The Takeover Thread v3.0 - DONE! - Methven interview in the Telegraph (p55)

Covered End

Basically a similar plan to most owners. 

sam3110

Owners in "we'd rather not piss money up the wall if we can help it" shocker.

charltonbob

cafcfan1990 said:

charltonbob said:

Billionaire owners ? Exciting times ahead ? Ever think you've been had ? ( Not me I never believed all the billionaire nonsense from certain parties) 

As always I think a large chunk of supporters, me included btw, get distracted by owners wealth. Ultimately it’s irrelevant and it’s about how much they are willing to spend. Wolves owners are minted and have been taking out loans, 

Oh sure, it's not how much they have but what they're willing to put in but all this nonsense from certain quarters about seriously wealthy owners who intend "really going for promotion" etc etc when it appears nothing of the sort is going to happen. & It's a mid table squad yet again. I am aware before anybody lectures me that the window is still open, let's see where we are on 2nd September. 

mendonca

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

Scoham

mendonca said:

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

I hope we show ambition and keep them, but signing a replacement before having to sell a player is what well run clubs aim to do.

Is that based on anything more than Taylor and Campbell joining?

CafcWest

mendonca said:

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

For CBT maybe....?  But not sure Taylor can do what Dobson does..think losing Dobson would be a big mistake...

RonnieMoore

mendonca said:

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

Complete rubbish 

mendonca

RonnieMoore said:

mendonca said:

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

Complete rubbish 

Uh oh. I was getting comfort until you said it was complete rubbish Ronnie! I now expect both to be sold tonight for a cut price fee.

valleynick66

Player trading = Player sales 

At least they know our history and are aligning to it 😔

Athletico Charlton

Airman Brown said:

supaclive said:

Yes, we cannot and will not be able to trade this year and not lose (outside of player trading) £4m-£5m.   So that means we'll sell one decent player a season to balance the books or try to.

However, with Dobson and CBT out of contract at the end of this season, there is every chance that if we are off the pace play off wise in January that both of those will be sold in January and a star youth player will go at the end of the season.

I’m sure the plan is to sell players. 

Just like every club. It all depends on how and when surely.  Brentford and Brighton have done very well whilst selling. Coventry made a big sale this summer and are reinvesting well.
Maybe they get lucky. Leaburn could be worth £5M.  Anderson, Assimwe, Kanu, Casey, Mitchell, Elerwere could also be worth very decent money in the next 2 years. If signed up long enough and we maximise the value and reinvest then as painful as the sales will be it could work.
The issue for me isn't the sales but the £1-2M number which seems about £10M too low!

carly burn

sam3110 said:

Owners in "we'd rather not piss money up the wall if we can help it" shocker.

For every season we are in League one we will piss money up the wall.

The majority of this ownership will have no interest or little say in day to day stuff.

This is all on Methven. It's his baby  and it will be down to him if it goes tits up.

up_the_valley

carly burn said:

sam3110 said:

Owners in "we'd rather not piss money up the wall if we can help it" shocker.

For every season we are in League one we will piss money up the wall.

The majority of this ownership will have no interest or little say in day to day stuff.

This is all on Methven. It's his baby  and it will be down to him if it goes tits up.

But Methven doesn't have the cash to run the club etc. The ownership have the only say in fees for transfers. As the greater stakeholders and financiers they have the biggest say on how successful the club will be.

SELR_addicks

The issue isn't that they'd sell players if they get decent offers, I'm sure every club would do that in a similar situation to us. 

The issue is that they're hinging the whole 'project' on being able to sell players at huge values to run the club long-term. What happens in a year once Leaburn is gone and there's no one left that will command big 7 figures? A fire sale? 

carly burn

up_the_valley said:

carly burn said:

sam3110 said:

Owners in "we'd rather not piss money up the wall if we can help it" shocker.

For every season we are in League one we will piss money up the wall.

The majority of this ownership will have no interest or little say in day to day stuff.

This is all on Methven. It's his baby  and it will be down to him if it goes tits up.

But Methven doesn't have the cash to run the club etc. The ownership have the only say in fees for transfers. As the greater stakeholders and financiers they have the biggest say on how successful the club will be.

There are about 10 different investment groups are there not?
 Methven is part of that group.
I believe an initial agreed amount was put in by each party. And Methven probably gave each group assurances about that initial amount being more than enough. 
There is no cash tap here. Despite some investors being significantly wealthier than others. They have agreed a buy in and Methven and his pals will have to go about managing it.

Airman Brown

Athletico Charlton said:

Airman Brown said:

supaclive said:

Yes, we cannot and will not be able to trade this year and not lose (outside of player trading) £4m-£5m.   So that means we'll sell one decent player a season to balance the books or try to.

However, with Dobson and CBT out of contract at the end of this season, there is every chance that if we are off the pace play off wise in January that both of those will be sold in January and a star youth player will go at the end of the season.

I’m sure the plan is to sell players. 

Just like every club. It all depends on how and when surely.  Brentford and Brighton have done very well whilst selling. Coventry made a big sale this summer and are reinvesting well.
Maybe they get lucky. Leaburn could be worth £5M.  Anderson, Assimwe, Kanu, Casey, Mitchell, Elerwere could also be worth very decent money in the next 2 years. If signed up long enough and we maximise the value and reinvest then as painful as the sales will be it could work.
The issue for me isn't the sales but the £1-2M number which seems about £10M too low!

Indeed - what I mean is that the £1m-£2m figure, which is potentially feasible to offset by selling players, is laughable. Either Methven is an idiot or he is dissembling. The gap will be much bigger and the sales will need to be much bigger to cover it. You can do it in any given year but you won’t do it over time. 

mendonca

So, Methven has communicated that operating losses can be reduced by approx £10m, if comparing to the accounts of previous years? Or have I got that wrong.

