Author Topic: Guochuan Lai  (Read 2349426 times)

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labaggies

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #100 on: February 20, 2015, 02:13:06 PM »

It will make my season when Peace finally sells up, all he has even wanted was to cash in his shares and move on. I will happily risk losing him, as I am positive that we could find a real Albion man to look after the club.

Peace an Albion supporter, I don't think so.

My worry though, even though he would never admit it, is that he will sell out to whoever offers the most cash.

Unfortunately, he will never find anyone to offer the kings ransom that he wants.

Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....
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AlbionFan

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #101 on: February 20, 2015, 02:31:23 PM »
It will make my season when Peace finally sells up, all he has even wanted was to cash in his shares and move on. I will happily risk losing him, as I am positive that we could find a real Albion man to look after the club.

Just read your post and we are all entitled to have an opinion, but to help me understand where you are coming from, could you clarify the following for me please:- 

Peace an Albion supporter, I don't think so.

My worry though, even though he would never admit it, is that he will sell out to whoever offers the most cash.

Unfortunately, he will never find anyone to offer the kings ransom that he wants.

Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....

all he has even wanted was to cash in his shares and move on
What evidence do you have to support this statement?

I am positive that we could find a real Albion man to look after the club.
Perhaps you could provide some suitable names?

Peace an Albion supporter, I don't think so.
On what grounds do you base this statement?

My worry though, even though he would never admit it, is that he will sell out to whoever offers the most cash.
You said you were happy to lose him,so why are you worried about how much he gets for his club?

Unfortunately, he will never find anyone to offer the kings ransom that he wants.
How much is this Kings ransom he wants for his club?

Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....
What has Jack Hayward got to do with it?
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #102 on: February 20, 2015, 06:37:52 PM »
It will make my season when Peace finally sells up, all he has even wanted was to cash in his shares and move on. I will happily risk losing him, as I am positive that we could find a real Albion man to look after the club.

Peace an Albion supporter, I don't think so.

My worry though, even though he would never admit it, is that he will sell out to whoever offers the most cash.

Unfortunately, he will never find anyone to offer the kings ransom that he wants.

Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....

I think you will be very disappointed with the new owners whoever they are.

They will almost certainly not be fans nor will they be a benign benefactor like Haywood. Football clubs change hands for buttons because they are financial basket cases which are free to a good home (or any home good or bad), the Albion are not in that position and Peace will want the best price he can get for the club. Yes you are stuck with him for the time being.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #103 on: February 20, 2015, 06:49:31 PM »
Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....

With respect that is an absurd statement. No he isn't. Sir Jack was a unique and generous benefactor. Peace is an astute businessman. No comparison and no disrespect to either.

Be careful what you wish for, peeps.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #104 on: February 20, 2015, 06:58:17 PM »
Interesting to read through the list of owners, their assets, and their sources of wealth:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_football_club_owners
« Last Edit: February 20, 2015, 07:01:37 PM by garry »

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #105 on: February 20, 2015, 07:20:31 PM »
People who call themselves fans have poor memories . We spent years out of the top flight just dreaming of being there . This club of ours isn't a man city Liverpool arsenal etc . Our peak crowds are 27 k . We are mixing it with the big boys . I don't want a dodgie owner . Think blues wolves Coventry Portsmouth and so on . And btw the club has been up for sale for years , I don't see a queue of buyers waiting outside . The reason is we are run properly and if the chairman makes a few bob that his business . As long has we compete on the pitch and stay in the premier I hope he is here for years .

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #106 on: February 20, 2015, 07:50:36 PM »
People who call themselves fans have poor memories . We spent years out of the top flight just dreaming of being there . This club of ours isn't a man city Liverpool arsenal etc . Our peak crowds are 27 k . We are mixing it with the big boys . I don't want a dodgie owner . Think blues wolves Coventry Portsmouth and so on . And btw the club has been up for sale for years , I don't see a queue of buyers waiting outside . The reason is we are run properly and if the chairman makes a few bob that his business . As long has we compete on the pitch and stay in the premier I hope he is here for years .

