Jim Chanos: The Bears Are Out Of Hibernation

Guy Adami (0:00)

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Dan Nathan (0:31)

iConnections is the largest membership-only platform for the alternative investment industry. Bringing together thousands of fund managers and allocators in one powerful hub. iConnections reimagines how the industry connects through its digital offerings and premiere in-person events, empowering allocators and managers to meet, build relationships, and do business anytime, anywhere. To explore more about iConnections, its events, and gain access to the members-only platform, visit iconnections.io. Welcome to the Risk Reversal Podcast. I am Dan Nathan. That's Guy Adami. Guy.

Guy Adami (1:01)

I am so excited. Sometimes the stars line up. The moon aligns with Jupiter and Mars, and you have a situation like we're about to have.

Dan Nathan (1:11)

By the way, so this is where you usually say, holy shit. We have-

Guy Adami (1:18)

I don't want to be predictable. I'll go back and say, holy shit.

Dan Nathan (1:23)

Holy shit. We have Jim Chanos. He is the founder of Chanos and Co. He is not only friend of the pod, but he's a great friend of ours. Jim, thanks for being here.

Jim Chanos (1:34)

Thanks for having me. It's quite the intro. I know now I can't live up to that.

Dan Nathan (1:38)

Well, I mean, Guy, don't we usually say or the media says, famed short seller.

Guy Adami (1:44)

Very low bar.

Jim Chanos (1:45)

Very low bar.

Dan Nathan (1:47)

But here's the thing.

Guy Adami (1:48)

Famed is correct. Jim does a lot of different things.

Dan Nathan (1:52)

100%.

And I really love to start by talking about Chanos and Co for a second. But I just want to, you were last on with us late June. You had a lot of really prescient sort of ideas. And you had a lot of them that you were in the markets with. And so we're going to review some of those, obviously these Bitcoin treasury or crypto treasury things. You were all over that. We're going to kind of break that down, see what you think. We're recording this Thursday, Feb 5th, into the close. I think a lot of folks, if you're listening to this, you know what's been going on over the last couple of weeks. It's been a bloodbath in different parts of the market. And we're going to get your take on all of that. But you also had a lot of stuff to say before people were starting to pick apart the AI, CapEx sort of infrastructure, the hyperscalers sort of thing. So we're going to address that because that's kind of right in the middle of everything. So we got a lot of single stock stuff to do. We'll talk a little macro. But Jim, I think it would be helpful to just lay out what you do at Chanos and Co. Because Guy and I understand, a lot of your folks in your ecosystem understand. But I think there is often some, you know, whatever you want to call it, you know, the trolls are like, you know, short, I'm a perma bear, by the way, just so you know. And so give us the 411 on Chanos and Co. And how you structure your portfolios.

Jim Chanos (3:08)

Well, so first and foremost, family office, number one. But we do have an institutional advisory business where we advise clients on the short side and in hedging. And we do things like tail risk, advisory, and lots of other things that all revolve around a core portfolio of companies we still follow. We have 40 companies in our model portfolio. But again, clients are using us basically as either an outsourced seat for hedging or short. And we've been doing it for 40 years, fun business, advisory business, now family office advisory business. And it's really what I've been doing my whole career on Wall Street. So it's a great group of people that work for me, work with me, and we have a great bunch of clients. Large institutions that you know and some you don't know.

Dan Nathan (4:01)

I think that's really important context. And Guy, I think you appreciate this. We talk about this with certain guests all the time. I mean, your transparency is really important, okay? So some of the ideas we're going to talk about, you put out into the world. They are time stamped. And I think that is important. And your Twitter feed is a bit of a must-follow.