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

Discussion in 'Bulletin Board' started by MonkeyRed, Oct 11, 2021.

  1. MDG

    MDG Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 21, 2005
    Messages:
    4,937
    Likes Received:
    3,442
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Darton
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Apart from them saying they wouldn't 'take' money out of the club (which could be interpreted differently - ie after it has been paid for)....Still don't see any difference in whether the owners use club funds to pay the instalment, instead of taking the money out of the club as profits and then using that to pay the instalment which they could do.

    Either way the club remains in the same financial stance.

    Shouldn't we be more worried about there not been any other buyers waiting in the wings to take over should they walk away?

    We'd end up with AFC Barnsley at best.
     
    GeorgeRobledo likes this.
  2. Durkar Red

    Durkar Red Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 19, 2005
    Messages:
    11,212
    Likes Received:
    6,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Exorcist
    Location:
    err..durkar
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    I thought Peter Doyle created the two companies , and took out a loan against the the ground at some ridiculous interest rate , Cryne and Council paid off that loan for ownership of the company
     
    Redhelen and JLWBigLil like this.
  3. Marc

    Marc Administrator Staff Member Admin

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2012
    Messages:
    26,403
    Likes Received:
    19,046
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    I genuinely have no idea what to think on all this. All way too complicated for me to understand - and I suspect that’s by design.

    I’m becoming more jaded by the day though, that’s for sure. We’re owned by a multi national corporation that’s hoovering up football clubs like monopoly pieces. It seems inevitable that they will be traded against each other in some way, and we are now just a part of a portfolio.

    And as with any portfolio, if part of it stops making sense I have absolutely no doubt they will dispose of it. They did it with Nice.

    The higher up the football pyramid you go, the worse this $hit gets. I’d genuinely rather have a Club that I love being a part of, playing non-league, than have all this.
     
  4. Ext

    Extremely Northern Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2011
    Messages:
    11,753
    Likes Received:
    1,949
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Professional Northerner.
    Location:
    Preparing for the 4th division
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Pity they were the chosen purchasers then if that's the case.
     
    Redhelen likes this.
  5. Arc

    Archerfield Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 9, 2013
    Messages:
    2,310
    Likes Received:
    5,918
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Archerfield, Scotland
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    @55&counting - Looking at Oakwell Holdings accounts the initial cash paid was £6.3m. This was also equal to the loans that Patrick had outstanding to BFC at the time of the sale. So he basically got back the money he had loaned to the club. He had also previously written off £5m of loans and gifted close on £2m.

    The follow up instalments are set out as £1m pa over 5 years, broadly equal to the cash that was on balance sheet at the time of the sale.
     
  6. She

    Sheriff Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2006
    Messages:
    2,881
    Likes Received:
    5,143
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Reading some of the recent debate on this, it looks like Doyle was the first one to separate the two, for his own reasons. Cryne inherited that and put in place the existing structure for the club and ground, which he specified at the time was for the protection of the assets against a rogue owner.
     
    Redhelen and Durkar Red like this.
  7. Ext

    Extremely Northern Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2011
    Messages:
    11,753
    Likes Received:
    1,949
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Professional Northerner.
    Location:
    Preparing for the 4th division
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    From memory, he used the assets of the club to secure a loan through Sterling Consortium or somesuch, at not very favourable terms IIRC.

    That then had to be settled to allow the club to be sold on. Think it was then that the ground & land were separated from the club, but I'll stand correcting on any of that.
     
    Kettlewell, Redhelen and Durkar Red like this.
  8. red

    redrum Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 17, 2013
    Messages:
    22,166
    Likes Received:
    16,001
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)

    When you have a terminal illness you can't just say okay Cancer give me another year just got to find a better buyer for my football club. I'm sure they came across well and were saying all the right things. Some fans have been lording them up ever since they were apparently billionaires but proof is in the pudding.
     
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2021
  9. Sta

    Stahlrost Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 13, 2006
    Messages:
    21,105
    Likes Received:
    13,025
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Occupation:
    None
    Location:
    Dodworth
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley Dark
    Nail. Head.

    I've just about had enough. This is not football any more. Might have to flounce.....
     
  10. She

    Sheriff Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2006
    Messages:
    2,881
    Likes Received:
    5,143
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    The best source information on this are the Oakwell Holdings accounts immediately post-acquisition (those from 1/6/17 to 30/11/18). These show a debt of £1m due within one year, and a further £3m due after more than one year, which form the basis of the installments that have become the subject of the dispute between the ownership. They also show cash in hand of £7.4m and a liability owing to the shareholders of £6.3m, which is the initial consideration figure referred to above.

    Those accounts also show Oakwell Holdings holding an investment of £2m at the end of that year, which is presumably it's 20% shareholding in BFC Investment Company Ltd (the Hong Kong parent company), which tells us that the book valuation of the club at acquisition was £10m. This looks about right when referenced against the initial cash receipt of £6.3m in the quoted post and a further £4m of future instalments becoming payable.

