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Mark fry and begbies traynor in the echo tonight


lordswoodsaints

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They have taken a full page advert in the echo tonight congratulating the team on their promotion.

 

In a way they have played a big part in our success and I think they deserve a mention.

 

Obviously we are also a great project to put on their CV and I hope they do well from the exposure that our success brings.

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Hmmmm.

 

If Mark Fry had not taken the Pinnacle consortium as seriously as he did and had instead given Markus's bid more credence we could have been bought 6 weeks earlier than we were. Thank goodness that Markus was patient and didn't walk away from the deal.

 

I think our current rosey position is despite Mark Fry and Begbies Traynor rather than thanks to them.

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Fry and B/T had nothing to do with Markus buying SFC, It was Cortese who found us and his good friend decided to go for the purchace on condition Nicloa ran the show. All fry and Co did was found a "Tyre Kicker" , prolonged the sale for their own gains and Hoodwinked MLT. FACT !!

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Would these be the people who chose Pinnacle as the preferred bidder three years ago?

 

Yes, but did they prolong Saints administration long enough to keep us from being wound up?

Could Markus actually have purchased SFC earlier, or wlll we ever know the full facts?

 

Does it matter? Not any more.

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I thought they had asked for some illegal payments from Markus that he refused.

This is correct. There was an underhand request for funds, our chairman quite rightly refused to get involved in this, wanting to do things by the book.

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This is correct. There was an underhand request for funds, our chairman quite rightly refused to get involved in this, wanting to do things by the book.

 

Which is why Pinnacle were preferred bidders and ML was left out in the cold, because he wouldnt provide a backhander. Begbies should have been prosecuted, not congratulated.

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Which is why Pinnacle were preferred bidders and ML was left out in the cold, because he wouldnt provide a backhander. Begbies should have been prosecuted, not congratulated.

 

It's never too late to report a crime...

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This is correct. There was an underhand request for funds, our chairman quite rightly refused to get involved in this, wanting to do things by the book.

 

I should think at the time it was a sum of money intended to keep the club alive for a little while longer, some people seem to forget how dire the situation was back then.

 

No matter what the ins and outs of the administration were, we ended up in a fantastic situation, and I'm certainly not going to complain about the administrator who oversaw it all congratulating the club and getting themselves a bit of cheap publicity in the meantime.

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I should think at the time it was a sum of money intended to keep the club alive for a little while longer, some people seem to forget how dire the situation was back then.

 

Maybe it was a misunderstanding and you are right, but Cortese's view was that it was a request for a 'sweetener' in order to become preferred bidder. Remeber ML had the funds liquid and was able to complete in days so there would have been no need for bridging injections of cash.

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Fry and B/T had nothing to do with Markus buying SFC, It was Cortese who found us and his good friend decided to go for the purchace on condition Nicloa ran the show. All fry and Co did was found a "Tyre Kicker" , prolonged the sale for their own gains and Hoodwinked MLT. FACT !!

 

To be fair, on Fry... no one saw NC and Liebherr coming - there had abeen a rumour of a Swiss bid much earlier - but no approach to the Administrators. All the Administrators can do, is assess the bids really - 'finding' a buyer is waht they all say they try and do, but when everyone knows you are for sale, if no one comes forward what are you meant to do?

 

To remove the tyre kickers, they demand a nono-refunable deposit as proof of genuine interest and to allow the club to avoid liquidation whilst due diligence and legals are sorted... in this case I believe Crouch funded a deposit which he lost as it was at the time the only hope.

 

From what I read at the time NC and ML only formally approach the administrators after this deposit had given Pinnacle exclusivity for a fixed time period - much to teh annoyance of NC and ML I guess.

 

What should have happened in an ideal world is that that pinnacle should never have accepted Crouch's offer of teh deposit, if they never had the funds secured in the first place, but desperation was running the show... I dont know if the pinnacle bid caused problems or issues or nearly scuppered NC and MLs interest, so TBF, its not really the fault of the administrator.

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Maybe it was a misunderstanding and you are right, but Cortese's view was that it was a request for a 'sweetener' in order to become preferred bidder. Remeber ML had the funds liquid and was able to complete in days so there would have been no need for bridging injections of cash.

He asked for a sum of money (believed to be around £500k) in order to a) keep the club running for another period of time, and b) give them a period of exclusivity to conduct whatever due diligence they wanted and to get a deal done. Leon Crouch, on behalf of Pinnacle, was the only person willing to do so at the time. We've no idea whether Liebherr would have concluded a deal sooner had that money not changed hands, we don't even know if the club would have survived long enough without it.

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He asked for a sum of money (believed to be around £500k) in order to a) keep the club running for another period of time, and b) give them a period of exclusivity to conduct whatever due diligence they wanted and to get a deal done. Leon Crouch, on behalf of Pinnacle, was the only person willing to do so at the time. We've no idea whether Liebherr would have concluded a deal sooner had that money not changed hands, we don't even know if the club would have survived long enough without it.

 

Spot on. We were completely skint. The collection buckets from fans were not just for PR, we had nothing left. Asking for a non-refundable deposit is standard practice in Administrations because it is very very usual for some "interested parties" to talk Billy Big B*ll*cks but not actually have any cash or any real intention to do a deal.

