Topcat

Alpine, all that is needed is for the Council to raise less than £10m to buy SMS. SMS is now a fire sale item and the price is very low. Some say it could be bought for as little as £5m.

It will just affect the price that SFC is sold for.

The way the Lowe luvvies go on with their silly arguments you wonder at their sanity. FACT: Under the Leadership of Rupert Lowe the holding company of Saints has had to go into administration and we are favourites to be relegated to L1. A fish rots from the head down. Lowe as the Leader must be allocated the majority of the blame.

We would not be in this mess if Lowe had not come back because:- 1. Attendances would have been 5,000 to 8,000 higher per game. 2. Pearson would have stayed as the Manager (fired by Lowe) and we would have not had the awful Jan Portaloo selected by R. Lowe. In case you may not have noticed we are:- 1. Short of revenue 2. Sitting in a relegation slot. Each of the points relates to the actions of Lowe.

But Clapham Saints, with SLH stopping all mortgage payments then Aviva would re-possess and put it up for sale. Which is why I wondered if a deal with the Council would be the sort of quick fix that the administrators may arrange? I doubt that SLH could sell SMS without the permission of Aviva.

But presumably Aviva's mortgage would give them rights over SMS. In essence if SLH defaults on the loan then Aviva gets SMS which it would then have to sell off for a "going rate". £10m in a market with no bidders would be a good price. Hence it ends up righting off the £13m+.

Using some of their investment money which will probably be earning a lot less than 5%. I had a quick look online but the main council site did not easily provide the information. If there are no reserves then why not flog off all the art work that is not covenanted because most of it is never displayed due to shortages of space? (I now see that Ghengis explains this very well above).

The Council buy SMS for £10m from SLH and Aviva write down the debt and accept £10m from SLH. The Council then rent SMS to SFC for £0.5m a yr which would give a 5% return to the Council, better than the banks offer. A new consortium "Saints 2009" buys SFC and the Training ground from SLH for £0.5m free of debt. SLH sell Jacksons Farm for £3m to developers. Excluding Aviva/SMS, that would leave SLH with £3.5m and debts of just over £6m. It then folds and creditors receive just over 50p for each £1 owed.

Not just business, also from a survival point of view.

But they would have got £10m and instead got nothing.

The evidence is clear that under Lowe's revolutionary coaching scheme and his "play the youngsters" strategy, debt went up. The average loss of supporters per game was closer to a £250k hit per game. 20 games = £5m lower revenue. Something that dwarfs all Lowe's savings and just shows what a useless bunch of businessmen he and his backers were.

That is what the Saints Trust is for. Unfortunately they are not up to the challenge as they mainly focused on places to drink beer on match days.....

Here are my responses to the main points. Some of you do not grasp the fact that in a month we may no longer exist. Q1. "cardomon Why would they pay rent (or whatever) to play at SMS when they own Fratton (that they can't fill)" A1 Because they are in debt and need a modern stadium. Q2 "Mase No thank you… Going to the stadium will feel like dirt." A2 Better to still have Saints playing in a stadium than a AFC Saints in the part time leagues playing in a field. Q3 "Pancake No, they are in a worse financial mess than us, what is it £90Million in debt? I dont what that debt near SMS." A3 So they could sell Fratton Park and reduce some of their debt and use their prem income to pay it down without taking on the massive new debt of a new stadium.

We are facing extinction. Even if we survive this next few months the large burden on a L1 club (we need to be realistic) that has to pay 100% of the fixed costs of SMS will put us at risk of future failure. Yet if we had a ground share the fixed costs of SMS fall by 50%. Down the road they clearly do not have enough finance for a new stadium. Sharing could at a stroke almost guarantee our survival as the main stadium debt could sit in a "SLH inc" which just runs SMS renting it out to the 2 clubs and others.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p001d7rv A pic of the lady that cut her show into the conference...... 2 bag job?

....after this record I will be chatting to Sylvia Simms..... Yes its our cr*p local station.....

Solent cut away from the conference.... FFS

I agree it is the banks fault for letting Lowe back in!

It is not in the FA's best interest to allow us to get away without a points deduction. Any decision they take will be made in the light of the principle that they want to discourage club's from defaulting on their debts. Separating a Club's normal trading items into a holding company will be the principle that they will seek to break. The problem with the FA saying that they will look at it at the end of the season is that it creates a further degree of uncertainty for any prospective buyers.

One puzzling factor for me is why the Club's lenders thought that Lowe was a fit and proper person to be allowed back in to run the Club? They could easily see the terrible image he had with many fans and factor in that he would knock thousands off the gates. That alone would reduce the income by several millions of pounds. For a business in a precarious position the "Lowe factor" on attendances was something that sensible lenders should have understood. Serves them right if they take a hit.

Pilchards, what nobs thought that Lowe would save their investment? That is the only bright side of a very gloomy day.

"lowe never been welcome here" on r hants

on radio hants laying into illingsworth and murray for backing lowe.

Nickh. After this action today, I really do not think you would be convinced that Lowe was mainly to blame ever. No matter what evidence would be presented, you still think the best of Lowe. Clearly you have faith in him no matter how many times he presides over a relegation, no matter whether the Club under his leadership goes into admin/liquidation or dies. Nothing can change your mind.... There are always some useful idiots that buy timeshares from snake oil salesmen convinced it was a bargain years after they were fleeced.

Rupert Lowe's worst promise? "We are not going to do a Leeds"!