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let's get to the spack bill you know it's only been six weeks you have a couple of years really but we know that there have definitely been conversations due diligence being done and we reported yesterday that Airbnb was said to have rebuffed an approach from you explain what that all means how how it all went down sure I wouldn't use the word rebuff and you know we had a we've had a very nice uh dialogue with Airbnb we got to know the management team or a number of the senior members of the team you know it's a business that we've admired over time uh they've been on a path to go public um you know we talked with them about our structure and I think they have not as your I guess your article pointed out they haven't decided against going the spa route um but at this point I think their first choice is to do an IPO um you know our you know putting aside Airbnb just speaking generally you know what we offer to a company is the ability to inject you know5 billion dollars of cash take them public you know if we started today if we opened a due diligence uh got access to a data room on a company and had opportunity to spend time with management by Zoom when I would say in three to four weeks you know depending on the nature of the business we could get a sufficient understanding of the business to be comfortable and we could also negotiate a deal and we could give them certainty on raising Capital uh and they could become a public company you know 45 to 60 days after that initial 30-day period of time but we give them certainty if you will in the first 30 days you know a company like Airbnb is filed confidentially at some point they're going to file perspectus you know sometime in December you know maybe you know after the election possibly before the new Administration comes in you know they it's really that last day of the Road show that they'll know what price they get and whether that's a certain transaction and and how much Capital they raise you know it's a different approach you you're sort of you you're taking behind door number three as opposed to the bird in hand so to speak um and I I guess my uh we did we have not we did not get to a stage where we had access to in information we had the ability to do real due diligence on the business or did we have any opportunity to discuss valuation with Airbnb you know we really kind of a get to know you I think the your the press the reports are true that we've had some discussions but they were very preliminary and they certainly did not we did not discuss valuation and we didn't get to do a deep enough dive frankly to determine whether this is a business uh you we'd want to own and at what price we'd want to own it at so we like the company at kind of at least from the outside in terms of the nature of the business we don't know enough about the economics of the business or the way it's run to have a view as to whether it's a fit for what we're trying to do just from their point of view bill and obviously the certainty of the price that they would get is is is a big plus right it's a big thumbs up for that but otherwise and given that they would have to give away something in order to go the back route right they they would definitely very much have to let you have a big say in how they run the business what would be in it for them to go the back route given that you know their board is full of people like you know Ken chanol and Greylock uh Reed Hoffman and so on there's plenty of advice there sure so actually we're not insisting on a particular role for persing square or any member of our team or any of the directors on the virging square tontin board obviously the governance of of whatever company we merge with is an important topic and we're going to want to make sure it's a board that has appropriate independent representation but we're not requiring that fing Square you know necessarily has a seat on the board it really depends on the situation it depends on the existing board you know the last back transaction we did you know many years ago you know eight years ago was Burger King and you know a couple of directors from our SPC at that time join the board but it was I did not personally excuse me um and it's been a very successful experience so I think you maybe there's some misconceptions about spec sort of generally but in our case there's no you don't give up anything by doing a deal with us uh you know and you get to figure out everything up front before you sign the papers and before you even have to tell anyone you've begun you've begun your process so I think what's attractive about what we are offering is the ability to give certainty in a very short period of time uh you know five billion IPO is a very large IPO you know other than Alibaba Facebook and Uber there has not been A5 billion doll plus IPO in the US for the last decade and you know so if you're a large company that wants to rate a large L amount of capital I mean today sort of a perfect reason why you don't want to just you know I think while markets are brilliant maybe people get excited they'll get a you know an overvaluation if you will in an IPO transaction and maybe that's why that route makes sense but you don't know until the last day of the IPO process whether your transaction gets done or not and that's why we've had enormously uh let's put it this way we weren't rebuffed by Airbnb but I would say we've C certainly been welcomed by a meaningful number of kind of private Equity controlled companies were in a number of you know discussions also preliminary uh as well as I would say family or individually controlled uh companies we were you know uh we were doing work on you know various businesses getting to know management teams and I'm you know quite confident we're going to find a transaction that makes sense for us and a transaction that makes sense for the other side but in a volatile Market you know the reason why we launch purch grow ttin in this market was our expectation was volatility to come and certainty and A5 billion dollar injection of cash is something I wouldn't walk away so quickly from if I were if I were on if our positions were reversed and I was the CEO of a private company that needed to raise a lot of cash to go public and had to do it within a reasonable time frame I would take a very hard look at what we offer well then Bill let me ask you why you might be so interested if there are certain problems in a in a volatile environment and we all know that criticism is leveled against Airbnb right they had to raise $2 billion dollar at the beginning of the pandemic Brian chesy was even sort of called upon to step down at you know an early point in the pandemic why would you be so interested in this business if it is such a volatile business and yes you you know a lot about tourism and about travel and hotels and stuff but um you know what would be your confidence in this business look again I we have not done the work on Airbnb we've not had access to inside information um we're looking for uh you know our favorite businesses in the world are sort of asset like uh annuity like businesses that can grow at a high rate over a very long period of time um with a lot of durability uh you know to the extent that airb Airbnb meets those criteria and it's run managed well it has a you know control over its cost structure there's a path to you know meaningful profitability and cash flow generation then it's a business that meets our criteria if not it's not a business that meets our criteria and the companies that we're looking for what I would describe as very very durable uh you know growth companies will accept a degree of volatility um you know we we were buying Hilton stock you know in in the depths of the market in March uh even though the hotel industry you know is really on its knees because we've got a long-term view on the industry and we haven't you know sold a share of Hilton that we've acquired we now own just under 5% of the company so we we like businesses where if you will you own a royalty on on future growth and travel that that's appealing to us um but there are many other kinds of businesses we're looking at in the called fintech space um as well as you know some consumer businesses um you know some sort of B2B uh you know uh companies kind of a full spectrum of different businesses and we're trying to find a fit between what we offer uh and what will be of value to a counterparty but I do think Market volatility is our friend you know interestingly purch gr tantine I noticed today was you either flatter or slightly up for the day in a down 5% Market I think what the Market's saying is this entity becomes more valuable uh with greater uncertainty it's now trading at about a 10% premium to the cash that we have in the till and it and it's it's it's worth a premium to the cash because the you know the worse the world gets in a way the better the deal will make
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