The most positive aspects of the Arsenal Fanshare Scheme :

A normal share, which guarantees a place at the AGM, costs £9,500. A fanshare costs £95, which can be paid by direct debit at less that a tenner a month.

A fanshare owner is placed into a draw to attend the AGM.

Fanshares can be accumulated over time. One hundred fanshares guarantees a place at the AGM.

The fanshare society coexists with, and is accepted by, Arsenal Football Club. In theory at least it's similar to a bicameral parliament but only for the purposes of custodianship, standards of practice and heritage; this is underwitten by Equiniti Financial Services Ltd.

The Fanshare Society was established by the Arsenal Supporters Trust. Everton supporters already have several well organised clubs and fora. Toffeeweb, for example.

I think much would depend on what the funds are to be used for, arguably previous debts haven't necessarily been put to the best long-term use. However, one would hope the Board might bear in mind that diluting their holdings by a small percentage may well be worthwhile if the value of the club overall increases by a larger percentage. So they could potentially end up trading a little influence & control for an increase in the value of their investment.

A couple of good posts for starters.

Christopher, the Arsenal Supporters Trust run the Arsenal Fan Share. In the same vein, and official Everton Fan group could set up an Everton Fan Share. I don't think this is the kind of thing that Toffeeweb Towers would be willing and able to do though.

Dennis(#2) I think your last sentence makes a lot of sense for the board to consider the proposal. The obvious use of funds would be to do with renovation of some or all of Goodison.

Would or could the Everton Shareholders Association be the official body that sets up an Everton Fan Share concept? Or is this a conflict of interest?

What about KEIOC doing it?

As much as I love the idea, and would love to own my club in the same vein as Barcelona, I'm sorry but I will not provide Kenwright with more of my hard earned than a season ticket and what a shirt costs, to just be fobbed off regarding the destination of the funds. If this group was run and we elected a representative to become chairman of the People's Club, I would be all for that.

And also, whatever money generated is shown transparently on a website with how it is spent broken down, with well over half given to Davey... Then let's go ? Cheque books @ the ready! COYB

Yes, I am happy to announce that ToffeeWeb will start issuing the first Certified Everton Fan Shares on Friday. These will be provided for the modest sum of £100 each. Twenty such Fan Shares will be converted into one share in Everton Football Club, which will entitle the holder to attend the AGM or its proxy, the Shareholders Forum.

Contact the Editor for full payment details and be the first in your supporters group to step down the Everton Fan Share path to a glorious Blue future.

Michael, sometimes you surprise and astound me with your posts. Have you been on the sauce?

I've spoken to the website designer of www.arsenalfanshare.com who explained about the amount of work that's been done to get them this far.

This is good for a possible Everton Fan Share as 90% of the legwork - legal, web design etc has been done. With permission from the board of the Arsenal Fan Share, we could have the same in blue, using all the same professional organisations to re-produce the same.

On launching the website, there were 100 visitors per Second to it and significant funds have been raised. I have been pointed in the direction of the person to contact from the Arsenal Fan Share board to find out more.

Andy Burnham (Everton Fan) thinks its a good idea See http://www.arsenaltrust.org/in-parliament.php

"Burnham said that he viewed the AST as 'by far the most successful Trust operating in the Premier League'. He also said he would work with the Trust to help it grow share ownership in Arsenal even further.

Tony

It's a matter of Will. Unfortunately, there seems to be a ubiquitous drought.

One person's determination often has unexpected and far reaching consequences, I believe. So maybe this idea will take flight in the future.

We can live and work in hope. It's good to hear that Burnham is advocating the idea.

Tony,
another good idea and one that I would consider putting a considerable amount into if Kenwright was no longer chairman.

As you rightly said lets not turn it negative and a model like the Arsenal fanshare concept would appear to be the way to go however I do believe our club is at the crossroads and until ownership,a business plan and ground development opportunities are sorted out these ideas need to be shelved.

Andy Burnham made a brief speech and took questions and answers at the London-based Everton Supporters? AGM in July.

He mentioned the idea of establishing a Supporters? Trust based on 20,000 people each putting in £1,000 for a share, thus raising £20 million. These ?shares? could be passed on to their family members, thus ensuring that ownership would remain in ?the people?s hands? (he had alluded to Abramovich, who had apparently wanted to buy a Spanish club originally, but was put off by their ownership structures).

