Grim

[dsr]

Thanks, Pete. If I may, will you allow me to amend your conclusion. I believe that Alan Pace and his ALK colleagues believe they are "clever enough to succeed." For myself, I feel that it is possible that they've got it all worked out and they will be successful. There are, of course, lots of things that I don't have knowledge of. The biggest one of these is that before Sept/Oct 2020 I'd never heard of Alan Pace or any of his colleagues. Equally, I'd no knowledge of MSD, except that I might have seen mention of MSD in financing for Southampton, Derby or Sunderland a little earlier that year.

I can be confident that MSD have got to know Alan Pace very well. Maybe MSD knew Alan Pace before his name appeared with respect to Burnley? Maybe MSD and ALK had had discussions re the earlier ALK attempt to buy Sheff Utd? For MSD to lend money to Alan Pace's business requires MSD to be convinced that the ALK business proposals are sound and within that context I have confidence Alan Pace knows what he is aiming to do. But, there are risks and there are no guarantees.

This may be counterintuitive for some, however, for me, Alan Pace being able to borrow money from MSD is one of the strongest reasons that makes ALK's ownership of Burnley credible.

If MSD were happy to lend to Alan Pace because they know him and believe his business proposals are sound, they wouldn't need security from BFC. The reason they were happy to lend to ALK was because they know that a business with £60m guaranteed income will be able to pay them off if Alan Pace's high-risk business proposals don't work out.

[Paul Waine]

If MSD were happy to lend to Alan Pace because they know him and believe his business proposals are sound, they wouldn't need security from BFC. The reason they were happy to lend to ALK was because they know that a business with £60m guaranteed income will be able to pay them off if Alan Pace's high-risk business proposals don't work out.

Not quite, dsr. The first rule of lending is to know what the borrower plans to do with the money and how the lender will repay the loan. Most of us will have had a mortgage at some time. Why do you think your mortgage provider asks about your earnings and your outgoings? Your mortgage lender doesn't want to become the owner of the house you are buying, but, these are significant amounts of money, whether we are discussing a residential mortgage or MSD's loans to football clubs. Yes, the security is there to back up the loan, but without a viable plan to be able to manage the loan without the lender needing to appoint a receiver all the better.

[dsr]

Not quite, dsr. The first rule of lending is to know what the borrower plans to do with the money and how the lender will repay the loan. Most of us will have had a mortgage at some time. Why do you think your mortgage provider asks about your earnings and your outgoings? Your mortgage lender doesn't want to become the owner of the house you are buying, but, these are significant amounts of money, whether we are discussing a residential mortgage or MSD's loans to football clubs. Yes, the security is there to back up the loan, but without a viable plan to be able to manage the loan without the lender needing to appoint a receiver all the better.

When a loan is secured by a third party guarantor, the lender is less concerned about the borrower's ability to pay. If young Mr. Beckham wants to borrow some money and Mr. Beckham senior guarantees the loan, Beckham junior won't have to go into such detail about how to repay it. The reason being that while the lender doesn't want the hassle and risk of repossessinng the house, if they get repaid in cash they don't care who the cash comes from.

[KRBFC]

Not the best example, the cash wasn't being used to sign players, so in that respect it is equivalent.

I'll stop shouting when people stop saying the club is in debt, or I see some accounts that show that it is.

And I'm not sure when I said I'm not concerned about it. I acknowledge its a risk - a big risk, the risk is no doubt bigger than the potential rewards - but its done and there's nothing we can do about it so I'd rather be optimistic and believe that ALK will succeed in their objectives which will ultimately be good for the club.

Where is the £6-8m a year interest coming from? ALK's pocket or BFC's cash flow?

[aggi]

...

This may be counterintuitive for some, however, for me, Alan Pace being able to borrow money from MSD is one of the strongest reasons that makes ALK's ownership of Burnley credible.

I would, to a large extent, agree with this idea. Although there is a counter argument that they were also happy to lend to Derby.

[Chester Perry]

Where is the £6-8m a year interest coming from? ALK's pocket or BFC's cash flow?

Analysts project £6m - £7m a year in interest if it was being paid immediately.

Given that MSD know that ALK/VSL have to make their instalments (I estimate the 4 average around £18m each) to the former major shareholders, there may be an agreement in place to defer interest payments until after that completes. That would entail rolling it into the debt and possibly a higher rate thereafter - it would certainly explain much of Pace's wording when describing the loan in his meet and greet press round back in January 2021.

It may also go some way to explaining why MSD put £65m out on the loan market February 4 2021 when previous examples saw them put significantly less than 100% of Southampton's circa £79m to the loan market in October 2020. All the noise was of a £60m exercised loan by ALK, though that started as £80m, rolling up close to 3 years of initial interest payments and fees could easily take the final loan amount to Circa £80m.

Of course for that to happen MSD would have to have significant confidence in the business plan and the permutations that circumstance could play on it. Which takes us back to where Paul Waine is on the financing.

[Paul Waine]

When a loan is secured by a third party guarantor, the lender is less concerned about the borrower's ability to pay. If young Mr. Beckham wants to borrow some money and Mr. Beckham senior guarantees the loan, Beckham junior won't have to go into such detail about how to repay it. The reason being that while the lender doesn't want the hassle and risk of repossessinng the house, if they get repaid in cash they don't care who the cash comes from.

Guarantees and security aren't the same things, dsr. The Calder Vale debenture - in the public domain on Companies House - mentions a Guarantor for the MSD loan. We don't know who this Guarantor is, it may be Alan Pace and/or other members of the ALK team - the media has reported Mel Morris has issued his personal guarantee for the Derby County loans - the details will be in the Term Loan Agreement, which is also mentioned in the debenture. However, the TLA itself is not in the public domain.

When I was working, any time I required a guarantee for another entity's obligation I also checked on the credit status of the guarantor.

[Lancasterclaret]

This thread is really informative

Just thought I'd say thanks

[Paul Waine]

I would, to a large extent, agree with this idea. Although there is a counter argument that they were also happy to lend to Derby.

Good point, aggi. MSD initially only lent Derby £15 million. They have since increased this to £20 million, indications are that the extra £5 million was added after DC filed for administration. Based on MSD's accounts, 31-Dec-2020, they were comfortable with the £15 million loan exposure. Yes, DC are in a "big financial mess," and, in many ways a much bigger club than Burnley. Some how, MSD have lent Burnley £60 million, 3 times the amount the lent to DC and Mel Morris. Mel Morris's wealth was put at somewhere around £500 million a couple of years ago.

