Eddie Davies wipes off debt

Norpig wrote:

Sluffy wrote:The bulk of the money being written off comes from investors from the Moonshift Investment company (of which Davies was a director I believe).

I don't believe for one second that the £185 million being written off is / was Davies personal money.

I also find it convenient that the seemingly favoured Holdsworth bid is from a company that didn't even exist a few months back.

I suspect that whoever 'lost' their money on the Moonshift investment are probably the same people who look likely to get a debt free club and all the assets on a giveaway sale of the club by Davies by being the 'investors' behind the Holdsworth bid.

Just my opinion.

you have a very suspicious mind Sluffy but you may be right. Just being debt free will be a large weight of everyone's shoulders

That's the point. That bit of paper shuffling has cleared the decks.

And surely the new owners will be the ones who are prepared to pay the most for the club?

wanderlust wrote:

Norpig wrote:

Sluffy wrote:The bulk of the money being written off comes from investors from the Moonshift Investment company (of which Davies was a director I believe).

I don't believe for one second that the £185 million being written off is / was Davies personal money.

I also find it convenient that the seemingly favoured Holdsworth bid is from a company that didn't even exist a few months back.

I suspect that whoever 'lost' their money on the Moonshift investment are probably the same people who look likely to get a debt free club and all the assets on a giveaway sale of the club by Davies by being the 'investors' behind the Holdsworth bid.

Just my opinion.

you have a very suspicious mind Sluffy but you may be right. Just being debt free will be a large weight of everyone's shoulders

That's the point. That bit of paper shuffling has cleared the decks.

And surely the new owners will be the ones who are prepared to pay the most for the club?

My point is not that they pay more for the club but rather they get the assets they have already paid for (for a knockdown price).

I suspect asset stripping will then take place.

Just my opinion on things though.

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:

Norpig wrote:

Sluffy wrote:The bulk of the money being written off comes from investors from the Moonshift Investment company (of which Davies was a director I believe).

I don't believe for one second that the £185 million being written off is / was Davies personal money.

I also find it convenient that the seemingly favoured Holdsworth bid is from a company that didn't even exist a few months back.

I suspect that whoever 'lost' their money on the Moonshift investment are probably the same people who look likely to get a debt free club and all the assets on a giveaway sale of the club by Davies by being the 'investors' behind the Holdsworth bid.

Just my opinion.

you have a very suspicious mind Sluffy but you may be right. Just being debt free will be a large weight of everyone's shoulders

That's the point. That bit of paper shuffling has cleared the decks.

And surely the new owners will be the ones who are prepared to pay the most for the club?

My point is not that they pay more for the club but rather they get the assets they have already paid for (for a knockdown price).

I suspect asset stripping will then take place.

Just my opinion on things though.

Sluffy- it would be good if you could bring a shred of real evidence to support your opinion. At the minute I don't think there is any.

i suppose it's good to be a little cautious as on the face of it, it all does seem a little too good to be true.

I have nothing to support my opinion.

It is nothing other than me trying to make sense out of someone gifting millions that he seemingly never owned and a potential business takeover of a club by a company formed just a number of weeks back by someone with no record of business success or access to millions of pound of funding who just happens to be known by those at the club and those involved with it at the time he played for it.

I've no axe to grind or point to prove.

I simply just can't put a better narrative together in my own mind of what is going and the reasons for them.

Maybe Davies will write off £180 or so millions of his own money and Holdsworth is a business genius with impeccable timing.

I just prefer my own view though for now.

Time will tell no doubt how right or wrong my opinion turns out to be.

Do we need to evidence every post now so it's not a "forum" and just a Bolton nuts "wiki".

If so, expect the following;

selfie of Nat with no adams apple
selfie of Breaders with a trouser press
a copy bonce's restraining order from you know who
bonce's medical record (we may have to up the bandwith!)
a copy of the receipt for manda's weekly shop from harrods
kennsters birth certificate
MB's suitcase buying history
etc

Norpig wrote:i suppose it's good to be a little cautious as on the face of it, it all does seem a little too good to be true.

It does and I can't blame Sluffy for suspecting the worst given our financial performance, however even if they "buy the assets they already own for a knockdown price" they are still taking a hit - for which we have to be grateful.
Anyway I'd have thought that most of them would have wanted out given their losses rather than buying back in.

Whilst all this is a massive boost to the cause, it still doesn't answer the vital question though i.e. will the new owners (whoever they are) have enough money - and the will - to invest in the team?
I know that whatever happens going forward has to wash it's own face so I'm not expecting a mad spending spree, but surely nobody wins if we get relegated again?

