ACL - lets have some facts (1 Viewer)

[Godiva]

You CANNOT go immediately into liquidation. By LAW, the company / club / entity has to attempt administration. What ACL CAN do is petition for ARVO to be declared bankrupt due to non payment of rent (known as a winding up order). Basically it is a mechanism to force errant companies who are hard-balling (as is the case with SiSU). It gives them a final ultimatum which is legally enforceable.

In other words, either SiSU pay the back rent. or ACL can pull the plug on them perfectly legally. I strongly suspect SiSU are not expecting ACL to do this, as ACL have up until now done everything they can to ensure the club keeps going.

SiSU have a bad reputation within the financial community for trying to ensure they are primary creditors in whatever enterprise they go into (There was an articlr in a national newspaper about SiSUs antics, but memory fails - a google search should find it!)

What DOES concern me is there a vocal minority of posters who actually came out and PRAISED SiSU for doing this! Coventry City fans like to think of the club as part of the community (as I would like myself). Sadly there are a tiny few who are only concerned in watching football - no matter how it comes about. That is NOT being part of a community.

Coventry City does NOT need these kind of fans. Ultimately football is a game, and what SiSU are trying to pull could affect people's livelihoods. This in a city that has a proud history of standing up for workers' rights.

Look at the protests for the loss of jobs at London Cabs. SiSU will in my eyes have blood on their hands if they are allowed to get away with this. And quite frankly any fan who supports SiSU in this act shares in that guilt.

As a COMMUNITY CLUB, true fans should stand up for ACL. After all they only got in this mess, to ensure cov had a home! There is one way to suppport ACL,and that is to boycott ALL home games. SiSU cannot be allowed to get away with this. Who is to say they wont try the same to get the entire ground! After all if they win once, what is to say they wont win again?

SiSU must be consigned to the dustbin of history, supporting them by going to games is morally bankrupt whislt they are trying to destroy a charity!

You got to ask yourself:
What is a charity foundation doing in this setup? Why does a charity place their money a lease arrangement?
Before the financial crisis sat in, money was in excess and surely the council could have teamed up with an investment fund who knows, accept and live by the risks in their investments.
Was Higgs really the last resort?
Did Higgs put the money on the table out of love for the club? Or did they think 'we're in with the council, it can't go wrong, so we will make a profit'.

 

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[Bluegloucester]

The CT is in bed with CCFC, most articles have a pro SISU bias, they even sponsor the boardroom on certain matchdays!

 

[cloughie]

You got to ask yourself:
What is a charity foundation doing in this setup? Why does a charity place their money a lease arrangement?
Before the financial crisis sat in, money was in excess and surely the council could have teamed up with an investment fund who knows, accept and live by the risks in their investments.
Was Higgs really the last resort?
Did Higgs put the money on the table out of love for the club? Or did they think 'we're in with the council, it can't go wrong, so we will make a profit'.

You are completely in the dark about the higgs trust , it is run for the benefit of sports in coventry, a non profit making charity.

Get your facts right

 

[cloughie]

No?

ACL:
Results - Turnover 2011 £6.6m 2010 £6.6m 2009 £6.8m
- Net Profit 2011 £470k 2010 £547k 2009 £3.223m (due to one off income from lease transfer)
- Fixed assets (long lease, improvements, equipment etc) at 31/05/11 £25m
- Debtors £1.7m and cash at bank £1.2m 31/05/11
- Total creditors 2011 26.3m 2010 £27.7m 2009 £32.7m
- Total creditors includes Bank loans 2011 £16.2m 2010 £16.8m 2009 £20.6m and income to be spread over a number of future years 2011 £ 7.5m 2010 £8.5m 2009 £7.7m
- net worth on balance sheet 2011 £1.5m 2010 £1.0m 2009 £ 0.49m

Take away £1.2m per year and for 2011 alone you'll need profit from replacement activities at £730t just to break even. That' is a lot of new activities they'll need to bring in.
And without a weekly football venue bringing 6.000-11.000 spectators, how will the shops, kiosks and restaurant owners suffer? Will they keep contributing to the ACL income the same they do today? What about the advertising income? Will it stay the same without the football club?

Looking at the numbers I would say it seems more likely that ACL may go under without the club.

OR - let's say the ACL really can attract new activities/businesses that can contribute a profit of £730t per year. Why haven't they done it in the past? In fact, profit declined from 2010 to 2011 indicating just how difficult it is to get new activities in.

