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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/feb/02/burnley-us-takeover-has-left-club-90m-worse-off-and-loaded-with-debt

 

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Burnley's US takeover has left club £90m worse off and loaded with debt

Heady recent wins at Liverpool and Arsenal have helped keep Sean Dyche’s Burnley team eight points above the Premier League relegation zone, but at Turf Moor the air is still clearing over a £170m US takeover which has used the club’s own money and loaded it with debt.

The new chairman Alan Pace, a former Wall Street financier leading the US consortium ALK Capital that bought the club, has been a very vocal proponent of energetic plans to build on Dyche’s achievements and improve the club’s historic home. But he has not explained in detail the deal to buy the club from its long-term local owners and directors, led by outgoing chairman Mike Garlick, who owned 49.24% of the shares, and John Banaszkiewicz, who had 28.2%.

Responding to questions from the Guardian, Pace, citing confidentiality, declined to confirm precisely how the multimillions of pounds paid to those outgoing Burnley shareholders have been financed, although ALK maintains that its plans are sustainable and it intends to invest new money in the club. Sources with knowledge of the deal did, however, confirm some essential elements: the initial payments to Garlick, Banaszkiewicz and the other sellers have been financed with a loan from MSD UK Holdings, the investment firm of the US tech magnate Michael Dell, said to be approximately £60m. The loan is charged like a mortgage on Turf Moor and the club itself, which will have to repay it from its own revenues, with  with interest at a rate ALK has not yet publicly stated.

Initial reports that the club’s own cash reserves have also been used to pay the selling shareholders were accurate, the Guardian understands. Sources with knowledge of the deal put that figure at between £30m-£40m of the club’s money.

The club’s cash was built up handsomely in the Premier League years since promotion in 2016, through careful husbandry by Garlick and his fellow owners. Burnley’s most recently published accounts, for the year to 30 June 2019, stated that it had no borrowings at all, and £42m in the bank. That makes it difficult not to conclude that just to pay for ALK to take over, the club is now approximately £90m worse off, with interest to pay.

The deal is understood to value Burnley at more than £200m – presumably if certain circumstances are met including continued Premier League status – and will be completed with the payment of further instalments. ALK has not confirmed how much of its own capital it has paid for this first instalment in addition to the loan and club cash paid out. Bloomberg reported last month that the total first payment to Garlick, Banaszkiewicz and their fellow sellers was £102m, and if three further instalments are not paid, there is a mechanism by which ALK’s shares in the club go back to the outgoing shareholders.

Pace, who spent considerable time looking for a club ALK could buy, previously coming close to purchasing Sheffield United, argues that Burnley have great potential to grow commercially from shrewd recruitment of players, stadium improvements and wider marketing of the club. He has insisted that their financial structure is sustainable, suggesting it will still be so even if Burnley are relegated to the comparatively straitened circumstances of the Championship.

Dell’s MSD has lent money to other English football clubs during the pandemic, including Southampton and Derby County, also secured by charges, but these loans were not taken out to finance takeovers. Southampton recently published their accounts for the 2019-20 financial year, declaring that their loan from MSD is £78.8m, at an annual interest rate of 9.14%. By comparison, interest on their ordinary bank loan is just 1%. Pace has declined to say whether Burnley’s MSD loan has a similar 9% interest rate, which would cost the club approximately £5.4m interest a year. As the loan was taken out on 31 December, when the takeover was concluded, the interest rate is likely to be disclosed in Burnley’s annual accounts for the current 2020-21 financial year, but they are not due to be published until June 2022.

 

 

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That MSD Holdings UK seem to loaning a lot of teams money to football teams, as well as those mentioned they also loaned money to Sunderland, initially that was reported as a takeover, which obviously turned out not to be the case. Perhaps found that they can make more out of football lending money to football clubs than buying one.

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19 hours ago, useless said:

That MSD Holdings UK seem to loaning a lot of teams money to football teams, as well as those mentioned they also loaned money to Sunderland, initially that was reported as a takeover, which obviously turned out not to be the case. Perhaps found that they can make more out of football lending money to football clubs than buying one.

