assure a return on investment. The only asset which can earn value over time is land in itself. In practical terms, as long as we want that solar farm to work, it needs to generate a positive operational cash flow. Photovoltaic equipment ages inexorably, by physical wear and tear as well as by relative moral obsolescence. That aging can assure substantial amortization, yet you need some kind of revenue which you can write that amortization off from. If all or a substantial part of energy produced in the solar farm is tokenized and attributed to the holders of Copernic1, lease-based tokens, there could be hardly any energy left for sale, hence not much of a revenue. In other words, the system of initial financing with tokens can jeopardize economic payoff from the project, and that’s another thing I learnt with the Project Navigator: you need a solid economic base, and there is no way around it.

The hopefully crazy semester

Another handful of educational material, for the apparently (hopefully) crazy semester at the university. Crazy because of the virus, stands to reason. Things are never crazy because we make them so, stands to reason, once again.

I am making a big, fat bottom line at my investment portfolio in the stock market, and I am using this opportunity to make some educational material. The point of using my experience in education. It is personal experience, important to enrich theory. It is a story of personal limitations in business decisions, and understanding those limitations is important for understanding microeconomics as the substance of decisions, macroeconomics as their context, and management as their execution.

I have successful experience, together with hindsight on the mistakes I made. I can utilize it as valuable material to share and to build some teaching on. Since January 2020, I have invested  $7 924,76 in the stock market, and today (August 25th, 2020), my investment portfolio is worth  $11 719,91. I have 47,89% of return on the cash invested, over a period of 7 months. Not bad for a theoretician, isn’t it? I am deeply convinced that personal experience is impossible to bypass in any true teaching. Whatever kind of story I am telling on the moment, I always tell the story of my own existence. I can make it genuine and truthful just as well. Here is the link to the first, introductory video in this path: ‘My investment experience, my teaching and my science #1’  [Invest 1 2020-08-25 11-54-58 ; https://youtu.be/uYm0xB322u0 ]

In the second video of the same series [Invest 2 2020-08-26 07-37-08; https://youtu.be/XqYbe_LMdhY ], I focus on the presentation of my investment portfolio. I stress two points. Firstly, the portfolio which I hold now is the cumulative outcome of past trials and errors. Secondly, my portfolio shows many alternative scenarios of what could possibly have happened to my money, had I invested in just one among the 27 positions, thus if I had not diversified. I could have made +313% or -49%, instead of the 48% I had made as of August 25th 2020. I study more fundamentally the case of General Electric, which is one of my financial failures as for now. Turns out they have stakes in aviation, and that sucks in the times of pandemic.

In the third video of the series ‘Business Models in the Media Industry’ [Media BM 3 2020-08-26 08-24-42; https://youtu.be/bbmdsTaY7Lg ] I focus more in depth on studying the case of Netflix. You can have a glimpse of their transition from a streamer of externally made content to a business based on in-house made content. You can also see how strongly their business model is grounded in the assumption of constant growth in size.

In my second video devoted to Political Systems [PolitSys 2 2020-08-26 09-02-47; https://youtu.be/iRxwZDKlDxM ] I use two cases, i.e. the constitutions of France and Finland, to give my readers, followers and students a first glimpse on forms of political power. You can see that general concept in the context of distinction between a presidential system (France) vs a Parliamentary one (Finland).  

Business models and the nature of truth – back to school #2

I am introducing another handful of educational content in the form of video tutorials.

The video recorded on August 23rd, noon sharp, is the first in a separate path of teaching devoted to Political Systems. The link to You Tube is here: PolitSys 2020-08-23 11-16-44 (https://youtu.be/J_78zBEFFNE ). The video introduces two case studies: the constitution of Uganda (https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Uganda-Constitution.pdf ) and the constitution of India (https://discoversocialsciences.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Con-Of-India-updated-as-31072018.pdf ). In terms of theory, two articles are hinted at: Almond, G. A. (1956). Comparative Political Systems. The Journal of Politics, 18(3), 391-409 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2127255?seq=1 ), and Easton, D. (1957). An approach to the analysis of political systems. World Politics: A Quarterly Journal of International Relations, 383-400 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2008920?seq=1 ). General concepts which you will find developed in this video are:

>> Constitution as a double-function tool: the set of rules for the political game, and the foundation of the national legal system

>> Constitutional systems as paradoxes: rules of the very brutal political game put together, in the same document, with ambitious ethical principles for the entire nation.

>> The principle of national sovereignty

>> The method of studying constitutions by simulated removal and negation of rules

Material recorded on Monday, August 24th, 2020 (Econ Basics 1 2020-08-24 08-02-06 ; https://youtu.be/OTGjJGfpdoc ) contains the first, more or less formalized lecture in the fundamentals of economics. I use five essential readings – Netflix Annual Report 2019, Discovery Annual Report 2019, Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’, David Ricardo’s ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation’, and Carl Menger’s ‘Principles of Economics’ – in order to show the basis axes of approach to economic sciences. Firstly, it is the special social tension between the diversity of skills and social roles, on the one hand, and the fact of them all summing up to one big body of labour (Smith). Secondly, I introduce the distinction between capital and labour, and the importance of capital resources (Ricardo, example Netflix). Thirdly, and finally, I present the concept of economic good (Carl Menger) and the importance of translating technology into products.

