| Trust statement on 11:42 - Feb 24 with 1904 views | pioneer |
The most painful part of the proposed sale to me is the ownership of the ground being handed over to an individual. The efforts made over many years to take and protect ownership of the ground has been a central part of the clubs survival. For that reason alone I shall be voting no.
Lets face it….if what we are being told is true the individual in question is getting the entire organisation gift wrapped for as little as 2 milion quid. | | |  |
| Trust statement on 11:46 - Feb 24 with 1871 views | RAFCBLUE |
The Chairman’s statement on the club announcement in the week stated his directors loan is at its limit.
Another director explained his position at the August fans forum where his limits were/are.
Once a business runs out of funding it is dead.
Without funding, a business heads to either members voluntary liquidation or creditors voluntary liquidation.
Either of those mean no more football club. | |
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| Trust statement on 11:54 - Feb 24 with 1821 views | James1980 |
In the event of liquidation what will be the plan for proceeds of the sale of assets after deductions? Can we have a vote that they will be ring fenced for the formation of a phoenix club. Will the board members who have loaned the club money be prepaid to write off all or part of what they loaned so it can be used towards a new club. | |
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| Trust statement on 11:56 - Feb 24 with 1803 views | Dalenet |
I find the hate of Simon by some posters and on other forums very sad. For all the mistakes that he and the Board have made, I genuinely think he did what he did hoping for better outcomes than this. People accusing him of doing this to get his money back are just wrong.
As I see it, he and other directors bought the Morton House shares back because they had to. At £2.35 a share or whatever it was, that was one heck of a commitment. If these are ordinary shares, and he has to sell the club in the way proposed, his shares will be worth next to nothing in the same way the rest of us with smaller stakes will have nothing. That alone is one hell of a poor outcome for his family.
He has then lent the club £550k that he originally wanted to secure on the ground. That wasn't allowed by the National League, so his loan is unsecured I think. Given how much he will have lost on paper for the shares, I wouldn't begrudge him having his loan repaid by a new owner as part of the deal. Some will hate that, but I think we need to be fair here. He has said he could be prepared to convert the loan into share capital if the owner wants that - I presume it would be A shares rather than the ordinary shares. That means the new owner has to be effective in growing the club for him to ever get any cash back. So he is incentivised to sell to the right buyer. If he gets it wrong he loses everything - about £750,000. He will be in a right quandary here. He stands to lose a lot more than the rest of us.
Before any of us vote at the EGM, it might be helpful if he makes this a lot clearer for us all. He isn't selling us out to get his cash back - at the very best he might get his loan repaid. He will lose more than any of us and those that accuse him of selling out for personal gain need to think again. | | | |
| Trust statement on 11:57 - Feb 24 with 1795 views | Rehsad |
I don't disagree with you re the legal position of zero funds - but wherein the public domain is the forecast that shows funds will actually run out at the end of March? It's what isn't being said that concerns me, not what is being said. There is conflict in the actions: one action encourages investmen( the making available of 50,000 shares in small batches) and the other says that unless you give up all rights and devalue your shares to almost zero then the investment becomes EDIT: "almost" worthless in 7 weeks. How do you square this circle? [Post edited 24 Feb 13:56]
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| Trust statement on 12:02 - Feb 24 with 1766 views | TalkingSutty |
I don't see any hate for Simon on this particular forum. I do see a lot of posts pointing out his incompetence when it comes to how he has run the club and also the way he has failed to communicate with fans. In fact his communication skills are only surfacing now when it's come to giving the shareholders and fans the choice to either hand over the club or kill it. So he is capable of communication when the situation suits him. | | | |
| Trust statement on 12:04 - Feb 24 with 1748 views | 442Dale |
And alongside that, things like the “introducing” the Executive Club the week before the EGM announcement.
https://www.rochdaleafc.co.uk/news/2024/february/theexecutiveclub_feb24/
Why are we asking businesses to put in significant amounts with the EGM and its implications on the horizon?
Answering these questions and others actually helps to establish what the situation is as we can try and have a definitive idea about funding required. | |
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| Trust statement on 12:09 - Feb 24 with 1731 views | RAFCBLUE |
The club wouldn't have gone public on liquidation on a bluff IMO.
Think about all the adverse publicity generated this week. Effectively giving RAFC a possibly terminal diagnosis in football circles.
