Parky

NUSC is becoming a kitten when it could have been a tiger.

Do you believe Lambarse that there have been two 100m bids? No. Ashley would have to sell the club for less than his ridiculous £100m (+ £100m loan?) asking price if the fans made it clear that they wouldn't be supporting the club (which to a certain extent they probably already have by not renewing their season tickets). I don't know if there is any precedent for taking an owner to court.

Not if transfer revenue is not released by SJH. It could be he is holding on till he gets all the revenue possible in and then letting go to the new owners who's welcome will be a nasty letter from Barclays. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. Why hang on if he has to keep finding from HIS OWN FUNDS the player wages?? Who knows? I'm just trying to understand his reticence at selling the club quickly and getting out of the forest fire that is surely coming. if the overdraft is paying the wages then that will fall on new owners. his retcence will be that he thinks a better offer is coming or they are haggling over the details. I can't imagine a better offer than a 100m for a club with no assets and some kind of serious debt structure.

Do you believe Lambarse that there have been two 100m bids?

IMO MA has tagged on the monies owed to him with some kind of staggered timetable. This complicates things as a swift return to the PL isn't guaranteed. The worry is if we don't get back first time it starts to get twice as hard financially and competitively. He might even have already sold the debt one, or used it as a security. If that's the case then administration may be more attractive to him. How do you mean? If he paid off the debt, using a loan from himself, he would then be able to use that loan as an asset. Gotcha. I can't work him out. He seems financially at least sneaky and clearly a survivor yet so many of his other calls are clearly bollocks.

Not if transfer revenue is not released by SJH. It could be he is holding on till he gets all the revenue possible in and then letting go to the new owners who's welcome will be a nasty letter from Barclays. It's the only thing that makes sense to me. Why hang on if he has to keep finding from HIS OWN FUNDS the player wages?? Who knows? I'm just trying to understand his reticence at selling the club quickly and getting out of the forest fire that is surely coming.

IMO MA has tagged on the monies owed to him with some kind of staggered timetable. This complicates things as a swift return to the PL isn't guaranteed. The worry is if we don't get back first time it starts to get twice as hard financially and competitively. He might even have already sold the debt one, or used it as a security. If that's the case then administration may be more attractive to him. How do you mean?

i really don't think those results will phase him. i wonder what the figures would have been like on trading alone ? interesting to see that he's opened more shops while property/leases are cheaper and "other investments" ie buying when the market is low. seems like in his business he is planning ahead and is taking advantage of the market. Broadly agree. However he'll never ever get another share issue off the ground with the past performance of the first lot. It is highly unlikely he'll ever make another money hit again unless he sells the business.

The way he works that would have gone into SJHoldings immediately with the wages coming from the overdraft...If that makes sense. He gets to keep the cash and the players are being paid from the bank which becomes club liabilities at some point in the future when he's long gone. I can't really back this up, but it is the kind of thing that is his MO. Not even sure what the legal implications are.

It's a weird thing with the player transfers if you ask me. It makes me wonder if he's paying the wages or if they are just coming direct from the overdraft (not at all good for us).

IMO MA has tagged on the monies owed to him with some kind of staggered timetable. This complicates things as a swift return to the PL isn't guaranteed. The worry is if we don't get back first time it starts to get twice as hard financially and competitively.

But he still made a profit in these difficult times. A hell of a lot of companies are making a loss so any profit is pretty good. And he managed to open new stores and buy into more companies. Once theres a turn around his profits will go through the roof again. You're looking at about 18 months for a turnaround. He's asking way too much for the club and this is hampering any interested parties (if any are left). Which isn't a problem, I don't think he's planning on stopping SS now after all this time. And remember he made a profit in the worse time which as others have said is better than alot of other companies. Not talking about him stopping SD, I'm saying he isn't financially comfortable as he was 2 years ago and this will affect his thinking in all areas inc how he deals with us.

But he still made a profit in these difficult times. A hell of a lot of companies are making a loss so any profit is pretty good. And he managed to open new stores and buy into more companies. Once theres a turn around his profits will go through the roof again. You're looking at about 18 months for a turnaround. He's asking way too much for the club and this is hampering any interested parties (if any are left).