The video recorded slightly later on August 24th, 2020 (Renew BM 2 2020-08-24 09-35-20; https://youtu.be/VnwLLCDFXS8 ) is the second educational piece in the stream devoted to Business Models in the industry of Renewable Energies. I stay with the two business cases from the first video, i.e. First Solar Inc. and SMA Solar Technology AG, and I focus on connecting their capital accounts – their respective BALANCE SHEETS – to their business models. In terms of the capital base, First Solar is six times bigger than SMA. First Solar’s business model is based, capital-wise, on using retained earnings and additional paid-in capital to finance property, plant, equipment and a large reserve of cash. As regards SMA Solar, they mostly use retained earnings and long-term, complex contractual debt in order to finance factories and large inventories. What emerges as a common denominator between the two is the stream of capital from retained earnings to the financing of fixed productive assets.

In the second video focused on business models in the media industry (Media BM 2 2020-08-24 13-42-46; https://youtu.be/jZKvNfopShM  ), I keep working with two business cases: Netflix, and Discovery Communications. This time, I focus on deconstructing a business model out of the capital account, i.e. from the balance sheet of a company. I present it in the form of a game, which I frequently practice in class with my students: I ask them to identify the biggest numbers (financial aggregates) on both the active and the passive side of the balance sheet. I demonstrate this exercise in this video and explain how you can use the balance sheet to guess the fundamental traits of a business model.  

I am also putting online a second video in the educational path devoted to the philosophy of science (Phil Science 2 2020-08-24 14-17-58; https://youtu.be/sCI66lARqAI  ). I am investigating the nature of truth, with three basic readings: Philosophical Essay on Probabilities’ by Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace, ‘Truth and Method’ by Hans Georg Gadamer, and an article entitled ‘Conscious agent networks: Formal analysis and application to cognition’, by Chris Fields, Donald D. Hoffman, Chetan Prakash, and Manish Singh. I briefly discuss the limitations we, humans, encounter when trying to discover truth about reality.

Back to school

More than an entire month has passed since I placed my last update on this blog. I took some time strictly off – some human tribes call it ‘vacation’ – and I have been assiduously doing science. Back from vacation, and imbibed with new science, I am blogging again. Actually, this new science is so fresh that I need to blog about it just to put some order in my findings and my ideas.

I have been doing science, and, in the same time, I have been preparing my teaching content for the new academic year.  As for science, I have been focusing on two things: the general theory of collective intelligence, on the one hand, and the puzzling data on urban density, on the other hand. I am going to develop on that second issue more exhaustively, as these are facts, and facts have disquieting a tendency to bring new insights into the comfortably established theory.

As regards teaching, I have three big curriculums to prepare for the winter semester: economics, management, and economic policy together with political systems. In this update, I am bringing, as sort of test missiles, my first three educational videos for the next semester. In other words, this update on my blog is actually a long, articulated link to those videos on You Tube. Below, I give the links and a short explanation for each of those three.

The video which I recorded around 2 p.m., on August 22nd, 2020, is pertinent to Business Models in the Film and TV production business. In my teaching of management, I have that special path, addressed to students in the Major ‘Film and TV Production’. I am teaching them the basics of management, with a special edge on show business. In this specific video you will see the beginning of two case studies: Netflix and Discovery Inc. You will see the basic tips for finding and retrieving financial reports of those businesses, as well as the first steps into analysing their business in depth. Here is the link to the You Tube video: Media BM 2020-08-22 13-41-17 (https://youtu.be/lR-jX0–1KQ ).  

The video recorded around 2:30 p.m., August 22nd, 2020, regards the Philosophy of Science. It is both extra-curricular content for all those among my students who want to develop their scientific edge, and my auto-reflection on the general issue of collective intelligence, and the possibility to use artificial neural networks for the study thereof. I dive into three readings: ‘Civilisation and Capitalism’ by Fernand Braudel, ‘Philosophical Essay on Probabilities’ by Pierre Simon, marquis de Laplace, and finally ‘Truth and Method’ by Hans Georg Gadamer. I focus on fundamental distinctions between reality such as it is, on the one hand, our perception, and our understanding thereof. The link is here: Phil Science 2020-08-22 14-30-16 (https://youtu.be/Wia0apAOdDQ ).

The video recorded early in the morning of August 23rd, 2020, is devoted to Business Models in the industry of Renewable Energies. The general concept of business models is the overarching common denominator in my teaching of economics and management in the coming academic year (2020/2021). Here, I start with a quick glance on two business cases: FIRST SOLAR and SMA SOLAR. You can see there two different business models, one oriented on big scale in manufacturing, the other one focused on building complex networks and platforms of exchange. Here comes the link to You Tube: Renew BM 2020-08-23 07-52-34 (https://youtu.be/FNOjOMD-OvY ).