Just fancy that

[grey_man]

2018

 

 

[grey_man]

2020

 

[asperity]

Please be aware that the value of your investment may go down as well as up...........................................................................

[Bill]

Isn’t this something to do with business rates because I thought it was only the smaller businesses that received relief during the pandemic. I’d have thought Manchester Airport would have been classed as a highly profitable organisation and despite the downturn would have had significant reserves.

 

Bill 😊

[Confused52]

Grey_man, well done for finding the original sarcastic quote from the financial wizard at WBC. Did you see the response on the guardian site from hexaflexagon taking Lynton Green's position on the Auditors report apart?  https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19016127.accounts-saga-rumbles-amid-technical-issues/

It seems to be all about him and the issue of having a qualification in the accounts. That would have a catastrophic effect on the credit rating and further bond issues would be impossible along with increased interest rates for any further borrowing other than for proper purposes from the Public Loans Board. There lies ignominy.

On the actual story that's 10 million pounds for each of the Greater Manchester Councils assuming they don't have to contribute to reserves to keep in afloat. Surely they need Lynton's help?

[grey_man]

34 minutes ago, Confused52 said:

Grey_man, well done for finding the original sarcastic quote from the financial wizard at WBC. Did you see the response on the guardian site from hexaflexagon taking Lynton Green's position on the Auditors report apart?  https://www.warringtonguardian.co.uk/news/19016127.accounts-saga-rumbles-amid-technical-issues/

It seems to be all about him and the issue of having a qualification in the accounts. That would have a catastrophic effect on the credit rating and further bond issues would be impossible along with increased interest rates for any further borrowing other than for proper purposes from the Public Loans Board. There lies ignominy.

On the actual story that's 10 million pounds for each of the Greater Manchester Councils assuming they don't have to contribute to reserves to keep in afloat. Surely they need Lynton's help?

I didn't find it. I kept it. Always a good chance these things will return to haunt people, especially those shooting their mouths off about the risks they are taking with other people's money.

I'm surprised Lynton's still in Warrington. Anybody who can guarantee a return on billions of pounds over a period of decades and with no risk to capital must be worth more than he's being paid now. Even if he doesn't understand apostrophes and irony. What he means is sarcasm. Like I've just applied there.    

I don't know how much truth there is in the idea that the delay with the accounts is down to him trying to save face on Redwood. But frankly, given the minuscule amount of information that the council allows to leak into public, who knows anything about what's going on? We might find out, but it will be the hard way when the whole thing is falling around everybody's ears.

[Evil Sid]

Or we get a letter from some south pacific island.......🤫

[Davy51]

Is Lynton Green an American actor ?

[grey_man]

1 hour ago, Davy51 said:

Is Lynton Green an American actor ?

He's the son of 1970s actor Soylent Green.

[grey_man]

22 hours ago, Bill said:

Isn’t this something to do with business rates because I thought it was only the smaller businesses that received relief during the pandemic. I’d have thought Manchester Airport would have been classed as a highly profitable organisation and despite the downturn would have had significant reserves.

 

Bill 😊

I know only what I've read in the news. It was a profitable organisation and the GM councils are now stumping up £260 million in the hope that it returns to profitability. Obviously there are wider economic issues with a major International Airport. But I can't see the airline industry ever being the same again given the number of planes now being mothballed.

My point is that Lynton Green needs to be a lot more circumspect before issuing sarky statements like this, obviously aimed primarily at the people who pay his wages. It's not his or his organisation's money to play with, councils don't have a good track record with this kind of thing and history teaches us that you have to be prepared for major shocks to the system. There's nothing unprecedented about the pandemic. 

Does anybody in Warrington apart from a handful of people have the slightest idea what is happening to the council's investments or even what it has invested in and on what basis? I know they throw around this figure of £20 million net annual revenue but it's not much of a return on £1.6 billion or whatever the current figure is, there's no evidence for it of any sort, it's a suspiciously round number and it hasn't changed in months. 

Everybody had better hope it's true, anyway. The levels of aggression being displayed on the subject by at least one councillor make me worry. 

[Bill]

Sorry grey_man, I can’t really offer any meaningful reply because I just don’t enough on the subject other than that I thought rate relief was available for smaller companies and that larger and more profitable organisations would use retained profits and or loans to see them through.

I think airlines and airports will take a long time to recover from this though because prices will jump affecting not just holidays but also that of long hauls goods and this will further reduce demand. And all this on top of calls for greener policies for air transport.

As for this not being unprecedented well if it’s not, I don’t know what would be short of a something like an alien invasion or a massif meteor strike. My business got bitten quite badly due to commitments that would never have been taken if I’d thought that something like this might have happened. Fortunately, we’re surviving and trying to make the most of free time it’s created to train staff, continue R&D and to prepare for when things return to normal.

 

Bill 😊

[grey_man]

41 minutes ago, Bill said:

Sorry grey_man, I can’t really offer any meaningful reply because I just don’t enough on the subject other than that I thought rate relief was available for smaller companies and that larger and more profitable organisations would use retained profits and or loans to see them through.

I think airlines and airports will take a long time to recover from this though because prices will jump affecting not just holidays but also that of long hauls goods and this will further reduce demand. And all this on top of calls for greener policies for air transport.

As for this not being unprecedented well if it’s not, I don’t know what would be short of a something like an alien invasion or a massif meteor strike. My business got bitten quite badly due to commitments that would never have been taken if I’d thought that something like this might have happened. Fortunately, we’re surviving and trying to make the most of free time it’s created to train staff, continue R&D and to prepare for when things return to normal.

 

Bill 😊

I suspect from what little I know about it that the whole airport business model has fallen apart. They're obviously no longer just places where people get on and off planes so this will have crippled them. Even with initially healthy bank balances and given their role in the economy I can understand why they need substantial intervention. 

A pandemic certainly isn't unprecedented. One has been predicted for years. But what was far more likely was some major economic crash and that would have been a certainty within the lifetime of the loans taken out by WBC. Even that may have tipped the council into trouble given the paltry returns on their investments. God alone knows what their position is now. 

I get why they've invested in general but I don't understand why they've gone about the specifics. There's something off about the Redwood thing too. Maybe it's incompetence or naivety but there's something not right about what has happened there and how it came to happen. 

[Davy51]

Wasn't there much hullaballoo a couple of years ago about China investing loads of money in Manchester airport & its warehousing & setting up direct flights to China ?