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

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Daily Sluff Headlines.

Sluffy says that accountants don't know what they are doing on DLAs


Accountants all over the country will be heading for their desks today shaken by the news that they might have been getting Directors Loan Accounts wrong throughout their entire careers.


This revelation follows on from news in the Daily Sluff that commercial lawyers don't know what they are doing either.


Those that think Sluffy is of sound mind and on to something might well be checking out their professional indemnity policies before morning coffee.

Bob,

I don't doubt you know your stuff.

I don't doubt that day to day, Directors Loan transactions are dealt with in the way you've described, however...

When a company falls into insolvency it's actions and transactions are measured not by what is acceptable day to day practice but what the law states.

The Administrator has not based his decision on day to day accountancy practice but on the letter of the law.

Note well that the title of his report is...

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

3118 of 2019

IN THE MATTER OF

THE BOLTON WANDERERS FOOTBALL & ATHLETIC COMPANY LIMITED IN ARMINISTRATION

AND

THE INSOLVENCY ACT 1986

His decision can be appealed.

It could be heard by the Companies List (a specialist court within the Business and Property Courts of the High Court of Justice, that  handle cases relating to the insolvency of companies, including: Appeals against a decision by a liquidator to reject a proof of debt in an insolvency.

A High Court judge would rule on whether the claims for security by ED and KA were legal in law (NOT day to day accountancy practice).

Think of it as say breaking the speed limit in our cars for instance, we all in practice probably break the speed limit every day by the odd mile or two, here or there - it's technically breaking the law every time we do but it isn't an issue unless we crash.

If we crash and we are found to have been driving over the speed limit of the law, we are found to have been in the wrong and penalised.

That is what happened here, normal accountancy practice may have not been an issue in how KA's theoretical Directors Loan was constructed, and not even have been an issue at all if the company had not 'crashed' and fallen into Administration.

Having 'crashed', the lead up to how the Company fell into Administration was fully examined and the 'construction' of KA's 'Directors Loan' was found not to have been compliant with the legality of how it should have been and neither were the claims for secured creditor status from ED and KA in Sept/Oct 2018.

That's how the law works.

Not how you might think it should do.

Let's be honest Bob, if ED had put his £7.5m into BL, secured it on assets, and BL simply then paid off BM there wouldn't be an issue.

If KA had borrowed £7.5m from the bank, put it into BL, secured it on assets and BL simply then paid BM there wouldn't have been an issue here either.

For what ever reasons they had, they decided to do things the way they did and it wouldn't have been an issue if BL hadn't 'crashed' and fallen into Administration and thus came under the magnifying glass of the Insolvency Law.

But it DID.

Bob needs some Hamish and Dougal.

So it’s not the accountants or the bookkeepers, we are now back to the lawyers involved in all this being bumbling incompetent buffoons, are we Sluffy?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:So it’s not the accountants or the bookkeepers, we are now back to the lawyers involved in all this being bumbling incompetent buffoons, are we Sluffy?

No Bob, it's nothing at all to do with the accountants, the bookkeepers or the 'bumbling, incompetent, buffoonish' lawyers and everything to do with had the company complied with the LAW prior to its fall into insolvency.

The Law simply doesn't work in the way the vast majority of people believes it does, it isn't the judiciary ruling on what is right or wrong, what the judiciary actually does is rule on whether or not the legislation it is required to judge against has been followed correctly or not.

When the Administrator was appointed he had to report on what he found at Burnden Leisure and measure whatever had been done was in compliance with the Insolvency Act 1986 - that's the title of his report ffs!

KA's 'constructed' Directors Loan was simply NOT in accordance with the Act, its construction did not derive FROM the company as the Act states.

In cases before the courts judges are required to interpret legislation in line with the intention of the legislation passed by Parliament - ie THE LAW.

The intention in this case was clearly to AVOID the loan ever coming from the company - as I've pointed out above how easily it could have been done through Burnden Leisure, if ED and KA had wanted to!

The Administrator IS the courts representative in company insolvencies.

All else follows from there.

That's how the judicial system actually works.

The Sluffy team have spoken. Bob's in trouble.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Deary me, Sluffy, you are still flummoxed, still flailing, still flannelling and still floundering like a flatfish on a foreshore and I'm seriously running out of my stock of alliteration.

I think you need a break, old bean. Don't you think Howard and Hilda were rather good in Ever Decreasing Circles? Who was your favourite? I always liked Penelope Wilton but I never told Lady Bobsworth.

