Well, how about it was their motivation right from the very start. And I mean the very start.
Think it through, a Hedge Fund like to mitigate exposure by hedging. To have a Plan B, a second horse to back, a deliverable that still pays out if the primary investment goes awry.
Here's a scenario; we know SISU were looking at distressed football clubs ahead of 'clinching' the deal in Coventry. So, imagine this paraphrased conversation, somewhere in a Mayfair office:
A) I think we've found another football club. This one's in Coventry - a place the Germans bombed in the war up by Birmingham somewhere. They're desperate
B) Can we buy it cheaply?
A) Yeah, for peanuts. We can turn the place around and sell it on very quickly as a profit
B) Okay, sounds interesting. But what if we can't turn it around?
A) They've got a new stadium, owned by a JV between the local council and a charity. The rent's sky-high and unsustainable if the team hits hard times. We can claim the rent is too high, cease to pay it which will break the JV - as they've heavily reliant on the football club's income - and we can pick up the stadium at a knock-down price
The above would explain the apparently slap-shot Due Diligence; they saw the rent issue - indeed it was part of their planning. It explains why Fisher isn't interested in lower rents, as they're irrelevant to the ambition. It explains why he didn't even bother to engage with the Compass JV to see where F&Bs could be driven to. It explains the madness to an out-of-town stadium. It explains why a Hedge Fund would throw it's own money at a judicial review that's supposedly now irrelevant to them.
It also means the whole rent saga, and all of the F&B debates on here about how much Fanta is drunk at Charlton, etc. has been a waste of time. It's all just been a convenient vehicle to hide behind what was always 'Plan B'. Or the hedge