jonah

I'm not sure you're in a position to make jokes about chips, Tris. As stated above, the beta correlation is probably highest between SOO and the AIM and that graph shows it too - correlation is obviously not absolute on any given time scale so it won't match exactly, but now do the same graph from June 2006 to present and you'll see it roughly follows.

It makes very little difference to the true value of their shares - I appreciate this has only been explained 17,254 times on this forum, but anyway. Meanwhile, it makes it far less likely that somebody will offer them enough for their shares for them to leave (ha ha ha?), so you're stuck with them for even longer (ha ha ha?). The people it does affect are the small shareholders (ha ha ha?) and it also affects the club's ability to raise/secure any finance (ha ha ha?).

Eh? When I have previously asked them a question (mostly in the last 15 years), they have generally answered that question to the best of their knowledge - what exactly do you expect, a guaranteed correct answer with professional indemnity insurance against which to claim if they were wrong? If you ask an accurate question, they will in my experience give you an accurate answer - the last question I asked which was "beyond the call of duty" related to something about Secure Retirement for which David Jones was good enough to delve into some old paperwork and get back to me with the answer. Talk about looking for a chance to criticise the club over nothing! Anyway Victor, you apparently knew nothing about any laws or regulations regarding pitch perimeters - I have just given you the answer. I expect that if you had asked someone at the club nicely they too would have told you the reasons - or are you disputing the UEFA regulations for 4 star venue accreditation?

I'm sure the club looked into the details just a little bit before they bought the stadium kit off eBay. FA regulations are for 1.83m perimeter absolute minimum (but preferably 2m). However to get UEFA 4 star venue accreditation you need 6m on the sidelines and 7.5m behind the goals. [Wouldn't the extra 27m of perimeter this provides make it cheaper to build a 32,500 stadium since there is more lower-level seating?] That's funny because they have nearly always been perfectly helpful when I've asked them questions - perhaps it's the way you ask :-)

No, what it confirms is that running a business with £50m turnover is not quite as simple as clicking buttons on Championship Manager III and saying "hmmm, this week let's have a Rights Issue!" in an attempt to break into the Champions League. Do you remember how Leeds tried to buy their way into that? Actually it was on S4E, and myself and GM both got the abuse for anti-Wilde posts at the time... the rabid herd were somewhat more blinkered to that though. Yes you did, as Lowe had explained many times he was always looking for investment and Wilde was knocking on doors he'd already knocked on - hence why nothing was found. We have always had a house broker (obviously) and they would always be on the ball enough to match investors with companies - it's how they make their money after all. Do you really still not understand the difference? Who was CEO when Crouch was unpaid chairman? And how much was he being paid? Look at the execs wage bill, not Crouch's. Absolutely, thank God someone had the sense to fix it before it was too late.

Ha, very good :-) I think the answer is that you should always delta hedge the first order risk and then you don't need to worry about the correlation. Isn't Delta Hedge that Aussie singer?

Hmm..let's see - market cap was less than £9m, just how much do you think a Rights Issue would have raised? And how do you think a Rights Issue would have been viewed by existing shareholders - do you think they would have been happy to be say 33% diluted in order to raise less than £4m? Do you realise that Rights Issues have to be underwritten - who exactly would have underwritten it bearing in mind the gob****es like Trant, Crouch and Wilde never put a penny in at the previous Rights Issue? Any real ideas? No? OK, moving on then... And even if they had done that, are you telling me - hang on, I'm laughing too much to type now - are you telling me that an extra £4m would have pushed us on to a guaranteed Champions League place? Would we have had *two* Rory Delaps in midfield that season? Since Lord Marland was one of those who underwrote the previous Open Offer (note, not a Rights Issue as they are too expensive), I'm sure Lowe had already considered that route - it's not like Wilde pressed the magic "Get Me Investment" button and found a single penny even after removing Lowe who was "blocking investment". Yes, it's called the Company Accounts. Super, shame you didn't bother to check him out before he shafted our club out of over £1m then eh? Although I do accept the main blame there lies with the Saints Trust who were too busy biting pillows to look at Companies House. You clearly have no idea how M&A works in the City - it wouldn't have mattered at all if someone was truly interested, eg. SISU. Well I don't think that's true - he let others play with it for 2 years... when he noticed it was all dented and damaged he decided to take it back before they completely broke it.

