what are potential buyers being asked to buy?

[lordswoodsaints]

is the administrator trying to sell the club as a whole package or is it trying to break it up into smaller pieces?

 

the council seems to have an interest in buying the stadium but are the leftovers attractive enough to persuade any potential buyers to part with their money?

 

could the councils interest be putting us in danger of not getting a buyer or is it going to oil the wheels of progress.i would imagine that the smaller bidders (the ones with less money) would be happy for the council to get involved but what about the wealthier bidders?

 

i cant make up my mind if the councils involvment is a good or bad thing,but they seem to be persistant in their desire to be involved and nobody else has really spoken up so far.

 

i would imagine it would go something like this....

 

1) a billionaire with unlimited funds (unlikely)

2) a millionaire with time on his hands (maybe)

3) a consortium of rich 'fans' and the council (probably)

4) a coventry style hedge fund thingy (probably)

5) a trio of individuals similar to what we have just got rid of (not good enough/more infighting?)

6) a fans consortium and the council (only as a last resort)

7) no buyer,no club

[alpine_saint]

is the administrator trying to sell the club as a whole package or is it trying to break it up into smaller pieces?

 

the council seems to have an interest in buying the stadium but are the leftovers attractive enough to persuade any potential buyers to part with their money?

 

could the councils interest be putting us in danger of not getting a buyer or is it going to oil the wheels of progress.i would imagine that the smaller bidders (the ones with less money) would be happy for the council to get involved but what about the wealthier bidders?

 

i cant make up my mind if the councils involvment is a good or bad thing,but they seem to be persistant in their desire to be involved and nobody else has really spoken up so far.

 

i would imagine it would go something like this....

 

1) a billionaire with unlimited funds (unlikely)

2) a millionaire with time on his hands (maybe)

3) a consortium of rich 'fans' and the council (probably)

4) a coventry style hedge fund thingy (probably)

5) a trio of individuals similar to what we have just got rid of (not good enough/more infighting?)

6) a fans consortium and the council (only as a last resort)

7) no buyer,no club

 

I've commented on this a couple of times. The physical assets belong to SLH, not SFC, which really only owns the player's contracts.

 

Therefore, considering the set of players we currently have :-( I dont think there is much of interest in SFC if the council buys SMS.

[Scummer]

Manchester City don't own their ground (the council do), doesn't seem to have prevented people buying them.

[alpine_saint]

Manchester City don't own their ground (the council do), doesn't seem to have prevented people buying them.

 

They have decent players and Premiership status. Two things we dont have.

[John B]

They have decent players and Premiership status. Two things we dont have.

 

Not owning the ground will not stop somebody buying us .

 

 

But not having Premiership Status may.

 

 

In fact over the last few years on SISU appears to want to buy us

[jonah]

Manchester City don't own their ground (the council do), doesn't seem to have prevented people buying them.

 

Quite, and in fact it was probably one of the more attractive elements of the deal as the Man City stadium deal was ricidulous - 86% funded by the Lottery and only 14% funded by the council. Very generous of the Lottery to provide the funding for a rent-free stadium for a private company.

 

If Saints can somehow end up with a similar deal - ie. rent-free up to say 25,000 crowds - then we will, like City, have a great advantage over other clubs. Some hope there though!

[Junior Mullet]

I would not normally have expected the council to want to get involved but with strong rumours that Aviva would be prepared to accept a lot less for the stadium than they are owed it would be a good investment for the council.

 

It would also be a good investment for anyone else buying the club which is why I don't think the council will buy it.

 

I suspect the administrator would prefer to see the stadium go to the new owner unless somehow there was a way that he could get more cash in by selling to the council (unlikley I think).

 

I suspect also that any new owner would want the stadium as part of the overall deal.

[Scummer]

Quite, and in fact it was probably one of the more attractive elements of the deal as the Man City stadium deal was ricidulous - 86% funded by the Lottery and only 14% funded by the council. Very generous of the Lottery to provide the funding for a rent-free stadium for a private company.

 

If Saints can somehow end up with a similar deal - ie. rent-free up to say 25,000 crowds - then we will, like City, have a great advantage over other clubs. Some hope there though!

 

Partially true, but I don't think the deal was quite as good as that for City. You are right about the original building costs, but apparently City paid £35M to convert the stadium into a football ground. So that's £35M for an asset they don't even own. They then have a 250 year lease from the council, so I'd assume they are paying some rent as well (maybe not as they paid for the redevelopment work).

[um pahars]

Very generous of the Lottery to provide the funding for a rent-free stadium for a private company.

 

1. Your lottery contributions aren't correct, as a much higher contribution was received from the City Council.

 

2. It's not rent free. On top of paying for the upkeep of maintenance and renewal costs as anchor tenants, MCFC have to pay a rental fee (estimated to be £2m+ in 2003 by Sport England as the rent starts at 50% of ticket revenues above 32,000)

 

3. MCFC had to pay £35M+ to turn it into a football stadium.

 

 

Is it still a good deal for MCFC???? maybe, maybe not, but it's a slightly different scenario from the one you're trying to paint.

[jonah]

Partially true, but I don't think the deal was quite as good as that for City. You are right about the original building costs, but apparently City paid £35M to convert the stadium into a football ground. So that's £35M for an asset they don't even own. They then have a 250 year lease from the council, so I'd assume they are paying some rent as well (maybe not as they paid for the redevelopment work).

 

Yes they paid £35m to convert it and add another 15k (?) seats, but that's still a significantly reduced price for a stadium of that ilk which cost £90m to build. But the more important part is that they do NOT pay any rent on the stadium, just maintenance costs, unless the attendance is above 32,500 at which point the council take a share of the additional revenue from tickets (but not merchandising, hostpitality, etc). In other words they have funded a stadium at about 25% of true cost, bit of a bargain really - not a complete gift, I agree, but pretty damn good all the same!

 

Of course the Lottery state that money should be used for public good and not for the gain of private companies, so why did they allow this? Sport England even had the cheek to suggest it didn't help Man City having the stadium rent-free for 25% of cost as the stadium does not provide part of the club's value - FFS, I'm sure Abu Dhabi were just a little interested in the costs to them of hosting the matches.

 

If Soton council are going to get involved, at least there is a nice precedent with which to apply pressure about rent.

[SaintDonkey]

I have a niggling fear that a fair proportion of the fabled 34 interested parties are only interested in assets like Staplewood and Jackson's farm and not in SFC.

 

We could easily see Saints being the left overs that noone wants with no ground and training facilities.