They've said the money runs out at the end of March. This is consistent with earlier fans forums and other EGMs and AGMs this season.
You're wrong on the investment being worthless. On liquidation the ground is sold and monies would be distributed. Creditors will be paid. Shareholders may even receive a final dividend. The numbers depend on what the ground is sold for.
But there would be no more football for any of us as we know it. | |
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| Trust statement on 12:17 - Feb 24 with 1699 views | 442Dale |
Were you present at the most recent AGM? | |
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| Trust statement on 12:41 - Feb 24 with 1626 views | D_Alien |
Indeed. If he'd put a tenth of the amount of communication energy into the role over the past year that he's put into the past week i'm not saying we'd be in a different place financially, but that alternatives would then have been given much greater chance of being explored
There's a tone in some posts of simply trying to curtail the exploration of any alternatives. Bag carrier, indeed... with baggage | |
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| Trust statement on 12:47 - Feb 24 with 1608 views | tony_roch975 |
A useful summary.
Is the apparent inconsistency partly the result of ignoring the signs - decades of annual operating losses only covered by irregular player sales or cup runs. Chris Dunphy knew the writing was on the wall when he tried to bring in investors nearly a decade ago and when the club was at its highest 'saleability' (what a pity that didn't happen); we stopped the next possible 'investment' and perhaps that 'victory' blinded us to the fact that we were still not financially viable ; the current Board have had to loan hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep the Club operating but still there are posters claiming they're making it up.
The fan-owned model only works if fans stump up the costs - we had the chance to buy enough new shares to cover the current losses but we didn't and even if we had we'd have had to keep doing that every year. The irony as you write is that now, having not paid the (fan-owned) price, that very 'democratisation' of share ownership is its own barrier to Dale's survival.
The current Board's claim 2 years ago that "we were assured of a stable financial footing and healthy cash reserves, enabling a significant increase in the playing budget" might well have been a further sign of incompetence but equally it might have simply been a desire to put a positive spin on things matching the general mood amongst fans that the MH saga was a 'victory' - rather than the merely pyrrhic one it now appears!
As you say we can but hope that what is decided is the best for the Dale but equally I hope we won't descend into impugning the intentions of those we disagree with - we're all trying to solve an impossible Hobson's choice without patronising anyone. | |
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| Trust statement on 12:53 - Feb 24 with 1586 views | Mundell |
While caveat emptor applies, the statement from the Trust is obviously very positive and reassuring. It certainly tips the balance in favour of a vote in favour of the forthcoming resolution.
I would like to make a few observations though. These may or may not help with any discussion about what to do, but I thought I’d post on the grounds that in the current situation the more perspectives there are the better. Others are obviously welcome to agree or disagree.
1. It is misleading to say that the Football Club is worth £4-6m. Conceptually, the business being sold comprises two distinct entities which are joined at the hip, a Football Club (the operating company), which is worth nothing because it is structurally loss making (indeed it might even have negative value), and a real estate company that is worth something. However, that something can only be realised if the real estate company can be separated from the operating company. Since, both as fans and as shareholders, we don’t want that separation to take place (i.e. we want Rochdale football club to continue playing its matches at the Crown Oil Arena) it follows that the company we own shares in has no real value except in a scenario we don’t want to contemplate. This is not simply an academic distinction. It is fundamental to how any investor will think about what they might be buying and to how they would value it.
2. We obviously want any buyer of the Football Club to be entirely focused on the football team, i.e. to view the stadium and the land it sits on to be no more than a means to and end where that end is a competitive team that, eventually, returns to the EFL and has ambitions to progress once that status has been regained. Paradoxically, such an owner is buying a business they expect will lose money, because they’ll need to continue to fund operating losses, and where the notional asset value cannot be realised. Hence, they probably believe the company they are buying has no real value, whatever the balance sheet might imply.
3. It’s perhaps good news then that the headline which says a prospective owner would be paying £2m to buy the club is also misleading. They’re not. If a transaction is completed after the sale of £2m of new A shares the notional value of the club would increase from £4-6m to £6-8m because it would have £2m sat in its bank account. If the club was liquidated the day after it is sold the investor would get back 90% of that £2m, plus 90% of the value of the real estate once any debts have been repaid. In the meantime, there would be nothing to stop the investor lending some or all of the £2m back to itself. To be clear, I’m not suggesting for one moment this is remotely likely, I’m just trying to understand what’s really going on. £2m is not the price being paid for the club (that’s close to nothing). It is, in effect, a pre funding of future operating losses and/or of any capital expenditure. It would be helpful to understand how the money might be spent and over what time period.
