20% Share Offer | Page 2 | PASOTI
  • This site is sponsored by Lang & Potter.

20% Share Offer

Wozzer

Wozzer

Sep 20, 2003
1,941
0
Peter Ryan":1k33xwpy said:
Tim Chown":1k33xwpy said:
As Gareth has said, of course the opportunity for the Trust to own a stake in the club is exciting but, and there is a but, we have to determine the terms on which the offer is being made.

At one end of the scale James Brent offers the Trust a 20% stake for £1, with, for example, a seat on the board and full powers of scrutiny.

On the other, he offers the 20% stake for £1,000,000 with no benefits beyond the stake.

Somewhere in the middle there's a mutually beneficial deal that the Trust membership would be happy to back. Obviously that's what we'll be trying to find, starting with the first formal meeting which we're trying to arrange as soon as possible.
Click to expand...

I am not questionning that the Society Board should investigate the details, get independent advice and negotiate as deemed necessary. So both Tim and Gareth are responding to points I have not made.

Since this is the case, let me restate what I am saying.

1 - It is a key Objective of the Society Board (in summary) to gain a part of the shareholding of the club.
2 - The current owner has offered the Trust the opportunity to buy 20%.
3 - The Society Board should react politely, warmly, enthusiastically to the offer and engage fully, positively, rapidly and professionally with it.

That is all I ask. But the available eveidence apears to be that the Society Board has not yet done this (3 above). All I am asking I that this changes.

So, please don't be defensive and please do what your Objectives require you to do.

Thanks, Peter.
Click to expand...

Peter, quite happy as always to answer questions from Trust members.

Of course we welcome the option to buy into the club however preferential shares (as we have been offered) are not the same as ordinary share.

I have had no more than an informal chat with James Brent. We have asked (along with other financial questions) for a meeting between himself and the Trust board to put some formal "meat on the bones". Until such time that he answers our request there is no concrete information to give.

So in answer to your 3 points.

1) We are aware of that and as you know it will be up to the members to decide when we and they have all of the facts.

2) We are attempting to engage with James and thank him for his offer.

3) We are and we have asked for a meeting. As of yet we do not have a reply and until we do we cannot progress.

Maybe we are being defensive however with a decision of this magnitude it would be churlish to jump in without first knowing what the offer entails and secondly not gaining expert advice.

Woz
 
G

Gareth Nicholson

Guest
Lost in Chelt":qzhf5y77 said:
A good example of what can be achieved with a 20% share:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/dav...log/2012/apr/10/swansea-city-supporters-trust

Ten years ago Swansea's Supporters' Trust bought a 20% share in their club. At the time the club was on the rocks, and almost went out of the Football League in 2002/03 and look at them now. We could learn a lot from them it seems.
Click to expand...


We could, and the Trust has had a good and very helpful chat with Huw, SCFC's Director from the Swans Trust.

However, although there are similarities between our position now and Swansea's when they obtained an ownership stake, there are also differences, and we need to understand both before we go further down that road.

Swansea had a small number of shareholders, so that their 20% could be added through negotiation to someone else's 10%, someone else's 5% and so on, to construct either a majority or a blocking minority vote. Under those circumstances, a 20% share is a powerful tool to get what you want (and as a Trust that is a well-run and transparent club with a community focus). We would have, effectively, a 20% stake against someone else's 80% (I'm simplifying for effect, but you get my point).

Something else to consider is that 20% doesn't always need to stay at 20%. Swansea had a new share issue a couple of years ago where the Trust was given first refusal to buy extra shares. The alternative was that their shareholding (and by extension their 'power') would be diluted. So they took up the option and retained their power.

What I took from talking to Huw and fans of other clubs that have gone down the shareholding route, is that no two cases are ever the same and that what matters more than the %age is the cost and what you get in terms of powers/responsibilities for that stake, whatever it is.
 
T

Tim Chown

Guest
A good article, and this part is quite interesting:

"The club agreed in 2010 to make every fan who buys a season ticket automatically a member of the trust, so now it has 15,500 members. All have a vote in elections of directors to the trust board, held every two years. Its elected members then nominate one representative to serve as a director of the club. Since 2006, that director has been Cooze. Previously the position was held by Leigh Dineen, another lifelong fan who threw himself into securing the deal which saved the club in 2002. Dineen has since bought his own shares and is now the club's vice-chairman.

"When we came into it back then, everybody thought we'd fail because we were not 'football people,'" Dineen, who runs his own vending-machine business, recalls. "I love football but I am not a great admirer of the football industry. Many clubs aren't interested in the fans, except to get the money out of them. This is a model which has worked."

Tim
 
dunlop

dunlop

🇰🇪 Welicar Donor
♣️ PACSA Member
♣️ Senior Greens
✅ Evergreen
🌟Sparksy Mural🌟
Nov 17, 2009
4,125
117
Lets hope the committee are united and they go to this meeting in a positive and open mind.
 
T

Tim Chown

Guest
Yes, thanks to Chris for that, he tweaked the journalist to give us a call.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom