Crunch time: Ken Anderson faces biggest Wanderers challenge

On the pitch, investment is a must as Phil Parkinson looks to add at least one more striker to help maintain an encouraging start to the season.

Rivals Blackburn Rovers, fresh out of League One, shelled out £6million for Nottingham Forest’s Ben Brereton this week, highlighting just how tough it has been to compete in the transfer market this summer.

But off the field there are significant challenges to meet too, and by the weekend we should know if Anderson has been successful in negotiating a deal with finance company BluMarble, due repayment on a loan worth more than £4million.

The Bolton owner has spoken confidently about dealing with the BluMarble debt but, nevertheless, concerns have mounted behind the scenes about what could happen should he fail to refinance.

Anderson is currently fighting on a number of financial fronts, including a winding-up petition presented by catering partners Heathcote & Co which remains live in the High Court.

But while the balance remains delicate, he insists Wanderers are in their best financial position since he arrived two years ago.

Net debt stood at around £22million in the last set of accounts and it is expected this year’s figures will show a small profit for the first time since 2006 when the club was playing in the Premier League and UEFA Cup.

And though stabilisation has come via cost-cutting, not least on wages which are now less than half of what they were 12 years ago, Anderson feels there is scope for optimism.

“When I came in we were losing £18million a year, had debts here, there and everywhere, and we have gradually managed and worked our way out of it. There’s still some way to go but as I have said we probably have one of the lowest debts in the Championship at the moment,” he said.

“I believe we will be showing a small profit and as far as I’m aware we will be the only club to do that.

“We have been fortunate in achieving a net surplus on transfers and I believe we’ve managed our squad and have strengthened and achieved cover in each position.

“We have had to fight some of the commercial contracts we inherited and are still fighting the last one. I hope that will eventually settle.

“The club has become more stable. The key is bringing in more income. Hopefully we will sell more season tickets.

“Commercial income, we need to get more in, and we are doing so. The university is a far better deal all round than we had previously, the shirt sponsor was a better deal than we had previously and in July the hotel had their best-ever month, revenue-wise, and the club shop have already had their best ever month this August since I have been at the club.

“Generally the club, hotel and club shop are running far better. I hope to show a profit this year, albeit a small one, whereas most clubs out there are losing millions of pounds.

“I would say this club is in a much better position on and off the field than it was when I came in two years ago.”

Source

Is it not best to just pay the £4million off to BluMarble from the Madine money and get this sorted once and for all? At least its settled then and we can move on.

But then he can't say "I've made a profit" this year.

Sent from Topic'it App

Norpig wrote:Is it not best to just pay the £4million off to BluMarble from the Madine money and get this sorted once and for all? At least its settled then and we can move on.

That's already gone on the players wages and bonuses.  We were due to lose £6 million on last years accounts without it.

I think however there is a staged payment for being in the Championship due around now and maybe that will be used to pay down some/all of the debt - £4.3 million is currently due.

I still can't get my head around why some still think Holdsworth who simply took out a loan on the clubs assets for £5 million, and only passed on £4 million of it to the club is still seen as some peoples hero, yet Anderson who has had to keep the club going and pay down all the debts is seen as the bad guy?

Holdsworth definitely didn't put his own money into the club and yet took a massive chunk out of it - yet no one - particularly people like Iles and the ST have seemingly turned a complete blind eye to this and have instead led the masses (initially at least) to be against Anderson?

Sluffy wrote:I still can't get my head around why some still think Holdsworth who simply took out a loan on the clubs assets for £5 million, and only passed on £4 million of it to the club is still seen as some peoples hero

Please back this up with facts sluffy, I don't remember anyone in the last year saying Holdsworth was a hero.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

Sluffy wrote:I still can't get my head around why some still think Holdsworth who simply took out a loan on the clubs assets for £5 million, and only passed on £4 million of it to the club is still seen as some peoples hero

Please back this up with facts sluffy, I don't remember anyone in the last year saying Holdsworth was a hero.

I'm talking about social media in generally and not specifically about Nuts posters.

There's clearly a view from several that they'd like to see Anderson go, yet fully believed Holdsworth had invested money into the club and was pushed/forced  out by Anderson.

