I wonder if there will be any suprises at next weeks Trust AGM ?
Just over a year ago, we were waiting with baited breath to meet the consortium who had proposed to
buy the club and with whom the Trust board had agreed to put forward this proposal to its members.
As we know this mysterious group never showed up and were never officially named by the board.
I wonder if the present trust board have any suprises for us at this years AGM ??
I wonder if any mystery consortium have made a bid ? or maybe some more familiar names have tabled an offer ?
I wonder, I wonder !!
0
Comments
Lets hope so.
I expect we might hear about Messrs. Beeks, Kane and Howard launching a bid
Please tell me about a mysterious 4th person and who this might be rumoured to be.
Are you referring to Mr. Hayes? He was at the Plymouth home match.
I hope this is sending real alarm bells out if this is in any way true. Its easy to speculate but I somehow fear this is nearer fact than fiction.
Surely the Trust board are not going to deliver the club back into the same hands that put the club in jeopardy in the first place?
The Trust board repeatedly warned Mr. Beeks and Mr.Kane that Mr. Hayes' gift was in fact a loan, and Mr. Beeks and Mr. Kane, having aligned their financial interests with Mr. Hayes, dismissed the Trust's comments out of hand.
Mr. Beeks, Mr. Kane and Mr. Hayes also changed voting shares to non-voting shares which is an appalling way to treat minority shareholders.
Surely the Trust won't let them do it again.
The only way I can ever see this happening if Hayes and Beeks manage to get people surreptitiously elected to the Board who are their friends/associates.
Beeks is held in extraordinarily high regard by large numbers of supporters - chiefly on the back of the exceptional efforts of Martin O'Neill. I'm not saying he deserves no credit, but his actions since then have been pretty ropey. Anyone who votes to get in bed with him, Kane & Hayes again is insane.
By the way, have we ever found out who the training ground purchasers were?
Title Number : BM170608
REGISTER EXTRACT
Title Number : BM170608
Address of Property : land on the south west side of Marlow Road, Marlow
Price Stated : £350,000
Registered Owner(s) : IVOR LEONARD BEEKS and SANDRA KANE of 18 Crendon Street,
High Wycombe HP13 6LS
CAMBERWICK PROPERTIES LIMITED (Co. Regn. No. 04584895)
of 18 Crendon Street, High Wycombe
This has been in the public domain since a few months after the sale. Camberwick Properties Ltd is owned by a Mr Ian Keizner.
@CarrotPeeler @trinity - thank you, that'd passed me by.
Nice to know Uncle Ivor didn't flinch from extracting the best deal for himself in the club's hour of need.
And yet he received an MBE for services to football...
Would you not expect every business man to do the same in this situation?
Wasn't the deal done, and then at the last minute this group doubled the interest
to 10% ??
Perhaps some of the prospective candidates for the Trust, may wish to come out and publicily distance themselves from this group, so the members can identify exactly what and whom your voting for.
Remember you dont need to use all your votes.
This is from COTN:
http://www.chairboys.co.uk/onthenet/news1213/training_ground_vote_april2013.htm
Not a businessman that mugged his position as chairman for publicity (see Leicester City pitch invasion) and overseas jollies with the Football League. Not so keen on publicity when pushing through the training ground deal was he?
Very good idea that.
I know this will not be a popular post, but perhaps it needs to be said.
Quite simply as a pure property transaction, this was a very good deal for WWFC and a very poor deal for the buyers. Let me explain why i think this is the case.
Take emotion out of the transaction and just consider it as a pure business transaction.
Our buyers have two options
Deal A
A deal completed at a yield of 8.5% (i.e. buyer gets equivalent of 8.5% interest on his money). the lease was for ten years with a company that faced an imminent winding up order from HMRC. There was a very strong possibility, perhaps liklihood, that the tenant would not survive the lease period and hence would not pay its rent. The piece of land was subject to severe planning restrictions meaning that alternative use for the site was extremely difficult to identify and prospect of finding alternative tenant for existing use very low. In the extremely unlikely event that planning restrictions were eased in the ten year lease period, then the tenant has right to buy back the property keeping the gain for himself with a small proportion of the gain going to land buyers. There is no guarentee at the end of the ten year period that the lease will be renewed and then the same issues re land use/alternative tenant.
DEAL B
Alternatively buyers could buy an industrial property rented for 20 years to a tenant
with an impeccable credit history and future rating. Market yields at the time were about 7 -7.5% for such property. If that tenant failed, the property would have a reasonable chance of being relettable, as it would at the end of the lease. In the unlikely event that a more profitable use emerges for the land, most of the benefit of the uplift in property value would go to the landlord (although tenant may need a sweetener to buy him out of the lease).
Which option would any rational investor take do you think (clue it will not be A).
When bank interest rates were low, superficially it may look a good deal for the buyers. In reality no commercial lender/property investor would have touched it with a bargepole.
As advised to Dev C previously on here, I am open to investment into WWFC that is in the genuine best interests of the club.
If there was to be a takeover approach from any or all the names mentioned above, the questions I would need answering before backing any such bid would be:
With recent WWFC history in mind, I would be vary wary of passing ownership over to individuals without a lot of careful due diligence.
It is one thing passing over the running of the club to others, but ownership is another matter.
If we are railroaded or presented with a 'fait accompli' that handing over ownership is our only option, I will not be best impressed.
See you all next week
No matter which way I look at it, it comes back to the anonymity clause.
If it was such an act of benevolence, why the secrecy?
Perhaps because of the slagging-off they would have received on here (or to be correct Gasroom 1.0) regardless of the circumstances.
I worry far more that Hayes will have input into all this. It would be bad enough that Beeks & Kane were involved but Hayes as well.
Hi DJ
As I have said i rather hope you are successful in your campaign and wish you luck next week. Think thats a bit politician speaky though, fine words yes but not sure there are a lot of parsnips being buttered tbh. I left it last time but perhaps I could press you a little bit more.
The reality is that any vaguely credible investor with bad intentions is going to rock up wearing a black and white striped top, mask and bag marked swag. At the initial stage he would tell you what you want to hear.
So lets say I came to you and said something along the lines of
"Well Mr Trust Director, I've made a few quid for myself in business which i have now sold for megabucks (evidence provided). I grew up in the area and have been a supporter of WWFC for many a year now although business commitments mean that I havent been able to get to as many games as I want. Now i've retired and want to give a bit back to the town and i guess have a bit of harmless fun being a boy again running a football club. I am happy to put a few quid in to stablilise the club and invest to see if I can get us in the championship. Obviously I dont have any football experience so i have asked Mr beeks and Mr Howard to be on the board with me (they will have 10% each) as I need that knowledge to make it work. Trouble is I'm used to running my own show and dont really have time for politics. I have seen how anti-private ownership some of the activist fans are and as the Trust is a democracy, i wouldnt know who i may be dealing with, so I am only prepared to do this if I have controlling ownership of club and ground, otherwise I think I would get embroiled in endless politics and get p*ssed off pretty quickly. Tell you what though, as long as I can have a veto, I'd be happy for the Trust to hold a 10% share and have a seat on the Board. Do I have your support?"
Assuming you cant dig up anything negative online (and I'll make sure you cant) and that I can show you credible sounding plans to invest and evidence I have the cash, do you vote, yes or no?
@DJWYC14 I would also wonder in amazement that 3 trust directors are openly ready to accept this offer. Allegedly.
@DevC Unfortunately I'm not a big fan of theories. Perhaps this sort of conversation would be better had face to face. It's a shame you won't be at the AGM or at many games coming up presumably as I'd be happy to chat like anyone with any questions did with the candidates at the Newport game last Saturday.
DJ
All right fair enough. There may be occasional obvious chancers proposing takeover which are no-brainers to refuse but should the situation arise along lines I have suggested above, i suspect that would be the most difficult decision you would have to face on the Trust board. Not sure I would envy you having to make it.
Anyway fine politicians answer for which i must commend you. No votes to be gained by answering it, very possibly some to be lost from the less pragmatic on either side. Neatly swerved, perhaps you have a future at Westminster!
Hope goes well for you next week.
DevC
Really there are far too many assumptions and not enough info in your theorised situation for me to say yes or no to you.
I'm not sure if you are trying to unnerve me by saying I am being political, but I am far from it.
Thanks for your good wishes.
I think most people are well aware of Devc games of provocation, You are probably
best following the old gasrooms leading lights policy of not responding to him Mr DJ.
DJ
Sorry I think we may be at crossed wires here. I genuinely wish you well not trying to unnerve you or catch you out. I was trying to point out that in the real world you won't have perfect information, you will have to form a judgement on snippets. To be honest you probably will not get much more than was in my scenario. If that situation arises it will be a tough judgement for you to make. I was really just trying to see how your thought processes would work to come to a conclusion.
I would hope you are a little political, you are a politics graduate standing in an election for office to represent your electorate - arguably what you are doing is the very epitome of politics! Anyway genuinely good luck next week, I do think it would be good to have a younger face on the Trust Board
Sensitive souls aren't they?