As usual hanging on the coat tails of OSB info and twisting it .

So acl offer to half the rent so that is obviously affordable to acl

Why alternatives not done before ? ..............Maybe just maybe the arena is tied up every other week 9 months of the year on a saturday and some tuesdays

You are really showing your colours now.
CCFC or Sisu think we know where your colours are pinned to

 

[wingy]

I think what Godivas forgetting here that profits are shared 50/50 with Compass and they potentially have to share in the loss of revenues.IMO

So the £730k. he quotes may actually be half of it.

Edit; Also they have made bigger profits than quoted in the figures but made capitol spending on projects.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

OSB, thank you for your facts, but could I ask where you have got them from? I'm only interested, not challenging or trying to undermine you or anything.

Thanks in advance

 

[ashbyjan]

SB Taylor - all facts that OSB lists are from publicly accessible sources such as companies house etc - he just has the ability to know how to interpret them and put them in a format that the less fiscally aware of us can understand. As already stated its a shame the supposed investigative journos at CWR and Cov Telegraph cannot do as good a job.

 

[wingy]

It may take an email to a Guardian or Mail journo without the vested interests of the local media jan ,I really would love someone to substantiate his ACL assertions.

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

SB Taylor - all facts that OSB lists are from publicly accessible sources such as companies house etc - he just has the ability to know how to interpret them and put them in a format that the less fiscally aware of us can understand. As already stated its a shame the supposed investigative journos at CWR and Cov Telegraph cannot do as good a job.

When I look for stuff on CCFC it comes up with shit that isn't what I'm looking for :\

 

[wingy]

When I look for stuff on CCFC it comes up with shit that isn't what I'm looking for :\

The best place for you to start SBT is in the Board section and read the 3 sticky threads on FAQs the basis of this clubs turmoil resides in there.

 

[oldskyblue58]

OSB, thank you for your facts, but could I ask where you have got them from? I'm only interested, not challenging or trying to undermine you or anything.

Thanks in advance

No problem SBT

It is all public facts as ashbyjan says, there is no inside source. It comes from Companies House for copies of accounts, the City Council website for minutes of how it was all set up, comments from the participants in the drama in the press, other online stuff plus my own thoughts. I just pull together what is there. I try not to put in stuff that doesnt have a credible source.

 

[blueflint]

how can we as supporters apply the pressure to get these facts published

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

No problem SBT

It is all public facts as ashbyjan says, there is no inside source. It comes from Companies House for copies of accounts, the City Council website for minutes of how it was all set up, comments from the participants in the drama in the press, other online stuff plus my own thoughts. I just pull together what is there. I try not to put in stuff that doesnt have a credible source.

Thanks, I also thank wingy for his input.

 

[Official Away Travel]

Thought it might be an idea to have some facts about ACL instead of self interested spin ala Mr Fisher

-Owners of the long lease to operate the Ricoh Arena (approx 42 years left on lease)

-Owned by Coventry City Council and the Higgs Charity (50:50) with interlocking shareholders agreements ensuring each stakeholder has to approve the actions of the other. Each stakeholder has directors on the Board of ACL

- The council and Charity are bound by the rules and regulations of Local Government and Charity Commission respectively so their actions and the actions of their ACL directors are subject to far more scrutiny & liability than ordinary directors. Should imply a higher standard of what they can communicate but perhaps restrict how much they can say and how often

- sub lease the site to various tenants including CCFC, The Casino, De Vere Hotels

- The catering etc, and site management done through a joint venture between ACL & Compass known as IEC. ACL get a share of the net profits from the joint venture

- Over 80% of the income of the site is derived from conference, events and exhilbitions

- The match day income streams. All ticket income goes to CCFC. Match day packages and food (yorkshire bank suite etc) are sold to CCFC who then sell on at a profit. Car parking sold on to CCFC then resold by them at a profit. Kiosk income (and costs) belong to joint venture. Sponsorship income for ground/name belongs to ACL (it is their property after all CCFC sold those rights) Ricoh deal rolls on until 2025. Advertising split between CCFC and ACL.

- ACL paid a premium to acquire the long lease, and chose not to pay an annual rent by doing so. £21m

- Lease premium was financed by loan from Yorkshire Bank. 31/05/11 that loan stood at £16.2m (and has reduced since to an estimate of 15.6m). ACL pay interest at 1.265% abover LIBOR (0.5% approx) - pretty decent rate when you consider a lot of business mortgages currently.

