http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/apr/16/qpr-bank-loan-tony-fernandes?CMP=twt_gu Not necessarily anything to worry about, even the biggest companies take out loans, but would be nice to hear some kind of comment from the club as to the reasons.
I Thought we had a tie up with Santander, this worries me especially as its against the assets including Loftus Road
As far as I am aware, this is the first loan that the current owners have placed on the club. If I'm correct, then 15 million is an acceptable debt burden. Hope this isn't the beginning of the owners starting to offload there recent expenditure on our club.
Just saw this on BBC - this worries me greatly... for all the talk of wealthy owners, Mittals etc. etc. a bank loan of this size 'should be' entirely unnecessary - £15m in terms of the transfer fees/wages we are paying is bugger all - it smacks of financial difficulties, and that is something we can simply not afford in our position.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it entirely obvious that every penny of expenditure spent on things to do with QPR will ultimately fall back on the club? Fernandes and co are not philanthropists, they will look to recoup their losses sooner or later as surely as night follows day.
Very, very strange indeed. It's small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but is worrying nonetheless. The timing of this coming out couldn't be much worse, and the club can no longer counter the argument that we're not in danger of "doing a Portsmouth" because, unlike them we are "debt free". I hope (and don't think it will) come to that, but this sends out all the wrong signals IMO. FFS, who'd be an Rs fan eh!?
I think the worry is not that they 'choose' to borrow against the club assets - it's the paltry amount. £15m is not a lot in Premiership terms... so are they so skint that... A. It's all they can/are allowed to borrow or B. They need the cash desperately to pay wages/cover debts etc. etc. until the parachute payments come through. Either way it is worrying, because it suggests that there is a financial shortfall that the owners are not prepared to cover. The tap has been turned off.
I'm expecting an avalanche of 'I told you so' wums around these parts before long. Is there anyone who can explain in a positive sense why they would of taken out this loan? I hope it's not the tip of an iceberg.
Brix, your a business man. Please tell us why this is a normal and routine financial transaction.. Please.
Absolutely nothing about this on the official website. What the f*** is going on? The first time our club has gone into debt since that dreadful ABC loan put the stadium at risk, and we hear about it through the papers?? Poor, poor stuff from the board.
First rule when loaning money. Borrow so much that it becomes the banks problem and not your problem. This loan in particular most probably have something to do with the new training complex "leaked" by TF a couple of days ago. Nothing to worry about.
Good, its probably a lump of capital to start building the training ground with once planning permission is confirmed on 24 April. Good, they aren't borrowing against the club's assets, they own the club, they are borrowing against their own assets. Confirms their confidence in the future. Good, banks are very reluctant to lend at the moment (bastards that they are), yet they have confidence in us to advance the cash. Good, confirms that the Mittals aren't digging into their loose change to support the club, so we aren't dependent on these invisible 'supporters'. Perhaps the loan is to buy them out. Nines, these are businessmen, they are running very capital intensive companies (airplanes cost a lot and Air Asia is constantly growing. Borrowing is standard practice, especially for capital investment. Why tie up your own cash when you can borrow it at low cost - and although we know Tone is very rich, I'd guess most of his cash is tied up. We all do it too - mortgages, car loans etc and most of us are very comfortable with this. If I remember correctly our revenue last year was 60 million ish, so we are borrowing about a quarter of that. Compare this to a mortgage loan, which is still up to 300% of annual income for a person. Of course, if we need this to pay Samba's wages, we probably are screwed.
I like your positive spin on this SB, hope you're right about it being for the training ground. Not sure about the reasoning behind saying that they're not borrowing against the club's assets because they own the club though. The article says the loan is secured "against all the club's assets including Loftus Road", so ultimately it's the club's debt, not theirs. One way or another it would be good to hear something official from the club on this.
Thanks for that Stan - barring the last sentence. Bit of light relief. Without the development aspects in the mix it was beginning to sound like another loan not so long ago. One that freed us from admin if memory serves, nearly cost us LR and eventually melted somewhere in the heat of the Goon show! Do Abramovich and Mansour take out bank loans?
Could be that a low interest loan is cheaper than the owners giving money. The report I read said its both against the ground and personally guaranteed, it can't be both. Were OK if its the former.
It can mean that the first security is the ground, then they personally will make up any short fall. It could also mean that the club and the owners are jointly liable. It's the same as in a partnership, if you're owed a debt you can go after either the partnership as a whole, or for any member(s) you feel have the resources to pay you.
Shouldn't worry too much. Worst case scenario with a loan this size is that you have to ringfence some of the parachute payments to cover it.