[dsr]

Good point, aggi. MSD initially only lent Derby £15 million. They have since increased this to £20 million, indications are that the extra £5 million was added after DC filed for administration. Based on MSD's accounts, 31-Dec-2020, they were comfortable with the £15 million loan exposure. Yes, DC are in a "big financial mess," and, in many ways a much bigger club than Burnley. Some how, MSD have lent Burnley £60 million, 3 times the amount the lent to DC and Mel Morris. Mel Morris's wealth was put at somewhere around £500 million a couple of years ago.

Burnley have guaranteed parachute money and Derby don't.

[Vegas Claret]

don't worry lads, we are doing a Leicester

[Paul Waine]

Burnley have guaranteed parachute money and Derby don't.

Happy to agree with you on this fact, dsr.

Happier still if the club is guaranteed Premier League tv money again next season.

BBC this afternoon is reporting further developments Derby County: EFL rejects attempts by club to use insolvency laws to settle some debts

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60253222

UTC

[Chester Perry]

An interesting set of (limited) accounts from one of Mike Garlick's ownership vehicles today - Clarets Go Large Limited which sold 30,603 of its 34.959 shares in the club to ALK/VSL bringing (just less than £20k short) of £50.6m when payments are complete.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Meanwhile, the cash position as of May 31 2021 is £43,229,612 - none was declared the previous year

if my understandings are correct, there will be a profit of close to (just over £20k more than) £44.4m on these shares from the original purchase price of £6,160,753

FYI
I am close to finalising my corrected and much extended article now (it is likely to be over 30 pages long now with all the additional material going into it, which makes it more of a report really.

[randomclaret2]

An interesting set of (limited) accounts from one of Mike Garlick's ownership vehicles today - Clarets Go Large Limited which sold 30,603 of its 34.959 shares in the club to ALK/VSL bringing (just less than £20k short) of £50.6m when payments are complete.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Meanwhile, the cash position as of May 31 2021 is £43,229,612 - none was declared the previous year

if my understandings are correct, there will be a profit of close to (just over £20k more than) £44.4m on these shares from the original purchase price of £6,160,753

FYI
I am close to finalising my corrected and much extended article now (it is likely to be over 30 pages long now with all the additional material going into it, which makes it more of a report really.

The thread about what the club has to show for its 6 years in the PL came up with various suggestions. At least we can now see what our former Chairman has to show for it.

[Chester Perry]

The thread about what the club has to show for its 6 years in the PL came up with various suggestions. At least we can now see what our former Chairman has to show for it.

Not yet he hasn't - the revised/corrected and extended article will explain why - by my calculations he and John B will not be using/spending much of the proceeds until January 2026 at the earliest

[Dark Cloud]

It might be me, but I'm wondering whether over a number of months they've (ALK) reached the same conclusion as most of us, namely that we're almost certain to go down and that will drive a coach and horses through any future plans they had. Plus it will scupper any chances of getting other potential investors on board. ALK are reluctant to throw more money in as they haven't got it and if they had, they'd consider it good money after bad. Fingers burned and looking for the rip cord to bail out.

[Chester Perry]

An interesting set of (limited) accounts from one of Mike Garlick's ownership vehicles today - Clarets Go Large Limited which sold 30,603 of its 34.959 shares in the club to ALK/VSL bringing (just less than £20k short) of £50.6m when payments are complete.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Meanwhile, the cash position as of May 31 2021 is £43,229,612 - none was declared the previous year

if my understandings are correct, there will be a profit of close to (just over £20k more than) £44.4m on these shares from the original purchase price of £6,160,753

FYI
I am close to finalising my corrected and much extended article now (it is likely to be over 30 pages long now with all the additional material going into it, which makes it more of a report really.

Not yet he hasn't - the revised/corrected and extended article will explain why - by my calculations he and John B will not be using/spending much of the proceeds until January 2026 at the earliest

I will add that this represents a 721% return on investment - and before people get too angry (not really a reason why they should) fans who got their £200 share in lieu of a ticket in 2010 have seen an 849.5% return if they sold to ALK/VSL,

[Chester Perry]

It might be me, but I'm wondering whether over a number of months they've (ALK) reached the same conclusion as most of us, namely that we're almost certain to go down and that will drive a coach and horses through any future plans they had. Plus it will scupper any chances of getting other potential investors on board. ALK are reluctant to throw more money in as they haven't got it and if they had, they'd consider it good money after bad. Fingers burned and looking for the rip cord to bail out.

not convinced of that, for all the difficulties they are having finding the investors they are willing to work with and that are willing to work with them. For now their biggest investors remain Mike G and John B as previously stated

[aggi]

An interesting set of (limited) accounts from one of Mike Garlick's ownership vehicles today - Clarets Go Large Limited which sold 30,603 of its 34.959 shares in the club to ALK/VSL bringing (just less than £20k short) of £50.6m when payments are complete.

https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Meanwhile, the cash position as of May 31 2021 is £43,229,612 - none was declared the previous year

if my understandings are correct, there will be a profit of close to (just over £20k more than) £44.4m on these shares from the original purchase price of £6,160,753

FYI
I am close to finalising my corrected and much extended article now (it is likely to be over 30 pages long now with all the additional material going into it, which makes it more of a report really.

Interesting set of accounts indeed, particularly when contrasted with John B's company with the December y/e.

[Chester Perry]

While researching for the corrected/revised/extended article I came across this, it is the kind of thing I used to regularly post on the MMT- I find it interesting primarily because it talks about the seemingly unabated appetite for European Football Investment from American sources - an appetite ALK/VSL appear to struggle to take advantage of when looking for new partners, which is very much the crux of what their model is based on - as will become explicit when my article is published. I do wonder why no one seems concerned as to when the point of being able to flip readily for a profit is no longer there, after all it always does occur in overheated markets

https://www.theringer.com/soccer/2022/1 ... ean-soccer

A New Wave of American Buyers Has Set Its Sights on European Soccer
For wealthy investors priced out of the North American professional sports market, the Old Continent represents a ripe opportunity—or so they think

By Leander Schaerlaeckens Jan 27, 2022, 6:00am EST

LastLast May, Venezia FC celebrated its improbable return to Italy’s top tier, Serie A, for the first time in exactly two decades, completing a remarkable five-year rise from the fourth division. Players celebrated with a ferry ride through Venice’s storied canals, steered by gondoliers wearing traditional candy cane uniforms. Among those celebrating in the victory parade was Duncan Niederauer, the club’s American president and majority shareholder since 2020. Niederauer, the former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, had been part of an American ownership group that first bought into Venezia in 2018, two years after the club emerged from its third bankruptcy in a decade.