Try Googling the term "beta correlation". There is very little correlation between SLH and the FTSE - if anything you should be looking at the AIM All Share but even there there's bugger all correlation. It's a football share, it's not priced like the majority of shares even in stable economic times, let alone in the current climate.

I don't supopse at any time in the last 4 years of continually stating this you have ever actually suggested what this "investment" might be? As we've clearly seen, all the local gob****es like Wilde, Crouch and Trant suddenly become as tight as a gnat's chuff when it comes to the physical act of putting their money where their mouth is - FFS they wouldn't even put a penny into the club when they were chairmen! The "investment" myth is propagated by about 5 fans as it's an easy thing to say without the slightest clue of what the words actually mean. Investment basically comes in 2 forms - debt and equity. Are you saying Lowe didn't try hard enough to get us into more debt, or that nobody wanted more equity because he didn't look... despite Wilde, Seymour Pierce and everyone else failing to find it either? Good grief.

It says nothing about Lowe since his stance has been consistent - it says quite a lot about Wilde who clearly didn't have a clear plan or even a medium-term vision. Shock horror, businessman with less than 100% record! I can only assume most people on here have such trivial burger-flipping employment that they cannot possibly do anything wrong (apart from burn the burgers I guess). As Wilde found out, it's incredibly easy to pick holes left right and centre, it's actually a little bit more complex when you're the ones having to makes those decisions and shoulder the responsibility - just ask Godwin, the Saints Trust and the Ted Bates Trust.

Never mind ignore buttons, HTF do you stop people drawing with crayons as a form of reply instead of writing words? It's very simple in terms of who runs SLH PLC - you either get a businessman like Lowe who runs it as a business, or you get populist "businessmen" like the Chairman Formerly Known As Wilde et al who run it like a dogs dinner. The former will always be disliked by the hoi polloi but the alternative will bankrupt the club. It's all about making difficult decisions which are in the long term interest and most fans don't like that - it's a bit like Labour and the Tories, Labour spin with populist propaganda and practically bankrupt the country until the point where there's no choice but to bring back in the Tories. The proletariat tolerate them whilst they fix the economy and things are good, but at the first signs of a problem they want the populist Labour back in because they find them easier to relate to and also prefer the short-termism. Well that's my theory anyway :-)

I remember both matches, and whilst Wembley was obviously hugely disappointing I think the 4-1 drubbing was perhaps one of the finest home displays by Saints of all time - we absolutely murdered them for 90 minutes. At that time Forest were the best in Europe and with Shilton in goal they had gone something like 45 matches without conceeding more than 2 goals (hazy memory there though ;-)) - from what I remember Phil Boyer and Channon ripped them apart... I was gutted when we sold Boyer even if it was to bring in Keegan. PS. Nick Holmes goal from the final is here:

No, but they would have kept mortgage payments in the key inflation measurement such that when the housing bubble was created CPI would have risen and we'd have had a hike in interest rates to control it rather than cutting them in 2005 to further increase the bubble - and affordability is ultimately a more potent method of control than any of those other points - now who decided to change the CPI measurement to prevent that happening? Whether the fans want him is irrelevant. What the shareholders want is relevant - so unless fans want to risk their own cash to have a say at corporate level (rather than just on the pitch) why should they have a greater say than shareholders? And however you try to dress up "a large proportion" wanting him out, they are still a minority which is why he's still there. Hence no, it's not a strangehold it's a fair democratic decision - SFC socialism is the SISA fantasy, not a realistic option.

