Ricoh Lease... (1 Viewer)

mr_monkey

Well-Known Member
I’m not clouded by anything... do I believe SISU misjudged the situation and tried to string arm a deal to get the stadium for a bargain Price, yep. And before I knew the full facts I blamed them 100% for the situation we were in when moved to Northampton. Now I know that CCC we’re trying to sell the stadium to wasps without even giving OUR football club, who that stadium
Was built for & that our club invested in, the chance to bid for it! I believe that all CCC we’re interested in was fucking over SISU & not giving a shit that the football club would suffer because of it, yep I’m afraid so... it’s with a big sore lump in my throat that I have to say the only people that have seen the light and decided to do the best thing for CCFC after this fiasco is the owners. They have backed robins & helped get us two promotions in 3 years. While CCC have attempted at every junction to keep fucking us over. No communication back on potential sites, no help brokering a peace deal for the Ricoh return etc etc

I just wish the owners had been more transparent & seen the light earlier and maybe we would now own half our stadium and not have suffered even more as fans in recent years... but the club is now trying, which is more than I can say for the council of this city.

Im afriad if anyone is blinded here it’s you, with your obvious unwavering hatred for the owners

This 100%
 

HuckerbyDublinWhelan

Well-Known Member
I’m not clouded by anything... do I believe SISU misjudged the situation and tried to string arm a deal to get the stadium for a bargain Price, yep. And before I knew the full facts I blamed them 100% for the situation we were in when moved to Northampton. Now I know that CCC we’re trying to sell the stadium to wasps without even giving OUR football club, who that stadium
Was built for & that our club invested in, the chance to bid for it! I believe that all CCC we’re interested in was fucking over SISU & not giving a shit that the football club would suffer because of it, yep I’m afraid so... it’s with a big sore lump in my throat that I have to say the only people that have seen the light and decided to do the best thing for CCFC after this fiasco is the owners. They have backed robins & helped get us two promotions in 3 years. While CCC have attempted at every junction to keep fucking us over. No communication back on potential sites, no help brokering a peace deal for the Ricoh return etc etc

I just wish the owners had been more transparent & seen the light earlier and maybe we would now own half our stadium and not have suffered even more as fans in recent years... but the club is now trying, which is more than I can say for the council of this city.

Im afriad if anyone is blinded here it’s you, with your obvious unwavering hatred for the owners
If I remember rightly, didn’t SISU say if the 250 year lease was up for the same price they’d have been interested? (Whether you believe them is another matter)

that statement alone shows they should have had a public bidding war
 

Liquid Gold

Well-Known Member
Me sitting back watching someone else get a kicking for not towing the forum line:

giphy.gif
Victim complex
 

Philosoraptor

Well-Known Member
I'm still trying to figure out how allowing one of the biggest supermarkets in Europe to open there and take the majority of the revenues of rentals from the Arena Park will help with the regeneration of that part of the City.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Who's not towing the forum line?

Anyone who doesn’t post performative virtue signalling about how evil the council/Wasps are and how Sisu would’ve definitely bought the stadium despite repeatedly saying they wouldn’t.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
I'm still trying to figure out how allowing one of the biggest supermarkets in Europe to open there and take the majority of the revenues of rentals from the Arena Park will help with the regeneration of that part of the City.

Because their money paid for the project. Rental income was never the driving force behind regeneration, that doesn’t even make sense unless you think the landlord would live in the local area. Whether it worked or not regeneration is about turning round bits of the city that are run down and not providing employment, not increasing rental income.
 

Nick

Administrator
Anyone who doesn’t post performative virtue signalling about how evil the council/Wasps are and how Sisu would’ve definitely bought the stadium despite repeatedly saying they wouldn’t.

Who? Which poster? Which post?
 

Philosoraptor

Well-Known Member
Because their money paid for the project. Rental income was never the driving force behind regeneration, that doesn’t even make sense unless you think the landlord would live in the local area. Whether it worked or not regeneration is about turning round bits of the city that are run down and not providing employment, not increasing rental income.

Surely the regeneration of that part of the City comes from people who want to live near a successful sports team in a stadium with all the social amenities, and not a huge supermarket.

I wonder what the state of other retail parks and their footfall in the local area is after these huge economies of scale moved in.