Totally agree with you. There is much that irritates me about Jeremy Peace. He is stubborn and through a lack of communication has unnecessarily alienated fans. I think at times he has shown a lack of ambition (others will disagree but I for one think we should expand the stadium - we could and should be pulling crowds of 30k). However, he was done an awful amount that is good for this club and deserves a lot of credit (the latest being appointing TP - a fantastic decision). I would not swap him!

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #107 on: February 20, 2015, 08:17:49 PM »
The big news in this announcement is that JP has increased his shareholding to 88.8% (he only had 77.3% after the tender offer ended last July, so somebody/bodies has recently him a substantial number of shares).

As a result he is now within touching distance of the magic 90% threshold needed to be able to compulsorily purchase the remaining shares.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #108 on: February 20, 2015, 08:44:06 PM »
People who call themselves fans have poor memories . We spent years out of the top flight just dreaming of being there . This club of ours isn't a man city Liverpool arsenal etc . Our peak crowds are 27 k . We are mixing it with the big boys . I don't want a dodgie owner . Think blues wolves Coventry Portsmouth and so on . And btw the club has been up for sale for years , I don't see a queue of buyers waiting outside . The reason is we are run properly and if the chairman makes a few bob that his business . As long has we compete on the pitch and stay in the premier I hope he is here for years .

I believe Thompson was the chairman/owner when we went up. JP has already made many millions from the club treating them so called share holding fans with contempt. My wish would be for the club to be run in the way Swansea are but alas they are the only ones in the prem set up like that.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #109 on: February 20, 2015, 09:40:58 PM »
I have no doubt old jeremy is. One shrewd cookie . To make mega bucks you have to be tough . My point is that you could have far worse than jeremy . One thing we do know is that we will still have a club , next week , next year etc etc . To my list of comparisons I forget a very big club , Glasgow rangers  .He ain't perfect but we could have much worse .

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #110 on: February 21, 2015, 01:30:29 PM »
Interesting to note that the talks between investors and Swansea mentioned earlier in the thread have come to nothing and having done a bit of digging it has been suggested by not completely uninformed sources that the valuation that was discussed was something in the region of £100m. Obviously the deal is not going to happen whether the price put the potential buyers off or there were other issues I don't know but it is an interesting benchmark. 
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overseas baggie

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #111 on: February 21, 2015, 01:34:43 PM »
Interesting to note that the talks between investors and Swansea mentioned earlier in the thread have come to nothing and having done a bit of digging it has been suggested by not completely uninformed sources that the valuation that was discussed was something in the region of £100m. Obviously the deal is not going to happen whether the price put the potential buyers off or there were other issues I don't know but it is an interesting benchmark.

They were seemingly only looking at buying a 30% stake! not a controlling interest, which tends to result in more room to disagree over the share value.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #112 on: February 21, 2015, 01:54:36 PM »
They were seemingly only looking at buying a 30% stake! not a controlling interest, which tends to result in more room to disagree over the share value.

Agreed there is the added complication of the Swansea Supporters Trust who own 21% of the club and actually have first refusal on any share that is sold (not that they have the resources to buy them at the moment), there are other issues in that they don't own the stadium and one of the reasons why they are looking for external investment is they have aspirations to acquire it, which might not be a priority for the new investors. There are all sorts of reasons why a deal would not happen 
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #113 on: February 21, 2015, 02:27:11 PM »
I have wondered if a fans trust might be an option at the Albion.

Accepting there is no mega rich baggie out there and the average fans ability to contribute significantly is negligable, perhaps a long term operation is the way forward.

The Trust would be formed with one objective only, which is to accumulate funds over an extended period and buy shares as funds permit. Ok it would be a long term objective and would start from an exceedingly low base, however everything has to start somewhere. With upto 30k "shareholders / members" there should be lots of ideas for funding streams, participation.

Could this be an initiative for the Independent Albion supporters trust?

I imagine the chairman would be hostile to this sort of thing, however as much as I admire what he has done to date, he represents a risk, if he cannot find a buyer / investor will he start to pull away his funds and leave the club weakened?

