[skyclad99]

sadly, the protest thing is not going to make any difference at all. Lai does not turn up to games and has never shown much interest in the club (partly because it is a long quarantine period in China for Covid). The games are not shown on TV in China so not even an embarrassment for him there.

Two points on that, it is likely that the games will be seen in China, but may be censored due to banners, and secondly they will be widely broadcast around the world and not censored, and the Chinese will not like that as it is out of their control.
It just needs to be out there that he is a terrible owner who is using us as his own bank. Once word is out there then it is likely to have an impact as the Chinese monitor everything for anti Chinese views.
If you can’t be bothered as you think it will be pointless then we deserve everything we get....

[graka]

Two points on that, it is likely that the games will be seen in China, but may be censored due to banners, and secondly they will be widely broadcast around the world and not censored, and the Chinese will not like that as it is out of their control.
It just needs to be out there that he is a terrible owner who is using us as his own bank. Once word is out there then it is likely to have an impact as the Chinese monitor everything for anti Chinese views.
If you can’t be bothered as you think it will be pointless then we deserve everything we get....

I think a lot of people are bothered but the odd little banner won’t do any good
Something akin to what I think charlton did a few years ago by every fan sneaking a tennis ball in and throwing it onto the pitch or something similar during a live match might have more impact
You then unfurl your banners while the stewards are busy collecting the said tennis balls and all on live tv

[skyclad99]

I think a lot of people are bothered but the odd little banner won’t do any good
Something akin to what I think charlton did a few years ago by every fan sneaking a tennis ball in and throwing it onto the pitch or something similar during a live match might have more impact
You then unfurl your banners while the stewards are busy collecting the said tennis balls and all on live tv

That’s more like it!👍

[tambag]

lias
@EliasBurke
▪️ #WBA looking for new auditors
▪️ PwC's replacement will be Albion's fourth auditor in seven years
▪️ Lai intends to use a dividend to repay the £7million he has borrowed from the club and its parent company for his businesses in China

Using the clubs own money via a dividend (in other words holding money back to make a profit to pay the dividend)  to pay his own loan would be the last straw, this owner has to go.

[SmethDan]

lias
@EliasBurke
▪️ #WBA looking for new auditors
▪️ PwC's replacement will be Albion's fourth auditor in seven years
▪️ Lai intends to use a dividend to repay the £7million he has borrowed from the club and its parent company for his businesses in China

Using the clubs own money via a dividend (in other words holding money back to make a profit to pay the dividend)  to pay his own loan would be the last straw, this owner has to go.

Hugely predictable if so....... sadly.

[NJS]

lias
@EliasBurke
▪️ #WBA looking for new auditors
▪️ PwC's replacement will be Albion's fourth auditor in seven years
▪️ Lai intends to use a dividend to repay the £7million he has borrowed from the club and its parent company for his businesses in China

Using the clubs own money via a dividend (in other words holding money back to make a profit to pay the dividend)  to pay his own loan would be the last straw, this owner has to go.

Have those auditors walked away after qulifying the accounts?

[gazberg]

Time to continually make our feelings known

[gazberg]

That's the 5m gone we were told he was repaying in Jan then

[AlbionFan]

My understanding is that S4A are in the process of making an Application to Register the Hawthorns as and Asset of Community Value (ACV)

[baggiejohn]

Let's wait & see.

PWC have been auditors since 2017. (from companies house website)

As things stand from what we know, to make a profit that would generate a £7 million dividend, GL would have to either, put aside £7 million from parachute payments or raise £7 million from the sale of assets (players or the Hawthorns).

For a Chairman who has expressed a serious desire to build a promotion team, neither option makes a lot of sense.

[baggiejohn]

My understanding is that S4A are in the process of making an Application to Register the Hawthorns as and Asset of Community Value (ACV)

What does that mean?

[MarkW]

What does that mean?

It was discussed on the previous page

http://westbrom.com/forum/index.php?topic=15777.msg870730#msg870730

[Dan]

Let's wait & see.

PWC have been auditors since 2017. (from companies house website)

As things stand from what we know, to make a profit that would generate a £7 million dividend, GL would have to either, put aside £7 million from parachute payments or raise £7 million from the sale of assets (players or the Hawthorns).

For a Chairman who has expressed a serious desire to build a promotion team, neither option makes a lot of sense.

He hasn't really though has he? Indeed, we were so desperate to get whatever money we could we sold our prize asset for at least 10m less than he was worth then tried to rattle through the season using a couple of frees and chepa.

This was always going to be the danger if we didn't get promoted. The only way he would even get remotely close to what he paid is by us being an established premier league team again, which you pretty much need significant owner investment to do nowadays (or be extremely well run and innovative like Brentford). So with promotion unlikely, we are now in a very dangerous place where the only way to get money before selling is to extract it through other means.

