This was a major business deal involving serious amounts of money.
Hang on, you said SISU never showed any willingness to make an offer. I post a link showing they have made an offer, surely that proves they were willing to make an offer?
Yes and like I said, I was specifically talking about the councils share. Sorry I didn't make that clearer in my OP.
Exactly, a serious amount of money that belongs to the taxpayer and a charity. Therefore surely you would expect a process to take place to ensure the maximum possible return was achieved?
Seeing as you don't seem to have understood the last example lets try another. Let's say Man City have shown an interest in Maddison, they have been monitoring him for 24 months and have on several occasions expressed to CCFC that they hope to one day sign him. Out of the blue Chelsea approach the club and put in a bid of £500K but CCFC value him at £2m. What would you prefer the club do? Would you want them to keep the Chelsea bid secret and sell him to them on the cheap, would you want them to let Man City know a bid has been made in the hope of starting a bidding war between the two clubs or would you leak it to the press that a bid has been received in order to alert all clubs in the hope that multiple clubs will start bidding against each other?
Which of these approaches do you think would be likely to maximise the amount we receive? I would suggest that if SISU did a deal to sell one of our players on the cheap in secret there would be uproar on this forum.
But as far as we know at now point did SISU know the councils half was available under the terms with which it was sold to Wasps. Surely the fact that as soon as they knew about the vastly improved terms they bid for the Higgs half on the same basis gives an indication that there was at least a chance they would have been interested in the same deal offered to Wasps?
When there's only one party actually interested in negotiating and completing a deal and you need to sell they got the maximum return. There was only one show in town.
So sorry Dave they knew and had ample time to start serious negotiations whether Wasps were already having them or not.
Perhaps you can share a link showing a quote from Lucas that a 200 year lease was available?
Thats absolute rubbish. You would have to be a complete idiot to truly believe there was zero chance that SISU would have even the slightest interest in purchasing ACL. And of course there is a complete unknown in that we don't know if any other potential purchasers would have come forward had ACL been put up for sale in an open manner and correctly marketed.
Its a very simple concept. If you want to sell anything, from some second hand tat you have lying around to a car or a multi-million pound business you want to make sure as many people as possible know it is for sale. You don't want to risk a single potential buyer not knowing about what you have to sell.
OK then Tony, lets assume SISU had zero interest in ever buying ACL with or without an extended lease.
Now if you are the council and you want to get maximum return for what you have to sale do you put it on the open market and allow a full, free market, bidding process to take place. Or do you sell it on the cheap in secret? Which option do you think gets the best return for the taxpayer?
AL went on TV and made a statement saying that we will listen to any serious offer. IIRC it was even covered on the BBC's website in their sports section. That's the world wide web. You can't get any more open than that. The BBC website is one of the most visited websites in the whole world.
What more could they have done? Put it on eBay? I don't see what you're suggesting that they should have done?
Tony stop playing dumb. Saying we will listen to any serious offer is a laughable way to market an asset such as ACL. What they hell would a sensible offer be? Given that ACL quoted SISU £24m just for revenue access on a handful of days a year surely a serious offer would be hundreds of millions?
If you want to market and sell an asset like the Ricoh you don't just blurt it out in a vague statement. You prepare documents and presentations, you approach organisations who might be interested, you engage specialists in selling that type of asset. Do you think when Birmingham Council needed to sell the NEC they just slipped a vague statement into a press release? Why was there and open and thorough bidding process for the Olympic Stadium - bit strange to sell something that way isn't it Tony?
No they shouldn't have put it on eBay. What they should have done is prepared a full brief containing details of what they were prepared to offer, i.e. the extended lease, financial figures from recent years, financial projections for future years. They should have made sure every possible potential buyer worldwide received those details, most likely achieved by engaging a specialist. They should have listed a deadline for bids and at that points all bids should have been considered and any bids that could potentially impact on local organisations, such as CCFC or CRFC, should have been made public to allow for objections to be lodged.
Did SISU know a 200 year lease was available in an approximate price range of say £5m - £10m. A yes or no will do.
I would suggest given past actions of ACL, CCC and Higgs, such as offering the F&B for £24m, would make it unlikely SISU would believe the whole of ACL could be purchased with a quadrupling of the lease for the cost of under 7 years rent.