Results - Turnover 2011 £6.6m 2010 £6.6m 2009 £6.8m
- Net Profit 2011 £470k 2010 £547k 2009 £3.223m (due to one off income from lease transfer)
- Fixed assets (long lease, improvements, equipment etc) at 31/05/11 £25m
- Debtors £1.7m and cash at bank £1.2m 31/05/11
- Total creditors 2011 26.3m 2010 £27.7m 2009 £32.7m
- Total creditors includes Bank loans 2011 £16.2m 2010 £16.8m 2009 £20.6m and income to be spread over a number of future years 2011 £ 7.5m 2010 £8.5m 2009 £7.7m
- net worth on balance sheet 2011 £1.5m 2010 £1.0m 2009 £ 0.49m

Auditors Reports - no mention of any concern regarding going concern, the reports were "clean"

Neither the Council nor Charity have taken a penny out of ACL and there is no intention to do so until the loans are cleared. All profits reinvested into the company

There is a mechanism to give the council an extra return on super profits above £3.75m (amount from memory ) on a sliding scale. It has never been taken as profits never high enough.

ACL, Council, Charity have all stated in the past they want to support a viable football club at the Ricoh.

All three are open to new stakeholders so long as they can prove the newstake holders are viable, able to invest in the development of the site, there is a long term future to the club.

The charity gave CCFC Ltd (not any other company or entity) the option to buy its shares. There is a formula etc but that is not public. That option is still valid and its termination depends on certain events in the agreement. There have been no discussions between charity and ccfc/sisu on the subject recently.

50% of the shares does not mean 50% of the turnover or profits. It entitles the owner to 50% of the dividends voted (no reserves to pay one so presently illegal and stakeholder policy is to pay off loans before any dividend paid). It would also entitle a shareholder to 50% of surplus assets on a winding up.

Currently CCFC owe ACL £1m in unpaid rent. The lease agreement terms stipulate that £500k has to be kept in an Escrow account as a deposit against default. CCFC are in default - this does not mean that the Escrow funds can be left depleted as rental payment but does mean ACL can draw on it to soften their cashflow blow caused by non payment. To be clear the lease requires rent to be paid £1.2m pa and the maintenance of £500k in the Escrow account.

Currently CCFC pay £10k approx per match. This is not rent or any contribution to rent. This is for the sell on of rights to car park income, the provision of food and staff for the corporate seats, power etc. These costs would be paid at any other club irrespective of whether rented or not.

ACL have repeatedly offered to have meaningful discussions with SISU over the rent.

This i hope will clarify some of the commentary regarding ACL from certain quarters. I would guess that as a good customer that ACL have been in contact with the bank on a regular basis. I would, from my own experience, expect the bank to have already looked some time ago at the value of CCFC's tenancy and concluded that CCFC is all but insolvent. If so then the bank has already factored in that information into its valuations and is still there. In the current and recent financial climate (say last 5 years) there is no real value to giving a tenancy to any football club - let alone the basketcase that is CCFC.

Finally someone with sence - can you send this Tim Fisher as he doesn't seem to know alot

 

[Stevec189]

To the person who said stop oing to games several thousand of us have already paid fot the privilege of going we are not contributing unless we pie a pie or park the car. The way to get this published is to challenge The Telegraph. Put this on a blog somewhere more public than this forum. There will be people who know how to do this stuff. This is a good piece of work by OSB. and it deserves a wider audience. I wonder if any of he nationals would be interested or a financial journalist? We need to be thinking outside the box to show that these are a bunch of charletons mis leading the rate payers of Coventry.

Anyone who thinks that ACLU need Coventry City is deluded. That Ricoh would not continue to sponsor a facility (O2arena anyone?). Could gt a lot of hotels and exhibition space here the pitch is for relatively little investment.

PUSB

 

[Skyblueweeman]

you know what really bugs me is that the radio stations and local rags have access to the same information as me but still accept everything that TF says as gospel truth.

