dubai_phil

Yes BUT We then had a non-stop barrage of PR and media management about how fantastic everything was and how it would all be done. The other bidders would have stopped and sat back and watched. Overseas people would not have started to move money around in accordance with UK regulations, they would have cut back on their costs and activity because it was all a dead set done deal. And ANYONE who was really interested in the health of the CLUB would not have wanted to be talking to Fry during the period IN CASE they could be used as a stick to bash Pinnacle with. Just imagine the rows IF Fry had come out on that Friday and said - Sod off Pinnacle you had your time and I have a cheque from the Swiss.. It took almost a week before "opinion" turned against Pinnacle. Would a NEW OWNER have wanted to come in having kicked MLT and oh so communicative Tony into touch - hell no, they'd have been less popular than Lowe Everyone had to sit back and wait and keep their powder dry because of the way the PR was managed

There was a lot of discussion on here and in the Echo about this. Add that to the rumours I heard out of a non-football related finance operation I have friends at in London. Then work out the timings of the Dyer sale, and add in Leon joining in who was alleged to have made a contribution previously. then ask where TL would have found 500k? The evidence in the public eye that Fialka was the backer does not suggest that he or Tony had the cash themselves to pay the 500k. So I do apologise having missed a whole week of reality to sit in the mud and look at Lady Gaga's boobs I possibly forgot to put IMHO on that statement. But I think it is a good question to ask, IF the full deposit was paid, where di it come from and was it worth losing 500k NON REFUNDABLE deposit because of a single piece of paper that the FL wanted signing? Curiouser and curioser

Found a new one while in UK..... Not on sale here so brought some back with me.... Branston Hot Jalapeno relish.... much better

So, imagine for a moment what might be the result if somebody had done that.... 1) Fry could have had a fit as it was probably covered in the NDA leading to them being kicked out 2) Aviva could have had a totally different figure or structure that they would accept to the one Fry was asking for leading to a great deal of "confusion" 3) Barclays/Aviva could have refused to have any meetings themselves Now one of those would lead to Fry kicking a bidder out, one of those would seriously unsettle a proper moneyman and one wouldn't make a bit of difference either way.... Would be interesting to find out what actually happened for ALL of the groups. Oh and Benji, you are of course so right.

BUT as it is now fairly clear that Pinnacle did NOT pay a deposit and it would seem likely that the sale of Nathan Dyer paid them, WHY did they get exclusivity on what now seem better terms than were likely offered to the Swiss OR the original MJ consortium?

Don't be silly, of course Fry would not have expected to sell the club by now. Let's face it, he is probably costing well in excess of 100k a month. If YOU had a contract that paid you that sort of money would YOU find a way to ensure that the gravy train stopped within weeks, or would you take calculated gambles to ensure that you could keep claiming expenses and bills. let's face it we still have at least another 25 players on the books who could be sold to pay the wages and his fees. Hell, if it was me I'd find a way to string this out until Christmas..... wouldn't you???

Ah ha, somebody spotted the first of the reasons to ask whether the administrator was doing the best he could to get a deal.... Yes obviously anyone with sense, but apparently Fry did not allow that in the stage of putting a bid together, so you had to use only his figure...... And yet others not bidding at the time or since were rumouored to have been able to meet with them.....

Creditors types Trade Creditors Football Creditors HMRC Secured Creditors Cannot see HMRC working "late into the night" Apparently Fry would not let anyone near the secured creditors 4 weeks ago Football creditors must be cleared under FL regs, so it would leave the smaller trade creditors IMHO

Nope You forget the magic word - burn rate. The club was losing around 800k a month last year. That figure will have come down, but apart from two games and a loan from (allegedly) Leon, there has been zero income for almost two months. The PAYE was due on the day Pinnacle failed to complete for May wages and from what I have heard, the player salaries in June included all their appearance/goal/win bonus type payments. The sale of Dyer paid May wages, the sale of Surman willl make a hole in the amount needed to pay the June wages. It will not affect the debt position. Wages will still need to be paid in July with little income UNLESS the ST's go on sale. In simple terms, Drew's sale was needed because the Pinnacle deal did not complete in time for their takeover money to pay the June wages. Not throwing blame at them it is simply a consequence of what happened. Now the PROBLEM again becomes Fry wants something close to 15mil including deferred payments - that is the figure he can accept and as no bidder is allowed to neogtiate directly with creditors like Barclays or Aviva in this type of situation until they have bought the business. So the price remains the same and yet the saleable asset value and "playing quality" of the squad has again dropped... And as others have said, Jones/Fry cannot sell the ST's as that will destroy the chance of a new owner setting a playing budget vs an expectation of income. How many people would actually buy ST's right now? a couple of thousand? at possibly the wrong price? not going to happen!

