FISZMAN'S SHARES- WHAT IF .......

[frankbutcher]

It is a few years ago now, but i worked in the Banking team that did the Highbury deal. I won't divulge too many details for obvious reasons. However, the commercial deal stacked up...In other words, without the Property crash, the Club would have done very well. The loans were structured to allow interest to 'roll up' and add to the loan as it accrued, so in theory it should not have impacted upon spending on the squad. The problem is that the market crashed, a big purchaser 'walked away' from the deal and the club was forced to bridge the short-fall. Now all the flats have been sold and the profits are making their way back into Arsenal Holdings.

[Bergkamp-Genius]

What is needed more than anything else from our board is transparency. When we hear opposing views of what our financial situation really is, this is what insults us as fans.

This is where the board must change in order for us fans to know what is really going on at our club.

I like many am not happy with the situation, but I believe we have been lied to by the club over the last few years. They were stupid to announce the stadium would have no affect on our transfer kitties, I really do not believe we are sitting on £100mill of surplus cash, I do not believe we have £40-£50million to spend on players, and I don’t believe that our board have any intentions of letting us know the truth anytime soon.
But what I do believe is that the club are being tight with finances, and agree 100% with them doing so considering the new stadium. This is where the frustration is born, as we were told this news stadium wouldn’t affect us.

As for PHW he has no real power. He is a figure head at the club due to his family’s history. He is from the old school of football club chairman, and as far as I can remember has been outspoken and controversial (he’s the prince phillip of Arsenal), high position no real power.

Our books are there to be read, our 6 monthly results are there in full, how much more transparent do you want. If you want to know what our financial situation is it's there for you to see..

As for the £100m surplus of cash, your right we don't have it now, because it was used to clear a big chunk of the debt. But it was there and it had been accumulating in the bank over the last two or three years, the club just chose to use it to pay the debt quicker rather than invest it or a chunk of it in the team..

[USMartin]

Selling Highbury instead of redeveloping - must be the first time I've agreed with Martin

Even at the time some folks were saying we should've just sold the land and used the dosh for team investment.

However, one must remember PHW comes from a banking background, Hambros if i'm correct, so he'll probably know a whole lot more about the world of Finance than we're ever likely to know.

We AGREED on somthing No frickin way

[northbankbren]

not big in accounting, but am very interested to take a look. Do you have a link?

Dont want to pay though, am i rite in saying you sometimes have to pay to see accounts? see i might know something

[QuartzGooner]

Our books are there to be read, our 6 monthly results are there in full, how much more transparent do you want.

If remember rightly there was an outgoing of £50M attributed to "Miscellaneous"?
My memory might be wrong, and of course, that in no way means there is fraud, or even mismanagement, but there is a limit as to how much the club is legally obliged to reveal, and that includes individual transfers, and individual salaries.
I agree though, the books are as open as they are ever going to be for any large plc in the UK.

Link here to download past accounts:

http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corpora ... al-results

[Bergkamp-Genius]

http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corpora ... al-results

[MK Gould]

Wow. Most of this thread is way over my head....!

I don't think anyone wants outright control of Arsenal, and maybe that's the problem. Most of our shares appear to be owned by investors - who are quite happy with the status quo. Usmanov has maybe aluded to be something more, but even he has been slow to take control now that it is within reach.

As investors I wonder whether they would view spending £50m or so on players and maybe increasing the wage bill by, say, £20m a year as a bad investment compared to the possibly marginal increase in revenue that would come from winning trophies.....?

Dismissal, death and illness have created a void - which PHW has unfortunately filled. He may not be in full control of the club, but he is certainly the mouthpiece. And not a good one at that.

I'd agree that David Dein has done things that could be seen, as a by product, to be self serving. But I still believe that if you cut him open you would find Arsenal through the middle. Although I'm sure that much as he wants Arsenal to be financially successful I think he would also recognise that this has to be balanced alongside success on the pitch....

