14 ms·
I think a better way would be to keep the foundation and spin off a company that manufactures all of that. Sell 49% of that company in an IPO and keep the major
by notanormalnerd 2y ago
I think a better way would be to keep the foundation and spin off a company that manufactures all of that. Sell 49% of that company in an IPO and keep the majority stake in the foundation. This way they can raise money for expansion while keeping the mission in line.
This also signals very clear to investors what this enterprise is about.
- Latty 2y agoIsn't this already how it works? Raspberry Pi Ltd is a different company to the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
- syarb 2y agoAFAIK, yep. Jeff Geerling (hi jeff!) has a great video about this. https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305 https://youtu.be/hrhE6MnGi1A?si=IeHs2GKYqPjqPXSb&t=305
- geerlingguy 2y agoHello there ;) I would like to know how much the Pi Foundation would still own—could be an interesting dynamic there. And good for them to be able to use some of that profit for good (they do a lot of neat things for education / STEM).
- entropicdrifter 2y agoHopefully the foundation still controls the majority of votes regardless of the % ownership stake. They do too much good in the world to go full-blown public corpo
- gchadwick 2y agoThis is already the setup, the foundation owns the trading company and it is the trading company going to IPO. From a quick scan it's not clear to me what share of ownership of RPi ltd the foundation would retain post IPO other than the foundation will be selling at least some of its stake: > The Offer would be comprised of new Shares to be issued by the Company and existing shares to be sold by certain existing shareholders, including the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Raspberry Pi's existing majority shareholder.
- anticensor 2y agoAre non-profits allowed to own any stock in publicly traded companies in Britain?
- gchadwick 2y agoAccording to this: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/302278/cc14text.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... yes. Note that the foundation has had a majority stake in RPi ltd (as a private company) for a long time this is not a new structure.
- graemep 2y agoYes. large non-profits can need to invest a lot of money.
- londons_explore 2y agoYes, but as shareholders they must still act according to their 'purpose', which is a term in UK law that a charity can choose when it is set up as part of its charter, and then every action must be in accordance with.
- szundi 2y agoPurpose of spinoff = get dividends to fund the original purpose
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- hgomersall 2y agoNon profits aren't generally charities.
- michaelt 2y ago> I think a better way would be to keep the foundation and spin off a company that manufactures all of that. Sell 49% of that company in an IPO and keep the majority stake in the foundation. This way they can raise money for expansion while keeping the mission in line. Ah yes, the OpenAI approach :)
- torlok 2y agoWhat are the economics of buying into a stock that has a 51% stakeholder, and doesn't pay dividends, outside of "line goes up"? I know this is kind of a standard in tech, but it still eludes me where the value of the stock is.
- cchance 2y agoLOL you act like the entire market isn't "line goes up" regardless of 51% or not. And no its not just tech
- torlok 2y agoYes, it's "line goes up", but more in the P/E ratio sense, where the price of the stock doesn't reflect the true value of the company, however outside of tech you can usually reason that there's either dividends being paid, or the stock has a base value because if a company performs, and the stock price is low enough, it's worth for another entity to buy it out and take control of it. This gives a stock some real value, and company performance has real impact on the price of the stock. In the case of tech comapnies, it's often no dividends, and the owner has 51%, so the stock gives no share of the profits, and no voting power.
- Jolter 2y agoWhy would they not pay dividends?
- rerdavies 2y agoSo they can invest in themselves. The usual reason.
- andrewla 2y agoTraditional answer is that there is future potential that they would issue more stock (to sacrifice their 51% stake) or at some point start to issue dividends.
- dukeyukey 2y agoRaspberry Pi has paid out about $50 million in dividends already to it's parent company.
- szundi 2y agoI’m not really sure you get what the smell of money does to most people