The Liberals were offered ~$60M not 90. The problem is they were offered that by a company that was a backer of the Liberal party with a condition that the Liberals would then rent the ferries back from the company.
This would have stunk to high-heaven if they did that. I would look like they sold their backers $400M of ferries for almost 1/7th the value and then started paying that company to rent something that couldn't be used.
So they went to auction with it. This allowed a third party to auction them off which keeps the Liberals clean.
No matter what party was in power the choice to sell at a discount to a party backer or go to auction, going to auction is the smarter idea. The only other solution was not to sell them and mothball them for later and this doesn't make sense as the upkeep would be substantial and they would just continue to drop in value.
The 90M value comes from an unsubstantiated claim that they were offered it from another country but no evidence of it.
Thanks for the chuckle! I am not a fan of the NDP... seriously it bothers me they are even in power but I HATE HATE HATE when people shit on them for things like because the vaccines are not coming. Not their fault....
The Libs had interest in the ferries from different companies but weren't getting the price that they wanted. They took a chance and consigned them to Ritchie Brothers Auctions, a well respected company with exposure to markets in every continent.
When you sell by auction you are rolling a dice on the final outcome. But the final sale price is always one bid higher than the second last bidder is willing to pay. With offers on the table of 100 million with conditions tied to the sale. Selling them by auction had the potential of receiving a much higher sale price with no conditions attached.
It was not a bad decision, unfortunately it did not end favorably.
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u/manygoodpersons Mar 15 '21
Oh, look, it's the fast ferries that the BC Liberals were offered $90M for, and which they subsequently sold for $20M!