YES Bob, I always liked Penelope Wilton.


I've moved on to Holliday Grainger now.

Cajunboy wrote:
YES Bob, I always liked Penelope Wilton.


I've moved on to Holliday Grainger now.

Penny not good enough for you now, eh?
Cast aside like an old sock.
I'm not one to judge though. I myself felt the flak when I dumped Violet Carson for Mollie Sugden.

After every other barmy idea you have come up with, Sluffy, it all boils down to the Administrator of Burnden Leisure deciding, for reasons of his own, to come up with a report that could not possibly be true. Apparently you see no problem with abuse of power or privilege. I do. I also wonder how often it happens in other Administrations.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:After every other barmy idea you have come up with, Sluffy, it all boils down to the Administrator of Burnden Leisure deciding, for reasons of his own, to come up with a report that could not possibly be true. Apparently you see no problem with abuse of power or privilege. I do. I also wonder how often it happens in other Administrations.

But Bob, I don't know how it all works, as is well known, but how would he get away with it. Are there no checks and balances? Is everyone in on it?

Ten Bobsworth wrote:After every other barmy idea you have come up with, Sluffy, it all boils down to the Administrator of Burnden Leisure deciding, for reasons of his own, to come up with a report that could not possibly be true. Apparently you see no problem with abuse of power or privilege. I do. I also wonder how often it happens in other Administrations.

No Bob.

The Administrator looked at what the Insolvency Act defines how Directors Loans are created and that is by putting money into or out from the company.

The legislation is quite specific that the loan can only be created by a transaction deriving FROM or TO the company.

It's abundantly clear that was NOT the case with what happened at Burnden Leisure in Sept/Oct 2018.

Now you stick with your conspiracy theory as long as you like, you can scream as loud as you want that the Administrator abused his power or privilege, you can be obsessed as much as you want over this but the simple truth is that the claimed Directors Loan was not constructed in accordance with legislation and therefore it can't in law stand. It is de facto, it has no legal right to exist.

boltonbonce wrote:

Ten Bobsworth wrote:After every other barmy idea you have come up with, Sluffy, it all boils down to the Administrator of Burnden Leisure deciding, for reasons of his own, to come up with a report that could not possibly be true. Apparently you see no problem with abuse of power or privilege. I do. I also wonder how often it happens in other Administrations.

But Bob, I don't know how it all works, as is well known, but how would he get away with it. Are there no checks and balances? Is everyone in on it?

Of course there are checks and balances Bonce, there's a High Court Appeals process, which if you really thought you'd been screwed out of £7.5m you'd be using to get your money back!

You can also complain to the Insolvency experts professional society in respect of his conduct.

The Administrator simply hasn't abused his power or privilege he's simply done his job and found things at Burnden Leisure not to be as what was claimed.

If there was a claim by KA for a DL to be in existence then it was correctly ruled out as being unlawful.  As for the claims of £7.5m for security from ED and KA in Sept/Oct 2018 they simply didn't exist - how could one amount of £7.5m loaned by ED to KA manage to secure two lots of £7.5m security - clearly it couldn't.  

I could see it being genuine for ED to achieve this by putting the £7.5m into BL and securing it - but the money never was paid to BL - the bank statements would prove that.

I could see a scenario of some agreement for ED to settle with BM as an agent for BL and in consideration have an equal sum secured against BL assets (if that was legally possible?) but I have no idea how KA claimed his alleged security if that happened as again there is only one lot of £7.5m and two people both claiming BL security for it!!!

It's simply impossible unless there is a second amount of £7.5m that's been injected into the story at some point.

boltonbonce wrote:
But Bob, I don't know how it all works, as is well known, but how would he get away with it. Are there no checks and balances? Is everyone in on it?

One of the very few things Sluffy got right is that there is an appeals procedure when an Administrator oversteps the mark. Admins are given very wide powers to help deal with circumstances where there are frequently a whole variety  of iffy issues but an appellant who had been wronged could find it prohibitively expensive and extremely difficult to get a decision overturned, even one as dubious as this one.

To be candid, I don't think the Administrator would have tried this tactic if he didn't expect to get away with it and he did get away with it except that, if he thought Ken Anderson was snookered he wasn't.

On the generality of checks and balances, they may sound OK in theory but in practice are often as effective as chocolate fire screens.

The whole thing is really quite interesting if you are interested in that kind of thing but there don't seem to be many that come on Nuts to put their thinking heads on. Nonetheless the thread has now attracted nearly 13,500 views so clearly the bots are lovin it.

