A thorough account of the Labyrinth finances of CCFC (A prison of measured time) (1 Viewer)

Terrifying but a fabulous piece of work

Summarise.

The Blog itself is a summary!!!
Suggests all sorts of SISU Group inter-trading to maximise debt, then engineer their own shout into admin so they can control the administrator.
How could anyone think that a Registered Company could act this way!!!!

Well, now I'm depressed, thanks for that.

I dont want to read it. Just how screwed are we?

it dont paint a pretty picture does it.

so basically if sisu do give up sell the club as a whole and go home, the only people who are interested in buying it and who have the means to buy are more sisu type companies.

we either need to find a multi millionaire life long ccfc fan or go the swansee route to save our club

lets face it the FL fit and proper test is not fit for purpose and as long as fixtures are getting completed they dont really care because it keeps their customers happy. when i say their customers i do of course the tv companies and big sponsors, not the people paying at the turnstiles buying the merchandise and paying to watch football on their tv from their hard earned money.

makes you think that a non league pheonix club is the only way to go

Can I ask a genuine question? The article says "The land surrounding the stadium that is ripe for development may well be tempting". Is that really true?

As far as I can see from Google maps there's a triangular patch of empty land the other side of the railway, but apart from that it's hemmed in by houses, factory units and the A444. Unless those factory units are the area that's suggested is 'ripe'? Seems pretty tenuous, given the initial outlay for the stadium, casino, conference facilities and then an additional bunch of brownfield sites on top of that.

Just can's see the SISU end game in all this. There has to be easier ways of obtaining a bit of land near a motorway junction somewhere else, than all this messy litigation and vitriol.

I actually think this paints a 'better' picture than many on here (myself included) thought. I think the 2nd to last paragraph sums everything up:

So, is the club actually £60 million in debt, as suggested by the administrator at the High Court? It is likely that CCFC Ltd are, as it is possible that costs could have been both incurred and put onto that company to increase liabilities from £57.2 million to £60 million some eighteen months later. However, if we look at the results for the group, taking the reports submitted by the parent company and investment vehicle, SBSL Ltd, we can obtain a clearer picture. The accounts for the group through SBSL Ltd show income and expenditure that compares to rivals and a net liability of £33.9 million. If we remove the £6 million deduction for the goodwill impairment, which failed to become due, this would reveal an investment by SISU and its related companies of around £10 million when purchasing the club in 2007, along with only an additional £18 million over a period of six years, at around £3 million a year. SBSL Ltd owe SISU and its related companies £29.6 million according to the accounts. How much of that is real debt, monies loaned to the group of companies, of cash actually flowing into the club? If Ainsworth is correct, a proportion of that debt could relate to management fees that have been charged to the group, but not yet paid. It is worth noting that the liabilities for SBSL Ltd will also have increased in the last eighteen months, but perhaps not significantly above the £33.9 million stated in the last set of reports and certainly not to the region of £60 million. The club is not alone in incurring losses year on year, as those in the premiership and championship all struggle to restrict wages paid in the pursuit of glory. However, part of the devaluation includes monies written off against the goodwill so these are artificially low. Either way, I would suggest the accounts for the club as a whole, as represented by SBSL Ltd show that the losses are far smaller than previously claimed.

The bold part of that gives me a little hope that SISU are actually owed less than the £60m Appleton refered to. The one positive to cling to is that our beloved owners are the ones who are out of pocket. Every cloud and all that. I know that doesn't help us in our situation and it'd be better to have no debt, but we're more likely to get a buyer with less than £60m debt, than we would, if our debts were £60m or £60m +.

The other part of the article I took particular notice to was this:

The unknown investors in SISU’s hedge funds are the majority shareholders that are the ultimate owners of the club. The identity remains unclear, yet were passed by the football league as fit and proper when the club was first purchased.

That is the bit that grates me the most. The FL are totally implicit in this whole mess yet there's no investigations into their part in this. Yes, SISU, Richardson, McGinnity, CCC, ACL all have blame apportioned but the FL seem to be getting off scot free. My own personal view is that the reason we're allowed to have some flexibility with transfers is an admission of guilt and them trying to appease a fan base that is calling for questions to be asked of them.

WM