Mike Ashley

[BottledDog]

Is his 'loan' to the club just things he had to pay off when he bought the club because he hadn't done his homework properly?

 

The loan that he seems to want paid off sharpish is the 20 odd million he injected after we went down I think.

 

 

/we went down because of his mistakes again though obviously.

[Teasy]

If it's an acceptable argument to say that we didn't spend because we have debt outstanding, then we won't be spending for very many years yet going forward. Sounds fun.

 

Its not an acceptable argument, I don't know if anyones saying it is (I wasn't but I haven't read everyone's posts).  Think people are just answering the claims that he's racking money in from the club and will have his initial spend back in no time.  He isn't, but at the same time there should be some money available to invest in new players.

[TheHoob]

Is his 'loan' to the club just things he had to pay off when he bought the club because he hadn't done his homework properly?

 

The loan that he seems to want paid off sharpish is the 20 odd million he injected after we went down I think.

 

 

/we went down because of his mistakes again though obviously.

 

Are there any other owners in the league who treat investing in the club as loans like that?

 

That bottom bit is what I don't get at all, he's had to invest more money because of his incompetence surely.

[madras]

Is his 'loan' to the club just things he had to pay off when he bought the club because he hadn't done his homework properly?

 

The loan that he seems to want paid off sharpish is the 20 odd million he injected after we went down I think.

 

 

/we went down because of his mistakes again though obviously.

 

Are there any other owners in the league who treat investing in the club as loans like that?

 

That bottom bit is what I don't get at all, he's had to invest more money because of his incompetence surely.

as of now, all of them according to how i understand the new rules.

 

alos if he hadn't been incompetent in not doing due dilligence it's hard to think anyone else would havebailed us out and whoever was coming in was going to have to put in that money. it's why polygon and belgravia legged it.

[TheHoob]

Is his 'loan' to the club just things he had to pay off when he bought the club because he hadn't done his homework properly?

 

The loan that he seems to want paid off sharpish is the 20 odd million he injected after we went down I think.

 

 

/we went down because of his mistakes again though obviously.

 

Are there any other owners in the league who treat investing in the club as loans like that?

 

That bottom bit is what I don't get at all, he's had to invest more money because of his incompetence surely.

as of now, all of them according to how i understand the new rules.

 

Is that something to do with the FFP rules? Like I say I have literally no understanding of how these things work so the whole logic behind it just seems utterly bizzare to me.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

It should be fairly easy to get facts about how much debt to Mike Ashley we have.

 

It is - but only up to 30th June 2012.

 

Well that's all we can go on really, what is in the accounts. If he pockets all the new TV money than that's a different matter.

 

In the accounts there is £111 million of loan that is long term - i.e due after more than one year.  That has now been there for several years. As at June 2012 he had loaned the club an additional £29 million during 2011 and 2012 to buy players and meet short term cash commitments. This additional amount was short term, repayable within one year.. The accounts show he had already received £11 million back, and we can probably assume he's had the remaining £18 million back by now. He's not going to get his loan back anytime soon if that pattern continues 

aye but if you accept that you just have to see him maybe as being poor at running a football club as opposed to maliciously evil.

 

I think he's beyond poor at running the club. And I do think there's a streak of evil in him, but not in the way many on here do. I think he probably likes to create a bit of tension by unsettling those who work for him to stop them becoming too comfortable. Which is probably ok in a business like SD (which he undersatands) but can cause havoc in a business like a football club (which he doesn't). The appointment of JFK was, I think, done to create a bit of creative tesion and stop the relationship between Llambias and Pardew getting too cosy. The fact that he ended up losing a strong ally in Llambias and with JFK strolling around in a job he is, in every single way, unsuited to is testament to his mind boggling lack of foresight.

 

[quayside]

If it's an acceptable argument to say that we didn't spend because we have debt outstanding, then we won't be spending for very many years yet going forward. Sounds fun.

 

Its not an acceptable argument, I don't know if anythings saying it is (I wasn't but I haven't read everyone's posts).  Think people are just answering the claims that he's racking money in from the club and will have his initial spend back in no time.

 

Yes that's right. I'm not defending what he's doing just trying to put the facts in play. We had a great opportunity this window and f*cked it up. There were players moving around all over the place who would have strengthened us. Whatever the reasons ultimately you have to blame the man who owns the club.

[Stifler]

Ashley if you are going to sell us then do it, if not but your not willing to invest then do what the owner of Hearts did and come out and be honest about it., don't get your puppets to promise the world then do fuck all.

[colinmk]

How does the club owe Ashley anything? He bought the club, he bought the debt. What am I missing?

[AyeDubbleYoo]

How does the club owe Ashley anything? He bought the club, he bought the debt. What am I missing?

 

Do you mean in the moral sense, or as a business?

 

As a business we owe him money because he lent us the money to pay off Barclays (or whichever bank it was).

[Lotus]

Mashley has serious problems with his judgement. I don't know if he's a bad judge of character or what but his needle is way off north.

