Takeover?

Either way, hope he is right.

Be careful what you wish for. I'm sure Birmingham, Portsmouth and many other clubs that have been taken over by people they had no knowledge of, felt the same at first. Bet they don't now.

Of course we want some funds but let's be very careful who we let takeover our great club and make sure they have the right interest.

Oh.... hold on a minute.

They took out loans where they could get them, because they were needed. Or are you saying they intentionally sought out the highest interest rates in some devious plan to destroy Everton? You could take an all-negative approach, or an equally stupid view that our owner is a pious savior.

Or it could be a bit of both, being hit by the financial crunch and banks tightening the purse strings, failed stadium moves, a new state-of-the-art training ground, putting together a very good side and not just selling at a whim while allowing some of that money to be reinvested in the squad, and keeping stability by not sacking the manager at the first sign of struggle.

But one thing seems fairly obvious, many more of these takeovers have gone bad than been successful (Blackburn, Portsmouth, Birmingham, LFC — even throw Glasgow Rangers in there).

Group A: The Sheiks and Oligarchs, they're looking for a hood ornament because there's only so many gold plated, laser armed mega yachts you can buy. They could make you champions, they can also get bored and go buy another race horse, ask Malaga.

Group B: The American Raiders, Gilette, Hicks, Glazers, probably Henry, maybe Lerner (although I haven't seen Villa's books). These guys are making an investment and they exploit the complete lack of control by the FA to saddle the club with the cost of purchase and help themselves to generous dividends. They may make an initial investment to try and increase the potential dividend but in the end they know they can write off some tax, walk away with all the profit and leave the club with all the debt.

Group C: The conmen, chancers and wideboys, Blackburn's chicken tycoons, Fernandes at QPR, Milan Mandarić at Pompey. These guys cornered a market somewhere and have some cash to invest, or maybe they've wrangled control of a hedge fund and are really no more rich and powerful than the post office box in the Caymans they claim as headquarters. They want to make a bit of noise but noise is all they bring to the table and the promises of financial backing don't hold water. They don't really understand the game, Where they get in, they rapidly reduce the club to a basket case in league 2. The added insult here is that they will usually bail when it gets sticky and pass the club of to another degenerate so the cycle can continue.

Be careful what you wish for and be very sure of what you're getting because they will all arrive with the same promise of glory.

Me, I can only hope that one day the groundsman sticks in his fork in the turf to fix a divot and unleashes 3 million barrels of crude buried under Goodison Park.

Two successful examples doesn't outweigh the numerous failures that exist. Failures that can take decades to rectify.

I did acknowledge the need for investment. I am just amazed that people can say they want it when they don't even know the source of the story or who the investors are.

I think that it is worth a gamble on new owners as we cannot carry on, year-on-year, in our present form; we are only one or two bad signings off falling down the league because we can ill-afford mistakes in the transfer market. It might explain the lack of movement on DM's contract.

However, it's hard to believe that Everton would be able to contain any news about a possible takeover of the club, especially in these 24/7 media days.

Tomorrow is about what we can do about Chelsea, even more so with Spurs victory over Sunderland this afternoon. Could it be yet another Rafa distraction ploy, well I wouldn't put it past him.

I think when we look at 'failed' representations of takeovers, it is important to consider why they failed. Liverpool's may look a failure retrospectively... but Liverpool's new owners, like Villa's, funded some big moves. Just because they failed, and now financial constraints are in pace, it doesn't mean the takeovers were bad... just that the money was spent badly by the management.

Of course we need to be careful when we sell... but I think that perhaps the nature of some takeovers have been a little miss-represented in this thread. We don't need an oligarch to improve us as a football club... we just need an owner who will support us with £10-15 million a year in purchases.

Watch out for Messi, Ronaldo, Casillas to arrive first week of January....

Ask Blackburn, Portsmouth, Birmingham, even Rangers how their gambling habit has worked out for them and if they would want to carry on in our position.

Like most gamblers they may be up for a while but the bookies never loose in the long run.

I really hope Danny buys us now. He sounds like he's got a sound investment plan worth a gamble.

One reason the club cannot get any further credit, from high street banks or mainstream lenders, is their refusal to give guarantees backed by their own personal wealth.