[USMartin]

stg wrote:
No I am saying that they are buisness people who are making the best out of thier buisness oppertunitys.


Actually that qualifies as a yes to me - but again there is nothing wrong with that so long as ones recognizes that is the reality

stg wrote:
If the team is more sucssesful the share price will rise so making the club more sucssesful would be part of the business plan


I would strongly agree with that philosophy as you express it. That would certainly be my approach were I in that postion. I just would suggest the Board have not in the past several years, or at least have not actually put that approach into practice over that time.

So in your opinion are the board trying to make money and their share prices increase or not then? Why would a board full of business and banking people not want to make the club they are involved in sucsesfull? If you were in their position would you then not worry about your share value

I think the amswer lies in how this was done, stg...I think they over-stretched the club and holding company financially with the borrowing both for the new stadium and the re-development, although had they continued to operate under the self-sustaining business model during that period this might have been avoided.

But the reality is they did not and I think they felt they could niot afford to maintain the same level of investment in the football team and to pay back the stadium loan - and possibly the re-development loan as the economic crisis unfolded and that meant that

1) They shifted funds going into to the football team into debt repayment

and

2) Reduced spending of the reamining funds as a precaution until they were confident the re-development loan was paid off.

I agree fully with you on your theory stg - but the reliance omn the self-sustaining business model while the club was so stretched financially would undermine that sort of thinking. There wasn't - or they concluded there wasn't - enough money under the self-sustaining model to pay down the debt and invest at the same level in the team at once.

In my mind it was very penny-wise but pound-foolish thinking really and that the Board might have made more money had they been a bit more proactive rather than reactive in approaching this. My guess is they saw the short term opportunity as too good to pass up against a greater long-term benefit but one greater long-term risk to their investment.

Yes I realize the irony of what I just wrote

[northbankbren]

Cheers Guys.....

58 pages.....here goes.....

....10 mins later

gunna have to leave that till morning.

[Bergkamp-Genius]

Our books are there to be read, our 6 monthly results are there in full, how much more transparent do you want.

If remember rightly there was an outgoing of £50M attributed to "Miscellaneous"?
My memory might be wrong, and of course, that in no way means there is fraud, or even mismanagement, but there is a limit as to how much the club is legally obliged to reveal, and that includes individual transfers, and individual salaries.
I agree though, the books are as open as they are ever going to be for any large plc in the UK.

Link here to download past accounts:

http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corpora ... al-results

You don't really need to know how much individual salaries or fees are to see our financial position, no more than you need to know how much a season ticket is..

[QuartzGooner]

Our books are there to be read, our 6 monthly results are there in full, how much more transparent do you want.

If remember rightly there was an outgoing of £50M attributed to "Miscellaneous"?
My memory might be wrong, and of course, that in no way means there is fraud, or even mismanagement, but there is a limit as to how much the club is legally obliged to reveal, and that includes individual transfers, and individual salaries.
I agree though, the books are as open as they are ever going to be for any large plc in the UK.

Link here to download past accounts:

http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corpora ... al-results

You don't really need to know how much individual salaries or fees are to see our financial position, no more than you need to know how much a season ticket is..

No, but my point is there is a limit to transparency.
It is of great interest to me to see how much each player is on, because I am sure that you, like myself, have a feeling how much each player is "worth" relative to each other player.

It was of interest to me that Henry (reportedly) got a front loaded deal in 2006, then left the club a year later.
Did he have to repay that money when he left?
Was it worth it to pay him upfront in terms of recouped seat sales, tv rights and merchandise, in addition to his contribution on the pitch?

[USMartin]

Fiszman will not get any better, he is seriously ill. Harsh truth. Now I don't see any reason why he'd sell his shares. Like any of his business investments i'd guess they would be left to family or friends on his premature passing.

I don't think Kroenke or Usmanov want control of the club or they'd have bought LNBS shares. Kroenke only needs 10 shares to reach the 30% required for an offical takeover . . . a measly £85,000. However, if he got these he'd have to offer the maximum he'd paid for a share to every shareholder.

