Ken Anderson - update.

Chairman Ken Anderson addresses the club's supporters in a special column


I trust you have all had an enjoyable Christmas period and I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

I’d also like to thank all of the staff here at the club and hotel, both football and administrative, for their constant hard work which has been instrumental in helping us get to where we are right now.

They were able to wind down for an evening with a Christmas party just prior to the big day itself - the first at the club in three years - and the feel good factor around the stadium is palpable.

It was superb to see such a fantastic crowd for our Boxing Day encounter against Shrewsbury Town, with many of the 16,238 supporters at Macron Stadium being half season ticket holders.

We have surpassed our expectations in regards to the number of them sold and I am thrilled that the newcomers were able to start their tenure as season ticket holders with victory.

Our hospitality suites were also sold out for the fixture which is hugely pleasing and is a testament to the hard work of those behind-the-scenes here at Macron Stadium.

With the incredible vocal support you have provided so far this term meanwhile, we effectively have a twelfth man on the field.

With that in mind, I urge you all to be as loud and proud in your support both at Macron Stadium and away from home between now and the end of the season.

Now we are at the halfway stage of the campaign, we are extremely pleased that we are firmly where we aimed to be at this point in regards to our league standing.

There will no doubt be a number of twists and turns along the way between now and the end of the campaign, but we are in a strong position and long may that continue.

I hope that our excellent form at home meanwhile will encourage more people to come and show their support for the team – ultimately something which may just be the difference in getting us over the line.

We are also fortunate enough to have several of our players coming back from long term injuries at the moment too which will further strengthen our squad. This may mean that we can take our time in regards to decisions about our activity in the January transfer window.

That said however, our team of scouts have been actively out there since August looking for potential signings for cover should we pick up any serious injuries or if an opportunity arises to sign a quality player which could be influential for the squad.

Aside from matters on the pitch, there has been a great deal of press recently about a supposed boardroom feud but I can assure you that there can be nothing further from the truth.

Dean and I have so far not been able to reach an agreement on the sale of his shares or his Blu Marble refinancing, but this does not mean that there is an ongoing feud between us.

We talk, text and email each other on a regular basis and contrary to rumour, I am not particular about being the sole owner of this great football club. I would be happy to share the future funding requirement with Dean pro rata to our shareholdings.

There is no need to rush any decision on ownership and as far as I am concerned, it is business as usual.

Following on from the previous press comments about Saudi interest meanwhile, over the last week there has been speculation about an apparent American takeover. 

All I can say on this matter is that we receive approaches all the time, from various sources, which is not surprising when you look at the environment and set up we have here at Macron Stadium and Bolton Whites Hotel. 

Once again, I can assure you that I have not met nor spoken to anyone. As I have said in the past, if someone comes along who can help take the club further, then I will be happy to talk to them. At this current moment however, that has not happened.

Elsewhere, I have arranged future meetings with a number of organisations such as the Supporters’ Trust, the BWSA and a handful of fan blogs.

My aim is to build relationships with them so as to work together going forward for the benefit of the club although I appreciate that they will want to retain their independence also.

We are also continuing to make big strides commercially and I am sure you have read about some of the businesses we have gone into partnership with. 

I'm pleased to announce that we have signed a valuable deal with Molson Coors to be our official pouring rights partner, while more details on this will be announced in due course.

Following on from my comments regarding the situation with Macron at the recent Q&A session meanwhile, an agreement has now been reached with them.

I hope to see you all back at Macron Stadium for Saturday’s visit of Scunthorpe United.

Kind regards

Ken

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Couple of bits in there amongst the blah,blah, blah which are interesting.
He says he's willing to share future funding for the club with Dean pro-rata to their respective shareholding.
That sounds obvious but ominous to me- as everything we know in the public domain is that Dean is  effectively penniless.

The other is laughable- signing a valuable deal with Molson Coors to be our 'pouring' rights partner. Why do we need to know that ? What's that about? Are they the new booze supplier? Much more importantly- will it make any money for us.

Not sure i believe that he and Deano are not at loggerheads.

Haven't seen anything other than pure speculation about the relationship between KA an Deano. 

KA mentioned a meeting with a group of supporters blogs - has NUTS been invited Sluffy?
If so, we should perhaps run a thread to see if we can agree on two or three questions we might want to ask him.

i was wondering the same Lusty, would be nice to be able to ask a few questions, just don't mention the ST 

wanderlust wrote:KA mentioned a meeting with a group of supporters blogs - has NUTS been invited Sluffy?

