Well yes, but they have obviously decided that AH's proposal needed to be considered because it has merit and/or enough support to potentially split the vote. As TS said, if they don't consider it they will be accused of acting unfairly, which would risk less than 75%. And once they decide they are considering it, then they have to wait until the decision is made on their preference before they can tell us, so they have to wait until AH's bid is formally made.
@A_Worboys said:
Because we were supposed to be voting on the American deal. If it’s a great deal & it’s passed by 75% then fantastic, let’s go with it. Andrew Harman has come up with something that would be a plan B if the American bid didn’t carry enough votes. He has broadly outlined his plans - yet we STILL don’t know even the broad outline of the American bid. I think it’s shocking. I was completely open-minded about the American deal until it came out about Adams Park being used as security against the loan. That, for me, was a game-changer. The Trust Board know the American deal - I’d like to know it now too!
You can't have a vote now. People know there's a rival offer coming and would naturally want to know if it was better. It would have no chance odd being approved.
Far better to know full details of both at the same tins
Fine. Let’s hear both then. After everything that’s gone on I’m not prepared to have both bids discussed in secret by the Trust Board then have one “recommended” on which we vote yes or no. We’ve had the outline of Andrew Harman’s bid, now let’s have the outline of the American bid.
Had a chat with one of the trust board and tried to get them to understand the rage regarding the charge on AP. I described it as "defiling the Qu'ran", in fairness he did say that it was a good analogy and the board would add extra measures so that it HAD to be voted by the members if there was a next time.
Strange that Trevor explained, the reason for separating club from stadium was to protect from external forces. Irony being, we didn't think the threat would come from within!
It's pretty pointless changing the standing orders to ensure there's a vote the next time they want to use the stadium as security on a loan. The Trust has put itself in a position where it stands to lose the stadium if it can't repay the current loan. And even if it can, it's looking to sell the club into private hands, after which the Trust rules won't matter a jot to how the club is managed. They've already mortgaged the crown jewels - now they want to bolt the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Firstly, credit to the trust board for such a well marshalled defence.
I need to listen to the transcript and look at the slides but my impressions are these:
The board is working on a way around the 75% hurdle rate that Stroud and the board adopted as a poison pill to avoid the stadium being put at risk. Something about 'no specific provision requires any vote etc' and 'different level of approval required.'
They want to see the Harman bid before we will hear the U.S. Private Equity bid details
They can give away at least 25% it may be more without having to get approval from their members
They can dismiss the Harman bid first without having to show it to members
The Private Equity bid details won't be made public for at least '3 weeks or so' i.e after Harman's bid has been dismissed - they have been going over the U.S. bid details for a long time already, it's not as if they don't have the details it's just that they choose not to share.
"The ground is not involved in those negotiation" with the Americans while acknowledging they messed up with giving them a charge against the stadium
Lot of questions about where is the U.S. bid details, why can't you just give members both bid details at both times which people will have their own views on
I asked Stroud to confirm that all bidders were offered majority control and a charge against the stadium and will be keen to see exactly word for word what the answer was as I didn't understand the response at the time.
No questions about the where the training ground gang sit with the U.S Investors, the timeline when Howard met Harman, why the board didn't tell us about the charge against the stadium at the meeting with the Private Equity Investors when they knew at the meeting.
They said 'a new recommendation to members will be made'
Stroud kept on about getting 'back to a level playing field' not sure we've ever had one.
My view is the club will be given to the Private Equity guys and that it is a done deal. There are rules ie. 75% but that the board are actively looking at ways to get round them.
@Steve_Peart said:
It was interesting to hear David Roberton explain how he, Alan Cecil, Tony Hector and John Derben created a Trust 'Plan B' Committee in November, to ensure they had a back up plan if the vote was No. They met on 22 November, the following evening at the Ex-Players Dinner, David asked Andy Harman if he would put together a firm proposal. So the Trust created the current situation of a second proposal, although clearly Andy Harman thought the situation became unsatisfactory enough to have to hold the meeting last Wednesday.
This is a very pertinent point. With the utmost respect to those 4 trust directors, they do not have the ear of Trevor or the power group. It was a dismissive approach to allocate the handling of any other options to them and it was deemed extremely disrespectful by harman- he raised that with Stroud before it all went public recently.
He Americans were courted and wines and dined by Stroud , Burrell , Howard , Smith , Cook
Harman was dismissed to talk to 4 of the most genuine and valuable trust board volunteers , who have demonstrated some scruples and class in all of this , but have no influence or say on the direction of the board and who had zero input with bidders prior.
