Word: olympia
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Inevitably, though, the athletes will make a splash -- as they have since the ancient Games. The antique spectacle was especially ferocious, even if the prize was not gold, silver or bronze, just a simple olive wreath from the sacred tree outside the Temple of Zeus in Olympia. But those leaves were the sole prize; there was no concept of place and show -- only winning. Contestants cried, "The wreath or death!" In fact, the Greek word for contest, agon, has become rather painful in English. But the rewards of victory were enormous: places of honor, money, sinecures and the admiration...
...junk bonds and booming real estate markets, big money developers sank fortunes into gleaming urban skyscrapers that stood as proud tributes to an age of avarice. Today a dismal economy has left many of these office towers half full and their developers slumping toward insolvency. Chief among them is Olympia & York, which made a grim return engagement in bankruptcy court last week, this time in Britain. The Canadian real estate giant sought protection from creditors of its London Canary Wharf project. No expense had been spared in this spectacular 71-acre building complex that was to become a shining epicenter...
...beleaguered Olympia & York, currently buried in a $12 billion debt, had asked banks for $540 million earlier in the month to salvage Canary Wharf. Lenders deemed the figure too low and responded that the project actually needed $900 million in rescue funding, but that seemed a bridge too far for the banks to reach. Another sorry note in the tale of this failing venture is % that O&Y had promised to contribute $720 million toward the construction of a subway line extending to Canary Wharf and beyond, a donation it's now unlikely to afford...
FROM THE CLASSY WORLD FINANCIAL CENTER IN Manhattan to the 71-acre Canary Wharf office complex in London, Olympia & York has changed the face of some of the world's great cities. But last week the biggest builder on earth sought shelter in bankruptcy court in Toronto and New York City after its owners, Canada's secretive Reichmann brothers, struggled vainly for months to restructure $12 billion of debt. While the action marked one of the largest real estate bankruptcies ever, it covered only a portion of Olympia & York's vast holdings -- including its 72-story Toronto headquarters...
...huge bankruptcy filing drove down bank stocks Friday and sent shock waves through world financial markets. Citibank, Olympia & York's largest U.S. creditor, said it has written off $100 million of the $480 million it had loaned to the Canadian company. Such losses could grow in the U.S. and abroad if Olympia & York cannot climb out of the deepening financial hole it has dug for itself...