[Archived] Rumour: Venky's To Sell?

[broadsword]

Rochina / Formica

Was Brownie right in stating that Formica cost a lot less than £3.5m?

[Paul]

Was Brownie right in stating that Formica cost a lot less than £3.5m?

I don't know Bryan. Brownie's comment a few days back on this is the only word I've seen on the price.

[HemelRover]

The sad thing is a few people have posted everything discussed in this thread in recent months and very few took any real notice.

........

We have been shafted and a few saw it from day one.

Should we be congratulating you? I feel like I should be?

[Paul]

Should we be congratulating you? I feel like I should be?

Absolutely not.

The point is this, one I have made many times, most fans are blinded by promises of big money deals. Very few question how the deals are funded or where the money comes from. It has been obvious since Warnock was sold that a balanced budget had become almost impossible at Ewood yet hardly anyone would acknowledge this.

Fans only ask questions about money when there is none or money they feel should be there, Jones?, appears not to be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out Rovers income does not match expenditure but too many folk ignore this basic fact. Those with the alternative view, perhaps realistic view, are dismissed because no one wants to ask the hard question; where will the money come from? It's all too easy to spend other people's money on a message board building fancy car parks to charge soft southern punters £10 a match to park.

When it was made clear Venky's don't make enough profit to invest in a PL club the story became the Raos have private companies and wealth. In other words any story to keep fueling the dream.

I believe actions speak louder than words and all the actions to date show Venky's are out of their depth and have no money which they are prepared to invest. Let's face it there is no investment in football it's just a question of how much you want to throw away

If I won the Euromillions this week and bought the club I think the money would be gone inside two years. PL football is not an investment, it's financial suicide.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Absolutely not.

The point is this, one I have made many times, most fans are blinded by promises of big money deals. Very few question how the deals are funded or where the money comes from. It has been obvious since Warnock was sold that a balanced budget had become almost impossible at Ewood yet hardly anyone would acknowledge this.

Fans only ask questions about money when there is none or money they feel should be there, Jones?, appears not to be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out Rovers income does not match expenditure but too many folk ignore this basic fact. Those with the alternative view, perhaps realistic view, are dismissed because no one wants to ask the hard question; where will the money come from? It's all too easy to spend other people's money on a message board building fancy car parks to charge soft southern punters £10 a match to park.

When it was made clear Venky's don't make enough profit to invest in a PL club the story became the Raos have private companies and wealth. In other words any story to keep fueling the dream.

I believe actions speak louder than words and all the actions to date show Venky's are out of their depth and have no money which they are prepared to invest. Let's face it there is no investment in football it's just a question of how much you want to throw away

If I won the Euromillions this week and bought the club I think the money would be gone inside two years. PL football is not an investment, it's financial suicide.

2 comments:

1) So what that some 'saw' it sooner than others - it makes no difference if no-one saw it or 25,000 did.

2) So we are doomed then no matter who buys us.

I personally never bought the line that we were well run before. The huge increase in Sky money went on wages AND we ran up a further 20 million overdraft AND we sold our best players to pay the dross who are paid to much to be moved on. That is not my definition of a well-run business. There was nowhere for a new owner to go, rich or not, idiotic or not, other than shovel in money they would never see again.

[HemelRover]

Absolutely not.

The point is this, one I have made many times, most fans are blinded by promises of big money deals. Very few question how the deals are funded or where the money comes from. It has been obvious since Warnock was sold that a balanced budget had become almost impossible at Ewood yet hardly anyone would acknowledge this.

Fans only ask questions about money when there is none or money they feel should be there, Jones?, appears not to be.

It doesn't take a genius to work out Rovers income does not match expenditure but too many folk ignore this basic fact. Those with the alternative view, perhaps realistic view, are dismissed because no one wants to ask the hard question; where will the money come from? It's all too easy to spend other people's money on a message board building fancy car parks to charge soft southern punters £10 a match to park.

When it was made clear Venky's don't make enough profit to invest in a PL club the story became the Raos have private companies and wealth. In other words any story to keep fueling the dream.