4. We’ve arrived where it has always seemed likely to me that we’d get to; selling the club at a nominal price to an investor/funder/operator who we hope will take the club forward, with the alternative to that being a continuing struggle for cash, a slide dowh the pyramid and a risk of liquidation. The question has always been whether the right investor could be found and on what terms they took control.
5. Broadly speaking there are two ways to sell the club and to give an investor/funder/operator the control they will inevitably demand. The first is via a no strings attached, lock, stock and barrel sale based on an assessment that the prospective buyer is a ‘good actor’ and can be trusted to do what’s in the interests of the club and who, as result, has interests which are aligned with those of fans; Rochdale’s Ryan Reynolds (Wrexham) or the Reedtz brothers (Notts County), for example. Based on the Trust’s feedback this might just be the type of investor interested in securing ownership.
6. The second, is a deal structure which leaves the existing shareholders (the club’s fans) with some residual control. Such a deal might involve the sale of the operating company only (i.e. not the real estate) and, perhaps, with some conditions in the SPA which commit the the owner to certain actions and/or prevent certain actions without prior consultation with, or even the agreement of, the Trust. It is important to note here that a “good actor” would not necessarily object to being bound by “reasonable” commitments.
7. Where does this leave us? Giving the club away for a notional sum (and as noted that is,in effect, what’s happening), involves a significant element of trust and it’s not unreasonable to ask some probing questions. Asking any prospective owner whether they’d be willing to buy the football club only (not the real estate) might be revealing. If the answer is no, why not? Is the answer still no if the nominal value of the new A shares is £0.11 rather than £0.22 so that a pre funding of £1m rather than £2m secures circa 90% of the outstanding share capital?
8. If the reason that the owner wants the asset backing is in case something goes wrong that’s a red flag. A good actor who understands what they’re investing in would recognise and accept the risk, not insist on recourse to asset backing to create what becomes a free hit. If the answer is that ownership of the real estate is essential because there is a capital investment plan this needs to be exposed and tested. How is it going to help the club return to the EFL? What is the plan for the football side of the business? Likely annual wage budget and operating loss? Will there be a Sporting Director (even Barrow have one), an explicit player trading strategy etc?
I am very happy to support the Trust’s eventual conclusion on the dilemma we now face and will be happy to vote my own shares accordingly. However, I would like to suggest that it’s very important to understand what’s really going on here and to explore possibilities and options. Even if the outcome is a simple lock, stock and barrel sale, I have no doubt that exploring other options would still be insightful and might tease out information and intentions that might otherwise be hidden. My apologies if that’s obvious.
Fingers crossed this all works out.
Up the Dale!! | | | |
| Trust statement on 12:59 - Feb 24 with 1527 views | D_Alien |
Breath of fresh air, scattering the dust that's settled on the "there is no alternative" brigade | |
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| Trust statement on 14:12 - Feb 24 with 1333 views | Rehsad |
I've edited my 'worthless' comment accordingly. I've also noted that 'Liquidation' is given as your opinion. This board has form with the use of the term 'liquidation' though - it's not the first time that they've used it.
Please don't misunderstand me - I'm fully aware that the situation is dire. I just think that being given a few weeks to come up with an alternative (and it does need a radical alternative as, tbh, even if all the current depository shares had been sold at £2.35 we would probably still be in this position next year). I'm just trying to tease out exactly what is required to keep the club afloat should the vote go against the drafted amendments. Once the club has gone to a 90% owner it has gone - I feel that we owe it to ourselves to explore all options before such an event takes place. My preference would be for the Trust to maintain a role - and my wish would be for that to be linked to holding the rights to at least the playing surface. Thrashing this out before a 90% owner is on board is likely easier than afterwards, this is why I believe that we need to have better knowledge on the actual financial position. | | | |
| Trust statement on 14:36 - Feb 24 with 1255 views | 442Dale |
Lots of stuff in there is what so many of us are seeking. It’s aligned with the very attitude that Dale fans have displayed so often in the last. We just want to try and make things better tomorrow than they are today and that involves having the commitment, passion and intelligence to assess every situation on its merits.
Not everything has to be black and white for a team that once wore those colours. To presume so is an insult to everything our club and supporters are about. | |
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