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ricardo

Bolton served withe winding up order.

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To be fair, that £173 million debt is almost entirely owed to Eddie Davies who has said he prepared to write it all off, should a serious investor come aboard. So it''s not quite the hopeless cause it seems.

However, when you consider he''s now ''only'' worth £63 million, you can see he''s sunk an unbelievable amount of his wealth into Bolton Wanderers and has understandably decided that enough is enough and he''s drawing a line in the sand.

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I don''t really get this. I don''t believe for one nano second that this guy was worth £250m, gave £173m to Bolton and pulls the plug when he''s on his uppers with just £63m. It''s like that client down the road. Their debt goes up and up but I don''t for one second believe his wallet is going down and down. The answer surely must have something to do with interest.

 

Now I need Purple to bail me out because I may as well be talking about the inside of my wife''s handbag as I know little about either subject.

 

Has Lennon been paid? Just asking on behalf of Highland really....

 

 

 

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Despite living locally, I must admit I don''t know the exact ins and outs of the position with Ipswich.

My understanding is that most (if not all) of the debt is (as you say) owed to Marcus Evans by way of loans. In recent years he''s been happy to run the club at a deficit of £8 million.

The significance of that being that it keeps them within the tramlines of Financial Fair Play scheme, so the club would never be hit with a transfer embargo which has severely damaged the likes of Blackburn in previous seasons.

Despite the sniping on here and on TWTD, I actually think Evans is a good owner and he''s clearly not in it for the money. A person of his business acumen and ability does not choose this as a method of trying to make money.

However, there must be only be a finite amount of time during which Evans is prepared to continue to sponsor losses of that magnitude. As £8 million a year, is a massive drain on anyone''s resources. No matter how wealthy you are.

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I must admit I wasn''t aware of that Bor.

I do know that Ipswich don''t own their ground and that I believe it''s actually owned by the council. So, they''re overall asset base (putting the playing squad to one side) must be very small indeed now.

However, even if Evans pulled the plug tomorrow I am certain he would only recoup a fraction of what he has invested (to date and counting) even if he sold off all of those assets mentioned. For that reason, I still don''t believe his motives are financial.

Although he is a very curious and enigmatic individual, of that there is no doubt.

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How much has he invested to date though? And how much is interest that he has effectively lent back to the club and charged interest on again. People like the guy at Bolton who can make £250m aren''t that stupid.

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I wouldn''t pretend to know the answers to those questions Nutty. As I said I don''t know the ins and outs of Ipswich Town and their finances. I couldn''t tell you whether he charges them rent to use the training ground or anything like that.

What I do know is that Davies and Evans aren''t idiots. They both knew both when stepping aboard that making money from football clubs is a fools errand and given their business ventures that there are much easier and less stressful ways of making cash.

For that reason I honestly don''t believe either them view Ipswich and Bolton as money making ventures in any way, shape or form.

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This gets back to my comments a few days ago where I opinionated that if the Binfolk did gain promotion to the EPL, far from Evans selling the club and running, he would spend to build a team with dosh the likes of which are owners can only dream of.

I totally agree with Jacko that I fear he is a good owner and I do not want to see them gain promotion :-(

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OIf course I don''t believe for one minute the guy at Bolton had put 173m in fresh money into Bolton.

 

Jacko, your point is exactly mine. If they can make millions they aren''t idiots. How many millions would you give away before you said enough? If they really are ploughing those figures into football clubs then they must be idiots.

 

Indy might know something....

 

 

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I doubt he''d chuck lots of personal wealth at it if they got promoted. Evans got very badly burnt by the ridiculous signings of the Jewell and Keane eras and I can''t see them ever going down that road of lavish spending again as a result.

I''d imagine they''d just be looking to balance the books in much the same way we have. Hopefully that day will never arrive though - certainly it shouldn''t this season anyway as there are 5 teams in the Championship who look a cut above the rest.

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Nutty, I can easily believe he has done to be honest. He''s been chairman since 2003.

Last season they lost £8.1 million and I think I''m right in saying that the year before they lost around £50 million or so. So cumulatively over the years I reckon you can arrive at that figure of £173 million quite easily.

Those losses have to be financed somehow and I do believe that Davies has been stumping up the cash prior to this. Idiotic perhaps, but ultimately in relative terms I spend a significant amount of my (admittedly very modest) earnings following Norwich City home and away. I suppose in many ways that''s equally idiotic but it''s what I enjoy doing in my spare time.

How the hell Davies and Phil Gartside have manufactured a situation in which they''ve lost £50 million in one season is an entirely different question altogether and one I wouldn''t know the answer to either

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]

I don''t really get this. I don''t believe for one nano second that this guy was worth £250m, gave £173m to Bolton and pulls the plug when he''s on his uppers with just £63m. It''s like that client down the road. Their debt goes up and up but I don''t for one second believe his wallet is going down and down. The answer surely must have something to do with interest.

 

Now I need Purple to bail me out because I may as well be talking about the inside of my wife''s handbag as I know little about either subject.

