The plan...

I guess in some ways a successful league 1 team realises more saleable assets than a failing Championship one.

 

I don’t think they are billionaires, and millionaires, especially investors, make their money from having a portfolio of businesses all contributing their own bit, as you say if they can recoup their purchase price + in a few years whilst also clearing a few million profit each year from player sales profits then who wouldn’t add that into their portfolio? Throw oakwell into the mix and bingo, they recoup their purchase price ++

the above could not necessarily have been/be a bad thing either, look at mandaric, he took clubs cheap nurtured them a little and then sold on, he made his profit and the clubs were in a better position when he left. Our owners though seem to be struggling.

 

Or crowds..

 

Conway has said multiple times in his very seldom interviews that they intend to "reinvest every pound/ every quid" back into the club. For me, I believe that should rule out dividends. Instead, I think they will justify extraction of such fees to cover their time of "managing" the club. whether they are justified, I'm not sure. But I don't think they ill purposefully extract profit. I do think they will aim to reinvest (but not necessarily at the immediate moment in time funds become available).

As for Mandaric, I'm not sure that's a great example. I thought he'd largely sold at the prime time to maximise his return and generally to some pretty shady owners. He left Portsmouth in a dreadful state and obviously Chansiri at the sty has been a disaster.

 

It does that's why Moore was sold. He was at the highest point of his saleable value.

 

Conway can say that, but I don’t believe they will invest every penny back, they will some way recompense themselves maybe in the way you state.

Mandaric did sell at the right time but that’s what I alluded to, he bought clubs cheap, sold for a profit, but after turning their financial situation around and improving their position, as for selling to shady owners I guess its hit and miss, Leicester fans were genuinely gutted that their owner tragically was lost last year, we are now complaining about our owners and Patrick sold to these, and I think we all agree he would have had nothing but the best interests of the club at his heart.

 

League 1 team for next year

Collins
J Williams Anderson Halme B Williams
J Green Styles Dougal Thomas
Chaplin Brown

Vic, Walton, Odour, Sibbick, Wilkes, Simeoes, Wolfe, Miller, Moon


Will leave / cash in Radlinger Cavare Pinnilos Diaby Thiam Mowatt Woodrow Mcgeehan, Schmidt, Bahre

The leave cash in list may bring the club in 10 to 12 £Million leaving behind it a squad that would do well in league 1.

Thats a strong young exciting league 1 squad with no additions that wont struggle next year, unfortunately even adding the cash in crew its not a strong championsip squad such is the financial gap between the two leagues.

Without being shouted down you can see the longer term plan for Barnsley being in a good place just not got it right for this season and it may end up being a longer term plan than initially thought. The big worry is if this cash in money is syphoned out of the club or not.

 

I also guess reinvesting any profit back into the club may mean using it to purchase oakwell, which of course increases the saleable value of the club, which benefits the owners upon their exit.

 

In the case of Sheffield Wednesday it was more to do with the Co-Op bank writing off an enormous debt.

 

Sheffield Wednesday chairman Howard Wilkinson has hailed Mandaric's takeover as ''one of the most important days in the recent history of our great club'' after the £8 million sale went through.

Mandaric, 72, will say goodbye to Leicester fans at the Walkers Stadium tonight when he quits his post ahead of the televised Championship clash with Nottingham Forest.

The Serbian-born businessman has struck deals with all Wednesday's creditors, including the Co-operative Bank and former Chairman Dave Allen, to wipe out the club's £30 million debts.

 

Don’t get me wrong I’m not holding up Mandaric as a non profit making angel who doesn’t have his own interests at heart, I’m just trying to point out, investors coming in and being in a club for a few years needn’t always necessarily be a bad thing, our owners though seem to be struggling, some sort of communications keeping fans in the loop would be very welcome.

 

The Co-op debt was massively written down. I can't know what the previous Chairman was owed, but Mandaric had a history of negotiating for his benefit to crystallise bigger returns. And I'm pretty sure the actual sale was £1 for the share capital of the club, which suggests if it was an £8m investment, Co-op wrote off around £15m.

