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The Takeover Thread - Duchatelet Finally Sells (Jan 2020)

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Comments

  • Croydon said:

    This takeover is tedious and we're all losing our patience, but to suggest that the Aussies are as bad as/worse than RD is absolutely ridiculous.

    I don’t think many are saying that. There’s questions marks about the Aussies, as only natural when so little is known about them. But I haven’t seen many people saying they believe we would be better staying with RD
  • JamesSeed said:

    FFS. Both sides have stated tbat the price has been agreed. The £7m loans were known b4 they made their statements. Only repayable in the Prem. Costing £1-2m to repay earlier than the 5 year plan to top flight. This issue is not a deal breaker unless someone ITK says it is. Stop speculating on stuff with no logical basis.

    So why was an offer finally made in June 2018?
    Source? What does it matter when the bid was made? I suspect much before June, Charlton scarf time.
    Wrong it was June and if you recall I posted they had till the 24th to make their decision

    I refuse to believe Roland didn’t know about them I reckon he just thought the next owners should he sell would do the same as him and not do anything until the club reached the prem
    This. I expect RD naively thought that he could simply pass the baton on (geddit ?) as the £7m is only fully repaid when in the Prem, at which time it is a drop in the ocean. If I was one of the ex-directors I would be taking my money now, even at 25%, because I seriously think we have no chance if getting into the Prem within the next 10-15 years, at which time their £500k would have been greatly eroded by inflation etc.

    I'm done with the Aussies now anyway. As previous posters have said, their spiel of wanting to buy the club because of its great fan base & Muir/GM lording it at the play off games has proved to be just rhetoric. If they really want to get the fans back onside they are going completely the wrong way about it. Actions speak louder than words. In my eyes they are even worse than RD. At least with him we know he doesn't give a shit & we are only 2% of his empire.
    I think this consensus is growing amongst many
    Er, no, I really don’t think it is.
    Certainly is. Few on here are, I am and a couple of mates too.

    Not excited for the season at all and that’s not going to change as there’s not enough time really build a competitive squad. At best a few young players will do well (that don’t have to be sold next summer).

    In my opinion, the Aussies have missed the boat a bit, although I’m not saying that’s their fault. But there now in a position that they will have to come in and prove themselves a bit. Whereas before people would have just been overjoyed that Roland had gone and the Aussies would have been the saviours. Now the optimism levels have dropped, there will still be relief when Roland goes but it’s all a bit boring now
    But clearly some people know your opinion better than you do....
  • clb74 said:

    What grapevine said.

    It's Duchatelet's mess and he's got to clear it up.

    WIOTOS

    Or he could just stick to his guns and drive us into the ground.
    I fear that this is a genuine possibility. He's a really nasty creature whose 'stock' has been damaged and embarrassed by the rightful protests, home and abroad.

    He couldn't give a waffle's whipped cream about our football club and would love nothing more than to pay us back by driving us into the ground. The money he'd lose will be utterly inconsequential to him.

    It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if he gets regular updates (or even views himself) about the ramblings on this thread! By doing such, he can sit back and laugh in a sadistic manner whilst simply planning his strategy and drag our pain out for as long as he chooses! He holds all the aces, the jacks, the queens, the bloody lot.

    Yes, it may seem far fetched, but I've said all along that he will pay us back for the deserved grief we have given him and all of his sickeningly sycophantic cronies.

    Despise them all so much; I truly do.
  • Sorry if my opinion goes against the grain but then a forum would be no good if we all agreed with each other.

    I'm looking at this from purely a financial aspect. Assuming the stumbling block is just to do with the £7m ex-director loans then I agree its RD's problem to sort. However, he doesn't have the money to pay them now as the recent 25% offer shows. We don't have anymore saleable players that can command fees great enough to cover the ex-director loans & the only 2 that look like they can be sold (Magennis & Bauer) aren't attracting offers high enough. The longer the impasse continues the worse it gets......weak squad means worse results means worse position in league means relegation struggle means less fans....etc etc. Football is a unique business in the fact that in 2 weeks time its abilty to "trade" is massively affected for the next 5 months. If you were running M&S and you knew that by Aug 9th you had to have all your stock sorted for the autumn & winter and couldn't bring anymore in until the new year you'd be going hell for leather to get it done & have back up just in case.

