Unhappy Chairman

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

The club applied for planning and made a few noises about extending the Stadium, sadly as soon as things looked a bit poor the dream died a death, confidence fell and they were relegated.

More accurately, Wokingham District Council forced a delay to this by opposing the planning permission which meant that traffic planning had to be redone - if there hadn't been this delay in the granting of planning permission it's virtually certain that teh stadium expansion would have gone ahead.

Interesting SC, this I did not know.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

Given the choice of the chance to get promotion would you play for RFC or another club, the Captain decided that Leicester were a better bet, despite us making th aPlay offs last season, telling that I think.

yup, tellling that mills was all about the money
ask gorkss, ledge etc why they came here

Why would you not move for a better paid position, been said many a time that most on here would do the same.

Gorkks and Legeirtwood were not wanted by QPR, simple, we were the best interested club, I am sure had someone came in with a better offer they would have taken it.

QPR were on the way up, and they indeed went up, a top manager at this level did not think they were right for the Prem, which for Gorkks is odd as he paid a large part in the promotion.

[melonhead]

but thats my point-

do youreally think ills was worth a double/tripling in wages that leicester were willing to pay?
and even if you were mental enough to say yes, could we actually afford it?
so i dont know what we were meant to do, especially when theyve made a ~5 million bid, for a player with potential, but who was also a walking red card/penalty

[Whore Jackie]

JM has thrown millions at a print company with very little hope of getting it back according to experts in that field, see Print Week or whatever it is for views of peopel in the know about print, I doubt many on here have a clue.

businesses and business plans suffer in a recession, hence why he no longer ghas that money to throw at RFC, and after daft booing from the fans, i wouldnt either

The print industry has been in decline for a lot longer than the current recession. His investment at Goodhead Print made much less sense than, for example, with Station Hill at the time.

[melonhead]

im not going to sit here and tell multimillionaire businessman John madejski how to run his football club, let along another business i have even less idea about

[Royal Rother]

Most multi-millionaire entrepreneurial business people have far more failures than successes along the way.

And when they come to sell they hold out for THEIR price for the business, not what someone else thinks it's worth.

[Northern Git]

Most multi-millionaire entrepreneurial business people have far more failures than successes along the way.

And when they come to sell they hold out for THEIR price for the business, not what someone else thinks it's worth.

and if THEIR price (or conditions for purchase) for the business are unrealistic they wait and wait and wait and wait. I think the saying is that something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

Now I am not aware that the asking price for the purchase of RFC has even been published, just loads of the usual uninformed speculation, nor has any of the attached purchase conditions (if there are any).

But it world seem, if the R&A are to be trusted that some of the loans by JM have been converted to equity and this could, depending when the transaction(s) were done, put an unrealistic price on RFC in it current position. Unless JM wants to take another financial hit - I suspect not!

[melonhead]

are there loads of people willing to buy us at any price?
i think its fair to say football clubs arent a great investment for many people, especially in the currrent climate- most purchases are done on credit on the basis of covering huge club debts which we dont have, and many banks shy away from football as they see it as a slightly iffy investment at the minute.

surely JM deserves to make his money back at least, which is ~20-40 million loan converted to shares in the club(svlad?)
and also deserves to make a profit considering how far he has built the club from where we were when he took over, and how much time effort hes put in, and success he has achieved, while not taking a salary, or taking money out of the club,so 50-60 million isnt unreasonable.

also just selling to some random carson yeung is not a great idea-who knows what most of these peoples motivation is, but it almost certainly wont be for the love of the club, and the vast majority will put some money in, and then take that money back out, with interest when they leave after a few years.
dunno why you all seem to want that tbf.

personally im happy to have a chairman who doesnt interfere, and lets us get on with things, while ensuring we run things as a tightly run, lean and succesfsul business, who spends less than we bring in.

weve had premiereship football, great cup runs, playoffs, playoff finals, and near misses, and cos we get relegated from the prem(did you really think wed stay there forever, establish ourselves, and start challenging for the title?)faced the inevitable break up of that squad while remaining competetive, & for one season out of loads we "may" finish mid/lower table, you all start screaming for him to f' off.

for shame no 13, for shame

[Ian Royal]

I feel confident in believing that price is not the stumbling block to someone buying us. It's suitability as an owner.

