Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I think that whatever else we throw at him, we should not throw that one. Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but
there is no evidence that this is happening based on the Staprix accounts. Nigel Kleinfeld of the Trust is going over them in detail. At the moment it appears that someone put €171m into Staprix, which is a pretty remarkable amount of money. But Melexis has no connection to Staprix whatsoever. Not surprising, it's publicly quoted, and shareholders would be massively unimpressed.
Of course you could say that his Melexis dividends funded Staprix, but it would appear only as his private choice. That would not enable any corporate tax advantages
As we are 1 5%ov his interest why is he attending matches and giving interviews on clubs who are much much smaller.
Wanker
He is majority shareholder and president of a big company nearby (X-Fab in Erfurt). My guess is he nips over to Germany and does a visit to Jena and an X-Fab board meeting in the same trip. I can't see him paying hotel bills, so perhaps he has another home there.
Ah, the wonders of lawful tax avoidance. I had dealings with an Italian company (a farmers' co-operative) for some years and iirc the MD was alleged to keep four sets of books - the official one for the authorities, a second set for the farmers, a third private set and a fourth set not even his family knew about. It's a strange old world.
Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I think that whatever else we throw at him, we should not throw that one. Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but
there is no evidence that this is happening based on the Staprix accounts. Nigel Kleinfeld of the Trust is going over them in detail. At the moment it appears that someone put €171m into Staprix, which is a pretty remarkable amount of money. But Melexis has no connection to Staprix whatsoever. Not surprising, it's publicly quoted, and shareholders would be massively unimpressed.
Of course you could say that his Melexis dividends funded Staprix, but it would appear only as his private choice. That would not enable any corporate tax advantages
I don't think Melexis gives out much in the way of dividends usually; I think its worth to someone with 50%+ of it's shares is mainly a huge increase in capital value. According to their own website, which shows share price history since 2007, the share price only for the first time broke 20 euros in late 2013; now it's worth 64 euros.
Ah, the wonders of lawful tax avoidance. I had dealings with an Italian company (a farmers' co-operative) for some years and iirc the MD was alleged to keep four sets of books - the official one for the authorities, a second set for the farmers, a third private set and a fourth set not even his family knew about. It's a strange old world.
That sounds rather more like illegal tax evasion and fraudulent accounting.
Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I think that whatever else we throw at him, we should not throw that one. Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but
there is no evidence that this is happening based on the Staprix accounts. Nigel Kleinfeld of the Trust is going over them in detail. At the moment it appears that someone put €171m into Staprix, which is a pretty remarkable amount of money. But Melexis has no connection to Staprix whatsoever. Not surprising, it's publicly quoted, and shareholders would be massively unimpressed.
Of course you could say that his Melexis dividends funded Staprix, but it would appear only as his private choice. That would not enable any corporate tax advantages
I don't think Melexis gives out much in the way of dividends usually; I think its worth to someone with 50%+ of it's shares is mainly a huge increase in capital value. According to their own website, which shows share price history since 2007, the share price only for the first time broke 20 euros in late 2013; now it's worth 64 euros.
Interesting. The main point I wanted to stress is that there is no evidence that Staprix is linked financially to any other larger non-football business that he owns - as far as we can tell so far. Where the €171m came from, we don't yet know, but there is no evidence at all that it came from Melexis. That's one reason why the Trust gave up the idea of targetting the Melexis AGM. The shareholders would just shrug and say that what he does with his private money is of no interest to them.
Sadly the Italian company is no more, despite having The Vatican as a client (one year The Pope came by to bless the crop). Dubious practices, for sure.
Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I think that whatever else we throw at him, we should not throw that one. Sorry to repeat myself from another thread, but
there is no evidence that this is happening based on the Staprix accounts. Nigel Kleinfeld of the Trust is going over them in detail. At the moment it appears that someone put €171m into Staprix, which is a pretty remarkable amount of money. But Melexis has no connection to Staprix whatsoever. Not surprising, it's publicly quoted, and shareholders would be massively unimpressed.
Of course you could say that his Melexis dividends funded Staprix, but it would appear only as his private choice. That would not enable any corporate tax advantages
Understood. It all seems pretty complicated - all credit to the Trust for persevering in their analysis.
