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Mike Ashley


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Yet some on here would have you believe he's not made a penny off us.

 

Serious question - so far do you think he's made money out of owning the club? And if so how?

 

He's getting millions of pounds' worth of worldwide exposure for his main interest (which coincidentally has increased in value by over 700% in the last five years) via probably the world's most popular sporting event, for free.

 

Just that.

 

Can such a thing be estimated? Would be interesting if so, given how much prime time advertising can cost (I've read up to £1 million for 30 second adverts during the biggest prime time audiences, >£250k for normal prime time events). It could be worth tens of millions in the UK alone if one were to argue that the "indirect" advertising through sponsorship is equivalent to a 30 second television advert.

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We've definitely been here before, quayside doesn't believe in advertising.

 

Not so and you know that  :lol:  But I don't think the advertising at SJP has done anything much for SD so far. He owns more than 90% of the markets he operates in. But if you read what I said above I do genuinely think that if he decided to get into the Far Eastern market, the combination of the SJP advertising being seen on tv plus a team competing for the league and playing Champions League would definitely help SD get some traction in the Far East. Clearly Pardew is just holding the fort until Ashley is ready to take the club up a few notches  O0

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another fuck up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Correct, at the last count it was about £250 million in total of his money invested in us.

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

no, he fucked up on the purchase price (some may say it's lucky he did as everyone else who looked at the books hightailed it sharpish), after that he put in over 100million.
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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

no, he f***ed up on the purchase price (some may say it's lucky he did as everyone else who looked at the books hightailed it sharpish), after that he put in over 100million.

 

Thought he skipped the financial due dill and there was more debt than he thought so banged in the money post purchase to clear it.

 

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

no, he f***ed up on the purchase price (some may say it's lucky he did as everyone else who looked at the books hightailed it sharpish), after that he put in over 100million.

 

Thought he skipped the financial due dill and there was more debt than he thought so banged in the money post purchase to clear it.

 

true, then a bit more. he could've just kept the debt at the bank and let the club service it with no risk to his cash.
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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

no, he f***ed up on the purchase price (some may say it's lucky he did as everyone else who looked at the books hightailed it sharpish), after that he put in over 100million.

 

Thought he skipped the financial due dill and there was more debt than he thought so banged in the money post purchase to clear it.

also covered the losses that were quite big until very recently. Some of it self inflicted some of it left over from the Shepard era

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Just want to make it clear I'm not defending him. He cowboyed the purchase and it bit him in the ass and he didn't have the football nouse to cope. And every attempt to fix it has been farcical.

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

 

The main two things that due diligence would have revealed were that the debt was repayable on a change of ownership (that's a pretty common condition but its not always the case) and the club was in the process of losing about £30 million for the year.  Without being entirely sure why he bought us (and no one is) it's not easy to call whether he would have cracked on with the takeover if he was aware of those two issues. The club is actually in a far better state and  worth a lot more now than when he bought it that's for sure. Whether its worth more than he paid for it is another matter.

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i'd love to be able to get an outside, independent expert to look at how the club is run. I don't mind him not spending "his" money on players etc but I'd love to know where the money going into the club is really going (ie those merchandising deals) and if the promotion/advertsing/commercial activities are being crappily ran.

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i'd love to be able to get an outside, independent expert to look at how the club is run. I don't mind him not spending "his" money on players etc but I'd love to know where the money going into the club is really going (ie those merchandising deals) and if the promotion/advertsing/commercial activities are being crappily ran.

 

Hear, hear. :thup:

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i'd love to be able to get an outside, independent expert to look at how the club is run. I don't mind him not spending "his" money on players etc but I'd love to know where the money going into the club is really going (ie those merchandising deals) and if the promotion/advertsing/commercial activities are being crappily ran.

 

Wasn't the merchandising raised at the recent meeting with the fans? I haven't totally digested what was said but it sounds like some sort of outsourcing arrangement where the club picks up a cut on the transactions. So club revenue goes down but the case is that we make more profit. I agree that more transparency would be good. I'd love to see a comparison of the before and after finances.

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

 

The main two things that due diligence would have revealed were that the debt was repayable on a change of ownership (that's a pretty common condition but its not always the case) and the club was in the process of losing about £30 million for the year.  Without being entirely sure why he bought us (and no one is) it's not easy to call whether he would have cracked on with the takeover if he was aware of those two issues. The club is actually in a far better state and  worth a lot more now than when he bought it that's for sure. Whether its worth more than he paid for it is another matter.

 

Not knowing the terms of the loans exactly, he could have refinanced the debt OR put debt on the club at more favorable times and taken advantage of low interest rates and crawled back some of his cash. Would make it easier for him to sell as well if he was to get favorable financing due to his padded balance sheet.

