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Pompey Takeover Saga

Fitzhugh Fella

By Fitzhugh Fella,
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mcjwills

mcjwills

Posted
Posted
I'll ignore the match as I'm sure it would bring up bad memories for you but let me ask you a question about the money the PL may advance Pompey.

 

Do any of you dispute that this is money that we'll be legally entitled to in just a couple of months anyway? (I assume not as it patently is money we'd receive).

 

Therefore, what's the difference in us receiving this money from the PL in advance to the fact that you pulled forward payments from Arsenal from the sale of Walcott when you were in financial difficulties? Were you "cheating" when you did that?

 

There is also the scenario that you could take the money now and still get wound up before the end of the season , thereby defrauding all the football league clubs out of £11 million.

 

If the financial statement provided to the court on Wednesday suggests that Pompey are insolvent, the Directors of the club will be *advised to place it into administration, immediately. To continue trading will expose them to the risk of being personally liable for any debts incurred and to being banned from being directors in the future.

 

In my opinion, Storey will resign tomorrow, when Vantis produces the statement and tells him to read it and weep...

 

*On second thoughts, only the creditors can place Pompey in administration, but I still expect Storrey to resign as a director if he's advised they are insolvent...

 

I think that HMRC would not look kindly on this and would object to the court, currently as it stands on a winding up order, they are equal to everyone else in the queue, but if the club go into admin now after their 1st court appearance they would not get anything as the football clubs would get preferential status and there wont be anything left in the pot.

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Weston Saint

Weston Saint

Posted
Posted
There is also the scenario that you could take the money now and still get wound up before the end of the season , thereby defrauding all the football league clubs out of £11 million.

 

 

 

I think that HMRC would not look kindly on this and would object to the court, currently as it stands on a winding up order, they are equal to everyone else in the queue, but if the club go into admin now after their 1st court appearance they would not get anything as the football clubs would get preferential status and there wont be anything left in the pot.

No you clearly do not understand. The football debt is not preferred. It will be the new owners who buy the club and bring it out of Administration have to pay that part to get the ok to register with FA/PL.
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Gemmel

Gemmel

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Posted
Yes there is, surely. If it is demonstrated to them (on Wednesday if not before) that they are insolvent then they are legally bound to declare this and stop trading immediately.

 

Otherwise the directors will be directly liable to the creditors.

 

It would still need to go through a formal process. The document will be lodged with the court on Wednesday, it doesn't mean the judges will run down and open it there and then. The case is set for the 1st, nothing sooner.

 

Of course the point you raise about the directors being liable is spot on and as guided missle has said, if Vantis are saying they are insolvent, then, story will almost certainly resign.

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Faz

Faz

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No you clearly do not understand. The football debt is not preferred. It will be the new owners who buy the club and bring it out of Administration have to pay that part to get the ok to register with FA/PL.

 

If the Vantis report declares them to be insolvent, then the Directors can:

 

a) Apply to the Court for an Administration Order - unlikely to be granted, and they would still need to find someone willing to be an Administrator, or

 

b) The Directors could vote to Wind-Up - A Creditors Voluntary Winding Up?? The Official Receiver takes over and tries to get what he can for the unsecured creditors. Don't know if the Directors can do this whilst the HMRC Petition outstands.

 

If they continue to trade whilst knowingly insolvent, then the Directors commit a criminal offence don't they?

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OldNick

OldNick

Posted
Posted
Don't worry Nick.

 

Still here.

 

However having been WRONG about the fire sale of players and WRONG about the, being wound up before the match at the weekend I've not bothered to post much in the last couple of days.

 

Given that I still expect them to get wound up I don't want to end up being wrong about that too!

 

That's good to read Clapham.

As for being wrong, I doubt people will hold that against you as you are only used to have to deal with liars,defaulters,shifty scam merchants and people unable to run a business properly.