Niederauer liked soccer, but mostly he and his wife liked Venice. Co-owning its beleaguered team was an excuse to visit their favorite city more often. Niederauer is a different kind of owner than the first wave of Americans who swept over European soccer more than a decade ago, snapping up many of the glamor clubs, especially in England’s Premier League. He belongs to a wealthy investor class that is nevertheless priced out of the highest levels of North American and European sports. Armed with historically cheap money, Americans like Niederauer are seizing upon a ripe investment landscape on the Old Continent by targeting lower-level clubs either in search of buyers or desperate for equity investment—teams that crept up to the financial precipice even before the pandemic.

Americans owning European soccer teams is hardly new. Eleven of the 40 top-tier clubs in England and Italy are under American ownership, and Americans own first-division teams in France and Spain. If you count minority owners, almost half of English Premier League teams are partly controlled by Americans. And that isn’t counting Fulham, which was relegated to the Championship last season, or Southampton, an American-backed takeover of which fell through at the 11th hour last summer. However, Americans have also recently taken an interest in teams that play in lower tiers or in leagues that don’t have the same prestige as the Premier League.

Some have taken to stockpiling clubs. At least three American owners are building consortia of clubs across different countries, hedging their bets, and creating economies of scale. David Blitzer, who controls pieces of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils, also owns part or all of England’s Crystal Palace and teams in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Major League Soccer. Robert Platek owns Serie A’s Spezia and teams in Denmark and Portugal—he also attempted a takeover of fallen English titan Sunderland. Paul Conway built a portfolio consisting of Championship club Barnsley and teams in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Switzerland and is pursuing clubs in Scotland. (Blitzer, Platek, and Conway didn’t respond to interview requests for this story.)

Niederauer’s plans don’t go that far. He’s happy with the charming club he bought into at a bargain-basement price and steered back into one of Europe’s legacy leagues.

“There is an emotional attachment,” he says. “When my wife and I don’t remember each other’s name 30 years from now, we will never forget floating down the canal with the players in the victory parade after we got promoted.”

There’s a significant difference in the competitive structure of European soccer compared to American sports that helps explain the economic opportunity sought by these investors.

European professional soccer resembles a ladder. Each rung represents a different level of competition. In England, there are 11 rungs: the lucrative Premier League sits at the top, consisting of 20 teams, with a kind of free-for-all beneath it. Rungs can be climbed via promotion or descended via relegation; it’s an open pyramid, in the parlance. Each ascendent level brings new spoils; a step down means a loss in earnings and prestige. All the teams exist on the same continuum, something of a meritocratic utopia. Ostensibly, all that stands between soccer’s proletariat and the elite are the resources to obtain and retain talent.

To the sport’s 1 percent, this upward mobility represents a threat it has tried to foreclose with gambits like the European Super League, a cynical attempt to pull up the ladder behind them. To a new wave of American investors, it’s an opportunity. Whereas MLS is one of the world’s few soccer leagues without a promotion-and-relegation mechanism, dooming most minor league teams, a European soccer club can rise in accordance with the cash and know-how that backs it.

“I think here in Europe it’s much more attainable to find ways to make it into a real business,” says Jordan Gardner, the American co-owner and chairman of FC Helsingor in Denmark’s second tier. “It’s still difficult, don’t get me wrong. But if you can be robust in the player transfer market and run your businesses more efficiently—of course, if you can get promoted, there are financial return opportunities there.”

Venezia’s climb up the Italian soccer ladder began in 2016, when it was promoted from Serie D, the country’s fourth division, to Serie C, culminating in its promotion to Serie A by 2021.

Niederauer says that his ownership group has spent between 25 million and 35 million euros on the club so far, between its acquisition and subsequent cash injections. That bought them a club that climbed three tiers and, now, has a solid chance to secure a second season in Serie A. (More than halfway through the season, Venezia sits in 17th place, just above the relegation zone.)

“We thought the entry point, taking into account what we knew we would have to inject to turn things around, there was still a massive value-creation opportunity,” Niederauer says.

Part of the new ownership’s plan included a revamped marketing strategy, hinging on a bet that younger soccer fans were becoming both more cosmopolitan and agnostic in choosing the teams they followed, gravitating not necessarily to the biggest brands but the teams whose identities spoke to them. Gaining visibility was a significant challenge given the club had a scant social media presence and its games weren’t broadcast on television. Ted Philipakos, the club’s American chief marketing officer, chuckles at the memory of when he started with Venezia. “Over time, it built very organically,” Philipakos says. “We opened the Instagram account and the English-language Twitter account—I mean, at zero followers. We didn’t have big budgets to plow money into sponsored ads and influencers. We did absolutely nothing like that. Very, very, very modest beginnings and slow steps. We had a strong sense of what the club should be, could be, how it should be presented. Even if it wasn’t immediate, over time we had the confidence that people would ultimately be moved by what we were doing and come to us.”

By the time the club returned to Serie A, it had sharpened its brand with distinctive uniforms and built a following that stretched far beyond the region. In the 2020-21 season, while Venezia still played in Serie B, its merchandise revenue cracked the top 10 of Italian clubs, including those in Serie A. This year, it anticipates selling at least five times as much merch. Remarkably, it estimates that 95 percent of those sales come from abroad.

On the playing side, Venezia took a contrarian approach to competing in Serie A. If the Oakland Athletics’ secret sauce in the Moneyball movement was its analytics-driven approach to finding and exploiting inefficiencies in the marketplace, Venezia’s is stability.

“We thought if you could build a different relationship with the city, the fan base, and, most importantly, the coaches and players—that felt more like a family, more nurturing, more supportive, more inclusive—magic could happen,” Niederauer says. “That was the hypothesis.”

In a league where chaotic short-termism and mismanagement are commonplace, Niederauer sees stability as a competitive advantage. Happy and secure employees perform better. That meant extending players’ contracts earlier in their existing deals. “It takes a lot of drama and anxiety out of the equation,” he says. Niederauer also said that if the team lost a few consecutive games, ownership wouldn’t publicly pressure the manager or criticize players. When he told the players that he, as club president, considered himself an employee of theirs, working to make them comfortable, they were certain that something was getting lost in translation.

It’s a novel approach to competing in Serie A. Elsewhere in the organization, Venezia has adopted boilerplate best practices for a club that isn’t on even financial footing with its competition. The club engages deeply with analytics—an operation run by Alex Menta, a 30-year-old from Philadelphia who cold-emailed Niederauer and is now “basically the de facto general manager” according to the team owner—and tries to buy young, promising players who might bring in profits from the transfer market.

