Time for a takeover

[Keener window-cleaner]

50 minutes ago, dounavilla said:

When you consider we are currently owned by a bankrupt, lying useless owner who has gambled the very existence of Aston Villa, id say the benchmark f9r a better owner would probably be set quite low for most fans right now.

Larry Ellison wont be incoming if that's where your thoughts are at.

I agree the benchmark is quite low, and I'd take almost anyone at the minute. But among other things having heard the Leeds story I'm a bit scared of who may take over. I would f.ex be afraid of a shady Hong Kong investment bank coming in. And being run by an American hedge fund like AC Milan wouldn't make me much happier either.

Fwiw I wouldn't be too fond of Ellison, regardless of how much money he has.

I would ideally prefer owners with a local connection, with long term thinking also regarding the ownership and with supporter involvement.  

[villan-scott]

44 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Ah, I see what's happened there, The Mirror IS the Evening Mail and as such this Mandaric link can now be completely ignored. 

Despite the fact there are direct quotes from Mandaric in The Mirror discussing his involvement in advising people in the takeover of Aston Villa?

[sidcow]

47 minutes ago, villan-scott said:

Despite the fact there are direct quotes from Mandaric in The Mirror discussing his involvement in advising people in the takeover of Aston Villa?

Frankly I don't believe anything witten in The Mirror or The Evening Mail. 

In fact whilst we are at it The Evening Mail printed on Friday that Mandaric had made a takeover offer but Xia turned it down because he didn't know where the money was coming from and now exactly the same organisation are saying go that he has categorically not made and offer but is offering to advise a consortium. Well which is it then Trinity Mirror Group? 

I am sorry but my faith in football journalism is non existent regardless of who they claim to quote. 

Edited July 15, 2018 by sidcow

[Rob182]

Has anyone suggested a protest using apples?

As the saying goes, an apple a day..

[Nabby]

Quote

 

BirminghamLive understands that the American group who wanted to invest in the club set out strict guidelines to Xia when they submitted a formal offer last month.

One of those was to set a fixed price tag of £40m on Grealish to act as a disincentive to sell.

 

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/revealed-how-aston-villas-cash-14915250

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

4 minutes ago, Nabby said:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/revealed-how-aston-villas-cash-14915250

Thank f*ck it indicates that the interested groups know how crucial he is to us.

I swear if we end up having to sell Grealish due to not wanting to accept investment or a takeover i'll.....

Do very bad things to things.

[blandy]

38 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

As the saying goes, an apple a day..

in one basket spoils the broth. Yes, that's very true. And a good analogy for our situation.

[Nigel]

36 minutes ago, Nabby said:

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/revealed-how-aston-villas-cash-14915250

Thats a crap idea, hoping to get a decent fee for one of our better players.....kick them out Tony!

[Stephen_Evans]

Not being wanted didn't stop old Deadly hanging around for 24 years during his second spell as Chairman.

Randy knew he wasn't interested from 2010 onwards but still hung on for 6 years as we started spinning around the plug hole.

And now Xia....why oh why do we attract these characters?!

[Jareth]

Call me a cynic but any group coming in needing the Grealish funds as working capital - well are they technically any different to what we have already got?

[thabucks]

17 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Call me a cynic but any group coming in needing the Grealish funds as working capital - well are they technically any different to what we have already got?

Wasn’t it working capital  for squad improvement ie player signings not paying off the bills ? Could be wrong but I thought that was there supposed intention. 

[Jareth]

1 hour ago, thabucks said:

Wasn’t it working capital  for squad improvement ie player signings not paying off the bills ? Could be wrong but I thought that was there supposed intention. 

Dunno either! I admit if they want to put people off buying jack then that sounds good to me. 

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

2 hours ago, Jareth said:

Call me a cynic but any group coming in needing the Grealish funds as working capital - well are they technically any different to what we have already got?

I'm sure in the article it said that was "as a disincentive" to sell him?

Hence the asking price.

[Hev]

I am just so disillusioned with it all. I had just about got my head round selling Jack but everyday brings yet more depressing news. Today apparently we cant even afford loan players and yet more of our stars are attracting interest. . I have no enthusiasm for the coming season at all. It is all just so sad. Renewed ST back in April. Little did we know what was awaiting us. Just awful. Last one left at VP turn out the lights. Fed up.

[NurembergVillan]

3 hours ago, Jareth said:

Call me a cynic but any group coming in needing the Grealish funds as working capital - well are they technically any different to what we have already got?

We've currently got two strands to our financial issues -

1) Cashflow.  Our outgoings are far greater than our income.  This will be as a result of wages, deferred payments on incoming transfers (like buying a sofa from DFS), running costs, loan repayments, etc.  We need to cut costs AND increase income or we're going to cease to exist as a football club.  Any new owner will be able to put some cash in for the short-term to keep the wolf from the door, but we need self-generated income because of -

2) FFP.  We are limited in the amount of loss we can make across a 3-year period.  We're making a lot of losses, and have done for the last 2 years.  This is year 3 and we're losing more money than ever.  Even if Sheikh Mansour got bored of Man City and decided to buy us, there's no way around this in the short-term without self-generated income.  We could be fined, docked points, or face a transfer embargo.  Or all three.

