Slim

Yeah, but CrossRoss just did.

So clear that you have to make stuff up to make it appear true?

And the moon might be made of green cheese. Making stuff up doesn't really add anything to the thread.

Exactly, as I pointed out earlier; he gets a tiny salary compared to the other directors. This contract is effectively his salary.

That was answered last week. The treasury contract to pinewood and pinewood contract to gasworks. What pinewood and gasworks do is up to them, not the treasury.

The poster boy from Treasury for indirect benefits is TT: Closer to the Edge. This was a big hit and undoubtedly promoted both the IOM and the TT.

It's difficult to comment without knowing what the investment aims are. Back to the points about a lack of information, but the aim might not be to bring the profits directly back to the development fund.

The balance of the Media Development Fund is managed by Pinewood Film Advisors and stands at £24.3 million. This is represented by our investments in film production against which we hold a recruitment position for future revenues and a cash balance of some £10.3 million.So I interpret this as £10.3 million cash left in the fund, the rest is already invested and may or may not give a return.

According to the handsard remarks it won't, as it's a fixed term contract. Given there's apparently only 10 mil cash left out of the orignal 25, this issue will resolve itself soon (Provided they don't get given more funds)

Um, no. He said 'public accounts' not 'public accounts committee'. He's referring to the directors renumeration requirements for a public company accounts filing, and Mr Christians renumeration is indeed in those documents for public scrutiny. http://www.pinewoodgroup.com/sites/default/files/ps-pdfs/ar13.pdf "During the year the Group signed a consultancy agreement for services related to the Isle of Man Investment Advisory Agreement with Gasworks Media Limited, a company incorporated in the Isle of Man, whose sole shareholder, Steve Christian, is also an Executive Director of the Group. The total value of the transactions during the year was £120,000. " Given his salary with Pinewood is almost minimum wage, it's clear the £120k is basically his salary. We've outsourced him to pinewood, that's all.

That's not really my point. The questions were answered in some detail, but the headline chose to focus only on the little interpersonal scuffle. It's a shame (on here and in government) that so much time is wasted on individuals and not the business at hand.

And a retracted comment gets the headline over anything that might actually be of interest. No wonder forums are ill informed.

As I quoted, you said the advice should be impartial and independent, and they are advisers. But as far as I can tell, you've made this up. Where has it ever been stated that the advice should be impartial or independent? As for fund managers: Is a manager of the fund not a fund manager? So if there's a bias built into the strategy, they can't be independent or impartial. If the goal is also to manage a syndicate of investors as quoted above, and also share in profits, as quoted above then any interests and bias are up front and understood. I still don't see where the conflict arises. I'm not being difficult, I just don't see it. The decision is with the treasury, the treasury knows the facts of who is involved. If Mr Christian had the final say, I'd agree with you.

Um.. Make your mind up! I understand what you're saying perfectly, even if you seem to change your mind as per the quote above. As you say, the pinewood investment shows the advise is supposed to be bias, towards investing in films that (pre pinewood) cinemanx are investing in or what pinewood are planning on providing services for. That's the whole point, to both profit from the investment in films, and direct efforts in film production towards the isle of man. It has been described as a hedge, which I don't think is fully accurate but it does show the intention; if the movie we've invested into flops, at least we made some dosh on the production. Of course its biased with those goals. That isn't a conflict of interest, it's how the arrangement is supposed to work.

Heh, you think I'm Bobster? That nicely illustrates how little evidence you lot need to come to a completely wrong conclusion!

Cheers Bob Albert, I will at least take the time to read the posts and respond rather than just take a pop at the individual without adding anything to the debate. I don't think we have to look far in your history of posts to find cheap jibes and insults do we boredom? I had a dig at the spelling, but I've also responded to the points he's made and why I think his claim that the advice should be independent and impartial is entirely made up. The records show that the whole point was the investments were shared, with shared rewards, it's one of the things the subsequent report criticised in fact. The new arrangement combined with the pinewood investment is also not with an independent expectation on the advice; the investments are intended to go into pinewood projects with a hope that they'll include an isle of man component. It looks to me like they're very much biased, and they're supposed to be.

And you apparently couldn't spot a government worker if it bit you on the ass; I do not work for the government. There's plenty who know me on here would back that up. The accusation of conflict of interest was dismissed in court, there's no evidence to support it, and despite repeated requests nobody's been able to point out where it exists.

On the ropes my ass. It's typical manx forums to just leap to conclusions based on minimal information. LL insists that the government were appointing Cinemanx for independant financial advice as fund managers. This simply isn't the case based on the information we have, this is just his expectation that he's using to form his opinion, and he's repeating that over and over. The Pink Book said at the time: (the fund) "be placed with external managers [i.e., CinemaNX Limited] to invest in film production, subject to Treasury approval over individual investments. This will allow a wider range of projects to be considered. Treasury will retain its position in recouping its return on each investment and share in the profits of the investment management company as well as being able to rely on a wider range of experienced professionals in providing advice over suitable investments." " Note "Share in the profits of the management company" - the intention was to invest into own projects along with other investors, this isn't independant advice, it's basically a vehicle for getting investments into their own proposals. There's no suggestion that this advice is independent or impartial. More.. "It was expected that CinemaNX Limited would secure other investors so that there would be a syndicate of investors in each film thereby sharing the investment risk. " So in response to LL's last post, of course there's interests disclosed, that's the whole point of the thing to share in the investments that Cinemanx are putting together. As for me defending the industry; that's simply not true. I've said repeatedly that we'd be better off investing in a sustainable media industry such as digital rather than chasing hollywood. I'm not going to stop countering bollocks though; making stuff up and rabble rousing based on bollocks interpretation of public records and dressing it up as some sort of investigative journalism heroics.

How many times can you miss spell advice and still pretend you know what it means? Advice is almost never completely impartial, which is why interests are usually disclosed in such arrangements. I'm not going to respond to you any more, you're just posting the same things over and over again, making assumptions where you don't know the fats.

Because I think being partnered with Pinewood and Peel is more likely to bring benefits than trying to grow our own stand alone film industry on our own. Even a small slice of what they do is worth having. Like I've said though, do think the money would be better spent here.

I think this is how it started, and the pinewood deal was put in place following the report and the change of subsidies and VAT. We're clearly still tied up with some individuals, but we're now also sharing interests with one of our most successful residents and that seems to be working out better.

Don't be silly. If he worked for government, there would be a clear conflict of interest.

I suggest you do the same. Apparently you read, then having read, make stuff up to fit your own conclusions to fit your assumptions.

Great, but none of it appears to be relevant. The accusation of a conflict of interest was made regarding the payments between pinewood and gasworks, what does the 2007 arrangements have to do with that? That aside, you've nothing above to say that Mr Christian was anything but the person who tabled the proposal. It would have been someone in Treasury who made the final decision. Someone who isn't in Treasury wouldn't have been authorised.

What you are describing here is a salesman earning a commission, is it not? A conflict of interest to me would be if you are given the responsibility for making the decision, then took the decision in your own interests. What's been made very clear is that the final decision is with the treasury, that everything else provided is advice only. I've no idea how they scrutinise the advice and it looks like you don't either. I'd rather not make the assumption either way when we're deciding that someone is guilty of something.