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Fry wants £14 million for Saints!


SOTONS EAST SIDE

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What does this £14 Mil cover? I thought Saints debts were mainly £4 mill to barclays and £25 Mil for SMS? Does this £14Mil include the mortgage?

 

I wish somebody could give me actual FACTS!!!!

 

The £4m and £25m are irrelevant. The £14m is basically an approx 45p in the £1 amount negotiated between the creditors/administrators and administrators/potential investors, which will give the owners a basically debt free company.

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The £4m and £25m are irrelevant. The £14m is basically an approx 45p in the £1 amount negotiated between the creditors/administrators and administrators/potential investors, which will give the owners a basically debt free company.

 

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me...

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It seems strange that, reportedly, the £8m bid last week was £1m short of what Fry wanted, and now the £7m bid needs to be doubled.

 

I get the impression that the goalposts have been moved at least a couple of time. For what reason I don't know. But unless he had a big joker up his sleeve you would think Fry wasn't too good at his job.

 

Now, apart from wages and the electricty/rent rates bills, what is the ONLY cost that is likely to be going up VERY fast as time drags on??......

 

 

Oh yes the Admin Fee. Perhaps that missing figure is how much Begbies want? Wonder what sort of deal Fry has with them? Salary or bonused on results?

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Now, apart from wages and the electricty/rent rates bills, what is the ONLY cost that is likely to be going up VERY fast as time drags on??......

 

 

Oh yes the Admin Fee. Perhaps that missing figure is how much Begbies want? Wonder what sort of deal Fry has with them? Salary or bonused on results?

 

So the worse an Administrator is at his job the more he has to squeeze out of the deal to cover his growing costs/bonus?

 

Great.

 

This Administration malarkey makes the world's banking systems look like a shining beacon of morality.

 

Is the Administration industry independently regulated?

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Out of interest, anyone know how many investor doors Begbies have knocked on as opposed to sitting back and waiting for people to knock on theirs?

 

Is it the Administrators job to simply deal with incoming inquiries or do they actively go out seeking investment?

 

I can only see 'evidence' of the former and not the latter. (Which of course isn't to say that the latter isn't happening too)

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This is all getting quite bizarre, isn't it? Even at £14m Barclays won't recover all of the overdraft debt, which begs the question - Why put us in admin in the first place, when the overdraft was being paid off? The truth is though that a £14m price tag will probably put us under and they'll get next to feck all.

 

Agree Ponty, it is quite bizarre. The thing I can't reconcile is why Lowe and co didn't find the money themselves to bring the overdraft up to date when the chips were down.

 

I mean when Barclays called to say the overdraft is 110,000 quid in arrears so it's admin for you, why the hell didn't Lowe and/or his cohorts simply write a cheque on the spot?

 

That lot must have been good for it between them and much as they might not want to dip into their own pockets the thing is they have lost millions in share value and wages and expenses by ignoring Barclays.

 

Lowe lost about 1.5 million in potential share value and Wilde much more, yet all of them simply walked away and lost the lot. Surely it would have been worth a quick whip round to save their investments?

 

The whole thing beats me, I know Lowe seems to act crazy most of the time but what sort of a lunatic would let themselves lose out like his followers appear to have done?

 

There doesn't seem to have been any real reason for the admin, especially for such a small amount, so why did Lowe let it happen? I know he doesn't like us fans and may have thought it served us right, but then it's his money he's lost....

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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I have finally arrived!! My wife no less texted me this morning, saying that radio solent had reported a pink bentley with arabic number plates entering Southampton this morning!!!!!!!!!!!! We are saved!!!

 

Is it this one?

 

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No one in their right mind is going to clear the debts discounted in one hit, and no one will clear the lot by paying £14M up front and restructuring the rest so Mr Fry is either a raving lunatic or there is far more to the deal.

 

It sounds like a ridiculous figure.

 

You need £14mill to buy, the same again to restructure debt, the same again to run the club for a year, the same again to overcome points penalties.

That's a lot of money to stand still.

Another £14M to get into the Championship and double it to get into the Prem and we are looking for an investor with an enormous amount of patience and £100M to hand.

(you picky people - don't bother disputing the figures, they are approx!)

 

If you are in that league you would buy the reasonably-priced Reading or someone like that, not a failing Lg One team on minus points with an awful squad.

 

Any new owner will be looking at the future cost as the main barrier, not the relatively cheap deal to take the reins, and that ain't cheap.

 

Nice that Mr Fry is following his brief to get the best for creditors but on current form he is heading for getting them nothing, so if he is the only one who makes any money, in the traditional way of the banking world it will be a reward for failure.

