The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[john e]

Been in back to back meetings since 8am, have i missed anything ?

It appears not unfortunately. Was the same as you and just had a leaf through to see.

Apart from DW betting £20 that it happens by season start - considering the reluctance of DW and parting with money, for all the rumours, ITK and general hysteria, I would say that is the most telling thing to have happened yet!

good point

[ozzjim]

I think its a nice thought to think we are well on the way to being sold with someone firmly in the pipeline,
 even all done and dusted, makes us feel better

but I doubt it,
 I think the club went up for sale officially yesterday because whatever else has happened up to this point hasn't come through,
 we are at the early stages with any buyer if there is indeed someone interested, in my view

but I don't know anything, just summising on what i'm reading

could take a while with lots and lots of internet speculation over the coming weeks

I am with you John. For starters - how many people want to play £200m for a football club, then sink a further £200m to get them anywhere near the top. Cheaper to buy a big championship club and build them up like Leicester have.

I voted Anshultz on account that he likes sports teams and stadiums, and we have both.

[silhillvilla]

There has to be a real chance that Lerner will still be around for another season, maybe longer.

[jeowje]

We've also had doug telling us that he has heard that we have been sold, that he has no idea whether we have been sold, thinks he did a better job than Randy, and he doesn't like these new, small five pence pieces...

[Dante Lavelli]

With all respect if the sale of the club is a done deal what was yesterday all about? If a deal has been done, the sensible, professional thing to do would be to make a holding statement or no statement at all. To feed the long suffering fans a pill with that much sugar on it tells me that the deal which was supposed to have been done had either fallen through or never was. We have a terrible record of reactive decision making - MON compo, Houllier illness, TOSM appointment, establishment of the Bomb Squad, to list but a few examples. We have form for making a bollox of things. Why should the sale of the club be any different?

I think/hope that yesterday was two personal "goodbye" statements written by the two individuals involved.  There was precious little PR jargon, or more to the point, they were too weird to be corporate/sanitised statements', furthermore there were no obvious 'sales pitches' to potential buyers which I'd have expected if the buyers were unknown.

My guess is that they wanted to get their 'goodbye' out in the public now before any official announcement/leak from the actual buyers.  The noise created from the new guys will drown out anything Randy/General would have to say and therefore their goodbye (and almost apology) would not been heard.  It's quite sweet really...

[silhillvilla]

Club is a bloody shambles . We can't even get a clean sale sorted. Based on Lerners previous form I'd say fuck all is in place, the previous deal fell through and he's now hawking the club about (via the bankers) to anyone who'll listen.
Merrill Lynch have probably produced a nice little brochure and are mail shotting Sheikh's of all shapes and sizes , oligarchs whether free citizens , on parole or banged up and anyone in a suit with sunglasses on in Malaysia and Thailand. Oh and Atole Stille

[BoskoDjembaSalifou]

Listen lads, it's in it's final stages.

We're going to be very happy and the window is going to be sensational.

Spoke to source this morning, said its 99% done.

Clearly trying to wind us up.

[The Laughing Policeman]

How would you feel if the buyer turned out to be a group without any sports interests at the moment?
I'm thinking JLR. They already have a massive presence in the area employing thousands of people and have turned the company around magnificently.
What's in it for them? Well pretty much the same as Sheik Mansoor and Etihad. Rename the stadium put in a long term kit sponsorship deal, and every time you are on TV around the world you get a couple of hours of free advertising.
Mind you all that depends on spending buckets of money to make us succesful.

[Ads]

I think its a nice thought to think we are well on the way to being sold with someone firmly in the pipeline,
 even all done and dusted, makes us feel better

but I doubt it,
 I think the club went up for sale officially yesterday because whatever else has happened up to this point hasn't come through,
 we are at the early stages with any buyer if there is indeed someone interested, in my view

but I don't know anything, just summising on what i'm reading

could take a while with lots and lots of internet speculation over the coming weeks

I am with you John. For starters - how many people want to play £200m for a football club, then sink a further £200m to get them anywhere near the top. Cheaper to buy a big championship club and build them up like Leicester have.