    The Aussies, by not sorting the ex-director loans before now & leaving RD to do it, are just making things worse for themselves if & when they finally take over. £7m now (and maybe they could have even got this trimmed down to £5m if some of the ex-directors were happy to take a small cut) could be small beer compared to what it might cost to get us out of League 2. Yes, it might not be their debt, but its part & parcel of buying the club.

    whats the saying about knowing the cost of something but the value of nothing.
  • I think the situation is quite simple.The aussies reduced their offer about a month ago and RD wasn't having it so we have a stand off. Either they raise their offer back up to the agreed price, RD accepts the lower offer, they meet somewhere in between or another lot - the mysterious brits possibly? get into a position to step in. Meanwhile we limp on and hope bowyer can work some miracles.
  • Sorry if my opinion goes against the grain but then a forum would be no good if we all agreed with each other.

    I'm looking at this from purely a financial aspect. Assuming the stumbling block is just to do with the £7m ex-director loans then I agree its RD's problem to sort. However, he doesn't have the money to pay them now as the recent 25% offer shows. We don't have anymore saleable players that can command fees great enough to cover the ex-director loans & the only 2 that look like they can be sold (Magennis & Bauer) aren't attracting offers high enough. The longer the impasse continues the worse it gets......weak squad means worse results means worse position in league means relegation struggle means less fans....etc etc. Football is a unique business in the fact that in 2 weeks time its abilty to "trade" is massively affected for the next 5 months. If you were running M&S and you knew that by Aug 9th you had to have all your stock sorted for the autumn & winter and couldn't bring anymore in until the new year you'd be going hell for leather to get it done & have back up just in case.

    The Aussies, by not sorting the ex-director loans before now & leaving RD to do it, are just making things worse for themselves if & when they finally take over. £7m now (and maybe they could have even got this trimmed down to £5m if some of the ex-directors were happy to take a small cut) could be small beer compared to what it might cost to get us out of League 2. Yes, it might not be their debt, but its part & parcel of buying the club.

    whats the saying about knowing the cost of something but the value of nothing.

    First, of course Roland has the money - his dividend income alone from Melexis is in excess of 40mn a year. He's just choosing not to spend it - not on CAFC anyway.

    Second, I don't see how anybody except Roland is in a position to pay of the charge holders. How would the contracts be worded? And why should they anyway? It's not really a problem such time as Premier League status is achieved. And then it becomes inconsequential because of the riches available. Why spend £7mn when you don't have to?
  • Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.
  • A lot of fans, me included, had money invested in the club written off. Ok, not millions of pounds, but it is all relative!
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  • At the end of the day no one knows how this has been played out and I doubt we never will.
  • clb74 said:

    What grapevine said.

    It's Duchatelet's mess and he's got to clear it up.

    WIOTOS

    Or he could just stick to his guns and drive us into the ground.
    I fear that this is a genuine possibility. He's a really nasty creature whose 'stock' has been damaged and embarrassed by the rightful protests, home and abroad.

    He couldn't give a waffle's whipped cream about our football club and would love nothing more than to pay us back by driving us into the ground. The money he'd lose will be utterly inconsequential to him.

    It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if he gets regular updates (or even views himself) about the ramblings on this thread! By doing such, he can sit back and laugh in a sadistic manner whilst simply planning his strategy and drag our pain out for as long as he chooses! He holds all the aces, the jacks, the queens, the bloody lot.

    Yes, it may seem far fetched, but I've said all along that he will pay us back for the deserved grief we have given him and all of his sickeningly sycophantic cronies.

    Despise them all so much; I truly do.
    I very much doubt he gets any sort of update of what happens on Charlton Life. Read the interviews he gives and it's clear he doesn't even really know what's going on in a business he's sunk £70m into. He checked out years ago. All he cares about is getting his money back
  • johnny73 said:

    So, we have a billionaire owner too stubborn to pay off ex directors.

