Saturday, December 05, 2009
Snippets: Man Unted Refinancing...Crystal Palace Season Ticket Selling...Lincoln's AGM
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When Saturday Comes (WSC)/Andrew Scowcroft
- Crystal Palace desperate for cash
- 4 December 2009 ~ During Crystal Palace’s 4-1 win over Blackpool, my friend Chris and I had the break-up conversation, the one in which I said: “I’m not renewing my season ticket.” Although October 3 seems ridiculously early to bring it up, it was the date that Crystal Palace published its season ticket brochure for 2010-11. The marketing department has developed the same affliction as supermarkets. If the Christmas displays go up before the season ticket prices, heads will roll. If I feel so inclined I can buy a season ticket up to the end of the 2014-15 season. However I don’t, which probably isn’t great news for the players who are suffering as a result of Simon Jordan’s cashflow crisis.
So the win over Blackpool has not led me to reach for my debit card. Nothing about the win was exceptional. Blackpool’s defence gifted us goals, the slip to allow Alan Lee a free header for the first being the funniest as most Palace fans assumed that even free headers were a skill too far for him. In 2006, I renewed my season ticket on the back of one of Palace’s best displays in recent years as Ben Watson tore through Norwich showing a range of passing beyond his years in a 4-1 win. The next week I felt cheated by a turgid display at home to Leeds.
It is, of course, an overactive imagination that leads me to imagine that Jordan might offer incentives to the players linked to season ticket deadlines, especially as paying the players at all is proving to be a problem. October is too soon to renew. Even a good performance cannot take away from the memory of the 2008-09 season when Palace scored 26 goals at home – with 13 coming in just four games.
The price of the ticket is due to rise steadily throughout the season. This, obviously, rewards the committed, the financially confident and the financially risky. The steady decline in average attendances over the last four seasons, from a post-Premier League high of 19,457 to 15,220 last year suggest there aren’t many of those.
Palace fans like to laugh at away fans who pay high our high prices but we don’t do enough to question where that money goes. Or ask what happens to our season ticket money or the £29.50 plus home fans pay for Category A match tickets. When the season ticket cut-off points were introduced the first rise was at the end of January, then December. The constant creeping of these dates does not inspire confidence in the finances of the club. Although I’m confident that the guarantees about safeguarding season ticket payments until that season begins, I’m worried that the club is borrowing against future income, or at least guaranteeing its overdraft.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the wages crisis is all the creation of the marketing department. Perhaps that’s why the club keeps writing to me to let me know it has extended the first deadline, exclusively for me. Andrew Scowcroft When Saturday Comes
Lincoln City Official Site - Football Club AGM
- A large number of shareholders were represented at The Club AGM which was held on Thursday evening in the Trust Suite.
The main items of business were to approve a special resolution that the Club adopt a new up to date set of Articles. The reason for doing this was simply to bring the Club up to date with the 2006 companies act.
Alongside this approval shareholders also voted in favour of re-appointing directors Chris Travers, Stuart Tindall (on behalf of Lindum Group) and Jean Foster (representing the Supporters Trust gold membership).
Following on from the official meeting The Lincoln & District Football Supporters Club gave a donation of £5,000 and a fans' forum was held which gave manager Chris Sutton his first opportunity to discuss issues with supporters.
The Directors would like to pass on their thanks to all those who attended and those who sent apologies and proxies for the meeting. Lincoln
The Times/James Ducker, Helen Power
Glazer family hit the wall over refinancing of Manchester United -
The Glazer family, the owners of Manchester United, are struggling to refinance their enormous debts amid concerns about the impact they are having on the club.
The Times understands that the Americans have been trying unsuccessfully to secure a refinancing package for part of the club’s £699 million debt for months, having failed in 2007 and last year, because of the bleak global economic climate.
Fans’ groups have cast doubt over whether they will ever see the £80 million raised from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portugal forward, to Real Madrid last summer reinvested in the squad.
