The Gooner Forum

QuartzGooner wrote: Shares are only worth what people are prepared to pay for them.

True to an extent, but that worth is not merely coincidental or accidental. Do you think that our decisions on how much money we spend or do not spend and how and why we do so have nothing at all to do with that, and that our Board of businessmen including investment bankers at Hanbros
are unaware that they ca n have such an impact.

Do you sincerely believe thta the decision to redevelop Highbury was made with no consideration to this at all, that it was all purely coincidental how it worked out?

QuartzGooner wrote:No one forced the board members to sell …"

Exactly - though I would add no one forced the Board to sell at 12K a share. This is especially noteworthy when you consider how much money all of our Board members already had for themselves and their families, and how little if any at all money they actually invested out of their own pockets into simply acquring those shares

The reality is had they cashed in at 4K a share in 2005-2006 that even the Club's biggest investor in terms of money Dan Fiszman would have made a profit of 20-30 million pounds then and there and even the lesser investotrs would have made profits over at least one million GBP apiece. The lIkes of David Dein and Lady Bracewell-Smith would have made 15-25 million GBP each and the club would have had room for growth on and off the pitch moving forward.

Would that have been so bad for anyone? Again especially considering how wealthy these shareholders already are and how little they had to put in for these shares? And why should we not ask whether or not that factoreed into how the conducted Arsenal's affairs and finances particularly the decision to re-develop Highbury which led to the cash flow problems you refer to further on. Better still why wouldn't any supporters genuinely concerned with the Club's best interests raise those concerns given what we have seen happening?
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Martin,

I think you're putting too much emphasis on Highbury Square. It is undeniable that the shit commercial deals Edelman signed to get the Emirates built have cost us far more than Highbury did. You can't deny that surely?

- Emirates - shit deal.
- Nike - shit deal.
- Loads of other shit deals.

Highbury caused a temporary cash-flow problem for 3 years. Edelman's negotiations have cost us 10 years of shite revenue.

QuartzGooner wrote:If Danny Fiszman was not diagnosed with cancer can you say for sure he would have sold his shares?

I would not begrudge Dan Fiszman one bit had he simply made his intentions clear publicly. He could have said without going into uncomfortable details that for health reasons he could could no longer carry on in his role with the Club and because I do not have anyone in my family who feels about Arsenal as I do I feel I owe to myself my family and my Club to makes my shares available to other Board members. that would have been perfectly sensible and reasonable.

What it would not do is explain pushing the share price to 12K or not selling for less that that or why the rest of the Board had to do so at the same time and same price or whether in fact there was a plan in place to sell the club ahead of his condition necessitating doing so, given that the Lockdown agreement board members signed on to and Stan Kroenke’s concurrent assurance not to make any take over bid is timed so as to allow for the successful completion of the Highbury re-development


I am no doctor nor if I were do I know Mr. Fiszman's personal medical history well enough to ascertain what he would have done or how he would have done it himself. But again looking at the timing of the agreements from the parties involved anmd the fact that Dan Fiszman was in fact the only facing the dilemna he faced personally it all looks a bit coincidental to me, and like i say when people makes makes millions even hundreds of millions of pounds and the word lottery isn't part of the explanation its safe to conclude there are no coincidences.

Marty, has the evidence been posted yet?

quote="QuartzGooner"]The grey haired "custodian family" board members were not getting any younger, and if their kids (though it says on Wikipedia that Richard Carr has none) were not prepared to become board members, or not business minded, then perhaps the "custodians" did the right thing in selling to people who know about international corporate business? [/quote]

I believe Stan Kroenke is a solid businessman and obviously sucessful in the business of sport. But I see nothing really to support the above claim at this point in time.Let's hop it is correct but that he at least remembers we are also a football team.

[/quote]

I believe Stan Kroenke is a solid businessman and obviously sucessful in the business of sport. [/quote]

And how many Superbowls have the Rams won since he's been an owner, precisely none

USMartin

If the club had sold Highbury for cash, and held onto the cash, then the share price would have risen.

We borrowed to rebuild Highbury, increased our loan repayments and caused belt tightening, but ultimately the scheme made a profit.

So it is not the decision to redevelop Highbury that needs so much attention, it is the decision not to spend our cash reserves.

Look at Mr Wenger for that one?

Yes.

Look at the Board for that one?

Logically yes.

But so much of what Gooners hear around certain circles points to Wenger.

Ultimately we will never know for sure unless a tell-all book is written, even then it could be met by claim and counter claim.

frankbutcher wrote:Martin,

I think you're putting too much emphasis on Highbury Square. It is undeniable that the shit commercial deals Edelman signed to get the Emirates built have cost us far more than Highbury did. You can't deny that surely?

- Emirates - shit deal.
- Nike - shit deal.
- Loads of other shit deals.