We need to start planning for this risk IMO.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #114 on: February 21, 2015, 02:36:13 PM »
The reason is we are run properly and if the chairman makes a few bob that his business . As long has we compete on the pitch and stay in the premier I hope he is here for years .

I echo this. Might not agree with or like everything he has done and in business as in life you will always get different views but he has, I believe, WBA at heart. it is his business and if he takes a large income that is his prerogative. All I hope is that if he does find a buyer, which I think he will struggle to do,  it is to a buyer who will look to take the club to the next level, whatever that level is!!!

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #115 on: February 21, 2015, 02:53:46 PM »
Much as I like the idea of an Albion Supporters trust owning a significant stake in the club unfortunately supporters never get their hands on successful clubs. Swansea were virtually going to wall when the supporters picked up their stake and the same with Portsmouth.

It is a massive effort to organise and launch and while the club is not about to die it is very difficult to galvanise fans to back this sort of project. 
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #116 on: February 21, 2015, 05:12:34 PM »
It will make my season when Peace finally sells up, all he has even wanted was to cash in his shares and move on. I will happily risk losing him, as I am positive that we could find a real Albion man to look after the club.

Peace an Albion supporter, I don't think so.

My worry though, even though he would never admit it, is that he will sell out to whoever offers the most cash.

Unfortunately, he will never find anyone to offer the kings ransom that he wants.

Sir Jack Haywood he isn't.....


Much as I can appreciate your desire for a proper baggie to take over at Albion, I would suggest that probability is against it. As I have mentioned previously, it is very very very hard to sell big sporting assets, even to people who can unquestionably afford them.  When you then tell the broker that they have to narrow down their universe to just Albion fans it becomes so much harder still.  It would be analogous to  asking an estate agent to sell your £10m house for you but then saying that it can only be sold to a buyer with one leg and purple hair.

A few stats might help. I would stress that each of these are probably miles out but the general direction is helpful:

We are looking for someone who:

1. Has the money to buy Albion
2. Has the desire to use that money to buy Albion
3. Is an Albion fan

 1. How many people have the money to buy Albion?  We don't know how much JP wants for the club but most people on here suggest £100m. Let's take that as the correct figure. I would imagine that labaggies doesn't want the new owner to be a highly leveraged investor who will run the business for cash and take whatever they can out of the club. I would imagine they want someone who would be willing to not just spend what the club generates in cash each year (which is roughly what JP has done give or take a £m or two each year). Let's say that we want the new investor to also spend £50m of their own money on improving the team. Ok, we want someone who will spend a total of £150m. If that is the case we don't just need someone with £150m because it is unlikely that anyone will put their entire net worth into a club. Everyone will have their own view of what proportion of their wealth they would commit or risk to the Albion. Let's assume that no-one will invest more than 1/3rd of their wealth. We are therefore looking for someone with a net worth of £450m.  That puts a person at circa 240th richest in the UK according to the Sunday Times Rich List.  The chance of finding a person richer than that in Britain out of 65m people is 0.0004%.

2. Will that person invest their money?  I know a number of multi-millionaires and several billionaires. I know people who have had the chance to buy Blackburn, Grimsby and other teams that I can't mention. They could have bought them without making a noticeable change to their bank balance. Only last week I offered my business partner (who is worth circa £220m) a chance to buy half of a club his father supported for £5m and he laughed at me! Just because we like something and afford it doesn't mean we will buy it. Let's assume that 1/10 people who can afford to buy Albion will actually want to buy it (and I think that is generous).

3. Will that person be an Albion fan?  It's hard to measure how many fans we have. We have a capacity of 26+k and an average attendance of a bit less. If we had a massive cup match at Wembley we would easily take 50k. Let's be generous and say there are 100k Albion fans which would be every adult male in Sandwell. Again I would say this is generous given the number of those who don't like football, follow W*lves etc.  100k people is roughly 0.15% of the people in the UK.