Been wondering what the catch is myself, just on the basis of anybody gifting £185 million being quite a statement. Amazing if true though.

Sluffy wrote:I have nothing to support my opinion.

It is nothing other than me trying to make sense out of someone gifting millions that he seemingly never owned and a potential business takeover of a club by a company formed just a number of weeks back by someone with no record of business success or access to millions of pound of funding who just happens to be known by those at the club and those involved with it at the time he played for it.

I've no axe to grind or point to prove.

I simply just can't put a better narrative together in my own mind of what is going and the reasons for them.

Maybe Davies will write off £180 or so millions of his own money and Holdsworth is a business genius with impeccable timing.

I just prefer my own view though for now.

Time will tell no doubt how right or wrong my opinion turns out to be.

I'm not having a pop at you Sluffy- its just that you seem very sceptical, almost cynical about what's going on. Much has been written about how much money actually belonged to Eddie- and how much belonged to mysterious 'others' behind the scenes. Much of this is based on what the Times '1000 richest people' list said about his money a few years ago. The assumptions behind that list are laughable; it's almost all smoke ,mirrors and guesses. Don't believe a word of it. Moonshift was simply Eddie's investment vehicle -something which he and other very rich people use to manage their investments. Eddie was a devoted BWFC fan-he would be a miracle worker to convince other investors to put in millions year after year to support what has been a failing football club for the last 6 or 7 years. I don't believe that there are other mysterious and anonymous investors. But like you I have no evidence either way to support this opinion
 As for the new company which Holdsworth is fronting.
 Again its quite normal in business to set up a new company ,generally known as an SPV (special purpose vehicle) for an individual one off major transaction .Behind Holdsworth (who probably doesn't actually understand the real machinations involved in finance) or Stelios for that matter, there will be a number of shrewd investors who's money will be used as pump priming finance to get BWFC bought and the show on the road- and then probably borrow substantially against the assets to keep the show on the road. They might (like the Glazers at MUFC) attempt to withdraw some of their funding in due course. To me at this stage there is nothing suspicious going on. The whole deal will be commercial-in -confidence and no amount of speculation, suspicion or guessing will help to understand the situation until Birch announces something much more concrete. The worst possible scenario is that he might fail and leave the situation unresolved.

y2johnny wrote:Do we need to evidence every post now so it's not a "forum" and just a Bolton nuts "wiki".

If so, expect the following;

selfie of Nat with no adams apple
selfie of Breaders with a trouser press
a copy bonce's restraining order from you know who
bonce's medical record (we may have to up the bandwith!)
a copy of the receipt for manda's weekly shop from harrods
kennsters birth certificate
MB's suitcase buying history
etc

It would be nice to get all that stuff on here- but to answer your question- No! ,it's not necessary to bring evidence to bear on everything. But its actually just as OK to ask people what evidence they do have to back up an opinion. That still makes it a discussion, a debate .Otherwise this forum would become stale.

rammywhite wrote:

y2johnny wrote:Do we need to evidence every post now so it's not a "forum" and just a Bolton nuts "wiki".

If so, expect the following;

selfie of Nat with no adams apple
selfie of Breaders with a trouser press
a copy bonce's restraining order from you know who
bonce's medical record (we may have to up the bandwith!)
a copy of the receipt for manda's weekly shop from harrods
kennsters birth certificate
MB's suitcase buying history
etc

It would be nice to get all that stuff on here- but to answer your question- No! ,it's not necessary to bring evidence to bear on everything. But its actually just as OK to ask people what evidence they do have to back up an opinion. That still makes it a discussion, a debate .Otherwise this forum would become stale.

No, sorry Rammy, you've opened the floodgates now, i want all that evidenced or i'm shutting shop!

y2johnny wrote:

rammywhite wrote:

y2johnny wrote:Do we need to evidence every post now so it's not a "forum" and just a Bolton nuts "wiki".

If so, expect the following;

selfie of Nat with no adams apple
selfie of Breaders with a trouser press
a copy bonce's restraining order from you know who
bonce's medical record (we may have to up the bandwith!)
a copy of the receipt for manda's weekly shop from harrods
kennsters birth certificate
MB's suitcase buying history
etc

It would be nice to get all that stuff on here- but to answer your question- No! ,it's not necessary to bring evidence to bear on everything. But its actually just as OK to ask people what evidence they do have to back up an opinion. That still makes it a discussion, a debate .Otherwise this forum would become stale.

No, sorry Rammy, you've opened the floodgates now, i want all that evidenced or i'm shutting shop!

