When do you think a deal will be done

luckyPeterpiper wrote:I'm just wondering whether or not ED could walk away if we went into admin. I'm not sure but my understanding is that football creditors have to be paid in full before we're allowed to exit administration and I'm almost sure Eddie would come under the "footballing creditor" banner so even if he was willing to write off every penny would the League itself allow it? 

Where's Manda when I need her? She's got a lot more knowledge of this sort of thing than I do.

Yes- they would have no authority to stop him. If he doesn't enter his name and the debt in the schedule of creditors which is a statutory document which must be drawn up by the administrator in a time that he or she decides, then the debt will lapse.  So all ED has to do is NOT enter the debt in the schedule of creditors and it disappears. Thus he has the power to write it off and neither the football league nor anyone else has the power to stop him doing this (provided he is of sound mind- and there's a lot of law about that!!)

wanderlust wrote:



If any of the original bidders are genuinely still at the table it's very encouraging, 

Not if the plan all along has been to pick up the club cheaply, strip it and then run off with the money, it's not.

It's been no secret that Ed's been trying to offload the club for a year so let's imagine some unscrupulous cartel hears the rumours about the club sliding towards administration and decides that the time is right to put their plan "to make money make money" into action.

Davies is over a barrel and is seriously now entertaining bids from anybody willing to knock on his door.

So they rock up and register their interest, knowing full well that he's not going to accept it but it at least itgets them on the radar.

They exploit Holdsworth's tenuous links with the club to create this idea that he's our saviour (and not just some puppet) and get the good folk of Bolton behind them and the ball starts rolling.

But they've got no real intentions of doing anything before the HMRC have wielded their axe, so they're happy to wait it out.

As I've said before, there is no longer a good outcome for BWFC in all this in my honest, but limited, opinion.

rammywhite wrote:

luckyPeterpiper wrote:I'm just wondering whether or not ED could walk away if we went into admin. I'm not sure but my understanding is that football creditors have to be paid in full before we're allowed to exit administration and I'm almost sure Eddie would come under the "footballing creditor" banner so even if he was willing to write off every penny would the League itself allow it? 

Where's Manda when I need her? She's got a lot more knowledge of this sort of thing than I do.

Yes- they would have no authority to stop him. If he doesn't enter his name and the debt in the schedule of creditors which is a statutory document which must be drawn up by the administrator in a time that he or she decides, then the debt will lapse.  So all ED has to do is NOT enter the debt in the schedule of creditors and it disappears. Thus he has the power to write it off and neither the football league nor anyone else has the power to stop him doing this (provided he is of sound mind- and there's a lot of law about that!!)

Thanks rammy. I really was unclear about whether or not ED could do that. However, I fear he might just leave his name ON the list if we go into admin as I understood he'd said he would write the debt off provided a deal was done before we went into administration. Given how he's acting with things like staff pay I wouldn't be surprised if he decided he wants his money back after all.

Heard the HMRC bill was closer to £2 million than 600 thousand.

There is a scenario whereby ED lists himself as a creditor - the main creditor - lets the club go into administration, the assets get sold off, ED gets his money back or at least a good proportion of it and then buys the club back with the money after it's been through administration.

wanderlust wrote:There is a scenario whereby ED lists himself as a creditor - the main creditor - lets the club go into administration, the assets get sold off, ED gets his money back or at least a good proportion of it and then buys the club back with the money after it's been through administration.

That would be financial chicanery of the highest order.
I can see him listing himself as a creditor and then walking away with whatever he gets paid. But that would contradict what has been said all along that he wants to act in the best interests of the club

luckyPeterpiper wrote:

rammywhite wrote:

luckyPeterpiper wrote:I'm just wondering whether or not ED could walk away if we went into admin. I'm not sure but my understanding is that football creditors have to be paid in full before we're allowed to exit administration and I'm almost sure Eddie would come under the "footballing creditor" banner so even if he was willing to write off every penny would the League itself allow it? 

Where's Manda when I need her? She's got a lot more knowledge of this sort of thing than I do.

Yes- they would have no authority to stop him. If he doesn't enter his name and the debt in the schedule of creditors which is a statutory document which must be drawn up by the administrator in a time that he or she decides, then the debt will lapse.  So all ED has to do is NOT enter the debt in the schedule of creditors and it disappears. Thus he has the power to write it off and neither the football league nor anyone else has the power to stop him doing this (provided he is of sound mind- and there's a lot of law about that!!)

