Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
king canary

Michael Bailey Athletic Piece on new investment

Recommended Posts

Thought it might be useful to pick a few of the more interesting bullet points from the article...

  • Attansio has provided a £10m 'loan' by buying these c preference shares. These pay a 7% dividend for the next 7 years.
  • At the end of the 7 years we'd either own a repayment of around £16m or he can convert the loan into ordinary shares up to the value of 10% of the club.
  • Foulger has been keen to sell for a bit of time but it is made harder when the majority shareholders aren't also looking to sell
  • Space on the board for another person who doesn't need to own shares- MB seems to think this won't be Foulger though (although he's open to staying on) but likely another member of the American group.
  • Smith and Jones see it as a rare opportunity to get money into the club and learn from an experienced owner in another sport.
  • Attanasio has wanted to invest in 'soccer' for awhile and Norwich met his criteria- owning our stadium, training ground and having the option to purchase a minority stake initially were all on his tick list
  • The American's presented to the owners the weekend of the Spurs game- apparently two key points were around data and how they use clubs in the Domincan baseball league to create a talent pipeline.
  • Interesting nugget in there that we apparently have a long standing interest in doing similar by buying a lower league team in a European country to help develop players and that this could accelerate that plan
  • Attanasio's money is more likely to be used on projects such as the City Stand and Colney development than to finance player purchases.
  • Smith and Jones have remained steadfast in their desire to retain 'guardianship' of the club.
  • Attanasio has approached a large number shareholders about how open they are to selling their stakes moving forward- mentioned success with all those approaches could take him as high as 40% but would likely be much lower. 
Edited by king canary
Typo
  • Like 4
  • Thanks 7

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As Purple and I have concluded, Foulger may retain 100 shares and retain his seat on the Board to give comfort to Smith & Jones. It doesn't change the arithmetic of future takeover. We also expect Attanasio's non-share owning colleague on the Board to be a commercial person rather than a sporting person.

My personal view is it will only take one of Smith & Jones to (unfortunately) suffer a bout of illness questioning their mortality, for their "guardianship" to be relinquished - Attanasio now is in the best place to accept that guardianship. Given the 7 year time framework for the proposed "due diligence" period, I still see a full takeover by Attanasio as the most likely result, if he keeps his nose clean and his team produce results.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
42 minutes ago, king canary said:

Thought it might be useful to pick a few of the more interesting bullet points from the article...

  • Attansio has provided a £10m 'loan' by being these shares. These pay a 7% dividend for the next 7 years.
  • At the end of the 7 years we'd either own a repayment of around £16m or he can convert the loan into ordinary shares up to the value of 10% of the club.
  • Foulger has been keen to sell for a bit of time but it is made harder when the majority shareholders aren't also looking to sell
  • Space on the board for another person who doesn't need to own shares- MB seems to think this won't be Foulger though (although he's open to staying on) but likely another member of the American group.
  • Smith and Jones see it as a rare opportunity to get money into the club and learn from an experienced owner in another sport.
  • Attanasio has wanted to invest in 'soccer' for awhile and Norwich met his criteria- owning our stadium, training ground and having the option to purchase a minority stake initially were all on his tick list
  • The American's presented to the owners the weekend of the Spurs game- apparently two key points were around data and how they use clubs in the Domincan baseball league to create a talent pipeline.
  • Interesting nugget in there that we apparently have a long standing interest in doing similar by buying a lower league team in a European country to help develop players and that this could accelerate that plan.
  • Attanasio's money is more likely to be used on projects such as the City Stand and Colney development than to finance player purchases.
  • Smith and Jones have remained steadfast in their desire to retain 'guardianship' of the club.
  • Attanasio has approached a large number shareholders about how open they are to selling their stakes moving forward- mentioned success with all those approaches could take him as high as 40% but would likely be much lower. 

Thanks. As to new directors, unless this has changed you only need to own 100 Ordinaries, so it hardly seems necessary to have changed that to nil.