That's an absolute certainty. I don't want to go so far as to say that nobody has ever made money out of buying a football club, because I'm sure there's an example somewhere in the world, but for most owners it's an enormous money sink.

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  • 3 months later...
1 hour ago, villalad21 said:

Bottom 3 miles off safety this season. Absolute miles.

I'd be absolutely terrified as a newly promoted club.

When you see the conversation about 55 points getting you further up the table most seasons that is the reason why, the bottom clubs have been garbage 

I really think "doing a Villa" will be the norm 

Swansea have 3 loan players in their starting line up and Wayne routledge... 

Watford will have the best chance but the other 2 will go back down, Brentford at least should be interesting 

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30 minutes ago, villa4europe said:

When you see the conversation about 55 points getting you further up the table most seasons that is the reason why, the bottom clubs have been garbage 

I really think "doing a Villa" will be the norm 

Swansea have 3 loan players in their starting line up and Wayne routledge... 

Watford will have the best chance but the other 2 will go back down, Brentford at least should be interesting 

Agreed.

Premier League has turned into a super league, and unless you have a world class coach you will have to spend 100 M if you want to have any realistic hopes for survival.

There won't be another Leeds or Wolves next season. I think all of the promoted clubs will go down.

I don't see any clear relegation candidates from the established PL clubs.

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3 hours ago, villalad21 said:

I don't see any clear relegation candidates from the established PL clubs.

I think you can make a case for anyone below us to be honest.

Newcastle have somehow finished 12th, but they were in relegation danger most of the season, went about 3 months winning 1 game, and have Steve Bruce as manager. Wolves are supposedly going to dial back the spending, and have no manager. Palace have a bunch of first-team players with expiring contracts, and have no manager. Southampton have been shit for about six months. Brighton might lose their manager. Despite finishing 17th, Burnley are probably the ones I feel securest about, given they always seem to shithouse their way to wins when it matters, but I guess if they sold McNeil and Wood got a serious injury . . .

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One thing I will say though -

Every season, there is a conversation in the relegation thread. Someone will say 'I reckon 30 points might be enough to stay up this year!' And I, and a number of other posters, will reply 'People say that every year, but every year the teams at the bottom find a way to win some games when it matters'.

Well, I'm sorry to everyone I disagreed with. This year, 30 points would have been enough to stay up. The bottom three were *really* shit this year.

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Reflecting further on the relegation battle this season, and the failures of the bottom 3 to take advantage of games against mid-table sides 'with nothing to play for', it suddenly occurs to me that one of the weirder quirks of the season is the bizarrely prominent role that Keinan Davis played in hammering some fairly final nails into both Fulham's and Albion's respective coffins.

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Sheffield United actually had a reasonable second half of the season in the end. They had what about 2 points at xmas? Finished on 23 so pretty much what Norwich did last season and 6 more than us and a few other bottom placed teams.

If they'd given WIlder the full season they might not have even finished bottom.

Don't think you can underestimate the quick turnaound between seasons as impacting on the promoted teams. We were moaning when we went up in play offs but we still had over 10 weeks to get ready for prem, Fulham had about 5 weeks between winning play off and first game and there was two week international break in that aswell.

Norwich and Watford had weeks to prepare, I think Watford will stay up as they just got complacent with the squad last time and let it get a bit too old.

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2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

One thing I will say though -

Every season, there is a conversation in the relegation thread. Someone will say 'I reckon 30 points might be enough to stay up this year!' And I, and a number of other posters, will reply 'People say that every year, but every year the teams at the bottom find a way to win some games when it matters'.

Well, I'm sorry to everyone I disagreed with. This year, 30 points would have been enough to stay up. The bottom three were *really* shit this year.

I said this at start of the season and i remember you were determined it wouldn't happen. In fairness I think Fulham would have done better if organised better not the manager but above him

I said it after we beat Fulham who were embarrassing but they bought a new defence the next week 

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