I don't think you will get it for 300m this summer if we stay up. That was his price in January at our lowest ebb. The chess board changes again unfortunately for someone like Staveley. They knew this when they played the game they did. My own feeling is they don't have the required finance to make owning the club any more viable than Ashley owning it. Either they thought he was weaker than he was or they didn't have the money to just get over the impasse. I can't see Ashley asking for 300m in the summer when you've got 6 months closer to renewal of commercials deals (which will go up), and have security of access to PL TV funds. By 2020 (18 months) there will probably be a shed load of commercial deals available for renewal. He will rightly ask more. Plus the value of the playing squad has gone up. Lascelles is worth a lot more in June than he was in January for instance. Almost all of the players are in better form now than they were. It won't have a massive impact but all this stuff will result in a gentle creeping upwards in value. I think you could be looking at £325m-£350m now. If Staveley an co did actually have the money I think they have dropped a massive clanger not putting more faith in Rafa, the players and fans doing what was required to retain our PL status. Ashley and Charnley showed with a bit of cute support what could be achieved.
Some conjecture that Ashley's price was based on the expectation of the PL Sky/BT deal significantly going up in value which it didn't. Therefore the same prices would seem relevant but without clauses regarding relegation.
I understand how you come to the conclusion you do. I just don't think its not realistic from a business perspective. Therefore I can't take it seriously because this is a business transaction. If the experts value us anything between 250m-410m depending on which source you believe, I don't understand why anyone thinks Ashley would sell for 250m and take what he sees as a 13m loss on costs to himself. Surely everyone can see that Ashley now owns something considerably more valuable than when he bought it?
Look the due diligence would have been done. No one in their tombs buys an asset for 140 million without looking at the balance sheet and it was all there in black and white (no pun intended). He’s pumped the money in because of bad decisions. Regardless I think 300 million is about right for the club and if he gets it and goes I will be more than happy.
I don't think that's realistic. Our situation in June 2018 is surely far better than it was in January 2018 regardless of TV money remaining static. We are still accessing greater funds than we were previously and the team is performing far better. Ashley's position has strengthened massively surely? This was the chance Staveley and co took. I get why they did but it has undoubtedly backfired. Not only has Ashley been strengthened by virtue of our standing, we now supposedly have other investors expressing an interest. If that turns out to be true, surely he'd be inclined to involve them all in a bidding war. I certainly would. By most people's own admission on here, we already have one of the most difficult and expensive jigsaw pieces in Rafa already in place. Rafa will be staying if we stay up regardless who the owner is. Then you have the academy and all the other infrastructure that Rafa is happy with and has been invested in. Its a great acquisition for someone when you look at it. Everything has been put in place by the current ownership foundation wise. They just don't have the money to take the next step. I don't think people are looking at the business landscape when assessing whether he is being fair. We'd all love to get rid and get someone in to throw money at it. But Mike will want serviced on the way out if he is in a position of strength. Anyone who thinks he isn't is stark raving mad to be honest.
Agreed, and when you consider we are still mathematically in with a shout of Europa League football next season could still be even more! Loving this positivity/optimism thingy, great craic! Seriously though if we can nick top 10 this year Cashley will be looking at the top of those figures you've quoted there. Also what would people value Rafa's being at the club at? If the fatman can get him to sign a new long term deal by the end of the season that will add £20-30mil on top of the asking price!
Just common sense. No doubt though TNCT (The Newcastle Conspiracy Theorists), TRHC (The Rafa Happy Clappers) and TAACRC (The Ashley's A **** Regardless Club) will be out in force to drag the morale of the club down come August 2018. We will have banners about how he won't sell up, how we haven't spent enough money regardless how much we spend, and generally everything will be ****. Except for Rafa. We could spend 50m-60m this summer and you'd still have people whining. He could get offered 280m and would reject it and you'd still have people claiming he should have sold. It won't matter, some sections of our fanbase will never be happy.
No we aren't in a better position as pitched By Ashley. We are in a worse position. 1. The TV money did not increase. Ashley expected it would, as most of us did, and his asking price would have taken that into account. Stupid not to. 2. We have the same players. Kenedy, Slim and Dub are all on loan. They don't belong to us. 3. We are not accessing any greater funds than Ashley expected. Again that would have been taken into account for the money he was wanting. 4. Rafa will stay if we invest in new players. We haven't yet and dubious as to whether Ashley will. So fairly likely that if Ashley stays and doesn't invest then Rafa walks. 5. What investment in the Academy? 1 to 5 above all say same price on the door but without the relegation clauses.
