Higgs sale of shares in ACL. Ignoring all of the ego, antipathy, personalities etc
First off, from what has happened since it is pretty clear AEHC trustees had taken a decision to distance themselves from any direct or indirect involvement in professional sport. They have sold shares in ACL, have done a deal on Higgs centre when Alan Higgs Centre Trust wound up etc. They want no part of it, I think it is easy to understand why, perhaps they should never have got involved.
Secondly they were entitled to sell their interest to whoever best fitted their charity objectives then and for the future. They would also assess the risk of doing a deal with any party involved. Yes it could be argued an element of arrangement but then you have to look at what was offered
AEHC do not operate events etc they make financial grants from the investment and other income they receive
The two offers - the known facts:
CCFC ltd through the administrator backed by SISU
- £2.8m for the shares
- involvement in various outline charitable suggestions/partnerships. Now given AEHC do not operate events their involvement in the partnership could only have been provision of funds.
- conditional offer
- potential future risks
Wasps Holdings
- £2.77m for the shares
- an income of 50p per seat sold in the Alan Edward Higgs Charity stand at the Ricoh for a period of 4 years. AEHC accounts appear to show that as worth £30,000+ per annum
- no future involvement
- unconditional offer
- no future risks
The Trustees had to consider what was best for the Charity, not what was best for CCFC, CCC or indeed the City of Coventry. The SISU offer up front was £23,000 more than the Wasps upfront payment but AEHC would receive, with no conditions attached, a further £120,000+ from Wasps over a period of 4 years. There were no further or future potential costs to AEHC with the Wasps offer there were for the CCFC Ltd one. Had AEHC wanted to grant monies for football based community schemes then the vehicle was already there to do it in SBITC.
I think it is accepted that there was no love lost between AEHC and SISU on either side. But was the SISU backed offer better even financially? Which was the better offer for AEHC? Which potential deal carried the bigger risk for the Charity?
oh and due diligence doesn't take place until an outline agreement has been struck. The CCFC backed by SISU offer was rejected from the get go, so due diligence was never going to happen for that offer.