He felt the £20 million could be used for progressively upgrading Goodison over a number of years. The Q and A session was cut short because he had to rush off, so there wasn?t really a chance to ask him about Kenwright?s reactions to this idea.

Come on. Tony, I'm serious. We can make this happen. We have the website already, we have a tremendous potential quorum of fanatical Evertonians, we have a membership structure...

All we need is to start to make it happen ? and it will. Just so long as you put your full support behind this initiative and start promoting it amongst your fellow Evertonians. I'm allready getting loads of enquiries.

Whatever happened to the Supporters Trust idea put forward a couple of seasons ago? I thought you were involved in that with John Hughes, Tony? and even set up a website (the peoples stadium trust?)

The links to the articles John posted are http://www.toffeeweb.com/season/07-08/comment/fan/article.asp?submissionID=8668 and http://www.toffeeweb.com/season/07-8/comment/fan/article.asp?submissionID=8781 but they don't work anymore.

I agree with Dennis and Jay on this, I wouldn't put any money into it if it was under BK or the board?s control. But if there was a trust that was dedicated to using the money to refurbish Goodison, or to sweeten a deal with an enabling partner for a new stadium, they I?d be interested.

Eric (#14) It was John's idea and I offered to set up and host a website. Didn't come to anything and probably reflect's MK's sarcasm.

I contacted KEIOC. Here is what they had to say:

"KEIOC is fully supportive of any sensible initiative that promotes the involvement of the fans in deciding the future direction of the club, thereby preventing involvement in plans which are not in the best interests of the club and its supporters. With the prospect of a change in ownership in the future a reality, it is now more essential than ever that the precedent of supporters representation at board level is established at Everton before the opportunity is lost forever; an action which may prevent the club falling into unsuitable hands in the future"

---
If anyone wants to contact KEIOC, you know where they are.

I would be totally behind this, and would be up for helping to get it started and seeing it through. I have already spent a lot of time looking into the share aspect of EFC and looking at the historical accounts to formulate spend/outgoing profiles. This could be the start of something good for our grand club. which we should all push forward with.

Unfortunately some people seem to be getting hung up on the current board situation, but this should not be issues for people wanting to see the club move forward on a more steady footing. Not everybody likes or gets on with each other but at the core we all want what's best for our club... Now let's make it our club in every regard rather than the 'I have a season ticket' approach.

Although I'd heard of the Barcelona fans ownership I hadn't relised that Arsenal had one too. I haven't checked out their website, but does it work? Do you know how much has been raised? Who handles the money raised and who decides how it will be spent? It looks like a good idea on paper but as per the previous posts, those who are against the Board would want to ensure that their money wasn't going to line its (the Board) pockets.

Just leave all this share nonsense to Blue Bill and get on with SUPPORTING him and Davey rather than taking any excuse to criticise the best value for money club in the Prem!

Richard (#19), this is an initiative to help support Bill and David Moyes - they need money and there is a global fan base just looking for a way to provide this. This is in no way an attempt to criticise Everton or the board, as I stated in the article in advance of it becoming a slagging match.

Plus, I'd rather not just leave this "share nonsense" to others thanks. Are you assuming we don't have the intelligence to see what share ownership and control of a company actually means?

Steve (#18) I am awaiting a response from the Arsenal Fan Share to see if they are willing to provide any experiences and expertise to measure the level of success or not of such a project.

Looking further into the Arsenal Scheme thier is an interesting point;

'Are there enough shares available in the market place for Arsenal Fanshare to buy? Our market research suggests that there will be enough shares, and we are often contacted by people who wish to sell their shares only to other supporters. As the scheme grows and has a greater demand for shares, we aim to enter into discussions with the club and the major shareholders to seek a greater supply.'

We know there are 35,000 shares in EFC valued at approx £1,500 each (note the Arsenal Shares are £10,000 each) so this would mean it would take a lot less time to accumulate the 'fanshare' to purchase a full share.

Additional to this we would need to have shareholders willing to sell....
BK - 8,499
JW - 6,412
RE - 8,146
Lord Grantchester - 2,773
AJA - 1,830
BWTSltd - 973
PDC - 714
Small Shareholders - 5653

Would this be possible?
I would hope so.......

For an Everton Fanshare Society on current Share Value working along the lines of the Arsenal on;

Share Price £1,500

Break that down into 1/48 equals £31.25p per month - thus every 4 years of paying 31.25 a month into the scheme you would register One Full Share.

