Burnleys owners

[hogesar 9,716]

3 hours ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

Under the current owners, we have nearly gone into administration twice and relegated to league one, but the sun shines out of their backsides.

So we haven't gone into administration twice, because despite the owners not having significant capital they made the decisions and employed the right people to get the club out of a mess before it even happened.

I didn't expect you to big up our owners so much!

[horsefly 4,310]

12 hours ago, Icecream Snow said:

Yes, but through improved marketing and commercial partnerships, the Glazers were able to drastically increase the revenue of the club, something that Burnley can't achieve.

That is, of course, true Ice. But what is also true is that they have put the club £500m in debt (something they didn't have before the Glazers). Many United fans are deeply concerned by this https://www.footballtransfers.com/en/transfer-news/uk-premier-league/2022/04/why-man-utds-debt-is-set-rise-further-200m#:~:text=Manchester United were nearly £500 million in debt,and their takeover was completed two years later.

[HazzaJet 256]

Just like Hogesar and Nuff Said, I’m not against new owners either, it’s just if Delia does eventually decide to sell the club we don’t just want her to sell it to someone of a greater wealth, we want her to sell it to someone of a greater wealth who treats the club with respect - if we were sold to owners like Man City have (billionaires who don’t want their money back) then great. I think Mike Ashley is supposed to have a wealth of about £100m and all the Newcastle fans wanted him out. The Glazers are billionaires and all the Man Utd fans want them out, and you know why

Just like they say never judge a person by their looks, never judge a football club owner by their wealth

Edited May 23, 2022 by HazzaJet

[Ken Hairy 3,779]

With regards to Delia and Winnie,  not all of us are demanding they go out and find the nearest multi billionaire terrorist state to sell to, some of us just think that, they're just not up to the job anymore which is hardly surprising considering they're both in their 80s. They've sold the soul of the club to the  Webbers who seem to have free reign and are, lately at least making bad decision after bad. 

If they're saying they will not sell, and insist the shares will be passed on then fine get on and sodding well do it. If they're that convinced with nephew Tom don't wait until their dead get on with it now. Of course if they're dead and Neppers gets it badly wrong they won't have to deal with the flack. 

[1902 1,167]

Generally if I could pick it would be someone like Bloom at Brighton. He is financially savvy, his money comes from a source that I don't find particularly grim, runs two football clubs which have both had their highest level of success for a long time and genuinely seems to care for them. He invests in infrastructure at his clubs too.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

11 minutes ago, Ken Hairy said:

With regards to Delia and Winnie,  not all of us are demanding they go out and find the nearest multi billionaire terrorist state to sell to, some of us just think that, they're just not up to the job anymore which is hardly surprising considering they're both in their 80s. They've sold the soul of the club to the  Webbers who seem to have free reign and are, lately at least making bad decision after bad. 

If they're saying they will not sell, and insist the shares will be passed on then fine get on and sodding well do it. If they're that convinced with nephew Tom don't wait until their dead get on with it now. Of course if they're dead and Neppers gets it badly wrong they won't have to deal with the flack. 

I agree that I think they are missing the point of what running a football club means the higher you go. If we were Accrington we wouldn't be making the same demands. We have been successful in terms of promotion to the EPL. Probably more than anyone else in the last twenty years. So our demands are greater. And the owners seem to believe that finance is more important to supporters than playing football.

However, we cannot sack our owners and we cannot make someone buy us. We have to take them at face value and accept nobody suitable has come forward to buy us. And if they believe passing on to Tom is the best way forward there is nothing we can do. Personally I do not believe it is in our best interests but hope I'm wrong if nobody suitable comes forward.

[Nuff Said 5,156]

1 hour ago, duke63 said:

It doesn’t matter which club you are or how wealthy the owners are, every club will have bad seasons mixed in with the good. 

I’m sure most would like to see a change of ownership with fresh impetus, but firstly we are a relatively small club in an unfashionable part of the Country, so are unlikely to see a multi billionaire buying the club as these days most new owners are seeing it as a money making venture and secondly for every Man City there is probably 5 other Cardiffs, Derbys, Burnleys etc. 

