Guided Missile

I was thinking the same, when I read this. I particularly liked this part: "He is treating the club as if it were a start-up company. The management group is in place and a decision has been taken not to hire any player over the age of 25. Mr Hopp’s scouts are already picking up bargains – their Brazilian midfielder Luiz Gustavo cost €100,000, less than some Bundesliga players pay for their cars." I hate SAP software, though, where the €100M came from, that Hopp has invested in the team...

I would be quite pleased if the club saves itself £250K a year, for another player. I can also wait until the accounts are published on the Companies House website like any other plc. Your contention is totally wrong, assuming that an unlisted company has a lack of transparency. I seem to remember that Northern Rock was listed until it was taken into private ownership (ie the taxpayer bought it). Listing has never guaranteed "transparency" and anyway, what right do the fans have to know the wages that are paid, etc. Just another reason to moan, IMHO...

If we have no prospect of raising investment due to our AIM listing and the market for the shares is moribund, then the prospect of an extra £250K on our bottom line and some hope of dividends in the future should convince the Saints fans that hold shares to vote for delisting. Those institutional investors that want to get out can sell their shares to the Saints fans, to whom a capital gain on their shareholding is not important, but a healthier club, not paying £250K plus per annum to Seymour Pierce, is...

For those interested: Unfortunately, the story is very different for most of the companies listed on AIM, which are valued at less than £20 million. All too often shares lack liquidity and it’s not unusual for a company to have a market cap lower than its balance sheet value. For these concerns, AIM has turned into a form of purgatory. A business can neither go forward or backwards but is paying around £250,000 a year in adviser fees for the privilege of being listed. The credit crisis has compounded market woes. Only 34 companies joined the junior exchange in 2008, raising £537.14 million, compared to 77 companies raising over £2.1 billion for the same period in 2007. Secondary fundraisings are way down too, with £1.5 billion raised between January and May this year, compared to £4.3 billion for the first five months of 2007. Ken Pratt, the managing director of operations and finance for Imagesound, a supplier of in-store music, radio and TV services to shops and hotels, was part of the team who delisted the company from AIM in May. ‘AIM was failing us,’ he says. ‘We floated specifically to raise equity. The company was profitable and we wanted equity to come in and then to match that with bank debt to enable us to go forward with our expansion.’ It wasn’t happening. The defining moment came last summer: ‘We approached our nomad – this was before the banking crisis – and their appetite for raising equity was sort of there but couldn’t be guaranteed. As a result, we went and lost a very good deal – perhaps a life changing deal – because the equity couldn’t be brought in.’ Breaking free From start to finish, it took about three months to delist from the market. To delist from the LSE, 75 per cent of shareholders have to approve the proposal (as opposed to 100 per cent when going fully private). Pratt says that 70 per cent of Imagesound’s shares were held by 15 people, so it was straightforward to know what direction the company could take. ‘It’s not a buy-out. All we have done is delist. The shares are still out on the open market; they are now traded on a match bargain basis by Brewin Dolphin over in Manchester. In fact I went and bought 16,000 shares the other day.’ The costs are not as prohibitive as might be imagined, argues Tim Stocks, head of the financial institutions and markets group at law firm Taylor Wessing. He estimates that for a company with a market cap of £50 million, the costs of going totally private would be around ten per cent of that public valuation. The ‘take private-lite’ option is considerably cheaper than going fully private as fewer advisers are needed. ‘Without any technical bells or whistles, I think you should be able to deliver this all up, including the advisory fees, for in the region of £200,000,’ he says. ‘But you’re dropping between £80,000 to £150,000 straight to the bottom line anyway [in advisers’ fees]. You’ll get payback in the first year.’

75% of the shareholders would be required to vote for delisting. It means that if approved, they would no longer be able to publically trade their shares. (and the share price would drop)

As many of our more vocal posters have suggested for a long time, I think it is time to delist Southampton Leisure plc and admit that the original basis for our listing, first on the main market and now on AIM was an expensive mistake from the outset. Yesterday Sheffield United delisted from AIM, citing economic turmoil and costs. The group was reported in the Times today as saying that the susceptibility of its share price to market conditions was not to the business's benefit and its AIM listing took up too much management time and money, which could be better spent on getting the football side back into the Premier League. Moreover, it said that, like most other listed football clubs, it is unable to raise funds from institutional investors and did not expect this to change in the foreseeable future. Circumstances change and I think it's time to recognise that. The problem is, the main architect of the original listing is running the plc. I wonder if he has the humility to admit that listing hasn't worked, beyond being able to obtain a mortgage at a cost of 6.5% over base for the construction of our new shed. I wonder how many players we could retain with the money saved by delisting?

Has your Mum still got that shop down East Street??

According to the Daily Echo:

I heard that it was Wilde that couldn't work with Lowe, at the time. He had a meeting with Lowe and Cowen, over a cup of tea and told Lowe that he didn't want him as part of the board structure, because he didn't want "toffs" on the board....

I remeber when Leon Crouch first spoke and it cost the club millions in wasted money: Major shareholder Leon Crouch has today announced his decision to side with Michael Wilde at Monday's EGM. The current board had hoped the Lymington-based businessman would side with them or at least abstain. In a statement today however Crouch has revealed his intentions to vote for change. He explained:"I will be backing Michael Wilde and his team of proposed new directors to take our great Club forward.I had hoped that it would be possible for both sides to unite, agree some common ground and avoid the need for an EGM.However, it was not meant to be and I have no wish to blame this on either side."

I was just going to post the same. I can't remember the last time I was invited for a pint and a chat by MFI, when they unveiled their new spring catalogue....haven't see many MFI employees visiting kids in hospital at Christmas, either...

