Tim

The board have a duty to do what is best for the shareholders and the club in general. If the board feel that an offer made for the club is not in either the shareholders or the clubs best interest then they do not have to reconmend the offer or allow the interested party to look at the books. The sheer fact that gillette wants to groundshare will mean any bid of his will be rejected immediately. Also with Moores being majority shareholder it's basically his agreement that is required for a takeover to be successful. Without his shares control cannot be obtained.

The club paid a fee for him. It was covered quite a bit a few months ago. Aurellio had already signed a pre-contract with a south american club and we had to pay them to get him. Bascombe did the story in the echo early season.

No he wasn't

Let's put it this way, our starting lineup cost as much as two of chelseas subs. I think their squad was (of what I can find) Cech (£9m) Cole (Gallas + £5m) Essien (£24m) Ferreira (£13.2m) Geremi (£7m) Robben (£12m) Ballack (Free) Lampard (£11m) Mikel (£16m) Drogba (£24m) Kalou Subs: Diarra Morais Schevchenko (£30m) Wright-Phillips (£21m) Hilario Total atleast £172.2m plus Gallas And just for the record our line-up Reina (£5m) Riise (£4.5m) Agger (£2.8m rising to £5.5m) Carragher (Free) Finnan (£3.5m) Aurellio (£2m, I think) Alonso (£10.7m) Gerrard (Free) Pennant (£6.5m) Crouch (£6m) Kuyt (£9m) Subs: Bellamy (£6m) Dudek (£4.85m) Fowler (Free, although could make an arguement for £13m receipt) Gonzalez (£4.5m) Hyypia (£3.5m) Total atleast £68.85m (possibly rising to £71.55m, and possibly dropping back down to £58.55m if cheeky enough to stick the £13m the club received for fowler )

Come on don't tell us you were expecting a journalist to get things right did you?

Year ending 2004 the club generated £12.5m from operating activities. Year ending 2005 the club generated £17m from operating activities.

The club generates c. £15m to £25m cashflows (before player acquisitions) per season. It was artificially low last reported financial year (while the debt was artificially high) because of the reebok issue. Had they paid up the cashflows would have been £7m higher and debt £7m lower. Also what do you mean by the comment in general? Do you mean the cashflows are low considering the size of the net debt, or that the net debt is low for the size of the cashflows? If the former then I don't agree. Having cash generation of equal to or great than your net debt is a very healthy position to be in. It shows that the debt is easily serviceable.

I think they scarpered when they saw how much newcastle are in debt (both the internationally recognised accounting method and the SMAM)

The rules state that intent can be punished aswell. As for the incident in question, whether alonso dived or not is irrelevant to an extent considering that silva's challenge was late. If you look at the replay you will see that he doesn't attempt the challenge until after alonso has knocked the ball forward. The intent, and subsequently infringement of the rules, was there for bennett to give the penalty. The fact that bennett was only a couple of yards away boggles the mind even more.

Come on the fa have enough on their plate investigating bolton and allardyce, in particular, as it is.

The adidas deal is worth about £12m basic plus bonuses. Deal is worth approx £17m with maximum bonuses.

Sometimes its just hilarious. Take the above article in the mail. It mentions that £65m will be used to refinance existing debt. Now I assume this to be the current assets less total liabilities figure used frequently. If it is I would love to see how they are going to refinance the advanced season ticket sales and sponsorship income.

Only 25% a year? That's only about £2.5m per year. The new tv deal will be adding upto £15m to profits and then there is the next tv deal. The grants are for the regeneration of the area, not for the stadium build. Most of that debt is for transfer fees, which, I believe cannot be paid early unless agreed with the other clubs involved. While the bank debt should be paid up by the end of the season, depending on what they have done in the last 18 months. Doesn't even total £300m, unless that are including the above £45m plus some other stuff which I can't see happening. I'm not sure what this £120m of existing debt is, if it the magical figure pumped around by morgan then it is bull, if it is a committment by the club for the initial stage of funding for the new stadium then fair enough. Adidas deal is worth minimum of £12m per season with upto £5m in bonuses. Not sure what that figure for carlsberg represents.

There are some inaccuracies in that article (or the echo article as not seen the echo article) and some bits don't add up. Something doesn't seem right about it.

Trouble is their assets are now only the can of beans and the turnip, Howard Kendell has drunk all the scotch.

I think one of the factors that need to be considered with riise is that he looked f***ing knackered towards the end of the blackburn game. He's played 131 games for us in the last 2 and a half seasons. Only Jamie Carragher has played more, and he doesn't play in a position that requires more or less constant running up and down the length of the pitch. There's no denying he's been poor this season, but given he's played in near enough every game for us these last 2 and a half seasons it isn't surprising his form may fall by the wayside.

