ACL Shoot themselves in the foot & The Fans in the Head (11 Viewers)

[Spencer]

James, I've summarised the Donaster situation before on a post (4th one down on this page):


It is an interesting example to pick because I suspect the Keepmoat might be costing Doncaster Rovers far more than ACL's last offer to Sisu on the rent.

I don't know enough about other clubs to enter the debate but I do know that Doncaster had previous owners with very deep pockets (far richer than than the current owners) who used to own the company Keepmoat (not the stadium) and were fans of the club.

They left as they said some of the fans wouldn't be happy unless they were in the champions league. In that they seem similar to ccfc.

 

---

[James Smith]

Hull City were supposed to pay £500,000 a year and have on average paid £53,000 a year. They even seem to charge the council for using office space.

Okay so surprisingly Hull City FC are owned by another very rich bloke a Mr Allam who has had Mr Millibean to a match with him at the KC Stadium. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...e-real-story-Labour-leader-NHS-rally-was.html

His beef is not that the rent is too high - I'll come back to the rent in a moment - it's more that he says wants the freehold to the KC Stadium and the rugby club one Craven Park. I read on the York City Knights website of all places (dated 3/3/11) that Mr Allam said

“We need a bigger stadium to generate bigger crowds at Hull City and ultimately bring down ticket prices,”

http://www.yorkcityknights.co.uk/7979-allam-family-invite-hull-team-to-play-at-possible-new-stadium

He was planning creating an out of town venue that would house the Footy Team and the Rugby Team plus a sporting village.

I get the feeling that he wasn't proposing to buy the stadiums but just expects the council to just hand them over (and I do see a vague similarity with CCFC here) from this comment here

“This could be done at the KC Stadium, but I am not going to chase Hull City Council over the matter.
“I don’t think I should be expected to spend another £25 million to expand, without ownership. There is no business sense in that, and also, I cannot obtain a mortgage or borrow from the bank on leasehold property.
“All football clubs have the freehold of the stadiums they play in, as the simple fact is that without the football club, the stadium is not viable.

But the council are evidently worried, possibly by the penultimate statement there.

The Daily Mail spoke to an unnamed councillor in a piece (dated 19/03/11) who said:

. ‘A lot of people believe Mr Allam is trying to get one over on the council and wants to get the stadium for nothing and then having got it he’ll want to mortgage it to the hilt, which could heap massive pressure on the club.

‘The feeling across the council is that it will never happen under those terms.’

Now back to the rent, it appears the council aren't the sharpest tools in the box. They leased the stadium for 50 years to a company called "Superstadium Management Company" (SMC) which is currently owned by Mr Allam. The terms of the lease mean that the only revenue the council get from the stadium is a percentage of the profits from SMC. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news...m-fails-to-net-any-cash-for-council-1-4778376

Sadly since the stadium opened the profits have declined and at the time the Yorkshire Post article was written (27/07/12) it wasn't generating any profits hence the council received nothing. :facepalm: However it gets worse as the lease is apparently air tight and the council only made just shy of £50k since the stadium opened 10 years ago. On top of that as you correctly say, they've been renting office space there and have paid over ten times the revenue they've received (circa £600k).:facepalm::facepalm: They should have vacated the offices by now however as there was a break clause in the rental agreement.

So again not the club paying a tiny amount because the council were feeling generous. It's more that someone should be crucified (well it is Easter) for agreeing to such a stupid lease (and terms) to begin with. :facepalm::facepalm::facepalm:

Right, bed time.

 

[Mr B]

Annoying when people don't agree with you, isn't it?

You're a fine one to talk.................... Quick bully him into submission!

 

[Mr B]

Fair response.

No my god, no you are letting another have an opinion, has somebody spiked your Easter Eggs, long may it continue!

 

[shropshirecov]

ACL's words are taken as gospel whilst sisu's words are recieved with a "well they would say that wouldn't they"

It's the way of the world.

 

[Black6Osprey]

Yes you're correct I was responding to someone else who mentioned the Doncaster stadium.




Well yes actually I do now have the full picture which you can read above in my earlier post. Can you please provide evidence to back your claims regarding Doncaster Rovers and the Keepmoat stadium.

