Sorry about the lack of activity recently but other matters have taken priority.
The Texas Rangers article was posted in the States and generated a huge amount of interest, not least from a couple of US banks! This is something we might try to pursue further in future – creating awareness amongst financial institutions & investors, especially those across the water.
Everything written here is based on quotes, newspaper articles and logical reasoning. We try to be as factual and impartial as possible, given the information available.
There won’t be an article appearing every day. The emphasis is on quality over quantity and there’s plenty of reading in the stuff we’ve already done. Hence why you might see some of the existing articles reappearing elsewhere (the principal objective now being to increase awareness).
If anyone has any info, ideas or (especially) quotes, please let us know. We don’t have time to scour the Internet properly so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Finally, a message to Tom Hicks. You and your family are not welcome here. As a man who relies on reputation to generate SPAC capital etc, you should be aware of the potential damage this is causing and may cause in future.
It would be better for all concerned if you took your profit.
EDIT: In the interests of fairness and freedom of speech, I’d suggest people read Dev-Ad’s comments (with an open mind).
The last line is almost true. “Better for all concerned”. Better for Parry? Yes. He gets to keep a job at LFC then. Better for DIC? Yes, certainly – they get a club at a level below the asking price. Better for Gillett? Debatable – he wants out at the best price, so it depends on who makes the highest bid. Better for the club? Debatable too. If Hicks gets a five-year finance deal in place for the non-stadium debt and a 30-year standard deal in place for the stadium, there are no longer any fears about refinancing in the middle of this credit crunch. DIC will borrow some of their investment in the club, usually they borrow around 40%, and their last attempt included a plan to sell after 7 years, after taking as much profit as they can. Better the devil you know or don’t know?
Comment by Dev_Ad — May 23, 2008 @ 5:44 am |
@ Dev_Ad
You’re entitled to your opinion (and you’re obviously informed), but I’m sure you’re aware that a lot of people will disagree with you.
Tom actually gets a pretty easy ride here in comparison to the abuse aimed at him on the ‘Unofficial’ sites. We try to be reasonably fair but, trust me, it’s not easy.
Comment by PaulLFC — May 23, 2008 @ 8:33 pm |
First of all Paul let me say thanks for publishing all those comments I made. I feared you weren’t going to let them on when I checked back later on and they still hadn’t been published. At least you aren’t like one or two sites I’ve tried to raise my points on who just don’t let people speak out against the so-called common opinion of the fans.
Secondly, I re-read my post and it sounds a little more aggressive than it should have sounded. It might be that Saturday lunchtime is a more chilled-out time of the week but I wouldn’t have written it quite that way had I written it now.
I’m certainly no fan of Tom Hicks. But I consider him to be more of a bungling Texan version of Norman Wisdom than a scheming JR Ewing type. In fact the Norman Wisdom comparison is very unfair because I think Hicks is learning from his mistakes.
Rafa gets a lot of vitriol because he makes mistakes down to not understanding the game in England, and apart from the minority who are never satisfied and the knee-jerkers who change opinion every ten minutes, people accept he is learning. He’s learning from his mistakes, and if he’s replaced all we will get is another manager who is either good in his own territory, his own world, but has no clue about the differences in English football or one who is okay with English football but clueless on how to win the Champions League.
Hicks is doing the same, maybe, making mistakes and trying to learn from them, but we won’t know unless he can remove Gillett. He also needs to remove Parry, Moores and a few others at the club who have had a cushy life in the Moores era.
I don’t know who you are Paul and if you’re just a fan like me or if you’ve got some contacts at the club.
If you’ve got contacts, and you’ve got them to show you some actual proof of some figures, you’ll know that the interest on the borrowed money is nearer to 20 million than 30 million a year.
You will also know that the original sale was agreed openly in front of all fans as including 300 million of debt and that one way or other the club was always going to be paying the interest on this amount. If you went to America tomorrow and borrowed money to buy a house to then rent out to complete strangers you’d not expect to make a loss on it. You would expect at the very least, maybe during a bad time (the equivalent of a champions league run not happening) to break even, to maybe even make a slight loss by subsidising the rent. But you’d not buy that house just so you could pay the 7% annual interest out of your own pocket every year.
