Clapham Saint

+1.

The more enquiries then better. As a general rule you can get a feel fairly early on as to whether an interested party is a serious option or not. This will be from anything from knowing about their background to the level of professional advise that they have taken so far (i.e. somebody that shows up having clearly made a serious start on business plans and likely legal issues stands out above the bloke that turns up on his own clearly not having a clue what he is doing). The other key thing that sorts the wheat from the chaff (as it were) is asking for proof of funds. This could be anything from a letter from a bank/High net worth individual stating that they have agreed in principal to fund the deal to a bank statement showing funds in an account to whatever. The administrator won't waste much time dealing with people who don't appear to have the means to follow through on any deal that is agreed, it just wastes time (and money) that could be spent dealing with the more serious bidders. As to whether we'll manage to get a deal... I would hope so. At the end of the day, in the doomsday scenario where we don't get a sale and SFC ceases to be: 1) Aviva will take a HUGE write off on the stadium. Due to the poor, housing/commercial property market and the proximity of the gas works the stadium is of virtually no value to anybody else and would be sold for penuts. 2) The training ground/jackson's farm will be sold off to the highest bidder. Most likely a developer. Again I wouldn't have thought that the realisations would be very impressive. 3) I'm not sure about the status of the players contracts/registrations. If the club is liquidated in theory these would be sold off. However as we are talking about people rather than (say) bits of furniture I'm not sure now this would work out. The players might all just be released on frees when their wages weren't paid. Again this would mean very little money making its way back to either Aviva or Barclays. Given that the above, any offer that provides a better return would be taken (after the usual haggling obviously). I'd like to think that would happen. If I had to put money on it I would go with us finding a buyer. Whether or not that buyer is able to secure the funds to invest in a new team and manager or not though is harder to guess. Sadly we're going to have to wait and see. Edit for moronic spelling

Pretty much spot on. Aviva will get the proceeds from any sale of the stadium. Which of Barclays and Aviva get the bulk of the proceeds from the sale of the shares of Southampton Football Club Limited will depend on the ranking and nature of their debentures. Employees claims are preferential for: 1) All accrued but untaken holiday (which is then paid) 2) arrears of wages in the last four months, but this is capped at £800 per employee. Employees are then unsecured creditors for everything else including things like: 1) Any further arrears of wages, 2) Redundnacy pay 3) Pay in lieu of notice. HTH [EDIT: the one other thing is that technially the administrator is working for ALL creditors rather than just the secureds. However in the real world, there is unlikely to be much to distribute to the unsecured creditors]

+1 People rabidly trying to lay all the blame on one hate figure's shoulders is misguided IMO. All have a share of the blame. Others will differ but for me Crouch hasn't been as bad as Lowe or Wilde. Which of Lowe or Wilde I dispise more fluctuates from week to week. Currently Wilde.

LOL! They were protecting themselves. No solicitor or IP that they were being advised by would have let them sell season tickets given the uncertainty surrounding teh club. By selling season tickets when they knew that there was a good chance of not being able to honour them exposes them to: 1) Wrongful trading 2) Paying a preference (i.e. repaying the Bank at the expense of other creditors) under (if memory serves) section 239 of the insolvency act. This could have resulted in the directors becoming PERSONALLY liable for repaying the season ticket holders. Do you honestly beleive that the boardroom discussion was: Wilde: "So shall we roll out the early bird season tickets, that will help the cash flow as we're only £110k short". Rupes: "Golly gosh no old bean! Although we are just £110k short of paying the bank what they have asked for it could be frightfully unfair on those poor supporters, I'd hate for them to lose out after the fantastic loyalty they've shown over the years." Although I don't think Lowe should be taking 100% of the blame (as some sem to) his the motivation for not collecting season ticket money was not to protect fans interests.

You may well be right. However 99.99% of posters on this forum don't and never will know the full story behind what happened. From the information that we have, although it will hopefully pay off it seems risky to me. Of course it could also be that something new comes to light that changes that but...

How do you see the tyre kickers will "ruin it".

Although I don't think I every abused you I wasn't in favour of administration. I don't feel "f**king stupid" though. I'm hopeful but still very nervous. This could (and hopefully will) turn out well in the long run, but it could also still end in disaster. Maybe I'm just a risk adverse accountant but I would still have looked to avoid admin for as long as possible.

How the F**k can you quibble about that!! If we get taken over ad the club has the money to pay them why shouldn't they be paid. They are taking a big risk in order to help out the club. If the club isn't sold there will be no money to pay them the wages that they have given up. Would you give up your wages so that your colleagues could be paid instead?

But that's my point. In reality nobody will re-possess anything from a company. The debenture gives them the right to appoint an administrator (which has happened). In an administration the excess of what they are owed will be an unsecured claim in the administration. Even if re-possetions did happen, if you were Aviva, would you chose the procedure whereby you didn't get another bite at the cherry or would you chose the one where you did? The fairness of this is obviously something which you could argue about but that's a separate discussion..

