City board ready to meet hoffman (1 Viewer)

I have been reading between the lines.

SISU got the club for free. They loaned the club £30m. With them being the owners of the club we are not in debt.

Word is that Hoffman is ready to buy the club for £1, then invest £30m. This would be to pay what is owed to SISU. They want out, but want their money back. Hoffman wants in, but wants some of the money for strengthening the squad. This season hardly any teams have spent much. A few signings could make a massive difference.

A bad start to the season could make SISU take a few £m less. This could make the difference. Don't expect anything to happen for a few weeks after the start of the season.

sorry but we owe £30m to the private equity funds (seperate legal entities), it is shown clearly on the balance sheet how does that make us debt free?

If we didnt owe it, ie have the debt, why would GH be finding a way to repay it or discount it ? Why would that be the stumbling block if the debt didnt exist because SISU owe themselves?

GH might be ready to buy the club for £1 doesnt mean SISU are ready to sell for £1 or at all.

The transfer window is open until 31/08 there is plenty of time for a lot of business to be done

:facepalm:

SISU got the club for nothing, got Robinson etc to right off their loans in exchange for a promised £6m on promotion. They lent the club £20 to pay off bank, HMRC etc. They, along w RR, had a plan to make money by turning the club around, buying and selling players for a profit, getting control of the stadium etc but for whatever reasons their plans changed and have ultimately failed. Now they are cutting costs, parring the playing squad done to the bare bones and yet still cannot stop the club haemoraging money. Hoff is basically offering them the same deal they offered Robinson and better than they offered the majority of shareholders who got nothing for their shares. He will take over the running of the club, take responsibility for the losses and put serious money into the playing side of the club and take up the option to buy the AHT 50% of ACL, the leaseholders and company that runs the Ricoh. Upon promotion he would then give SISU a proportion of their money back. Every month that goes by their losses are increasing and the only way to arrest that is to fill the stadium as there are very few cuts left to be made and under SISU that simply isnt going to happen. Hoff's offer is the only one on the table and sooner or later they will have to negotiate and come to a compromise. SISU have made a bad investment, not their first nor I'm sure their last as that is the nature of the business they are in, and have to bite the bullet, acknowledge the fact and get the best deal for their investment clients and then walk away. Hopefully before its too late for Hoff to turn it around.

The money is owed by SISU. They are the owners of our club. It was invested by SISU to get us where we are today.

They just want to get rid of our club. Making money out of us was much harder than they thought. They are not willing to keep bankrolling us.

Astute said:

The money is owed by SISU. They are the owners of our club. It was invested by SISU to get us where we are today.

They just want to get rid of our club. Making money out of us was much harder than they thought. They are not willing to keep bankrolling us.

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SISU do not own us the shares are owned by the private equity funds that SISU manage. The money is owed to the private equity funds not SISU themselves. It was "invested" largely to pay the debts.

Every quote you get from the Board is about additional investors, they do not say it is for sale or that they want to get out. That maybe a bargaining position but then again it may not. Clearly they are putting more money in because we would be bust by now if they hadnt

Only thing we can be certain of regarding the finances is the info up until 31/05/10 (the last accounts) and in terms of the take over is that GH has expressed an interest but that currently we are told there is no deal on the table. Everything else including SISU desire to go or not is pure conjecture

Responding to all these post stating as facts that SISU have 'lost' all the money they have invested.

The loans:
All loans are provided as interest free and without periodic installments.
Good luck getting such a deal from your own bank
As the loans are serviced according to the conditions (no interest, no installment) these loans are kept at full value in loan providers books (SISU).
Therefore it is wrong saying that SISU have lost their money - they haven't until they sell the loans at a discount.

The shares:
The shares were acquired for nothing. It is very hard to lose anything when you have paid nothing, so no loss there either.

I think there is some confusion as to exactly who or what SISU actually is. SISU is a fund management company that manages investors money. This money is put into various funds which they manage. These funds buy and sell shares in companies, take dividends and overall try to grow and show the investors a return. SISU receive a fee for managing these funds. One of the company's that SISU managed funds have invested in is Sky Blue Leisure and Sports Ltd, the company that owns the shares of CCFC Holdings Ltd. The funds have lent the SBS&L £20m or so and don't charge interest on this loan but I doubt they would want to just write it off completely. So technically the club has no debt but when it come to be sold the funds will want at least some of their money back as they via their managers, SISU, will have to explain to their investors why the funds have underperformed. So technically we are not owned by any one person or company but by investment funds that are funded by pension funds etc that want a return on their money. Hoff and SISU have to strike a balance and find a point or amount at which SISU are willing to write off the loan and Hoff is willing to fund it. Obviously at the moment £1 and a promise of some more should we get promoted isn't good enough even though tjis was the deal that got the club into RR and SISU funds hands in the first place.

ashbyjan said:

Obviously at the moment £1 and a promise of some more should we get promoted isn't good enough even though tjis was the deal that got the club into RR and SISU funds hands in the first place.

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Which is exactly why it's not good enough. SISU know it's a crappy deal for those selling, that's why they offered it 4 years ago.

SISU could also argue that they didn't put the club in the position they are in now, just maintained the position we were in when they took over. Hence why the previous board could be expected to take a loss. Also there's not the threat of admin looming to help speed things along. Finally, they're not CCFC fans so there will be no pulling of heartstrings to get a better deal.

At the end of the day SISU hold all the cards and if noone else can come up with a sensible offer that makes financial sense then nothing will happen.

my fav qoute of the sky sports articale is the war chest bit when has that ever been used for ccfc lol:

If the talks are successful, it could provide manager Andy Thorn with a substantial war chest ahead of the new season.
"I will be going to Gary but this isn't about one individual," said Dulieu.
"There are a number of other investors. My job is to listen to anybody who has proof of funds and prepared to invest.
"We've managed to get substantial sums out of them [current owners SISU] and they're prepared to continue funding this club."

People like KD and SISU work only for their own interests they have no connection to the club so they couldn't give a toss whether we were successful or not aslong as they make a profit.