Clowes Named Preferred Bidder

[MadAmster]

Lots of eejits on FB saying Clowes will sell to Ashley in a few months.

Erm... His bid is higher than Ashley's, if he's actually made one. Sell on in a few months would either see Clowes sell at break even or a loss unless Ashley was to offer more which is highly unlikely.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Depends how much you want the creditors to get MA.....

[Geoff Parkstone]

So here is the conspiracy theory for you. And its just a theory.

Clowes bids just enough to avoid 15 point penalty and settles with creditors, we emerge from administration. A little later, AN Other (Ashley?), who wanted to invest more in the club to help it achieve results quicker, but who did not initially bid more, as that would go to the creditors, steps up.

After a period of decency AN Other buys club from Clowes, at a small profit to DC for his troubles, and then injects another £ 50 million into the club to enable squad strengthening. What can the creditors do, they have signed off on the original deal, and hey, look, a new party wants to take things forward a few months later....

Sneaky, I'm sure the EFL would object, but I don't see why it wouldn't work? Before anyone gets excited, this is just a theory on why these rumours might be flying around. I'm not "ITK". We'd have a big pile of dosh to spend and a further 5 years of regulatory interference and rule changes to prevent anyone else doing it as the trade off.

Then of course AN Other buys the ground for £ 30m from DC a year later, and revalues it back to £ 81m to sort out P&S again. After all the EFL have set a precedent saying this is OK and have even tacitly agreed the value already.

[swaledale]

Mm, so for arguments sake, £50 million buys the club and ground and meets 25p in the £1 for creditors (non football).

6 Months later MA pays say £55 million, Clowes walks away with £5 million profit. Exactly how does that benefit MA? He pays £5 million more than if he had paid the original £50 million. Then he has to pay more to strengthen the squad.

What seems more likely and has been hinted at, is that Clowes is seeking partners to invest funds to help the club develop, I suspect he or his company is able to meet the price to take the club over, buy the stadium and run the club for a season. Another Partner with cash could help develop the club faster.

As for getting the deal done by Wed, perhaps its just a case of removing CK and replacing with DC on most of the paperwork!!

I'd suspect much of the necessary documents are prepared well in advance and the buyer has had a couple of weeks or more to have his legal team look over and amend.

I will be surprised if it is done by then, but then to date Clowes hasn't promised anything he hasn't delivered so lets hope it happens.

[Geoff Parkstone]

"6 Months later MA pays say £55 million, Clowes walks away with £5 million profit. Exactly how does that benefit MA? He pays £5 million more than if he had paid the original £50 million. Then he has to pay more to strengthen the squad."

If he wants to invest (say) 75m in the club project up front, then the creditors get all of it

If he buys us second hand for a small premium, then the extra money (maybe $ 22.5m after "commission") can get invested in the club with a "different owner" buffer against the creditors

[swaledale]

"6 Months later MA pays say £55 million, Clowes walks away with £5 million profit. Exactly how does that benefit MA? He pays £5 million more than if he had paid the original £50 million. Then he has to pay more to strengthen the squad."

If he wants to invest (say) 75m in the club project up front, then the creditors get all of it

If he buys us second hand for a small premium, then the extra money (maybe $ 22.5m after "commission") can get invested in the club with a "different owner" buffer against the creditors

Except, what he pays to takeover the club is what he offers, what he then uses to fund the club going forward is not something the administrators can have a say on. They either accept the offer made to buy the club or they don't. MA could then submit a business plan compliant with the EFL, but is free to invest more funds later if he wishes, the only constraints being the EFL League rule son FFP.

[StensonRam]

But is MA obliged to make known what his plans are in terms of level of investment or has he just got satisfy the creditors criteria, if he says I'll pay off the HMRC in full and other creditors 25p in the £ and then agrees to fund the club modestly then thats the bare minimum to satisfy the rules so why should the creditors demand more than 25p, now if he came in all guns blazing and declared to have earmarked £100m then I'd understand GP's point

[StensonRam]

Yes as per Swale

[swaledale]

But is MA obliged to make known what his plans are in terms of level of investment or has he just got satisfy the creditors criteria, if he says I'll pay off the HMRC in full and other creditors 25p in the £ and then agrees to fund the club modestly then thats the bare minimum to satisfy the rules so why should the creditors demand more than 25p, now if he came in all guns blazing and declared to have earmarked £100m then I'd understand GP's point

Indeed, the creditors can only get what the buyer is prepared to pay if they are the best bidder. MA is a past master at this in his takeovers of other companies, whereby he pays the minimum he can get away with, that has no bearing on what he invests or otherwise funds those companies once he owns them.

[Andy_Faber]

I think y'all need to cool your boots on this one, any collusion on the part of Clowes, Ashley or any other party to suppress creditor value falls under common law conspiracy to defraud (IMSKO), I headed of a number of such daft schemes at my last employer