Breaking News Today's Echo - Who owns the Blues? (2010 thread)

[Norfolkshrimp]

Concerned we haven't heard anything from the trust still. Surely they can / have / intend to talk to Sainsbury about the situation ? Just what are they doing in the background if anything ?

 

[Boreham Shrimper]

I think there's been a bit too much honesty on here today. Can we please have some spin Ron so we can all feel better about things? ;)

 

[A Century United]

How much do we think that Sainsburys stand to make from that shop at Roots Hall? I think it was rumoured to be in the top five in the country in terms of size, but just how lucrative to them is this opportunity?

If they stand to make hundreds of millions on this deal then that's one thing but if it's going to be a lot less than that then there has to be a danger eventually of them having enough with all of this...

But what use are SUFC shares to them if they do pull the plug? Because Ron won't be able to repay them the debts that are secured on them. Sainsbury's are no mugs, they wouldn't have invested this much if they didn't think they would get their store, and now they have Ron by the short and curlies they will make sure that the project is progressed ASAP. And SUFC going bust for little more than small change (to Sainsbury's) would just complicate matters for them.

I don't see that the Echo story has really shed much light. Ron is broke - we knew that. Sainsbury's are his only hope - we knew that. The only new thing is the comment that "insiders" are confident that Fossets will go ahead.

 

[Medway Blue]

Wow. A lot of information to take in, and a lot of very realistic routes and possibilities that this situation can take henceforth. Therefore I wonder what the point of speculating is, because it looks like a lot of things need to fall into place.

The Sainsbury's involvement is, it seems, our saving grace and i'm more confident about this thing going ahead with them so heavily involved. Their purchase of Prospects is certainly good news. It's surprising to me, however, that they are so deep into this now. That RH site must be a gold mine for them, because they've loaned RM a stupid amount of money already with more to come, and as tghings stand they have no chance of getting the money back and probably don't want to be lumbered with a football club as a business concern, so they're taking an unbelieveable risk.

If Sainsbury's do push all this through, we move stadium and RM stays in charge though, who is to say the garden will look rosy? He'll still have massive debts to various parties, money from the retail development will service those, so will the club REALLY benefit? What I'd secretly like is for RM to default on his repayments to Sainsbury's so that they can take control of the club, maybe help to balance things a bit and then sell the club on. No RM anymore. But with him owning RH and being no doubt heavily involved with other elements in this move, could he scupper things out of spite after losing control of the club?

 

[number11]

Concerned we haven't heard anything from the trust still. Surely they can / have / intend to talk to Sainsbury about the situation ? Just what are they doing in the background if anything ?

I wouldn't worry, even their members are kept in the dark and are worse at keeping people informed than Ron is!

 

[Thorpe Groyney]

Hopefully we'll be able to buy season tickets with nectar card points then.

 

[Reefs]

The stadium isn't the main cost. I think I recall that the stadium itself would cost in the region of £25m. The overall development is supposedly costing three time that.

Someone mentioned 'cost per seat' earlier, but the cost per seat will decrease as the development gets bigger.

Unit valuations like 'cost per seat' do not proportionately shift as capacity shifts....this quick and very approximate method of valuation can be misleading, because 'cost per seat' includes the cost of constructing ancillary facilities such as the corporate hospitality and parking etc...

At present time, using the above method, I would suggest stadium costs are running at about £1800 a seat, which gives a total construction cost for (just) the stadium of a touch under £40 million. For arguments sake, add a 10% contingency, and add on professional fees for the architect, various consultants and engineers and (ultimately), the Contractor's pecentage for overheads and profit, and you could be looking at another £10 million on top.
Difficult to predict exactly what will happen with the state of the construction industry over the next couple of years, but I think we are probably through the worst now, so I would suggest tender prices will start rising the longer we leave the development - typically, this would mean that the cost would increase the longer FF remains unbuilt, but God only knows what arrangement Ron could have claimed to have put in place with a Contractor - all I will say is that using the same design and consultancy team as Arsenal (i.e. very expensive), at a time when the Club can't (allegedly) afford to pay its main assets is misguided at best and downright ignorant at worst.

