Tim

only when it's by alonso

I think it's probably worth pointing out here that they probably had an agreement that there wouldn't be any repayments during the year. Instead interest will be due on the anniversary, at which point they'll refinance with the interest capitalised onto the original principal amount. The only thing the exchange rate will be effecting is the guarantee value.

the $/£ rate is back below $2/£ and has been for the past 10 days atleast. The $ is strengthening again, while the £ is weakening, as the markets anticipate some big rate cuts on both sides of the atlantic in 2008. But currency risk will be one of the main reasons why they want to secure as much of the debt on the clubs assets. By doing this they are reducing the risk of fluctuations in the rate of exchange.

confirmed by .tv http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/drilldown/N...071221-1815.htm

Long term libor rates are heading south at the moment, there is a general perception that rates will plummet in 2008 so it's not an interest rate issue (5 year Swap rate has been down near 5.17% this week). The issue is the main cost of the stadium, it seems to have just got too expensive. As for the combined sponsorship deal. Assuming we went for a similar type of deal as arsenal then over a similar period LFC would more than likely improve on the £100m. We already earn more from shirt sponsorship than arsenal do, and they are tied in for another 6 years. We get to renew in a couple of seasons. Stadium sponsorship I don't think would be too dependent on location. It'll be more to do with general exposure, of which LFC would get an awful lot.

arsenal did not get £90m for stadium naming rights. It's a common misconception. They got £45m

Nothing like pessimism is there. Why would you even think that were the case? Especially when it is only a month since the club got conditional planning permission from LCC for this new design.

Chances are they did one of 3 things, 1. Borrowed in sterling as the shareholders had to be paid in sterling (most likely option) 2. Borrowed in dollars then swapped (via a xcurr IRS) it to sterling in which case they've hedged the currency risk 3. Borrowed in dollars then went down their local travellex (or a bog standard fx) and swapped it to sterling. And as a result of the weakening dollar means that they need less sterling now to convert to the required dollars to pay back their loans (at the time of the takeover £174m was about $330m, now it is around $360m) In hindsight option 3 would have been best at present market conditions, however it is a very risky strategy. Option 2 is feasible, although that may be what they are doing with the refinancing. Option 1 is most likely, especially as all funding came from RBS.

I think bascombe has been pissed off since he ran the DIC stories and then didn't get invited to the G&H takeover press conference. Funny really that this story only comes out a week after the club have more or less secured full planning permission for the revised stadium.

It seemed to get changed back yesterday for some reason. But I'd say it's deffo gone to the DCLG for approval. Someone might have just jumped the gun a little with it.

I'd imagine so given that it's being sent to the DCLG (with a subject to legal agreement attached to it)

Liverpool city council, or planning committe atleast, have made their decision. The final approval is now down to the Department for communities and local government, subject to a legal agreement (s106???)

hey wouldn't you do the same if you thought it was gary neville right there in front of you? (this will only make sense to those who have seen Kuyt's bbc interview)

the new stadium has taken a big step forward. It has been recommended that planning permission be given. I think it has now been referred to the Secretary of State.

Erm, 4 goals in 5 starts. Not bad really.

But there will be a relatively large increase in corporate seating (7,500 at a new 60,000 seater stadium compared to 2,000 presently) . That will push up the average ticket price.

Their £200m turnover is broken down as £90.6m ticket receipts (equating to an average of £60 per ticket sold) £44.3m media revenues £12.1m merchandise £29.5m commercial £23.8m retail £0.5m player trading (not sure what this is though). As for their "operating profit of £50.2m (excluding depreciation and amortisation)", well that isn't operating profit. Operating profit actually stood at £23.4m In comparison in the last set of our accounts lfc's turnover is broken down as: £32.6m matchday revenues £49.8m media revenues (this should increase with extended run in european cup last season) £35.6m in commercial revenues (this will increase from this season with the increase in carlsberg deal).

The club will be putting in to Anfield plaza around £25m to redevelop it. I'd imagine then that they would have that on their books as an asset unless they decided to sell/lease it.

They still have £135m of PIK debt to hedge funds (before any interest capitalisation).

It wasn't a done deal. Once the period of exclusivity was over Gillett and Hicks were free to make an offer for the club. And as stewards of the club the board of directors had a duty to examine the offer and then reconmend to the shareholders which offer they believed should be taken. Had they not examined the offer from Gillett and Hicks then they would have been negligent in their duties and could then have been challenged by shareholders (ITV and Morgan would have kicked up a big fuss at losing £500 per share).

What do you think most people do to buy a house? 5 times the income is not an issue, depending on the rate environment. Besides it would be more like 2.5 times the income not 5 times (the club have earnt around £120m in income per year for the last 3 years with that likely to be the minimum for the next 3 years atleast (£15m more from tv, £2m to £3m more from carlsberg). While when the new stadium opens the revenue will probably be jumping by upto £50m per season on present figures (depending on stadium capacity and sponsorship), probably more. Which would put turnover at around the £200m mark.

No it isn't. Supposedly that debt from the purchase of the club isn't to be repaid for another 18 months so why refinance now at a time where LIBOR rates are at their highest levels for going on 10 years? The refinancing is to get it all put together with the stadium financing to get better terms in rate and duration. At present I believe they are paying around 1.5% above bank base rate for the loans they have at present which puts the interest rate at around 7.25%. If they can bundle that into the stadium financing as part of a wider capital project then they are more than likely to get a more favourable rate, the issue at the moment is that money on the markets is getting hard to come by while the sub-prime issues continue. What the club would likely have done is take out a bridging loan for the period of construction (but with a long duration) and they would then refinance it when the stadium opens with a bond issue to get the terms favourable to the club. But as this credit crunch continues the financial institutions will be asking for the club to put more equity into the project than they may have done initially. This will mean that naming rights are a nailed on certainty (with much, or all, of the money being paid in advance which would be atleast £45m I'd say) and they would probably start looking for deposits for corporate seats etc to bring in some more. Then as planning permission is granted for a 70,000+ stadium (if done immediately) they would look to extend the initial fund raising (for arguments sake £100 per seat to reserve a season ticket, with 50,000 season tickets bringing in £5m, more from the corporate section). The banks are just looking to reduce their exposure to the credit crunch.

You don't need a fan card to buy tickets, although it is advisable. Even with supporters clubs you haven't needed fan cards to buy tickets (alot of the time the ticket office ignored the fan card details and just put it through the branch name and number). The deadline for applications for AIB has been around 40 days, a good couple of weeks fewer than the two months you mention, and applications can be faxed.

Not sure about that, everyone has the same opportunity to apply for tickets. All supporters club's branches have been having their allocations cut over recent seasons, last summer the club sent branches a short questionaire on which they would rather have, full allocation for a few games or a much reduced allocation for most, if not all, games.

Until a couple of years ago it would have cost pubs about a quarter of what they pay today for sky sports, but then sky decided to quadruple the cost (sound familiar? just exactly what they tried to do to virgin with sky one etc) and pubs couldn't really do much about it, hence the reason why alot of pubs were going to the arab channels. Sky have been trying to cash in on their dominant position for years and until this year they've not had competition to stop them doing it.