Even if it hasn't dawned on Sluffy yet, major transactions like, for example, the sale, purchase or re-mortgage of a house are usually conducted through the Client Accounts of solicitors. There's a simple reason; its to prevent things going horribly wrong.

The same goes for major transactions in companies like the repayment of the Blumarble loan, replacing it with funds by Ken Anderson borrowed from Eddie Davies/Fildraw and secured on the assets of Burnden Leisure.

Sluffy seems to have missed the bus completely and is now pretending that he wasn't bothered about getting on it anyway but this is really all part of the continuing FV story. FV wanted to buy the club and were  probably the best bet of the four interested parties but they didn't have enough money. So the Admins seem to have come up with the idea that if they disregarded the repayment of the Blumarble debt they could get the amount needed down by c.£5m.

Ken was having none of that; no-one would hence the appointment of Administrators for the hotel within days. I'll come onto the bookkeeping later.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Even if it hasn't dawned on Sluffy yet, major transactions like the sale, purchase or re-mortgage of a house are usually conducted through the Client Accounts of solicitors. There's a simple reason; its to prevent things going horribly wrong.

The same goes for major transactions in companies like, for example, the repayment of the Blumarble loan and replacing it with funds by Ken Anderson borrowed from Eddie Davies/Fildraw and secured on the assets of Burnden Leisure.

Sluffy seems to have missed the bus completely and is now pretending that he wasn't bothered about getting on it anyway but this is really all part of the continuing FV story. FV wanted to buy the club and were  probably the best bet of the four interested parties but they didn't have enough money. So the Admins seem to have come up with the idea that if they disregarded the repayment of the Blumarble debt they could get the amount needed down by c.£5m.

Ken was having none of that; no-one would hence the appointment of Administrators for the hotel within days. I'll come onto the bookkeeping later.

Thanks Bob,

Fwiw I'm not pretending, I'm truly not bothered with what happened with something that occurred four years ago and everybody and everything (apart from you of course), having long since moved on so please don't measure me against your obsessive interest in the matter.

And thank you I do know how large companies make major transactions - they go through their COMPANY's BANK ACCOUNTS - even those that are paid to solicitors to hold money in escrow accounts.

I find it unbelievable that you are seriously suggesting that a representative of the High Court has gone out of his way to personally screw over Ken Anderson, which you clearly seem to be saying?

Why would he, what's his motive, what does he gain from this?

You first hinted at it was some payback for past misdeeds that Anderson did that brought him a six year suspension from being a Director in a company, you next seemed to suggest he did it to 'snooker' KA (why, was that because he didn't like him on a personal level?), now you seem to suggest he threw him under a bus simply to get FV over the line of buying the club!

Even after all this so called payback from the system that happened 10 years, previously, or because he thought Ken was a wanker, or because it was the only way to conclude a deal - it still amounted to absolutely zero because as you say yourself KA didn't lose out and FV bought the club in the end anyway.

The Administrators so called skull duggerery clearly didn't affect a single thing!

The Administrator was simply doing his job.  

The High Court and the powers that be don't have a hit list to fuck up the Ken's of this world decades after they been a bit naughty in the past, the Administrator probably deals with wankers like Ken (if he had been acting as a wanker during the Administration?) all the time on every Administration he has to deal with, and ultimately he doesn't care if BL was sold or not, the Administrator gets paid first from any company that ends up being liquidated.

AND if the idea was simply to throw KA under the bus - then why did he rule out ED's £7.5m security as well - was he throwing EDT under the bus too with KA?

The 'manufactured' Directors Loan simply did not originate from the company, the Insolvency Law states it must, and the Administrator had no choice in law other than to rule it as ultra vires.

As for the appointment of the Administrator for the hotel within days...

It wasn't, it was on the 14th May 2019, the day after the BL and BWFC (BWFAC Ltd) Administrator was appointed.

IF as you seem to be suggesting that KA reacted to the Administrators 'findings' then the Administrator would not know at that time about disallowing KA's security, he hadn't had time to see the books yet!!!

It also begs the question why the Administrator was appointed for BL and BWFC but NOT the hotel as well - why would they leave it out?

Seems to me that it was always the intent of EDT and KA to have TWO Administrators right from the beginning and not a knee jerk reaction to the Administrator throwing KA under the bus as you imply.

There clearly must have been a reason right from the start for dividing BL and BWFC off from the hotel and dealing with them under two separate Administrators.

