Alan Nixon Breaks Silence on American Billionaire Bid

[thelovebelow]

3 hours ago, jimtastic56 said:

Chelsea have announced a loss of £153.4 million for the year ended June 21. A year in which they won the Champions League. What chance do the rest of us have in making a profit?

Chelsea have spent more than any other club in world football the last few years. 

[jono]

1 hour ago, ilkleyram said:

Not sure it has been all that different in my lifetime - most clubs have operated at a loss most of the time.  Where it is different is in the size of the numbers, from players and staff wages to cost of running stadia and training facilities, from income to the cost of watching.

Where it is hugely different is the disparity between the top few clubs and the lower majority caused by the unequal distribution of (largely) TV money. That unequal distribution is what has ruined football and made it the unequal contest it currently is. 60 years ago it was a much more equal contest that allowed dreams to be realised.  Now it is biased against anyone from outside a select group wanting to break up the cartel.

And where it is even more different  is in the competence at world, european and country level of football administrators. The people of vision, leadership and love of the game have been replaced by incompetent money men full of self interest. So it ain't going to change any time soon.

It’s skewed, it’s a mess. There were always leading clubs, a cadre of special ones but now it’s smaller and infinitely harder to join or compete with the elite. What sickens me is the debt and the  TV income which enables bankers to lend, borrowers to borrow and gamblers to gamble at extreme levels. At the same time it opens the door to the business school with all their language - optimising asset usage, revenue streams, matchday experience. It’s anti sport. 
 

Who remembers the 70’s when even the great UK clubs couldn’t compete with Italian wages ? Generally clubs were businesses, the ones with bigger crowds had more money. United, Arsenal, Liverpool . All getting 40/60 k gates. There was a reason for their relative wealth. The Italians like Juve had Angelli / Fiat as backers. The closest the Brits got to that was the Moores family. 
 

Subscription TV and global marketing of the game has messed it up. It isn’t even close to a sporting contest between 22 strong men.
 

 I’d love an FFP / wages budget based simply on live attendance. Would that not kill all the bent sponsorship deals and messy financial games ? 

[Kathcairns]

1 hour ago, ilkleyram said:

Not sure it has been all that different in my lifetime - most clubs have operated at a loss most of the time.  Where it is different is in the size of the numbers, from players and staff wages to cost of running stadia and training facilities, from income to the cost of watching.

Where it is hugely different is the disparity between the top few clubs and the lower majority caused by the unequal distribution of (largely) TV money. That unequal distribution is what has ruined football and made it the unequal contest it currently is. 60 years ago it was a much more equal contest that allowed dreams to be realised.  Now it is biased against anyone from outside a select group wanting to break up the cartel.

And where it is even more different  is in the competence at world, european and country level of football administrators. The people of vision, leadership and love of the game have been replaced by incompetent money men full of self interest. So it ain't going to change any time soon.

Agree, the european cup used to be for champions of each country with home and away games, so how can anyone win it now who is not even champion of their own league. To me you cant be champions of europe when you havnt even won your own league, just have you have said to much money,ruined the game.

[kevinhectoring]

7 hours ago, i-Ram said:

Had a nice day off yesterday Kev. Batteries recharged here. Tell me, who currently owns Pride Park stadium?

Ok I’ll clarify this for you and all at no charge.  More suitable for a PM, as offered, but whatever. Not a single pun
 

Before I answer your question: you are seriously suggesting MM can step in and procure a stadium sale ! There is no world in which an arms’ length buyer pays an acceptable price for the stadium alone. This as you know is because the value of the stadium rests on the club continuing as a going concern, which requires a sale of the club; and because the market has told the admins that any buyer of the club needs also to buy the stadium.  If this bizarre stadium sale of your imaginings occurs, we must assume it would be followed by an insolvent liquidation of 202 (which paid 80m for the stadium on acquisition, clearly well in excess of the current value). The parties to the sale and MSD would understand that the sale and the loan repayment would be at serious risk of unwind by a subsequent liquidator. So faced with this Alice in wonderland sale, MSD would act to stop it -  as would the admins.  And they could do so - see below. Yes, there would be a litigation-fest if the stadium were sold without the club, litigation that would spring from the insolvent liquidation of 202 and, probably,  of the club  :(

