jonah

Well of course he didn't, he was a fund manager! Dividends are generally a pain in the arse for fund managers as they have to be reinvested as they drip in from various companies, that's why buybacks became more popular in the City - no extra work for fund managers but the "value" is absorbed into the existing shareholding. I'm sure Andy Crossley didn't object to dividends out of the goodness of his heart!! As mentioned yesterday (?), that's why Oracle have traditionally done buybacks, they are obviously mostly held at an institutional level. I have no idea. But I bet the following did: MeesPierson NV Deutsche Genossenschaftsbank AG Sovereign Finance Plc Norwich Union Anybody who issues bonds or loan notes (like Saints did) has to have a credit rating - it's what all the credit crunch and mortgage-backed-security problems have been about (simplistically!). It's the area I work in [cue the comments] and Credit Default Swaps (CDS) and their derivatives are all to do with companies hedging the credit risk of issuers like SLH. You effectively need a credit rating to price the Credit instruments. Well like I say, I think you'll find it benefitted our financing arrangements. Beyond that, I can see the argument for why they should stop, especially once smaller shareholders moved in - I wonder why nobody moved to reject the dividends then? What information, re dividends? Yes as far as I know it's the same, the reason for moving was to lessen the administrative burden/costs - why did we have a full listing? It was required to help raise the finance for the stadium, see above!

Sadly shareholders are at the very bottom of the pile and will probably get nothing. There is a very small chance that the whole deal will be resolved by selling the existing shares, but given the debts and the pecking order in these circumstances I think it's unlikely. The administrators are working for the benefit of secured creditors with fixed charges registered against the company. So first come those secured creditors with a fixed-charge, then the administrators themselves, then preferred secured creditors, floating-charge secured creditors, then unsecured creditors and finally shareholders. I assume Aviva have a fixed charge registered against SLH at Companies House so are at the top. I would have thought Barclays are unsecured and near the bottom (and let's hope they don't get a penny if shareholders don't!). Employees are "preferred creditors" in relation to pay and pensions for the 4 months prior to the administration order I think. That's off the top of my head, could be wrong but that's how I remember it. Oh, one other thing - whatever the administrators do has to be agreed by the secured creditors as far as I'm aware. So it looks like Aviva are now holding the trump cards, which just makes Barclays decisions look a bit stupid if they are unsecured!

Not Wilde especially, but if he and Lowe buggered it up then Crouch would have gained the shareholding and had more control on the future - he's a winner. They get the short-term cashflow they needed, and provided they repaid the loan Crouch didn't gain any shareholding - they're winners. Summary - everyone was a winner in their own eyes.

Who says he didn't want to do a rights issue? Rights Issues are very expensive compared to Open Offers which in turn are expensive compared to placings or convertible bonds. With the market cap lowered in line with all other AIM stocks, both a rights issue and open offer (and placings to a degree) were almost non-starters as we couldn't have raised enough cash to make it worthwhile. What could have been done was a convertible bond, whereby Leon "Hollow Words" Crouch could have put in his £2m as a loan to the club which would convert to shares if the loan wasn't repaid - ie. he gained an increased shareholding if his money wasn't repaid. Now *that* might have saved the PLC.... I wonder why Crouch still wouldn't do it and why he seemed obsessed by paying off the full overdraft in one fell swoop and not just putting in his own £2m to help?

Exactly nickh, I'm afraid some people need to wake up to 2 facts - the administrators are a business and they will extract the maximum fees possible. The more stupid bids they receive, the more money they make "processing" them. Secondly, for all their PR they don't really give a stuff about SFC - they just want a buyer that will satisfy the creditors and earn them their final fee. It could be the worst deal for SFC but it won't matter to them or the creditors.

Sadly another example of why fans do not make good decisions when it comes to running football clubs - they rule with their hearts, not their heads. And then Head Office overrule them the week after the transfer window shuts on us.

Does this count? ""Everybody who has been involved in the club, whether that's the board, everybody, has to bear a little bit of the blame."

IQ?

I suspect you are at the age where that would be illegal even if Barclays was desperate enough and had had a couple of Bacardi Breezers?

