Robert Smith
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Robert Smith
@bondhack.ft.com
17K followers 1.6K following 1.4K posts
Corporate Finance Editor at the Financial Times.

Have a tip? Email: [email protected] / [email protected] | Signal: robert_smith_ft.55
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Robert Smith @bondhack.ft.com · Nov 1
If you're after a wild weekend read, check out our deep dive into the flashy Utah leasing firm that somehow racked up $2bn of exposure to the First Brands debt debacle

Featuring prominent Mormon sports stars, a private jet, cheerleaders and an epic corporate rap video

www.ft.com/content/f0ae...
bondhack.ft.com
BREAKING: First Brands Group has now sued Onset and the brother of the US auto part maker's founder for allegedly conspiring “in an unlawful scheme to defraud creditors out of billions of dollars”.

Full story here: as.ft.com/r/08c0e913-9...
January 9, 2026 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
mayfaircynic.bsky.social
A pub, a vape-shop, a William Hill, and a barbers all in one where you can also get your phone repaired.
Multi-use attractive retail is the future.
January 8, 2026 at 2:47 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
nbcnews.com
"They carried her body out, just like by her limbs, they didn’t even have a stretcher," a witness says. "She was carried out like a sack of potatoes."
Watching woman die 'will change my life forever,' neighbor says
Emily Heller, 39, wasn't even dressed when she heard whistles alerting the neighborhood that ICE agents were in the area this morning. “I’ve never seen
www.nbcnews.com
January 7, 2026 at 11:23 PM
bondhack.ft.com
I read @radleybalko.bsky.social’s magisterial New Republic cover story on Trump's immigration crackdown over the Xmas break and it's an even more (depressingly) essential read now in the wake of events in Minneapolis newrepublic.com/article/2042...
Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here
With astonishing speed, the administration has toppled the most cherished pillars of a free society. And the experts agree: It’s all going to get much, much worse.
newrepublic.com
January 7, 2026 at 7:36 PM
bondhack.ft.com
This whole post is nightmare fuel for reporters
caseynewton.bsky.social Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 5d
The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age of AI www.platformer.news/fake-uber-ea...
The whistleblower, for his part, worked to amp up the pressure. He told me he had shared the document with other reporters, putting me into a competitive crunch. He asked when I thought I would publish. I asked him if he could point me to any current or former coworkers of his who could help me understand the document better. “Not really,” he said. By this point, alarm bells were starting to ring. I wondered if the employee badge the whistleblower had shared with me might have been AI-generated. While AI systems are notoriously unreliable at identifying their own outputs, Google Gemini can detect SynthID watermarks embedded in images that it produces. I uploaded the badge to Gemini and asked if Gemini had made it. “Most or all of this image was edited or generated with Google AI,” it said.
January 6, 2026 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
seanokane.bsky.social
ft alphaville has low key been one of the best blogs of the last few years
January 6, 2026 at 5:56 PM
bondhack.ft.com
Very funny seeing all the yanks discover the unique “tone” of FT Alphaville on the back of this banger post!
January 6, 2026 at 7:18 PM
bondhack.ft.com
A guide to who's who at X from @bryce.lol

www.ft.com/content/ad94...
Who’s who at X, the deepfake porn site formerly known as Twitter
A look inside Elon Musk’s big tent
www.ft.com
January 6, 2026 at 12:51 PM
bondhack.ft.com
Went to check if this screenshot (posted by @aric.bsky.social) was real (it is) and then made the mistake of also scrolling through Grok's replies on X. Still constantly cranking out sexualised images of young girls. Beyond bleak.
January 5, 2026 at 11:22 AM
Reposted by Robert Smith
garius.bsky.social
I can't believe a FIFA peace prize recipient would do this.
January 3, 2026 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Robert Smith
edzitron.com
Turning to the public markets, we see more evidence of enshittification. CoreWeave is utterly rotten and debt-ridden - OpenAI has negotiated *net 360 payment terms*, and NVIDIA in its earnings admitted it's had to backstop an entity that's very likely CoreWeave.

www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshitti...
As of its latest Q3 2025 earnings filing, CoreWeave is sitting on $1.1 billion in deferred revenue (income for services not yet rendered), up from $951 million in Q2 2025 and $436 million in Q1 2025. This means deposits have been made, but the contract has yet to be serviced. Now, I’m a curious little critter, so I went and found the 921-page $2.6 billion DDTL 3.0 loan agreement between CoreWeave and banks including Morgan Stanley, MUFG Bank and Goldman Sachs, and in doing so learned the following: OpenAI appears to have net 360 payment terms from CoreWeave — meaning it can pay literally a year from invoice. Per CoreWeave’s Q3 earnings (page 19), “...on occasion, the Company has granted payment terms up to net 360 days.” Per CoreWeave’s loan agreement (page 12), under “contract realization ratio,” “the sum of Projected Contracted Cash Flows applicable for the corresponding three-month period as determined on a net 360 basis.” CoreWeave is required to maintain something called a “contract realization ratio” of .85x — meaning that CoreWeave has to make at least 85 cents of every expected dollar or it is in default on their loan. This is important to note because it means that if, say, OpenAI decides not to pay up in a year, CoreWeave will be in real trouble. I apologize, that suggests that CoreWeave isn’t already in trouble. Buried inside NVIDIA’s latest earnings (page 17) there was a little clue: In the third quarter of fiscal year 2026, we entered into an agreement to guarantee a partner's facility lease obligations in the event of their default. The agreement allows our partner to secure a limited-availability facility lease backed by our credit profile, in exchange for issuing us warrants. The maximum gross exposure is $860 million, which is reduced as the partner makes payments to the lessor over five years. The partner has placed $470 million in escrow and executed an agreement to sell the data center cloud capacity, mitigating our default risk.
December 29, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
radleybalko.bsky.social
I'm not great about tooting my own horn. But as an independent journalist whose work is reliant on contributions from my readers, it's part of the job.