In my eyes, Mandaric is a very similar type of owner to the ones we've now got.

 

The Wednesday situation had been going on for years without seemingly a way out.

Yes, I think he bought them for £1, ultimately though that was possible because he managed to do deals with the creditors to write down the debt, saving them from possibly going into admin. Again, I accept, all for his long term benefit, but that’s what investors do, so in that sense his and our investors ultimate aims will be the same, so I also can’t see why they would want to risk making the value of their investment decrease (by relegation for example).

The difference I guess will be how successful the strategy of any investors is whilst they are in control, our strategy seems to be not particularly successful at the moment.

 

Aaaaghh!!!!

 

There is something else that comes into play however. And I accept the football industry (if its that) is somewhat different to other businesses as it has on the field and financial ambitions to it.

Our investors, just so happen to also be directors. Now I cant say I know the ins and outs of a director equivalent in the US or in China, but in the UK, a Director has responsibilities and they are first and foremost ahead of their personal ambitions. And this is where the two contradictions occur. Football vs business performance/solvency. Investor return vs company success/sustainability.

You could argue to some degree that the business solvency aspect to date is relatively safe as our investors aren't really investing. A typical company after acquisition is likely to see some form of consolidation, change, growth/expansion to push on with its aims. But our owners aren't doing that it would seem, or they are holding off doing so, perhaps to see if they can get their grubby mits on the ground and land.

The counter is true though. Their decisions, though solvent and sustainable short term, don't seem to be progressing the club and certainly aren't with the customer/fan base in mind.

The directors and shareholders may well be one and the same, but their roles and functions can contradict. They are directors first and foremost and their goals should be as a club to develop and grow it, not how much oney they can make doing so.

 

Agreed, but they go hand in hand, develop and grow the club/business and the value should increase. Taking money out of the business to pay themselves as shareholders to its detriment could/would be construed to be wrong, using the profits generated by the business (transfer money etc) to increase its value, perhaps by purchasing assets (oakwell) would be the way to do it maybe, the issue they have is trying to keep the club in the championship whilst retaining enough profit to be able to finance any purchase.

Maybe they have just completely underestimated what is achievable with the playing budget they set in place.

I can only see they came here to be able to sell for more than they paid, to do this they have to increase the value of the club for them to make any money.

 

Devils advocate for a moment.... could it be that the owners got sold an absolute pup? Could it be that Patrick spun yarns fantastic about this footballer development programme that had a very high percentage success rate of increasing returns. Could it be these investors were told of the genius of Cryne junior and his incredible spreadsheet and the comparable story of BB?

Could it be that given that others latched on to the same ideas we had, and the same pools we fished and as such driving fees higher through demand, that James and cohorts were the ones that tweaked the formula to put younger and younger flesh into the system?

Could it be that the frustrations of Heckingbottom were the blind faith shown in such a young lad who knew nothing about football (PH's rants started before the new owners came onboard and some thought they could have been aimed at GG)?

Our owners (JC included) are certainly the architects of this seasons utter mess... but I just wonder... who is the driving force behind the recruitment? Is it JC and the investors are blindly allowing him to follow his folly? Or is the instruction from above that JC etc have to then fulfil?

 

Spot on in the region of 30m they got away with, fecking Co-op bank.

 

I think it has its roots further back than our current owners, Billy Beane also fits in somewhere, it was said previously I think that JC saw/used him as a sort of benchmark/mentor way to develop and be successful, now he’s financially (perhaps) and professionally involved the ‘Plan’ seems to have been taken even more literally.....buy young and cheap ONLY. Are the rest of the board following blindly BB and JC? Who knows, I imagine BB can be more convincing and carries more credibility than a young maths graduate, so maybe they are.

The problem now seems to be that we are not prepared to bolster this method with loans (Mcburnie who nearly saved us) or experience (Hammill who arguably was the catalyst for promotion). The strategy seems to have developed but for the worse and is failing ion improving the team and making it competitive in this division.

 

The plan may work in division one but doesn’t work in championship