NIR Group

[jurisper]

nir wants to sell shares. that's where they make their money

That's where they made some of their money, but remember that the easier thing was to make money from the fund investors, via management fees: 2% of asset value plus 20% of paper profit, or whatever it was.

The fees were based on the value of the assets as calculated by Ribotsy, essentially. For that he just needed tickers, a market mark and a bunch of securities with conversion features allowing him to book a big paper gain. A note convertible at a 50% discount to the market price? Wow, there's a 100% gain, guaranteed, regardless of share price, liquidity, company viability ...

He wouldn't sue a company for non-payment - why would he? - just roll over the note.

Companies are just tickers to these kind of "investors" - for most of the portfolio he wouldn't have known or cared what the business of the company was supposed to be.