The Amulya Loan & Ownership of Loftus Road

[Hogan]

Also why did the owners just replace ABC with like for like loan albeit at a slightly lower interest rate. The club is getting deeper into debt anyways so why didnt they just add the £10M they paid off to the rest of the debt?

[Macmoish]

Just to emphasize: Because some "might" scoff at concerns being expressed.

Maybe everything is absolutely great. Or alternatively, maybe nothing can be done, even if it isn't. But for QPR fans not to be concerned/considering what if anything they can do to ensure a positive result. Well...I can only say, to each, their own!

[cpr]

I fail to see how anyone can view this apparent subterfuge as being in any way positive news for Queen's Park Rangers Football Club.

What is the need for a holding company anyway? What is the need for a loan from a company that have the same directors as the holding company? Why does it appear that the owners will acquire the ground from themselves by not paying the money they lent themselves.

Seems like madness to me and a sensible explanation to the fans on the3 official site wouldn't go amiss.

Like I said, makes no sense and I am still none the wiser!!!!

[londonranger]

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Kipling.




AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[londonranger]

Substitute Zicos's Greedy Bastards for the gods of the copybook Headings.

[froggyranger]

All too confusing for me, I just hope and pray we end up with a football team still playing (no matter what league) in 10,20,30,50 years time.

[Hogan]

Nov 2, 2010 16:28:12 GMT froggyranger said:

All too confusing for me, I just hope and pray we end up with a football team still playing (no matter what league) in 10,20,30,50 years time.

We will, it may not be quite as it is now, perhaps AFC QPR it may be, but we will always have our club. Perhaps sooner than we might think.

[ingham]

In the old amateur game, the Clubs were able to protect themselves.

Because they were Clubs, they could say no when a greedy, self-serving Chairman or Committee proposed a course of action calculated to line their own pockets rather than benefit the Club.

Later, when a Football League of professional clubs was formed, the League itself protected Clubs from their directors' stupidity, greed and incompetence. The directors couldn't run up huge debts, pay unwarranted wages, borrow against the Clubs' assets, pay themselves enormous dividends, or plunder talent from the Clubs around them against those Clubs' wishes.

But nowadays, nobody actually represents the Clubs at all. Not in an administrative sense. There is nobody who can say 'no, you fat, useless lump, you can't just run up debts on the Club's tab, and then help yourself to its assets when you've lost all the money'.

Thirdly, and even in the relatively recent past, our Club and its neighbours were able to mount resistance to predators who had their eye on our ground or those of our neighbours with the backing of the Clubs' supporters and, importantly, our local authority.

But that was when local authorities could be persuaded to act on principle.

Can they be counted on to do so again?

And against the sort of people who, like Russian oligarchs, might set out to loot the very institutions they are supposed to represent and protect?

I wonder.

[londonranger]

Well put, occured insidiously. Then more apparently, more in the public eye. this mechanism explains how QPR were "saved".

That will be until there is nothing left to feed on, except before that, it will be leased to another "Robber Baron" or two, if we are lucky.

If we were promoted it would be a better proposition for a period, but as we can see one cannot buy promotion. Especially when we had tp start building on what was left after
the first Italians left us what was left for pickings and already multiplying the original debt
to a team that had to scramble to avoid relegation.

Now of course the Italians seem to, like vultures, come back into the picture. (EDIT, last par)LR

[cpr]

Only one thing talks these days or nobody listens.

[londonranger]

lol baz.

[londonranger]

But this makes me rethink the whole situation. As Macmoish has been saying for a long time,we really dont know if Briatore and Paladini ever gave up any hold,except to allow the team to be run by Amit and Sakseena on paper?edit lr

The return of Vine, and the Cyprus entrant as Baz has said sounds familiar. I sincerely believe that this would not be a Warnock requisition. (edited and removed Adel morocco
by self LR.)
What strikers have we bought. A lame one with a gummed up works, winger striker. More apparent now why it was "gummed up". Then Warnock was allowed to acquire the players he wanted up to a point?!!
Added to post LR. One can have inner murmurs but dont put them in writing when they are very contentious, and no facts to back them up.

edited and removed abt going well and draws and follow money. LR self edit.

[zicoshoops]

Ingham, you've nailed it.

PLC's exist in the football world for one reason only.
Football Clubs as we used to know them had rubbed along for years.
Clubs were owned in the most part by local businessmen and/or supporters.
If the truth be told, these people made a good living out of it.......................but then the world moved on.

I could be wrong, but I think there was a law that forbid anyone from selling a professional football club for profit.......unless it was sold to a registered charity.
I could still be wrong when I say that I think that it still applies today.
So...................How do we get round that?

Less than 30 years ago, the answer was supplied.
We keep football clubs, except, we make them football clubs in name only.
We turn them into PLC's
And thus, the floodgates opened.

There are many examples of what has happened since, even to a few of the biggest clubs in the country.
But should we be surprised? Because all those 'owners' were doing was trying to buy money.

You buy a club in debt............(although you are not buying into the club, you are buying into the PLC or holding company)

You raise a loan to buy that debt ridden club.........(PLC or holding company)

you increase the clubs debt........(er, the PLC's debt)

You 'earn' from that club (PLC).......

Eventually 2+2 = 5..
So you put the 'Club' into Administration and try and get some more money back.

But that's the problem......Or f**king well should be.
The debt belongs to the PLC or Holding Company.
It doesn't, or nor should it belong to the football club.

But it's the Club/Supporters/Players that pay the price.
Points deduction/Possible relegation.
At this stage where are the Directors?
Where is the accountability?

And what can we do as supporters?
Aside from waiting for the next lot to turn up and save us......by loading more debt on the club.

That's the reality.......that's the way of today's world....that's how it is.

But when it comes down to trying to raise (extra) funds from the supporters by bucket collection, for anything club related, ................please don't hold the bucket in front of me.
Because all you'll collect is a bucket full of piss.

I know I'm being mugged...........but no need to try and take the piss. (unless it's in a bucket of course)

[finney]

What it is as i said yesterday is the vultures are back and ready to feed off the premier league income.

Now my question is a simple one, if the Mittal family are serious about the club as they say then why did they not pay off Flavio and Co?

This as it stands makes no sense to me and looks bad all round and if some mock this thread then it is they who do not undertand the issue and i would urge them too stay silent till this mess is over.

[Macmoish]

To my mind: There one should be one company" QPR...That company should own the club and own the ground and any debt is on the club...No dividing up, etc.

[obk]

Nov 3, 2010 6:31:32 GMT finney said:

What it is as i said yesterday is the vultures are back and ready to feed off the premier league income.

Now my question is a simple one, if the Mittal family are serious about the club as they say then why did they not pay off Flavio and Co?

This as it stands makes no sense to me and looks bad all round and if some mock this thread then it is they who do not undertand the issue and i would urge them too stay silent till this mess is over.

I think the reason is simple enough, they are friends! Don't forget who brought the Mittals to the club in the first place.

[The Scooter]

Nov 3, 2010 6:31:32 GMT finney said:

What it is as i said yesterday is the vultures are back and ready to feed off the premier league income.

Now my question is a simple one, if the Mittal family are serious about the club as they say then why did they not pay off Flavio and Co?

This as it stands makes no sense to me and looks bad all round and if some mock this thread then it is they who do not undertand the issue and i would urge them too stay silent till this mess is over.

Something has intrinsically changed inside the past 6 months. Previously, Mallya was certainly going to come in taking Briatore's shares. Some even speculate that it was all agreed and hands were shaken. Now that has altered and Briatore remains as the single largest shareholder seemingly content to play a waiting game. Why that would be I can only speculate but I would assume it would be more likely to be a property deal rather than the risk of waiting on any PL income that may or may not come.

I wouldn't read too much into the signing of Sofas. I think GP is allowed the odd bone here and there. ;D

[finney]

was it not said that if we get into the PL that GP will get 500k?

That is some money.

[Markqpr]

This is the one letter I've feared receiving since Briatore, Ecclestone, Bhatia and Mittal took over the ownership of QPR.

This letter actually brings to bear a reality that we have been living in fear of since the ABC loan was first put into place.

We are at extreme risk of actually losing our ground. The only 'substantial non-cash asset' that we have.