I believe actions speak louder than words and all the actions to date show Venky's are out of their depth and have no money which they are prepared to invest. Let's face it there is no investment in football it's just a question of how much you want to throw away

Re BOLD

Im sorry but thats rubbish and its also disingenuous and a tad bit patronising.

I dont believe any Rovers fan thought that suddenly, as if my magic, there was a massive upturn in the amount of spare cash coming into the club just because the ownership changed. Every fan knows that Rovers burn cash and the only way to balance that was with player sales.

The early stories were about Venkys supposed business model of buying young talented players through Kentaro's links and selling them for profit.

Obviously, in order to sell these players off for big profit Venkys would have to dig into their own pockets as Rovers coffers were dry.

Every fan knew this. So, logically, for the Venkys to put their reported business plan into action they would have to stump up the initial investment.

The majority of fans took this assumption at face value, because at the time why shouldt we? It was the very early stages of their ownership and they hadn't broken everything by that point.

Re Italics

Agree totally, now. But its only the last few months that anyone could 100% know this as fact. Anything before then was suggestion and supposition.

[modes98]

JW compensation

He resigned as Venky's couldn't sack him until 12 months had passed. So shouldn't be a compensation package.

[Steve Moss]

He resigned as Venky's couldn't sack him until 12 months had passed. So shouldn't be a compensation package.

Unless it was a constructive termination (i.e. made his position untenable) or they wanted to buy a confidentiality agreement (and considering that JW hasn't said much this may be a reasonable supposition).

[Miker]

Paul, I agree with you. All that info was posted since day 1 and even John Williams revealed a lot about the state of our finances.

Talk of 50 million budgets seemed to come out of nowhere and never actually confirmed by the owners. Same thing goes for the ever-increasing list of players LINKED to us. Most of them ignored the speculation or laughed off our supposed interest.

I find it strange that people are in an uproar about Venky's for this reason because other than the PR shambles we experienced following the sacking of Sam, they haven't said anything to us that has been contradictory or delusional and they haven't done anything that wasn't expected since then.

The team is depleted right now though, so they need to rebuild quick. Even if it's players like Pavone and Mongongu.

[philipl]

On the LT, I believe their policy has been consistent. If there is an official statement from the club or the owners, they carry it. This was true under the Trust and is true now.

Unfortunately, statements from Pune have been self-contradictory within 24 hours of each other and that has damaged the paper's credibility.

As for stories about how much could be spent at the start of the window. Miker these came from Venky's and Kean back in May and June.

Tribal but includes direct quotes from Kean- Kean said: "It was important to know what type of budget we had and it's very healthy. The wage bill won't be cut, there will be funds available.

"It's a very competitive budget. Miles bigger than Rovers have had in the past.

"It was all positive and most enlightening for me to hear what they want to do next season and the season after."

£50m transfer budget I know exactly how and why that was a 100% accurate story at the time nicko put it in the People on 26 June.

He resigned as Venky's couldn't sack him until 12 months had passed. So shouldn't be a compensation package.

In no form or shape whatsoever was it a simple resignation.

Hemel, the back story to Sam's dismissal made Paul's points- that was in early December.

[BangkokRover]

Can you tell us the chances of this take over taking place?

[philipl]

I am reasonably sure that there are negotiations happening now.

What the chances are that this will result in a sale is anybody's guess. I explained in the podcast why I think it makes sense for Venky's to sell this summer but it needs a determined buyer, a willing seller, an agreed price and all the terms and conditions to be tied down for a deal to be signed and I have absolutely no idea whether any one of those is present.

There had been a significant set back but that happened probably ten days ago and things then went very quiet. Quiet can be interpreted two ways- nothing happening or the more intense the negotiations the quieter it is likely to be.

[BangkokRover]

I am reasonably sure that there are negotiations happening now.

What the chances are that this will result in a sale is anybody's guess. I explained in the podcast why I think it makes sense for Venky's to sell this summer but it needs a determined buyer, a willing seller, an agreed price and all the terms and conditions to be tied down for a deal to be signed and I have absolutely no idea whether any one of those is present.