Thanks rammy. I really was unclear about whether or not ED could do that. However, I fear he might just leave his name ON the list if we go into admin as I understood he'd said he would write the debt off provided a deal was done before we went into administration. Given how he's acting with things like staff pay I wouldn't be surprised if he decided he wants his money back after all.

sorry to be late to this, rammy is more of an expert on the admin side, and from what I know, I think he is completely correct, if ED does not enter his debt as one needing payment, then he can write it off despite being a football creditor (all of whom need to be paid IN FULL before admin can be exited, other creditors can be offered some pennies in the pound deal, and if majority of them (majority meaning not most of them, but those owed most money) agree to it, admin can then be exited.)

And you are also v right LPP, ED said he would write off his debts if a deal could be done by he so doing, he to the best of my knowledge has not said what he would do in case of admin.

I'm not in the Eddie is a saint category, but neither am I in the he is a conniving devil camp. Frankly I try not to judge in any case, but in this particular one I feel I know nowhere near enough to do so. Although I am sure there will be howls of anger if it is perceived that he has changed his mind and now wants his money back, I can see some logic in a position which says he would write off the debt if he could protect Bolton as a going concern as a new buyer comes in, if however this does not happen, and Bolton as the entity we know ceases to exist (this is me being over dramatic, but I can see liquidation as equally possible as admin), he may as well get as much of his money back as possible.

Sorry for depressing myself.

Didn't Ken Bates try that one at Leeds lusty? And didn't the league clobber them with a fifteen point deduction for it when they found out? Surely they wouldn't allow that to happen again, especially given what's been happening at Elland Road since.

Manda, no need to apologise. I agree that liquidation is a very real possibility. Thanks for the clarification on Eddie's possible options. What worries me is that we don't seem to be any closer to a viable deal than we were a month ago, the HMRC is now doing exactly what I feared they'd do and Eddie seems to have stuck his head firmly in the sand about it all. Whether or not a deal can be reached either before or after admin is very unclear now and I fear that no matter what happens on January 18th we might be witnessing the final days of Bolton Wanderers Football Club.

...and other posts whilst I was writing, I think the bill is currently £600k but could rise to £2m owed by the hearing date of Jan 18th, and there is nothing to prevent a creditor of a company getting money out of admin and using that money to buy assets of company in admin.

A club is a peculiar beast. It has huge stakeholders (fans) who have little control, in terms of assets the intangible (club history, brand) are perceived as of value, but are hard to monetise (unless you are Utd), and the assets its owns (stadium) can be worth little if covenanted to be used for just sporting activity, squillions if not, but that causes the demise of the club, ie the reason for it being there in the first place.

rammywhite wrote:

wanderlust wrote:There is a scenario whereby ED lists himself as a creditor - the main creditor - lets the club go into administration, the assets get sold off, ED gets his money back or at least a good proportion of it and then buys the club back with the money after it's been through administration.

That would be financial chicanery of the highest order.

So eminently possible then?

Provided it's legal.

(I suggested this scenario weeks ago, by the way. Just sayin.....)

Breadman wrote:

wanderlust wrote:If any of the original bidders are genuinely still at the table it's very encouraging, 

Not if the plan all along has been to pick up the club cheaply, strip it and then run off with the money, it's not.

Doesn't that fly in the face of your theory that ED doesn't care for the club? Surely he would have either have done the deal with them or told them to eff off weeks ago if that was the case?

If their business plan included asset stripping to make the finances balance  and ED was only interested in himself then he would take the offer. If he cares for the club he would refuse the offer and advise them to change their plan or seek alternative bidders.
If the offer meant ED would get very little personally and he was only interested in himself then he would have effed them off weeks ago. And if the offer included enough for ED but he cares for the club he would have effed them off in the knowledge that the club would be better off if he bought us out of admin himself.
If the offer and business plan were good for the club, but didn't offer ED what he wanted personally he hasn't got a strong negotiating position and the bidders would have effed ED off (and probably outed him in the media)

So if they are still talking the implication is that an agreement is possible but they can't quite agree terms. It's a pack of cards that could crumble at any time, but so far it seems that a solution is still on the cards - just about.

Nah, because he's a sneaky bastard and he doesn't want people to be able to point the finger at him and shout "Bastard!" because (from what I've heard) he's quite vain and if he simply sold up to them and they stripped the club, that's what would happen.

