Bollocks to you, SISU OUT NOW!
More seriously I don't believe SISU will liquidate, that scare story keeps being brought up, they're not the sort of people who asset strip & discard, their technique is to sell off assets, balance the books then sell on a profitable concern at a profit. How they're actually going to make money on this 'investment' in a reasonable time frame I don't see but they will definitely want to minimise losses and liquidation isn't one of the ways to do it. It worries me that they'll move the club to a position where the investors can take out £1M out a year and hang on for another decade while the club languishes in D3 or D4.
I respectfully disagree.
Not with the first sentence, of course. When it comes down to it all but the most mad would agree with that. My concern (which the most mad on t'other side misinterpret) is that we'll end up with an Elliott led replacement and/or CCC will attempt to manipulate a preferred owner into place, who will not be the best fit for CCFC, just the most malleable when it comes to CCC getting what *they* want. Anyway, can I nominate OSB, DazzleTommyDazzle, and duffer for the triumvirate to run our new fan-owned consortium?
Anyway, I digress...
Alas, t'internet changes. Alas, I don;t have access to the material I did when SISU took over so this is couched in woolly terms, and I hasten to add for the watching lawyers this is therefore a possible theory not fact, and of course SISU are stellar types
Anyway, I recall when they came in, doing a spot of research and alighting upon a story about an entity who, if not SISU, were just like SISU in their initial setup. They'd taken over a failing business in France, with the same aims as SISU taking over CCFC - the hope to turn it around and sell at a profit. Initially they were welcomed, and initially they did try to turn it around but, the intrinsic damage from previous regimes was too deep. So, they got together with their local council to try some alternative strategies. These failed too. Then, suddenly, the company turned against their local council. This baffled the local council but they decided to give ground as the business was good for jobs in the area.
However, these strategies failed too... and then the business was wound up.
The town was left with an empty factory, and holes in its finances from trying to help out. The net result is disaster.
Right now, I bookend this by saying this is an example poorly recollected, and
*I am sure this is not SISU, and will not relate to our current situation in anything but a shoddy analogy*
However... I absolutely believe it's in SISU's interests to liquidate if things fail. Their negotiating strategy is that there is a consequence if they don't get what they want - hence the move to Northampton. To liquidate shows that, and helps them when negotiating elsewhere.
Notwithstanding that, they're not going to get the value for Ryton if/when they sell, so they may as well sell it separately. With zero other assets at the club other than their league position (how valuable is this really if nothing else comes with it? How much would you pay to preserve just this? I'd wager less than it's worth SISU to just flog every training bib they own) and their heritage (we did this last night) then I'd say liquidation is a very real possiility once this all plays out - not just for the immediate financial return, but the wider context.
We look at it with CCFC jaundiced eyes. To the outsider, objectively... many of the assumptions one would make about football clubs have been challenged by us over the recent years - not least just how embedded a club is in its wider community (not the hardcore).
