Who do you believe?

Thanks Sluffy. That's exactly the kind of spin I'd have expected Neil Hart to put on it but I suspect that Cowgills were the main instigators of the funding application and I expect that they put it all together.

Bolton weren't the only club suffering loss of income from COVID, of course, but they were in the advantageous position of having a hotel to help justify the loan funding. But it looks very much like there was very little control over the amounts dished out on behalf of government and turning the loan into an 8% shareholding was tantamount to turning it into a grant or gift.

Its time for Sharon to stop delaying release of the shareholding numbers. The board are in breach of their legal obligations and that most certainly should not be happening.

Thanks Bob.

I don't even think the hotel was even a relevant factor to obtain the funding!

Below I give the criteria for eligibility to apply for a FF loan and the second link is the 265 companies (which now include FV) who have turned their loans to equity - and what a random assortment they seem to be!


What is the company eligibility criteria for the Future Fund?

To be eligible for the scheme, a company must meet the following eligibility criteria:

the company must have raised at least £250,000 in equity from third-party investors in previous funding rounds in the last five years (from 1 April 2015 to 19 April 2020, inclusive);

if the company is a member of a corporate group, it must be the ultimate parent company;

the company does not have any of its shares or other securities listed/quoted on a regulated market, a multilateral trading facility, a recognised investment exchange and/or any other similar market, stock exchange or listing venue;

the company must be a UK incorporated limited company or be eligible to apply as a non-UK parent company (see specific eligibility criteria in the FAQs for non-UK parent companies);

the company must have been incorporated on or before 31 December 2019 (or if you are a non-UK jurisdiction company, this criterion applies only to at least one UK subsidiary operating company, and

at least one of the following must be true for the company (this criterion applies to your group):
half or more employees are UK based; and
half or more revenues are from UK sales.

https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-interruption-loan-schemes/future-fund/faqs-for-companies/

Companies in which the Future Fund has a shareholding
At 31 December 2021, 265 convertible loans had converted into equity shares. The British Business Bank will update the list of companies in which Future Fund has a shareholding at the end of every financial quarter.

https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-interruption-loan-schemes/future-fund/future-fund-companies/

Thanks Sluffy. I might have a quick gander at some of these companies to see if there's a common thread other than the government wanting to get these off the loan book.

In Bolton's case the loan was to  Football Ventures (Whites) Ltd which is the parent company of FVWL Football Ltd and FVWL Hotel Ltd. It does seem to fit the criteria.

Ecotricity Group Ltd was the holding company of Forest Green Rovers Football Club Ltd. It got much bigger funding but under a different scheme.

 Dale Vince's shareholdings in Ecotricity (and therefore FGR) were later switched to Green Britain Group Ltd but Ecotricity has applied for and been granted another three months to publish its 2021 accounts. So has MUCS Enterprises Ltd, the money making machine that exploits the image of Saint Marcus Rashford MBE.

Sharon hasn't pulled the time-extension device yet. There's still time. I wonder if she will.

Had a quick shufti at the companies based in the North West, Sluffy.

Three themes emerged:

1. Serial loss makers
2. A cluster of companies based at Alderley Park
3. FV was the only company based in the Bolton area. There were none north of that.

The government has got some levelling-up to do in our neck of the woods.

Thanks Bob.

In case you hadn't spotted it yet you will be pleased to learn that Bonce has returned!

I thought I'd mention it here in case you don't usually browse elsewhere.

And whilst I'm on I'd thought I'd state what I think is the reason for the long delay in FV's Statement of Capital in that I reckon it will show that the government do in fact own a third of the clubs shares which obviously means they own more than the 10% ownership threshold and triggers...

1 - the test to be deemed a fit and proper owner, and,
2 - that they can't also have more than 10% ownership of other EFL clubs.

I don't know their position with other clubs but maybe whatever deal they have with Dale means they DO have more than a 10% ownership in FGR too?