Alternatively for every 48 members the scheme had involved it could be responsible for One Share in the club.

Alastair, at £1500 I believe there would be many fans who would be willing and able to achieve their share within 1 year @ £125 a month. At £31.25 I believe the uptake from supporters would be very positive, but I get the feeling that "what is the money for" will be the biggest question of all.

Of course, we are still discussing this in the context of the article (EFC laid out an olive branch to the fan base saying.. .well, get on with it.).

This could go on forever ? if I might make a suggestion. We could go some way to proving the concept by setting up a database of people who are declaring an interest in contributing some money per year to a trust ? no commitment yet.

If you get a few hundred on this basis, it isn't going to work. If you get 10,000 or more, then it might be worth the effort.

I can sort the database out as could probably several others.

Good idea?

Is the share price still around £1,500? It's been there foreever, yet the club that TBH purchased for around £20M (and very little debt) 10 years ago is now being hawked around at a cool £180M.

Do the maths: that's over £5,000 per share now. BK and friends paid just £857 per share. Something is just not right.

Also, there is a huge difference between buying new shares (the money goes to the club) and buying existing shares that are already available (the money goes to the owners of those shares ? zero goes to the club).

A Fan Share scheme based on the former is probably the way to get things off the ground ? hence my serious offer to get it started now, Tony!

But as momentum builds, the scheme has to be fed with new shares. However, there are rules related to the issuance of new shares that may limit what can actually be done. Who knows about that side of things?

Graham (#25) - Toffeeweb could do a one off e-mail to their subscriber list and point them to a specific questionnaire about the subject.

Michael (#26) Can TW do this? How many email addresses are in your list?

Given that we are being watched by the Red Tops, maybe someone can point the Journo's to this debate to get the non-Internet fan base to complete the questionnaire.

As I understand it any share issuance has to be a full one? - ie 35,000 to 70,000. That's why it's not been done. The last person to do this was Peter Johnson!

However, to do a share issuance, someone has to underwrite the full number of shares (70,000) at an agreed price so that the existing share holders have the opportunity to sell at that price.

Michael (#28) The share price is still at around £1500 when you just want one or a few shares, if someone wanted to purchase a significant amount of shares they have to agree a price with a shareholder / a number of shareholders, that's were the £5000 comes into play (ie the shareholder values the asset at that price) ? that's a limited company for you!

Quote on http://www.arsenaltrust.org/recent-news.php?article=311 from Tim Payton, Arsenal Fanshare Board member:


"Arsenal Fanshare has been established by the AST to increase supporter ownership and representation at Arsenal."

"The AST recently surveyed its membership on their preferred ownership structure at Arsenal. Ninety percent of AST members rate maintaining the club's custodianship and protecting the long-term future to be the most important priority of Arsenal's Board. There is little support for the club being taken private with eighty-four percent preferring Arsenal's ownership model to be one that includes supporter representation."

"Arsenal Fanshare meets the demand from Arsenal Supporters that the club should remain in plural ownership. Arsenal is simply too important an institution to be owned by just one person."

"Plurality in the club's ownership structure has served Arsenal well over the years and is the best way to ensure the necessary checks and balances are in place to protect the club's long-term future."

The AST welcomes the support that the Arsenal Board and Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis have given to the scheme. In addition the club's other major shareholders, Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith and Red and White Holdings (Alisher Usmanov) have also given their backing to Arsenal Fanshare.

Payton continued: "The support Arsenal Fanshare has from all of the club's major shareholders should allow all talk of a takeover to be put to one side."

"Throughout its history, Arsenal has always looked to the future, and has been at the forefront of important developments in football. Innovations have ranged from the introduction of floodlit football and the renaming of 'Gillespie Road' tube station to 'Arsenal,' through to the building of the landmark Emirates stadium and transformation of the game in England with the pioneering appointment of the first successful overseas manager in Arsene Wenger. Arsenal Fanshare continues this innovation and sends a positive message to the wider football community about the importance of involving supporters in a club's future."

"Arsenal supporters are fortunate that our club's structure and philosophy allows this opportunity to be developed. Supporters at many other Premier League clubs would love the chance to have a similar opportunity to play a part in their ownership structure. We urge all Arsenal fans to take this unique opportunity and get involved. By working together we can make Arsenal even stronger."

Thanks for the clarifications, Alistair. That certainly fits with my understanding of previous goings on with regard to Everton shares, which last changes with Peter Johnson's Rights Issue.