 

A few other things for starters : 1 one recurring misunderstanding in your posts is : you repeatedly assume that a security interest takes effect only on enforcement. It’s not correct.    2 you seem to think MM has given a personal guarantee to MSD. The public documents suggest this is unlikely and I think you’re getting MSD confused with Gabay.    3 I’m not clear you  understand the relationship between the Aug 2020 filings and the Nov 2021 ones, despite your compadre pistoldpete (he is rather good on this stuff) giving you gentle hints.    4 We are I think missing one important piece of the jigsaw - the detail of the current debtor/creditor position between 202 and the club. This aspect does not feature at all in your thinking so far as I can see. In fact I don’t believe we have a recent balance sheet for 202,  which undercuts the great certainty with which you swashbuckle over all of this     5 my reading of the 2020 charge is that the identity of the borrower is intentionally disguised. I think you are making some assumptions   6 your contention that 202 and the club sit within two separated sub-groups ignores the rights and obligations that spring up when guarantees are called. It also ignores any inter company loan positions and the lease. The two are joined at the hip   8 your comments on defaults under the MSD loan arrangements suggest that the closest you’ve been to a corporate restructuring is buying underpants in the Debenhams clearance. 
 

So to answer your question :

- legal title to PP has passed to MSD under the legal charge.  202 owns something called the equity of redemption. [ btw, you blithely state that for MM to redeem the MSD loan would be a simple thing. You should listen to your friend pistoldpete when he gently suggests to you that the non-public loan documents doubtless contain many provisions that impact on your weighty pronouncements. ]
 

- who owns 202? Well as part of the security structure for the initial deal, MSD has taken security over the shares 203 holds in 202. You’ll have seen this in the schedules to the security documents. This security interest has probably not been perfected, even now. But even so, MM’s indirect ownership of 202 is qualified. 
 

So in short, the security arrangements condition 202’s ownership of the stadium; and they qualify MM’s ownership and control of 202. And MSD’s rights under those arrangements enable the admins to get comfortable that MM could do nothing that would compromise the admins’ objective,  namely to sell the club and the stadium together.

I’ll say it again - I would guess there are 2 reasons why 202 is not in administration. One of them imho is that the admins and MSD are confident that MM can do nothing to thwart the stated intention to sell stadium and club together. 
 

Another thought: administration is a court supervised process. How do you think the court would react if MM, the controlling shareholder of the club (in administration),  took steps to frustrate the purpose for which the admins were appointed  ??  Can you imagine?! 
 

No  - if the admins secure a buyer, the stadium and the club will one way or another be sold together and - putting aside commercially irrational scenarios - there is nothing MM can do about this. And if he tried, I think 202 would swiftly move into administration and MM would once again end up on the wrong end of a court judgement. 
 

[Sparkle]

5 minutes ago, Kathcairns said:

Agree, the european cup used to be for champions of each country with home and away games, so how can anyone win it now who is not even champion of their own league. To me you cant be champions of europe when you havnt even won your own league, just have you have said to much money,ruined the game.

Yes I agree - Liverpool won it having finished 4th in the premiership!

[Philmycock]

[strawhillram]

8 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Ok I’ll clarify this for you and all at no charge.  More suitable for a PM, as offered, but whatever. Not a single pun
 

Before I answer your question: you are seriously suggesting MM can step in and procure a stadium sale ! There is no world in which an arms’ length buyer pays an acceptable price for the stadium alone. This as you know is because the value of the stadium rests on the club continuing as a going concern, which requires a sale of the club; and because the market has told the admins that any buyer of the club needs also to buy the stadium.  If this bizarre stadium sale of your imaginings occurs, we must assume it would be followed by an insolvent liquidation of 202 (which paid 80m for the stadium on acquisition, clearly well in excess of the current value). The parties to the sale and MSD would understand that the sale and the loan repayment would be at serious risk of unwind by a subsequent liquidator. So faced with this Alice in wonderland sale, MSD would act to stop it -  as would the admins.  And they could do so - see below. Yes, there would be a litigation-fest if the stadium were sold without the club, litigation that would spring from the insolvent liquidation of 202 and, probably,  of the club  ?

