Mel Morris fan club

[PistoldPete]

Just now, VulcanRam said:

I'm sorry but that just isn't true. Well before Covid we couldn't pay the staff or playing staff, and we were relying on scrabbling around looking for short term bails outs from the likes of Gabay and Dell because Mel either wasn't willing to fund or didn't have the available funds.

Yes Covid was a significant contributory factor but let's not pretend the the business wasn't in severe trouble well before it. 

 

The Msd loan was arranged in August 2020 five months after the pandemic.

[I know nuffin]

So maquire broke the amortization policy. When breaking it why didn't he add it was different but within the FS104 rules like every other accountant has said that I have seen comment on it. Only law judges has said it broke those rules. Maguire appears to have taken the most distractive path which kind of boosts himself as an expert and pulls Derby down. Is what he has said the truth, the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth. On a similar line Mel was the driver of our car crash but he is no accountant so who came up with the amortization policy. If it was our accountants why haven't they been held to account or told to get their ruling body to agree that the policy was within their rules. In Mela place that's what we all would have demanded. 

[PistoldPete]

19 minutes ago, RAM1966 said:

The pandemic accelerated this situation, we were always going down this route!!!!

No that isn’t true. Wage bill is less than half what it was , we have been making net transfer profits since 2015/16 so the trend was towards profitability and sustainability and has been for some years.

[VulcanRam]

20 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

The Msd loan was arranged in August 2020 five months after the pandemic.

Yes, and how long before that were we in talks/discussions etc etc. As I said, Mel was looking around for months before the pandemic began on the basis he wasn't willing to fund the club if he didn't have to. Why else were we unable to pay the players/staff on time in Jan 2020, before anyone had even heard of the word Covid? Or why were we receive money from Gabay in 2019 to see us through? 

Anyway, you keep your head in your bucket of sand and believe everything is down to Covid and none of this is Mel's doing. 

[PistoldPete]

8 minutes ago, VulcanRam said:

Yes, and how long before that were we in talks/discussions etc etc. As I said, Mel was looking around for months before the pandemic began on the basis he wasn't willing to fund the club if he didn't have to. Why else were we unable to pay the players/staff on time in Jan 2020, before anyone had even heard of the word Covid? Or why were we receive money from Gabay in 2019 to see us through? 

Anyway, you keep your head in your bucket of sand and believe everything is down to Covid and none of this is Mel's doing. 

Mel was looking to sell , and was reducing his spending because he knew his money would run out. 
 

the pandemic made it impossible to sell , and made his money run out.

[VulcanRam]

4 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Mel was looking to sell , and was reducing his spending because he knew his money would run out. 
 

the pandemic made it impossible to sell , and made his money run out.

ok

[Mucker1884]

35 minutes ago, I know nuffin said:

... On a similar line Mel was the driver of our car crash...

Blimey!  No wonder he and Keogh fell out!   ?

[Crewton]

53 minutes ago, VulcanRam said:

Or why were we receive money from Gabay in 2019 to see us through? 

I thought the Gabay loan was to the company that bought the stadium, not to the football club?

[VulcanRam]

2 minutes ago, Crewton said:

I thought the Gabay loan was to the company that bought the stadium, not to the football club?

There were both going on. 

[Crewton]

22 minutes ago, VulcanRam said:

There were both going on. 

So Gabay's loan to the club was paid off? Because it's not been mentioned in any of the reports regarding accumulated debt? 

[Macintosh]

Doesn't most of the gripe start with the assumption Morris is still wealthy at £500m+ according to a rich list (2020), but a lot of that added will be that Derby County was worth a fair chunk, that there's a £81m stadium etc. You can assume that eventually Pride Park will be sold for around £35m. That will be the whole return on his tenure here.

We know he got £450m for his King shares, but that was seven seasons ago.

I was told he paid £16m for 22% shares initially, then £82m for the rest inc Pride Park and land. The club had approx £10m debts he inherited, had to pay for the loan signings before the deal was done and £15m mortgage outstanding on the ground. That's got to be way over £100m gone in a blink. Players on small wages then ballooned to keep them here, like Bryson, Keogh, Martin.

We do know that Gabay loaned the money for repurchasing the ground, plus a £30m loan from MSD Capital, and they both attracted high interest, around nine per cent, that would be £10m+ to add on. Pay offs to Rush, Keogh, many managers etc, enormous legal bills, losses on every season. The Pride Park sale appears to have been paid off, partly by the MSD loan the rest must be from Mel alone because there was no club income. His figure of losing £200m has to be close or underestimated, and then there is a minimum £60m debt on top.

With the club being up for sale for two years now, the EFL having a grudge against him personally it appears, his wealth reducing considerably, his health having been dreadful, then the options were few, administration, liquidation or winning promotion if there were no takers.

I'd be surprised if he was worth half of what he was before he took over our club. 

[VulcanRam]

2 hours ago, Crewton said:

So Gabay's loan to the club was paid off? Because it's not been mentioned in any of the reports regarding accumulated debt? 

