'Vulnerable' Liverpool could be sold

[Bonjour]

How on earth have Liverpool got into so much debt? They don't even have a new stadium yet. As an aside, how did Keith Harris manage the career move from ventriloquist to takeover broker? :think:


Premier League takeover broker Keith Harris believes Liverpool could go into financial meltdown in January and might be forced to sell up.

Harris, who has masterminded deals for Chelsea, Aston Villa, Hull City, West Ham United and Manchester City and is currently seeking buyers for Newcastle United and Everton, claims that the Reds could be severely affected by the global credit crunch.

Bickering Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have two months to pay back a reported £350million worth of debt and with refinancing packages and new financial stakeholders getting harder and harder to find the Merseyside club might have to offload star players to pay off the debt.

The worse case scenario would be for the banks to consider repossessing the club if the payments cannot be met.

"The one that worries me is Liverpool," said Harris. "Liverpool's debt is due in January, with maybe a six-month extension."

"The two banks which are the principal lenders - the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia - are two of those that have suffered. Whether they want to lend it again or not, they may not be able to."

 

[Bobishism]

20 pence for Torres!

 

[Bobishism]

Yeah, he'd never sign though.

 

[Defsta]

Can we buy Gerrard?

 

[General Levy]

Can we buy Gerrard?

we have Huddlestone

 

[punky]

In one way, it would be funny to see the administrators turn up at the club. On the other hand, it would be sad for the English footballing world to see a world-leading English club with so much history go tits up. On the other hand, a 15 point deduction and sale of some players might give another team a chance at breaking through into the top 4. Lots of hands...

Maybe Torres will go to Citeh after all?

 

[bugsdad]

They are in debt because the.
new owners used the clubs assets to secure the debts the have accrued in buying the club.
In normal times the banks would have rolled ove the loans as long as the interest was being met ,but these days with the banks temselves in trouble there is no guarantee that this loan will be rolled over.
Stand by for a similar situation with the debtsthe scum have acrued on their new stadium.
They were relying on the sale of the flats at highbury to repay these loane, but none of
them are being sold.
Even with their large gates t is impossible for them to meet their normal expenses and interest on the loans and repaythe capital without these sales.
So interesting times ahead for the bin dippers and scum and they could be joined by
Yanited could also face similar problems soon too.Bye Bye Ronaldo!

 

[SpurSince57]

Fire sale!

 

[Bonjour]

I got a letter through the post trying to sell me one of the gooner flats the other day. They wanted 240k for a one bed flat or something ludicrous. It's no wonder they're having trouble shifting them.

 

[Kendall]

Just another example of Levy's prudence coming out on top.

 

[joey55]

Just another example of Levy's prudence coming out on top.

It isn't really anything to do with Levy's prudence. ENIC bought a largelly debt free club for a relatively small amount amount of money. Liverpool was bought for a large amount and most of this money was borrowed. The difference is therefore to do with the how the club's were originally bought and not to do with how prudently they've been run. Liverpool's debt has little to do with extravagent spending in the transfer market or on wages etc.

 

[Bonjour]

Surely it's still prudent of ENIC (and Levy) to have bought a largely debt free club for a small amount of money, though?

 

[joey55]

Surely it's still prudent of ENIC (and Levy) to have bought a largely debt free club for a small amount of money, though?

But that's prudence that has benefited ENIC, not the club/fans, which I think was what Kendall was suggesting. ENIC have never actually invested a penny of their own money (other than to acquire further stock holdings), as is often suggested. They've just reinvested money generated by the plc. From this point of view, the prudence of Levy and ENIC really isn't much different to many Prem clubs including Liverpool.

 

[hybridsoldier]

Id love to shove this into every single Levy hater's face.

Id rather have a tottenham than no tottenham

 

[Dave-F]

Id love to shove this into every single Levy hater's face.

Id rather have a tottenham than no tottenham

Yup. I'd agree to that. He's made his mistakes, but we've had a pretty good time of it as well. And we're in a decent financial position compared to most clubs because he's kept his head.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

But that's prudence that has benefited ENIC, not the club/fans, which I think was what Kendall was suggesting. ENIC have never actually invested a penny of their own money (other than to acquire further stock holdings), as is often suggested. They've just reinvested money generated by the plc. From this point of view, the prudence of Levy and ENIC really isn't much different to many Prem clubs including Liverpool.

But surely you have to give them some credit. You seem to making it sound like it's a piece of piss to actually improve the quality of a clubs playing staff considerably, improve their playing style considerably, improve their success considerably, whilst at the same time make them more profitable than they have ever been, thus guaranteeing further investment and potential achievement all without a private owner(s) funding this out of benevolence from his offshore slush fund.

You say it's the same for most premiership clubs but actually it's not. Outside of Arsenal I can't think of a single club who can actually come close to touching the achievements of our board, based on that criteria, without a beneficial owner or putting their club in serious hock.

You can argue about how they have achieved this (ie by selling a couple of players we would rather still be here etc) but they have.

We've all seen how easy it is to buy a club with no debt and make a complete clusterfuck of it. Irving Scholar did it to us.