I don't think you grasped my original point. I was saying that Doncaster or for that matter any of the top 6 in league 1 don't have a string of hotels funding the club. The reason is the Ricoh already have exhibition, concerts, casino etc etc and the profits wouldn't pay for a decent players toe. Another hotel wouldn't suddenly make us financial giants even if we shared some of the cash.

If running clubs based on profits from such developments was so successful then there would be a few more about. Clubs do well from investment ( throwing money down a big hole) and it requires more money than a bit of land development can provide.

At this moment in time sustainable football = no success. In our current state a lot of people will take this but constant failure (as we have seen) will result in no crowd and a lot of moaning.

 

[oldskyblue58]

ACL pushed Sisu into sending the club into Admin and in turn resulting in the points deduction which effectively ends our season - If ACL had waited until the end of the season we might have made the play-offs and promotion which would have resulted in more money and a better chance of the club being able to meet ACLs demands over the preceeding seasons.
"We couldnt take the risk that Sisu wouldnt liquidate the club - thats why we did it" what a load of bollocks - why would Sisu liquidate the club completely?
This season is all but over for the fans and what we now probably ALL are doing is adding the 10 points back on to see where we would have finished! Whats the betting that we defy the odds and finish in the "virtual" top six?
Just our luck...............

just a couple of questions ..........

when were insolvency advisors appointed by SISU to advise CCFC?
when do you think all the players etc were transferred to CCFCH leaving CCFCL a "non trading property subsidiary"?
Did SISU need to isolate the lease to break it?
Did TF make any serious comments in national press regarding "insolvent administration" prior to any action for administration by ACL?
Did ACL take any of those actions above?
Who actually filed for insolvency and does it look like a strategy put in place by them given the answers to the above?

ACL are no angels but somehow it looks to me that SISU have driven this process to a large extent. It would also seem they got the most crucial fact wrong ..... where the golden share lay. It is ownership of the golden share that dictates any League penalty and SISU clearly believe it can be transferred as they please or that their due diligence shows it as owned by CCFCH which is the club they tell us owns it now. Strangely though they signed off accounts June 2012 that indicate in their own Directors report that CCFCLtd is the football club.

 

[CJparker]

You're a fine one to talk.................... Quick bully him into submission!

Sod that, Torch is happy to just lie about people to blacken their name and try to invalidate their otherwise-unanswerable arguments

 

[dongonzalos]

Well I think that may have dispelled a hell of a lot of myths used as fact.

Well done that man

 

[Grendel]

Well I think that may have dispelled a hell of a lot of myths used as fact.

Well done that man

Extracting the first page on a google site and typing verbatim is not exactly extracting facts.

The Doncaster non payment is in an article in a football magazine somewhere which I suppose I will have to find when I am back from holiday.

The Ipswich £30,000 actually was from another poster which again I will try and find. The article dug up was again the first in a google search. Interestingly even if that us correct its £1 million less than we were paying over the same period so I'm not quite sure the myth is exposed.

As for Hull it doesn't prove anything does it?

In all examples the rent is substantially less and access to revenues significantly better. In all examples the club was perceived to have won.

Forest apparently is another one. A five live presenter (mark chapman?) said when discussing Coventry that even a club like forest pay minuscule rent so how can the council justify what they are doing to Coventry? He fails to realise out fans want the council to do it to Coventry.

 

[torchomatic]

I think a lot of national media would be surprised how many of our own fans are on the side of ACL rather than the Club they support.

 

[Jack Griffin]

Extracting the first page on a google site and typing verbatim is not exactly extracting facts.

Nor is making statements about other clubs situations without providing any evidence to back up those claims.

 

[dongonzalos]

I think a lot of national media would be surprised how many of our own fans are on the side of ACL rather than the Club they support.

Yes I guess it would make them wonder what the hell the owners would have done to create such a situation.

Then when they read the list I guess they would be more surprised by that.

At the end if the day the fans support THEIR football club.

They don't support SISU they don't don't support ACL

Yet they make a rational informed decision based on all the information available to them about who has the best interests of THEIR football club at heart.

It seems the majority are deciding that that is not SISU.

When your owner does not speak to you and hides away are you really surprised?

 

[dongonzalos]

Extracting the first page on a google site and typing verbatim is not exactly extracting facts.

The Doncaster non payment is in an article in a football magazine somewhere which I suppose I will have to find when I am back from holiday.