There has only been an outline planning permission given for Anfield Plaza, mainly due to the fact work cannot start on it until after the new stadium opens anyway. I believe a fresh application would have to be put in for the Plaza development. There's over 2 years to get a finalised planning application sorted and accepted for the development. I think millsee might be able to clarify that for me.

Exactly, we're talking about well over £112m per year in either profits (or free cashflows) or capital appreciation of the club. The only way I can see that happening is with a stadium not paid for by loans and with a very significant increase in other operations. The club currently has free cashflows of about £20m to £25m per season. Increasing it by 560% is going to take a miracle, especially while the tv deal is a collective thing.

Stopped reading there. Alan Nixon is a tw*t

The problem with that is that the corporation tax bands get split between the number of associates in a UK Tax Group. So if both were making profits, they would be getting taxed more, although not too much more given the 30% tax band starts at £1.5m.

But if you pay by cash the rental income is yours, not the banks (in effect), and you also get the capital back when you sell the house. Just for arguements sake put some numbers to it. At the moment a £125,000 mortgage requires monthly repayments of about £750 over 25 years. Option 1. Receive £750 per month in rental income, over 25 years this equates to £225,000, this goes straight to yourself (less tax) plus you also have an asset worth £125,000 (or more/less depending on market factors). Option 2. Receive £750 and then pay it straight to a bank. This leaves you with just an asset worth £125,000 (more/less depending on market factors) Also with Option 1 there is less chance of going into negative equity on the investment.

Which paper?

Different scenarios there Matt. Glazer borrowed money to buy united, he was borrowing well over the value of the clubs assets, banks wouldn't lend the money to him, hence the reason why he went to hedge funds (he still has around £140m from hedge funds). We would have been borrowing for a capital project that would increase revenue streams. Comparing to Arsenal would have been more appropriate. During construction they borrowed at 7.79%, mainly due to the risk involved during construction, they have now managed to refinance it to below 6%, fixed, on the bulk of the debt. You point out that reducing the amount of initial capital outlay to reduce the payback period, however once the new stadium is complete the valuation of the club will adjust accordingly, more so if there were to be no debt. That would secure their capital while, depending on future cashflows etc, they could still get a return on their investment from dividends, if that is the route they wanted to go down. We will have to wait for any official offer document to see what the deal entails and what their intentions are. But I don't see why they would want to borrow to fund the new stadium, especially if their aim is to get LFC to get on a level footing, financially, with chelsea and to get us back at the top of the league.

Why do you say that? Don't just put a crass comment like that and not explain it. Please tell me why you think I don't know what I am talking about. Let's look at this from the clubs point of view. If the deal is for the club to borrow the money for the stadium, either from DIC or from a syndicate of banks, then why are they looking for investment? If the club can fund the deal via loans then there is no need for the club to be sold. The stadium will generate in the region of £30m per season in extra revenue, while debt repayments will be in the region of £20m per season. Why don't the club just go it alone and get loans, thus the club stays in the same hands as present while getting a new stadium? Instead the club are going for investment, from the clubs point of view this is potentially the cheapest way to fund the new stadium development. By not having loans there isn't all that interest to pay back, the short term funding requirements are no longer a worry. It will also produce a club that will, arguably, be the most self sufficient football club in the world. It won't be like chelsea where it needs vast capital injections year in year out from it's owner. It won't be like arsenal and the mancs in being saddled with masses of debt. It will be a debt free club, with a very healthy balance sheet and P&L. Let's look at it from DICs point of view now. There are two choices for the stadium, debt or equity. Debt is risky, it MUST be paid back. With equity there is a choice whether to pay dividends. There is also capital appreciation of the value of the club. By funding the stadium by debt the balance sheet won't change much from the way it looks now, but if done via equity the net assets of the club will be £200m higher than they are now. DIC may want a return, most investors tend to want returns, so where will this come from? The main bulk will be from capital appreciation. How much the value goes up by depends on how the club is valued. If based on assets then it will go up by £200m when the new stadium opens. If by free cash flows then the capital appreciation there will potentially be much higher, there are prospects that the club could have in excess of £50m/£60m in free cashflows each season when the new stadium opens. If the club is saddled with debt this comes down by £20m. 90% is the threshold, it depends on whether the minority shareholders like fyds are willing to sell up.

Morgan seemed to suggest that DIC would borrow the money, not DIC lending the club the money.