To be fair though the hard core anti-Anderson clique seems to be getting less and less as the time goes on.

Fair enough, I don't read social media.

Sluffy wrote:

Norpig wrote:Is it not best to just pay the £4million off to BluMarble from the Madine money and get this sorted once and for all? At least its settled then and we can move on.

I still can't get my head around why some still think Holdsworth who simply took out a loan on the clubs assets for £5 million, and only passed on £4 million of it to the club is still seen as some peoples hero, yet Anderson who has had to keep the club going and pay down all the debts is seen as the bad guy?

Holdsworth definitely didn't put his own money into the club and yet took a massive chunk out of it - yet no one - particularly people like Iles and the ST have seemingly turned a complete blind eye to this and have instead led the masses (initially at least) to be against Anderson?

Let me help.

First of all there was only Deano interested in saving the club from the administration that HMRC had already applied for. He hadn't got the money to do it so he took out loans to the tune of £5million. He tried twice to put a proposition to the club to take over and on both occasions it was rejected.
At that point he brought Anderson into the equation. They repackaged the offering as a joint bid and as the clock ticked down the club finally accepted - probably because they had no other choice. Anderson brought zero money into the deal and it was Deano's money that made the takeover possible.

I would like to point out that at this stage you slagged off Deano for not having enough money to invest, saying that he was only in it for the money and that he would have to sell off the clubs assets and cut the playing staff in order to get us back on track. I.e. exactly what Anderson has done since he ousted Deano.

Then Anderson turned on Deano and wanted him out and in order to do so he agreed this very deal you are now complaining about.

So if you want someone to blame for the payment to BM, blame Anderson because he did the deal in order to secure his current position. That million quid was to all intents and purposes Anderson buying Deano out with the club's money.

Make sense now?

wanderlust wrote:

Sluffy wrote:

Norpig wrote:Is it not best to just pay the £4million off to BluMarble from the Madine money and get this sorted once and for all? At least its settled then and we can move on.

I still can't get my head around why some still think Holdsworth who simply took out a loan on the clubs assets for £5 million, and only passed on £4 million of it to the club is still seen as some peoples hero, yet Anderson who has had to keep the club going and pay down all the debts is seen as the bad guy?

Holdsworth definitely didn't put his own money into the club and yet took a massive chunk out of it - yet no one - particularly people like Iles and the ST have seemingly turned a complete blind eye to this and have instead led the masses (initially at least) to be against Anderson?

Let me help.

First of all there was only Deano interested in saving the club from the administration that HMRC had already applied for. He hadn't got the money to do it so he took out loans to the tune of £5million. He tried twice to put a proposition to the club to take over and on both occasions it was rejected.
At that point he brought Anderson into the equation. They repackaged the offering as a joint bid and as the clock ticked down the club finally accepted - probably because they had no other choice. Anderson brought zero money into the deal and it was Deano's money that made the takeover possible.

I would like to point out that at this stage you slagged off Deano for not having enough money to invest, saying that he was only in it for the money and that he would have to sell off the clubs assets and cut the playing staff in order to get us back on track. I.e. exactly what Anderson has done since he ousted Deano.

Then Anderson turned on Deano and wanted him out and in order to do so he agreed this very deal you are now complaining about.

So if you want someone to blame for the payment to BM, blame Anderson because he did the deal in order to secure his current position. That million quid was to all intents and purposes Anderson buying Deano out with the club's money.

Make sense now?

You seem to have somehow got the facts of what actually happened twisted in your head?

The facts were that he wasn't alone in interesting to 'save' the club, he had at least two 'partners' in attempting to do so (one of which I believe has since been jailed for fraud) - and that doesn't include Disley who he was famously pictured sitting next to at a game during the time Davies had the club up for sale.

Anybody, you, me or even the man in the moon could have bought the club for £1 and then take out a loan on its assets - which is exactly what Holdsworth did.  That isn't putting his 'own' money' into the club - particularly when he hocked £5 million worth of assets but only put £4 million cash back into the club!