Huhs ?? None, I think - an amiable and relaxed interview
His German seems much better and relaxed than his English. No huhs or equivalent. But it only takes him two minutes to start banging on about his vision of everyone having a place in the town to meet up and enjoy themselves. He explicitly says it's not the most important thing for the club to gain promotion to the Bundesliga (it's not a "must"). Also complains that half the clubs in the English Premiership lose money but says it's generally possible to make profits in the US (but it's a different culture). Also referred to a €2m equity investment plus a €4m loan facility that is earmarked for investment if the club gets promoted this year. He then seemed to follow that statement with a series of caveats - need to listen to that bit again with more than half an ear. Depressing stuff, but overall he presented a much happier public face than his last appearance at CAFC - maybe he bought the right club (for him) in Germany.
Listened again. Re the €4m loan, he actually seemed really put out that €1m of this has already been spent (implication - wasted, without actually getting promoted). If so he must be really annoyed about the hopeless waste of his hard-earned cash at Charlton.
Based on his negative comments about England (compared to Germany, USA etc) you could infer that he has given up hope that his model could ever work here with a toothless FFP and especially without a wage cap.
FCC are doing well on the field - astonishingly only one goal conceded in 11 games - but by 3 weeks ago they had already lost €200k+ this season despite a sell-out 19000 against Bayern plus no doubt good TV money (I watched it live on BT Sports).
FCC 1/18 CAFC 17/24 after relegation Alcorcon 21/22 - only 10 goals allowed by good old Marko Dmitrovic, but only four scored Ujpest 6/12 STVV 14/16
Bit of a pattern there ....
In neighbouring Weimar Goethe wrote his great masterpiece Faust. Over two hundred years later have the good folk of FCC concluded their own Faustian pact ?
Huhs ?? None, I think - an amiable and relaxed interview
His German seems much better and relaxed than his English. No huhs or equivalent. But it only takes him two minutes to start banging on about his vision of everyone having a place in the town to meet up and enjoy themselves. He explicitly says it's not the most important thing for the club to gain promotion to the Bundesliga (it's not a "must"). Also complains that half the clubs in the English Premiership lose money but says it's generally possible to make profits in the US (but it's a different culture). Also referred to a €2m equity investment plus a €4m loan facility that is earmarked for investment if the club gets promoted this year. He then seemed to follow that statement with a series of caveats - need to listen to that bit again with more than half an ear. Depressing stuff, but overall he presented a much happier public face than his last appearance at CAFC - maybe he bought the right club (for him) in Germany.
Listened again. Re the €4m loan, he actually seemed really put out that €1m of this has already been spent (implication - wasted, without actually getting promoted). If so he must be really annoyed about the hopeless waste of his hard-earned cash at Charlton.
Based on his negative comments about England (compared to Germany, USA etc) you could infer that he has given up hope that his model could ever work here with a toothless FFP and especially without a wage cap.
Let's hope so anyway.
I think he's a bit out of date about the PL. It will require serious incompetence to lose money in the PL from now on. The idea of taking part in the obscene greed of the PL may be irrelevant to us right now, but it certainly wasn't when RD took over.
Despite the success of RB Leipzig/Red Bull and Hoffenheim/SAP in spending their way out of the lower leagues and showing what can be achieved with suitable investment, perhaps the consistent heavy losses at FCC with nothing to show for it are beginning to exasperate our man. He is still enviably vigorous and robust as he turns 70 but maybe he is becoming impatient. He has said that he would remain active until he was 75 - for his "plans" to bear fruit something needs to happen, and soon.
The consistent heavy losses have been going on for quite a while now. As the parent club is a not-for-profit organisation, I don't know how they've got away with it, or where the money came from before RD showed up. In a bid to recapture their Bundesliga 2 past glories of the 1990s, they have been spending serious money since the mid or early 2000s (it worked briefly in the mid 2000s). As he does his own due diligence, RD must have known what he was getting into.
As I've mentioned elsewhere RD bought three clubs over Xmas/New Year 2013/2014, quite a feat to get all those expensive briefs, accountants etc to be so productive over a holiday period. Then our first home game was called off 90 minutes before kick-off because of a defective pitch - without any (public) remonstration. All seems very hasty and possibly not at all diligent.