If we multiply 0.0004% x 10% x 0.15% you find the probability that there is someone in the UK who is an Albion fan ready willing and able to throw £150m at Albion. The answer is 0.000000005%. Put another way, that's odds of 173,333,000,000/1.   Put another way those odds are roughly the same as having an accumulator on the new Royal baby being named Wayne (1000/1), alien life being proved (1000/1), UKIP winning the next election (250/1) and Spurs winning the Premier League this year (500/1). Perhaps you could have that bet with £1 and if it comes off, you can buy Albion and still have nearly £100m left to improve the team!

http://www.oddschecker.com/novelty/alien-existence/when-will-alien-life-be-proven
http://www.oddschecker.com/novelty/royal-baby-ii/name-of-baby
http://www.oddschecker.com/football/english/premier-league/winner

Of course there are odd examples that arrive and make a nonsense of the odds. Sir Jack Hayward, Steve Lansdown et al are genuine fans who put a lot of their own money into their own clubs. There MAY be a Albion fan out there with £500m and a willingness to invest. I would question why he hasn't already done so when prices were much lower. Maybe he made his money recently and couldn't have invested before the Premier League, Thompson etc.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Very unlikely in my view.

For me, if JP sells then we are facing either a single high net worth individual with no affiliation to our club or an investor.  I would love to imagine a consortium being built from amongst fans but they numbers have become so big that I just can't see how it would be managed.  We would need at least 100 seriously wealthy people (remembering that someone with a mere £1m of net wealth couldn't put £1m in as a lot would be tied up in their house, business, pension etc and wouldn't be liquid).  I seriously doubt that there are enough HNWs in and around Albion to make this happen and if it did happen it would be pretty hard to manage.

On a positive note, great point today!

COYB!



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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #117 on: February 21, 2015, 06:33:56 PM »
Just a quick thank you to "stoxman" for all the interesting and informative posts on this thread, and making all this Corporate business stuff easy(ish) to understand (well, for people like me!).


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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #118 on: February 21, 2015, 07:15:25 PM »
Just a quick thank you to "stoxman" for all the interesting and informative posts on this thread, and making all this Corporate business stuff easy(ish) to understand (well, for people like me!).

Very welcome. It's still little more than educated guess work but when I charge for advice I dress it up as more than that...

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #119 on: February 21, 2015, 07:36:33 PM »
Very welcome. It's still little more than educated guess work but when I charge for advice I dress it up as more than that...
Ditto what BR said very interesting and informative thank you.
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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #120 on: February 23, 2015, 07:32:23 PM »
I have been told by a good source that the proposed investment in Swansea by some American billionaires in return for a 30 per cent stake in the club is likely to fall by the wayside. The Americans, it appears, wanted the option to buy a further 30 per cent stake at a later date - something the Swansea Board and its supporters, who have a 21 per cent stake in the club, would not agree to.
Foreign investors are only interested in what they can make out of clubs. I just hope that if JP does sell then it is to a British consortium with the interests of the club paramount.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #121 on: February 24, 2015, 02:40:19 AM »
i was quick to slate JP last season and he made mistakes. But overall he has steered the club to stability and we are still in the Premiership, and have been for many years, which given our size is a huge achievement.

He runs a smart set-up, we are cash rich and we are seen as a benchmark  by many mid-table Clubs.
A new owner would be a huge gamble.

A year ago i would have jumped at it......not so sure now.

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #122 on: February 26, 2015, 12:31:39 PM »
If proof were needed that it's vital to find investors and sponsors who a)understand and b) give a pooh about football and what it means, here it is:



http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/26/dunkin-donuts-apologises-liverpool-crest-hillsborough-flames

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #123 on: February 26, 2015, 05:35:02 PM »
The big news in this announcement is that JP has increased his shareholding to 88.8% (he only had 77.3% after the tender offer ended last July, so somebody/bodies has recently him a substantial number of shares).

As a result he is now within touching distance of the magic 90% threshold needed to be able to compulsorily purchase the remaining shares.

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Tony Hale has recently sold his 100+ shares to JP

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Re: Guochuan Lai
« Reply #124 on: February 26, 2015, 05:39:29 PM »
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, Tony Hale has recently sold his 100+ shares to JP

I think it was Geoff Hale and it was 1001 shares :)
« Last Edit: February 26, 2015, 05:46:37 PM by AlbionFan »
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