If so, we should perhaps run a thread to see if we can agree on two or three questions we might want to ask him.

No, we've never really bothered letting the club know we are here (I think we once enquired of them before this season started, if they had any complimentary tickets for games we could give away as prizes for our quizzes but we never heard back - I guess they were a bit busy with bigger things behind the scenes - probably still are!), so we haven't received an invite.

Unless it's in the post of course!

Anyway, I don't think they are inviting anyone to interview them, more likely asking them to get behind the club rather than hold an ongoing agenda against them - I am of course thinking of the ST and to a lesser extent the LoV (which has already had a meeting with the club!) and who have had very close links with the ST in the past.

It would have been nice to have had some recognition from the club but seeing that Burnden Aces are invited and they are closing their forum in the next day or so and thus end any meaningful two-way communication with its members in favour of just posting news stories (and ex-players birthdays!), I tend to think that it and the others who have been invited are more there just to make up the numbers and to make it look a little bit less obvious to ST and LoV.

And just before my usual troll rocks up...

There is actually a precedence for this from the club during the Megson era when the club called in the person behind one of the forum/blogs to ask him to lay off Meggo!

Unfortunately for the club it didn't go to well - I think the bloke felt he had been singled out - and he just laid it on ever more on poor old Gary.

I think to avoid that they have asked a number of forums/blogs to go along and hear the same message at the same time.

This wont stop the loose cannons carrying on of course but it will make them stand out even more from the rest of the more reasonable (and club loyal) sites.

Which I think is the point of the whole exercise.

Sluffy wrote:

wanderlust wrote:KA mentioned a meeting with a group of supporters blogs - has NUTS been invited Sluffy?

If so, we should perhaps run a thread to see if we can agree on two or three questions we might want to ask him.

No, we've never really bothered letting the club know we are here (I think we once enquired of them before this season started, if they had any complimentary tickets for games we could give away as prizes for our quizzes but we never heard back - I guess they were a bit busy with bigger things behind the scenes - probably still are!), so we haven't received an invite.

Unless it's in the post of course!

Anyway, I don't think they are inviting anyone to interview them, more likely asking them to get behind the club rather than hold an ongoing agenda against them - I am of course thinking of the ST and the LoV (which has already had a meeting with the club!) and who have had very close links with the ST in the past.

It would have been nice to have had some recognition from the club but seeing that Burnden Aces are invited and they are closing their forum in the next day or so and thus end any meaningful two-way communication with its members in favour of just posting news stories (and ex-players birthdays!), I tend to think that the others who have been invited are more there just to make up the numbers and to make it look a little bit less obvious to ST and LoV.

And just before my usual troll rocks up...

There is actually a precedence for this from the club during the Megson era when the club called in the person behind one of the forum/blogs to ask him to lay off Meggo!

Unfortunately for the club it didn't go to well - I think the bloke felt he had been singled out - and he just laid it on ever more on poor old Gary.

I think to avoid that they have asked a number of forums/blogs to go along and hear the same message at the same time.

This wont stop the loose cannons carrying on of course but it will make them stand out even more from the rest of the more reasonable (and club loyal) sites.

Which I think is the point of the whole exercise.

I don't think any blog sets out to have a go at the club. The function of a blog is to garner a variety of opinions  we certainly have that on here. That leads to speculation and IMO any clarification the club or KA wish to provide can only be a good thing.
Even if KAs objective is to deliver a PR exercise it would be worthwhile listening just to see what they are up to.

wanderlust wrote:
I don't think any blog sets out to have a go at the club. The function of a blog is to garner a variety of opinions  we certainly have that on here. That leads to speculation and IMO any clarification the club or KA wish to provide can only be a good thing.
Even if KAs objective is to deliver a PR exercise it would be worthwhile listening just to see what they are up to.

As I said above, it would have been nice to have been invited.

As for the two sites I single out, the ST and LoV, the former is not a blog and the latter is unashamedly a 'click bait' site and thus the more outrageous stories it posts up, the bigger the 'clicks' it gets - and the more money it earns from the advertisers whose adverts it hosts.

Thus both have their own agendas for painting the club and its owner/s negatively, the ST because they seek ownership of the club, and LoV to earn itself more money.

The rest of the blogs/forums (apart from the one owned by one of the ST board members) DO lead to debate, opinion and conjecture because we love the club and want to see the best for it - and not the best for ourselves!

