The Administration Thread

[Ellafella]

10 hours ago, Charlotte Ram said:

Makes absolute sense to keep Pearce in his role, recruiting would take many months and presumably require a "headhunter" at a cost of 25% of the salary to be paid, Pearce is experienced and has years of sitting on the EFL board, and also good senior contacts at lower league levels. Would have been foolish to fire him at this time especially as his contact would need to have been paid up.

Shrewd move by DC

Indeed; if you just put to one side the very near fatal existential threat to Derby County FC established 138 years ago under Pearce’s watch, it’s a blinder. I’m sure Nick Leeson would’ve been re-employed by Barrings Bank if they’d still existed after he’d accidentally traded them to collapse. 

[Crewton]

56 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

Indeed; if you just put to one side the very near fatal existential threat to Derby County FC established 138 years ago under Pearce’s watch, it’s a blinder. I’m sure Nick Leeson would’ve been re-employed by Barrings Bank if they’d still existed after he’d accidentally traded them to collapse. 

Pearce's retention for a transition period will be helpful to Clowes' team. If he's still here in 12 months time, I'll be very, very surprised. Successful property developers are pragmatic, not sentimental IME. 

[i-Ram]

1 hour ago, Ellafella said:

Indeed; if you just put to one side the very near fatal existential threat to Derby County FC established 138 years ago under Pearce’s watch, it’s a blinder. I’m sure Nick Leeson would’ve been re-employed by Barrings Bank if they’d still existed after he’d accidentally traded them to collapse. 

Pearce, I understand, did a very clever PowerPoint presentation to Clowes, showing the economic benefits and opportunity cost of retaining his services. I am sure you can get behind that. 

[1of4]

Keeping Pearce at the club may be the correct thing for David Clowes to do. I assume DC would have questioned him over his personal input into how the club was run under it's previous owner.

Did Pearce see Morris was taking the path that ultimately lead to us going into administration but was powerless to stop him and did his best to keep the club on an even keel.

Or was he the initiator of some of the methods that Morris used, that nearly ended with the club ceasing to exist

[StaffsRam]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

Pearce, I understand, did a very clever PowerPoint presentation to Clowes, showing the economic benefits and opportunity cost of retaining his services. I am sure you can get behind that. 

He wants to be careful, using a Microsoft Office product to outline his evil plans…

?

[RadioactiveWaste]

5 minutes ago, StaffsRam said:

He wants to be careful, using a Microsoft Office product to outline his evil plans…

?

Everyone knows you shouldn't use spreadsheets to formulate your evil plans.

You need to do it properly in a database.

 

[Ellafella]

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

Pearce, I understand, did a very clever PowerPoint presentation to Clowes, showing the economic benefits and opportunity cost of retaining his services. I am sure you can get behind that. 

You mean they actually trusted his figures?! ?‍♂️

[RadioactiveWaste]

2 minutes ago, Ellafella said:

You mean they actually trusted his figures?! ?‍♂️

Right click.

Hide tab.

"Liabilities"

Right click.

Hide tab.

"Risks"

"Please find attached.

Note, do not share with EFL."

[JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta]

12 minutes ago, StaffsRam said:

He wants to be careful, using a Microsoft Office product to outline his evil plans…

?

So I make a living selling software to very, very large businesses. I have seen enough from FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies to know that more than a few of them absolutely do still have some ridiculously sensitive information just floating around their businesses on excel spreadsheets.

I used to be surprised, now I just assume it will be the case. In short, this scene isn't a million miles away from reality in some cases!

[Ellafella]

38 minutes ago, 1of4 said:

Keeping Pearce at the club may be the correct thing for David Clowes to do. I assume DC would have questioned him over his personal input into how the club was run under it's previous owner.

Did Pearce see Morris was taking the path that ultimately lead to us going into administration but was powerless to stop him and did his best to keep the club on an even keel.

Or was he the initiator of some of the methods that Morris used, that nearly ended with the club ceasing to exist

It's a very good point. In actual fact, the alternative methodologies used by Derby County (on player values) seemed to be empirically superior and far more evidence-based to those used by the EFL - quelle surprise! -  but given that SP was an EFL Board member one would've thought that he would've been able to read the "mood music" at the EFL and tell Mel that he needed to dance to the EFL's tune. I have no problem with SP and bear him no grudge whatever, but surely his mere presence in the room casts a shadow of what very nearly happened.  

[RadioactiveWaste]

1 minute ago, Ellafella said:

It's a very good point. In actual fact, the alternative methodologies used by Derby County (on player values) seemed to be empirically superior and far more evidence-based to those used by the EFL - quelle surprise! -  but given that SP was an EFL Board member one would've thought that he would've been able to read the "mood music" at the EFL and tell Mel that he needed to dance to the EFL's tune. I have no problem with SP and bear him no grudge whatever, but surely his mere presence in the room casts a shadow of what very nearly happened.  

We'll never know fully the answer to that, but it is a pertinent and very interesting question.

You have to assume both Q and DC are happy with the answer. Whilst Q was there I'd assumed it was primarily that Pearce "knew where the bodies were buried" (in a financial sense) but DC keeping him on suggests there's more to him than being Mel's wicked henchman.

My guess is "blew with the wind, it was Mel's money after all" more then devilish plotting but, I have precisely zero knowledge to back that up.

[Crewton]

15 minutes ago, JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta said:

So

Aaaargh!!!

 

 

 

 

 

?