There had been a significant set back but that happened probably ten days ago and things then went very quiet. Quiet can be interpreted two ways- nothing happening or the more intense the negotiations the quieter it is likely to be.

Thanks for the update

[Paul Mellelieu]

Paul is right about the underlying financial position the club is in, which is why no-one bought it for over two years of being on sale.

You can't make money out the club.

[chaddyrovers]

if the current owners can't afford to take us forward and allow us to spend some serious cash on improving the current squad before the new UEFA Financial rules come in then I think it is time to sell to the people who are interest in buying rovers. but they must been able to take us forward as a club and are willing to spend to money in the next 2 transfer windows.

On the LT, I believe their policy has been consistent. If there is an official statement from the club or the owners, they carry it. This was true under the Trust and is true now.

Unfortunately, statements from Pune have been self-contradictory within 24 hours of each other and that has damaged the paper's credibility.

As for stories about how much could be spent at the start of the window. Miker these came from Venky's and Kean back in May and June.

Tribal but includes direct quotes from Kean- Kean said: "It was important to know what type of budget we had and it's very healthy. The wage bill won't be cut, there will be funds available.

"It's a very competitive budget. Miles bigger than Rovers have had in the past.

"It was all positive and most enlightening for me to hear what they want to do next season and the season after."

£50m transfer budget I know exactly how and why that was a 100% accurate story at the time nicko put it in the People on 26 June.

I wonder what Kean thinks now after he said we had a healthy budget after the season and now we don't?

Also does anybody know why the owners have not provide think for the manager?

Have the owners got cold feet and NOW realised that running a football club is very expensive and you will never make money out of rovers.

[Paul]

He resigned as Venky's couldn't sack him until 12 months had passed. So shouldn't be a compensation package.

Yes the official line is JW resigned and so would not be due any form of compensation. I also believe Rebekah Brooks knew nothing about phone hacking at NI and will receive nothing because she resigned.

[Paul]

Re BOLD

Im sorry but thats rubbish and its also disingenuous and a tad bit patronising.

I dont believe any Rovers fan thought that suddenly, as if my magic, there was a massive upturn in the amount of spare cash coming into the club just because the ownership changed. Every fan knows that Rovers burn cash and the only way to balance that was with player sales.

I am not patrronising anyone but the evidence is on the site you help moderate. The transfer section only allows me to view back to June 22nd. The transfer threads parts 2 and 3 total 414 pages; there are 75 individual topics on potential signings ( the majority started by admin/mods/news*). There has been talk of funds up to £50m being available this summer. Back in the spring we were linked with every ridiculous marquee signing one could imagine.

You say I'm talking rubbish?? It's fantasy football, none of it is going to happen.

* I understand why all these topics are hived off to a seperate forum

Re Warnock: you say this is rubbish. JW publically admitted Warnock was sold to balance the budget. There was a £5m hole in the club's finances and that is where the money went.

So if you believe fans don't ignore the basic ecnomics of the football club could you explain why there are 75 or more player transfer threads and how these players will be paid for. Could you also explain the economics of the £50m transfer budget the club had two or three weeks ago?

The early stories were about Venkys supposed business model of buying young talented players through Kentaro's links and selling them for profit.

Obviously, in order to sell these players off for big profit Venkys would have to dig into their own pockets as Rovers coffers were dry.

Every fan knew this. So, logically, for the Venkys to put their reported business plan into action they would have to stump up the initial investment.

The majority of fans took this assumption at face value, because at the time why shouldt we? It was the very early stages of their ownership and they hadn't broken everything by that point.

Venky's make £10-12m in a good year. Which pockets was this money coming from to fund this revolutionary new business model (which has been the basis of the survival of 95% of football league clubs in my life time - genius idea)? Face value, that is the problem. Face value.

Re Italics

Agree totally, now. But its only the last few months that anyone could 100% know this as fact. Anything before then was suggestion and supposition.

Their behaviour has been irrational since day one.