    We have prospective owners who will only purchase with a clean title and will not pay off ex directors.

    We have 6 ex-directors who are unlikely to accept a payoff less than 100% because they hate Murray / don't trust duche or just want their money back.

    And then we have Murray!

    Meanwhile the club is being run into the ground.

    You know this for a fact do you? Funny how Murphy didn't mention it to James Seed.
  • DOUCHER said:

    I think the situation is quite simple.The aussies reduced their offer about a month ago and RD wasn't having it so we have a stand off. Either they raise their offer back up to the agreed price, RD accepts the lower offer, they meet somewhere in between or another lot - the mysterious brits possibly? get into a position to step in. Meanwhile we limp on and hope bowyer can work some miracles.

    Possibly, although that would seem to make De Turck a liar. Why would he put himself in that situation by popping up at the FF?

    Or had RD got fed up with waiting for the Aussies in June so decided to try to clear the way for a lease-based deal with another party?
  • Nug said:

    Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.

    I think the ex-directors are pretty sanguine about their prospects of ever getting the money back. They just aren’t going to be taken for mugs by RD or RM.
    So neither the ex directors or the Aussies are going to be taken for mugs by RD.....so here we are.
  • Nice summary Grapevine except for the bit about clear title. Why do new owners need to clear debentures not repayable until we are in Prem? Duchatalet bought us without doing so. The issue is/was in the public domain and all on this board knew about, are you saying Roly's lawyers missed it? Prepostorous!
  • Redrobo said:

    In not speculating mate I'm saying MY club is dying and that is a FACT ------ I have no idea who any of the buyers are or if they ACTUALLY exist at all ,only what I have read on here. Your putting your faith in what you have been told directly and you believe that to be kosher ,we all hope it's kosher as well.

    To be honest I'll still plot up to have a beer with mates no matter what shit league we are in ,assuming we exist.However if we don't hear anything after the Norwich game (that's at the end of that game) which is the latest bollox deadline then I suggest that's this thread can DO ONE and all those "in the know" keep it zipped and we just get on with following a RD owned CAFC until Bob Hope comes riding over Shootershill to save us--- seems more likely.



    “MY club”? How is it your club?

    Are you the new owner?
    It is his club, it is my club and it is your club.
    Exactly this.

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  • Nug said:

    Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.

    I think the ex-directors are pretty sanguine about their prospects of ever getting the money back. They just aren’t going to be taken for mugs by RD or RM.

    Nug said:

    Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.

    I think the ex-directors are pretty sanguine about their prospects of ever getting the money back. They just aren’t going to be taken for mugs by RD or RM.
    I think they are intent on getting all their money back, they wrote off multi- millions in Equity and Loans handing over to Murray to find a decent investor, and what have they seen since, two complete car crashes of deals and owners.
    It is just the when? My guess is they are happy to wait as long as it takes, proof being the 8 years so far sine Murray took over,and some at least will not be doing any deals.
    As it has been well documented above,this is Roland's problem ,he has to keep writing cheques to protect his unsecured loan position, and maybe he will do it for years,it really depends on his appetite to keep increasing his pool of debt that he will never get back.
    Especially when he is managing the Club on a shoestring and selling all his best players, thus reducing what he has to sell.
  • edited July 2018

    Nice summary Grapevine except for the bit about clear title. Why do new owners need to clear debentures not repayable until we are in Prem? Duchatalet bought us without doing so. The issue is/was in the public domain and all on this board knew about, are you saying Roly's lawyers missed it? Prepostorous!

    I think he knew about the loans but didn’t fully understand them. See the published emails from Slater boasting about Duchatelet’s agreement to pay the deposit with no mechanism to recover it if the spivs defaulted. Why didn’t RD’s lawyers stop that?
    Slater was laughing at RD’s due diligence.

