Mikheil Lomtadze
According to Companies House records, Rob Couhig’s company (Feliciana EFL Limited) has recently agreed to borrow money from Mr. Lomtadze - who may be the same Mikheil/Mikhail Lomtadze who is the Georgian billionaire CEO and co-owner of the Kazakhstan-based fintech company Kaspi. Interesting…
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Valued at $6.5 billion on the London Stock Exchange this month.
Red Sneakers anyone?
Interesting... Does this mean that we have found out about outside investment before anyone at the club have announced it?
Or our cash flow issues are bad and Rob has realised he can’t fund us ….
I hope you’re right, rather than me!
Well if Forbes is anything to go by, he isn't short of money!
However, are we just going to become a rich person's play thing again? Did it say how much money had been "borrowed"? Could this mean that Rob has used us for collateral and our owner might change without us even being aware? (If he doesn't pay this guy back?)
What assets do Feliciana EFL own? The training ground?
Feliciana owns 90% of the football club. I think the training ground remains under external ownership (neither the Couhigs nor the Trust).
Kazakhstan - great!
The matchday experience at Adams Park next season
We’ve already had an unfortunate sighting of a mankini… away at Oldham?
He runs a banking app and is involved in various finance companies, he's just as likely to be lending as investing.
Oligarchairboys
If you're going to run a football club - without running it into the ground - eventually your fortune needs be be counted in billions rather than mere millions.
His net worth is over 4bn dollars 🤯
Will anybody from The Trust board be commenting on this?
Obviously it's a sign we're going to be the Man City of the south.
James, we are aware of the charge registered at Companies House but will not comment any further at this stage.
To put a speculative positive spin on this, it might mean that Rob wants to ensure MB has the funds to further strengthen the squad in the January transfer window, as we push for top 6 or beyond?
We seem a long way from the ‘sustainable’ model that was initially promised.
The owner wasn’t interested in any view that raised concerns, but here we are.
Nor was the Trust!
In fairness to the Couhigs - and as was evidenced by Trust Ownership - I don't think it's possible for us to survive sustainably as a League One club on crowds of 5k.
How would Rob Couhig and Mikhail Lomtadze ever come into each other's orbit? Completely different industries, different countries, can't imagine there's much overlap in their social circles. I can only imagine that a "for sale" went out on the rich people grapevine and Lomtadze responded.
He went to Harvard - that's about the only US link I can find. Hmm.
That was self evident to any longstanding supporter but somehow we were going to be filling the stadium each week, building new stands, roads, best this and that in the country…
Club / Couhig statement required pretty quickly to get to the bottom of this. It would be wise of them to get ahead of too much rumour and conjecture.
Why? The recent change to the constitution was for the purpose of allowing extra funding. This is the extra funding.
I don't think anyone is saying Rob can't take external funding.
But given Rob has alluded very publicly he is looking to sell, its probably wise to clarify as much as possible whether this is just funding from one of Lomtadze's banks to allow the club to continue operating, or investment with the aim to eventually become owner.
A statement to confirm that would be ideal, rather than relying on assumptions from Companies House reports.
Is it a loan?
Is this a coincidence? Published today.
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Trust October Update
Winning Wanderers
There's been some great performances recently and the 4-1 demolition of Fleetwood away was something else. Clean sheets, cup wins, just outside the playoffs, it's all going on and long may it continue! Congratualtions to Matt Bloomfield and the team and let's hope none of our internationals pick up any knocks.
You asked - the Trust answers
What's the latest on the toilet refurb? 2 have been completed so far and the next ones on the schedule are in the Terrace and the Origin stand. It is hoped to start these next week and it should take 2 weeks to get them completed.
Just arrived via email, doesn't really answer the question.