JM isn't going to sell to someone unless they're worth significantly more than him AND aren't dodge as feck. We're also not very attractive to most of the buyers out there, because we aren't a cheap big name who can be quickly sprung into the Prem and then sold for a big profit / asset stripped easily with lovely valuable town centre real estate.

Take a look at the majority of people who've bought football clubs in the last 10 years. They're mostly suspected criminals, or don't hang around long. Loads of them just put the clubs in financial dire straits and piss off selling to someone even more dodgy.

[Vision]

I feel confident in believing that price is not the stumbling block to someone buying us. It's suitability as an owner.

JM isn't going to sell to someone unless they're worth significantly more than him AND aren't dodge as feck. We're also not very attractive to most of the buyers out there, because we aren't a cheap big name who can be quickly sprung into the Prem and then sold for a big profit / asset stripped easily with lovely valuable town centre real estate.

Take a look at the majority of people who've bought football clubs in the last 10 years. They're mostly suspected criminals, or don't hang around long. Loads of them just put the clubs in financial dire straits and piss off selling to someone even more dodgy.

Yep I think it's fair to say that the price has to be right and the buyer as trustworthy as possible. The great thing about JM's ego is that it protects us from him selling to anyone obvously dodgy as he doesn't want to tarnish his "legacy".

The recent Dispatches programme was a bit of a hatchet job but what it did show is how relatively easy it is to buy into part of a consortium without anyone having the first clue who else is involved or where you got your money from.

[PistolPete]

our record signing is £2.6m, for a player that was TBH honest a bit crap.

In a sentence, you have proven why our chairman has -kind of - the right approach. RFC have had tremendous success buying players for little money and turning them into great players (Kitson, Doyle, Long, Sigurdsson, Shorey, Hunt, Sonko, Federici and on...) and has not had great success with our 'big' signings (Asaba, Lita, Fae,Evers, Murray, Halford...). It is not an exact science of course, but the laws of averages need credence here.

The issue is that it is not how much the transfer fee that dictates how good a player is, it is on the whole, how much you pay the player. Good players know their worth and won't stick around to be paid less. Perhaps that is where we need to up the anti. Then again, JM is a man of principle and can't stand to see fooballers earn more than he does

[melonhead]

I feel confident in believing that price is not the stumbling block to someone buying us. It's suitability as an owner.

JM isn't going to sell to someone unless they're worth significantly more than him AND aren't dodge as feck. We're also not very attractive to most of the buyers out there, because we aren't a cheap big name who can be quickly sprung into the Prem and then sold for a big profit / asset stripped easily with lovely valuable town centre real estate.

Take a look at the majority of people who've bought football clubs in the last 10 years. They're mostly suspected criminals, or don't hang around long. Loads of them just put the clubs in financial dire straits and piss off selling to someone even more dodgy.

Yep I think it's fair to say that the price has to be right and the buyer as trustworthy as possible. The great thing about JM's ego is that it protects us from him selling to anyone obvously dodgy as he doesn't want to tarnish his "legacy".

The recent Dispatches programme was a bit of a hatchet job but what it did show is how relatively easy it is to buy into part of a consortium without anyone having the first clue who else is involved or where you got your money from.

or even without putting any money in


you just need to promise to service the debts that already exist

[muddyfeet]

GO HOME!

[melonhead]

going!

[LoyalRoyal22]

Would you be happy if you were JM?

No he is ugly

[Jerry St Clair]

Would you be happy if you were JM?

Massive house, big fat Bentley, Cilla Black.

What's not to be happy about?

[Hoop Blah]

our record signing is £2.6m, for a player that was TBH honest a bit crap.

