West Brom Fan Buy Out.

How do we go about getting the ball rolling on this, any ideas?

I’m friendly with a former poster on here who had a deal in principle to buy the club prior to Thompson coming in and Megson being hired.

I think the buy price was £5m at that time.

I think I’ll start by contacting him for his ideas but I’d be interested if anyone has any ideas.

BaggieAl.......what’s your feelings on this?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mickd1961

How do we go about getting the ball rolling on this, any ideas?

I’m friendly with a former poster on here who had a deal in principle to buy the club prior to Thompson coming in and Megson being hired.

I think the buy price was £5m at that time.

I think I’ll start by contacting him for his ideas but I’d be interested if anyone has any ideas.

BaggieAl.......what’s your feelings on this?

---

I would be up for this. I have the personal email of Joseph Masi and if he gets hold of it - no doubt he will publish anything of interest!

We could end up with another Trev the shed 🤷*♂️

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by viaductbaggies

We could end up with another Trev the shed 🤷*♂️

---

Oh.....let’s stick with Lai then.

Thanks for your help.

How to Buy and Run a Football Club: The Fans Guide to Community Ownership Paperback – 15 May 2021
by Goodwin (Author), Paul (Author)

There arnt any on Amazon but here is a link to ebay who seem to have something similar

https://tinyurl.com/e3phmey5

edit - just read a summary of the ebay book and it doesnt look very useful

Really hope this can get off the ground and am willing to give some time to this. I can think of a couple of options, some form of crowdfunding that ensures the stakeholders receive equal shares to amount invested? Alternatively you would need to set up a limited company with the aim of raising capital via I believe selling bonds to buy out the current owners? This is not my area of expertise tho and I can’t think of any examples where fans have brought out the current owners when the value of the asset is high. Do we have any bankers on the forum ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DaveP67 is back!

Really hope this can get off the ground and am willing to give some time to this. I can think of a couple of options, some form of crowdfunding that ensures the stakeholders receive equal shares to amount invested? Alternatively you would need to set up a limited company with the aim of raising capital via I believe selling bonds to buy out the current owners? This is not my area of expertise tho and I can’t think of any examples where fans have brought out the current owners when the value of the asset is high. Do we have any bankers on the forum ?

---

Sorry, I misread......you said “bankers”.

I have thought about this previously, and I find it hard to see how we could do it by just doing some basic figures. Having said that I would much prefer we were in the hands of fans than a foreign owner who doesn't care about us.

Looking at the basic maths;

Lets take a stab in the dark and say Lai would accept £100m for us, bearing in mind he paid almost double that - I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong

That would mean 20,000 fans would have to put in £5,000 each on average for us to meet the asking price.

Lets say we can appeal to more than 20,000 fans, lets say 50,000. Then each would have to pay £2,000 on average each.

I don't doubt, some could put in more than others. But we are essentially asking thousands of people to put thousands of pounds in.

Whilst those figures might be okay for people on this board, the vast majority of our fans are working class, ordinary people and asking thousands of people to stump up thousands of pounds in a pandemic will be hard.

Don't want to dampen enthusiasm, but without a large investor it will be hard. And they're obviously looking for something in return to invest their many millions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WBA123

I have thought about this previously, and I find it hard to see how we could do it by just doing some basic figures. Having said that I would much prefer we were in the hands of fans than a foreign owner who doesn't care about us.

Looking at the basic maths;

Lets take a stab in the dark and say Lai would accept £100m for us, bearing in mind he paid almost double that - I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong

That would mean 20,000 fans would have to put in £5,000 each on average for us to meet the asking price.

Lets say we can appeal to more than 20,000 fans, lets say 50,000. Then each would have to pay £2,000 on average each.

I don't doubt, some could put in more than others. But we are essentially asking thousands of people to put thousands of pounds in.

Whilst those figures might be okay for people on this board, the vast majority of our fans are working class, ordinary people and asking thousands of people to stump up thousands of pounds in a pandemic will be hard.

Don't want to dampen enthusiasm, but without a large investor it will be hard. And they're obviously looking for something in return to invest their many millions.

---

I wasn’t suggesting everyone who wanted to could find £5k or more tucked away.

I do believe that a huge number of fans would take out a long term loan to own a part of their club.

I also believe there are a good number of fans who can afford considerably more.

Until we try we simply don’t know.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by mickd1961

I wasn’t suggesting everyone who wanted to could find £5k or more tucked away.

I do believe that a huge number of fans would take out a long term loan to own a part of their club.

I also believe there are a good number of fans who can afford considerably more.

Until we try we simply don’t know.

---

Agree with your last sentance, and wish everyone involved all the best with it and I hope you succeed