1. The "value" you are quoting is not a true market value at all 2. The housing bubble was inflated by Gordon "it's not my fault" Brown as the new UK economy 3. Someone with 5% shareholding doesn't have a "strangehold" - it's just an emotive misnoma used by people in an attempt to deride the majority decision of our shareholders

Does that mean that the club manage or own a third of its own shares? Not really, the "public hands" figure usually includes: * Directors' shareholdings * Related party shareholdings * Major shareholdings over 10% So looking at the major shareholdings here: http://www.hemscott.com/ir/soo/irEssentials.jsp If you add up those major shareholdings they total 36.07% if you exclude Crouch who isn't on the board - there's probably a bit more jiggery-pokery to get the exact number, eg. they probably don't include Cheviot but do include David Jones holding 5,230 and Andrew Cowen holding 472,491 as they are Directors and probably Windsor-Clive holding 466,190 as a related party?

I am a Director of my own companies because I want a say in how they are run (and because I own them of course) - however, I think you need to turn the question around to see why there is a difference. For someone to have the legal duties and responsibilities of being a Director of a company, do you want that person to believe in the future of the company and be tied to it, or do you just want them to be paid and have their interest aligned solely to their bank balance? To use a current analogy, would you have preferred Investment Bank execs to have been paid massive bonuses in cash or in shares? Whilst Fred Goodwin keeps his massive cash pot despite RBS losing £24bn, I bet RBS shareholders wish he had his interests more closely aligned to theirs. When Lehmans went bust their execs lost nearly all their wealth as they were tied up in shares - that focuses the mind (though obviously not enough in their cases, LOL). The scales are different of course, but just having paid employees running Saints leaves us open to peope like Hone who focus more on their potential financial rewards than the future good of the company itself. Besides all that, it is unworkable to suggest there is no representation on the board from major shareholders. That has to be there in some form, and if it's just a case of someone representing their views who happens not to personally hold shares well that's a bit of a sham - they really would be the shareholder by proxy, or a "puppet" to use a popular phrase here. Only in the last few years. When there was general contentment with progress ofthe club, nobody said a word really. It's only now that the main parties *disagree* on points of action that we have this problem - if we were run by a bunch of paid execs with no shares, how would this change? Those same shareholders would still be at loggerheads demanding how they each think the paid execs should run the company... same problems, only pushing the dissent down a level - that helps in a way, but is a logistical nightmare when as we've seen you can end up with the paid execs deciding to use their majority votes to do what the hell they want. Back to Hone and Co - why listen to the shareholders when there's a chance to earn big bucks flogging the company and ignoring the financial predicament.. it's just a job, right? Wes, did you bunk school the day they did having a sense of humour? It's not arrogance at all, it's the way football clubs ran for a hundred years. Nobody gave a toss who ran the club when Lawrie got us relegated in 74, nobody praised the board when we won the Cup in 76, nobody showed the slightest interest in dodgy share purchases in the 70s - people followed Saints to watch 11 men kick a ball. I don't expect my kids to dictate who runs Toys'R'Us just because they are customers - yes it's a bit different being a football club, but up until the 90s nobody cared about it.

Matt, you might keep changing your userids but it's always easy to recognise you again.

Your memory must be failing you Matt: "now a alternative is here [Wilde] then its time all proper Saints fans acted and got rid of the cancer thats killing our Club." That sounds like pretty unconditional support for Wilde. No warning about his rhetoric there. Or how about: "Wilde calls EGM just announced on Sky Sports News. Time to get the champers out and my season ticket renewal." Still fairly happy with the spin by all accounts. And not forgetting the abusive posting you made on saintslist (for which you got banned) which complained that I had been warning about Wilde from day one: "he and his crew have been on Wildes case since day one. WHY ??????" Are you sure you're not re-inventing history?

Wes, did you bunk school on the day they did reading? I have said before that I don't have a problem with Lowe leaving, and I have said for 3 years that I don't want Wilde involved at all. However, what I am saying (and Crouch too apparently to be fair) is that this is not the time to worry about it - why can't everyone just shut up about the boardroom and concentrate on the team... that's what being a fan used to be about. Nowadays you have a bunch of kids and people who probably aren't allowed sharp instruments trying to dictate how a PLC boardroom should be run. As for replacing the board with no shareholders at all, that is just plain daft - how can you have people running the club with no aligned interests? Show me a company where the board don't hold shares and I'll show you a disaster with people like Hone, Dulieu, Oldknow and Hoos taking their cash and running the company for the chance of a juicy takeover bonus. But I bet you can't find a listed company like that anyway. What does matter is the level of personal influence... hence why I think they should all sell down their holdings below 3% each.