 

A few other things for starters : 1 one recurring misunderstanding in your posts is : you repeatedly assume that a security interest takes effect only on enforcement. It’s not correct.    2 you seem to think MM has given a personal guarantee to MSD. The public documents suggest this is unlikely and I think you’re getting MSD confused with Gabay.    3 I’m not clear you  understand the relationship between the Aug 2020 filings and the Nov 2021 ones, despite your compadre pistoldpete (he is rather good on this stuff) giving you gentle hints.    4 We are I think missing one important piece of the jigsaw - the detail of the current debtor/creditor position between 202 and the club. This aspect does not feature at all in your thinking so far as I can see. In fact I don’t believe we have a recent balance sheet for 202,  which undercuts the great certainty with which you swashbuckle over all of this     5 my reading of the 2020 charge is that the identity of the borrower is intentionally disguised. I think you are making some assumptions   6 your contention that 202 and the club sit within two separated sub-groups ignores the rights and obligations that spring up when guarantees are called. It also ignores any inter company loan positions and the lease. The two are joined at the hip   8 your comments on defaults under the MSD loan arrangements suggest that the closest you’ve been to a corporate restructuring is buying underpants in the Debenhams clearance. 
 

So to answer your question :

- legal title to PP has passed to MSD under the legal charge.  202 owns something called the equity of redemption. [ btw, you blithely state that for MM to redeem the MSD loan would be a simple thing. You should listen to your friend pistoldpete when he gently suggests to you that the non-public loan documents doubtless contain many provisions that impact on your weighty pronouncements. ]
 

- who owns 202? Well as part of the security structure for the initial deal, MSD has taken security over the shares 203 holds in 202. You’ll have seen this in the schedules to the security documents. This security interest has probably not been perfected, even now. But even so, MM’s indirect ownership of 202 is qualified. 
 

So in short, the security arrangements condition 202’s ownership of the stadium; and they qualify MM’s ownership and control of 202. And MSD’s rights under those arrangements enable the admins to get comfortable that MM could do nothing that would compromise the admins’ objective,  namely to sell the club and the stadium together.

I’ll say it again - I would guess there are 2 reasons why 202 is not in administration. One of them imho is that the admins and MSD are confident that MM can do nothing to thwart the stated intention to sell stadium and club together. 
 

Another thought: administration is a court supervised process. How do you think the court would react if MM, the controlling shareholder of the club (in administration),  took steps to frustrate the purpose for which the admins were appointed  ??  Can you imagine?! 
 

No  - if the admins secure a buyer, the stadium and the club will one way or another be sold together and - putting aside commercially irrational scenarios - there is nothing MM can do about this. And if he tried, I think 202 would swiftly move into administration and MM would once again end up on the wrong end of a court judgement. 
 

Much clearer now. I need a drink and a lie down in a darkened room

[sage]

23 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Ok I’ll clarify this for you and all at no charge.  More suitable for a PM, as offered, but whatever. Not a single pun
 

Before I answer your question: you are seriously suggesting MM can step in and procure a stadium sale ! There is no world in which an arms’ length buyer pays an acceptable price for the stadium alone. This as you know is because the value of the stadium rests on the club continuing as a going concern, which requires a sale of the club; and because the market has told the admins that any buyer of the club needs also to buy the stadium.  If this bizarre stadium sale of your imaginings occurs, we must assume it would be followed by an insolvent liquidation of 202 (which paid 80m for the stadium on acquisition, clearly well in excess of the current value). The parties to the sale and MSD would understand that the sale and the loan repayment would be at serious risk of unwind by a subsequent liquidator. So faced with this Alice in wonderland sale, MSD would act to stop it -  as would the admins.  And they could do so - see below. Yes, there would be a litigation-fest if the stadium were sold without the club, litigation that would spring from the insolvent liquidation of 202 and, probably,  of the club  ?