Huhs ?? None, I think - an amiable and relaxed interview
His German seems much better and relaxed than his English. No huhs or equivalent. But it only takes him two minutes to start banging on about his vision of everyone having a place in the town to meet up and enjoy themselves. He explicitly says it's not the most important thing for the club to gain promotion to the Bundesliga (it's not a "must"). Also complains that half the clubs in the English Premiership lose money but says it's generally possible to make profits in the US (but it's a different culture). Also referred to a €2m equity investment plus a €4m loan facility that is earmarked for investment if the club gets promoted this year. He then seemed to follow that statement with a series of caveats - need to listen to that bit again with more than half an ear. Depressing stuff, but overall he presented a much happier public face than his last appearance at CAFC - maybe he bought the right club (for him) in Germany.
Listened again. Re the €4m loan, he actually seemed really put out that €1m of this has already been spent (implication - wasted, without actually getting promoted). If so he must be really annoyed about the hopeless waste of his hard-earned cash at Charlton.
Based on his negative comments about England (compared to Germany, USA etc) you could infer that he has given up hope that his model could ever work here with a toothless FFP and especially without a wage cap.
Let's hope so anyway.
I think he's a bit out of date about the PL. It will require serious incompetence to lose money in the PL from now on. The idea of taking part in the obscene greed of the PL may be irrelevant to us right now, but it certainly wasn't when RD took over.
Instead of losing £5-10M per season since taking over RD could have given Powell £20M that first year and we would have been sitting pretty in the PL with new owners and him £100M richer.
Huhs ?? None, I think - an amiable and relaxed interview
His German seems much better and relaxed than his English. No huhs or equivalent. But it only takes him two minutes to start banging on about his vision of everyone having a place in the town to meet up and enjoy themselves. He explicitly says it's not the most important thing for the club to gain promotion to the Bundesliga (it's not a "must"). Also complains that half the clubs in the English Premiership lose money but says it's generally possible to make profits in the US (but it's a different culture). Also referred to a €2m equity investment plus a €4m loan facility that is earmarked for investment if the club gets promoted this year. He then seemed to follow that statement with a series of caveats - need to listen to that bit again with more than half an ear. Depressing stuff, but overall he presented a much happier public face than his last appearance at CAFC - maybe he bought the right club (for him) in Germany.
Listened again. Re the €4m loan, he actually seemed really put out that €1m of this has already been spent (implication - wasted, without actually getting promoted). If so he must be really annoyed about the hopeless waste of his hard-earned cash at Charlton.
Based on his negative comments about England (compared to Germany, USA etc) you could infer that he has given up hope that his model could ever work here with a toothless FFP and especially without a wage cap.
Let's hope so anyway.
I think he's a bit out of date about the PL. It will require serious incompetence to lose money in the PL from now on. The idea of taking part in the obscene greed of the PL may be irrelevant to us right now, but it certainly wasn't when RD took over.
Instead of losing £5-10M per season since taking over RD could have given Powell £20M that first year and we would have been sitting pretty in the PL with new owners and him £100M richer.
Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I keep hearing this about tax relief making the losses self funding.
It isn't true.
If you lose £100, you get tax relief in the U.K. this year of £20 which you can offset against other tax bills in the U.K. (Going down to £17 over the next couple of years).
You have still lost £80.
Even if you use some dodgy Belgian tax rules to get a deduction on the interest on the loans with no tax in Belgium, you have still paid £80 out the door that you would only get back if the loans + interest are repaid in full on sale.
So I can't see how the losses are self funding.
Nice idea though.
Yes, but if the Belgian company is showing losses as a result of its loans to cover CAFC losses, would Belgian tax rules allow an offset there against Staprix's Belgian taxes? That's the question isn't it? Edit: Although it would be focused on Roland's money rather than that of his other companies.
Being the free-thinker that he is, maybe Roland was attracted by the casino economics of football, where financial logic is the exception rather than the rule. The fact that his home club, the modest STVV, was one of a handful world-wide caught breaking third-party rules shows that he's up for the unorthodox. If indeed network losses are rinsed through Staprix to reduce the tax liabilities of his successful companies, that means the losses would be self-funding.
