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Bank debt gone; Apparently...
Topic Started: Feb 7 2014, 09:59 AM (5,454 Views)
Naebody
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Twat
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Morvant's Finest
Mar 4 2015, 01:24 PM
Top work Naebs :hat:

Innaresting figures there....

You can knock off 10% of Robertson's fee for a start (http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/football/300k-robertson-boost-a-cut-above-for-queens-park.24865122

Could it be that other payments are due to be paid in installments? The Goodwillie deal was certainly done that way: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2106000/Blackburn-deny-missing-David-Goodwillie-payment.html
Sure, and sure. Thompson does say "once all the transfer fees are in," which I'd take to mean "once all the transfer fees are in." But I concede that taking Thompson at his word is not proven to be a failsafe strategy.

Costs such as the £300,000 given to the tax-dodging self-righteous cunts would be netted off the £7m figure rather than the post-VAT one, so don't move the dial that much. I've also used the reported upfront fee for Gauld, which ignores (for example) the likelihood that his first-team debut triggered another payment. It's fair to say that figures are for illustrative purposes only.
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vvhatsthatonyourback
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wild eyed
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I believe Gauld got a decent cut of his transfer fee - c20%
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Conan the Destroyer
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Naebody
Mar 4 2015, 12:53 PM
Setenza
Mar 4 2015, 11:27 AM
I wish I could be bothered doing the sums to figure out if that's good or not.
Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god oh god .....

In February 2014, United said it had bought £4.7m of bank debt for £1.45m. Thompson's references to "soft loans" since then have suggested they were to cover this £1.45m, so let's start the calculations from there.

As part of the debt repurchase, the bank was given rights to future transfer income of between £0.25m and £2.4m.

Gauld's upfront transfer fee was ~£2.2m.
Robertson's transfer fee was ~£2.85m.
Transfer fees for Armstrong and GMS were ~£2m.

That's £7m. After VAT, that's £5.6m.

Net off the bank's transfer fee agreement at the maximum rate and that leaves a £3.2m surplus.

Going by Thompson's latest comment, the soft loans (assuming they're ex bank debt) will have been reduced by £150,000 by the time all transfer fees are received. Rounding down throughout to be ultra cautious (because interest needs paid and contract lawyers aren't free), that still leaves a ~£3m surplus.

The club tends to run an operating loss of £100,000 a year on a wage bill of around £3.5m. Given all this has happened in just over a year, it's quite difficult to understand where a ~£3m surplus might have gone.

The most plausible reading of the above, I guess, is that there were "soft" loans outstanding even before United did the bank debt buyback. However, the idea that the club owed ~£3m to parties unidentified in previously undisclosed agreements (on top of the £4.7m owed to the bank!) would open up a whole new can of WTF.
Maybe the transfer fees were massaged north to make the sale of the family silver more palatable to the huddled masses. Or maybe someone's Charles-Greening sacks of cash out through the back of the allotments?
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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Yep, the QP amount is obviously fairly minimal, hadn't notice his reference to "once all the transfer deals are in", my bad.

So, do we park this thread until the next accounts, or will someone at the club feel obliged to clarify...
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Naebody
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Conan the Destroyer
Mar 4 2015, 01:57 PM
Maybe the transfer fees were massaged north to make the sale of the family silver more palatable to the huddled masses.
You'll remember from the Robertson cash sent to wrong account nonsense that football associations act as intermediaries for transfer fees. Telling the world one price then banking another would be an invitation to get yourself embroiled in a bung inquiry.

ETA: have read elsewhere mentions of a £650k working capital facility in addition to the £1.45m of soft loans. That seems a bit strange, as it'd suggest the deal we were sold as freeing United of its bank loans actually pushed the club further into debt. Also, working capital would be retained in the business so it's not really fair to net that off against transfer income as if it had been burnt. Nevertheless, adjusting for the working capital facility, we'd have £2.1m of soft loans versus £7m of transfer income. Let's say 20% of that leaked (to agents, signing-off bonuses, Glasgow clubs annexing the moral high ground, etc) and the remainder was subject to VAT. That still leaves nearly £4.8m of transfer income due, against a maximum bank settlement of £2.4m and an apparent reduction in soft loans of £800,000.

Therefore, even using the most conservative assumptions possible, there still seems to be £1.6m left over.

