Having looked at issues surrounding the Mandaric bid in this article the Trust looks at various alternative funding options the City Board might put to shareholders at the EGM this weekend.
Back in June then newly appointed City Chairman Andrew Taylor answered questions from Trust members re the clubs finances & what he & his colleagues on the Board were doing to bring additional finance to the club.
Below we repeat some of Andrew’s answers & ask if they are still & how they compare, favourably or otherwise to takeover bid…
In answer to a question about the level of the clubs’ debt & owning the Walker Stadium Andrew replied…
“First, let's be clear about the level of debt. The only (significant) debt the club has is in the stadium. It's not a case of clearing debts and then working on buying the stadium. It's simply a case of working out what we do to fund the acquisition of the stadium. One of the ways to do it was to joint venture our interest in the stadium. There was some opposition to the Tigers ground share. Much of the criticism was well intentioned but emotive and ill informed when the underlying objective was to find a way of protecting the long term future of the club at the Walkers. The ground share remains one of the ways that we could raise the capital to do it……”
Trust comment: Clearly then the issue of ground share is something Andrew Taylor was not (at that time) ruling out. With that in mind & knowing when members were canvassed two years ago only just over half were in favour we decided to canvass opinion again in light of the bid by Mandaric….