I've no idea what's been paid off and what hasn't.

[PistoldPete]

49 minutes ago, Macintosh said:

Doesn't most of the gripe start with the assumption Morris is still wealthy at £500m+ according to a rich list (2020), but a lot of that added will be that Derby County was worth a fair chunk, that there's a £81m stadium etc. You can assume that eventually Pride Park will be sold for around £35m. That will be the whole return on his tenure here.

We know he got £450m for his King shares, but that was seven seasons ago.

I was told he paid £16m for 22% shares initially, then £82m for the rest inc Pride Park and land. The club had approx £10m debts he inherited, had to pay for the loan signings before the deal was done and £15m mortgage outstanding on the ground. That's got to be way over £100m gone in a blink. Players on small wages then ballooned to keep them here, like Bryson, Keogh, Martin.

We do know that Gabay loaned the money for repurchasing the ground, plus a £30m loan from MSD Capital, and they both attracted high interest, around nine per cent, that would be £10m+ to add on. Pay offs to Rush, Keogh, many managers etc, enormous legal bills, losses on every season. The Pride Park sale appears to have been paid off, partly by the MSD loan the rest must be from Mel alone because there was no club income. His figure of losing £200m has to be close or underestimated, and then there is a minimum £60m debt on top.

With the club being up for sale for two years now, the EFL having a grudge against him personally it appears, his wealth reducing considerably, his health having been dreadful, then the options were few, administration, liquidation or winning promotion if there were no takers.

I'd be surprised if he was worth half of what he was before he took over our club. 

I think this is the real issue. Not whether we should or shouldn’t have signed butterfield in 2015 or anya in 2016, but what did Mel do in 2021? Why did he pull the plug? Has he run out of cash?

[Yani P]

There was plenty of talk before Admin that many of his other investments had done very very well in the past 2-3 years so his overall fortune had increased not decreased..

[Macintosh]

1 hour ago, PistoldPete said:

I think this is the real issue. Not whether we should or shouldn’t have signed butterfield in 2015 or anya in 2016, but what did Mel do in 2021? Why did he pull the plug? Has he run out of cash?

I'd say this would be an obvious comparison, how quickly massive wealth can disappear almost overnight:

 

"Today Sir Philip and Cristina Green rank No. 1299 on Forbes' latest World's Billionaire list, with an estimated net worth of $2.4 billion—down from a high of $5.9 billion in 2016."

He's gone from nine times wealthier than Mel to three times in half a decade (and still owes £200m in pension fees to ex-employees).

[Chris_D]

5 hours ago, I know nuffin said:

So maquire broke the amortization policy. When breaking it why didn't he add it was different but within the FS104 rules like every other accountant has said that I have seen comment on it. Only law judges has said it broke those rules. Maguire appears to have taken the most distractive path which kind of boosts himself as an expert and pulls Derby down. Is what he has said the truth, the WHOLE truth and nothing but the truth. On a similar line Mel was the driver of our car crash but he is no accountant so who came up with the amortization policy. If it was our accountants why haven't they been held to account or told to get their ruling body to agree that the policy was within their rules. In Mela place that's what we all would have demanded. 

don't think that's true, Professor Pope (an accountant) at the LAP did not think our policy was FRS 102 compliant (not sure what FS104 is)

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

25 minutes ago, Yani P said:

There was plenty of talk before Admin that many of his other investments had done very very well in the past 2-3 years so his overall fortune had increased not decreased..

Investments don't equal cash though.

He might be worth hundreds of millions on paper but if he's got no cash and can't/won't liquidate assets to make cash then it's irrelevant.

I'd be interested to know if it was a case of can not or will not. 

[PistoldPete]

3 hours ago, Chris_D said:

don't think that's true, Professor Pope (an accountant) at the LAP did not think our policy was FRS 102 compliant (not sure what FS104 is)

Prof Pope is not at the Lap. He was chosen by Efl to support their case. Why they didn’t choose a practising auditor I don’t know , maybe they couldn’t find one to support their case.

[Chris_D]

2 minutes ago, PistoldPete said:

Prof Pope is not at the Lap. He was chosen by Efl to support their case. Why they didn’t choose a practising auditor I don’t know , maybe they couldn’t find one to support their case.

ok fair enough, but the LAP considered in detail the evidence he gave at the DC, point stands someone didn't agree, the EFL maybe thought an academic would give their view more credence than someone who gets paid to do what a client wants...

[PistoldPete]

7 minutes ago, Chris_D said:

ok fair enough, but the LAP considered in detail the evidence he gave at the DC, point stands someone didn't agree, the EFL maybe thought an academic would give their view more credence than someone who gets paid to do what a client wants...

The IDc thought the opposite , and they had an accountant on their panel. So you had Derby’s CEO an accountant, Derby’s auditors ,  Efl’s finance director, an Icaew audit team, an accountant on the IDc all seeing nothing wrong . Yet a panel of lawyers found a breach of an accounting standard . Not exactly convincing .