In a sentence, you have proven why our chairman has -kind of - the right approach. RFC have had tremendous success buying players for little money and turning them into great players (Kitson, Doyle, Long, Sigurdsson, Shorey, Hunt, Sonko, Federici and on...) and has not had great success with our 'big' signings (Asaba, Lita, Fae,Evers, Murray, Halford...). It is not an exact science of course, but the laws of averages need credence here.

The issue is that it is not how much the transfer fee that dictates how good a player is, it is on the whole, how much you pay the player. Good players know their worth and won't stick around to be paid less. Perhaps that is where we need to up the anti. Then again, JM is a man of principle and can't stand to see fooballers earn more than he does

That first paragraph isn't quite true though is it?

We've certainly turned out some good players who've cost us relative peanuts, but we've signed a hell of a lot of them. We've also had some successes with bigger outlay players like Forster, Murty, Butler, Gorkss, Bikey (did what he was bought for), Mills, Duberry, Caskey, Harper and a few others over the timeframe you've alluded to.

[PistolPete]

I talked about things 'on average' - Spending a lot doesn't mean you'll get a bad player, it doesn't mean you'll get a good player and if there's no real correlation only a fool would spend lots!

[Alan Partridge]

Last night I heard Madejski singing a song
Woke up this morning half the squad was now gone
Wooahhhhh sold them on the cheap cheap

[Northern Git]

After reading yesterdays PrintWeek I would think more than a little unhappy.


Goodhead results damaged by BGP 'snow' loss

By Jo Francis Thursday, 24 November 2011

Owner Madejski provides additional bail-out to BGP after pre-tax losses

An avalanche of new work – and snow – has been blamed for BGP's latest results going off-piste. In the year to 31 May 2011, turnover at parent Goodhead Group grew 3.2% to £68.5m, while pre-tax losses reduced by 22.5% to £9.7m. The vast majority of the loss came from BGP, which posted an £8.7m pre-tax loss on sales up 4.7% to £57.6m.

Chief executive David Holland told PrintWeek that expected progress at BGP had been delayed by around 12 months, due to snow-based disruption just as the firm had taken on a number of large new contracts.

"Last Christmas you couldn’t get a lorry from south of Birmingham on the M40 and the A41 was closed for days at a time because of the snow," he said. "It cost us £1.5m and took us until March to get out of it."

This time last year, Holland predicted the company would be back in the black on a consistent basis by the beginning of 2011, and would be unlikely to require additional funding from owner Sir John Madejski.

Although operating losses at BGP were reduced by 16.4% to £6.5m, Madejski still had to inject a further £3.4m and converted an additional £3.9m liability into a loan. The shareholders’ deficit on Goodhead’s balance sheet grew by 36% to £32.2m.

Despite the setback, Holland remained upbeat about the company’s prospects and said the group still had Madejski’s full support. "We didn’t do all the things we said we would do," he admitted. "But breakeven is anticipated in the current quarter. We are getting out of these horrendous numbers."

Restructuring and redundancies have reduced the group’s cost base by £4m, and it continues to trim costs. Of this, Holland said: "When we’re making EBITDA of £10m in a couple of years, the company will be worth ten times that."Goodhead’s results are currently improving and only Goodhead is investing."

Sir John Madejski sold his controlling interest in Malaysian Autotrader earlier this year, netting £18m in the process. He has also bought out the £17m debt owed to Lloyds Banking Group by another of his interests, Clearview Traffic, at a discount that has not been disclosed.

Selling a profitable company and using the income to buy the debt of another of his loss making companies .... hmmmmmm

Throwing more money at BGP, a company that is still nowhere near making a profit, despite statements both in 2010 and 2011 that it would begin to show a profit in the next fiscal period .... hmmmmmm

Another little gem that happened today is that the German manufacturer of two of his large web presss at BGP - MAN Roland has gone bust and is unlikly to survive
This puts a huge question mark over the sustainabilty of the presses and of course their capital value on BGPs books.

Unhappy chairman - yes I would say so - and probably more than a little worrried.