Day: July 12, 2008

Tapie wins a long court battle for Adidas money

The wheels of justice move slowly, but when it involves a major name like Adidas and a French political/sports/business celebrity it moves even slower. Thirteen years to be exact.

Bernard Tapie bought Adidas many years ago with two loans from banks. But he had problems with the payments and the banks supposedly found a buyer for him, but in reality the bank bought back the company and resold for double the price they offered Tapie. He sued for unfair dealings, and the case moved up and down through the French judicial system until it was settled yesterday with a judgement against the banks. A judgement of over 230 million euros.

Unfortunately, after debts and legal fees, he stands to gain only 30 million euros. C’est la vie.

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Are iPhone launches the new Woodstocks, Burning Man?

One of the odder things that’s been occurring with iPhone launches (and to a lesser extent, new versions of OSX) is the almost ’social’ aspects of the event where techies and even some non-techies show up and make a day (and a night) of the wait. If you read stories on blogs and in the newspapers you’ll find dozens of examples of people showing up who don’t even want to buy one, but just want to be part of the experience.

Reminds me of the time I bought the original OSX operating system from the Apple store in Soho, New York. The line stretch around the block in two directions, and for hours we had fashion models and ‘beautiful people’ heading to clubs and parties that would come up to us and ask questions. “What club are you in line for? What restaurant has this wait?” They were quite fearful that they were missing out on the new new thing. Their fears were alleviated when we had to reply ‘we’re waiting in line for new computer software.’ They all sort of smirked and went on their way.

One guy said ‘you should wait in line for Microsoft because I have stock in them.’ At the time, APPL was trading for about $20. Split adjusted it is now well over $400. Guess he should have noticed and listened to the mob.

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