All very last minute , box ticking , keep the dissenters busy while we press ahead and ignore anything hey hear
@woodlands said:
I'm not sure it was said that Andy H's bid will be dismissed without being shown to the members.
I very much doubt it will be shown to the members, particularly if it is impressive. If enough of us felt it was the best option then the Americans would not achieve the 75% vote.
Is there a mechanism we can use to force the board to disclose both bids to the legacy trust members before a decision to put forward to trust members is made? I have no faith they will come to an objective decision. Trevors's line was, you put us in charge and we will make that decision on your behalf. If I had faith in them all very well and good but I don't and I suspect many others don't either. If I was on the board and I could have the burden of making that decision shared then I would go for that. Its not like we are asking who will be our next crisp supplier is it?
@MBS said:
Well I missed the first half as I couldn’t get it on my iPad. An old laptop came to the rescue and so I saw the rest. What I did notice with TS was a touch more humility and a more conciliatory tone and approach. The stadium charge acknowledged as a bit of a cock up under the cloak of business practices. The one real point that resonated with me from the floor was that both bids should be put to the legacy members at the same time. TS said that he had covered that in an earlier answer, so I am none the wiser. He did acknowledge conflict of interest between club and trust chairman as well. It was a well prepared defence of his and the boards tactics over the last few months....I thought he did ok, and I’m no fan.
Careful wording and semantics were used . He skirted around his Beechdean role and crossed the line a few times in terms of misleading and false statements. They were noted by the no confidence movements lawyer.
The righteous pressing of the point “ no director stands to gain financially at all from this decision “ was the best demonstration of the disingenuous nature he has run things . Why not fully disclose and fully out it to bed? “ I’m not under any influence or bias from my employment given they are one of the largest creditors of these debts we talk of “
He mentioned chairboy funders etc numerous times because that’s the heart strings of those in the room but never specified or discuss the other far more relevant creditors , and the main source of discontent af lack of confidence in his position.
I did not attend and couldn’t get onto the Facebook stream but it seems to me from the comments here that we have got no further or got any more information than we had before this meeting.
It appears it is still going to be a Board decision regarding the preferred bidder as opposed to opening it up to the members.
Exactly why can’t the Trust members have both bidders present to them and then vote on the preferred bidder?
It's a done deal as far as they are concerned. They don't give a shit what we think. They want the Americans in and one way or another they will make sure they do. The only way it could be fair or we'll all get to see what's on offer from all kids is to get rid of the 'power' group.
Was an interesting 90 mins last night with little or no timewasting, board members falling over or game management. @marlowchair continued in his role as Derek Adams criticising from the start.
Thought Stroud looked nervous and was probably ready for a bigger grilling than he ended up getting. I wanted him to talk freely and not just read the slides but he took a safe Teresa May approach of saying just what he had to say. The timeline made sense and the frustration with Harman stood out to me. No questions on any conflict of interest despite the noise on here.
Most interesting point for me was the option for a legacy vote to agree the investment and then have a members vote on who with. I would like to know more on that.
I also noted that the board asked 'the guys' for a loan. I didn't really follow why the US bid details hadn't been released before their involvement in this meeting was cancelled.
I really hope Harman treats this process with respect. He has been sounded out as a plan B but now wants to be plan A. The delays aren't helping anyone.
@Blue_since_1990, I think the Trust Board's line is that this is a complex, legal procedure and you elected us to take decisions like this on your behalf. Fine for the day to day decisions of running a club but this is too big a matter for the members not to see the details of both bids, especially given all that has happened in the past week. As things stand we will only see the details of the one chosen by the Board.
A member asked last night whether there could be a Plan C, the Americans and Andy Harman agreeing a joint bid. TS said that Plan C was on the agenda, but Harman was asked the same question on Saturday (not sure if that was same member) and he was not keen on that idea.
To answer those legacy members who want to see and vote on both bids rather than let the board present a "preferred bid' let me put forward the following scenario -
If we see both bids and vote by a majority in favour of the Americans (say 52:48 to mirror a vote elsewhere) then it will then require a further 75% vote for the deal to go through to meet trust rules. If they fail in this second vote, and there is a good chance as 48% are already initiallly against it, then we go to plan B - AH. Therefore we end up either voting down both parties or AH wins despite having an initial minority in favour of his proposal.