As I recall, this was advertised as 6 for 1, when there were just 5,000 shares outstanding. Each existing share entitled the holder to purchase up to six new shares, with their existing 'old' share being converted to a 'new' share. All the extra cash went into the club, with Peter Johnson underwriting the issue, and he ended up buying a significant number of the shares, thus pumping an addition few million quid into the club's coffers.

I guess you're absolutely right: the price of EFC shares is purely nominal. I had always assumed it would bear some relation to an apparent valuation of the club, but this is apparently not the case, based on what you are saying and on the otherwise bizarre fact the price has not changed significantly since the late-90s.

So... looking forward now to a Fan Share concept, and how that might work for Everton, yes, it would be nice to start the scheme on the basis of purchasing (by installment) full shares at £1,500... however, as I've said, that money does not go to the club, so what's the point?

It only becomes meaningful in the context of new shares. Yet Alistair has demonstrated that the MINIMUM tranche would be 35,000, one-for-one, and the price on these would be what? I would guess between £1,500 and £2,500, depending on the club valuation basis. If purely a nominal price, then that price would be anyone's guess.

But here's the viability gap: Even at £1,000 each, that's THIRTY-FIVE MILLION POUNDS of new money. In matchday terms, that's your average match-attending Evertonian ponying up £1k each or committing to the installment program. So far, I've got 127 people interested...

I don't see the point if we're just buying existing shares, as the money DOES NOT GO TO THE CLUB. So then there's the mechanics of how you get it off the ground within the strictures of a Rights Issue... especially the need for a moneybags to underwrite the entire thing.

Tony
I would suggest your next port of call would be to speak with Phil Carter.

As well as being a real gentleman he is also an ex Merchant banker and would certainly help with any serious proposal.

Michael, I have said all along that it would be easy for Kenwright to get new investment by just having a rights issue which would be along similar lines to the fanshare scheme except that, by "issuing" NEW shares, all the funds would go into the club not to existing shareholders.

But he will not do it for the same reason buying the club is so complicated.

Michael (#31) Is a response of 127 not a great result in terms of market research, especially when you consider that no market research has been done. Can I suggest the following:

1) a permanent home page link about this on TW home page for a few months to see if momentum builds.

2) a one-off mailout to subscribers to ask them the direct question - would you put money into a fan share? Maybe ask the reasons for a Yes or No.
This would give a percentage result rather than just a figure, then publish the results.

3) a press release to inform many offline fans of the idea and ask their opinion.

Alastair #22, on the basis of supposrters buying up shares from existing shareholders then the Club will receive no money at all, it just goes into the sellers pocket.

This will only work if there are ADDITIONAL shares put onto the market to raise money.
And we all know that ain't gonna happen.

^Sorry, I see Michael covered that already in #26.

127 people interested but how many shares does that equate to? Maybe some would buy more than 1 share? I would.

michael (re #34) what about keeping this on the home page before we drop off into the Toffeeweb black hole into obscurity?

Eric (#37) - I truely believe there are many fans out there in a position to buy many shares. And I think these would be the kind of people to get in touch with Michael direct rather than post on here.

I'd fully agree that in the short term buying existing shares does not give the club additional money streams, however, we should be looking further than that and a fan share society with a lot of members can push the board to begin a new share issue scheme that would introduce new money streams to the club.

As I, and others have all pointed out, as soon as the club does this the existing shareholers percentage stake is reduced. This is an unkown (people guess) position of the clubs exiting shareholding with regards to being open to this.

Perhaps they are, I, like most remember the Chris Samuelson affair with 'Fortress Sports Fund' -

http://www.toffeeweb.com/club/business/shares.asp#FSF

This proposal would have diluted the exiting shareholding percentages.

Reading up on it again I wonder whether it collapsed because of the two 'Tranche' Options or because the money wasnt real?
But if you could create addition blocks of shares (going against my original understanding) then the Fanshare scheme could take off. - Generating New MONEY

I Agree with Tony #38 on the Permanent Slot on the TW home page....

Im not telling Michael how to run this brilliant site, I would be interested in some results/interests.

If we could drag our club out of the depths we are in imagine where we could go?

