Ashleys so called loan to the club.

Ok, I wanted to spin some ideas out as to the size of this so called interest free loan that is outstanding and clearly the reason why we have not spent any money this window.

As at March 2011 it was believed to be £140 million.

Ignore this rubbish about the him having to put money in to keep the club going because at this point (march 2011) we where breaking even or so reports led us to believe.

Now we are at August 2013.

In simple terms in recent seasons we have broke even on a trading perspective not taking into account player sales/ additions. We have cleared some hefty wages off the wage structure and have sold enough players to cover the cost of aquiring any additions.

This means therefore that since March 2011 we have had a net probable spend of nil on players while reducing the wage bill.

Factor into the increase in Tv income, Sponsorship, and not having to pay old fees for past players for the last 2 seasons and in particular this season has seen an increase of £60 million. THATS £60 MILLION IN ADDITION to what we had in the past.

Therefore as the club is opertaing at break even, without any additional signings this transfer window and taking into account the previous 3 net spends I honestly do not think there can be that much left of the loan to be repaid. If anything next season it should be cleared?

It is possible that the lack of spending this season is a direct result of the fat one wanting his money back. We will never see or know because we dont get the information but in some respects if it is that he is clearing this down then its possibly not a bad thing for the future of the club the lack of transfer activity.

It makes us a viable business opportunity for someone to buy us out. There are rumours all the time that there are people looking to buy. But a clean club with no debt is an attractive proposition.

If anyone has anything to add to this I would like to hear, constructively. None of this get Ashley out rubbish because we as fans can be fickle and I am more interested into the ACTUAL reasons why we didnt sign anyone.

 

Look he will probably sell Krul and Ben Arfa either in January or next summer. That surely will make us even and hopefully to Christ some nice human being with wads of cash and a heart takes us over.

 

I have never seen any interview with ashley or any comment from him, as to why he bought the club in the first place.. Generally people that buy football clubs have an interest in football and always have an ulterior motive too. I cant belive the bollocks that Sir John Hall and Shepherd were able to hide all our debt from his accounts and that he did not take Due Dillagence before they bought the club. People like Ashley would never takeover any business without going into the books and accounts with their top accountants. I have never bought that story they spouted out after they bought us. I just cant work out why he got involved with us...

 

It would be good to see a clear definition of how much the loan really is, and what the terms of repayment are, because otherwise it will become the justification for tightfistedness in the transfer market for decades to come.

 

simple really - NUFC = Cash Cow

 

How can Ashley say it's a loan ??
if he puts money into the business that he already owns, then that's classed as an investment
and like any other investment, if you make a pigs ear of it, you lose your money

 

Its a well known fact that owning a football club is not profitable. I dont recall any owners making significant short term profits out of a club. This means that his objective cannot be about making a profit directly from the club.

But it is an advertising vehicle.

I do question his intentions, I also do not buy the due dillegence story. That rubbish just does not add up. Surely if there where hidden debts then he would have had scope to claim legal compensation from the original owners.

On an investment point of view the club wont really go down in value unless we get relegated again. Relegation is a problem for him and that is the main reason we spend in January.

Lets see how it goes from the start, if we doing ok then fine if not we buy in January.

It is possible he is taking the piss with us though, he knows the clubs value aint going up or down provided we stay in the premier league so its possible he is basically getting us back for the **** we threw at him.

All the rubbish surrunding JK and Pardew is bugging me too. I heard rumours that the employments of said individuals is purely because they owe him money. Gambling debts. That pardew was given an 8 year contract because it would take this long to clear the debt he owes him.

Same for JK.

Anyone heard owt on this?

 

I think Ashley owned Lillywhite's in Piccadilly and had an interest in Spurs before taking over up here. At that time the Hall's and the Shepherds were making a good living out of the Club.

It's not often that people invest their money in a business without expecting to make a profit on their investment and although he's getting up peoples backs at the moment, he's probably a darn site better than the Hall - Shepherd combo.

 

If Pardew owed that much, then it would of been in his own best interest to go bankrupt

 

There is more information about this than you think.

If you want a breakdown of the club's financial position as of when Ashley took over, read the Swiss Rambler, NUfc Finances in Black and White. In a nutshell, the club was about half a season away from being really screwed and was paying about 15% on its most recent loans.

Ashley's takeover was hostile, which meant he didn't get to do due diligence.

The loan is real enough. He bought out a shed load of high interest debt. As of the date of the last financial statements £11m of the loan had been repaid. I expect that more will be repaid this season.

As to why he bought us, I think it was a combination of ego boost and a jolly. Remember how much he liked wearing a NUFC shirt and sitting in the stands with the supporters ?

That all went sour with the KK thing, and since then he's been stuck with us.

Briefly, the club has no money because of Shephard and Hall spending funds the club didn't have to buy Owen and co. We'd have had to pay that money back to someone whether or not Ashley bought us, which means we wouldn't be spending money on players regardless of who bought us (unless he was a Abramovich sugar daddy sort of owner). Paying the money back to Ashley has probably been less painful than what a bank would have insisted on us doing.

Personally, I would have liked Ashley to repay himself slightly slower so as to have a more valuable capital asset at the end of the process, but that's about all anyone could really ask him to do.