Anyone who bought the club would really need to be a dedicated supporter otherwise it just would not improve the playing side. 
 

I would much prefer to see us follow the German style of being substantially owned by the supporters. 

Personally, this would be my choice. We do things differently now, but as much because of the relative poverty of our owners as any belief in it being correct. Supporter ownership is no nirvana (for starters, see Swansea, Notts County and whoever that club in non-league was who allowed supporters to vote on decisions), but I don’t see a downside for the current board in increasing participation in ownership if it’s kept below certain limits. Like the recent article on (I think) My Football Writer said, if we’re going to do things differently, let’s do it properly. Be among the first looking to introduce safe standing, give supporters a board seat, be a vocal PITA at meetings of whatever league we’re in and so on.

[hertfordyellow 460]

4 hours ago, Kenny Foggo said:

Who gives a..... about Burnley! Look at the mess your own club is at...I can see it now, any criticism of the appalling way we have been managed on and off the pitch will be greeted with ..but look at Burnley..its as pointless as saying look at Brentford!!  ...we are in a state and only an overall of the management will change that and I don't mean Dean Smith.

Are we in a mess?

[hertfordyellow 460]

30 minutes ago, 1902 said:

Generally if I could pick it would be someone like Bloom at Brighton. He is financially savvy, his money comes from a source that I don't find particularly grim, runs two football clubs which have both had their highest level of success for a long time and genuinely seems to care for them. He invests in infrastructure at his clubs too.

The wage bill as percentage of turnover is now pretty much 100% and they have a lot of debt (albeit Bloom is owed that debt). 

There will be a 70% limit set on wages. They will need to adapt pretty quickly 

[Mello Yello 2,298]

I'm just so pleased that relegated Burnley's Famous Fan Alastair Campbell is also probably hurting...."MWAHAHAHA!".....

[shefcanary 2,438]

Can I just point out here that the potential for Smith & Jones selling their shares in the club in the next 12 months, even if they wanted to, would be a miracle of fantastic proportions to actually take place and even if that miracle took place, it would take a long time.  With their 51% holding, Smith & Jones have effectively created a community owned club (I know it doesn't feel like it, but it is a 50 +1 model except it is in their favour, not the fans).  Any sale of their shares would first have to be offered to the other 3,000 plus shareholders at the same price offered to Smith & Jones; as I have said before this is an expensive transaction because of all the legal and financial due diligence that would be done in a semi-public manner. 

In addition, to attract a potential investor, there has to be a good reason for investing.  As others have noted, the finances of the club are in reasonably good state, so nothing to be gained as would be in a distressed sale - any investor would have to buy top dollar.  So that leaves the only potential being a rich fan of the club.

From what I can gather (and forgive me I am a Canary exile so not close to local personalities at the club) there is no obvious billionaire who has a pile of free cash and is a fan of the club.  So this leads to it having to be a consortium of some kind.  This again would take some time to build and would need good leadership and probably a very high media profile. I have suggested in the past someone like Jake Humphries would be the sort of person who could achieve this, as he would not scare Smith & Jones off whilst he negotiated all this.  Indeed Smith & Jones would need to be part of the consortia probably to make it effective, it may sound counter-intuitive but I think if they retained some involvement it might accelerate things.  

So whilst it may seem easy to just say the resolution of the current problems is for Smith & Jones to sell up, it ain't as easy as that! 

From my perspective, by all means sow the seeds of a new consortia, but much more importantly Smith & jones need to be persuaded to re-vamp corporate governance at the club and appoint an "independent" Chair and a strong CEO.  That will kick start the clear out of: the current malaise at the club; the daft commercial mistakes; the poor external communication; the stasis caused by executive conflict of interests; the run of poor player recruitment and finally (but most importantly) poor performance on the pitch.

[hogesar 9,716]

19 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

From my perspective, by all means sow the seeds of a new consortia, but much more importantly Smith & jones need to be persuaded to re-vamp corporate governance at the club and appoint an "independent" Chair and a strong CEO.  That will kick start the clear out of: the current malaise at the club; the daft commercial mistakes; the poor external communication; the stasis caused by executive conflict of interests; the run of poor player recruitment and finally (but most importantly) poor performance on the pitch.

