Fergus Says 'stop Belly-Aching'

[lets get it right]

Grant Bovey & Anthea Turner are bust - it already feels like a distant memory!

I tell you - I shall NEVER EVER forget watching Bovey boast about his "multi-million" pwoperty empire... HIs demise has been one of the best things to watch in all my life. He totally EPITOMISED the utter STUPIDITY of this property pyramid/ponzi scam that has brought the world to its knees.....

http://www.dailymail...d-bankrupt.html

Indeed. But he got away with it. The bankers who took their millions in bonuses have got away with it.

They leave a wrecked economy behind them and a generation who will be paying the price all their lives.

It doesn't seem fair to me. It's high time the bankers were forced to repay.

[catmandu]

When asked whether he would crash the local market when he sold up, he replied 'not if I sell the whole portfolio to an investment bank'

Link;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00tcs29

Got to love a new Fergus thread.

'not if I sell the whole portfolio to an investment bank' which obviously means

'yes if I can't sell to an investment bank'

[GordonBrownSpentMyFuture]

Grant Bovey & Anthea Turner are bust - it already feels like a distant memory!

I tell you - I shall NEVER EVER forget watching Bovey boast about his "multi-million" pwoperty empire... HIs demise has been one of the best things to watch in all my life. He totally EPITOMISED the utter STUPIDITY of this property pyramid/ponzi scam that has brought the world to its knees.....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1255688/Anthea-Turners-husband-Grant-Bovey-humiliated-declared-bankrupt.html

A matter of time before FergusTwathead goes the same way.....

Anthea Turner's husband Grant Bovey 'humiliated' after he is declared bankrupt with debts of £50million

"Bovey has blamed the credit crunch for ruining his property empire, which was once worth £100million."

So he "lost" £150million ??

Quite an achievement. As failures go, he was very successful.

[Laura]

I ask all HPCers to take part in placing a curse on the Wilsons. Please concentrate and repeat after me:

To Fergus and Judith Wilson,

There has been unfairness done to us

I summon the elements

I invoke them

I conjure them to do my bidding

The four watchtowers shall lay their eyes and minds

there shall be fear and guilt and bad blood

there shall be submission and no pity

I point the threefold law against thee

against thee it shall be pointed

threefold, a hundred fold is the cost for my anger and pain

Thee shall be blinded by the fear

blinded by the pain

blinded by me

binded by me

Cursed by me

So mote it be!

This curse shall be laid upon the victim while burning am image of the victim

in the flame of a consecrated black candle.

http://www.spells4free.com/Article/Curse-spell-/132

Don't any of his tenants have access to polonium-210 ? -- Just to be sure Fergus, you wont mind will you?

Edited August 19, 2010 by Laura

[Uriah Heap]

I don't think anyone anticipated that we would end up where we are at the moment.

Basically I think the Wilsons should be okay, albeit not the stellar millionaires they have portrayed themselves as.

If they have been devoting some of their revenues to paying down the debts while keeping their product offering competitive so they have no voids, they should be able to use the low interest rate environment to build up some equity and maintain a positive cashflow. I think exiting with a pile of gold is no longer an option but turning their portfolio into a very reasonable income is.

Much as we all dislike them, the Wilsons have a bit more sense than Bovey and his bit. I have thought that they would come out okay all along.

[@contradevian]

He's only still holding on because the banks don't want realise a loss.

The banks are only holding on because they've been bailed out by the taxpayer.

The people belly aching are taxed to the hilt and priced out of housing because of people like Fergus....being bailed out by the people we vote for.

He's holding on because Merv and the banksta cronies at the BoE have decided to destroy savers, rather than over indebted landlords types like Fergus!

[Prof]

When asked whether he was responsible for young people not being able to buy their own home he replied that he had worked very hard for 2 years to earn enough to 'get started' and that priced out renters should 'stop belly-aching and work a bit harder'!

"If they work hard for 2 years, they`ll be able to save up enough to put a deposit down on one of my places. It`s plain sailing after that, as me and the Mrs have proved. Property doubles in value every seven years, it`s just a case of getting a foot on the ladder".

"Property for sale, lots of lovely property for sale ! Stop me and buy one !".

