kevinhectoring

Good subs

Fornah instant impact

You make it sound like we have no say in the matter. Once again we show up with no bite, organisation or fluency in central midfield - and you credit the opposition ?

Yes. Hourihane, Sibley and Collins should all take a shower

Hourihane might have seen red from some refs. Perhaps she thought sending him off was pointless

But I explicitly said that the two criteria most sought after in the perfect owner are dosh and good governance The fact we want both of those things (and a few more) is good reason to start looking sooner rather than later. We have seen what damage can be caused by a hurried process to find a new owner

If the stadium burnt down today, uninsured, I’m pretty sure no one would spend £80m to rebuild it. And if DC tried to sell it, pretty sure no one would agree that, because the replacement cost is £80m, then they would pay £80m for it In other words, I don’t think ‘replacement cost’ is a logical basis for valuation.

In the PL they are pretty much all excellent footballers AND athletes. It’s much harder in this division to find players who are both. The Hourihane thing is bizarre. We have a manager who is constantly going on about kms run at pace. And yet game after game he selects a midfielder who can’t play that game and he allows him to be made captain !! You can argue he’s a worthwhile luxury item because of his delivery boy credentials but it risks demotivating the grafters

Warne has dampened expectations by telling us that we should not expect it to be ‘amazing’. 😞 (daily podcast) I fear we will be selling footballers and buying athletes

Certainly it was q who did the deal with DC yes I agree with that the administrators stand in the shoes of the directors. The shareholders continue during the administration (and afterwards, until dissolution or winding up) to own the company. So Mm remained the indirect owner of the club when it was sold. Their objectives can differ from case to case but you’re right they are under a duty when they sell assets to get a good price for the creditors

DC has been perfect for restoring the culture of the club. We needed that His family fortune - low hundreds of millions - might be enough. But it’s low for top club owners and here’s the problem. It’s not a fortune made by him. He’s a second generation custodian of it. So he will not spend with ambition. We saw this last summer. We might see it in January. The stated 5 year plan certainly shows only very modest ambition. I’d think that bar a catastrophic run of results, any move to sack Warne is unlikely simply because of the cost. And when we gain promotion I fear we will not even begin to compete with the parachute brigade - not under DC. Plenty of fans on here are saying: money doesn’t matter, success is more about player recruitment and good football management. Well of course those things matter too, but history and common sense indicate money certainly matters greatly. ( I think many of those fans might actually be saying they wish it didn’t matter so much; and I’m with them on that.) The reason focus is needed is that our glory days are behind us: if we languish in this div for long, and we could, we become a div 1 club. Our gates shrink and our grand old club becomes a decrepit grand hotel on the seafront of a fading seaside town. And with the rise of the Asian billionaires, more and more of the clubs we are competing with are owned by seriously wealthy people, who will spend and some of who will be successful. It’s not ‘disingenuous’ to say that many of our fans don’t care about that perfect owner. You have a bundle of posts above this one where people say: why should Clowes look for a wealthy owner when money doesn’t matter ; and why do we need a wealthy owner when all I want is a club to support ? Who is that perfect owner? I have said that I reckon the owner most likely to bring ambition and good governance would be a US sports franchise owner or possibly a long term US institutional investor (like Birmingham’s owner). An institutional investor with a shorter investment horizon (eg a private equity fund) would be less ideal. That said, there would be Asian and other billionaires out there who could take us to the top, but that’s a much more high risk owner. I certainly think you want a single person or entity in control. Perhaps some soft marketing of the club is on-going, who knows? Some posters seem to think so Finding the right owner for the long term needs planning and care - it’s a hard thing to do and it matters. I hope someone is getting on with it

I think that’s a fair prediction. In fact it seems likely the club is already owned by that company. ( I’d guess the Clowes companies don’t make any announcements about intra group transactions. ) Shame about the name !

Not sure what your point is. Your last paragraph misstates the legal position btw Perhaps your point is that the two transactions were necessary independent because the owners of the assets were different. I’m not sure that’s right - it’s easy for two separate transactions to be inter conditional. The reason they were separate was because when he bought the stadium he didn’t think he was going to buy the club

There’s a bit of a difference between selling a record and selling a football club/stadium. Here’s the thing: if you keep the club/ stadium in a special purpose company, then when it comes to selling you can either the shares of the company that owns the asset; or you can sell the asset. Those two transactions have completely different tax implications. that’s why I said holding the assets in single purpose vehicles beneath CDuk gives added flexibility when it comes to disposal

The deals were separate because - Kirchner (plus Rooney and Stretford?) never contemplated buying the stadium (probably because they didn’t have enough cash) - the transfer of the stadium into friendly hands/ the discharge of the MSD loan was a prerequisite to Kirchner’s acquisition of the club not least because the club had guaranteed the loan So Dc initially stepped up and bought the stadium in the expectation K would then buy the club. When K encountered a spot of bother DC decided separately he needed to buy the club.

