lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Thought Larry Grayson was back for a minute..
Valuations of ACL (8 Viewers)
- Thread starter oldskyblue58
- Start date
Thought Larry Grayson was back for a minute..
Here's another myth busted by the council QC.
We have constantly been told how profitable and successful ACL are. That they were never in any danger.
Council QC reading from a report on possible cost savings (and with the premises that the club paid rent and drafted in punters to the Arena):
So he give evidence that ACL were failing and even with the club playing (and paying) it still needed substantial cost savings to secure the business going forward.
I think that now the club is gone, the revenue is down more than the cost savings (including £800.000 less loan payment) can counter.
Then there's the rebate issue - this could mean paying some £300.000 back to the council.
Add a lot of legal costs.
OSB may know differently, but I think it's not unthinkable that ACL could be out of cash sooner rather than later.
We have constantly been told how profitable and successful ACL are. That they were never in any danger.
Council QC reading from a report on possible cost savings (and with the premises that the club paid rent and drafted in punters to the Arena):
So he give evidence that ACL were failing and even with the club playing (and paying) it still needed substantial cost savings to secure the business going forward.
I think that now the club is gone, the revenue is down more than the cost savings (including £800.000 less loan payment) can counter.
Then there's the rebate issue - this could mean paying some £300.000 back to the council.
Add a lot of legal costs.
OSB may know differently, but I think it's not unthinkable that ACL could be out of cash sooner rather than later.
torchomatic
Well-Known Member
There's also stuff which questions the loan repayments and whether they are sustainable. ACL are described as a drowning man who's head pops up above water every now and then.
Yes, but to be fair, it's a description made by sisu QC.
Not that it makes it untrue, mind you.
Oh, mentioning the rates issue crosswired a few neurons in my brain (yes, I have neurons - plural!).
Didn't I read somewhere in day 1 transcript that the loan was made £14.4m (not £14m) to include the issue of the rates?
If that's the case - it was a known issue back in 2012 and not a complete surprise to ACL/CCC in 2014!
Didn't I read somewhere in day 1 transcript that the loan was made £14.4m (not £14m) to include the issue of the rates?
If that's the case - it was a known issue back in 2012 and not a complete surprise to ACL/CCC in 2014!
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Yes well spotted. I did see it was £14.4 but did make the connection.
Strange how this thread has gone very quiet. Where's council Jack, Duffer and Schmeee when you need them? I guess they've gone to a hastily arranged meeting at the Town Hall.
Odd also how that bastion of openness and honesty - the council evening telegraph - wasn't raising these issues.
Nick
Administrator
So they knew about the rate thing a few years ago?
Kingokings204
Well-Known Member
The rates rebate was known ages ago yes years ago for sure. The rebate was always coming.
What was meant to happen was the rate rebate was to be offset against the rent that sisu weren't paying. That was the problem. Sisu "unlawfully" judges word he used, didn't pay the rent so the rates rebate couldn't be set against it. Hence ACL paying 399k on jan 30th 2014 and receiving nothing back.
Where is this 590k btw?
What was meant to happen was the rate rebate was to be offset against the rent that sisu weren't paying. That was the problem. Sisu "unlawfully" judges word he used, didn't pay the rent so the rates rebate couldn't be set against it. Hence ACL paying 399k on jan 30th 2014 and receiving nothing back.
Where is this 590k btw?
Wow, you're well informed! Do you have a link to that?
I know I miss a lot, so please excuse my ignorance.
Nick
Administrator
If that is the rebate I think it was confirmed it was paid in January.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
Reminds me of my favourite Marillion album that.
Oh - was the rate rebate paid to Otium by ACL? I didn't know.
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-council-pays-six-figure-sum-7140178
Nick
Administrator
Ahh no, I see your point now!
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
ACL haven't paid any of the rebate back to CCC have they yet?
Besides they did have the money already overpaid to them by the club, plus another 6 or 7 years of overpayments too.
Kingokings204
Well-Known Member
The rebate was business rates rebate from the last 3 years. Ccfc wanted it to go back longer but 3 years is the cut off point.
