CET: Sky Blues take Coventry City Council to high court over bailout (22 Viewers)

[Nonleagueherewecome]

It's a loan, not a gift...that's why it doesn't cost them anything. And there's this thing called "interest", right...

 

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[Bennets Afro]

Can't see the problem myself. CCC own 50% of ACL so why not help them, especially when an outfit like SISU is trying to bankrupt everyone involved to get their dirty hands on the stadium!!!

 

[RegTheDonk]

Cant really see they have a case to argue. Other councils have helped prop up football clubs, or invested in leisure facilities for the benefit of businesses and the community. Smacks of desperation. Is there any legal precident that has happened before like this that Sisu could quote as a ruling?

 

[Godiva]

It's a loan, not a gift...that's why it doesn't cost them anything. And there's this thing called "interest", right...

Interest is the price of money. Interests goes up with the risk of not getting the money back. So while CCC/ACL is at war with the club and the risk of not having their tenant back, that risk is increasing, which should lead to increasing interest.
CCC have actually relieved Yorkshire Bank from this risk and placed it on the rate payers of the city.

Increased risk at lower interest. Doesn't make sense.

 

[Ashdown1]

Wouldn't surprise me at all if SISU take the club to somewhere like Nene Park, reduce costs all round, reduce squad and playing staff costs by playing kids, flounder around the bottom leagues for a few seasons, relying on the 4,000 or so desperados who might stay loyal from a big City fanbase. Breaking even for a few years all the while trying to distress ACL while performing their own little boycott of the Ricoh and waiting for someone desperate enough one day to say, okay all is forgiven, here's the stadium and a chunk of CV6, do what you will with it . In the meantime of course all potential investors have long moved on and they can name their own price and own terms.
Despicable or What? and some of you have pledged your support for this type of scenario ?!

 

[Nonleagueherewecome]

Interest is the price of money. Interests goes up with the risk of not getting the money back. So while CCC/ACL is at war with the club and the risk of not having their tenant back, that risk is increasing, which should lead to increasing interest.
CCC have actually relieved Yorkshire Bank from this risk and placed it on the rate payers of the city.

Increased risk at lower interest. Doesn't make sense.

If the alternative is leaving ACL distressed with the prospect of SISU buying the mortgage off Yorkshire Bank, no, it's much less risk. Why on earth are you defending this?

 

[torchomatic]

As you stated. it's a scenario, i.e. something you've made up, so no one is supporting it.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if SISU take the club to somewhere like Nene Park, reduce costs all round, reduce squad and playing staff costs by playing kids, flounder around the bottom leagues for a few seasons, relying on the 4,000 or so desperados who might stay loyal from a big City fanbase. Breaking even for a few years all the while trying to distress ACL while performing their own little boycott of the Ricoh and waiting for someone desperate enough one day to say, okay all is forgiven, here's the stadium and a chunk of CV6, do what you will with it . In the meantime of course all potential investors have long moved on and they can name their own price and own terms.
Despicable or What? and some of you have pledged your support for this type of scenario ?!

 

[Ashdown1]

Don't forget that PM pal !!

 

[torchomatic]

Don't forget that PM pal !!

You'll be expecting 4000 PMs if your scenario become true, no doubt, as you'll wanna tell all of us we're despicable.

 

[Godiva]

Interest is the price of money. Interests goes up with the risk of not getting the money back. So while CCC/ACL is at war with the club and the risk of not having their tenant back, that risk is increasing, which should lead to increasing interest.
CCC have actually relieved Yorkshire Bank from this risk and placed it on the rate payers of the city.

Increased risk at lower interest. Doesn't make sense.

If the alternative is leaving ACL distressed with the prospect of SISU buying the mortgage off Yorkshire Bank, no, it's much less risk. Why on earth are you defending this?

What exactly am I defending?
All I can read in my post is criticsism of offering to take on a high risk at a reduced interest. It's against all financial logic.
And yes - the risk would be lower if the main tenant were certain to stay for the duration of the mortgage nomatter who the tenant is (paying an agreed rent).

 

[skybluericoh]

So here we have the hedge fund owners of a football club taking the local council to Court for loaning a company they half own, that leases a building they own, money so that they can offer a lower rent to a tenant that is owned by ... er ... said hedge fund.
I don't know the ins and outs of what the council did when making the loan, but I doubt they did it without legal advice.
Can anyone remember when the council made the loan? Because if its more than three months ago, SISU are out of time in their application anyway.

January 15th the announcement was made, not sure if the 3 months is from the date applied for or issued, or even where the 3 month window you mention exists?