“Because there is no regulation, there is no salary cap, there is no period where the club has control [of a player’s rights before they reach free agency, like in Major League Baseball], it is unfettered,” Niederauer says. “So then it’s how you manage the unfettered nature of it. We have the lowest payroll in Serie A, we have the lowest-paid coach, we have the youngest coach, we have the coach with the longest contract, we have one of the youngest teams in Serie A and we have more people on long-term deals than I bet almost any other club does. We think, for the stage that we’re at right now, that’s the only way to proceed at the moment. We’re not going to quadruple our payroll.”

The club consciously made itself a Serie A outlier in almost every way in that it has steady management with a slow trigger in a league filled with impulsive, quick-trigger clubs. “That’s not normal here,” Niederauer says. “You can move up more quickly if you do it the right way than in some other leagues because of the organizational issues that some of the other teams face.”

AmericanAmerican owners buy European teams for different and sometimes overlapping reasons, and with divergent strategies.

Some owners run the basic billionaire’s play. It’s what Stan Kroenke did at Arsenal, and the Glazer family did at Manchester United. It’s what John Henry has done with Liverpool, albeit with much more sophistication and success than Glazer and Kroenke. Buy a famous club and tread water for a few decades as the asset appreciates, then cash out. Sit back, hope your team breaks even and competes for titles more years than not, and let your old friend inflation do its work. To wit: When the Glazers completed their hostile takeover of Manchester United in 2005, they spent over $1 billion; today, the club is valued at $4.6 billion. It isn’t coincidental, by the way, that this is the same approach taken by owners in the major American leagues, since the Glazers, Kroenke, and Henry all own teams in the NBA, NFL, or MLB, as well.

Others are in it for the content—as either a media product or for personal use. They buy teams as an emotional lifestyle decision, like baseball Hall of Famer Mike Piazza’s brief and catastrophic ownership of third-tier Italian side Reggiana. Rocco Commisso, the billionaire owner of the Mediacom cable TV provider, bought Serie A club Fiorentina after a failed effort to take over AC Milan. He said he did so because he had been born in Italy before emigrating to the United States when he was 12 and wanted to get involved in Italian soccer as a means of reconnecting with his roots. Theirs is, as soccer economist Chris Anderson puts it, “A very expensive season ticket.” They are chasing a kind of contact high from owning a team.

Actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, meanwhile, put a different twist on this approach. They bought fifth-tier Welsh club Wrexham with a two-season docuseries about the entire project already sold to FX, inspired by the hit Netflix series Sunderland ‘Til I Die. Content.

But what has become more common, threatening to change the makeup of the sport fundamentally, is the American investor who treats an acquired team as an undervalued or even distressed asset, one that can be grown and flipped for profit. This new breed comes from the middle class of American investors, shut out by the stratospheric valuations of American major league sports teams (an average of $3.5 billion for NFL teams, $2.4 billion for NBA teams, and $2.2 billion for MLB teams) yet affluent enough to buy a European team and inject capital into it. They are powered by historically low interest rates, broadcasters’ unabating appetite for live sports, and an investment culture that prizes high-reward bets. Many of them believe that there is no real money to be made in the minor or independent leagues in North America, but that European clubs are undervalued and offer untapped growth and upward mobility. They are drawn to visions of new revenue streams through promotion or qualification for continental competitions, better management, an improved gameday experience, monetization of digital content, and the all-cash transfer market.

Basically, they are making a bet: that superimposing American expertise in the live sports space onto a traditional, outdated, and mismanaged European club will produce quick financial gains.

The notion, perhaps an arrogant one, goes that the American sports market is so crowded and competitive that teams have been forced to turn the monetization of every last nook and cranny of their business into a kind of lowbrow artform. Take that know-how and apply it to a very traditional soccer culture like, say, Italy’s, which got left behind in the game’s commercialization race two decades ago, and there are gains to be had.

The acquisition cost is low, with some respected European clubs selling for only a few million euros. ADO Den Haag, a historic and well-supported club in the administrative capital of the Netherlands, is reportedly close to a sale to a group of American investors led by Blitzer for a mere 6 million euros. Newcastle, a rabidly-supported Premier League team with a splendid stadium and a share of the league’s towering TV contracts, sold for roughly what the least valuable Major League Soccer team is supposedly worth. In some cases, MLS teams are valued at 13 times their annual revenue. (Which, sure.) For instance, a 10 percent stake in LAFC sold in February 2020 for $70 million, valuing the club at $700 million, although Sportico now pegs it at $860 million.

“Soccer teams [in Europe] are extraordinarily undervalued compared to sports properties in the United States,” says Anderson, a professor at the London School of Economics and the coauthor of The Numbers Game. “Is it really rational to invest in leagues in North America at the moment, given the valuation of teams? If you look, for instance, at the valuations of MLS teams, obviously they stand in no relationship to what the true underlying economic value is of those assets. So you compare that to Europe and you say, ‘Hey, I could spend a lot of money on buying the Houston Dynamo or I can take a small portion of that and buy myself a club in Serie A.’ You can have a lot of fun owning a football team and the economic risk is much, much lower.”

“Soccer teams [in Europe] are extraordinarily undervalued compared to sports properties in the United States. Is it really rational to invest in leagues in North America at the moment, given the valuation of teams?”—Chris Anderson
When Anderson cowrote his book on soccer analytics, he taught at Cornell University. But the book’s unexpected success led to a stint running Coventry City, a team in England’s third tier, and a new career consulting in the takeover of more than 20 soccer clubs. In that work, he has encountered a generation of American investors who are savvy about soccer, coming of age in a time when the sport grew popular and accessible stateside. And they see opportunity in the world’s most popular game.

“There’s an element of American optimism that goes into it as well,” he says, “where you look at how European soccer teams are managed and you say, ‘You know what, we can probably do as well or better than these guys.’”

A series of other unexpected factors buoyed that confidence. Wealthy Chinese businessmen had gone on a shopping spree in European soccer, buying 20 clubs by 2017 in support of the Communist Party’s effort to influence global geopolitics through soccer. But then the government changed its mind and more than half those clubs were sold in short order, creating a vacuum.

UEFA’s ongoing effort to make clubs act more responsibly with their finances also played a role, according to global accounting firm KPMG. This effort, it wrote in a recent report, has “aligned the European football leagues more closely to the less volatile, and more business-driven, American sports leagues.”

