Enterprise raises £11.58m from auction


The Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

This is Property Poker, no more, no less. Short term financial engineering at its worst. The way the tie has been applied and administered by accountants has led directly to pubcos being in serious financial kack they cannot get out of without taking ever more dangerous gambles with their property portfolios. They got deep in the midden of their own debt through short term financial engineering that seemingly produces perennial profit out of a magician's hat but which only works by a process of steady denudation of fundamental resources directly akin to mass deforestation of a landscape. They never take into account the costs of replenishing what has been taken from the system. This creates a classic unsustainable system that will reach a tipping point at some time and go into total, irretrievable collapse. The bean counters actually know this and they see it as their duty to make sure it's other people's money they are gambling with and spending irresponsibly.

Pubcos have managed to stay ahead of total systemic collapse by getting ever more creative with the beans and the counting. Not long ago the really silly really powerful pubcos were jumping on a REITS bandwagon as a means of conjuring up cash out of nowhere. That got scuppered, fortunately, because the REITS ruse was rumbled. The mess they are in now is all part of their denudation of resources. Pubcos HAVE to sell 'their' property like this, with an apparently miraculous sleight of hand that keeps cash coming in with no downside for anyone. It is all an illusion.

The perpetual motion machine is a myth but this is how the pub sector has been treated by the bean counters who run it 0- to the detriment of everyone else in society. There is no system in the universe that can withstand take, take and take, without there being serious adverse consequences down the line.

Selling off the family silver like this is a perfect example of why accountants should never be put in the driving seat of a company.