Jamie Murdoch's curious bean counting
John and Jamie Murdoch have an accountancy background. They understand that if you double a tenants rent you can make off with a truckload of money. As businessmen though, they don't quite grasp the fact that if you kill the golden goose it stops laying golden eggs.
Reading through the transcript of last Fridays nights Stateline telecast leaves me very curious about their sums.
http://www.abc.net.au/stateline/wa/content/2006/s2644274.htm
Quote JAMIE MURDOCH: The average stall is still paying about $300 a week to trade at the Fremantle markets for a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It equates to approximately $12 per trading hour. So we still think that's a low-cost environment.
Quote PENNY BANNISTER, FORMER STALLHOLDER: I'm told my rent is going to be times three, like treble what it had been. So I thought - I laughed at first, I think, it was so over the top it was ridiculous.
Quote BOB WILLIAMS, FORMER STALLHOLDER: I was told I couldn't sell it as a fish shop and what was the future? - $1,700 extra out of my pocket each month. So I thought it was the time to leave.
REBECCA BOTELER: Mr Murdoch says he's been forced to increase rents because the owner of the building, the City of Fremantle, put his rent up by about 12 per cent. But that doesn't wash with the Stallholders' Association, which says the Murdochs have passed on increases of 50-100 per cent.
GRAEME MACKENZIE, CEO, FREMANTLE COUNCIL: The Council's intent was always to recognise that it's a market. It's not a shopping centre, it's a market, and it's a low-cost environment. And I guess that's probably where the rents that have actually been imposed under the valaution have been unexpected, because we don't think it's probably a low-cost environment anymore under those arrangements.
Of course we all laughed when we heard the Murdoch's research (The council didn't check the figures but the stall-holders crunched down the numbers)
The asserted that 40,000 people attend the markets each week end and spend on average $45 per person =$1800000 that divided by approx 170 stall holders means that they average a weekend turnover of $10,588. (Is there a stall in there that would even hold that amount of stock? Aparently most of them are millionaires!)
And beautifully put by Penny Bannister when she spoke about how it was:
The whole place was like an ecological system, you know, a really wonderful dynamic system that fed off each other and itself and the energy in there was great.
It's changed because they've upset the balance, and in the process of doing that, by trying to take far too much money out.
http://sonyagreen.blogspot.com/
Labels: fremantle markets evict tenants, jamie murdoch, john murdoch
posted by Editor at 6:39 AM
6 Comments:
The lowest rents I know of in the market are $300 a week so I'm not how FMPL can state that that's the "average" rent. Perhaps the average has been brought down lately by all the free stores they're handing out because they can no longer fill spaces!!
Jamie's quote was so so stupid that I didnt even bother with it. Not to mention that many stalls are not much more than a card table wide. One guy was operating from an ironing board a few weeks ago. I'm still reeling from Jamie's assertion that the average stall takes $10,000 over the week-end. The only "Fair Market Rent" is the amount that no-one will agree to pay. Your comment about empty stalls is proof of that. Still, if you have any sense of humour left, you might also love the other Jamie quote about food from heaven - last week stallholders were trying to put out a cauldron of fat on fire.
This comment was received off-line
Dear Sonya
I can’t work out how to make a coment on the website. Can you add this for me?
I was one of the casualties of the Murdocks. They increased my rent to $700 per weekend. That meant having to sell $1400 worth of stock just to pay the rent. They also charge additional fees for ads which noone ever sees, and extra money for office admin costs. They only take the money, what kind of a fee is that? I heard recently that everyone had to buy a fire extinguisher. They had to buy from the Murock’s what would have been ½ the price from a regular shop. A friend of mine is being relocated and has been told he will need to fit out the new shop at his own cost. Thousands of dollars extra. The place has gone insane and although I have lost thousands I am glad to get out of there. My advise to everyone is to read the fine print.
To make a post on this site you can click the anonymous bullet. Your email is not known to me and will not show on the site.
What was Fremantle Council thinking when they valued the markets rent at $550000 pa. Based on Jamie Murdochs average stallholders rent of $300 pw (which is poppycock) they turn that into $2.8 million. Who is the phantom bean counter at the Council who get this so wrong...stand up Glen Dougall,alias Mr. Bean. You sold the Freo ratepayers and the stallholders down the sink. Explain to everyone again why you decided not to engage the business consultant that Council had budgeted $10000 for?
Oh, and of course now they have all the extra's. What about charging each stallholder $800 for the lease? That is 170 people paying $800 = $136,000. And the lease gives bugga all protection to the stallholder; just a financial guarantee to the Murdoch's and a list of "Their advantages and legal rights" People are paying extra now to make up for maintenance work that should have been attended to throughout the last lease and now they say the higher rents are necessary for future upgrades. Since when do landlords charge for facilities which are on the drawing board. When I think of these guys, I get an image of a couple of scorpions; one, the sweet baby face, the other is like a smiling assassin, but it's the venom in the tail that you need to watch!
Post a Comment
<< Home