We're supporters of a football club, FFS, not prospective buyers of a flat pack wardrobe. If many of our fans are like you and can't see that there is a difference between a shop selling cheap furniture and a club that is meant to be the heart and soul of the community, then the inhabitants of Southampton will end up with the football club they deserve...

Actually, I know Keith House quite well and he told me that EBC were prepared to approve the stadium and associated sports facilities but it was the shopping/multiplex cinema part that they refused to permit, so Lowe pulled the plug on the application (ie didn't resubmit with amendments) and pursued St. Marys instead. Eastleigh were worried about the effect that additional shops and a cinema would have on the "vibrant" Eastleigh Town Centre.

Independent, The (London), Oct 26, 1998 Plans to construct a new 25,000-seat stadium at Stoneham, near junction five of the M27 and close to Southampton airport, have been under discussion for eight years but last week, Eastleigh Council, the authority within which the proposed site lies, effectively refused permission for the project by rejecting proposals for commercial facilities that would accompany the stadium. "It is all very well saying "yes" to community facilities and stadia if you say "no" to the financial engine to create them," Lowe said in Saturday's programme notes. The council, while not opposing a "community stadium" - for athletics, gymnastics and county sports events as well as football - in principle, have rejected plans by Southampton Leisure Holdings plc (the company that owns the football club) to build a supermarket and multiplex cinema alongside their proposed new ground at Stoneham to add commercial viability to the plan. The Dell - maximum capacity, 15,000 - is simply not big enough to sustain a Premiership football club, with all its attendant financial demands for transfer fees and wages, in the current era, and Lowe, a businessman with a background in the City, is now looking to an alternative site, a disused gasworks, in the St Mary's area of the city. "We will submit a detailed planning application within two to three weeks as part of an ongoing process designed to deliver a new stadium as soon as is humanly possible," Lowe said.

...returned last week from a short business trip from Mumbai. Touched by the concern on this site, but please reserve it for the mostly, Indian victims of the carnage. I'll return to Mumbai when I need to. Westerners staying away, will prolong the damage to the many low paid Indians that work in the hotels and restaurants, that serve the visitors so well. Lovely people who could not be more friendly, particularly when your waiter has the chance to discuss cricket and the fantastic young team they have at the moment.

John, I'll keep this simple so that you will understand. You have made it clear that for one reason or another, you have chosen not to support Southampton Football Club, the main reason being that Lowe is involved in the company that owns the team. You contend that despite choosing not to support the club, you are still a supporter. I have no interest in what you do with your life and money. What I fail to see is why you and other posters should take "offense" when I state that you are not a Saints supporter because you do nothing to support the club. Personally, coming on this site or going down the pub and moaning about the club and it's board, does not, IMHO, count as supporting the club. So, apart from this, please tell me what you do with your life that counts as supporting Southampton Football Club. My guess is you won't get further than the fact that you p1$$ and complain a lot...

The point is that you are not supporting your team. You have every right and no need to justify the reasons why you are not supporting your team, but FFS, don't try and call yourself a supporter and then point out how you are not supporting the team. It's makes you look pathetic.

9 points away from a playoff place with over half the season to go. Thank God you don't give team talks...mine would be about how not one team in the league has looked better than us, with the Wolves fans and manager admitting they were lucky, against 10 men.

I'm not too sure about Final Fantasy on ps3, but here's a story about FA Cup Final Fantasy. The game looks quite expensive: http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/sport/article81810.ece

Explain how spending money on an asset (even an intangible asset, such as a player) translates into a loss on the P & L account????

A number of Saints fans will be standing in the cold, cheering the team on, tomorrow night. A win may be the start of a promotion push. It happened at Crystal Palace and it could happen with us. There is nothing to fear from any other team in this division, and certainly not from any club outside the automatic promotion spots. Am I the only person who hopes that tickets for the playoff final at Wembley are restricted to either ST holders or people that have attended two or more games this season? Because I don't know if I could sit next to anyone at Wembley, who has promoted boycotts and hoped the team lost. I'd rather give any spare tickets I could get hold of, to those who were unable to afford to go...

To quote the website I cut and pasted from: " The property was sold to the Wilde family in 2006 and is administered by the Wilde Family Office in Jersey. Over the last two years the property has undergone a multi-million pound restoration and refurbishment program transforming it into what is now the finest luxury boutique hotel in Jersey." Obviously they use the American spelling... ....apparently "pedant" is spelt the same in both countries, as is "the"...

As you can tell from Frank's aggrieved post, Wilde is adept at manipulating fan groups. He did it with the Saint's Trust and obviously bought Frank's undying loyalty, together with the rest of the "Save Our Saints" warriors, by buying them a pint and a pie.

Some Saints fans may wish that Wilde invested multi-millions in Southampton Leisure plc, rather than in a bed and breakfast establishment in Jersey, is what I "insinuated", Frank. I happen to think that some Saints fans actually do wish that Wilde had done that. Rather than boll0x, it is quite a reasonable wish, as he promised Saints fans that he would invest in the club. What he actually did was help destroy any shareholder value the club had, costing the club well over a million in the process, with the aborted EGM, together with Lowe and Andrew Cowen's contract settlement, a situation which he helped reverse a year or two later. As far your continued atrocious grammar and spelling, if you can't be bothered to edit your posts, I can't be bothered to read them. I don't think I can stand to read another "teh".

Frank, no disrespect, but in addition to spelling lessons, I think you need reading lessons. This is what I posted and I would appreciate if you would not misinterpret what I have posted and then call it boll0x...