Economy
Tasmania … Ripe for the Plucking
As the State Government pulls the rug from under Island magazine (On TT, HERE), comes this story from New York:
With local independent bookstores like A Different Light in the Castro and Modern Times in the Mission struggling to make ends meet, not to mention Borders’ bankruptcy and the general panic of the book publishing industry in the face of the e-reader, it would seem that literary pursuits of all kinds are under attack in this digital age.
But literary journals — a long-tail publishing phenomenon before the Internet made other niche offerings accessible — are thriving.
“It’s a great time for lit magazines,” said Jeffrey Lependorf, executive director of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. “I don’t think there are any fewer now than 20 years ago.” The organization’s membership has more than doubled in the last decade, from 230 to more than 500 publications and small presses.
Different journals have different business models, but many are nonprofits or attached to educational institutions, and all rely on marshaling support of dedicated readers rather than appealing to mass audiences.
If literary journals “are poised to do well,” as Laura Cogan, editor of San Francisco-based ZYZZYVA, said, it may be because they share qualities with many successful online ventures: skeletal staffs, low overhead and specialized audiences.
In the Bay Area, established magazines like The Threepenny Review, Zoetrope, McSweeney’s Quarterly and ZYZZYVA — continue to hold down their print-subscriber bases interested in original writing and artwork, and online start-ups like The Rumpus have established strong communities online.
Read the full article, New York Times, HERE
Meanwhile, what Due Diligence (a cynic would say, if any) was done on Tasmania’s spectacular investment in Sports Alive … ?
The Age report:
Betting agency misled, say staff
Michael Bachelard
September 4, 2011
STAFF of a Melbourne sports betting agency have claimed the company’s managers deliberately misled regulators as it spiralled towards liquidation last month.
Almost 13,000 punters stand to lose up to $3.2 million after Sports Alive, which is registered in Canberra but based in Melbourne, appointed liquidators on August 25. The figure includes $2.6 million in payouts not made to winners as well as $600,000 held in ”wagered open bets” – money held by the agency for punters placing long-term wagers, for example a bet at the beginning of the AFL season on who will win the AFL grand final.
Liquidator Hamish MacKinnon of Bent & Cougle said agency staff were also owed $300,000 in unpaid superannuation and the $250,000 the company was required by law to hold as a buffer was funded by a loan from Bank of Queensland.
Company records show that, two days before the liquidation, two Melbourne directors of Sports Alive, racing identity Danny Finley and lawyer Colin Hiles, suddenly quit the board. Mr MacKinnon also said that around the time of the liquidation, a loan by Mr Finley to the company was taken over by another finance group.
Mr Hiles could not be contacted, Mr Finley did not return calls, and neither did his business partner and former Sports Alive director Gary Gray. Sports Alive chief executive Stephen Chant also did not return calls.
Mr MacKinnon said the company had made losses in the past two years, and he was investigating whether the company had been illegally trading while insolvent.
Alex Bailey, who ran the company’s Canberra call centre, said that long before the liquidator came in customers were not being paid their winnings.
”At the end, people had been waiting up to six weeks … I had clients threatening to come in to the racecourse to cut my f—ing legs off and slit my f—ing throat,” Mr Bailey said.
Even though no money was being transferred to punters’ bank accounts, staff have confirmed that company managers were falsely marking customers’ betting accounts as ”paid”.
Mr Bailey said he believed this was being done to trick the ACT regulator, the Gambling and Racing Commission.
Three other staff members, speaking anonymously, have backed Mr Bailey’s stories.
A Gambling and Racing Commission spokesman said the commission was ”undertaking inquiries in relation to Sports Alive at the time it went into liquidation”, but could make no further comment.
The company was at one stage a takeover target for government betting agency Tote Tasmania, which looks to have lost its $3.88 million investment.
Tote chief executive Craig Coleman said he regretted the investment.
”I don’t know that there was any campaign of hiding things, I certainly wouldn’t go that far, but I do have concerns about management practices.”
Earlier, the Mercury report:
TOTE punt a $5m flop
CHARLES WATERHOUSE
27 August 2011
TOTE Tasmania faces a $5 million loss from a failed business venture.
The state-owned betting agency has a 25 per cent stake in corporate betting shop Sports Alive, which collapsed this week.
There are reports TOTE will lose up to $5 million but chief executive Craig Coleman said losses could be about $4 million.
Mr Coleman last night said TOTE Tasmania had been unable to verify the status of Sports Alive. The ACT-registered company appointed a liquidator on Thursday.
“TOTE Tasmania is a minority investor and has a 25 per cent shareholding in the Sports Alive business currently valued at $3.88 million,” he said.
The collapse of Sports Alive has affected a number of private investors, including Peter Sidwell, manager of Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse, who stands to lose $500,000.
TOTE bought into the company in December 2009.
TOTE’S annual report in 2009-10 says the investment was made for strategic reasons to ensure access to fixed odds expertise and markets and secure pari-mutuel market share.
Pari-mutuel wagering is described in the report as a type of betting whereby all bets from a number of customers from one or more betting agencies are consolidated or pooled together and a statutory deduction is taken out and retained by the better agencies, with the remaining funds paid out to the winning ticket holders.
In the report TOTE Tasmania chairman Michael Kent said while pari-mutuel wagering would continue to be the core business for the TOTE there was enormous potential for growth in the retail sports area.
“The TOTE’s stake in sportsalive.com [the TOTE took a 25 per cent shareholding and in the next financial year intends to increase its shareholding to a controlling interest] and BETASPORT [the TOTE’s sports betting brand] provide the platforms for this fixed odds growth,” Mr Kent said.
TOTE did not proceed on its plan to take a controlling interest in Sports Alive.
Sports Alive’s demise will come under intense scrutiny as it returned profits of about $4 million and $5 million for the past two years.
Punters could also lose hundreds of thousands of dollars and, along with investors, will be anxiously awaiting the liquidator’s report.
And while we are at it, who signed off on that spectacular deal to lease BMWs and Audis and some lesser vehicles for the less-shiny-bottomed public servants etc in a deal which has left one interstate leasing expert gobsmacked.
Industry insiders say government leasing arrangements normally are, on average, signed for five years.
In Tasmania where Heads of Agency ponced about in lovely Bimmers (picture above) – perhaps to attend this lovely knees-up, The wasteful, greedy aimless public sector gurus’ Henry Jones indulgence – the current deal is thus. according to the mainland insider who happened to inquire:
The Government has a contractual obligation with a leasing company (2nd year of a 9 year contract) for the lease of vehicles – it amazes me how a Government or even an agency locks itself into a long term contract and with an exclusive supplier. Recent newspaper (bad) publicity regarding use of non Australian vehicles (impact on executives) has been addressed by the Tasmanian Government.
Constance Wilde: What does it tell you? Basically that Tasmania is ripe for the constant plucking. As a Third World plump plum ripe for a swoop from circling vultures … you can gamble on making it rich from Tasmania …
And when we are not being constantly plucked we are at Cargo Cult worship (pulp mill) or standing mendicant, hands fully extended (forestry industry).