To find out the actual scale of the loss to the football club you would have to work out how much in interest payments we have made to both ABC and Amulya as well as charges made to the club by various others for their role in facilitating the various deals.

Once you know that figure you can take the £10m original loan and then take away that total and the actual cost of the ground today and reach the actual loss figure.

Basically (£21m + interest payments + charges) - £10m.

Where the £10m has gone over the years is also cause for speculation but is an entirely separate issue.

This is a situation which is in direct contrast to what the new owners promised in the Press with assurances of not having to worry about anything as regards the finances of the club and specifically the ABC loan because this is exactly what we feared could happen as a result of the ABC loan and the state of the finances at the time.

How could this be anything other but truly terrible news?

To anyone who thinks that simply because Briatore and Bhatia are 'interested' in 'entities' which own Amulya so therefore this is no big deal and a negative spin on an inocuos matter, please answer me this:

How does it benefit QPR to lose a £21m 'substantial non-cash asset' after throwing away interest payments in the millions simply because it then shows up as a £21m asset on a separate companies account sheet?

Why would our loss be offset by this? How would it be?

If all the companies and 'entities' that our owners are 'interested' in offset our losses then how come we are in this situation?

F1 makes billions, Eccelstone is interested in that, so why does that not help us?

How could it be good that Amulya own our stadium as opposed to the other companies? What makes Amulya different in that it's beneficial for us for it to buy our stadium at a huge loss to the club?

The fact that we only have this information because it's required by law due to the fact that members of our board are acting against the club's wishes in contrast to the total lack of information regarding anything they do otherwise should tell you that this is not good news at all, at the very least.

Surely the best thing for the club would be to pay back the loan in full immediately and retain the stadium? Anything else is surely negative.

Unbeaten in the league but murdered in the board room.

[Markqpr]

Nov 3, 2010 10:15:37 GMT obk said:

I think the reason is simple enough, they are friends! Don't forget who brought the Mittals to the club in the first place.

Probably with the question 'Do you and your father-in-law fancy £21m worth of prime property in W12 for £10m minus how much we can claw back in interest payments? You can get in for a minimal initial £200,000 investment in a football club and for that I'll let you be Vice-Chairman!'

[Markqpr]

Nov 3, 2010 10:24:55 GMT The Scooter said:

Something has intrinsically changed inside the past 6 months. Previously, Mallya was certainly going to come in taking Briatore's shares. Some even speculate that it was all agreed and hands were shaken. Now that has altered and Briatore remains as the single largest shareholder seemingly content to play a waiting game. Why that would be I can only speculate but I would assume it would be more likely to be a property deal rather than the risk of waiting on any PL income that may or may not come.

If I was Flabio I would want todays actual cost of the ground of £21m reflected in his total income from his sale of ownership rather than the option cost of £10m and can imagine that any prospective buyer would want to simply repay the loan of £10m instead and retain the ground that way paying only the actual cost of the shares for ownership.

Holding the option over the ground is Flabio's ace in the pack and it's true worth is what he wants.

He is a businessman, judge him how you wish, money and profit are his dreams, watching a bunch of men kick a football around a pitch in W12 are mine.

Whose more screwed in the head, you decide!

I hope we can reach a happy compromise for both of us soon and then never, ever cross paths again.

[ingham]

What would anyone do with a property valued at £21 million, londonranger .

The Ground looks like a straight cash profit of 100% to me. But it is also leverage. Over the Club, over prospective purchasers, with regard to any prospective development, and with any local authority the Club might get involved with.

But then, the original ABC loan itself represented a straight cash profit of 100%, assuming all the interest was paid up and all the interest counted as profit.

That's £20 million or so straight into the pockets of the moneylenders. And remember, Chris Wright helped himself to Wasps ground - they are still homeless - and if I am not mistaken, he is now trying to push Wycombe out of theirs.

Gregory was up to the same bag of tricks. He wanted to sell off LR, then, it seems, profited from his deal with Marler which would have seen CC sold off, presumably because it was worth a lot more than LR. And Wright, of course, also proposed selling off LR in his efforts to get in on the deal which would wipe out Wimbledon and create the MK Dons aberration.

