Thought i'd do a summary of the brief period of our spell with GFH and who the main players were for those who missed it or just didn't understand what went on (Ken was right bloody morons ) Gulf Finance House GFH is an Islamic bank based in Bahrain with investment and wealth management portfolios in Asia, Africa and Europe with $289 million in paid up capital (bought shares ect) and a further $300 million in authorised capital (amount allotted to a company to raise money through public & private offerings). It is a publicly owned company and its main shareholders include Bahrain Islamic Bank. It has won a host of awards mainly in the Middle East including 'Best Investment Bank' for 3 years running and was the first Islamic financial institution on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). It is chairman-ed by Abdullah Bin Sulaiman Al Manea who is a financial adviser to Islamic financial institutions across the Gulf including Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Bahrain and is closely associated with some quite prominent Arab sheiks. Gulf Finance House (Capital) Information on GFH (C) seems to be much more limited. It was previously known as Injazat Capital and was initially established by the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD). However it now appears to be an affiliate (and division) of the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB) and Gulf Finance House BSC (GFH's LSE name). It's expertise seems to be private equity investment (investment in assets not traded publicly) in growth industries such as Energy, Healthcare, Industrial development (especially in less economically developed countries) and Sport. It's Chairman is Dr Ahmed Al Mutawa who is also a non-executive director for GFH. Salem Patel View attachment 30637 Salem Patel is the Director for Leeds, sits on the board of GFH (C) and is Head of Investment for GFH. He has more than 10 years of experience in investment banking, equity research, wealth management, and the real estate sector. Prior to joining GFH Capital, Mr. Patel was an Executive Director at Gulf Finance House in Bahrain (GFH) and before that he was a Research Specialist in the Financial Services division of Accenture, London. Before this, he worked in the Equity Research departments of Societe Generale (Software Sector) and UBS (Small Caps) in London. He holds a B.Sc. with Honors in Business Studies from City University of London. He is also visiting faculty at the Gulf Insurance Institute (Bahrain), having been certified by the Securities and Investments Institute (SII) to teach the Islamic Finance Qualification (IFQ). In my opinion he appear to have been placed at Leeds to watch over David Haigh's management of the club and be a 'go between' the management of Leeds United and the Boards of GFH and GFH (C) David Haigh View attachment 30638 David Haigh is Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Dubai based GFH Capital Limited. He is also Chief Executive of Leeds United (promoted as part of his contract with Cellino whether or not he likes it) and previously Managing Director. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations at Leeds and is a qualified lawyer born in Leeds bred in Cornwall. He worked in investment banking, private equity and venture capital, as well as legal, regulatory and operational affairs. Haigh is a member of the Institute of Directors and the International Bar Association. He also manages Injazat Technology Fund (ITF), the first Islamic investment fund in the Middle East for technology, media and communications companies. Haigh has twice been nominated for 'General Counsel of the Year' at the Corporate Counsel Middle East Awards. I'm probably a lot nicer about him than most. He is a genuine Leeds fan and is only a figure head and day-to-day manager for GFH's management of Leeds. Authorisation for cash to be spent on Leeds will likely be required from either the board of GFH (C) or the board of GFH. He has been behind some popular decisions during the first half of the season including reducing season ticket prices, the introduction of a half-season ticket, extended work and re-engagement with the local community, the sacking of Ken Bates, the cutting of Radio Bates and reaching out to the Leeds United Supportersâ Trust however the thing most demanded by Leeds fans (cash) would almost of certainly required authorisation above his head and for the last few months is something he's failed to get. He seems to want to be involved long-term with Leeds and wishes to obtain a position within the new ownership of Leeds similar to his current although with more stable cash throwing owners (which may mean a parting of ways or reduced involvement with GFH). So why did GFH buy Leeds? It is probable that GFH bought Leeds United to make a profit. Removal of Ken Bates, cutting of his loss making 'ideas' such as Yorkshire Radio and re-engagement with the local community were cheap options to make Leeds more attractive to potential buyers. Whether GFH initially planned for a longer time with Leeds only to be panicked by the operating losses or the fans frustrations with a stumbling play-off push or they always wanted a short-term 'flip' is debatable. GFH are risk managers. They'll have made a calculated gamble that the cost of subsidising Leeds for a