I know the original idea was to buy the club, but to get a stake in the club may be possible for less. There are so many legal technicalities we would need someone with knowledge of that on side. Any volunteers?
i should think a good way of increasing revenue is to be making good use of the land. if the cashflow could be kept on flowing throughout the week then this would affect our losses dramatically. if we made use of the hospitality boxes by persuading local businesses to conduct meetings at the valley then this would provide money from them and then it would build contacts with local businesses to build connections. if we changed the pitch to a mix of artificial turf and real turf, it is 3 times stronger, so we could rent the pitch out to 5 a side teams. the club shop has untapped potential. if we widened our approach to what we sell, so for instance we sell charlton merchandise and sporting general merchandise, more people would go to the shop. we could expand bartrams bar to a functioning restaurant, and i think the supporters bar could be used to hold disco nights. lower the price of the car park and make it a public car park. what do you think, anymore ideas
the start up costs will not be too great. my friend's dad is an accountant, he is kevin messere. i know for a fact he would do this for free if it meant that he could help charlton become fan owned. we would probably need a lawyer to do all the bureucracy and that would cost a fair amount, however again i reckon there is a lawyer out there who would do it for charlton for free. £12500 is needed for start up costs. i have £2000 in my account, so £10500 more is needed. A location to use as an office to run the club is easy to find, we might even be able to use the valley for it.
I know the original idea was to buy the club, but to get a stake in the club may be possible for less. There are so many legal technicalities we would need someone with knowledge of that on side. Any volunteers?
Many fans bought shares in Charlton Athletic plc in early 1994. (It was a public offer & there was a prospectus.) There was an additional placing and public offer in 1997 when CA plc was listed on AIM. There was a further placing of shares in 1998 which had the effect of diluting the value of supporters shareholdings further. Another placing and offer took place later that year, which, again, diluted value for existing shareholders unless they bought their full allocation of additional shares. Guess what? in 2000 a further placing and offer took place. 2005 - just a placing this time. 2006 - The board decided to take CA plc off AIM - thereby pretty much removing any liquidity in the shares and any prospect of supporters selling their shareholding apart from as a private matched trade. The stated reason for doing this was that it was expensive to maintain the listed status and only 4% of the value of the shareholders funds was held by institutional investors. (I suspect this fact alone tells you all you need to know about the merits of investing in football clubs. If even the people who were quite happy chucking money into mortgage-backed securities thought football was a bad investment!) Fast forward to 2008 and it all starts going completely pear-shaped. In 2010 the total shareholding was sold to Baton for £2. Meaning that all the supporters who bought shares in the club lost all their money. As far as I can remember, there was not a word of apology from Richard Murray to the fans who had lost their money.
"Once bitten, twice shy" is a nice way of putting it. But it is difficult to imagine that (m)any of the individuals who previously invested in the club would be quite so happy to do so again.
the idea would be that we wouldn't dilute the value of the shares. we would get 20% of the club and have a say on the board and other factors. obviously murray isn't even sorry for what he did and we need to make sure we dont do that.
I like the thinking and this was where I started when I got involved with the Trust last September... but as people have pointed out there is a big outlay, unless the club is on its knees... and there are ongoing losses to fund... and would the current owners be prepared to sell 10% or 20%?
The solution to the losses is clear - raise revenues and/or secure promotion - perhaps thats where an organised group of fans can help?
Personally think the clubs next owners should be the fans, the trust is set up as a company and is registered with the fsa so could be the mechanism for such ownership. How that would be achieved is a whole other question, but you never know what might happen.
Comments
Financing the inevitable ongoing losses is the hard part.
Guess what? in 2000 a further placing and offer took place. 2005 - just a placing this time.
2006 - The board decided to take CA plc off AIM - thereby pretty much removing any liquidity in the shares and any prospect of supporters selling their shareholding apart from as a private matched trade.
The stated reason for doing this was that it was expensive to maintain the listed status and only 4% of the value of the shareholders funds was held by institutional investors. (I suspect this fact alone tells you all you need to know about the merits of investing in football clubs. If even the people who were quite happy chucking money into mortgage-backed securities thought football was a bad investment!)
Fast forward to 2008 and it all starts going completely pear-shaped. In 2010 the total shareholding was sold to Baton for £2. Meaning that all the supporters who bought shares in the club lost all their money.
As far as I can remember, there was not a word of apology from Richard Murray to the fans who had lost their money.
"Once bitten, twice shy" is a nice way of putting it. But it is difficult to imagine that (m)any of the individuals who previously invested in the club would be quite so happy to do so again.
All gone a bit odd.
hmmm.
dodgy or a very committed, intelligent young man?
Jiminez OUT
Jackmaster IN
The solution to the losses is clear - raise revenues and/or secure promotion - perhaps thats where an organised group of fans can help?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23507974
http://www.jackmasterflash.com
Day 1 - install myself as player manager and captain...!
At 36 I've got a couple if years in the tank...!