Does the AST actually puchase and control the shares though? I asked that in a PM to Reg a bit back - as that way the AST controls more shares which supports its goal of plurality of ownership and give the AST a larger role in club matters and votes no? If operated properly and successfully could it not sharply decrease the likelihood of a debt-leveraged take-over then?MJF0402 wrote:Just for clarity, this is the scheme which the AST have been working incredibly hard to get up and running for the last 5 years. They are the people behind it, not the club. However, for it to happen, it was necessary to get the club to support the scheme and to help publicise it. One of the best way of doing this was via the membership packs as this goes to a wide range of people.
Some people have questioned where the money will go and my understanding is that the money goes to whoever is selling the shares. There have not suddenly been a whole load of new shares made available, so the only way the scheme can buy shares is on the open market. The club are not therefore profiting from it in any way - under FSA rules, which is what the scheme has to operate under, they wouldn't be allowed to.
The benefit to the club (and therefore to us as fans) is that it will help increase plurality of ownership. Ultimately (and I accept this is a hugely ambitious goal), members of the scheme could end up owning a significant enough share in the club to prevent anyone from taking it into private ownership. I appreciate some people think private ownerhip with a wealthy benefactor is the way forward, but according to the results of The Gooner Survey (see the next issue of the fanzine out next weekend), the majority view is still against this.
I believe full details of the scheme, including an extensive set of FAQs will be made available to anyone interested shortly.
Arsenal Fanshare
For the same reasons that the club can't profit from this scheme, neither can the AST, which is why they back it, but aren't running it. It's a complete separate entity that will run it - AST2 if you like.
Just to play with some (hugely ambitious admittedly) figures for a minute to give you an idea of how this could work if it's successful...
Let's say 50,000 sign up investing £20 a month
That's £1m a month with which to purchase shares
A single share at the moment is costing around £8,500-£9,000 at the moment, but to make it easy, let's assume it's £10,000.
Therefore the scheme could buy 100 shares a month (assuming there are enough sellers).
In a year therefore, the schemes members would own a total of 1200 shares which is just under 2% of the club.
In 5 years, they would therefore own a little less than 10% of the club. I think I'm right in saying that any one individual has to own over 90% of the shares to be able to take the club into private ownership, so if the schemes members (in all likelihood fans of the club) were able to stop any one individual from owning over 90% of the club, then it could never be taken private without the members consent.
That's a long way off of course, but its important to have goals and that doesn't seem completely unrealistic. From small acorns...
Just to play with some (hugely ambitious admittedly) figures for a minute to give you an idea of how this could work if it's successful...
Let's say 50,000 sign up investing £20 a month
That's £1m a month with which to purchase shares
A single share at the moment is costing around £8,500-£9,000 at the moment, but to make it easy, let's assume it's £10,000.
Therefore the scheme could buy 100 shares a month (assuming there are enough sellers).
In a year therefore, the schemes members would own a total of 1200 shares which is just under 2% of the club.
In 5 years, they would therefore own a little less than 10% of the club. I think I'm right in saying that any one individual has to own over 90% of the shares to be able to take the club into private ownership, so if the schemes members (in all likelihood fans of the club) were able to stop any one individual from owning over 90% of the club, then it could never be taken private without the members consent.
That's a long way off of course, but its important to have goals and that doesn't seem completely unrealistic. From small acorns...
I have been doing such maths myself during the day.MJF0402 wrote:For the same reasons that the club can't profit from this scheme, neither can the AST, which is why they back it, but aren't running it. It's a complete separate entity that will run it - AST2 if you like.
Just to play with some (hugely ambitious admittedly) figures for a minute to give you an idea of how this could work if it's successful...
Let's say 50,000 sign up investing £20 a month
That's £1m a month with which to purchase shares
A single share at the moment is costing around £8,500-£9,000 at the moment, but to make it easy, let's assume it's £10,000.
Therefore the scheme could buy 100 shares a month (assuming there are enough sellers).
In a year therefore, the schemes members would own a total of 1200 shares which is just under 2% of the club.
In 5 years, they would therefore own a little less than 10% of the club. I think I'm right in saying that any one individual has to own over 90% of the shares to be able to take the club into private ownership, so if the schemes members (in all likelihood fans of the club) were able to stop any one individual from owning over 90% of the club, then it could never be taken private without the members consent.
That's a long way off of course, but its important to have goals and that doesn't seem completely unrealistic. From small acorns...
My point would be this - if the AST actually controlled the shares we'd be closer to that 10% you refer to as critical and we we would make it much tougher - and to me this is even more critical - for any owner or ownership group to be able to purchase 75% of the club which is the number at whioch loans borrowed to fund the take-over could be placed on the club's books - the dreaded debt-levraged take-over we have seen throw United into uncertainty and Liverpool into genuine jeopardy perhaps.
Also if the AST actually controlled the shares in this scheme (not the best word for this btw from a PR perspective)the AST would hold a larger vote in any issues put to vote for the club's future.
Given that that appears unlikely to happen - though not impossible - and that any shareholder including some very rich people who aren't very popular with these supporters or at least their actions aren't I can sympathize with their skepticsm but am eager to find out more here and urge everyone to at least listen to and consider this, but hope the AST is aware of such very genuine concerns being held.
I've seen an early draft of the FAQs which have been put together with the help of the AST and the various legal teams involved in making this happen. It's all been very carefully thought through and has taken a great many hours to get this far, so I'm sure your concerns will have been considered.
As I mentioned, the AST will have nothing whatsoever to do with the shares owned by people who are part of the fanshare. They wouldn't be allowed to, although many people who are part of the fanshare are also likely to be members of the AST.
As I mentioned, the AST will have nothing whatsoever to do with the shares owned by people who are part of the fanshare. They wouldn't be allowed to, although many people who are part of the fanshare are also likely to be members of the AST.
The latter bit is reassuring but given the AST's position why would anyone believe the AST might seek to profit from such a program? The AST would only be happy to have those shares under its control for the reasons we both have outl;ined and neither of those main reasons is going to be profitable to anyone but those selling the shares really.MJF0402 wrote:I've seen an early draft of the FAQs which have been put together with the help of the AST and the various legal teams involved in making this happen. It's all been very carefully thought through and has taken a great many hours to get this far, so I'm sure your concerns will have been considered.
As I mentioned, the AST will have nothing whatsoever to do with the shares owned by people who are part of the fanshare. They wouldn't be allowed to, although many people who are part of the fanshare are also likely to be members of the AST.
Doesn't make sense at all really
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