 

It's so bad that he can't even judge whether the person he employs has a better or worse faculty of judgement than him.

 

Everyone makes mistakes. It's consecutive mistakes that get you in trouble. He's on a roll with these at the moment.

[NG32]

Mashley has serious problems with his judgement. I don't know if he's a bad judge of character or what but his needle is way off north.

 

It's so bad that he can't even judge whether the person he employs has a better or worse faculty of judgement than him.

 

Everyone makes mistakes. It's consecutive mistakes that get you in trouble. He's on a roll with these at the moment.

 

"MATES"

 

Qualifications / experience 

[Away Toon]

I believe that under the FFP rules clubs are allowed to lose up to 105M over the next three years, something that fat Mike is obviously not planning on doing.

[Zero]

I do heard a theory that during the end of the 3 years period, some top clubs will have to sell players cheaply to decorate the books in order to avoid Euro game ban.

 

 

[Si]

I believe that under the FFP rules clubs are allowed to lose up to 105M over the next three years, something that fat Mike is obviously not planning on doing.

 

Nor should he or any sensible owner be, luckily we've all the t.v money to spend so we don't have to worry  :'(

[Exiled in Texas]

I think he's beyond poor at running the club. And I do think there's a streak of evil in him, but not in the way many on here do. I think he probably likes to create a bit of tension by unsettling those who work for him to stop them becoming too comfortable. Which is probably ok in a business like SD (which he understands) but can cause havoc in a business like a football club (which he doesn't). The appointment of JFK was, I think, done to create a bit of creative tension and stop the relationship between Llambias and Pardew getting too cosy. The fact that he ended up losing a strong ally in Llambias and with JFK strolling around in a job he is, in every single way, unsuited to is testament to his mind boggling lack of foresight.

 

I agreee with that.....I don't think that this window played out the way Mike had intended.  I'm not thinking that Mike planned on spending 50M or even 20M (unless there were a lot of real bargains out there). I just think that they expected the Gomis to deal to fall into place, just like they expected the Debuchy deal last summer to work out, and now they are stuck with looking to January.

[Guest bimpy474]

It should be fairly easy to get facts about how much debt to Mike Ashley we have.

 

It is - but only up to 30th June 2012.

 

Well that's all we can go on really, what is in the accounts. If he pockets all the new TV money than that's a different matter.

 

In the accounts there is £111 million of loan that is long term - i.e due after more than one year.  That has now been there for several years. As at June 2012 he had loaned the club an additional £29 million during 2011 and 2012 to buy players and meet short term cash commitments. This additional amount was short term, repayable within one year.. The accounts show he had already received £11 million back, and we can probably assume he's had the remaining £18 million back by now. He's not going to get his loan back anytime soon if that pattern continues 

aye but if you accept that you just have to see him maybe as being poor at running a football club as opposed to maliciously evil.

 

I think he's beyond poor at running the club. And I do think there's a streak of evil in him, but not in the way many on here do. I think he probably likes to create a bit of tension by unsettling those who work for him to stop them becoming too comfortable. Which is probably ok in a business like SD (which he understands) but can cause havoc in a business like a football club (which he doesn't). The appointment of JFK was, I think, done to create a bit of creative tension and stop the relationship between Llambias and Pardew getting too cosy. The fact that he ended up losing a strong ally in Llambias and with JFK strolling around in a job he is, in every single way, unsuited to is testament to his mind boggling lack of foresight.

 

Decent post with one slight problem QS (if you believe this version). I read something by Caulkin i think that said Ashley and Llambias were already at loggerheads, and Llambias was already wanting to leave his post well before JFKs appointment. The appointment of JFK something Llambias wasn't informed of, tipped Llambias to leave earlier than he was originally going to. So JFKs coming in wasn't anything to do with Llambias and Pardews relationship.

 

Well if you believe this version of events anyways. But seeing as Ashley and to a lesser extent Llambias tell us nothing, most of the stuff is generally just guess work. Either way, it's us that suffer and Ashley frankly doesn't care at all. We are just a vehicle for his business to make money. That is all we really are to Ashley now, a platform for his cheap clothing stores.

[Jesse Pinkman]

http://www.themag.co.uk/the-mag-articles/mike-ashleys-transfer-window-suggests-sale-of-newcastle-united-is-imminent/

 

Mike Ashley’s Activity Suggests Sale Of Newcastle United Is Imminent

 

I have been tremendously heartened by the way Joe Kinnear spent the whole transfer window clinging to a branch, upside down and asleep. I am not in the least upset at the club’s relative inactivity in the international market for player purchases.

 

In my view, and I have no special knowledge but do have an obsessive fascination in the bizarre mental make-up of the Toon’s glorious owner, as well as being impervious to wishful thinking, I believe Mike Ashley is already waving us goodbye.