 

Let us hope his brinksmanship is the right side of the line that separates idiots from shrewd negotiators, the jury is out.

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Agree Ponty, it is quite bizarre. The thing I can't reconcile is why Lowe and co didn't find the money themselves to bring the overdraft up to date when the chips were down.

 

I mean when Barclays called to say the overdraft is 110,000 quid in arrears so it's admin for you, why the hell didn't Lowe and/or his cohorts simply write a cheque on the spot?

 

That lot must have been good for it between them and much as they might not want to dip into their own pockets the thing is they have lost millions in share value and wages and expenses by ignoring Barclays.

 

Lowe lost about 1.5 million in potential share value and Wilde much more, yet all of them simply walked away and lost the lot. Surely it would have been worth a quick whip round to save their investments?

 

The whole thing beats me, I know Lowe seems to act crazy most of the time but what sort of a lunatic would let themselves lose out like his followers appear to have done?

 

There doesn't seem to have been any real reason for the admin, especially for such a small amount, so why did Lowe let it happen? I know he doesn't like us fans and may have thought it served us right, but then it's his money he's lost....

 

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

 

It certainly beggars belief doesn't it ??????

 

I just cannot think of a valid reason why "The Devil's Alliance" let themselves be dragged ( without a whimper ) into an Administration situation .......

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No one in their right mind is going to clear the debts discounted in one hit, and no one will clear the lot by paying £14M up front and restructuring the rest so Mr Fry is either a raving lunatic or there is far more to the deal.

 

It sounds like a ridiculous figure.

 

You need £14mill to buy, the same again to restructure debt, the same again to run the club for a year, the same again to overcome points penalties.

That's a lot of money to stand still.

Another £14M to get into the Championship and double it to get into the Prem and we are looking for an investor with an enormous amount of patience and £100M to hand.

(you picky people - don't bother disputing the figures, they are approx!)

 

If you are in that league you would buy the reasonably-priced Reading or someone like that, not a failing Lg One team on minus points with an awful squad.

 

Any new owner will be looking at the future cost as the main barrier, not the relatively cheap deal to take the reins, and that ain't cheap.

 

Nice that Mr Fry is following his brief to get the best for creditors but on current form he is heading for getting them nothing, so if he is the only one who makes any money, in the traditional way of the banking world it will be a reward for failure.

 

Let us hope his brinksmanship is the right side of the line that separates idiots from shrewd negotiators, the jury is out.

With that £14 million I think the debt is cleared with the two major debtors (Aviva/Barclays) so making SFC debt free! Edited by SOTONS EAST SIDE
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It certainly beggars belief doesn't it ??????

 

I just cannot think of a valid reason why "The Devil's Alliance" let themselves be dragged ( without a whimper ) into an Administration situation .......

If RL etc had had any sniff that the bank were going to pull the rug they would have sold in Jan. Why did Barclays see their overdraft get reduced to 4m from 6m, surely any reasonable person would have thought that the club had met its part of the deal. To then withdraw support when it was the worst possible time beggars belief.There is no way RL would have waved goodbye to his money by doing so then.
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The longer this one goes on the weaker and shriller Mr Frys demands will become. The guy looks out of his depth against people who know how to negociate hard.

 

He sets deadlines and then breaks them, that makes him look weak and desperate. If the guy really had another strong bidder then surely they would step in but the silence is deafening.

 

£14M? I think he's will be forced to take a reality check.

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If RL etc had had any sniff that the bank were going to pull the rug they would have sold in Jan. Why did Barclays see their overdraft get reduced to 4m from 6m, surely any reasonable person would have thought that the club had met its part of the deal. To then withdraw support when it was the worst possible time beggars belief.There is no way RL would have waved goodbye to his money by doing so then.

 

 

 

Well, SOMETHING happened to make Barclays "renage" on the Overdraft Reduction Scenario .....

 

Any thoughts as to what it was ..... ??? ESPECIALLY the fact that they did it AFTER the League cut off date for declaring an Administartion situation, thus ENSURING a 10 point penalty ....as well as certain Relegation

 

Not exactly the best way to ensure they get more of the Overdraft reduced ???

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One of the bigest problems is that if you pay to much for the club it reduces what you have for team building. That is not Mark Fry's problem nor that of the creditors so there is always going to have to be negotiation.

 

Once a figure is agreed and I am beginning to think that is less of a problem than the press or many posters on here think, the next problem is the non refundable deposit to allow the real due diligence to take place.