Anderson has stated that he was completely unaware that Holdsworth had taken out the BluMarble deal and if so (and I have no reason to doubt him) it is clearly obvious why the breakdown between the two happened from the very beginning.

I fail to understand how you or anyone else could believe that Holdsworth had put any of his own money into the club - he simply took out a loan on the clubs existing assets - he didn't put his hand into his own pocket or anything - so why should anyone expect Anderson to do so?  It's a bit like me becoming a partner in your restaurant then taking out a loan on your restaurant's existing assets and saying 'right that's my end of the agreement, where's your money then?'

Would you invest a further couple of millions into the business from your life savings after me pulling a stroke like that and now being a half partner in the business?

Of course you wouldn't - nobody would.

What would you do, maybe do your best to get me out of the business, whilst keeping it going by reducing costs and not investing any of your personal wealth in it whilst I was still there?

If so that seems to be exactly what Anderson has done.

Would you be happy to see me walk out of the door with £1 million pounds from a business I'd not put a penny in from my own pocket (apart from the initial £1 to buy in)?

Would people think you are the bad guy in all this, whilst I've done bugger all other than set up a loan against your assets and walked off with a ton of money leaving you to sort out how to pay the loan back as well as keep the business going?

Because that is more or less what as happened - even BluMarble seem to recognise this as the case in that they are only seeking £4 million of their initial loan to Holdsworth from the club - presumably they are chasing him for the remaining million?

Before this descends into another 'Ken is God' vs 'Ken is Satan' row let me chip in a little bit for both of you. What Dean did is try and pull exactly the same stunt the Glazers pulled when buying Manchester United ie he raised capital by offering club assets as collateral in much the same way you or I would ask for a mortgage secured against the property we want to buy. The problem is that Dean didn't have the money needed to make the repayments and was dependent on club income being greater than the repayments in order to make them. Since his projection as to what the income would be was wiildly overoptimistic he was unable to make any of the repayments and the club's assets were in real danger of being siezed since Dean did not have the means to pay the loan. At that point Ken was left with no real choice but to do two things. First to get the costs down by whatever means were necessary and second to get Dean out of the way and deal with BluMarble directly. Personally I think Ken screwed up in not scrutinising either the club's books or where Dean was getting the money from more closely at the time of purchasing the club but that for the most part since then he's handled things about as well as anyone who isn't a billionaire could.

Of course Ken has made some mistakes, partly in terms of the wages fiasco where his communications were uncharacteristically poor and of course in delaying Ben Amos' wages. He's also been a little bit silly in allowing his dealings with Heathcote's to be dragged out in a public arena the way they have. But when all is said and done I much prefer having him at the helm than seeing the club being broken up and the parts sold off to cover Dean's debts don't you?

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Before this descends into another 'Ken is God' vs 'Ken is Satan' row let me chip in a little bit for both of you. What Dean did is try and pull exactly the same stunt the Glazers pulled when buying Manchester United ie he raised capital by offering club assets as collateral in much the same way you or I would ask for a mortgage secured against the property we want to buy. The problem is that Dean didn't have the money needed to make the repayments and was dependent on club income being greater than the repayments in order to make them. Since his projection as to what the income would be was wiildly overoptimistic he was unable to make any of the repayments and the club's assets were in real danger of being siezed since Dean did not have the means to pay the loan. At that point Ken was left with no real choice but to do two things. First to get the costs down by whatever means were necessary and second to get Dean out of the way and deal with BluMarble directly. Personally I think Ken screwed up in not scrutinising either the club's books or where Dean was getting the money from more closely at the time of purchasing the club but that for the most part since then he's handled things about as well as anyone who isn't a billionaire could.

Of course Ken has made some mistakes, partly in terms of the wages fiasco where his communications were uncharacteristically poor and of course in delaying Ben Amos' wages. He's also been a little bit silly in allowing his dealings with Heathcote's to be dragged out in a public arena the way they have. But when all is said and done I much prefer having him at the helm than seeing the club being broken up and the parts sold off to cover Dean's debts don't you?

Peter mate, you're wrong.

If you look into the detail (and I can't be bothered to look it up) Holdsworth took out the Blumarble loan with an agreement that is SSBWFC business would settle the loan in full six days (yes six days) later.