Thanks Sluffy. I'm pleased that Bonce is back and hope he enjoyed his brief sabbatical.

If BBB stood for Bonce's Bonkers Bank it might have been an improvement but I've done a bit more work on the British Business Bank's activities in God's own country in the North West.

BBB laughingly calls the companies its taken shares in 'our partners'. Evidently they think we are all as daft as they seem to be but there are 18 'partners' in the North West out of 265 nationally. All but one seemed to be loss-making pre-COVID.

I expect we'd be none too pleased if we were hoteliers in the NW or supporters of Blackpool, Blackburn, PNE, Wigan or Morecambe discovering that only FVWL/BWFC were beneficiaries of the £millions COVID giveaway.

How did folk get on this bandwagon, I ask myself, and who were told there was 'no room at the inn'? I don't know but six of the 'special ones' seemed to be neighbouring businesses with the same postcode at Alderley Park.  Another 8 had central Manchester post codes with one in each of Liverpool, Altrincham and Warrington.

So nothing, that we know of yet, for any companies in the North West between Horwich and Carlisle!!!!

I think you are mistaken on Sharon. I'll explain why later.

Oooh you've got me intrigued as to what I'm mistaken about in respect of Sharon as I didn't think I'd made any strong opinion of her, on anyone else for that matter?

I think of her as a hardheaded and very competent business woman first and foremost - otherwise she wouldn't be the head of (and public face of) FV.

I've no reason not to suspect she has a good heart and strong personal beliefs but I am at a loss to understand why she's here at BWFC and what the reasons were to buy the club (for a hefty premium) and what the masterplan was/now is, not to lose a large chunk of money whilst being here?

There doesn't seem she has any personal history with the town or the club before buying it (for a premium to emphasise the point yet again) and I'm sure there were other clubs to be had that made much sounder investment sense (and potential returns) than us if that was all it was about - owning a club?

Anyway, as always I look forward to reading your views and opinions on this and other matters in due course.

Its the shareholdings, Sluffy. Whatever her motivations or plans were or are, it was Sharon that ended up with 62.5% of the FVWL shares, following the Administration, with the rest only 37.5%% between them. In other words Sharon was in control and could not be outvoted.

She had paid £1,250,000 for those shares and all that money and more had been lost during the first financial year. The rest of the loss was out of loan money but we don't actually know who provided it except for the unclear statements in the last audited accounts.

By any commercial reasoning, £5million should have bought a lot more than 8% but was Sharon going to give up the control she'd laboured so hard to achieve?


The shares are, of course, worth what anyone is willing to pay for them. I know it seems unlikely but suppose someone arrived on the scene who was willing to pay £10m, £20m or more for the shares, the taxpayers wouldn't see much of that, would they?

In any event I understand that the club has stated, through Neil Hart, that the figure is only 8% and I don't think they'd fib about that. I note btw, from one of the other companies I looked at, that shares are being issued in the name of UK FF Nominees Ltd.

News this week that Simon Marland is retiring was unexpected. I only met Simon once but it was enough to recognise where his heart lay and that he would be a big loss when he left the club. Simon is definitely someone who could be called a superfan. I'm still a bit puzzled why Sharon would say that you don't want too many superfans.

Thanks Bob.

Well of course I might well be wrong but what we know is that before all this faffing about that FV had 2m shares at £1 per share as at 26th October and three directors - see both Statement of Directors AND Solvency Statement dated 26th October.

We know that a further allocation of 2,125,046 (£1 shares) were issued on the the 29th October.

We know that there were three loans which equated to the purchase of these shares, namely one for £3m, another for £4.5m and the last for £5m.

We are told that the £5m loan is from the government.

The breakdown of the 'sums' shown on the second filing of a Statement of Capital dated the 29th October as

 607,623  @ 8.48476  =  £ 5,155,535
 117,857  @ 8.48476  =  £   999,988
1,399,566 @ 6.7878    =  £ 9,499,974

It would seem reasonable then to assume (at worst) that the government acquired 607,623 shares out of 4,125,046 shares in existence - which I make it to be about 15% of the shares.