These new owners came here to try and make money out of LFC, we all expected that. Yet now fans are being told this is wrong and that they should have paid the interest on the loan out of their own pockets. Can you explain why they should? Anyone who believes they should, I expect next time Leeds go into administration you will get together with a load of other fans who have nothing to do with Leeds, remortgage your homes at whatever interest rate you can get and give the money to Leeds as an interest free loan, in fact maybe propping the payments up a bit each year too.
The owners risked their own securities to buy the club, but it’s not much of a risk given the way Moores pathetically undervalued this crown jewel.
The figures being spouted by the critics of the owners are largely exaggerated.
There’s a story going round that nearly £18million was spent on designs for the new stadium, but what Dubai always forget to point out is that over half of that was money still on the club’s books to pay for the plans for the first design of the ground. Around £10million was spent on that first chunk of work and it was being treated like an asset to be written off bit by bit each year, normal practice. When the owners took over they decided that as it was for such an awful stadium they should write it all off instantly.
The club still haven’t paid any interest on the money borrowed. The first loan was paid off, with its interest, by the second loan, which actually included cash put in by the owners, which in effect paid off that first installment of 7% of 300million.
The interest on that new loan falls due at the end of the 18 months, but before then the owners, Hicks, DIC or whoever, will have recapitalised the lot, including the new stadium, and the principal will begin to be reduced.
If DIC are willing to pay the going rate then I am sure they can persuade Hicks to sell. Even if he says he won’t sell, I am sure he would if the price was high enough.
I also suggest people stop and think for a while about why Gillett has turned down a higher offer from Hicks for his shares than the figure DIC have said is their final figure.
If you think why Gillett would knock back a better offer you soon rule out the possible options.
Love for the club? Gillett was the main driving force behind the moves to oust Rafael Benitez. Some friction in the close season had riled both owners, Parry not helping relationships by trying to cover-up his own shortcomings. His word against Rafa’s meant the owners had to choose one over the other, but Parry’s a smart guy and made sure he defended Rafa just enough to avoid the inevitable fallout Rafa’s sacking would lead to. A sacked Rafa would have ensured Parry’s crap leadership was known to the world. The owners would probably have replaced both, and Parry knew this, so defending himself just enough and putting Rafa’s anger down to his latin temperament was what he saw as the safest option.
One day Rafa lost his rag big time and marched into Foster’s office demanding action be taken against Parry. How could he work under this structure? Unfortunately Foster isn’t the most well-adjusted of individuals, he’s hardly had a tough upbringing and had never had any of his daddy’s employees speak to him in such a way. His daddy wouldn’t stand for his son being spoken to in that way. And so began the Klinsmann saga.
Hicks was obviously as taken in by Gillett as 99% of Liverpool fans were in February 2007, because he actually went along with what Gillett, Foster and Parry were saying.
The first time Hicks really got to see that there was another side to this story was in December. He didnt instantly realise what had been going on, the plot that had been taking place, but sooner or later he started to see it. Rafa has faults, but he’s a clever man. More intelligent than people give him credit for. He speaks English well, but his limited time using the language means his vocabulary often belies just how intelligent he really is. He thinks in Spanish! And he showed Hicks, after the Man United game, that there was another side to the stories he’d been given.
Soon Foster left his position at the club, and Hicks and Gillett started to fall out more and more. They were already past the point of no return when Hicks announced the Klinsmann stories had not been rumours, well past it by the time the finance was agreed.
Gillett had been offered the same money in January as he still has on the table now from DIC. There was no due diligence or anything officially like it because Gillett had already shown DIC the books, with Parry around to ensure nothing was missed. Gillett thought if he signed the new finance deal then DIC would up their offer. They didn’t. They still haven’t improved the original offer worth around £25million profit to each owner. They won’t buy less than a controlling interest.
But that pretty much kills the idea of Gillett refusing to sell based on love of the club. There is no way an old man like Gillett would fall for death threats from supposed Liverpool supporters and then turn up at Anfield to sit amongst those same fans. There is no way Gillett can have a problem with the way the club is currently funded. He signed up to the original deal and he was the one pushing most for putting some of the debt onto the club. Ask any high-stakes finance expert what the differences are between the club having the debt, the holding company having the debt or the owners having the debt as when they took over, when it’s all secured as it is now. There are no material differences. So why is Gillett now claiming he only wants to sell to DIC because of how he wants the club to be funded?