Dragan Djuric, the Partizan Belgrade president, meanwhile claimed this week that United pulled the plug on a deal to sign Adem Ljajic, the Serbia Under-21 midfield player, because “maybe they are in financial crisis”.
United dismissed Djuric’s claims and a spokesman for the Glazer family has maintained publicly that there is plenty of money available for Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager, to spend on players, but supporters are unlikely to be pacified until they see the arrival of some big names or evidence that the spiralling debt is under control. The main concern is understood to centre around the £175.5 million worth of debt that the Glazers are personally responsible for, not the £518.7 million of loans secured against the club.
It is these so-called Payment In Kind (PIK) notes, money borrowed from US hedge funds that “rolls up” at an annual interest rate of 14.25 per cent, that the Americans are believed to have been trying to refinance.
The intention was always to pay off these loans within a few years of the takeover in May 2005, but while they managed to redeem some of the original PIK debt of £275 million, the credit crunch has made this difficult.
By the time the debt matures in 2017, it will stand at £580 million unless the Glazers can pay part or all of it off before then, or secure a preferential rate of interest. With the club also facing rising capital repayments from 2013, the PIK debt is a concern. It grew from £152 million to £175.5 million in one financial year.
Previous reports that the Glazers could persuade the banks to refinance by offering securitisation against future match-day revenues are said to be wide of the mark; ticket sales are already factored into the borrowing.
As such, given that the 14.25 per cent interest rate was agreed the last and only time the Glazers have been able to refinance, in August 2006 when the financial climate was rosier, they will do well to secure a lower rate unless they have something tangible to offer would-be lenders.
It is understood that United are operating well within the financial terms set by their lenders. However, Perry Capital and Citadel — the two US hedge funds that provided the Glazers with PIK loans — get a range of rights over the club in the event that their financial performance falls beneath a certain level, including the right to appoint their own directors to the board.
Ultimately, they could seize control of the club should revenues plummet.
Documents obtained by The Times also reveal that the terms of the loan put a cap on United’s spending.
A spokesman for the Glazer family said: “We continue to keep our financial options for the club under review just like any other business.” The Times
When Saturday Comes (WSC)/Andrew Scowcroft
- Crystal Palace desperate for cash
- 4 December 2009 ~ During Crystal Palace’s 4-1 win over Blackpool, my friend Chris and I had the break-up conversation, the one in which I said: “I’m not renewing my season ticket.” Although October 3 seems ridiculously early to bring it up, it was the date that Crystal Palace published its season ticket brochure for 2010-11. The marketing department has developed the same affliction as supermarkets. If the Christmas displays go up before the season ticket prices, heads will roll. If I feel so inclined I can buy a season ticket up to the end of the 2014-15 season. However I don’t, which probably isn’t great news for the players who are suffering as a result of Simon Jordan’s cashflow crisis.
So the win over Blackpool has not led me to reach for my debit card. Nothing about the win was exceptional. Blackpool’s defence gifted us goals, the slip to allow Alan Lee a free header for the first being the funniest as most Palace fans assumed that even free headers were a skill too far for him. In 2006, I renewed my season ticket on the back of one of Palace’s best displays in recent years as Ben Watson tore through Norwich showing a range of passing beyond his years in a 4-1 win. The next week I felt cheated by a turgid display at home to Leeds.
It is, of course, an overactive imagination that leads me to imagine that Jordan might offer incentives to the players linked to season ticket deadlines, especially as paying the players at all is proving to be a problem. October is too soon to renew. Even a good performance cannot take away from the memory of the 2008-09 season when Palace scored 26 goals at home – with 13 coming in just four games.
The price of the ticket is due to rise steadily throughout the season. This, obviously, rewards the committed, the financially confident and the financially risky. The steady decline in average attendances over the last four seasons, from a post-Premier League high of 19,457 to 15,220 last year suggest there aren’t many of those.
