In a word, yes. This is the same deal that Stewart Donald did with Sunderland. With the same company I think. It makes sense given that we will need money upfront to get past years of mismanagement and our owner doesn’t have it.
But the same Saints fans thinking “run for the hills” also can’t help wondering “could this be Cortese on a white horse?” (if it is, the horse will probably bolt and buck him off)
Had a quick read through the replies on Twitter to the original tweet, and it seems like this guy did something similar with Derby not to long ago? However, if it's a much longer term thing as mentioned on here then it could be more than just a loan.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-stewart-donald-fpp-us-company-denies-chancer Not the same company, but still linked to Dell? Weird.
Theoretically, but it likely wouldn't come to that. The asset would be worth more than the sum secured against it, so in a situation where Gao defaulted, his best option would be to seek creditor protection and sell the team, which should allow him to pay off the debt and have a large sum remaining. But in such a situation, his largest creditor would be a not-unreasonable first-choice buyer, assuming they wanted the team. Edit: I just looked at Companies House, and it very much appears that this new charge was used to cover the MacQuarie loan, as today we filed notice that said loan had been satisfied.
Yeah I'm no expert but this doesn't seem like good news to me, can anyone more knowledgeable convince me otherwise.
I guess it really depends what happens next. Our financial situation was clearly eroding last year, and then the apocalypse happened, and that likely wasn't good for business. With Gao unwilling to put in money, it shouldn't be the least surprising that we would need outside financing. The upshot is that he might be a much more motivated seller, if a similarly-interested buyer appears. If Gao dicked around for a lengthy period hoping to turn a profit, that likely presents more risk than if our financial situations gets bad now and he takes the first good offer. But if that doesn't happen, we could absolutely be in trouble.
Not a sign of rolling in money, but it’s not unusual for companies or individuals to move to a loan on more favourable terms or better repayment schedules. A bit like using a bank loan to pay off more expensive credit card debts. Probably forced on Saints by recent events no one forsaw.
Not a subscriber to The Athletic but apparently there is an article on there today about Richard Scudamore being involved in a group called Redball (not Red Bull) who have put together £400m to takeover a premier league club. Don’t think there is any link to it being us though, despite some on Twitter getting excited.
I just posted about this on another thread!: There’s a new group in the US with about £440m looking to buy a UK football team. They have Billy Beane (the baseball/other sports analytics guy) and Richard Scudamore (former PL chair) working for them. Now there’s been no explicit link to us, of course it’s getting connected with Newcastle mostly, but it sort of fits? They’re big data folks and it’s no good buying a club for £300m with no change to actually invest. Made me think about who is the most appealing one for sale in the league. Assuming we are up for sale of course, which I think we can assume wequietly are. £200m for what we have is not a bad deal in comparison!
The reason folks on Twitter are getting excited is that we’re mentioned as an example of Chinese owned clubs that due to various political and economic circumstances would be easy targets for buying out.