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My favorite of these stories comes from a place up here in Northern Norway. A pretty desperate municipality gave away 150 acres of land (free, no strings attach
by TrackerFF 4y ago
My favorite of these stories comes from a place up here in Northern Norway. A pretty desperate municipality gave away 150 acres of land (free, no strings attached) to a company which promised 3000 jobs, by building the worlds largest data center. Made some sense because the climate is naturally cold, and very low electricity prices back then.
A year or so later, the company was acquired by a crypto mining company for $10M USD - with the updated promise of maybe 10-15 jobs. Last year said crypto mining company offloaded the same land back to the municipality for $200k.
I can only assume that the founders/owners of the first company laughed all the way to the bank.
- cosmodisk 4y agoI bet they did laugh all the way to the bank, but the example shows how "well" local authorities manage to structure these deals. There are countless examples where a company offers something for otherwise grant gods forgotten place and they forget any due diligence or safeguards in contracts..
- eldritch_4ier 4y agoPromising 3000 jobs and only getting acquired for $10m makes me think it wasn’t that much of a win at all. If they did any kind of due diligence, surely they’d have to know how much they’ve raised or what their revenue looks like, and $10m is very low for a firm that “should” create 3000 jobs