 

A few other things for starters : 1 one recurring misunderstanding in your posts is : you repeatedly assume that a security interest takes effect only on enforcement. It’s not correct.    2 you seem to think MM has given a personal guarantee to MSD. The public documents suggest this is unlikely and I think you’re getting MSD confused with Gabay.    3 I’m not clear you  understand the relationship between the Aug 2020 filings and the Nov 2021 ones, despite your compadre pistoldpete (he is rather good on this stuff) giving you gentle hints.    4 We are I think missing one important piece of the jigsaw - the detail of the current debtor/creditor position between 202 and the club. This aspect does not feature at all in your thinking so far as I can see. In fact I don’t believe we have a recent balance sheet for 202,  which undercuts the great certainty with which you swashbuckle over all of this     5 my reading of the 2020 charge is that the identity of the borrower is intentionally disguised. I think you are making some assumptions   6 your contention that 202 and the club sit within two separated sub-groups ignores the rights and obligations that spring up when guarantees are called. It also ignores any inter company loan positions and the lease. The two are joined at the hip   8 your comments on defaults under the MSD loan arrangements suggest that the closest you’ve been to a corporate restructuring is buying underpants in the Debenhams clearance. 
 

So to answer your question :

- legal title to PP has passed to MSD under the legal charge.  202 owns something called the equity of redemption. [ btw, you blithely state that for MM to redeem the MSD loan would be a simple thing. You should listen to your friend pistoldpete when he gently suggests to you that the non-public loan documents doubtless contain many provisions that impact on your weighty pronouncements. ]
 

- who owns 202? Well as part of the security structure for the initial deal, MSD has taken security over the shares 203 holds in 202. You’ll have seen this in the schedules to the security documents. This security interest has probably not been perfected, even now. But even so, MM’s indirect ownership of 202 is qualified. 
 

So in short, the security arrangements condition 202’s ownership of the stadium; and they qualify MM’s ownership and control of 202. And MSD’s rights under those arrangements enable the admins to get comfortable that MM could do nothing that would compromise the admins’ objective,  namely to sell the club and the stadium together.

I’ll say it again - I would guess there are 2 reasons why 202 is not in administration. One of them imho is that the admins and MSD are confident that MM can do nothing to thwart the stated intention to sell stadium and club together. 
 

Another thought: administration is a court supervised process. How do you think the court would react if MM, the controlling shareholder of the club (in administration),  took steps to frustrate the purpose for which the admins were appointed  ??  Can you imagine?! 
 

No  - if the admins secure a buyer, the stadium and the club will one way or another be sold together and - putting aside commercially irrational scenarios - there is nothing MM can do about this. And if he tried, I think 202 would swiftly move into administration and MM would once again end up on the wrong end of a court judgement. 
 

So, who owns the ground? 

[Yani P]

Not me so that narrows it down

[ilkleyram]

54 minutes ago, jono said:

It’s skewed, it’s a mess. There were always leading clubs, a cadre of special ones but now it’s smaller and infinitely harder to join or compete with the elite. What sickens me is the debt and the  TV income which enables bankers to lend, borrowers to borrow and gamblers to gamble at extreme levels. At the same time it opens the door to the business school with all their language - optimising asset usage, revenue streams, matchday experience. It’s anti sport. 
 

Who remembers the 70’s when even the great UK clubs couldn’t compete with Italian wages ? Generally clubs were businesses, the ones with bigger crowds had more money. United, Arsenal, Liverpool . All getting 40/60 k gates. There was a reason for their relative wealth. The Italians like Juve had Angelli / Fiat as backers. The closest the Brits got to that was the Moores family. 
 

Subscription TV and global marketing of the game has messed it up. It isn’t even close to a sporting contest between 22 strong men.
 

 I’d love an FFP / wages budget based simply on live attendance. Would that not kill all the bent sponsorship deals and messy financial games ? 

Agree with the vast majority of this @jono.

The moment though that you have any system that limits the budget an owner can spend, however you might create that, is the moment that people will try to find a way around it - it's human and sporting nature which nothing will change. In the 'old' days gate receipts and numbers were 'adjusted'; gatemen took backhanders to let fans in free; brown envelopes of cash helped transfers happen. 

And because the limitation is purely and artificially financial the sponsorship deals and financial games will continue.

Football has two choices - either go back to a free for all in which owners can spend what they like as per almost any other business or find a way to limit expenditure and try to close loopholes as they arise, but accept that people will always try to find ways around it and accept that the system, any system, is imperfect and has unintended (or intended) consequences

[kevinhectoring]

4 minutes ago, sage said:

So, who owns the ground? 

Doesn’t matter. If we have a buyer, they will own it 

[Rev]

Can't we just skip the back and forth, and end up at the end game?

