Why Eddie keeps Phil in his job.

Bolton Wanderers' £100 million 'Middlebrook Masterplan' could be approved tomorrow.

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BOLTON Wanderers’ bid to build a £100 million sport, education and office development look set to be approved tomorrow.

The club announced last year its plans to create a new free sports academy, 200 apartments, a 60-bed hotel and huge office block with restaurants and hospitality suites as part of a grand “Middlebrook Masterplan”.

Also included in the scheme, submitted by Wanderers owners Burnden Leisure and the Bolton Middlebrook Leisure Trust, are plans to upgrade and reconfigure the Reebok Stadium, which is soon to be renamed the Macron Stadium.

The application was set to be decided in December, but councillors deferred a decision until more information was provided about the likely impact on traffic.

The town councils of Horwich, Blackrod and Westhoughton also objected to the application on these grounds — given there are plans in the pipeline for 1,700 homes at the former site of the Horwich Loco Works, as well as the approved Logistics North industrial development.

A report ahead of tomorrow’s meeting of the planning committee has recommended councillors approve the plans, despite fears it could affect other developments including the Church Wharf regeneration in the town centre, if a series of road improvements was agreed.

Planning officer Jon Berry said: “Officers consider that the scale, type and proportions of the uses proposed are compatible with the surrounding area and are unlikely to have any undue impact on Bolton town centre or other centres in the borough.

"The development would provide much needed investment and employment opportunities together with improvements to education, leisure and wider community facilities in an urban setting and in a sustainable location, all of which is broadly supported by current development plan policy.”

Improvements would be needed at the Spirit of Sport roundabout, the junction of Burnden Way and Stadium Way, the widening of the approach to junction six of the M61 and extending the De-Havilland Way and Chorley Road roundabout, officers stated.

•Follow our live blog from the planning meeting, which is due to start at 2pm tomorrow.

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SO why is this a reason for PG keeping his job?

Were is the money coming from to pay for all this? I assume the new buildings are going to be owned by a separate entity like a holding company as opposed to directly by burnden leisure?

I cant see how this benefits the club? I mean we are still gonna have the debt on us and FFP rules mean we cant just make money appear in the club - it has to be 'income' generated by the club  dont it?

You've fallen into the same trap as most other people do Rebel in that you think just about Bolton Wanderers - the truth is that Eddie Davies business empire is far greater than that and Burnden Leisure (which runs BWFC) is only a part of it.

Even Burnden Leisure of which Phil Gartside is the chairman has more than one 'company' to deal with, such as the hotel and the academy as well as the club itself.

If anyone looked at the board of BL, they would see it comprises of people who specialise in things such as property development and accountancy - not football!

Whilst all Bolton fans are concerned about is the club, the owners of the club are far more concerned about the business as a whole and will invest in areas that will make it profitable - and clearly the football side of the business running a debt of £160 million isn't!

If it was all about the club that Eddie Davies was interested in, Gartside would have gone a long time back - but clearly he has bigger fish to fry - hence Mr Gartside's continued tenure to bring about the massive property development which it now seems he as achieved.

I've no idea where the investment to develop the plan will come from but as long as Eddie owns the land - which I assume he does - he can easily either sell it off with planning permission, or go into joint partnership to develop the land, or finance it himself through the banks, or hedge funds, or other ways - whatever he ends up doing he is on to a winner!

Once he gets planning permission he can do whatever he wants (within the law obviously).

I'm sure as a businessman he would want to see the club make a profit but for now he clearly sees more profit for him from his other ventures such as this development - so I would imagine there won't be a great deal of investment into the club until he's seeing a return from his property plans.

So to summarise Gartside as delivered on Davies main priority - the property development - and that is why he's kept him as Chairman of Burnden Leisure - and paid him all that money over the last few years - despite the club being hugely in debt and being relegated.

QED.

Chris Amos is providing the catering for the new development.

Where's the new Mosque on that map?

There must be one......

What we have at BWFC is a simple but effective tax avoidance situation. Through EDs arrangements with the club he is creating a paper loss. That paper loss is carried over on to the books of the holding company, so any businesses in the holding company can now make a profit (and a massive profit at that) and never be subject to any UK tax. The only problem with the arrangement is FFP, which has put a small spanner in the works, but that can be and will be circumvented very soon by the sale of the proposed development to another company under ED's control which will be for an over-inflated price to offset our losses. 

The owner does not like paying tax. Look a where he moved to escape UK tax, so this arrangement by creating a trading loss to himself is nothing different that what I've used to help many rich people avoid paying nearly all there tax. Its a lot different today than a few years ago as tax avoidance is a taboo subject (and for us regular Joe's -quite disgusting) but it paid the bills for me and my family for many years.

Anyone that thinks the losses are out of control are simply not understanding of the situation going on. If PG was not doing a good job, Ed will have got rid of him a long time ago. They pay and employ people much smarted than most of us, so they know what they are doing. The question is what they are doing ethical? I would hazard a guess at no, but that would be the same for the majority of people in the wealth bracket of PG and ED

Let's say all the above is correct for a moment.  Shouldn't they hire a Chairman of Football activities and separate out Phil so that he can concentrate on whatever business away from football?
Or to put it another way ...does Phil spend 10% of his time on the part we are interested in and 90% on other business.  Well we don't really know but sounds like he is a busy lad.