short or medium time period would be lower than the profit they would make from 'flipping' the club and selling us. And so far it appears to have gone to plan; the Independent are reporting GFH Capital stands to make a million pounds for each of the seven weeks it has owned Leeds United. So who funded Leeds United? So the first half of the season it appears GFH funded us. Either through direct payments or loans from companies already associated with GFH such as Brendale Holdings Limited (who loaned us over £10m). However it appears that GFH's risk management strategy was to 'directly fund as little as possible' while exploring other ways to generate capital to run Leeds (such as loans) and wait for an angel investor to buy and pay of the debt alongside the purchase of the club. This is likely why the bid from the Flowers consortium was rejected as they did not have the capital to write of the clubs debt (of which is reported to be over £30m). It seems to be quite immoral to put a club in debt however GFH had more than enough cash to pay off Leeds debt and run the club for many years still, in my opinion there was no risk to the club of administration only a risk to GFH's profit on the sale of Leeds. In the event that an angel investor did not turn up I believe GFH as they stated would fund the club as remember they had over $500m in capital (but remember GFH are in it for the profit they want to spend as little as possible to maximise their profits when they eventually sell the club). For the 2nd half of the seasons it seems the prospective owners funded the clubs through loans. This led to Andrew Flowers issuing a winding up petition to get back the money loaned after been told his bid to own the club was rejected. And from then on it appears MC has funded the club in a very similar way. So whose to blame? Who to blame largely depends on whether your into collective or individual responsibility. Many different events have caused this season GFH's risk management strategy, Ken Bates in 2011 selling off future season ticket sales worth over £5m to Ticketus Ltd (also involved in the downfall of Rangers) to pay for the East Stand development, failure to perform on the pitch and a notorious sale of the club which generated protests, Football League appeals, unauthorised sackings, talk of administration and players deferring wages. I'll leave you to decide whose more responsible. The good news is Leeds seem for the meanwhile financially secure. MC is allegedly worth in excess of 1 billlion euros. He seems willing to fund the club in the long-term and manage our £30m of debts. He seems especially keen to buy back the clubs physical assets such as ER and TA. The only event I can see where Leeds would be in jeopardy is if he decided to walk away from Leeds leaving no one to fund the club with £30 million worth of debts in our name. However with the end of our dealing with Ticketus Ltd at the end of the season we should slash our operating loses with our season ticket sales coming back to our pockets. The bad news is were still making loses and for those of you who are heavily anti-GFH as part of the sale will still own 10% of the club. And we still don't know how crazy (or committed to Leeds) MC actually is. Overall aslong as our sugar daddy stays all should be good and the party shall go on
Agreed but he has a more pressing problem. Others that need shifting even before gfh if that's possible
The best thing for us right now would be the repurchase of ER and TA. Promotion may seem a more pressing concern however without ER and TA with have literally no physical assets. What Cellino has bought is a brand, some employment contracts and a rental agreement with Teak Commercial Limited. Without owning ER our ability to produce our own income is severely limited as we are only receiving a percentage of ticket sales with the rest going to Teak Commercial Limited as rent. Without ER we're putting ourself at financial risk forcing ourselves to subsidise our operating costs with player sales (under Ken Bates), loans (under GFH) and sugar daddys (under Massimino Cellino). A club with our fanbase should be able to operate just from ticket sales, merchandise ect. At the moment we're Burger King but we're only getting 50p from every £1.50 burger we sell. Bates had some master plan about income diversification and becoming less reliant on ticket sales but we're a ****ing football club not a hotel or radio station.
Look at our facilities years ago at Thorp Arch. We were years ahead of our time [video=youtube;kUR9UWZSyBo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUR9UWZSyBo[/video]
Buy back ER yes it's our home,as for TA don't really care,a training pitch gym etc could be built anywhere.
I've often thought that too este. Considering the cost involved in buying back TA, we could surely build a state of the art facility
Agree re. TA, however wouldn't we still have to pay a chunky rent for TA for a squillion years under the current lease arrangement? I don't know, but nothing surprises me these days.
Probably right Jock, I'd forgotten that. At least it looks like Bates will be getting his final payment from Leeds soon when we repurchase Elland Road. Final links with him severed
Why not offer a reasonable amount for TA if they don't accept build our own on reclaimed/industrial land
