Take Over

[gonzo]

Who are the other creditors on the hotel?

[hughmungus]

2 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Who are the other creditors on the hotel?

Suppliers, and Heathcote because of the restaurant and corporate side i guess.

[Spider]

14 minutes ago, gonzo said:

Who are the other creditors on the hotel?

I was shortchanged £3-odd at the bar last season so will be putting my hat in the ring.

[Farrelli]

The most sobering aspect of Sluffys analysis (which I've no reason to doubt) is that from five bidders only FV paid the 25k fee. If we had only one serious bidder then I hope this does not go pear shaped because the alternatives are very worrying.

[Chris Custodiet]

5 hours ago, Sluffy said:

Possibly but that's an issue for FV and not the clubs Administrator whose working on the best interest of the creditors.

This is how the Administrators view that - 

Wanderers initially had around £1m in the bank account when they were frozen on March 15 and, states the report, there was a “real threat of the company being placed into compulsory liquidation” on the administrators’ arrival around eight weeks ago.

After it was decided the business could not be rescued as a going concern without a major injection of funds, work began on marketing, and the creation of a ‘data room’ to allow interested parties to do due diligence.

 

It has been revealed that only one party paid the £25,000 fee but that five initial offers were received. Best and final offers were then requested by 4pm on June 12.

Football Ventures, a consortium comprised of London-based businesspeople Sharon Brittan and Jeff Thomas and Michael James, who is a secured creditor of the adjoining Bolton Whites Hotel, were named as preferred bidders and had to pay a non-refundable deposit of £1million for the purposes of “meeting future critical payments necessary for preparing the club for the forthcoming season”.

https://www.theboltonnews.co.uk/sport/17762162.counting-cost-administrators-lay-wanderers-complex-finances-bare/

To translate he basically is saying without someone to take the club on in the form of a new company (newco) the club is basically already dead and to prevent it from him closing it down now already (because it IS insolvent) he needed £1m from the prospective newco owners (FV) to continue trading for the time being.

If FV pull out then there is simply nothing to keep the club going - which means liquidation - the Administrator cannot run the club whilst insolvent (that's why I mentioned the fact that payment of wages to the youth players in order to play at York was a very good sign that such thinking isn't imminent).

There is therefore no capacity to sit around and wait for someone to rock up with a supposedly better deal and for them to prove their financial validity/capacity and for them to be granted approval from the EFL.  This would in any event have to be completed and signed off before the start of the season as the EFL won't let the club to start the season without a financial guarantee that it could complete it and there would only be EDT in a position to do that and they've certainly given no intention of desiring that otherwise they would have taken on the club themselves already.

It's FV or liquidation.

If there really is someone wanting the club other than FV, then they simply have to work with them to keep the club going - by funding it whilst it is insolvent until it can be sold to a newco, and that can only be done now via FV.

Similarly and running alongside concurrently the hotel Administrator is working in the best interests of their creditors, a list of who should be revealed anytime now as the 8 weeks from entering Administration is up  and today would mark the two calendar months mark of the same.

If you flip the scenario over, would it be in the best interests of the creditors of the hotel to see the football club being liquidated if the FV purchase fails?

FV is the only option of retaining a club in the EFL, if they fail, then who would want a near 30,000 seater football stadium in Horwich?

If FV pulled out the clubs secured creditors would still get paid from liquidation but it would seem there wouldn't be anything left for the unsecured ones - no 35p in the £ even.

The hotel's secured creditors would get paid depending on how much the Administrator gets and the hierarchy of those creditors (I still believe James to be first in line).  I find it hard to believe their is some sort of a bidding war however for the hotel as Nixon is making out.  

I would suggest that the most likely cause of the delay is the awaiting of the hotel Administrators list of creditors - if as suspected James is top dog and Anderson is not shown as a secured creditor (or a minor one if he is) then FV will have every reason to go ahead with the purchase of the club, if however he is not and Anderson is somehow the head creditor, then FV would need to re-evaluate their position as to whether to continue buying the club, as presumably James would have lost his £5.5m loan - which I assume would have been a cornerstone of the FV purchase.

