Well having read all that I suspect that Mr Labovitch has had a chat with somebody in the legal profession. I say that he is now using the qualifier that this is his personal opinion and so that it can’t be construed as fact.
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So he thinks that ACL is functionally bust as it can only survive with and injection of more cash. The same can be said of our club though can’t it – it can only survive with and injection of more cash. Who has the bigger debts/money that may be owed to someone? Anyway this is his opinion though and not a fact, ACL have yet to produce their accounts (at least they do them & on time). So he then tries to give some substance to this by mentioning the going concern statement and explaining it for those who might not be up to speed. Here he talks about the ACL no longer being in negotiaitions with our club and and that affecting it as well as the Judicial Review. We don’t know if ACL are doing better or worse without our club playing there, no accounts due yet. The only thing that we have heard before the legal curtain dropped was on the CWR from PWKH saying they were doing better. We will have to wait for the accounts to come out before we can know for definite if he was telling the truth. Then there is the Judicial Review and we don’t know when this will finally be settled be it this financial year or some distant date in the future thanks to appeals dragging it out.
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Then he says that Ms Lucas has offered support and implies but again has nothing to back it up that this will probably be financial. The next bit is again about the going concern and is at best a bleak prediction of the future of ACL (Mystic Mark anyone?) - we’ve moved on don’t forget - and at worst an attempt to distress them further with negative comments. Lucky he is only expressing a personal opinion. It ends with the line
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ML said:
A councillor has today said it won’t be financial support but I’m not clear on that.
What is he not clear on? To check I wasn’t missing something I’ve shown it to a few people at work and everyone understood it to mean that the council won’t be providing financial support.
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Then we move onto what’s for sale and well you can kind of understand if the Higgs now don’t want to sell to SISU given the news from last week. Whether something is for sale probably depends on the price, my house technically isn’t for sale. I like living there and am not keen to move however if someone offered me what I consider to be a reasonable amount (at least double what I think it’s worth) I’d be out of there faster than Sisu from the Ricoh. I can’t comment on the valuations stuff as I don’t know enough about it but I wasn’t aware the council had done one. I thought the only one in existence was the YB one when ACL were under the financial cosh from SISU not paying rent, has another one emerged or doe he mean that one?
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SB – I don’t remember it being said that you want to make an offer.
ML – we’d need access to their books. We could ask that if we get an Independent Valuation done, would you (ACL) give access to carry that out.*
So no chance that question is going to get answered?
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Then he mentions the change in tack regarding Plan A, we no longer consider building the new stadium as Plan A or do we? Are we to understand that North Korea is not for sale or that they don’t sell freeholds there? Yes as many people have been saying on this site for a while that a long leasehold is as good as a freehold for our club. It is nice to think that Sisu have found a way of explaining it better or have finally come round to this way of thinking about long leaseholds.
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Now we get on to retail (okay so Mark mentions a shop) and we need to be clear about this theoretical shop and what we are talking about. If you were offered the freehold with a sitting retail tenant then all you’re being offered is the freehold. If you think you can make more money than the leaseholder then you could always offer to buy them out, having acquired the freehold on the cheap if as he says it isn’t worth very much with a sitting tenant. However I thought he just said that the council don’t sell freeholds?
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More speculation about ACL finances that are again only his opinion and that you’d stop injecting cash rather than shut it down. So if ACL don’t need any more money loaning (and we don’t know one way or another if they do) and are making enough to prosper you’re back to the sitting retail tenant he mentioned before.
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Very please to hear that the future of the club is not dependent on the outcome of the JR,as that must mean that the costs of the legal action won’t be added to the already stratospheric debts that we have. Just get on and buy the land and build the stadium stop talking about it being tipping point etc. - we’ve either moved on or we haven’t stop being indecisive. If AEG think they can turn the Ricoh into a world class venue what do they need you for other than to provide our club? Couldn’t they buy ACL and rent to the club? I can’t comment on the bits about the Judicial review because I haven’t seen all the arguments from both sides and whether anything was signed.
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Then we hit this
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ML – At the final creditors meeting, the first vote was Peter Wyndham Knatchbull-Hugessen, he voted for the CVA on behalf of the Alan Higgs Centre Trust. Martin Reeves then rejected on behalf of ACL. HMRC always reject CVAs and in any case this is irrelevant as Ltd. is in the same VAT group as the other club companies. I was confused by Peter. He approves it, then a company he’s 50% shareholder of rejects it.I wondered if that suggested a split on the board of ACL. Then he saidon social media that he fully supported ACL rejecting it. Very confusing.
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No there's two separate parties involved here that Mr Labovitch is confusing whether because of a lack of knowledge or deliberately I haven't got the faintest idea. PWKH is Chairman of the trustees of the AHCT which because of charity rules and regs can’t easily reject a CVA, he is also on the board of ACL but was I guess only wearing his AHCT hat that day. Therefore he was only acting for them and not as a director of ACL which Mr Martin Reeve was that day. You’d think Mr Labovitch would understand that concept, given he managed not to hear an offer made by ACL because he was acting as a director of CCFC (holdings or limited) on that day and not Otium.
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It’s good to hear that SP is being given a chance to manage the team/squad and we’re not back to the bad old days he mentions with Ken D and Onye.
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It’s interesting to hear that the he says SISU are not suing anyone, (although obviously their lawyers have been in touch with loads of people) and that the Higgs shouldn’t be risking their donors money. Well last time I checked their donor (and his son) are both dead so probably won’t get too upset that the charity is just doing what it’s supposed to do which is take steps to recover money owed to it. He mentions the council as well but again we have no actual facts about whether ACL are meeting their repayments or not and speculation helps nobody. The counterclaim is fair enough but they could still have just defended it, if they are in the right and not antagonised the Higgs further.
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Then there is stuff about the JR and when it is and what procedural stuff takes place. Then we come to the most depressing news of all………he says that the new ground location won’t be announced in three weeks – he was misquoted. So we’re getting ever closer to a whole year with no news on a site or any plans. Brilliant