The idea of a feeder club really is interesting!

As to investment in infrastructure, I think that is very much the point, and particularly with increasing stadium capacity. That would not only potentially increase revenue from ticketing but commercial and catering as well.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
7 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

As to investment in infrastructure, I think that is very much the point, and particularly with increasing stadium capacity. That would not only potentially increase revenue from ticketing but commercial and catering as well.

And the ability to leverage debt against the increased revenue streams…

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

There have been a few negative comments on here previously about clubs that already have feeder clubs-I wonder what they will make of this if it happens?

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

A Friday arrival at Norwich airport on a private jet was followed by dinner with Smith and Wynn Jones at their Stowmarket home. Saturday saw them explore the area and visit the Colney Training Centre, before enjoying dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant in the city centre.

There's a marketing opportunity. Anyone know which one it is? 

One day it may well be spoken about as reverentially as The Criterion Cafe.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

There have been a few negative comments on here previously about clubs that already have feeder clubs-I wonder what they will make of this if it happens?

It's not so much feeder clubs but having other clubs that you can game the system with like Watford and udinese that wrankles. Having something like club Bruges and man utds relationship is less of an issue as it's essentially giving somewhere to loan players to blood them and get some experience in a known/controlled environment.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, king canary said:

Attanasio has approached a large number shareholders about how open they are to selling their stakes moving forward- mentioned success with all those approaches could take him as high as 40% but would likely be much lower. 

You can have mine. Lego millennium falcon and a free season ticket for life. And also buy me the Norwich city dinosaur that was in the fan hub over the summer.

That's reasonable for 4 shares isn't it?

 

  • Haha 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

45 minutes ago, Mr Angry said:

There have been a few negative comments on here previously about clubs that already have feeder clubs-I wonder what they will make of this if it happens?

Feeder clubs are no evil thing. This is however different to say, Watford, who use their affiliate club/s to game the system (paying themselves £16m to keep Kamara for example) 

I think the idea would like what you see similarly in Europe, like Dortmund II or B teams in Spain. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

£2.5m for Foulger's 18% shareholding appears remarkably low. Either it's an error or there's more to it. 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd be interested to know how long we've wanted to own a feeder club. It's surely been an unrealistic, distant ambition until now. Even then, I'd still be surprised as we've barely had enough money to keep our own club afloat, let alone buy and run another one!

10 million isn't a huge amount, yet we have ambitions to improve the training ground, develop the city stand and buy a feeder club... would our priority list be in that order? I would've hoped they would use a chunk of it for when we (hopefully) get promoted.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
41 minutes ago, MrBunce said:

£2.5m for Foulger's 18% shareholding appears remarkably low. Either it's an error or there's more to it. 

I think the £2.5m quoted here is very roughly the nominal value of the shares he owned.  Given a lot of talk about the current valuation of the club being c. £100m, the value of those shares would be £16m, which is what you would expect Attanasio to pay him. But let's see what Tilly comes back with after his afternoon at Yarmouth races with Mr Foulger.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
25 minutes ago, Yellow and Green said:

I'd be interested to know how long we've wanted to own a feeder club. It's surely been an unrealistic, distant ambition until now. Even then, I'd still be surprised as we've barely had enough money to keep our own club afloat, let alone buy and run another one!

10 million isn't a huge amount, yet we have ambitions to improve the training ground, develop the city stand and buy a feeder club... would our priority list be in that order? I would've hoped they would use a chunk of it for when we (hopefully) get promoted.

The £10m is an initial investment. There might be more, depending on circumstances.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
21 minutes ago, shefcanary said:

I think the £2.5m quoted here is very roughly the nominal value of the shares he owned.  Given a lot of talk about the current valuation of the club being c. £100m, the value of those shares would be £16m, which is what you would expect Attanasio to pay him. But let's see what Tilly comes back with after his afternoon at Yarmouth races with Mr Foulger.