Bates sells off the Bridge, but still pockets £18 million by bankrupting the Club. Hammam pockets the cash from selling Plough Lane, Noades, from selling Selhurst. Gold and Sullivan pocket £80 million while increasing their Club's debt twentyfold.

We're talking about property in London, and in the case of QPR, Fulham and Chelsea, West London.

Building a new Ground is an even more lucrative way of screwing the Clubs. Their own Ground is sold off and the proceeds transferred to 'investors', moneylenders or other opportunists.

While the cost of the new Ground is met by the Club. If the owners of the new site are especially clued up, they will ensure that the Club only pays for the development, it does not own it. Then THAT property can be sold off to a landlord - there are plenty of landlords who make big money renting or leasing - and if the same, clueless moneylenders are still running the Club, with any luck, THAT site can be sold off for redevelopment in due course, as new losses are run up by the old losers.

It's a beautiful deal for lenders. The more incompetent they are, the more of the Clubs' money they lose, the more people cry out for 'investment'.

In other words, more borrowing.

The bigger the losses, the more frightening it is to contemplate a Club which must pay its way.

If they WERE talented, we could expect them to out-Gregory Gregory, to surpass Ramsey, winning the League with a team of complete nobodies, or to exceed Clough's and Taylor's achievements.

Thriftily. Shrewdly. Brilliantly. They could earn the money back by bringing along the kids, snapping up the stars of the future before others had spotted them, and constructing utility teams which could out-fight and out-wit more expensive and more talented sides.

But their very incompetence precludes them from doing that. Just as well, really, as a small Club like QPR, even if it became successful, would hardly rake in the millions that a moneylender can make simply by advancing it, sitting back, and letting the losses pile up.

And the icing on the cake is if he can get into the Premiership, not only is the scope for lending massively increased, the price of his shareholding can be artificially inflated with the connivance of whatever wide boy wants to buy him out.

The buyer can afford to pay way over the odds, because he can simply dump all the debt on the Club.

And it will go on and on and on for as long as there is money to siphon out of the Clubs. Without the ratio of success ever increasing in the slightest across the whole range of English clubs.

Fewer Clubs than ever before win the title. Fewer than ever before win the FA Cup. And the much vaunted Premiership struggles even to lift the debased 'champions' League.

[Macmoish]

Turn it into a shrine for Billionaires?

[ingham]

Mausoleum. One of those big heavy ones. At once. No need to wait till they're dead.

[londonranger]

This is a great thread and thanks to Zico and Ingham. Just to continue, I dont think anything has changed from the getgo,

Except flav stepped back, amit restored a team and a unimanager , and with winning, Flav stepped back in. Now to follow action. Some of the old loaner stuff has returned and a Cypriot shows up. Note that he has had trialsls at Middlesbro twice and Fulham and one more team here.

In a football PLC the directors get fed well first then what is left is spread around. The plans for the grounds were
probably made a long time ago. But could change from time to time acccording to market.

On the field, we have not lost a match which is wonderful. Cardiff seem to show a team that is stronger right now.

The biggest ambient change appears to be Paladinis role which is showing as more evident lateley.

[The Scooter]

Nov 3, 2010 10:37:18 GMT finney said:

was it not said that if we get into the PL that GP will get 500k?

That is some money.

I would hazard a guess that a "Sporting Director" would have a clause written in to their contract that would entitle them to bonus payments dependent on the performance of the team. Given that a Sporting Director does have a level of influence in the recruitment of the players that would make any side a success, a contractual bonus payment would not be out of the norm for rewarding major success such as a Cup Win, Play Off spot or Promotion. Certainly not unusual and whether we agree that that Sporting Director materially positively affecting the success could be a moot point.

Having said that, £500k does seem a very generous award for a non playing/coaching staff member.

[dc]

Very interesting thread guys.

As Finney mentioned earlier, probably best not to comment myself on things that I have no intimate knowledge of, other than briefly to state two things.

Firstly, when worrying about supposed levels of debt, who owns what and who is liable for what, there was an alternative scenario to this when the takeover happened and from memory it was not a pleasant one either. QPR as it stood, had no hope of continuing trading and incurring losses at the rate it had. A problem that we had faced for many years due to a combination of spending money we had not got and not bringing in the money we needed to in order to at least trade solvently. In short, at least there is a club to watch at the moment. And it seems these people owe money to themselves, a opposed to dubious third parties.