I voted Anshultz on account that he likes sports teams and stadiums, and we have both.

How many football clubs the size of Aston Villa are actually actively up for sale? Its an opportunity to buy a piece of history and potentially make some more with some profit thrown in if you do so. Liverpool have certainly advanced the cause that there is something to be gained with the "EPL" malarkey.

[jeowje]

There has to be a real chance that Lerner will still be around for another season, maybe longer.

I don't think that Randy would go public saying that his heart was no longer in it if he hadn't got a fairly imminent exit strategy organised. He would be better placed I would imagine than any of us to gauge the saleability of the club, and would have kept quiet if he foresaw being here much longer I would think.

[RussellC]

Listen lads, it's in it's final stages.

We're going to be very happy and the window is going to be sensational.

Spoke to source this morning, said its 99% done.

Now can everyone stop idly speculating please? #concrete

[Archbishop Herbert Cockthrottle]

Listen lads, it's in it's final stages.

We're going to be very happy and the window is going to be sensational.

Spoke to source this morning, said its 99% done.

Clearly trying to wind us up.

There is no way that a member of Mike Read's favourite band is trying to give us the runaround.





I know, I know.

[john e]

I think its a nice thought to think we are well on the way to being sold with someone firmly in the pipeline,
 even all done and dusted, makes us feel better

but I doubt it,
 I think the club went up for sale officially yesterday because whatever else has happened up to this point hasn't come through,
 we are at the early stages with any buyer if there is indeed someone interested, in my view

but I don't know anything, just summising on what i'm reading

could take a while with lots and lots of internet speculation over the coming weeks

I am with you John. For starters - how many people want to play £200m for a football club, then sink a further £200m to get them anywhere near the top. Cheaper to buy a big championship club and build them up like Leicester have.

I voted Anshultz on account that he likes sports teams and stadiums, and we have both.

How many football clubs the size of Aston Villa are actually actively up for sale? Its an opportunity to buy a piece of history and potentially make some more with some profit thrown in if you do so. Liverpool have certainly advanced the cause that there is something to be gained with the "EPL" malarkey.

I don't think we are saying it wont be sold, just that it might take some time, and that maybe nothing is in the pipeline yet

we are up for sale and at some point in the future we will be sold, no one is denying that, that's the official bit

[ozzjim]

Listen lads, it's in it's final stages.

We're going to be very happy and the window is going to be sensational.

Spoke to source this morning, said its 99% done.

Now can everyone stop idly speculating please? #concrete

As ever with anything like this it is impossible to prove that it is a wind up, and impossible to prove it is real. Massive pinches of salt, and if comes true and the window is sensational then LondonBoy will have got it right. The lack of a specific name or detail means it is also difficult to prove that it is little more than an educated guess. The joy of posts like that.

[HK Villan]

I've largely given Lerner the benefit of the doubt until now, but I would be staggered and extremely disappointed in him if he had really only just started the ball rolling, as that would leave the club in total limbo over the summer, which can only lead to a greater risk of relegation next season.  He should have kicked this off at least 6 months ago - I just hope he did and cogs are turning pending an announcement of a deal in the very near future, i.e. couple of weeks.

As to who takes over, I don't have strong views apart from the requirement that it has to be someone who can also act as a true custodian of our great football club.  You've got to hand it to Doug, he did achieve that in selling to Lerner and I take my hat off to him for it.  Lerner may have turned out to be ultimately a bit out of his depth in terms of management and dollars but he is a gent who always had good intentions.  I would ask him to please ensure he sells to someone who understands we are not just another football club, someone who will also understand the need to act as a custodian as he has done.  His legacy as owner of Aston Villa FC depends on it.

Mr Lerner needs to do proper, professional, comprehensive due diligence on the buyer (BoAML on his behalf) to avoid any disaster like that mob down the road where anyone doing a bit of digging around could have found out Yeung was not a billionaire, no-one had ever heard of him in any meaningful way even in HK, and that there was a reasonable probability that the origin of funds would be dodgy in some way.