Then there’s the pandemic. With their stadiums closed and revenues crumbling, European clubs needed money. Owners either pursued injections of cash or decided to sell altogether. That turned a dearth of available soccer clubs into a glut, depressing their value. Now, there are bargains to be had.

Or so these new investors believe.

Stefan Szymanski is a sports management professor at the University of Michigan, coauthor of Soccernomics, and a longtime researcher on soccer and its finances, poring over clubs’ financial statements for the past few decades. He doesn’t buy it. Any of this.

“One thing that unifies all of these American owners is that they believe that owning a sports team and making money can go hand in hand,” Szymanski says. “This idea that somehow there is hidden value to be unlocked in the lower levels of European soccer seems to me to be a common theme amongst these people. And that’s the thing I’m completely struggling to get my head around. I do not know what these people are talking about. I just don’t see how they think they can do this. Unless it’s just purely a lottery ticket where they’re hoping to get extremely lucky. On average, this must be a losing bet, in my view.”

Szymanski likens this trend to a fad in the mid-2000s, when dozens of European clubs sold shares in an attempt to mimic Manchester United’s successful and way-ahead-of-its-time foray into the stock market. It was a disappointment for almost everyone else.

“I don’t see anything fundamental in the structure of soccer that’s changed in that period,” Szymanski says. “I don’t see the strategy here. Unless you just think that these people are stupid and you’re smarter. The idea that the people who have tried this in the past were idiots who didn’t know what they were doing, it’s nonsense.”

Szymanski argues that the logic driving this type of investment is flawed because soccer operates in a zero-sum market and there is no way for all of these teams to grow at once. It isn’t like a regular business that can develop a better product and tap into a consumer base by creating a new habit.

And another thing. Thirty years ago, Szymanski points out, all of European soccer combined generated less revenue than any one of the MLB, NFL, or NBA. Now, European soccer produces more cash than all three of those combined—almost doubling its revenue within a single decade, to 28.9 billion euros in the 2018-19 season. A lot of that soaring growth came from aping North American methods. As such, he reckons, the bulk of the potential all those American investors are speculating on has already been realized.

This is all a big bubble to Szymanski, liable to pop and erase a lot of investors’ capital. “The reason for this bubble,” he says, “is the oversupply of equity funds that is driving investors to ever-riskier assets because there’s a surplus of money to invest.”

Yet some investors are consciously shying away from the riskiest wagers.

WhenWhen Brett Johnson was looking for an English club to buy, there was no shortage of options.

“I’ve been approached by countless people,” Johnson says. “There are a lot of clubs that are being shopped in very public processes—Sunderland, Charlton. Every week I get hit up with someone selling some club through some process.”

Johnson already owned two minor league soccer teams—with a third in the works—in the United States, headlined by the successful Phoenix Rising, and a share of a team in Denmark, FC Helsingor, where Gardner is also a partner. Next, he and his partners explored England as a new market. They “kicked the tires” on Newcastle United, which had been on the market for years, but decided against it. Newcastle was, finally and controversially, sold to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund for a little over $400 million in October.

“You buy Newcastle and you’re sitting up in the Premier League and there’s an incredible amount of risk associated with that as a buying group in that it potentially [gets relegated to the second-tier Championship] versus the money you’re going to have to spend to truly compete with those top clubs,” Johnson explains.

In the end, Johnson and his partners settled on Ipswich Town, a club in a harbor town near England’s eastern Suffolk Coast, which wasn’t actually for sale. They bought 95 percent of the club for either $24 million or $55 million, depending on which report you go by, since Johnson won’t say. But even at the high end of that range, the purchase price was still only a fraction of the $325 million an ownership group forked over to Major League Soccer for the rights to start its newest franchise in Charlotte. And, unlike an MLS expansion fee, the Ipswich takeover included a large, renovated stadium; a devoted, multigeneration fan base regularly turning out 20,000 fans to home games; a modern practice facility; 143 years of history; and the potential to level up twice to unlock further riches if the club ever returns to continental competition.

“Ipswich is a prominent club,” Johnson says. “How often do you find a club that won the equivalent of the Premier League, that won the FA Cup, that won the UEFA Cup, has a 30,000-plus-capacity fantastic venue, has a world-class training facility? When you look at the collective assets of Ipswich, from my perspective it was an absolute no-brainer.”

But for all the value the club already represents, Johnson sees a great deal of potential, as well. Johnson, who made his money running laptop accessories company Targus before going into private equity, is upfront about pursuing a healthy return on his investment. He thinks of Ipswich as a “very long haul” play but hopes to “get promoted twice and build an asset that’s exceptionally valuable on and off the pitch.”

“I absolutely do approach this as an investment and I intend to do well with my capital and with my partners’ capital,” he says. “We take the opportunity very, very seriously. None of it is ego-driven. It’s all about recognizing how to make these assets very successful by improving them.”

This is where we probably need to get into the optics of all this.

American sports fans have been desensitized to the notion of sports teams operating as unabashed businesses. Because almost without exception, American professional franchises began as enterprises. In Europe, however, most pro sports teams started out as amateur outfits, as offshoots of social clubs, as factory teams. It is still a heresy to many Europeans that soccer should be exploited for the express purpose of profit. They see their game as a social good.

Which can turn the arrival of an owner—or a private equity fund, at that—who openly describes a newly acquired club as an asset to be grown, as an investment vehicle, into an uncomfortable arrangement.

In the best-case scenario, everybody’s interests are aligned. The new owner, like the club and the fans, stands to benefit most from improvement on the field and on the balance sheet. There is no sportswashing exercise here, like there is with Saudi-owned Newcastle, Abu Dhabi–owned Manchester City, or Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain. The club is not the plaything of an oligarch who might grow bored and walk away, like at Chelsea or AS Monaco. Nor is it the victim of the vulture capitalism of the Glazer family, which has siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of Manchester United in service to the debt it saddled the club with as part of the leveraged hostile takeover it used to acquire the club. In the lower levels of the sport, acquired clubs are usually spared Stan Kroenke’s blend of apathy and parsimony, which would relegate Arsenal from perennial Premier League contenders to underdogs.

The arrival of this investor class to scores of troubled clubs tends to be a convenient marriage.

And so while it may seem distasteful on its face, is an American owner buying your club in order to save it, stabilize it, and then flip it on for a profit really such a bad outcome?

Jordan Gardner and his investment group saw a bargain when they looked at FC Helsingor. The Danish club was in a free fall in 2019, having been relegated from the Danish Superliga and on the cusp of tumbling immediately from the second division into the economic wasteland of the third.