Ah I see, I thought it was a bit odd!

I find it funny how we have suddenly reached a point where "peace and compromise for the club" is now synonymous with "Crouch getting a place on the board"! Where did that come from? Why, for the sake of peace and compromise, can't Crouch leave it alone for the rest of the season - as GM says, him being on the board won't win us any extra throw-ins. To address the question of why Lowe shouldn't step down in the name of "compromise" - either to be replaced with a proposed representative or completely - well that's not compromise, that's getting your own way. It doesn't matter if Crouch holds more shares, the majority of shareholders have put Lowe and Cowen in charge - if my shareholding in an oil company becomes the largest, do you think I can demand a place on the board and demand they start digging for gold? It's not carte blanche for setting the company's direction. He really can bleat about it til the cows come home but that's how it is. Of course there were no calls over the last 2 years for compromise and how it would be best if Wilde and Crouch brought Lowe back onto the board was there? I think the general "let's all just shut up til the season is finished" sentiment has been rapidly seized upon and twisted by the usual suspects into an excuse to get their own way in the name of harmony and compromise - the only true way to do that is to leave it all alone until May for a start.

Have you noticed how Gruffalo rhymes with Lowe? I don't think it's a coincidence (those who have read it will understand). I don't agree with 19Cafe about Crouch's presence on the board being the only acceptable outcome of the 3 working together - yes Crouch should have representation at board level (as Lowe should have had for the last 2 years), but if there are personal conflicts these would be reduced by Crouch proposing someone else to represent his views at board level. As a club we have continually matched personal shareholding with personal representation on the board and I think that accentuates the personal conflicts unnecessarily. As someone else said on another thread, if major shareholders were always entitled to a place on the board then hedge fund managers would have a hundred board meeting per week.

"Listen Rupert, if I put back the seat I had taken out, will you stop sitting on my lap?"

Because it's none of your business Matt. Perhaps I was too busy fixing printers at Bourton On The Water?

I'm not sure whether you really didn't understand my point or not, I'll assume not so I'll try to rephrase it. When there is someone better than Lowe then it makes sense to replace him - pretty much like we aim to improve our playing squad. "Better" constitutes 2 current requirements - firstly, that person has to be affordable; secondly, that person has to be competent enough to run the club. On the first point, our current financial predicament means that we can't afford to have 5 full time executive Directors running the club. AFAIA Cowen works part-time and is paid just £25k pa, and RL also works part-time and I believe that's unpaid (at least I've not heard anyone dispute this when previously stated, but happy to be corrected). Can we find another experienced CEO who wants to work part-time for £25k pa? I suggest not. Can we afford to return to paying a full-time CEO package (£150k+) at the present time? Again, I suggest not *if* we have the choice of a much cheaper option. On the second point, contrary to popular belief during the Go Wilde era, you can't just pluck any old former-CEO from the unemployment line - Hone, Oldknow, Dulieu and Hoos scored 0 out of 4 on that front and their combined cost was probably around 20 times what we are having to pay at the moment (that still makes me shudder). As for getting an inexperienced CEO in, I don't think that's a bad idea but it requires a significant hand-over period and this really is not the time to start on that sort of path. The point back then was that we needed someone with City and financial experience to deal with the stadium loans, financing, rights issue, etc - in that respect he was ideal. Conversely, a good time to have moved away to a less financial-oriented CEO was around 2003/2004 when finances were stable... but then it's difficult to see the point in doing that at that time and you could argue why rock the boat etc. And coming full circle, I think in our current financial predicament that Lowe is probably one of the best people to be tasked with sorting out the financial mess the club is in - that's not necessarily the same thing as being the best person to take the club forward in the medium to long term (though IMO he's better than the other major shareholders), but it's what we need in the short term. Back to the original subject, I wonder why they wanted to know?