The Ball - Erik Pethersen

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nice: it is modern and it is made up with both metal and glass materials, it is not really located in the city centre as the website implies but it is at the entrance to the bypass road, in a place that an experienced estate agent would describe it as close to all the amenities. Twenty sparkling storeys shine on the display in front of my eyes. I stare at the picture that shows the front of the building and I wonder, as I do every time I look at a building, whether in person or virtually, about the opportunities given by the chosen name. I stare at the rendering snapshot, I open another Chrome page, I search for the picture of a banana tree and compare it to the picture of the building: I would have gone for a name like Sitting Beam or for something more appropriate like The big L.

      Ciapper ltd built this property between 2008 and 2011; at the beginning of 2012, it was ready to be placed on the market. Later on, with the first deed, it was immediately sold as a whole to a different legal entity, namely the property management company owned by the holding company of the group of which Ciapper ltd, a simple construction company, was also part. The idea, as I understood at the time, was to have the property managed by Ciapper Real Estate, which would have leased the offices to third parties. Only the top floor was intended to house the offices of the parent company and other related companies, including Ciapper Real Estate ltd and also Ciapper ltd.

      At the time, the story had intrigued me and for a certain and prolonged period I had taken the occasional habit of going to patrol the building, to check the progress made in the office leasing. In the evening, the lights on would be a good indication of active leasing. Days and then months went by, but the only light was coming from the big LED display placed vertically between the two floors of the building: Luxurious offices. Book your viewing. Nor have I ever seen any sign of life forms living on the top floor of the vertical building.

      The building was mentioned again at the office sometime later. In order to implement the new strategy to reduce the expenses, the brothers decided to get rid of several companies which were part of Ciapper. So, the holding had been merged with the property management company. After only a few months, Banano rental estate had subsequently been turned into what the brothers had described as a luxurious residence on Lake Garda, but the notary deed seemed to conceal some unwritten agreement. As a matter of fact, in a short time, the property had gone back to its original owners: Banano rental estate had gone back again to Ciapper and the further transfer had effectively got my interest in the matter to fade away.

      I go back to 2017 subfolder and I read Domenica’s notes: Ciapper Real Estate ltd settles to sell the whole estate to Ciapper ltd. I open the Chamber of Commerce reports, first the one related to one company, then the one related to the other company, which I find out they had already been saved up by Domenica and they had been done two days before: the two brothers appear as the only shareholders. I go back to my notes and I figure out that the price amounts at ten million and is paid by sixteen bank drafts. Pdf files are saved up in the same place and have been created half an hour ago: € 625.000 each, issued by six different banks. I close all the open documents and I postulate that the whole thing can look very much like the last dramatic transfer of Banano estate that went from a vegetative state to decay.

      I realise that I have attached too much attention to this issue, prompted by the curiosity caused by this ill-famed property, and I get the land registry extracts from the familiar site. I compare the pdf file from fifteen months ago with the new one and I notice, scrolling down the pages, that the two documents are identical: always 42 offices, registered as category A/10 and to this day 126 parking spaces, identified as C/6 and C/7.

      I click on the email icon and I press the enter button to send a new email. I select Domenica from the list of contacts and I write in the field subject: Land registry reports and in the field body: Everything unchanged. Attachments. Good luck with that.

      At 2:40 pm there are still all the company settings up and statutory amendments to be registered, for a total of ten documents. In four hours, I should be able to complete my work, just keeping my eyes on the screen constantly, I think.

      As for the company settings up, I just need to register the transfer of ownership and input all the company data, the company directors’, the statutory powers: everything. It is a hard task, not a bit creative. The modifications are quite simple: I just have to register the updated statute and input a small amount of data, let aside unfortunate circumstances that could get the company contract to be not just amended but completely altered.

      I start with the settings up, I set a core of my brain on auto. I open the pdf file of the first document and I start inputting data in the document in every field of the form: name, registered office, activity and all further necessary information, according to the legal status implemented.

      I have been working here at Alessandro’s firm for fourteen years now, however it is a temporary situation, as I often repeat to myself: I must do something in life, I can’t be idle, waiting to find my path. As a matter of fact, as soon as I finished university, my only goal was to start working right away.

      Considering the historical period, I had completed my university studies, my father advised me against taking up something similar to what he was doing, building and selling properties, nor had he suggested to work with him. An opportunity that, when you think about it, I did not even take into consideration.

      In the 80’s luxury properties located in winter tourist resorts in the north of Italy allowed him to achieve a considerable entrepreneurial success. So much so that our lifestyle was comfortable enough to raise two children, to own a house in the city and two winter and summer holiday homes around the province. My memories of that period, although blurred, are those of a wealthy family background: my mother looked after us kids and our father was often missing, or rather he was around construction sites. Around the mid 90’s, as I grew older, I remember that there was talk about winter tourist market saturation in mountain areas so that my father had to get some work around Lake Garda, in search of new buyers, people who loved the place so much during the summer break that they would consider buying a steady home on the lake shore: luxury homes or homes which would attract wealthy people only. Several German tourists, but also tourists coming from eastern Europe, especially from Russia, beside some Italians with huge assets to invest, no-one knew where that wealth was coming from. So, our standard of living became more than comfortable: my father was getting busier with signing deeds of sale and being less around construction sites; in the meantime, I was growing up, I completed my higher education and I enrolled on a Business Economics and Legislation course at university.

      Since my teenage years, I have been always interested in the manufacturing world: to make something tangible, maybe to manufacture a mass-produced item, a real object replicable in a large number of specimen. Once I completed university I did not exactly how to start off a business. I went for a temporary job, connected to the sector I wanted to get into. A job in an established notary office could give me a good chance to keep a close eye on the business world from inside and learn to understand it, a good ground to make ideas germinate.

      So here I am, lost in an endless sequence of stories concerning companies, settings up, mergers, liquidation settlements. Ideas for businesses, examples not to follow, models to draw inspiration from. Then also all the series of events which are not really concerning companies, countless stories of people and surrealistic stories, meanwhile time, my time, goes by faster and faster. Marlon goes around the world with his volunteer mates, my parents withdraw to Germany to renovate my deceased grandfather’s home, and I am still wondering what I want to do when I grow up.

      I hope that some other core in my brain has finished filling in properly the form of the file, while I was getting lost in my thoughts. I check the whole thing: the data seem to be complete. Check. Amend. Check. Amend.

      Almost all right.

      Check. Amend. Check. Send. Filed.

      I stare at the screen and I realize that if I focused a bit more instead of wandering off I could get this pain in the ass over and done with more quickly. I can’t though, I feel unfocused today.

      New file, new company. Name, registered office, date of incorporation, corporate purpose, company directors,

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