 

[Paxman II]

In many respects it serves the council right. In other respects while seemingly with little clout left to play with SISU will not lie down and just take it. Sentiments aside again gentlemen because you must stick to the legal issues and not what may have been done but wasn't?

Quite what end game SISU are after here I'm not so sure but it would create delay, debate and questions over the whole ACL and Council approach thus scuppering any new deal with the likes of Haskell etc. It may culminate in SISU being the only body with control of the football club. To that end eventually they either take the football club elsewhere or ACL/Council are forced to come back cap in hand and negotiate.

SISU will not watch their investment disappear without every fight they can muster.
I've said many times ACL should never exist. The council should have negotiate a new lease with the football club for 99 years or so - job done.

Greed by all sides comes to mind while our football club (as is referred to so often) is tarnished.

 

[Snozz_is_god]

I know who to blame for this sorry mess.....

It's the Gypsies, who were on the site before the Ricoh was built remember..
They must of put a curse on the place.

 

[Godiva]

I know who to blame for this sorry mess.....

It's the Gypsies, who were on the site before the Ricoh was built remember..
They must of put a curse on the place.

Nah, considering the state the pitch is in they would have found the doll with the needles long ago ...

 

[skybluericoh]

Cant really see they have a case to argue. Other councils have helped prop up football clubs, or invested in leisure facilities for the benefit of businesses and the community. Smacks of desperation. Is there any legal precident that has happened before like this that Sisu could quote as a ruling?

You're right I think that Portsmouth council gave them a £3 million bridging loan to help them out in admin. Been done before will be done again, CCC can argue they were helping a local employer (ACL) with a loan and provided it stands up commercially, we cold be OK - We = supporters not SISU

 

[The CableGuy]

I'm just so fracking tired of SISU and their shit.

 

[Brighton Sky Blue]

In many respects it serves the council right. In other respects while seemingly with little clout left to play with SISU will not lie down and just take it. Sentiments aside again gentlemen because you must stick to the legal issues and not what may have been done but wasn't?

Quite what end game SISU are after here I'm not so sure but it would create delay, debate and questions over the whole ACL and Council approach thus scuppering any new deal with the likes of Haskell etc. It may culminate in SISU being the only body with control of the football club. To that end eventually they either take the football club elsewhere or ACL/Council are forced to come back cap in hand and negotiate.

SISU will not watch their investment disappear without every fight they can muster.
I've said many times ACL should never exist. The council should have negotiate a new lease with the football club for 99 years or so - job done.

Greed by all sides comes to mind while our football club (as is referred to so often) is tarnished.

I cannot for the life of me fathom why you want SISU to retain control of the club at any cost. So many things which happened in the past which you're forgetting on top:

1. SISU are the ones who initiated a rent boycott without bothering to negotiate first. At the same time, the ARVO charge was filed-strongly hints that the only aim was to bust ACL.

2. Where exactly do you think we can find the money to build a new ground? Even if we can, it will take years to build and leaves us having to groundshare in the meantime-a guaranteed crowd killer if ever there was one.

3. SISU have only themselves to blame for their terrible running of the club for the last 6 years. There are interested parties, contrary to some on here, and so they are capable of recouping some of their losses through a takeover.

4. ACL was formed specifically to include the club-McGinnity not only sold our 50% share in it but also demanded that we have the fixed rental price of £1.3m which shouldn't fluctuate with league status.

There's only one guilty party here and it's not the council.

 

[Johnnythespider]

Question, how many helium filled sisu out balloons would i have to tie to Fisher to watch him float off into the stratosphere ?​

 

[letsallsingtogether]

Excellent response
Also SISU said when they took the club over that they wanted to take the half share straight away they didn't tried to play mind games and get the charity share for nothing "CHARITY SHARE" they should be ashamed of themselves and for people to still back them they should also be ashamed of themselves,,,,,:blue:,

I cannot for the life of me fathom why you want SISU to retain control of the club at any cost. So many things which happened in the past which you're forgetting on top:

1. SISU are the ones who initiated a rent boycott without bothering to negotiate first. At the same time, the ARVO charge was filed-strongly hints that the only aim was to bust ACL.

2. Where exactly do you think we can find the money to build a new ground? Even if we can, it will take years to build and leaves us having to groundshare in the meantime-a guaranteed crowd killer if ever there was one.

3. SISU have only themselves to blame for their terrible running of the club for the last 6 years. There are interested parties, contrary to some on here, and so they are capable of recouping some of their losses through a takeover.