Also, the once local shops.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Who? Which poster? Which post?

Really? SBD posts some reasonable disagreement with the idea Sisu should’ve/could’ve bought the stadium, which goes against the groupthink on here that CCC are evil overlords hell bent of destroying CCFC by refusing to sell them the Ricoh and is met with around ten posters wading in accusing him of stuff like “being blinded by your hatred of the owners”.

Then when it’s pointed out the site admin decides to white knight any criticism of this response.

Then I wrote this post.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Surely the regeneration of that part of the City comes from people who want to live near a successful sports team in a stadium and and not a huge supermarket.

I wonder what the state of other retail parks and their footfall in the local area is after these huge economies of scale moved in.

Also, the once local shops.

The regeneration comes from the fact that were there was a wasteland with huge cleanup costs not being used for anything there is now housing and employment. If you want to rail against supermarkets pushing out the little man go ahead but not sure what it’s got to do with this topic. And no, people would not rather live by a stadium than a supermarket, that’s insane.
 

HuckerbyDublinWhelan

Well-Known Member
Really? SBD posts some reasonable disagreement with the idea Sisu should’ve/could’ve bought the stadium, which goes against the groupthink on here that CCC are evil overlords hell bent of destroying CCFC by refusing to sell them the Ricoh and is met with around ten posters wading in accusing him of stuff like “being blinded by your hatred of the owners”.

Then when it’s pointed out the site admin decides to white knight any criticism of this response.

Then I wrote this post.
This can easily be turned round - whenever someone suggests that the council are unreasonable you wade in.

It’s an emotive subject and people disagree. You disagree with our point, we disagree with your point. It’s healthy debate.

it gets heated. But come on - we’re on a football forum. You need thick skin to be on these things
 

Nick

Administrator
Really? SBD posts some reasonable disagreement with the idea Sisu should’ve/could’ve bought the stadium, which goes against the groupthink on here that CCC are evil overlords hell bent of destroying CCFC by refusing to sell them the Ricoh and is met with around ten posters wading in accusing him of stuff like “being blinded by your hatred of the owners”.

Then when it’s pointed out the site admin decides to white knight any criticism of this response.

Then I wrote this post.

I mean, most of his posts in the thread are littered with inaccuracies about it. That's probably what people mean about being blinded.

If you are getting upset that he is posting inaccurate things and it's being pointed out, that says more about you.

You should just stick to tin foil hat GIFs about things that have already actually happened.
 

Philosoraptor

Well-Known Member
The regeneration comes from the fact that were there was a wasteland with huge cleanup costs not being used for anything there is now housing and employment. If you want to rail against supermarkets pushing out the little man go ahead but not sure what it’s got to do with this topic. And no, people would not rather live by a stadium than a supermarket, that’s insane.

You've just set up your own strawman argument.

Surely you need to look closer at what lead to part of the Arena Park become separated from the prosperity of running a successful sports team in that vicinity.

Who were the main players of this time that were involved in this decision.

Shouldn't we now go through this deal with hindsight and point fingers?
 

oldskyblue58

CCFC Finance Director
I could give you a long list of the things to blame for where we presently are

Bryan Richardson and other directors for all but bankrupting us on several occasions. The over spending, vanity and egos
CCC for the sharp practice to do with the stadium build & since, the failure to create a viable lease with at least 100 years term. The lack of understanding
SISU for their failure to do their due diligence and to break the lease when they bought in. Their management style. The endless court cases and legal actions. The risk they have put CCFC at
Then there is wasps, charity, personalities, EFL, The FA, the media etc etc etc
the list goes on

The well being of CCFC and the community it represents deserved better from all of them. None of them get excused because the manager has got the team heading in the right direction.

But a lot of what happened and has been put in the public domain as some sort pointing finger, and done to death on this forum is frankly window dressing. It makes clicks online, it winds the fans up, it hides or clouds the real issues. It doesnt actually join the dots up and if anything just entrenches opinion.

