Tuesday, October 18, 2011

It Never Gets Old

Buddy of mine sent this to me. He knows Voyager Bank. He also knows that I approached them several years ago to pitch my independent underwriting services to them. What's great about my particular pitch to this bank however was that day I was pretty tired of hitting pavement to no avail so I was in a foul mood. So when I walked in, I had their financials printed off when (I think) they lost $7 million in one quarter. My sales pitch to the middle aged man was not one of honey, it was one of vinegar;

"If you had me, you guys wouldn't have lost $7 million in this one quarter."

He was visibly pissed off. He face was red, he refused to shake my hand. No doubt he was partly to blame for some of those losses.

It made the trip worth while.

Regardless, I improved the chart to remind the Board of Directors of Voyager Bank about when I paid their Eden Prairie office a visit.



Oh, and you should see the office. Marble, fancy furniture, a big screen TV with CNBC going on it and oak all over the place.

You see kids, that's the sign of a successful bank. When they spend more on leasehold improvements than they do hiring talent. As long as they have a flat panel TV going with Bloomberg, then you know your money won't need to be reimbursed by the taxpayer!

And hey, you crazy cats over at Voyager, you enjoy that decline!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They knew what they were doing Cap'n. They were gambling on being able to bundle and sell the troubled assets, at a profit, to some other sucker. The reason they're in trouble is they just mis-timed the market. It could happen to anybody.

I think the term is "swindle." It's a portmanteau of swine, and bundle. Or so I tell people.

CtZ said...

Things like this make me wonder if stupidity is the norm in most businesses, or if it is an actual recent cultural phenomenon. I've certainly seen similar attitudes in my field. Management ignoring the obvious, even when they are given constructive criticism.

They either aren't smart enough to realize that they are wrong or they are upset about being caught with a headful of stupid and just want to prove the criticizer incorrect.

Either way, their resources eventually get put to better use, lost, or forgotten.

Captain Capitalism said...

I'm just enjoying watching the following bubbles burst;

Banking
Housing
Retirement
Feminist
Education