Bolton's Finances / Accounts for year ending 30th June 2021 and everything else since.

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New share allocation on companies house.  Won’t pretend I know what it is, but guess it’s raised some cash?

BoltonTillIDie wrote:New share allocation on companies house.  Won’t pretend I know what it is, but guess it’s raised some cash?

£2 million.

What it means is this...

The owners of FV have agreed to issue more shares in the company to be bought by themselves, or a third party, in order to put more money into FV.

The money may be needed to spend on things, such as new players in January, or to pay off existing debts that may be falling due anytime soon.

There could also be other reasons for the money such as needing it for capital outlay for the proposed planning development in and around the Reebok.

Whoever has bought the shares will have increased their shareholdings in FV and depending on the number of shares they now own could affect who exactly is in control of FV and thus determine which direction the company will be going in, in future.

I suspect that the investment of this £2m has probably come from Luckock's BMLL Ltd company (which was set up as a conduit for the so called 'Swiss Investors' investment into FV).

I guess we will have to wait until January to see if some/all of this money is to strengthen the squad or not.

I would be pleasantly surprised if much (or any) of it did!

Sluffy wrote:

£2 million.

What it means is this...

The owners of FV have agreed to issue more shares in the company to be bought by themselves, or a third party, in order to put more money into FV.

The money may be needed to spend on things, such as new players in January, or to pay off existing debts that may be falling due anytime soon.

There could also be other reasons for the money such as needing it for capital outlay for the proposed planning development in and around the Reebok.

Whoever has bought the shares will have increased their shareholdings in FV and depending on the number of shares they now own could affect who exactly is in control of FV and thus determine which direction the company will be going in, in future.

I suspect that the investment of this £2m has probably come from Luckock's BMLL Ltd company (which was set up as a conduit for the so called 'Swiss Investors' investment into FV).

I guess we will have to wait until January to see if some/all of this money is to strengthen the squad or not.

I would be pleasantly surprised if much (or any) of it did!

Clear as mud, isn't it Sluffy? Sharon's saying nowt and nobody seems to be asking about the finances or who controls Bolton Wanderers?

That's now £26million raised in shares, one way or another, but FV still haven't repaid PBP or Brett Warburton. I also doubt that they have paid the interest.

As you say, FV are due to declare the shareholdings at 10 January 2023 but they dragged out the annual declaration until 17 February this year. By that time the goalposts had moved again with shares also held in Sharon's name that seemed to be beneficially owned by other parties.

I gather that The Times ran an article on Saturday about the Future Fund money. BWFC and a sex party company called Killing Kittens were highlighted apparently.

As we prepare for the challenge of the might of the Bluebirds from Barrow, the big news of the week is that representatives of the ST have had another momentous meeting with the organ grinders' assistant at the Unibol together with the organ grinders assistant's assistants.

READ ALL ABOUT IT (if you want)

Brett Warburton’s debt has been settled.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Brett Warburton’s debt has been settled.

I guess the two parcels of land have been eventually sold then?

Would seem that the land is not connected with the proposed development around the Reebok?

Persons entitled
William Brett Warburton
Brief description
The freehold property known as land on the north side of hall lane, lostock (title number MAN98363) and the freehold property known as land and building on the east side of lostock lane, lostock (title number MAN98364)

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Thanks Sluffy.

Brett Warburton's loan was for £2.5m and due for repayment on or before 1 August 2022, in accordance with the FV acquisition deal. So too was the £5.5M PBP loan.

PBP agreed to write off c.£2m in accrued interest charges if the debt was settled on time. Plainly, it wasn't.

I think its safe to say that FV didn't have the money but they have now scrambled enough to repay Brett. Some, if not all, of it may have come from an agreement to sell surplus land at Academy Way, Lostock to Bellway Homes. Its probable that Brett's loan was secured on this land.

It's presently unknown whether Brett wrote off any interest or capital. FV's 2022 accounts may give us a clue when we get to see them.

Brett originally advanced £2million in December 2014 and a further £500K in January 2015. These events, proved beyond all reasonable doubt, that Marc Iles misled, imo willfully, readers of the Bolton News over the circumstances that led to Bolton Wanderers travails in 2016. Frankly he has done next to nothing other than compound his errors ever since.

I see that planning permission was granted to Bellway Homes on 5 October 2022 for the erection of up to 59 dwellings at Academy Way, Lostock.

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Thanks Bob.

Good spot about the planning permission being granted.

As for Warburton's charge being settled -

I've been under the impression that the two areas of land the charge were on, have been awaiting being sold for some time and that there have been delays in the completion of them, so just assumed the sales had finally gone through but you are right to say payment could easily have come from elsewhere such as the sale of land at Acadamy Way, or even from the recent share allocation monies.