Consider this idea:- Gillett can’t say publicly why he’s looking to sell to the Arabs. He’s had problems with authorities in Canada already over his opinions on how much his Canadiens franchise and arena is worth, he’s valuing it below their valuation to avoiding paying too much tax on it. He took a massive dividend on the company owning the arena when he had hardly owned it, using money he’d borrowed against it, at a value far higher than he now says that venue is worth. But what if DIC have offered some little extra sweeteners, tax-free given they are in Dubai, to help him make his mind up? Done separately from the Liverpool deal as far as the authorities are concerned.
Rick Parry knows that this situation has hardly changed from when he agreed the original sale of the club with Moores. Rick Parry earned £1.4m last year from LFC. He loses that if DIC don’t get in. If they do then he gets to keep a job at the club, not as CE, but still with decent renumeration. If DIC had got in the first time he’d have had 3 months before losing his job. Moores banked £100million when DIC were sent packing first time round.
This is what you need to try and do more digging on, and if you’ve got any contacts at all to press them on.
Why does Gillett really feel he can’t sell to Hicks, why does Parry now see this situation as materially worse than the situation when he allowed Moores to sell to the Americans first time round?
The reason we need to know is because our club has been dragged through the s*** since November and it seems to be all down to Rick Parry and George Gillett, with David Moores only speaking out once – when his mate Parry had been under fire from Hicks. Not once did Moores speak out for the sake of the club, until Parry was hit with some home truths. Alongside those three are DIC, spreading their own brand of s***. All in all, they could have bought the club in January 2008 and we’d have had none of the pain of this year.
Instead of offering underhand incentives to Gillett, they could try harder to persuade Hicks to sell, pay the full price, or just admit they’ve no place in trying to interfere in our club.
DIC have been fighting dirty. Some finance houses were offered the carrot of big investment from DIC, at the same time as being warned not to do business with Hicks. In most cases those finance houses are still waiting for the original carrot to be put in reach. People in the city who have good relationships with DIC have helped spread the word against Hicks. A hedge fund owned by DIC had a representative feed a negative story to a rather gullible finance journalist.
RTK have done well this summer out of one of their main people’s friendship with Rick Parry, a bit of mutual back-scratching. Careful where you mention that, or you might be banned from those sites. See if you can spot the attempts to silence anyone pointing this out on those sites though, and how quickly they’re told to be quiet. It’s only one person from RTK that is really pushing to give Parry some room for his catastrophic treatment of the club and its fans.
SOS have met with Amanda Staveley, DIC’s PR company, Rick Parry and David Moores. Not Hicks. Have they been given, or set out to get, a balanced story?
Some of the SOS committee have left now. Why? Why wasn’t it publicised? Why is it being covered up?
The problem is that we’ve a few bad eggs who are undermining the efforts by so many others. That mosaic we held up calling for “The Truth” should be held up for “The Truth” on these issues as well. Moores and Parry’s contempt of the HJC in the past is glossed over these days.
Parry’s not a fan like us. It’s not the same for him. And if it ever was, it isn’t any more.
When was the last time Rick Parry got a grilling from Tony Barrett or Chris Bascombe, Oliver Kay or Dave Maddock? Same with Moores. Have DIC ever had a grilling from a Liverpool-supporting member of the media? Ever?
Tom Hicks has also avoided a grilling from those reporters, but he’s not the one having the easy time in the press.
DIC, Gillett, Hicks, Parry and Moores are not fit to be custodians of Liverpool Football Club. But Liverpool Football Club died a while ago. We’ve now got to choose between AFC Liverpool if we want football played for reasons other than making somebody rich, or Liverpool FC Ltd if we want football played for big prizers at the same time as making many people rich. Those names at the start of this sentence are only interested in the profit-making version. Why should DIC get the money just because they played the dirtier game with the fans and media?
Comment by Dev_Ad — May 24, 2008 @ 12:33 pm |
why dont you publish the phone and fax numbers for hicks holdings and get as many people as possible to phone and fax on a daily basis,causing chaos to hicks businesses.keep publishing phone numbers of different organisations linked to him, the embarrassment and loss of face not to say loss of money to his business could be substantial, it would certainly get his attention.hicks holdings phone and fax numbers are already published on the web on white pages ,getting business associates numbers would not be difficult
Comment by hicks out — May 27, 2008 @ 11:33 am |
@ Dev_Ad
Thanks for the lengthy response.
