Confimred new owners of Raeding Footbal Club

[Pseud O'Nym]

If the lender is Vibrac as most of us suspect, they should have got football creditor status surely. Even though they are offshore, I am fairly certain the club would have had to get the approval of the premier league and maybe football league to even enter into the loan. Part of the legal bits around this process also involve a legal assignment of cash receipts that if the loan defaults, then the premier league TV monies will be paid first to football creditors, so theoretically Vibrac are secured.

They may want to protect their interest by appointing BTG to act on their behalf in a sale process but guess they will get repaid so why would it be necessary? Could also be the Russians as now they have no board representation, they want somebody on the inside who can control the process on their behalf as the biggest lender and maybe that was the deal to get rid of them as directors?? Wild speculation, but plausible?

RFCH certainly have a secured loan with Vibrac. Samuelson said that "the lender" specialise in loaning money to football clubs secured against PL payments which is exactly what Vibrac do. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that it is Vibrac.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

Just listened to whole interview. Issue not being mentioned is samuelsons reference to his fears that the advisor to the lender may decide to sell players and seek to extract extra finance from those interested in buying reading. Now samuelson would have an interest in emphasising this as he is clearly linked to the mystery consortium. But it also raises the question of what the lenders decide to do. If they overvalued reading then there will be no quick purchase... Which has been a problem for the old board and which is why lender now in charge. Samuelsons message was don't scare off this bid... Basically I don't neccesarily think this will be resolved quickly and the longer it goes on the more likely the loan company pulls the plug and we go into formal administration....
Poor interview by dellor. The question I would have asked is why is this investment company interested? What links does samuelson have to the consortium and who is madjeski supporting in all of this.

[Only one Trevor Morley]

Oh and as for begbies trayner all of the club's they have advised (which includes huddersfield Southampton port vale scarboro Wrexham Bournemouth) has as far as I can tell been have been in administration or gone into administration. There involvement has very much been as administrators. I would say that if no buyer is found by end June (which along with end August were key dates in samuelson era) then administration could well beckons.

[blueroyals]

massive LOL @ the ITK army not having a clue about anything that was said. shows how ITK you lot really are

[EarleyRoyal16]

For me the worst part is that SJM has no role in the sale anymore. The people in charge now just cause about the money, don't have the clubs best interests at heart like SJM. I just want that snake Samuelson as far away from this club as possible. He was pushing this new mystery bidder an awful lot though. Can't help but think he has links to Paladini and the group interested.

We're so oxf*rd.

[loyalroyaldaz]

Lets not forget that SjM is probably one of the Creditors wanting his dosh back...........

[harry]

Wish we could rewind a couple of years to when we were a well-run club who "cut its cloth" and had to sell its best player each summer to make ends meet.

Having heard Samuelson's interview (and taking elements with a pinch of salt), it seems the club has not "cut its cloth" and instead has been "chasing the dream" for the last couple of years. We need to get out of this bloodsucking loan asap and get HMRC off our backs. If that means putting academy expansion on hold, selling this new land for it, staying at Hogwood and selling a load of players then so be it. I fear the easier/quicker route may be administration though.

If a buyer comes in quickly we might be saved the worst of it. But with the lenders in charge this is much more likely to be a purely financial deal, rather than looking for anyone interested in football. So who is to say we won't be going from frying pan to fire even if we get a buyer in time.

Still, it could be worse. Haven't heard Ridsdale or Romanov mentioned yet.

[3points]

This is my area of expertise and the process is quite simple really

1. Lender (in this case almost definitely Vibrac unless someone has bought the debt from them) gets concerned and sends in specialist accounting firm (here Begbies Traynor) to undertake an assessment of the situation
2. Work out the options
a) can you fix the problem, eg through cutting costs, player sales, etc
b) if you can't fix it, can you sell it? this is the process that is currently happening. This is called a distressed asset sale and attracts a certain type of buyer who is prepared to buy the asset with limited due diligence, but it will be reflected in a lower sales price
c) if a) and b) don;t work then you end up putting it into administration

So, I believe we're at stage b) at the moment. The lender realises there is still more value right now than if it goes into administration. If that happens then we clearly lose 10 points and the players and other staff will leave in droves.

What does potentially bother me is that I've assumed the lender is Vibrac. If the money was borrowed against this season's parachute payment, then this money must have been repaid by now. We know from the accounts that there's a lot of debt owed to TSI and was more than 20m, so something in CS's statement doesn't quite stack up. Therefore, the lender in this situation could be TSI as it is owed the most money (well Boris Z anyway as he's been funding the club, as I pointed out many months ago).

The statement that there have been previous firm offers is in line with info I had. At Christmas, the deal was on with the Omanis, but fell away due to SJM's unrealistic expectations. CS has been the man leading the search so is well placed to understand where the club is in the process. I think there's a very high likelihood of CS being involved in a new deal (as someone else has mentioned, it is probably the reason he is no longer on the board as it creates a conflict of interest), especially if it is called Phoenix. A company that buys the asset of a previous one is known in the field as a phoenix, so it all adds up to CS being involved, and given he thinks the deal will happen quickly also points to people being involved who know and understand the situation.