Highbury caused a temporary cash-flow problem for 3 years. Edelman's negotiations have cost us 10 years of shite revenue.

And you don't suppose some of thiose shit deals weren't necessitated by the cash flow problems you acknowledge the re-development.

No I think people don't want to look at the redevelopment because fankly it raises questions whose answeres many don't wnat to know.

QuartzGooner wrote:USMartin

If the club had sold Highbury for cash, and held onto the cash, then the share price would have risen.

So are you acknowledging that the money was being withheld in order to increase the share price then? Have you yourself provided the "smoking gun" you insist is necessary before we should even begin to question the Board and its handling of these matters ?

The thing is whether you have or not you are ignring one key factor - which is the concern the overborrowing created, which woiuld not have happened had we sold Highbury. We would not have had to worry about having a 40% higher total debt obigation and a 100% higher debt obligation due by 2010.


This would have meant less urgency for cash up front and thus more profitable sponsorship and equipment deals and there would have been funding available form the sale to ease any addityional cash flow concerns without radically changing the natuire of our football team and how we invested in it.

And there would have still been room to use some of that cash to help increase the sahre price if they desired that without undermining the ability for Arsenal to compete on or off the pitch as clearly we were.

We could have won a trophy or two more maybe more than that even and had a team readyn to win tophies now from here on and still seen the share price reach 7000-8000 GBP. No not 12000 but given that no one on our Board of multi-nillionaires paid more than 2000 a share evn if price only just reached 6000 they wouild be doing right all right since many of them paid excatly nothing for their hioldings

QuartzGooner wrote: We borrowed to rebuild Highbury, increased our loan repayments and caused belt tightening, but ultimately the scheme made a profit.

So it is not the decision to redevelop Highbury that needs so much attention, it is the decision not to spend our cash reserves.

That then scheme made a profit which increased our value should be irrelavant to us as what we in fact are - football supporters.We are not corporate groupies, and football supporters would and should be concerned about the impact of this project and the motives behind undertakijng a project they had to know would this impact and clearly mis-lead us about that knwoledge for several years.

QuartzGooner wrote:Look at Mr Wenger for that one?

Yes.

Look at the Board for that one?

Logically yes.

Are you feeling better now? Just reading the above its clear how difficult it was for you to even question the4 Board to that extent .

QuartzGooner wrote:But so much of what Gooners hear around certain circles points to Wenger.

This might be the single least credible claim you have made given that it is the single vaguest claim you have made.

What is all this ? What Gooners have heard it? Who have trhey heard it fom? What circles have they been in?

Good grief.

QuartzGooner wrote: Ultimately we will never know for sure unless a tell-all book is written, even then it could be met by claim and counter claim.

We may never know the complete truth, but if we don't wnat to know the truth at all and bring no pressure to bear in this regard they will continue to take advantage of our willful naivete because supporters like you are happy to let them do so.

You do raise another interesting point thugh - if you are so sure we'll never know the turth about the Bioard and its mtoives and thus should not question them on these things then surely the same would apply about the manager's role and we ashould cease savaging him for what we believe he may be doing, no? Or is it different for him maybe because he wasn't an Old Etomian - or whatever public schiools we are talking about?

We need a "shooting self in head" emoticon.

DB10GOONER wrote:We need a "shooting self in head" emoticon.

I'd prefer a "shooting someone else in the head" emoticon. I wonder who I could be talking about? Do not understand why people still rise to his bait.

Chippy wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:We need a "shooting self in head" emoticon.

I'd prefer a "shooting someone else in the head" emoticon. I wonder who I could be talking about? Do not understand why people still rise to his bait.

For me it's the gun suicide emoticon. Because sometimes, after trawling through these threads, I really feel like shooting myself in the head. Worryingly I have a licenced firearm at home....

DB10GOONER wrote:

Chippy wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:We need a "shooting self in head" emoticon.

I'd prefer a "shooting someone else in the head" emoticon. I wonder who I could be talking about? Do not understand why people still rise to his bait.

For me it's the gun suicide emoticon. Because sometimes, after trawling through these threads, I really feel like shooting myself in the head. Worryingly I have a licenced firearm at home....

That's amazing. Do you cover it with some sort of special protective substance that allows you to put your arm near or in flames?

DB10GOONER wrote:

Chippy wrote:

DB10GOONER wrote:We need a "shooting self in head" emoticon.

I'd prefer a "shooting someone else in the head" emoticon. I wonder who I could be talking about? Do not understand why people still rise to his bait.

For me it's the gun suicide emoticon. Because sometimes, after trawling through these threads, I really feel like shooting myself in the head. Worryingly I have a licenced firearm at home....

Didn't there used to be a hanging emoticon?

Anyway, I've just discovered this...