To fans sceptical of those of us whom distrust the 80% owners

Just checked back, and this is correct. My earlier comments were based on the 20% Cryne family shareholding being in the UK registered company, rather than in the Hong Kong one. Consequently, the comments about avoiding paying a dividend to the minority shareholder are invalid, but not those regarding the payment being detrimental to the UK company which operates the football club.

It does throw up an interesting question as to how much the Cryne's were able to influence (or otherwise) the payment being made on behalf of the Hong Kong company, as 20% shareholders within it, as they (or strictly speaking, Oakwell Holdings Limited) also benefit from the writing off of the loan at the detriment of the football club.

Thanks to Archerfield for clarifying, and correcting the earlier mistaken assumption.

 

With the complication now identified by Archerfield, I am not even clear whether it falls under British court juridiction, or the courts in Honk Kong, where Barnsley Football Club Holdings Ltd, is registered. That is why I made the comment I did to Archerfield. In those circumstances, who knows when the whole thing will be resolved.

 

I’ve lost track of this , have the Crynes taken receipt of £750k or not , or taken the money but not agreed with it being paid from the club or is the court case if there is one about some other payment

 

I'm as confused as you to be honest. I need to re-read all this after some kip!

 

@Sheriff not a problem mate, we all want the best for the club. The use of the clubs profit to pay part of the instalment fees does seem to go against the transparency statements of our new CEO.

 

I guess it is transparent (in essence) as it's there for all to see in the accounts, but yes, an explanation from the club in plain English would be welcome.

 

The Cryne family have probably received £750,000, but that is not the issue. The issue is, who should have paid them that money. The money should have been paid by Pacific Media, but it was paid by Barnsley FC Ltd. via BFCH Ltd. The Crynes are objecting not on the grounds that they have not been paid. They are objecting on the grounds that Barnsley Football club is the thing that has been sold and it should not be made to pay part of its own selling price.

 

Oakwell Holdings accounts (30/11/20) also detail the outstanding payments of £2.75m as being under dispute. £1.75m in the current year and a further £1m the following year. Pure supposition but the £750k payment would appear to be a reduction on the £1m due in the prior year but not paid when due.

 

Basically if they just fcúked off it would be doing us all a favour. Put the club up for sale Conway, I'll buy it with the club's money and not put a penny in just like you did. And I'll certainly not treat fans like **** like you either.

 

Think I’ve got it , cheers ,

 

One interesting aspect of this is with regard to Rob Zuk's role, as Finance Director.

He's a director of the UK company, and therefore has the same fiduciary duties as the other directors, but he's essentially an employee of the UK registered company and has no shareholding in it. He's also the director who has signed the accounts on behalf of the Board and prepared the Directors' report within it.

If, as we can now quite conclusively assume, the directors have acted in a way that isn't in the best interests of the company then he, as a qualified accountant, should in theory be professionally conflicted by the writing off of the loan to the Hong Kong company. For clarity, it is this write-off, rather than the payment on behalf of the HK company, which is the issue here. If it was simply a loan to the parent company that was ultimately repaid by them then it would be much less of an issue.

In reality, his views on things would ultimately have little sway if the shareholding directors insist on this course of action. Ultimately, the most he could achieve would be as a dissenting voice on the Board as to the write-off being agreed (and he could simply be outvoted by the other Board members).

I've previously been put in a similar situation as Finance Director of a company where transactions had occurred, authorised by shareholders, that were detrimental to the entity to which I was an appointed director. My response was to resign, due to the professional conflict that this presented.

Based on what I can ascertain from the public domain information available, if I was sitting in the role that Rob is doing, then I'd have to consider taking the same course of action rather than be party to something that is so obviously contrary to the best interests of the company.

Arguably, if he were also a director of the parent company, then this conflict wouldn't necessarily arise. I don't know whether this is the case, but I would expect it to be more likely than not that his directorships extend to only the UK entities. We know already that he resigned his directorship of Oakwell Holdings Limited in 2020, which I recall was due to a conflict of interests related to the legal dispute.

For clarity, it's not something where there's sufficient information to conclude that he should have resigned, as there's insufficient information available regarding this. However, on the face of it, based on the facts available, it does have elements that appear consistent with a situation in which I felt my only available course of action as Finance Director was to resign.

 

The alternative would be, as someone suggested, an additional performance-related payment, presumably triggered via the club being promoted. This, as an additional contingent amount becoming payable, would presumably fall outside the ongoing dispute relating to the initial consideration.

It would be ironic, and somewhat confusing, if this generated a further £750,000 owing, given that these are also the known instalments of the initial consideration, but would explain why there's no movement in the debtor balances shown in Oakwell Holdings' accounts.

I suspect this isn't the case, particularly as the P&L reserve movement suggests Oakwell Holdings made a loss in the year to November 2020 but the wording within BFC's accounts suggests it was a payment of this nature.

 

I find threads relating to financial matters difficult to follow in the same way some people can't do maths very well, so thanks to everyone who has tried to explain things.
I think I've followed things but just one other observation re: the 750,000 quid quoted figure. In this day and age of multi billion pound football investment such as Man City and Newcastle it does seem to me that £750,000 is a very small sum in any case. So with that in mind does that not also tell us something about the mindset of our 80% holders? It just looks cheap and tacky to me, regardless of the other legal and ownership issues mentioned above.
Just a side thought really after reading the thread. Just makes the 80% lot look like twisting, Scrooge-like leeches (unless I've misunderstood things). Perhaps someone could confirm or correct me...

 

Rob Zuk went to Nottingham Forest with Dane Murphy.

 

Taymour Roushdi did, didn't he? Not Zuk.

 

Sorry, my mistake.

 

Because it was paid to the 20%, doesn't that imply that its a scaled down version of a payment of £3.75m.

I'm in way over my head now in this thread but I think the gist is that because of the problem with the murky world of business and dividends and performance related bonuses just means that a) nothing done here is probably illegal or out of the ordinary in business as a whole b) despite there being some very wise and intelligent people on this thread, I'm not sure any two of them agree with the whole picture, which probably means it's a lot more complicated than I initially thought after reading Red Rain's contribution.

 

Thanks for this. I tried to look at these accounts some time ago, but could not work out a way of doing so because the company is registered in Hong Kong.

Does this imply that Barnsley Football Club Ltd will be required to pay the final £2.75m on top of the 750,000 already paid. If so, the case being brought by the Crynes is about £3.5m and not just the £750k already paid.

 

In short, yes. Oakwell Holdings received payment from Barnsley Football Club on behalf of BFC investments limited.

 

I don’t think it does imply this, they may choose to try to follow a similar path but it certainly does not preclude BFC investment making the future payments as essentially that is the path of the monies this time albeit sourced from Barnsley Football Club.

The more worrying factor is the state of the club’s cash position at the end of May 2020. With only around £1m in current assets, the only meaningful transfer received in respect of the manager, the actions to close the West stand start to stack up as an investor who does not intend to invest and is now running short on the cash dowry left by the previous owner...