Trust Vote
I am very worried that the Trust vote will fall.
I love the club and listened with great interest to the interview last week with Rob. His comments provide grounds for optimism in the short / medium term. In my view the transfer of shares is a financial necessity to allow the club to function and, hopefully, progress. But I'm away and taking a mental break from work and football (the latter just for a few days / weeks before the interest starts to build again)! So this morning, whilst catching up on recent emails, I stumbled across the the vote invitation, which required me to search out an earlier message with my voting ID. I have voted yes, but I almost missed it and, had I not, it would have counted as a No.
I believe my vote was cast anonymously (the message in response said something along those lines). If so, does the Trust know who has not yet voted and does it have a strategy in place to chase up non-voters. If they haven't, I am sceptical that they have any chance of obtaining the 75% threshold required.
Comments
So does anyone actually know what the implications are of this vote not going through? From everything I've heard, seen, and read, the transfer of all the voting shares has now legally taken place, and Rob's company owns 90% of WWFC. So what actually does this vote signify?
Not sure anyone but the Trust Board & their lawyers have the faintest idea of the point of this.
There are two filings this month on the Companies House page for WWFC Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05132509/filing-history).
One is a "Registration of charge", with Feliciana EFL Ltd as the entitled party. It's a 52 page document which I don't fully understand but, do Feliciana now have a charge on Adams Park, which could potentially lead to its ownership transferring to them?
That is very sad when a number of us are Trust members and we haven’t got a clue what is being done.
If there is a charge on AP, then the Trust Board have surely acted in isolation without consent of the Trust members. Obviously we need someone to check that out before we all react.
No Steve.
The Feliciana charge only picks up assets of WWFC.
Adams Park remains 100% supporter Trust owned through Frank Adams Legacy Limited.
Thanks for clarifying Alan.
Thank god for that.
I’m not 100% sure that my vote has registered. The personal ID number/letter was in an email that was superseded and I had long deleted the original email. I carried on regardless and I think a message popped up thanking me for my vote.
I am happy to waive anonymity if someone at the Trust (@AlanCecil perhaps, as he knows me) wants to contact me to confirm that my vote was in fact received.
@micra I/we cannot confirm your vote is in at this stage but if you got the message of thanks, then it is very likely that you did it right. Thanks.
Thanks, Alan.
https://wycombewandererstrust.com/2023/05/legacy-members-vote-launched-today
Hopefully this explains the reasons for the vote.
I love how legacy members - supposedly a higher tier of shareholding designed to act on a brake on anything that threatens the club's future - are not allowed a veto on the thing that mattered: transferring 15% ownership to the Couhigs. Because that _clearly_ contained no pecuniary value at all. But they _are_ required to vote now to relinquish their rights once the main vote has gone through.
It's that sort of creativity from the Couhigs that sees them run coach and horses through the Trust time and time again, whatever they later proclaim about difficult negotiations (a statement that, to my somewhat cynical mind, suits both sides).
But it's ok, because Trevor Stroud maintains his place on the club board. Phew.
I think we are, I say I think we are because I have been away and because of the rain of contradictory emails but it does appear we are being chased to vote and a large majority is required. Kind of funny now after people with concerns were ignored and cut off earlier.
Weird choice to have to make really, I think the deal is better for the club in the immediate term than it is for the trust and obviously heavily structured in the Couhigs favour allowing them the control they always had, but a higher cut of any sale fee for little further outlay.
Rob seems pissed off that the trust are sticking there oars in , hard to disagree with him that the trust senior management couldn't appear to run a meeting or, a welk stall, but he seems even more pissed off that they have money and a significant asset and that he allowed that in the original deal when he probably could have seized it with a few more promises.
On the subject of promises there are still relatively few either in terms of external or family investment or financial stability, I assume he'll get his way and can only hope he chooses to run it well at least until he finds someone else.
A silly question, but how on earth does Mr Couhig think that us wanting to keep hold of the ground, is in any way strange?
Surely he can understand that even if his intentions are utterly noble, that there is absolutely no guarantee that the next owner, or the one after that don't throw us to the wind and leave us playing down the Rye in Wycombe combination division 5.
If I was Couhig or for that matter a legacy (as opposed to ordinary) Trust Member I would be pissed off at the Trust Board.
The current vote is frankly irrelevant other than as a way to piss off the majority owner as the ordinary shares have NO voting rights & as such the transfer is a house keeping exercise following on from the transfer of the Voting Shares.
Whilst the ordinary shares have a nominal value do the Trust Board seriously think this vote will have any impact on what has already happened, namely the sale of 15% of the Football Club to the Couhigs. Even a NO vote makes little difference other than potentially further alienating the football club owners from the trust.
The vote the Legacy members SHOULD HAVE had was on the original deal as that was the one that had a genuine fiduciary impact on the trust & supporters.
I haven’t got the faintest idea what’s going on anymore and don’t really understand our ownership model, feeling rather detached to be honest. I don’t feel we get any positive news about the trust and what they do, and this is very sad as the trust themselves saved us and got us through the dark times. Does anyone else feel like some of the spin is a little amateur, being intentionally misleading. The latest being the hype around season ticket numbers having “record subscribers compared to this time last year”. I should hope so, as a subscription model with reducing numbers is a serious problem when the subscription product can be found in Vipienne and glamourised by humour by the club itself previously. I’m more interested to know how many cancellations there have been, of which I’d bet there have been plenty.
