How low can we go?

I don't think ED asking for a little bit of his money back is "making demands" especially as he has specified that it is only to be repaid if the club are earning enough to pay it back and are in either the championship or premiership. He's spent a shedload of money bringing the good times to BWFC and the ungrateful little shits shouldn't complain about repaying a tiny proportion of it especially as they have been aware of it from the beginning so will have made provision in the business plan.

Not ideal from a rebuilding perspective but we shouldn't forget the alternative was extinction.

wanderlust wrote:I don't think ED asking for a little bit of his money back is "making demands" especially as he has specified that it is only to be repaid if the club are earning enough to pay it back and are in either the championship or premiership. He's spent a shedload of money bringing the good times to BWFC and the ungrateful little shits shouldn't complain about repaying a tiny proportion of it especially as they have been aware of it from the beginning so will have made provision in the business plan.

Not ideal from a rebuilding perspective but we shouldn't forget the alternative was extinction.

I second that- he bought us the good times but its easy to forget that amongst all the recriminations going on. All these accusations about him making millions from the club are just malicious fantasies

I'm still not having it that he's out of pocket in all this.

Yeah, I know.....audited accounts and all that stuff - I get that.

But it just seems inconceivable to me that an obviously ruthless businessman like Davies would allow the club to run up a debt which he knew could never be repaid.

I have absolutely no idea how it was done and I'm sure that it was all probably legal but I can't shake my belief that he's done ok out of Bolton Wanderers.

Nor am I prepared to believe that he's somehow had the wool pulled over his eyes by Gartside's continued mismanagement of the club's daily operations.

If he really was funding the club in the way which has been suggested, why on earth would he continue to sanction pissing ridiculous sums away on daft contracts when it was clear that the debt had already reached a level where it could never be repaid?

A bit like what we know about SS's business plan, none of it makes any sense.....

Breadman wrote:I'm still not having it that he's out of pocket in all this.

Yeah, I know.....audited accounts and all that stuff - I get that.

But it just seems inconceivable to me that an obviously ruthless businessman like Davies would allow the club to run up a debt which he knew could never be repaid.

I have absolutely no idea how it was done and I'm sure that it was all probably legal but I can't shake my belief that he's done ok out of Bolton Wanderers.

Nor am I prepared to believe that he's somehow had the wool pulled over his eyes by Gartside's continued mismanagement of the club's daily operations.

If he really was funding the club in the way which has been suggested, why on earth would he continue to sanction pissing ridiculous sums away on daft contracts when it was clear that the debt had already reached a level where it could never be repaid?

A bit like what we know about SS's business plan, none of it makes any sense.....

I don't think he's a "ruthless businessman" for starters. I think he's an inventor who came up with an idea in his garden shed and set up a business to manufacture kettles. He employed "ruthless businessmen" to make the money and do the dirty work. He probably writes a column for Nerd Weekly.
He also employed Phil Gartside to run the club. PG who on every media shot going appears to be sucking up to ED big time. And ED clearly loved him. Worse still, he had confidence in his business skills and ethics..
And of course ED's out of pocket. Sure he's had a lot of dinners and holidays out of it but he's paid for them a hundred times over. For the notional debt figure to appear in the accounts in the first place, Eddie's investment must have been evidenced to the satisfaction of the auditors and ultimately HMRC. Sure expenses have been creative in the past but not to the tune of £185 MILLION of your British pounds. 

He needs the paltry £15 million to put food on the table whilst he's pottering about in his inventing shed. Let the altruistic old codger be FFS.

wanderlust wrote:I don't think he's a "ruthless businessman" for starters. I think he's an inventor who came up with an idea in his garden shed and set up a business to manufacture kettles

Are you being serious!!!

He never invented the gadget, in fact he never invented anything - he was an ACCOUNTANT.

He joined the kettle making company as the Finance Director / Managing Direct and acquired his wealth from the share options that came as part of his remuneration package.

He sold his shares for £93 million when the company was taken over.

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I hope this is all a massive tongue in cheek joke and I've missed the point.

Please tell me it is........

Stop scaring me, Lusty.........

Don't like it.

I honestly can't see anything but another relegation battle next season and an ongoing desperate fight for the survival of the club itself due to the fact we don't have anything like the income to pay the current outgoings let alone re-invest in either the squad or infrastructure. 

The high earners will stay until their contracts end unless someone dumb comes in and offers to match their wages. The likes of Clough, Woolery and pretty much any of our kids who look decent will be sold to fund that not to invest in buying new players. The manager (whomever that may be) is going to be working with at least one hand tied behind his back and as the transfer embargo has still not been lifted it's hard to see how he's going to make any real improvements. 

I don't understand any of this. I don't get what SS and Inner Circle are hoping to accomplish unless its an asset strip, selling the Hotel and any other parts of the business they can as quickly as possible then getting out before the hammer falls on them with the debts that are still with us and will be accrued between now and then.

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:I don't think he's a "ruthless businessman" for starters. I think he's an inventor who came up with an idea in his garden shed and set up a business to manufacture kettles

Are you being serious!!!

No.
But he's clearly not a ruthless businessman.

I have an idea...... why don't we sell the club to people with money.....according to Eddie there were around 50 interested parties.  You're trying to tell me that none of them had more money then Sports Shield.......total bull.
In a year or two after SS runs out of cash they will just off-load us to anybody willing. All looks bleak to me my friends.
Further ...just following on to the above theories ....what would be the point of pushing for promotion back to the Champs?  talking financially.... if we were to get back up then better/more expensive players would be needed and we are right back were we stared aren't we?

