John

Outbyeaster said:

the benificiary's of which have no real interest in this club, or it's future

Much the same as the current chairman then.

Billy Comer said:

"They might get it for a few million less than before. According to them before, it was 15 million overpriced."

And according to Ray Ranson as well, but the chairman will hear nothing of that!

spill the beans then...

the whole can....

Have you been watching the chairman eating his lunch again Pablo? :winkold:

People being made redundant are signing disclaimers so they dont talk to the press!!

And being paid for doing so Ginge?

When do you think the lid might be blown off what is being hidden at B6 Ginge?

The truth is out there...

Ellis has obviously managed to keep Petchey happy

If he has, I wonder how he has Denis?

Somebody very high in the management team at Aston Villa was recently removed from service a court case was set up for unfair dismissal and low and behold just before the case started an out of court agreement was made. You will never beat the board or the chairman

I wonder how much that cost the club? I can't see why we would settle out of court in our current financial situation unless we did have something to hide.

'Aren't you Doug Ellis, Chairman of Aston Villa?'

DE smiling.... 'Yes, thats me'

BD ' Mr.Ellis did you ever meet Frank Sinatra?'

De 'No, unfortunately not'

BD ' Never mind you soon will'

And now, the end is near;

And so I face the final curtain.....

There are 4 ways of valuing a company

1. Discounted future cash flows - the best and prefered method

2. Net assets

3. Share price based on PE ratios

4. Dividend pricing method

There is a fifth Richard.

5. What an 82 year old CEO & Chairman thinks it is worth for him to sell up. answer = priceless!

Birmingham are going to be put up for sale as Sullivan and Golds want out

They must be looking to make a bid for us then.

There must be something else that stops interested parties to take over...

Yes, there is Tricella it is our chairman & CEO!

WHY would Rothschild go to the tme and considerable expence of producing and publishing glossy materials to distribute world wide offering the club for sale?

It does not cost them anything Denis so they will do what they would need to do to sell the club and then charge the club for doing so in the expectation that it really is for sale. Whether the old man ever had any intention of selling to the consortium and whether he has any intention of selling if Rothschild do find a buyer is still open to question. He might have strung this bid a little further than he did the Ranson one for his own purposes and appointing Rothschild may just be another stunt that he sees as taking pressure off himself at no cost to himself. One thing is for sure, he really needs to go now for the sake of the future of the club. I think he knows that, but I think he will only go if it suits him to do so and at the present it seems that he has decided it does not (is he waiting for a last FA Cup appearance in the new royal box)?

Blandy wrote:

it's the club paying, not Ellis - it is after all Ellis's shares they're touting, on Ellis's behalf, at the behest of Ellis,

Very true, the club always foots the bill where he is concerned after all he is the self appointed Mr Aston Villa. :roll:

It is a question of who we all believe and each of us are free to make a choice there. I tend to believe that the deal could have been done if hurdles had not been added at each and every opportunity. I also tend to see no reason to take the word of a proven liar and the people he has appointed at B6 above the consortium that are still the only option available for change and have yet to pull the plug.

n relation to the Comer takeover, its just my personal opinion but im are not even convinced due diligence has started

I think Mr Neville has told us it has started and I see no reason to doubt him myself.

havent we merged with stutgart yet?

I think Shalke is the more likely Demitri. :winkold:

Ian said:

but 10% of shares are reckoned to missing and if they can't vote against you ....

Could they have gone missing in the same way that so much cash has in the past and if so, might the cash and the shares be resting in the same place? :winkold:

He is Arkwright and DOL is Granville

I think that Arkwright would take that as an insult B23avfc.

:winkold:

you could include home grown playersa and the potential increase in land value if planning permission was obtained. This could push the value up but cannot be capitalised

Trinity Tom, selling Baros after a good World Cup has already been mentioned by DO'L that would bring in some money as would selling Davis now he's on a lengthy contract to a club in the North who are short of midfield players and who would be sure to be interested if they heard the news that we need cash badly and might be willing to look at an offer. If Newcastle stay up they might be interested in Barry (a second home grown player) and with fees also likely for the likes of Delaney, Hendrie, JPA & Dj Dj, we could clear the say £20m loss that we can expect when the 12 month figures are declared by "profitable player trading". That would then leave the Youth Team to fill the gaps in our "small squad" (as a certain 82 year-old considers they are capable of doing) and the chairman could then use the money that our captain's departure (which would be certain when he observed that sort of drain on player resources) to pay off DO'L (which seems the prime objective for some fans) and appoint say David Platt (he's like a son to me you know).

That would service the debt, allow him to pay off Rothschilds for pointing to a strategy that he will want no part of and see us set for a nose dive into relegation. But it would secure our CEOs position at the club and anger the "men of the terraces" and this seems his ongoing aim. Without a takeover does anyone not see this or at the very least some of this as a possibility?