Therefore it makes eminent sense for FV to hold back from buying the club until the extent of who the secured creditors of the hotel. their ranking status - and for how much - officially are.

A few matters of detail, Sluffy.

Its significant that the appointment of Quantuma, as hotel administrators, was made, not on 15 May, but 13 May i.e. the same day as the appointment of David Rubin as administrators of BL and BWFC. Typical Beeno inaccuracy, I'm afraid.

MJ is not owed £5.5m. The £5.5m was loaned to the hotel and secured on it by PBP. MJ owns only 20% of PBP, the other 80% being owned by Tom Morris.

PBP also own car parks on the site and, if my memory serves me correctly, some of the office accomodation.

If you take a closer look at the the last P&L of the hotel you will see the marked effect of interest costs on its results in 2017.

Take a closer look at the last filed balance sheet of the hotel and you'll  notice that there wasn't a lot owed to creditors other than PBP.

PBP have made a major contribution to keeping BWFC afloat over the last three years but no-one should expect the company, MJ or anyone else to do anything other than try to safeguard their commercial position.

 

[bolty58]

Anyone else losing the will to live? FFS, the hours must fly by in the homes of some of these War And Peace merchants.

We are saved. Thank fuck. Close thread.

[Tommy Banks]

All makes sense, so basically it’s shit or bust 

[Chris Custodiet]

10 minutes ago, bolty58 said:

Anyone else losing the will to live? FFS, the hours must fly by in the homes of some of these War And Peace merchants.

We are saved. Thank fuck. Close thread.

If its all too difficult for you, Bolty, why not stick to reading the Beeno (or the Grauniad) like a few others on WW?

[Steejay]

18 minutes ago, bolty58 said:

Anyone else losing the will to live? FFS, the hours must fly by in the homes of some of these War And Peace merchants.

We are saved. Thank fuck. Close thread.

🤞

3 minutes ago, Chris Custodiet said:

If its all too difficult for you, Bolty, why not stick to reading the Beeno (or the Grauniad) like a few others on WW?

Hey Chris, welcome back!

Everybody was hoping that you'd fucked off for good... 

[Sluffy]

9 minutes ago, Chris Custodiet said:

A few matters of detail, Sluffy.

Its significant that the appointment of Quantuma, as hotel administrators, was made, not on 15 May, but 13 May i.e. the same day as the appointment of David Rubin as administrators of BL and BWFC. Typical Beeno inaccuracy, I'm afraid.

MJ is not owed £5.5m. The £5.5m was loaned to the hotel and secured on it by PBP. MJ owns only 20% of PBP, the other 80% being owned by Tom Morris.

PBP also own car parks on the site and, if my memory serves me correctly, some of the office accomodation.

If you take a closer look at the the last P&L of the hotel you will see the marked effect of interest costs on its results in 2017.

Take a closer look at the last filed balance sheet of the hotel and you'll  notice that there wasn't a lot owed to creditors other than PBP.

PBP have made a major contribution to keeping BWFC afloat over the last three years but no-one should expect the company, MJ or anyone else to do anything other than try to safeguard their commercial position.

 

Thank you and a very warm welcome back from me, I've missed your expertise and advice whilst you've been away.

I did indeed take the 'beeno' at face value for the date of the appointment for the Administrator but seeing that what I understand to be his requirement to report after 8 weeks and that period had already been spent significantly already I don't think the issue is major on its own but does again reinforce the need to check whatever Iles states as to how accurate or informed he actually is.

Similarly I fully accept the secured creditor of the hotel is PBP and have referred to them as such many times on this thread as such but for the benefit of making what I'm trying to explain to others that bit more easier to comprehend I've use MJ's name rather than PBP.  You are right though to make clear that MJ may very well not be the sole decision maker as to what actions are done to secure and recover the £5.5m investment and how it may be used once it has.