[the flying pig]

...Much as we all dislike them, the Wilsons have a bit more sense than Bovey and his bit. I have thought that they would come out okay all along.

I dunno, the Wilsons started out with what sounded to me a really very sound rationale for getting into BTL. According to her website she:

[...]noticed that three-bedroom new build houses in Ashford, Kent were cheaper than 100 year old two-bedroom houses in nearby Maidstone, 15 miles away. However, the rental value of both types of houses was the same. Judith was of the opinion that the houses in Ashford were cheaper than they should be[...]

This sounds incredibly sensible to me.

What I can't properly work out is how they 'graduated' from this sort of good sense to pie-in-the-sky bubble 'prices double every seven years' mentality, with seemingly no thought given at all to the obvious tension between their 'property shortage' theory and ever-decreasing rental yields. Making money is intoxicating, I suppose.

[Uriah Heap]

I'm sorry Uriah Heap - but that is just pure nonsense.

That's like saying the banks would be fine when they all went bust before they were bailed out in an extraordinary fashion.

The banks haven't put them out of business because they don't want to realise a loss. They'll wait until the 'extraordinary largesse' of the taxpayer 'hopefully' takes effect and pulls them all out of the mire.

The banks lost rather more than this pair were ever going to.

They got carried away a bit towards the end, but the Wilsons did have an effective strategy at the start. There have been plenty of dafter people we have discussed on here. (I must say that they are the ones I dislike the most though.)

[Giordano Bruno]

I dunno, the Wilsons started out with what sounded to me a really very sound rationale for getting into BTL. According to her website she:

This sounds incredibly sensible to me.

What I can't properly work out is how they 'graduated' from this sort of good sense to pie-in-the-sky bubble 'prices double every seven years' mentality, with seemingly no thought given at all to the obvious tension between their 'property shortage' theory and ever-decreasing rental yields. Making money is intoxicating, I suppose.

Except I don't think they have made any money yet. Their profits are yet to materialize. Fergus says he still has 900 houses.

[Redcellar]

Heres a thought. He knows that when he sells the properties will cause a landslide in value and much of his empire could sell at a loss.

On a different subject lets consider what happens to failing companies.

So if a person had a limited company that is failing, and you have taken out assets in the prior two years prior to bankruptcy, you could be seen as acting fraudulently and those assets will be seized.

Well of course any taken before the two years will be yours to keep. So maybe selling off enough to stay rich, then waiting for a few years to pass by before the company fails is OK and you get to stay rich.

[TeddyBear]

Heres a thought. He knows that when he sells the properties will cause a landslide in value and much of his empire could sell at a loss.

On a different subject lets consider what happens to failing companies.

So if a person had a limited company that is failing, and you have taken out assets in the prior two years prior to bankruptcy, you could be seen as acting fraudulently and those assets will be seized.

Well of course any taken before the two years will be yours to keep. So maybe selling off enough to stay rich, then waiting for a few years to pass by before the company fails is OK and you get to stay rich.

Thing is, can they sell enough off to be rich? Depends how the mortgages are structured? The early houses would be x3 purchase value now but they mostly took equity out to buy new houses so maybe all the houses have mortgages on them?

Actually, they seem quite fooked, no one will buy the business off them it seems (they've been touting for that for ages) so they can't retire.

Still wondering what happens if they die...a man of his age with his extra weight might well be walking stroke/heart attack material.

Edited August 19, 2010 by TeddyBear

[eric pebble]

...//

Actually, they seem quite fooked, no one will buy the business off them it seems (they've been touting for that for ages) so they can't retire.

...//

I reckon they're fooked. They [or their bank] "own" 900 manky dog-kennel pwoperties which, despite Fatty Fergus's boasts, no Russian Mobster/Football Millionaire would touch with a barge pole....

[Uriah Heap]

So long as they are cash flow positive - which with really low interest rates seems likely - they can keep going for years.

They need to avoid letting properties sit empty, not have much in the way of rent arrears and do all the maintenance efficiently. That is all hard work, but they are running a business.

The yield on their investment may well be too small for them to be able to sell it at a profit but they could still derive quite a nice living from it.

I wouldn't swap places with them. They would definitely be wiped out by any move upwards in interest rates. They have no room to manouvre after all.