I have to query a couple of things

Firstly the move to Northampton, which was an entirely different scenario to the move to Birmingham. It was engineered to break the lease there was no other purpose or reason. It worked in doing that, it was a clever use of legal process, it very nearly worked completely ............. apart from the big wasp in the ointment. Yes CCC are to blame for a lot of things, and they have helped reduce things to personalities which was never going to be helpful to CCFC, but the Northampton move was a financial plan to gain control of the stadium for the benefit of the SISU investors. The plan of gaining control of the stadium cheaply was never to retain it but to flip it on to AEG and to make profit for the investors

Secondly this backing of Robins. Yes SISU have in the sense that they have let him and his management team get on with the business of running the team. That is not a bad thing, infact i would argue that is a good thing going forward so long as MR and his management team/structure stay in place

However i think many, even the majority of fans see backing as an owner putting money in to the club and specifically the team. Simply hasnt been the case under MR's tenure. Since his appointment 06/03/2017 SISU have made loans of £500K of which £254k has been withdrawn and repaid (i think it is fair to ignore the loans and repayment of loans (net £388k) in the 31 May 2017 accounts MR had only been here 2 months and no transfer market available to him). On top of the net £246k (2018 & 2019) the 2019 accounts disclose that the owners paid out £1.48m of the interest owed to them. During this time total debt has grown to 50.1m by 31/05/2019. So during his tenure SISU have taken a minimum net £1.2m out of the club

SISU are in terms of backing the bank of last resort certainly to 31/05/2019 - it is in their interest to do so because if they dont their investment goes down the tubes

The "backing" has been by SISU not taking all of the net proceeds of player sales & trading by the football club because the club has survived only because of those sales and until 2019 there was little left over to pay the owners. Any player purchases have been self generated by the club selling other players. To keep the club operating day to day has meant selling players. That is the model we work to

Now the 2019/20 figures may by necessity of the health crisis require some funding from SISU but we shouldnt forget the sales already concluded in that financial year McCallum, Bayliss etc. The financial model isnt based in normal times on funding and increased capital debt from the owners. People will point to the recent signings, but it is highly unlikely we have paid out the full amounts in the press and what we have paid has most likely been from accumulated player sale funds.

So i am not sure i agree with some of the assertions being made, but just my opinion
 
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Nick

Administrator
I could give you a long list of the things to blame for where we presently are

Bryan Richardson and other directors for all but bankrupting us on several occasions. The over spending, vanity and egos
CCC for the sharp practice to do with the stadium build & since, the failure to create a viable lease with at least 100 years term. The lack of understanding
SISU for their failure to do their due diligence and to break the lease when they bought in. Their management style. The endless court cases and legal actions. The risk they have put CCFC at
Then there is wasps, charity, personalities, EFL, The FA, the media etc etc etc
the list goes on

The well being of CCFC and the community it represents deserved better from all of them. None of them get excused because the manager has got the team heading in the right direction.

But a lot of what happened and has been put in the public domain as some sort pointing finger, and done to death on this forum is frankly window dressing. It makes clicks online, it winds the fans up, it hides or clouds the real issues. It doesnt actually join the dots up and if anything just entrenches opinion.

I have to query a couple of things

Firstly the move to Northampton, which was an entirely different scenario to the move to Birmingham. It was engineered to break the lease there was no other purpose or reason. It worked in doing that, it was a clever use of legal process, it very nearly worked completely ............. apart from the big wasp in the ointment. Yes CCC are to blame for a lot of things, and they have helped reduce things to personalities which was never going to be helpful to CCFC, but the Northampton move was a financial plan to gain control of the stadium for the benefit of the SISU investors. The plan of gaining control of the stadium cheaply was never to retain it but to flip it on to AEG and to make profit for the investors

Secondly this backing of Robins. Yes SISU have in the sense that they have let him and his management team get on with the business of running the team. That is not a bad thing, infact i would argue that is a good thing going forward so long as MR and his management team/structure stay in place

However i think many, even the majority of fans see backing as an owner putting money in to the club and specifically the team. Simply hasnt been the case under MR's tenure. Since his appointment 06/03/2017 SISU have made loans of £500K of which £254k has been withdrawn and repaid (i think it is fair to ignore the loans and repayment of loans (net £388k) in the 31 May 2017 accounts MR had only been here 2 months and no transfer market available to him). On top of the net £246k (2018 & 2019) the 2019 accounts disclose that the owners paid out £1.48m of the interest owed to them. During his tenure total debt has grown to 50.1m by 31/05/2019. So during his tenure SISU have taken a minimum net £1.2m out of the club