The warning signs were there from Lai thinking we were an investment in the first place, considering the clubs entire worth at that time was entirely predicated on TV money and without any investment planned we were always liable to be relegated at some point. China's economy taking a hit now, particularly ongoing in the leisure business Lai works in is only going to exacerbate everything.

[gazberg]

Yeah Lai's words are one thing, his actions directly oppose them usually.

Generally in terms of dividends (i trade the US stock market, i don't do dividend stocks though) you will do very well to find a solid company paying out 8% of it's profit per year in dividends at best. Many big company dividends are around 3-4% per annum, now i'm not sure whether that is because of market restrictions though or just companies, by choice, limiting how much they pay out to the shareholder ( In this case Lai basically).

I believe we made approximately 100k in the PL Covid season 20-21 and i expect us to turn a profit last yea (21-22)r as well when released but nowhere near £7m and the bigger question is even if we did make £6.9m last season to make it 7m total profit over 2 seasons can he pay himself 88% of the profit?

As things stand we are not publicly traded so perhaps he can do what he wants. I don't know.

Anyone with superior dividend stock knowledge know?

[baggiejohn]

To pay a dividend (to all shareholders), a company has to make a profit.

Profits have tax implications.

Once you've made provision to meet your tax commitments, any profit left can be paid as a dividend.

The process is pretty simple, it's how to get there that can be complex.

[johnny Cash]

Is corp tax still 19%?

If so, we will need to clear roughly 10m in profit before tax, to allow him to pay £8m in dividends to gain £7m (88%/ £7m to himself & 12%/£1m to S4A)

[gazberg]

To pay a dividend (to all shareholders), a company has to make a profit.

Profits have tax implications.

Once you've made provision to meet your tax commitments, any profit left can be paid as a dividend.

The process is pretty simple, it's how to get there that can be complex.

John I understand what you have said, i was just unsure whether there were regulations surrounding how much of a dividend could be paid out per annum from profits. Seems not which is worrying. Thanks for clearing it up!

[Jeremy Roland Peace]

Time to continually make our feelings known

that was happening at the Burnley game until the drummer in the Smethwick decided to bang his drum so hard and out of tune the chant died slowly

[gazberg]

that was happening at the Burnley game until the drummer in the Smethwick decided to bang his drum so hard and out of tune the chant died slowly

Someone needs to bang him on the head then 

[zac]

lias
@EliasBurke
▪️ #WBA looking for new auditors
▪️ PwC's replacement will be Albion's fourth auditor in seven years
▪️ Lai intends to use a dividend to repay the £7million he has borrowed from the club and its parent company for his businesses in China

Using the clubs own money via a dividend (in other words holding money back to make a profit to pay the dividend)  to pay his own loan would be the last straw, this owner has to go.

I can't believe he is going to do this, unreal. Like others have said now is the time to make our feelings known, this can't continue.

[darby009]

Is corp tax still 19%?

If so, we will need to clear roughly 10m in profit before tax, to allow him to pay £8m in dividends to gain £7m (88%/ £7m to himself & 12%/£1m to S4A)

Not quite true, different classes of share holders can receive different levels of dividends.

I don’t know if this is the case, but if Lai holds ‘A’ class shares and S4A hold ‘B’ class then it is entirely possible and legal to announce that you are only paying a dividend to A class share holders.

[bidbaggie]

Let's wait & see.

PWC have been auditors since 2017. (from companies house website)

As things stand from what we know, to make a profit that would generate a £7 million dividend, GL would have to either, put aside £7 million from parachute payments or raise £7 million from the sale of assets (players or the Hawthorns).

For a Chairman who has expressed a serious desire to build a promotion team, neither option makes a lot of sense.

You can pay a dividend out of retained earnings so there is no need for him to have to do this - the profit generated does not have to be in the same year.

From a very quick glance at the accounts, there is enough in the brought forward kitty to do this. Paying a dividend would just then become an accounting exercise which would repay the loan back - the only cash that then needs to come out of the business would be the portion payable to the minority shareholders.

[boinging_along]

I can't believe he is going to do this, unreal. Like others have said now is the time to make our feelings known, this can't continue.

Not sure what difference it makes.  If he paid back the £7m from his own money it just means he'll still take the £7m dividends and pocket that. 

[Baggie79]

I can see Gourlay leaving if this keeps happening, he can only try and defend so much c**p that Lai and his cronies push his way. This is a shame because by all accounts he wants the best for the club and has done some very good things thus far.

[tlms-p23]

As much as I'd love to see protests in the hope of nipping Lai in the bud and preventing the **** from turning us into Blues, Derby or worse, the Albion fanbase are respectful and largely placid.

IMO it will take things going wrong on the pitch to cause large scale, well organised, mobilised group of supporters intent on damaging his name and reputation to the extent that he chooses to cut his loses. An ugly fight but absolutely necessary if we want him gone.