Gardner, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who started and sold a secondary ticketing company in 2014, already owned minority stakes in Swansea City in the English Championship, the country’s second tier, and Irish club Dundalk FC, so he had some experience in how European soccer teams function. In March 2019, Gardner’s group of 15 investors, Brett Johnson among them, bought FC Helsingor for a mere 1.2 million euros.

“Financially, the club was not in a good place,” Gardner recalls. “That was our biggest challenge once we took over. The reduction in revenues going down two divisions is massive.” Gardner says it took about a year and “a couple million more” invested back into the club to get it back on track.

Even at this nadir, FC Helsingor held promise for its American investors: Denmark appealed as a market because many Danes speak English; Helsingor is 40 minutes from Copenhagen, and the club had recently opened both a new stadium and a youth academy. Above all, the new owners thought they could quickly modernize the club’s operations. They saw Helsingor as being held back by tribalism and tradition, run by retired local businessmen as a hobby. The club operated more like a local parish than a professional sports organization.

“The businesses, if you want to call them business, in most European football clubs are just not run well or efficiently,” Gardner says. “They’re such distressed clubs and assets that as an American, if you know what you’re doing there, you can add value. There’s inherent opportunities based on the fact that [European] sport is maybe 50 years behind North American sport when it comes to commercialization, professionalization, game-day experience, hospitality—it’s light-years behind in all those fronts.”

For example, Helsingor regularly played its games on Sunday, which is traditionally a family day in Denmark, hurting attendance. So the new ownership moved games to Friday night. “We got so much pushback,” Gardner says. “People thought we were crazy. We got told we were idiots by our sponsors and locals. We did it. And guess what? It turned into a hit and now everyone loves it. That’s a small, small example of the resistance to change.”

Helsingor won promotion back to the second tier in 2020 after just one season in the wilderness. It currently sits in first place in the second division, prime position to make it back to the Superliga and complete its resurrection. “If we get promoted to the Superliga this year, we will, at least on a piece of paper, be worth significantly more than when we bought the club,” Gardner says.

FC Helsingor’s owners are nearing their vision for the team: restore it to the top division, re-establish it on that level, and then sell and buy a bigger club—like homeowners working their way up the property ladder.

“Of course, for us, we have to have some kind of exit strategy at some point,” Gardner says. “We’d be lying if we said we’d be at FC Helsingor in 25 years. Let’s be real. This is a small club that has its own limitations. If we can get to the Superliga and be a stable club and the right offer comes along, of course we’d always listen to that.”

There are, like dated houses, always other clubs to be bought cheaply and flipped for profit.

[Boss Hogg]

Think there needs to be a word limit on posts

[Chester Perry]

Think there needs to be a word limit on posts

There is an inbuilt 60,000 character limit on this board for posts - no need to ask how I know

[KRBFC]

All I got from that article was greedy Americans trying to wiggle there way into our sport (and clubs) for financial return.

[Mala591]

So, exactly how much INCOME will we lose if we get relegated?

[Chester Perry]

So, exactly how much INCOME will we lose if we get relegated?

very hard to say - next season enters a new TV cycle (and Premier League commercial agreements, boosted by what is looking to be a large NFT deal) with all the gains coming in the overseas markets (where changes to distribution rules restricted what would go to Parachute payments). The final sums have not been declared (partly because not all deals have be done yet. For all the gains in the US and parts of Europe there have been significant reductions throughout the Far East with China, India (last week), Malaysia etc all reporting significant drops in revenue despite growing audiences .The consequence being that Parachutes (and Solidarity Payments) were less in the current cycle than the one before, a result of the drop in domestic tv revenues - with the domestic revenues staying the same in the next cycle - though effectively reduced as the Premier League had to pay the football family a £100m a season for the government to allow the deal to circumnavigate competition law (the advantage of Brexit, the EU would never have sanctioned that, resulting in substantially lower bids as we have seen domestically across all of Europe's big leagues).

The story is that the Premier League has increased the evenly shared portion of the overseas broadcasts (possibly by over £7m a team each season) which will increase Parachute and solidarity payments as a direct result of the formula on which they are based.

I should add that parachute payments for this cycle have never been formally declared by the Premier League

The unknown is when the independent football regulator is appointed and whether that will trigger an end to parachute payments immediately (unlikely) or after consultation and review (much more possible)

[RVclaret]

The unknown is when the independent football regulator is appointed and whether that will trigger an end to parachute payments immediately (unlikely) or after consultation and review (much more possible)

What are your thoughts on how clubs, like us, will deal with the loss of parachute payments? Currently there are known wage cuts in place of, let’s say 50%, which is suffice enough to cover the first years 45% loss in TV money. But if that 45% loss becomes 100% loss, and let’s say, Burnley (or any other) go down, I don’t see how that will be mitigated. I mean, are players going to accept a 75-85% wage cut on relegation?

[Chester Perry]

What are your thoughts on how clubs, like us, will deal with the loss of parachute payments? Currently there are known wage cuts in place of, let’s say 50%, which is suffice enough to cover the first years 45% loss in TV money. But if that 45% loss becomes 100% loss, and let’s say, Burnley (or any other) go down, I don’t see how that will be mitigated. I mean, are players going to accept a 75-85% wage cut on relegation?

Parachute money will be redirected as solidarity payments and the EFL is asking for even more on top of that - I sense they are looking for £25m - £30 a year (at current rates) for each Championship team so that would be the gap to meet in terms of wages.

The thing is that a huge rise in solidarity payments would reflect a drop in Premier League distribution, so the earnings/distribution gap would be reduced (so the theory goes) the consequence being a reduction in costs (particularly for the bottom half of the Premier League) meaning relegation clauses would be probably be for the same proportion of wages

what none of this takes into account is that the Premier League has benefitted from a strong clutch of around 28 clubs (allowing for promotion and relegation), creating jeopardy for the big six and increasing it's attraction as a result of less predictable results (Anybody can beat anybody on any given day) this is because even clubs like ours can outspend (in wages at least) all bar around 25 clubs in the world (under FFP type rules) meaning we should be able to have very strong competition in the PL. Take that away, and you become like all the other leagues with the big clubs rising to the top (all that commercial muscle) and most importantly of all benefitting from the huge incomes in UEFA club competitions - the Premier League runs the risk of losing what has made it so successful globally.

The Premier Leagues likely answer to that would be to reduce itself to 18 teams (it is what the big 6 and UEFA/FIFA want already) and therefore create less opportunity for small town clubs like ours - it would become almost impossible to survive in the PL the way we have done so far.