Nice to see he's arranged a meeting with the ST,and the BWSA.

we can't complain about his willingness to share information on certain matters, a massive improvement from the last owner and chairman thats for sure.
I just hope this business with Deano will be resolved quickly so we can get on planning ahead and looking for further investment

rammywhite wrote:Couple of bits in there amongst the blah,blah, blah which are interesting.
He says he's willing to share future funding for the club with Dean pro-rata to their respective shareholding.
That sounds obvious but ominous to me- as everything we know in the public domain is that Dean is  effectively penniless.

I thought he'd already done that and therein lay the problem.

When I read this article last night on the BN I took it as little more than KA pushing his preferred narrative, ie he's the good guy and Holdsworth's the problem.

Which may well be true but if we're only hearing one side of the story, it's difficult to make an informed judgement.

And further to whether or not we can believe his words, Iles is sticking to his story that there was definite interest from The States and it was knocked back but KA is flat out denying that any talks even took place.

So someone's telling fibs.

Iles also alluded on Twitter to there being a lot more to the American bid than he was allowed to publish but I guess we'll never know....

boltonbonce wrote:Nice to see he's arranged a meeting with the ST,and the BWSA.

Indeed.

Bread2.0 wrote:When I read this article last night on the BN...

"No boardroom feud at Wanderers" insists chairman Ken Anderson

KEN Anderson insists there is no “feud” between himself and co-owner Dean Holdsworth.
The Whites chairman countered concerns that a breakdown in the pair’s relationship could spark financial problems at the Macron.
Anderson is negotiating with Holdsworth to buy his share in the club to become sole owner but has also found the deal complicated by the involvement of BluMarble finance, who supplied the former striker with a £5million loan to buy the club back in March.
A fortnight ago Anderson told fans there would be a resolution to negotiations “sooner rather than later” and that the club had “moved on” from the worst-case scenarios which were being discussed at the start of the month.

Writing in his programme notes for this weekend’s game against Scunthorpe United, he said: “There has been a great deal of press recently about a supposed boardroom feud but I can assure you there can be nothing further from the truth.
“Dean and I have so far not been able to reach an agreement on the sale of his shares or his BluMarble refinancing but this does not mean that there is an ongoing feud between us.
“We talk, text and email each other on a regular basis and contrary to rumour, I am not particular about being the sole owner of this great football club. I would be happy to share the future funding requirement with Dean, pro rata to our shareholdings.
“There is no need to rush any decision on ownership and as far as I am concerned, it is business as usual.”

The Bolton News revealed last week that a US-based firm contacted Wanderers about possible investment and financing opportunities but that their offer was turned down.
Other international parties have also expressed interest but Anderson confirmed that none, thus far, have been entertained.
“Over the last week there has been speculation about an apparent American takeover,” he said.
“All I can say on the matter is that we received approaches all the time, from various sources, which is not surprising when you look at the environment and the set-up we have here at Macron Stadium and Bolton Whites Hotel.

The Bolton News revealed last week that a US-based firm contacted Wanderers about possible investment and financing opportunities but that their offer was turned down.
Other international parties have also expressed interest but Anderson confirmed that none, thus far, have been entertained.
“Over the last week there has been speculation about an apparent American takeover,” he said.
“All I can say on the matter is that we received approaches all the time, from various sources, which is not surprising when you look at the environment and the set-up we have here at Macron Stadium and Bolton Whites Hotel.

“Once again I can assure you that I have not met or spoken to anyone. As I have said in the past, if someone comes along who can help to takes this club further, then I will be happy to talk to them. At this current moment, however, that has not happened.”
Anderson also confirmed a financial agreement has been reached with stadium sponsors Macron, which the chairman had said previously may “go legal” and that a “valuable deal” had been struck with Canadian brewers Molson Coors to become the club’s official pouring rights partner.

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Apologies, I assumed it was the same one from the BN and didn't read it.

Lesson learnt.

Why would KA consider inviting NUTS to a meeting? Even though it has hundreds of members, it's only a handful of people that seem to justify its existence.....or is that the Supporters Trust?

I guess the two do have something in common, yet it's the ST that KA will speak with.

King Bill wrote:Why would KA consider inviting NUTS to a meeting? Even though it has hundreds of members, it's only a handful of people that seem to justify its existence.....or is that the Supporters Trust?