When I first read your initial post about the charge being satisfied, I had something at the back of my mind about having read that the land sale value that the charges were on may be insufficient to cover the debt - and thus presumably would have to be made up from the revenue account.

Maybe I remembered wrongly (or misunderstood what I did read) but where I am going with this is that I tried to find the auditors note on this but could not (maybe it was on a previous year's accounts or maybe I'd dreamt it perhaps!) but what I found instead was something I hadn't noticed and registered with me before!

The place where I was looking for the Warburton loan details on the accounts was 18 Creditors falling due after 1 year (page 33 or 36 of 41) which also was the same section as the FF Nominees government loan, and which (me being me) I read through once again.

If you remember at the time, we were not totally sure if the loan was for £5m (that the shareholders had to match) or for the sum of £2.5m that had to be match funded - which indeed it turned out to be.

What I seemed to have missed/overlooked in the auditors notes at the time was that there was also an unsecured loan of £800,000 existing too.

If we go back to the infamous allotment of shares of October 2021 (that kept being recorded incorrectly) it is recorded that the consideration comprised of a Conversion of a £4.5m loan note, Capitalisation of a £3m loan and Conversion of a £5m loan (the FF/gov 'matched' loan).

But if you compare that to the auditors' remarks on the latest accounts it seems to me that although the Shareholders loan facility was for £3m they had in fact only funded just over £2m of that at the time and there was a further unsecured loan of £800,000 which seems to me to make up the shortfall.

I assume as it isn't listed under the 'shareholders' loan facility that it must be from a third party?

As I assume this £800,000 was rolled into the eventually share allocation total then I guess it must be some (or all?) of the investment for shares that Sharon is acting as a proxy for?

At the end of the day, it doesn't change much if anything from what we already believe to be the position of things now but if so, it just once again seems to underline the fact that Sharon/James/Luckock haven't seemed to have the money themselves to have funded Football Ventures independently right from the start to the current time.

Just thought I'd share my belated observation on the matter.

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Thanks Sluffy

I think it’s interesting that the Beeno hasn’t spotted any of this, don’t you?

The value of housing land can be very variable depending on location, abnormal conditions and costs and local authority demands. This land is in a former coal mining area with attendant issues from that.

  I expect land values to have dropped with inflation, increased interest rates and expected falls in house values hitting house builders profits hard. If FV have got somewhere near the amount to settle Brett’s loan, I think they will have done quite well out of it.

Meanwhile Sharon’s been on another do gooder initiative. She bought BWFC, she says,  because of her love of football and to do good.

No I don't really.

I think the vast majority of football fans have zero interest in how clubs are financed - and that goes for those at the local papers and the likes of Ilse.

Even though we've almost gone out of business TWICE in recent years, Eddie had the papers filed for going into Administration before Holdsworth stepped in, and of course we did ultimately collapse into Admin before FV bought us out of it - it is abundantly clear that almost everyone still can't grasp that the business finances of the club determine's not only what it can put out on to the pitch, but as in Bury's case, it's very existence!

I can understand people believing that someone somewhere will always manage to save a club once it has gone bust - apart from Bury they always have - and also, they aren't arsed about what the business does financially wise just as long as it continually spends money on players to make the team better - but I would have thought by now that folk would have at least some understandings that the business behind the club financial strength or weakness determines things - and not success on the pitch - Bury spent money it couldn't pay back to creditors on gaining promotion only to go out of business before they kicked a ball the following season!

I don't follow Ilse tweets as much as I once did so may have missed something, but I don't remember him mentioning the recent £2m shares allocation, nor the planning permission approval for the house builder and I would have thought with him working at the paper that there must be contacts within it (or at least within the group) to be asked to be notified as and when the planning permission to build the homes is granted and for him to set a notification with Companies House for any updates for FV and FVWL and seek advice from the papers Business Journalist as to what they mean.

If nothing else, they both are areas where articles for the paper can be easily written by him to meet his daily quota of 'copy' he has to write - or whatever target he has to work to.

It is what it is Bob, only perceived 'nerds' like us seem to be bothered as to what is happening 'financial-wise' everyone else is more bothered which players we will be 'buying' in the next transfer window - and not 'can we afford to bring in any new players' in terms of wages and transfer fees, without the club spiraling out of control again.

No one even seems to be bothered that nobody actually knows who even owns us ffs!

Ignorance must really be 'bliss' for many I suppose?

Only a couple of weeks to go before FV are due to declare who now owns all the shares.