Arghhhh. Oracle do buybacks instead! Billions of dollars worth. Buybacks are just tax efficient equivalents of dividends that effectively force the payout in the form of increased shareholding. eg: http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNewsAndPR/idUSWEN642720070412

Maybe you should ask UP that question first, here's what he's said about it: Or maybe that's the difference between keeping on the good side of "the City" and simply spending money we don't have and then trying to scrape survival from a losing position? FWIW, I think the divvies/buybacks were correct in the early years as they would have affected credit ratings and loan rates on the stadium notes. Reward for the Cup Final and Europe also seems appropriate, after all the entire club was incentivised like that from execs to players. After that... well I can see the reasons for stopping them, and would not have minded if they had been stopped. But 0.5p divvie is £140k paid out from a company with £50m turnover, it's hardly going to change the club's fortune to spend 0.3% on that. As for "that money may well have saved us", that is a bit daft - we paid out 0.3% in dividends when we could afford to in the Premiership. We weren't paying it out whilst trying to scrape enough to pay salaries. Meanwhile, shareholders are always at liberty to decline their dividend and leave the cash in the company - Corbett, McMenemy, Gordon, Wiseman and Hunt owned around 4m shares between them so they pocketed nearly half a million quid. They never declined a penny. If you're worried about dividends from our days in the Premiership, I have to wonder why you weren't worried about the changes to the SFC Articles Of Association that were made whilst Wilde was in charge. These included the ability to start paying Directors of SFC (I wonder who they included), and discretionary payments to be made in a variety of forms including trust funds or donations to be made to Directors, ex-Directors, their family or any other persons without requiring the approval of a resolution by the company. Do you think this is a more likely source of cash drainage when it was really needed?

I disagree, the reason Wilde swept to power was firstly as a result of the reception he got when he dipped his toes in the water on S4E; then when these problems were surfacing we had certain people deliberately trying to suppress the dissenting views - eg. Keith; after that you had people desperately pushing their own agendas in order to convince people to support Wilde - eg. the Saints Trust in lying about proxies, well known "figureheads" ranging from Duncan H and Mary C who put their full support behind Wilde without doing any checks into him at all; all these people helped convince the undecided to side with Wilde with complete disregard for the consequences, and most of them were rewarded for their "support", be it trips to Sweden, promising a "fan on the board" or being given Directorships. As it happens, even then it came down to one man to make that decision - Leon Crouch. And he, like the rest, believed a worthless manifesto and hollow promises over doing a simple bit of due dilligence and forcing Wilde to commit the promised funds up front. If fans had been more balanced, more answers would have been demanded from Wilde and it would have been clear (and unacceptable) that he was never going to put a penny into the club, like Crouch and Trant.

If only it was that simple eh.

We did, you just had your fingers in your ears going "laa laa laa, can't hear you" because it was Anyone-But-Lowe. This included false claims over Merlion turnover, being unable to raise enough cash to buy out Wiseman and Co (hence he took options), a delayed manifesto full of rhetoric and mis-spelling the name of the club, warnings about him charging Vantis' costs to SFC, details of how he increased Merlion's debt by £2m and paid himself £2m in divvies, details of Dulieu's background, Anderson's background, failure to provide proof of funds to back up investment promises, Trant's lack of investment, being a tax-exile, abusing the Saints Trust's supposed neutrality, missing meetings, the excuses over the 60 day audit, the excuses over the takeover panel, etc etc. And nearly all of that was available before the EGM and certainly before we'd even kicked a ball that season. Still, none so blind as though who can't see.... the problem is when the next lot take charge and the same lack of rigour is applied.

Ah yes, I remember Wilde, Trant and the Saints Trust telling us this 3 years ago. Can you remind me what happened to their investment after Lowe was removed then?