As far as selling the ground at £x million goes, that would depend entirely on other factors such as planning / change of use to start with, finding someone with the required funds to not only purchase but spend an awful lot more on developing etc., what has to be said is to non Ranger fans, not exactly a very desirable part of "West London". No offence meant, but it's hardly Knightsbridge, is it ?

Sadly, things have gone well beyond the point when worrying about it will have any useful effect. For solace, take at look at Crystal Palace and be grateful that things could be so much worse.

[cpr]

Isn't that Colin's bonus figure?

Paladini is no longer "sporting director" he's chairman of QPR FC.

[Zamoraaaah]

Nov 3, 2010 14:33:44 GMT dc said:

Very interesting thread guys.

As Finney mentioned earlier, probably best not to comment myself on things that I have no intimate knowledge of, other than briefly to state two things.

Firstly, when worrying about supposed levels of debt, who owns what and who is liable for what, there was an alternative scenario to this when the takeover happened and from memory it was not a pleasant one either. QPR as it stood, had no hope of continuing trading and incurring losses at the rate it had. A problem that we had faced for many years due to a combination of spending money we had not got and not bringing in the money we needed to in order to at least trade solvently. In short, at least there is a club to watch at the moment. And it seems these people owe money to themselves, a opposed to dubious third parties.

As far as selling the ground at £x million goes, that would depend entirely on other factors such as planning / change of use to start with, finding someone with the required funds to not only purchase but spend an awful lot more on developing etc., what has to be said is to non Ranger fans, not exactly a very desirable part of "West London". No offence meant, but it's hardly Knightsbridge, is it ?

Sadly, things have gone well beyond the point when worrying about it will have any useful effect. For solace, take at look at Crystal Palace and be grateful that things could be so much worse.

Hardly solace.

One of Palace's biggest problems was ground ownership.

[ingham]

Excellent read, dc. A real contribution to a fine thread.

I think it was the so-called 'soft loans' being called in by the then lenders 'inside' the Club which precipitated the 'crisis' a few years ago. Not the 'hard' ABC debt, which, as the recent letter indicates, has only just fallen due.

And a point about so-called hard debts - owed to external lenders - which is frequently overlooked is that no external 'hard' debt is possible unless it is has actively been sought and negotiated by the supposedly 'soft' investors 'inside' the Club.

It is widely believed that the £20 million owed to ABC (including interest if the loan ran its full term as I believe it has now done) was raised to pay off a 'celebrated' 'soft' investor, Chris Wright.

So his soft £10 million leaves the Club a hard £20 million out of pocket, or lose the Ground. But, of course, the clever move, if they can pull it off, will be to renew the loan on the same terms. Even reducing the interest rate a little to show what decent chaps they are.

So Wright's original 'soft' £10 million, becomes £27 million-£28 million, say. With the capital still outstanding, nearly £10 million interest already paid, and the best part of a further £10 million in interest to come.

More or less what ABC would have done, I imagine, unless they had some other use for what is admittedly a very cramped site.

As to the value of the Ground, it is often said that it is worth little or maybe nothing, because development would be limited or planning permission withheld altogether.

Not sure about that. For one thing, it might be all right for a private individual to use a piece of waste ground as security for a £10 million loan, but wouldn't the lender pursue him through the courts?

And would it be permissible for the Club's accountants to value an asset on the books at £21 million - or £24 million at which it was apparently valued before Briatore & Co took over - so they could sign a bankrupt business off as a going concern.

Because they knew its assets were only worth a fraction of what they were put down in the books for.

The same goes for the estate agents, Savills, I think, who provided the £24 million valuation in the first place.

There is a school of thought which says we are being repeatedly saved from hard situations by soft investors. But there is another school of thought which says that the hard situations have in every case been created by the soft investors who saved us from the hard situations created by the PREVIOUS bunch of soft investors.

For me, it is what makes these discussions so interesting. Especially because our concern is always for the interests of the Club. No supporters is really convinced by an argument, however careful or persuasive. We're realists. If the Club is big, wealthy, successful and profitable, that will count for a lot.

To the extent that it isn't, that also counts for something.

Great stuff.