    There are other reasons for having clear title, including being able to issue leases to partners like the retail franchise or CACT, which the former directors can obstruct. But I agree that the loans are not covered by any confidentiality agreement as the detail is already on record in the public domain.
  • .

    Sorry if my opinion goes against the grain but then a forum would be no good if we all agreed with each other.

    I'm looking at this from purely a financial aspect. Assuming the stumbling block is just to do with the £7m ex-director loans then I agree its RD's problem to sort. However, he doesn't have the money to pay them now as the recent 25% offer shows. We don't have anymore saleable players that can command fees great enough to cover the ex-director loans & the only 2 that look like they can be sold (Magennis & Bauer) aren't attracting offers high enough. The longer the impasse continues the worse it gets......weak squad means worse results means worse position in league means relegation struggle means less fans....etc etc. Football is a unique business in the fact that in 2 weeks time its abilty to "trade" is massively affected for the next 5 months. If you were running M&S and you knew that by Aug 9th you had to have all your stock sorted for the autumn & winter and couldn't bring anymore in until the new year you'd be going hell for leather to get it done & have back up just in case.

    The Aussies, by not sorting the ex-director loans before now & leaving RD to do it, are just making things worse for themselves if & when they finally take over. £7m now (and maybe they could have even got this trimmed down to £5m if some of the ex-directors were happy to take a small cut) could be small beer compared to what it might cost to get us out of League 2. Yes, it might not be their debt, but its part & parcel of buying the club.

    whats the saying about knowing the cost of something but the value of nothing.

    Good points, but you haven't really answered the question as to why you think the Aussies are worse than Duchâtelet.
  • I mean seriously, the way everyone talks as if the Aussies are gonna make money out of our club fffs
    We have always been one of the cheapest football clubs to watch and how many clubs are making money in the prem regularly ?
    Massive clubs like Villa , Sunderland have monster debt and left it recently and Bolton left it in monster debt .
    I genuinely believe unless you do an Oyston and spend fuck all when up there you’ll be hard pushed to make anything with the joke costs and salaries of players .
    Yet here we are with fans dismissing them for not just pissing away another £7m on the charity project of Charlton Athletic Football Club , yes we are in need of generous help to keep us going .
    To get to the Prem will more than likely cost a fortune look at some of the dough being spent to get there , what did Wolves spend to get up there .
    Yet we have fans saying that they should just spunk more money to that twat who has owned us cos of our special fan base , fuck off look at our derisory away followings , yes we have a history of some superb work to get us back home and then the growth from the return to The Valley but don’t make out we are super human and worthy of spunking dough on .
    Anyone who is willing to buy us will need a miracle to make dough , as long as they don’t take the piss and do within reason their best to make us competitive at a decent level I’ll be more than happy
    The weirdness of our fans knows no bounds .
    Good luck to anyone buying us because we will cost you a lot of money

    It’s increasingly possible to make money in the Premier League based on the central TV income, regardless of gate receipts. You can crash and burn as many have done, but you can also sell at the top.

    If the central income is £150m it hardly matters if gate receipts are £10m or £20m.
    I understand gate receipts at our level (in the prem) wouldn’t be a big deal but do you know if say stoke (Bob Munro might know) came out of the prem with money/ profits or are palace making a regular profit . Similar size clubs to us but the wages and player costs swallow a huge amount of money up .
    How many clubs run at a profit and not many people can sell a football club at the top !
  • Missed It said:

    clb74 said:

    What grapevine said.

    It's Duchatelet's mess and he's got to clear it up.

    WIOTOS

    Or he could just stick to his guns and drive us into the ground.
    I fear that this is a genuine possibility. He's a really nasty creature whose 'stock' has been damaged and embarrassed by the rightful protests, home and abroad.

    He couldn't give a waffle's whipped cream about our football club and would love nothing more than to pay us back by driving us into the ground. The money he'd lose will be utterly inconsequential to him.

    It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if he gets regular updates (or even views himself) about the ramblings on this thread! By doing such, he can sit back and laugh in a sadistic manner whilst simply planning his strategy and drag our pain out for as long as he chooses! He holds all the aces, the jacks, the queens, the bloody lot.

