CONFRIMED: Latest rumours Confrimed as Unconfrimed

[blythspartan]

Hopefully, I have copied the link ok. This fella on x seems to know what he’s talking about.
https://x.com/b_c411

[Extended-Phenotype]

I mean, if a borrower puts an asset up for collateral against a loan, and the loan defaulted, isn’t the whole point that the asset now belongs to the loaner?

In which case I don’t see Dai being in limbo, here. Surely the bank owns the stadium and will just want to sell it, at cost, to a potential buyer. In which case, why would they scupper the deal? Dai wants £x for what he owns (which would exclude the stadium) and the bank wants £y for the stadium, so the total cost for a buyer is £x+y.

So surely the problem is either Dai or the bank asking for more than Couhig wanted to pay for it, not that the bank stepped in and blocked the sale from happening. So my money is on Dai’s valuation including a stadium he doesn’t actually own anymore, and Couhig finding out last minute.

[Brogue]

Just do a compulsory purchase order and buy up some of the slum that is the oxford road. It’s just a load of HMO’s full of grotty one bedroom bedsits for junkies and prostitutes. No one would miss it.

We could have bought the old battle hospital site and put it there instead of the Tesco and mosque

[blythspartan]

Just do a compulsory purchase order and buy up some of the slum that is the oxford road. It’s just a load of HMO’s full of grotty one bedroom bedsits for junkies and prostitutes. No one would miss it.

We could have bought the old battle hospital site and put it there instead of the Tesco and mosque

Not sure the old battle hospital site would have been good for Portman Road or the Oxford Road. However, it’s close to Reading West train station and we coped with the traffic when we were at EP.

[Snowflake Royal]

Hopefully, I have copied the link ok. This fella on x seems to know what he’s talking about.
https://x.com/b_c411

[Crusader Royal]

Issue with town centre is it is so heavy penned in. If you look at the IDR, it basically creates a wall/border around a densely populated area. Even just outside this and you are met with residential/office areas or road networks which can't be moved.

On top of the Broad Street Mall car park would be cool.
Two years of construction chaos might be an issue.
You’ve already got Blue Collar set up close by for food.

[Hound]

Just do a compulsory purchase order and buy up some of the slum that is the oxford road. It’s just a load of HMO’s full of grotty one bedroom bedsits for junkies and prostitutes. No one would miss it.

We could have bought the old battle hospital site and put it there instead of the Tesco and mosque

Wiki tells me Battle was still open in 2005, so about 10 years after the land for the Madejski was purchased

[Elm Park Kid]

I think I got us off topic . . .

So, with regards to the Chinese bank thing - James Earnshaw says that it's not a concern, and that's good enough for me.

My thoughts though are that the bank might be using the asset to basically blackmail Dai into paying back as much of the £55m as possible. I don't think any buyer is going to sign a deal that doesn't have ownership (or at least continued use) of the stadium guaranteed at a set price. The bank (from the sounds of it) has the ability to deny that. So, they can say to Dai "We're not going to allow any deal to go through unless the vast majority of proceeds come back to us. Not just the stadium value, pretty much everything you get." What would Dai then be able to do?

Maybe the bank doesn't have that control though if we're saying their no longer a barrier to the deal going through.

[Greatwesternline]

I think I got us off topic . . .

So, with regards to the Chinese bank thing - James Earnshaw says that it's not a concern, and that's good enough for me.

My thoughts though are that the bank might be using the asset to basically blackmail Dai into paying back as much of the £55m as possible. I don't think any buyer is going to sign a deal that doesn't have ownership (or at least continued use) of the stadium guaranteed at a set price. The bank (from the sounds of it) has the ability to deny that. So, they can say to Dai "We're not going to allow any deal to go through unless the vast majority of proceeds come back to us. Not just the stadium value, pretty much everything you get." What would Dai then be able to do?

Maybe the bank doesn't have that control though if we're saying their no longer a barrier to the deal going through.

These are my thoughts. Someone with a charge of the stadium can prevent the sale of the stadium. That's the point of the charge. Why might they prevent the sale? Because they want their money back in full and they are not happy with the sale price of the stadium.