The sale of ACL is actually very similar to the sale of the NEC conducted by Birmingham Council. They retained the freehold but sold the lease, as with the Ricoh. The difference being they engaged three companies to deal with the marketing and sale (Eversheds, Wragge Lawrence Graham and Gateley) as such a sale was beyond the council to carry out themselves. There was a full and open process with deadlines, shortlisting etc prior to the sale to Lloyds. Part of the process is detailed in the Birmingham Mail:
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/bus.../enquiries-flood-after-birmingham-nec-6881531
If you are agreeing that CCC did not properly market ACL and therefore it is possible potential buyers were not aware it was for sale surely you should be furious with the council for not maximising the return for taxpayers?
But as far as we know at now point did SISU know the councils half was available under the terms with which it was sold to Wasps. Surely the fact that as soon as they knew about the vastly improved terms they bid for the Higgs half on the same basis gives an indication that there was at least a chance they would have been interested in the same deal offered to Wasps?
Did SISU know a 200 year lease was available in an approximate price range of say £5m - £10m. A yes or no will do.
I would suggest given past actions of ACL, CCC and Higgs, such as offering the F&B for £24m, would make it unlikely SISU would believe the whole of ACL could be purchased with a quadrupling of the lease for the cost of under 7 years rent.
The sale of ACL is actually very similar to the sale of the NEC conducted by Birmingham Council. They retained the freehold but sold the lease, as with the Ricoh. The difference being they engaged three companies to deal with the marketing and sale (Eversheds, Wragge Lawrence Graham and Gateley) as such a sale was beyond the council to carry out themselves. There was a full and open process with deadlines, shortlisting etc prior to the sale to Lloyds. Part of the process is detailed in the Birmingham Mail:
http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/bus.../enquiries-flood-after-birmingham-nec-6881531
If you are agreeing that CCC did not properly market ACL and therefore it is possible potential buyers were not aware it was for sale surely you should be furious with the council for not maximising the return for taxpayers?
How would anyone ever know without entering into negotiations? That's what negotiations are for. Surely?
They would now because what was available for sale would be on the market.
You could fairly easily flip the negotiation arguement around and level the exact same critism at CCC, that they did not effectively negotiate with SISU.
Think about it, we know that in the most recent talks between CCC and SISU the area of most interest to SISU was the purchase of the freehold, there was also talk of possibly purchasing that unencumbered.
The response from CCC on both counts was pretty much to tell SISU to go away, there was no way that would be made available. Wouldn't a better response from CCC have been something along the lines of the freehold isn't available but we would consider a 200 year lease, which given that it is longer than the likely life of the stadium is to all intents and purposes the same as selling the freehold. Similar we can't sell you the lease unencumbered but these contracts expire shortly and these contract could potentially be renegotiated or terminated. I would say that would be a suitable response if CCC were willing to negotiate with SISU.
After all they have effectively sold the freehold to Wasps, not technically I know but in all practical terms they have. Similarly it seems that contracts SISU were blasted for claiming were poor and should be scrapped seem to have been scrapped since Wasps took over, it seems pretty much only the casino lease has been left untouched. Odd then that when SISU wanted similar we were told it would be impossible.
It takes two sides to negotiate and as much blame as you can place at the door of SISU it seems very clear that CCC and Higgs had no desire of intention to negotiate with SISU.
Did Wasps buy those contracts out do we know or did they just come to a natural end?They would now because what was available for sale would be on the market.
You could fairly easily flip the negotiation arguement around and level the exact same critism at CCC, that they did not effectively negotiate with SISU.
Think about it, we know that in the most recent talks between CCC and SISU the area of most interest to SISU was the purchase of the freehold, there was also talk of possibly purchasing that unencumbered.
The response from CCC on both counts was pretty much to tell SISU to go away, there was no way that would be made available. Wouldn't a better response from CCC have been something along the lines of the freehold isn't available but we would consider a 200 year lease, which given that it is longer than the likely life of the stadium is to all intents and purposes the same as selling the freehold. Similar we can't sell you the lease unencumbered but these contracts expire shortly and these contract could potentially be renegotiated or terminated. I would say that would be a suitable response if CCC were willing to negotiate with SISU.
After all they have effectively sold the freehold to Wasps, not technically I know but in all practical terms they have. Similarly it seems that contracts SISU were blasted for claiming were poor and should be scrapped seem to have been scrapped since Wasps took over, it seems pretty much only the casino lease has been left untouched. Odd then that when SISU wanted similar we were told it would be impossible.
The Higgs at least had propper negotiations that we (thanks to the court case) know more about where the judge saidIt takes two sides to negotiate and as much blame as you can place at the door of SISU it seems very clear that CCC and Higgs had no desire of intention to negotiate with SISU.