 

Has Lennon been paid? Just asking on behalf of Highland really....

 

 

 

[/quote]Nutty, I will get the excellent Swiss Ramble in turn to bail me out! This link is to a piece five years old but it is stuill useful, and may answer some of your questions:

http://swissramble.blogspot.fr/2010/11/why-bolton-have-so-much-debt.html

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Very interesting, but it reminds of that old adage that if you owe the bank £1k then it''s your problem. If you owe the bank £1 million then it''s their problem. Davies must have known that after a while there no way he was going to recoup much of the money he had loaned to the club.

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The situation at Bolton should be a warning to all those who suggest our board should "push the boat out" or "loosen the purse strings". These two articles make for serious reading with some similarities to our club........."Johan Elmander may be taken as one example. He did not do a great deal

for Bolton – he once went 11 months without a league goal – but the

Swedish striker was the club’s record signing when he arrived from

Toulouse in 2008. They gave him a three-year contract and, first of all,

what a strange piece of business that was when a player’s valuation

starts to depreciate as soon as he is down to two years. Elmander was

extremely poor for two seasons then had a better third year and left for

Galatasaray on a free transfer. He had cost Bolton £8.2m and he was on

£45,000-a-week wages. So, in total, one player alone cost Bolton in

excess of £15m."This from last week......http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/dec/01/sale-money-bolton-relegation-administrationAnd from a year ago.......http://www.footytube.com/news/guardian/broken-bolton-where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-wanderers-L34505

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Brilliant. Thanks Purple. I now charge you with writing a similar piece about us......

Interestingly, if you read the comments Ed was worth 65m 5 years ago. So while the debt has soared his worth seems unchanged. Go figure...

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[quote user="nutty nigel"]Brilliant. Thanks Purple. I now charge you with writing a similar piece about us......

Interestingly, if you read the comments Ed was worth 65m 5 years ago. So while the debt has soared his worth seems unchanged. Go figure...[/quote]I would, nutty, but my imminent unveiling as the new Norwich City chairman rather precludes me...There is tucked away in the Ramble''s piece one interesting insight into Bolton''s predicament:The

revenue mix is particularly revealing. Match day revenue of £5 million

is pitifully small, while commercial revenue of £9 million is actually

inflated by including £3 million of unexplained “other football income”,

leaving the underlying balance as a tiny £6 million. What this analysis

also highlights is the enormous reliance on broadcasting revenue, which

represents over 70% of Bolton’s total football income.

If

we again look at season 2008/09, we can see that only Wigan are more

dependent on TV revenue than Bolton. It’s little different in 2009/10

with Bolton earning £39 million of their £54 million total revenue from

the small screen. As such, their turnover is heavily influenced by the

timing of broadcasting deals, with the £8 million increase in 2008

revenue being almost entirely due to the new Sky deal.

Fans get dazzled by the TV income but a sensible club (such as Norwich City) maintains and increases other areas of income, to guard against the day when the TV money has diminished, or gone. And even when it is still there, extra cash from the likes of ticket sales, catering and commercial is what would give us an edge over our rivals. Hence the need, long term, for ground expansion...

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I guess some of it depends on what kind of income and revenues he''s generated from his business ventures that might have offset some of those losses. He''s not going to have been stagnant and made no money in the last 5 years or so. Perhaps, some of that has gone to cover losses and shortfalls.

Putting a Norwich slant on this, looking at their playing squad, Bolton have got one player I do admire and that is a guy called Zach Clough. He''s a talented young forward, who could particularly excel in that No.10 role one day. I wouldn''t mind trying to burgle a deal for him at some point, but I am sure bigger clubs will also be watching on with interest.

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Does this mean we can have The Saviour (aka Neil Lennon, or Big Bell to Highland) as our manager?

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I completely agree about the need to diversify and have as many potential revenue streams open to you as possible. But (and without wishing to turn this into a ground expansion thread) is ground expansion really an answer for Norwich City?

In an ideal world we''d have a capacity of about 30,000 but any greater and we''d really struggle to fill the ground, particularly in the event of us dropping down to the Championship. I think one of our strengths at the moment is that people feel they can''t afford to give up season ticket as it would be a long time before they got them back again.

That pull factor potentially diminishes in a bigger ground where people have more of an option to pick and choose their matches.

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Hmmm..Everton at home...will finally put us into the bottom 3 this weekend no doubt...and we argue the toss about should City attack more as early in the season or stick with the current defensive thoughts, but you know...looking at Bolton and 173 million debt...reminds us all how quickly things  can all hit the fan if a club do not have a board and set up that manage things in a sustainable way.City yo yo tween Prem and Chump to much of course, must be a nightmare for our board to set out any long term strategy for the club, yet, just remembering what happened a few short seasons back in League 1 and our financial distress, we should pay due to the very good way our club is run and handled financially. Sure we all wish for  more transfer success in the transfer windows, but first and foremost, we support a club that is  pretty sound and solid, that  comes first in this age of  business type sports.

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