Whatever you think of short sellers, is this a great name for a company, or what?

I first saw the name Hindenburg Research in a Washington Post article on a Las Vegas-based Ponzi scheme that targeted Mormons. The schemers had an investment firm, J&J, that was "making" money hand over fist by (supposedly) providing folks anticipating a "slip and fall" lawsuit settlement with the money upfront - at pretty deep discount. (Think usury.) When the "slip and fall" ship comes in, the investment manager pockets the full amount. 

Trouble - of course: this is a Ponzi scheme - there were no "slip and fall" victims. Only money coming from a growing group of "investors."

Those investors were the victims, the schnooks - the typical Ponzi combo of naivité and greed - who lost their life savings.

Somewhere along the line, an accountant who numbered some of the schnook investors among his clients, decided to contact Nate Anderson of Hindenburg Research, which had a growing reputation as Ponzi-hunters.

Anderson, 38, who’d once worked with the whistleblower who tried to warn the SEC about Bernie Madoff, said he had immediately spotted the telltale signs of a Ponzi scheme. 

Whistles were blown, and the SEC is now in on the act with J&J. 

To paraphrase the late Bill Morrissey, poet-singer laureate of blue collar New England, J&J "ain't the last, it ain't the first; it ain't the best, it ain't the worst."

Case in point: Hindenburg has recently taken on is the Adani Group:

...an Indian energy and infrastructure conglomerate headed by Gautam Adani, a man whose estimated net worth at the start of this year exceeded that of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

While Anderson/Hindenburg weren't going to get involved as investors in J&J, they are an investment firm that takes short positions in companies they find out.

Short sellers bet against stocks or other assets using various financial maneuvers. While some short sellers simply place bets on the decline of a company’s stock, others — “activist short sellers” — release research about a company’s weaknesses, such as alleged wrongdoing, hoping to persuade the market to sell shares.

Some corporate executives see activist short sellers as unsavory actors trying to profit by destroying companies. But others say they can play an important role as actors driven by high financial rewards to expose corporate fraud. (Source: Washington Post)

Anderson/Hindenburg apparently makes decent coin, but not crazy money. Or at least not the type of mad money that enabled the J&J partners in crime to buy fancy cars, multi-million dollar mansions, and - for one - a $750K RV. (Which must have been some RV.)

They may be making a goodly amount taking on the Adani Group, which is not without risk that's more than financial. (The organization is aligned with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So Adani's got friends in high places.)

My sense - based on nothing much - is that, as short sellers go, Hindenburg is on the up and up.

That nothing much, admittedly, revolves around the wonderful name Anderson chose for his firm. From their website: 

Why “Hindenburg”?

We view the Hindenburg as the epitome of a totally man-made, totally avoidable disaster. Almost 100 people were loaded onto a balloon filled with the most flammable element in the universe. This was despite dozens of earlier hydrogen-based aircraft meeting with similar fates. Nonetheless, the operators of the Hindenburg forged ahead, adopting the oft-cited Wall Street maxim of “this time is different”.

We look for similar man-made disasters floating around in the market and aim to shed light on them before they lure in more unsuspecting victims.

Love the name, love the reasoning. 

As for the victims of Ponzi schemes everywhere: Oh, the humanity.