Yes, I'm not sure there should be anyone disagreeing with that bit in bold. That would need to happen regardless of ownership change.

[Grando 267]

1 hour ago, 1902 said:

Generally if I could pick it would be someone like Bloom at Brighton. He is financially savvy, his money comes from a source that I don't find particularly grim, runs two football clubs which have both had their highest level of success for a long time and genuinely seems to care for them. He invests in infrastructure at his clubs too.

Could Blooms of Bressingham be persuaded to take over?

[Badger 2,407]

16 hours ago, Icecream Snow said:

I think in the short term the £65m loan isn't too much of an issue, as I believe they have cash reserves of £50m. 

 

 

I very much doubt that they have £50 million in cash reserves (although they may have had when the accounts were drawn up). The balance sheet is a moment in time and can change very quickly. Burnley took out a loan earlier in May for £12.5 million secured against the second instalment of the Chris Woods fee. Again, this is not uncommon, but they would not have done it if they had £50 million in reserve!

I think that they have saleable assets and parachute payments so they will be able to pay off this debt but they won't have much to build a new squad with + are likely to have a wage bill well in excess of non TV revenues (with the TV money going to pay back the MSD loan).

[Badger 2,407]

11 hours ago, TheBaldOne66 said:

Why are you so against us getting new owners? Do you think all is well under the current ownership?

Listen carefully for I shall say this only 1 million times - already said it hundreds of times before:

" IT WOULD DEPENDS UPON WHO THE NEW OWNERS ARE."

If we got a Norwich Tony Bloom great, fantastic, welcome them with open arms! Sadly, it is much more likely to be ALK capital. 

All is not well: we have just had the most depressing season ever but until you find a multi-billionaire publicly proclaiming that s/he is willing to give us hundreds of millions of pounds, please excuse me for being a little bit sceptical about the easy solutions that fools believe and try to peddle.

[Badger 2,407]

1 hour ago, shefcanary said:

From what I can gather (and forgive me I am a Canary exile so not close to local personalities at the club) there is no obvious billionaire who has a pile of free cash and is a fan of the club.  So this leads to it having to be a consortium of some kind.  This again would take some time to build and would need good leadership and probably a very high media profile. I have suggested in the past someone like Jake Humphries would be the sort of person who could achieve this, as he would not scare Smith & Jones off whilst he negotiated all this.  Indeed Smith & Jones would need to be part of the consortia probably to make it effective, it may sound counter-intuitive but I think if they retained some involvement it might accelerate things.  

So whilst it may seem easy to just say the resolution of the current problems is for Smith & Jones to sell up, it ain't as easy as that! 

I agreed with most of the other stuff too but didn't include it to save space. 

A consortium of several/ many is probably the best that we can hope for, but for it to have maximum impact it would be important for the current owners to remain part of it. I don't know how much such a consortium could raise - it would require a lot to make a significant difference to our premier league survival but what is clear that any consortium would be able to make a far bigger impact if they did not have to buy the current owners out.

[1902 1,167]

3 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

Personally, this would be my choice. We do things differently now, but as much because of the relative poverty of our owners as any belief in it being correct. Supporter ownership is no nirvana (for starters, see Swansea, Notts County and whoever that club in non-league was who allowed supporters to vote on decisions), but I don’t see a downside for the current board in increasing participation in ownership if it’s kept below certain limits. Like the recent article on (I think) My Football Writer said, if we’re going to do things differently, let’s do it properly. Be among the first looking to introduce safe standing, give supporters a board seat, be a vocal PITA at meetings of whatever league we’re in and so on.

When we talk about fan ownership, it's important to realise that the financial situation is mind boggling.

If every single one of the 27,000 Norwich fans who sits in Carrow Road has a net worth of £172,000 (which is the UK average). The total amount that we would collectively be worth would be 4.64 bn.

There are currently 11 premier league owners who are known to have higher net worth than all of us. It's also possibly higher because some owners wealth is not stated.

