Quote:
Originally Posted by punky
This will drag on. And there is more than enough reasonable suspicion that there's some skull duggery at play.
Broughton was determined to push through the NESV bid even though Peter Lim offered £20m and £40m cash as transfer kitty. He said:
And then Mill Financial who already held Gillet's shares were offering £400m plus pushing through the new stadium. They didn't even get as far as Peter Kim. And these are people with significantly more clout than J W Henry who is scrapping together change down the back of thre sofa to buy the club.
I really don't know whose interests Broughton is looking out for here. But its clear he, appointed by RBS, has not been playing straight. And when you consider his descision cost H&G up £50m each extra, you can see why H&G chose to fight it. Who wouldn't?
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There was a clearly defined bidding process governed by corporate law so there was no point in Peter Lim hanging around and submitting new bids via his PR machine (twice while the high court was in session) after the bidding process and due diligence had finished. He and others had more than enough time to submit a reasonable offer, it is not eBay.
Mill financial wanted exclusivity in the bidding process which was NOT allowed under the banks conditions of the sale.
The previous owners have technically been in default since Easter and the banks were quite within their rights to put the club into administration back in which case poor old Tom and George would have walked away with another failed business on their record. Instead the bank agreed to a temporary extension to the finance on the basis that the club was sold to repay the debt under strict conditions set by the creditors. At this point the former owners had very little say how things panned out.
If the ill informed in the media, US legal fraternity and elsewhere think they know better than the high court I'm sure they'd be enlightened to hear the reasons.
Lessons for Tom and George to take away:
Don't borrow what you can't afford
Don't partake in asset sweating LBOs of sports teams (franchises as they call them) - it doesn't work
Don't lie
Don't show contempt of a high court ruling
Honour your contracts