It's a bit of an odd set up.

What is more usual - at least to me - is that you have people who work in an organisation (the paid employees) and the people who represent the owners interests (the board - or in the public sector, MP's, councillors).

The board sets the policy and direction of the business and the employees are paid to achieve them.

Mr Gartside is chairman of the board - so shouldn't get involved in the day to day running of the organisation - instead that should be the job highest paid employee - usualy known as the Chief Executive Officer - or something similar.

BWFC had until recently a CEO - Alan Duckworth - but he left his post when we got relegated - see link at the bottom of this post.  

Mr Duckworth's replacement however seems to be part of the current board - unless I've misunderstood - in which case in theory at least, he has something of a conflict of interest - in both setting his objectives - and also attempting to meet them too!

I guess as Eddie Davies more or less owns everything it doesn't matter too much as he will be telling the board what he wants anyway (and it is the board that tells the CEO what is required of his leadership - so it amounts to more or less the same thing anyway).

As Mr Duckworth, Mr Gartside and the new bloke are all accountants, it suggests to me that the running of the club under Mr Davies as always been more about financial control than footballing achievements.

Jah a few posts above gives an excellent view in to why the club as been allowed to run at a loss but I very much doubt even then that the plan was to be apparently the fourth indebted club in the whole world - so clearly not everything as gone accorsing to plan I would suggest.

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At the end of the day - and the point I'm trying to make - is that the owner sees the club as a business whereas most of the fans see the club as something like a religion and can not understand - nor forgive - when everything is not going perfectly on the pitch - hence all the abuse of Phil Gartside when in reality his boss - Eddie Davies - is obviously well pleased with how he's handled his business portfolio.






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Natasha Whittam wrote:Chris Amos is providing the catering for the new development.

Still awaiting the go-ahead  and then I will be employing Paul Heathcote and as such increasing the prices by about 400% - but the standard will still be as poor as ever and I will probably close between 25% and 50% of the stalls within the stadium and employ chimps instead of young teenagers!

My understanding re the club's announced debt was that it was at least in part due to procuring the land and putting together the planning application for this development.
If that is true, surely the property development and football sides of the business are in the same business entity?

If that is true, further costs for the development activity would appear on the clubs books in the short term thereby increasing the paper debt figure announced and future profits from the development would appear in the books in the longer term to reduce the debt until eventually we have a realistic picture of the club's financial position.

Am I wrong in my assumption i.e. is the development in a separate business entity?

3:08pm
Gone to a vote - it's APPROVED.

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Great! Hope BWFC reap the rewards

Does anyone else not really understand all this or am I just thick?

Me too, Breadman. But then that because I can't ever be bothered to finish anything I start to read about it. It's duller than Steve Wiggley.

Afternoon, Gotham.

Hope you're well, mate.

You going to start supporting that new "soccer" team in NY?

It's not being thick Bread - I know you're not - it is simply something that most people don't really come into much contact with - so maybe not following what is happening.

In simple terms - and please forgive me if this comes out somewhat patronising, it's not meant to be - in a business a simple rule of thumb to see what they are up to is to 'follow the money'.

Whether we like it or not, BWFC is seen by its owner as a business - not a toy like some such as Abramovich who doesn't mind wasting a fortune on it for his own personal pleasure - so it as to pay for itself - somehow.

Clearly - tax reasons aside - the club after more than a decade in the Premier did not make money - yes Davies did get a return on his investment by the 5% interest he charged - but with that kind of capital invested by him - circa £100 million - he could have done a lot better elsewhere.

Somewhere along the line he's seen an opportunity to invest in the land that I assume he bought along with the club - or maybe he has a 999 year lease on it or something - which will bring a much better return than him ploughing the same money into the club.

He's used Burnden Leisure to do just that and the person who basically runs BL for him is Mr Gartside.

I'm sure Mr Davies would want BWFC to be successful but given a choice to invest more into the club or the planning development, he clearly favoured the latter.

I very much doubt he's gone for this £100 million development to get around the FFP rules but there may be some clever financial ways to link the two and take advantage of it.

I would think the future of BWFC will be determined more by Mr Davies business portfolio and cash flow requirements, etc, than standing alone as a single entity - I think this can be evidenced by us not immediately stumping up a million for Juke if his transfer fee set by Boro is true (ok yes, there may be FFP implications too but I doubt that would have been a major stumbling block if Davies had sanctioned the spending).

In short most people simply see the club and the football, the picture that the owner sees is the club and the profit and loss account - and that is the reality we live with - whether we like it or not.

Hope this helps to explain things a bit more?

Cheers Sluff.

I fink I gets it now.......

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Sluffy wrote:It's not being thick Bread - I know you're not -

No, his first assumption was correct.

What does "assumption" mean?

Stop using big words.

Q: Does the reported £165 million debt include investment in land etc and preparation for this project - or not?

If it does our financial prospects are far better than they look currently and BWFC will reap the profit from this investment when it eventually comes to fruition - although the financial position will get worse before it gets better.