You are a legend Mr Clowes. Now, please plan for the next stage

[G STAR RAM]

13 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

source?

According to the DET we're both £5M out

Clowes Developments (UK) Limited audited accounts.

 

[G STAR RAM]

20 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

Pedant. You buy a company you also buy their assets... It's probably not within the football club as CD (UK) own both the club and the ground. 

Not being pedantic.

This whole discussion stemmed from me stating about the football club leasing the ground, as it did under the previous setup even though MM was the ultimate controller of both parties.

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, Gritstone Ram said:

Good grief 

But he was left with a ground valued at over £80m

A lease on the training ground.

Plus a squad with a value of maybe £10m?

Awful lot of money for a League One club but if he gets back to The Championship it might end up looking a decent deal.

 

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

This is the bit I don’t get about this whole thread and your own stance in starting it.

What is it that has you so convinced Clowes isn’t the right owner for the club? Is it the reported value of his personal fortune and nothing else? And what is it that makes you certain there is a perfect owner out there that isn’t Clowes? Who are they? Where are they? 
I don’t follow your assertions that Clowes can’t take the club forward and that there must be some wealthy American white knight to swoop in, I find your comment that people on here don’t care as disingenuous to many who are waiting a little longer to see what the progress of the club is under Clowes ownership before deciding whether he is or is not the one to take it forward. 
 

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 

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, MadAmster said:

Sure? When a business goes into Administration, the Administrators, in this case Quantuma, are charged with getting the best deal they can for the creditors. Quantuma were the ones who did all the asset selling to keep the club afloat like selling players etc. It was Quantuma that did the deal with CD and noone else.

If I have misunderstood the legal position and what happens in Admin, I would really appreciate it if you could tell me WHAT I've misunderstood, what the real position is and what, if anything, I have got wrong with regard to the role of Administrators.

Thanks in advance.

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 

[MadAmster]

11 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

But he was left with a ground valued at over £80m

A lease on the training ground.

Plus a squad with a value of maybe £10m?

Awful lot of money for a League One club but if he gets back to The Championship it might end up looking a decent deal.

 

.. and an Academy stripped of its best players. That £80M valuation, though, did anybody, except the EFL, really think the stadium was worth that much? 

[RodleyRam]

9 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

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 you can understand why so many fans don't really want to think about the next owner and will want to avoid an 'ambitious' billionaire who just throws money at the club though. Been there, done that, got the points deduction.

There are as many, if not more, pitfalls of having a club that suddenly has an epic injection of cash. Lots of clubs have landed themselves in a mess as a result of this, and money doesn't necessarily buy success at all, there are as many examples of things going tits up as there are of Champions League trophies.

The whole fabric of the club changes, the culture gets thrown out of the window and decisions are made seemingly based for PR rather than football reasons. You only have to look at Birmingham for an example of that, there are many more where everything that came before gets thrown out of the window just because someone is willing to throw some money around on players.

I don't disagree that DC will want to sell at some point but given that his stated values include integrity and sustainability, I would seriously hope that the eventual sale will be done with utmost care to retain the stability and culture of the club that he will have built from the ground up.

I don't think you should be surprised that loads of us don't really want to engage with any club ownership chat at the moment. We should know more than most how chasing the dream can come crashing down so I for one hope that DC is with us for a good few years before we get back into the circus tent.

[MadAmster]

On 11/12/2023 at 19:33, Raich Carter said:

From average attendances of 4,000 in 2020... It's not about the 'today', it's about the 'tomorrow' / growth. And as we know from Man U fans, fans can be from anywhere. I think the whole 'local' thing is on the slide.

I, quite rightly, had no choice but to support DCFC 'cos I'm from here. Same for my son. Zero choice. None. Not an option.

I'm local too. My 2 sons were born and bred just 18Km from the Ajax stadium. They are both staunch Rams fans. Internationally they will support Holland.... unless they are playing England. Choice? Hell, NO!

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, MadAmster said:

.. and an Academy stripped of its best players. That £80M valuation, though, did anybody, except the EFL, really think the stadium was worth that much? 

Well I'm guessing the world renowned firm that valued it?

When you look at how much it costs to build these new grounds today I dont think its beyond the realms of possibility that a ground that cost £20m to build nearly 30 years ago, would be valued at £80m today.

Fair point about the academy but none of them players would be valued in a set of accounts anyway. From memory, all of the players at the club when we went into administration were valued at either £16m or £18m.

[kevinhectoring]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

When you look at how much it costs to build these new grounds today I dont think its beyond the realms of possibility that a ground that cost £20m to build nearly 30 years ago, would be valued at £80m

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. 

Edited December 15, 2023 by kevinhectoring

[kevinhectoring]

5 hours ago, RodleyRam said:

I think you can understand why so many fans don't really want to think about the next owner and will want to avoid an 'ambitious' billionaire who just throws money at the club though. Been there, done that, got the points deduction.

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 

[G STAR RAM]

1 hour ago, kevinhectoring said:

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. 

Of course nobody would pay £80m for a burnt down stadium, well other than the insurers.

[Returning ram]

Well according to this it's worth a lot more now 🤣

https://themovemarket.com/tools/propertyprices/derby-county-stadium-pride-park-derby-de24-8xl

Have to say I have little expertise in this area, however surely the valuation of the stadium also includes the land that it sits on. Also looking at the cost of other stadiums, Coventry's for example, is 80m that wide of the mark ?

[RodleyRam]

4 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

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 

I understand the point but the last 'hurried' sale was from a position of total fragility hence why it went to s*** multiple times. We were a basket case attracting basket cases or a white knight, fortunately we got the latter. There's a fine line between success and failure, boom and bust. I guess I'm happy with us being boring for a bit and being run properly before we seek the next billionaire who gambles the club we love for a shot at the big time.

With DC I would argue we have a long way to go to out ourselves into a position of strength to sell and we should be inwardly focussed by building our own sustainability etc.

Once we are in that place, a buyer can add value. I don't see us being in that place for two years at least and if we are sustainably run and an attractive proposition in our own right then we should have the pick of suitors.

I accept at some point we will sell, I just think openly planning for it right now would be a sign of desperation but that's just my gut response. I think I have just had enough of all that drama, I am happy with the status quo and a period of stability. A future sale should happen because it's the right decision for the club long term rather than something we're desperately seeking to do right now. 

[Eddie]

9 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Well I'm guessing the world renowned firm that valued it?

When you look at how much it costs to build these new grounds today I dont think its beyond the realms of possibility that a ground that cost £20m to build nearly 30 years ago, would be valued at £80m today.

Fair point about the academy but none of them players would be valued in a set of accounts anyway. From memory, all of the players at the club when we went into administration were valued at either £16m or £18m.

I would think that the land it's built on would go a long way towards supporting your valuation.

[G STAR RAM]

13 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I would think that the land it's built on would go a long way towards supporting your valuation.

Certainly isn't my valuation, I know absolutely sweet FA about valuing land and property, hence why I am happy to rely on what the experts said!

[CBX1985]

On 12/12/2023 at 15:11, Ambitious said:

I think it's a nod towards George Clooney who is a self-confessed Derby County fan. Imagine both Timothy Dalton and George Clooney at the helm, rather than stir the pot, we would definitely shake things up. 

They would be after a licence to (make a) killing .  It would scare the living daylights out of me.