Ugh, I have Um Pahars on ignore so I don't have to waste time going through this tedious stuff time after time, but if he's going to talk nonsense again I suppose I will have to reply in full (and I mean full). As far as the figures go which UP claims to have "laughed about" with David Jones and dismissed "one by one", well I contacted DJ myself at the time and stated that someone had claimed the figures were wrong but that he (in true UP style) seemed unable to explain what was wrong. Here are the details (again): Jonah: I stated the Open Offer raised £3.1m cash. UP: Called it a Rights Issue (a different thing) and that it raised only £3m. DJ: Confirmed it was an Open Offer, not a Rights Issue, and that it raised £3.1m not £3m. Conclusion: UP wrong on both fronts. Jonah: I stated that Secure brought in £3.5m cash, £2.5 property, £0.5m healthcare business = £6.5m total UP: £3m cash *only*. DJ: £3m cash, £1.1m properties, £1.3 fixed assets, £0.8m healthcare business = £6.2m Conclusion: £6.5m is rather closer to £6.2m than £3m, UP wrong again Jonah: We raised £25m (£17m construction loan from MeesPierson; then £12m from Deutsche, £5m from Sovereign, £5m from Barratt, £3.6m from trusts/grants). The £17m DB/Sov part was floating rate but I don't have the rate. UP: stated "the facts of the loans which [you] have incorrectly stated here" but no corrections or own figures (there's a surprise!) DJ: "All your numbers are correct" Conclusion: Jonah 3 - 0 UP Jonah: £25m changing from 10-year floating rate to 25-year fixed rate - this freed up £1.4m per annum in terms of our spending power. Andrew Cowen quote: "there will be more repayments but each will be smaller" UP: "LMFAO(PS that's even before you get into the facts of the loans which have incorrectly stated here again!!!). David Jones particularly liked this one (not)." No alternative figures provided again - spot the common theme here? DJ: Agreed that it was £25m over 25 years. Agrees the original loan was over 10 years. Can't recall the original loan payment amounts, but believes AC quote is accurate. Stated that only £17m of the original £25m was a loan but otherwise the loan figures were correct. Conclusion: My net figure relating to savings was obviously wrong as I was basing off £25m not £17m. Otherwise details were all correct. Despite the savings being obvious (our payments reduced by £160k despite converting a further £8m into the loan notes - the debt would have had to be paid somehow!), and despite the other details being correct, I will be extremely generous and concede this one is a draw even though the core point stands that the loan rate was significantly cheaper. Final Score: Jonah 3 - 0 UP. So, what to conclude? Did Um Pahars really talk to DJ at all? It doesn't look like it. If he did talk to him, did he deliberately lie about what he'd been told or did he just not understand? It's hard to explain, especially with someone who so quickly criticises everyone's figures without providing his own. Meanwhile, we can rest safe in the knowledge that even if he's unable to remember figures apparently provided by the Finance Director, we have the same level of astuteness that saw his absolute backing of that honourable financial genius Wilde 3 years ago, and the integrity of lying about share proxies (I think the Trust claimed to have nearly 4% at one point, LOL, that's a legally disclosable interest!). And of course the propagation of allegations of irregularities to help Wilde come to power - "I expect further revelations from him [Thompson] which will make Lowe's position untenable.". He even calculated Lowe's percentage holding incorrectly showing it to be much lower than it was, not really a difficult calculation to make (especially if you can use a calculator). Speaking of which, what were those posts about players being on minimum wage again? And the list of big names he posted who would invest once Wilde came to power. And then there were these 2 classics: "I now understand Lowe agreed to underwrite about £250,000" "Lowe did not underwrite £250k by himself!!!!! Confusing eh? And you'd wonder how he backed Wilde by (ab)using the Trust when he also said: "Coming and posting snippets on message boards is not the way to conduct business, and it is certainly not the way to acquire the ownership of an entity that is a part of the fabric of this city and something that is dear to the hearts of the many thousands of fans." Completely inconsistent and incoherent. Of course it's not all bad though, a Saints fan is still a Saints fan however much they struggle with certain things, and we had some nice cheap drinks at the student bar before home games for a while - personally I just wouldn't want him heading a fans trust, and the continual chest-beating, nit-picking and use of crayons on here does get tiresome (God bless the ignore button). However I can never thank him enough for the famous quote of "if you cut me I bleed red and white". What a classic! :-)

LOL, like the last time where I simply asked David Jones for the answers and proved DP was wrong on all counts? Oh yeah...

Amen to that, I hope above all else that none of those involved in the last 15 years are involved again in any of the "expressions of interest". Or Fulthorpe, or Salz and his merry bunch of onlookers. From where we are now, we need a completely new start.