    Yes, it may seem far fetched, but I've said all along that he will pay us back for the deserved grief we have given him and all of his sickeningly sycophantic cronies.

    Despise them all so much; I truly do.
    I very much doubt he gets any sort of update of what happens on Charlton Life. Read the interviews he gives and it's clear he doesn't even really know what's going on in a business he's sunk £70m into. He checked out years ago. All he cares about is getting his money back
    I'm not so sure mate and wouldn't necessarily be so unwary as to think that. In the main, it's human nature to want revenge (of sorts), and when you're talking about a narcissistic egomaniac who has had his pride dented on his own patch - well, payback would be high on the agenda.

    He despises what CARD, B20, ROT etc have done to him and, trust me, he'll want retribution for sure. It's in the DNA of a nut job and my guess is he's actually surreptitiously getting it now by purposely making the whole (alleged) sale a real cake and arse party for his own demented self-satisfaction.

    Of course I may well be wrong, it's just my thoughts and views; nothing more, nothing less. But I reckon he'll be, at the very least, getting reports on this thread and loving the debate, oft argument, and uncertainty that he's causing amongst the 'ITKs' and the rest of us.
  • Nug said:

    Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.

    I think the ex-directors are pretty sanguine about their prospects of ever getting the money back. They just aren’t going to be taken for mugs by RD or RM.

    Nug said:

    Everyone going on about the Aussies coughing up another £7m (which they shouldn’t), agree with others why can’t the ex-directors do a deal for a % of what they are owed or write it off, it’s pretty unlikely any of them will see their money anyway, they surely knew that risk when they lent the money. And before anyone says “you wouldn’t write it off”, I wouldn’t have lent it in the first place if I couldnt afford to lose it.

    I think the ex-directors are pretty sanguine about their prospects of ever getting the money back. They just aren’t going to be taken for mugs by RD or RM.
    I think they are intent on getting all their money back, they wrote off multi- millions in Equity and Loans handing over to Murray to find a decent investor, and what have they seen since, two complete car crashes of deals and owners.
    It is just the when? My guess is they are happy to wait as long as it takes, proof being the 8 years so far sine Murray took over,and some at least will not be doing any deals.
    As it has been well documented above,this is Roland's problem ,he has to keep writing cheques to protect his unsecured loan position, and maybe he will do it for years,it really depends on his appetite to keep increasing his pool of debt that he will never get back.
    Especially when he is managing the Club on a shoestring and selling all his best players, thus reducing what he has to sell.
    They don’t all have the same position though. It’s not like the other six get together and agree a stance.
  • The new news has been about the club trying to drive costs down.
    That suggests they're here for the duration. A big saving would be getting rid of Tony 'sandwich Keohane of course.
    The club is dying well enough without management infrastructure, why keep Keohane, he is not of any benefit whatsoever.

  • johnny73 said:

    So, we have a billionaire owner too stubborn to pay off ex directors.

    We have prospective owners who will only purchase with a clean title and will not pay off ex directors.

    We have 6 ex-directors who are unlikely to accept a payoff less than 100% because they hate Murray / don't trust duche or just want their money back.

    And then we have Murray!

    Meanwhile the club is being run into the ground.

    You know this for a fact do you? Funny how Murphy didn't mention it to James Seed.
    I've never been involved in a takeover, not signed a business related nda, but the reason why GM isn't telling anybody about the business side of the takeover is that he has. At our beer meeting none of this stuff was discussed, and nothing since. Even the clean title thing is, as far as I know, speculation, although probable.
  • With everyone saying the ex director loans should be settled by RD, in his defence they don't need to be.

    It is indeed only speculation, but as these loans are only repayable on promotion to the Premiership, then RD is well within his rights to ignore them. I can understand his position if the Aussies will only buy the club if he gets rid of these. Would you want to fork out millions when you didn't have to?
This discussion has been closed.

Roland Out Forever!