Have the mystery investors of SS been made available to the public yet. Wouldn't it be a strange twist if ED turns out to be one of those mystery men. He uses his capital in a money merry-go-round to get HMRC off his back while stripping the capital from the club assets by securing loans against the stadium, the training facility, the hotel etc. Deno is a frontman. It would make perfect sense for this whole transaction to be ED driven sham with Deno at the helm. We all knew SS had no cash or capital. It would also make sense as why SS would give into ED crazy demands!

You don't think at some point in the future, Eddie will step in again as part of his nest feathering exercise. Stranger things have happened.

Cross posted with JAH

JAH wrote:Have the mystery investors of SS been made available to the public yet. Wouldn't it be a strange twist if ED turns out to be one of those mystery men. He uses his capital in a money merry-go-round to get HMRC off his back while stripping the capital from the club assets by securing loans against the stadium, the training facility, the hotel etc. Deno is a frontman. It would make perfect sense for this whole transaction to be ED driven sham with Deno at the helm. We all knew SS had no cash or capital. It would also make sense as why SS would give into ED crazy demands!

Not so far fetched... but nothing seems to make sense in this Wanderers World.  There is more than meets the eye in this selection, and only time will tell why.  Financially, this is a lose-lose proposition, at least for the next year or two.  In the future, who knows.

Can ED legally make such moves ?

gloswhite wrote:Can ED legally make such moves ?

There will always be a loophole somewhere to be exploited.

gloswhite wrote:Can ED legally make such moves ?

There's nothing to stop him- but we really have entered the realms of fantasy here(as Captain Mainwaring would say).
A bit of parallel universe is always interesting but conjecturing on what ED is up to has now reached ludicrous levels. ED has gone- he's not hanging around in the background pulling strings. He may have residual loans left in the club but any suggestion that he's manoeuvring and manipulating in the background to gain some sort of financial advantage is simply overexcited imaginations working overtime. Conspiracy theories such as this invariably turn out to be nonsense.

Its worrying though, especially when the current management seem to have got hold of a company, and don't seem to know what to do with it. We've hardly been overwhelmed with optimism, plans, or even sound bites and interviews. If I wasn't already completely disillusioned, I'd be depressed.

gloswhite wrote:Its worrying though, especially when the current management seem to have got hold of a company, and don't seem to know what to do with it. We've hardly been overwhelmed with optimism, plans, or even sound bites and interviews. If I wasn't already completely disillusioned, I'd be depressed.

perhaps this should be the new nuts motto?

rammywhite wrote:

gloswhite wrote:Can ED legally make such moves ?

There's nothing to stop him- but we really have entered the realms of fantasy here(as Captain Mainwaring would say).
A bit of parallel universe is always interesting but conjecturing on what ED is up to has now reached ludicrous levels. ED has gone- he's not hanging around in the background pulling strings. He may have residual loans left in the club but any suggestion that he's manoeuvring and manipulating in the background to gain some sort of financial advantage is simply overexcited imaginations working overtime. Conspiracy theories such as this invariably turn out to be nonsense.

Fantasyworld does not explain the machinations here.

First and foremost... were their multiple bidders?  If so, then why take a bid that has little to no financial backing?  This is built on the premise that SS has the backing of loans... from groups looking to make money on their investment.  Then someone needs to explain how a team being relegated, without parachute payments, holding long-term contracts of malcontents who are not playing up to their abilities, can make money for these investors? With no hard cash in the kitty, and with these long-term contracts, how can the club make five pence in League One?  How does SS propose to pay back these loans?  The only way of bringing in money is to strip the assets to pay back the loans.  Remember, this is also the only bidder who is keeping ED's name as President, and paying him if within a certain period, the club returns to profitability. 

This is not a conspiracy based question on whether there is a master or masters pulling the puppet's strings. Deano does not have the money himself.  His major backer pulled out just before the court hearing.  There is no hard cash involved.  So how and why did SS get this deal, and how can they pay back their loans?  The club will not win 6 of their last games to stay up... we haven't done that all season.  No one even wants to take our high priced ponces for free on loan.  Nothing bodes well for the future of the club.  Yes, there is a nucleus of young players who might give us an advantage next season... but there is no money to sign them again. 

Perhaps the late PG understood why he signed players without relegation clauses.  Perhaps he understood signing some of them to long term contracts when they were making way too much for the championship, let alone League One.  Perhaps the thinking was we would be back up in one season. 

We couldn't even off-load Mark Davies, who has talent, but is not playing up to his ability for us.  He is a lucky bloke who has been paid for years for not playing.  Now he holds up the future of the club.  He should have been off and helped to save the club which has paid him millions for recovery.

Football is mercenary.  Everyone wants to make money... but someone needs to figure out how this club can return a profit on this investment.  If this is not possible, then we turn to underlying theories which speculate on the reasons.  No, this is not Fantasyland, but reality of return on investments.

From the info in the public domain the takeover appears to be a wild and unsustainable gamble that necessitates selling everything just to stay afloat and yet is hampered in doing so by player contracts - so may well still lead to bankruptcy.

If there is something that they are not telling us that would make all the difference, then I've very concerned that communications between club and fans haven't improved in the slightest.

I suspect that Deano's plans were primarily based on his belief that we will survive the drop.