“Crazy Friday Night” Riot SEC Filings Dept.: Hmmm… Why Is The Intermedix CIO’s Bio Inactivated?

To be clear at the outset, I have every reason to believe that Intermedix is a fine company. But this seems an odd coincidence.

Almost certainly in a (vain) attempt to prop up its flagging stock on the NASDAQ (after the finely sourced CNBC exposé), Riot filed an SEC Form 8-K later on Friday evening, in which it described signing a contract to buy over 1,000 mining rigs from wholly unidentified seller(s).

I will return to the oddly-misshapen economic features of the contract ($11 million in cash; added to the Riot stock), by which an ill-defined “net cash flow” hurdle rate might mean that Riot doesn’t ever issue one million shares of its stock — to the sellers of these Antminers, shortly. [It is odd, because in truth, if the Antminers are not generating positive net cash flow (however defined) by two years from now — the vaunted one million shares will be worth only pennies anyway. And — in an additional bit of truth-telling — the shares may be worth only $3 per share, very shortly — the fundamental fair value of Riot’s assets, as we see it.]

But no, this fine clear Sunday morning, over coffee, a banana, cherry yogurt and icy fresh OJ, I want to… speculate — and speculate wildly.

If Riot is located in Colorado, or even in Boca, why would the contract recite the Oklahoma City regional corporate offices of Intermedix, a health care disaster readiness and health care cost containment IT company, as the point of delivery? The rigs are free on board, from the address depicted at right, courtesy Google maps.

That means any risk of loss or damage is transferred to Riot — at the door of the parking lot of Intermedix’s offices in Oklahoma City. But its real HQ (employing some 2,500 people around the US) is in Nashville, not a stone’s throw away from some dear friends’ offices downtown. [But I digress.]

Yes, I did a little digging — and I will continue to do more — but I cannot find any obvious overlaps in ownership, or officers/directors — between Riot (or its acquisition subs) and Intermedix.

But I did notice… that the bio of the CIO of Intermedix is inactivated.

His picture remains, but unlike all the other corporate officers of Intermedix, there is… no bio page, not as of this weekend.

A randomly broken piece — of odd HTML? With no additional meaning? Possibly… but I think not. This is an otherwise slick, savvy IT organization — and it specializes in being up, when others are down, due to disasters, etc…. that is its core business.

I will not name the CIO, in case I am wildly off base — nor will I link to that website. [You may go figure it out, and see — for yourselves, dear readers.]

But just suppose, as has been true in other recent news stories, someone at Intermedix was running an “off the books” bitcoin mining operation… and just suppose that corporate in Nashville decided that was… a bad idea.

Along comes Riot — willing (nay, desperate!) to pay $11 million in cash, plus stock. Even if the stock is worthless, the cash is several multiples of what the price for such equipment is, new at retail.

So Intermedix (and/or its key selling employees) pocket $11 million in cash. Hmmm….

And the CIO moves on to find… “other career opportunities“?

Who knows?

But it is exceedingly odd that whoever is making the $11 million in cash has gone to such pains to hide his, her or its identity.

More — on the economic terms — after a workout, steam and sauna… smile.

Once again, Riot is buying someone else’s “discards,” though, it would seem.

Namaste