Fenty Out

Re individuals now wanting to invest in a small club.

The Premiership is already the safe harbour for oligarchs and hedge funds, so much so that foreign investors with a few million pounds to play with are now seemingly concentrating on the Championship - very much as happened with Wolves last year. No doubt they will then start looking into the First and Second Divisions once the options in the top two leagues become even more limited.

What could the right investor get at Grimsby. With a decent plan, the right personnel on board, they could - if successful - get the kind of advertising and kudos that comes with a successful chairmanship that would normally cost them the millions of pounds that just buying into the club would cost. It's the kind of thing JF has benefited from during his tenure at the club. I assume his profile as a local councillor doesn't suffer as a result of all the publicity and exposure he gets? As P.T. Barnum once famously said "There is no such thing as bad publicity"

Of course, the right person has to be found, and the Football League has clubs scattered throughout all it's divisions that have fallen foul of their owners, despite them passing the ludicrously inefficient Fit and Proper Person's test that the FL sets. Ever since the Premier League became awash with money it has been a magnet for such fraudsters, and it has done similar in the Football League too, so how about a new way of looking at the issue of ownership? We've had Trusts, we've had Fan Ownership, but how about an amalgam of the two such as a Co-Operative? I have absolutely no idea whether it would work, but it's a model that suits thousands of other businesses across the UK so why not football?

Quoted from GollyGTFC

I think the key to ousting Fenty would be getting Mike Parker, the Trust & maybe even that ticket tout bloke and the Mullens on side...

John Fenty shares: £975,000 (42.85%)

Mike Parker shares: £500,000 (21.98%)
Mariners Trust shares: £321,050 (14.11%)
Mr & Mrs Mullen shares: £130,000 (5.72%)
Andrew Newman shares: £25,000 (1.10%)
TOTAL: £976,050 (42.90%)

Between the 4 blocks they have more shares than Fenty in the club. Certainly those 4 working together would make things uncomfortable for Fenty especially if they forced a non-Fenty Chairman or new CEO on the club.

Fenty is a nice guy and has the best interests of GTFC at heart, but everything points to him not wanting to invest a further penny in the club. As has been discussed the club's systems (tickets and general way of doing things) are all hopelessly out of date.

The club is happy to carry on doing the same thing in the same way year after year without investigating or investing in more modern or alternative ways of doing things. I think the fact that we have the longest continual shirt sponsor in the 92 & only Southend have used the same kit manufacturer longer than us (and they just have Nike teamwear and not bespoke kits like us) shows the attitude of the club.

Fenty's control lies in his "benign" loan which of course is not benign at all, But the question that hasn't been asked yet is what he would do with them if his role at the club was challenged? Would he transfer some into shares to strengthen his position (unlikely), demand immediate repayment (unlikely), demand a structured repayment plan over a number of years (possible) or would he do something else? Theoretical question but worth considering.

Why do you think the "benign loans " are not benign ? JF has repeatedly said that he only wants them repaid when the club can afford it. Regardless of wether you agree or not about these loans being loans , the fact remains that they were incured because he (JF) dug the club out of the sh*t at the time. Whilst I'm not defending him, they were the result of decisions taken by a previous regime. The immediate repayment of a loan to a previous board member and the outstanding debt to HMRC were decisions taken that had nothing to do with JF's influence . I wish we didn't have these loans as they hang like the "Sword of Damocles" over the club.It's just a shame we can't unearth another young player worth millions that we could sell ,pay JF off and then start again with a clean financial sheet.

Quoted from rancido

It's just a shame we can't unearth another young player worth millions that we could sell ,

Another?

You’re absolutely mental, how blinkered do you have to be? Golly’s put the figures up to show how the loans have increased under Fenty’s stewardship from a small initial loan to plug the ITV Digital hole in 2006 up to about £2m in 2016. That’s nothing to do with “previous regimes”, that’s purely down Boards that have sat with Fenty at the helm with the odd Parker or Mullen coming in, throwing money at the club and then being forced out.

The term “benign loan” is completely meaningless, absolute double-speak nonsense. Would you say the club are really in a position to be taking £200k a year out of the playing budget and handing it to a man who has dragged us into this position? Would having an additional £400k improved our lot over the past two years? We’ll never even know the impact those loans have had on preventing outside investment as anyone looking to take over will have to pay off someone else’s failures to the tune of 2 mil before they’ve even spent a penny on the actual club.

There’s only so many times people can have it spelled out to them before it becomes clear they’re being wilfully ignorant of the facts.

Quoted from ska face

You’re absolutely mental, how blinkered do you have to be? Golly’s put the figures up to show how the loans have increased under Fenty’s stewardship from a small initial loan to plug the ITV Digital hole in 2006 up to about £2m in 2016. That’s nothing to do with “previous regimes”, that’s purely down Boards that have sat with Fenty at the helm with the odd Parker or Mullen coming in, throwing money at the club and then being forced out.

The term “benign loan” is completely meaningless, absolute double-speak nonsense. Would you say the club are really in a position to be taking £200k a year out of the playing budget and handing it to a man who has dragged us into this position? Would having an additional £400k improved our lot over the past two years? We’ll never even know the impact those loans have had on preventing outside investment as anyone looking to take over will have to pay off someone else’s failures to the tune of 2 mil before they’ve even spent a penny on the actual club.

There’s only so many times people can have it spelled out to them before it becomes clear they’re being wilfully ignorant of the facts.