 

I doubt this lot is anything you have come up against in the past

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Weston Super Saint

Weston Super Saint

Posted
Posted
If the Vantis report declares them to be insolvent, then the Directors can:

 

a) Apply to the Court for an Administration Order - unlikely to be granted, and they would still need to find someone willing to be an Administrator, or

 

b) The Directors could vote to Wind-Up - A Creditors Voluntary Winding Up?? The Official Receiver takes over and tries to get what he can for the unsecured creditors. Don't know if the Directors can do this whilst the HMRC Petition outstands.

 

If they continue to trade whilst knowingly insolvent, then the Directors commit a criminal offence don't they?

 

Yeah, like they're bothered about the simple things like the laws of the land :rolleyes:

 

What's the date of Story's court appearance....

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rallyboy

rallyboy

Posted
Posted

I think the cruise ship Insolvent Trading sailed a while back!

 

Capt Storrie was at the helm then and I can't see him worrying about normal business practice and stepping down to prevent further charges.

He is bullet-proof after all, you can only harm him by waving photocopied bank notes at him - an incident that may well inspire his next business....

 

Wouldn't it be a shame if all of their results were declared void sometime soon - one less goal for Rickie.

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Weston Saint

Weston Saint

Posted
Posted
If the Vantis report declares them to be insolvent, then the Directors can:

 

a) Apply to the Court for an Administration Order - unlikely to be granted, and they would still need to find someone willing to be an Administrator, or

 

b) The Directors could vote to Wind-Up - A Creditors Voluntary Winding Up?? The Official Receiver takes over and tries to get what he can for the unsecured creditors. Don't know if the Directors can do this whilst the HMRC Petition outstands.

 

If they continue to trade whilst knowingly insolvent, then the Directors commit a criminal offence don't they?

Yes, they could be responsible for the debt personally and they would almost certainly be debarred from being Directors for a long period.
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carljack

carljack

Posted
Posted
It is illegal to trade whilst insolvent. The club will stop or the directors would be liable to any further debts along with sanctions to them personally for continuing.

 

It sure is,thats why I was amazed at the Judge allowing them to carry on even after stating she thought they were insolvent.

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Gemmel

Gemmel

Posted
Posted
It is illegal to trade whilst insolvent. The club will stop or the directors would be liable to any further debts along with sanctions to them personally for continuing.

 

If the club is insolvent on Wednesday, I think there is fair chance it has been insolvent for a while.......... That hasn't stopped them from trading so far.

 

And to the letter of the law they are probably already liable to a certain extent.

 

It's **** or bust - new owner with lots of money or wound up.

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JackFrost

JackFrost

Posted
Posted
That's good to read Clapham.

As for being wrong, I doubt people will hold that against you as you are only used to have to deal with liars,defaulters,shifty scam merchants and people unable to run a business properly.

 

I doubt this lot is anything you have come up against in the past

 

I think by the law of averages Clapham Saint is due to be right pretty soon :wink:

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Faz

Faz

Posted
Posted

Mind you, the insolvency test is an interesting one - there are plenty of insolvent companies out there who continue to trade with the backing of their creditors, Bank and such things as Directors loans. It only becomes an issue if they are also illiquid - ie they do not have the cash to pay their liabilities as they become due.

 

The issue, therefore, is whether PFC are both illiquid, and insolvent. A short term loan for EPL may make them liquid, but would need to be enough to see them through to whem they can sell players - and HMRC may still make a case for Winding Up if they do not believe they will get their money and can convinve the court. You have to say PFC have form on this as Jans TV money was diverted to meet Football Debts rather than HMRC.

 

They're toast........

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L1Minus10

L1Minus10

Posted
Posted
I wondered if the Storrie being attacked thing and hinm saying he was thinking of packing it in, is a cover for his resigning over the Vantis report.It would be a convienient cover

 

Would anyone honestly swallow that one though ? It's just the sort of thing he would do though. I reseign due to some Southampton fans waving fake notes at me and my wife and not because PFC is down the tubes, it's 90% my fault and I'm going to get bummed in the showers by Mr Big.

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Under Weststand

Under Weststand

Posted
Posted
I wondered if the Storrie being attacked thing and hinm saying he was thinking of packing it in, is a cover for his resigning over the Vantis report.It would be a convienient cover

Been wondering that myself Nick does seem to be convenient.