I won't be at the 3 day meeting this week at Yarmouth shef but MF told me on the phone this morning he is there tomorrow as he has a couple of horses running. 😜

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Deptford Yellow said:

I think we should make Kings Lynn FC a kind of feeder club …. Nice and close by ….

Ipswich makes more sense 😂😂😂

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Yellow and Green said:

I'd be interested to know how long we've wanted to own a feeder club. It's surely been an unrealistic, distant ambition until now. Even then, I'd still be surprised as we've barely had enough money to keep our own club afloat, let alone buy and run another one!

10 million isn't a huge amount, yet we have ambitions to improve the training ground, develop the city stand and buy a feeder club... would our priority list be in that order? I would've hoped they would use a chunk of it for when we (hopefully) get promoted.

It does paint a fascinating picture of how warped Premier League finances are though- we can't afford to sign an established Premier League player but we might be able to afford a whole club in the Dutch second division or similar. 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
36 minutes ago, Bert said:

Ipswich makes more sense 😂😂😂

It wouldn't be cost effective. Having to add that extra star to everything!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So basically we're recouping half the money Webber wasted on Rashica and Tzolis. But in the form of a loan. Great.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, Deptford Yellow said:

I think we should make Kings Lynn FC a kind of feeder club …. Nice and close by ….

Problem for this would likely be visa issues for the players they are looking to recruit. We are looking to get talent from less well known markets and develop them for want of a better phrase” in house”,  for them to then be able to come over and play for the first team. If we use kings Lynn they are stuck with the same visa issues we are, if we use a European club anyone with a eu passport can play till they become visa eligible. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hard to get excited over a £10m loan when you see what we pissed away last season.  But am hoping that they bring some clever thinking to the club.  Trouble is, most American investors I've been involved in are very system orientated and only accept their own way of thinking,  And it can quickly bog a business down.

Don't know how that would apply to a football club, but it does wonder what their plan is, and how relatable their knowledge of baseball is to our sport.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Pyro Pete said:

So basically we're recouping half the money Webber wasted on Rashica and Tzolis. But in the form of a loan. Great.

The catalyst for Smith and Jones departing faster than some dared to hope. What’s not to like. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Capt. Pants said:

I think that £10m loan got us Sara.

Sounds right to me. The season ticket rise will now be paying the interest on that. 

Let's hope we move to stage 2 quickly with genuine equity capital being put in for the ground development plus ending practices such as nearly 7,000 weighty envelopes being sent out for 30 people to attend a meeting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, shefcanary said:

I think the £2.5m quoted here is very roughly the nominal value of the shares he owned.  Given a lot of talk about the current valuation of the club being c. £100m, the value of those shares would be £16m, which is what you would expect Attanasio to pay him. But let's see what Tilly comes back with after his afternoon at Yarmouth races with Mr Foulger.

The nominal value is £1 per share so £98,200. The £2.5 million seems too low because that is broadly the same as the 2002 purchasers paid and would mean the Club is worth around only £15 million whereas the accounts show property assets valued at nearly £40 million. As you state £100 million seems to be a mentioned reference point implied by the 10% conversion of preference shares but the balance between old money and new money isn't clear.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Worthy Nigelton said:

Worth every penny... can't budge Kenny McLean from the starting XI!

Nor Delia and Michael from the board! The time is fast coming when they could really hamper our development by clinging on for dear life 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 hours ago, A Load of Squit said:

A Friday arrival at Norwich airport on a private jet was followed by dinner with Smith and Wynn Jones at their Stowmarket home. Saturday saw them explore the area and visit the Colney Training Centre, before enjoying dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant in the city centre.

There's a marketing opportunity. Anyone know which one it is? 

One day it may well be spoken about as reverentially as The Criterion Cafe.

Could be haggle. Seen a lot of Norwich players and staff there. Can get some good nuggets of Norwich info there!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×
×
  • Create New...