I guess the two do have something in common, yet it's the ST that KA will speak with.

KA wrote:

"Elsewhere, I have arranged future meetings with a number of organisations such as the Supporters’ Trust, the BWSA and a handful of fan blogs."


All fora have people who post regularly and others that only comment occasionally and in that respect Nuts is no different so my question would be why not if others with less members are being invited?


If there is someone willing to go along and represent Nuts I would imagine KA would welcome the opportunity to talk to them. It could be arranged via Twatter.

Most Nuts members would get lost trying to find the Macron.

Personally I am liking what I hear from Anderson, it seems that the business side of the club has been miss managed for a number of years and that there is now a clear plan to renegotiate deals.

It looks like they have dealt with the sponsorship deal with Macron and are starting to put in place other deals like the pouring rights supplier etc, all minor stuff but as a whole shows that the club is being run properly at every level.

I'm sure if someone spoke with the club then they would be happy to meet with a rep off here, just not sure there is anyone we could risk putting forward.

wanderlust wrote:If there is someone willing to go along and represent Nuts I would imagine KA would welcome the opportunity to talk to them. It could be arranged via Twatter.

It probably could.

Personally I've never been too arsed about going to any party that I've not been invited to in the first place and similarly I've certainly wasted far to much of my life already on attending 'work' meetings!

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BUT if anybody would like to represent us and listen to what they have to say then please either volunteer below (or pm me if you prefer) and as long as we believe you are a 'real' person and of sound mind (I know I've set the bar incredibly high here with these two conditions!) then we will attempt to blag ourselves an invite and you can have the dubious honour of representing Nuts and your fellow Nutters!

Anybody up for it?

Chairman Ken Anderson addresses the club's supporters in a special column on bwfc.co.uk

First of all, I would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy and successful New Year.




Following on from my recent Q&A meeting in December, I have had a number of supporters contact me directly and ask me what exactly the board and shareholdings situation is at present.




Accordingly, as I have stated that I want to give you as much information as possible, I would like to outline the current position.




1) Both Dean and I are directors of the football club.




2) The shares (excluding the 5% holding held by supporters) are split 60/40% between myself and Dean.




3) I am Executive Chairman and have a hands-on daily involvement with the management team and everyone at the club and hotel.




4) Dean is effectively a non-executive director.




5) Dean is still trying to organise the refinancing of the BluMarble loan to Sports Shield.




6) The club does not have a loan from BluMarble - it has a loan from Sports Shield. The terms of the club loan are different to those of the BluMarble loan to Sports Shield.




7) Dean and I did reach an agreement on me buying his shares, but there are one or two issues because of the BluMarble situation that Dean still needs to be resolve. I am relaxed about the current shareholdings. As I have previously stated, there is no rush for me to become a sole owner (alongside the supporters' shareholdings).




8 ) The club are in discussions with other lenders/investors about replacing the Sports Shield loan on better commercial terms.




9) Deloitte have been requested to submit the accounts to Companies House this month.




10) Paul Aldridge interviewed two candidates over the weekend as a replacement to John Pelling, the Head of Finance, who is off to Stoke City shortly. Both applicants are known to me and have also been interviewed by myself. We expect to make an announcement shortly.




11) I have met with several people who I believe will strengthen the board in the future and l hope to be able to provide you with further information in due course.




12) I personally provided additional funding for the club in December and have had to do so again in January. Unfortunately, Dean has declined to contribute any personal funds.




Hopefully, this information will be helpful to all our supporters and will mean that we can now all focus on the field activities in the immediate future.




I truly believe that we all need to continue to get behind the team and management in the run-in without the financial and boardroom distractions of recent months.




I can assure you that all the staff at the club and hotel are doing a great job and giving their utmost to get us back where we belong.




We have a great team of people behind the scenes who never cease to amaze me. Your recent support meanwhile has made it all worthwhile and long may it continue.




My sincere thanks and best wishes,




Ken

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A few interesting points in that:
the Blumarble loan is to sports shield and not to the club the clubs loan is with sports shield, not sure what the implications of that are given that whoever it's with it's secured against club assets.
Dean is effectively a non executive director, I'm guessing roughly translated means he's fuck all to do with the running of the club
I  personally provided additional funding for the club in December and have had to do so again in January. Unfortunately, Dean has declined to contribute any personal funds - which is the reason for the previous point.
And that he is in with conversations with other lenders and investors, it looks like there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes, but non of it by DH