Nick
Administrator
They did
Grendel
Well-Known Member
it isn’t - the shareholder value was £5.6 and the loan transfer was after purchase. The lease extension allowed a valuation of £60m - the borrowing needed wasn’t £35m it was £14m - the loan wasn’t related to the debt
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Er they did?
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
They used the loan to clear the debt
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
They did
Well let’s go along with that for a minute then.
Fisher said he wouldn’t have bought the ground on those terms. So he wanted to pay less than £6m for it??
Grendel
Well-Known Member
There was no debt
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
ACL was £20m in debt to the council.
If you recall the council bailed out ACL in 2013 when it couldn’t repay its debt to Yorkshire Bank.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
ACl was in no debt - there was a £14m charge against it to the council - the shareholder purchase reflected that there was zero obligation for the purchaser of the shares to then buy out the mortgage. Sorry but you are talking nonsense
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
So Wasps gave the council £14m out of the goodness of its heart?
Wasps RFC pay off £13.4million Ricoh Arena council loan in full - 20 years early
Coventry City Council confirm full payment, plus interest, arrived in the authority's bank account this morning
www.coventrytelegraph.net
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
They paid the council £14m but it was not part of the purchase, I'm not sure how you don't understand this.So Wasps gave the council £14m out of the goodness of its heart?
Wasps RFC pay off £13.4million Ricoh Arena council loan in full - 20 years early
Coventry City Council confirm full payment, plus interest, arrived in the authority's bank account this morningwww.coventrytelegraph.net
For £5.5m they obtained the shares in ACL from CCC and AEHT and paid £1m to CCC to extend the lease to 250 years. They only paid that debt after the purchase. It was not part of the purchase price.
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Grendel
Well-Known Member
No they decided on a different funding source to finance a charge against a business they’d purchased - they wouldn’t have even had an option to refinance without the lease extension and they had no obligation to do soSo Wasps gave the council £14m out of the goodness of its heart?
Wasps RFC pay off £13.4million Ricoh Arena council loan in full - 20 years early
Coventry City Council confirm full payment, plus interest, arrived in the authority's bank account this morningwww.coventrytelegraph.net
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
The key was to get the council onside. You’re pushing at an open door FFS. There won’t be an organisation in existence bar CCFC itself with a higher proportion of CCFC fans in it. A successful club reflects well on the city. You have to really fuck up to get them offside.
Joy went to a bunch of swivel eyed loons like Reid and Sinclaire and played poundshop Game of Thrones.
Ultimately the right move IMO was to threaten the rent strike, and get the fans on board and apply pressure for a new deal. Clearly we never had the cash for the stadium itself as the lack of bid at the end showed, but we could have played the public sympathy card much better. Not doing it at our lowest ebb on the pitch didn’t help either.
Just poor strategy all round. No idea if it works in the debt business, probably, but I wouldn’t put Seppala anywhere near a role that required bringing people on board. Jesus look at King who has basically come in, spent fuck all, and hammered the prices up and gets a song and masks. In a large part because we can actually see him and he can present a half decent persona to the media (even if that persona is weirdly out of touch local businessman crossed with Alan Partridge)
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Of course it was part of the purchase. They couldn’t refinance without the lease that was in large part the motivation, along with getting shot of a legal issue. Just because it wasn’t on paper doesn’t mean it wasn’t relevant.
D
Deleted member 5849
Guest
At the risk of stepping back in time, certain council members let their support for the club colour their approach too. Instead of seeing it in child business terms, Mutton decided SISU needed to invest in the team before they could buy the ground etc, and there was no flexibility on the local authority side for seeing a deal other than what was best for them in the immediate term - there was no bigger picture.
And let's face it, Mutton and Seppala were never likely to get on to build a relationship!
Anyway, we've been there and done that.
Flying Fokker
Well-Known Member
Fisher was a tool of communication.
SkyblueDad
Well-Known Member
In my opinion he became the fly in the ointment.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
But as we’ve seen football fans are easy. But Joy never made the case and instead went straight on the attack.
The fact is Sisu had no trust because of how they’d handled the club. There was a widespread belief they were just looking to grab the stadium and fuck the club off and the way they were treating the club hardly disproved it.
Ultimately Joy didn’t give a shite for years then turned up and tried to upend the tea table and act like it wasn’t her negligent ownership that got us relegated.
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
You said there was no debt, and said I was talking nonsense for suggesting there was.
Yet there blatantly was debt
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
The debt was part of the purchase.
The deal was Wasps pay the £6m, and then repay to the council the £14m loan over the agreed time period.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
The loan was a cost of purchase that was reflected in the shareholder value the same as any other payments - there was zero requirement to purchase the loan and the owners of wasps holdings could have paid the mortgage to the council - mutton at the time said the interest on the mortgage would provide tax payers with a profit
Grendel
Well-Known Member
it wasn’t as there couldn’t be a legal requirement to do that
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
Debt
noun
a sum of money that is owed or due.
ACL was in debt by the very definition.
noun
a sum of money that is owed or due.
ACL was in debt by the very definition.
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
But they still would’ve been paying it, just over a longer period.
And it was still a debt that existed
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
Right do to clarify how you think things happened:
2013 - CCC loan ACL £14m to pay off Yorkshire Bank. Loan to be repaid to CCC over 50 years.
2014 - Wasps buy ACL, but have no responsibility for ACL debt. However Wasps decide to take on that debt anyway.
Why on Earth would Wasps take on ACL debt if, as you say, they didn’t have to?
Sorry but if you buy a business as a going concern, the debt still exists
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
Did Wasps buy ACL unencumbered?
Why did SISU insist that they were only interested in buying ACL if it was unencumbered?
The answer is no to the first question and because ACL was in debt to the second.
Why did SISU insist that they were only interested in buying ACL if it was unencumbered?
The answer is no to the first question and because ACL was in debt to the second.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Waaps paid £5.6m for the purchase of the shares - they then paid an extra £1m for the purchase of the lease extension. The lease extension raised the valuation of the Arena from £5.6m to I think £64m (?)
A valuation that took into account all outgoings did it not?
Grendel
Well-Known Member
The shareholder value was £5.6m - it rose to £64m when the lease was purchased - what does that tell you?
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Eh? If Sisu had purchased the Higgs share as per the formula price they would have paid was it £11 million (?) for the share and the club still would have been paying the same rent it had before
Unencumbered was a word Lucas managed to pronounce and that was it.
Speedies_Chips
Well-Known Member
Fast forward to 2063. Sunderland fans will still be going on about the Bristol City match in 1977 and this board will have threads regarding Wasps/ACL/Council and the Arena ownership.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
No. It was not. The assets had transferred by the time the loan was discharged. The bond issue was May 2015.
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shmmeee
Well-Known Member
So why repay it?
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Because dodgy Derek wanted his money back and saw this a way to get £10 million in one day
skybluetony176
Well-Known Member
They paid the £13.4 back after the bond.
All here in the Lego Heads article after the bond money was raised.
Wasps to pay back £13.4m Ricoh Arena council loan "within days"
Club insists bond scheme which raised £35m is not to help owner shift personal financial risk onto investors
www.coventrytelegraph.net
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Ive heard of Great Man theory of history, you must be the first Shit Man theorist I’ve come across.
bigfatronssba
Well-Known Member
That clearing the debt in ACL increased its value