As a now retired successful business man, having run my own companies for over 30 years, I cannot for the life of me understand Sisu Capital's wish to continue throwing investors money down the pan when a possibly cheaper alternative would be to re-negotiate with ACL. As an investor in stocks and shares myself, there is no way I would invest in Sisu Capital Ltd -- I find it strange that others do !
What exactly Sisu is hoping to achieve, as a business man, baffles me ! Had my company been losing money each week hand over fist and there was a way I could stem these loses and increase my customer base, I would be negotiating like crazy to do so.
To me, Sisu is committing commercial suicide - and I can't think why !
A great point VoR they are committing commercial suicide.
In my opinion there isn't a plan other than 'wait and see'. The Football League foolishly give the club up to 5 years away from Coventry - so JS will push that to the limit to see what happens with ACL.
I believe their MO will be their downfall with Coventry City. SISU buy distressed companies, turn them round quickly and sell on at a profit. With CCFC they failed to do that. To support the club they layered on debt by borrowing money from other funds through a multi-tiered corporate structure designed to keep the loans at full value so their other funds don't have to 'write-off' the debts even when one company goes bankrupt. SISU's problem is not that they won't sell - they CAN'T sell because no-one will pay for their debts at full value.
Take a look at SISU's negotiating tactics. They're only designed to deal with desperate sellers i.e. over time you move the goalposts further away from the seller with every meeting. Problems with ACL started as a 'rent dispute' - when a lower offer of rent was made (remember the £400k?) they then layered on the 'matchday income' issue. When a proposal to cross-invoice was made the next issue was 'ACL isn't worth the price we originally agreed'. A few weeks later it is now 'we return when we own the freehold of the Ricoh'. Classic tactics for making owners of a distressed business more willing to sell - especially if they have personal money on the line!
The mistake SISU made is that Higgs, ACL, Coventry Council and Compass (yes they're involved as well) aren't desperate sellers so SISU's tactics don't work. JS has backed herself into a corner and now the club is not viable. She can attract investors to build a stadium (I believe she can) in an attempt to keep the thing afloat so that the debts owed by the club to other funds are held at full value.
JS has NO choice but to continue because there is no way out. She's banking on fans pressure on ACL, Higgs and the Council to push through a sale of the Ricoh. That won't happen so a stadium will be built at some time late in year four in order to hit the fifth year deadline (I really think they'll push in to year six or seven if possible). It will be the cheapest stadium possible so they they can keep the debts afloat.
The fan's only hope is that the club goes into administration again. I understood the Football League's insolvency rules stop the same owners buying back the club twice. I'm more convinced than ever that NOPM is the right way to go because without it SISU are here for the long (very long) term.