I keep hearing this about tax relief making the losses self funding.
It isn't true.
If you lose £100, you get tax relief in the U.K. this year of £20 which you can offset against other tax bills in the U.K. (Going down to £17 over the next couple of years).
You have still lost £80.
Even if you use some dodgy Belgian tax rules to get a deduction on the interest on the loans with no tax in Belgium, you have still paid £80 out the door that you would only get back if the loans + interest are repaid in full on sale.
So I can't see how the losses are self funding.
Nice idea though.
Yes, but if the Belgian company is showing losses as a result of its loans to cover CAFC losses, would Belgian tax rules allow an offset there against Staprix's Belgian taxes? That's the question isn't it? Edit: Although it would be focused on Roland's money rather than that of his other companies.
Well we need to get to the bottom of what taxes Staprix actually have to pay. It will only pay tax if it makes a profit. This is what Nigel K of the Trust is trying to establish, but on the surface it is not obvious where Staprix has made a profit. For example how would the proceeds from the sale of Standard be treated in accounting terms? Would it be some kind of capital gain? It surely would not be revenue from operations.
That kind of depends what was sold. If it was shares in a company held for more than 1 year, and there was no speculation(both seem likely conditions to have been met) Belgian tax law applies a 0.412% tax on any gains regardless of other trading losses available.
Otherwise there is a bigger tax (33.99% in the event of the speculation condition not being met and 25.75% in the event of the time limit not being met.
So staprix losses unlikely to be useful against that.
I would also be surprised if loans to the U.K. were being written down in the books of Staprix.
Even if they were though, and there were profits to offset them against, the benefit is still only at the local tax rate and you have still lost most of your money.
This is a quote from an interview with RD, published on Monday. I suppose the "we" means Staprix.
---
Q: Do you want to apply for the stadium project?
"We will apply. We have a lot of experience because we built a stadium with a comparable size in Sint-Truiden. From the perspective of potential attendances, Jena is comparable. We have to wait and see what decision the City makes. But we definitely have the best expertise."
The best analysis I can make of it as it stands is:
1 That must mean he is willing to provide up to the 26 million euros that the City now wants from the commercial investor in the rebuild project.
2 Last year it was only supposed to require up to 7 million from the investor, but, in the summer, the City revised its costings from 22 million to 41 million. I don't know why the costs went up so much, but the cost of 41 million is, as GlassHF's video shows, double the cost of comparable stadium builds in Germany in recent history. [The other 15 million will come from the City and the State of Thuringia.]
3 Why would he accept that? One reason is that it looks like the City will be budgeting for an annual payment (grant?) of 1.4 million for 25 years to the investor (source: freely-available City Council document from August 2016).
4 That conjures up a mental picture of a 94-year-old Roly prising himself out of his armchair in St Truiden Street to stuff 1.4 million in crisp, new German euros into the piggy bank marked Staprix. On the one hand, that contrasts with his previous statement that he doesn't expect to be active beyond about 75. On the other hand, I suppose he can bequeath or possibly sell his assorted investments, etc. But it's a sobering thought for us that, once he gets busy with his hard hat on, he's digging in for the long term.
5 The City Council was very nervous about the recent turmoil at the Club, as making the rebuild work financially for the City will be dependent on the Club being stable and getting promoted - the City's calculations are based on hiking the rent for the Club on promotion.
6 So, they are going to be very beholden to him in more ways than one. In the meantime, it seems that eliminating the opposition within the Football Club's Supervisory Board was essential to calm nerves about the rebuild project.
Comments
Wanker
there is no evidence that this is happening based on the Staprix accounts. Nigel Kleinfeld of the Trust is going over them in detail. At the moment it appears that someone put €171m into Staprix, which is a pretty remarkable amount of money. But Melexis has no connection to Staprix whatsoever. Not surprising, it's publicly quoted, and shareholders would be massively unimpressed.
Of course you could say that his Melexis dividends funded Staprix, but it would appear only as his private choice. That would not enable any corporate tax advantages
Ah, the wonders of lawful tax avoidance. I had dealings with an Italian company (a farmers' co-operative) for some years and iirc the MD was alleged to keep four sets of books - the official one for the authorities, a second set for the farmers, a third private set and a fourth set not even his family knew about. It's a strange old world.
