Hmmmm.. things seem to be gathering pace, there are indeed a great number of issues that the conspiracy theorists can go overboard on.
Simply put, & however it now appears in retrospect, then Peel, probably did acquire MME with the best intentions in mind. They are however, as judged by their previous performance, "cute operators" who were undoubtedly aware of the potential value of the airport as development land at that time, which could at some date in future prop up their balance sheet with a view to covering future operating losses should such a situation transpire.
Their biggest initial mistake was probably to "leave the lunatics to run the asylum" and unfortunately for all concerned they did a great job !!!
With this background then things went from bad to worse. No need to go on & on listing their failings, but on more contemporary issues, then once again on all this talk that seems obsessively linked to land development, IF Peel was this way inclined, then why on earth should they sell out a significant percentage of their interest to VAS ?
The issue is down to bad management, they lost out to LBA & NCL for any number of reasons, some they could possibly have done more about, and others basically the deterioration in the UK economy and the demise of the North East's industrial basis, did the rest.
Looking forward then as I have said on a number of occasions, then no business will continue to fund a loss making subsidiary indefinitely, they have quite claerly decided that "enough is enough" and are proceeding to look to their partners (the councils) to either "put up or shut up" as Peel do not see as to why they should continue to fund continued losses on their own.
The council's now find themselves in a very tricky situaution as in reality they now have to determine a current value of their investment and then act accordingly. What would be extremely interesting would be to have an insight as to how they would value their interest.
