Jump to content

Bobzilla

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    400

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Bobzilla

  1. Posted · Edited by Bobzilla

    1 hour ago, Soldier on said:

    As Bethnal has posted what has been suggested is a breach of regulations. 

    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.

  3. Posted

    13 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

    If this poster MC is correct, and they have confirmed this in reply to a direct question from me, then the plan involves something totally new and is nothing like what we have had for the last 30 years.

    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.

  4. Posted

    5 minutes ago, GMF said:

    The SH01 form has to show the nominal value, in this case £1.00, and the amount paid, again £1.00, together with any amount unpaid, in this instance £0.00.

    It’s either correct, or an administrative c0ck up. I suspect it is the latter and a revised form will be sent in shortly.

    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.

  5. Posted

    4 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

    I notice that a figure of £25 per share (as opposed to the purely nominal price of £1) is being mentioned as the price Attanasio has paid for the tranche that takes him to 40 per cent. In fact the official Companies House listing gives him as having paid only £1 a share. Shef and others may need as a matter of extreme urgency to factor this into their discussions on the overall value of the club.

     

    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.

  6. Posted

    12 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

    I think many people understood that general aim and attitude from the start. But if I have understood what MC is saying then the specific plan is to have certain unaccountable investors having a specific beneficial financial interest in the sale of players. With the obvious potential conflict of interest between their bank balance and the club’s footballing interests. That, assuming it is correct, is new.

    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.

  8. Posted

    4 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

    @MC_NCFC conveyed higher up the thread how Attanasio and his backers had an interest in Sara's contract. Some of us fear it may be bordering on third party ownership but they seem initially to have found a way around the rules governing this. In theory if repeated it should allow Norwich to attract more players of Sara's quality to the club even with a limited budget. 

    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.

  9. Posted

    4 minutes ago, GMF said:

    Ultimately, it’s not about the size of the debt / liabilities, it’s about the ability to repay, or refinance them, when they become due.

    It’s perfectly feasible, although maybe not desirable, to have £100m of debt, with a £35m annual revenue stream, and still be able to trade on. 

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

  10. Posted

    1 hour ago, shefcanary said:

    The net liabilities in last year's accounts when you boil it down was effectively created by the loan from Attanasio / Norfolk FBH. In practical terms was this a true liability? Add back the £33m (or so) loaned and the accounts look completely different again. The squad was probably worth £50m (on a cash basis of 50 or so players, not an accounting basis, as excellently put by GMF above), the latest value of the land at Carrow Road given its prime location (and wary of course of potential flooding issues) you could probably add another £20m minimum (also not in the accounts). I've got to assets of about £80m without trying! Sure there are liabilities as well, but if operations have been managed well in the current season, not anywhere near as great as last financial year-end.

    If, hypothetically, a Norfolk born entrepreneur made an offer to buy the club that met the approval of both sets of majority shareholders, what would be their offer price to achieve this? That is the valuation of the club that really matters, which would then determine a share price (but only in this hypothetical situation - I'm trying not to excite Essex too much, but looking at this from a Corporate Financiers point of view).

    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.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  11. Posted · Edited by Bobzilla

    30 minutes ago, GMF said:

    This is true, but the point to remember is that players are listed at cost, less depreciation on any transfer fees paid. It also means that academy players, such as Max and Andy O, had values attributed to them of zero. Their sales therefore represent 100% profit in this season’s accounts. 

    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.

  12. Posted

    12 hours ago, essex canary said:

    If the shares you are referring to were quoted shares you would know what their value was at any point in time. Of course the position with NCFC is they are unquoted. Nonetheless it still must logically reflect the value of an underlying business which is a little different from the brick in the wall analogy which can never confer any value on any prospective purchaser.

    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.

  14. Posted

    Just now, norfolkngood said:

    yes i am sure MA and businessmen have the legal eagles will be all over it what they can and cannot do ,

    i have a feeling since this Started i do not know how long MA will stick around no evidence but if he is buying into the club fairly cheaply then he may flip to a investor who is in the group ? 

    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.

    • Like 1

  20. Posted

    2 hours ago, Soldier on said:

    Thanks will be interesting to see what the impact of his involvement will be in the short term. Wonder if Richard Ressler or one of his sons will now come on to the board.

    He'll certainly appoint his director.  His backers will require it.

  21. Posted

    3 hours ago, norfolkngood said:

    Attanasio's group have now formally been allotted 195,012 shares, which will see his shareholding rise from 21.5pc to 40pc. The American has spent £5m ($6.02m) on the shares. The agreement also saw Attanasio's group provide the 

    18.5 pc only cost 5 million is only about 25  / 30 million for the club seems cheap to me ? the debt of 33.64 mil must be a loan that will be wiped off unless he is going to get the club very cheaply ? 

    i know i am thick  it seems i am missing something 

     

    Without him, the club is basically insolvent.  We're not a premiership side, the deal was probably already at an agreed value when agreements were signed subject to EFL approval, when we were nowhere near the prem.  

    There will be some hope value from our current position in the league, but that is more likely to stall a deal than bump up the price by a significant amount, unless the price uplift is very well hedged.

    I think he's getting this slice cheaply.  Let's hope that the next slice isn't so cheap, because if it is, we're still in a mess.

    • Like 1
    • Thanks 1

  25. Posted

    So, to get this right, this is the whinge that match day gate revenue is now so insignificant vs TV revenue that ‘true fans’ (TM) get screwed over by clubs (by raising the costs of season tickets rather than have their ‘true fandom’ (TM Pending) subsidised by the increasing TV money) in favour of the ‘special day out’ supporter who might stay in the club hotel, buy meals in the club eateries and blow a load in the club shop.

    This may (or may not) be true for big clubs with global reach, but not true for the likes of us.  We do not have a significant international fanbase, and we are not likely to get one whilst we remain a yo-yo club.  We do not have the cache of a Manchester United, or a Real Madrid, or a Liverpool, or Barcelona, or Roma (MA, please ignore this, of course we do and you should absolutely give us your squillions…).  If we have fans located in the far east, it is highly likely that we exported them in the first place.

    Our most expensive season ticket (excluding the lounges)?  £50 a month over 12 months.  That’s less than most people’s ‘coffee, beer and fags’ budget.  When you add casual gambling in, it’s a load less.  In fact, that £50 a month is nearly less than the cost of Sky Sports to watch the games sat on your sofa.  Liverpool is 50% more than us (if you can get one), although they do have tiered pricing where the cheapest is £700, and Man U’s is more than 50% more, but their cheapest adult season ticket is less than our cheapest.

    Are we being taken for a ride on ticket pricing?  I’d actually say that the casual non-season ticket fan is more being taken for a ride.  £25 membership to be able to get tickets to all but the least popular games (unless you sit in a corner seat), tickets ‘keenly’ priced,  difficulty in getting multiple seats near each other.  If I could get to more than a couple of home games per year, I would seriously consider getting a season ticket just to be able to get seats together with my son for the games that we could make, and sell the rest of the tickets back to the club.  But I’m not sure Mrs Bobz would be keen on £700 for going to 3/4 games with the hope of making perhaps £200 back from handing back tickets to the other 19 (assuming championship football next year, and not taking into consideration season ticket availability).

    I don’t think that season ticket holders do badly at all here.

    • Like 1
×
×
  • Create New...