back to article Bill Gates slurps bigger share of Olympics bungle-boys G4S

Bill Gates has bought a larger share of G4S, a private security giant that was widely criticised for its London Olympics blunders. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust and Cascade Investment, an asset management firm also owned by the billionaire Microsoft co-founder, now own a combined total of 3.2 percent of G4S after …

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  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gates Buys Private Army !

    Sadly he didn't do his homework and bought a bunch of clowns that couldn't guard a packet of dolly mixtures from bunch of five year olds.

    So just as useful and the inbuilt security of Windows then.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Gates Buys Private Army !

      Getting good staff does seem to be an issue for even the most technologically able evil supervillian.

      You can build a planet destroying death star but manager to hire millions of troops that couldn't hit a womp-rat's arse with a banjo.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Gates Buys Private Army !

      Just because the olympics were f****d up, doesn't mean we're all clowns because we work for g4s

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Gates Buys Private Army ! @AC 17:36

        Only half of you are clowns, the other half are crap jugglers.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To be fair...

    To be fair to G4S, the amount of security guards that the Home Office estimated would be required was increased from 10k to 23.5k only a few months before the games. G4S were initially contracted to supply 2k guards, this was increased to 10.4k guards and train up 3.3k students and 2.5k volunteers not that long before the games started. The fault has to lie with whoever did the due diligence and the initial planning as well as (if not more than) G4S.

    1. FartingHippo
      Holmes

      Re: To be fair...

      Do not take up politics, far too many facts and reasonable analysis there.

      It's all about the blame. Gov 1 : G4S 0.

    2. Justicesays

      Re: To be fair...

      I doubt those extra numbers were somehow forced on G4S at gunpoint.

      More like.

      Gov: Hey, if we bung you an extra (huge amount of cash here), would you provide five times as many guys?

      G4S: Sure, no problem!

      as opposed to

      G4S: Sorry, we would be unable to meet a contract of that magnitude on such short notice.

      The latter being the response of an honest, self aware company with an interest in keeping a good reputation.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: To be fair...

        Like I said: The bale has to also lie with the person who did the due diligence work. If you multiply your contract size by six times at the last minute, its a new contract and should be treated as such. G4S were only hiring temps for the duration of the Olympics, it's unlikely that showsec, topguard, et al would have been able to fulfil the requirement either.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Facepalm

      Re: To be fair...

      "To be fair .. G4S were initially contracted to supply 2k guards, this was increased to 10.4k guards and train up 3.3k students and 2.5k volunteers not that long before the games started"

      The volunteer training was being run since at least the beginning of 2009, plenty of time in advance ...

  4. Wulfy
    FAIL

    The incident with the G4S guard hurling insults at a member of the armed forces was for me the last straw, yes other people cocked up there assessments but troops that had recently returned back from operations we're then giving up there leave to help them out, in return they get screamed and spat at by a "college" who thought up this circus

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Err...

      The weren't giving up their leave, at least not the ones that I spoke to and I attended at least six olympic events. They also said that there were rather chuffed to be doing it as did the coppers that I knew there. As for a single G4S sub-contrator being an idiot, it's bad for G4S, but hardly their fault.

  5. izzle

    Re Re : To Be Fair

    If it's all about the blame it's not entirely the UK Govt who were at fault. They where strong-armed by the US into doubling the amount of security at the Olympics at short notice. Something like 'If ya don't have another 10k security personnel we aint comin' Says something when one of your closest allies doesn't even think you are competent to police your own events.

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Andy Scott
    Joke

    Does this mean I now get a staff discount on Micro$oft office, since he's bought more of g4s?

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coat

      What's the staff discount? 10%? 20%?

      Just sign up to free evening class at your local college and as a registered student, MS will just about throw you a free copy of Office.

  8. Don Jefe

    Queen of Sheba?

    That one is new to me. I would look into it and see how that even came about but I'm afraid it would skew my study on the link between conspiracy complexity and dumbassery. Does it have something to do with the Ark of the Covenant? I bet it does. Please, someone tell me it does.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Gordon bennett

    That's one hell of a fee for G4S making a better job of securing Bilderberg than they did of securing the Olympics. I wouldn't mind that kind of performance related pay.

    Michael Meacher addressed the Watford Fringe. Miliband should give him a ring, putting someone like Meacher in a position of influence might actually attract a few people back into politics, as distinct from the Eton+PPE-fops (of all two and a half parties) who have been putting the UK public off politics since even before Blair.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Enough suitably trained staff

    "It was roundly slammed ahead of the London 2012 Olympics, when it failed to provide enough suitably trained staff to police the games, forcing the British Army to step in and cover the shortfall".

    Look, when dealing with government money, the strategy was to get the contract and then not spend any money on staff, then bring in a few thousand "volunteers" off the dole queues and get them to do the job for free. Or at least somebody spent a lot of money on training the volunteers, that's the rumour ..

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hmm

    Can't remember the last time I had virus issue on a patched windows system. With the proper controls and smart end-user windows security is pretty damn good. Metro is sandboxes offering even better security...guess my point is this isn't the 90's or early 2000's. MS earns a gold star for improved security over the last 6-10 years. Response time to vulnerabilities is better than most software companies.

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