Personally I would disagree with you. IMHO, Fry himself set up the format of our admin and as such set the price levels that HE could accept in order to meet Creditor expectations. Personally I think that structur set the buy price too high for any sane businessman to invest in, so unless there is an ego issue or a marketing angle, ANY buyer would find us a bad deal. Now IF Fry hadn't tried to be clever with the 10 points and had put SFC Ltd into admin on day one I think the cost of the club would have been lower and we would have been bought by now. Whether that is Fry's fault or the SLH structure is open for debate I just think we are too expensive - AT the moment

Stuff the guessing, we all know we're about to be taken over by an ex Skate and Spud. He was seen at SMS WAY back in the early days before Sales Packs but at the time of 30+ bidders and NDA's. The only interesting thing is will he bring Ossie with him

FWIW I really don't think MLT was ever used as anything other than a mouthpiece for Pinnacle. They ran a very clever PR campaign and simply gave him the words to say. Late last week it became quite clear that he was not being told some of the details, especially about the player bonuses needing to be paid and the higher than usual wage bill in June. That set alarm bells ringing. MLT did the right thing WEEKS ago, He simply said "He will support anyone that saves Saints". Don't confuse Pinnacle's manipulation of him for PR purposes with MLT's desire to see the club saved and to help ANYONE that can do that

Unless of course you look for conspiracy theories...........

To reply to Stu's opening post My reading of the situation was allegedly On Monday last week the foreign bidders MJ had found were probably prepared to pay a certain sum in cash. On Tuesday it is likely that their man met Fry and were told they needed more cash because of the amount that Pinnacle had offered On Wednesday they following the timelines they would have likely accessed the Due Dillgence data On Friday they were probably expecting to complete Monday/Tuesday On Monday at 3pm they were most likely booking flights to the UK On Monday at 8pm they appear to have decided not to travel and pulled out because the cash figure and cash flow was too high a risk based on the figures that Fry wanted And I have NO idea what happened in those 5 hours to change their minds, neither does anyone else involved Stu I don't think there was anything other than co-incidence, and I sit and wonder what might have happened IF Pinnacle had actually withdrawn BEFORE the cash figure was forced up. (But don't let that train of thought take too anyone away from their pre-conceptions and Pitchfork sharpening!)

To answer you and Trousers Why did this rumour emerge that something did happen...? So rather than charging down the detail and timings and stuff of the actual meeting, I was trying to question why would somebody have bothered to mention something like this into the "ether"? I'm sort of trying to step back and look at a general trend, rather than looking into the actual details of every single rumour. This just popped up in a conversation and it seemed as odd as the City rumours - so I'm sort of saying why and whom and for what reason, instead of looking for the dates and minutes and attendees... Does the general trend give an indication that someone in the background has stitched this all up? Or is playing games? Being a puppet master? Which leads to my general concern - was the whole admin thing done in such a way to make it actually impossible to buy the club? Probably not Was it done in such a way as to make it DIFFICULT to buy the club? Was it done in such a way as to make the admin last for a long time and earn higher fees? Was it a pre-packed stitch-up? (And another really way out there idea - NSS was a TL advocate and a Skate. Was the whole thing a Skate wind-up to kill the club?) And no I don't believe that for a minute but.. It's a general thought process trying to put together pieces of the jigsaw having been offline for a week

Actually the maths depended on the salary levels for the playing side. To have kept and added in order to produce a strong squad to push on for a playoff spot with the 10 points, and ST prices near to where fans would like them to be, then that revenue stream actually gets burned up very fast... It would be one hell of a gamble to take the club over without that level of resource to turn to over the next 12-24 months. If you recall, Rupert TRIED to run the club woithout the safety net once before and where did that get us?

Unfortunately because of NDA's we never get to see or hear who the actual money men (IF any) are. So that leaves - the "Believers" who understand that they want to stay confidential and that Fry has really done his due dilligence and the "Pitchfork sharpeners" who know for certain that there are no moneymen, just egos! Meanwhile, Syria is one of my favourite places down here to visit, great place for a different holiday. They are not members of the WTO and as such don't bother to comply with many world-wide patents etc. They have a locally produced generic Viagra which they call Vega. It is about 1/10th the cost of Viagra but is very good at keeping you up. That could one day be an interesting coincidence