For those interested, and to assist our Col U friend for future posts, Cuckoo Farm cost £15 million, and, without going into too much detail, was constructed in pretty much the cheapest method possible (i.e - construct four stand-alone banks of seated terraced units and place all of the club and ancillary accomodation in one main stand - effectively constructing the other three as shells consisting just of basic spectator facilities).

My final point - Personally, I don't subscribe to the fact that 22k is too big - I actually applaud the ambition, and have statistics from other stadia built for similar sized clubs (at the time) which have gone on to project those outfits into much more impressive, and solvent concerns. Darlington was a one off, in that the town is approximately a 1/3rd the size of Southend, the stadium is bigger, and their average crowds hadn't grown for decades. Most football fans make the short trip to the obvious NW choices, in Sunderland, Newcastle or Boro - Southend are/were an upwardly mobile club, with a growing reputation for playing good football, and a population heading toward the 200k mark, with plenty of inward investment into the town (take the Airport and University developments for instance). The only (and perhaps most worrying) comparison I can make is that their chairman George Reynolds had dillusions of grandeur in overseeing the running of a Premiership football club in a very small non-footballing town, wasted a heap of somebody else's money building a marble temple to reflect his ego, and ended up getting arrested for being a crook...

Anyway, enough for today, but the situation doesn't look good.

 

[Cricko]

Trust statement now on line..http://www.shrimperstrust.co.uk/home.asp

 

[Pubey]

Trust statement now on line..http://www.shrimperstrust.co.uk/home.asp

a statement for a statements sake. (much like this post)

 

[Napster]

a statement for a statements sake. (much like this post)

Damned if you do, damned if you don't...

 

[C C Csiders]

Sainsbury's are no mugs, they wouldn't have invested this much if they didn't think they would get their store, and now they have Ron by the short and curlies.

I imagine his perfectly coiffeured short and curlies.

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

I now love Sainsbury's. I'm gonna try and shop there more often. They give us hope without all the compulsive, cover up lies. They are our best bet to stay alive and go forward. Until they hand over to someone else.

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

The biggest shock for me was that Ron Martin took interest free loans from Martin Dawn plc, totaling more than £4.7million between 2006-2009.

Then there is the £60,000 a year management fee from S.U.F.C. Ron Martin charges through Martin Dawn plc.

Quote from the Echo; Mr Martin has always maintained he does not take a paid salary from Southend United for his work as chairman, and it is not clear from accounts of either of the companies what specific work the management fee covers.
His company Martin Dawn plc, also charges expenses to Southend United, including a bill of £95,585 in 2007. However, according to the 2009 accounts for Southend United, Martin Dawn charged no expenses that year and only £4,625 in 2008.
There are no further details in the accounts what the expenses cover.

I think this all looks very suspect, and should definitely be investigated.

 

[ElstreeBlue]

Didn't Ron say that once HMRC had been paid by his other companies ultimately he was the only creditor? So what about all these other creditors that the Echo is alleging? Not to mention that Sainsbury's have leant so much money (albeit not directly to the club)?

The Echo alleges that there are four unsatisfied court judgments. They say one was from Deloittes for £72k. The Echo claims that it was to help the club to prepare its business plans for the new stadium by getting retailers and other businesses to fund it. Can this be right? Why would the CLUB (who doesn't own the land and would not be the landlord at Fossetts Farm - just one of the tenants there) be incurring those sort of fees? The CLUB's (as opposed to the landowners') only expenses should be on the day-to-day operating costs of the club itself such as players, not on the future Fossetts development.

And what on earth was the financial service loan company for?

 

[Cricko]

No this cannot be true...as if RM would or has ever used SUFC monies towards the new ground project.:liar:

Well spotted.

 

[Colchester and proud!]

To be fair there are Little Chefs on the A12 with a greater capacity than your ground.

