calscot

If I were Hearts, my tactics would be a high press, pressuring our players playing it out, while bombarding our box with high balls and crosses after drawing us in with passing play, and forcing as many corners as possible, which are then whipped in. With the standard of player they have, we're going to find that difficult to play against, especially without Hill.

Could be amusing if we signed him to play in defensive midfield...

It seems to me that unless everyone who voted against the resolution 11 takes up their full allocation at the resolution 10 share issue and continue to vote against, then another similar resolution 11 next year will almost certainly be passed. It's also a wake up call for all the non voters who were for the resolution. We'll raise a bit less money and possibly dilute the rogue shareholders less, but it's only delaying it by one more year, and could cost the Ashley block quite a bit of money that will go to the club. I don't know anything about their intentions but personally, I can't really see them dipping into their pockets to maintain their shareholding, and so see their votes against as more of an up-yours than anything. Ashley might as he will lose more influence on the decision making on his SD contracts, but he already seems to have completely lost that particular fight and so it seems futile to me.

He needed to own the club before he could use it as security for a loan to Ticketus - if the club had cost 18 million say as debt free, then he'd have to raise that to buy it, and then borrow from ticketus afterwards. As it cost a pound it was easy.

Ah, I see the problem is the sale of £1. If the actual sale was the millions then it seems he would have had more trouble.

I think the more obvious thing to do would be to something like buy Dundee and Dundee Utd, merge them and spend OF type money. Like Celtic you wouldn't get to the semi - but you could win championships and cups, get to the CL or have a good run in the Europa - you could achieve pretty much anything the OF have done in the last 20 years. The point being that this would cost you 20M a year or something rather than 100M and the success be more guaranteed. I'm talking about a lower level of oligarch or bored entrepreneur. 20M wouldn't do you any good in the EP or the other big leagues, but you could go from some unknown, boring rich guy, to one of the most talked about characters and recognised in the country, where everyone wants to interview you and pap you etc. The reason for Dundee is that with one club - as long as the supporters got behind it, they have the potential to have a reasonably big support of over 20k, and they are not as inaccessible as Aberdeen. The supporters would resist but would probably jump on the band wagon of success if the trophies started coming in and they couldn't resist going toe to toe with the OF in a nice, new, modern stadium with padded seats and safe standing. I doubt the rivalry runs as deep as the likes of Hibs and Hearts - who would otherwise be ripe for this with a potential of about 40k supporters. If MK Dons can build a very nice stadium of 30k capacity for a support of 8k then it can happen in Dundee, with a bit of local council support.

That may be technically true, but doesn't mean I understand it - oldco did not agree to the loan, Whyte could not arrange that as *he didn't own oldco*. It just doesn't make sense to me. He could perhaps change the liability of the loan after he purchased the company... but it still falls foul of the contract of sale - unless there were no legal covenants put in place to protect that. I get you but how careful do we have to be in trying to understand the situation?

Sorry, I still don't get you - it doesn't really matter how much you issue, it's just a notional share of the club whose value doesn't really change as the debt is gone.You seem to think the 10m is lost to us, when it's just rearranging the same furniture into different rooms of the same house. You have to realise it's the same thing - the loans to shares is in the end no different from a share issue to those investors - they give 10m, we give 10m of shares - whose value will subsequently change. In the share issue, say the investors give 20m, we give them 20m worth of shares. The "now" seems obvious to me - it's as soon as practicably possible. The investors want control by virtue of having the most shares, and it's good for the club to be debt free. The loan investors get absolutely nothing for the loan, not even interest (which effectively means they are losing money that could be otherwise working for them); for the shares they get power - which is needed to fend off the nefarious block of shareholders we inherited from Green et al. A lot of this seems to be benevolence, where they are willing to lose money for the benefit of the club, as they can afford to, but they still want something for their money and a say in how it is spent.

I don't watch it so wouldn't know. However, I think the Scotland squad are there for the money, which looking at Barton as an example, seems like they are over paid. They would be in the Prem if they could choose. I must admit it's strange when you look at that league with so many quite big, famous clubs - but I think that's just a result of England having 11 times the population, meaning more big clubs and more competition that changes over time. Scotland is different as most of the resources normally go to two teams, making a massive, sustainable gap between them and the rest. There is a lot of jostling for position of the rest but they are such small clubs, nobody really notices, and it's more of a case of a sea of mediocrity, where no-one excels rather than being highly competitive. Kind of like league one or two in England. The strange thing is that Scotland is ripe for some rich person, wanting a bit of fun without a financial return, to take over a club - like Man City, Chelsea, Hoffenheim etc or for the likes of Red Bull. Almost guaranteed European football and quite a lot of extensive exposure albeit in a smaller audience. I suppose Mad Vlad tried it, but he didn't really commit.

