2017 Accounts (merged)

Quoted from MuddyWaters

Well we can moan about it all we like - and we have - it states on the club's accounts that the club is controlled by JS Fenty. Until such time as some rich benefactor is prepared to pay off the loans created by poor decisions & mismanagement then we might as well stop wasting our breath because nothing changes.

It's all well & good saying that prudent financial management has created the profit. More prudent football management might have stopped us getting to this situation in the first place.

Quoted from MuddyWaters

No-one (to my knowledge) has ever doubted his ability to run a business, I don't think anyone has ever doubted his standing as a fan of Grimsby Town Football Club. What he has never proved is his ability to run a football club and seems destined to continue to do so in the absence of a viable alternative - a position he has engineered himself.

Quoted from Bigdog

I’m prepared to take the initial money JF put in as a good and generous thing to do. It was a major chunk as a percentage of his wealth. It plugged a gaping hole in the club’s finances and was most welcome. After three relegations and six years in non-league it does beg the question whether it was actually worth it. Would we have fallen so far if we had fallen into administration? Who knows? Did JF plug a gap before a bigger and better option came along? Again, who knows?

His tenure has not been a qualified success, that’s a fact. From where we were, it could even be termed as disastrous. He’s not a slick operator, he’s not a PR man, he’s not a great motivator, from evidence he’s doesn’t seem have a great understanding of the game, he’s a bit stuck in the dark ages and hasn’t got a great rapport with the fans  but he’s bloody good at balancing the books especially with Stephen Marley on board.

Has he made the most of the club over the years or just been a reliable steward of finances? Is he what we need right now? Maybe for running a tight ship but there are so many areas where the club is deficient and could be made a whole lot better with a pooling of greater minds than JF. He is not a jack of all trades, he seems to be the master of one.

So where are we today? We are definitely under invested. We are definitely less investable as the balance sheet stands with those loans. We can’t PR ourselves out of a plastic bag. The silence is deafening. Fans have seemed to become a hindrance rather than loyal customers that should be cherished. There is definitely disconnect, apathy and a massive chasm of mistrust circling around.

After fifteen years is it morally wrong to still have a stranglehold on the club for £2m that needs to be paid back? This equates to loaning the club £420 per day. If someone came along to JF and said “Right JF, I’m going to loan the club £420 every day for fifteen years and I’m going to take over for that length of time.” He’d get laughed out the boardroom with JF saying “What difference is £420 a day going to make to a Football League club?”

For loaning £2m, JF has had more than enough time of having the glory of calling all the shots. We need more money involved, we need more ability involved and we need the sterility to change. The question of the loan by JF is becoming more a question of morality year by year. It is time for him to step up and prove that he not using it as a weapon to remain in power and convert it into shares as well as giving the £200k shares back to the Trust. If he loves the club more than he loves running the club he should do it in a heartbeat and go out and attract investors who will add value to the board and share the responsibility. Surely after all this time he is not too blind to see his own shortcomings that we as paying fans all have to suffer at times.

Kingston makes a good point and it’s a question of morality that JF needs to answer sooner or later..

Quoted from Vance Warner

No-one doubts that he was once a fan but I don't believe a fan would have made some of the decisions he has over the last few years.

Quoted from Cloudy

Would converting his loans into shares make us anymore attractive to investors?

Don't get that one as a solution tbh

Quoted from Cloudy

Would converting his loans into shares make us anymore attractive to investors?

Don't get that one as a solution tbh

Quoted from KingstonMariner

No one will invest (other than the Trust) unless and until JF's loans are written or paid off. You wouldn't do it as the power rests 'outside the boardroom' to quote a phrase used by JF himself when he talked the Trust into giving him £200,000 worth of shares. Given that he could call in his loan at any time (yes, I know he said they're benign, but an outside investor would not want the sword of Damocles hanging over him).

Quoted from Bigdog

Scenario One

Investor buys $5m in new share issue, only £3m available to invest in club as JF loan can be called in


Scenario Two

JF converts loan to shares. Investor buys £5m in new share issue, full £5m to invest in club as no loan to consider or pay off, if JF then wants to realise his £2m he has to sell the shares to AN Other which does not affect the new investment