Finally we have the confirmation sneaked out on a Friday afternoon of what we all wanted to know.
The infamous £90M which was first revealed here as indeed been used for a debt to equity swap. In other words Villa is now worth £200M of which approx half is owned by the Lerner trust and Half by Randy himself.
We are short on detailed figures and yet again the paper loss is horrendous at £42M but they note operating expenses are down by £6M. These are mainly wages and you have to remember this until the end of May last year. We need to see the details in a few days time but once you factor those that left since then the wage position is conformed as no longer a problem.
Do I need any more confirmation with debt wiped out, wages and expenses coming down the sheer folly of still buying at Pundland ?
Do I need any more confirmation we are up for sale ?
Read it three times would love someone to fully break it down, some of those losses will be McLeish, others will be players still on our books up until that date.
I dont fully understand acounting but why put 90m in now rather than 2 years ago when it was more needed by the club? Is this due to the Browns sale or would 90m have been swallowed up then?
Who actually owns Villa Lerner or the Lerner trust?
This summer is going to be different from the last few years in what way i dont know, i just hope we can hold onto our Premiership status this Sunday is a massive game for us
OK what has happened is that the Lerner trust has took 90M of shares for the debt.. they know own 90M of the 220M shares or so of RAL UK who own villa 100%
My guess is that between Lerner and the trust they both now own 50% of us. Remeber RAL UK are fully owned by RAL in Delaware and no one knows about that structure.
complicated yes … but the reality is the Trust now have more say … Like they did at the Browns where it was 50/50
Randy Lerner IS the trust, imo.
You can change the names, but nothing has really changed Ian.
Randy controls the whole show, even though his mother and sister(s) have a supposed shout.
Would it work any differently if I pegged it and left my money to my family? I doubt it.
My missus wouldn’t have a clue and would entrust my son to look after the club.
No, I’m just not seeing it Ian.
Exchanging debt for equity to yourself doesn’t make any sense and it’s more likely a tax fiddle, imo.
And I still don’t see how Villa are worth anywhere near £200 mill.
My belief is that it’s all a red herring and Lerner will not sell the Villa anytime soon.
Anyway, this is all a deflection from what’s really needed, in proper quality players, who can progress us up the league table.
Agree badger this means nothing other than we are are self sufficient. Lerner us here to stay to keep us bottom 5 and rake in sky money. Unless someone makes his a stupid offer we are stuck with him
You might believe in fairies as well. I have been in a position where a “supposedly” independent trust did exactly what I asked. The trustees will do as Randy says unless perhaps he said stick it all on red 16. That’s the reality. The trust just shelters his money from tax so it’s a sensible way to finance his assets. Lerner will sell up when he wants to , and the Trust will go along with it. There will be no influence the other way round
Just reading the details again and they have speeded up the writing off of all the bad players like NZog, Bent etc.
In effect this means we are at year zero financially, no debt, low wages and all players written off that were causing issues.
So this summer if Lerner stays we know the true plans and if they are not lying that means decent signings but thats it, no superstars but should be miles better than the likes we brought (if we stay up).
Or he can sell (if we say up) a debt free low expense PL club with a large support, £200M of anyone;s money.
Sounds positive either way, doesn’t it?
Well yes as I said when we found out the 90M was NEVER bad news at all. However for Lerner to show progression with Lambert I am 100% convinced in the winter we could have made a signing to show hope. Instead we got a Holt a player who could not stay a division down on loan and chased a very cheap old midfielder from Norwich.
The signs point towards the same old policy if Lerner stays doesn’t it ?
Aston Villa is potentially one of the biggest clubs in England and Europe, with a new owner, investment in quality players the club can be huge!! If Man City can do it so can Villa – and a bit more!!
That how I see it ,the club as from the end of the season will financially be clear of all major dept and could get better players, problem staying in the hunt. Sell the club ? No the yank wants a foothold in this country and Villa is that.he will be a hard man to get rid of.
Completely agree Bill…. he has had his fingers burnt, written off £90m debt and converted it to shares and now the club is self sufficient…… No sales or excitement just a dour mumbling manager, playing hoofing boring football, with a clueless bean counter CEO and an absent owner, and each year we will find it more difficult to stay in the hunt…!
That’s the best summing up of the present situation at VP ever posted Sir.
Thanks BWS, its great having wishes of new owners and purchasing expensive players, but it just aint going to happen……He wants us self sufficient so each year we will dice with relegation and have no expensive / risky cup runs……. Whilst he keeps the fans in the dark about how he wants the club to perform…. its upsetting but I think its how its going to be for the long term.
I dont think he has written off 90m he has written off the interest from the 90m owed. The 90m they speak of is Lerners or the Lerner trusts, so he does not deserve a medal for his charitable donation to the football club as it is left hand paying right hand, I could be wrong.
We have to remeber in this he only brought the club for £60M and therefore any losses from the loans can be written off against what he would sell it for.
So the Trust loaned 90M and Randy about £50M I believe and got about £20M back in shares
He sells for £175M he breaks even, even fulham went for that … £200M gives a nice 33% return in 7 years.