As previously said, if that's a problem, increase the share issue by another 10m... The amount that will be raised by the share issue is a fixed, finite number - as long as they don't allow it to be oversubscribed. So when issuing the shares, you take that number and add 10m more worth of shares to convert the loans. The amount of cash you raise will not change by a penny. The main thing is to make sure it's not over-subscribed, which would obviously restrict the amount of cash coming in. As far as I can see, they also want to be careful of begin under-subscribed as that means they could lose control if they are unwilling or unable to maintain their percentage holding and someone else makes a move.

But I don't see how the oldco took the loan - it was against the condition of sale, which is where this falls down - at least logically. Whyte's companies took the loan to buy oldco. It couldn't be secured on oldco as that would nullify the sale - and in fact it was kept secret as part of a scam, which if not technically against the law, you would expect not to be recognised as a legitimate loan in the eyes of the law. They are upholding nefarious practices by con men - Whyte AND Ticketus. I'm not saying it is technically illegitimate, I'm saying it obviously should be, and shows great flaws in business laws which allow unscrupulous people to make money by lying to people and have an advantage over the scrupulous. We should be discouraging practices that nefariously leave loads of people out of pocket. To me, what happened should be criminal - and is in other aspects of law. But surely that morality while not prosecutable, should nullify their case in the civil courts? I have no problem with them chasing Whyte, but I will always struggle to see their claim on a company that they could not possibly legitimately finance the purchase of due to the conditions of sale.

The thing that makes me feel old is Bardsley is 31...

Well there is three there we should know...

I still don't understand how oldco owe them a penny.That's not how business should work. If you get a loan for a car, that is secured on something other than the car, it's not the car that owes the money. IIRC he secured the loan on his businesses - that's who owes the money. Also, the deal doesn't seem legitimate or even legal - it broke the conditions of the sale, and therefore should be void. At best it was a con job, and so I can't see how they can claim the money - more like they should be prosecuted.

I think it also reflects badly on the state of the English Championship - their best player came to Scotland, looked mediocre, couldn't handle the pressure, and ended up effectively sacked after 8 games. The English leagues have plenty of money, but it's not a guarantee of quality.

The thing I find it hard to understand is the lack of self awareness of Barton - he has a huge ego, but surely it should have been obvious to him he was making a huge fool of himself and his reputation, which is bad for his ego? Sometimes it's good to reign in your ego, let it be lightly bruised, and save some face, which is better for the long term health of your ego, which for him has taken a kicking. He's come out of this really badly, and people will just remember him for not being able to handle the demands of Scottish football - which is a place he was expected to excel.

I don't follow your loss of 10m. Equity is better for the finances than debt. They're not getting their money back per se, they are swapping it for shares. With the absence of a dividend, that costs the club nothing - it just changes the proportions of the shareholders.

Obviously depends on his wage and how much a club want him. In his current form his value has probably dropped. Personally, of the top of my head, I can't see us getting more than about 500k.

Don't know the ins and outs, but isn't the easy solution to that just to do a 30m issue?

I would say that loans are worth more to the directors than shares as a loan can be demanded in full, whereas shares need to be sold and the price goes down as well as up - and in the case of football it's usually down. The thing about the investors it that they want something for their money - in the case of shares, they get a big say in the running of the club, and directorships with all the perks etc, while actually being able to get some of their money back when they want to move on.

I would expect them to have a certain amount in reserve for this, along with a plan to raise more money before an imminent issue. I can imagine ideas like getting people to pay a year's contributions in advance etc as a one off.

I must admit, I'd rather have had someone like Jelavic than Garner, but then the wage differential that we're offering foreigners, might no longer be enough - although I'm sure the combination of Garner and Barton would have covered it for a similar player.

I see the point of the money not going to the club, but also see the point of increasing the shareholding. There is also the problem of not having a vehicle to give money to the club, and I don't think they can't just sit on the cash indefinitely, with it doing nothing for fan ownership in the bank.

Until he improves his form - pretty much anyone, with O'Halloran probably the first choice.

I agree with all that, but I think where people are writing him off is not just his form, I think it's the combination of poor form and the rumour that he wants to leave - although we don't know the veracity of that. I think it's a case of, IF he wants to leave Rangers for a lower league English club, and he's playing like that, then there is no reason to want him to stay. The way the team is playing this season, they have lost the "personal loyalty" of the fans (but not the team loyalty), who I would guess would be happy to splash out on a whole new team, if they were of a much higher standard - and didn't cripple us financially. So I think most of the players are now pretty dispensable, and if they don't want to be here then they will be seen as a wage (and maybe a fee) we could use on someone better who does want to be here.