It's an idea worthy of further consideration, and I believe it has been mentioned before.
- Purchase the freehold of The Valley and Sparrows Lane, and that would likely also include the former directors' charges, at a fair valuation based on independent assessment.
- Rent to the new football club owners as a full repairing and insuring lease at a pepper corn rent, sufficient to cover admin costs of ownership only. i.e. non-profit making.
- Structure the ownership as a trust, holding the asset only with no operational exposure. Social Enterprise set-up.
- Purchase price x divided by y issued shares e.g. purchase price £20,000,000 with 100,000 issued shares = £200 per share - this allows anyone with at least £200 to participate.
Lots of issues to resolve, not least agreeing a fair valuation with an owner who is batshit crazy. Time scale may prohibit such an approach as well - I believe RD is looking at the end game now.
If the set-up was right then I would be prepared to invest by buying a number of shares (but even I haven't got a spare £20 million I'm afraid!).
I am generally a fan of grapevine’s excellent offerings but in this case I thought he took an awfully long time to make a pretty straight forward point. Roland in his own version of la la land wants to sell the club to the fans, land assets aside. Would we all pitch in two and a half K if that was a genuine offer? Not quite sure why that needed an essay.
I am starting to think that the fans aspire to buying the land not the club, starting with The Valley. I have doubts as to whether such a thing is possible, but it is a fantastic goal and aim for us. The ground and the generations of fans are the permanent marker of a football club, they are forever fixed.
I think this is ok if you have 2500 spare that you wont ever need back,regretably not for me.Also how much would be swallowed up in legal fees.
Depends a lot on how the "shares" issue is structured. The deal might contain a clause that the shares are repaid on reaching the Premier League or dividends on profits (although that might never be achieved...).
I've just raised the issue with the missus and she said a resounding 'no'.
I've just sprayed FUCK OFF MRS ADDICKTED on my garage doors.
That'll learn her....
I wont be telling mine!!!
I was speaking with the Chairman of Blackheath Rugby Club the other week. He tells me he has several generous sponsors who don’t tell the missus when they hand over a few bob ....
Could an idea be to offer the use stadium/training ground to whoever takeover the club side , for free (other than Roland ofc)...
could be be a great way of enticing people to invest in charlton as a club , whilst retaining the Valley!
Not sure if it’s possible, but could the Supporters trust sell shares in itself, which could equally be used to pay for the stadium as well as ‘keep charlton Charlton’ active?
EDIT:
What’s the likelyhood that investing into the stadium scheme would be attractive to ‘football fans’ in general - and possibly attracting potential suitors for the club?
I think this is ok if you have 2500 spare that you wont ever need back,regretably not for me.Also how much would be swallowed up in legal fees.
I wonder if it might be possible to find a suitable lawyer willing to work pro bono for a good cause such as something like this? Where I live there are currently a lot of objections to a large housing development proposal on green belt land. There are some solicitors and barristers that have provided support for free to residents associations in fighting other planning applications around the country and some law firms periodically perform a variety of legal work on a pro bono basis. If, for example, CAST came up with a proposal for a supporter funded ground purchase, that might be an avenue to explore.
At £2,500 a go you would be doing well to get 500 people to sign up
I would agree.
However, with lower entry points and no upper limit, thereby allowing those who wanted/were able to contribute more (for an increased share of the freehold) then the numbers could well be significantly higher.
A huge challenge of course and may well be pie in the sky thinking but worth at least a detailed assessment.
It could even be set up as an investment with a return/dividend each year of say 2% - £400k on a £20 mill investment - that could be the rent and at less than £20k per home game (c1,000 tickets) then it could be doable for the football club owners. There could also be a clause allowing the club owners to purchase the freeholds if/when Premier League status is obtained at perhaps a 15-20% premium. Thereby allowing initial investors the opportunity for mild returns.
How that could be structured is not something I have sufficient knowledge of, and it may be all bollox - but we can dream!
Still have my share certificates from before. An £800 investment, whilst not expecting a profit, I did not expect to see them cancelled as having no value, them within couple years club was in premiership. That stung a bit !
Would have to to see some guarantees that would not be possible to happen again, before I would get involved.