Anyone who was a freaked out conspiracy theorist would be more worried by the trail of events, rather than by the up front Pantomime horses we've had. The club is only worth around 8mil, and yet anyone offering that figure has by the looks of it been kicked straight out with little respect or ceremony. Only those idiotic fans who have pushed their (alleged) moneymen to make an extra step have got anywhere. So question 1) is Why did we only get the Pantomime Horses (as everyone believes them to have been)? The club needs around 4 mil cash investment to be properly stabilised so that it should be a 12mil deal. Anyone looking at 2008/9 estimated figures will see OpEx at almost DOUBLE our Income..... which will scare many sensible people away, unless you have a good idea where you can cut costs and the wage bill. IMHO the PROBKEM seems to be that add ons and with the structure of the admin of SLH being totally geared to proving SFC Ltd is a going concern have pushed the price demanded by Fry up towards a technical value of 15mil, making it almost a 20mil deal. That is one hell of a lot of money for a L1 side in the current economic environment. So a lot of questions - WHY? Why did some non Director allegedly visit Roger Fry at Barclays a couple of days before our overdraft was mysteriously withdrawn? A story that I heard whhile sitting in the mud at Glasto and that still waits to be dropped like a WMD into the melting pot Why did a deal with the council to take over the Stadium appear to be on the table within days of admin but then vanished? Why did we learn that Salz would pay a figure (my memory recalls 4mil being mentioned on here) but only when all else failed? Why did Fry structure the admin in such a manner? Why did Pinnacle offer such a high CASH figure? Which then meant that anyone else coming in had to beat that number AND add other deferrals from cash flow making it almost impossible to do anything except asset strip simply to survive THIS season? Who and WHY actually leaked the information that Pinnacle's bid was "giving cause for concern". I got sh*t for it before, but that leak originated in the City of London. It reached me from a family friend who is an Insolvency Practicioner almost a week before it came out on here? And why when all legal counsel had been taken, did nobody from SFC Ltd actually meet with the FL BEFORE reaching completion? That is still a going concern so SURELY Dave Jones should have had that paperwork already to go? After all he IS being paid to run the CLUB. The cynic in me still thinks that is an awfully convenient excuse for an exit strategy.... IF you take a step back from running with the Pitchforks, as a couple of my non-Saints fans mates down here have done, then it really is a strange sequence of events and almost as if it is being played out to a plan. Anyway had a nice flight - them A380's are mighty nice pieces of machinery, and thanks EricofArabia for the 20 minute hold before landing here last night - you swine!

All checked in for my trip home and at the airport. here's a snippet for those who don't rush to collect pitchforks. ALLEGEDLY, IMHO Some foreign money people decided that SFC Ltd was worth a certain figure in cash and would leave the balance to be paid back by the club as "deferrals" to add up to a total bid figure. Unfortunately because somebody else had already offered a cash figure only that was some 35% higher than the guys wanted to risk on "a highly speculative gamble", somebody could not accept the bid even if in total money terms it was more than "those other people". Sadly that extra cash killed the ROI which killed the deal. Of course I don't know any of this as it is hard to access the internet while in a field watching The Prodigy, and of course where does one charge up their mobile when you are lucky to even see your feet for 2 days due to the mud. For the rest - go sharpen the pitchforks and run around - you know it will help. Meanwhile an airmiles upgrade to the upper deck on an Emirates A380 awaits. Bliss boarding time!

Ah good news, looking forward to coming back for the final doh that put the mockers on that. And finally before I rush to the airport for my flight back to Dubai, did anything come of those worrying rumours that were around about Pinnacle that some of us got a lot of stick about?

Anything interesting happen while I was sat in a field in Somerset for the weekend?

Then why did Fry not give them an extension? Why waste time and effort over the weekend by asking others to bid when it was simply a couple of minor issues? Start with how much a week he is charging and work backwards. Technically, for 50 quid more than Pinnacle offered somebody else can now gain a period of exclusivity. Oh and ask Derry why the Swiss were p*ssed off, then google Silverjet administration, then worry

There is no bid from MJ, the article makes that very clear Pinnacle are everybody's preferred bidders A very specific response was made to a very specific question from the Administrator. The Administrator publicly stated that he would be doing that, what a shock, he did. If Pinnacle walk away and the Administrator asks for a bid, then there is a clearly defined process that needs to be followed. IF that happens then the Administrators will not wish to talk solely to an "agent" but will insist on talking to the principles. He may be impossible to deal with but he is not a fool. IF the administrator has no bids then there is only one group who are prepared to allow Saints to take a 25 point penalty next season, and surprisingly they have fairly vocal friends on here. As for answering a question from Mr Law at the Echo, well, let us say the message was very clear but not read by many, but it was also not very clever from a timing perspective. And finally, no I don't have 15 million quid hanging around as my wife's divorce lawyer has already found out, and anyway I'll be sitting in the mud next weekend, sod the club

At least my posts are written by me, unlike you of late having them written by Salz & his cronies

Derry seems to be making some interesting and neutral points. I wonder who Mole is. Either a mate of Dainty Dave, Leon or AS would be my guess, man you really have an issue with someone you never acknowledge having met. Personally, I think and also hope that Pinnacle get it, they have the right structure publicly and they have wisdom in their communications. I know nothing about the Swiss, but again IF they have money and ambition then I wait like everyone else for them to come in. Then, finally, IF I have a choice between getting off my ass and doing something or having no club then TBH I think I would. But I truly hope not, I enjoy my life as it is. FFS I am working as a major part of the World's biggest ever Golf Tournament, why would I EVER want to swap THAT for a wet Tuesday in some obscure part of Yorkshire. It is really difficult knowing that IF things go wrong you have the contacts who COULD help, but want you to be involved. THIS IS WRONG, I never signed up for this cr*p. I expect MJ is now wondering whether he should have got off his ass. Seems it really isn't worth the effort. Sod it I'll sit and moan instead like all the other super heroes on here. What do I care, I'm off to see my mum tomorrow, stuff saving anyone I'll go watch Springsteen & White Lies at Glasto instead next weekend and pray Tony sorts it out. Fry is the problem, nobody believed me at the start of this even though I pointed out my sources were from the City. Just think Silverjet. Sod it and may the upgrade God smile on me tomorrow