The Ipswich £30,000 actually was from another poster which again I will try and find. The article dug up was again the first in a google search. Interestingly even if that us correct its £1 million less than we were paying over the same period so I'm not quite sure the myth is exposed.

As for Hull it doesn't prove anything does it?

In all examples the rent is substantially less and access to revenues significantly better. In all examples the club was perceived to have won.

Forest apparently is another one. A five live presenter (mark chapman?) said when discussing Coventry that even a club like forest pay minuscule rent so how can the council justify what they are doing to Coventry? He fails to realise out fans want the council to do it to Coventry.

Gotta provide the evidence from somewhere otherwise you are just spouting stuff as fact and hoping no one can be arsed to research it and check.

 

[coundonskyblue]

I think a lot of national media would be surprised how many of our own fans are on the side of ACL rather than the Club they support.

I imagine they would also be surprised that some of the fans support a regime that threatened to liquidate their club.

 

[ashbyjan]

I think its safe to say that not one single fan supports ACL or supports SISU - the fact is we all support CCFC - not CCFC holdings or CCFC limited but OUR team, CCFC - the Sky Blues. What differs is who different people think has the best interests of their club at heart. I would suggest its neither of the main protagonists - their first priority is themselves and if that results in good or bad for OUR team is of little interest to either of them. What they have succeeded in is creating a complete mess of OUR club, people are confused and concerned about what is going on, what will eventually emerge from the mess, they've created divisions among fans - between them they should be ashamed of what they have achieved but I doubt either of them actually give a rats arse what the fans feel.

 

[Godiva]

just a couple of questions ..........

when were insolvency advisors appointed by SISU to advise CCFC?
when do you think all the players etc were transferred to CCFCH leaving CCFCL a "non trading property subsidiary"?
Did SISU need to isolate the lease to break it?
Did TF make any serious comments in national press regarding "insolvent administration" prior to any action for administration by ACL?
Did ACL take any of those actions above?
Who actually filed for insolvency and does it look like a strategy put in place by them given the answers to the above?

ACL are no angels but somehow it looks to me that SISU have driven this process to a large extent. It would also seem they got the most crucial fact wrong ..... where the golden share lay. It is ownership of the golden share that dictates any League penalty and SISU clearly believe it can be transferred as they please or that their due diligence shows it as owned by CCFCH which is the club they tell us owns it now. Strangely though they signed off accounts June 2012 that indicate in their own Directors report that CCFCLtd is the football club.

Chain of events ...

When did it all start, where should it have stopped?

If the rent is the heart of the issue, then I would argue that the time lapse play a major part in leading to where we are.
Question is could ACL have accepted lower rent much sooner? Could they have arrived at their last offer - only pennies away from the clubs ask - a lot sooner?
The time lapse lead to the arrears building up. It's the rent debts that caused administration - The club was never going to pay it and consequently tried to isolate it in a non-trading company.

ACL seem to have two agenda's - to make sure the directors are free from liabillity and to try and force sisu out of the club. I agree with the first, but find the second totally out of order.
Sisu also have two agenda's - to avoid paying the rent arrears and to stay somewhat in control during administration. I agree with both.

 

[oldskyblue58]

could they have accepted a lower rent much earlier? ........... err they offered lower rent earlier SISU rejected it. That aside to get to their final offer the finance structure of ACL had to change that didnt happen until 18/01/13.

But then you know and I know that the rent is not the heart of the matter....... control of the stadium is and always has been.

Is the arrears to be settled 1.4m or a figure a lot less than that ? we are told the escrow is drawn down and club paid £10k per match ...... so are the arrears approx £600k......... ACL offered to settle arrears at £485K ......... so are the arrears really that much of a problem or is it simply to break all the terms of the lease.?

Would suggest the two agendas of both sides are exactly the same..... To protect themselves and force the other out

 

[tisza]

The first time the rent issue was raised was in the last set of accounts as part of the going concerns. If it was such a key issue why wasn't it dealt with in the 1st 4 years of SISU management when we were losing 5-6 million a year? As OSB has said previously it isn't the key issue and SISU have been preparing for this for a while now. Also hopefully the issue of management & administrative fees will be addressed by the administrators report. These seem amount to considerably more than any amount of rent due.

