Latest Business News and Financial Information | Reuters.com — It appears that Paul Allen is going to invest an ungodly amount of money in a troubled region. Curiously, when I read this article first thing in the morning I thought Paul Allen was moving to Bangladesh. I can’t help but think that since Paul is a rock and roll maven and lead guitar wannabee that this was done because it harkens back to an old concert done for Bangladesh after some disaster. Kind of the ultimate one-upsmanship. Since Paul has isolated himself to such an extreme from normal people that it’s hard to know what’s really going on with him.
DHAKA (Reuters) – The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft plans to spend $1.6 billion building Bangladesh power and fertilizer plants, marking the second-biggest investment into the poor but fast-growing nation…
Vulcan will spend $900 million of Allen’s $21 billion fortune building a number of gas-run power plants with a total 1,800 megawatts (MW) of capacity — equivalent to almost half of existing national capacity.
submitted by R. Strukhoff who adds:
Well, if the “international basket case” in Henry Kissinger’s words wasn’t doomed before, it is now. A Paul Allen venture is invariably idealistic, poorly executed, and irrelevant. Maybe he’ll open a Sitar Hall-of-Fame in Chittagong.
Actually, he has a pretty snazzy crib, here. Of course, the drill around here is to leave celebrities alone to their privacy; so, I’d never know if he was in town or not.
Interesting take on the Allen projects. Around here, Allen just seems to get what he wants when he wants it. The U. of Wash. had 2 radio stations – a full power commercial-band PBS station at 94.9 and a traditional student-run Ed. FM at 90.3. Somehow the student station ended up in Allen’s hands. Same thing happened to a tech school FM at 91.7 in Tacoma used for training – now Allen controls it, too. I’m not sure how this process works, but it seems to work very reliably in Allen’s favor.
Strange how I got the impression it was a done deal, while reading the story, until I got to the last line:
“The firm will start a feasibility study in May, which will be completed within the next six months.”
You sign a “memorandum of understanding” first, and then do a feasibility study? No wonder I don’t have anything remotely near $21-Billion – I would do the feasibilty study before I signed anything. 🙂