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Reply | Last nights frost
at 23:09 21 Nov 2024
unless of course you "know" someone with a large heated attic  |
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Reply | Last nights frost
at 14:40 21 Nov 2024
Yes indeed , no later than the end of September . |
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Reply | Thomas Cashman .Appeal
at 09:31 21 Nov 2024
Never mind the rest of whether he loved his granny or not nor was kind to cats ,was it proven that he pull the trigger, the jury said yes . |
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Reply | Thomas Cashman .Appeal
at 09:29 21 Nov 2024
He's appealing against being classed a human not a piece of dog do. |
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Reply | Cop 29
at 09:27 21 Nov 2024
so many with so little time  |
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Reply | Interesting article - NY Times
at 13:54 20 Nov 2024
For those who can't access the article.
Forget Welcome To Wrexham, how about Escape from Swansea?
Having started with a story about an absence of business in football, let us move to an example of some bad business in football: the 2016 takeover of Swansea City by a group of U.S. investors led by Steve Kaplan, who owns a minority stake in the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies, and Jason Levien, the co-chairman and CEO of MLS side D.C. United.
Swansea were nearing the end of their fifth consecutive season in the Premier League when Kaplan and Levien bought a majority stake in the Welsh club at a valuation of £110million. Unfortunately, they were relegated to the Championship in 2018 and have haemorrhaged money in that division ever since.
But now — for Kaplan and Levien, at least — the bleeding has stopped, as they have sold their 65 per cent stake in Swansea to three investors they first introduced to the club last year: Andy Coleman, Brett Cravatt and Nigel Morris.
A shareholder at D.C. United, Coleman has been Swansea’s chairman since May 2023, while private-equity firm boss Cravatt and Welsh-American fintech entrepreneur Morris have been on the board for over a year, too. Cravatt’s business partner Jason Cohen is joining the gang, too.
But you know all this because The Athletic reported it two weeks ago. What we did not report, though, is the exact terms of the deal, saying only that the “precise value was contested”.
Well, now we know, as one of several rather disgruntled fellow investors sent us the email Kaplan and Levien wrote to shareholders in Swansea Football Holdings, the club’s parent company, explaining why they were selling up and the deal they had secured.
They reminded everyone how relegation had seen the club’s income fall by 80 per cent, with parachute payments and wage cuts only partially offsetting the pain. Their woes were compounded by the £30million they wasted on transfer fees and three-year contracts for strikers Andre Ayew and Wilfried Bony, in a failed attempt to avoid the drop, and the impact of the pandemic.
There were two promotion play-offs appearances, including a defeat by Brentford in the 2021 final, but once the parachute payments stopped that summer it has been mid-table mediocrity and “substantial operating losses”.
In 2023, after “years of exhaustive searches for alternatives”, they brought in three new investor groups led by Coleman, Cravatt and Morris, in return for an equity injection of over £40million, and now, 18 months further on, “it is this group of investors who are purchasing our interests and committing to make another significant investment in the club”.
Before outlining the terms of the deal in an attachment to the letter, “Jason and Steve” said they had “spent many sleepless nights over the years” worrying about what to do, acknowledged “there are things we would have done differently”, but assured everyone they had “forgone all management fees owed to us since relegation”, before asking them to “take some solace in that we never burdened you with a capital call”.
“This is an outstanding group of partners,” they added. “It pains us that this investment did not work out financially.”
So, just how bad was it?
There are three parts to the deal.
The first is a commitment by the newish investors to fund the club with a minimum of £20million in new equity. The second is a series of share transactions that hand over control of Swansea City to Cohen, Coleman, Cravatt and Morris for the grand total of $3,000, or £2,370.
And the last is an “inducement agreement” between the club, on one side, and Kaplan, Levien and their investors, on the other, with the latter receiving an additional £10million for every season Swansea spend in the Premier League between now and May 2035, capped at a maximum of £40m.
Does that give investors a fair chance of getting some more money back or is it just condemning them to another decade of dashed hopes |
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Thread | Last nights frost
at 09:40 20 Nov 2024
Finally finished off the last of my summer bedding plants ,which for me is a record ,I'm normally pulling up the dead in October , Global warming has its benefits although looking out the window watching the snow falling its not so warm right now. |
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Reply | No more international football for four months
at 23:51 19 Nov 2024
As good as it's been now's the time to concentrate on the really important aspect of football for without the Club we wouldn't be celebrating the contribution that our players have and are having on the international stage.Short answer,yes |
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Reply | Wales internationals : Nations League
at 20:45 19 Nov 2024
Fox in the box, he's good at being at the right place at the right time but just needs to improve his finishing but has proven tonight that he can do it |
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Reply | Cop 29
at 18:16 19 Nov 2024
is your lack of drinking milk the reason why you have stunted growth? The Dutch drink it by the gallon hence their above average height. |
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Reply | Senedd Costs
at 18:14 19 Nov 2024
As Cyndi once sang . "True Colours", what a statement to make .Obviously kicks cats when he gets a chance. |
| | Boundy
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