This statement might sound familiar to Notts fans. Poor old Bury.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47821914
Bury chairman Steve Dale says the League Two club's financial position is "significantly worse" than he believed it to be before his December takeover. "The full extent of the problems inherited from the previous ownership have become apparent over time, and this has undoubtedly led to our current difficulties."
As Swale said, this sounds very familiar but it begs the question, who’s doing these due diligence checks? It seems they weren’t very diligent.
The trouble with due diligence is that you can only check the information the club provides at that moment in time. As happened with both Trew and Hardy previously its all the bills that flood in after you have finished your due diligence and actually bought the club that lead to difficulties!
Having been involved in double figure sales and purchases of companies I can think of at least three where due diligence missed ***** information despite everything being disclosed. This is not always the fault of the due diligence team.
In one instance despite the accountants flagging an issue of deferred income the purchasers ignored it and pressed ahead with their purchase resulting in post acquisition problems.
In another the purchasers buying only the trade and assets of a limited didn’t realise that this meant the bank account stayed with the existing limited company and the bank funds weren’t theirs.
I was involved in the purchase of a business for a multinational company whose due diligence system worked on a series of traffic lights. If all the lights turned green the purchase was good to go. All turned green and the company was bought for millions only to find out one of the due diligence team had left some figures in from a previous purchase which skewed the figures and when it was removed red lights flashed and a very poor company had been purchased.
Nothing should surprise you when you buy companies but it often does.