But he can't just dismiss them out of hand for two reasons:

(A) He needs to be talking to somebody so that when HMRC squeeze him he can buy time and say "A deal's just round the corner - give us some slack" and I reckon that's been happening for a while

and 

(B) if he did bin them off, they'd be all over the press saying what a clown he is and he doesn't want that.


(NB: Even I don't believe most of that shit but I had to come back with something.)

Breadman wrote:

rammywhite wrote:

wanderlust wrote:There is a scenario whereby ED lists himself as a creditor - the main creditor - lets the club go into administration, the assets get sold off, ED gets his money back or at least a good proportion of it and then buys the club back with the money after it's been through administration.

That would be financial chicanery of the highest order.

So eminently possible then?

Provided it's legal.

(I suggested this scenario weeks ago, by the way. Just sayin.....)

I'm a business strategist so I have no moral compass Rammy - the only time ethics come into it is when there is a business advantage to be gained and rules are rules so as long as you stay within them anything goes. Including getting your grandchildren to front your bid.


However, this scenario does impact on the psychology of the negotiations as it puts another card in EDs hand with which to counter the "over a barrel" scenario. How/if he plays it is another matter entirely.

However lusty I believe the League would object to such a move and smack us with a massive points deduction at the start of next season as well as this one just like they did with Leeds Utd. Furthermore I think if ED did go down this road we would wind up right back where we are now within 2 or 3 years. Remember the clowns at Portsmouth and Leeds who tried buying the clubs on tick hoping to make a quick sale and big profit? The mess at Elland Road still rumbles on now with the Cellino fiasco and Portsmouth may never fully recover from what happened to them. I think the League would be incredibly wary of allowing anything like that to happen again.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:However lusty I believe the League would object to such a move and smack us with a massive points deduction at the start of next season as well as this one just like they did with Leeds Utd. Furthermore I think if ED did go down this road we would wind up right back where we are now within 2 or 3 years. Remember the clowns at Portsmouth and Leeds who tried buying the clubs on tick hoping to make a quick sale and big profit? The mess at Elland Road still rumbles on now with the Cellino fiasco and Portsmouth may never fully recover from what happened to them. I think the League would be incredibly wary of allowing anything like that to happen again.

Believe me, there are several ways to get round that and I don't think ED would be daft enough to front the purchase himself. Not an issue unless he's a complete mug (which is of course still under debate).

wanderlust wrote:

luckyPeterpiper wrote:However lusty I believe the League would object to such a move and smack us with a massive points deduction at the start of next season as well as this one just like they did with Leeds Utd. Furthermore I think if ED did go down this road we would wind up right back where we are now within 2 or 3 years. Remember the clowns at Portsmouth and Leeds who tried buying the clubs on tick hoping to make a quick sale and big profit? The mess at Elland Road still rumbles on now with the Cellino fiasco and Portsmouth may never fully recover from what happened to them. I think the League would be incredibly wary of allowing anything like that to happen again.

Believe me, there are several ways to get round that and I don't think ED would be daft enough to front the purchase himself. Not an issue unless he's a complete mug (which is of course still under debate).

I know there are ways round it lusty and I agree Ed wouldn't be likely to personally front it but those things have a way of leaking out anyway. If Eddie did form some new holding firm or something to buy the club I bet it would take about ten minutes for some journalist or other to pierce the veil and then all hell would break loose. What I fear is that he may just try it anyway and the League will clobber the club so hard we'll be in League Two the season after next. I know I'm sounding negative but in this case I think it's wise to prepare for the worst case scenario even as I hope for the best and to be left looking like a plank for being such a doomsayer.

Finally Iles gets a bit of balance in his reporting and alludes to the forces at work in the negotiation that explain recent events and why it's difficult to know if/when the deal will be concluded. I wonder if he's been reading Nuts?

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With the chances of a deal being concluded over the weekend being slim, we probably have today and tomorrow for someone to buy the club or I'll have cough up to Bread's charity of choice.
Giving Mavies away on a fee transfer send out all the wrong messages and I'm less confident about avoiding administration then at any time until now.

That said, surely ED and TB must realise that if they don't do a deal the vultures will be able to pick up what's left for a song, so they have to find a workable compromise before Monday don't they?

...I still think Glos may owe me a donation to charity of my choice, as I can see an outcome of Monday being a postponement to allow a bit more time for a deal to be done. If that doesn't happen, happy to cough up Glos to charity of your choice. Mavies going for free shows to me ongoing cashflow is as much of an issue as immediate funds in...know that's always been the case but this really highlights it. Not good.