But what do I know?

Sadly if what I've heard is true (throat cancer) I suspect you are correct. Very sad really. Its amazing how far doctors have come though so there is some hope - though I suspect his flying here for treatment at this point is not a good sign. Pray for Mr. Fiszman and his Family.

I think you're right on Stan Kroenke at this point. I hope so anyway - as I doubt he'll have the money to buy the club without debt leverage if he buys the Rams as expected.

[USMartin]

It is a few years ago now, but i worked in the Banking team that did the Highbury deal. I won't divulge too many details for obvious reasons. However, the commercial deal stacked up...In other words, without the Property crash, the Club would have done very well. The loans were structured to allow interest to 'roll up' and add to the loan as it accrued, so in theory it should not have impacted upon spending on the squad. The problem is that the market crashed, a big purchaser 'walked away' from the deal and the club was forced to bridge the short-fall. Now all the flats have been sold and the profits are making their way back into Arsenal Holdings.

Very interesting. The thing is it clearly impacted on spending well before the crash Frank. I would agree with the theory that the crash made a bad situation worse certainly, beyond any doubt. In deed I have heard others suggest just that - that the whole "transistion/youth syatem" phase was meant to be very short-term in nature and that this was understood between the manager and Board and that the crash undermined that plan. I can believe that much as it would make sense certainly.

[Bergkamp-Genius]

Our books are there to be read, our 6 monthly results are there in full, how much more transparent do you want.

If remember rightly there was an outgoing of £50M attributed to "Miscellaneous"?
My memory might be wrong, and of course, that in no way means there is fraud, or even mismanagement, but there is a limit as to how much the club is legally obliged to reveal, and that includes individual transfers, and individual salaries.
I agree though, the books are as open as they are ever going to be for any large plc in the UK.

Link here to download past accounts:

http://www.arsenal.com/the-club/corpora ... al-results

You don't really need to know how much individual salaries or fees are to see our financial position, no more than you need to know how much a season ticket is..

No, but my point is there is a limit to transparency.
It is of great interest to me to see how much each player is on, because I am sure that you, like myself, have a feeling how much each player is "worth" relative to each other player.

It was of interest to me that Henry (reportedly) got a front loaded deal in 2006, then left the club a year later.
Did he have to repay that money when he left?
Was it worth it to pay him upfront in terms of recouped seat sales, tv rights and merchandise, in addition to his contribution on the pitch?

Oh don't get me wrong i would love to see the individual salary figures but i don't need to to guage the overall financial position.
Can you imagine the discontent it would create among the fans seeing players that can't string two games together and spend half their time on the bench or in the treatment room earning anything from 2-5 million a year before bonuses..Or a manager that refuses to spend the clubs profits to strengthen the team whilst he's pulling in 4-6 million a year for himself..it's bad enough that we can hypothesize about how much they earn, i'm afraid if the reality was in print for everyone to see there would be riots at the ground after every sub par performance..

I don't think the Henry thing is just reportedly if i remember rightly it's in the figures that year, mentioned as an aside, not that it was for him but just as a one off payment. I doubt he gave any of the money back when he left i think he was so revered that they probably couldn't bring themselves to ask for it..

[USMartin]

As the Board was looking at it it was absolutely worth it.

Henry's depearture would have overshadowed the new stadium and could have impacted ticket sales negatively though honestly I can't see how it would have significantly done so if say he wasn't sold until ST renewals were in- although if there were genuine doubt he was staying that could have slowed those as well.

But even if it only had a minimal impact on ticket sales overall that effect could have been sufficient to undermine the confidence of investors in the club going forward, so maintaining that confidence and thus the share price certainly justified it. And that it pleased the supporters no end and made the team better certainly helped as well. But in my mind they resoned it was worth it whether it truly was is not as certain honestly.