Potential Investor

[McMark]

The whole article;
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/afc/news/poten ... -1.1112671

[Uncle Peter]

Spanner,

To answer your points

1. The club wrote to Mr Casson, via his solicitors after the last mail article to reaffirm that the door was open for him to come back to the club and negotiate if he was still interested. In his reply he's said that he is formalising an offer to put to the members in early March. He also started he didn't feel the need to speak to the board at this time. We have not recieved details of this offer at the time of writing.

2. Re a valuation of the stadium, if Mr Casson wants to do that it's not an issue. The club supplied a recent valuation which valued the ground at 600,000 as a football ground.

The 250k is how much Mr Casson thinks the club as a whole is worth.

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[Wintergreen]

Aye, there's the rub...

[bobbie moore]

Aye, there's the rub...

True a buyer will always have lower value than the seller
lets get all the cards on the table and hopefully we go forward to better things

[blue nige]

"uncle peter" would the board agree to an independant valuatation and except this decsion even if it was no where near the 600K that has already been done?
if the answer is no then as members this would be seen as being against any potential investment by whoever!
I for one welcome the chance to be able to meet mr casson and see what's on offer.
what have we to loose?
because what have we got nothing, at the last a.g.m. i asked tony keen about the future and he offered nothing! says it all really!

[Uncle Peter]

"uncle peter" would the board agree to an independant valuatation and except this decsion even if it was no where near the 600K that has already been done?
if the answer is no then as members this would be seen as being against any potential investment by whoever!
I for one welcome the chance to be able to meet mr casson and see what's on offer.
what have we to loose?
because what have we got nothing, at the last a.g.m. i asked tony keen about the future and he offered nothing! says it all really!

It depends on what is being valued. The club has already had the ground independently valued at 600k.

If the investor wants to get a second opinion he is welcome to do so.

The investor can't buy the club as it stands due to the way the constitution is written. All that can happen is that we agree to sell the club's assets, including the right to play football to another company.

As such, any valuation of "the business" is in my eyes irrelevant as he's not buying the business, just it's assets. The question is what should be paid to gain control of those assets? It has to be at least enough to cover all creditors, and yes this includes directors loans, unsecured debt, debentures and the mortgage, otherwise it's points deduction/enforced relegation or othet censure from the authorities.

Put it another way, what would the members be happy to accept to relinquish control of the club to a sole owner? That is what it will come down to ultimately.

Don't get me wrong, If someone comes along with a plan to take the club forward it will be put to the members. But I'll say again they no offer has ever been made.

I sound a bit like a broken record I know, But I'll answer any question asked.

I'll put on record that I care more about the club than I do my position on the board, I'll only do what's best for the club (as will the other board members)

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[Ste Story]

It depends on what is being valued. The club has already had the ground independently valued at 600k.

Question Pete - to what tune are the club currently in debt, and if it's below the £600k mentioned there what would happen to any surplus once debts had been paid and the assets transferred to a new company?

[Bigfathoss]

Regarding the value of the club...if we don't do something serious very quickly then what we will be looking at is the value of a field. There won't be a club unless there is some other worthy option out there.
My opinion remains the same as it has from the start. All debts must be cleared and, with correct future investment caveats in place, sell the club for a quid and let's get moving again.

[Uncle Peter]

It depends on what is being valued. The club has already had the ground independently valued at 600k.

Question Pete - to what tune are the club currently in debt, and if it's below the £600k mentioned there what would happen to any surplus once debts had been paid and the assets transferred to a new company?

Not sure about the exact debt level, but certainly much less than the 600K.

Any surplus would be dealt with as per the constitution. I'll post the extract later, unless tidds comes along first!

From memory any surplus would be decided by the members, but I'll post the section from the constitution later when I get home.


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[Reg]

Creditors could of course write off the money they're owed couldn't they?

The debt doesn't necessarily have to be repaid, does it?

[John Very Little]

Question Pete - to what tune are the club currently in debt, and if it's below the £600k mentioned there what would happen to any surplus once debts had been paid and the assets transferred to a new company?

Keep up Ste & Peter (from earlier in the thread)

Re what happens to any cash surplus (or other residual assets), I think this is the relevant passage from the club''s Articles of Association:

7.1 If upon the winding up or dissolution of the Company there remains after the satisfaction of all its debts and liabilities any property whatsoever the same shall not be paid or distributed among the members of the Company, but shall be given or transferred to* some other company or association, or to any charitable company or institution or institutions in each case having similar objects to and (without creating any binding trust) operating within the Furness area of Cumbria, such company, association or institution to be determined by the members of the Company at or before the time of dissolution or, in default of thereof, by a judge of the High Court having jurisdiction in respect of charitable funds, and if and so far as effect cannot be given to the aforesaid provisions, then to some charitable object with the said area.
*refer to additional beneficiary set out in Article 68 per Special Resolution passed 6 February 2003

I think the reference to "Article 68" must actually mean Article 69 which says:

On the winding-up and dissolution of the Company the provisions of the Memorandum of Association shall have effect as if repeated in these Articles with the insertion in line 4 of clause 7.1 after "...transferred to .... the words "The Football Association Benevolent Fund or to..."

So, basically the members would decide I think. An obvious option I suppose would be to transfer the surplus to a Supporters Trust who might then invest the money (as share capital) in a new company to which the FA registration is transferred (or a new company set up to operate a phoenix club).

[Kieran]

The club supplied details of what we owe, and to whom and details of the club's assets etc. I don't really know what else we could have given

How up to date was the information given to Mr Casson? The suggestion in the previous mail article was that it wasn't up to date enough and that this was one of the major stumbling blocks. Mr Casson stated that he knew what had happened yesterday in his own business, and the implication from that was that the board of Barrow AFC did not.

The problem you've got Pete is that there is very little trust in the board these days, perfectly understandable when you consider that they've consistently repeated the same mistakes, mis-led us and in some cases downright lied to us. Is it then any wonder that people don't feel they can trust the board with something this big? I for one wouldn't trust them in the slightest to get it right, more down to incompetence than any ill intentions.

[John Very Little]

Creditors could of course write off the money they're owed couldn't they?
The debt doesn't necessarily have to be repaid, does it?

If PC is buying the club (which would include the ground) then the mortgage, debentures and loan to St Andrews Engineering would have to be paid as these have charges secured against the ground.

Not all of the debentures may want their cash back, however there is another factor to bear in mind, the loan with St Andrews is subject to interest but no interest has been claimed on this loan. However the interest could be added at any time and if someone like PC is coming in with a cash bid then I'd guess the unclaimed interest would also be added on?
With regard to the 245K directors loans somehow I don't think the directors will just write them off.

The club has 500K debts and PC's bid is only 250K - therefore it's dead in the water as it won't cover all the debts.
Why can't some people understand this?

[blue nige]

Without trying to point score peter you say the ground was valued at 600k,correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't this valuation disputed when we were bidding for the new health centre?

[blue nige]

John you are right but if the directors made unsecured loans without the members knowledge( no matter that there was good intent)then firstly was this legitimate and if not I as a member will not(if possible)let this situation stop the club progressing!