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The Takeover Thread - Duchatelet Finally Sells (Jan 2020)

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Comments

  • Taxi_Lad said:

    End of the day he is losing millions so only a matter of time

    Why???

    When you have a multi million pound empire like Roland has a nice little company losing a few quid offsets a bit of tax.

    His reason to sell us will not be based on him losing money.

  • You just have to think of it as, every day longer is a day nearer to this actually happening.
  • Taxi_Lad said:

    End of the day he is losing millions so only a matter of time

    Why???

    When you have a multi million pound empire like Roland has a nice little company losing a few quid offsets a bit of tax.

    His reason to sell us will not be based on him losing money.

    If you think he doesn't care about one of his business' losing money, you are very much mistaken.
  • I think I may need to get my passport renewed. Roland doing his bit for Tourism Limburg.
  • I’ve edited the title of thread to reflect the lastest murmurings
  • So a month ago it was imminent - maybe even by the end of the next week and now we have a 'major problem' and will possibly not happen at all.

    I can't help wondering if the suggestion it was imminent was a little premature. I appreciate that due diligence can take a while and that Airman, and others, can only pass on what they hear but it does sound as though someone jumped the gun a little. Surely something this significant should have been anticipated. Even if it is Duchâtelet moving the goalposts I have to say that this is no surprise to me, and I've never had any dealings with him.

    This isn't helped by the suggestion of a secure DD room at the club some months back, that the SMT denied, and turned out to be wrong.

    I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but, as I say, it does feel like someone jumped the gun.

    The suggestion it was “imminent” came from a completely different place to most of the other information and the person is both trustworthy and well placed to know. No argument now that it turned out to be premature, but I know the information was given to me in good faith and reported by me on the same basis. Other sources at that time were more hesitant but they were also less authoritative.

    More recent information has come from within the process itself and from more than one place. Some of the detail coming from outside I was able to verify from within The Valley. As late as last Wednesday the process of working through the due diligence items appeared to be going well.

    The secure data room was never denied by the club and obviously the story came from within it. It was very widely discussed. I subsequently talked to other parties involved in the sexual abuse issue and concluded from that it was more likely to relate to that investigation, although it remains a view I reached on a balance of probabilities. There’s no conclusive position on it and has been no outcome if there was an investigation. Whatever the truth, it didn’t cause or contribute to the Mail running the Aussie takeover story, which was the substantive development in April.

    I don’t have and have never claimed to have a complete picture, but that is usually the situation with such stories. Is it really the case that people only want to know what the club wishes to tell them, when the club wants to tell them it? That seems to be the logic.
    Of course not - at least it is not for me. It's just very frustrating when something is dangled in front of you and then snatched away. I guess it depends if one is in the rattle and squeeze all presents and try to guess what's in them, and risk coming to the wrong conclusion, or one is in the leave it until Christmas day and have no expectations at all, category.

    It doesn't matter who chose the word imminent, or who advised that a deal could be done in a matter of days, but it was clearly ambitious. Even if this recent problem hadn't surfaced the estimate of time was inaccurate. It's now been nearly five weeks since the initial suggestion that it was close.

    I wouldn't put it pass Duchâtelet to deliberately derail, or stall, the process to achieve nothing more than making those leaking the situation look silly/stupid. I think, sometimes, people forget that he is not just a rich man he is also used to getting what he wants and is, almost certainly, surrounded by sycophants and probably feels the desire to stick it to those 'Vinegar Pi$$ers'. As I suspect, Airman, that you are almost certainly on his $hit list it would come as no surprise, to me, if he were happy to see you, and your publication, made to look like you were making things up and/or getting things wrong. I don't have anywhere like the kind of money that Duchâtelet has but he may well be willing to 'spend' several million pounds in vendettas before he leaves.

    None of this makes it a mistake to publish rumors (irrespective as to the credibility of the source - and I don't doubt you when you say that they are all credible) but it does raise questions when it doesn't happen and/or when the club deny it.
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  • edited November 2017

    So a month ago it was imminent - maybe even by the end of the next week and now we have a 'major problem' and will possibly not happen at all.

    I can't help wondering if the suggestion it was imminent was a little premature. I appreciate that due diligence can take a while and that Airman, and others, can only pass on what they hear but it does sound as though someone jumped the gun a little. Surely something this significant should have been anticipated. Even if it is Duchâtelet moving the goalposts I have to say that this is no surprise to me, and I've never had any dealings with him.

    This isn't helped by the suggestion of a secure DD room at the club some months back, that the SMT denied, and turned out to be wrong.

    I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but, as I say, it does feel like someone jumped the gun.

    But you are clearly pointing a finger...
  • So @Airman Brown , is a deal dead in the water or could this as some suggest , underhand posturing and negotiating tactics?

    Does it look as if takeover will not go through now?
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  • Hex said:

    So a month ago it was imminent - maybe even by the end of the next week and now we have a 'major problem' and will possibly not happen at all.

    I can't help wondering if the suggestion it was imminent was a little premature. I appreciate that due diligence can take a while and that Airman, and others, can only pass on what they hear but it does sound as though someone jumped the gun a little. Surely something this significant should have been anticipated. Even if it is Duchâtelet moving the goalposts I have to say that this is no surprise to me, and I've never had any dealings with him.

