jonah

I was told his nickname amongst the players was "piggy", presumably in reference to his Tissier-esque physique ;-) He was my schoolboy idol, an awesome finisher and I was gutted when we sold him. Glad to see someone else remembers that goal he got against Leeds... IIRC he picked the ball up just in our half by the dugout and must have beaten the entire Leeds team (twice) before scoring.

Frank, if I buy you some speech-to-text software will you use it?

Although that does assume that they aren't financing the takeover through debt which will need to be repaid through whatever structure they set up. I think the chances someone buys the whole caboodle with no further debt in the SFC company structure is fairly low, even if it's just to structure their own purchase costs into a loan tied to the company.

I think at this stage Pinnacle are by far the better option. The Swiss have made several mistakes already, including: * Using lawyers to conduct their affairs - this is unsupportive of our local community, there are literally dozens of small businesses on The Avenue and in London Road that could have benefitted from fronting their bid. * Conducting their affairs in private - do we really want people in charge who don't spend half their day on the phone to The Echo or typing up responses to bulletin board users? * They have not named a former player as Chairman or Chief Financial Officer. Again, this is really unsupportive and there are dozens of former players they could have used to win the fans over. * They need a UK money man with a ridiculously uncommon surname so that we can easily check him out on the electoral roll - the prospect of secret Swiss bank accounts and privacy laws will not help them one bit.

It was joke ART. I think it's very good news if they are at SMS again - however, we know even less about them than we know about Pinnacle... and it would be a little rash to just assume they are better!

I'm a bit worried they had to drive to SMS and couldn't afford to fly over - FlyBe are very competitive even at this time of year.

LOL, what a classic thread, I'm not sure what's funnier... all the posters thanking GM for his sincere apology or the fact the head of a multi-million pound consortium in the middle of a delayed takeover replies and demands he is insulted face-to-face.

That would indeed be sensible, but I'm sure most people purchasing companies from administrators don't "change their minds" part way through exclusivity only to carry on regardless by bringing in someone completely different.

I have to ask you Ed, do you type in the asterisks or do you actually type the rude words knowing they will become asterisks anyway? Also, you really ought to brush up on your grammar and spelling as these are skills which will serve you well in all walks of life (except perhaps in a call centre) - "dont" isn't a word unless you are holidaying in St Tropez this summer, and sentences should always be terminated correctly. I would recommend the use of a single question mark in this instance. I wonder if TL will "chuckle" over this one like he did with the tyre kicker picture?

There is box ticking due dilligence, and then there is proper due dilligence. Example number 1 - the Pinnacle Group's original backers provided proof of funds, Fry accepted this and gave them exclusivity; original backers run a mile when they go to the trouble of typing up a spreadsheet; mate-of-a-mate-of-a-mate Fialka steps into the frame. Does any of that trigger Fry into re-checking finances? He's already granted the group exclusivity based on the original backers. Example number 2 - theoretically speaking, suppose somebody was a letting agent with turnover of £100k between 2 companies he part owns - in the current housing market he's probably achieving around 4% yield in which case that income comes from property loosely valued at around £2-3m. He might even have a couple of more properties he's doing up, so in his opinion he might have say £5m of property. Now of course he might be highly geared and have over £4m in mortgages, but he is in a position to self-declare himself as a High Net Worth Individual - or even get his accountant to do it. So somebody in that position can easily tout themselves as being a "multi-millionaire property investor who is a HNWI". In reality they could be in negative equity and not worth a penny, it's funny how assets are priced differently when you have to sell them... Of course there is a third option, which is that this guy just won the lottery and has £35m squirreled away at his parent's house.

Well that should be easy pickings for the Fraud Squad as Crouch must have piles and piles of forged documents, as must Fry and MLT - after all, nobody would be mug enough to be taken in on somebody else's word without doing their own due dilligence. Fry really needs to poke his head back up above the parapet again to explain the situation - that should be interesting.

OK, well a sound bite on local radio hasn't made it up to London yet I'm afraid :-) I would be interested to hear his exact phrasing out of interest - since when did funding a pre-season game become necessary in order to gain exclusivity in buying a distressed asset from administrators? Or was he saying the administrators raised the deposit requirements above the publicly quoted figure at the last minute?

I'm afraid ottery is showing classic signs of psychopathic behaviour - try searching on 'jonah' and see his obsession! Must be a family trait.

Link? I thought the £500k "exclusivity fee" included the upfront payment for Dyer plus a deposit from Crouch? Why on earth would Pinnacle pay more than they had to?

I would be interested to know whether MLT has (a) spoken to the money man in person, (b) ascertained that he is indeed funding the purchase, and © seen firm evidence of funds in place. Because unless he has, I'm afraid he's in danger of being the new Mary Corbett to the new Michael Wilde in terms of this transaction [but otherwise still a God of course]. In reality we still know sweet FA about Pinnacle. We don't even know for a fact who stumped up the exclusivity fee, although we do know it wasn't the full half mill for some reason, let alone how they are funding the purchase - is it all debt? You also have to wonder why someone supposedly worth "hundreds of millions" plucks a chap out of Locks Heath to take his bid forward rather than a professional firm. And why does he plump for MLT as chairman and tell the press before he's even got exclusivity, let alone bought the damn club? Obviously I'm a cynic but things don't ring true - it smacks of a Saints fan bringing back famous footballers (MLT and Keegan) to realise his dreams via a bloke called Tony. As others have said, take MLT out of the equation and most fans would be more than a little worried.

