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Oh tempestuous tirade of Xmas past
Let’s wrap this up with one last gasp
…and take a kinder walk down the mistletoed path
and join those speculators dots at last.the bulk of Joe’s stonking £4.5 billion fortune literally arrived overnight.
When Lewis bet against the pound on Black Wednesday in 1992, his windfall is said to have exceeded the £1 billion trousered by US investor George Soros.
A 230 foot yacht stretched out in the jetty beats my two clapped out cars both growing with nettles and while I chew a little Sunday bacon the 85% Spurs owner is probably reaching up to dust his Bacon in bright Bahamian shorts that loudly shout
‘I have won and I have taken.’Back after a little tea
to look at 400 horses
And one JP.I have left this thread more or less suspended in mid air and have a desire to ground it. Sorry it has only a loose connection to the hooves of four hundred.
I do feel if anyone has the cred to write about billionaires and their vageries it is yours truly.
Although I will naturally seek out bargains and buy a packet of nutritious chicken livers for a reduced 59 pence to provide a three meal feast, there is another side to my multifaceted nature which consists of playing at wealth creation. I did say playing, and yes I do own a piggy bank which I have smashed open a few times – but maybe I am guilty of self aggrandisement to mention it at all at this stage in my report. I am not really hinting about wealth per se with my piggy of pink but more my contacts with three billionaires over the past decade, and I might be risking my life to retell the story of what actually happened, particularly with one of them, because with wealth comes power and danger and the certain possibility of a secret army. As a lot of you know I could and often have lived in a shoe box and once under the stars, and money to me is very much a game of give and take and sometimes break, rather than bake a bloody big cake and sit on it and never light the candle.Shall we pray continue…
The Tottenham hots is owned by billionaire Joe Lewis. And guess who are two of his closest associates? JP McManus and John Magnier – the three are all shareholders together in Mitchells & Butler pub group and are also close friends. Shareholders needed to take certain actions to discover the identities of those building up a web of control in secret.
It’s a small world if you’re loaded.
It’s all to do with jaw jaw and associations and yes if you want to be a part of the Sandy Lane set in Barbados you might need some money. Certainly if Joe was playing golf with his friend and then resident old Bondie Sean Connery there is no way he’d have gotten his usual 30k a hole, more likely a scottish fiver for the whole lazy hot 18 or a poond from the broad accented tightfinger.
I do think a lot of Sean Connery. He is part of the British tradition called stiff upper lip, and although he might have been a bit sore about missing out on the potential 400 mill lord of the Rings profits – its only bean counters and you don’t need that many to live well in the big apple.
Forget big apple or anything big and think Ian Davies and his philosophy built on three ingredients; no debt, a life of fun, and the odd biscuit thrown in : you will enjoy a far happier life
For people worrying about the horse racing “industry” you have to first establish the nature of an industry. As many have pointed out a lot of wealthy people treat it like a hobby. Imagine a less wealthy but still quite wealthy person who returns to his small town after making millions in the geegaw business. He or she developed a love of booze, but not to their detriment, while earning their millions. Loving booze they decide to open up a couple of boozers in their hometown, not to make money, but just because they love the craic and think their town deserves a few places to get cheaper plonk.
This will be disastrous for the already established pissers in the town. They can’t sustain their businesses, which are businesses, because they have to make money from them to live and survive. They can’t compete with Mr. or Mrs. Millions who’s selling cost price brandy and paying their staff above the market because they just want to soak up the atmosphere next to the fire in their loss-making establishments.
The question, then, is the fundamentals. And that comes back to “the industry” and broader society. The residents of the town may love the fact they’re imbibing for relatively little. The local cash and carry and microbrewery may love that they’re selling a huge amount to a fella who’s absolutely zero credit risk, always pays his or her bills on time, and even gives them Christmas presents. But all this is a distortion of reality. The next town over, the wider county, and sometimes even entire nations are being asked, “Why can’t you run boozers like Mrs. Geegaw Millionaire?” Some are even asking, “Why can’t every ‘business’ be run like this?”
The answer, if you’re an optimist, is to enjoy the cheaper brandy while it’s available, and when Mrs. Geegaw dies and her spoiled brat kids close down the pubs to put the money in Youtube or Twitch or something the town will just have to pay what the “industry” always really expected without distortion because the pub owners are back in it for profit. If you’re a pessimist you’ll say that not only has the town’s business people forced out of the pub market forgotten how to make a profit, but no-one in the town is willing to pay the actual price it’d take to make a profit.
Does this apply to horse racing, though? Basing my opinion on absolutely no facts I’d say “horse ownership” wasn’t, or at least hasn’t for decades, ever been set in terms of actually being profitable. It’s always been about geegaw millionaires having a bit of fun. That doesn’t mean the other parts of the industry (the cash and carry, the micro-brewery, the workers in the pub) were losing money on it. The only real question is whether they, or them in a slightly different environment, can continue to make a bit of money once the millionaire has been cremated.
