In 2008, Chicago's mayor sold the parking meter business (36,000 meters) on a 75 year lease for over one billion dollars. The buyers were led by Morgan Stanley.
The state-owned investment arm of Abu Dhabi ended up owning a large share 49.9% in Chicago's parking meter system. They also bought the biggest stakeholder of Citi Bank with 7.5 billion dollars.
Morgan Stanley found a bunch of investors, including themselves, to put up over a billion dollars in December 2008; a big chunk of those investors then sold out for profit in February 2009 for Deeside Investments, which was 49.9 percent owned by Abu Dhabi and 50.1 percent owned by a company called Redoma SARL, about which nothing was known except that it had an address in Luxembourg.
Now if city officials want to do anything that might disrupt parking meter revenue -- let's say close down parking for a street festival or parade -- they need to get the approval of those meters' shadowy, foreign owners. They also need approval to change parking hours or fees. The new ownership has already made unwelcome changes, ending the previous policy of allowing free parking on holidays.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/why-does-abu-dhabi-own-all-of-chicago-s-parking-meters/339805/
Chicago’s parking meter system raked in $134.2 million last year, putting private investors on pace to recoup their entire $1.16 billion investment by 2021 with 62 years to go in the lease, the latest annual audit shows.
Four underground, city-owned parking garages took in $34 million in 2017, while the privatized Chicago Skyway generated $99.9 million in cash, separate audits of those assets show.
Chicago Mayor Emanuel settled a disputed reimbursement claim from the company leasing Chicago parking meters in a way he claims would save taxpayers well over $1 billion over the next 71 years, by swapping three extra hours of paid parking in River North and one extra hour elsewhere for free neighborhood parking on Sundays.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/5/14/18348206/parking-meter-deal-keeps-getting-worse-for-city-as-meter-revenues-rise
Chicago’s parking meter system took in $134.2 million in 2017, and another $132.7 million in 2018, putting private investors on pace to reap a hefty return on their initial $1.16 billion investment with 65 years to go on the 75-year lease.
Parking meters were unloaded to private companies in 2008 by former Mayor Richard M. Daley, who used the money to avoid raising property taxes while city employee pension funds sunk deeper in the hole.
The state-owned investment arm of Abu Dhabi ended up owning a large share 49.9% in Chicago's parking meter system. They also bought the biggest stakeholder of Citi Bank with 7.5 billion dollars.
Morgan Stanley found a bunch of investors, including themselves, to put up over a billion dollars in December 2008; a big chunk of those investors then sold out for profit in February 2009 for Deeside Investments, which was 49.9 percent owned by Abu Dhabi and 50.1 percent owned by a company called Redoma SARL, about which nothing was known except that it had an address in Luxembourg.
Now if city officials want to do anything that might disrupt parking meter revenue -- let's say close down parking for a street festival or parade -- they need to get the approval of those meters' shadowy, foreign owners. They also need approval to change parking hours or fees. The new ownership has already made unwelcome changes, ending the previous policy of allowing free parking on holidays.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/10/why-does-abu-dhabi-own-all-of-chicago-s-parking-meters/339805/
Chicago’s parking meter system raked in $134.2 million last year, putting private investors on pace to recoup their entire $1.16 billion investment by 2021 with 62 years to go in the lease, the latest annual audit shows.
Four underground, city-owned parking garages took in $34 million in 2017, while the privatized Chicago Skyway generated $99.9 million in cash, separate audits of those assets show.
Chicago Mayor Emanuel settled a disputed reimbursement claim from the company leasing Chicago parking meters in a way he claims would save taxpayers well over $1 billion over the next 71 years, by swapping three extra hours of paid parking in River North and one extra hour elsewhere for free neighborhood parking on Sundays.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2018/5/14/18348206/parking-meter-deal-keeps-getting-worse-for-city-as-meter-revenues-rise
Chicago’s parking meter system took in $134.2 million in 2017, and another $132.7 million in 2018, putting private investors on pace to reap a hefty return on their initial $1.16 billion investment with 65 years to go on the 75-year lease.
Steep rate increases caused groans from parkers when rates downtown, for example, increased from $3 an hour in 2008 to $6.50 an hour in 2013.
The city had been collecting only about $23.8 million in annual meter revenue in 2008, the last year before CPM took over the system.
Factoring in the newly reported figure for 2018, the company has already extracted $1.2 billion in parking-meter revenues from the contract.
An honest politician could have accomplished at least half of that that for the city, and with other honest smart business decisions you ought to be able to expect from university grads from Harvard and Yale with masters in economics and business, they could have the city in the profit margin without screwing the residents and citizens.
Chicago Parking Meters LLC, or CPM, had a net income after operating expenses last year of $89.3 million
That's just one example of how Chicago's elected screwed the city taxpayers, here's another, you might consider worse, and probably even a conspiracy between businessmen and politicians to get personally wealthy at taxpayers expense, something the don't talk about in high school government classes:
As the Director of IIT Chicago-Kent’s Center for Open Government law clinic, attorney Clint Krislov has reviewed more than 50 such transactions to date, and provides an annual analysis of each year’s results.
Krislov tried to get the parking meter and Millennium Parking Garages LLC, which controls four underground city-owned parking garages that took in $34 million in 2017, and $34.1 million in 2018, deals declared illegal on grounds that the city can’t legally sell the public way.
He further claimed the garage deal both restricted development in the Loop and subjected the city to giant penalty payments, like the $62 million the city spent to compensate the owners of the Millennium Park and Grant Park garages for allowing the Aqua building, 225 N. Columbus, to open a competing garage.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2019/5/7/18619170/companies-raked-in-nearly-266m-from-parking-meters-other-city-assets-last-year
Darwin in Australia sold its harbour to the Chinese and in less than the term of the Government that sold it all the money they received for the 99 year lease was gone.
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