 

Fredd,

Your summary is good.

I do however wonder how other teams that are not breaking even and most likely with more expensive debt are buying players at the rate they are.

Ashley is a switched on bloke, I can imagine he can be a proper arse when it comes to things going wrong. But having to put an additional £140 million into the club must have rubbed him up the wrong way.

Hes obviously not in it for the money. There is no money to be made.
He aint in it cause he loves the club.
He is not treating it as his guilty pleasure because he would be buying players and making a go of it.
Its not because his asset values outside the club have diminished - he can afford to play properly with us.
He aint wanting the limelight - He never ever gets anything positive out the club in terms of publicity.
He keeps making these odd decisions regarding the staffing. All of which strikes as utterly crazy.
Past players have said he lacks any ambition with the club.

So it all really boils down to the fact that he wants rid of us, cant sell it in its current state and therefore needs to weather the storm, raise the value of the club and recoup his money.

 

Yep.

Boiled down to its essentials, I think he bought the club to make 50,000 friends. He ended up making 50,000 enemies. He would like to get his money back and get shot of us. The only way he can do this is keep us in the prem and reduce the loan until someone will buy the club for what he paid for it plus whatever loan is still outstanding.

 

Lets hope this Mikhail Fridman rumour has truth in it then. Certainly NUFC.com were reporting takeover rumours a month or so back, so there might be something going on.

 

One can live in hope.

 

Saw a few days a Blog on MA's Plans that rang true (cant EASILY find the blog but if ppl really want to read it will dig deeper)

But the essential argument was..MA will be gone in 2 years after stripping the club for as much as he can get...Why?

Rangers back in the top div in Scotland with a pretty much guarantee'd European presence every year for the SD brand, and a captive season ticket audience (like he has here) wont cost as much to ..'compete' and be a big fish in a small pond

MA just wants NUFC to not get relegated, so the prem money goes into his pockets, till he can switch to rangers..and after he goes NUFC can sink or swim

Has a certain ring of truth about it as a concept..worried that the last year might be a NUFC side of kids..with HBA/Timmah/Cabaye etc etc all sold off for MA's Ranger fund

 

I would add that he bought the club at £134m and originally tried to sell at £400m. His mantra is buy low/sell high, it's mirrored in his shops, his corporate strategy, even in NUFC's transfer strategy. He then thought buggr'it and tried to sell again for £300m, this time with that London bloke doing the finding. Again, no takers - it wasn't a great time to do it. Must really stick in his craw that about a year later Dubai rocked up and bought City. Quite how he missed that boat is beyond me.

Still, where we are is £134m paid, £140m loaned (£110 to pay off existing debt, £30m to bankroll relegation). He's had £11m. He's rescheduled another £29m to be repaid over the next two years (non-committal), which takes it back to £100m, total 'investment' £234m - which is roughly what the club is worth. It's my belief that if he's not in talks already, he's actively seeking them. The transfer window, appointment of Kinnear and sticking with Pardew seem to mean as much. Llambias helped to get the club on a stable footing, Kinnear now costs fck all to do nothing more than sign a few contracts.

Remember a few years ago Llambias proclaimed there was a five year plan? Well, we're nearly at the end and everything that's been done so far - trimming wage bills, investing in youth, sprinkling of top players, low salaried management - is geared towards an exit strategy.

Give it a little time, he'll be gone. There's nothing here for him anymore. Not that there ever was, mind.

 

No, I don't think so. He needs over £200m for this club. We don't own the stadium land, so a vast chunk of the value MUST come from the playing staff. He has no ambition to get into Europe or win a trophy, but he does need the first team squad to have a good value. Winning cups doesn't do anything for that - having a core of players playing in a World Cup whilst comfortably finishing somewhere north of 12th in the Prem is more than enough to give them sufficient value. I also think we didn't invest so that more £££'s can be attached to guys like Sammy and Dummett - in fact, he's probably positively drooling at the thought of having a Welsh left-back in the side.....

The Rangers point is almost conclusive, for me. Someone mentioned that he cannot increase his shareholding until next close season, or next year. At which point he can look to take a controlling stake in the club. I think this is a much more measured approach, showing he's learned a lot of lessons, but also that - given the right model - he should be able to make quite a lot of money out of Rangers. Constant CL or Europa football showing off the Sports Direct brand is what he would like, you can't buy that kind of coverage for cheap. Rangers will not have the same unsustainable model with him in charge, but can win leagues and trophies at a canter with a tenth of the NUFC budget.

 

This is more or less what is set out above.

He won't deliberately let the club be relegated at any point though - - it's one of his assets and he will not want to see its value halved. In his exit year he may well sell off everything that he can while keeping the club in the top flight but he will try to keep it in the top flight.

 

I think Ashley is on the verge of selling the club, certainly the addition of Kinnear makes it a far more attractive proposition to any prospective purchaser. The thought of investing a considerable sum of money into a business with someone of Joe's integrity already at the helm would certainly make any investor comfortable knowing that a highly competent operator is already in situ.

 

Being able to make yourself immediately popular with the fans by making your first act to fire JFK might have some attraction.