If Dai sells the club for £30m but says £29m is for the club, and only £1m is for the stadium, the person with a charge over the stadium will veto that sale, because they think the stadium they have a charge over is worth £25m of the £30m consideration.

We are all armchair analysts at this point, but a 3rd party with charges over our stadium, and an owner with bigger debts to pay than the value of the stadium, is a very icky situation indeed.

[Hound]

Can the bank force him to sell to pay this chunk back though? Suppose the worry from people who are completely out of the know like myself is Dai just won’t bother selling if he knows he isn’t getting any of the money. Will keep hanging on on the off chance we do an Ipswich and he can sell for big money

[morganb]

A couple of random thoughts on the Couhig deal falling through -

- Do you think the rumour of him only offering £8 million would be his offer price minus the stadium?

- Due to his links with Wycombe, would he have considered a ground share if he couldn't get control of the SCL

[Sutekh]

I think I got us off topic . . .

So, with regards to the Chinese bank thing - James Earnshaw says that it's not a concern, and that's good enough for me.

My thoughts though are that the bank might be using the asset to basically blackmail Dai into paying back as much of the £55m as possible. I don't think any buyer is going to sign a deal that doesn't have ownership (or at least continued use) of the stadium guaranteed at a set price. The bank (from the sounds of it) has the ability to deny that. So, they can say to Dai "We're not going to allow any deal to go through unless the vast majority of proceeds come back to us. Not just the stadium value, pretty much everything you get." What would Dai then be able to do?

Maybe the bank doesn't have that control though if we're saying their no longer a barrier to the deal going through.

Was this bank loan he got to allow him to put money into the club or was it used for his other business concerns or for personal use? If not the former it doesn't strike me as particularly right or ethical that business rules allow someone to utilise assets from one business stream on anything other than that business stream. But then the business and finance worlds are probably a moral-less law unto themselves.

[Crusader Royal]

A couple of random thoughts on the Couhig deal falling through -

- Do you think the rumour of him only offering £8 million would be his offer price minus the stadium?

- Due to his links with Wycombe, would he have considered a ground share if he couldn't get control of the SCL

I doubt the EFL would agree a deal in which the new owner had no stadium for his team to play in. A groundshare with another league club would be an absolute scheduling nightmare meaning potentially 7 or 8 games being played in an 8 day period on an ongoing basis. I doubt any grass pitch would do well under that load and just one week of postponements would be catastrophic
And that is before you look at the fact that the tenant club would lose a large revenue stream from an already difficult budget.

And yes, an offer of £8million excluding the stadium seems right but he would have to be pretty certain he could then negotiate a purchase from the bank at a realistic figure.

[Snowflake Royal]

A couple of random thoughts on the Couhig deal falling through -

- Do you think the rumour of him only offering £8 million would be his offer price minus the stadium?

- Due to his links with Wycombe, would he have considered a ground share if he couldn't get control of the SCL

I doubt the EFL would agree a deal in which the new owner had no stadium for his team to play in. A groundshare with another league club would be an absolute scheduling nightmare meaning potentially 7 or 8 games being played in an 8 day period on an ongoing basis. I doubt any grass pitch would do well under that load and just one week of postponements would be catastrophic
And that is before you look at the fact that the tenant club would lose a large revenue stream from an already difficult budget.

And yes, an offer of £8million excluding the stadium seems right but he would have to be pretty certain he could then negotiate a purchase from the bank at a realistic figure.

When you factor he'd already put in £5m the £8m seems less ludicrous... that would be £13m and I think there was some talk of him have worked the purchase figure down to about £15m due to the absolute shit show the club's finances and situation are in. So staging some follow up payments would also make sense.

[Hound]

A couple of random thoughts on the Couhig deal falling through -

- Do you think the rumour of him only offering £8 million would be his offer price minus the stadium?

- Due to his links with Wycombe, would he have considered a ground share if he couldn't get control of the SCL

I doubt the EFL would agree a deal in which the new owner had no stadium for his team to play in. A groundshare with another league club would be an absolute scheduling nightmare meaning potentially 7 or 8 games being played in an 8 day period on an ongoing basis. I doubt any grass pitch would do well under that load and just one week of postponements would be catastrophic
And that is before you look at the fact that the tenant club would lose a large revenue stream from an already difficult budget.

