Down the pub

Yet again the propaganda war rears its ugly head. When will people learn to do their own research. The latest from a "discussion" down the pub.

Riveroak own Canary Wharf

This old chestnut keeps coming up yet despite it being proven wrong it keeps coming back.

"Riveroak's CEO is Stephen DeNardo is an independent director of Brookfield Property Partners based in the West Indies who with a Quatari consortium forced a buyout of Canary Wharf. He isn't the Chief Financial Officer but is the Chair of the Audit Committee and as Brookfield is listed on the New York Stock Exchange they have to abide by their rules."
*  http://promote-ramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/truth-lies-and-politics.html

So in plain English Steve DeNardo is there because without an auditor Brookfield Property Partner's wouldn't be able to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He has NO say in the running of Brookfield. He doesn't make investment decisions and therefore doesn't own Canary Wharf.

They have 300 million quid available now

I nearly fell off my chair laughing when I read this. Why oh why are some people so gullible.
Let's look at some facts.
They rent a couple of rooms in this building

They must be very frugal if they have £300M available right now and bearing in mind their business model (They are a real estate investment company) which is to buy "distressed assets", add value and sell on. To do this they advertise for investors, collect in the money, Buy and then improve. Whilst improving the asset they pay good interest rates which reflect the risk for the investors. In 2014 when they provided figures to TDC their net asset value was $1.6M, with a credit line of $400K.
read here http://promote-ramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/propaganda-war-part-two.html

There are 27 Freight Operators ready to fly here

If they offered free landing fees and special inducements possibly but then if they borrow £300M to finance the airport they will have to pay their investors around £30M a year in interest which quite frankly is ludicrous to believe both are possible at the same time.
Quite frankly no one is queuing up to fly into Manston but a desperate campaign needs some straws to grab onto.

Ryanair, Aer Lingus and KLM are wanting to fly from Manston

With the right inducements I'm sure they will come but some facts.
1. Planestation failed dismally taking a lot of money with it and who set up Planestation yes you guessed it Tony Freudmann.
"Planestation has been one of the most woeful ventures ever to grace the London Stock Exchange. Over the past ten years the group, previously known as Wiggins, has raised more money, north of around £115 million than its actual market valuation. With this cash it built up an international chain of seven (hitherto largely dormant) airports and an assortment of property interests and assets in the UK. Apart from property disposals, it has generated little in the way of revenues, milked its investor base for all they were worth and produced gargantuan annual losses".
2. KCC lost money in Planestation and they lost money when they tried to underwrite a service to  Virginia (2006 – KCC invests £289,000 in Freudmann’s Manston to Virginia plan. Not a single plane takes off.)
3. KLM were paid an inducement to provide a service from Manston to Schipol by KCC (said to be £680K). During their operating period they achieved a 50% occupancy rate. So without the inducement it is doubtful they would have made a profit and how long the service would have lasted is anyone's guess but what is clear is every passenger service from Manston has failed dismally.

Is it any surprise that Manston doesn't succeed when you look at what other airports offer. Geographically Manston cannot succeed as it is surrounded on 3 sides by sea.

So if passengers cannot work why should freight succeed when dedicated freight services can fly an extra 10 minutes to land in the Geographical centre of the UK surrounded by motorways where most destinations in the UK are only 4 hours away.

Postscript
After the split of SMA "Save Manston Airport" Campaign and Beau Webber and his merry men set up their own group SMAa they have gained 2000+ members however looking through the membership it is surprising how many Countries take an "interest" in this tiny corner of Kent. So can anyone from the group explain just why 10 Japanese nationals are members, why there are Chinese, Americans and various other nationalities are member. Suspicious people might be forgiven for thinking membership is somewhat padded out, just like the number of people turning up at rally's.