Therefore, we have to pay this huge amount of interest compared to normal rates, putting the club into even more debt.

In ANY business, you have to convince your lenders you are prepared to shoulder some of the risk if you want to borrow their money.

In fact, we may be even paying these extortionate rates to one of our own directors: BCR Sports is an investment vehicle for Robert Earl. The company is registered in the British Virgin Islands. It owns 23% of Everton Football Club.

You have to say that this club is a spider's web of intrigue when it comes to its finances... but one thing is for sure: they have done a job on most of the support.

It's very like an April Fool's joke as mentioned but more of a pain in the arse than anything.

I'm no fan of BK and the current board but I do think we could do worse and as pointed out there are probably more failures than success stories when it comes to mystery new investors.

We don't even need a massive cash injection, just the ability to compete a little better with the likes of Stoke and Fulham who can currently outbid us for players.

We are unlikely to get a Man City type investor, but we may get people with the business acumen to take us forward instead of the constant hand-to-mouth existence we have been in for far too long.

John Moores didn't give Everton a single penny piece, but he was the guarantor that allowed us to buy players and invest in Goodison Park. That is the type of person that we require now; if we were fortunate enough to get a wealthy benefactor, then all the better.

Yes, we need investment but something as valuable as Everton should be cherished. When people start talking about 'gambling' with our club, I despair.

Have to say I'm no great fan of the current crowd but would be very wary of any takeover.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Tolman

We all hope there is some real truth in any of these stories that come out, but I can't find any other sources.

"An examination being achieved by asking certain key questions, including ..... how much do we pay?"

Roaring laughing.

If I we're not an Everton before, and were looking for a team to follow, I would be one by now. That's how strongly I feel about it.

The day we overnight are able to buy Messi and the like, and we ship out our skillfully crafted team to replace them with here today and gone tomorrow mercenaries, I'm not sure I'll be able to consider it the same club.

I will stake my hat that it's a red herring to deflect the attention from the accounts.

Uncle Bill always said he would not sell to just anyone. Maybe the investment, whenever it comes, will turn out to be sensible and a good thing!

It may be different for scousers for whom it's their local team, but for an outsider like me whose critical of so many elements of the game I think I'd go to looking out for their results status pretty quickly.

Richard is not necessarily the buyer or even linked to the alleged buy out.

Richard is obviously a Blue as he says 'fingers crossed the deal goes through' in the closing sentence.

Unless of course we look up at the Directors Box tomorrow and see a bottle green foam frog and an overweight loud-mouthed blushing pig...

I like your thinking, man. By the way, I hear there's a lad called Kev Johnson available. He knows where the net is, apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tolman

Make of this what you will?

Identifying a new owner is the greatest challenge facing this club and sadly the vast majority don’t understand why this is the biggest threat to the wellbeing of the club. There’s far too much posturing over “be careful what you wish for”, “better the devil you know” and, most bizarre of all, “I’m happy with how we’re run, look at Portsmouth, look at Leeds, look at Liverpool.”

Yeah, look at them but let’s not look at City or Chelsea or Arsenal or Spurs; let’s not look at the trophy cabinet that hasn’t been troubled since 1995, excluding the war years the most barren period in the club’s history. Yeah, let’s not look at those inescapable facts on the pitch and, heaven forbid, let’s not look at the real facts off the pitch because a prospective owner won’t either, will they?

I can understand the argument that Bill Kenwright isn’t as bad as some owners, just as I can understand he’s not as good as others, but let’s not dismiss the fact that he’s not the same as any chairman of any other Premier League club because nobody else has misled the fanbase on such a mammoth scale. You can perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt over the ground failing its safety certificate; maybe some over-zealous minion thought the drunken knobhead fans were thick enough to believe it... What can’t be excused is the whopper told over the £52M we were receiving from Tesco towards the cost of the stadium, you know that irrevocable cheque, the deal of the century, how we couldn’t afford a new world class stadium without the benevolence of Tesco; you remember don’t you? You’ll also remember it turned out to be slightly misleading as instead of £52m we weren’t getting an actual penny; did I say misleading?

