Virginia’s State Fair is saved, but what will it become?
Mark Lovell, who runs the Memphis-based Universal Fairs, on the 331-acre fairgrounds known as the Meadow Event Park in Caroline County near Doswell. He bought the property for $5.7 million at auction in the spring. His company operates fairs and festivals in four states; Virginia is the fifth.
By Ken Otterbourg
Published: August 30, 2012
The Washington Post
DOSWELL, Va.— Before bankers make a big deal, they like to run something called a Monte Carlo. It is named for the city in Monaco and its gambling houses, and it works like this: The lenders plug in the numbers and variables of a deal, then run a series of complex computer simulations to see what can go wrong. The fewer avenues to failure, the more confidence there is in a project’s success.
By Ken Otterbourg
Published: August 30, 2012
The Washington Post
DOSWELL, Va.— Before bankers make a big deal, they like to run something called a Monte Carlo. It is named for the city in Monaco and its gambling houses, and it works like this: The lenders plug in the numbers and variables of a deal, then run a series of complex computer simulations to see what can go wrong. The fewer avenues to failure, the more confidence there is in a project’s success.
But as anyone who has ever lost money on a sure thing can attest, the odds are only odds. They are predictive — but only to a point. Which is why a few months back on a beautiful spring day, there was an auction in Caroline County, just beyond the shadow of the monster roller coaster at Kings Dominion. What all the Monte Carlos had indicated was extremely unlikely to happen had in fact happened.
The auction was not that different from the hundreds of thousands of foreclosure sales that have taken place on courthouse steps across America. A borrower had taken on too much debt and couldn’t repay the loans. The lenders’ patience was exhausted, and the negotiations through the bankruptcy process had failed. All that was left on this day was the singsong chant of the auctioneer that ends with the word “sold.”
read more at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/virginias-state-fair-is-saved-but-what-will-it-become/2012/08/28/5e59ba9a-ddaf-11e1-af1d-753c613ff6d8_story.html
The auction was not that different from the hundreds of thousands of foreclosure sales that have taken place on courthouse steps across America. A borrower had taken on too much debt and couldn’t repay the loans. The lenders’ patience was exhausted, and the negotiations through the bankruptcy process had failed. All that was left on this day was the singsong chant of the auctioneer that ends with the word “sold.”
read more at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/virginias-state-fair-is-saved-but-what-will-it-become/2012/08/28/5e59ba9a-ddaf-11e1-af1d-753c613ff6d8_story.html
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