He took £1 million of the £5 million loan and said that's what it cost his company to set up the loan - and deposited just £4 million into the club with him jacking up the interest rates to an eye watering amount (again I can't be bothered to look it up - something like 40%(?) I think it was).

The club's debt was therefore £5 million to be paid to SSBWFC at the sky high interest rate for the next (I think?) three years.

So Anderson walked in to find £5 million of the club assets being hocked by Holdsworth, the club receiving just £4 million of the money - and almost immediately Holdsworth company defaulted on the payment to BluMarble.

Something clearly wasn't genuine on Holdsworth part - where did he think he could get £5 million to pay the lone back within six days - why didn't he just use this £5 million instead of needing the BluMarble loan - why did he not pay BluMarble - and why did he set the interest rate to the club astronomically high from his own company.

How could he possibly have thought that a club losing over £1 million per month on wages at that time possibly be able to finance repayment of the loan to SSBWFC?

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark as Shakespeare says don't you think?

Yes it is mate but I think what we have here is some rather dodgy work by BluMarble to begin with in extending the credit to Dean. I'm not sure where the six day figure has come from because something that short wouldn't usually get financing to begin with. Up to ninety days as a 'bridging' loan might be accepted but anything less than thirty is normally knocked back unless you're talking about someone like quickquid and it's a small amount (eg a few hundred quid).

What appears to have happened is that Dean got the loan in the same way a person might get a mortgage for a 'buy to let' property. In other words he's used the house as collateral and is going to use the income from rent to paty the mortgage with the rest going to his own pocket. What I truly do not get is how Dean was able to say he was 'lending' the money to the club since it wasn't actually his money to begin with let alone set his own APR for repayment.

I've talked to both my dad (a Chartered Accountant with forty years of his own practice and fifty of experience) and my brother (a barrister specialising in commercial law particularly in the fields of taxation and finance) and both tell me the same thing. It shouldn't have been possible given the club's limited liability status for Dean to do any such thing and no auditor would have been able to sign off on the books while such an arrangement was in place.

As you already know it is illegal for a limited company to continue trading while insolvent and the definition of insolvency is roughly 'income is less than expenditure' or when a club's liabilities are greater than its worth and cannot be met. What I would like to know is just what the income projections Dean actually showed to BluMarble said and what if anything did they do to check their likely accuracy? While I'm sure Dean believed he was on a nice little earner I can't help thinking that BM either knew or strongly suspected they'd be repossessing assets such as the Hotel and their profit would come from breaking the business into its component parts for resale. However they must have really failed in their diligence since at least some of the club's assets were already under lien for other creditors AND HMRC.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Yes it is mate but I think what we have here is some rather dodgy work by BluMarble to begin with in extending the credit to Dean. I'm not sure where the six day figure has come from because something that short wouldn't usually get financing to begin with. Up to ninety days as a 'bridging' loan might be accepted but anything less than thirty is normally knocked back unless you're talking about someone like quickquid and it's a small amount (eg a few hundred quid).

What appears to have happened is that Dean got the loan in the same way a person might get a mortgage for a 'buy to let' property. In other words he's used the house as collateral and is going to use the income from rent to paty the mortgage with the rest going to his own pocket. What I truly do not get is how Dean was able to say he was 'lending' the money to the club since it wasn't actually his money to begin with let alone set his own APR for repayment.

I've talked to both my dad (a Chartered Accountant with forty years of his own practice and fifty of experience) and my brother (a barrister specialising in commercial law particularly in the fields of taxation and finance) and both tell me the same thing. It shouldn't have been possible given the club's limited liability status for Dean to do any such thing and no auditor would have been able to sign off on the books while such an arrangement was in place.

As you already know it is illegal for a limited company to continue trading while insolvent and the definition of insolvency is roughly 'income is less than expenditure' or when a club's liabilities are greater than its worth and cannot be met. What I would like to know is just what the income projections Dean actually showed to BluMarble said and what if anything did they do to check their likely accuracy? While I'm sure Dean believed he was on a nice little earner I can't help thinking that BM either knew or strongly suspected they'd be repossessing assets such as the Hotel and their profit would come from breaking the business into its component parts for resale. However they must have really failed in their diligence since at least some of the club's assets were already under lien for other creditors AND HMRC.