They were late last year but when they eventually showed up FV said that UK FF Nominees Ltd owned 393,881 shares.

UK FF Nominees Ltd filed their accounts three months ago. They said they'd never owned shares in FV or in 'owt else!!!!.

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Funny old game, innit?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Only a couple of weeks to go before FV are due to declare who now owns all the shares.

They were late last year but when they eventually showed up FV said that UK FF Nominees Ltd owned 393,881 shares.  

UK FF Nominees Ltd filed their accounts three months ago. They said they'd never owned shares in FV or in 'owt else!!!!.

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Funny old game, innit?

As far as I understand things Bob UK FF Nominees Ltd has been set up only to 'hold' the legal title pf the portfolio of the governments Covid loans and not to 'own' or benefit directly from them, the beneficiary being the government (specifically the Secretary of State for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy - currently Grant Shapps).

Didn't the funding of all these loans come from a number of approved financial institutions with the government underwriting all the funding - but not directly funding the loans themselves.

I guess everything has been set up this way to comply with existing legislation that prevents the government owning or running businesses not essential to the security of the country - such as a football club - it so would require Acts of Parliament to make it legal to do so (see Ultra Vires).

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Fwiw UK FF Nominees Ltd is a subsidiary of the holding company UK FF TopCo  Ltd

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Thanks Sluffy. I'm sure you are right but its not very transparent, is it, and there is a lot of public money involved?

What we've got is a one pound company owned by another one pound company both of which claim they are dormant and undertaken no business. That seems very generous of them to do whatever they do without some financial reward.

Did you notice that it was all signed off by the exotically named Charmaine de Castro?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Thanks Sluffy. I'm sure you are right but its not very transparent, is it, and there is a lot of public money involved?

What we've got is a one pound company owned by another one pound company both of which claim they are dormant and undertaken no business. That seems very generous of them to do whatever they do without some financial reward.

Did you notice that it was all signed off by the exotically named Charmaine de Castro?

Yes I did Bob, I even took the trouble to see who she was, and I was a bit shocked when I found out too!

You'd think (well I did) that she would be some high powered executive - well she is I suppose from the position she holds but what a strange way she got there!

Seems she is from Thailand, seems to be in her mid thirties and took a degree in tourism and was working for a travel company as recently as 2010.

She took a Law Degree at Kings College London and ended up with a 2.1 (same grade as my daughter achieved - and she spent more time living the uni life than doing much studying!).

Hardly marked out as a high flier at that stage was Ms Castro I would suggest.

Indeed after Kings she spent two years in H M Court Service a an Admin Assistant which brought her career up to the end of 2015 - just seven years ago!

Her fortunes seemed to change dramatically from that time on when she joined the Dutch company Intertrust Group...

The company is best known for its fiduciary services, which includes tax, trust, business management and outsourcing processes.[4] It is the largest trust office in the Netherlands.

Intertrust has locations in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East,[7] but most of its revenue stems from a small number of tax havens.

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In just three years Ms Castro climbed from first being an Assistant Manager, to become a Junior Manager, and finally a Manager, this brought her up to April 2019 when the company was taken over by CSC Financial...

CSC Financial Co., Ltd. trading as China Securities, is a Chinese investment bank and brokerage firm established by CITIC Securities and China Jianyin Investment in 2005 in a 60–40 ratio, as a successor of bankrupted China Securities Co., Ltd. (CSC). However, the firm now majority owned by Jianyin Investment's parent company Central Huijin Investment and an asset managing subsidiary of Beijing Municipal People's Government [zh].

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Ms Castro became a manager of Transaction Services and in October of this year became the Senior Manager of Transaction Services.

Note as the accounts were signed off by her (per pro for one of the Directors) in September she was not even the Senior Manager of Transaction Services at the time!

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So in summary it would seem a former Dutch company that obtained the bulk of its profits from a small number of Tax Havens, which is now owned (partly at least) by Beijing Municipal People's Government...

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(my guess would be the holding company/s are in effect state controlled) are holding the title to all the Covid loans given out by the British Government (and a young Thai lady with hardly a lifetime of experience in her field, signed off the accounts more or less without a second thought - and to be fair why should she).

I'm not saying anything is wrong in all this by the way, just that things aren't as clear and as open as one may wish - but then again that is how the world is these days.

Thanks Sluffy. Impressive research.

Wanderers owners FV are due to tell us who owns FV in the next twelve days. Will they or will we have more delay and/or nominees disguising who actually own the shares?

Lincoln City managed to get their confirmation statement filed on time yesterday, all 115 pages of it.
FV's runs to a mere five pages yet was over a month late last year!!!