 

[Grendel]

Gotta provide the evidence from somewhere otherwise you are just spouting stuff as fact and hoping no one can be arsed to research it and check.

Well his facts are;

Ipswich pay £1.05 million a year less than we have been paying. Should the same logic regarding back pay apply to us do you think

Doncaster pay £300,000 a year and have 100% access to all revenue streams - this was my original point anyway.

Hull he seems to concur with me but their council it seems are a bit dim

Forest and Brighton we await the analysis.

So he his facts support my case that this council is greedy and disgusting.

The one overriding difference of course is supporter attitude. The supporters in general backed the club 100%.

 

[Grendel]

The first time the rent issue was raised was in the last set of accounts as part of the going concerns. If it was such a key issue why wasn't it dealt with in the 1st 4 years of SISU management when we were losing 5-6 million a year? As OSB has said previously it isn't the key issue and SISU have been preparing for this for a while now. Also hopefully the issue of management & administrative fees will be addressed by the administrators report. These seem amount to considerably more than any amount of rent due.

It was raised 12 weeks after we moved in and the council tool no notice according to Robinson.

 

[grego_gee]

Okay so we move on to Ipswich and their rent dispute, they were paying just £15k before the dispute kicked off. This was re-assessed (by an independent assessor) to circa £111,500 and backdated to 2004 which is I believe what the club objected to and then refused to pay the backdated rent. There isn't any suggestion that I can find that they refused to pay the council the increased rent (which went up 743% by the way), just the backdated rent amounting to some £650,000.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-15266223

SISU have been trying to negotiate a fair rent since they have been here.
Lets just say
£1.2m is ok for the prem
£0.8m is ok for championship
£0.4m is ok for L1

SISU have been here since 2007
5 seasons in the championship paying £1.2m when £0.8 was ok, £0.4m overpaid per season
1 season in L1 paying £0.8m when £0.4m was ok another £0.4m overpaid
so for 6 years they have overpaid by 0.4m, that's 2.4m overpaid

Yes I think it was time to pull the plug!
ACL can still negotiate a rent they just don't have a gun to point any more!


imp:

The circumstances are similar yet different Ipswich were underpaying, we have been overpaying by nearly 4 times what they were underpaying.
Yes it is similar because the rent was incorrect, perhaps we should have an independent assessor and it should be backdated! Where did ACL suggest that?

btw Your research seems very good but your strategy in attacking Grendal seems to be wasting it in the extreme!

imp:

 

[tisza]

i'm not sure it's worth comparing us to Forest or Ipswich as the football clubs have financed all the ground improvements over the years - basically both stadiums have been completely rebuilt since the rent agreements began.

 

[Grendel]

The circumstances are similar yet different Ipswich were underpaying, we have been overpaying by nearly 4 times what they were underpaying.
Yes it is similar because the rent was incorrect, perhaps we should have an independent assessor and it should be backdated! Where did ACL suggest that?

btw Your research seems very good but your strategy in attacking Grendal seems to be wasting it in the extreme!

imp:

The research fails to disprove the fact that we are both overpaying and not receiving our fair share of commercial revenues.

The tenure if the counter argument consists of two main points - these clubs are owned by rich men (no relevance) and a suggestion that the management companies are loss making concerns. Without the overblown rent ACL souls have been equally a loss making concern over the majority of the period.

 

[James Smith]

Well his facts are;

Ipswich pay £1.05 million a year less than we have been paying. Should the same logic regarding back pay apply to us do you think

And Ipswich play at the Ricoh do they? Payments are still being made for the completion of Portman Road are they? If you bother to take a look at the last offer ACL made which SISU rejected, our yearly rent would have been £485k which is a drop of about 63% (rounding up). This was the lowest they could offer based on the payments needed on the mortgage. They also allowed the rent arrears (or back rent) to be paid over ten years, so they did offer similar terms to the ones Ipswich got.

Doncaster pay £300,000 a year and have 100% access to all revenue streams - this was my original point anyway.

To whom do Doncaster Rovers pay £300,000? You obviously didn't read what I wrote

So Doncaster Rovers offered to run the stadium and take over the increased lease (now 99 years) for £100k per year.

http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threa...e-stadium-deal?p=413032&viewfull=1#post413032

They don't pay the council £300,000 anymore They have however taken on a stadium that was projected to make a roughly £300k loss each year and who knows they may have turned it around. I'd be interested to see whether they have or not.