@Right_in_the_Middle said:
Was an interesting 90 mins last night with little or no timewasting, board members falling over or game management. @marlowchair continued in his role as Derek Adams criticising from the start.
Thought Stroud looked nervous and was probably ready for a bigger grilling than he ended up getting. I wanted him to talk freely and not just read the slides but he took a safe Teresa May approach of saying just what he had to say. The timeline made sense and the frustration with Harman stood out to me. No questions on any conflict of interest despite the noise on here.
Most interesting point for me was the option for a legacy vote to agree the investment and then have a members vote on who with. I would like to know more on that.
I also noted that the board asked 'the guys' for a loan. I didn't really follow why the US bid details hadn't been released before their involvement in this meeting was cancelled.
I really hope Harman treats this process with respect. He has been sounded out as a plan B but now wants to be plan A. The delays aren't helping anyone.
Disappointed you didn’t come and introduce yourself
Oh god I try to.get out but they keep dragging me back! This is just my opinion. Voting on two bids will.not work. It's brexit again...if we vote on two bids what percentage constitutes a win that would satisfy all members? It would have to be decisive or that will not stop division and unhappiness I would suggest. As these threads have shown with argument and counter argument...who needs experts? If the board look at the two bids assuming that Andy puts in a detailed one and then explain in detail why they have taken the decision on one or the other....then we can take a vote on the one they choose for good or ill. If we simply do not trust the trust at all...someone would complain about the one we replace it with should they all stand down and then why would anyone get involved?
Yes agreed @Steve_Peart but can we not request as a membership that we do see both bids. I appreciate that one bid is based on a majority share and the other a minority share and that may make a difference regarding the acceptance process et al. However, I cannot understand that a Board elected to represent the Trust members want to restrict the members involvement.
Other than the loan from the Americans, I have no information regarding the level of loans that are repayable to our current creditors or who those creditors are. Also, whether those creditors because of their hold over the club are actually pulling the strings on this whole investment strategy. However, that whole aspect concerns me greatly. If there is a power group who are really ruling the roost then let us know and we can move forward to repay and remove them.
On another point, I read that we have 1,200 Trust members and we have an annual deficit of £600,000 per annum. So why can’t we look to part fund the deficit between the Trust members. A not to painful monthly standing order contribution of just £20 from each member (£5 per week - not even two pints of beer), would raise £24,000 per month or £288,000 per annum. If this contribution could be achieved, maybe we could then look at a minority investment such as AH to combine with it, seiuosly look at increasing the commercial revenues and push to safeguard our club for the long term. Would this not be a simpler and less risky route to take?
Certainly an interesting idea righty...but not to be operation fear I suspect the economy next year...say after March...is going to take quite a hit and i know we are all in affluent leafy bucks as someone in a reasonably paid job I am already struggling so I fear it is not a stable way forward to depend on members pockets. Again just an opinion.
As Trevor got the authority to stop the members viewing both? He is our elected Chairman after all. Can we not pass a motion to insist that we do see both bids?
Comments
But we are not voting on the American deal now as we need to wait for Andrew Harman's bid. That has delayed the process as explained this evening
Well yes, but they have obviously decided that AH's proposal needed to be considered because it has merit and/or enough support to potentially split the vote. As TS said, if they don't consider it they will be accused of acting unfairly, which would risk less than 75%. And once they decide they are considering it, then they have to wait until the decision is made on their preference before they can tell us, so they have to wait until AH's bid is formally made.
You can't have a vote now. People know there's a rival offer coming and would naturally want to know if it was better. It would have no chance odd being approved.
Far better to know full details of both at the same tins
Fine. Let’s hear both then. After everything that’s gone on I’m not prepared to have both bids discussed in secret by the Trust Board then have one “recommended” on which we vote yes or no. We’ve had the outline of Andrew Harman’s bid, now let’s have the outline of the American bid.
Had a chat with one of the trust board and tried to get them to understand the rage regarding the charge on AP. I described it as "defiling the Qu'ran", in fairness he did say that it was a good analogy and the board would add extra measures so that it HAD to be voted by the members if there was a next time.
Strange that Trevor explained, the reason for separating club from stadium was to protect from external forces. Irony being, we didn't think the threat would come from within!
It's pretty pointless changing the standing orders to ensure there's a vote the next time they want to use the stadium as security on a loan. The Trust has put itself in a position where it stands to lose the stadium if it can't repay the current loan. And even if it can, it's looking to sell the club into private hands, after which the Trust rules won't matter a jot to how the club is managed. They've already mortgaged the crown jewels - now they want to bolt the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Firstly, credit to the trust board for such a well marshalled defence.