But with luck they will avoid going broke.

[Cogs]

So he "lost" £150million ??

Quite an achievement. As failures go, he was very successful.

We reward failure in this country. Suffering from your failures is only for the little people. Remember how in the late 90s you thought vaguely about starting an online travel agents from your bathtub and realised it probably wouldn't make money. If only you'd done it, burned through vast amounts of cash on a business model that was doomed from the outset, why, you could be Martha Lane-Fox, a director of Marks And Spencer, a director Channel 4 and the Government's chosen champion for online business. I dare say Bovey is being headhunted to become special advisor to the treasury, placed in charge of a public housing QANGO and likely given a seat on the board of BP and RBS to reward him for his exceptional achievements.

What British business wants from its senior figures:

Think about that graph the next time some pinsuited imbecile laments the quality of school leavers. What he is really saying is that they are unemployable because they've never thrown away the lifesavings of millions like wot they 'ave.

Edited August 20, 2010 by Cogs

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

We reward failure in this country. Suffering from your failures is only for the little people. Remember how in the late 90s you thought vaguely about starting an online travel agents from your bathtub and realised it probably wouldn't make money. If only you'd done it, burned through vast amounts of cash on a business model that was doomed from the outset, why, you could be Martha Lane-Fox, a director of Marks And Spencer, a director Channel 4 and the Government's chosen champion for online business. I dare say Bovey is being headhunted to become special advisor to the treasury, placed in charge of a public housing QANGO and likely given a seat on the board of BP and RBS to reward him for his exceptional achievements.

What British business wants from its senior figures:

Think about that graph the next time some pinsuited imbecile laments the quality of school leavers. What he is really saying is that they are unemployable because they've never thrown away the lifesavings of millions like wot they 'ave.

all you highlight there is the irrational exuberance of investors. Lastminute is a relatively succesful enterprise and was clearly a sound business model as it survived the crash. The fact it is the poster child for the dot com boom and the city used it to rinse gullible investors via an IPO has no bearing on ML-F s business acumen. In fact it shows adept market timing on hers and the guy she set it up with behalf

[Cogs]

all you highlight there is the irrational exuberance of investors.  Lastminute is a relatively succesful enterprise and was clearly a sound business model as it survived the crash.  The fact it is the poster child for the dot com boom and the city used it to rinse gullible investors via an IPO has no bearing on ML-F s business acumen.  In fact it shows adept market timing on hers and the guy she set it up with behalf

Your standards for a 'relatively successful enterprise' are obviously quite low, it didn't make a profit for five years after it was floated. I have a proposition for you...

[Uriah Heap]

I think we have got off topic a bit. Whatever you think of Fergus of Miss Last Minute Merchant, they aren't really in the same league.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Your standards for a 'relatively successful enterprise' are obviously quite low, it didn't make a profit for five years after it was floated. I have a proposition for you...

Fire away, if the proposition is viable and more importantly "priced correctly" i might be interested. If not, dont bother. You seem to equate achieving a good price for something to Bad management, each to their own i suppose

[Cogs]

Fire away, if the proposition is viable and more importantly "priced correctly" i might be interested.  If not, dont bother.  You seem to equate achieving a good price for something to Bad management, each to their own i suppose

Well look. If selling non profit generating companies is good business perhaps I've been some sort of guru all along. Because its both cheaper and easier (and in fact safer) to sell a company rather than try to defend a patent and license it, I've done this several times now. I don't really think it counts though personally, I'd have no business (at least on the basis of that experience) of going anywhere near an organisation that actually has to think about cash flow.

[Si1]

unashamed bump

where does Fergus stand now the cliff top appears to have breached?

[juvenal]

unashamed bump

where does Fergus stand now the cliff top appears to have breached?

Well back from the edge, eating pies in the undergrowth.

[Guillotine]

BUMP

PS

Mwuahhahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahah

[thecrashingisles]

Haha. Fergus's belly must be aching tonight after that punch in the guts from the Halifax figures.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

Haha.  Fergus's belly must be aching tonight after that punch in the guts from the Halifax figures.

What 900 properties, worth £180m, that implies a loss of £6.5m before breakfast.