76000 views later - As far as I understand it (and hoping to avoid some extra learnin' from @DevC ) the choice being proposed by the board is quite simple...we either vote for this Private Equity plan or we don;t. If we do, the position is that this company/these people have a track record of stabilising 'failing' businesses to make them attractive for selling on and hence make their money. So it is not a quick, asset stripping fix, but a longer term speculation. The issue we face then is once we are a 'going concern' again in League One, or (hahahaha) The Championship, WHO they sell the majority stake to...which could be a local rich football fan with a love for the club or a bunch of chancers out to fleece us. Therein lies the rub. If we don't vote FOR then we are where we are now....and the present leadership have to look for another investor...or throw up their hands and jump ship. Is that about it? (Apologies for not mentioning Conference South, housing in Bucks or crisps.)
As it's a majority stake we're talking about here, it's not just the would-be investors we need to consider, but also the fact that they can sell us on to whoever they like.
*apologies, just seen that @Wendoverman has made the same point immediately above.
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
@HG1 said:
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
The number of games an owner came to would be entirely unconnected to the matter of how well they set the place up to run.
@HG1 said:
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
The number of games an owner came to would be entirely unconnected to the matter of how well they set the place up to run.
Agreed but they will never have any kind of connection with the club/fans without this and it reinforces the argument that these chaps would not be around for long resulting in another set of owners when they move on. Is that what we really want? Is that really what the Trust board want?
The one thing coming out of the numerous posts is that with the varied input, some extremely interesting and some tedious and rambling, is that no Gasroomers will enter into the voting process without an understanding of the potential positives and negatives.
Voters will be much more informed and cautious this time around and will not be railroaded into surrender as we were for the Steve Hayes debacle. Questions will be asked and rightly so. Hopefully we will have a right fit solution, whether that be via investment or remaining supporter owned, a solution that will allow our great football club to prosper.
@HG1 it is pretty certain they would not be around forever or have any great affinity/interest in the club or the area and though I'm with @HCblue in that the number of games they attend is immaterial (though it might possibly more than some Gasroomers!) with regard to running the club...but your other point is the important one, namely who will they sell their stake on to once they've steadied the ship.
Andrew Howard always said that not being a support of WWFC or having any emotional attachment to the club was a positive in regard to running the business side of things.
Would not the same apply to any possible outside investor, if their motivation is to eventually sell the club on for a profit and therefore by definition not to run up huge losses along the way, then IMO this would be a positive thing. How they intend to achieve that is another matter and it will be interesting to hear their plans.
Any owner is nothing more than a temporary custodian of the club anyway, and one of their prime motivators (apart from making money, or at least not losing any) should be to hand the club on to the next custodian in a better state than when they took over.
The challenge is how do you prevent the club falling into the wrong hands in the future, maybe this is something that an active and strong supporters trust should be doing in the future.
@HG1 said:
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
Nothing like leaping to conclusions is there! For goodness sake hear them out before so casually dismissing them.
A quick question, and not having the inclination to look through the accounts, what is the club actually worth without the ground? In other words what does 51% of the club currently cost?
I can’t imagine it is that much, do we have assets other than the players?
I’m asking as I’m wondering if we (the Trust) can theoretically include a first refusal to buy back at original sale plus a bit.
All you guys concern me. That your going to vote no. Just vote yes and enjoy the journey. We’ve been in a mess before, and if we got in a mess again, we’d deal with it, as we did before.
Another theory someone put in my head today, that i had not previously given much thought to. What if Seaport Capital were attempting to buy the club on behalf of someone ? Maybe a group Beeks heads, or a consortium Howard heads, or one that involves both ?
So paint the picture the club is in financial trouble, and the only way is for outside investment, Seaport sell it on very quickly for a small profit, then certain people who have been canoodling with Bill Luby for a considerable time get the club on the cheap.
@HG1 said:
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
The number of games an owner came to would be entirely unconnected to the matter of how well they set the place up to run.
Agreed but they will never have any kind of connection with the club/fans without this and it reinforces the argument that these chaps would not be around for long resulting in another set of owners when they move on. Is that what we really want? Is that really what the Trust board want?
Understood. But requiring an owner to have an emotional connection to the club in order to assuage fears of having the ground sold from under your feet (literally or metaphorically) down the line is a highly limiting line to attempt to go down if you want the best possible investor(s). And the fact of an owner having an emotional connection to the club, assuming him to be someone with a track record of running successful businesses, would make him no more likely to make a good fist of it and, arguably, slightly more likely to make poor, emotionally-based, business decisions injurious to the club in the long term (though I don't especially see an investor who has history with the club as being a negative per se).