But as you alluded to in your reply to nickh, you thought LC and LM would not take money out of the club when it was in trouble. Well I hate to point it out but we were in dire trouble last season, it's just that those "in charge" had their heads in the sand and did nothing about it. Did LM stop his ambassadors pay when LC became chairman? No, hence it's a fair assumption that they weren't cutting their cloth as much as they needed to - after all, paying Lawrie £75k pa for shaking hands is not really top of the priority list when facing administration due to reckless overspending. So, did LC not really understand how bad things were, or did he and LM not care enough to cut back all the costs as soon as possible?

Nick, can I suggest "Dumb Pahars" instead... it really is all-encapsulating and rolls more gracefully off the tongue. What's the point in all this conjecture about attendances? Britain's Hottest Young Manager is only attracting crowds 4,500 lower than last season - and that's top of the league compared to bottom of the league. No doubt that's all down to the league, not the manager in this case though. Or maybe it's down to the execs in the boardroom if their fans are as obsessive as ours... someone called Lee Hoos isn't it, champion and darling of the Saints Trust when Wilde took over? I'm sure he's enjoying his double salary as we go down the pan too.

Yes, huge reductions in price and the club facing administration - it's nothing to do with who's in charge. Attendances dropped under Wilde. Attendances are predicted to drop across all 4 divisions next season. Leicester City's attendances have dropped by an average of 4,500, and they've got Britain's Hottest Young Prospect as manager.

Well obviously we don't know. But we do know that there's a fair chance we'd be more in debt and therefore either we'd have had the overdraft already called in by Barclays head office, or even worse players scrapping it out. Who knows, I don't think the football results are actually the main issue at the moment unfortunately. And what is wrong with Doncaster? They are a good team, do you think we should *expect* to beat them because of their name? Maybe we'd have beaten them under Pearson, maybe we'd have lost at Preston, Reading, Ipswich, Barnsley and Derby - after all, he didn't manage any away wins whilst in charge did he? Yes - have you seen Leicester's gates? This question, and I apologise for the rudeness, is stupid. Lowe and Cowen worked as the CEOs - Crouch was a chairman and Lawrie charged the club more to turn up in hospitality than Lowe & Cowen have charged to run the whole club this season. Crouch employed Hoos and others to do the execs role - nobody was doing it for free. As for Crouch and Lawrie passing round the begging bowl on Saturday, Lawrie is one of those who cashed in his free shares and charged £75k pa to turn up on Saturdays, and Crouch has spent 2 years boasting about having £2m to invest. How much have they stumped up I wonder? As for the others who cashed in their shares to support Wilde, I wonder how much Wiseman, Hunt and Gordon have paid?? Not a penny I should think. [And the worst thing of all in terms of timing is that this is coincides with half term - this place will worse than usual]

Give me strength, you really need to get back into the real world - if Barclays had an issue with Lowe they would have agreed to continue provided he stepped down. They had already paid down over £2m of the Wilde/Crouch overdraft. Honest to God, you wonder how we got into this mess and you never have to look very far.

LOL, I guess you weren't up in the City this week! Well this is the clarification I've been waiting for - forget the sniping about the boardroom and whether you blame Lowe or Wilde or the tooth fairy, here we have it in black and white... Barclays are the ones who stuck the knife in. From £0 to £6.3m in 2 years whilst we lost our parachute payments - who the F*** was stupid enough to (a) offer that extra level of debt and (b) who was stupid enough to sanction it? I would be surprised if there isn't a case against the execs at the time for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty. Unbelievable.

Great, I could write them a cheque too with loads of strings attached. It seems to be Crouch's forte, there's always a huge "provided" clause when it comes to stumping up the cash. Fair enough, it's his cash, but it still means he hasn't put in a penny. [And as an aside, I wouldn't believe a word Hone said anyway - this is the guy who claimed all sorts of nonsense about 60 day audit restrictions on investment, and Wilde & Crouch being unable to invest due to Takeover Panel restrictions... both complete b*ll*cks.] Well that's why I said nothing much as opposed to plain nothing - the fact remains, the overdraft got worse, not better. Unless you think it was over £6.5m before Crouch became chairman?