[aggi]

What are your thoughts on how clubs, like us, will deal with the loss of parachute payments? Currently there are known wage cuts in place of, let’s say 50%, which is suffice enough to cover the first years 45% loss in TV money. But if that 45% loss becomes 100% loss, and let’s say, Burnley (or any other) go down, I don’t see how that will be mitigated. I mean, are players going to accept a 75-85% wage cut on relegation?

Go straight back up, get a rich owner, get lucky with a manager/promotion, struggle to compete, go bankrupt.

I think they are the main options.

[Paul Waine]

Interesting set of accounts indeed, particularly when contrasted with John B's company with the December y/e.

Difference between an active trading company selling some investments and a dormant company doing similar.

Clarets Go Large are unaudited. Would have been interesting to see if an audit had been requested for the dormant company whether any more details of the disposal of an investment would have been mentioned, plus the basis of valuation of the remaining investment - assuming this is also shares in BFC.

[Paul Waine]

Go straight back up, get a rich owner, get lucky with a manager/promotion, struggle to compete, go bankrupt.

I think they are the main options.

If it's bankruptcy, the story continues: then find an American who is fond of visiting the Leeds-Liverpool canal, the Weavers' Triangle, Pendle Hill and the Ribble Valley (and more) and Burnley starts on the way back up again - if the story of Venezia coming out of their 3rd bankruptcy with their American owner has any bearing. (Long, long, long article posted above).

UTC

[Paul Waine]

While researching for the corrected/revised/extended article I came across this, it is the kind of thing I used to regularly post on the MMT- I find it interesting primarily because it talks about the seemingly unabated appetite for European Football Investment from American sources - an appetite ALK/VSL appear to struggle to take advantage of when looking for new partners, which is very much the crux of what their model is based on - as will become explicit when my article is published. I do wonder why no one seems concerned as to when the point of being able to flip readily for a profit is no longer there, after all it always does occur in overheated markets

https://www.theringer.com/soccer/2022/1 ... ean-soccer

A New Wave of American Buyers Has Set Its Sights on European Soccer
For wealthy investors priced out of the North American professional sports market, the Old Continent represents a ripe opportunity—or so they think

By Leander Schaerlaeckens Jan 27, 2022, 6:00am EST

Hi CP, that's a very interesting review of American investor activities across much of European "soccer." Yes, of course, I've not quoted anything other than the title. I recommend others on here also take the time to read it.

UTC

[Chester Perry]

Hi CP, that's a very interesting review of American investor activities across much of European "soccer." Yes, of course, I've not quoted anything other than the title. I recommend others on here also take the time to read it.

UTC

I understand you have something even longer coming your way courtesy of the London Clarets magazine - be gentle

[RVclaret]

I understand you have something even longer coming your way courtesy of the London Clarets magazine - be gentle

Is there an ETA on this CP? (not to rush you)

[aggi]

Difference between an active trading company selling some investments and a dormant company doing similar.

Clarets Go Large are unaudited. Would have been interesting to see if an audit had been requested for the dormant company whether any more details of the disposal of an investment would have been mentioned, plus the basis of valuation of the remaining investment - assuming this is also shares in BFC.

I was meaning the difference in the cash and debtors positions between the two.

An audit shouldn't change the disclosures required (other than audit opinion obviously).

[Chester Perry]

Is there an ETA on this CP? (not to rush you)

It is out for review (particularly around the financial technicalities), we do not want any more errors, and then the London Clarets will need to decide what to do - it is much too long now for them to print in the magazine (it would fill over half their allotted pages) so it will likely end up on line linked to their Twitter account - my guess is we are two weeks away from publication at least. I would like it out there before the accounts come out and that could be any time between now and the end of April.

It is much more rich and dense on detail than last time - reviewers have been supplied with over 80 references of source material on which the information within it is based - in all there is probably 6 weeks of work gone into it - it is so long I have even had to give it an abstract/summary so the reader can jump to sections if they want - that currently reads like this..............

In considering the premise that football and its constituent clubs are subject to the machinations of clever businessmen, who utilise their business/financial acumen rather than football knowledge to either succeed with their clubs and/or take profit for themselves from the game. This article exercises the notion that the company structure of a football club can help fans determine whether they should be exercising concern about their club’s wellbeing. Looking first at the historical business structure (at entity level) of Burnley Football Club as shown on public record at Companies House, then at how and why that has developed in the last two decades.

Taking the recent takeover date (December 30 2020) as a baseline, an examination of subsequent filings provides an understanding of the changes that have taken place. The investigation expands into the activities of the new owners, together with the relationships and undertakings they are party to. We learn of the new corporate structure and where the club sits within it. Note that these investigations are subject to the limits of public record and choice of domicile for certain corporate entities within the hierarchy, which prevent us from establishing all the sources of funding and probably the identities of some of the parties involved.

Recognising the vital role that a particular loan has played in facilitating the takeover and how recently that lender was in entering the football finance market, the report seeks to establish the lenders: background; reason for entering the market; practises and terms it exercises in its activities. Attention is paid to the individual considered to be the driving force behind this venture and reasoning as to why it is unlikely the loan will lead to full investment in the club.

Having established this background and recognising that there has been extremely little factual detail in the public sphere as to the terms and details of the actual financial transaction in the takeover, attention turns to separating what is now effectively the folklore of the takeover from fact. This is aided in part through the use of information in the Offer of Purchase to the small Shareholders of October 4 2021 (hereafter the Offer Letter) and a much wider examination of records held at Companies House. By extrapolating this detail, and exercising a number of stated assumptions it is possible to derive a hypothetical yet reasoned baseline of the overall financial obligation that the takeover has generated and in part apportion responsibility to specific entities. Just as importantly it determines sums for which the responsibility remains unknown.

All this helps us understand the drivers for the new administration’s activities with particular regard to the acquiring of additional investment/funding. Examination of just what it is that the principals of the new ownership venture do together with their efforts in securing this investment follows, Comparison of their efforts and achievements is made with what was occurring in the sports investment marketplace at the same time and with what others who have employed similar tactics have done. Discussion includes understanding the difficulties faced by the previous ownership in seeking out new investment and why this was.

Moving on, the transaction price is questioned, the consequences that may have had on the search for new investment partners are examined. Recognition is made of who: the current major and often unrecognised investors in the new administration are; the significant third party in the takeover negotiations were; and explanation offered as to why this partnership is set to remain strong in the short to medium term.