Peter, you are barking up the wrong tree.

The loan was between BluMarble and Holdsworth's SSBWFC NOT with the club!

As SSBWFC was part owner of the club he was able to give as collateral the clubs assets, to which BluMarble laid their charge of £5 million (note NOT £4 million as they eventually agreed with Anderson - presumably because the club never received the 'missing' £1 million, although SSBWFC clearly did!).

I guess BluMarble were led to believe that Holdsworth had the power and authority to do so and they had security by means of a charge on assets they obviously believed at that time Holdsworth's SSBWFC had in ownership of Burnden Leisure and hence the club and hotel.

Holdsworth SSBWFC company then 'owned' the £5 million (if you will) and therefore loaned 'its' money to the club and set their own 'agreed' interest rate in doing so!  This was signed off by the clubs Company Secretary/Finance Manager I believe at the time.

In my opinion I think it is extremely telling that although they (BluMarble) had a charge on £5 million worth of the clubs assets, that they have only agreed to seek repayment for just £4 million (plus £300k interest) with BWFC - which happens to be the exact same sum of money the club actually received from Holdsworth SSBWFC.

I assume they are chasing Holdsworth up for the remaining million?

Something was clearly not normal right from the start and I simply believe that KA was initially caught unaware as to what had happened.

There's clearly an issue here which doesn't make any sense. I'm speaking as a chartered accountant with many years in practice (like LPPs dad) and there is a fundamental flaw in the arguments raised here.Its basically this- Holdsworth had no legal right to give a charge on the assets to BM . 
To place assets into charge  against a loan is a Board decision and must be agreed at Board level. It must be entered in the formal Register of Charges and witnessed as a contract with the company seal. That effectively means that the majority shareholder must agree to this. DH , although a 'part owner' as mentioned earlier in the thread was a minority shareholder and cannot agree to a charge on the assets. It simply can't be done. I'm a shareholder in quite  a few companies, including for the sake of an example, M&S. I can't go out and borrow £1million and give a charge against the assets of M&S as I have no power or authority to do so. The only collateral that DH could offer BM was his shares in BWFC ( or more correctly the holding company which I think is Burnden Leisure.. BM probably worked on the assumption that DH would get control over Burnden Leisure and that would allow him acting as the majority shareholder to create the charge. They needed better due diligence.
But he never got control- he sold out to KA eventually.
So I'd like one of you to explain to me how he managed to give  a charge on the assets when he was not in a position to do so. After BM asked for their money back they had recourse to DH or his company,but not against the football club.  That's unless KA accepted the charge and the loan from BM as part of the deal to get rid of him. I don't think he's that stupid. If you look at the Notes to the Accounts for a couple of years ago when all this was milling about you'll see that they couldn't even agree what proportion of the shares that DH actually owned. This is a matter of legal fact and not vague assertion

rammywhite wrote:There's clearly an issue here which doesn't make any sense. I'm speaking as a chartered accountant with many years in practice (like LPPs dad) and there is a fundamental flaw in the arguments raised here.Its basically this- Holdsworth had no legal right to give a charge on the assets to BM . 
To place assets into charge  against a loan is a Board decision and must be agreed at Board level. It must be entered in the formal Register of Charges and witnessed as a contract with the company seal. That effectively means that the majority shareholder must agree to this. DH , although a 'part owner' as mentioned earlier in the thread was a minority shareholder and cannot agree to a charge on the assets. It simply can't be done. I'm a shareholder in quite  a few companies, including for the sake of an example, M&S. I can't go out and borrow £1million and give a charge against the assets of M&S as I have no power or authority to do so. The only collateral that DH could offer BM was his shares in BWFC ( or more correctly the holding company which I think is Burnden Leisure.. BM probably worked on the assumption that DH would get control over Burnden Leisure and that would allow him acting as the majority shareholder to create the charge. They needed better due diligence.
But he never got control- he sold out to KA eventually.
So I'd like one of you to explain to me how he managed to give  a charge on the assets when he was not in a position to do so. After BM asked for their money back they had recourse to DH or his company,but not against the football club.  That's unless KA accepted the charge and the loan from BM as part of the deal to get rid of him. I don't think he's that stupid. If you look at the Notes to the Accounts for a couple of years ago when all this was milling about you'll see that they couldn't even agree what proportion of the shares that DH actually owned. This is a matter of legal fact and not vague assertion

I agree and that was the question I was asking at the time all this came out - how could Holdsworth have done this?