Hull he seems to concur with me but their council it seems are a bit dim

I do not agree with what you wrote which is and I quote

Hull City were supposed to pay £500,000 a year and have on average paid £53,000 a year. They even seem to charge the council for using office space.

I can't find any evidence for the £500,000 a year claim but there is evidence that the council were due a percentage of the profits from the SMC which as it never made anything significant were almost nothing. You are almost correct about one thing in that statement the council did pay the SMC rent for offices which they should have stopped doing by now and vacated the offices.

Forest and Brighton we await the analysis.

Yeah bit busy today to do that, who knows maybe I'll find time.

So he his facts support my case that this council is greedy and disgusting.

That's your opinion only not a fact, None of those teams that you mentioned play at the Ricoh and their circumstances are often different to ours.

The one overriding difference of course is supporter attitude. The supporters in general backed the club 100%.

Don't get me wrong I support the club 100% just not SISU and especially not their attitude to negotiations/inaccurate public statements etc.

 

[shy_tall_knight]

I will never be pro SISU have made such a cock up since they gained control however the full facts need to be flushed out regarding how much Cov Council have paid for 100% of the freehold, and also what are their long term intentions as well as a serious debate regarding whether it should be the role of a football club to regenerate an area - I think the council are trying to get their work done on the cheap at the expenses of the club.

 

[mattylad]

I think its safe to say that not one single fan supports ACL or supports SISU - the fact is we all support CCFC - not CCFC holdings or CCFC limited but OUR team, CCFC - the Sky Blues. What differs is who different people think has the best interests of their club at heart. I would suggest its neither of the main protagonists - their first priority is themselves and if that results in good or bad for OUR team is of little interest to either of them. What they have succeeded in is creating a complete mess of OUR club, people are confused and concerned about what is going on, what will eventually emerge from the mess, they've created divisions among fans - between them they should be ashamed of what they have achieved but I doubt either of them actually give a rats arse what the fans feel.

Thats about spot on for me, would desperately like to see new owners who are financilly astute and care about the club but we also need a good partner in ACL and I do not believe that they have yet addressed the issues that they have helped create for CCFC. It is only a few months ago that they themselves were contemplating liquidating CCFC and had this better suited thier own aims then I no more believe they would not have took it than they did push CCFC in to administration to try and force new owners. They need to also come to the table and play its part in forming a sustainable future for CCFC and that may mean going much further than they so far have in providing the access to the funds that will allow them to be a competitive football club for many years to come.

 

[James Smith]

I don't think you grasped my original point. I was saying that Doncaster or for that matter any of the top 6 in league 1 don't have a string of hotels funding the club. The reason is the Ricoh already have exhibition, concerts, casino etc etc and the profits wouldn't pay for a decent players toe. Another hotel wouldn't suddenly make us financial giants even if we shared some of the cash.

If running clubs based on profits from such developments was so successful then there would be a few more about. Clubs do well from investment ( throwing money down a big hole) and it requires more money than a bit of land development can provide.

At this moment in time sustainable football = no success. In our current state a lot of people will take this but constant failure (as we have seen) will result in no crowd and a lot of moaning.

No I don't believe that they do have hotels casinos etc. at many other grounds however I also don't know what the financial situation at these clubs is. Yes clubs are big sink holes of money and most big money owners only pour money into a club because they support the club and want to see it succeed. The problem is that I don't see a local lad/lass made good with enough money to be able to keep us in the money. Even if one turned up (and I still have my fingers crossed) then the FFP rules would mean that if we had extra revenue streams he or she could put more money in. So would having extra revenues that would in effect subsidise the costs of keeping the club be a good thing in my opinion, yes. Is it a risk, yes but then so is football everywhere.

One question that I have is why did SISU want to buy Coventry in the first place? What was in it for them? It's unlikely that we would have been making money even if we had gone up to the Premiership. So why did they want the club?

 

[Nonleagueherewecome]

Extracting the first page on a google site and typing verbatim is not exactly extracting facts.

The Doncaster non payment is in an article in a football magazine somewhere which I suppose I will have to find when I am back from holiday.

The Ipswich £30,000 actually was from another poster which again I will try and find. The article dug up was again the first in a google search. Interestingly even if that us correct its £1 million less than we were paying over the same period so I'm not quite sure the myth is exposed.