The decisions from the EFl proceedings will state beyond doubt which company owned the stadium. I can’t remember tbh once the stadium is intra group I don’t really see why it would be transferred up to the main Cduk company. Equally I’d have thought they would put (and hold) the club in a single purpose vehicle below cduk. It gives you more flexibility on ultimate sale. Perhaps there might be tax reasons. You can understand they might want to dissolve all the old MM vehicles tho It’s not just a theoretical point. If DC were to find that perfect purchaser (the one so many on here seem not to care about !) you could see them agreeing a deal where CDuk hold on to the stadium for a period after the sale of the club

See my post above Looks like they purchased the stadium owning company and the stadium was later transferred to CDUKltd

This below is from the clowes announcement re the stadium purchase. It suggests they bought MM’s company, not the stadium itself (tho the wording is a bit strange) If that’s right and the stadium owning company was later dissolved (in late 2022?), then the stadium would presumably have been hived up to Clowes Dev (U.K.) Ltd after the purchase. That would make sense because at that stage the transaction was intra group so free of taxes The lease that was in place when the stadium owning company was purchased would simply have ceased to exist when the lessee and lessor became the same person (ie on the hive up). So no rental payable Clowes Developments would like to formally thank all parties involved in the deals to date. Collectively we have paved the way for a positive outcome for the future of Derby County Football Club. We would like to take the opportunity to thank our respective teams of professional advisors who have helped us to successfully purchase the Company that owned Pride Park Stadium, secure the loan agreement and confirm the submission of a bid to purchase the Club.

What was dissolved in 2020? Unlikely to have been Mm’s stadium owning company because it still owned the stadium. And I suspect it still does, because by purchasing the company and not the stadium itself, I’d guess DC avoided paying stamp duty Anyway, let me know what was dissolved in 2020 so I can understand what you’re saying

The stadium is still owned by MM’s company. Pretty sure though that Clowes’ property company - Clowes Developments (U.K.) Ltd [CDL] - owns both the club as well as the company that owns the stadium. In other words the club thru CDL pays rent to the stadium owning company, but economically the whole lot sits under CDL Also pretty sure that CDL is primarily owned by the Clowes Family Trust. This is significant because it means DC is answerable to the next generations for every penny that is swallowed up by our thirsty club: it will understandably make him a cautious and niggardly owner because otherwise he’ll get it in the neck from Aunty Mable It’s possible to imagine a future sale of the club which involves CDL holding on to the stadium for a period - depends a bit on what the clever tax planners are up to

The point you make about playing for wins not draws is an interesting one. I think you have to have a clear strategy on this and need to be willing to change course in-play. I also think you need to factor in who you’re playing, H/A, and where the oppo sits in the table. we have had a really good run points wise. It flatters our form (probably reflecting the quality of the league). Sometimes a team on a winning streak can tweak and play itself into better form. If we can do this I think we have a good chance of automatics especially if we strengthen in Jan What I fear is that, if we fail to make the automatics, we don’t have the game management skills to win the play offs even though we have a strong squad

The promotions he won Rotherham gave him a solid and long term base of support I’d imagine. And I think the Rotherham fan base don’t hold the view many of us do that div 1 is beneath us. So in Rotherham he was a popular figure who really was the boss. That’s why he has been careless when he talks about players imo Some of the criticism on here and at PP has been quite cutting. It’s a new thing for him. I think he may have found it hard to cope with and I think it leaves him a bit lost as to how to project himself in the media. The quirky chirpy cheeky chappy doesn’t play if the crowd are calling for his bobble hat

We want just one owner, and the right one

MSD lent 20m against the stadium and MM guaranteed the debt. MM refused to allow the stadium and the club to be ‘reunited’ unless MSD was repaid by someone other than him. That’s why DC bought the stadium for 23m - it was the amount needed to clear the MSD debt. Bold of you to put a value on the stadium. I’d hazard that if the club is out of business for prolonged period, the stadium is a liability. And that if the club is operational, the value of the stadium turns on the div we are in

Did you watch the lengthy ‘get to know the new owner’ video interview that was done a few weeks after the acquisition? Pretty sure the interviewer was Owen Bradley and that it was shot in what might have been DC’s ample back garden. [You’ll remember Mm refused to sell the stadium unless the purchaser paid at least enough to clear the MSD debt (about 23m if I recall). (The last valuation on the stadium at that stage was £80+m!) At that stage Kirchner clearly didn’t have enough to buy the stadium and the club, so DC stepped forward and took the stadium - one assumes for about £20m. Kirchner then retired from the process and DC was the only game in town, (apart from the Ashley vulture who had fallen out with q). DC then bought the club] Back to the interview: DC let it slip in a brief comment that he wasn’t originally intending to buy the club. But he added that once Kirchner was out of the process, the effect of DC buying the club on Q’s terms shored up the value of the stadium (which by then he had already purchased from MM) This was because buying the club on those terms maintained the club/stadium lessee as a going concern. They moved quickly on but it was gobsmacking that he said it, also that they broadcast it in those terms. I commented on it at the time on here. I’ve no idea whether that interview is still available somewhere. It’s worth a careful listen if it is