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Investment Proposal - Trust ballot

Alistair20000

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Avoiding the Hundred
- Is it a fixed price job for completion by a pre determined date. Who pays if it goes over budget and if there are unforeseen issues. This in my view can not be underestimated.
- Length of lease for training ground.
- Most important thing is, is the project affordable now to completion not unaffordable if we wait any longer.
- Down to Trust if the club has to pay back the loan in 4 years and their discretion if there is any interest on loan. I am sure it mentions the loan on ‘ commercial terms’ somewhere.
- Who is Taylor thinking about selling besides Key if he thinks @£1m in transfer fees is on the conservative side.
- it’s partly underpinned by robust, strong evidence that we won’t be relegated! Seriously?!
- openly admitting it puts a strain on our finance team to come up with the figures in a very short space of time when also admitting they are short of resource and the whole team has limited experience in capital investment.
- Capex including OTR 442,292. Any chance of a breakdown of this figure or is this another one in the undisclosed fee file……
- third party short diligence exercise into what’s been done so far?! Surely it’s got to be the cost of the whole project to completion.
- The First Team Manager fully supports the investment. If we are being robust now in our approach to everything with the huge sums involved and the financial implications of it going wrong very quickly. The Manager might find himself surplus to requirements because at the end of the day most of this relies on success on the pitch in both the short term and the long term.
Don’t have a go at me but think about this carefully because the ramifications could be fatal but equally it could all go through with no problems. To me it’s all a bit rushed to get it done by the end of the month but if people are prepared to put their name to it fair enough.
Some very pertinent points in there. Let us hope the Trust and the Club have all the angles covered because the one off “big project” is a common reason for insolvency.
 

geoffwp

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Has my support.
 

DB9

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This is a significant development that should have the support of everyone, Me included, One thing i read that took me by surprise is this bit:


"For many years, the ability of the Club to develop, recruit and retain talent"

I'm thinking we don't "Retain" much talent, Not for the long term anyway.
 

Antony Moxey

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I don’t understand this?! How would ‘speculators’ get their hands on the ground if The Trust actually owned it. There would have to be a proposal to the members to sell and I believe no individual on the board or Trust can force an issue to sell. It would safe guard our future in my eyes but what do I know.
The County Ground was sold for, I believe, £11M. Do you think if a potential buyer of the club came waggling £15-£20M (for instance) it would be straight up turned down flat without even being considered? I would imagine the Trust would be under massive pressure to at least look at negotiations should something in that particular ball park be offered, then who knows what might happen.
 

Antony Moxey

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This is a significant development that should have the support of everyone, Me included, One thing i read that took me by surprise is this bit:


"For many years, the ability of the Club to develop, recruit and retain talent"

I'm thinking we don't "Retain" much talent, Not for the long term anyway.
You don’t? How many regular first teamers have come from the academy in recent years? Everyone moves on at some point, but i might suggest we’ve had more than a decent amount that have racked up years‘ worth of involvement with the club and at least a couple of seasons’ worth of first team appearances.
 

SEA Grecian

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- Who is Taylor thinking about selling besides Key if he thinks @£1m in transfer fees is on the conservative side.
-
The exact quote is "The forecast fees for the next four transfer windows total just over £1m, significantly less than the amount anticipated by the First Team Manager. "

It's not unrealistic that Josh Key could be sold for that figure by himself, but in the nightmare scenario that he gets injured you'd think that at least some of the following players who, I believe, have all signed long-term contracts could be sold for reasonable sums of money in the next two years - Sparkes, Collins, Jay, Hartridge, Taylor, Nombe. Then you've got the younger players like Lee, Cox and Pond and that's before you add in the money that is still coming in for Ampadu and Watkins.
 

SaintJames

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I thought I had read in the very early stages of this project that funding would be sought from external grants applications? Did I dream this or did it happen and was subsequently discounted? If it hasn't happened why hasn't it?

Im in full support of the project and we should get on with it subject to the caveat that the building company must be fully audited in terms of financial solidity. Any company that goes tits up half way through would cause the club and trust significant financial and operational problems
 

SEA Grecian

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Some very pertinent points in there. Let us hope the Trust and the Club have all the angles covered because the one off “big project” is a common reason for insolvency.
But it's not a one-off project. The club has proved over the last few years that it is capable of delivering projects like the new grandstand and upgrading the pitch successfully without damaging the club's finances. To my non-expert eye it reads like the club have covered all the angles already - what angles do you think they have missed? And what do you think they should do with the money instead if you are not in support of this project?
 

geoffwp

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To be fair, Alistair did say earlier than that post that he would support it in principal. I think Al is just pointing out some questions that could do with answers for his peace of mind on the issue (though I really should not answer on his behalf. Was just the feeling I had from what he wrote)
 

Edward

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As Al has suggested, the risk may be more around the financial robustness of the preferred contractor so care should be taken to ensure the contracts contain appropriate performance bonds. For sure, the contractor’s balance sheet is remarkably skinny and the year-end debtors (at £1000k) suggests their turnover is modest so this is a very sizeable contract for them. In my view, it is unfortunate that a ‘community club’ could not find a local contractor to perform the work.

From the projections, it would appear to be affordable although I have some concerns around future wages (which are projected to decrease over the stathe next few years), as previously noted by Matt Phillips. If the figures are right, they deserve an explanation. If they are wrong, it calls into question the accuracy of everything else!

For me, the bigger issue is whether most/all of the stated objectives can be obtained without having to spend as much as £2.2m. To an extent, that is dependent upon your thoughts regarding the academy. Some may argue its reputation already attracts the local talent; others might believe far superior facilities are needed. Relative to turnover, this is huge expenditure at an uncertain time and I am not sure a simple ‘yes/no’ on a single proposal is the right approach. The more prudent amongst us might see value in doing a two stage project.
 
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