World Chess IPO

Once again we return to the long-running series The Sociology of Chess (November 2016), last seen in 'The Root of All Evil'? (September 2022). In that post I wrote,

This is the second post in a row to deal with the so-called 'root of all evil'.

By some weird twist of fate -- evil fate? -- we now have the third post in a row. The story appeared on my most recent Yahoos post, Chess960 Mania (October 2022), where 'Yahoos' is a keyword meaning 'mainstream news stories about chess'.

If you're not familiar with IPOs, you're probably not an investor in stock markets. Wikipedia, in Initial public offering (wikipedia.org), defines an IPO as follows:-

An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment banks, who also arrange for the shares to be listed on one or more stock exchanges. Through this process, colloquially known as floating, or going public, a privately held company is transformed into a public company.

You can win big or you can lose big. If you're with the private company going public, you usually win big, at least in the short term. All others pay cash.

World Chess gearing up for IPO (8:52) • '[Published on] Oct 27, 2022'

The description of the video starts,

World Chess PLC chief executive Ilya Melenzon speaks to Proactive about his plans to list the company on the London Stock Exchange later this year. The initial public offer, of which a slice is open to retail investors via the PrimaryBid platform, is intended to raise up to Euro 8 mln for the company.

Now here I had a problem. The fellow doing all the talking on the video is Ilya Merenzon, not Melenzon. The first time we saw Merenzon on this blog was Carlsen - Anand II : Rumblings (November 2014; 'Who was that fellow sitting to the right of the match stakeholders? Introduced as "the organizer of the tournament, Ilya Merenzon"...').

Did Mr. Ilya change his name or are we witnessing a lack of due diligence? A page related to the video, World Chess gearing up for IPO (proactiveinvestors.com) starts, 'World Chess PLC chief executive Ilya Melenzon...' and the only references on the web to 'Melenzon' are related to the IPO. Looks like 'Proactive Investors' weren't so proactive when it came to World Chess (aka Worldchess).

Nitpicking aside, I'm always looking for ways to speculate on chess. I signed up with 'Proactive' for future info on the Worldchess IPO and will follow up on this blog.