Otherwise why else deal with the hotel separately from BL which is its parent company?

Seems to me to suggest that both EDT and KA believed there was probably trouble ahead because not everything had previously been done in accordance with the law and there would be consequences for that.


And fwiw, I await your explained as to how ONE loan of £7.5m from ED to KA managed to be claimed to be secured TWICE on BL, once for ED and once for KA AND pay off BM, whilst all the while this money was either sat in the solicitors bank account or had been paid to BM.

Either ED paid BM OR KA paid BM

They BOTH didn't pay BM!

So how could both claim security on BL stating that they somehow did?

Deary me, Sluffy, its hard to know where to begin after yet another fusillade of foolishness, tirade of twaddle and bombardment of balderdash.

I'm reminded of Boncey's monkey with a stick. It seems to me that, if there is a wrong end of a stick for you to get hold of, that's the end you will go for and cling to it as if it were stuck to your hand with the strongest glue known to man.

In the interest of those who come on to Nuts to learn something they didn't know, I think it best to deal with explanations one at a time otherwise it can be quite confusing.

I feel sure that I have explained this to you before but here's someone else's explanation of the difference between a first charge and a second charge:

What is first charge and second charge?


So, if a business cannot repay, the lender with the first charge on a property will gain that asset as theirs. They'll then sell it to retrieve as much money as they can. A second charge usually means a different lender has provided a business with additional financing. Often the amount is lower than the first loan.

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Ten Bobsworth wrote:Deary me, Sluffy, its hard to know where to begin after yet another fusillade of foolishness, tirade of twaddle and bombardment of balderdash.

I'm reminded of Boncey's monkey with a stick. It seems to me that, if there is a wrong end of a stick for you to get hold of, that's the end you will go for and cling to it as if it were stuck to your hand with the strongest glue known to man.

In the interest of those who come on to Nuts to learn something they didn't know, I think it best to deal with explanations one at a time otherwise it can be quite confusing.

I feel sure that I have explained this to you before but here's someone else's explanation of the difference between a first charge and a second charge:

What is first charge and second charge?


So, if a business cannot repay, the lender with the first charge on a property will gain that asset as theirs. They'll then sell it to retrieve as much money as they can. A second charge usually means a different lender has provided a business with additional financing. Often the amount is lower than the first loan.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Ok, I'll play.

So ED lends to KA £7.5m.

The loan is intended as say £5m for BM and £2.5m for 'other'.

ED places a first charge on BL for funding the paying off BM (£5m).

KA places a second charge on BL in respect of the £2.5m 'other'.

Why then is ED claiming security for both the £5m BM which he 'settled' and the £2.5m loaned to KA, which KA has secured against BL for £7.5m (even though he only put £2.5m into BL as ED had already paid £5m of that loan to him to settle in full with BM?).

I could understand ED securing for the full £7.5m as a first charge, I could also understand a form of logic for ED securing £7.5m and KA securing as a second charge £2.5m (on the basis of ED eventually getting his full £7.5m loan back, either by £7.5 directly to him (in which case KA's secondary charge is also extinguished) or by receiving £5m for BM and KA receiving the £2.5m put in by him as the secondary charge - which in turn he pays to ED to settle the full amount of the loan to him), but I can't understand how they BOTH could secure the ONE amount of £7.5m, EACH for themselves as they have claimed to the Administrator because they BOTH clearly haven't loaned BL £7.5m apiece?

Sluffy wrote:

Ok, I'll play.

So ED lends to KA £7.5m.

The loan is intended as say £5m for BM and £2.5m for 'other'.

ED places a first charge on BL for funding the paying off BM (£5m).

KA places a second charge on BL in respect of the £2.5m 'other'.

Why then is ED claiming security for both the £5m BM which he 'settled' and the £2.5m loaned to KA, which KA has secured against BL for £7.5m (even though he only put £2.5m into BL as ED had already paid £5m of that loan to him to settle in full with BM?).

I could understand ED securing for the full £7.5m as a first charge, I could also understand a form of logic for ED securing £7.5m and KA securing as a second charge £2.5m (on the basis of ED eventually getting his full £7.5m loan back, either by £7.5 directly to him (in which case KA's secondary charge is also extinguished) or by receiving £5m for BM and KA receiving the £2.5m put in by him as the secondary charge - which in turn he pays to ED to settle the full amount of the loan to him), but I can't understand how they BOTH could secure the ONE amount of £7.5m, EACH for themselves as they have claimed to the Administrator because they BOTH clearly haven't loaned BL £7.5m apiece?