How about a statement on Wednesday something along the lines of:-

My wife has been so traumatised by this episode at Southampton, and as much as I want to see this takeover through, I feel I need to spend some time away with my wife to help her recuperate away from the glare of publicity. I leave the club in safe hands with just the loose ends to be tied up before the take over which will put Portsmouth into a secure financial future.

To see that the phoney deal collapses a day or too later, so he can complain that its nowt to do with him he left the deal almost done etc etc someone else's fault!

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DS

DS

Posted
Posted
I wonder if they have applied to the Blue Square Premier league, as we were rumoured to have done ?

That would be a fitting punishment in my eyes.

 

 

What have the Blue Square Premier League done that makes you feel they deserve the punishment of having that shower in their league? ;)

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Under Weststand

Under Weststand

Posted
Posted
I like the bit at the bottom of the Wiki entry :D

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Storrie

 

Seriously - I see he has past connections with Notts County, Southend United and West Ham. All 3 clubs are currently experiencing financial problems.

 

Coincidence?

Looks good along side Saggy chops record as well BTF Bournemouth, West Ham, Saints & now Poopey all either been in or are in financial trouble. Also both being done for Fraud, Coincidence? possible I suppose or is it a little more than coincidence?

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Channon's Sideburns

Channon's Sideburns

Posted
Posted

Interesting from one of the links at the bottom..

 

Trevor Brooking (1991) and West Ham United Managing Director Peter Storrie launch a bond scheme to raise 15 million pounds for the Hammers to make the stadium all seater- as required by law. 15,000 bonds selling at 500 pounds, 750 pounds and 975 pounds were put up for sale. These guaranteed the purchaser priority for a season ticket for 50 years. The supporters arranged protests ending in a goalmouth sit-in at the 1992 Arsenal home match. Only 300 bonds were sold and the scheme was withdrawn.

 

 

---

 

Old Trev's still linked to the FA?

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Chin Strain

Chin Strain

Posted
Posted
No other club is involved in bailing us out. The money is the minimum we can expect the PL to pay us in August whether we go down or not.

 

Giving Portsmouth the parachute payment made to those relegated to the Championship each season does not make the presumption that the club will go down. It is merely the guaranteed minimum amount Portsmouth can expect to receive from the Premier League on August 1.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1250363/Portsmouth-rescue-mission-Premier-League-set-hand-debt-ridden-Pompey-lifeline.html

 

So, I ask again, what's the difference? It's money we're entitled to, just like you were with the Walcott money and like you, we'd just receive it earlier than originally planned

 

I personally wouldn't have had an issue with the advance....if only you'd have sold every player you could in the January window to make some sort of attempt to pay back HMRC off your own backs. Instead, you extend the loan of O'Hara, get in Quincey, keep Dindane (contractually you've failed to pay Lens for him to make the mover a perm) and not sold the most obvious bankable asset in Belhadj....oh, all three who scored against us. On top of that, you weren't very quick to get in front of the PL and beg them and FIFA to allow you to sell Boateng, despite the fact he'd played 5 mins for Spuds in August. Add in another couple of loan players, just to boost the numbers, and mess Stoke around with David James, when he should have gone there (he played quite well on Saturday too)

 

We offloaded every player we could and played with the youth team for a year. We did everything we could to stay out of admin, and it was only when Barclays stripped the overdraft from £6m to £4m that we went under.

 

So, if you're wondering why nobody has any time for you, or what the difference was between your position and ours, here you have it in a nutshell. Basically, you've tried every trick in the book to keep your players, knowing full well that your only slim chance of being saved is to stay up - relegation equals no chance, staying up equals slim, slim chance.

 

Hope that's simple enough for you.