4. ACL was existed specifically to include the club-McGinnity not only sold our 50% share in it but also demanded that we have the fixed rental price of £1.3m which shouldn't fluctuate with league status.

There's only one guilty party here and it's not the council.

 

[torchomatic]

I have what I like to call The Golden Thread of Blame:

Bryan Richardson for selling Highfield Road
¦
ACL for kicking us while we were down
¦
McGinnity for selling our souls and condemning us to financial ruin
¦
SISU for making the situation a billion times worse
¦
Season Ticket Holders well, for just being Season Ticket Holding Bastards

I cannot for the life of me fathom why you want SISU to retain control of the club at any cost. So many things which happened in the past which you're forgetting on top:

1. SISU are the ones who initiated a rent boycott without bothering to negotiate first. At the same time, the ARVO charge was filed-strongly hints that the only aim was to bust ACL.

2. Where exactly do you think we can find the money to build a new ground? Even if we can, it will take years to build and leaves us having to groundshare in the meantime-a guaranteed crowd killer if ever there was one.

3. SISU have only themselves to blame for their terrible running of the club for the last 6 years. There are interested parties, contrary to some on here, and so they are capable of recouping some of their losses through a takeover.

4. ACL was existed specifically to include the club-McGinnity not only sold our 50% share in it but also demanded that we have the fixed rental price of £1.3m which shouldn't fluctuate with league status.

There's only one guilty party here and it's not the council.

 

[GaryPendrysEyes]

Lest we forget- Sisu are the owner responsible for the stewardship and well-being of our club.

What a complete heap of shite they are. The most toxic bunch of incompetents anyone could have the misfortune of coming across.

 

[CJparker]

Utter, utter scum. Fuck of SISU - how dare they go to court to argue a council was wrong to step in to prevent SISU from forcing ACL out of business??

I don't know where they get the nerve. Sub-human scum.

 

[BurbageSkyBlues]

Let's just get a couple of things clear here. Any claim that the Council somehow did the club out of money when the Ricoh was built is ridiculous.

The club never owned the land on which the Ricoh was built - just an option to buy which they could not take up. The Council and The Higgs Trust had to step in to buy the land and fund the build - no Council, no Higgs, no Ricoh. So how can they 'owe' the club anything?

With regard to the £14m - if I understand correctly the Council line is that they took that on to protect their investment in ACL, which was clearly at risk. If ACL went under, and SISU managed to pick it up on the cheap, then all of the investment in ACL and any future profit goes away - which in the long term would presumably have a worse effect on Coventry City Council's finances. Even more closures of libraries and youth clubs, if you want to head down that kind of emotive route, I guess.

Also, in that scenario, a facility built using taxpayer funds ends up in private hands for far less than market value - SISU in effect will have taken money out of the pockets of everyone in Coventry, rather than just us fans.

I'm with the financial guy on CWR this morning - it's hard to see this as anything other than a delaying tactic. Even if SISU won the case, it wouldn't free them to pick up the stadium on the cheap, it would just mean that the Council had acted improperly. The judge isn't likely to order the Council to hand over the keys to the Ricoh to SISU, in fact it's difficult to see what he could do. Yorkshire bank aren't going to want the mortgage back, and I doubt they can be forced to take it (edit: orig can't!) - they've done nothing wrong here.

I think SISU are muddying the waters in the hope that potential purchasers will lose interest.

Perhaps their long game is to slow things down so that they are the only game in town - at the moment the Administrator might be obliged to sell CCFC Ltd to a third party at a price that doesn't suit SISU, and they're trying to drag it out so that's no longer an option. Just a theory!

That is exactly my conclusion.

They did this before, by exposing potential investors, to scare them away.

SISu,in my opinion, are shameless manipulators.

If only we could buy CCFC ourselves, and start from scratch without these parasites.

 

[wingy]

Hav'nt read the whole thread so forgive if repeating ,but I guess this is the Game Changer Linnel has been uttering on about.

 

[Delboycov]

I have what I like to call The Golden Thread of Blame:

Bryan Richardson for selling Highfield Road
¦
ACL for kicking us while we were down
¦
McGinnity for selling our souls and condemning us to financial ruin
¦
SISU for making the situation a billion times worse
¦
Season Ticket Holders well, for just being Season Ticket Holding Bastards

Can't disagree with any of that..well apart from the season ticket holder bit!

 

[Delboycov]

Hav'nt read the whole thread so forgive if repeating ,but I guess this is the Game Changer Linnel has been uttering on about.