 

There's no reason for us to be "debt-free" by the way - we could easily have a favorable debt encumbrance and it would lower some of Mike's exposure.

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Easily the most stingy and least ambitious owner any PL club could ask for.

yet he's put in over 100million above the purchase price, is this right ?

 

Was that because he didn't do the correct due dill before buying? Just another f*** up, got his fingers burnt, tried to spend his way out, got his fingers burnt again. Now we have conservative mediocrity.

 

The main two things that due diligence would have revealed were that the debt was repayable on a change of ownership (that's a pretty common condition but its not always the case) and the club was in the process of losing about £30 million for the year.  Without being entirely sure why he bought us (and no one is) it's not easy to call whether he would have cracked on with the takeover if he was aware of those two issues. The club is actually in a far better state and  worth a lot more now than when he bought it that's for sure. Whether its worth more than he paid for it is another matter.

 

Not knowing the terms of the loans exactly, he could have refinanced the debt OR put debt on the club at more favorable times and taken advantage of low interest rates and crawled back some of his cash. Would make it easier for him to sell as well if he was to get favorable financing due to his padded balance sheet.

 

There's no reason for us to be "debt-free" by the way - we could easily have a favorable debt encumbrance and it would lower some of Mike's exposure.

 

Refinancing the debt with Barclays wasn't an option. They called it in and in so doing took a lot of risk off their books. In June 2007 the club was technically insolvent, by somewhere between £80million and £90 million from memory. Why would anyone lend us anything in those circumstances? The credit crunch was big at the time as well and banks were crapping themselves. Ashley had to cough up.

 

No one would lend much on our balance sheet. The main thing that has been achieved under Ashley is some sort of financial stability on a year on year basis but we are still insolvent if he calls his debt in.  Thats why he has to guarantee not to do so every year, and that guarantee is recorded in the accounts.

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Yet some on here would have you believe he's not made a penny off us.

 

Serious question - so far do you think he's made money out of owning the club? And if so how?

 

He's getting millions of pounds' worth of worldwide exposure for his main interest (which coincidentally has increased in value by over 700% since he bought NUFC) via probably the world's most popular sporting event, for free.

 

Just that.

 

I just can't see that his ownership of us has had much to do with the growth of SD. If you look at the Sports Direct annual report you can see that he has virtually bought the entire UK market which accounts for more than 90% of their business. They basically own the UK market as a result of buying up the major brands and elimating the competition. The profit they made from international business was only about £11 million (total SD profits were about £290 million). To put it in perspective the SD international profit in 2013 was about 5% of what he has currently invested in us. Their international business is peanuts (relatively) and fwiw so far none of it comes from the Far East.

 

Makes you wonder why he does it then. Just for a laugh perhaps.

 

That is certainly possible. A "vanity project" was always one of the contenders.

 

The best scenario for us is that at some point soon he does actually decide to launch Sports Direct on the Far Eastern market and does decide to use us to help him. 

 

I'm sorry but if that is the case - the man actively and deliberately damaging the club's prospects for no reason other than to massage his own ego (this is surely even worse than using it to further Sports Direct) - then it only makes your continued defence of him and his actions even more staggering.

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Yet some on here would have you believe he's not made a penny off us.

 

Serious question - so far do you think he's made money out of owning the club? And if so how?

 

He's getting millions of pounds' worth of worldwide exposure for his main interest (which coincidentally has increased in value by over 700% since he bought NUFC) via probably the world's most popular sporting event, for free.

 

Just that.

 

I just can't see that his ownership of us has had much to do with the growth of SD. If you look at the Sports Direct annual report you can see that he has virtually bought the entire UK market which accounts for more than 90% of their business. They basically own the UK market as a result of buying up the major brands and elimating the competition. The profit they made from international business was only about £11 million (total SD profits were about £290 million). To put it in perspective the SD international profit in 2013 was about 5% of what he has currently invested in us. Their international business is peanuts (relatively) and fwiw so far none of it comes from the Far East.

 

Makes you wonder why he does it then. Just for a laugh perhaps.

 

That is certainly possible. A "vanity project" was always one of the contenders.

 

The best scenario for us is that at some point soon he does actually decide to launch Sports Direct on the Far Eastern market and does decide to use us to help him. 

 

I'm sorry but if that is the case - the man actively and deliberately damaging the club's prospects for no reason other than to massage his own ego (this is surely even worse than using it to further Sports Direct) - then it only makes your continued defence of him and his actions even more staggering.

was it a defence of ashley or an objective appraisal ?
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