Although the idea of "handing back the keys" is a fairly common one it doesn't happen in reality. What do Aviva want with a 32,000 seater stadium? If they could simply take the deeds to the stadium they wouldn't be able to do anything with it and so it would effectively be worthless. Aviva hold a debenture over the stadium, which in essence gives them first call on any proceeds (after selling costs). If the proceeds are insufficient to repay the full amount that they are owed then the debt doesn't simply dissapear, it is still owed but as the Company is in administration has to be lumped in with everyopne else who doesn't have any (further) security. Otherwise why wouldn't everybody who found themselves in negative equity, businesses or individuals simply hand back the keys and walk away.

Baiscally, yes, except that Aviva wouldn't just write down the debt. The amount that they are short by (in your exaple £13m I think) would rank as an unsecured claim alongside the other creditors who would then get just 18p in the pound. There would also be some minor differences depending upon which debts sit within which Companies but ... meh

Has he ever been to a game?:smt102

There isn't a set way of doing it. An investor could make an offer to take over the mortgage in return for the ownership of the stadium. An investor could negotiate a new mortgage with (say) Lloyds for £5m and offer the administrators £5m for the stadium. If that is the highest offer it will be the one they have to take and Norwich Union will take a hit for the remaining £18m (give or take).

The administrators have a duty to all creditors. If they dragged it on to increase fees they would be breaching that duty. An administration also automatically ends after 1 year (if it makes it that far) unless the adminstrator makes an application to court for an extension, which he would have to justify.

Being techincal the fees are broken up and some may be paid first, some after the bank. In reality, yes they get paid first.

They will be charging fees. Mostly likely on a time costs basis (i.e. hourly rate). I have absolutely know idea what their hourly rates are but I would guess that it will vary depending on the grade of the each member of staff from say £100p/h for the lower grades to say £350? p/hour for the partners Just to confirm, although based on my experience this is complete GUESSWORK on my part. I don't actually know what they are charging. If you are a creditor (which techincally I suppose season ticket holders are) you could write to them and ask. If anybody wants the full details of the professional rules they can be found here: http://www.detini.gov.uk/cgi-bin/moreutil?utilid=431 Alternatively there is a summary here: http://www.kpmg.co.uk/pubs/services/A_Creditors'_Guide_to_Administrators'_Fees.pdf

Sting lives just outside Salisbury...

The council don't have to buy the stadium to influence the outcome. If they were to let it be known that permision will not be granted for any change in use to either commercial or residential then the amount of money that a prospective purchaser is going to be willing to pay will fall through the floor. Accordingly Nowrich Union (Aviva) will not be able to get as much money for it and will facing a bigger loss than they might be hoping for. The Council can't force anybody to do anything but they can make life awkward for people.

A consortium would have to come up with: 1) more money than any rival bids to buy the club 2) enough working capital to pay player wages, rent the stadium (assuming we couldn't buy it) and pay other overheads. £2000 from 2000 ans would be £4m. We could probably buy the club would would be bust again not long afterwards..... Edit: (All a guess of course, would need to do some proper due dilligence to be sure and that would probably cost £100k on its own)

"cash to the end of the season" will likely include expected gate receipts from the last few games and possibly whatever prize money we will be due for our final league position. If they shut the doors today they wouldn't get any of this. Also sometimes the Bank will agree to fund a trading loss for a period of time in oder to be able to help the administrators get a higher price in the long run. The choice is between letting the administrator (who will set up a brand new bank account for the administration period as the Club's account will be frozen) have an overdraft to trade to the end of the season and hopefully sell the club for a bit extra or not let teh administrator have any room to work with and force him to shut down the Company on day 1 resulting in not being able to sell the club at all. Not saying this is definately what is going on but it would not be ususal.

No it wasn't.

Red and White, Stipes or quarters Saints

Keeping on some of the financial staff is the norm. As an administrator coming into a compnay and having to churn through all the books and records is a great deal less dificult and time consuming if the person who maintained them is still around.

Not think at all. Lots of people get confused by this. I haven't bothered to check the exact ownership details but in basic terms you can break the current club structure down into 3 main parts. 1) The "business" of "Southampton Football Club". This is comprises the tangible and intangible assets and liabilities that make up what we would call the "the club". It is not a company, but the assets that a company owns. This is owned by: 2) Southampton Football Club Limited - A company This is owned by: 3) Southampton Leisure Holdings plc - which is listed on the AIM market and in in Administration. An Aministrator of Southampton Leisure Holdings Plc can sell the shares of Southampton Football Club Limited, which are owned by Southampton Leisure Holdings Plc to a new investor. N.B. I beleive there may also be a separate company which owns the stadium but I haven't actually bothered to check. Does that make more sense?