Why I say Deluxe Corporation is a Ponzi and Laundering scheme
This is not financial advice and I own not a single share in anything affected by $DLX stock movements any which way.
This is just public interest analysis in a 1 billion dollar corporation that is a pillar of the US economy in processing 15% of the US GDP as a vital service to the financial sector.
Every once in a while the market needs a lesson in business fundamentals and the basics of critical analysis.
I know, I know, sounds preposterous, but you might be surprised how many senior business people would be willing to vouch for its veracity.
In the past few months all sorts of analysis has been published recommending the DLX (Deluxe Corporation) as essentially a steal at anything under 25, sometimes over 30, dollars a share.
To give an example of this kind of coverage directly from the official NASDAQ $DLX news feed:
Sounds absolutely rosy you may say. I’d be a fool to contradict such esteemed analysis using the latest and most sophisticated methods you may add.
What does a small startup executive know of the lofty heights of S & P 600 corporations and their arcane mazes of balance sheets, cryptic ratios and murky options markets.
True, I don't have that kind of experience and the retort does have merits. What could I possibly know about business that Zacks and TipRanks and TD Cowen doesn’t?
You are certainly legitimate in asking.
What I know about business more fundamental to all that number jazz is this:
You need a fucking website.
In the case of publicly traded companies on the NASDAQ and regulated by the SEC you require by law a website to keep the public informed about a long list of details. And no, having that information elsewhere and not trivially easy for the public to find is not a “loophole” that matters and is wroth discussing.
It’s not “power move” to just have an invalid URL error page for a website to demonstrate you don't even need a website to carry on as a going and growing concern. It's stupid not to have a website and also violates a long list of regulatory requirements.
Having this page come up after you navigate to the official DLX page on the NASDAQ website:
Is not a “business move” that exists.
It’s just straight-up breaking a long list of public disclosure laws … and also just doesn’t make any business sense.
Now, there certainly are cases where a company’s “official” corporate website could go down, even for an extended period of time, and that doesn’t really affect business because their corporate name and website isn’t one of their brands they conduct business under. And the question would be how much is the SEC going to fine this maverick CEO for not even bothering to have a corporate website. I guess it could happen. I don't think it ever has because it sounds more stupid than some sort of flex.
But we don't need to bother with that potentiality, as that’s not the case for Deluxe Corporation.
Deluxe is very much the Deluxe Corporation brand that they do plenty of business under.
The wayback machine informs us of all sorts of business offerings at Deluxe (at least when they had a functioning website back in September):
Let's recap what's in this single screenshot off the wayback machine (from end of September):
Yeah Ok boomer.
Which is my best theory that explains this information: Boomer / old school confidence men just want to make outrageous claims on the internet and think the millennial in a hoody problem is a "happens to other scammers" kind of problem they don't need to contend with.
Think again!
And the wayback machine is available to anyone in a hoody.
Which you can go check for yourself right now the website goes from “a corporate website” with information on it to just an invalid URL and reverse-proxies error message 6 days later (likely the website broke October 1st is my guess: either because something wasn’t paid in the chain of services needed to serve a website, because the tech guy is disappeared voluntarily or involuntarily, or then the tech guy wanted his money by the end of September and needed to demonstrate he was serious, believing that demonstration would get him his money; and when that didn’t happen well shits fucked anyways and its time to abandon ship).
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Then comparing that with a search for Deluxe reddit posts or any other kind of social media post or more importantly the NASDAQ (or a single financial analysis published on the NASDAQ) explaining what the fuck is going on, what went wrong with the website, that they apologize to their clients and investors and their working tirelessly to restore it … sooner than 2 months.
There’s not a single one of those 3 million business served by DLX that are wondering things like “how do I contact customer service” or “what happened to their website” or then one of their roughly 6000 employees wondering “is the company is still a going concern” and “are they going to get paid?” or investors wondering what’s happening at Deluxe to cause a website outage for literally 2 months.
Is why I can assert with 100% certainty what we are looking at is a publicly traded company that has been converted entirely into an organized crime subsidiary used to move money around the world.
Maybe not 15% of the US GDP kind of money, but a lot of money none the less.
Now, if all that wasn’t convincing enough that Deluxe clearly no longer performs any legitimate business whatsoever (as whatever illegitimate business they serve isn’t about to complain about it in public) due to the fundamentals of “website: yes / no” business analysis methodology (a methodology I’ve refined over nearly 2 decades of business development that a website is an important asset going into determine things like: “are you even doing any business”).
Things get worse.
For, the only reason I come to this information of Deluxe no longer having a functioning website about a week ago was following this conversation:
Which I hope sets the mood for what Part 2 is going to about.
For I don't personally feel the details of how I encounter Deluxe in the first place is all that needed in establishing the disappearance of a 3 Trillion USD payment processor corporate website is definitely a public interest question I am entirely legitimate in drawing attention to and I for one see no legitimate business explanation for that, but, you know, feel free to try.
If you can't explain it ... and you're like ... NASDAQ should definitely be informed by some guy in a hoody that can't even afford a lamp, that there's a company trading without a website or any of the publicly required information available following their official website link or things like "an explanation" of why they don't have a website and how they've changed their business model form "have a website" to "don't have a website" and why they think that's a money maker, already done my friends:
And just if you're not familiar with corporate law and you personally don't need to publish shit on your own personal website, and aren't sure this is a requirement and maybe just not having a website could be some sort of business move (who's to say), rest assured publicly traded companies in the US do indeed require a few basics like "have a website".
Now, Deluxe still has their "investor" subdomain online (as fraudsters are going to want to directly control what they present investors to fine-tune their frauds in real time) but having information that is only available if you know where it is doesn't fit the requirement of "it's on your website you provide the SEC and NASDAQ for people to be able to find".
It's a small thing compared to questions like "where's the 3 trillion" but it's just so normal readers can be 100% sure that there is no possible legitimate business reason to simply not have a website since September.
Which I won't directly link to so you don't have to bother asking yourself if I'm spoofing here with a fake link: anyone can go right now to the NASDAQ page for DLX and be 100% certain what their official webpage is, click on it ... and be served right now as of writing:
Now, what do the good folks at Equisolve say about it?
Well fortunately it's easy following the 8 simple steps they generously describe for us in the linked pdf.
HOWEVER! Please be aware that following these 8 simple steps to ensure SEC compliance on your website nevertheless does require having a functioning website.
Which definitely needs to be findable through your official website you provide to the SEC and appears on your NASDAQ page for example.
But even if "can the public find your website" wasn't a requirement, their investor subdomain doesn't comply anyways because it's link to required information like "who the board is" is back to their main website that ... what does that look like again?
Ah yes:
Now, I honestly don't feel like more analysis is required about this website issue, but for those of you running a SEC supervised Fortune 1000 company, please see Equisolve for all your website compliance needs. They seem to know their stuff and have packaged it into 8 easy to follow steps in a free to download pdf ... steps that we can be sure do require a website. So you'll probably want to go get one if that's still not checked off your TODO list as a NASDAQ listed CEO.