Synectic Solutions make bid to buy PVFC

[Robbie Earle's Perm]

Just a thought, but do you always have to be right?

 

No it's usually just incidental.

[Guppy 4 England]

Really? Where is the evidence of that? Because I don't see any evidence of any improvement.

 

Every week I get at least 2 or 3 marketing emails from Stoke City. From Port Vale? Nothing, nada, nil. The only reason I find out information is through the Official PVFC twitter feed which is the only successful part of the club at the moment.

 

I used to remember events being advertised on a weekly basis on twitter, such as the Adele tribute concert. I don't hear anything now. Where are all these successful events? Is the Enterprise Centre still running? I don't see any marketing for that. What exactly are the club doing to promote themselves?

 

I'm involved with the biggest youth league in the area. Stoke City are constantly in touch making offers and promotions for us to pass onto teams. We get nothing from Port Vale. It's very rare we even see a scout at our centre. Where are Port Vale promoting themselves?

 

I've just been on the website for Stoke City and on their front page I found their 2017-18 kit launch details and a list of pre season friendlies in a few seconds. They also have massive posters on the A500 advertising their season tickets. On the Crewe Alex website on their front page I found details of their season ticket prices and their retained list. For the Vale all I could find was details of a Motown night this Saturday. Nothing about season tickets, friendlies, retained list, nothing. I don't even know how much season tickets are.

 

Norman bought Vale debt free. He has apparently built up over £3m of debt. That's his own doing. No sane person would pay what he wants for the club. The football side is worth £1. Any saleable asset is cancelled out by all his director loans. There's been no improvement to the stadium to warrant much over the £700,000 valuation in the last set of accounts.

 

He bought a club battling for promotion with a proven manager and a strong stable team. He's now got a club in the middle of a massive rebuild, with an inexperienced manager and on the verge of losing their best players. We've gone backwards in most areas of the club, all thanks to Smurf.

 

I've tried hard to find positives to what Smurf has done but I cannot find one.

 

Agree with most of that, except the debt free purchase. From day one it was 1.25m in debt. So you can't say its debt free then say it's 3m in debt when its the same directors loan that purchased the club in the first place.

 

It's not worth a quid. I wish people would stop suggesting this who have no idea or experience of how to value businesses nor has anyone seen the full accounts.

[stupers]

Agree with most of that, except the debt free purchase. From day one it was 1.25m in debt. So you can't say its debt free then say it's 3m in debt when its the same directors loan that purchased the club in the first place.

 

It's not worth a quid. I wish people would stop suggesting this who have no idea or experience of how to value businesses nor has anyone seen the full accounts.

 

I agree. You take the directors loans out of the equation entirely for valuing the business, as money is owed to the person you are buying the company from. You look at the assets the club has (Including the Smith/Hugill fees), the P&L account and make a valuation on those, based on Mr Smurthwaite then writing off his directors loans at the point of sale.

 

It's then up to Mr Smurthwaite whether he accepts the bid or not, based on how much money he loses on the deal (Given that nobody is going to pay him his full investment/loan back). Given that I don't believe the £9m valuation of the ground, I would say offers between £2-3m are reasonable. Whether Mr Smurthwaite is reasonable enough to listen to them, is another matter entirely.

[PV1973]

Strikes me that people are taking sides on these offers and praising them up purely based on the fact that it means it gets rid of Norman, all without knowing any of these buyers future plans, funding options and ideas aside from the upfront cost to buy the club.

[tommytunstall]

Well what else can we do?

Strikes me that people are taking sides on these offers and praising them up purely based on the fact that it means it gets rid of Norman, all without knowing any of these buyers future plans, funding options and ideas aside from the upfront cost to buy the club.

[stupers]

Strikes me that people are taking sides on these offers and praising them up purely based on the fact that it means it gets rid of Norman, all without knowing any of these buyers future plans, funding options and ideas aside from the upfront cost to buy the club.

 

I see your point, but Synectics for instance have been clear on their motives for purchasing the club and what they would try to do with it after sorting any mess out. Of course tread carefully, but everything so far points to them being good custodians of the club. As you say, it really shouldn't just be about getting rid of the existing terrible owner. Plenty of clubs have made that mistake before.

[Twitters]

I agree. You take the directors loans out of the equation entirely for valuing the business, as money is owed to the person you are buying the company from. You look at the assets the club has (Including the Smith/Hugill fees), the P&L account and make a valuation on those, based on Mr Smurthwaite then writing off his directors loans at the point of sale.

 

It's then up to Mr Smurthwaite whether he accepts the bid or not, based on how much money he loses on the deal (Given that nobody is going to pay him his full investment/loan back). Given that I don't believe the £9m valuation of the ground, I would say offers between £2-3m are reasonable. Whether Mr Smurthwaite is reasonable enough to listen to them, is another matter entirely.