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capitalsaint

capitalsaint

Posted
Posted
I personally wouldn't have had an issue with the advance....if only you'd have sold every player you could in the January window to make some sort of attempt to pay back HMRC off your own backs. Instead, you extend the loan of O'Hara, get in Quincey, keep Dindane (contractually you've failed to pay Lens for him to make the mover a perm) and not sold the most obvious bankable asset in Belhadj....oh, all three who scored against us. On top of that, you weren't very quick to get in front of the PL and beg them and FIFA to allow you to sell Boateng, despite the fact he'd played 5 mins for Spuds in August. Add in another couple of loan players, just to boost the numbers, and mess Stoke around with David James, when he should have gone there (he played quite well on Saturday too)

 

We offloaded every player we could and played with the youth team for a year. We did everything we could to stay out of admin, and it was only when Barclays stripped the overdraft from £6m to £4m that we went under.

 

So, if you're wondering why nobody has any time for you, or what the difference was between your position and ours, here you have it in a nutshell. Basically, you've tried every trick in the book to keep your players, knowing full well that your only slim chance of being saved is to stay up - relegation equals no chance, staying up equals slim, slim chance.

 

Hope that's simple enough for you.

 

+1!

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Saint in Paradise

Saint in Paradise

Posted
Posted (edited)

this does sound very similar :D:D Mind you a lot of innocent people lost a lot of money that they couldn't afford to. :mad:

 

"Bridgecorp staff told to blame banking glitch"

 

The depositions hearing into failed finance company Bridgecorp continues today, after yesterday opening in Auckland District Court

with tales of lying and deceit marking the finance company's downward spiral.

 

Five Bridgecorp directors -- Rod Petricevic, Rob Roest, Bruce Davidson, Gary Urwin and Peter Steigrad -- each face 10 charges

brought under the criminal provisions of the Securities Act.

 

The maximum penalty is five years' jail or a $300,000 fine on each charge.

 

Bridgecorp collapsed into receivership in July 2007 owing 14,500 investors about $460 million. ( Equals approx 201 million UK Pounds )

 

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/6808002/bridgecorp-staff-told-to-blame-banking-glitch/

Edited by Saint in Paradise
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Gemmel

Gemmel

Posted
Posted
Probably a silly question, but what is to stop them from producing a statement for the court that fudges some of the numbers so that it shows that they are solvent?

 

What sort of checks can the court / HMRC carry out?

 

It's being done by an independant company - partly owned by our old Chairman

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Matthew Le God

Matthew Le God

Posted
Posted
Probably a silly question, but what is to stop them from producing a statement for the court that fudges some of the numbers so that it shows that they are solvent?

 

What sort of checks can the court / HMRC carry out?

 

Because Vectis the company doing it are independent.

 

Apart from Vectis executive chairman Ken Dulieu, who used to be Southampton chairman. ;)

 

Based on this they may be open to bribes from Peter Storrie...

 

http://www.accountancyage.com/accountancyage/news/2250997/vantis-execs-charged-219m

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Under Weststand

Under Weststand

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Posted
Probably a silly question, but what is to stop them from producing a statement for the court that fudges some of the numbers so that it shows that they are solvent?

 

What sort of checks can the court / HMRC carry out?

 

Because its now a legal document being presented to the court as a statement of affairs, by an independent financial institution. They wouldn't dare to try to fudge the figures at this point. They will be checked by the courts & HMRC will be all over it like a pack of rabid hyena's.

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saint si

saint si

Posted
Posted
No other club is involved in bailing us out. The money is the minimum we can expect the PL to pay us in August whether we go down or not.

 

Giving Portsmouth the parachute payment made to those relegated to the Championship each season does not make the presumption that the club will go down. It is merely the guaranteed minimum amount Portsmouth can expect to receive from the Premier League on August 1.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1250363/Portsmouth-rescue-mission-Premier-League-set-hand-debt-ridden-Pompey-lifeline.html

 

So, I ask again, what's the difference? It's money we're entitled to, just like you were with the Walcott money and like you, we'd just receive it earlier than originally planned

 

It's really really very simple.

 

If this is money that you are entitled to, and that you are absolutely guaranteed to receive, then you will have no problem whatsoever in obtaining a line of credit that is secured against this cash-flow. That is how, in business, you turn future revenue streams in to immediate cash.

