Clack wrote:
pezza20 wrote:
Clack - Fernandez, had he had the money and being an avid Hammers fan, don't you think he would have bought the 50%, the deal the Daves' got was pay half now with an option to buy the rest over 3 years, a good deal for them and the only deal on the table for Straumer. Straumer had no funds to invest in the team and were actively encouraging the club to sell its best players, which would have lead to meltdown no doubt and almost certainly administration. I know for sure that Parker was on their hit list for sale, Duxbury reneged by securitising cash from advance ticket sales and placating the banks that West Ham were a going concern.

I can say for a fact that Duxbury was offering the club for 20 million quid, effectively 120m when you add in the debts. Nobody was prepared to pay that figure or take on the debts, the only party that would were G & S.

G & S had made decent money from selling Birmingham, they used that cash to but West Ham and have since increased their holding to 67% - Straumer don't want to own any part of the club, they are managing 'assets' and want the money back to pay off debts.


I think that's mainly wrong, Pezza.

As if Duxbury would have been offering the club for 20 million when actually 50% of it went for 50 million! - I know he wasn't the greatst of  businessman, but C'mon!

The debt had to be serviced, but paying it all off wasn't part of any deal (G & S have reduced the debt since taking over, mainly by reducing wage bill, but the debt still stands at somewhere between 80 to 100 million).

Straumur did not want to sell their only asset (and nor are they in a rush to sell the 33% they stll own now - they've always wanted to sell it at it's maximum  value, which they probably see at sometime in the future rather than now)

But it was the prospect of relegation that forced Straumurs' hand. The idea of the project was to get rid of the high-earners, run the club on sensible lines, rely on acadamy youngsters and young signings like Savio, and good coaching. No doubt the plan was to sell Parker that summer - he was a high-earner with one year left on contract, as it was the plan to sell Upson that Jan window.

But suddenly they realised the Project wasn't working from a football point of view - there's only so much you can get away with in the Prem when you continually sell your best players, and that's when they shit themelves, as the prospect of relegation was never part of the Project masterplan. I don't believe we were near administration, but they realised that if Upson was sold in Jan (as originally planned) and no strikers bought in then relegation was a very serious prospect, which would have been disasterous for the value of their asset. The 50% deal suited them as it meant they continued to own half of their asset, whose value they still hoped would increase over the following years.

Yes, if we had been relegated under Straumer and not come up for a couple of seasons, eventually those debts would've unsustainable in the Championship and we may well have eventually gone into admin - as probably we would do anyway under G & S if we don't go up in the next couple of seasons.

Clack - factually you are wrong - G & S didn't pay 50m quid for the club. I can confirm to you that the club was being offered by Duxbury for 20m quid - its a fact mate, believe me .....

Straumer have an asset that isn't making any profit, they are also part owner of a loss making entity - now where in that equation do you believe they think they are going to get 'maximum' value - its not going to happen for the next few years. The idea of ridding the club of the high earners had nothing to do with Straumer, they know fuck all about football. Duxbury masterminded that one, fact - its also a fact he screwed up by appointing Zola, who was way out of his league but was installed as 'yes' man.