 

If he chooses to wipe out the directors loans as part of the deal then yes I completely agree that the football side of the club is worth more than £1, because as you say then you start to factor in assets like the value of players like Smith. If he doesn't want to wipe the loans though and they are carried on as a debt to the new owners, then you can't justify charging more than £1 for a club.

 

Someone posted on here earlier that the value of Vale Park (either the land or the ground itself) was £700k according to the last filed accounts for Alchemy Land. If that's the case, how can he justify a significantly higher valuation?

[Twitters]

I see your point, but Synectics for instance have been clear on their motives for purchasing the club and what they would try to do with it after sorting any mess out. Of course tread carefully, but everything so far points to them being good custodians of the club. As you say, it really shouldn't just be about getting rid of the existing terrible owner. Plenty of clubs have made that mistake before.

 

Including us (Bill Bell to V2001, V2001 to Miller/Deakin, V2001/Miller/Deakin to Smurf)!

[Jacko51]

Agree with most of that, except the debt free purchase. From day one it was 1.25m in debt.

 

You've said this before but I don't understand what you mean. How was the club in debt by the amount of the purchase price from day one? The director did not lend the club money to buy itself???

[Family Stand Terrier]

That's what I've struggled with Jean after reading that comment. People are quick to criticise Synectics when they mistakenly believe that they would borrow money to buy the club, yet when (if true) Smurf placed his purchase fee on the club as a loan, that's exactly the same thing. Hypocritical to say the least.

 

And REP. You know full well that the poll has been affected by Stoke fans on a wind up, they've said as much on their website, and you don't have to log in to vote on that poll. On every other poll going, the number that want Smurf gone is over 90%. To suggest anything else is a blatant wind up attempt. The fact you're getting likes from MK, speaks volumes. Until you start posting seriously, you'll continue to be treated like the WUM you clearly are. Incredibly sad.

[stupers]

If he chooses to wipe out the directors loans as part of the deal then yes I completely agree that the football side of the club is worth more than £1, because as you say then you start to factor in assets like the value of players like Smith. If he doesn't want to wipe the loans though and they are carried on as a debt to the new owners, then you can't justify charging more than £1 for a club.

 

Someone posted on here earlier that the value of Vale Park (either the land or the ground itself) was £700k according to the last filed accounts for Alchemy Land. If that's the case, how can he justify a significantly higher valuation?

 

I completely doubt anyone will buy the club without him writing off the loans. If they aren't smart enough to do that, then I don't want them buying the club. It would be ludicrous to buy the club with that debt threat hanging over them.

 

He could do a revaluation of the land/buildings anytime he wants to. He seemed to think it was worth £9m. Given the covenant on the ground I highly doubt that, but it's worth more than £700k for the land and buildings. Land maybe, but both I doubt.

[Woakesy]

Agree with most of that, except the debt free purchase. From day one it was 1.25m in debt. So you can't say its debt free then say it's 3m in debt when its the same directors loan that purchased the club in the first place.

 

It's not worth a quid. I wish people would stop suggesting this who have no idea or experience of how to value businesses nor has anyone seen the full accounts.

I'd love to audit the Vale accounts. In fact I'd love to audit every aspect of the club over the last 4 years. I'm sure the report would make for fascinating reading.

[PV1973]

I see your point, but Synectics for instance have been clear on their motives for purchasing the club and what they would try to do with it after sorting any mess out. Of course tread carefully, but everything so far points to them being good custodians of the club. As you say, it really shouldn't just be about getting rid of the existing terrible owner. Plenty of clubs have made that mistake before.

This is what I think a lot of people are doing, hoping hes gone soon and backing the first bidder that comes along. I don't know how much of their future plans buyers would reveal after making their offers, and I know nothing of the 2 potential bidders so far, but all I'm saying is there a lot of pretend experts around who know nothing about the bidders and their plans and we just need to be careful and not get too carried away yet until we know what any buyer wants to do with our club. We're fed up of people making a mess of it.

[Animal]

You've said this before but I don't understand what you mean. How was the club in debt by the amount of the purchase price from day one? The director did not lend the club money to buy itself???

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the Limited Company (whichever one it was at the time) that purchased the 'business' of Port Vale? Thereby requiring NS to technically loan the new company the money to make the acquisition?

 

NS didn't buy the shares in the old V2001 company did he?? He set up a new company to acquire the business?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong though.

[Jacko51]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the Limited Company (whichever one it was at the time) that purchased the 'business' of Port Vale? Thereby requiring NS to technically loan the new company the money to make the acquisition?

 

NS didn't buy the shares in the old V2001 company did he?? He set up a new company to acquire the business?

 

Correct me if I'm wrong though.

 

If I remember correctly, the club was purchased by Alchemy Investments which I think was owned by Wildes. I think Norman loaned Wildes the money for this so the debt was owed by AI, not the football club.