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WFGI intended to retain the lease until these obstacles to
marketability were removed, the potential value of the lease
under the more favorable conditions that were expected seems to
be the more appropriate measure for purposes of this case than
the amount that could be realized by assigning it at the end of
FY 1984.
The $250,000 estimate may well have been closer to the
potential market value of the lease than its book value. The
total amount that WFGI and a French individual paid for the lease
3 years later, translated into U.S. dollars at the exchange rate
prevailing at the end of FY 1984, was $307,653.3
3 The lease for one-third of the premises was acquired by
WFGI at a cost of $253,461, or FF 1,556,251 at the current
exchange rate on Sept. 30, 1987. The lease for the other two-
thirds was assigned to a French individual for FF 1.3 million.
The total premium paid for the lease of the premises by both
parties was FF 2,856,251, which at the exchange rate prevailing
on Sept. 30, 1984 would equal $307,653. WFGI acquired its lease
in two parts, one part from the French subsidiary and one part
from a company referred to in the stipulations as “Elysee
Matignon (the real estate management company).” This appears to
be the same company that the French subsidiary had sued to
recover possession of space that had been appropriated for the
use of a restaurant. If the space that WFGI paid this company to
acquire in the complicated multiparty transaction corresponded to
the portion of the original leasehold that was in dispute, or
other space exchanged for that portion in a settlement of the
dispute, then $307,653 may be an overstatement of the amount that
the French subsidiary could have expected to receive upon the
assignment of its lease at the end of FY 1984. If the amount
that WFGI paid to Elysee Matignon is not taken into account,
however, the total lease premium would still amount to $243,026
at the Sept. 30, 1984 exchange rate.
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