The food is cheaper as well............!

 

[Medway Blue]

Didn't Ron say that once HMRC had been paid by his other companies ultimately he was the only creditor? So what about all these other creditors that the Echo is alleging? Not to mention that Sainsbury's have leant so much money (albeit not directly to the club)?

The Echo alleges that there are four unsatisfied court judgments. They say one was from Deloittes for £72k. The Echo claims that it was to help the club to prepare its business plans for the new stadium by getting retailers and other businesses to fund it. Can this be right? Why would the CLUB (who doesn't own the land and would not be the landlord at Fossetts Farm - just one of the tenants there) be incurring those sort of fees? The CLUB's (as opposed to the landowners') only expenses should be on the day-to-day operating costs of the club itself such as players, not on the future Fossetts development.

And what on earth was the financial service loan company meant to be for?

The Billion Dollar Question.

It's what I've been thinking/saying for some time now. Plenty of people on here claim 'oh, RM has always stated that the club isn't paying a penny towards anything to do with the stadium, so that must be right'. Well, on the surface it is. But when you consider how many companies RM owns and how many of those are involved directly with the club and its day-to-day running, it is more than fair to say that the the club's finances and RM's companies' finances are all one and the same. They are so intricately linked that they are not separate. If RM and his companies have been funding the day-to-day running of the club by moving money and paperwork around as much as it seems, then who knows what money belongs to which component of this big mess? If RM's companies pay for stadium costs, then that might as well read as SUFC paying for the stadium costs, because they are one and the same.

 

[ElstreeBlue]

The Billion Dollar Question.

It's what I've been thinking/saying for some time now. Plenty of people on here claim 'oh, RM has always stated that the club isn't paying a penny towards anything to do with the stadium, so that must be right'. Well, on the surface it is. But when you consider how many companies RM owns and how many of those are involved directly with the club and its day-to-day running, it is more than fair to say that the the club's finances and RM's companies' finances are all one and the same. They are so intricately linked that they are not separate. If RM and his companies have been funding the day-to-day running of the club by moving money and paperwork around as much as it seems, then who knows what money belongs to which component of this big mess? If RM's companies pay for stadium costs, then that might as well read as SUFC paying for the stadium costs, because they are one and the same.

Please explain the statement in bold?

As to RM's other companies paying for stadium costs, of course that's what I'd assume must have happened. So why would Deloittes, according to the Echo's allegations, have got a judgment against the CLUB rather than another company that would have needed the consultancy services surrounding the development?

 

[THE SEVENTIES NORTH BANK]

The Billion Dollar Question.

It's what I've been thinking/saying for some time now. Plenty of people on here claim 'oh, RM has always stated that the club isn't paying a penny towards anything to do with the stadium, so that must be right'. Well, on the surface it is. But when you consider how many companies RM owns and how many of those are involved directly with the club and its day-to-day running, it is more than fair to say that the the club's finances and RM's companies' finances are all one and the same. They are so intricately linked that they are not separate. If RM and his companies have been funding the day-to-day running of the club by moving money and paperwork around as much as it seems, then who knows what money belongs to which component of this big mess? If RM's companies pay for stadium costs, then that might as well read as SUFC paying for the stadium costs, because they are one and the same.

It seems that Ron Martin has been playing a large merrygoround with monies through Southend and some of his other companies. The more complicated it is, the harder to unravel. S.U.F.C. seems to have come out a massive loser on the money merrygoround. Absolute disgrace.

 

[Medway Blue]

Please explain the statement in bold?

As to RM's other companies paying for stadium costs, of course that's what I'd assume must have happened. So why would Deloittes, according to the Echo's allegations, have got a judgment against the CLUB rather than another company that would have needed the consultancy services surrounding the development?

What needs explaining? RM has been funding the day-to-day running of the club, covering losses where he could back in the days when he had a bit of money, loaning money.....we have often heard about delays in the releasing of funds into the CLub's account by the 'Parent Company'.