OK Johnny- if the choice is either you shutting up shop or me just shutting up- then I'll shut up!! Anything to keep the peace .

rammywhite wrote:

y2johnny wrote:

rammywhite wrote:

y2johnny wrote:Do we need to evidence every post now so it's not a "forum" and just a Bolton nuts "wiki".

If so, expect the following;

selfie of Nat with no adams apple
selfie of Breaders with a trouser press
a copy bonce's restraining order from you know who
bonce's medical record (we may have to up the bandwith!)
a copy of the receipt for manda's weekly shop from harrods
kennsters birth certificate
MB's suitcase buying history
etc

It would be nice to get all that stuff on here- but to answer your question- No! ,it's not necessary to bring evidence to bear on everything. But its actually just as OK to ask people what evidence they do have to back up an opinion. That still makes it a discussion, a debate .Otherwise this forum would become stale.

No, sorry Rammy, you've opened the floodgates now, i want all that evidenced or i'm shutting shop!

OK Johnny- if the choice is either you shutting up shop or me just shutting up- then I'll shut up!! Anything to keep the peace .

i'm only joking Rammy, your not going anywhere, i'm not letting you, you've turned me into cathy bates now deal with it

rammywhite wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I have nothing to support my opinion.

It is nothing other than me trying to make sense out of someone gifting millions that he seemingly never owned and a potential business takeover of a club by a company formed just a number of weeks back by someone with no record of business success or access to millions of pound of funding who just happens to be known by those at the club and those involved with it at the time he played for it.

I've no axe to grind or point to prove.

I simply just can't put a better narrative together in my own mind of what is going and the reasons for them.

Maybe Davies will write off £180 or so millions of his own money and Holdsworth is a business genius with impeccable timing.

I just prefer my own view though for now.

Time will tell no doubt how right or wrong my opinion turns out to be.

I'm not having a pop at you Sluffy- its just that you seem very sceptical, almost cynical about what's going on. Much has been written about how much money actually belonged to Eddie- and how much belonged to mysterious 'others' behind the scenes. Much of this is based on what the Times '1000 richest people' list said about his money a few years ago. The assumptions behind that list are laughable; it's almost all smoke ,mirrors and guesses. Don't believe a word of it. Moonshift was simply Eddie's investment vehicle -something which he and other very rich people use to manage their investments. Eddie was a devoted BWFC fan-he would be a miracle worker to convince other investors to put in millions year after year to support what has been a failing football club for the last 6 or 7 years. I don't believe that there are other mysterious and anonymous investors. But like you I have no evidence either way to support this opinion
 As for the new company which Holdsworth is fronting.
 Again its quite normal in business to set up a new company ,generally known as an SPV (special purpose vehicle) for an individual one off major transaction .Behind Holdsworth (who probably doesn't actually understand the real machinations involved in finance) or Stelios for that matter, there will be a number of shrewd investors who's money will be used as pump priming finance to get BWFC bought and the show on the road- and then probably borrow substantially against the assets to keep the show on the road. They might (like the Glazers at MUFC) attempt to withdraw some of their funding in due course. To me at this stage there is nothing suspicious going on. The whole deal will be commercial-in -confidence and no amount of speculation, suspicion or guessing will help to understand the situation until Birch announces something much more concrete. The worst possible scenario is that he might fail and leave the situation unresolved.

I didn't think you were having a pop at me and I probably am very sceptical about some of the things happening around the club.

I simply find it very surprising for a hard nosed business man to 'gift' nearly £200 million away on whim of playing with a football club - which for various reasons he doesn't even get to go and watch play (let alone anything behind the scenes such as watch training or meeting the staff and players).

I find it incomprehensible that he's allowed the club to rack up such debt (and be fronted by Gartside) for no apparent benefit for either the club or himself/ his family.

I could understand the club being a side issue if his aim was land development and making a killing from that but I can't see how he may have benefitted financially overall by doing so?

I am very cynical as to why if the club is such a desirable opportunity to make money as seen by the Holdsworth and Stelios consortiums that Warburton in his privileged position of knowing the exact financial position of the club as a director that he hasn't taken a slice of the loaf for himself - if you pardon the pun.

On the face of it a wealthy man has been stung for £200 million or thereabouts just to play God at the football club in the town where he was born (but has not lived in for years) and some shrewd investors want to risk further millions on a currently loss making club, needing substantial player investment, currently heading out of the league they are in - in the wrong direction!  

You may well be right and everything is at it appears to be on the surface but non of that makes much if any sense to me and my alternative scenario does to my mind at least gives me a more reasoned approached to what may actually be going on.