But it would probably annoy Roland quite a lot.
Sadly the Italian company is no more, despite having The Vatican as a client (one year The Pope came by to bless the crop). Dubious practices, for sure.
They're his only successful team at present.
Based on his negative comments about England (compared to Germany, USA etc) you could infer that he has given up hope that his model could ever work here with a toothless FFP and especially without a wage cap.
Let's hope so anyway.
FCC 1/18
CAFC 17/24 after relegation
Alcorcon 21/22 - only 10 goals allowed by good old Marko Dmitrovic, but only four scored
Ujpest 6/12
STVV 14/16
Bit of a pattern there ....
In neighbouring Weimar Goethe wrote his great masterpiece Faust. Over two hundred years later have the good folk of FCC concluded their own Faustian pact ?
Despite the success of RB Leipzig/Red Bull and Hoffenheim/SAP in spending their way out of the lower leagues and showing what can be achieved with suitable investment, perhaps the consistent heavy losses at FCC with nothing to show for it are beginning to exasperate our man. He is still enviably vigorous and robust as he turns 70 but maybe he is becoming impatient. He has said that he would remain active until he was 75 - for his "plans" to bear fruit something needs to happen, and soon.
As I've mentioned elsewhere RD bought three clubs over Xmas/New Year 2013/2014, quite a feat to get all those expensive briefs, accountants etc to be so productive over a holiday period. Then our first home game was called off 90 minutes before kick-off because of a defective pitch - without any (public) remonstration. All seems very hasty and possibly not at all diligent.
Would explain why he thinks he never does failure!
In case of interest, this is a video about the new stadium project :
Stadionbau fur den FC Carl Zeiss Jena wird deutlich teurer [Stadium construction for FCC will be significantly more expensive]. RD is a potential hero, but rescue won't come cheap ....
Just pondering...
Otherwise there is a bigger tax (33.99% in the event of the speculation condition not being met and 25.75% in the event of the time limit not being met.
So staprix losses unlikely to be useful against that.
I would also be surprised if loans to the U.K. were being written down in the books of Staprix.
Even if they were though, and there were profits to offset them against, the benefit is still only at the local tax rate and you have still lost most of your money.
---
Q: Do you want to apply for the stadium project?
"We will apply. We have a lot of experience because we built a stadium with a comparable size in Sint-Truiden. From the perspective of potential attendances, Jena is comparable. We have to wait and see what decision the City makes. But we definitely have the best expertise."
http://m.otz.de/web/mobil/sport/detail/-/specific/Macht-in-Jena-weiter-FCC-Anteilseigner-Roland-Duch-telet-im-Interview-1203619778
---
The best analysis I can make of it as it stands is:
1 That must mean he is willing to provide up to the 26 million euros that the City now wants from the commercial investor in the rebuild project.
2 Last year it was only supposed to require up to 7 million from the investor, but, in the summer, the City revised its costings from 22 million to 41 million. I don't know why the costs went up so much, but the cost of 41 million is, as GlassHF's video shows, double the cost of comparable stadium builds in Germany in recent history. [The other 15 million will come from the City and the State of Thuringia.]
3 Why would he accept that? One reason is that it looks like the City will be budgeting for an annual payment (grant?) of 1.4 million for 25 years to the investor (source: freely-available City Council document from August 2016).
4 That conjures up a mental picture of a 94-year-old Roly prising himself out of his armchair in St Truiden Street to stuff 1.4 million in crisp, new German euros into the piggy bank marked Staprix. On the one hand, that contrasts with his previous statement that he doesn't expect to be active beyond about 75. On the other hand, I suppose he can bequeath or possibly sell his assorted investments, etc. But it's a sobering thought for us that, once he gets busy with his hard hat on, he's digging in for the long term.
5 The City Council was very nervous about the recent turmoil at the Club, as making the rebuild work financially for the City will be dependent on the Club being stable and getting promoted - the City's calculations are based on hiking the rent for the Club on promotion.
6 So, they are going to be very beholden to him in more ways than one. In the meantime, it seems that eliminating the opposition within the Football Club's Supervisory Board was essential to calm nerves about the rebuild project.