Tuesday 8 September 2009

On The Horns Of A Dilemma


I have recently returned home from abroad where due to the financial collapse of one of my clients I was forced to take possession of an article in exchange for the money I am owed. Said article appeared to be a book, but on closer inspection turned out to be a kind of folder which contained twenty or thirty ornately embellished scripts. They are impressive objects, kept in a rarified atmosphere and with great attention paid to their care and maintenance. I was informed that they have a high individual value but great store was set by the villagers on the value of keeping them together as one unit. Indeed their passion was almost biblical in its proportion.

All the local villages appear to have one of these tomes, the contents of which are periodically bartered or exchanged. I have had several offers from people who wish to keep the folder together in what is considered its rightful place, in the village; but none of them have come close to the value I had to accept in exchange for my clients bad debt.

I really have nothing in common with these people and do not share their passion for this object, besides which I have my own financial constraints and commitments. Whilst it would be easier for me to sell the whole thing in one go, it appears to me that if I sell off the objects individually I would at least come close to getting my money back. Several of the local villages have offered me good money for individual pages which they assure me would be given very good homes and would complement their own collections perfectly.

So what should I do? Pander to the wishes of a group of people who feel their birthright is under threat, but with whom I feel no affinity. Or sell off my unwanted acquisition piecemeal in order to get my money back and settle my own commitments?

B.C. Doshling

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

... you are suggesting that the owners of West Ham are likely to break up the squad of players and sell them to individual clubs, rather than sell the club as a whole.

I find the subject a little dull and yet more unfounded speculation is not needed on a already overdone topic.

Sorry!

deane said...

If Diamante does as well in the first team as he did in the reserves tonight Man City will give us £50million in Jan that'll keep it quiet for a bit
by the way thought it was a clever analogy Like everyone else I don't like it but accept the reality of it rather than bury my head

Hammersfan said...

I am not the author of this article but I can testify to the authenticity of the scripts. I would strongly recommend that somebody offers a figure which ensures that the collection is kept together but I very much fear that the more embellished scripts may be sold in January.

Mudo said...

Flog 'em for whatever you can get mate. Family comes first, you've got to look after your own bruv. What's this got to do with football?

Ciego said...

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

Sordo said...

Pardon.

Duxbury's eyebrows said...

The sum of the whole is worth more than the sum of it's parts is old adage that comes to mind. If we sell off our best players in January and get say roughly £50 mil, then that would devalue the club down to about £30 mil thus leaving a substantial deficit and our owners would still be in debt to the tune of about £20 mil, so selling off our prized assets make no sense in the long run. What if we do have a mass exodus in January and end up getting relegated at the end of the season? Then you can knock off another £10 mil straight away, so by selling off our prized assets solves nothing in the long run as it only makes matters even worse. As worried about our situation as any other West Ham fan at the moment, I believe that we will be bought before Christmas as there seems to be enough interested parties, give it another month or two and a serious bidding war will erupt. It has also occurred to me that as the screws are being tightened on Straumur, it may be better to sell the club as a whole, even if it is for less than they originally hoped for, rather than to strip off the meat from the bones and be left trying to sell a next to worthless carcass. If you had to repossess a car, would you start selling off the engine parts just to be left with a worthless shell to appease your creditors, or would you sell the car as a whole for whatever price (within reason) that you could get?

Hammersfan said...

Of course, if you sell the team, then sell the land, you turn a very fat profit indeed. The brand is sometimes shut down completely in this situation. The team would fetch approaching £90m - Green £8m, Parker £7m, Cole £10m, Upson £8m, Noble £7m, Behrami £12m, Dyer £2m, Faubert £3m, Stanislas £3m, Gabbidon £2m, Collison £5m, Spector £2m, Diamante £5m, Ilunga £6m, Tomkins £5m as conservative estimates. How much is Upton Park worth if redeveloped into flats? And the training ground? A nasty thought but not impossible.

Duxbury's eyebrows said...

C'mon fanno don't be so melodramatic, you're talking about selling off most of the squad which would be rather silly and impractical and as for selling off UP to turn into flats? Both you and I know that that aint gonna happen, we'll be sold before Xmas, just you wait and see. I know about the debt and of course paying Sheff Utd, but all that would have been budgeted for and what club doesn't have debts? I suppose it's up to Zola to get the team playing top drawer football in order to make us an attractive proposition for any prospective buyers.