I'm sorry but we don't know what was pitched by Ashley. To be fair we don't really know what was pitched by Staveley either. If Staveley's position was that she was willing to pay 300m plus clauses, then it would surely be reasonable to expect she'd remove the clauses and pay a little more money if we stay up? Just stepping away from what was pitched by either side, the club has a higher value than it did in January if we stay up. I'm sure we can all understand that basic business principle. Ashley's position and what it was based on in January was exactly that. Now his position looks like being strengthened it is foolish to think this won't have any impact on the what his valuation of the club is. Indeed its just plain stupid to suggest it wouldn't. The price will go up regardless. so if the valuation was 300m, then it will be more. If other bidders enter the fray, it will go up again. That's business. I'm sure Staveley and co factored all this risk in - if they didn't I wouldn't want them as owners anyway. That they are willing to come back to the table with all that in mind would seem to suggest they have the money but just wanted to keep it. However we won't really know until they make a new bid. If their starting bid is 300m with no clauses I think we can say they are serious. Anything less or any silly clauses I would immediately dismiss their bid as non serious and focus on others or retaining ownership if I was Ashley. Whether he will take that hard line though is another thing as he has made clear he wants out.
All that you say about staying up and values would have been Ashley's position from the outset. For Ashley, therefore, nothing has changed. Point supported by his refusal to have price subject to clauses regarding relegation. Therefore, you have not convinced me that his position has been strengthened. It is no weaker than it was before but definitely isn't stronger. To say otherwise and you have to convince me that Ashley, in November, lowered his price expectation because we may be relegated at the end of the season. Hardly likely. His position hasn't, therefore, been strengthened and it's incorrect to say it has. Having said that it wouldn't surprise me if Ashley did try and raise the price anyway. Other bidders were being mooted at different stages earlier in the negotiations and we are still waiting. Luckily I opted not to hold my breathe on that one. Time will tell whether anyone now comes out of the woodwork. If there are others this may have an effect of increasing offers as opposed to the value of the Club. Ashley will take a hard line. That as I understand it from the Media is his modus operandi.
Is it really - given that one of the main revenue streams (TV rights money) has been reduced since January's supposed discussions? "Sky committed to paying £3.579bn over the three years of the next deal, confirming that this is a significant reduction on the £4.1bn the broadcaster is paying for its prime packages in the current 2016-19 seasons" If you take our 2015/16 figures, we had a turnover of £126m (9th in the league that season) which was roughly split as: Gate and matchday £25m (20%) TV and broadcasting £73m (58%) Commercial and other income £28m (22%) So if you know for a fact that the single biggest source of income is going to reduce (and be guaranteed to be reduced for three seasons at least), regardless of any new commercial, sponsorship or whatever deals which are currently hypothetical (just as the TV rights money was in Jan) then your asset/club must be worth less than it was previously (assuming the figures quoted as being bid were predicated on the basis that we were a Premier League club next season).
Pretty sure Ashley wants £350m. He might get his price if he can offset the sale with the £50m+ we have in the bank come the end of the season. Or someone might come and pay the £350m. It's a lot more straightforward for a buyer in the summer if we have stayed up.
Mike wants to sell the club, and wants his loan paid back as the only condition he has. In truth he "values" the club at around the £180m. Any buyer has to pay that + debt, end of. Nothing more sinister, and £180m is a fair valuation. The difficulty we have is getting someone in happy to settle the debt. He may well allow restructuring of that payment, by all accounts, but that's the long and short of it. If he'd done an Abramovic and written the debt off, he'd have sold the club several times over by now. I'm not saying he should write it off, by the way, just that if he really wanted to he could do a little more.
If we are totting everything up and being fair to Mike, then what value should we put on the 11+ years of SD advertising and the land he has pilfered from behind the Gallowgate stand? A hell of a lot more than £13m I would wager.
I get what you are saying but if that was his intention from the off and it appears it was according to the sellers, I think he has factored that in his purchase. I don't think Ashley would see that as something that comes off at sale.
