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New Article: Trying to square up the Circle of Discontent

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  • Bring back Slater and Tj
    Great post Grapevine by the way, best summary so far on this site.
  • Prague in your industry and your part of the world one might take longer but CAFC and Baton are not complex beasts. Audited accounts would have been available for last season together with player contracts and title to the Valley and Sparrows Lane. Forecasting this season's income and losses not hard either.
    If Grapevine does post his analysis it might show just how simple a football club really is. There are perhaps 7 key areas which need to be addressed in terms of strategy, budget and HR. Much of the activity like pies, pints and programmes is peripheral to the core activity of having a squad of 16 available to play on a decent pitch in front of decent sized crowds.
  • Prague in your industry and your part of the world one might take longer but CAFC and Baton are not complex beasts. Audited accounts would have been available for last season together with player contracts and title to the Valley and Sparrows Lane. Forecasting this season's income and losses not hard either.
    If Grapevine does post his analysis it might show just how simple a football club really is. There are perhaps 7 key areas which need to be addressed in terms of strategy, budget and HR. Much of the activity like pies, pints and programmes is peripheral to the core activity of having a squad of 16 available to play on a decent pitch in front of decent sized crowds.

    I really don't think an advertising agency with a headcount of 100 - 200, is any more complicated a business to interrogate than a football club with a similar headcount is, especially as most ad agencies are not anonymously owned in BVI. Nor do agencies usually have property interests. That is what WPP buy and their due diligence takes six months. But whatever, it is not hugely important at this time.
  • edited May 2014
    ''Industry''?
    Advertising?

    noun
    1.
    economic activity concerned with the processing of raw materials and manufacture of goods in factories.
    "new investment incentives for British industry"
    synonyms: manufacturing, production, fabrication, construction
    plural noun: industries
    "the car industry"
    synonyms: business, trade, field, line, line of work, line of business, commercial enterprise, service; More
    informal
    an activity or domain in which a great deal of effort is expended.

    2.
    hard work.
    "the kitchen became a hive of industry"
    synonyms: hard work, industriousness, diligence, assiduity, application, sedulousness, sedulity, conscientiousness, steadiness, tirelessness, persistence, pertinacity, perseverance, dedication, determination, rigour, rigorousness; More
  • His word not mine, A-R- ... oh ==== it , I can't be assed.
  • Surely the quality of an advertising agency earnings and their veracity would take a lot longer to establish than a football club which has season tickets, TV revenue and commercial revenue that remains fairly predictable. Who knows what fiddles one might pull off when you have a combination of advertising executives, sales and a chance to inflate earnings in order to make a quick buck?!

    I used to work in software finance and (after I left that area) a massive scandal broke over the HP acquisition of Autonomy for $8Bn. Completely different scale but there must have been at least three of the big four accounting firms involved in the acquisition. It appears that they seriously over valued the entity and HP took one hell of a hit a couple of years later.

    And actually, it is important because if someone asserts that Duchatelet has been cavalier or negligent in their due dilligence efforts, then the clear implication is that this is how he treats all of his business dealings. You and Airman Brown have both gone on record with this line. I fail to see why as a member of the board of the Supporter's Trust you continue this line, i.e. attacking every possible angle without balance and without any substantiation.

    Do you seriously expect the CAFC management team to entertain the concept of developing a relationship with the Supporters' Trust while you continue this nonsense 24/7?
  • edited May 2014
    Prague Advertising industrialist
    ''His word not mine, A-R- ... oh ==== it , I can't be assed.''

    Whose words?

    Ah, due diligence...

    For whatever reason, RD does not seem to do due diligence to the depth I would expect. In my industry, a company with a similar headcount and structure would take 3-6 months, especially if the ownership involved some dodgy offshore setup

  • Fair cop AR ...

    Just out of interest, probably only to me, why would you think advertising does not qualify as an industry?
  • As a former steel worker, I simply think of industry as hard work, creating something useful.
    Now I am in the 'security industry' and have to attend 'workshops' I think these phrases have been hijacked by shiny-arsed bull-shitters who need a value label to justify them/ourselves
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  • ...and it is ''arsed'', not 'assed' unless you live in a US sit-drama-com.
    ;-)
  • As a former steel worker, I simply think of industry as hard work, creating something useful.
    Now I am in the 'security industry' and have to attend 'workshops' I think these phrases have been hijacked by shiny-arsed bull-shitters who need a value label to justify them/ourselves

    Well I fully understand your viewpoint, and I'm not just saying that. I would just humbly point out that CAFC fans of a certain age acknowledge that the club might not have got back to The Valley if a top advertising agency hadn't decided to lend a hand to their campaign, totally free of charge, and in the process intimidating a load of poster companies into doing the same.

  • No question Prague
    As I say, I'm in a bullshit 'industry' myself.
    But it is a profession in my eyes (only?) as opposed to an 'industry'
  • No question Prague
    As I say, I'm in a bullshit 'industry' myself.
    But it is a profession in my eyes (only?) as opposed to an 'industry'

    Yes, that is a better word. I should have used 'business' rather than 'industry' in my original post.

