Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:24 am  

Bulliac wrote:

It it's wrong, you fill it in..

Just as soon as you provide a list of shareholders publicly offering their shares for sale and at what price.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:37 am  

M@islebugs wrote:

Just as soon as you provide a list of shareholders publicly offering their shares for sale and at what price.

One point that you have consistently - and, as far as I can tell, correctly - made is that we as a club are hamstrung by our shareholding profile. I believe that one of the reasons why you possibly looked favourably on administration was that it was one way to resolve this issue. We may soon see whether it does, but if we evade administration, do you have any ideas of how else we might be able to address it?

You suggest above a public sale of shares by the current shareholders. I take it that, by this, you mean all (major) shareholders, not just the current board. If this were to happen, what would be the optimal result? A single new investor (or small consortium) buying them?

Would there be any mileage in a new issue of shares, or would this risk compounding the issue by fragmenting the holding further?

I know that there is a lot of suspicion around at the moment, but I can assure you that I do not ask this with any agenda - I would just like to understand better, and I ask you as it's clearly a subject to which you have given a lot of thought.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:57 am  

Has anyone heared this business plan we have that says if we raise a million, are then debt free and then we have can move forward?

Where is the money come from to cover month to month expenses after the initial £1m pledge?

We need to know how this works going forward

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:14 pm  

Yes, the optimal result would be a single new investor. I agree with Adey that a fans holding or new issue could make the governing of the club even more difficult.

Peter Hood has consistently said he would step down as Bulliac and others have correctly said. The board have publicly asked for invstors and pubicly asked for 10000 people to give them £100 for no holding whatsoever. Yet at no time (correct me if i'm wrong) have we had any mention of 'sale' or 'valuation' either from the board or from the other shareholders. What does 'stepping down' mean? Resigning as chair but holding his shares? Offering his shares for sale at no cost and free beer for life? Offering his shares at £100million? In the current circumstances the position of chair is a poisoned chalice and nobody in their right mind would want it.

In this context we see Peter's offer to move aside is plainly meaningless. Is the club for sale? Is any part of the club for sale? Some would argue this isn't information for the public domain but it's not unusual for a board to place a valuation on a company if a takeover is on the horizon and particularly when they are asking us the fans to treat a club which is privately owned as a charity.

I agree the shareholding is at the root cause of the problem and will continue to be so. Administration is a dangerous place as there is no guarantee what assets the club can hold onto but i've argued for a number of years now that the position we find ourselves in was inevitable. If it hadn't been HMRC/RFL/RBS it would have been some other 'shock' as the core of the club is fundamentally weak.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:24 pm  

Thanks very much for the clarification. I think the points about Peter Hood's shareholding are very valid and I hope that we have a chance to put them to him directly. However, without Caisley (and any other significant shareholders) agreeing to do the same, would the sale of Hood's shares really resolve anything? I had assumed that this fragmentation (in which the BOD hold a minority of the shares) was really what was causing the most significant problems.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:32 pm  

I agree entirely.I'd wager that even if the entire shareholding agreed to sell their's zero chance they could agree a valuation. This is why I've argued that adminstration is the only means by which the shareholding situation can be resolved.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:32 pm  

Maislebugs, in what for me is a very well-reasoned post, alludes to an excellent and extremely important point here IMO. I'd refrained from saying it myself in the hope that the club would do so, but now its been said anyway.

I do not think anyone making the pledge is doing so expecting it to improve the position of the shareholders (most shares are not held by directors) in a subsequent sale. If the club is now insolvent, their shares should be worthless. And that is how it should remain in any future sale, unless those who pledged and paid are first reimbursed.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:34 pm  

Maybe if the board issued a call for new people to step forward it would be answered?

I can imagine there are people who don't want to be seen to be pushing themselves forward and causing division at this difficult time, but who might answer the call.

That's why I would suggest it would be better for them to announce an intention to resign at a certain date and call for new people to come forward.

If no-one comes forward then the board would have to stay in place, but it would have a degree of legimitacy conferred on it by the failure of anyone to come up with a better solution after they did the right thing and offered to step aside.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:40 pm  

Adeybull wrote:

Maislebugs, in what for me is a very well-reasoned post, alludes to an excellent and extremely important point here IMO. I'd refrained from saying it myself in the hope that the club would do so, but now its been said anyway.

I do not think anyone making the pledge is doing so expecting it to improve the position of the shareholders (most shares are not held by directors) in a subsequent sale. If the club is now insolvent, their shares should be worthless. And that is how it should remain in any future sale, unless those who pledged and paid are first reimbursed.

Whilst I agree with the scentiment I can't see how that could happen. My understanding would be that a business which recieved 500k onto its books is worth 500k more than it was yesterday. By next friday the supporters of Bradford Bulls could well have made Mr Caisley approx 125k better off than he was on thursday night. I'm not comfortable with that.

Re: Peter Hood says Bulls on brink of going bust. : Sun Apr 01, 2012 12:57 pm  

Thanks again. I appreciate the time you have taken to make that clear.