 

In our case, the deposit was a way to flush out who was serious, AND we were desparate for the cash to keep trading. Nothing at all about this was illegal or breaking League rules. Where was ML then? Who knows but at that time how could anyone judge if they were serious?

 

And yes, as posted elsewhere, the first act of Fry and Co was to get R Lowe and his board to quit. I have no issue with that!

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Didn't Cortese once say that he first heard about Southampton's plight in April 2009, some 3 months before he and ML took over?

 

That couldnt simply mean he read the back page of some newspaper on the train.

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Yes he is still there and is now IP Association President elect. He won an award for his work with SLH

 

Is this the Richard Fry who pulled the plug on us for a comparatively paltry £600,000 overdraft when he was working for Barclays Bank, who then coincidentally turned up shortly afterwards working for our administrators? The one whose name mysteriously disappeared from their contacts list the minute that this was uncovered on here?

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Is this the Richard Fry who pulled the plug on us for a comparatively paltry £600,000 overdraft when he was working for Barclays Bank, who then coincidentally turned up shortly afterwards working for our administrators? The one whose name mysteriously disappeared from their contacts list the minute that this was uncovered on here?

 

Ah, the halcyon days of takeover sagas..... :-)

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Is this the Richard Fry who pulled the plug on us for a comparatively paltry £600,000 overdraft when he was working for Barclays Bank, who then coincidentally turned up shortly afterwards working for our administrators? The one whose name mysteriously disappeared from their contacts list the minute that this was uncovered on here?

£6,000 was the figure that sent us into admin - that was a cheque Barclays refused to honour, while we had an outstanding overdraft in the region of £4.1m, with a target to reduce it to £4m (from £6.5m at the start of the season) by May.

 

Mark Fry was the administrator, Richard Fry later turned up at Begbies, which was apparently unconnected. That one's a strange one because the only person connected to the football club who had obvious links with Richard Fry was Leon Crouch (Fry was Crouch's account manager for his various businesses and was persuaded to take on the SFC/SLH account during his tenure), but it would have been Rupert Lowe and Andrew Cowan who selected and appointed the administrator.

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£6,000 was the figure that sent us into admin - that was a cheque Barclays refused to honour, while we had an outstanding overdraft in the region of £4.1m, with a target to reduce it to £4m (from £6.5m at the start of the season) by May.

 

Mark Fry was the administrator, Richard Fry later turned up at Begbies, which was apparently unconnected. That one's a strange one because the only person connected to the football club who had obvious links with Richard Fry was Leon Crouch (Fry was Crouch's account manager for his various businesses and was persuaded to take on the SFC/SLH account during his tenure), but it would have been Rupert Lowe and Andrew Cowan who selected and appointed the administrator.

Yes Lowe and Cowan appointed them but Mark Fry and his Company would only take it on if Lowe resigned. There was a couple of hours persuasion before Lowe did the right thing. That is why the Administration was not confirmed until 11am aalthough the shares weere suspended overnight
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£6,000 was the figure that sent us into admin - that was a cheque Barclays refused to honour, while we had an outstanding overdraft in the region of £4.1m, with a target to reduce it to £4m (from £6.5m at the start of the season) by May.

 

Mark Fry was the administrator, Richard Fry later turned up at Begbies, which was apparently unconnected. That one's a strange one because the only person connected to the football club who had obvious links with Richard Fry was Leon Crouch (Fry was Crouch's account manager for his various businesses and was persuaded to take on the SFC/SLH account during his tenure), but it would have been Rupert Lowe and Andrew Cowan who selected and appointed the administrator.

 

Thanks for correcting the overdraft figure that pushed us under, memories fade with the time lapsed since. Even more of a paltry amount than I thought and certainly not of such a magnitude as to deter somebody reasonably successful in business had they had the desire to bail out Lowe. Thankfully, there was the urge to rid us of all of that lot so that nobody wanted to save his skin.

 

As to the connection between us, Richard Fry and Mark Fry/Begbies Traynor, apparently unconnected maybe; but pardon me if I remain a cynic at such a coincidence. ;)

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As to the connection between us, Richard Fry and Mark Fry/Begbies Traynor, apparently unconnected maybe; but pardon me if I remain a cynic at such a coincidence. ;)

 

I share your cynicism on this. No doubt the administrators and solicitors all did well for themselves out of our admin, but just because they got rid of Rupert and Co I shall not be cheering them. From the BBC website, it appears that another group of admin and legal beavers have racked up a tidy sum of costs from an administration down the road! :D IMO the preferred status of Pinnacle in bidding for Saints was very unhelpful, but that is best forgotten as we are now where we are, back in the premiership.

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I know this is a little ols so indulge me!

 

Pinnacle - courtesy of of Leon Crouch I believe put up the £500k for the exclusive period. They met the the T's & C's!! To be fair Markus Liebherr did not! Perhaps one of the few mistake Cortese has made.

 

They did their job, which was to look after the creditors, no the clb, not the fans, the local businesses many of us work for. They did OK by us so lets not dismiss them or start name calling.

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