BoltonTillIDie wrote:He chose to own us. I wouldn’t take over a company I knew was in a financial mess, knowing I didn’t have the funds to sort the mess out.
He chose to buy a club with Dean Holdsworth, who would bring £5m to put into it and keep it running for a season whilst he took action to financially turn it around as quickly as he could, sell it for a profit, split the profit and move on. At least the was the plan.
Instead Holdsworth simply borrowed £5m from the club itself (he borrowed using the clubs assets as security), which meant Anderson had to make £5m on selling the club just to break even - and if he did that (and say made a £1m profit on top) then why, when he's done all the hard/dirty work to turn the club financially around and make it successful enough to earn a further £6m on top, should he just get a paltry £500k for it (£6m less £5m to repay the loan, leaving £1m profit of which Holdsworth is due half)? Why should Holdsworth get anything really?
Turning a business around doesn't always mean you throw money at it, in the case of BWFC it was more to do with massively slashing expenditure (players on stupidly high wages, ridiculous negotiated contracts like obviously the Heathcote one, and renegotiating with existing creditors, deferred payments, etc, etc) and also increase income (all the begging pleas to buy shirts, attend games, etc, and find new income streams such as the concerts and rugby games).
The plan turned to shit though right from the start when Holdsworth brought nothing to the table and instead of having £5m of working capital where things have been done in partnership it turned instead into Anderson doing all the work paying back the first £5 million to the club to keep the asset in was secured against, then having to pay over half of any profit to Holdsworth for doing fuck all.
Does that seem fair to you?
He obviously couldn't sell the club with Holdsworth still as his partner taking half of whatever profit he would eventually get, so had to a ) get shut of Holdsworth, b ) clear the £5m loan Holdsworth lumbered on the club and c ) keep the club solvent - all whilst not wanting to fund it out of his own pocket.
It took the first season to buy out Holdsworth, the second start to deal with turning the club around and this season to sell it.
Eddie Davies kept the club going from his back pocket during this time but once he died it was only a matter of which would eventually happen first - someone buying the club, or the club running out of money.
We hear stories of buyers not wanting to deal with Anderson - they may even be true - but there is always the other side to the story too.
Buyers would want a good deal for themselves, obviously, they would know enough that the club was in financial difficulties and looking for a quick deal, so no doubt they look to buy cheap - maybe he just told them to fuck off - he knows there are enough people who would lose more than him if the club was allowed to fail - so he uses that to his own advantage.
Nothing personal, just business as they say.
And that's where we find ourselves today.
Did Ken plan three years ago to be in this position when he took on the club?
I very much doubt it.
I suspect he's only here because the partnership with Holdsworth fell apart from day one.
Would we be in the shit if Eddie hadn't died, I doubt it again. It's clear with him loaning against Anderson's ownership of the club that some sort of exit strategy for Anderson to move on from the club was being laid and that no doubt Eddie would have put his hand in his pocket again.
Anderson has been here through circumstances more than deliberate intent as far as I can see.
No doubt he's done really well for himself whilst being here but I doubt very much he set off to be here for three years and he certainly didn't have any intent of throwing his personal money at the club.
The strangest thing I find in all of this is how Holdsworth, who took out the toxic BM loan on club assets in the first place and who walked off with something like £1m from the club as seemingly got away without any criticism whatsoever from nearly everyone - and that's because the likes of Iles and the ST have gone out of their way to protect his involvement in all of this and lay all the blame on Anderson instead.
Just goes to show how much the social media 'influencers' like Iles have over the gullible and the naive who believe every word they are told rather than thinking for themselves.
Far easier following the crowd and taking everything as gospel I suppose?
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