Edited May 23, 2022 by 1902

[1902 1,167]

Another way of looking at it would be this, to be the 17th richest premier league owner. I would apparently need to win the biggest Euromillions jackpot in history.....  6 times over. 

Even in this situation, I would have a net worth smaller than 7 owners in the Championship and 2 in league one.

[dylanisabaddog 4,965]

£100m for Smith Jones shares

£50m estimate to the other shareholders who say yes please at that price (this is unavoidable) 

£40m to build a City Stand extension 

£250m estimate on players in the first 3 years to survive the Premier League. Plus more in 3 years. 

Anyone out there got £440m? That's around £20k per season ticket holder. Dream on. 

Not for the first time and not for the last, it's not Norwich City that has the problem. It's the Premier League and any club unfortunate enough to be promoted to the Premier League. 

 

[repman 635]

4 hours ago, 1902 said:

Generally if I could pick it would be someone like Bloom at Brighton. He is financially savvy, his money comes from a source that I don't find particularly grim, runs two football clubs which have both had their highest level of success for a long time and genuinely seems to care for them. He invests in infrastructure at his clubs too.

He is also a Brighton fan. Both him and Benham at Brentford are very smart fellas who made their money in similar ways and have then employed those means to improve the football clubs they support. Their connection to the club means they realise how much people care about their team and as a result don't take decisions which could put the club at risk whatsoever. I think our ownership is similar in that sense, don't risk everything while chasing little. The difference is that the safety net which they employ is much larger than ours.

[1902 1,167]

17 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

£100m for Smith Jones shares

£50m estimate to the other shareholders who say yes please at that price (this is unavoidable) 

£40m to build a City Stand extension 

£250m estimate on players in the first 3 years to survive the Premier League. Plus more in 3 years. 

Anyone out there got £440m? That's around £20k per season ticket holder. Dream on. 

Not for the first time and not for the last, it's not Norwich City that has the problem. It's the Premier League and any club unfortunate enough to be promoted to the Premier League. 

 

Furthermore, it's 20k per season ticket holder that would lose 70% of its value if we are relegated, which even if we spent £250 million would be odds on.

[sgncfc 1,250]

5 hours ago, shefcanary said:

Can I just point out here that the potential for Smith & Jones selling their shares in the club in the next 12 months, even if they wanted to, would be a miracle of fantastic proportions to actually take place and even if that miracle took place, it would take a long time.  With their 51% holding, Smith & Jones have effectively created a community owned club (I know it doesn't feel like it, but it is a 50 +1 model except it is in their favour, not the fans).  Any sale of their shares would first have to be offered to the other 3,000 plus shareholders at the same price offered to Smith & Jones; as I have said before this is an expensive transaction because of all the legal and financial due diligence that would be done in a semi-public manner. 

I don't think so. There are reportedly enough shares already authorised but not issued to give an investor a majority. S & J don't have to sell any, just reduce their percentage holding.

[shefcanary 2,438]

5 minutes ago, sgncfc said:

I don't think so. There are reportedly enough shares already authorised but not issued to give an investor a majority. S & J don't have to sell any, just reduce their percentage holding.

Indeed that is true, and of course on paper the club alone would benefit, a more favourable outcome.  But what of Smith & Jones role thereafter, especially as the value of their shares would be diluted for no personal gain on their behalf? 

Any sale of those shares would only be done under their terms, as controlling shareholders. There are ways of allocating those shares to the incomers, diverting some of the funds raised via special dividends to all shareholders, but I think the politics of that would very difficult for anyone to ensure success. Another mechanism may be by some subsequent private share disposal below notifiable limits to compensate Smith & Jones, so not impossible. Again, realistically it would only happen if it were "friends" of theirs that bought them, so likely only to be a local fan consortia as discussed. 

The mechanism changes a little, the underlying transaction would result in a very similar outcome, but the time and expense I doubt would reduce that much whilst shareholder agreements are drafted, negotiated and then signed off.    

For now let's just focus on a campaign to get the club properly run again! 

[TheGunnShow 5,983]

10 hours ago, 1902 said:

Generally I'm an optimistic supporter, but I can't help but feel that this time will be a lot harder. If we look at the last time we were relegated, where are we considerably better?

