Dan Blizerian’s company Ignite lost $50,000,000 last year!
Instagram king and trust fund baby Dan Bilzerian lost a fortune in 2019 and his company Ignite is filing for insolvency.
The lifestyle company sold party products such as cannabis and alcohol, but clearly not enough to claw back the insane investment.
Dan Bilzerian Bad at Business AND Poker?
Dan Bilzerian is best known for his garish photo shoots across social media. Business is not a niche that he is generally associated with.
Imagine our surprise when highly respected magazine Forbes ran a story about Bilzerian’s latest venture going south after posting massive losses in a single year.
“Nowhere on his social-media feeds do you see Bilzerian lighting $50 million on fire, which is what the vaguely cannabis adjacent company he founded and serves as CEO, Ignite International Brands, Ltd., did last year.”
This is truly a ridiculous amount of money to be losing in a startup company in what is now a highly competitive sector.
$32 million of the $50 total losses was through operational costs. This includes all marketing and promotions, but also pay and bonuses for employees and the board members.
Just how much went straight into the pockets of the execs?
Annual Report Makes Bad Reading
Ignite shares are publicly traded on the Canadian Stock Exchange where potential investors can read the annual report to assess the stock value.
The 2019 annual report for Ignite does not make good reading. In fact, it looks like a classic case of mismanagement showing Bilzerian using the company funds as his personal piggy bank.
Purchases listed as a company expense included a $60,000 Star Wars toy gun set, a $31,000 pool renovation, $15,000 for a ping pong table, and an $88,000 vault for one of his houses.
How can this be considered fair and proper use of company funds?
Ignite raised capital through two avenues during 2019. Selling shares of company stock and taking on debt.
This sounds perfectly normal for any firm trying to grow in the modern world, but the use of this capital was far from normal.
Has Dan Bilzerian been funding his lavish lifestyle by spending company cash and declaring it necessary as a marketing tool? If true this raises many questions.
Standard Bilzerian Business Practice?
Dan Bilzerian claims that he made his fortune playing high stakes texas hold’em poker. Anyone who understands anything about the game knows this is a bare-faced lie.
It is generally accepted that he is the beneficiary of shady dealings by his father Paul Bilzerian. A corporate raider who spent time in prison.
The Securities and Exchange Commission in the US claims he owes them $62 million which to date has still not been paid.
This money was shifted through trust funds and shell companies until out of the reach of the US justice system.
How many other companies in recent years have been purely used to fund the Bilzerian family? Is Ignite a classic case?
The most embarrassing statistic from this latest episode is that Ignite only made $9.6 million worth of sales.
When you consider that Bilzerian has 32 million followers on Instagram these sales figures are beyond terrible. It’s clear that people follow him in the same way you can’t help staring at a car crash.
His followers just don’t like him.
Another quote from Forbes sums up the situation perfectly.
“Like any good businessman, it seems Bilzerian sticks someone else with the bill.”
Bilzerian treats his business ventures like a poker freeroll.
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