Matt

Love it- we'll just add it onto the price which hasn't been agreed by anyone as yet. Never mind the fact you would have an asset on the books.

I'm with HTT, the disquiet was more about the behaviour and attitude of some of the players. Once Dyer refused to be a sub against Boro (IIRC), it was all over.

I thought the reports were of a lower number, but I reckon he could have managed £50m based on our financials. If we stay up he could probably do the same again.

I seem to remember when we signed Manquillo he commented that it was a case of 'this is the best I can get for this money'

He only has to put up with 4 more months and his contract is done. I imagine he is reluctant to pay any restitution to Ashley for resigning.

A jerry can and a box of matches, wasn't it?

I think it's badly worded and referring to the purchase of the site which is owned by a separate entity, clearly they want to get that site back*. It wasn't leased out, that was someone drawing a really spurious conclusion from something in the accounts. *Assuming the tweet isn't bollocks, which it probably is

Nah, just ordinary admin.

Well, we won't get much of a say in it in any case. We're not really in a position to raise debt given we're always staring at the trapdoor. Clubs who are relegation-proof can get away with it.

Did he say if he's a nice guy or not? I don't think that needs asking!

Franklin Templeton are fund managers- they don't go about buying madhouses like NUFC FWIW I had a beer with a former colleague of mine who had dinner with Ashley a few weeks back and he genuinely thinks MA wants to sell the club to focus on his High St investments.

"Half the stores will close" - they don't say which half of course. That depends how much they can get a concession out of the landlords so they can repeat what was done on HoF.

We won't have had £100m left after covering for wages, the club (same as most others) doesn't make enough through tickets, sponsorship etc alone to cover their costs.

Yep, various banks and brokers will carry out independent analysis on shares in the market and give their views on whether the price is fair (hold), too high (sell) or too low (buy). It's not an opinion of any shareholders and generally analysts will try to avoid holding or trading in shares they cover to avoid claims of market abuse. Generally the share price will reflect the expectations of company performance and returns to shareholders- so if the share price fell for other reasons (such as reputational issues) but SD was making the same amount of money, that would peversely be a benefit to Ashley if (as mentioned above) he wanted to buy up some of the minority shareholders cheaply.

A lot depends on through which funds those institutions hold the SD shares. If the funds are FTSE trackers for example, then there isn't really much that can be done as the shares are in the index so should be tracked as well as possible. Some trackers have ethical carve outs but these tends to be sector specific and not company specific. Active funds are more likely to have an ESG policy and if SD were to contravene that policy then it would merit further consideration by the fund manager. Also helps if you are a genuine fundholder as you can go through Customer / Investor relations and not just a generic corporate black hole. There will be plenty of people indirectly holding the shares without even realising it. One final thing to bear in mind is that most of these institutions hate Ashley.

Yeah, big money rules now. But it's possible the leagues could introduce a rule than in the event of administration or other insolvency event, that club's league membership is conditional on a meaningful % of the shares in the club being sold to supporters groups or trusts.

It seems that when you've got no ambition to compete at the upper levels of the game, the cheapest option is just to let other clubs develop players and target their cast offs.

Only if they were free agents when the window closed.

HoF didnt own their stores (or at least the vast majority)- they were leased which is pretty standard for the sector. Ashley has used the admin process to try to screw down the landlords. Dept stores are big multi-level beasts. Floorspace that big isnt easy to re-let in the current market and he knows it. From the £360m they had at the end of April

As of last financial statements, SD had £360m cash available, plus a relatively small amount of £150m or so under their corporate revolving facilities. Ashley must disclose any purchase of shares to the market as soon as it happens, SD is a plc and the reporting requirements for a plc and for a private company like NUFC are totally different. There have been no recent filings for an acquisition of shares by Ashley. Any loan of funds from MA to SD of that size would almost certainly have to be reported. I don't see it as likely that hard cash that was generated by NUFC was moved into SD to purchase HOF, there would have to have been a disclosure which would have given it away. Plus whenever anything is acquired via SD, he is using 40% of other people's money to do so. FWIW I do think SD has got itself in a right mess with its ill-fated acquisition spree and it is close to fully drawn on its bank facilities. It can probably raise more debt because it's still a massive cash generator but retail is a volatile business and given Ashley's reputation there will be a premium to pay for any long-term finance.

It was never separately broken out so the only real way to have a decent estimate would be from someone in sports advertising. Have tried searching online for comparables to no avail. I imagine all the real money is in the boards featured on camera. The rest don't get that much exposure. in the 90s a lot of the stuff further up was given to the various 'club partners' like Mill Rover, The Chronicle, Metro Radio as part of other deals.

One more hurdle until the first round! Two great results.

HMRC couldn't even prosecute Harry Redknapp after he claimed to be illiterate. We'd have to have really screwed up.

Wouldn't the club be buying it anyway? Anyway, even if the 'normal commercial terms' mentioned in the last annual accounts are massively skewed in favour of SD, the net purchases from Ashley-linked companies was £600k. There are enough stories around of MA's sharp practices to know what kind of operator he is. But if he wants cash out of NUFC so he can buy a new villa or a chunk of a high-street retailer, he can just take it, which by the sounds of it is exactly what he's done this summer. There is no need to resort to his little book of underhand tricks. I did a very rough calculation a while back and reckoned we would have about £40-45m kicking about spare after the summer's (lack of) activity. That didn't take into account increases in STs though, IIRC, so maybe a bit more. Problem is we sit on the accounts for so long by the time they are published they are no longer relevant.

Nope. The price would be the price. If the club as a business is worth £300m and the debt is £150m, then his equity is worth £150m. If the club is worth £150m then his debt is worth £150m and his equity is worth zero If the club is worth £100m then his debt is only worth £100m and his equity has already been wiped out