The bondholders challenge has a number of problems when it goes to court Thursday
The bondholders are not acting as one body though which is a problem. It doesn't even look like it is the majority of bondholders at the moment opposing.
They do not have a lot of funding to challenge the administration. 15k is not going to buy much legal time i was once told that sort of sum gets you to the court steps. Could they pay upfront for an alternative administration?
The trustee has already said they will not challenge the proposal, there must an informed reason for making that decision. A judge will weigh that against bondholders who are upset because they won't get all of their money back. Of course the administrators have to comply with the law as do the trustees
Say the decision goes against MA, or actually the administrators would be more accurate, then everything fails and the bondholders could end up with even less or even nothing.
A judge will need to be persuaded that other options are better than what is presented to him. The administrators who are agents of the court must show that this is the best deal available the bondholders without the benefit of the data have to show it is not. So long as the administrators have acted legally I am not sure how they could found to be at fault
Clearly the preferred bidder is funding the administration from the information released. The bondholders will need to show they can fund an alternative.
Other potential buyers including sisu have indicated they want a more aggressive administration with a new lease. Bondholders would have no security on any new lease. A more aggressive administration would almost certainly provide bondholders less of a return.
If the application fails then it will be liquidation and that will bring all sorts of time issues together with the biggest problem..... keeping the stadium open. No value as not a going concern
From the rumours going round, which no doubt some bondholders are aware of, other potential buyers are waiting in the wings to pay less or even do way with the asset secured.
Other than a seat it court and perhaps a chance to speak I am not sure the bondholders complaining will get much more.
That's my take on it from what I know. Not an insolvency practitioner so there may well be other considerations that changes things. The administrators have worked on this for 2 or 3 months at least surely they will have considered the possibility of objections?
The other thing to bear in mind is this is about ACLs liabilities not the wasps group ones. what other liabilities does ACL have ? Certainly compass and Delaware.
One final thought could there be a cap on the ACL guarantee limited to the amount actually borrowed from wasps finance, not sure if that could be done but that would change things wouldn't it ?