At £2,500 a go you would be doing well to get 500 people to sign up
I would agree.
However, with lower entry points and no upper limit, thereby allowing those who wanted/were able to contribute more (for an increased share of the freehold) then the numbers could well be significantly higher.
A huge challenge of course and may well be pie in the sky thinking but worth at least a detailed assessment.
It could even be set up as an investment with a return/dividend each year of say 2% - £400k on a £20 mill investment - that could be the rent and at less than £20k per home game (c1,000 tickets) then it could be doable for the football club owners. There could also be a clause allowing the club owners to purchase the freeholds if/when Premier League status is obtained at perhaps a 15-20% premium. Thereby allowing initial investors the opportunity for mild returns.
How that could be structured is not something I have sufficient knowledge of, and it may be all bollox - but we can dream!
Breaking it into shares might be the solution in terms of raising the money, but I still don't see how Roland would sell to fans unless we bought the whole club off him.
You wouldn't necessarily have to fund the entire amount anyway- lets say we agreed a figure of £15m for the assets from Roland ( probably fanciful but bear with me) , we agreed a 50% mortgage with a bank at say 5% interest, i.e £7.5m and a seperate back to back deal with the Aussies or whoever to pay a sensible rent to cover the interest and capital repayments over 25 years , that's c£500k a year to rent the facilities and pay the mortgage off which is reasonable and at the end of it the supporters own the ground. That still means we'd have to raise £7.5m , which is 750 rich supporters at £10k each or something lower with more people. I realise that there are lots of IFs and BUTs in here, but honestly you'd think, someone would be up for a deal of this nature.
You wouldn't necessarily have to fund the entire amount anyway- lets say we agreed a figure of £15m for the assets from Roland ( probably fanciful but bear with me) , we agreed a 50% mortgage with a bank at say 5% interest, i.e £7.5m and a seperate back to back deal with the Aussies or whoever to pay a sensible rent to cover the interest and capital repayments over 25 years , that's c£500k a year to rent the facilities and pay the mortgage off which is reasonable and at the end of it the supporters own the ground. That still means we'd have to raise £7.5m , which is 750 rich supporters at £10k each or something lower with more people. I realise that there are lots of IFs and BUTs in here, but honestly you'd think, someone would be up for a deal of this nature.
It's the lender you would need to convince.
The mortgage would be in the name of the owners - i.e. the fan investors, as would the responsiblity for payments of the 50% capital and accruing interest.
The only way I could ever seeing it work would be ownership of the freeholds, charge free.
Comments
I've just sprayed FUCK OFF MRS ADDICKTED on my garage doors.
That'll learn her....
The ground and the generations of fans are the permanent marker of a football club, they are forever fixed.
FIL is a 72 year old Spurs fan who has never seen them play live.
Once Duchatalet has gone he's going to The Valley.
Could an idea be to offer the use stadium/training ground to whoever takeover the club side , for free (other than Roland ofc)...
could be be a great way of enticing people to invest in charlton as a club , whilst retaining the Valley!
Not sure if it’s possible, but could the Supporters trust sell shares in itself, which could equally be used to pay for the stadium as well as ‘keep charlton Charlton’ active?
EDIT:
What’s the likelyhood that investing into the stadium scheme would be attractive to ‘football fans’ in general - and possibly attracting potential suitors for the club?
maybe put a word in bob?
Would have to to see some guarantees that would not be possible to happen again, before I would get involved.
could i I ask you to look into/talk to the guys at Real Oviedo
http://www.realoviedo.es/en/oviedistas/proud-of-you
They offered shares etc in their club, with even millionaires and Carlos Slim investing!
Could be be a great example to follow if possible!
I put in £500 in Charlton shares years ago and got back zilch .
It's a big ask for a lot of people especially as we have no idea how it will end.
If I were putting £2500 in I wouldn't be expecting anything back
I realise that there are lots of IFs and BUTs in here, but honestly you'd think, someone would be up for a deal of this nature.
It's the lender you would need to convince.
The mortgage would be in the name of the owners - i.e. the fan investors, as would the responsiblity for payments of the 50% capital and accruing interest.
The only way I could ever seeing it work would be ownership of the freeholds, charge free.