As important decisions are made above our heads let Trustexiteers and Trustafarians join hands and pray for a great game and an unlikely three points tomorrow!! COYB!!
The Trust set up Frank Adams Legacy with the view to ensure that if the Football Club went under the Trust would still have the Stadium to rebuild the club. It is not clear in the FC accounts for 2018 if the debt owed to the football club in 2017 is still outstanding, but it probably is. Any sale of shares by the Trust MUST ensure that any debts on FALL are cleared with the proceeds. The retention of the Stadium by the Trust is in my view the most important issue. Who knows how the future progress of our clubs teams will progress. Maybe our most successful team may be our Ladies!.
When I first started supporting Wycombe in the Loakes Park days I didn’t have the slightest interest in who owned the club or how secure the finances were. I am now a Legacy member of the trust and am still relatively sanguine about the current future ownership situation. Call me naive but having travelled to Torquay anticipating the implosion of my club I see every game at the present elevated level as a bonus. I am loving it this season and I am very interested in hearing more from the potential buyers. Who knows where they could take us and if they fail or commit some heinous misdeeds we can always pick ourselves up. And what if their plans are a success...
@Onlooker said:
When I first started supporting Wycombe in the Loakes Park days I didn’t have the slightest interest in who owned the club or how secure the finances were. I am now a Legacy member of the trust and am still relatively sanguine about the current future ownership situation. Call me naive but having travelled to Torquay anticipating the implosion of my club I see every game at the present elevated level as a bonus. I am loving it this season and I am very interested in hearing more from the potential buyers. Who knows where they could take us and if they fail or commit some heinous misdeeds we can always pick ourselves up. And what if their plans are a success...
This may be a dumb question, but with the 600K loss off the back (I assume) of L2 attendances and promotion bonuses, would the annual loss come down a year from now based on (hopefully) staying in L1, with increased attendances and no promotion bonuses? Or do the L1 wages simply nulify any advantage?
@Onlooker said:
When I first started supporting Wycombe in the Loakes Park days I didn’t have the slightest interest in who owned the club or how secure the finances were. I am now a Legacy member of the trust and am still relatively sanguine about the current future ownership situation. Call me naive but having travelled to Torquay anticipating the implosion of my club I see every game at the present elevated level as a bonus. I am loving it this season and I am very interested in hearing more from the potential buyers. Who knows where they could take us and if they fail or commit some heinous misdeeds we can always pick ourselves up. And what if their plans are a success...
Naive
I am a cynical person by nature but I found Onlooker’s post a breath of fresh air. We need to be very cautious, of course, but he’s right to point out that this scenario could be positive for the club.
Comments
76000 views later - As far as I understand it (and hoping to avoid some extra learnin' from @DevC ) the choice being proposed by the board is quite simple...we either vote for this Private Equity plan or we don;t. If we do, the position is that this company/these people have a track record of stabilising 'failing' businesses to make them attractive for selling on and hence make their money. So it is not a quick, asset stripping fix, but a longer term speculation. The issue we face then is once we are a 'going concern' again in League One, or (hahahaha) The Championship, WHO they sell the majority stake to...which could be a local rich football fan with a love for the club or a bunch of chancers out to fleece us. Therein lies the rub. If we don't vote FOR then we are where we are now....and the present leadership have to look for another investor...or throw up their hands and jump ship. Is that about it? (Apologies for not mentioning Conference South, housing in Bucks or crisps.)
You didn't mention planning permissions either @Wendoverman!
As it's a majority stake we're talking about here, it's not just the would-be investors we need to consider, but also the fact that they can sell us on to whoever they like.
*apologies, just seen that @Wendoverman has made the same point immediately above.
@mooneyman brains much more cleverer than mine have already established that could NEVER happen. @Vital Great minds...
@StrongestTeam the only people who really post on here are Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Julian Assange and President Xi.
Was Alan Parry Putin all along?
@StrongestTeam all I can say in the recent words of @marlowchair 'I had faith the gasroom would get here eventually..'
How many games to you think the potential USA owners would come and see? My guess is maybe 1 a season when they had business to attend to over here, other than that you would not see them. Not the sort of owner WWFC wants or needs. We need someone that has an affinity with the club and has a desire to secure its long term future and play an active role.
Probably more times than our planning expert!
The number of games an owner came to would be entirely unconnected to the matter of how well they set the place up to run.
Probably more times than we restock our crisp cupboard?
Agreed but they will never have any kind of connection with the club/fans without this and it reinforces the argument that these chaps would not be around for long resulting in another set of owners when they move on. Is that what we really want? Is that really what the Trust board want?
The one thing coming out of the numerous posts is that with the varied input, some extremely interesting and some tedious and rambling, is that no Gasroomers will enter into the voting process without an understanding of the potential positives and negatives.