[broadsword]

I have to agree with Paul, a lot of people got excited that Venky's were going to take over because they thought the parsimonious days that we had under the Trust would be over. Not many people wanted to question the means and motives too much as they wanted the dream to be true. Those who did took a shoeing from the usual suspects.

The business model was meant to be make a loss on Rovers, and get the money back and more by the media exposure and PR that it gave. Nicko himself said that the indians regarded the club as a "money pit" to chuck money at initially until the squad had been put back to a decent standard. Presumably still to be run at a loss thereafter. There was vague talk (but precious little detail) on spin-off's back in India, commercial tie-in's. I notice that all seems to have stopped, apart from starting a football academy in Pune. That should help with the debt repayments, then. The lack of joined-up thinking was exposed when they wanted to bring indian kids over here to train at the academy. But without work permits. Do they honestly think anything through? Were they really shocked when it sank in, how much it costs to run a premiership club? If so, what the hell were they up to when they did due diligence?

I said it before, the whole thing smacks of a vanity project, done for all teh wrong reasons, with a lack of understanding of what they were getting into. I can't see this ending well.

The worry has to be right now, who the Venky's dispose, sorry sell, us to.

[den]

The early stories were about Venkys supposed business model of buying young talented players through Kentaro's links and selling them for profit.

Obviously, in order to sell these players off for big profit Venkys would have to dig into their own pockets as Rovers coffers were dry.

Every fan knew this. So, logically, for the Venkys to put their reported business plan into action they would have to stump up the initial investment.

The majority of fans took this assumption at face value, because at the time why shouldt we?

The majority of fans Hemel - how do you know that? To be precise, their intentions were to get the club into the Champions League, by bringing in youngsters and a few loanees. They reckoned they could get rovers there by this, along with £5m invested each transfer window, for three years. I think the majority of fans thought that was ridiculous.

BTW, anyone who has condoned the Venky takeover because they "are at least putting money into the club", wondered how our club will manage under Venky's when their financial committment has ended in just over two years time? We would be relying on their management skills alone.

[BangkokRover]

BTW, anyone who has condoned the Venky takeover because they "are at least putting money into the club", wondered how our club will manage under Venky's when their financial committment has ended in just over two years time? We would be relying on their management skills alone.

People are entitled to get as excited as they want and to get as depressed as they want, remember this is Rovers. We know we are not the most successful club in the world, we are not the richest club, we are not the largest team in the world but we are all in this together.

[gumboots]

People are entitled to get as excited as they want and to get as depressed as they want, remember this is Rovers. We know we are not the most successful club in the world, we are not the richest club, we are not the largest team in the world but we are all in this together.

I didn't go overboard because anyone with an ounce of sense knew that Rovers were never going to buy hugely expensive players who demand huge wages - nobody thought the new owners were that rich; few are. What we did hope to see was some money spent that did not come from player sales because the owners realised that there was need for some initial outlay to enable their plans to get off the ground. Instead money was wasted on sacking a manager who, whilst he was not my cup of tea, was fine to go along with for a year or two or at least until the owners got used to the way things happen in football. We lost major potential support for the owners in John Williams, and they put a rookie in charge of the team. Even with little money to spend, there was no way anyone could predict that everything would go totally pear shaped so quickly. The owners could have been true to their word, learnt the business from the experienced hands they had around and then moved them on gradually if they wanted to. It is the arrogance of their "we can do it all ourselves" that has been the problem, not simply that they are not rich enough, and it is that that the majority of us find hard to take. We'd been run on very little cash before and a small amount extra would have been a lot to us.

[patrickvalery]

This bloody football lark doesn't seem to be as enjoyable as it used to be.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

The Venky's are different owners from what we are used to,their aquisition of Rovers for totally different reasons....the promotion of THEIR family business.Its blatantly clear they want maximum exposure for minimal investment,we are very much second best in the running here..how on earth this marriage from hell benefits us in any way is beyond me to be honest.You only have to observe their short tenure to date and it really should set alarm bells ringing.

To further compound this,the Rao's have no great wealth in football terms,they will probably even come a distant second to the Walker family never mind the Abramovich's of the money league.

