calscot 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Seems to me that the fans should get equity for their money. The longer you're a member the more voting rights you could proxy to whatever group. The equity could be deprecated each year in that say you get 100 x �£1 shares for your membership, they may be worth say �£70 the next year and so traded in for 70 x �£1 of new shares. So in the second year you have 170 shares and so on. If you could get 100,000 people buying 100 shares a year, the debt could be vastly reduced within three years and the fans would own most of the club. For example if you value the club as worth say 10M after subtracting the debts, then the fans pay 10M in the first year and own half the club - the money reduces the debt by 10M and the club is now worth say 18M. The second year the fans put in another 10M, the debt becomes say 21M and the fans now own 19/28 of the club. Say the club is now worth 35M, in the third year the fans add another 10M, the debt is reduced to �£2M and the fans own about 27/35 of the club, ie about 80%. The year after that the money can go towards balancing the books and some spending on players. That's just a simple layman's scenario and I assume it's a lot more complex, but it shows that in just three years their is a chance club is 80% owned by the fans and has very little debt. Each fan that has put in �£100 a year for three years would have about �£270 worth of equity and 270 votes for the presidential election. 45,000 of them could just think of it as a 100 quid hike in their season ticket to save their club and have a say in how it is run as well as helping to improve what they see on the pitch. And it would still be below most Premiership clubs. Just a rambling thought and can't really see it happening. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineflyer 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Any arrangement for supporter investment would need to be be both practical and incentivised. However, accepting that, the mechanism interests me less right now than the means of achieving it. I've always believed this was the direction to take and agree wholeheartedly with the points made by BigGordy and TB above, that this represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity. I would certainly participate in principle and would be happy to do so in practice if it were well thought out and the necessary structures put in place to sustain it. What I always come back to however is a feeling of profound doubt that the people currently involved in our supporter organisations have anything like the skills or experience to design and implement a scheme that would genuinely benefit the club and support alike. It's not a matter of having a go at anyone, simply a recognition that these things don't fall ready-made from the sky, that this is a complex proposition that will require extensive resources to be deployed for proper planning and execution. I don't believe this could be achieved without the dedicated services of some experienced professionals. We definitely have these people amongst us but right now they mainly seem to me to be quite far from the action. The implementation of a plan for supporter investment and participation in the shaping of this club cannot, in my opinion, be achieved unless the existing supporter structures are utterly swept away and replaced with something of a profoundly more democratic and capable nature. The supporter organisations we have at present are exactly appropriate for what we are today, a product of how we've been run and how little has been expected as a contribution from supporters. Unless we elevate our expectations, we have no real right to aspire to greater supporter participation. If we want change then we (collectively) need to change our perceptions of who is best placed to represent us and what we expect from them. Sadly, I'm at a complete loss as to how we get from where we are to where we need to be. No one is going to dictate how we change or even what we change into. We have to make these initial changes all by ourselves and I think it's a longer and more painful road than many believe. Seeing where we need to be is a whole lot easier than the journey involved. I'm torn between excitement at the prospect and pessimism at our ability or even willingness to change. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilledbear 16 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Who is going to speak to the thousands of Supporters who are needed, if anything like this is to get of the ground. As others have said, I don't see anyone at the various Supporter Organizations at the moment who could carry this through. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,199 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Cal, that is not dissimilar to the way the voting rights (and equity) works in my company. We are a mutual insurance company and the shareholding works as such : A member comes in and they pay $10,000 for the privilege, being their share certificate. They then all pay insurance premiums (all different as it is based on their assets and the risks that they bring to the company. For every dollar of premium they pay the "receive" one additional voting right. So if a company joins and pays $500,000 in premium they will have 500,001 in voting rights (1 right for every $ of premium plus 1 right for the share certificate holding). Those who contribute more by way of premium (usually as they are larger companies and/or bring higher risks to the table) will have higher voting rights. I think that this is similar to what you are suggesting and, if I think logically about it, I think it is certainly workable. Each time someone puts money into the club they should be granted a higher value of voting power and equity in the company (being simplistic here admittedly). Whilst I can see some of your scenario working in all honesty I would prefer we somehow, if possible, simply rid the club of it's debt at the outset and had vastly reduced reliance on banks. That said, we would need to "over-subscribe" initially as we would be better off if we paid off the 30 million of debt and also created a cash balance for working capital. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Who is going to speak to the thousands of Supporters who are needed, if anything like this is to get of the ground. As others have said, I don't see anyone at the various Supporter Organizations at the moment who could carry this through. As I said to UCB recently regarding this, the club itself should be the one to facilitate a fan buy-out. Only the club have the resources to do it. Only the club have the proper lines of communication with the ST holders & the wider support. Only the club have sufficient trust from the fans. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineflyer 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 As I said to UCB recently regarding this, the club itself should be the one to facilitate a fan buy-out. Only the club have the resources to do it. Only the club have the proper lines of communication with the ST holders & the wider support. Only the club have sufficient trust from the fans. You have to be right. There's no other way. But this will only be possible if the shareholders and directors want to do it for the good of all. We must get to a point where there is no more us and them and where those in power see the benefits of diluting that power, not collecting it all to themselves. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilledbear 16 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 I would be surprised if anyone at the Club said anything along these lines, until they knew if there were any other bids in, or in the pipeline. Perhaps the best way would be if a consortium led the way, and were willing to go down this path. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wija 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Some of the Maths seen don't work out but that is by the by. I would be in favour of it. I would not however, be in favour of 1 group having a greater say than any other. Democracy is needed within the ownership. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
maineflyer 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 I believe this only works if the supporters form a majority of the voting membership and are thereby collectively empowered to elect, judge and remove the majority of directors based upon the financial health and performance of the club. There would also be investing shareholders who could choose to invest in and gain a return from that investment but who could not control the club by sole virtue of the size of their investment. The directors would be running the club on behalf of and in the best interests of the stakeholders, which in large part would comprise the member supporters. Members control voting rights and therefor the running of the club. Investors must also be members but cannot accumulate voting rights. We need to be able to accommodate investors but to make a fundamental distinction between investors and voting members, who might be expected to pay the equivalent of an golf club membership annually for their voting rights and other privileges. Membership of the club should be different from and should not be limited to ownership of season tickets. You want a say in how your club is run, become a member - you want a guaranteed seat, buy a season ticket - if one is to be discounted because of the other then discount the season ticket for members but all members should pay the same amount and have the same voting entitlement. No memberships or voting rights should accrue to any groups or organisations. Every membership of the club must be on an individual basis. This is the only way for the interests of the supporter and the club to coalesce. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy steel 0 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 What would be the point of whoever invests most getting most voting rights? That way we're just back to where we were with an owner, only with a vote thrown in. OMOV. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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