I’m not certain Hicks is learning from his mistakes to be honest. He’s said a lot of controversial things at the Rangers (some of which we haven’t even had a chance to cover yet) and appeared to be doing the same here until the Sky Sports interview backfired.
For instance, he said in January: “The Liverpool Way is to win championships and to not create controversy…I am certainly smarter about the tabloid culture of creating sensationalism…we need to win championships.”
Then in April, he goes and gives two explosive interviews either side of the Hillsborough memorial ceremonies?? It looked like he was putting self-interest above respect for the families. Or maybe it was an impulsive reaction to the sight of Gillett & Parry sitting together at the Arsenal game?
I’m inclined to believe you when you say that the current interest is £22m. That still doesn’t explain how Hicks can possibly expect to finance both his buyout of Gillett AND the new stadium, given that the club’s operating profit is only £30m (and even that’s contingent on Champions League money).
The rent analogy is a good one but it misses the point. The point is that Mr Hicks and Mr Gillett should have been more open about this from the start (i.e. that the club would be paying for their purchase of it), rather than having Tom Hicks announce it the day before the Champions League final (burying bad news?).
One of the big attractions of Dubai is that they’ll be able to borrow at a much lower interest rate (assuming they borrow at all) than a Hicks sole-ownership model. We wouldn’t be scraping the barrel like we are in the transfer market this summer; as we would be doing for the next few years under the Hicks sole-ownership model.
If the money spent on stadium designs is only £8m, then that’s very interesting, especially as it’s less than what was wasted on the ‘Parrybowl’ (and that’s ignoring inflation, etc). Do you have any evidence of this?
You say that no interest has been paid. Have the owners paid themselves a dividend since they took over?
You say Hicks has already made Gillett a higher offer than that which DIC has made. Where has he found the money for this? Why has he been approaching hedge funds – desperation?
I’m also inclined to believe the Rafa marching into the office story, simply because it ties in with RTK’s attempts to target Foster at the protests. What ’shortcomings’ was Parry trying to cover up? And what was the major source of disagreement between the owners? Hicks mentioned the stadium but that could be anything – the design, the financing, the capacity, groundshare?
Can you also elaborate on what exactly Parry and Gillett were doing in December that Rafa made Hicks aware of? You can’t really expect to make such vague statements and have people just blindly believe you.
On how the debt is secured: I guess it depends on what assets are used to back that debt. If attempts were made, as was reported, to secure the full £350m using club assets, then that is totally unacceptable [although I'm not even sure that the club has assets of that amount, nor whether bankers would accept such an arrangement]. The fans’ position generally is that no acquisition debt should be secured against the club, which is why those very credible reports about both owners attempting to do this were disturbing.
I think Gillett said that he wanted the club to be ‘properly funded’. By that, I guess he means at a more manageable rate of interest, and using less debt than the method Hicks is proposing. That’s another thing: has Tom Hicks actually put a cent of his own money into the club yet (ignoring the cash demanded by the banks as part of the refinancing)?
I wasn’t aware that Parry was being paid £1.4m (thought I saw it reported somewhere that his salary was about £500k?). Does this include the windfall he received for his ‘hard work’ on finding buyers for Moores’ stake?
Also, didn’t know Moores banked £100m (the Guardian reported it as £89.615m). I assume this includes the repayment of the Dirk Kuyt loan? Noticed you used the word ‘banked’ – very clever but a bit misleading.
I don’t doubt that Parry is looking after ‘number one’ (I believe he has a son working at the club also?). Maybe I should revisit my ‘Liverpool fan’ assertion, but I’m pretty sure that he is a fan, though maybe not to the extent that he would put the club’s best interests above his own.
You say that DIC could have bought the club in January 2008? I assume that this was for a ridiculous asking price though (if I remember rightly, there were reports that Hicks had valued the club at £1billion!!). Dubai can’t be seen to be overpaying for assets like that – perhaps Mr Hicks should consider the ’sweetener’ approach you say Gillett is pursuing?
I believe Nicky Allt left SOS but don’t really know in detail what’s going on there.
Hope this doesn’t come across as an interrogation, but you might consider answering some of the above questions, especially considering the courtesy you’ve been shown.
Will understand if you don’t wish to respond though.
Comment by PaulLFC — May 27, 2008 @ 9:48 pm |
@ hicks out
I don’t think bombarding him with phone calls / faxes would faze him to be honest. It would be an irritant, but probably nothing more than that.