10 days ago there were at least 3 bids which had met the £100m asking price according to Llambias. Since then we have heard absolutely nothing more. Any takeover needs to be done ASAP. As I see it there are 3 possibilities: 1) Llambias was lying 2) Ashley is asking for significantly more than £100m, an unrealistic price for a Championship club with our liabilities 3) Ashley is playing the bidders off each other to get the best possible deal for himself, but harming the club by delaying the takeover In any of those scenarios I think we have a right as supporters to be pissed off at Ashley, do we not? Are you saying we should be sitting back and patiently waiting (which is what everyone is doing IRL tbh) and not even expressing our concern on an internet message board? How dare we! So using the same logic, do you also blame Robson for kicking up a fuss when it was announced his contract wouldn't be renewed in the Summer of 2005? Do you blame him for poor results in the 04-05 season because he took the club to court over his settlement? Do you blame him for increasing the subsequent supporter dissatisfaction with the old board (thus causing a downturn in results I assume) by not only doing nothing to alleviate it, but by releasing his book and inflaming the situation? Again, using the same logic, are the supporters to blame for Robson being sacked (booing the players off the pitch when we only finished 5th)? Was it actually the supporters fault we employed Souness? Would we have achieved higher league positions post Robson if there had been no websites dedicated to criticising the board, and no protests like the one after Sheff Utd in 06, only one of many? Maybe we should rewrite the history books and bump the team up a couple of places in the league under the old board considering the adverse effect the supporters had on performances? Noone ever demanded that, it was typically just a hope expressed mostly by avid Ashley supporters The debt was included in the cost of buying the club, but why would it affect a new owner's transfer policy one way or another? What was the club's stated policy? Link to quotes please. If you find one, try and explain how a 26 year old defender from a foreign league for £12.5m and high wages fits into it. Did anyone even suggest this was likely while Ashley owner? Not sure what this point is about tbh I imagine you were arguing the same when we'd finished 7th, were in Europe, and the call was "Shepherd out!!!111"? Oh no. Yes, all the protests after he took the club off the market and announced "2009 will be the year in which we drive the Club forward together" make your point vividly. What do you say? There weren't any? Can't be true we're all so demanding and unrealistic. Still 2009 btw isn't it, what's happened to Ashley's heartfelt desire to run the club "responsibly at all levels"? Soon evaporated once we got relegated that didn't it. I guess he had to put it back on the market after all those protests at the end of the season. What? There still weren't any protests? Strange, what's forcing him to sell now? He didn't before the 1 week of angry phone calls to talk shows, a banner, and a couple of protests, he didn't after. Didn't make any difference. See top of post. What's the hold up now? Either say there's no-one near what he wants and start to run the club as a going concern, or if there are bids which are close to acceptable, pick the best offer on the table and start the transfer of ownership, finalising any smallprint later. We could at least get a manager in. I'm going to need a link to those claims, I could do with a good laugh. I agree with you that a lot of supporters have had unrealistic expectations from the owners of the club for a long while now. I haven't seen many that were voiced against Ashley though, unless you believe letting the supporters know what's going on at their club as an unrealistic expectation. PS Sorry everyone, I've probably set the team back 10 points next season, and the image of Newcastle supporters 20 years with this post. Quality.

The only conclusion I come back to is that the 'hidden debt' was monies owed on old transfers that were probably timetabled over a period of 3 years. This is quite normal and MA wouldn't have seen any of this as he didn't look at the books. We are beginning to see what a jungle all these weird payments to players are with regard to bonuses, loyalty, yearly increases and of course the settling of initial fees and agent commissions.

No, I have never made out I'm reading Nietzsche. That's the second time you've said that and you were wrong the first time too. As for bitter, well you'd do well to ask yourself who's the bitter one here. You're the one dishing out lectures dahlink and calling people nutters and paranoid....All fairly subjective terms when applied to people you've never met. What happened to you?

@ Indi...What a ludicrous bitter post. And you make out you're reading Nietzsche. PMSL.

I'm going to have to sack my agent, he keeps getting me gigs where the audience is made up of patients from the local nuthouse. It's an international nuthouse I'll have you know.

Fuck me the Indi lecture circuit is back on.

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Of course it's fukin speculation, 90% of this board is speculation. If you have concrete information, please don't leave us in suspense. Steer clear of statements like 'sound financial footing' cause that will just remind peeps what a gimp you are.

Sounds like some double counting to me... Well in quotes from Lambiarse last summer he said that Ashley had paid off 110m debt but there was still more in monies owed on old player deals and loans etc... The hold up could be some caveat with regard to us getting promoted and Ashley clawing back more money from the buyer with consideration to the money he has put in so far. It's clear if 100m was the default price the club would probably have been sold by now (at a guess).

I think you're talking shit. Probably need to be a genius to exaggerate the state we are in (could it be any worse?). Why not discuss the OP? Why hasn't the club been sold for 100m if that's is a fair price?

Pretty much. Pompey 20m Villa 42m

Window price 100m Debt 70m Barclays overdraft (apparently a 40m facility probably racked up 20m so far in running costs this summer). 110m owed to some kind of Ashley financial instrument/fund/offshore/or him directly (not likely). Player costs about 15m every 3 months. Am I way off?