[Guest]

I worked for a company once.  My boss bought out a part of the company as 100% shareholder, and I was thrust into the senior management team, essentially as the technical director (in all but title) along with the sales manager, and finance manager.  He told us form the outset that we would be his checks and balances men, to keep him in line and we should not be afraid to voice our opinions.  Fast forward a couple of years and we tried to do just that, and got told to F off in no uncertain terms!

The point being that Pearce could well have tried to keep Morris in check, but was told exactly what my ex boss told us…

My feeling is there were any real financial misdeeds on Pearce’s behalf then I think Q would have bled him dry for info and jettisoned him soon after…

Andrew

[duncanjwitham]

2 hours ago, Crewton said:

Pearce's retention for a transition period will be helpful to Clowes' team. If he's still here in 12 months time, I'll be very, very surprised. Successful property developers are pragmatic, not sentimental IME. 

The pragmatic thing to do is evaluate Pearce on his own merits and make a decision. The sentimental thing is to fire him because of who he used to work for.

The way I see it, the only thing you can actually pin on Pearce is the amortization issue, and that was deemed fine by at least 3 other sets of accountants (including the EFL's own appointment on the disciplinary panel).  So it's hard to blame him too much for that.

The rest of the financial issues seem to stem from COVID (which you can't really pin on Pearce), and Morris just stopping putting money in.  You could argue that Pearce should have made sure that we weren't running at a loss (and requiring monthly deposits from Morris), but then that same argument applies to probably half of the clubs at Championship level.

[Crewton]

13 minutes ago, duncanjwitham said:

The pragmatic thing to do is evaluate Pearce on his own merits and make a decision. The sentimental thing is to fire him because of who he used to work for.

The way I see it, the only thing you can actually pin on Pearce is the amortization issue, and that was deemed fine by at least 3 other sets of accountants (including the EFL's own appointment on the disciplinary panel).  So it's hard to blame him too much for that.

The rest of the financial issues seem to stem from COVID (which you can't really pin on Pearce), and Morris just stopping putting money in.  You could argue that Pearce should have made sure that we weren't running at a loss (and requiring monthly deposits from Morris), but then that same argument applies to probably half of the clubs at Championship level.

Sorry pal - your definition of "sentimental" is somewhat different to mine, and also the dictionary eg : "of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia."

 

 

 

[duncanjwitham]

11 minutes ago, Crewton said:

Sorry pal - your definition of "sentimental" is somewhat different to mine, and also the dictionary eg : "of or prompted by feelings of tenderness, sadness, or nostalgia."

You're really only arguing over semantics there, though.  I just reused your terms, when maybe emotional and rational are better ones. The emotional thing to do is to fire him because he used to work for Morris, the rational thing to do is evaluate Pearce on his merits (which looking in from the outside, with incomplete information to work from, we aren't in a position to do). 

Rationally, maybe Clowes look at Pearce and decides he made bad mistakes, and fires him after the transition to new owners is sorted.  Maybe he decides he worked competently within the confines he was given, and keeps him on.  Maybe they both part ways amicably or something.  But honestly, I'd be more worried if he was fired due to past associations, because that's the kind of thing Morris was guilty of.

[Crewton]

2 hours ago, duncanjwitham said:

You're really only arguing over semantics there, though.  I just reused your terms, when maybe emotional and rational are better ones. The emotional thing to do is to fire him because he used to work for Morris, the rational thing to do is evaluate Pearce on his merits (which looking in from the outside, with incomplete information to work from, we aren't in a position to do). 

Rationally, maybe Clowes look at Pearce and decides he made bad mistakes, and fires him after the transition to new owners is sorted.  Maybe he decides he worked competently within the confines he was given, and keeps him on.  Maybe they both part ways amicably or something.  But honestly, I'd be more worried if he was fired due to past associations, because that's the kind of thing Morris was guilty of.

Sorry mate, "sentimental" was perhaps the wrong term for me to use in that context, but firing someone because of "who he used to work for" isn't sentimental either. It may be pragmatic, rational, emotional even, vengeful perhaps, populist certainly, all depending on the context and timing of the act, but I'm struggling to work out how it could possibly be sentimental. Maybe we both need to do some revision??

[FlyBritishMidland]

10 hours ago, Andrew1 said:

The point being that Pearce could well have tried to keep Morris in check, but was told exactly what my ex boss told us…

My feeling is there were any real financial misdeeds on Pearce’s behalf then I think Q would have bled him dry for info and jettisoned him soon after…

Andrew

Agree with this.  We knew how MM meddled in the football side of things with him entering the dressing room, drones, etc.  And that’s the side of the business he arguably knows very little about.  When it come to the more business and finance side that he does know something about (or maybe not) I can imagine it was his way or no way.  MM got rid of all other board members so it was just him with little challenge.  And that’s not a healthy way to run a business.

Since we went into administration I’ve wondered how much Pearce was to blame and the fact that Quantuma kept him around, and now DC, makes me think he was just following orders.  If he has a weakness, it’s probably that he’s too much of a yes man.

[Tamworthram]

On 14/07/2022 at 06:56, Archied said:

If dc wants to keep him on that’s good enough for me ,,, chances are he knows his stuff and is good at his job but was doing what he was told under Morris, he may be a very different kettle of fish under clowes 

100%. So let’s hope we don’t have any songs about Stephen Pearce, get out of our club. In fact, I’d prefer us to look to the future and drop any songs about MM as well. Possibly even the  “xxxx the EFL” unless it’s in support of another club currently suffering when we play them.

[inter politics]

No, sorry, absolutely F the EFL for many seasons to come