Oh and by the way, as far as capitalising the land we have as I recall we secured the OK to build a number of houses in B6 some months ago. What has happened there, are the foundations down yet? Are the millions coming in from the builders yet? Or has the penny dropped that nobody wants to buy a new property in Aston at an inflated price (& might that also apply to a football club)?

My vote is to keep this thread running until we know for sure that no takeover can happen. I had real hope when the early pages were written that we would by now have forward thinking new owners who were prepared to put some money into the club and to spend some of it in the Jan transfer window. But, what was in it for the chairman to tempt him into a quick sale?

they look like simpletons!

Well we have someone in charge now who now actualy is one Hoski!

I guess the point is John is whether for the inheritance it is best if he sells before or after his death or does it maake no real difference ?

I doubt at the moment that it makes much if any difference Ian. But, it would make a world of difference to our football club.

Ian,

Inheritance tax (IHT) kicks in at £263,000. The value of estates above that level is taxed at 40%, and Gordon Brown has ignored all pleas to whack up the threshold. Here's how our chairman could minimise the damage.

Trusts: Assets can be put in trust for children or grandchildren, which reduces tax liability.

Home owners: If “Deadly Towers” is owned as 'tenants in common' rather than 'joint tenants' (as most people do) then when one partner dies, their half can be left directly to (say) the children. The surviving spouse's estate is reduced, but they can still live in the house.

Gifts: He can give away £250 each year to as many people as he likes (which I take would be nobody). He can also give £3,000 a year to one or more recipients, and can roll over any unused allowance to the next tax year.

Seven-year rule: He can gift money or any other asset to anyone - and they won't count as part of his estate, so long as he survives at least seven years. (Taper relief may be available if he holds out for more than three years.) Has he left this too late?

Charity: Any donations left to charity, or even a political party, are tax-free. I would anticipate that charity would stop at his doorstep or could he claim AVFC are a charity as we make regular donations to his bank account!

I doubt that he actually believes that he will ever die (he may have come to some arrangement concerning this). :winkold: If he does accept that the sands of time will one day run out for him, I suspect he is unwilling to consider just how close that prospect may be. He has the wealth to get the best possible advice on how to avoid IHT if he chooses to seek it. But, I would anticipate that he does expect to take his money with him when the time comes.

Ps - I wonder if his relatives pay for their tickets? :roll: At a time when we are so short of cash any help would be most appreciated no matter how infrequently it might be forthcoming.

If this deal does not go through and I still think it might soon, I wonder whether the Russians might become interested again as I think it was suggested that they would be waiting in the wings for exactly that to happen? Would Rothschilds be less concerned about what was in it for our chairman after the deal was done than he was and would that present an opportunity that was not there before when he blocked a deal because of that?

From the BBC Football web-site:

Last week Villa appointed financial advisors Rothschild to act for them.

"I remain optimistic about our bid. As far as I'm aware we are the only bidder at the moment," Neville told BBC Sport.

Part of Rothschild's role will be to examine whether the consortium - Aston Villa Investments Limited - has the funds to buy the club.

I thought the last paragraph was particularly interesting. Looks like the deal might not be a dead parrot after all, has it just been resting? :winkold:

Daholteend said:

They did a good job for the Glazers, they can do it for AVFC

I think the Manchester United fans would question how good a deal for the club it was, only time will tell but I know I would prefer Glazer to what we have now.

I wonder does this mean Rothschilds will now take the money if it is in the best interests of the shareholders irrespective of whether it is also in the best long term interests of the club as well? Our chairman has always claimed in the past that he would want football men and I would assume people who can invest some real money into the club.

Demitri said:

how much are we paying the rothchilds? is this the money we could have used to buy bakke?

Some of it I would guess. But, if it rids us of you know who once and for all it will be money well spent!

I hope to hear something in the next 48 hours. As I have many times before.

I dont know why the comers arent speaking BUT the reason Doug isnt is annoying me

Why should the chairman let the mere "men of the terraces" know what is happening (it is his football club after all). Or might he not be well enough to speak lucidly on this subject? Let's hope we hear something by the middle of the week, after the Comer Bros. have met with their bankers.

Made up name? Made up story? It is the Mirror after all. :winkold:

To add fuel to my earlier post. In the Sports Argus Bill Howell wrote that our chairman was ready this week to offer a final ultimatum to Brian & Luke Comer to meet one final deadline. But he was also gripped with an overwhelming desire to call the whole deal off regardless. He claimed that our chairman is understood to have grown impatient as a series of deadlines have past and not been met. A source said, “The chairman has had enough. It is another 2 days here, another 3 days there. And still there is no sign of an offer. He has had enough and is ready to pull the plug on the whole deal”.

Now for the funny bit, Bill Howell adds, now Ellis’ patience appears to have snapped. He has had to keep one eye on the takeover and a painstaking due diligence book-keeping process while also trying to run every aspect of the day-to-day running of the club. And whose fault is that I wonder?