Thread

1. vel0city · 1790952829 · focus · HN ↗

   I'm just trying to understand this more, can someone please give more insight?

   So Amazon bought a bunch of nVidia hardware, and has been installing it in their datacenters. These are supposedly in-service for Amazon customers, a lot of it available and in-use today.

   This is creating a SPV company, have that SPV take out loans, have the SPV buy the hardware still installed in Amazon's datacenters, and then Amazon rents the hardware they previously bought and installed from the SPV?

   This sounds like an expensive shell game paying expensive finance bros to make some numbers on papers look a little different. What do they really gain from this? Is this just because Amazon wants ~$8B in cash today, like taking a cash-out refinancing on your home? Doesn't Amazon have over a hundred billion dollars in cash on hand? If you've got a pile of money in your house sitting around, why would you do a cash-out refinancing at a time of high interest rates?

   1. b112 · 1790953208 · focus · HN ↗

      If you've got a pile of money in your house sitting around, why would you do a cash-out refinancing at a time of high interest rates?

      Maybe the rates to do leasebacks on physical items are better, than rates for loans to build datacenters?

      Could be leasing has large tax(deductible) advantages too.

      Also interest rates aren't high, they're still low taken over historical trends. Thos may mean that tax deductions, written decades ago, do well still via leasing vs depreciating the hardware.

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