    This isn't helped by the suggestion of a secure DD room at the club some months back, that the SMT denied, and turned out to be wrong.

    I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but, as I say, it does feel like someone jumped the gun.

    The suggestion it was “imminent” came from a completely different place to most of the other information and the person is both trustworthy and well placed to know. No argument now that it turned out to be premature, but I know the information was given to me in good faith and reported by me on the same basis. Other sources at that time were more hesitant but they were also less authoritative.

    More recent information has come from within the process itself and from more than one place. Some of the detail coming from outside I was able to verify from within The Valley. As late as last Wednesday the process of working through the due diligence items appeared to be going well.

    The secure data room was never denied by the club and obviously the story came from within it. It was very widely discussed. I subsequently talked to other parties involved in the sexual abuse issue and concluded from that it was more likely to relate to that investigation, although it remains a view I reached on a balance of probabilities. There’s no conclusive position on it and has been no outcome if there was an investigation. Whatever the truth, it didn’t cause or contribute to the Mail running the Aussie takeover story, which was the substantive development in April.

    I don’t have and have never claimed to have a complete picture, but that is usually the situation with such stories. Is it really the case that people only want to know what the club wishes to tell them, when the club wants to tell them it? That seems to be the logic.
    Of course not - at least it is not for me. It's just very frustrating when something is dangled in front of you and then snatched away. I guess it depends if one is in the rattle and squeeze all presents and try to guess what's in them, and risk coming to the wrong conclusion, or one is in the leave it until Christmas day and have no expectations at all, category.

    It doesn't matter who chose the word imminent, or who advised that a deal could be done in a matter of days, but it was clearly ambitious. Even if this recent problem hadn't surfaced the estimate of time was inaccurate. It's now been nearly five weeks since the initial suggestion that it was close.

    I wouldn't put it pass Duchâtelet to deliberately derail, or stall, the process to achieve nothing more than making those leaking the situation look silly/stupid. I think, sometimes, people forget that he is not just a rich man he is also used to getting what he wants and is, almost certainly, surrounded by sycophants and probably feels the desire to stick it to those 'Vinegar Pi$$ers'. As I suspect, Airman, that you are almost certainly on his $hit list it would come as no surprise, to me, if he were happy to see you, and your publication, made to look like you were making things up and/or getting things wrong. I don't have anywhere like the kind of money that Duchâtelet has but he may well be willing to 'spend' several million pounds in vendettas before he leaves.

    None of this makes it a mistake to publish rumors (irrespective as to the credibility of the source - and I don't doubt you when you say that they are all credible) but it does raise questions when it doesn't happen and/or when the club deny it.
    At the time the story broke the DD was ongoing. I cannot believe that RD would deliberately derail the sale and alienate a consortium that has spent a significant amount of money on DD, just to annoy a fanzine editor. That's crazy logic. My guess is it's all about the bottom line, whether that be for a clean break now or at sometime in the future when we get to the promised land. RD only does 2 things, money and dancing.
    He also does Duct Ducked Duck tape.
  • edited November 2017

    So a month ago it was imminent - maybe even by the end of the next week and now we have a 'major problem' and will possibly not happen at all.

    I can't help wondering if the suggestion it was imminent was a little premature. I appreciate that due diligence can take a while and that Airman, and others, can only pass on what they hear but it does sound as though someone jumped the gun a little. Surely something this significant should have been anticipated. Even if it is Duchâtelet moving the goalposts I have to say that this is no surprise to me, and I've never had any dealings with him.

    This isn't helped by the suggestion of a secure DD room at the club some months back, that the SMT denied, and turned out to be wrong.

    I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but, as I say, it does feel like someone jumped the gun.

    AB is only relaying what he has been told though. He's not the only one hearing this, but he is one of the only ones sharing it with a wider audience.
  • Stay positive
  • The word imminent was miss leading and although it was raised many times the word remained

    The silence was deafening to me and I gave up hope on this two weeks ago

    When I stated we need to be more cautious and less excited as it certainly wasnt imminent
  • Rob62 said:

    A few people have heard the same things as AB - including that it was very close, to the number of issues that were highlighted by DD, to news today that it's off.

    So a month ago it was imminent - maybe even by the end of the next week and now we have a 'major problem' and will possibly not happen at all.

    I can't help wondering if the suggestion it was imminent was a little premature. I appreciate that due diligence can take a while and that Airman, and others, can only pass on what they hear but it does sound as though someone jumped the gun a little. Surely something this significant should have been anticipated. Even if it is Duchâtelet moving the goalposts I have to say that this is no surprise to me, and I've never had any dealings with him.

    This isn't helped by the suggestion of a secure DD room at the club some months back, that the SMT denied, and turned out to be wrong.

    I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular but, as I say, it does feel like someone jumped the gun.

    AB is only relaying what he has been told though. He's not the only one hearing this, but he is one of the only ones sharing it with a wider audience.
    Who's said that it's off? The negotiations have hit a major problem by the sound of things, but no reason to assume at this stage that it's all over. Negotiations often hit problems, sometimes major, that's the way these things work. Negotiating to buy a club from RD was never going to be a quick and easy process, for all we know it could be the other party moving the goalposts as well
  • Damn, got carried away, started getting excited and planning my first game at The Valley in two years, fingers crossed the deal is still able to be recovered.
This discussion has been closed.

Roland Out Forever!