 

No Administrator is going to give a warranty that all the details he has given pre indicative bid is correct and complete. He needs money to keep the club going whilst that due diligence takes place at some considerable cost to the bidder (I have heard report that it can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.) The potential buyers see that as their cost risk. They do not want to see a £500,000 non refundable deposit to be at risk as well.

 

Suddenly we have an impass. Fry needs the money but the potential purchasers see the risk too great.

 

That may have been the problem with the Pinnacle bid and could still be a stumbling block for any other bid. Business men with money make money by taking risks but calculated risks not the gamble that their facilitators would wish them to take.

 

All, as Morph says, my humble opinion.

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The longer this one goes on the weaker and shriller Mr Frys demands will become. The guy looks out of his depth against people who know how to negociate hard.

 

He sets deadlines and then breaks them, that makes him look weak and desperate. If the guy really had another strong bidder then surely they would step in but the silence is deafening.

 

£14M? I think he's will be forced to take a reality check.

i do wonder if the CVA thing is his trump.He knows a further -15 will be a killer.Whilst it kills both parties he may be using that to lever some more out by saying if he gets x he may be able to get them to agree to it.I do hope HMRC are still paid up in full
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Well, SOMETHING happened to make Barclays "renage" on the Overdraft Reduction Scenario .....

 

Any thoughts as to what it was ..... ??? ESPECIALLY the fact that they did it AFTER the League cut off date for declaring an Administartion situation, thus ENSURING a 10 point penalty ....as well as certain Relegation

 

Not exactly the best way to ensure they get more of the Overdraft reduced ???

 

I was wondering if it had anything to do with the stage payments owed to Notts County. These became public around the same time and were a surprise to most of us on here. May be they were somewhat of a surprise to Barclays as well?

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The longer this one goes on the weaker and shriller Mr Frys demands will become. The guy looks out of his depth against people who know how to negociate hard.

 

He sets deadlines and then breaks them, that makes him look weak and desperate. If the guy really had another strong bidder then surely they would step in but the silence is deafening.

 

£14M? I think he's will be forced to take a reality check.

So are you saying that if he set deadlines, stuck to them rigidly and we ended up driving everyone away because they couldn`t meet those deadlines, that would make him appear strong? We could end up with no buyer, but Fry would appear strong? We are talking about multi-million pound business deals with multiple players involved. These things do take time and ingenuity sometimes. You have to be flexible to get the best deal. There is strength in using your head sometimes.

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They do not want to see a £500,000 non refundable deposit to be at risk as well.

 

if the administrator wants a deposit why is it nonrefundable.If he has laid out the picture correctly then there is no reason for him not to show the books.Its just like auctioneers they make a description and then say it is up to the buyerr to decide.Cop out
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I was wondering if it had anything to do with the stage payments owed to Notts County. These became public around the same time and were a surprise to most of us on here. May be they were somewhat of a surprise to Barclays as well?

That was covered as far as I was aware as the league were holding back 300-400k of money due to us to be paid when we fulfilled our fixtures.The monies due to NC etc would be paid from that.

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if the administrator wants a deposit why is it nonrefundable.If he has laid out the picture correctly then there is no reason for him not to show the books.Its just like auctioneers they make a description and then say it is up to the buyerr to decide.Cop out
Because he will be spending that money to keep the club going until the due diligence and contract signing completed. It will not happen in a few days.

 

In my opinion as I am not qualified in such matters.

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A boy doing a mans job. Fry is totally out his depth

 

Fry is doing a very good job for the people he is working for - the creditors. Unfortunately what is best for them isnt best for us. Jacksons offer - "£8m, with a further £2m deferred and another £5m dependent on promotions" sounds like a damn good deal to me considering the **** the club is in. Even with the brinkmanship I doubt Fry will get much more.

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If £14m is wanted no wonder the 34 expressions of interest have whittled down to virtually nothing. Even the potential investors will not see £14m as a 'good value' deal.

 

That does seem high for just the club.... because before admin with shares at 10p you could have bought the club ouright and paid off the Barclays debt and probably renegotiated the Aviva deal and had change from 10 mil....

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Because he will be spending that money to keep the club going until the due diligence and contract signing completed. It will not happen in a few days.

 

In my opinion as I am not qualified in such matters.

Well if you go back to my thread a week or so ago when i got a lot of stick when I put Fry Fiddl;es while Rome burns. In it I stated my concern that by Fry waiting was costing us the only bid on the table and could lose them due to him waiting for others.If bhe had acted then thre 500k would not now be the issue.In time if it fails because of that Fry will be at fault not only in our eyes but i suspect the creditors will not be happy either.