That obviously doesn't tally with the statements that government only holds a 8% ownership.

It also throws up the question as to why the government paid £8.50 for their shares whilst at the same time someone (FV?) bought 1.4m others at a reduced rate of £6.80 for theirs???

If anything I would have thought it would be the government who were those buying at a discount?


I'm of the mind that the share price is nothing more than a ruse to comply with the EFL club ownership threshold of being shown to be less than 10%. - something along the lines I was sketching out on post 66 of this thread?

Namely that the VALUE of the shares purchased at the time amounted to less than 10% ownership.

The 'value' has clearly dramatically fallen since as the allocation of further shares on the 21st January this year (filed on the 28th) shows 59,000 of them being bought at £1 each. (412,505 not being paid for - see Total aggregate amount unpaid - on page two of that form).

Interestingly - and I'd not picked up on this until now - I assume the previous 117,000 shares that had been 'valued' at £1m have now been paid for??? - otherwise wouldn't the form show around 529,500 of shares 'unpaid'?

Note - the Total aggregate amount unpaid for the 117.000 shares on the previous 29th October form (page 5) is shown as just under £1m


I'm happy for you to shoot me down on all of this but my thinking is that the government obtained 1,400,000 shares at the discounted price, that there are 4,596,480 A shares in existence (412,505 not being paid for) and that this equates to roughly a third of the total share holding that has been paid for.

I also think that the only reason FV raised their shareholding from £2m was to match fund government loans.  I'm of a mind that if FV's shareholding amounts to roughly £10m then they would have received £10m worth of loans - and maybe if the statement shown by Shortland is indeed correct (I've not tracked it down to see if it is) that the governments shares can only be purchased at double FV's shares at point of sale - would explain why the (real) ownership would be split 50/50 with FV but with the government owning 1 share (at double the value) to equate to FV's 2 shares - and thus a one third, two third split on share ownership in favour of FV.

Wonder what these 412,505 unpaid shares are all about now!!!

I know what FV has declared and that it hasn't declared everything it's legally obliged to do, Sluffy. What is clear so far is that the taxpayer has been ripped off big style and it doesn't make it alright if FVWL or BWFC's owners happen to be beneficiaries.

Neither is that the main point. Sadly it's also the case that FVWL is not the only company in default of its company law obligations to benefit from the omnishambles that resulted in the extraordinary resignation speech of Lord Agnew.

I don't know what Shortland has said but he, like Firth, Iles, Bower, Maguire and Professor Claptrap, sees everything through specs that only have a left lens.

According to the NHS, it loses a £billion a year in fraud. The Centre for Counter Fraud Studies at the University of Portsmouth reckons its nearer £3.4billion.

Who do you believe? I know who I don't believe. I've seen how Counter Fraud works in the NHS. Or to be more exact, how it doesn't work.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10506055/Government-losing-52BILLION-fraud-year.html

Ten Bobsworth wrote:I know what FV has declared and that it hasn't declared everything it's legally obliged to do, Sluffy. What is clear so far is that the taxpayer has been ripped off big style and it doesn't make it alright if FVWL or BWFC's owners happen to be beneficiaries.

Neither is that the main point. Sadly it's also the case that FVWL is not the only company in default of its company law obligations to benefit from the omnishambles that resulted in the extraordinary resignation speech of Lord Agnew.

I don't know what Shortland has said but he, like Firth, Iles, Bower, Maguire and Professor Claptrap, sees everything through specs that only have a left lens.

I don't believe I've ever said it was right or proper that the government undertook this scheme or that FV has clearly benefitted from what potentially is a massive loss to the pubic purse - as will be the most likely case for all the other companies benefitting from the scheme.