The best guess anyone had was that for a brief period of time Holdsworth took on the club in its entirety from Davies - then signed the BluMarble deal - then entered into the formal partnership with Anderson.

I'll try and dig out some of the history about this but it might take me some time.

Ok, I've found this from Ken's Chairman's notes from the 8th Feb, 2017 -


The biggest challenge of all will be reaching a solution with Blu Marble and Sports Shield which could, in my opinion, save us several millions of pounds, but this is likely to go to litigation and unfortunately, may take several years to finalise.

For the record, I would also like to mention that I took no part in the original discussions with Blu Marble. Furthermore, the club does not have an agreement with Blu Marble; it has an agreement with Sports Shield and I am currently disputing the validity of this.

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2017/february/a-note-from-the-chairman-/

The charge document(Debenture) dated 10th March 2016, signed by Holdsworth and witnessed by Simon Marland, the clubs secretary.

(apologies as I'd thought that Marland was the signature and not the witness - as I stated above).

The Debenture is between Burnden Leisure and BluMarble -

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00335699/charges/QpS1PaxqCDFoBahSpmFGfsTnZCQ

Note - click on the view PDF link shown.

Also note the club takeover happened on the same day 10th March, 2016 -

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2016/march/club-statement2/

Ah found it!

(it was 16 days Holdsworth had to repay the initial BluMarble loan not 6 as I'd said above - but my memory wasn't that far off - anyway -

From the clubs official site - 9th Feb, 2017.

An update from Ken Anderson
I have seen the comments that Dean has made concerning my web notes and whilst I also do not wish to become embroiled in a public debate with him, (as I think that this is best done through our respective lawyers) there are certain elements of his comments that I believe I need to respond to.

This is a shame as like Dean, for the benefit of the club and the supporters, I would have preferred to keep the details of our dispute out of the press, but unfortunately, the filing of the accounts by Deloitte and recent events have made this impossible.

I do not accept that my comments were 'misleading and without foundation', I merely stated the facts, as I saw them.

In light of my openness to this matter, the accounts for the year ended 30 June 2015 are now available for supporters of the club to look at by CLICKING HERE.

Firstly, as I have learnt to expect from statements and comments from Dean over a period of time, he is very economical with the truth. On numerous occasions from the very outset, back in March 2016, when we both became directors/shareholders, Dean has been requested to personally contribute towards the club's ongoing funding requirements, alongside me.

However, he has always declined to contribute, even when he was full time employed (as the highest paid club employee, outside of players) and actively involved in the day-to-day operations, so fully aware of the club's financial position.

Once again, for the record, unlike Dean, who has taken substantial monies (circa £1.5m) out of the club, one way or the other, I have never taken a salary despite working virtually full time and tirelessly on both club and hotel matters.

Apart from when I have been away on holiday, I have attended virtually every home and away game this season. The same cannot be said for Dean, who has been conspicuous by his absence at many games and comments have been made by others about this.

Dean and I have discussed the sale of various players since day one. I do accept though that we did not specifically discuss Zach Clough on transfer deadline day. However, how else did he think the club could survive financially and pay the salaries and ongoing running costs, once he had made it absolutely clear that he was not prepared to fund the business alongside me?

He is more than welcome to contact me whenever he wishes to discuss football, or any other matters, but has chosen not to. Indeed, he has little or no contact with me, the manager or other staff. I have never stopped him talking to any of the staff.

As for his comments about not receiving financial information, this has been provided to him by both Anthony Massey and John Pelling in the past and is still readily available to him, but unfortunately, he has never made himself available to attend board meetings, despite numerous requests.