The interest costs for 2017 are indeed up on the previous year £390k compared to £188k.  As the PBP loan is shown as having an interest charge of 7% pa attached to it and 7% of £5.5m is £385k, I assumed that for 2016 the loan had only started mid year and hence did not attract a full years interest to it.  However I think your lead is more to do with if the hotel made a loss of £500k and £385k was interest on a loan, then the hotel was probably trading at a £100k loss without having such a short term loan to service set against it - and possibly why there maybe some genuine interest for the hotel if the purchase price was lower enough and it was serviced over a much longer period.

Even then breaking even at 83% occupancy, doesn't leave a great margin to make substantial profits unless industry occupancy rates for a similar hotel in a similar location is say over 90% occupancy rates - which seem high to someone like me who is not knowledgeable about such things. 

Whilst I'm on about the interest of the PBP loan, assuming the interest hasn't been serviced in full since the last accounts, would that mean PBP would have that as an unsecured debt as well as the secured one they already had or would the interest be set against the secured debt and thus inflating the overall total accordingly?

As for other creditors, Trade and the Taxman seemed to account for around a further £800k, which knowing no better I would assume to be normal running costs for a hotel of its market section and location?

Chris, from what you can gleam from the published accounts, would you consider that PBP have the head charge on the hotel, as Mr Iles has tweeted to inform others that they hadn't and it was Mr Anderson that did? 

Many thanks.

 

[Sweep]

29 minutes ago, bolty58 said:

 

We are saved. 

not yet we're not

[Chris Custodiet]

1 minute ago, Sweep said:

not yet we're not

Is the correct answer.

[TrickyTrotter]

Basran's resignation as a director of Football Ventures just posted on Companies House.

[bolty58]

50 minutes ago, Chris Custodiet said:

If its all too difficult for you, Bolty, why not stick to reading the Beeno (or the Grauniad) like a few others on WW?

I'll stick to it when you learn how to spell it. FFS

[bolty58]

35 minutes ago, Chris Custodiet said:

Is the correct answer.

Stay away from owt sharp FFS.

[Sweep]

31 minutes ago, bolty58 said:

Stay away from owt sharp FFS.

Whilst it's looking like we might be saved, we're still not there yet mate - the fact that Basran has just resigned from FV is a bit odd as well isn't it? (it may not be, I stopped following this thread for a few weeks as it got very tedious)

Edited July 16, 2019 by Sweep

[Tommy Banks]

Wheater back training according to Nixon

[Chris Custodiet]

56 minutes ago, Sluffy said:

Thank you and a very warm welcome back from me, I've missed your expertise and advice whilst you've been away.

I did indeed take the 'beeno' at face value for the date of the appointment for the Administrator but seeing that what I understand to be his requirement to report after 8 weeks and that period had already been spent significantly already I don't think the issue is major on its own but does again reinforce the need to check whatever Iles states as to how accurate or informed he actually is.

Similarly I fully accept the secured creditor of the hotel is PBP and have referred to them as such many times on this thread as such but for the benefit of making what I'm trying to explain to others that bit more easier to comprehend I've use MJ's name rather than PBP.  You are right though to make clear that MJ may very well not be the sole decision maker as to what actions are done to secure and recover the £5.5m investment and how it may be used once it has.

The interest costs for 2017 are indeed up on the previous year £390k compared to £188k.  As the PBP loan is shown as having an interest charge of 7% pa attached to it and 7% of £5.5m is £385k, I assumed that for 2016 the loan had only started mid year and hence did not attract a full years interest to it.  However I think your lead is more to do with if the hotel made a loss of £500k and £385k was interest on a loan, then the hotel was probably trading at a £100k loss without having such a short term loan to service set against it - and possibly why there maybe some genuine interest for the hotel if the purchase price was lower enough and it was serviced over a much longer period.

Even then breaking even at 83% occupancy, doesn't leave a great margin to make substantial profits unless industry occupancy rates for a similar hotel in a similar location is say over 90% occupancy rates - which seem high to someone like me who is not knowledgeable about such things. 