Both of the above, especially in combination, mean ANY new owner will likely have to sell off the family jewels.  Issue 1) would be resolved by a new owner, but the amount we're losing every month would mean huge sanctions as part of Issue 2).

So yes, any new owner could be different to what we've already got AND would need the Grealish funds because the current owner has made a right royal mess of things.

[eholm]

10 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

We've currently got two strands to our financial issues -

1) Cashflow.  Our outgoings are far greater than our income.  This will be as a result of wages, deferred payments on incoming transfers (like buying a sofa from DFS), running costs, loan repayments, etc.  We need to cut costs AND increase income or we're going to cease to exist as a football club.  Any new owner will be able to put some cash in for the short-term to keep the wolf from the door, but we need self-generated income because of -

2) FFP.  We are limited in the amount of loss we can make across a 3-year period.  We're making a lot of losses, and have done for the last 2 years.  This is year 3 and we're losing more money than ever.  Even if Sheikh Mansour got bored of Man City and decided to buy us, there's no way around this in the short-term without self-generated income.  We could be fined, docked points, or face a transfer embargo.  Or all three.

Both of the above, especially in combination, mean ANY new owner will likely have to sell off the family jewels.  Issue 1) would be resolved by a new owner, but the amount we're losing every month would mean huge sanctions as part of Issue 2).

So yes, any new owner could be different to what we've already got AND would need the Grealish funds because the current owner has made a right royal mess of things.

Accurate, concise summary. Describes our current position and future position perfectly. 

[Jareth]

56 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

Both of the above, especially in combination, mean ANY new owner will likely have to sell off the family jewels. 

Can you see any situation where they won't? It was just paper talk but the story implied one investor wanted to price Jack out of a move. 

[dn1982]

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

We've currently got two strands to our financial issues -

1) Cashflow.  Our outgoings are far greater than our income.  This will be as a result of wages, deferred payments on incoming transfers (like buying a sofa from DFS), running costs, loan repayments, etc.  We need to cut costs AND increase income or we're going to cease to exist as a football club.  Any new owner will be able to put some cash in for the short-term to keep the wolf from the door, but we need self-generated income because of -

2) FFP.  We are limited in the amount of loss we can make across a 3-year period.  We're making a lot of losses, and have done for the last 2 years.  This is year 3 and we're losing more money than ever.  Even if Sheikh Mansour got bored of Man City and decided to buy us, there's no way around this in the short-term without self-generated income.  We could be fined, docked points, or face a transfer embargo.  Or all three.

Both of the above, especially in combination, mean ANY new owner will likely have to sell off the family jewels.  Issue 1) would be resolved by a new owner, but the amount we're losing every month would mean huge sanctions as part of Issue 2).

So yes, any new owner could be different to what we've already got AND would need the Grealish funds because the current owner has made a right royal mess of things.

On FFP We have still got revenue streams untapped. For EG let’s pretend Xia or a new owners was loaded we’d could easily sign a lengthy stadium sponsorship deal and get the money upfront. Stand renaming etc are all possibilities. FFP was supposedly a £40m hold. So far we’ve lost £15m on wages from last year With our surplus players we could easily shift another £15m off the wage bill without touching the Crown Jewels or depleting the squad that much. We got about £7m in from Gollini and Gil and would probably get £10m in If we sold the likes of Jedinak Birkir Hogan and a few others so theoretically we could get up to £40m saved this year. Also FFP isn’t judged till March so we could gamble a bit till the Jan window and then sell if needed. It’s strange how a few weeks ago Round and that said things weren’t as bad as it seemed then in 2 weeks it’s a all gone tits up. 

[NurembergVillan]

20 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Can you see any situation where they won't? It was just paper talk but the story implied one investor wanted to price Jack out of a move. 

From my limited understanding of our financial position, no.  It could be that they've got other ideas, or that they don't want Xia selling him cheap to get some cash in when they think they can get more for him.  Certainly, it's possible they could make an initial cash injection so we don't have the bailiffs at the door at the end of the month which buys time to get top(ish) dollar for Jack.

The other possibility is that they think they could come in, make a real effort to cut costs and reduce losses and then hope the EFL take a lenient approach to FFP punishment.  They could plead that they've shown sensible ownership for a year, the previous two years were under Xia, and prior to that we signed a load of expensive crap under ANOTHER owner.

Whether that would fly, or whether they'd be dead excited to make an example of a big club, I don't know.  Given FFP is (supposedly) designed to encourage prudent, sustainable ownership you'd like to think that new owners who were showing that was their approach would be given some leeway.

[mikeyp102]

1 hour ago, Hev said:

Today apparently we cant even afford loan players and yet more of our stars are attracting interest. .

Where is this reported? I can’t imagine that’s true