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So are you saying that if he set deadlines, stuck to them rigidly and we ended up driving everyone away because they couldn`t meet those deadlines, that would make him appear strong? We could end up with no buyer, but Fry would appear strong? We are talking about multi-million pound business deals with multiple players involved. These things do take time and ingenuity sometimes. You have to be flexible to get the best deal. There is strength in using your head sometimes.

 

No, you have misunderstood me completely.

 

What I am saying is that if you set a deadline then you'd better be able to back it up else you are going to look stupid.

 

Fry should be trying to keep these negociations as open as possible - as soon as he makes demands that he can't enforce he looks weak and he's not dealing with amateurs. They will be smelling blood IMO.

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None at all just neads someone to bash it's a mush thing ,the jugements on this site are just incredible like a bunch of old fish wifes at times nah nnah nah...

 

 

 

...

How many years have you been in the administration business to be able to judge?
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The £4m and £25m are irrelevant. The £14m is basically an approx 45p in the £1 amount negotiated between the creditors/administrators and administrators/potential investors, which will give the owners a basically debt free company.

 

That's a bloody good deal. Creditors can usually expect something like 10p in the pound.

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Fry and the creditors have their heads up their arses if they really think they can recover £14M from SLH, nearly 50p in the pound...

 

Greedy bastards.

Lets use a poker game as an analogy: at £14m, Fry is representing a good hand. The question is whether this is true or a bluff. You Alpine and others are assuming its a bluff. The danger is whether Fry actually has a good hand through individual offers for parts of SLH excluding SFC which would satisfy the creditors.

 

So Fry is asking the bidders to either call or fold. I'm not sure that action is a bluff.

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I would think MF would want to ensure he had the best deal for his creditors before naming a preferred bidder. If the Echo is to be believed then the Pinnacle bid has faltered, MJ group has raised offer but it is still short.

The Echo were only stating a few days ago the overseas consortium were lurking in the background but now it is claimed they are confident of pushing ahead with their plans for the club and can meet the the creditors demands.

MF, I think, would not want to to name MJ as preferred bidder whilst there is a potentially better deal with the overseas people.

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I would think MF would want to ensure he had the best deal for his creditors before naming a preferred bidder. If the Echo is to be believed then the Pinnacle bid has faltered, MJ group has raised offer but it is still short.

The Echo were only stating a few days ago the overseas consortium were lurking in the background but now it is claimed they are confident of pushing ahead with their plans for the club and can meet the the creditors demands.

MF, I think, would not want to to name MJ as preferred bidder whilst there is a potentially better deal with the overseas people.

 

True, but this could well backfire on him. Pinnacle will have an amount in mind, MJ's consortium have made an increased offer. However if Fry waits for a bid that may not materialise, he could well have to go back cap-in-hand to either of the original two, who may then only be prepared to pay a fraction of what they currently have on the table or worse, may have lost interest altogether.

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It seems strange that, reportedly, the £8m bid last week was £1m short of what Fry wanted, and now the £7m bid needs to be doubled.

 

I get the impression that the goalposts have been moved at least a couple of time. For what reason I don't know. But unless he had a big joker up his sleeve you would think Fry wasn't too good at his job.

 

May be that 14 mil is for everything - 8-9 for FSC + 4.5/5 for SMS which seems low or other way round... last week just about SFC?

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Total ******....unsecured creditors, maybe, but if Aviva are expecting 10p in the pound for St. Mary's Stadium, ie £2.4M, I'll buy it tomorrow....

 

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.

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Weston has I am sure hit the nail on the head, and nickh was probably right with his thread.

 

Somehow or another the wages have to be paid "on 4th Thursday of every month". it's a bank holiday, Fry hasn't got the money.

 

Now the figures Fry will have given prospective buyers will have come with a BIG health warning. It is Caveat Empor, it is up to the BUYERS to get a teamof specialists into SMS to dig out everything. That will take TIME, Fry HAD that when a bid was made on 6th May but he didn't like the structure it seems, so he waited for the Legends game and Pinnacle. I think we and he are now screwed.

 

IF He is insisting that somebody pays him 500k non-refundable just to look at the books and do the work he should already have done then no wonder things are proving "difficult"

 

It sounds like his negotiation skills are about as good as Lowe's listening skills

 

 

As for the valuation at 45p for a failed business, I note today that BAA's long term debt is selling at 46p in the pound - and they are still TRADING

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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.