    The reference to Patrick's loans in @Archerfield's reply are also a timely reminder on the difference between his stewardship and that of the new ownership. Cryne made several loans to the club to keep it afloat which he consistently maintained would only ever be repaid if the club was promoted to the Premier League or as part of a sale, which is ultimately what transpired. In contrast, the new owners have done the complete opposite by withdrawing funds from the operational side of the business, at a time where they're also referencing the challenges of a liquidity issue, to partially fund their own liabilities arising from taking ownership.
     
  11. TitusMagee

    TitusMagee Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2018
    Messages:
    8,599
    Likes Received:
    13,262
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Silkstone Common
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Another owner would be ideal however if they haven't spent any of their own money on the club would we be any worse with a community run club?
     
    Kettlewell and Redhelen like this.
  12. She

    Sheriff Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2006
    Messages:
    2,881
    Likes Received:
    5,143
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Just for clarity, there's no suggestion that the £6.3m consideration paid at acquisition didn't come from their own resources, or that of the installment payments subsequently made prior to the legal dispute with the Crynes. The issue is with the use of operational funds to pay the most recent £750k installment.
     
    TitusMagee likes this.
  13. Red

    RedVesp Guest

    What's the difference between how they did it and taking money out as profit, then using that money to pay the £750k?

    I don't really see the issue with the way they did it, all roads lead to Rome. It sucks, but it's permissible isn't it?
     
  14. TitusMagee

    TitusMagee Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 2, 2018
    Messages:
    8,599
    Likes Received:
    13,262
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Silkstone Common
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Ah ok, I thought they had not paid anything up front and was just in instalments etc.
     
  15. Ext

    Extremely Northern Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 9, 2011
    Messages:
    11,753
    Likes Received:
    1,949
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Professional Northerner.
    Location:
    Preparing for the 4th division
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    In reality there is none.

    Because we can't get clear answers around the ground issue, long standing staff are leaving and results are absolutely shiiiite then everything's up for grabs.
     
    GeorgeRobledo and RedVesp like this.
  16. 55&counting

    55&counting Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 13, 2015
    Messages:
    3,942
    Likes Received:
    5,798
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Occupation:
    Avid Vic & Bob fan.
    Location:
    Ardsley
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    So they paid 6.3m on purchase? From their own resources?
     
  17. Red

    Red Rain Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2005
    Messages:
    4,810
    Likes Received:
    2,863
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Wombwell
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Well, if you mean via a dividend, then that sum would have been taxable. Masking it as a business expense and charging the expense to the Profit and Loss Account means that it has not been taxed.... yet.
     
  18. She

    Sheriff Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2006
    Messages:
    2,881
    Likes Received:
    5,143
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Being permissible and acting in the best interests of the company don't equate to the same thing. No-one can stop them doing what they did, but it was very clearly not beneficial to the operational activities of the football club for them to do so.

    Extracting funds via dividends to shareholders requires that there are sufficient reserves available for these to be declared, so there's ultimately a cap on the extent to which you can do this, and there's a formal process to be followed to declare and pay one. The treatment adopted, as we've just discovered, is very much behind the scenes and only becomes public knowledge long after the event.

    More fundamentally, in my opinion, is that they're using income streams from the investment to pay for the cost of the investment while at the same time devaluing it by making it financially weaker. Red Rain pointed out in an earlier post that they're essentially paying Oakwell Holdings in a manner which devalues their own investment in the parent company. From my perspective, as a supporter, I'm not concerned about the relative merits, or otherwise, to the various shareholders. The issue is that £750,000 has been extracted from the football club at a time of economic uncertainty and which resulted in the company reporting a financial loss as a direct consequence of the payment having been made.
     
  19. Dan

    DannyWilsonLovechild Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 8, 2011
    Messages:
    14,163
    Likes Received:
    17,210
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Style:
    Barnsley
    If the club was in profit (which it's not, and reserves are pretty much spent), a dividend out would require tax to be paid on the profit and application of the dividend tax.

    The responsibility of a director is to make decisions that are in the best interest of the company you are a director of. Whose interest is it in for a company to pay £750k on behalf of someone else? Particularly at a time when reserves are dwindling and the directors have already stated that they are struggling because others are paying over the odds. This approach weakens the football club. It benefits the 80% owners.

    There have been some very good points raised by the multiple qualified accountants, many of which have been supportive of the owners prior to this transaction.
     
    Old Gimmer, Andy Mac, RedVesp and 2 others like this.
  20. She

    Sheriff Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2006
    Messages:
    2,881
    Likes Received:
    5,143
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Home Page:
    Style:
    Barnsley (full width)
    Yes, essentially a settlement of the historic loans made by the Cryne family to keep the club afloat and now converted to share capital held by the Hong Kong entity.
     
    Redhelen and 55&counting like this.

Share This Page