Nate Anderson on January 6, 2023 in New York. Anderson exposes corporate fraud and Ponzi schemes through his company Hindenburg Research.
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Hindenburg Research, a start-up research and investment firm that made a name for itself through several successful short bets, is closing its doors, founder Nate Anderson announced Wednesday.
“As I have been telling my family, friends, and our team since late last year, I have made the decision to dissolve Hindenburg Research. The plan was to end after we finished the set of ideas we had been working on. As of the latest Ponzi case that we just completed and are sharing with regulators, that day is today,” Anderson wrote in a letter Note Posted on the company's website.
Anderson founded Hindenburg in 2017, and the company has published negative research reports on dozens of companies in the years since. One of Hindenburg's first notable reports came in 2020 and was focused on Starting the Nikola car. Part of the report included an allegation that Nikola had faked the semi-truck's autonomous capabilities in a video, which… The company later admitted. Nikola founder Trevor Milton was later sentenced to prison Four years in prison.
Many of the targets of the Hindenburg reports were smaller companies. The company also pursued companies Major financial figuresincluding Carl Icahn Icahn Projects LP And the business empire of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
The company's most recent report was on January 2 about auto retail stores convoyWhich he called “Father and Son”. Accounting gain For the ages.” In a statement, Carvana called the company's report “deliberately misleading and inaccurate.” The stock fell more than 11% the day after Hindenburg published its report but has since recovered.
The Hindenburg was a short seller as well as a research house. This means that the company was betting against the companies it was researching, putting it in a position to profit if the stock fell. As Hindenburg's reputation grew, some stocks saw immediate negative reactions after the reports were published.
It is not clear how much money Hindenburg made from her short bets.
The Hindenburg's rise came at a time when the controversial practice of short selling was out of favor elsewhere. The meme stock craze in 2021 has turned retail investors against hedge funds, prompting some professional investors to pull back from short selling. Federal officials have also investigated other short sellers in recent years, including the Justice Department's hit on Citron's Andrew left with Accusations of securities fraud last year.