You sound very much like all the Remainers in the Brexit debate. If we dont' agree with what you believe in then we are "ignorant, blinkered, misinformed or just plain stupid ". We don't know what financial state the club would have been in if JF had not covered those loans in the first place. He could just as easily said " It's the clubs problem, not of my making and I'll just walk away and cut my losses in shares.Let's just agree to disagree and leave it like that

Give over with the self-pitying victim routine. Facts are facts,  there in black & white. The loans increased to cover losses not offset by increased income. If someone ran a business that ended up losing, on average, £3k a week for ten years and did virtually nothing to address this by increasing income, there’s a problem there.

Quoted from rancido

Why do you think the "benign loans " are not benign ? JF has repeatedly said that he only wants them repaid when the club can afford it. Regardless of wether you agree or not about these loans being loans , the fact remains that they were incured because he (JF) dug the club out of the sh*t at the time. Whilst I'm not defending him, they were the result of decisions taken by a previous regime. The immediate repayment of a loan to a previous board member and the outstanding debt to HMRC were decisions taken that had nothing to do with JF's influence . I wish we didn't have these loans as they hang like the "Sword of Damocles" over the club.It's just a shame we can't unearth another young player worth millions that we could sell ,pay JF off and then start again with a clean financial sheet.

benign
/bɪˈnʌɪn/
adjective
1.
gentle and kind.

How can anybody consider Fenty's loan to be either gentle or kind? It's a noose around the neck of the football club.

GTFC is a company than can barely break-even with a crumbling old ground that isn't fit for purpose and ageing and obsolete systems and business techniques.

Anyone with ambition who wanted to take the football over would be faced with servicing a "benign" debt of £1.8m as well as having to purchase shares. Technically the club is valued at £2,275,300. Obviously it's worth no where near that amount in it's current condition.

So a new owner faces:-
Paying more for the club than it's worth.
Having an obsolete stadium, infrustrature, systems and business method to deal with and rectify.
Would be buying a club with a huge unserviceable loan which 100% would need repaying.

You lot are up a F'ing tree. Same sh1t different thread. How on earth do you think you all be able to come to a decision on a sale of a player or running of the club. Who would keep the bank balance afloat? Who's going to be responsible for keeping club in the black? Who's going to represent the club? Give your heads a wobble and get back in the real world!!

Quoted from pen penfras

In theory, that might be true, but in reality it's not at all. You can't just buy new shares in a company, the company will have a share issue as a method of fundraising. As the major shareholder, surely he would  be able to stop somebody forcibly taking control by buying only new shares by limiting the number of shares made available. In that case, you'd have to buy shares from other shareholders and not reduce his loans as much, so require more money to match the loans and gain parity. Again, converting any loans into shares isn't necessarily possible.

The problem then becomes that Fenty isn't going to cover the losses for bad decisions made by somebody else, so you end up in the same position as before where assets would have to be sold unless somebody else is going to fund the gap. So you need even more money.

Fan ownership is a nice idea, and it might be worth setting up a fundraising site to actually try and raise enough capital to buy the club and have enough reserves to demonstrate an ability to cover losses if they were to happen. But it isn't going to be the trust and the people who bang this drum the hardest seem more interested in moaning about the current situation than actually trying to impart a change.

Agree with everything you say up until the last sentence..

The last sentence is utter bullshitt and really unfair on some posters on here that have tried to make a difference but have been met with a brick wall. Others will speak for themselves but for your information so you can get your facts straight..

I've offered my services to the Trust if ever they want to change tack and look to raise funds to take the club over or take it upon themselves to market for potential investors.

I've offered my PR services to GTFC for free but JF said it wouldn't work because I was in a different country. I'm sure that internet thingy started thirty years ago didn't it?

I've also provided the club with the personal contact details of a world-famous retired soccer star (and his business representatives) who is looking to buy a football club. It would have been only a prospective punt but that punt would have taken little effort or time. The contact was never followed up and dismissed. I was also told that the the old GTFC investment prospectus hadn't been updated for years. So much for the board proactively looking for investors. Absolutely no presence of looking for investment online like a prospectus page on the official website or any presence on the club's social media outlets. Just archaic and stinks of the 70s, wood-panelled boardroom walls and chats in cigar filled smokey rooms over a single malt (blend in GTFC's case).

So yet again the club has been at its lowest ebb for twenty years, doing practically fook all about it and no one is allowed to moan about it unless they're going to take the club over. Talk about passing the buck. What the fook should the custodians be doing? It's their responsibility to secure the future of the club not their paying public who deserve their say. It's often forgotten that they're the lifeblood of the club and actually keep their club going while others do not invest anything at all, not even expertise unfortunately.

This subject wouldn't keep coming up if the club had some modicum of success over the years. Yet, here we are after twenty years still waiting for our second chance of finishing in the top half of the fourth tier in English football, can't sell more than 3.5k home tickets with free ticket and slashed price offers for a Bank Holiday Monday game, and cohorts of our owner just want to wade into what's left of the remaining fanbase who are on the verge of total apathy and in the last throes of protest. Unbelievably complacent and misguided actions of the cohorts in my book.

So.. I'll bang the drum as hard as I can with a clear conscience until there's significant change at the top of our football club, and when it finally happens, GTFC will be all the better for it..

Quoted from Fishy_fishtails

You lot are up a F'ing tree. Same sh1t different thread. How on earth do you think you all be able to come to a decision on a sale of a player or running of the club. Who would keep the bank balance afloat? Who's going to be responsible for keeping club in the black? Who's going to represent the club? Give your heads a wobble and get back in the real world!!

You ok John?