I have to admit the second most shocking thing about the notice was the
Florida hq -- I'm always shocked to see IT in the South, certainly further
south than Atlanta. (hi johnboy!)
Rohit
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
http://www.economist.com/editorial/justforyou/current/mo0864.html
Yearling sales
A thousand guineas, and more
THE Asian financial crisis is spreading, but it has yet to reach that othe=
r
risk-taker=B9s paradise: the annual sales of thoroughbred yearlings.
...
First in July, at the Keeneland sales in Lexington, Kentucky, and again nex=
t
week, at Tattersalls=B9 Houghton sale at Newmarket, in England, wealthy
racehorse owners from five continents outbid each other to purchase that
most elusive property, a yearling horse=8Bto be broken-in, trained, honed and
pampered in an effort to win the English Derby, or at the very least a
Classic race. Just how hard that is to achieve may be gleaned from the fact
that despite years of effort and millions spent, neither Queen Elizabeth no=
r
Sheikh Mohammed al-Maktoum of Dubai=8Btwo of the world=B9s most knowledgeable
breeders=8Bhave yet managed to carry off the Derby trophy.
Both are still trying. The effort will likely cost them more this year. Not
since the heady days of the mid-1980s have prices been so strong. That
period saw Sheikh Mohammed and his three brothers, part of Dubai=B9s ruling
family, battle with an English owner, Robert Sangster. In 1983 Sheikh
Mohammed outbid him, paying $10.2m for a yearling called Snaafi Dancer.
Although sired by Northern Dancer, the most successful sire of all time,
Snaafi Dancer proved a dud. It never set hoof on a racecourse, let alone wo=
n
a race.
The bloodstock market always likes a big punter with new money, and it woul=
d
seem that at least one of the elements driving prices ever higher is the
emergence of two wealthy software magnates, Fusao Sekiguchi of Japan and
Satish Sanan from Florida, who have outbid some of the biggest buyers over
the past 12 months.
...
Mr Sanan, by contrast, has been in the thoroughbred business for only a
little over a year. A rotund, bespectacled Indian who was educated in
Britain and made $44m in July 1997 when he floated part of his Florida-base=
d
software engineering and consultancy business, Information Management
Resources, Mr Sanan has been buying horses at a phenomenal rate.
Earlier this year, he appointed the renowned American trainer, D. Wayne
Lukas, to oversee the racing interests he plans to build up at his equally
newly acquired Padua Stables near Ocala, Florida. Mr Sanan=B9s start has been
inauspicious. Last autumn, he bought a foal at Tattersalls for 2.5m guineas
($4.4m), beating the previous world record price by $2m. True, the animal i=
s
a full brother to Generous, the 1991 English Derby winner, but the purchase
raised a few eyebrows among the racing fraternity, which has seen people
with more money than Mr Sanan has made get in and, pretty swiftly, get out
of racing.
That foal, now named Padua=B9s Pride, has not yet been broken-in and has been
languishing in Ireland for the past year under the stewardship of an Irish
trainer, Dermot Weld. Unfortunately, news of its progress is hard to come
by.
...
Conservative estimates are that Mr Sanan has invested around $25m in the
last year on purchases alone. But consider Sheikh Mohammed, who has investe=
d
more than $5 billion worldwide since the early 1980s, and you realise the
task that Mr Sanan has set himself.
[I found a photo at: http://www.bloodhorse.com/keesep97/keesep_lead0916.htm=
l
]
[imr.com quoth:]
Welcome to Information Management Resources (IMR)
IMR provides application software outsourcing solutions for the Information
Technology (IT) departments of large businesses with intensive information
processing needs. A U.S. corporation, IMR is an international, publicly hel=
d
company (NASDAQ: IMRS) based in Clearwater, Florida. IMR specializes in
Transitional Outsourcing - assisting clients in the transition from legacy,
mainframe-based systems to client/server and other emerging technologies.
IMR's unique approach collapses total IT project time and significantly
reduces total project costs.
...
IMR's offshore software development centers in India provides IMR with a
significant cost advantage as well as the ability to provide 24-hour servic=
e
to its clients. IMR's costs in India have historically been significantly
lower than costs incurred for comparable resources in the U.S. Through
satellite communications, many of IMR's clients are linked to IMR's India
facilities where, on average, approximately 70% of a project's work is
performed. Due to the time difference between India and the U.S., IMR can
create a virtual ''second shift'' for its North American clients allowing
for more rapid completion of projects and off-peak utilization of clients'
technology resources. In addition, for larger projects with critically shor=
t
time frames, the offshore facility allows IMR to overlap (using parallel
development techniques) many of its development phases to accelerate
delivery time.
...
IMR-U.S. was founded in 1988 as a Florida corporation. Since then, the
company has grown from three employees to more than 700 worldwide. The
headquarters facility in Clearwater, Florida, houses the Executive
Management Team, the U.S. Marketing Teams, the U.S. Corporate Finance Group
and the Worldwide Customer Service Group. The Customer Service Group is
responsible for delivering high-quality software to IMR's clients, utilizin=
g
on-site Project Management, Analysis, Design and Programming Teams, Quality
Assurance Teams in Clearwater and Software Development/Maintenance Teams in
India. IMR has a number of regional sales/recruiting offices in the U.S.,
which are in the process of expanding to full-blown branch offices.