um this one is printing money. this is a monopoly. if they are not "showing" profits, it would be because they are trying to be shady or they are so inefficiently run
> CPM does not – and never has – set pay station parking rates. The City retains exclusive authority to determine and establish rates, set hours of operation, and place, add or remove metered spaces. The initial five‐year rate schedule, which ended in 2013, was approved by the City Council to align with rates comparable with other large U.S. cities. Prior to the agreement, parking rates in Chicago were much lower than the national average. Seventy percent of meters had not seen an increase in 20 years.
Doesn’t the word “recouped” imply the profit was at least enough to recover the investment cost (and millions more in this case), or am I missing something?
The word “recouped” was written by a journalist. The same journalist uses the word “revenues” as the source of recouping, not “profits”. They also use such strange constructions as:
> private investors have already extracted $2.1 billion from the deal, in part by refinancing three times.
What’s strange about that? The owners boost cash flow by jacking up parking rates, create a higher value for their asset, and take out a new loan against it. The original loan gets paid off and the owners get to take out the new equity based on the higher valuation.
Well, they might have to grease the wheels more than once. There's nothing to stop the city from setting a maximum rate on parking, or tickets, or recovery in court or during vehicle registration. Changing a city, county, or state ordinance/law or simply not enforcing rules is the purview of the state and mostly the executive.
I guess what I'm saying is that these are long term grifts and the city could deal with it (the fleecing of their voters), but chooses not to, because they know where their bread gets buttered.
They replaced all the meters with the boxes and made an app. They also pay for all the meter maids even though the ticket revenue goes to the city. So there are definitely some expenses, but yea margins are surely crazy.
Source: have had visibility into businesses that look like they ought to print money reliably, but actually don't.