limpid

That's up to Samuelson. If I was him I'd spend it on something nice

Usually a business is profitable if it made a profit in its last retorting period. If he does spend a GBP2b to get us to that position, it's likely that the new markets of fans he'll create from our Chinese opportunities will allow him to make money operationally. And we'll obviously be worth a lot more if he sells us. What's an unknown for us looking from here is the value to his reputation in his home nation if this project succeeds. That might make GBP2b look like peanuts.

I think most clubs in the PL make a profit. He's put time windows around the first claim (which seems ambitious), but none around the second. He's not saying that we'll be profitable from day one. What makes you think that they are contradictory?

I would hope so. The discussion is about whether that reward should be via an shareholding or salary and bonuses.

I think you might be right, but I don't think you understand the words you are using What you describe are still shares in the company. They are non-voting, non-dividend shares, but they are still shares. At the end of the day such shares would be exactly the same as a contract clause saying that an individual will be paid some amount if the company is sold or merged, but would involve a lot more paperwork. It's simpler for everyone concerned if this payment is done through employment contracts rather that shareholding. In (tech) startups, issuing shares is routinely used as a tool to retain staff (which works while the market cap is rising) and to save cash for re-investment (forcing employees to invest in their employer). The reward to the business is greater than the extra costs at the point of sale. I don't think Xia has built his empire by making things harder for himself unnecessarily. I don't see that he needs to give away shares, so I don't think he will. I work for a billion pound turnover company and to the best of my knowledge none of the directors have shares.

It's not completely different, just more owners to deal with. Several of the stages of Lerner's purchase were after it was removed from the exchanges. Getting to the compulsory purchase threshold was a biggy. Regardless, either it's a significant enough share that Xia would want to worry about who he might end up in business with or it's too small in which case why would the Director join with ideas of how to maximise his money on departure. Easier just to negotiate the money he wants as part of his contract. Did they have the same degree of equity from one individual at the point the company was created, or was this as a result of staff retention / cash saving in later years? I don't think the comparison is a good one. I don't see any advantage to Xia giving away equity when he can recompense in other ways. It's not a sector where people expect an equity share.

and how do you pronounce that for us non-gaelic speakers?

That's Wyness's job, not Samuelson's.

I can't comment on your experience or how often you've been involved with multi million pound companies owned by one individual. Of course it complicates a sale. The buyer then has to deal with these "lawyers" (solicitors) rather than directly with Xai. Don't you remember how long and painful the process of Lerner buying us was? That was caused by having to deal with all the other owners; he couldn't just buy Ellis out.

I would be even more surprised if Xai allowed any of the board to have a stake. It just makes things complicated if he wants to sell in the future. It would be very unusual for a single owner to give appointed directors a stake in the company. I'm afraid that Pat Murphy mentioning "Vice-chairman" convinces me of nothing. The term is meaningless in such a small company. Samuelson's a director. Nothing more. His remit will be buying the small clubs Xia has mentioned numerous times. I doubt he'll be involved in running those. He'll be paid a salary and a bonus. If he keeps doing his job, the bonus will reflect that.

What stake? I've seen nothing to suggest he has a stake in the company. I've seen nothing to make me believe he's "vice-chairman" or even what that means.

No. In the described frame, the error bars around your jump accuracy would put the movement of the earth way down into the noise level. Even if you could guarantee that you could jump perfectly accurately, you are effectively in a closed system where the atmosphere is moving with the surface of the earth and therefore would move you with it when you jump.

"Hover" implies that you stay over the same ground. So yes. Your frame of reference here is yourself, so if you discount forces external to the described system, the only thing that can change is the nature of the "place" where you land. Due to many things (atomic decay, quantum fluctuations, other entropy) that can never be the exactly the same (and neither are you). If your context excludes those changes then you land in the same place.

Rather than teasing us all, can you say where you've seen that. If you can't link and quite then at just name the site or publication so someone else can.

A few have suggested that his job is not related to football activities in any way. Much like my HR director has nothing to do with building acquisition.

I'll let you know if they call. Unless they tell me I can't.

As far as I can tell, he's on the board of the holding company, presumably as a facilitator for purchasing the other clubs which will make up the group. I'm basing this on what I've read about him, the PR from the new regime and his previous involvements with football. He's there for his contacts. I don't think he'll be involved with the Villa part of the business as he appears to have no skills in that area.

Can you highlight how this answers any of my questions?

Show me EVIDENCE not things people are repeating on the internet. There is nothing to "reflect" on anyone unless we know some facts. Please share the facts you've found about these two other bids. Assuming they actually exist, was he anything more than a middleman? How do you know he was trying to take control? Everything I've read suggests he's a middleman. Even if he was trying to take control, what exactly is wrong with that?

How exactly does this reflect negatively on Samuelson? In this story, it's the buyers who failed to come up with the money, that's nothing to do with him. I'm calling it a story because there are no facts.

It's the same one I linked, except you'll need two extra power sockets. You really don't want to put these in extension leads.

I use four of them. IIRC they have their own thread in the tech room They work like ethernet without running cables. I have my wifi AP on one of these in the middle of the house and when the network is quiet I get pings around 6ms to the internet router.

He wasn't on the board, nor a member of Lerner's company.

Someone loves me enough to set up a fake twitter account. @limpidavfc I'm proper famous now [ Heads over to the Rubbish Claims to Fame thread ]