Whilst I'm on about the interest of the PBP loan, assuming the interest hasn't been serviced in full since the last accounts, would that mean PBP would have that as an unsecured debt as well as the secured one they already had or would the interest be set against the secured debt and thus inflating the overall total accordingly?

As for other creditors, Trade and the Taxman seemed to account for around a further £800k, which knowing no better I would assume to be normal running costs for a hotel of its market section and location?

Chris, from what you can gleam from the published accounts, would you consider that PBP have the head charge on the hotel, as Mr Iles has tweeted to inform others that they hadn't and it was Mr Anderson that did? 

Many thanks.

 

I honestly don't think Marc Iles or his followers have much idea about business and suspect  that he may be ineluctably prejudiced in much the same way as the Guardian's, David Conn.

I know that you were aware of the PBP/MJ position and were just simplifying it. The good thing about WW is that there are a few who get it.

 With Rubin's report being qualified and Quantuma's still under wraps, there may well be things that have happened in the background that have changed the relationships. However so far as documents on the public record go, PBP's charges registered in February 2016 remain in place and its difficult to see why PBP would agree for them to be subordinated in favour of Ken Anderson.

The last filed accounts of the hotel show that PBP's £5.5m was used to repay a bank loan of £1m with the rest of it used to prop up BWFC.

There was an exceptional credit of £406K in the hotel's 2016 accounts that reduced the operating loss to £450K though the underlying operating loss was £856K.

The 2017 accounts still showed an operating loss of £115K but this was a big improvement on the 2016 figures.

I would expect unpaid interest to be secured in the same way as the capital, otherwise the lawyers involved might have questions to answer.

[Morizio]

Sure these two boring cunts just copy and paste. 

 

Thing is is I’ll never know as I don’t read what the boring cunts post. 

[Eddie]

55 minutes ago, Tommy Banks said:

Wheater back training according to Nixon

Further indication that the deal is progressing IMO. There’s no way that he’s just decided to come back training if he hasn’t had a word that he’ll soon be offered a new deal.

Somebody is making football decisions and I’m not sure I’d bother if I wasn’t 99% sure that I’m about to complete the deal.

[Sluffy]

38 minutes ago, Chris Custodiet said:

I honestly don't think Marc Iles or his followers have much idea about business and suspect  that he may be ineluctably prejudiced in much the same way as the Guardian's, David Conn.

I know that you were aware of the PBP/MJ position and were just simplifying it. The good thing about WW is that there are a few who get it.

 With Rubin's report being qualified and Quantuma's still under wraps, there may well be things that have happened in the background that have changed the relationships. However so far as documents on the public record go, PBP's charges registered in February 2016 remain in place and its difficult to see why PBP would agree for them to be subordinated in favour of Ken Anderson.

The last filed accounts of the hotel show that PBP's £5.5m was used to repay a bank loan of £1m with the rest of it used to prop up BWFC.

There was an exceptional credit of £406K in the hotel's 2016 accounts that reduced the operating loss to £450K though the underlying operating loss was £856K.

The 2017 accounts still showed an operating loss of £115K but this was a big improvement on the 2016 figures.

I would expect unpaid interest to be secured in the same way as the capital, otherwise the lawyers involved might have questions to answer.

Thanks Chris, much appreciated once again.

Please don't let the usual suspects chase you off here, there's plenty like me who do want to hear your knowledge and advise in order to enlighten us, and we thank you for it.

[Burndens Bogs]

Deary me.

[Wanderlust]

Does all this mean that in simplified terms, Morris/James/PBP/FV are basically the same players in for both the club and the hotel (i.e. that the water's aren't being muddied by an external unknown quantity)  and any dispute re the two sales is more a matter of sorting it out between them?

[Marc505]

Ohh thank you

No, thank you

No I insist, thank you

No, thank you!

Get a room or rub a balloon on it FFS.

[Sluffy]

Manners maketh man.

Have a nice day.