Some Research;

Share issues
Directors cannot issue newly created shares without shareholder authority to do so. Two provisions of the Companies Act 1985 are key here and will be familiar from any listed company AGM notice:

Section 80 stops the directors from issuing shares to anyone unless they are authorised to do so in the articles or by shareholders passing an ordinary resolution. This ban includes an agreement to issue shares and the grant of options that will result in a future issue of shares (although employee share schemes are exempt). Listed companies will ask shareholders to give them this authority each year at the AGM, but will have to respect certain limitations stipulated by institutional shareholders ? the rule has been that only 15 per cent of the authorised share capital can be issued ? and the authority has to be renewed at each AGM.

The Companies Act 2006 replaces this in October 2008 with new sections 549 and 551, and the restriction will no longer apply to a private company with only one class of share.

Section 89 obliges a company to offer new shares first of all to its existing shareholders in the same proportions they already hold shares. In other words, it upholds shareholders? right to be protected from dilution. If they are willing to pay the price asked for the new shares, they can have them. But this only applies where the shares are offered for cash ? if a company is issuing shares in exchange for shares in another company, say, or in payment for a non-cash asset, there is no requirement to offer the shares to existing shareholders first of all.

The section can be disapplied, along with section 80, either in the articles or by a shareholder vote, though only by a special resolution. These rules are repeated in the Companies Act 2006 (section 561 and following).

Again, institutional shareholders have their price: only shares equal to five per cent of the issued share capital can be issued without first offering them to shareholders.

Rights issues and bonus issues
A rights issue is a common way for a company to raise fresh capital: it issues new shares, offering them first to existing shareholders. Indeed, section 89, discussed above, obliges a company to treat any issue of shares for cash as a rights issue unless the shareholders have first agreed otherwise. (A rights issue for a listed company will often not follow the section 89 procedure because of various practical difficulties and the additional requirements of the Listing Rules.)

A listed company rights issue will usually offer shares at a discount to the current market price, sometimes a heavy discount if the shareholders? appetite for the shares needs to be stimulated. That discount means that there is an inherent value in the right to be offered the shares, and the shareholders in a listed company can trade those rights and realise that value if they do not want to take up the shares themselves.

Alternatives to a rights issue include an open offer where shareholders are invited to subscribe to a number of new shares based on their proportionate entitlements. This can be less complex than a rights issue but it does not give shareholders the opportunity to trade their rights to take up shares and so benefit from the discount. A vendor placing may also be used where one company is buying shares in another. Shares are allotted by the purchaser to the sellers of the target but the purchaser?s investment bank agrees to find investors or placees who will take those shares and so give the sellers cash. Institutional shareholders of the purchaser may insist on a clawback whereby those shares are first offered to them in proportion to their existing holdings.

A bonus issue involves no new money. Also called a capitalisation or scrip issue, it takes a sum from the company?s reserves (distributable profits that could be used to pay a dividend, or the share premium account) and capitalises it by using it to pay for the new shares. The issued share capital is increased without any new money being invested. The new shares are issued to existing shareholders pro rata to their shareholdings and so no dilution occurs.

I'd be interested in the share scheme but wholeheartedly have to say not if a single penny went to the current board, so it would have to be new share issues and have a definite end game they were working towards; ideally ground related or new revenue/existing revenue expansion related

OK, so that's us off the TW home page and soon to be relegated further down the Mailbag page.

Was it just another article of whatevers?

Will TW give this issue the extended home page coverage it deserves?



Michael, did you get in touch direct with the Arsenal Fan Share as editor of TW for any comments? I did not get a response.

Are you working on a mailshot for the subscriber list with a link to a questionnaire about the issue?

Did any more fans contact you off TW to ask about the concept?

Did any fans inform the lazy journos to get this idea in print?

Where do we go from here? I mean, someone's just got to do something!!

At least make some sort of poll?

Michael (#26) "A Fan Share scheme based on the former is probably the way to get things off the ground ? hence my serious offer to get it started now, Tony! "

Any updates in relation to my suggestions at post #34?

Well Michael, are you going to use this flaming website for anything else than a moaning arse sounding board for fans after we've been beaten?

Or do you not really care as the upside is a defeat generates more website traffic as people go home early and pissed off and invariably come on here to see what fellow fans think. This means more click throught and money for you.

Or let's face it, is Toffeeweb really another disguise of Bill Kenright and the board, invented after Linden was interviewed by Peter Johnson years ago.

I know "let's put up a fan's website that is not to do with Everton that the fans will lap up as they can say what the hell they like. And we can respond in the full fury of unadulterated language without harming the EFC brand". Or thinking about it, are you Peter Johnson? Or a relation of the Greggs?

Do something about it man.