This morning he stated that ACL owed Yorkshire Bank £20m .......... last accounts show substantially less than that 16.2m
He stated that the bank were ripping ACL and therefore the good folk of coventry off because of the amount ACL had to pay ...... its not even 2% ! interest. I bet there are plenty of businesses and home owners who would like that.
He stated that the lowering of rent would reduce the value of the stadium..... technically true but any bank would already have looked at the nature of the major tenant CCFC and concluded there was a massive risk there and therefore adjusted their view of value.
Says Council cant bail out ......... of course they cant far needier causes in coventry than ACl or CCFC
Says ACL will take CCFC down when the reality is that CCFC are trying to take ACL down ...... but it makes people think ACL are the bad guys and it will be their fault if CCFC go
He says he is doing it the people of Coventry ...... frankly i am insulted by that, we are just not that thick to believe it

But do you hear any of this challenged ?

To echo the thoughts of the majority on here OSB, top posting. I'd like to think that my CV has stood me in good stead to grasp 'big' numbers but I'm impressed that you not only convey the numbers in an easy to understand manner, but also the overall scenarios and minute detail of things.

The one thing I wanted to pick you up on though is your last question in the above post I have quoted. CCFC owe you nothing and I assume (rightly or wrongly) that you're a busy chap. I totally get your point about your assertions (and facts to be fair) not being challenged. Living on the South Coast, I don't get to see the local media up there but assume that no one's asking the questions of CCFC/TF that they should be asking.

So why don't you do it? Have you ever tried? Those two questions look aggressive from me...they're really not and I'm asking them genuinely. You obviously have a better handle than all on here and seemingly better than the local media outlets. I'm not sure how you would go about it to be honest but just wondered whether it was something you have/would consider?

KR,

WM

 

[Bluegloucester]

To echo the thoughts of the majority on here OSB, top posting. I'd like to think that my CV has stood me in good stead to grasp 'big' numbers but I'm impressed that you not only convey the numbers in an easy to understand manner, but also the overall scenarios and minute detail of things.

The one thing I wanted to pick you up on though is your last question in the above post I have quoted. CCFC owe you nothing and I assume (rightly or wrongly) that you're a busy chap. I totally get your point about your assertions (and facts to be fair) not being challenged. Living on the South Coast, I don't get to see the local media up there but assume that no one's asking the questions of CCFC/TF that they should be asking.

So why don't you do it? Have you ever tried? Those two questions look aggressive from me...they're really not and I'm asking them genuinely. You obviously have a better handle than all on here and seemingly better than the local media outlets. I'm not sure how you would go about it to be honest but just wondered whether it was something you have/would consider?

KR,

WM

David Conn at the Guardian has been sympathetic in the past.

 

[Tad]

This whole ordeal will make one hell of a book one day lol

 

[sky blue zam]

dont know if this has been mentioned but really doesnt seem like acl are feeling the pinch, theyre getting the boss in

http://www.ricoharena.com/entertainment/

 

[georgehudson]

superb & challenging posts by all,
can we as mere minions call, and attend, an extraordinary meeting, & challenge (the mob - sisu),

 

[Bluegloucester]

superb & challenging posts by all,
can we as mere minions call, and attend, an extraordinary meeting, & challenge (the mob - sisu),

There is no mechanism whereby the supporters can call a general meeting. Those that hold 'B' shares also, do not have the right to call a general meeting. I have seen the company's mem & arts (constitutional documents).

 

[dongonzalos]

OSB

It would also entitle a shareholder to 50% of surplus assets on a winding up.


Does that explain the real interest in negiotiations........

 

[georgehudson]

so, are all sections of the media afraid of the 'sisu' beast,
& would any publish or air a forum

 

[Mucca Mad Boys]

I don't care who are the 'goodies' or the 'baddies' are, I just want CCFC to be ok at the end of it all.

 

[Diehard Si]

I think ACL could just restructure the stadium as a better venue for live acts etc. Could make so much more money then.

 

[wingy]

I think ACL could just restructure the stadium as a better venue for live acts etc. Could make so much more money then.

Like with the two next summer ,average spend £80 x40k. punters ,split with the bands and Compass ,

what do you think ,gross £6.5 M. how much of that filters to ACL £1M +@ the very minimum.

 

[coundonskyblue]

<p>

Like with the two next summer ,average spend £80 x40k. punters ,split with the bands and Compass ,</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>what do you think ,gross £6.5 M. how much of that filters to ACL £1M +@ the very minimum.

£1m is what city pay a year in rent. So Acl need just 2 concerts a year to replace ccfc as tennents.