Is Dragan Solak classed as our owner though? As far as I understood it, Kraft and Ankersen own Sport Republic, the company that now owns Saints, and Solak is their lead investor? I presume it is a Dragon's Den (no pun intended) type situation where Dragan puts up a certain amount for a certain percentage, while Kraft and Ankersen own and direct the company and are more involved?
I think it does matter. Especially next time Broja scores and celebrates with the Albanian double eagle...
Hey, Lincoln is a good egg really. He may have slightly skewed ideas regarding Ralph, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want Semmens out. That’s utter madness. I mean, seriously, it disturbs me that there are actual people that exist, and purport to support our club, that think like that. Bizarre.
Everything sounds so positive at the moment. Anyone care to copy and paste for the non subs? https://theathletic.com/3051422/202...t-under-new-owners/?source=emp_shared_article
That will be a very good idea as we are paying a ridiculously high interest rate on this loan (9%) which means circa £7m interest payment per annum, that’s nearly two Charlie Austin’s
Doesn't that kick In to effect from the 5th year? I think they will have it long gone before then. Don't forget wr only took it out 2 years ago.
Interesting to see that despite the headlines we are now ‘owned’ by two Danes Bought with their money not leveraged from debt Martin Semmens has been central to the deal and is certainly no Turkey voting for Christmas “They think the same as we do”
The payments on the principal* kicks in at that time, the interest would be ticking from day one. *It's actually always been unclear to me whether it was a term loan repayable starting in 2025, or the whole lot of £78.8m has to be paid by 2025. The wording in our accounts reads as if it's the latter. In any instance it was a loan taken out with the expectation that it'd be someone else's problem to deal with, heh.
Yeah nobody won from taking that loan out, but it was also necessary for us to keep on keeping on. Sure they would have been trying to sell up before needing to pay it back, but at the same time they would have known that meant selling at a much bigger loss. It is what it is though. Covid + owners with no money to spend isn't going to equal a positive outcome.
That, and I suspect that we're going to find out that much of that loan has already been spent to keep us solvent. We not only had no easy way to pay it back, we were going to struggle mightily to even fund operations until it came due.
Here’s a couple of quotes ... “The reason this one was successful was because we believe in their plan, and they believe in our plan. In the short term, it gives us security and clarity. In the long term, it gives us something to work towards that will make a real difference.” Asked whether Sport Republic has borrowed money against the club to purchase Gao’s stake, Semmens responded emphatically: “We wouldn’t have done a deal that way. Could we have done? Absolutely. But the risk is too high. “We would only do the deal with equity investment. They have done it with their own money, and that is so important to the club’s future.”