Joy said herself the rebate was to be set off against the outstanding rent that was to be paid leaving an amount due. If memory serves me she said the rent arrears were 600k that ccfc owed but they were entitled to a rates rebate of 400k so left 200k balance to pay.
From what I read in CET.
Joy said herself the rebate was to be set off against the outstanding rent that was to be paid leaving an amount due. If memory serves me she said the rent arrears were 600k that ccfc owed but they were entitled to a rates rebate of 400k so left 200k balance to pay.
From what I read in CET.
duffer
Well-Known Member
Isn't there also stuff in there that points out that YB were willing to lend £15.5 million on a restructured deal to ACL?
I think it's largely accepted that without the club ACL will struggle - which I guess was at least in part the point of the bail-out. It's also clear, isn't it, that at Northampton the club will struggle. I don't know if either party will go tits up, but if I was a betting man I'd say ACL seem to be in a stronger financial position at the moment.
Regardless, whilst pulling apart the case and trying to get to the bottom of it all is quite good sport, I'm a bit more interested in how we move forward. All of the other arguments relate to the past, and are mostly done to death - imho.
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Three years maybe the cut-off point, but there is still no doubt that for the previous years the club had been paying rates that ACL were liable for.
I would like to agree, but I can't.
We need to deal with all the myths and the spin and the PR we have been the target of before we can move on.
And more importantly - the parties need to actually agree what went on for them to build a new common ground.
James Smith
Well-Known Member
Yeah it may take me that long at this rate given the fact that I have to go back to work tomorrow and the interruptions today
I don't understand where the Sisu QC says (bottom of page 96 - sorry I can't quote directly) had the council been open with them, SISU would have ceased to fund the club beyond the 2012 season, but then goes on to say that at that point they could have moved to a new ground. If Joy was going to pull the plug then where was the money going to come from to fund this move to another stadium (e.g. rent) and the continued expenses of running our club?
MusicDating
Euro 2016 Prediction League Champion!!
^true. But I fear that the obvious animosity that got us to these multiple courts cases will always be present and it will boil down to the gamble on who is going to run out of money first...
duffer
Well-Known Member
They're never going to agree on what's gone on. The one indisputable fact is that SISU stopped paying the rent and moved the club to Northampton.
What's gone on around that - well we've had two court cases, plus an administration, and I still don't think it's clear. My personal opinion is that SISU were victims of their own negotiating strategy. Once the Higgs deal had fallen through, and trust between the various parties was lost, it all went to rat sh*t, frankly. The council stepped in to protect ACL, which SISU were and are clearly intent on distressing, imho. Whether that's been done correctly or not is down to the Judge.
Regardless, you don't need agreement on what's gone on to build a common ground, you need agreement on what's going to happen to move forward. I don't doubt that all sides feel that they've been f*cked over by the others at various points in time. And they're probably all right.
Get over it; talk, rebuild trust and get robust contracts in place to reinforce those agreements. That's what I'd like to see.
I guess you're looking for justification for your pov, which is fair enough, but we could all take excerpts out of the various trial documents to support how we feel - where does it get us?
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The Gentleman
Well-Known Member
So by that you mean all the potential irregularities with regard to accounts too? Where exactly the debt is being amassed from and where all the recent court cases are going to be paid from? Because as much as I am interested in the Ricoh and returning to it, ACL aren't the team I support and therefore I am more interested in CCFC. You see the problem is with constantly looking back, how can you ever expect to move forward? Or would you rather play at Sixfields indefinitely whilst all this JR stuff and potential appeals and then damages to come than as Duffer quite rightly puts it 'move forward'. Because the problem with not moving forward which you say you disagree with is where are we likely to be in 2-3 years if we keep looking back?
I am still reading - now day 3.
I come across references to the 10K per match that the club paid during the rent strike.
Originally I thought it was an agreed match day fee set by sisu in the roadmap, but was corrected during the Higgs trial that ACL never agreed to an interim payment and that it was removed from the roadmap and subsequently the HoT with ACL.
Now I find my self reading the council QC:
So it wasn't a suggestion from TF - it was a demand from ACL as otherwise the club wouldn't have been allowed to play.