Palace fans like to laugh at away fans who pay high our high prices but we don’t do enough to question where that money goes. Or ask what happens to our season ticket money or the £29.50 plus home fans pay for Category A match tickets. When the season ticket cut-off points were introduced the first rise was at the end of January, then December. The constant creeping of these dates does not inspire confidence in the finances of the club. Although I’m confident that the guarantees about safeguarding season ticket payments until that season begins, I’m worried that the club is borrowing against future income, or at least guaranteeing its overdraft.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the wages crisis is all the creation of the marketing department. Perhaps that’s why the club keeps writing to me to let me know it has extended the first deadline, exclusively for me. Andrew Scowcroft When Saturday Comes
Lincoln City Official Site - Football Club AGM
- A large number of shareholders were represented at The Club AGM which was held on Thursday evening in the Trust Suite.
The main items of business were to approve a special resolution that the Club adopt a new up to date set of Articles. The reason for doing this was simply to bring the Club up to date with the 2006 companies act.
Alongside this approval shareholders also voted in favour of re-appointing directors Chris Travers, Stuart Tindall (on behalf of Lindum Group) and Jean Foster (representing the Supporters Trust gold membership).
Following on from the official meeting The Lincoln & District Football Supporters Club gave a donation of £5,000 and a fans' forum was held which gave manager Chris Sutton his first opportunity to discuss issues with supporters.
The Directors would like to pass on their thanks to all those who attended and those who sent apologies and proxies for the meeting. Lincoln
The Times/James Ducker, Helen Power
Glazer family hit the wall over refinancing of Manchester United -
The Glazer family, the owners of Manchester United, are struggling to refinance their enormous debts amid concerns about the impact they are having on the club.
The Times understands that the Americans have been trying unsuccessfully to secure a refinancing package for part of the club’s £699 million debt for months, having failed in 2007 and last year, because of the bleak global economic climate.
Fans’ groups have cast doubt over whether they will ever see the £80 million raised from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portugal forward, to Real Madrid last summer reinvested in the squad.
Dragan Djuric, the Partizan Belgrade president, meanwhile claimed this week that United pulled the plug on a deal to sign Adem Ljajic, the Serbia Under-21 midfield player, because “maybe they are in financial crisis”.
United dismissed Djuric’s claims and a spokesman for the Glazer family has maintained publicly that there is plenty of money available for Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager, to spend on players, but supporters are unlikely to be pacified until they see the arrival of some big names or evidence that the spiralling debt is under control. The main concern is understood to centre around the £175.5 million worth of debt that the Glazers are personally responsible for, not the £518.7 million of loans secured against the club.
It is these so-called Payment In Kind (PIK) notes, money borrowed from US hedge funds that “rolls up” at an annual interest rate of 14.25 per cent, that the Americans are believed to have been trying to refinance.
The intention was always to pay off these loans within a few years of the takeover in May 2005, but while they managed to redeem some of the original PIK debt of £275 million, the credit crunch has made this difficult.
By the time the debt matures in 2017, it will stand at £580 million unless the Glazers can pay part or all of it off before then, or secure a preferential rate of interest. With the club also facing rising capital repayments from 2013, the PIK debt is a concern. It grew from £152 million to £175.5 million in one financial year.
Previous reports that the Glazers could persuade the banks to refinance by offering securitisation against future match-day revenues are said to be wide of the mark; ticket sales are already factored into the borrowing.
As such, given that the 14.25 per cent interest rate was agreed the last and only time the Glazers have been able to refinance, in August 2006 when the financial climate was rosier, they will do well to secure a lower rate unless they have something tangible to offer would-be lenders.
It is understood that United are operating well within the financial terms set by their lenders. However, Perry Capital and Citadel — the two US hedge funds that provided the Glazers with PIK loans — get a range of rights over the club in the event that their financial performance falls beneath a certain level, including the right to appoint their own directors to the board.
Ultimately, they could seize control of the club should revenues plummet.
Documents obtained by The Times also reveal that the terms of the loan put a cap on United’s spending.
A spokesman for the Glazer family said: “We continue to keep our financial options for the club under review just like any other business.” The Times