[RVclaret]

It is out for review (particularly around the financial technicalities), we do not want any more errors, and then the London Clarets will need to decide what to do - it is much too long now for them to print in the magazine (it would fill over half their allotted pages) so it will likely end up on line linked to their Twitter account - my guess is we are two weeks away from publication at least. I would like it out there before the accounts come out and that could be any time between now and the end of April.

That's great, looking forward to reading it. Though I was wondering, wouldn't it make more sense to wait for the accounts *to* come out and then there is a clearer picture and more to 'chew' at?

[Chester Perry]

That's great, looking forward to reading it. Though I was wondering, wouldn't it make more sense to wait for the accounts *to* come out and then there is a clearer picture and more to 'chew' at?

and also a lot, lot more work - having it out there gives a future baseline to review against and at least becomes a single source of much of the relevant data that is currently so widely dispersed. It allows for subsequent discussion with a common shared reference point.

I have already been asked to do a review of the accounts for them once published

[Paul Waine]

I understand you have something even longer coming your way courtesy of the London Clarets magazine - be gentle

Hi CP, I'm happy to assist you, as much as I can. I'm impressed with all your research.

UTC

[Chester Perry]

Hi CP, I'm happy to assist you, as much as I can. I'm impressed with all your research.

UTC

It is very kind of you to do it

[Paul Waine]

I was meaning the difference in the cash and debtors positions between the two.

An audit shouldn't change the disclosures required (other than audit opinion obviously).

I've had a look at the last 3 sets of accounts, y/end 31-May-2021; 31-May-2020 and 31-May-2019.

The 2019 is described as Annual Report and Unaudited Financial Statements; 2020 and 2021 are simply Unaudited Financial Statements.

2019 includes Chartered Accountants Report to the Director on the Preparation of the Unaudited Statutory Financial Statements; 2020 and 2021 do not include any Report on Preparation. Moore Kingston Smith LLP are named as Accountants on all 3 sets of accounts.

2019 Director's Report states: The principal activity of the company was investing in Burnley FC Holdings Limited. BFCHL is mentioned as Associate with Clarets Go Large holding 26.65% of BFCHL shares.

2020 financial statement doesn't have a Director's Report. BFCHL is, again, mentioned as Associate, CGL holding 26.65%. Additionally, Note 6 Events after the Balance Sheet date discloses that CGL "sold 87.5% of its total holding in its investment. It now holds 3.55% of the total shares of that company."

2021: No mention of BFCHL - even though the disposal of 87.5% of BFCHL shares took place in that period. There's also a new investment added to Fixed Assets, "other investments other than loans" of £7,043,742. No details are given of this new investment. There's also a Current Asset investment of £5,950,881 that is added in the year. Again, no details or information included.

Given that in 2019 the principal activity of the company was investing in BFCHL, maybe the 2021 accounts should have mentioned the disposal of 87.5% of this investment. Maybe, also, there should have been some details provided on both the Fixed Asset investment of £7,043,742 and of the current asset investment of £5,950,881.

These new investments are either a departure from previous investment activity of CGL, i.e. not in any way connected to Burnley FC, or they are new investments in the new corporate structures introduced when ALK acquired 84% of the shares of BFCHL.

My speculative guess is the latter, in some form or another. £7m is $10m equity in ALK/VSL and £5.9m is $8m equity that is reported as current asset as shares are held as security for the payment of the further instalments due from ALK. Merely speculative guesses.

Did you read the report in the Times about birdwatching accountants who smoke are the most boring people you may ever meet.

We know that Mike Garlick remains a director of BFCHL. We know he retained some shares. Perhaps MG continues to hold a bigger interest in BFCHL than we thought.

UTC

[Chester Perry]

I've had a look at the last 3 sets of accounts, y/end 31-May-2021; 31-May-2020 and 31-May-2019.

The 2019 is described as Annual Report and Unaudited Financial Statements; 2020 and 2021 are simply Unaudited Financial Statements.

2019 includes Chartered Accountants Report to the Director on the Preparation of the Unaudited Statutory Financial Statements; 2020 and 2021 do not include any Report on Preparation. Moore Kingston Smith LLP are named as Accountants on all 3 sets of accounts.

2019 Director's Report states: The principal activity of the company was investing in Burnley FC Holdings Limited. BFCHL is mentioned as Associate with Clarets Go Large holding 26.65% of BFCHL shares.

2020 financial statement doesn't have a Director's Report. BFCHL is, again, mentioned as Associate, CGL holding 26.65%. Additionally, Note 6 Events after the Balance Sheet date discloses that CGL "sold 87.5% of its total holding in its investment. It now holds 3.55% of the total shares of that company."

2021: No mention of BFCHL - even though the disposal of 87.5% of BFCHL shares took place in that period. There's also a new investment added to Fixed Assets, "other investments other than loans" of £7,043,742. No details are given of this new investment. There's also a Current Asset investment of £5,950,881 that is added in the year. Again, no details or information included.

Given that in 2019 the principal activity of the company was investing in BFCHL, maybe the 2021 accounts should have mentioned the disposal of 87.5% of this investment. Maybe, also, there should have been some details provided on both the Fixed Asset investment of £7,043,742 and of the current asset investment of £5,950,881.

These new investments are either a departure from previous investment activity of CGL, i.e. not in any way connected to Burnley FC, or they are new investments in the new corporate structures introduced when ALK acquired 84% of the shares of BFCHL.

My speculative guess is the latter, in some form or another. £7m is $10m equity in ALK/VSL and £5.9m is $8m equity that is reported as current asset as shares are held as security for the payment of the further instalments due from ALK. Merely speculative guesses.

Did you read the report in the Times about birdwatching accountants who smoke are the most boring people you may ever meet.

We know that Mike Garlick remains a director of BFCHL. We know he retained some shares. Perhaps MG continues to hold a bigger interest in BFCHL than we thought.

UTC

now that is an interesting thought that is worth more consideration - it would be a useful addition to the latter part of the article once we have bounced it around a bit - I have been wanting to add more meat to it

[Chester Perry]

Article in the Telegraph today follows familiar ground - ostensibly about bidders for Chelsea but covers more including listing clubs where American investors hold stakes - somehow misses out Manchester City/CFG (Silver Lake) and Wolves (Peak6) - link takes you through the paywall

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fw ... merican%2F

the line I really picked up on

“They have made so much money. They just want to feel alive. They want a bit of exposure. If you think you are the smartest guy in the world, all that is left to do is make sure people know.”

[boyyanno]

You have been told 10-15m is what we will spend. Lets see then

This now seems to have been accurate at the time. Sorry COC this isn't to say "I Told you so", just showing that I have posted info from the same source previously.