As for Hull it doesn't prove anything does it?

In all examples the rent is substantially less and access to revenues significantly better. In all examples the club was perceived to have won.

Forest apparently is another one. A five live presenter (mark chapman?) said when discussing Coventry that even a club like forest pay minuscule rent so how can the council justify what they are doing to Coventry? He fails to realise out fans want the council to do it to Coventry.

And this is you on holiday? Jesus man, take a break from spouting your bullcrap...it's Mrs Duffy I feel sorry for (I assume she didn't change her name when you did).

 

[James Smith]

And this is you on holiday? Jesus man, take a break from spouting your bullcrap...it's Mrs Duffy I feel sorry for (I assume she didn't change her name when you did).

Well technically I'm on holiday as it's a Bank Holiday.

 

[Jack Griffin]

One question that I have is why did SISU want to buy Coventry in the first place? What was in it for them? It's unlikely that we would have been making money even if we had gone up to the Premiership. So why did they want the club?

Because SISU normally buy into distressed debt at the going rate (very low) & make it worth more to the market before selling on.
If they'd made it into the premiership they'd have been able to sell on at a considerable premium.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/bonds/08/distressed-debt-hedge-fund.asp

Hedge funds can generate massive returns in relatively short periods of time, and they can also go into financial crises just as quickly. What kind of investments can produce such diverse returns? One answer is distressed debt. The term can be loosely defined as the debt of companies that have filed for bankruptcy or have a significant chance of filing for bankruptcy in the near future.

You might wonder why a hedge fund - or any investor, for that matter - would want to invest in bonds with such a high likelihood of defaulting. The answer is simple: the more risk you take on, the more reward you can potentially make. Distressed debt sells at a very low percentage of par value. If the once-distressed company emerges from bankruptcy as a viable firm, that once-distressed debt will be selling for a considerably higher price. These potentially large returns attract investors, particularly investors such as hedge funds. In this article we'll look at the connection between hedge funds and distressed debt, what ordinary investors can do to get involved and if the risks are really worth the rewards.

This is what they are doing now, is it not!

Don't kid yourselves they're here for the club.

 

[Nonleagueherewecome]

just a couple of questions ..........

when were insolvency advisors appointed by SISU to advise CCFC?
when do you think all the players etc were transferred to CCFCH leaving CCFCL a "non trading property subsidiary"?
Did SISU need to isolate the lease to break it?
Did TF make any serious comments in national press regarding "insolvent administration" prior to any action for administration by ACL?
Did ACL take any of those actions above?
Who actually filed for insolvency and does it look like a strategy put in place by them given the answers to the above?

ACL are no angels but somehow it looks to me that SISU have driven this process to a large extent. It would also seem they got the most crucial fact wrong ..... where the golden share lay. It is ownership of the golden share that dictates any League penalty and SISU clearly believe it can be transferred as they please or that their due diligence shows it as owned by CCFCH which is the club they tell us owns it now. Strangely though they signed off accounts June 2012 that indicate in their own Directors report that CCFCLtd is the football club.

No 'cos, you see, it was ACL who made them transfer the players to CCFCH, obviously. And it was them that made them appoint insolvency lawyers. Tim Fisher only made that statement about liquidate 'cos big bad ACL had compromising photo's of his dog and blackmailed him to do it. In no way shape or form were they prepared for the events of March 2013...

 

[James Smith]

Because SISU normally buy into distressed debt at the going rate (very low) & make it worth more to the market before selling on.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/bonds/08/distressed-debt-hedge-fund.asp


This is what they are doing now, is it not!

How on Gods green earth did they think they were make our debt or indeed the club worth more to the market with their strategy? More recently not paying the rent must have made us seem very attractive to potential buyers.

And get it out of our penalty area Sky Blues - come on.

 

[GaryJones]

When Sisu first got involved they thought we would be back in the Premier League within a season or 2 - if so this would have meant that their investment sic would have been a masterstroke!
However we didnt and their investment wasnt!

 

[James Smith]

When Sisu first got involved they thought we would be back in the Premier League within a season or 2 - if so this would have meant that their investment sic would have been a masterstroke!
However we didnt and their investment wasnt!

Well they've certainly distressed the debt and the fans.