SISU are in terms of backing the bank of last resort certainly to 31/05/2019 - it is in their interest to do so because if they dont their investment goes down the tubes

The "backing" has been by SISU not taking all of the net proceeds of player sales & trading by the football club because the club has survived only because of those sales and until 2019 there was little left over to pay the owners. Any player purchases have been self generated by the club selling other players. To keep the club operating day to day has meant selling players. That is the model we work to

Now the 2019/20 figures may by necessity of the health crisis require some funding from SISU but we shouldnt forget the sales already concluded in that financial year McCallum, Bayliss etc. The financial model isnt based in normal times on funding and increased capital debt from the owners. People will point to the recent signings, but it is highly unlikely we have paid out the full amounts in the press and what we have paid has most likely been from accumulated player sale funds.
What about people like pwkh and higgs?

Wouldn't the lease have broken with ACL applying for admin anyway?

You would think AEG running the stadium would have been much better for the local economy. The one that are going to benefit from everything wasps are doing?
 

oldskyblue58

CCFC Finance Director
ACL could apply all they like but they were never in control of the process that started back in April 2011. Even if they had got their application through SISU entities would have controlled any administration or appointment of administrator

Wont ever know about AEG but perhaps they would have been.
 

Nick

Administrator
ACL could apply all they like but they were never in control of the process that started back in April 2011. Even if they had got their application through SISU entities would have controlled any administration or appointment of administrator

Wont ever know about AEG but perhaps they would have been.

I didn't say they were in control, just that the lease would have broken with the administration either way?

Quote:

The eleventh-hour move was intended to prevent ACL succeeding in its High Court bid to force the Sky Blues into administration over £1.3million rent arrears – a hearing that is still set to take place today in some form.
ACL, in applying to the High Court for an administration order on the football club, had said the move could force a takeover of the club – forcing out its hedge fund owners Sisu.
ACL – jointly owned Coventry City Council and the Alan Edward Higgs Charity – had lined up Brendan Guilfoyle, of Sheffield-based P&A Partnership to take over the running of the club but the club has now appointed Rubin & Partners as its administrator instead


End quote

Why did they have an administrator lined up if they wouldn't have had control of it? Strange.

A lot of focus on the breaking the lease but there's never much mention on what ACL were planning to do.

Did pwkh and the higgs have no say over all of that? Maybe they were bitter because it backfired?

You would think AEG would do a bit better than wasps, surely?
 

HuckerbyDublinWhelan

Well-Known Member
I didn't say they were in control, just that the lease would have broken with the administration either way?

Quote:

The eleventh-hour move was intended to prevent ACL succeeding in its High Court bid to force the Sky Blues into administration over £1.3million rent arrears – a hearing that is still set to take place today in some form.
ACL, in applying to the High Court for an administration order on the football club, had said the move could force a takeover of the club – forcing out its hedge fund owners Sisu.
ACL – jointly owned Coventry City Council and the Alan Edward Higgs Charity – had lined up Brendan Guilfoyle, of Sheffield-based P&A Partnership to take over the running of the club but the club has now appointed Rubin & Partners as its administrator instead


End quote

Why did they have an administrator lined up if they wouldn't have had control of it? Strange.

A lot of focus on the breaking the lease but there's never much mention on what ACL were planning to do.

Did pwkh and the higgs have no say over all of that? Maybe they were bitter because it backfired?

You would think AEG would do a bit better than wasps, surely?
I mean it wouldn’t matter who the administrator was anyway would it? Even if ACL succeeded it would have been the best offer for the creditors - the majority being held by SISU. They presumably made the biggest offer
 

Liquid Gold

Well-Known Member
I mean it wouldn’t matter who the administrator was anyway would it? Even if ACL succeeded it would have been the best offer for the creditors - the majority being held by SISU. They presumably made the biggest offer
So why did ACL apply for administration then? Break the lease and bring in a rugby team?
 

Nick

Administrator
Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they misjudged the whole thing thinking they were the major creditor
They tried to force admin to force a takeover to bring Haskell in with Hoffman and the trust all backing it. They even said that to the press.

It backfired, hence the trust whinge about admin and the golden share because they didn't get a spinny seat.

Also why that rat pwkh was so annoyed.
 

