If I could invest in Everton....

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I'm a bit of a dreamer, I imagine myself winning the lottery, as we all do, and thinking, what would I do with £161M...

This article is aimed at considering what I would do, if I had £50M to invest in Everton. A very modest sum given the wealth of the owners in the Premier League. This is simply how I would do it, and I imagine that an awful lot of fans would do things quite differently. But still, it's my imaginary fortune and so it's my choice.

Everton are valued at £100M by the board. No doubt they would not accept my £50M to purchase the club and, to be honest, I wouldn't want to purchase the club ? I'd just be inheriting the same mess without the power to fix it. In fact, I could possibly make the situation a whole lot worse!

So, I ring up Bill and say, "I have £50M. I'd quite like to invest in Everton. I am willing to put my £50M in, and I want the club to issue shares to the extent that my £50M would give me 40% of the total share value... ie, I value the club at £75M, and my investment would mean the club is worth £125M."

I think that'd be my assessment and I'm sure many would say that I'm probably over-/under-valuing the club and that, in any event, Bill wouldn't agree to it. You're all probably right.

Anyway, I decide to give BK some objectives before I wish to invest. "After all, it's £50m," I say.

Here's where I lose more people. I wish for the current board to stay, although I wish for the members of the board to change.

I would make David Moyes a Director as well as manager, with the rest of the board being: myself; Kenwright to remain as Chairman, although with only the same voting as the rest of us; Elstone; and then the academy manager... resulting in a five-man board: Chairman, Manager, Investor, Chief Executive and Academy Manager. I would ask that each member of the board updates the fans twice a month on their role and how things are progressing, perhaps via the programme on matchdays.

I would also ask that my £50M be invested in the following ways: I want £30M to go against the debt of the club and that the club will not in the next 10 years exceed debt of 20% of the value of the club, ie, It will never go above £25M. The remaining £20M is to be spent on player purchases for the manager. I would like him to choose them (a position Moyes seems to already enjoy ? being able to choose the players he buys).

I would state also, that our aims would be to reduce the debt to nil in the next 10 years. BK would remain as Chairman. I think also, my final thing would be to introduce somebody as a Consultant to sort out the Marketing at the club. Although we have improved somewhat over the past five years, we need to be so much better.

I realise that one big thing has not changed here: the ground. However, I'm investing £50M, not £400M. My idea would simply be to bring further stability to the club and perhaps make us a more attractive proposition to a future buyer.

It's my opinion that the current board probably do have this aim, as they say, but not the means to do it. Everton need a push, an extra few good players and a debt reduction. The idea being that we don't gamble on Champions League but we do actually try to get there.

I know many of you will have different views and probably slate some of my ideas but that's your opinion. I'd quite like to read some of your own views, given a similar budget and how you would lead the club forward.
Stuart Downey, London     Posted 24/07/2011 at 13:11:16

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