Besides, you’d need to find plenty of people with plenty of time on their hands to make any sort of impact. We certainly wouldn’t be much use to you!
Comment by PaulLFC — May 27, 2008 @ 9:57 pm |
Steeple says : I absolutely agree with this !
Comment by steeple — May 30, 2008 @ 4:52 am |
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation
Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Cosmopolitanize
Comment by Cosmopolitanize — June 21, 2008 @ 5:34 am |
this is plenty interesting. im a teenager from san antonio texas, usa who has recently been getting into Premier League soccer. After following almost all with interest for almost a year I’ve come to really enjoy Liverpool FC! I was looking for a place for american fans of the team to go on google and this is one of the hits that came…errr. Ive been learning of the situation with Hicks slowly but surely. Now this may go against what you think about Americans, or it may not at all (i dont want to be making any assumptions) but I am a proud American, and even more so, a proud Texan, but at the same I have very, very intense dislike for George W Bush and those in his crowd. I dont like the fatcat business men like Hicks much either (I know about him from the Rangers). Anyway politically I am on the left and all that, but I do get a bit touchy when people from other countries slam the USA as a whole, I mean its the leaders and we dont all follow blindly, in fact most people dont, I’m not saying you are doing it. But some of the signs i have seen in pictures are a bit antagonistic…
haha, ok so after all that babble up there, I guess where I am going with this is a kinda silly question.
I want to root for Liverpool, i really do, but its kind of hard to when from the outside looking in, it seems almost like the English fans dont seem to want anything to do with Americans. I know this may sound dumb, but I’d like a sincere answer please…So the question I want to ask is if the whole controversy has made English fans as a whole predisposed to dislike Americans fans, if you guys see it as reflection of all of us, or if you guys honestly welcome fans from all over, even South Texas?
Comment by L.C. — June 25, 2008 @ 5:53 pm |
edit: i also bought a Liverpool tshirt at a local sports store…I hope I didnt waste my monies!
Comment by L.C. — June 25, 2008 @ 5:55 pm |
No you’re lucky, you’ve chosen well.
Problem is you’ve come at a time when the club is in turmoil, all due to two owners who just happen to be American. The “Yanks Out” banners were solely aimed at Gillett & Hicks, and are in no way a reflection of how other Liverpool fans view American fans.
Your country’s foreign policy (e.g. exploiting Iraq’s oil supply and spinning it as a “war on terror”
) has led to a lot of resentment. I guess there are similarities with what’s happening at Liverpool (spin and exploitation), but the anger is solely aimed at the two owners.
You’ll be alright…unless you intend to go on the forums and defend them!
Comment by PaulLFC — June 26, 2008 @ 7:49 am |
oh the resentment (toward those in power and what they have done anyway) is shared enormously, and I’m speaking for many, many people there.
I’m not gonna defend anyone like that no matter what country they are from.
Well thanks for the sincere answer! It’s much appreciated.
I’m watching Liverpool’s own Fernando Torres in the euro semi right now…I am probably going to get his Liverpool jersey if I get anyone’s because Torres is my last name
anyway…I really admire the fans standing up to the owners and taking their team back.
I’m lucky in that my cities only pro team (basketball) is a championship winning squad with an honest, humble owner. I love that team to death, and I can relate to wanting to fight for them.
Keep it up guys!
PS i never liked the texas rangers anyway
I’m sure its his fault they are a pretty sorry team now.
Comment by L.C. — June 26, 2008 @ 7:53 pm |
Great to hear from an American and to get an Americans view point. I don’t think there is any dislike of Americans in general it is purely a dislike of our 2 owners and there treatment of us the fans and Rafa our manager. It wouldn’t matter what nationality our owners are or will be its the lies they have told that has caused such unrest. I have no idea what its like to be a sports fan over the pond but over here its like a religion and even more so when you follow the mighty reds, perhaps as you have now decided to follow the reds you too will gain an understanding of how important our team is to us.
PS when is this site going to be updated? Is a great source of information but please keep it going!!
Comment by LFC4EVER — June 28, 2008 @ 3:32 pm |
Nice to see this site up and running. Well done Paul. Good stuff. Lets hope we can sort out another morbidly obese liar
Comment by tom — September 17, 2008 @ 3:46 pm |