Special purpose vehicle
The special purpose vehicle, or espievie[1] is a unique species of joint stock company, first discovered in the wild in the lush forests of George Town, Grand Cayman by the Scottish naturalist A. J. N. Calder in 1926. For many years it was believed that the local genus, consortium restrictum culpam caymanium — the “Common” or “Cayman Exempted” Espievie — was unique, but naturalists found variant species in other islands[2]. Even then it was widely understood to be a species indigenous to the Caribbean, but pioneering Jersey botanist Ichabod Mourant discovered a live specimen of the Oiec (pronounced “Oik”), an animal long rumoured to inhabit the Guernsey scrublands, but which had never previously been verified. Subsequent examination revealed the Oiec to be genetically identical to the Cayman espievie, and debate rages to this day as to how it crossed the nearly 5,000 miles of open Atlantic ocean between its two habitats.
The espievie was first successfully bred in captivity by Calder and the Maple brothers in the George town zoological menagerie operated by Georg Ugland, on the site occupied today by Ugland House, which operates an industrial breeding programme for espievies of all kinds, ensuring for now the continued survival of this fascinating freak of financial biology.
See also
Important disclaimer: The author has never been to the Cayman Islands, and he’s hardly going to get an invitation now. There is, therefore, much fantastical speculation in this article and you should assume it is, at the very least, mostly false.
References
- ↑ Known in accounting circles, for some reason, as an espiecie — rest assured it is the same beast.
- ↑ L. B. G. T. Appleby discovering the Giant Bermudan espievie in Bermuda in 1929, and Herbert Fonesca discovering the Panamanian Film espievie in 1953.