 

That is a good question - my only thought is that given our contractula obligations and not having had any ionterest from other clubs in said players over teh transfer window, once it became more likely that we would be relegated and loose the 3mil or so TV revenues next season, they panicked... stupid I guess because it now may see them getting LESS than had they simply insisted on players sales over the summer relegation or not...

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...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.

 

They clearly realised that Lowe was well past his sell by date, his second relegation was looming and any chance of realising their debt with him at the helm was non-existent. I wouldn't be surprised if his arrogant stance in negotiations made him totally impossible to reason with as well.

 

If only Leon had stayed on as Chairman things could have been so different don't you think jonah?

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True, but this could well backfire on him. Pinnacle will have an amount in mind, MJ's consortium have made an increased offer. However if Fry waits for a bid that may not materialise, he could well have to go back cap-in-hand to either of the original two, who may then only be prepared to pay a fraction of what they currently have on the table or worse, may have lost interest altogether.

 

Couldn't agree more but this is why he his paid mega bucks and im sure the creditors would be well informed of the situation and in agreement with the pros and cons of the strategy.

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...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.

 

I doubt there’s that much mystery about Barclays pulling the admin trigger.

 

From what we know, Fry (of Barclays) forced the overdraft limit lower and lower during the second half of the season. This by itself would explain why there was no proper rescue plan put in place when it became clear to everyone – even the dreaded duo – that the ‘total football revolution’ was turning us into a footballing banana republic. No loans – even emergency ones – and no new manager to revitalise the team and ditch the woeful Dutch masterplan.

 

We also know that at the beginning of the Lowe/Wilde regime, Fry had told the club that they had to achieve substantial savings on running costs, and that had to be achieved with player sales and whatever else could be cut back. The club’s failure to offload some of the players with disastrously expensive contracts, and Lowe’s presumed reluctance to make cuts to sacred cows like the academy, inevitably meant that Fry was not seeing the cuts he wanted to see.

 

Putting a football club into administration would have been a big deal for Barclays, given the extent of their football sponsorship. I suspect that Fry referred up within the bank’s higher management, and that a strategy was agreed: force the overdraft down as far and as fast as possible to reduce the risk – and then hope and pray that that the club can avoid the financially disastrous consequences of relegation.

 

Once relegation was confirmed, Barclays faced a simple choice: either keep the club afloat, but at the cost of allowing the overdraft to float back up, or force SLH into administration and cut their losses. In the depths of the credit crunch, there really was no alternative. A season or more of handing out blank cheques to keep a club with a premiership infrastructure afloat in the dismal depths of League One was simply never going to happen. (We also know the rough scale of the cost of this, from Mandaric’s recent comment that he spent £10 million keeping Leicester’s Championship structure going for just one season in League One.)

 

I wouldn’t mind knowing, though, exactly what Aviva thought of Barclays’ decision to force SLH into admin. I bet they weren’t impressed. They had rescheduled the mortgage, and as far as we know the mortgage was being paid on the due dates. Now all of a sudden, they face getting pennies on the pound as by far the largest creditor. Not good.

 

If Fry is holding out for such a high sum as £14million, I’d also bet it’s because Aviva – effectively the biggest player in the sale of the club – are ticked off and are simply not prepared to roll over with some pie-in-the-sky deal whereby they recoup to the original value of the mortgage if we get back to the prem (In any case, that’ll be another poison pill the club further down the line)

 

It’s why I’m still pessimistic – at least in the sense that no buyer is going to be able to meet Mark Fry’s demands.

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Fry and the creditors have their heads up their arses if they really think they can recover £14M from SLH, nearly 50p in the pound...

 

Greedy bastards.

 

Really do not understand posters. How are the creditors greedy? So if you lent your mate £1000 and a year later he still had not paid would you take £500 and call it quits??? I dont think so.

 

They are owed over £30m. If true and £14m would buy the club, the ground etc etc etc, that would be a bargain. To build a stadium like SMS would cost at least £40m even in todays economic climate. A club owning it's ground, training ground, Jackson farm and free from debt for £14m??

 

Get real chaps, Fry is there for the creditors and to get the best deal for the creditors. He would have done is homework on any potential bidders and would know what they are worth and what he can push for; only he knows the date at which he must have a deal and at that point the negotiating will really start and any bidder might get a little knocked off. £14m is a great deal to lay out, but let's face it is a cheap for all the facilities and no debt!

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Barclays did not put us in Administration, Lowe did because we were no longer a going concern. All Barclays did (as they were perfectly entitled to do) is not honour cheques drawn over the overdraft limit after the deadline for player sales had passed and it was obvious expenditure would far outweigh income in the months that followed.

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