Bobzilla

Not necessarily. Not one of us knows the detail of his investment structure (or if they do would be able to give us the details), and I very much doubt any one of us knows the detail behind the TPO rules and what they precisely ban. I very much doubt that we will have individual investors picking and choosing players to be investing in, i.e. Building a team where we are merely borrowing players who are owned by different investors, as that does look like TPO. However an innovative finance model where return to investors is based on something other than total club results? The big thing around TPO isn't about the concept of TPO. It's about the ability to use that ownership to fix matches, to pull the rug out from under a football club for specific games, and the fact that it possibly skirts too close to looking like slavery. I suspect that if MA is interested in TPO, he's had to buy a football club to do it. The interesting bit will be how Norfolk provides financing to NCFC going forward, and the terms that is on.

Us going to Birmingham will get to see first hand what it will be like. We’re in the safe standing area (or at least I am).

I’m in two minds on my answer here. Option 1 is ‘It’s exactly what we’ve had for the last 30 years - the playing side has always been funded by selling our star players’. Option 2 is ‘you’re right. This time we’ll actually be starting with the money to buy our player stock’. The only new bit of this is the specific financing bit of it. It’s the breadth of investors that we are courting through MA. It’s acknowledgment that this is actually an important/vital part of the overall business model rather than simply something we can’t get away from because we need the sales to prop up the club. Yesterday, we had a club that survived because players were continually sold to fund the club. Today we seemingly have a club that is continuously funded to provide a shop window to sell players. The difference is that on the latter plan, you need a successful club to have a good shop window. On the assumption that this is what we think it is, NCFC needs to be fighting at the top of the Championship or low/middle prem to have a suitable shop window. Otherwise the model doesn’t work. So the investors need to keep the storefront maintained. On the pitch failure is not an option. Under the last 30 year model, failure has sometimes been utterly unavoidable.

Possibly a c0ck up then. The old SH01 form was clear that the amount paid included premium in the amount paid. Not sure what the new online admin hub shows.

Not sure you're reading the filings correctly. The 'amount paid' I think refers to the amount of the nominal value paid, i.e. Recording whether any of the shares were partly paid. I don't think it records share premium payable on allotment of shares. We'll find out by the end of this year though when annual accounts are published.

MA is essentially a hedge fund/private equity guy. They don't have specific targets in that way. They review A LOT of opportunities, and pick a number that have the best chance of success. For every 10 opportunities they back, it doesn't matter if 9 turn out to be turds so long as 1 turns to gold. And by turd i mean a 6/7 figure player instead of a £30m gold guy. I don't see a conflict of interest here in any way that we haven't seen for the past 30 years. We've always been an implicit selling club. Now we have an invester who seemingly wants us to be an explicitly selling club. I can live with that.

What's left for the playing staff?

It possibly turns us from a football club to a footballer factory, but 1 - we always were a selling club and 2 - it possibly turns us into a buying club as well. It seems not dissimilar to part of the Manchester United model, just bringing in rather than bringing up, and using our first team as the shop window rather than passing on those that don't meet our ridiculously high standards.

Unless salaries on long term contracts are £36m...

The MA loan was basically converting nasty third party debt into safer shareholder debt, which reduced the risk of it being called in or converted into equity in an uncontrolled way - we don't want to be the next West Ham, and i'm not aware of any Norfolk based billionaire smut-brokers... Point being I'm not sure that we can dismiss the MA shareholder loan in quite the same way that we can the DS shareholder loan. It's a real liability.

True, but that's like saying the value of your leasehold house is £x when the lease expires in 2 years. The reason for that valuation model rather than, say, a market valuation model is that the club can only realise the value with player consent. You can't sell an asset that doesn't want to be sold. They're not slaves. The player can let their contract run down and walk away for nothing. The player could get injured and have their career ended overnight, with the resulting hit in value. For player trading, cash is king. That's not to say that squad value would never factor in to a valuation of the club, just that you would never pay the amount that you could possibly realise in the event the team was being liquidated, because that's not the hypothesis going forward after the deal.

Here's the hard truth. Our club as it stands is fundamentally worthless on a traditional valuation model. It does not generate operating profit. It has negative net assets and is reliant on funding from external owners. It seems, from the above, that MA is not investing in the club but is instead investing in player trading. To do that he needs a club. Training facilities, development staff and a shop window. So our club will survive and benefit from him keeping it afloat and successful, because that is what is needed to fund his investment model. A non controlling stake is not worth a lot in that scenario. It certainly isn't worth the £80 a share that seems to be the going rate for small blocks. Small blocks of shares are absolutely an intangible investment in your own sentiment regarding owning a piece of the club, not an investment in the net assets or return, even longer term. Much as you will never be able to sell your brick at a profit, your shares are similarly value locked. That's not because of being unlisted. The price would be much worse if the club were listed. That's because the price isn't dictated by anything in the accounts or investor statements. The value of a single share has nothing to the value of the club.

Bůgger

He's not buying. He's the front man for the investment group, hence the issues we've had getting him/them through the EFL due dil process. If anything, movement will be at Norfolk investor level.

Very curious. I'm wondering whether it has something to do with his investment vehicle - it's not a third party acquiring control, it's an owner and director exercising their proper powers. Perhaps. Which is perhaps why everyone needed ownership approval.