As I say time will tell how close or far away I am with my opinion.

Just my view on things.



Edit - PS, Johnny is only messing, neither he, me or anyone else would want you to not join in with your knowledge, views, opinions or questions.

It is a very unusual scenario guys so I guess we shouldn't be surprised by anything. The very nature of someone throwing so much money at a football club is weird so we really can't speculate about motives and expect any degree of accuracy.

But putting motives aside, the news does clarify the proposition for any potential buyer so it's good news isn't it?

Sluffy wrote:

rammywhite wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I have nothing to support my opinion.

It is nothing other than me trying to make sense out of someone gifting millions that he seemingly never owned and a potential business takeover of a club by a company formed just a number of weeks back by someone with no record of business success or access to millions of pound of funding who just happens to be known by those at the club and those involved with it at the time he played for it.

I've no axe to grind or point to prove.

I simply just can't put a better narrative together in my own mind of what is going and the reasons for them.

Maybe Davies will write off £180 or so millions of his own money and Holdsworth is a business genius with impeccable timing.

I just prefer my own view though for now.

Time will tell no doubt how right or wrong my opinion turns out to be.

I'm not having a pop at you Sluffy- its just that you seem very sceptical, almost cynical about what's going on. Much has been written about how much money actually belonged to Eddie- and how much belonged to mysterious 'others' behind the scenes. Much of this is based on what the Times '1000 richest people' list said about his money a few years ago. The assumptions behind that list are laughable; it's almost all smoke ,mirrors and guesses. Don't believe a word of it. Moonshift was simply Eddie's investment vehicle -something which he and other very rich people use to manage their investments. Eddie was a devoted BWFC fan-he would be a miracle worker to convince other investors to put in millions year after year to support what has been a failing football club for the last 6 or 7 years. I don't believe that there are other mysterious and anonymous investors. But like you I have no evidence either way to support this opinion
 As for the new company which Holdsworth is fronting.
 Again its quite normal in business to set up a new company ,generally known as an SPV (special purpose vehicle) for an individual one off major transaction .Behind Holdsworth (who probably doesn't actually understand the real machinations involved in finance) or Stelios for that matter, there will be a number of shrewd investors who's money will be used as pump priming finance to get BWFC bought and the show on the road- and then probably borrow substantially against the assets to keep the show on the road. They might (like the Glazers at MUFC) attempt to withdraw some of their funding in due course. To me at this stage there is nothing suspicious going on. The whole deal will be commercial-in -confidence and no amount of speculation, suspicion or guessing will help to understand the situation until Birch announces something much more concrete. The worst possible scenario is that he might fail and leave the situation unresolved.

I didn't think you were having a pop at me and I probably am very sceptical about some of the things happening around the club.

I simply find it very surprising for a hard nosed business man to 'gift' nearly £200 million away on whim of playing with a football club - which for various reasons he doesn't even get to go and watch play (let alone anything behind the scenes such as watch training or meeting the staff and players).

I find it incomprehensible that he's allowed the club to rack up such debt (and be fronted by Gartside) for no apparent benefit for either the club or himself/ his family.

I could understand the club being a side issue if his aim was land development and making a killing from that but I can't see how he may have benefitted financially overall by doing so?

I am very cynical as to why if the club is such a desirable opportunity to make money as seen by the Holdsworth and Stelios consortiums that Warburton in his privileged position of knowing the exact financial position of the club as a director that he hasn't taken a slice of the loaf for himself - if you pardon the pun.

On the face of it a wealthy man has been stung for £200 million or thereabouts just to play God at the football club in the town where he was born (but has not lived in for years) and some shrewd investors want to risk further millions on a currently loss making club, needing substantial player investment, currently heading out of the league they are in - in the wrong direction!  

You may well be right and everything is at it appears to be on the surface but non of that makes much if any sense to me and my alternative scenario does to my mind at least gives me a more reasoned approached to what may actually be going on.

As I say time will tell how close or far away I am with my opinion.

Just my view on things.



Edit - PS, Johnny is only messing, neither he, me or anyone else would want you to not join in with your knowledge, views, opinions or questions.

I do see what you're saying Sluffy, but, isn't that the case with every other football club. You don't buy football clubs for profit, you generally buy them as a toy.

Who would have bought Bury with the mess they were in a few years ago? Chelsea and Leeds were basket cases until respective owners came along. Truth is buying football clubs makes no sense at all, particularly your Bolton's, Bury's and Wigan's of this world.


Having said that the Macron is handily placed for transport links and if you can stage Boxing, Wrestling and maybe Rugby matches and pop concerts then you have a chance (after all that's why we moved there in the first place).