A JP owned horse won the first at Cork today, backed in from 13/2 to 9/4 favourite.
I wonder if the great man was on?
Was the great man on ? A question we will never know, recently crowned Corky might know Ground, but folklore and the Irish fairies will probably say Yae.
What I can tell you is back in 2012 when interviewed, and he seemed in very relaxed mode, he admitted to finding it terribly difficult to get his bets on. The fact that he had built up a large shareholding in Ladbrokes might have helped him a smidgeon but the long and short of it was, he was finding no barriers in his large currency trades, apart from the weight of his money bobbing the price upward or downward depending on his mood which was wrapped solidly in charts and information.
Strangely enough many moons ago my Paw had the offer of a farm in Cork – I was keen to relocate but father wasn’t keen to taking those size gambles. Who knows I might have played tiddlywinks with a young JP and shared some milking secrets.
It is tea time now – everything stops for tea.( small edit )
No more Freddie Williams for JP to take on , Freddie had the balls to take JP,s punts and take the consequences , nowadays some shirt on a laptop won’t allow that to happen , it’s keyhole betting ….won’t leave a mark
I think you are right Ground ( please see my amended post to confirm I was replying to you and not the newly robed one ) I continue in the company of a cup of Rosie.
JP’s office space in Geneva is on the sith floor with large glass windows affording a panoramic view of the lake. It is not just him there, as in the same interview he explained that his staff would often gamble one to one after work and he did say,in passing this on, it could be Backgammon.
Well of course the famous 17 million Euro backgammon game took place in 2012 ( whether it was before the interview or after I wouldn’t know )
The loser a certain tech billionaire ( Forbes list him with the same 2-2.5 billion wealth as JP ( currently ). I have forgotten his name so lets call him Malcom X for ease. He was a catholic 3 years JP’s junior with 3 more children ( 3 more urchins to worry about and stress over )
The games lasted over 3 days to reduce the incidence of chance. Where the doubling dice got to, God only knows, but probably more than the usual maximum of 4.( Oh dear I have hit the wrong button and posted this too EARLY ) Human Error **** happens. I will compose myself and continue…
Life’s a gamble and JP wins more than he loses by the looks of things, his demeanour hides a very very shrewd brain
LIFE IS A GAMBLE INDEED
X lost and as I understand paid 5 mill tax to the american IRS. So this was all legitimately carried out. I wonder if this was all agreed at the start – I wonder if the players had played before – I wonder if the gambling got out of hand – I wonder why JP waited 5 years to take his legal action. Anyway all highly interesting stuff. He lost the court action to reclaim the tax, and it doesn’t look as if he took it higher, as his Texan lawyer suggested they might. His lawyer felt the Irish tax authorities had not been at all helpful. A woman judge presiding might have been the death knell..Who knows ?
Apparently backgammon sits between chess and poker as the most similar game to skills exhibited in trading.
My presumption from all this is that JP is a confident trader in his own right. I wouldn’t take him on at backgammon ( he was a bookmaker who handed back his licence twice but eventually came very good. A successful trader to boot). I wouldn’t take anyone on even the fool on the hill.
A.I. and particularly neural networks have incredibly learned the backgammon game from scratch. From these findings the generally accepted openings have been changed.
As for his departure from Ireland to his large house on Lake Geneva – he just didn’t want to dance anymore with the Emerald and chose a financial life raft on a lake miles and miles away. Unlike Eddie Grant in the famous song JP did look back and frequently.
If Tabor is able to get on, JP will be able to get on. There’s foreign markets, black markets and the machine. Tabor apparently uses the foreign markets from my understanding.
He enjoys the breeding end of things a lot which is where quite a lot of his horses with the lower end trainers go – Helps him support the small trainers, let’s them dawdle round the back for a mark and then Frank works out a target. JP can then get on and if it comes off, he’s winning much more than what he’s paying in trainers fees.
Nobody will never know if JP makes a mint from the handicap punts or not but when they go for one they collect much more often than they miss – See Saint Roi in the County for example.
Very frustrating owner to try and work out, not knowing if one is off or not, but in terms of the game itself he’s a legend that will sorely be missed when gone.
Interesting observations indeed and Tabor can be found occasionally in his Barbados residence, but is resident I believe in Monte Carlo, with the likes of Jim Rarcliff (Ineos).
I suppose if they are bored and a horse of theirs with a good chance with the all important private form,well they might enjoy a 50-100k take out bet, but the more on reduces the potency, so I suspect they have diverted their eyes to more readily accessible spoils. Horseracing can raise the blood and JP clearly loves it so maybe it holds dear for this reason.As for the Backgammon gamble I doubt he would have got involved, if he had known the IRS was to be sitting at the table, wanting a 30% purse for the pleasure.
This is how it sometimes works
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