Perhaps the undisclosed fee for Szromnik was more generous than we assumed.
Edited by Naebody, Mar 4 2015, 03:16 PM.
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Conan the Destroyer
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Naebody
Mar 4 2015, 02:17 PM
Conan the Destroyer
Mar 4 2015, 01:57 PM
Maybe the transfer fees were massaged north to make the sale of the family silver more palatable to the huddled masses.
You'll remember from the Robertson cash sent to wrong account nonsense that football associations act as intermediaries for transfer fees. Telling the world one price then banking another would be an invitation to get yourself embroiled in a bung inquiry.
Cool. Embezzlement it is then...
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Cobardon
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Uncle Smurf
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Some of the rest of it is accounted for thus.

ST said that this year's budget is bigger than last year's, so that accounts for a little more. (Although doesn't help Jackie's case in terms of results achieved on that bigger budget...)
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Micky
Gordon Chisholm
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Maybe some of the 'soft loans' are the £5m he claims his dad put into the club. Ergo, his inheritance?
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Naebody
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Twat
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Micky
Mar 5 2015, 07:14 PM
Maybe some of the 'soft loans' are the £5m he claims his dad put into the club. Ergo, his inheritance?
Nyet.

Profitable companies do tend to pay dividends, though, and the Thompson clan has about 88% of the shares so would get about 88% of the divi. Would any of us grudge them a payout for a job well done?
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vvhatsthatonyourback
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wild eyed
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Naebody
Mar 6 2015, 12:41 PM
Micky
Mar 5 2015, 07:14 PM
Maybe some of the 'soft loans' are the £5m he claims his dad put into the club. Ergo, his inheritance?
Nyet.

Profitable companies do tend to pay dividends, though, and the Thompson clan has about 88% of the shares so would get about 88% of the divi. Would any of us grudge them a payout for a job well done?
You've changed your tune regarding ST.

I await your avatar change to a beatific Stevie T emanating an unearthly tangerine glow.
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vvhatsthatonyourback
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wild eyed
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That's a pretty good interview by ST that his Number 1 fan Naebs has linked to. Well worth a read.

In particular, he clarifies the did-they-ask-to-leave-or-not minor squabble after the Golden Boys left for The Celtics.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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"Keeping players in the squad happy, overrides taking a gamble on a slightly higher fee in future" KLAXON ALERT
Quote:
 
“The other one (Armstrong) had a year left but he signed that extra year on the assumption that if the right offer came in from a club he would like to go to then we wouldn’t stand in his way.
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radger
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Don't suppose anyone considered the notion of asking Stuart Armstrong if he was happy to finish the season here and see what he could achieve. Or if he would be unhappy if we knocked back a not brilliant bid for him?

I don't think he would've, United were still in the running for 3 trophies, and he's taken himself out of two of them with the move. Sure there would be a risk of getting less for him if we looked to sell in the summer but a couple of high profile big performances, another team becomes interested and we may have got more for him, plus the higher possibility of winning those trophies, getting into Europe, generating further income while sending out something of a message for the clubs ambitions, at least for this season.

I don't think the risk of getting a lower bid in the summer was worth the reward of the sum of money we did get. Felt like waving a white flag in the middle of the most potential filled season in my lifetime. How many other chances will we have to contend for the league going into February?

Not all that terrible from a business point of view, perfect time to sell in terms of maximising the fee received. But oh so wrong in every other way.
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Naebody
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vvhatsthatonyourback
Mar 6 2015, 01:19 PM
In particular, he clarifies the did-they-ask-to-leave-or-not minor squabble after the Golden Boys left for The Celtics.
Well, he clarifies that they didn't and he was disingenuous about it.

Is there any evidence (other than anecdotal) that transfer fees fall solely because a contract has a year remaining? It doesn't make that much sense to me. The average football manager lasts 1.4 years, and signing players with the Chairman's money is basically their means to avoid being sacked. The fact that they can sign said player for free in 12 months, when they're statistically extremely likely to be unemployed, doesn't seem to offer that much disincentive or negotiation leverage.
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radger
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Craig Brewster
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Yeah sure, the buying clubs need to buy doesn't change that much, but the selling clubs need to take something rather than hold on to him and get nothing changes. And if there's only one team interested it can become a case of accepting a lower offer than would normally be acceptable, or lose him in a year for nothing. Russell and Conway are recent examples, one we took a not great price, the other player we knocked the offer back and lost him for nothing.
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