Potential Minority Investment

They won’t have pulled out simply because AL spilled the beans, the truth is they and any other investor touted were never that far down the road or that interested, so this is just a coping mechanism for them. Easier to blame a journalist when it inevitably doesn’t happen, and then that paves the way for even more excuses for Gino. It’s not Gino’s fault he’s run the club into the ground, he wanted to sell but a journalist ruined it for him!

 

Yes I agree. It does sound unlikely to suggest it's a journo who has ruined it. If you want to buy a club or invest in it, then it's inevitable people will find out, especially when some of the people associated to the potential deal were guest of honour at a match. It's hardly cloak and dagger stuff. From what I've heard on how they operate, I wouldn't have been too keen anyway, and hopefully they are not the only interested party.

But.......if no one comes in for us in the summer, we are well and truly fooked. The team we have now will be watered down even further. Can we trust people like Duxbury, Pozzo, Mani and Val to get it right? As basically that is our entire recruitment team. That makes me shudder. No wonder these clowns think Rajovic is going to be a great Championship striker......they are just clueless (although Nani had no hand in that, so is unfair to include him in the scorn just yet). Out of our summer signings, Healey has already gone, Ince doesn't get a look in, Rajovic is not what we need, Lewis has been hugely disappointing, Chak has been decent enough and Livermore is a short term solution who has done well. So more misses than hits, and certainly no squad rebuilding.

We will probably avoid the drop this season, although we'll be close to it come May. But next season, if Gino doesn't sell or if we don't get major investment we're going down for sure.

 

I don’t think investment is coming at all, it’s clear Gino has run out of road and is desperately seeking it, but desperately seeking it and getting it are two very different things, especially if the quoted figures for our valuation are remotely accurate in his mind.

If it did happen and it’s a minority steak, then it would just be kicking the can down the road anyway, with it giving Gino a little bit more money to play with in the short term.

Realistically the great reset is just us returning to our days of being a penniless Chanpinship club, and that’s the upside, and if Udinese get relegated then that really will be the final nail in the coffin for the whole thing.

 

Mmmmm.... minority steak

 

What's funniest here is we've now got the podders indirectly going at each other. Leventhal, who used to do a thing for FTRE, defects to WD18 and gives them the big scoop on the potential investors, and is then blamed by DNSYE for causing the deal to collapse.

They're all a bunch of whoppers so anything that pits them all against each other is good in my books.

 

Fingers crossed it turns into a fight to the death.

 

Who will be Hector and who will be Achilles?
Who will chase who around the walls of the Vic,three times?

Exciting times.

 

They are fruit loops for sure, although I do like Peter who anchors it. He's very good I think. You get Uncle Ron who calls everyone a b'stard, Wendover Horn who defends everything Pozzo does.....and there are a few others. I think one is called Rich, and he claims he knows stuff on the inside but is always wrong. Charlie who speaks well but is very antagonistic. It's like a real soap opera, and all the characters are so one dimensional.

If you'd like to listen to a podcast without the loonies, I would direct you to Voices of the Vic. Mike and Ben are just two regular fans, trying to make sense of it all. Decent guys.

 

Unless it involves people directly involved with a club, why would anyone listen to a fan podcast?

 

FTFY.

 

It could even end up on TV. Priam time viewing.

 

Hoping someone pods about it.

 

Wonder how the podders would react to being podded about.

 

And it has emerged that one of the two potential groups of investors have walked away from the table while discussions with the other have slowed, thus reducing the chance of an immediate injection of funds.

I’m going to pull a Rous and give it the big ‘I told you so.’

Was never ever as close as Leventhal made it sound.

 

So DNSYE read my post on the forum, then claimed it as their own?

The swines!

(AL alone didn’t cause them to pull out - but he didn’t help, least of all by naming the group and main party.)

 

And that I suppose is where the transfer window went.

 

It appears the group who we don’t know the identity of are the ones that have walked but the party AL reported are still at the table, albeit talks have slowed.

 

Leventhal is our most important fan and if he didn’t fancy them, then they probably weren’t right for him (us).

 

Here’s Andrew’s excellent report on the WO. As I suspected, the future looks extremely bleak for us beyond this season.

https://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/s...-plus-debt-reduced-watford-face-tricky-times/

 

A well written and depressing article.

It also serves as an invitation to clubs to come in with low offers for our better players.

 

That is not the case.

 

https://paid.outbrain.com/network/r...WbO5yi1ZZ3lyJfe5iKpm1p7-YDFawQ&c=b3c6d041&v=4

Excellent article.
Interesting that the first advert in it is Belgian.

 

Now, how exactly do you make the advert go away?

 

Thought it was just me!

 

Sound like a broken record here, but it’s an absolute disgrace that we are paying Duxbury almost a million quid a year. I actually gag at the thought of it…

All because he’s a yes man???? Fark it, I’ll be a yes man for 50k a year + a company car, perhaps even get the club to cover my rents for a decent gaff in Radlett… All because i’m feeling a bit spoilt.. and all that would still save the club 800k a year to spend elsewhere!!

 

I have absolutely no insight into the particulars of this thread, who is involved in talks, etc.

I would be interested on why people think someone, with access to £10s millions, would be interested in becoming a minority investor (different from benefactor), in any club. How would they increase the value of their investment and generate a return?

 

We don’t actually own Martins if I recall correctly

 

Agree. The fact that he appeared to copy and paste his 'mission statement' for the annual accounts sums it up.

 

The only way it would make any sense is if, as had been suggested, the potential investor was already part of a multi-club group. That way you can see the benefits of having a share in another club, even if it’s a minority one, but I don’t know if that was just speculation on here and had any basis in fact.

Otherwise it makes no sense at all (for any potential investor) especially at the touted valuations of £150/£200m. The only one it makes any sense for is Gino, he maintains a controlling stake, whilst getting a cash injection to keep the Wolf from the door/buy players/ pay back some of his debt to himself etc.

But for the minority investor, other than just some sort of brag of being able to say they part own a football club, to me it makes zero sense at all. They won’t money any money, the ones they’ve invested will be at risk, and they won’t have any real say in anything.

 

It wouldn’t really make any sense . Only if it was a hedge fund interested in a speculative investment to diversify their portfolio ( which it doesn’t sound like it is ) or an investor who really believes in the business plan , which I assume would involve getting back to the premier league . But that seems unlikely which is maybe why this has broken down.