Matt

They are the only bidding party, so whatever they offer is the going rate.

Rather than bank quarter of a billion in cash?

I'd be very surprised if the value of the SD advertising could be considered a fortune. Will hold my hands up if anyone in the industry says otherwise, the pitchside adverts are proabbly a decent earner, but the boards around the ground won't be worth that much.Plus, he only sees 60% of the benefit.

Firstly, £250m is a serious amount of money, so you don't make binding offers of that magnitude unless you mean business. Nor do you hire top law firms and their billing rates for a project you're not serious about. And then why would a lower offer suggest less money to invest in the business? If anything, it means there should be more, on the basis that the buyers will have an overall investment in mind, part of which will be the purchase price for the club. PCP are offering a guy who bought a business for a bit of fun, who by his own admission fucked things up and 'lost his money' the chance to recoup his initial investment pound-for-pound. I don't think that sounds particularly unreasonable.

For there suddenly to be another credible bidder at what is probably the third bidding round is very convenient. Ignore the early waffle about multiple interested parties. There has only been one party going through due diligence- otherwise this would have been leaked by now.

All those people coming over, booking hotels, spending money in the city because the local football club is considered attractive. Awful stuff.

I'm sure like any good law firm they'll be telling him 'that's a commercial point'. In terms of valuing the business he'll be advising himself. They can close much quicker than that.

Having a clause which increases the value of the sale price in the event of PL survival is just an 'earn-out' and is a pretty common feature for transactions in volatile sectors, especially with such a huge binary factor like this. It also helps to remind Ashley of what the club might be worth to him if the sale is dropped and the season nosedives.

People should be less concerned about an investor looking to make a return. Very few clubs actually make a decent return and those who do are successful on the pitch. The club is changing hands for a serious amount of money and one well beyond the value of the assets of the club. That means they need to make the club more profitable in the long-run to make a return- that won't happen by us scrapping in the relegation zone. If those investors want to make a really good return for the risk, they would not invest in football at all. There are better investment opportunities out there, but few with the same sort of cachet and profile of owning a PL club. Anyone coming in would be doing so with their eyes open, yes they may wish to protect or somewhat enhance the value of their investment, but would be doing so at a sub-optimal rate in return for the profile.

Sting-ur-lund

Aye, since that's the whole reason he's selling. It would be standard to provide new owners with a warranty against ongoing litigation.

Perhaps it's most important to remember that HMRC couldn't even get a case to stick against Harry Redknapp. The company would be fined for sure. The courts have no jurisdiction over sporting affairs.

What a load of nonsense from the Chronicle. The comment reflects the total net amount spent on transfers in the period from the balance sheet date to the date of the accounts (April 2016 to September 17). Now £80m net spend sounds high, but it's worth remembering how many of those fees now quoted as gospel were ever officially confirmed by either party.

Barely got a sniff at the first team- nice publicity move though.

I'm not sure why Ashley would do himself out of a tenner to make six quid for himself and give four to other people.

He's got a track record of taking punts with his own money, some of those have lost him hundreds of millions.

3-1 win, 4 straight away wins. To be able to win any league game after the players have put a shift in at work and been on a bus for two and half hours is truly impressive. Thanks to roadworks the bus didn't get back to Blyth until 3am.

Chopey is right- if you had £40 in your left pocket, then put £20 in your right pocket- does it now owe the left pocket £20? No, you still have £40. It's all yours. Ashley and NUFC are the same. SD is not- he is a 60% shareholder and it is a plc with all the governance (or arguably lack of it, in SD's case) involved in a public listing. A lot of people have some emotional perspective that there the club has some kind of moral ownership separate to that of MA, it's not. The loans are just another way of investing in the club (with some tax advantages vs common equity). People should forget they exist and the lack of interest is used as an excuse for other failings in the club's operations.

Where's £73m from? You can't do 'accountancy magic' on this sort of thing- it all has to be disclosed as related party transactions, the only problem is it takes an age for this information to actually get into the public domain.

No but he has a brain. There's a lengthy Business Insider article out there about Tony Bloom and his Starlizard business- can't seem to get the link to work but it's a good read, although like all others it's been unable to ascertain exactly where all his money came from.

His raging hatred of us is quite remarkable. Maybe he's still annoyed that we went to scout him and signed Jenas instead.

They should do- that side is far too good for that level. Not sure if there are any other heavily-backed sides in there but they really should walk it. Good to see Blyth get 2 wins on the board after a tricky start. It's a very tough league and every point will count come April.

Stadium really doesn't matter- all that matters is PL membership and theirs looks far more assured than ours right now. An extra £80m a season in TV money (at a guess) is the equivalent of 120,000 people paying £35 on a matchday every single home league game.

Same. Not met any. Although visiting 2/3 times per year you see the damage these cheap student/uni blocks are doing in trems of the balance of the city. The brewery site was a missed opportunity- they could have completely changed the layout but instead just laid out as many buildings as possible on the footprint. It's no different to anywhere else in the country, the development laws make it hard to restrict new projects. Unless you're Dolly Potter.

I never follow this line of Ashley vs 'the club'. All of it is his own money. If NUFC loses money, Ashley loses money. The whole lot is his and his alone. And he's lost repeatedly. Even now there is no guarantee that he would get back every penny he's put in, never mind a decent return over 10 years- all very well big TV deals pumping money in, but if it all goes out on players then you are no further forward.