A WSJ essay pins Bending Spoons' $24.6 billion valuation to the direction of interest rates

The accounting half of the argument is two sentences. Weil wrote that "if ever a company illustrated the pitfalls of ignoring amortization, Bending Spoons is it," and that "ignoring amortization is akin to pretending the ice cube hasn't gotten smaller" ^[5]. Testing that means setting the annual amortization charge against reported cash flow, and the excerpt The Bear Cave reproduced does not include the amortization charge or the debt balance ^[8].

The prediction sits in the closing paragraph, and it is about credit rather than GAAP. "The trajectory for market interest rates is higher, not lower," Weil wrote, and "the higher they go, the more pressure Bending Spoons will face to hit pause on its roll-up play. That's when the magic stops" ^[7]. The same issue of the newsletter links an FT headline reporting that Stanley Druckenmiller says US borrowing costs are still "a little low" despite the surge in yields ^[9].

In my view the amortization dispute is the cheaper half of the case, because a serial acquirer that funds deals with debt has a growth rate set by its cost of capital ^[3]. Weil's own hedge marks where he could be early instead of right: price increases "can produce a quick cash-flow boost, but may not be sustainable" ^[6]. If they are sustainable, the add-back becomes a quarrel about which line an investor reads. If acquisition funding stays available at prices that clear, the roll-up keeps buying and nothing in the essay bites. The piece ran roughly two months after the July listing ^[3].

The week's paid bearish work went elsewhere. Fugazi Research published on Swvl Holdings, a $70.9 million Egypt-based bus and shuttle operator that listed via SPAC in 2022 and whose stock is up 400% in the last couple of weeks; "SWVL's numbers say the business is improving; its customers say something else, and they're not shy about it," Fugazi wrote ^[10][11]. Viceroy Research followed up on Blue Moon Metals, a pre-revenue copper and zinc developer valued at 757.9 million Canadian dollars whose Nussir project in Arctic Norway rests on a permit to dump mine waste at sea, and the Norwegian Environment Agency has said it is examining whether the reasoning behind that permit holds ^[12]. Bending Spoons is about 347 times Swvl's market value ^[1].

Four of the departures the newsletter flagged were finance or accounting seats, spread across three companies ^[2]. Amrize's chief financial officer left effective August 24 after under five months, for "personal reasons," and its chief accounting officer was replaced as of September 1 ^[13]. AptarGroup's chief accounting officer resigned after 95 days, and the packaging company reinstalled his predecessor on an interim basis ^[14]. TransMedics is replacing the finance chief it appointed in December 2024, roughly 21 months in, and was the subject of a 2025 Scorpion short report ^[15].