Those who say he has ‘gave’ us money are talking bollocks as the massive increase in value (all due to Sky and TV money) covers that and more.
but why would he sell. he dosnt need to. he can spend the next years spending around £10-15m to keep our heads above water whilst raking in millions of extra profit from sky. He dosnt eve go to VP to suffer abuse i think thats smart. Taking my Villa hat of as a businessman id do exactly the same. As a villa fan though I want him to fuck of but it aint happening for the foreseeable future
I don’t follow these numbers Ian,
I think you are oversimplyfying things.
he only bought it for 60m? there is appx 4 to 6m pounds shaved off the reported figure for no apparent reason! shares, trust and loans?
who has control of those? Are you suggesting that any of the investment since Lerner has taken over was not ultimately coming from Randy Lerner?
and if so who is it coming from?
Sells for 175m and breaks even?
can you break that down further for me.
What you are saying is that since Lerner took over he has net spent 175m? so if he were to sell tomorrow for that sum he would not lose a penny?
take a look at this link below
http://www.astonvilla.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7516443
this is a more comprehensive look at our accounts before the latest ones were released
I know its from another forum and i have to say hats off to the original author of this.
But its based on actual published accounts.
you will see figures more like 250m invested not 175m
and this was before the net loss of 52m in the latest accounts.
have a look and see what you think.
Ultimately speaking.
I have heard the very few statements Lerner has made over the years.
on of his biggest criticisms is his lack of communication.
but has the club not categorically denied that they want to sell?
who in their right mind would buy a football club with their own money and not a leveraged buyout with the main intention of trying to make money?
when there are property ventures, hedge funds, and venture capital options that promise a lot more in return and have probably less risk.
not to mention the fact that those kind of investments are what Randy lerner’s core business is.
daftness.
right or wrong .. Lerner did this for club and for a personal hobbie. for the football
he may have cocked it up but not out of greed
Robbo”s past nemesis deadly was on the news tonight talking about Carson Yuong, how he (Yuong) was amongst 4 others that tried to buy AVFC. Good old deadly wouldn’t sell as they had to borrow to buy.
He then employed Rothschilds to go through the potential buyers, so thanks deadly.
If it wasn’t for you we could be in the blues shoes now.
Colonius, I believe the figure was £64 mill, but it varies.
From memory, we had land assets (Villa park aside) worth £25 mill and Ellis sold half prior to his selling the club.
So if you take the remaining £12.5 mill out, Lerner actually got the club much cheaper!
Of course, the sale was on condition that Lerner would put £30 mill into the squad.
My point is that any article can talk about “facts”, but those facts are only those that are written in the accounts, which can often be at least misleading.
When you can offset money (backwards or forwards) to suit yourself, accounts should not be taken as gospel, imo and anyone’s guess is just that: A guess.
I don’t doubt Lerner’s put money in. But I also don’t doubt he’s taking it out.
33% return in 7 years? You haven’t got a clue. He could have easily got a 20% return in the last two years on money invested with any half decent wealth management company. Here’s an idea. Why don’t you stop conjuring figures out of thin air to support a wafer thin argument? Lerner could have continued to pay interest on his/the trusts loans. He didn’t. The interest would have been tax deductable for the club so why change it? To sell? Well he could do that at time of sale if needed so why now?
If you talk about Lerner selling up several times a season every season guess what? One day you will be right.
Blah blah, hearsay and conspiracy theories…. None of us have a clue whats going to happen. I for one want him to stay and spend some dough on better players (and no i dont mean £50m a player) maybe remove Lambert for somebody who can attract such/the right players. I know the Bundesliga is defensively shocking, and he would probablt laugh off an approach from us bur I like what Hyypia is doing with Leverkusen. He can attract the right players we need too. Also get in a football man to move Faulkner aside and have him merely focusing on doing what he’s good at.
I know the Bundesliga is defensively shocking
You obviously not watched the PL style of defending then ? Shown up in Europe for being the total crap it is.
OK ye your right that our top 3 sides aren’t as good as Germany’s or Spain’s but the rest of our league is sooooo much better than the rest of theirs. My point was that Hyypia, being a defender could sort that out a treat and also has the respect and connections throughout Europe and could attract better quality of player throughout
are we so much better ? How many English teams in the UEFA now ? you really as Keane says swallowed the PL hype haven’t you. Stick us in the Spanish or German leagues as we are and would be in the same position if not much lower.
Yes Hyppia has a great future as manager, no chance even if we wanted him he would come here at all unless we can spend loads of cash. What we have to remeber is that whilst we filled gaps in the squad it is not with quality. To coin a phrase, we have ‘go again’ and get some better players in.
Well at least a few finally figured it out. I’d be far more worried facing any number of the bottom 9-10 German clubs than facing the bottom 10 EPL clubs, far better technical/tactical ability there, Spain, Italy. The one thing the EPL does do better than anywhere else is press with pace, about the only reason a lot of the EPL clubs do hassle the other leagues.
As for Hyypia, I don’t think we’d need money to entice him, because I don’t think he’d come even if we had it. He’s a Liverpool man through and through and believe that’s the only EPL club he’d take over.
Robbo eclipses are more frequent than me agreeing with one of your comments but on this occasion you’re bang on.
The EPL is the biggest most over hyped bag of shit in the history of kicking a pigs bladder around a patch of grass.
Hypia would be another houllier having a wank fest over pool while were paying his wages no thanks