And yes, an offer of £8million excluding the stadium seems right but he would have to be pretty certain he could then negotiate a purchase from the bank at a realistic figure.

When you factor he'd already put in £5m the £8m seems less ludicrous... that would be £13m and I think there was some talk of him have worked the purchase figure down to about £15m due to the absolute shit show the club's finances and situation are in. So staging some follow up payments would also make sense.

Yes suggested that one earlier. With later negotiations with dai/the bank to get the stadium at a later date. Would make some sense if complicated

[tmesis]

I mean, if a borrower puts an asset up for collateral against a loan, and the loan defaulted, isn’t the whole point that the asset now belongs to the loaner?

In which case I don’t see Dai being in limbo, here. Surely the bank owns the stadium and will just want to sell it, at cost, to a potential buyer. In which case, why would they scupper the deal? Dai wants £x for what he owns (which would exclude the stadium) and the bank wants £y for the stadium, so the total cost for a buyer is £x+y.

So surely the problem is either Dai or the bank asking for more than Couhig wanted to pay for it, not that the bank stepped in and blocked the sale from happening. So my money is on Dai’s valuation including a stadium he doesn’t actually own anymore, and Couhig finding out last minute.

I'd guess the bank weren't happy with Dai selling the asset used as collateral, because regardless of the sale price, there's nothing they can do to make Dai pay the money he received for the sale.

Dai defaulting and the stadium becoming property of the bank might actually be a better scenario, as they would probably look to a quick sale, like a bank would with a repossessed house. The downside of that is that the buyer might not be someone we'd want to own the stadium.

[Lower West]

I think I got us off topic . . .

So, with regards to the Chinese bank thing - James Earnshaw says that it's not a concern, and that's good enough for me.

My thoughts though are that the bank might be using the asset to basically blackmail Dai into paying back as much of the £55m as possible. I don't think any buyer is going to sign a deal that doesn't have ownership (or at least continued use) of the stadium guaranteed at a set price. The bank (from the sounds of it) has the ability to deny that. So, they can say to Dai "We're not going to allow any deal to go through unless the vast majority of proceeds come back to us. Not just the stadium value, pretty much everything you get." What would Dai then be able to do?

Maybe the bank doesn't have that control though if we're saying their no longer a barrier to the deal going through.

There's no blackmail. As I posted previously in detail . Dai is in deep deep trouble back home. This news simply reinforces the fact that Dai lost control of the situation a long time ago. The NDA's have created a news void. Which has resulted in the continual belief that it's Dai being difficult. Which isn't the case.

[Lower West]

A couple of random thoughts on the Couhig deal falling through -

- Do you think the rumour of him only offering £8 million would be his offer price minus the stadium?

- Due to his links with Wycombe, would he have considered a ground share if he couldn't get control of the SCL

Would also be minus the training facility at that price. Other complications could be with the hotel ownership which is in effect an integral part of the stadium. Also who owns the remainder of the land around the ground.

The football club is the easy part as in essence worth next to nothing. Agreeing a rent on the stadium / training ground are more likely the major stumbling blocks. To recoup their money creditors in China may well taking a hard nosed approach. A structured deal which would see the creditors receive more if the club were to be promoted to the Championship or with an element based on attendances. Be a huge disincentive to Couhig's backers. Akin to a millstone. They were buying into the club for the potential riches of the Premiership in the longer term.

[SouthDownsRoyal]

Hopefully, I have copied the link ok. This fella on x seems to know what he’s talking about.
https://x.com/b_c411

Just clicked the link and this was my exact feeling reading it

Drivel

[Linden Jones' Tash]

I guess my question, given that the football club aspect appears to be a pawn in a larger game, is:

- Who is now leaking this information?

(given the loan seems to date from 2017/18 when the stadium was sold to fudge the accounts)

- Who gains anything from this information being passed onto English Journalists...

- What is their agenda?