 

The most interesting fact about this boring yet unpredictable billionaire, and this story has been in several newspapers, is that, after his parents mortgaged their house to borrow money which they then provided to young Mike to get going as a sports retailer, the ungrateful upstart fell out with them so badly he stopped speaking to them. They still live in the same house they mortgaged for him, while he has at least one very large house in a plutocratic corner of north London, a larger pile of money, and, as we know, a yacht moored in the Med. Having been beholden to close relatives and not having liked it, he has decided, I believe, not to take orders from anyone ever again.

 

The structure of his highly successful business is very unusual. As is well known, he took Newcastle United private when it had suited Sir John to operate through a public company. Sports Direct is a PLC, but Ashley’s own shares in Sports Direct are held by a private company, MASH Holdings. It is rare for a large chunk of a public company to be owned by a private one.

 

The payment of dividends, the valuation of debt, and, crucially, the shuffling of cash become opaque if certain accounting techniques peculiar to private companies are used. It would be much harder, for example, to use profits on player sales (which technically are capital gains, and therefore not taxable as trading profits) to pay wages if the company were public. Mike Ashley, I believe, does not like people second-guessing him, and does not regard himself as being accountable to anyone – he sees no reason to give interviews, for example.

 

Yet this man who knows best, takes no orders, and refuses to be accountable, appoints a loose cannon with a dicky heart to be his executive for incoming transfers, putting the nose of Derek Llambias thoroughly out of joint and prompting his resignation. We have no evidence that Pardew was upset about Kinnear, but he will have been, I have no doubt. At the same time we know that Ashley regards outgoing transfers as so important that he does them himself. He asked Arsenal which part of Cabaye they wanted to buy when they didn’t offer what Ashley thought he was worth. Nobody else thought Cabaye was worth that much, but Ashley did, and as a result he wasn’t sold. Indeed he allowed, or forced, Cabaye to listen to a phone conversation in which Cabaye was humiliated.

 

In relation to Cabaye, the easy and logical thing for Ashley to have done would have been to sell him for £10m. It would have produced a profit, and he could have blamed the sale on the player, as he did with Andy Carroll. He could then have used half the money for a couple of incoming transfers. This was exactly what I believe was discussed on the yacht – who to buy if Cabaye were sold. But he didn’t do that. Why not? Was it just because he had dreams of repeating the Carroll coup? Not if he had been listening to the lukewarm reaction of the Arsenal executive. No. He kept hold of Cabaye in order to keep Pardew, and indeed Graham Carr, on board.

 

Not everyone will agree with this. And I share the view of many that Kinnear was appointed precisely in order to destabilise Pardew, and to call off the many transfers lined up by Carr and Pardew (Gomis, Thauvin, Aubameyang) which Ashley did not want to conclude. Ashley, correctly in my view, distrusts Pardew’s judgement of players. He also trusts Carr’s judgement, but doesn’t see Pardew as manager for much longer. His next manager, who will not be Kinnear, will be someone whose judgement Ashley trusts, and who will be allowed to make his own decisions.

 

But some time in the last few weeks a buyer – I would bet a lot of money on this – has hoved into view. I don’t know who it is. It might be this Ukrainian chap who looks like a skittle. It might be one of those Americans we were all talking about a few months back.

 

But someone is talking to Ashley about a sale. And Ashley might not understand much about football club management, but he understands the value of stability. After all, he rewarded Pardew, and virtually everyone else, with an eight-year contract.

 

I’m guessing. I might be wrong. But wouldn’t it make sense for Ashley to steady the ship pending the sale of our club to an unknown billionaire who could then do something popular early doors and sack Pardew? Wouldn’t it make sense for the next manager to be the appointee of a dashing new owner? Sacking Pardew and appointing George Graham or Glenn Hoddle or Lee Clark or someone, frankly, dun- coloured and disappointing would simply bind the hands of the new owner. This would jeopardise the sale. And Ashley will know the next owner will want to appoint a top-rank manager who will cost a lot of money and will want to spend a lot of money. A Ukrainian oil billionaire of Newcastle United would want to compete with Sheikh Mansour and Roman Abramovich, I would have thought.

 

 

And Ashley is desperate to sell. He’s not in this for the long haul. He wants a quick route into the Champions’ League with Rangers. Can’t you just smell it?

 

Thought it was worth a post.

[wyn davies]

He's after Rangers and we are in the way

[Shearergol]

Although there's no chance anyone wants to buy us, it is an absolute fact that he wants to buy Rangers (ITK).

[Dokko]

£220m bid accepted, club expected to undergo a medical tomorrow morning.

[NewJerseyMag]

Although there's no chance anyone wants to buy us, it is an absolute fact that he wants to buy Rangers (ITK).

 

Much easier to get into the CL with a Rangers..... although the TV deal for the SPL is much lower...... does it work out to be a better investment than us... not sure.

[Shearergol]

£220m bid accepted, club expected to undergo a medical tomorrow morning.

 

No better than the club they've already got.

[NG32]

£220m bid accepted, club expected to undergo a medical tomorrow morning.

 

Press conference at 3pm Friday.

[Shearergol]

£220m bid accepted, club expected to undergo a medical tomorrow morning.

 

Press conference at 3pm Friday.

 

(© Shearergol 2003)