C.V.'s on the table guys.

 

[Rev]

6 minutes ago, sage said:

So, who owns the ground? 

I'm guessing Mel, but he owns it but has absolutely no control over its future.

Like an unruly child.

[Jimbo Ram]

34 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Ok I’ll clarify this for you and all at no charge.  More suitable for a PM, as offered, but whatever. Not a single pun
 

Before I answer your question: you are seriously suggesting MM can step in and procure a stadium sale ! There is no world in which an arms’ length buyer pays an acceptable price for the stadium alone. This as you know is because the value of the stadium rests on the club continuing as a going concern, which requires a sale of the club; and because the market has told the admins that any buyer of the club needs also to buy the stadium.  If this bizarre stadium sale of your imaginings occurs, we must assume it would be followed by an insolvent liquidation of 202 (which paid 80m for the stadium on acquisition, clearly well in excess of the current value). The parties to the sale and MSD would understand that the sale and the loan repayment would be at serious risk of unwind by a subsequent liquidator. So faced with this Alice in wonderland sale, MSD would act to stop it -  as would the admins.  And they could do so - see below. Yes, there would be a litigation-fest if the stadium were sold without the club, litigation that would spring from the insolvent liquidation of 202 and, probably,  of the club  ?

 

A few other things for starters : 1 one recurring misunderstanding in your posts is : you repeatedly assume that a security interest takes effect only on enforcement. It’s not correct.    2 you seem to think MM has given a personal guarantee to MSD. The public documents suggest this is unlikely and I think you’re getting MSD confused with Gabay.    3 I’m not clear you  understand the relationship between the Aug 2020 filings and the Nov 2021 ones, despite your compadre pistoldpete (he is rather good on this stuff) giving you gentle hints.    4 We are I think missing one important piece of the jigsaw - the detail of the current debtor/creditor position between 202 and the club. This aspect does not feature at all in your thinking so far as I can see. In fact I don’t believe we have a recent balance sheet for 202,  which undercuts the great certainty with which you swashbuckle over all of this     5 my reading of the 2020 charge is that the identity of the borrower is intentionally disguised. I think you are making some assumptions   6 your contention that 202 and the club sit within two separated sub-groups ignores the rights and obligations that spring up when guarantees are called. It also ignores any inter company loan positions and the lease. The two are joined at the hip   8 your comments on defaults under the MSD loan arrangements suggest that the closest you’ve been to a corporate restructuring is buying underpants in the Debenhams clearance. 
 

So to answer your question :

- legal title to PP has passed to MSD under the legal charge.  202 owns something called the equity of redemption. [ btw, you blithely state that for MM to redeem the MSD loan would be a simple thing. You should listen to your friend pistoldpete when he gently suggests to you that the non-public loan documents doubtless contain many provisions that impact on your weighty pronouncements. ]
 

- who owns 202? Well as part of the security structure for the initial deal, MSD has taken security over the shares 203 holds in 202. You’ll have seen this in the schedules to the security documents. This security interest has probably not been perfected, even now. But even so, MM’s indirect ownership of 202 is qualified. 
 

So in short, the security arrangements condition 202’s ownership of the stadium; and they qualify MM’s ownership and control of 202. And MSD’s rights under those arrangements enable the admins to get comfortable that MM could do nothing that would compromise the admins’ objective,  namely to sell the club and the stadium together.

I’ll say it again - I would guess there are 2 reasons why 202 is not in administration. One of them imho is that the admins and MSD are confident that MM can do nothing to thwart the stated intention to sell stadium and club together. 
 

Another thought: administration is a court supervised process. How do you think the court would react if MM, the controlling shareholder of the club (in administration),  took steps to frustrate the purpose for which the admins were appointed  ??  Can you imagine?! 
 

No  - if the admins secure a buyer, the stadium and the club will one way or another be sold together and - putting aside commercially irrational scenarios - there is nothing MM can do about this. And if he tried, I think 202 would swiftly move into administration and MM would once again end up on the wrong end of a court judgement. 
 

Nice synopsis, can we have a bit more detail ?

[i-Ram]

15 minutes ago, kevinhectoring said:

Doesn’t matter. If we have a buyer, they will own it 

I will consider your lengthy reply tomorrow afternoon. I have a match to follow tonight, and I had already planned tomorrow morning to go online to see what underwear deals are on offer at Debenhams.

