Pardew addressing the wonga brigade again...

[decka]

Rexn - 16/9/2013 22:27

Not too far off, Decka. He bought the club with the overdraft. It was a condition of change of ownership that the debt to SJH for ground redevelopment also has to be paid off, about £85m.

What he paid for was the brand and the assets. The overdraft was about £40m I think which had to be reduced when we got relegated. By that time, haye had already sold N'Zogbia and Given which reduced the debt a bit more, then sold the likes of Beye, Martins, Duff, Bassong etc to reduce the debt a bit more before putting in more of his own cash to fit in with Championship regu8lations. Af5ter the Carroll sale, the rest is history.

So in theory Rex, everybody who has a mortgage is a missed payment away from liquidation, which is what Ashley gas tried to imply from day one so that he can basically siphon money out of the club then use the leeds, portsmouth excuse when fans question his lack of, or break even at best, investment? Or is that too simplistic?

 

[Rexn]

On the liquidation side, it is a little more involved. Basically the club did not have enough assets to meet the liabilities and Shepherd was looking to refinance the club in a tough market. The scale of the overall debt was such that SJH would lose all of his £85m which is almost certainly why he engineered a sale behind Shepherd's back.

Ashley's people say the scale of the debt was a surprise. It shouldn't have been and personally I don't believe it.

Covering the debt with a loan basically gave him a tax write off. It became his piggy bank. The club itself is still in negative equity. As the negative equity reduces, Ashley can effectively raid his piggy bank for a tax free income.