HuckerbyDublinWhelan

Well-Known Member
Surely not, 1 seasons rent of which they took a load from the escrow anyway.
They tried to force admin to force a takeover to bring Haskell in with Hoffman and the trust all backing it. They even said that to the press.

It backfired, hence the trust whinge about admin and the golden share because they didn't get a spinny seat.

Also why that rat pwkh was so annoyed.
The only thing I can guess is that they possibly didn’t want to administrator to acknowledge the debt to SISU.

probably argue that it was owed by Sky Blue Sport and Leisure and not CCFC ltd.
 

Nick

Administrator
The only thing I can guess is that they possibly didn’t want to administrator to acknowledge the debt to SISU.

probably argue that it was owed by Sky Blue Sport and Leisure and not CCFC ltd.
They picked an administrator they wanted to run it and Haskell was paraded as the new owner.
 

mark82

Super Moderator
As the main creditor I suspect Sisu would always have been in the driving seat during administration regardless of the administrator. It was all part of the back and forth at the time with the council, Higgs and the trust trying to distress the club and force a takeover, whilst Sisu were seemingly trying to distress ACL to buy the stadium (although the breaking of the lease was probably the single best thing they'd done, they just should've done it sooner). Clearly the 2 sides disliked each other and things got far too personal.

Anyway, it's time to move on from that now and look to the future. What we should be concerned about is finding and building ourselves a new home. The Ricoh belongs to Wasps, it's not ours any more. I'd much rather we built a new stadium as close to the city as possible, regardless of which council the land falls under, and do it properly this time.
 

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
SISU's bid couldn't be accepted because they wanted Higgs to work with them on community projects? What laws prevent a charity working on community projects in line with their stated aims?

They stated there were conditions on the bid that they couldn't legally agree to. I've no idea what they were. Neither do you. There may have been things about community projects in there. Doesn't make those the things they couldn't legally agree to.
 

Nick

Administrator
They stated there were conditions on the bid that they couldn't legally agree to. I've no idea what they were. Neither do you. There may have been things about community projects in there. Doesn't make those the things they couldn't legally agree to.

They were about community work, conditions was just the public excuse that pwkh gave to bullshit people.

You really think wasps were in it for 50%? They even had the 250 year extension agreed ready.

It was revealed in the court transcript that he would never ever sell to ccfc / sisu and he tried to persuade the council not to. His words.

You would be better off believing Tim fisher before pwkh, he was a snake.
 

Specs WT-R75

Well-Known Member
I realised I knew nothing about the Wasps' bond. So I did some research. It matures in December 2022 and is currently trading at 46.7 - meaning that it yields over 13% as the coupon is 6.5% (based on a price of 100). At that price it's a junk bond - the City expects them to default. It fell as far as 24.8 in March.

I'd need to know much more to know if SISU buying the bond is a good idea. But given their interests in the Ricoh (upon which the bond is secured), it sounds on paper as if it might be a good idea. If they had bought at the nadir (and the fact that it bounced back so quickly implies that someone bought it), they'd quadruple their money in 2022 if it Wasps paid out in 2022 as planned. And if they didn't, I think they could force liquidation and settlement for bond holders. Interesting...

WASPS FINANCE PLC WAS1 Stock | London Stock Exchange

Bonds are strange things and can be very illiquid. At current price of 47... actually down to 44 it yields a lot more than 13, if you factor in that you also get the additional 56 if the bond is repaid. That's a big IF at the moment which is why the thing is trading so low. Current bid price is 38, and sell price 44. It's not quite a junk bond but it's getting there.

The reality is that the vast majority of the bond holders are either in it for the long-haul (might hold the bonds as part of a diversified pension portfolio), or are not prepared to sell at such a big loss. Probably a good chunk are held by Wasps fans. There probably isn't sufficient bonds available for sale to buy a substantial amount that would give Sisu any sort of leverage. Eg even in March less than 1M of bond volume changed hands. Maybe they are planning to pay the rent in bonds :)

The question I would ask is why the owners of Wasps are not mopping up these bonds at 60% discount prices given that its a huge reduction in both the debt they have to repay and the interest... not a good look.

The most likely outcome here in 2 years would be for a new bond issuance to repay the old bonds as long as Wasps are still a going concern by then...
 

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