I need to listen to the transcript and look at the slides but my impressions are these:
The board is working on a way around the 75% hurdle rate that Stroud and the board adopted as a poison pill to avoid the stadium being put at risk. Something about 'no specific provision requires any vote etc' and 'different level of approval required.'
They want to see the Harman bid before we will hear the U.S. Private Equity bid details
They can give away at least 25% it may be more without having to get approval from their members
They can dismiss the Harman bid first without having to show it to members
The Private Equity bid details won't be made public for at least '3 weeks or so' i.e after Harman's bid has been dismissed - they have been going over the U.S. bid details for a long time already, it's not as if they don't have the details it's just that they choose not to share.
"The ground is not involved in those negotiation" with the Americans while acknowledging they messed up with giving them a charge against the stadium
Lot of questions about where is the U.S. bid details, why can't you just give members both bid details at both times which people will have their own views on
I asked Stroud to confirm that all bidders were offered majority control and a charge against the stadium and will be keen to see exactly word for word what the answer was as I didn't understand the response at the time.
No questions about the where the training ground gang sit with the U.S Investors, the timeline when Howard met Harman, why the board didn't tell us about the charge against the stadium at the meeting with the Private Equity Investors when they knew at the meeting.
They said 'a new recommendation to members will be made'
Stroud kept on about getting 'back to a level playing field' not sure we've ever had one.
My view is the club will be given to the Private Equity guys and that it is a done deal. There are rules ie. 75% but that the board are actively looking at ways to get round them.
I'm not sure it was said that Andy H's bid will be dismissed without being shown to the members.
This is a very pertinent point. With the utmost respect to those 4 trust directors, they do not have the ear of Trevor or the power group. It was a dismissive approach to allocate the handling of any other options to them and it was deemed extremely disrespectful by harman- he raised that with Stroud before it all went public recently.
He Americans were courted and wines and dined by Stroud , Burrell , Howard , Smith , Cook
Harman was dismissed to talk to 4 of the most genuine and valuable trust board volunteers , who have demonstrated some scruples and class in all of this , but have no influence or say on the direction of the board and who had zero input with bidders prior.
All very last minute , box ticking , keep the dissenters busy while we press ahead and ignore anything hey hear
I very much doubt it will be shown to the members, particularly if it is impressive. If enough of us felt it was the best option then the Americans would not achieve the 75% vote.
Is there a mechanism we can use to force the board to disclose both bids to the legacy trust members before a decision to put forward to trust members is made? I have no faith they will come to an objective decision. Trevors's line was, you put us in charge and we will make that decision on your behalf. If I had faith in them all very well and good but I don't and I suspect many others don't either. If I was on the board and I could have the burden of making that decision shared then I would go for that. Its not like we are asking who will be our next crisp supplier is it?
Careful wording and semantics were used . He skirted around his Beechdean role and crossed the line a few times in terms of misleading and false statements. They were noted by the no confidence movements lawyer.
The righteous pressing of the point “ no director stands to gain financially at all from this decision “ was the best demonstration of the disingenuous nature he has run things . Why not fully disclose and fully out it to bed? “ I’m not under any influence or bias from my employment given they are one of the largest creditors of these debts we talk of “
He mentioned chairboy funders etc numerous times because that’s the heart strings of those in the room but never specified or discuss the other far more relevant creditors , and the main source of discontent af lack of confidence in his position.
I did not attend and couldn’t get onto the Facebook stream but it seems to me from the comments here that we have got no further or got any more information than we had before this meeting.
It appears it is still going to be a Board decision regarding the preferred bidder as opposed to opening it up to the members.
Exactly why can’t the Trust members have both bidders present to them and then vote on the preferred bidder?
Any chances of the bids being rigged if they are not being presented at the same time?
@AlanCecil just wanted to pass on genuine thanks for whoever sorted the stream for last night.
Excellent quality sound and vision and a real step forward that these meetings are now available to those who can't travel, etc.
It's a done deal as far as they are concerned. They don't give a shit what we think. They want the Americans in and one way or another they will make sure they do. The only way it could be fair or we'll all get to see what's on offer from all kids is to get rid of the 'power' group.
Bids... not kids
Was an interesting 90 mins last night with little or no timewasting, board members falling over or game management. @marlowchair continued in his role as Derek Adams criticising from the start.
