Neil Lennon at a loss to explain lack of transfer funds

In reference to the thread title, how come NL is claiming he's looking to bring in another player in his Bristol pre-match conference?

Maybe an interview with Eddie & Phil would be in order to explain all the above ????

Although it's technically non of our business it would be nice to address the fans occasionally.

But this is where it gets tricky for me.

Who owns Euxton, The hotel, the car-parks and all the other ancillary stuff?

Presumably it's Burnden Leisure / Moonshift.

Seeing as in very rudimentary terms - ED owns Bolton Wanderers and all of the above are listed as assets of the club, so he currently owns them as well as the football team.

So what's the £30 million for?

Good will?

Surely if he does own all that stuff, it should be included in the sale and title on these assets should automatically pass to the new owners?

terenceanne wrote:Maybe an interview with Eddie & Phil would be in order to explain all the above ????

Although it's technically non of our business it would be nice to address the fans occasionally.

No Ifs, buts or maybes, an interview with Phil, I think Eddie is sick, is definitely in order! Of course it is our business, without us there would be no Bolton Wanderers Football Club

Sorry but I agree the lack of funds is a big deal but it is to a lot of managers. What he needs to do is get performances out of what he's put together. At the very least committed losses. And we can't even say that. 

I like the guy but he is failing in all areas.

Breadman wrote:Like most of us (I presume) I have always really struggled to understand the whole BWFC are currently £172.9 million quid "in debt" thing.

Gartside says most of it is owed to Eddie Davies after his "truly humbling" support of the club over the last few years.

I seem to remember Gartside saying we owed the bank (Barclays) "about £5 million".

Ok then, so using my admittedly rudimentary understanding of sums and stuff, I calculate that 172,900,000 - 5,000,000 = 167,900,000.

So why do we owe ED £167.9 million?

How much has he personally (under the Moonshift banner) handed over to the club?

Where did all the Sky TV money go?

Have we really spent that much on paying transfer fees for the likes of Gavin McCann and Gerald Cid and if so, did we really pay them all £50k a week?

Really.....?

Can someone please explain it?

(And I don't mean just post a link to another site which has a copy of the accounts on it, I need an explanation in layman's terms because I've spent years wondering about all this and I'm none the wiser now.)

Cheers.

f
Hello Bredders You're not far off here. The debt to Davies goes back a long way- to building the Reebok/Macron starting in about 1997. Most of the money came from a mixture of commercial loans and Eddies money. Eddie lent more to get rid of the commercial loans- and that's about £35-40 million. Then there was the cost of being in the Premiership where a large amount of money was spent acquiring players by Allardyce, Lee and then Megson.
Remember paying £8 million for Elmander?
Players like Okocha, Djorkaeff, Campo, Hierro, Anelka, Petrov- were paid those sorts of sums. And it wasn't just wages- there's the additional costs of these guys-in some cases paying their tax for them, paying all accommodation and family costs, as well as £millions to their agents . At £50,000 a week that's £2.5m a year plus the rest for an individual player for a year. And there were lots of them! (Mears for example cost £2m per year for 4 years)
Our wage bill at one time was significantly more than the gate money.
Numbers like £60-£70 m were spent on acquiring players over a number of years- and then add on the the cost of paying them.
We lived like typical Premiership clubs with a vastly inflated wage bill .
So its entirely possible that £150m was absorbed over the last 20 years from building the stadium,10 years with Prem level costs, a couple of years in the Championship (still paying Prem wages) and now as a consequence broke and heavily in debt.

It's like a wealthy pools winner who developed a gambling habit and ended up homeless as a consequence.
To me the frightening thing at the minute is the recent victory by HMRC against Rangers who paid many of their overseas players in permanent 'loans' ,never designed to be repaid. The Courts have decided that these were in fact wages and tax is due on them to the tune of £49millon
We might get stung by that as well. In which case it will be curtains

Cheers Rammy.

So you're basically saying we've had Viv Nicholson in charge for years and it's no surprise we are where we are.

Mega......

Also, I remember at the time being told in the BEN that the stadium build costs would be more than off-set by the sale and development of the land which would become the Middlebrook Retail Park after they'd bought up most of Red Moss Tip, so in theory, it wouldn't cost the club a penny.

Did that not pan out then?

Breadman wrote:But this is where it gets tricky for me.

Who owns Euxton, The hotel, the car-parks and all the other ancillary stuff?

Presumably it's Burnden Leisure / Moonshift.

Seeing as in very rudimentary terms - ED owns Bolton Wanderers and all of the above are listed as assets of the club, so he currently owns them as well as the football team.

So what's the £30 million for?

Good will?

Surely if he does own all that stuff, it should be included in the sale and title on these assets should automatically pass to the new owners?

No-they're all actually owned by the Club- but paid for by money borrowed from Davies.
Moonshift is simply his 'investment vehicle'. Very wealthy investors never invest in their own name . The put all their money into an Investment company  (in Eddies case called Moonshift) and that invests for him. The loans are made by Moonshift, but Eddie owns that-so it's really Eddies money.
All the assets that you mention will be signed over as collateral security ,probably to the commercial banks who have lent money to the club. That means should the whole business collapse the banks will own the assets. At the minute the club still owns the majority of them. But in reality they're not worth much.
If Eddie sells his debt for £30 million (which he might well do) then the new owner of the debt is still owed £30million by the club. The debt still exists but Eddie has taken a massive hit. Part of the deal would be that the person who bought the debt from Eddie would also acquire the share capital which effectively means that they own the whole club- but in the shadows you've still got the banks who are owed a great deal and who will control the assets if the club should default on either repaying the loan capital or the interest on the due date.
I know  its all a bit confusing  - but I've worked in finance for about 35 years and so its all part of my day job.
How about we have a seminar in the Hare and Hounds in Rammy and then we can have a discussion about it all,and you can all buy me a pint

rammywhite wrote:
The real problem might be HMRC should there be any liability for unpaid PAYE,VAT or NICs- they won't hesitate to put the boot in and wind the club up

Is that true though. Hardly a week goes by without some club facing a winding up order, but how many are actually wound up? Hardly any over the last 5 years.

Breadman wrote:Cheers Rammy.

So you're basically saying we've had Viv Nicholson in charge for years and it's no surprise we are where we are.

Mega......

Yeah- better than Viv Anderson though!!

Natasha Whittam wrote:

rammywhite wrote:
The real problem might be HMRC should there be any liability for unpaid PAYE,VAT or NICs- they won't hesitate to put the boot in and wind the club up

Is that true though. Hardly a week goes by without some club facing a winding up order, but how many are actually wound up? Hardly any over the last 5 years.

In the commercial world it happens with monotonous regularity.
And some minor clubs have gone under because of HMRC activity, but you're right in that no major club has folded as someone has come along and paid the debts for the club.
Some clubs have done what's known as hive-downs where they've transferred the assets quickly to a new company  and left the debts behind in a shell company with no assets.
Watch out for the formation of BWFC (2016) Ltd.
But their ability to borrow is zero

Cheers for all this, Rammy.

I could have done with your explanation about three years ago.

It would have saved me a load of pointless speculating and head scratching.