Just stop and think for once, Sluffy. The Admins Report was imprecise and open to misinterpretation in circumstances where there should have been absolutely no room for doubt.

It ought to have sounded alarm bells. It did with me the moment I read it.

You seem to have been fooled by it and reached all manner of wrong conclusions which you seem to insist on repeating and expanding ad nauseam.

P.S. Its not a game.

P.P.S. The imprecision wasn't a minor issue. It was, in all probability, the most significant issue in the entire Administration.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:I'll have a word with Mr Heavyside to see if he'll take you for WoodworK. I don't think GCSE in Business Studies is entirely suitable for you, Sluffy.

Thank you Bob, but I've got an 'O' level in woodwork and a MBA already.

Randomly I also obtained a degree in Marketing and thought I knew all about BOGOF's but I openly admit I can't work out how one loan of £7.5m allows you to get another £7.5m absolutely free???

How the Devil does Eddie's loan of £7.5m to Ken end up with them BOTH  believing they are owed it by a near insolvent Burnden Leisure at that time?

Did Burnden Leisure receive two lots of £7.5m, one lot of £7.5m, or simply didn't receive ('legally') any of this £7.5m at all?

Clearly the Insolvency expert believed it to be the latter.

Sluffy wrote:"The amount outstanding to Fildraw in respect of these borrowings is disclosed in the Company's records as £10,050,000"  However it should be noted that Fildraw believes the sum outstanding in the regard to be circa £17,500,000
Page 17 of 39  - 10.1 Secured Creditors - Fildraw.

"The Company's records disclose that the balance outstanding to Mr Anderson as £1.578,042. However it should be noted that Mr Anderson believes the sum outstanding in the regard to be circa £7,500,000
Page 17 of 39  - 10.1 Secured Creditors - Kenneth Anderson.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Just stop and think for once, Sluffy. The Admins Report was imprecise and open to misinterpretation in circumstances where there should have been absolutely no room for doubt.

It ought to have sounded alarm bells. It did with me the moment I read it.

You seem to have been fooled by it and reached all manner of wrong conclusions which you seem to insist on repeating and expanding ad nauseam.

P.S. Its not a game.

P.P.S. The imprecision wasn't a minor issue. It was, in all probability, the most significant issue in the entire Administration.

Bob, it is a game to me, it's a game to me because whether you are right or wrong it changes nothing.

Wanderlust (I know) went on, and on, and on, and on, daily (even several times daily) for years about Brexit but could not seem to grasp that the world had moved on and the decision had been made and it was impossible to go back and change it - we had whether we liked it or not had to live with the consequences, no matter how bad they may end up being.

What happened four years ago - whether it was right or wrong - even if the ramifications are detrimental to the club and its current owners - are what they are and what have to be faced and dealt with - there's no going back.

Yes the Administrators report was imprecise, even I understood that (well at least the bit about the wording over the £7.5m - there may well be other stuff I didn't spot?) but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a cover up going on.

I've written reports that have been equally imprecise when I needed to protect and keep personal or confidential stuff away from the public domain.  No doubt the Administrator also wrote confidential reports giving full and precise details to the Insolvency court who he was representing - I used to write confidential reports for the equivariant of the company board as full disclosure to them.

Have I been fooled by the Administrators report, I don't think so.  I don't think so because I haven't approached the puzzle from that direction, I've tried to understand what the logic was for the apparent claims and rejections of them.

I've had a problem dating back to Sept/Oct 2018 (well before the Administrator appeared on the scene) as to how KA's charge was secured, to my simple mind there were no assets available to charge it to?

Yes I know I don't really understand charges and Directors loans but I was basing my logic on how much assets had BL got and how much of them are already in hock?

If the BM loan needed paying and there were £5m of assets free to secure against, why then did KA not simply get another BM loan type in order to pay off the current one?

Logically to me there could only be two reasons for this the first being there simply was nothing left to secure against that didn't already have a charge on it, or that no one was willing to touch BL with a barge pole as they didn't believe it would pay them back!

As for putting a second charge on the same assets, well I now know it to be this -

As a second-charge lender takes second-place security for its loan, they’ll also conduct an equity assessment. This essentially means getting an updated valuation of your properties and subtracting the difference between the valuation amount and the first-charge loan amount. The difference between the two is the available equity you have to use as security for a second-charge loan.