The question I put to you is, would you have preferred BWFC liquidated or gone into Administration - that might have made more 'sense' to you, but would put us in a far worse position.

The times Rich List is only a guess anyway, so who knows how much ED is or isn't worth. As long as it stands up to scrutiny and the Inland Revenue are happy with it then for now I will go along with the idea of a fantastic gesture by ED. He obviously loves the club and a life presidency must be on the cards.

FullofSprite wrote:
I do see what you're saying Sluffy, but, isn't that the case with every other football club. You don't buy football clubs for profit, you generally buy them as a toy.

Who would have bought Bury with the mess they were in a few years ago? Chelsea and Leeds were basket cases until respective owners came along. Truth is buying football clubs makes no sense at all, particularly your Bolton's, Bury's and Wigan's of this world.


Having said that the Macron is handily placed for transport links and if you can stage Boxing, Wrestling and maybe Rugby matches and pop concerts then you have a chance (after all that's why we moved there in the first place).


The question I put to you is, would you have preferred BWFC liquidated or gone into Administration - that might have made more 'sense' to you, but would put us in a far worse position.

The times Rich List is only a guess anyway, so who knows how much ED is or isn't worth. As long as it stands up to scrutiny and the Inland Revenue are happy with it then for now I will go along with the idea of a fantastic gesture by ED. He obviously loves the club and a life presidency must be on the cards.

No, I don't really see things that way mate.

Of course there have always been one or two benevolent owners of football clubs but I think most have always tried to get something back from the club or to lose an amount they could easily afford to lose.

It's only recently with Abramovitch and the mega rich foreign investors the Sky money has attracted that some are happy to see huge losses just for the ego have having a big team as a toy.

Off the top of my head I can't think of anyone with a historical connection to their team putting anything like the amount Davies has supposed to sunk in the club and taken such a huge hit - can anyone? Even the Venkys at Blackburn who were clueless about football have lost nothing like Davies £200 million or so.

Unless a club is community / grass rooted owned then I think most people would expect to have some return on their investment.

Yes clubs in the Premier do appear to run at a loss but I bet if they ever became available to buy then their present owners would not be walking away out of pocket!

As for staging things like rugby games and concerts at the Macron, well it doesn't really work well.

There's loads of teams that have ground shared with rugby teams - non really being successful and hosting a concert at a venue that only holds around 25,000 isn't going to bring in the money when the promoters could easily pop down the road to the Manchester clubs and easily have twice the crowd size and thereby double the revenue.

As for going into Admin, if things pan out as I expect them to, then Admin is the obvious outcome.

I think things will only get worse for us.

Hope I'm wrong though.

Rammy come back, raaaaammy come back, with my cd collection of bob marley

I'm still smelling a massive rat here but I can't put my finger on it exactly and it may just be my innate cynicism coming through.

It really doesn't make any sense for ED to give away all the property assets as part of a job lot along with the BWFC name and I'm honestly struggling to believe that he'd do that anyway, given that he took the hard-nosed business decision to turn the tap off on the football team over ten months ago and has sat back and watched us slide down the league ever since.

The received wisdom is now suddenly that he's far wealthier than we all believed previously (possibly because that fits the current popular narrative that he's such a fantastic bloke who loves BWFC sooooo much he's willing to give up over £170 million) because that makes it easier to believe, so if he really has got pots of money, why would "No1 Super Bolton Fan" Eddie make us all suffer Gary Madine and his feckless ilk?

If he's worth anywhere up to three quarters of a billion quid (as I have seen suddenly reported on other sites) a mere £2m for ALF would have been a mere drop in the ocean and would also have made decent business sense.

Goals = Points = Not being stuck at the bottom of the fecking league.

Is it too much to suggest that there will be no take-over and this is all just a load of bollocks to take the heat off Gartside and Davies and spin this myth that they're a fantastic pair of chaps who really have done a splendid job all along and who have BWFC's best interests at heart?

Fast forward four weeks, Birch comes out and says "Sorry, Eddie really loves Bolton Wanderers and didn't want to sell to a bunch of chancers who aren't as dedicated to the cause as him and Malingering Phil, so he's keeping the club for now. I'm sure you understand."

And everybody goes: "Aw, shame......never mind. At least we know what a top guy Eddie is though."

I dunno........

I can't see administration at least in the short term as the new owners will have lots of assets which they can lever loans against if required.

Q: If ED has done more for BWFC than Jack Walker did for Rovers, will he get a stand named after him? As well as Presidency?