I have been (hopefully politely) critical of both the Trust and the Couhigs at times, as is anyone's right, but I think they have both done well in their respective roles overall.
It is worth remembering that between the two parties:
Rob Couhig: Wants to sell the club on for profit at some point.
The Trust: Are longstanding fans of Wycombe Wanderers who devote their own time and talents towards trying to maximize the success of the club.
That's not a knock on RC - I think he has been pretty honest about his intentions overall. But the Trust will still be Wycombe fans long after RC has moved on. As such, I can't help but feel they have the club's interest at heart in a deeper rooted manner. I am perfectly happy for RC to walk away with some profit as long as we get a good owner next (an unsettling game of roulette at the best of times) but I would be happy to go back to Trust ownership in half a heartbeat if it were sustainable.
Got the vote reminder and had to look back for the previous email where it said I wasn't a legacy member/eligible to vote (even though I am). Shambles really.
The vote IS relevant in so far as if the whole thing goes pear shaped, the Trust Board can sit back and say ?% of the Legacy Members voted for it. Consequently, ultimate responsibility is transferred to such Trust Members.
Could someone possibly clarify the below rule, particularly where we stand as regards which season we are technically in at the moment.
Are we still in the 22-23 season or has the 23-24 season started?
"To be considered a Legacy Member of the Trust you must be a Trust Member who has held a season ticket with the Club and be in at least their fourth consecutive season of doing so. For the avoidance of doubt, season ticket holders from 2019/20 were considered to be season ticket holders during 2020/21 (most games behind closed doors)".
Thanks.
I think, again guesswork, that the ordinary share move is a requirement of the overall deal, and the legacy member vote for this is a requirement of the trust under their rules, therefore @Erroll_Sims is correct above and legacy members have this right, so rather than being passed this as a done deal and us being chased to rubber stamp it we should have seen it in advance, god knows they've wasted enough time with the lawyers, individual members raised small issues that might seem insignificant but offer safeguards and we're largely told to clear off.
I don't dispute the trusts intentions but they've handled the whole thing dreadfully, and securing the quarter was their one job. Can't help but feel Rob has taken them for fools and gladly lapped up all the volunteer work, loans and donations whilst insisting on exactly what is best for him.
Anyone else foresee that the 90% will soon be deemed insufficient? After all, why on earth would we want to own the stadium...........
As ever, if you think you can do better than the existing Trust Management Team, stand get elected and do better. Until then perhaps wise to give them a little slack.
I see nothing to suggest the Trust Management Team have been "taken for fools" or couldn't "run a welk (sic) stall". On the contrary, decent guys, supporters of the club trying to influence an organisation of which they have only minority control over.
By the way, the prospect of Couhig selling the club for a profit seems pretty remote.
I don't necessarily agree with your final paragraph. The average cost of buying a Championship club is estimated as being £35m-£50m. Consequently, if Rob gets lucky and the club gets promoted in the next couple of years he could be in for a large windfall.
I accept that any purchaser won't own the ground, but they will hold a 50 year lease, and compared with most other Championship sides, a largely debt free one.
https://the-elastico.com/cost-of-football-clubs/
RC can only realistically make a profit if he owns either a) a championship club or b) Adams Park.
I reckon we’ll be having a discussion about one of those options next summer.
Well we are currently a Lg1 side with relatively low support base and an untested management team.
While anything is possible, it is surely very unlikely that promotion could be challenged for without significant shareholder cash investment.
Even with significant cash investment, promotion must surely be considered unlikely.
Even with promotion while anything is possible staying in the Champ for any length of time would surely be very very difficult (and need more shareholder investment).
I hope Couhig does eventually exit with a tidy profit - it would mean the club has been very successful - but honestly it feels pretty remote to me. Time will tell.
The value of Trust membership & why I am a member is that we, through the Trusts subsidiary FALL, own the ground. Even if we ultimately sell the final 10% of the Football Club (very likely a condition when the Couhigs sell up) we will still own the ground & that definitely protects WWFC & us the supporters.
We also hold the "Legacy Share" which allows the Trust to protect things like the club colours, the quarters design etc.
Any prospective purchaser gets a 50 year (full repairing) lease less how many years it takes the Couhigs to sell up, which as someone else said is a decent deal, especially as most owners at our level struggle to see 24 months ahead...
It is my personal view that the 23/24 season has not yet started.
I think they map it to most player contracts which run to the end of June, which is when you will also see the BBC Sport website change the League status of promoted and relegated clubs.
Thanks Alan. So for the purposes of this vote, my season ticket for 22-23 counts as a current season ticket? I'm assuming this is then the case, so still can consider myself a Legacy Member.
Yes -" To be considered a Legacy Member of the Trust you must be a Trust Member who has held a season ticket with the Club and be in at least their fourth consecutive season of doing so. For the avoidance of doubt, season ticket holders from 2019/20 were considered to be season ticket holders during 2020/21 (most games behind closed doors)."
So you need to have held a season ticket for 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 with the above proviso.