All of this is an educated supposition, but does reflect what I see time and time again with companies with a lot of cashflow problems. I have no ITK on this position but the statement from CS does confirm a lot of bits of information that have been discussed on this thread throughout the season.

BTW - Begbies Traynor are really seen as "low end" operators in this field. None of the big boys (like the firm I work for) touch football clubs these days as there hassle we get from the fans is not worth the fees we get paid. This will be a prize job for Begbies and will be milking it for fees

[multisync1830]

This is my area of expertise and the process is quite simple really

1. Lender (in this case almost definitely Vibrac unless someone has bought the debt from them) gets concerned and sends in specialist accounting firm (here Begbies Traynor) to undertake an assessment of the situation
2. Work out the options
a) can you fix the problem, eg through cutting costs, player sales, etc
b) if you can't fix it, can you sell it? this is the process that is currently happening. This is called a distressed asset sale and attracts a certain type of buyer who is prepared to buy the asset with limited due diligence, but it will be reflected in a lower sales price
c) if a) and b) don;t work then you end up putting it into administration

So, I believe we're at stage b) at the moment. The lender realises there is still more value right now than if it goes into administration. If that happens then we clearly lose 10 points and the players and other staff will leave in droves.

What does potentially bother me is that I've assumed the lender is Vibrac. If the money was borrowed against this season's parachute payment, then this money must have been repaid by now. We know from the accounts that there's a lot of debt owed to TSI and was more than 20m, so something in CS's statement doesn't quite stack up. Therefore, the lender in this situation could be TSI as it is owed the most money (well Boris Z anyway as he's been funding the club, as I pointed out many months ago).

The statement that there have been previous firm offers is in line with info I had. At Christmas, the deal was on with the Omanis, but fell away due to SJM's unrealistic expectations. CS has been the man leading the search so is well placed to understand where the club is in the process. I think there's a very high likelihood of CS being involved in a new deal (as someone else has mentioned, it is probably the reason he is no longer on the board as it creates a conflict of interest), especially if it is called Phoenix. A company that buys the asset of a previous one is known in the field as a phoenix, so it all adds up to CS being involved, and given he thinks the deal will happen quickly also points to people being involved who know and understand the situation.

All of this is an educated supposition, but does reflect what I see time and time again with companies with a lot of cashflow problems. I have no ITK on this position but the statement from CS does confirm a lot of bits of information that have been discussed on this thread throughout the season.

BTW - Begbies Traynor are really seen as "low end" operators in this field. None of the big boys (like the firm I work for) touch football clubs these days as there hassle we get from the fans is not worth the fees we get paid. This will be a prize job for Begbies and will be milking it for fees

My understanding Vibrec is a trojan horse for the second 5m loan. A firm offer from the originator of the loan amounted to a DAS which would involve both Boris and SJM writing off their debts..

[Sutekh]

Let's just hope next week sees this finally sorted out.

[Royal Rother]

What does potentially bother me is that I've assumed the lender is Vibrac. If the money was borrowed against this season's parachute payment, then this money must have been repaid by now

But surely we won't have received last season's parachute payment yet?

I thought 2013/14 season payment was made at the end of this month.

[Martin41]

My understanding is...... No one really knows anything, all people allegedly in the know, and someone told me this or that, or just guessing!!!!!
Will be glad when it's all finally over!

[Nameless]

The Premier League season ended on June 5th, which was the AGM. I'd have thought that would be the logical date for parachute payments to be made.

[ZacNaloen]

Samuelson said the loan is due in August, which is when we get paid the parachute payment so that makes sense.

There must be some fear about being able to cover that payment though or else BGT wouldn't be involved. The lender being TSI or Boris doesn't fit with the other thing Samuelson said about them being known as lenders to premier league clubs, but then we can't trust everything he says can we?

[ZacNaloen]

In short, they shouldn't have been greedy and sold in January.

I find it interest that Charles Watts is saying that it was Samuelson and Oblensky had the unrealistic demands that upset the previous bids and Samuelson is implying it was Madejski.

There is an obvious power struggle going on here via media proxy.

[Mr.Swainey]

massive LOL @ the ITK army not having a clue about anything that was said. shows how ITK you lot really are

SPARTA won't be happy with this.

[leww_rfc]

Well we may as well make a game out of this...

23rd of June before we get any big news I think.

[multisync1830]

In short, they shouldn't have been greedy and sold in January.

I find it interest that Charles Watts is saying that it was Samuelson and Oblensky had the unrealistic demands that upset the previous bids and Samuelson is implying it was Madejski.

There is an obvious power struggle going on here via media proxy.

There were not being greedy but from hindsight, unrealistic in their expectations. There will always be a bit of rewriting history

[Uke]

Let's just hope next week sees this finally sorted out.

Why the timeline?

Don't care how long it takes as long as we get the right owners

Next season is all about survival, not promotion pushes nor relegation battles

[Nameless]

Let's just hope next week sees this finally sorted out.

Why the timeline?

Don't care how long it takes as long as we get the right owners

Next season is all about survival, not promotion pushes nor relegation battles

No point having the 'right' owners if the club is destroyed because it has taken too long to find this mythical fairy godfather.

A fine balance between getting it sorted before we get on the slippery slope to points deduction and falling into the hands of the asset strippers...