Voters will be much more informed and cautious this time around and will not be railroaded into surrender as we were for the Steve Hayes debacle. Questions will be asked and rightly so. Hopefully we will have a right fit solution, whether that be via investment or remaining supporter owned, a solution that will allow our great football club to prosper.
@HG1 it is pretty certain they would not be around forever or have any great affinity/interest in the club or the area and though I'm with @HCblue in that the number of games they attend is immaterial (though it might possibly more than some Gasroomers!) with regard to running the club...but your other point is the important one, namely who will they sell their stake on to once they've steadied the ship.
Andrew Howard always said that not being a support of WWFC or having any emotional attachment to the club was a positive in regard to running the business side of things.
Would not the same apply to any possible outside investor, if their motivation is to eventually sell the club on for a profit and therefore by definition not to run up huge losses along the way, then IMO this would be a positive thing. How they intend to achieve that is another matter and it will be interesting to hear their plans.
Any owner is nothing more than a temporary custodian of the club anyway, and one of their prime motivators (apart from making money, or at least not losing any) should be to hand the club on to the next custodian in a better state than when they took over.
The challenge is how do you prevent the club falling into the wrong hands in the future, maybe this is something that an active and strong supporters trust should be doing in the future.
Nothing like leaping to conclusions is there! For goodness sake hear them out before so casually dismissing them.
A quick question, and not having the inclination to look through the accounts, what is the club actually worth without the ground? In other words what does 51% of the club currently cost?
I can’t imagine it is that much, do we have assets other than the players?
I’m asking as I’m wondering if we (the Trust) can theoretically include a first refusal to buy back at original sale plus a bit.
All you guys concern me. That your going to vote no. Just vote yes and enjoy the journey. We’ve been in a mess before, and if we got in a mess again, we’d deal with it, as we did before.
Some of us like trips to Dulwich, Chelmsford, Welling, St Albans, etc. @TrueBlu.
Okay maybe not Welling that much...
Another theory someone put in my head today, that i had not previously given much thought to. What if Seaport Capital were attempting to buy the club on behalf of someone ? Maybe a group Beeks heads, or a consortium Howard heads, or one that involves both ?
So paint the picture the club is in financial trouble, and the only way is for outside investment, Seaport sell it on very quickly for a small profit, then certain people who have been canoodling with Bill Luby for a considerable time get the club on the cheap.
Just a theory though !!
@TrueBlu is right. What's the worst that could happen? It's not like a majority owner could do anything bad we cannot correct.
Understood. But requiring an owner to have an emotional connection to the club in order to assuage fears of having the ground sold from under your feet (literally or metaphorically) down the line is a highly limiting line to attempt to go down if you want the best possible investor(s). And the fact of an owner having an emotional connection to the club, assuming him to be someone with a track record of running successful businesses, would make him no more likely to make a good fist of it and, arguably, slightly more likely to make poor, emotionally-based, business decisions injurious to the club in the long term (though I don't especially see an investor who has history with the club as being a negative per se).
As important decisions are made above our heads let Trustexiteers and Trustafarians join hands and pray for a great game and an unlikely three points tomorrow!! COYB!!
The Trust set up Frank Adams Legacy with the view to ensure that if the Football Club went under the Trust would still have the Stadium to rebuild the club. It is not clear in the FC accounts for 2018 if the debt owed to the football club in 2017 is still outstanding, but it probably is. Any sale of shares by the Trust MUST ensure that any debts on FALL are cleared with the proceeds. The retention of the Stadium by the Trust is in my view the most important issue. Who knows how the future progress of our clubs teams will progress. Maybe our most successful team may be our Ladies!.
When I first started supporting Wycombe in the Loakes Park days I didn’t have the slightest interest in who owned the club or how secure the finances were. I am now a Legacy member of the trust and am still relatively sanguine about the current future ownership situation. Call me naive but having travelled to Torquay anticipating the implosion of my club I see every game at the present elevated level as a bonus. I am loving it this season and I am very interested in hearing more from the potential buyers. Who knows where they could take us and if they fail or commit some heinous misdeeds we can always pick ourselves up. And what if their plans are a success...
Naive
45 minutes precisely
First half Clean Sheet????
This may be a dumb question, but with the 600K loss off the back (I assume) of L2 attendances and promotion bonuses, would the annual loss come down a year from now based on (hopefully) staying in L1, with increased attendances and no promotion bonuses? Or do the L1 wages simply nulify any advantage?
I am a cynical person by nature but I found Onlooker’s post a breath of fresh air. We need to be very cautious, of course, but he’s right to point out that this scenario could be positive for the club.