Again though, keeping it simple at this stage, as @sageasked, and I have asked at least twice now, and which you still continue to not answer, who currently owns the stadium?

[Jimbo Ram]

Any news on the takeover ?

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, i-Ram said:

I will consider your lengthy reply tomorrow afternoon. I have a match to follow tonight, and I had already planned tomorrow morning to go online to see what underwear deals are on offer at Debenhams.

Again though, keeping it simple at this stage, as @sageasked, and I have asked at least twice now, and which you still continue to not answer, who currently owns the stadium?

Look I apologise about the Debenhams jibe. It was the only recent retail restructuring I could think of, other than ones I have worked on. I have always assumed from the quality of your posts that like me you sport proper M&S underwear. It was beneath the belt 

I think your mate pistoldpete may as we speak be googling learned articles on ‘clog on the equity of redemption’. He’s a sharp one.  I implore both of you not to embark on that long and winding road. I’ve just marked a dissertation on that thorny topic and if I’m honest I found the whole thing very difficult to understand.
 

I know you disagree with me but look, there is a great deal the two of us do not know about what is going on and we might both be wildly wrong. Can we not just celebrate the awesome effort of our beloved team tonight, agree to disagree, and focus on the important issues of the football and the puns ? 
 

This is my second olive branch and I hope you will have mercy on me
 

 

[hintonsboots]

I didn’t realise Debenhams stocked thongs.

[i-Ram]

13 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

Look I apologise about the Debenhams jibe. It was the only recent retail restructuring I could think of, other than ones I have worked on. I have always assumed from the quality of your posts that like me you sport proper M&S underwear. It was beneath the belt 

I think your mate pistoldpete may as we speak be googling learned articles on ‘clog on the equity of redemption’. He’s a sharp one.  I implore both of you not to embark on that long and winding road. I’ve just marked a dissertation on that thorny topic and if I’m honest I found the whole thing very difficult to understand.
 

I know you disagree with me but look, there is a great deal the two of us do not know about what is going on and we might both be wildly wrong. Can we not just celebrate the awesome effort of our beloved team tonight, agree to disagree, and focus on the important issues of the football and the puns ? 
 

This is my second olive branch and I hope you will have mercy on me

No need to apologise about the Debenhams jibe; found it rather amusing.

If you want me to look over that dissertation send it over to me. Two sets of eyes and all that. I suspect Pete will be at the Google again  - Pete have a look at Warnborough Ltd v Garmite Ltd, 5 November 2003 (Court of Appeal) ?  Fwiw I doubt very much that Morris’s lawyers would have entered into any loan agreement which did not provide for the mortgagee (MSD) to remove it’s rights to the stadium, back to the mortgagor (Gellaw), once the secured obligation had been completed.

There is obviously much we don’t know, and details of loan agreements and personal guarantee arrangements will not be in the public domain. I still think that Morris has some strength in cards he can play, both as the current registered owner of the stadium (Gellaw) and if he were to want to wade in and settle the secured debt. Hopefully though he will stand by his previous pledges that he will do what he needs to do to facilitate the transfer of the stadium to the club simultaneously with the purchase of the club. Personally, I really don’t trust him, and as an example it would not surprise me if his terms might not be different in relation to what he might do for the bidding group that includes Sam Rush. Anyway, that’s just my opinion, not to be considered or confused as fact.

Please don’t shout too loud about the Gellaw group and the Football club group being ‘joined at the hip’. Whilst there are many commercial elements to their relationship, not least the leasehold interest of the stadium, the groups were created and should be operating at a large arms length. Otherwise Morris will have, or would have had by now, the EFL and Gibson crawling all over the situation that all he did was an inter-group company transaction to create P&S headroom. 

I will stand down too on this too. Not out of mercy. You don’t need mercy, but I really can’t disagree that there is a great deal the two of us do not know about what is going on and we might both be wildly wrong.

Great win last night, and I have some new underwear on order. Hopefully we won’t be pants at Reading come Monday. Up the Rams.

Edited December 31, 2021 by i-Ram

[TomG]

15 hours ago, Jimbo Ram said:

Any news on the takeover ?

The announcement is imminent!