The Concertgebouw announced jubilantly yesterday that last September's share issue was a resounding success. After all, out of 1,000 €12,500 shares, 400 had been ordered. Almost €5 million from private individuals raked in. Truly no mean feat in this thrifty little country, where everyone complains that patronage does nothing. The media, including the Amsterdam Parool, took up the jubilant news. Only we did a frown for a moment.
Indeed, we argue that the share issue has so far been a huge flop.
Sour? Cranky? Negative?
No.
The concert hall couldn't agree more. On 17 October last Indeed, the cultural temple on Amsterdam's Museumplein announced That the closing date of the issue was postponed from 10 November 2011 to 11 April 2012. Reason: disappointing results and uncertainty about the benefits to givers due to the krickety design of giving law, which is still not through the chamber.
And if we then look closely at that message, we see that today, 10 November, would have been the actual closing date of the issue. Which would then indeed have ended in a fiasco.
But we don't do that in these days of spin doctors and memoryless media. Good news we want. Even if it's bad. It's all about shares, after all?
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And even then: if the Concertgebouw, with the most affluent audience in the Netherlands in its B series, among others, does not manage to seduce more than 400 benefactors into a nice form of patronage, then things look bleak for all those companies that have mainly modal audiences and students in their ranks. A nice case for the state secretary, to confirm that there is no patronage culture of generous culture givers in the Netherlands, so you can't enforce that in a year or two either. What is not can come, but then it will have to be built... Too bad that time is just not here.
Judith: Such a share issue is indeed all or nothing, which is why it should always be completed within a manageable period. So the fact that the low interest in the issue forces them to postpone it is very bad news. Especially also because the Giving Act is unlikely to bring any additional benefit to the cultural sector. So the thick five million now exist only on paper and the shares are likely to evaporate in the spring.
so those 400 shares x 12,500 euros are not in because the law is not yet in place?
Does this mean that everything is off the table immediately, or is there still a chance that this will happen in the (near) future?
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