Saints in takeover talks with Chinese group

Over living memory, we've had decent times, ok times and crappy times....but, in the Leihberr era, we've had good, puff out your chest times....which I'm reluctant to lose. I like our new identity as an admirable, forward thinking club who play nice football. If we could add 'title winning' to that it would be perfect. I don't want it all undone, but there is nothing we can do but sit and wait (they also serve, you know).

 

Exactly my point. Sit and wait. And support.

If we're talking 'living memory' we've had very good times too..... 1984

 

Highbury?

 

Please don't!

 

Before my time but wasn't there a lovely chap around that era with the first name Adrian?

 

Final warning, you git!

 

https://translate.google.com/transl...ttp://www.zjlander.com/news_detail.asp?id=189

 

http://readsouthampton.com/2017/04/22/lander-holding-group-agree-deal-katharina-liebherr/

 

Having made no comment on this at all I am now going to ask:

1. Why do they want to buy shares in Southampton FC?'
2. Is it correct to state that no matter how much money they may have they can't invest much more in the club due to FIFA/Uefa rules even if they wanted to?
3. Is it fair to say that going by other Chinese/UK football investments the best we can hope for is 'much the same as before' and the worst 'Birmingham City'?

At the moment my personal feelings are akin to the ongoing Star Wars quote but I am naturally pessimistic about football club owners in general. I just think we have been very, very, lucky with the last owner.

 

http://www.financialfairplay.co.uk/financial-fair-play-explained.php

An article on the various FFP rules from the different football governing bodies.
Premier League clubs are allowed to make a maximum loss of £105m over three seasons.
As saints have been recording a profit in recent seasons we would have plenty of wriggle room for a spending spree.
However it's the rules around wages & short term expenditure which are more restrictive.
If the clubs player wage bill is above £60m per year, then it can only increase by a maximum of 4m a year unless you can support any increase through player trading profits or commercial income (not TV money)

This is why Saints include wages when talking about reinvesting in the squad.

So if we sell players for £80m and only buy in £70m, but give a group of players new larger contracts then that £10m allows us to give everyone a pay rise without punishment.

This also illustrates the importance of commercial revenue and why the club make such a big deal about it.

 

80% sale. Interesting number, was expecting either more or less.

Retaining 20% gives her some financial interest, but not much.

 

Hmm. I'm very skeptical of this deal. Seems as though from the outside they have struggled to raise the finance to be able to purchase the club, which makes it even harder to imagine how they will be able to invest much into the club in the Summer and beyond. Maybe I am wrong, but something doesn't sit right with me on this one!

 

Skeptical doesn't begin to cover it. They're financing this mostly through debt...anyone expecting investment is looking in the wrong place. From the translated news release, it looks like they had a deal in principle in November, and have waited five months while they tried to get the necessary loans and approvals in place; that's a giant red flag befitting the May Day celebrations in Beijing.

Regarding her retention of 20%, it's entirely possible that they did not cover the loans she had made. Consequently, she might be retaining a share of the club in order to ensure speedy repayment of that money.

Some on SaintsWeb seem to believe that 70% of the purchase price is financed by debt (not sure where that came from, though they suggest Lander's own words, but let's go with it). That's about 150m, or (at 5% interest) about 7.5m per annum in interest alone, plus whatever repayment schedule the principle is on, plus potentially repayment of whatever money is outstanding to KL. Yeah, we're not going to be getting a top-up from the owners any time soon.

 

Yeah there are ways around FFP as PSG and Man City have shown with sponsorship, I wouldn't expect anything like that from this lot though from the (admittedly little) we know.

Fasten your seat belts everyone... going to get 'interesting' this Summer.

 

1) To make money/get their brand out there.
2) No, there are ways around if it they really wanted to, don't think this lot have the money to do that anyway though.
3) Impossible to say, not been that many as of yet but we can't judge them just on being Chinese.

As for your last line I agree, we were very lucky and I am also naturally pessimistic when it comes to new owners.

Absolutely **** all we can do about it though, just sit tight, wait, hope for the best and support the team

If it does go tits up, then it's been a while since a good protest

 

On another note, if it's still in approval stage by PL, does that include fit & proper test?

And if they've been scrambling around for months trying to raise funds, is there any chance that they're intending to leverage borrowing/debt against the club, similar to what the Glazers did?

I really have no clue on these sorts of things, so if anyone can give insight on the above would be much appreciated

 

I am no financial expert, but I wonder if too many are worrying unnecessarily over the question of debt.

• Man united was bought on debt - ok they have hugely larger incomes, but that's ok as long as this alleged debt is proportionate to our income.
• I have a debt. My mortgage and it looks a huge amount of money compared to my income. I still buy things and invest.
• Would Katherina really sell is to someone who wouldn't be able to take us forwards? If she did, would she keep her name attached to it and a financial involvement in it - I don't think she would. I think we'll be fine.

The last point is the key point for me.

 

If you have no clue (I don't have much, but a little) just be careful not to be sucked in to a pity party. Take everything with a big pinch of salt and wait to see what happens.

* apologies to anyone here who owns or is CEO of a multi-million pound corporation. If there is one on here, I'd like to hear their views.

 

To be fair this is the thing that makes me overall think we'll be fine, I've said ever since the first word of this came out that I wouldn't expect her to sell us to a bunch of shysters, for her Fathers memory if nothing else.

 

Of course I will wait to see what happens, as I said above there's nothing else as fans we can do but support the team, wait and hope for the best.

I think it's fair though to be slightly concerned about a potential takeover from someone who (on the surface) has struggled to raise the funds to even complete said takeover. As I said earlier though, it's admittedly little information we've got.