    But we are boring everyone to death...
  • Indeed - semantics -who cares - we are staying in the Championship, which puts my piffling hair-splitting in perspective.
  • Pico said:

    Seriously - please give everyone a break from your opinions for a wee while. I know we don't have to read them, but what price 48 hours silence ?

    Yes, yes less is more I get that.

    However I think the problem might be solved if you attempt to curb the anti Duchatelet tendencies of your fellow Trust Board member. Every shagging day another question, another conspiracy or another attack on a fellow fan.

    End of the day it's what happens on the pitch that matters!

    Indeed - semantics -who cares - we are staying in the Championship, which puts my piffling hair-splitting in perspective.

  • CAFC went through DD at least three times in the past two years.

    A simple 'phone call to one of the previous interested parties and an agreed fee for that information would certainly short cut the process.
  • Addickted said:

    CAFC went through DD at least three times in the past two years.

    A simple 'phone call to one of the previous interested parties and an agreed fee for that information would certainly short cut the process.

    I seriously doubt that. For a start, due diligence would be covered by a non-disclosure agreement. I have never heard of such a transaction, probably for this reason.

    But it's irrelevant. He bought it, and we have to hope that by now, he knows what he bought.
  • When I've bought property previously, a simple question to the Estate Agent "has anyone else had a survey done" has been asked.

    If it has, then NEVER has an Estate Agent not been able to provide me with a copy of that survey. Why pay an additional fee for something that has already been done?

    I suggest, those involved with selling the Club were quite prepared to make it a simpler process for any serious buyer.
  • Richard Murray said how impressed he was with RD and his DD. He said he had his people ready and he did it all very professionally and quickly, by seeing how well organised he was and that he was also the only serious buyer who had DD wrapped up easily, after speaking to him he knew he would be the right man for the job. I dont see these quotes leading me to think RD hasnt done enough in-depth research.
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  • More importantly a due diligence file was prepared for a deal that never happened summer 2013. The file would not be that thick. The fact that Duchatelet negotiated a relegation clause (or survival bonus) shows how well he understood the entity and associated risks at that time in December 2013 before the deal was closed.
    When you want to sell a company you don't mess about with information supplied because people walk away if they start to mistrust information provided.
  • edited May 2014
    Addickted said:

    Another excellent summary from Grapevine.

    G49 v G21

    I know which one I would choose G49 all day long. I wish I could be as analytical as you Grapevine.

  • Richard Murray said how impressed he was with RD and his DD. He said he had his people ready and he did it all very professionally and quickly, by seeing how well organised he was and that he was also the only serious buyer who had DD wrapped up easily, after speaking to him he knew he would be the right man for the job. I dont see these quotes leading me to think RD hasnt done enough in-depth research.

    As some one who was very close to a bid for the club, RD was not the only serious buyer for the club, it all came down to who could get the money to MS and TJ the quickest and MS lying as to where he was on a certain day, and as for RM i would take things he says about RD to serious as i understand he does not have a lot of dialogue with him.
  • More importantly a due diligence file was prepared for a deal that never happened summer 2013. The file would not be that thick. The fact that Duchatelet negotiated a relegation clause (or survival bonus) shows how well he understood the entity and associated risks at that time in December 2013 before the deal was closed.
    When you want to sell a company you don't mess about with information supplied because people walk away if they start to mistrust information provided.

    That is true, but at least in my area of business (as corrected by Arthur) the buyer would not content himself with a file of information provided by the seller. It would only be a starting point. Especially, one might say, if you are not sure about the character of the sellers.

    One explanation might be that a company like WPP is publicly quoted and therefore has a duty to external shareholders to do the job thoroughly before splashing the cash.

    I am not criticising RD, I am simply surprised, and a little nervous, that he did this so quickly, especially as he made other purchases over the same time period. Also as I said above, I am grateful that he was able to complete before the end of January and probably for the very best of reasons. I hope that the other lot did not leave him any more nasty surprises than the state of the pitch.
  • Grapevine a brilliantly written great post, level headed, clear thinking, observational critique of where the club was and where it is now…and for what it's worth, in my opinion, it is in a much more stable condition, offering huge potential for progress ( much more than some of the other clubs in Championship and PL leagues having to conform to FFP) in the coming seasons than it was 3 months ago.
    For me since the takeover, I sense there is a feeling of calmness, stability and some sense of understanding what direction we are heading in.
  • Interesting post by Ruffdiamond.
  • in case you introspective analysers hadn't noticed we won 3-0 at Blackpool, finished 18th which is 7points above relegation, reached the FA Cup quarter finals and have a team that includes upto 6 ex academy players.

    Now let's wait and see what RD does with contracts and transfers for management and playing staff, then there will be plenty to analyse but at present it all seems hot air to me.
  • I think the biggest point about our points tally was everyone up to shef wed would've gone down last season

    We got lucky this season
  • edited May 2014

    I think the biggest point about our points tally was everyone up to shef wed would've gone down last season

    We got lucky this season

    I think it was more a case of Peterborough being unlucky last season. They had 54 points - no other team has ever been relegated from the Championship with so many points and only one team has been relegated with more points than Wolves (51) who were second to bottom. A team with 51 points would have been relegated in only two of the eleven years in which the Championship has existed.

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