Mike Thornton prøver å 'forstå' dagens nyheter:
(Thornton offentliggjør stadig sine tolkninger av klubbens offisielle økonomiske tall, og er etter det jeg forstår rimelig respektert for det han skriver)
From Mike Thornton, sort of explains it a bit clearer to my thick mind.
New Shares Just Allotted 2nd May 2018
Companies House has released the filing that shows that Leeds United has allotted a further 8,834,908 shares at £1 each.
This could be from a number of different sources:
It could be that Radrizzani has injected new cash into Leeds and Leeds now has covered the cash outflow – however, as I’ve said above with cash from season ticket renewals coming in at this time and more cash from the Chris Wood sale due this summer it would seem a strange time to need to inject the cash as equity, it would be better to make a loan now if we are temporarily short and take the money back when the Wood money arrives.
It could be that this money is not new money and is merely converting an old loan that Radrizzani made into equity shares – but why would Radrizzani do that at this time? This would not bring new cash into the club and would not help with summer transfers etc.
It could be that a new investor has been found who has just bought these shares and by doing so has put new money into the club – if so the new investor would have 27% of the shares meaning Radrizzani has less than the “magic†75% needed for total control. Radrizzani has said if he brings in an investor he will maintain control at this stage.
It could also be that these shares have been sold to both Radrizzani and a new investor or a mix of that and loans being converted etc.
Why the funny number?
I’m always looking for reasons why whole numbers are not used since they often give a clue as to what is going on. Why 8,834,908 shares and not a round 9,000,000?
My first thought was it might be because £8,834,908 is pretty close to exactly a round $12,000,000 at current exchange rates. However, it would be rather odd for Radrizzani to be mixing dollars and sterling together since he is already installed at the club and has loans in sterling.
However, it would make sense for dollars to be used if this was a precursor to another deal that was being priced in dollars by a new investor.
The Club had 24m shares all owned by Radrizzani and he paid about £45m to buy the club so he valued it on purchase at about £2 per share.
Since then he’s paid off GFH and the holding company controls Elland Road so no rent is paid, he’s increased the squad size and their book value (don’t @ me!), he’s improved the Academy and made repairs to Elland Road, etc. The Club’s profitability has also improved, albeit helped by player sales, and it has basically broken even for two seasons now.
When all these changes are taken into account I’d imagine he values the Club at much more than £45m and possibly thinks in terms of it being worth up to £100m now and more with new investment.
If another investor is willing to join us then I’d imagine that Radrizzani would give up as small a percentage as possible and would want a price per share that values the club at, say, £110m including the new investment.
When Radrizzani bought the club he paid £2 per share and so I’d expect a new investor to pay at least £2 per share. However, since the Club could be currently worth up to £110m, from an investor point of view, he may pay £2.50, £2.75 or even an outside £3 per share.
If a new investor normally deals in dollars then we need to convert these sterling figures into dollars.
The club value is $150m after new investment and lets say the investor has $15m. This would give the investor 10% of the club’s shares by value and would be acceptable to Radrizzani. Converting $15m dollars into sterling and setting each share price at £3 means the new investor gets 3,648,323 shares.
Now these 3,648,323 shares are supposed to represent 10% of the total club shares so the total club shares needs to be 36,483,231 shares. However, before today’s new shares were allotted there were only 24m shares in existence so the extra shares needed to be created and allotted to Radizzani for him to maintain his 90% shareholding. Taking 24m and 3,648,323 from 36,483,231 equals 8,834,908 shares.
This is the “funny†number of shares allotted on the 2nd May and makes perfect sense to me when viewed as a dollar transaction.
How much would this cost a New Investor?
It looks like a new investor would be paying $15m USD which will give the club funds of almost £11m.
Who gets the money?
Since these are shares in the Club being issued by the Club directly to Radrizzani and a new investor then all the money comes to the Club.
Summary
The Club website still has Andrea Radrizzani as 100% owner of the Club and therefore owns all the shares so I think it is likely that the new shares allotted on 2nd May 2018 have been bought by him.
I can’t tell from anything published yet whether he bought them with cash or converted part of his existing loan with the Club into the shares.
The odd number of shares allotted is ringing bells saying this is not a finished deal yet and more shares are likely to be allotted some time into the future.
Given that Andrea Radrizzani doesn’t want to give up much control I’d expect the new future shares to be a low percentage; 10% is probably the lowest amount that would make sense to an investor and I’d expect that to cost about £11m.
However, it may be that Radrizzani does give up a larger percentage of, say 20%, with an associated revenue to the club of just over £21m.
Mike Thornton 10th May 2018
(hentet fra waccoe)