So here's a post and thread on my work over the last year and beyond -- and why you, reader, should subscribe.

(Plus, shameless dog photos!)
The roundup -- and a request for your support
My year-end pitch for your paid subscription
radleybalko.substack.com
December 29, 2025 at 4:12 PM
bondhack.ft.com
This is an excellent mini-documentary from the New York Times on the spiralling consequences of an aggressive immigration raid in LA youtu.be/9ws1r6CaSXs?...
Inside an Immigration Raid That Swept Up U.S. Citizens | Visual Investigations
YouTube video by The New York Times
youtu.be
December 28, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
pickardje.bsky.social
this is a beautiful homage by my friend and colleague Claer Barrett to recently-departed FT reader Bruce Dalton, which she read at his funeral last week
December 27, 2025 at 4:04 PM
bondhack.ft.com
Late entry for one of the best long reads of the year
miles-johnson.bsky.social Miles Johnson @miles-johnson.bsky.social · 22d
New FT Magazine cover story out today - How a failed baseball player and ex-Merrill Lynch broker became an international arms dealer.
December 21, 2025 at 12:55 AM
Reposted by Robert Smith
matthewholehouse.bsky.social
All the photography in this week's Economist Britain section is by Martin Parr
December 12, 2025 at 2:42 PM
bondhack.ft.com
Lovely piece on Carlo Rambaldi, one of the top practitioners of the lost art of practical special effects, along with the great Stan Winston as.ft.com/r/e53c40dc-b...
Sick of CGI? The puppet maestro of ET and Alien knew the secret to true movie magic
[FREE TO READ] Three-time Oscar-winning artist Carlo Rambaldi’s beloved and nightmarish animatronics receive a centennial tribute at MoMA
as.ft.com
December 12, 2025 at 10:29 AM
bondhack.ft.com
Early Christmas 🎁 from @samgadjones.bsky.social and Paul Murphy: the full inside story behind Jan Marsalek's Libyan business inteterest and the bitter disputes they spawned

as.ft.com/r/2a7015cd-6...
Marsalek’s missing millions: the unravelling of a secret Libyan empire
[FREE TO READ] FT investigation sheds light on Wirecard fraudster’s activities in north Africa and shadow life as a Russian agent of influence
as.ft.com
December 12, 2025 at 9:42 AM
bondhack.ft.com
Hedge funds considering providing yet another DIP loan to First Brands Group
December 10, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Robert Smith
generalboles.bsky.social
No photoshopping today as I’ve been temporarily blinded by this chap’s teeth
December 10, 2025 at 10:35 AM
bondhack.ft.com
The real purpose of Robert Tchenguiz's Truss-fronted members club: repaying debts to the Reubens brothers.

An early Christmas present for FT readers here (gift link, first 300 clicks free! 🎁): as.ft.com/r/14553746-2...
Robert Tchenguiz hopes Liz Truss-fronted club will help pay off debt to Reubens
[FREE TO READ] Companies linked to financier owe property moguls £130mn for mortgage on Leconfield House
as.ft.com
December 10, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Robert Smith
financialtimes.com
In a tough year, private credit bosses are pointing fingers on.ft.com/4pX1Wc0 | opinion
In a tough year, private credit bosses are pointing fingers
Firms like Apollo find it hard to shake narratives formed by legacy private equity and distressed debt operations
on.ft.com
December 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM
bondhack.ft.com
"UK’s Covid schemes ‘left front door open’ to fraud, says report"

www.ft.com/content/803a...
December 9, 2025 at 4:44 PM
bondhack.ft.com
Unintentionally comic piece from Citywire on Sanjeev Gupta and SFOs (Single Family Offices) that never mentions the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) citywire.com/middle-east/...
citywire.com
December 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM
bondhack.ft.com
Is this the first time the phrase "fuck face" has appeared in an FT news article?

www.ft.com/content/555d...
Hedge fund ordered to pay bonus of trader who made 97% of its revenues
Evolution Capital Management must pay Robert Gagliardi $5.4mn plus interest after High Court judgment
www.ft.com
December 8, 2025 at 1:02 PM