So what you're saying is Wasps didn't know either. Doesn't seem to have stopped them finding out if it's possible to get a 200 year lease so why is it a valid excuse for SISU's failure to find out is it?
The only real question is why wouldn't SISU enter into negotiations with CCC.
Did Wasps buy those contracts out do we know or did they just come to a natural end?
For SISU to know CCC would have had to tell them at some point. CCC did not do that. At no point when SISU were speaking with CCC were they offered a 200 year lease. Negotiation requires two willings parties. As James pointed out even the judge in the JR could see that there was "no possible way the council would be willing to agree a transaction with Sisu".
CCC, for unknown reasons, have never wanted to allow CCFC to obtain ownership of the stadium, this goes back to before SISUs arrival.
They did and everytime they asked for anything it was rejected out of hand by CCC. Seems to me it was CCC who wouldn't negotiate. If they were prepared to negotiate with SISU and sell them the 200 year lease why did they not say so when approached by SISU?
No doubt that will be confidential but what it does show is that when CCC were stating that it was absolutely impossible for SISU to take ownership of ACL without honouring the term of all the contracts in place they were again painting an incorrect picture.
Why is it you insist SISU are incapable of negotiating.
That is not what I'm saying at all. What I am saying is that it requires two parties to engage in negotiations. From what I can see every time SISU have attempted to negotiate with CCC they have been given the brush off. Simply put CCC did not want to sell ACL to CCFC, the judge in the JR could see that and clearly stated it so I'm not sure why you are having difficulty understanding it.
Of course this does not particularly relate to SISU as CCC have shown in the past, prior to SISUs arrival, a similar unwillingness to engage in negotiations around the club taking ownership.
Tony, there is zero evidence to suggest that CCC were prepared to sell ACL to SISU under the same terms they sold to Wasps. There is however plenty of evidence to suggest they would not offer that, or indeed any other deal to SISU or any other past or potential owner of the football club.
That's it, plain and simple.
CCC did not want to sell to SISU.
Wasps turning up was like all their Christmases coming at once as it gave CCC a way out of a hole they had dug for themselves, albeit at a loss to the taxpayer and a local charity.
Offer offer offer. Where was SISU's offer? If sisu were serious about BUYING ACL and put half the effort into pursuing it as they did into the fruitless, pointless great idea they had that's the JR they would have had a chance of being successful, unlike the JR. They consciously took the wrong turn and went down the dead end JR road instead of the constructive rd of negotiation and purchasing. They were even given directions and chose to ignore them. It's that simple.
Tony, there is zero evidence to suggest that CCC were prepared to sell ACL to SISU under the same terms they sold to Wasps. There is however plenty of evidence to suggest they would not offer that, or indeed any other deal to SISU or any other past or potential owner of the football club.
That's it, plain and simple.
CCC did not want to sell to SISU.
Wasps turning up was like all their Christmases coming at once as it gave CCC a way out of a hole they had dug for themselves, albeit at a loss to the taxpayer and a local charity.
Why is it you insist SISU are incapable of negotiating. Are they incapable of having a good idea idea and taking the right course of actions to achieve that? Negotiations doesn't just have to be about price, there is no law stopping you discussing term's as well. Are you really suggesting that SISU don't have the acumen to A) come up with the idea of extending the lease and B) renegotiate the length of a lease and a price for that lease extension as part of the purchase of CCC's share of ACL? Given the short length of the original ACL lease I find it hard to believe that an extension on the existing lease wouldn't have been a priority for anyone who was seriously considering making a move for ACL. You seem to be saying that the only way this was going to happen for SISU is if CCC held their hand and walked them through it. Which begs the question. How did SISU ever buy anything ever? According to you they're clueless.
SISU and CCC worked together to agree a lease extension before, a 125 year one, clearly they must have thought that was long enough. They signed draft terms in August 2012. So it seems odd that anyone would think SISU weren't aware such an extension was possible.
SISU and CCC worked together to agree a lease extension before, a 125 year one, clearly they must have thought that was long enough. They signed draft terms in August 2012. So it seems odd that anyone would think SISU weren't aware such an extension was possible.
Personally I can't recall that but then with everything that has gone on details easily get lost. But yes, if that's right there really is no point arguing that CCC hadn't took SISU by the hand informed them that a longer lease (200 years or whatever) was available because as you say SISU were fully aware that the length of the lease is negotiable having already done so. Which I imagine (to coin a phrase) is standard business practice with commercial leases. Which after all a commercial lease is exactly what ACL have with CCC.
Was that for the whole of ACL?
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