As for Shortland he tweeted a copy of what appeared to be the terms of the scheme at the point of exit - I've not gone to the trouble of finding it myself (there's too many other unknowns for now for me to be going beyond just theorising what might have been going on - maybe when a few more facts emerge I might make the effort to track it down and see if it is pertinent or not).

I posted a copy of Shortland's tweet and copy of the clause on post 62 of this thread.


I share your concern over the decline of morals, standards and honesty in society as a whole but you only have to look at how huge numbers of people from Downing Street downwards behaved during the pandemic to see that many simple are out for themselves and sod everyone else.

It is what it is now Bob, our days have past.

Thanks Sluffy. I see from post 62 that according to Shortland, 'the loans are made on a commercial basis' .

That's a commercial basis that allows you to issues shares worth 8% of £1 (the price paid by the Sports Shield consortium when we were in the Championship) in settlement of a £5million loan.

But that makes the shares worth £62.5million, says Iles. Well they might be one day when Norpig grows wings and is flying over the Unibol with mummy pig and baby pig.

Shortland says he's 'a teacher of business and law'. What in heavens name are they teaching students these days!

Still no sign of the missing shareholder info but Sharon's looking for more 'investment' according to Nixon. £5million isn't to be sniffed at but it never did seem enough.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/17635151/charlton-bolton-talks-swiss-investment-group/

This comment about Iles made me laugh!

He won’t know

— Wilson (@wilsonbwfc) February 13, 2022

Ten Bobsworth wrote:Thanks Sluffy. I see from post 62 that according to Shortland, 'the loans are made on a commercial basis' .

That's a commercial basis that allows you to issues shares worth 8% of £1 (the price paid by the Sports Shield consortium when we were in the Championship) in settlement of a £5million loan.

But that makes the shares worth £62.5million, says Iles. Well they might be one day when Norpig grows wings and is flying over the Unibol with mummy pig and baby pig.

Shortland says he's 'a teacher of business and law'. What in heavens name are they teaching students these days!

The difference between being an investor and a lender presumably?

Why would anybody want investment without control unless you are talking about lenders?

— Philip Shortland (@PhilipShortland) February 13, 2022

Sluffy wrote:

The difference between being an investor and a lender presumably?

Why would anybody want investment without control unless you are talking about lenders?

— Philip Shortland (@PhilipShortland) February 13, 2022

Whatever you want to call it, you'd best be able to afford to do without it because you ain't likely to be seeing any of it again in a long time, if ever.

I had an unexpected surprise yesterday. No it wasn't a Valentine's Day card from Okocha; Dale Vince's Green Britain Group filed its 2021 accounts. They'd applied for and got a three months filing deadline extension but only used half of it.

CH wouldn't let me open the envelope until today but there's been some financial goings-on going on and its going to take some time to fathom them all out.

The good news is that Cousin Vinny only got £15million in COVID loans. Does that make him three times more savvy than Shazza? Not quite, these loans don't seem to be convertible to shares of little value. He still owns the lot. Poor Kate!


60-year old Vinny is looking pleased with himself though; he's had pink highlights put in his hair again to match a not-seen-before pink neck scarf.

Still no sign of MUCS Enterprises accounts or FVWL's statement of shareholders.

Things aren't always as they seem but, according to the Mail, Sunderland supporters are furious. Not about losing 6-0 to the Whites but about who owns the club.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10516449/Fuming-Sunderland-fans-hit-chairman-reveals-former-owners-hold-majority-share.html

I expect Shazza's still in control at Bolton but why are FV still stalling on the detail?

Sluffy, you were saying you were a big fan of jigsaws, and in a way, this thread is cut from a similar cloth.
The pieces are there, and you have, somehow, to put them together.
It must make you wonder sometimes, if all the pieces are in the box, and if the puzzle, when finished, will look anything like the picture on the box.
You and Bob have your work cut out. Good luck though. Despite what I say, I do try and follow the thread.