Chunes

I'm sure Methven said in his interview with @PragueAddick that the consortium were well aware of the large yearly losses and were happy to fund them long term

Why would he put that in the public domain?

TeeC

Conscious we seem to have gone from us ‘being a bit of fun’ for some guys for whom we ‘represent a small share of their overall wealth’ to suddenly planning to have an annual loss level that would require swingeing cuts and selling our young players.

AdTheAddicK

This don't make good reading today 

soapy_jones

Welcome to football ownership chaps. As for "long term" what does that mean these days, where most people can't make it to the end of a TikTok clip.

I reckon Leaburn getting crocked put a spanner in the works early doors, that must of put a dent in the "rebuild" plans.

charltonbob

Chunes said:

I'm sure Methven said in his interview with @PragueAddick that the consortium were well aware of the large yearly losses and were happy to fund them long term

Why would he put that in the public domain?

It's a mystery to me, maybe he's just a fucking liar ?

Airman Brown

“You will do that if you have any kind of competence at all”. Good luck with that.

shirty5

We had the same nonsense from Sandgaard with his project break even 12 months ago 

It don’t happen in this league unless you sell players totalling 6-8 million. 

Fantasy accountancy football 

Ferryman

mendonca said:

I get the impression we are looking to get a decent fee for Dobson and CBT. The replacements are there pretty much

You won't get decent fees in the last window before their contracts expire.

killerandflash

I'm holding judgement until after the window closes.

While I'm not optimistic we're actually going to sign anyone decent this month, it's not unreasonable to play down the amount of money we have while the window is open. Talking about managing losses, and players sales might help in player and indeed wage negotiations.

ElfsborgAddick

I cannot see us getting anywhere near 5 million quid on the players we can sell.  The biggest asset being Leaburn now has to recover from injury and replicate his goals return from last season.

carly burn

Does make you question why they have been so Keen to get Anderson and Asiimwi out on the pitch.
Don't get me wrong. They're good and the squad is thin but CAFC has made me a 98% cynic.

PragueAddick

Chunes said:

I'm sure Methven said in his interview with @PragueAddick that the consortium were well aware of the large yearly losses and were happy to fund them long term

Why would he put that in the public domain?

It might be prudent to say that he  implied this. He also implies there, and more explicitly in the article, that the losses can be reduced by "competent" management. I have no idea what specific opportunities he sees to either cut costs or increase revenues such that you get an £8m operating loss down to £2m. The things he mentioned to me  off the record seemed to me peripheral. In the Telegraph article he talks about things like reducing queues for refreshments, which is laudable in itself but I doubt the resulting revenue increase from improved matchday catering  would even get into six figures. @Airman Brown would of course be able to put a more precise figure on that. As West Ham would tell you, it's marginal and the only serious money to be made is in corporate hospitality -and for that, the Valley needs serious investment. 

I also have to say that when discussing the importance of owning your own ground I'm disappointed that he cited West Ham and Man City as examples to show that you can succeed as tenants. I don't think Charlie Methven is an idiot, but he does often give the impression that he thinks other people are, and fob them off with any old tosh. Does he really think we cannot spot the flaw in the argument re those two clubs? I don't know why he didn't instead cite Coventry. They don't benefit from State Aid, be it the UK or Abu Dhabi. But that will unravel soon enough. That club has to own that stadium.

By the way I'd really encourage people to read the interview, and pick out and save the bits you find relevant to hold him to account for over a period of time. That's the primary purpose of the interview, from the fans' perspective.

carly burn

Here's one for you @PragueAddick

Methven
 "one of the really useful things about Brener and Friedman is not only have they run a football club together, but have been through ups and downs with that, and have tried things that didn’t work"

What club was that?
I know about Brener and Dallas,Houston, but can't find any association of Friedman with any sporting organisations?

Airman Brown

PragueAddick said:

Chunes said:

I'm sure Methven said in his interview with @PragueAddick that the consortium were well aware of the large yearly losses and were happy to fund them long term

Why would he put that in the public domain?

It might be prudent to say that he implied this. He also implies there, and more explicitly in the article, that the losses can be reduced by "competent" management. I have no idea what specific opportunities he sees to either cut costs or increase revenues such that you get an £8m operating loss down to £2m. The things he mentioned to me  off the record seemed to me peripheral. In the Telegraph article he talks about things like reducing queues for refreshments, which is laudable in itself but I doubt the resulting revenue increase from improved matchday catering  would even get into six figures. @Airman Brown would of course be able to put a more precise figure on that. As West Ham would tell you, it's marginal and the only serious money to be made is in corporate hospitality -and for that, the Valley needs serious investment. 

I also have to say that when discussing the importance of owning your own ground I'm disappointed that he cited West Ham and Man City as examples to show that you can succeed as tenants. I don't think Charlie Methven is an idiot, but he does often give the impression that he thinks other people are, and fob them off with any old tosh. Does he really think we cannot spot the flaw in the argument re those two clubs? I don't know why he didn't instead cite Coventry. They don't benefit from State Aid, be it the UK or Abu Dhabi. But that will unravel soon enough. That club has to own that stadium.

By the way I'd really encourage people to read the interview, and pick out and save the bits you find relevant to hold him to account for over a period of time. That's the primary purpose of the interview, from the fans' perspective.

It’s always the same thing, really. They all claim to have a magic route to balancing the books and it’s always nonsense. 

Leaving aside the catering arrangements being outsourced (I haven’t taken much notice but assume that’s still the case), the net revenue gain is minor after cost of sale. 

I’m not even sure the club will be receiving six figures IN TOTAL over the season if it’s just commission (although that may be too pessimistic), but the scope for increasing it through greater efficiency will be pennies.