 

[joey55]

But surely you have to give them some credit. You seem to making it sound like it's a piece of piss to actually improve the quality of a clubs playing staff considerably, improve their playing style considerably, improve their success considerably, whilst at the same time make them more profitable than they have ever been, thus guaranteeing further investment and potential achievement all without a private owner(s) funding this out of benevolence from his offshore slush fund.

You say it's the same for most premiership clubs but actually it's not. Outside of Arsenal I can't think of a single club who can actually come close to touching the achievements of our board, based on that criteria, without a beneficial owner or putting their club in serious hock.

You can argue about how they have achieved this (ie by selling a couple of players we would rather still be here etc) but they have.

We've all seen how easy it is to buy a club with no debt and make a complete clusterfuck of it. Irving Scholar did it to us.

B-C I don't make it sound like a piece of piss and think i can say I was one of Levys' strongest proponents on this board for a long time. I made numerous posts seriously praising him and described him as the best thing to happen to the club in 20 years, simply because of the way he ran things. As i've told you in the past, I came very close by buying shares in the club in 2004, simply becasue of how impressed i was with the way Levy was running things. You totally ignore the fact that my issue's with Levy have only surfaced in the last year or so. The points you make in support of him have been made by myself on many occassions in the past. You are ignoring the key point that any arguments we've previously had about how Levy ran the club were all built around CL qualification. All my criticisms and arguments to do with how Levy was running things were to do with that objective.

The points I've made in this thread are valid. I haven't said other clubs have been run as efficiently as ours, but that they've been run with prudence. But i hate this argument that our extreme financial efficency has always benefited us. It simply isn't true. And i equally hate it that whenever we discuss the finances of the club you have to bring up extremes such as Irving Scholar or Leeds. There was never a suggestion that we should or need to even go close to going into debt.

You know what my issue's with Levy have been over last year or two and I think to be fair i've been proven right. Due to the recent changes he's made i've totally forgiven him and think he'll learn so much from the experiences of the last year and this can only benefit the club in the future. But I'm not going to to compare apples with oranges in order to to praise him. Liverpool's financial problems aren't to do with the club being poorly run. Their operating profits are amongst the highest in the Prem. I think they are 3rd after Utd and Arsenal. Their wage/turnover ratio is also well below Prem average. Their issues are result of previous debt and how the purchasing of the club was financed.

 

[jamesc0le]

Levy should get on the phone and offer them 8 million to send keane back down the motorway and offer them tarabt on a six month loan as a sweetener

 

[Kendall]

Why would we want Keane? we've only jst adjusted the way we play to suit our new strikers and it appears to be working. Robbie Keane can take his face for a shit.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

B-C I don't make it sound like a piece of piss and think i can say I was one of Levys' strongest proponents on this board for a long time. I made numerous posts seriously praising him and described him as the best thing to happen to the club in 20 years, simply because of the way he ran things. As i've told you in the past, I came very close by buying shares in the club in 2004, simply becasue of how impressed i was with the way Levy was running things. You totally ignore the fact that my issue's with Levy have only surfaced in the last year or so. The points you make in support of him have been made by myself on many occassions in the past. You are ignoring the key point that any arguments we've previously had about how Levy ran the club were all built around CL qualification. All my criticisms and arguments to do with how Levy was running things were to do with that objective.

The points I've made in this thread are valid. I haven't said other clubs have been run as efficiently as ours, but that they've been run with prudence. But i hate this argument that our extreme financial efficency has always benefited us. It simply isn't true. And i equally hate it that whenever we discuss the finances of the club you have to bring up extremes such as Irving Scholar or Leeds. There was never a suggestion that we should or need to even go close to going into debt.

You know what my issue's with Levy have been over last year or two and I think to be fair i've been proven right. Due to the recent changes he's made i've totally forgiven him and think he'll learn so much from the experiences of the last year and this can only benefit the club in the future. But I'm not going to to compare apples with oranges in order to to praise him. Liverpool's financial problems aren't to do with the club being poorly run. Their operating profits are amongst the highest in the Prem. I think they are 3rd after Utd and Arsenal. Their wage/turnover ratio is also well below Prem average. Their issues are result of previous debt and how the purchasing of the club was financed.

I'm not sure what you mean by apples and oranges or how that relates to what I said. My remarks related to the way you dismissed other posts about the way our club has been run fiscally as "no better than most EPL clubs". I disagree with that and tried to briefly explain why.

And I'm really not sure how you have been proved right about Levy either. I seem to remember telling you that Levy would be prepared to step outside the zone on the odd occassion, when finances permit, but that the core policy was the only sustainable model. This has been proven unequivicably.

I think the CL issue was always a bit of a red herring. It will always be the goal of a club like ours to attain CL qualification. The model adopted by Levy to progress the club has not alterred in the last 12 months. Any statements concerning our persuit of CL qualification were pretty standard stuff that most of us would expect a forward thinking chairman to be saying. Jol said similar things at times.

The examples of Scholar, Leeds etc are of course valid when discussing fiscal management of any football club. They are examples of what poor fiscal management can bring to a club.

To say there was never any need for us to go into debt is a bit like saying there is no need for people to have accidents in their cars. No there isn't but it happens every day and seems to be far easier to do than actually improve the football side of your club whilst making record profits, which to a degree is the holy grail of football stewardship I would have thought.