We have no money. FACT. Would the club consider...

as part of their strategy to become self funding a share issue offering ordinary fans the chance to purchase their own part of the club and in return pay say £5 per share.

You may argue that the bond scheme tried to do this and failed badly. The bond scheme failed for a number of reasons, mainly being the lack of honesty about the motives behind it.

The other alternative is to call for people to come down to Oakwell and invest in the club in return for a place on the board.

Worth consideration?

 

I'd buy some.

 

That's one...anyone else?

Me too obviously

 

RE: That's one...anyone else?

Oh aye, anything to help BFC. Providing those in charge ask like.

 

RE: That's one...anyone else?

They've got new mugs in the club shop, mind.

What more do you expect?

 

RE: That's one...anyone else?

8,000 mugs every Saturday.

The club MUST engage the fans if we are to progress. They can't do it all on their own imho.

 

Id probbably stump up a bit of dosh

for a few shares allthough im still very pissed off with the whole bond thing, £150 and not even a jot from the club, took my dosh then never received owt from them.

 

These suggestions were put forward before to JD apparently and he turned them down.

 

RE: Id probbably stump up a bit of dosh

That was the previous regime!!

 

Perhaps he did..

he is but a distant memory now.

We are brassic and need to stop relying on Mr Cryne. As Dirk says the club need to engage the fans.

I don't know about you but at the minute I feel about as welcome and respected at Oakwell as a fart in an astronauts suit. I feel, rightly or wrongly that fans are held in contempt.

Why not appeal for further investors? Asfar as I know, Mr Cryne is the only one to have put his brass where his mouth is...

 

btt

 

I suspect that the club have considered or are considering this subject.

As you are probably aware, similar suggestions were made by various bodies in the past to JD, Lewis and Peter Ridsdale - and all implied at the time that it wouldn't be out of the question, although JD wasn't too keen on the idea at all - mainly due to the structure of the club at that time!

However, a (general) share issue isn't as straight forward as it may appear, or you may think - especially with football clubs. You only have to look at other clubs who have gone down this route and their subsequent experiences on the stock market - e.g. Millwall, Sunderland. Even the Blunts have struggled with their shares - pricewise. People (even fans) invest in shares in the hope of some return (which the BFC Bond DOES give incidentally) - although it's true that the real 'die-hards' will invest just to have a share in the club they love. To make serious money out of a share issue, BFC need to appeal to investors outside of the fan-base (a take up of say 8000 shares based on one per fan, £40k by your suggestion, won't make a major dent in the current financial position), consequently the terms of the issue need to attract those outside of football as well.

What I'm saying is that it's not something BFC can readily jump into, in my opinion. It requires a lot of careful thought, and I would anticipate that no issue would be forthcoming until the club's finances are more more stable. A contradiction you might think - but that's the world of finance for you, who, other than the fans, is going to invest in a business that is presently running at a loss?!

 

Perhaps aim it at fans only..

I'm not sure but let's do summat

Either that or appeal for further investors...

 

Fair comment - although if you aim it at fans only..

you'd need to price the share higher than say £5. if the club finances are going to be improved. £40k for example (8000 fans @ £5 each) wouldn't even cover the costs of the share issue, I suspect.

Realistically the price would have to be a minimum of £25 in my view - and I'm not sure how sensible that figure would be at this current time.

 

But obviously some fans would buy more than one..

 

Agreed - but for a serious dent to be made in the club's deficit...

... you'd be looking at (given your price of £5 per share) each fan (say 8000, reasonable estimate) having to purchase A MINIMUM - 10 shares each? Even that would only raise £400k, which whilst helping the finances is far short of what the club actually need.

The suggestion you (and others in the past) have made is extremely meritable in my view - it's just that I can see the club being in a position to adopt it at this point in time. A couple of seasons down the line maybe....

 

But it's £400k that they have not got now and could go towards players

so we can stop the rot before it sets in

Doing nowt is not an option

 

Yes, but as I said earlier - there's other implications to take into account.

Not least the cost of a share issue - I would hazard in the region of £100k if it's a full issue, when you consider legal, accountancy, brokerage etc., fees. Then you've got to re-constitute the structure of the club to take account of all the additional shareholders - a constitution that currently doesn't exist. Do shareholders get voting rights for instance? Do they get the option to nominate somebody on to the board? Do they get a say in the club's operation - and so on. All these questions affect a share issue, and its success or failure.

I'm certainly not against what you suggest, I'm just trying to put the other side of the picture to show that an issue isn't as straight forward as it appears. It's certainly not as simple as asking fans to stump up £10 or £50 for a piece of paper!

 

Probably not...

these things rarely are.

The simplest soloution would be to ask for new investors to come forward. For example what happened to the people that JD was dealing with? What happened to Mick Hayselden and his mate from Jersey? What happened to Doylie and the Turks?

 

Sean Lewis and his Yankee Doodle Dandy mates ?

Cup of tea in gainsbro' ?

Anyone who couldn't see through that pillock deserves to be locked up.