Randy Lerner

[ChicagoLion]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

[kippaxvilla2]

I've said it before and I'm not alone but if you actually tried to ruin a football club and lose £100's of millions in the process you would probably struggle to achieve it.  The real life version of Brewsters Millions.

[Villa in Denmark]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

I thought all of those had been waived after the first couple of years?

[A Northern Soul]

Don't know if it has been posted before but just looked him up on Wikipedia and his occupation is listed as "gutless coward" 😊

[old man villa fan]

We seem to have moved to a new chapter in this sorry saga.  I believed that it was poor financial management and inexperience of running a football club that has seen us sink in recent years.  I have to hold my hands up and admit that I was wrong.  What we are seeing now is deceit on a scale I have not seen in all my years supporting this club.

As fans, we seem to be being fed a stream of PR spin to cover up what is actually going on.  This has today resulted in a massive gap being created between the supporters and the club.  Can that gap be bridged?  I very much doubt it unless some straight honest talking is carried out.

I thought I would not see the dark depressing days of DOL and HDE again but we are here again and worse.  These are unprecedented times that the club are facing and serious questions need to be asked and answered.

[tomd2103]

With what Hollis has said in recent weeks, the whole thing at the moment has the feeling of a closing down sale.  Not sure if others feel that way.

No point having a go at Lerner, he is now totally removed.  Hollis has been brought in to ensure the books balance and I had a sneaky feeling all along that bringing players in this window would be reliant on the bigger earners such as N'Zogbia and Agbonlahor being moved on. 

[old man villa fan]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

Thanks

[kippaxvilla2]

Don't know if it has been posted before but just looked him up on Wikipedia and his occupation is listed as "gutless coward" 😊

Now that is funny.

[ChicagoLion]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

I thought all of those had been waived after the first couple of years?

You might be right but there were significant charges in the first years.

[aj2k77]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

I thought all of those had been waived after the first couple of years?

You might be right but there were significant charges in the first years.

I know for one season, it may have been 2009/10 that there were £7.7m in management fees.

[ChicagoLion]

What I am struggling to understand is how, having written off loans of £90m, we still have a net debt of £100m.  To be honest, I have not followed the accounts closely and missed any comments on here 12 months ago about this.

It was reported that Lerner wanted £150m for the club but is this really £250m with the debt.

His total investment is over 250 million, including purchase of 65millio and loans of 200million + some of which he has capitalised.The trust has been taking interest and management charges so his real exposure is estimated 230 to 270, without seein the latest accounts difficult to be exact.
He put it on the market for 250+, dropped to 200+ and then had no takers at 150.
There were discussions (allegedly at 90million).

I thought all of those had been waived after the first couple of years?

You might be right but there were significant charges in the first years.

I know for one season, it may have been 2009/10 that there were £7.7m in management fees.

Another thing that happened was that non- playing and coaching staff numbers went up significantly without any real explanation.

[ChicagoLion]

With what Hollis has said in recent weeks, the whole thing at the moment has the feeling of a closing down sale.  Not sure if others feel that way.

No point having a go at Lerner, he is now totally removed.  Hollis has been brought in to ensure the books balance and I had a sneaky feeling all along that bringing players in this window would be reliant on the bigger earners such as N'Zogbia and Agbonlahor being moved on.

Hollis has only just started and is operating under the mandate agreed with Lerner.

[pbavfckuwait]

As stated earlier, I do not see this as being done in any sense of spite by Lerner, it is due to his total incompetence, this is plain to see with the people he puts into positions, but what I can't get my head around is Fox and Arsestadt came from a very well run club, Arsenal, so must have some idea as to the foundations of running a department, division, whatever they are responsible for in a professional way. Hollis to early to say, Reilly worries me as his buys at Liverpool were not a great success.

So I keep coming back to the same conclusion, Randy likes to employ people who will lie for him and face the day to day abuse, as stated earlier Dave Woodhall and not with hypocrisy but with hindsight, the General was the first of these cronies, Faulkner for certain another, now we have Fox and Hollis. My concern is these idiots are telling Randy what they are telling us, but Randy believes them and that he will hold on to the club until it turns the corner on this bit of inconvenience we are suffering at the moment.
God help us.

[phantom limb]

The worst thing for me is that even though we were at a low ebb when Lerner bought us, if we'd have held on perhaps we could have had the significant investment that Man City ended up with shortly after. Despite being sneered at initially, they've gone from strength to strength with regular Champions League football, cup wins, title wins, world class facilities and elite level players / managers queuing up to sign for them.

Instead, despite being the largest club in the second city of the country, we've actually regressed to be worse off than when we started. I've completely changed my mind about this now, and feel that there's absolutely no guarantee of coming straight back next season. In fact, we probably won't. This recent transfer window has shown that we will continue to struggle to attract the players that we need and to hold on to our better ones (of which there are not many). Garde may well leave sometime between now and the end of the season (and I would not blame him in the slightest), while Man City have just agreed a deal with one of the most high profile and sought after managers in world football.

History will show incompetence of the highest level at every aspect of the football club throughout Lerner's tenure, and I cannot genuinely think of a worse owner save for perhaps the Oystons at Blackpool. Mistake after mistake, poor decisions, poor appointments, and then finally shutting off the finance necessary to even keep us in the league. Good luck to everyone who continues to go to the games this season because you've certainly got more stomach for it than I have, if they can't be bothered to fight for our status then I can't see why they would expect the fans to still be interested, save for somewhere to direct their anger at such gross mismanagement at every level.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

Don't know if it has been posted before but just looked him up on Wikipedia and his occupation is listed as "gutless coward" 😊

And:

Thought to be the worst chairman in Aston Villa history with a poor record and not a single trophy to his name.