Maybe it's old material known to most, but to me it was first time I saw it in writing and even admitted by ACL themselves.
Tell me again - who was playing hard ball?
I come across references to the 10K per match that the club paid during the rent strike.
Originally I thought it was an agreed match day fee set by sisu in the roadmap, but was corrected during the Higgs trial that ACL never agreed to an interim payment and that it was removed from the roadmap and subsequently the HoT with ACL.
Now I find my self reading the council QC:
So it wasn't a suggestion from TF - it was a demand from ACL as otherwise the club wouldn't have been allowed to play.
Maybe it's old material known to most, but to me it was first time I saw it in writing and even admitted by ACL themselves.
Tell me again - who was playing hard ball?
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Look everybody knows that it was only sisu that moved us out, ACL never kicked us out, etc,etc.
Grendel
Well-Known Member
I think you'll find the new catchphrase is "let's not dwell on the past" - I wonder why.
Nick
Administrator
Bastard. I was about to put something about it being the past and it doesn't matter now.
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Grendel
Well-Known Member
That's obvious. Its ludricous to try and claim the Higgs share has any value at all. Its shameless spinning by certain person(s) frankly who should, and do, know better.
duffer
Well-Known Member
Well that's still true, isn't it?
I think the QC quoted here is making the point that the £10k/game wasn't rent, it was matchday costs. Whilst SISU of course have been claiming that it was rent. Do you think that if ACL threatened to lock CCFC out we really wouldn't have heard about it via SISU?
I'm all for tearing it wide open - I'd like it all looked at, especially and including how CCFC Ltd went from being the football club, to just being the holders of the lease and a ton of debt. I'd also like to know a bit more about how the £14.4m bail-out came about too, especially if it broke the rules. At the moment, that's being determined.
But this convenient re-write of history that some here seem to be suggesting, where SISU were somehow forced into not paying the rent so that the council could lever them out, has no possible truth to it. Regardless of what deals were or weren't being done there is no mechanism to force SISU out if they pay the bills.
But again, it's done. It seems there is no smoking gun. All sides have, at some point during this whole, sorry mess tried to stitch each other up in a commercial sense - there's no doubt of that. I haven't seen anything particularly new in the JR, personally speaking, but maybe I'm missing something...
Hobo
Well-Known Member
But the only way out is by not dwelling on the past..otherwise it's another bitter Middle East or Northern Ireland conflict.
Too much raking the ashes, too many what if scenarios, too many trying to pick the pockets of the dead.
Failed deals, past valuations...they don't mean jot!
Again I have to disagree. To bring the parties back to trusting each other there need to be some drastic changes. A revolution as a matter of speak.
And the only way to achieve that will be for the parties to meet and at least agree to the chain of facts. Then speak privately but frankly about why they each did what they did and finally appoint scape goats. Tim Fisher and Chris West would be my prime candidates.
I have no idea of what the councillors think of Mr West, but obviously he's been instrumental to the councils approach.
On the other hand I actually think JS is regarding Tim Fisher quite highly, but I also believe she is not sentimental in any way and would replace him if that's what it takes.
Further the parties would have to agree on a complete wash out at the board of ACL. To have a 5 man board with three independant directors, 1 from sisu and 1 from the council. And agree to decisions made by majority vote.
But I suspect nothing like the above is on sisu's agenda. If they win the JR they will most likely want to see ACL go bust and a new management company setup - owned and run solely by sisu.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Really? Refusing to be out of pocket is now "hardball"?
The rhetoric gets more ridiculous as we go on.
Astute
Well-Known Member
From reading what you have put on this thread you would think that all comments in the court were very good for SISU and ACL/CCC are to blame for everything. You haven't posted one single point that went against SISU if not pointed out to you. Anyone could do the same the other way round but why add to the shitfest?
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Would it be "stupidball" to take out a loan for $14million for something that they think themselves is pretty much valueless just to stick it up the City big boys?
lordsummerisle
Well-Known Member
Anybody could and can, most haven't actually bothered to read them though.
To be fair only just finished Day one, so didn't feel free to comment much before as not read it.
Doesn't stop many others though.