Finance for Dummies

Imagine what $104.9 million could do for Canada's Summer Athletes. It would provide the Summer Own the Podium program with resources it requires for the next four years. It would give Canada's amateur athletes a five fold increase in sport funding. The interest alone would give Canada's Summer Sport Organizations an across the board 50% increase in sport funding.

Needless to say Canada's Summer Sport Organizations won't be recieving these monies but this amount of money is exactly what VANOC invested in creating the state of the art Whister Sliding Centre on Whistler-Blackcomb. Following the conclusion of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics the center was to be operated by by the Whistler Legacies Society and help in the future development of all sliding sports in and around the local area. That was the hope.

Unfortunately, the $104.9 million dollar investment was utilized to create a facility on lands owned by Intrawest; a company whose assests are in the process of being foreclosed upon. Presently Intrawest is in default of a $524 million dollar debt payment prompting lenders to seek buyers for the company's assets including the $104.9 million dollar sliding center.

Currently the assets are scheduled to be auctioned off on Feb 19, 2010 which would certainly be an unwelcome disruption to the Winter Olympics. The likelihood of the auction affecting the games themselves is minimal. However, the taxpaying citizens of Canada, British Columbia and Canada's amateur athletes should be questioning VANOC. Anyone in finance will tell you that investing money on property owned by an independant third property is not a sound financial decision. Why was this lost on VANOC?

After the games are over, VANOC's responsabilities will be over, but the impact of this will be felt for a long time. $104.9 million is alot of money in Canada's amateur sporting system and could certainly be put to use. Unfortunately, these monies will be left to the control of Wall Street and they will determine what use it will be to them.