Thought Stroud looked nervous and was probably ready for a bigger grilling than he ended up getting. I wanted him to talk freely and not just read the slides but he took a safe Teresa May approach of saying just what he had to say. The timeline made sense and the frustration with Harman stood out to me. No questions on any conflict of interest despite the noise on here.
Most interesting point for me was the option for a legacy vote to agree the investment and then have a members vote on who with. I would like to know more on that.
I also noted that the board asked 'the guys' for a loan. I didn't really follow why the US bid details hadn't been released before their involvement in this meeting was cancelled.
I really hope Harman treats this process with respect. He has been sounded out as a plan B but now wants to be plan A. The delays aren't helping anyone.
@Blue_since_1990, I think the Trust Board's line is that this is a complex, legal procedure and you elected us to take decisions like this on your behalf. Fine for the day to day decisions of running a club but this is too big a matter for the members not to see the details of both bids, especially given all that has happened in the past week. As things stand we will only see the details of the one chosen by the Board.
A member asked last night whether there could be a Plan C, the Americans and Andy Harman agreeing a joint bid. TS said that Plan C was on the agenda, but Harman was asked the same question on Saturday (not sure if that was same member) and he was not keen on that idea.
To answer those legacy members who want to see and vote on both bids rather than let the board present a "preferred bid' let me put forward the following scenario -
If we see both bids and vote by a majority in favour of the Americans (say 52:48 to mirror a vote elsewhere) then it will then require a further 75% vote for the deal to go through to meet trust rules. If they fail in this second vote, and there is a good chance as 48% are already initiallly against it, then we go to plan B - AH. Therefore we end up either voting down both parties or AH wins despite having an initial minority in favour of his proposal.
Disappointed you didn’t come and introduce yourself
Oh god I try to.get out but they keep dragging me back! This is just my opinion. Voting on two bids will.not work. It's brexit again...if we vote on two bids what percentage constitutes a win that would satisfy all members? It would have to be decisive or that will not stop division and unhappiness I would suggest. As these threads have shown with argument and counter argument...who needs experts? If the board look at the two bids assuming that Andy puts in a detailed one and then explain in detail why they have taken the decision on one or the other....then we can take a vote on the one they choose for good or ill. If we simply do not trust the trust at all...someone would complain about the one we replace it with should they all stand down and then why would anyone get involved?
Yes agreed @Steve_Peart but can we not request as a membership that we do see both bids. I appreciate that one bid is based on a majority share and the other a minority share and that may make a difference regarding the acceptance process et al. However, I cannot understand that a Board elected to represent the Trust members want to restrict the members involvement.
Other than the loan from the Americans, I have no information regarding the level of loans that are repayable to our current creditors or who those creditors are. Also, whether those creditors because of their hold over the club are actually pulling the strings on this whole investment strategy. However, that whole aspect concerns me greatly. If there is a power group who are really ruling the roost then let us know and we can move forward to repay and remove them.
On another point, I read that we have 1,200 Trust members and we have an annual deficit of £600,000 per annum. So why can’t we look to part fund the deficit between the Trust members. A not to painful monthly standing order contribution of just £20 from each member (£5 per week - not even two pints of beer), would raise £24,000 per month or £288,000 per annum. If this contribution could be achieved, maybe we could then look at a minority investment such as AH to combine with it, seiuosly look at increasing the commercial revenues and push to safeguard our club for the long term. Would this not be a simpler and less risky route to take?
My understanding from last night was that we would.
At the moment there is only one bid.
21st Feb was the date given for Andrew Harman to submit his bid to the Trust. At some point after that I imagine we'll be given details of both.
As previously stated, you can't expect full details of the American bid to be publicly known before Andrew Harman submits his
The way I understood it, the Trust board will look at both bids, decide which one they prefer and then explain why they prefer it.
I did not get the impression we would be seeing the details of both bids.
I saw it differently but we shall see. I can't see how they could possibly hope to get anywhere near 75% without complete transparency.
Perhaps we should wait and see if another bid actually materialises first.
@eric_plant, @Vital, TS made it clear last night that members will not see both bids, only the one the Board put forward.
Certainly an interesting idea righty...but not to be operation fear I suspect the economy next year...say after March...is going to take quite a hit and i know we are all in affluent leafy bucks as someone in a reasonably paid job I am already struggling so I fear it is not a stable way forward to depend on members pockets. Again just an opinion.
As Trevor got the authority to stop the members viewing both? He is our elected Chairman after all. Can we not pass a motion to insist that we do see both bids?
Sorry - Has Trevor