 

That you are not doing this indicates either that this future income has already been used as security against a loan (highly likely IMHO), or that you can't obtain a line of credit from anybody at all, given that anyone with half a brain knows that you are probably just going to not bother paying it back. I'm also not sure that the High Court would look too favourably on Pompey taking out yet another line of credit (at undoubtedly exhorbitant interest rates, due to your credit rating), given the difficulties that you have had paying off those you already have.

 

Of course, you can also renegotiate the terms of payments. This is what Saints did with Arsenal. We did not just demand our payment "because it was owed to us". Under the terms of our agreement with Arsenal, we were absolutely not entitled to do that. Instead, the agreement was renegotiated to the advantage of all parties. We got a benefit in terms of immediate cash flow (but taking a P&L hit in the process), and Arsenal got a benefit to their overall net income by reducing the size of their outlay to us. Are you seeking to renegotiate the payment and take an overall hit on the amount you receive? Or do you just want to have your cake and eat it? ("All of the money, and sooner please")

 

Receiving money "earlier than planned" is a very simplistic way of looking at things and discounts the array of knock on impacts. I'm sure the EPL doesn't just hold this kind of money in a slush fund somewhere, and that they forward it on to the 20 Prem clubs (taking a small handling fee) virtually as soon as Sky pay them. So you would be asking the EPL to take out a loan secured against the Sky income... and someone will have to pay for that. Or you're asking Sky to pay up early.... yeah, I'm sure they'll be real happy to do so. After all, NewsCorp has money to burn... oh what's that? A £2bn loss in the last financial year? Hmm, perhaps not...

 

It's abundantly clear you have absolutely no idea how businesses, cash flow, payment terms etc all work. My understanding of business is far from perfect, but I can see the flaws in your stupid comparison without even trying, and I'm sure I'm barely scratching the surface. Corporate, you are not.

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qwertySFC

qwertySFC

Posted
Posted

If they are found to trading as an insolvent company, I wonder what affect this may have on the company insurance , would they have the required liability insurance to host matches or the players insurance.

 

I assume clubs have insurance on their players in case of injury , but it is a legal requirement to have the required liability / health and safety requirements in place to host matches.

 

Would it be a bit like driving your car with no tax and MOT , if your caught the insurance is invalid as the car should not have been on the road in the first place ???

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Gorgiesaint

Gorgiesaint

Posted
Posted
If they are found to trading as an insolvent company, I wonder what affect this may have on the company insurance , would they have the required liability insurance to host matches or the players insurance.

 

I assume clubs have insurance on their players in case of injury , but it is a legal requirement to have the required liability / health and safety requirements in place to host matches.

 

Would it be a bit like driving your car with no tax and MOT , if your caught the insurance is invalid as the car should not have been on the road in the first place ???

 

They will have insurance in place as long as they have continued to pay for it.

 

You would hope that the PFA have checked that the players insurance is still in place, and I'm sure we would have heard from the players if it wasn't in place. Regards the public liability insurance, I would assume (although not 100% certain on this) that they are breaking the law by not having that in place.

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Whitey Grandad

Whitey Grandad

Posted
Posted
They will have insurance in place as long as they have continued to pay for it.

 

You would hope that the PFA have checked that the players insurance is still in place, and I'm sure we would have heard from the players if it wasn't in place. Regards the public liability insurance, I would assume (although not 100% certain on this) that they are breaking the law by not having that in place.

They would need a safety certificate in order to use the stadium. Whether that requires insurance, I know not.

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Sour Mash

Sour Mash

Posted
Posted
clapham is your best man for that, but my understanding is that this is almost in two parts now. Wednesday is nothing more than a deadline, regardless of whether they can or can't pay, nothing will happen until the 1st. (Unless they push the club into admin)

 

1) The question of whether they are insolvent

2) The small matter of 11.5 million

 

I think it could even be a case that if the PL advance them the money and they pay, they could still be wound up

 

Cheers, so basically Weds/Thurs/Fri this week we should be able to tell if they're gone or saved, but it won't be 100% official until until March 1st. That could be a very enjoyable couple of weeks, as their slow, painful death, becomes even more slow and painful!

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