Furthermore, once we became suspicious that Dean might be leaking sensitive financial information, we took the decision to only make financial information available to him at the club premises or board meetings and not in emails etc. I am always prepared to meet with Dean on a weekly basis, or monthly at a board meeting to discuss anything if he so wishes.

Dean is and has always been aware of the club's ongoing current and past financial requirements, and was asked to contribute, alongside me again, only last week to help pay the salaries etc. But as is becoming the norm, he failed to respond to emails, (he is very selective in what he does and doesn't respond to) which therefore left me with little or no choice but to reluctantly sell Zach Clough, for the reasons I have previously explained.

Dean is correct in saying that the short term loans that I made to the club have subsequently been repaid, but at least l can say I have continuously advanced interest free, unsecured funds to the club to ensure that salaries etc were paid, whereas, he has declined, or failed to respond, on each and every occasion, that he was requested to assist.

The substantial monies that I have provided, as and when required, have been referred to in the notes to the accounts that Deloitte have now filed and which are available to download from our website.

Again, for the record, Dean has never put any personal money into the club. He did arrange with Michael Collins, a Sports Shield consultant and an associate of his (now serving a four years and three months prison sentence for mortgage fraud) a £4m loan to the club through his own company Sports Shield repayable in March 2018, but unlike my loans, he secured the loan on behalf of Blu Marble against club assets for £5m plus interest at 24% per annum.

Like my funds, this loan has to be repaid but at a cost of several million pounds in interest, arrangement and exit fees!

Dean failed to tell us that the loan he had obtained from BluMarble to Sports Shield on or about the 10th March 2016, was repayable (as I now understand and believe) on the 26th March 2016, only 16 days later, but subsequently changed, I now understand and believe to the 24th April 2016, at an interest rate of 30% per annum. This has also been referred to in the notes to the accounts filed by Deloitte, earlier this week.

Dean also failed to tell us at the time, about a subsequent side letter he/Sports Shield had signed with BluMarble.  As it currently stands, Sports Shield have failed to repay the BluMarble loan and are therefore, technically, as I understand it, in default and the club may be called upon in respect of the guarantees Dean/Sports Shield provided. I am disputing the validity and legality of these guarantees. This has been also referred to in the notes to the accounts, filed by Deloitte.

I find it very interesting that Dean should comment about 'prior approval of the board issues', as he personally and solely signed the loan agreement, on behalf of his company Sports Shield and also as a director, on behalf of the club (i.e. he signed solely, on behalf of both parties)  without my prior authorisation, or knowledge of the agreement, with no board meeting having ever taken  place, or anything  being minuted.

As previously stated, the legality of these documents are disputed by me and will be challenged through the courts.

As the notes to the accounts suggest, there are a number of post balance sheet items which are disputed between the directors and to which I have previously referred to, that will be the subject of future litigation. Unfortunately, until these are resolved, I am unable to comment on them, other than to say that in my opinion, they are not commercially prudent or in the club's best interests.

As regards, Dean's comments about the delays in completing the audit and filing of the accounts, I am happy to say that he is mainly to blame for this.

Ken

https://www.bwfc.co.uk/news/2017/february/chairmans-response-to-sports-shield-statement-and-accounts-year-ended-30-june-2015/

What? But how could Marland have witnessed such a document? Even as Club Secretary he wouldn't have the authority to do that on his own and the club couldn't legally give it to him since several of the assets mentioned already had a charge against them didn't they?

Either way I'd always operated under the assumption Holdsworth had done the same thing the Glazers did at Man Utd but he didn't if those documents are right. Basically Sportshield seems to have been created from thin air for the sole purpose of putting a lien on assets they did not own. Isn't that fraudulent? It smacks of 'obtaining goods (in this case the assets of Burnden Leisure) under false pretences' to me or am I misreading this?

Sluffy, my apologies, I'd assumed Sportshield and Dean had presented BluMarble with a business plan including projected income before securing the financing but it seems they just sort of walked in and said 'give us this dosh and if we don't pay you can have the assets'. How did BluMarble even justify granting the loan in these circumstances?

Something is rotten in Denmark... and I hope DeanO doesn't go to jail when it is sussed out.