So did Ken really do that and found there was actually a further £7.5m of assets to secure against AFTER ED had already secured his £7.5m as per his Sept 2018 charge?

I rather think not.

At this point maybe I can flip this around so that you might understand my point of view perhaps?

You say you reason for mistrusting the Administrator is based on his actions being imprecise and open to misinterpretation, well from where I stood and the limited knowledge I had, then to me the actions around KA claiming £7.5m security simply didn't stack up - and that was the nut I haven't been able to crack - still can't.

Ok you've told me (or rather inferred) that KA took out a loan to pay off BM and on taking on the loan created a DL - this I presume was the basis of his claimed £7.5m security in Oct 2018.

I guess when ED lent the money to KA that also was his basis of his claimed security the month earlier - Sept 18 (and thus a first charge)

How then can a lender and a borrower both secure the same money?

What is a charge?
A ‘charge’ is a legal term used to describe the security that a lender has when it provides financing.

How can they both claim to be providing financing that totals TWICE as much as the capital they started with?

I also have issues as to how they can even secure against BL.

I fully accept you know the day to day practice about such stuff, that ED can place a charge on BL even though the loan wasn't to BL but to KA (which also triggered the thought about BM placing a charge on BL when their loan wasn't to BL but to Holdsworth) and that KA created a DL when he received the loan from ED.

But when BL fell into Administration (think when the music stopped in a game of musical chairs and everything was frozen), did all the dealings (which were normal day to day stuff) actually comply with the Insolvency legislation that they are required to do?

So my line of reasoning based admittedly on not fully understanding both the accountancy side AND the finite detail of the Insolvency Act was that I found it less creditable that the qualified and experienced insolvency expert who did have full knowledge of both was less likely to act in some form of conspiratorial way (targeted at Anderson, if I read you correctly), than simply complied with the legislation.

That isn't me blindly believing the 'ones in charge', it isn't me being fooled by the Administrators report, it isn't me being some sort of blockhead, it's simply me being rational, logical and impartial and basing my views on the facts that I know - whilst openly admitting that I don't fully understand all the ins and outs of everything.


And finally fwiw to, my way at looking at things, BM had been settled by the time the Administrator was appointed - so was 'off' BL's books.

My logic would be to balance that off you can't have two separate people claiming that they both settled it - something needed to be done in order resolve this anomaly  in order to precede with the Administration process - and whatever it was resulted in an agreement between EDT and KA in advance of the Administration to have separate Administrators from day one and NOT due to the Administrators report forcing KA to defend his position - which I think maybe is part of the basis to your conspiracy feelings.

You are right in one respect, Sluffy, there are a lot of things you don't understand, even after they have been patiently explained to you, but don't let it stop you.

In one respect Boncey seems to understand more than you do even though by his own admission he doesn't know how it all works. I'm sure though that Boncey understands that words (and figures) can be made ambiguous or manipulated in some way to convey an impression that is quite different from the reality.

In this case you seem to have assumed that Fildraw were claiming £17million from Burnden Leisure on the basis of the Administrators statement of what Fildraw's belief was. But is that what Fildraw were really doing or really believed?


They were owed £10m by Burnden Leisure but what about the rest? Was it owed to Fildraw by Burnden Leisure or by Ken Anderson? It was one or the other not both.

Is it possible that there was an undisclosed arrangement by which Burnden Leisure were liable to repay Fildraw if Ken Anderson didn't? If there was it would be clearly documented and not a matter of belief or uncertainty.

There were four parties involved in the transaction relating to the Blumarble repayment and most, if not all of them, would have had lawyers representing their interest. It is therefore inconceivable that Fildraw did not know the true position. It's also inconceivable that it was not documented by:

1. The completion statement of Blumarble
2. Completion statements of the lawyers handling Fildraw's funds
3. Any loan agreements entered into between Fildraw (assisted by Fildraw's lawyers) and Ken Anderson.

So what was going on? What was the motive behind all this ambiguity and other nonsense?

You'll have to draw your own conclusions but the effect on Ken Anderson and his family could have been catastrophic if Fildraw had decided to sue for any debt that Ken Anderson owed it without KA being able to rely on the legal safeguards Anderson's lawyers had set up in good faith.

Fildraw never did get their money back from Ken Anderson and Ken Anderson only got £237k out of the £1.6m showing as owed to him on the books. Would he have settled for that if it was really his own money? You can draw your own conclusions on that too but I rather doubt it.

We can come on to the books later. That's an interesting feature in itself, if you like interesting features that is.