Probably at centre back. Outside of that, we have lost Buendia, Cantwell (effectively) and Pukki is two years older. We will do very well to find a player as good as Skipp again and I'd be very surprised if Max is still here. We have less saleable assets than two years ago so less flexibility.

So we are pretty reliant on the likes of Sargent, PLM and Rashica looking a lot, lot better in the Championship (which is possible) but I will have to see it before I believe it.

Worked pretty well with Rupp in terms of that exact division drop, and we have had quite a record of "second-season success" with some of the players Webber brought in from other countries. Vrancic and Stiepermann are obvious examples, albeit remaining in the Champs. Could possibly add Krul to that bracket as he had a pretty rusty start. Buendia started pretty well, then kept going.

Probably only Pukki hit the deck running and kept going.

Completely agree with @duke63's observation that ideally we'd be largely fan-owned.

[1902 1,167]

5 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Worked pretty well with Rupp in terms of that exact division drop, and we have had quite a record of "second-season success" with some of the players Webber brought in from other countries. Vrancic and Stiepermann are obvious examples, albeit remaining in the Champs. Could possibly add Krul to that bracket as he had a pretty rusty start. Buendia started pretty well, then kept going.

Probably only Pukki hit the deck running and kept going.

Completely agree with @duke63's observation that ideally we'd be largely fan-owned.

Agreed, its happened plenty of times before. However every year I read forums of other relegated clubs saying there players will destroy the Championship and it doesn't always happen. 

Can't understand the fan ownership idea personally. We would have serious financial limitations vis-a-vis our rivals. I'd love to see a German model adopted for all of football in this country but that wouldn't happen in a month of Sundays.

[Dr Greenthumb 750]

10 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

What exactly is the mess our club is in? Two relegations from the Premier League in three years? It’s not ideal, but I could list 72 clubs that would love to have achieved that much.

We are financially on a solid footing. Yes, administration was a threat once (@Dr Greenthumb when we went down to League 1, when was the second time you mention?) but the club reacted, did what it needed to do and not only did administration not happen, it put plans in place so it won’t happen again. Plus I suspect the management who came in exaggerated the threat anyway in order to make their starting point look more difficult and their achievements more impressive. Any longer-term reduction in revenue, like parachute payments ending, will be predictable in advance and the club can adjust in time if it needs to. 
 

And we now have an impressive academy, and we are an attractive place for young players to come to as we offer career progression. 
 

That doesn’t look like a mess to me, it looks like impressive achievement on the resources we have. I get that this is an emotional time, but posting stuff like this, accusing posters of not replying when we all have a life outside this board and aren’t sitting on it 24x7, or suggesting that the chance of new owners being better than what we have is a 50/50 coin toss, is just not thought through. Take a step back and look at what we have, what we’ve done in the last few years and what similar clubs have done. Yes, there will be one or two outliers who are currently doing better, but there will also be many, many more who are worse. We can do better, we learnt from administration and we will learn from two relegations.

(And I probably need to state, like hogesar, that I’m not against new owners, but the chances of them 1) being safe to hand the club to and 2) any more successful than the current ones is low IMHO).

Remember when the board were sweating over James Maddison limping off against Sheffield Weds? Just after that! 

[Nuff Said 5,156]

2 hours ago, Dr Greenthumb said:

Remember when the board were sweating over James Maddison limping off against Sheffield Weds? Just after that! 

That would have been a hole in our finances, true. But administration? Nah.

[BarclayWazza 91]

On 22/05/2022 at 20:49, hogesar said:

Remember,  several on here pointed at Burnleys new money as a "see, if Burnley can get more investment so can we". Agreed, we could easily have got the same deal as Burnley:

 

Surprised it took you all of 5 hours to post this... I was expecting no more than 2.

[hogesar 9,716]

7 hours ago, BarclayWazza said:

Surprised it took you all of 5 hours to post this... I was expecting no more than 2.

More surprised you were able to read it.

[Nuff Said 5,156]

7 hours ago, BarclayWazza said:

Surprised it took you all of 5 hours to post this... I was expecting no more than 2.

Maybe play the post not the poster?