I don't think the issue was that a cheque bounced, the issue was that Barclays pulled our £4m debt facility - unless we could repay that instantly, which we couldn't, we were legally obliged to call in the administrators who were left with little choice then other than to try to recover for the creditors. I'm amazed that we couldn't successfully negotiate an overdraft with a different bank to replace the Barclays one, you'd have thought all those big names at the club (inside and outside) would have enough clout between them for something like that.

The area manager at Barclays was also called Fry - confusing eh :-) He was also the manager of Crouch's businesses...

Really? I thought they requested it to be cut from £6m to the agreed limit of £5m before the season started, which we did. I thought they then demanded it was cut from £5m to £4m by year end, but they made this demand just after the August transfer window closed? Reading between the lines (in the absence of many facts!) I thought we achieved this too, but the return of Saga on his high wage caused a problem and the jugglers dropped their balls so to speak. I think you give Barclays too much credit - I think it's far more likely that some faceless suit at Canary Wharf made the decision using a spreadsheet whilst reading the latest Formula1 news on Bloomberg. £4m probably doesn't even cover the annual cost of plants in their building, I just don't see anyone putting that much thought into it - especially given we still had 7 games to play at that time and were on 40 pts... hardly "relegation confirmed", if that was their condition they might as well have risked a further £100k loss to move to May and know for certain. Plus get the ST money in and loads of players off the books.. I see that as a problem too which is why the longer this gets dragged out the harder it gets, the debt increases and hence the price increases.

Sorry GM, I'd outbid you at £2.5m and make do with the reduced 40% yield. Industry standard expected recovery rates for senior debt is 40%, 60% for super-senior. What still makes no sense is why Barclays saw their debt paid down from £6m to £4m within a year, then pulled the plug over £100k when we were days away from starting ST revenues and the ability to further reduce the debt - it makes me think they expect to get the full £4m back somehow.

IIRC there was one 12 month period where he took out over £2m in dividends whilst increasing Merlion's debt a further £2m by extending the overdraft - this was at a time when the housing market was clearly in a bubble and before the financial problems began in late 2007. He also exceeded his own stated rules on how much would be withdrawn in dividends (off the top of my head I think he changed from public to private limited company to help with this ruse). Then there are the 6-figure loans he got from Merlion. It was clear before the EGM this was somebody who saw nothing wrong with spending beyond your means, failing to plan for future problems and putting ego before the company's best interests. Still, at least he got some extra legroom for his £2m. RinNY also has a fair point about Trant though - he was nearly as much to blame as Wilde, just without risking much of his own money or being the public face of the revolution. He supported Wilde and actively helped build up the boardroom lynch mob whilst lying through his teeth about putting money into the club. He didn't even bother turning up for the AGM when he was a Director, and of course he never responded to questions on his failure to invest the promised money (something Wilde at least addressed by trying to hide behind Takeover Panel rules).

That was my understanding too. OK, not heard this before. I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert in this area, but this just sounds improbable to me - firstly, SFC must have assets, the players contracts for a start? Secondly, it sounds strange that it cannot be run in administration and would have to be immediately liquidated - surely they need to sell the assets to try to offset the liabilities? Thirdly, it seems strange that Fry is still talking about re-opening negotiations with up to 3 different parties when on the other hand the claim is that the club would be extinct already without the loan. Anyway... *If* that is the case, then yes I agree LC's money is saving the club from immediate extinction and thanks for that. That doesn't change my original points which were that a temporary loan from a multi-millionaire is not a noble act of philanthropy compared to ordinary fans giving their cash, and as one of the people who created this mess I still wouldn't want him anywhere near the boardroom in the future.

As far as I was aware their wages are guaranteed by the FL, so I don't think it's made any difference to them has it?

Could we re-form the Ted Bates Trust and get them to commission a statue of Leon? I'd happily chip in a fiver. Firstly, there's no evidence there is any risk as we don't know the terms of the loan - maybe there is, maybe there isn't, personally I would guess he's secured it against something specific and there is negligible risk (since that would be a sensible thing to do). Secondly I'm not sure why there is this attitude that people must be "rewarded", it's akin to some sort of weird deification - this has been prevolent for years if not decades at Saints. Given the unbelievable series of gaffs before this loan, I don't see why Leon should receive anything more than a brief thanks (not that we know yet the exact details or pros/cons of what he's done) and then left alone to return to watching the club as a supporter... which is what he does best.

I think you need to get yourself a dictionary Rover boy. Meanwhile, like Wade, you haven't answered a very simple question - if Crouch hadn't made that loan, what would the current position be?

Could you explain what this means - if Crouch hadn't provided that loan, what would the current position be?