Sounds like it...I guess that's why he's been creaming his pants for the last few weeks...alledgedly Stuart if you can disprove that and want to set your legal team on me!

 

[Noggin]

Question, how many helium filled sisu out balloons would i have to tie to Fisher to watch him float off into the stratosphere ?​

About 5000 to lift him high at a reasonable rate of assent, I'm not sure about getting to the stratosphere though, presumably the ammount of balloons needed will increase as you get higher due to lower air density. You can definatly get to the stratosphere with helium balloons but I'm not sure of the number you will need. I think that the lower stratosphere is about a third of the density compared to sea level.

I'd say to be sure you are going to want 20 or 30 thousand balloons. Or much more realistically one big one that holds about 20K litres + of helium.

 

[SkyblueBazza]

To be honest I am becoming disinterested with it all. Tedious game to be a spectator of really. Its just worn me down. If we start next season with all this still going on - I might just take a football holiday. Will I come back? That is the question.

 

[intercity]

will stupot defend sisu's latest move on fridays phone in???

 

[warwickcccfc]

To all the SISU sympathises on here, hope your happy now!!!!!!!

They are horrible horrible people and don't care about this club!!!

2 years ago people protested and got ignored. Now the fans who didn't join in the protests and sat back are happy with how this club has gone!

Fuming

Over to you, Torchomatic...:facepalm:

 

[torchomatic]

Over to you, Torchomatic...:facepalm:

Come on, don't make it so obvious.

 

[chiefdave]

For those of you not on twitter Les Reid and Cllr Kevin Maton were sending each other yesterday, got a bit heated but a couple of interesting points came out:

The money has come from public funds and to date no loan has been taken to cover the payment. Maton said that was a cashflow issue, Reid said they council had misled tax payers about this, I think he's right on this one, we were led to belive no public funds had been used when clearly they have. Even if that was only the intention in the short term it should have been made clear, by not doing that they make it look like they are trying to hide something.

It appears that prior to taking out the loan no independent valuation was carried out. Maton wouldn't answer the question which to me is the same as confiming it didn't happen. If SISU have anything to indicate Yorkshire Bank would have sold the loan to them for less than £14m the council could have a problem.

Maton was saying it was not a bail out, but a loan swap. Reid says he has seen private papers which show "advice to cllrs was #acl needed finance support to prevent insolvency". That sounds like a bail out to me.

Think SISU will argue the fact that the money has come from taxpayers funds and they have paid over market value which is distorting the market. The question is what happens if SISU win, presumably ACL would have to pay back the council but I can't imagine Yorkshire Bank are going to get involved so ACL will need to cover the £14m from another sounce. As it seems they were close to insolvency I can see any offer of finance being at a much higher rate than before if they can even get finance.

 

[torchomatic]

Can't disagree with any of that..well apart from the season ticket holder bit!

That bit was a joke. A rubbish one admittedly.

 

[torchomatic]

Ooh, dear. Sounds like the Council could be in trouble then.

I think Kevin Maton doesn't do himself any favours. He's made some pretty poor comments in recent weeks and without someone like him around then I fear that CCFC will never own ANY of the Ricoh, which is really must do to have a more prosperous future.

For those of you not on twitter Les Reid and Cllr Kevin Maton were sending each other yesterday, got a bit heated but a couple of interesting points came out:

The money has come from public funds and to date no loan has been taken to cover the payment. Maton said that was a cashflow issue, Reid said they council had misled tax payers about this, I think he's right on this one, we were led to belive no public funds had been used when clearly they have. Even if that was only the intention in the short term it should have been made clear, by not doing that they make it look like they are trying to hide something.

It appears that prior to taking out the loan no independent valuation was carried out. Maton wouldn't answer the question which to me is the same as confiming it didn't happen. If SISU have anything to indicate Yorkshire Bank would have sold the loan to them for less than £14m the council could have a problem.

Maton was saying it was not a bail out, but a loan swap. Reid says he has seen private papers which show "advice to cllrs was #acl needed finance support to prevent insolvency". That sounds like a bail out to me.

Think SISU will argue the fact that the money has come from taxpayers funds and they have paid over market value which is distorting the market. The question is what happens if SISU win, presumably ACL would have to pay back the council but I can't imagine Yorkshire Bank are going to get involved so ACL will need to cover the £14m from another sounce. As it seems they were close to insolvency I can see any offer of finance being at a much higher rate than before if they can even get finance.

 

[dongonzalos]

Did Tim Fisher release a response to the council ACL deal saying the something to the effect of this deal is of no relevance to us or the action we are taking regarding the rent.......
Can anyone find it?