How another EGM wasn’t called as soon as this fantasy was disproved and it became known that the folly had cost the club millions is beyond me, but... ah yes, I remember now: the getaway plan had already been executed, the plan that ignored the wishes of the thousands of people — fans who owned over 30% of the club — and favoured the few who owned the majority of the shares. If you know your history…bollocks, the club was set up so such an event as this couldn’t happen; but there you go — it did!

So keep clapping and telling people to "be careful what you wish for"; keep believing that Bill and the rest saved the club, that after his socks had dried out and he’d bought a decent pair of shoes that he put his house on the line for the club... but just remember: whilst you may believe the bollocks, the new owners won’t; they’ll look at the facts and the facts are these.

They’ll look at the asking price then they’ll look at the standard document used to measure the health of the business, the balance sheet, and they’ll see that since the current owners “saved the club” the balance sheet has deteriorated from being one with £20m of assets to over £35m of liabilities; they see a negative balance sheet, they won’t listen to the lame excuses over the players are undervalued, that’s the same at every club, and then their offer price will be reduced. Then they’ll look at the business's ability to generate revenue and their own experts will scratch their head at the Kitbag deal and the kit supply revenue that all other clubs enjoy; they’ll look once more at the offer price and reduce it again whilst the current owners eagerly point out the new £35m plus a season windfall from the new TV rights deal whilst their advisor points out that a rising tide lifts all ships and will want to know why the company secretary has left the building.

Thankfully I’m no longer worried about all this; as I’ve said before, I’ve accepted you’ll get the Everton you deserve. I’ll just go to Goodison tomorrow with real Evertonians who have no need to explain their credentials and I’ll support the club as I’ve done for all of my life and enjoy the day.

I can see people are worried over the future; it’s a distraction from being worried over their own future, their jobs, their families, their relationships. If asked about Everton and new owners, I always say it’s the biggest task facing the club and that all those clubs who have failed spectacularly, the clubs people are so keen to mention, I always point out that the root cause of their catastrophes lie with the previous owners who greedily took the money and ran. If you are worried, and I can see that you should be, I’m just past it.

Here’s a little tip to decide if Everton’s current owners will get it right this time: Forget the guys in the bedsit, forget the twelve interested parties that disappear every year, just take a sheet of A4, draw a line down the middle, write the headings Failures and Successes on each column, list them, and see where the balance of probabilities lie in this board finding the right future owner.

Enjoy the game…

"Identifying a new owner is the greatest challenge facing this club and sadly the vast majority don’t understand why this is the biggest threat to the wellbeing of the club. There’s far too much posturing over “be careful what you wish for”, “better the devil you know” and, most bizarre of all, “I’m happy with how we’re run, look at Portsmouth, look at Leeds, look at Liverpool.” "

Trouble is it makes no difference what ToffeeWebbers think or say or feel. We have no bearing on matters. We are just insignificant because we don't have the money or the power, so the reality is why waste your breath on all this slating the board all the time. I support EFC — not the directors, but the lads that get on the pitch and play the game — no politics. It is better that way. Politics is dirty and full of shits.

And the United fans I konw are very happy that the club is successful and have no intention of supporting a none league side as I'm sure you will opt to do also if Everton are sold and start winning trophies?

My thoughts exactly.

Enjoy the game and we'll all hopefully have a good time.

It's too infuriating to do anything else.

I'm sure you all have your reasons for your mistrust of the directors but the table doesn't lie. It may be that you have been lied to in the past but unfortunately there's just no filter that allows the club to release some information to the fans and different information to the opposition. My only complaint about anything to do with the club is where we'd be now with those 8 extra points. But then maybe they let those weak goals in because they knew that if we were flying high then us toffeewebbers wouldn't have anything to moan about.. Seems this came at just the right time, can't wait to get Messi on my back.

As an aside MK, you don't normally post such rumours - are you able to give anymore context to this?

Apart from that, agree with others saluting Colin Fitz' post above.

But yesterday we had no game, news was a little flat, and we hadn't heard much on the takeover front for a while... so I thought, "WTH?"

On reflection, the guy was not a regular, and does not appear to have used his real name... (surprise!) Let's see if he replies to an e.mail.

OTOH, if there were a takeover, it's conceivable someone would eventually let it out the bag that due diligence was taking place. And it did prompt a classic post from Colin that I really should have pulled out last night as a standalone.