chairboy Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 Good morning! An email was sent to all Wycombe Wanderers Trust members last night, saying that a consortium led by Seaport Capital's Bill Luby and Jim Collis are the frontrunners for investing in our club. WWFC are currently owned by a Supporters Trust and our existing board have said in no uncertain terms that we are financially unsustainable as a League club with our current set up and no outside investment (despite managing a promotion last year...) I just wanted to ask for your opinions on Seaport Capital, and any specific information you have on those two during their tenure. Did they operate with the club's best interests at heart? Do you have any insights into their financial motivations for taking over little old Wycombe? Best of luck for the season too, I hope to see you in the Prem next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghost of Clough Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 Luby was part of the GSE consortium which put us on a more stable financial footing - drastically cutting our wage bill with a modest increase in revenue. I'm sure someone will be able to dig out the numbers at the start and end of their term. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadioactiveWaste Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 Well, I don't know about seaport and the part they played in the GSE era of Derbyshire County, so on that front I'd be wary of reading too much into how the wider group of American oowner's planned out. In a nutshell, GSE were sold a "pig in a poke" when they brought DCFC in the premier lleague in 2008/9 - think they really didn't get how bad relegation can be. They did, to be fair, allow paul Jewell to spend the summer after we went down. The fact it was almost all wasted was by the by. After Jewell had failed, and having bbeen badly burnt, there followed four years of "austerity ffootball" which caused much fan unhappiness, but was overall, ultimately pproved to be prudent. When the asset seemed to be on the up, current owner Mel Morris got back involved and has subsequently funded recent seasons. The Americans funded £5-7m a year annual losses through the austerity yyears. So, my take would be to be cautious, they are obviously not in it for the.love, but, on our experience the weren't tthe nightmare owners some clubs (or derb y in the past) get stuck with. They'll bbe business, hard but pro and probably ttry to get you up a league then if a good offer comes,sell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracell Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 No idea whether this is to do with GSE, but they deserve a lot of credit for stopping a crisis on the field turning into a crisis off it. It’s a minor miracle that, after being relegated as the worst team in history and innocently giving Paul Jewell funds to make it even worse, we weren’t relegated again. They paved the way for someone like Morris to come in. They shrewdly stabled a sinking ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boycie Posted November 1, 2018 Share Posted November 1, 2018 To be honest they cut the wage bill and tried to up corporate sales. The large screens being an investment that we were told that would add £1million in added sponsorship each season. But, reducing the wage bill wasn’t a radical move was it? It simply had to be done. They also paid lots of money into the club to settle player contracts early and also balance the books. Investment in the infrastructure followed too, painting the stadium to smarten it up was one thing they did. But it was all done, in my opinion, to make the club saleable once more. It worked, along with Clough and Steve Mac, got the sale on the eve of the Wembley final. So, ultimately, well done GSE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chairboy Posted November 2, 2018 Author Share Posted November 2, 2018 Thanks for the replies. I certainly think Wycombe are missing a lot of tricks in terms of running in a more profitable manner, mostly because our current board is made up of volunteers operating on a shoe string. They sound like 'good guys' as far as business-savvy footballer investors go, although ultimately in it for a short/medium term profit by means of a sale. Maybe the ambition is to get us into the Championship, and then sell us to someone else. If it works, it could be great, unless they sell us to someone far more unsavoury at the end. Cheers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gazram80 Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 36 minutes ago, chairboy said: Thanks for the replies. I certainly think Wycombe are missing a lot of tricks in terms of running in a more profitable manner, mostly because our current board is made up of volunteers operating on a shoe string. They sound like 'good guys' as far as business-savvy footballer investors go, although ultimately in it for a short/medium term profit by means of a sale. Maybe the ambition is to get us into the Championship, and then sell us to someone else. If it works, it could be great, unless they sell us to someone far more unsavoury at the end. Cheers! For what it's worth I think that GSE group operate a great business model and stabilised our club from probably ending up in league one and doing a Portsmouth. However I don't think that they are imo ambitious / reckless. I do think your club will be in good hands though. Good luck and I will keep an eye on your clubs results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Van der MoodHoover Posted November 2, 2018 Share Posted November 2, 2018 1 hour ago, chairboy said: Thanks for the replies. I certainly think Wycombe are missing a lot of tricks in terms of running in a more profitable manner, mostly because our current board is made up of volunteers operating on a shoe string. They sound like 'good guys' as far as business-savvy footballer investors go, although ultimately in it for a short/medium term profit by means of a sale. Maybe the ambition is to get us into the Championship, and then sell us to someone else. If it works, it could be great, unless they sell us to someone far more unsavoury at the end. Cheers! You boys would save a fortune in kit costs by releasing Akinfenwa as it looks like he needs 3 to fit round him on his own!!! ? On a more serious note - sounds to me like to need both the facets that we had. A consortium of investors to pony up the dosh and a "GSE" type company who basically acted as management intermediaries and did the leg work on behalf of the investors to keep them sweet and the cash flowing. If you get Seaports cash I suspect they're going to want someone acting on their behalf with a bit more commercial savvy than a group of volunteers. Good luck tho.....it's an alignment of interests because for Seaport to make their their desired return, they will need the clubs attractiveness to increase which implies promotion, better players, smarter facilities, more sponsorship etc etc What's not to like as a fan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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