There will only ever be one Jack Walker,a FAN who pumped Millions into Rovers and expected little to no return.Thank your lucky stars we were all born to witness that magical era...I very much doubt we will ever see anything like that again.

[philipl]

Their behaviour has been irrational since day one.

Interesting comment.

Very very few people run businesses in a deliberate and consciously irrational way. This is not a charge I would level against the Venky's as I think they have acted rationally within their own terms of reference.

The first thing to understand is that the personalities of the four key people are very different from each other.

In a rather masculine society, Mrs D has emerged as the number one figure. She is clearly enormously self-confident and has successfully carried on the chicken business from her father.

Mr D is in the background but carries clout.

Venkatesh comes over as a bit dim if you listen to his radio interviews.

Balaji is something else.

The set up is that all four have equal shares (look at the Venky's India shareholdings) and as a result they seem to have adopted a system of requiring unanimity in decision making because there is built-in stalemates with unbreakable 50-50s.

Balaji seems to operate on his own account and has generated significant cash independent of the family. This has helped fuel the confusion over how much they are worth which the family has been happy to ferment. Of course they are comfortable but no way are they Premier League owner rich.

This is how I believe we have got to the mess we are in today.

Anecdotally, Kentaro had been looking to control a PL club for years and had been looking for "Tim nice but dim" style owners through which to achieve their ambition. They found their targets in Rovers and the Balaji brothers who were scripted to perfection to get through the PL fit and proper and all the Rothschilds/Trust hurdles. Mr and Mrs D were all but invisible in this process of buying the club- read John Williams' words in the latest annual report.

However, Mr and Mrs D have a different agenda- they are happy for the boys to play so long as it doesn't mess with the real business and when needed they have been brutal in taking toys away- most publicly Balaji's ill-fated venture into Bollywood.

So when Mrs D found the boys had bought a football club, she had very limited knowledge of what it was they had got, believed the hype that becoming India's PL club would follow effortlessly but knowing the boys, she was going to take no risks of them wrecking the family fortune.

Without consulting anyone she imposed the rigid way of doing things that had served her so well with the chickens and immediately removed all decision making from Blackburn so her people could micro-manage Rovers in Pune.

This created a vacuum at Ewood which people like Kean and Anderson manipulated to their own advantage. Power at the club became a function of whom Mrs D listened to and as she is not in the habit of taking advice from anybody, that became an extremely narrow coterie of English courtiers re-enforcing her prejudices and making sure she remained ignorant of the reality of PL football to further their personal gain.

There was a nasty surprise in December about PL cashlow from BSkyB but that got papered over with the new Barclays mortgage which was apparently allowed to go delinquent when it expired on 30 June this year.

This unstable compromise lasted until this summer when a whole load of untrue assumptions on the part of everyone involved were tested and found wanting when it came to the real world of a major transfer window- January had been too short, the budget small (even that wasn't thrashed out until JW put his foot down on 7 January) and the cool head of JW was around even though all around him were marginalising him. The assumptions that have been exploded this summer are:

- that Venky's were really rich (Kean and Anderson)

- that Mrs D knew even the most basic things about accounting, wages, transfers, agents and contracts in the PL (Huber)

- that Mrs D had the slightest interest in being told anything about English law, corporate governance and football regulation (anybody in a managerial position at Rovers)

- that the cash Balaji had put in was family money (Kean and Huber)

- that Balaji actually has any say when the chips go down (Kean and Huber)

- that Mrs D has any interest in any promises, systems or processes put in place other than her own say so (Huber)

- that PL football is as simple as chicken feed and that the money needed for cup winning, European qualification and market domination was about £10m a year for everything (Mrs D)

- still to be exploded completely is the assumption that running a PL club without local management is a feasible proposition (Mrs D). Rovers are still falling apart.

Hence the series of car crashes all through this summer. This is why stories (particularly from Nicko) were completely true when they were written and are looking absolutely risible now.

As I say, the decisions taken have been rational based on the knowledge and experience that Mrs D (and it is primarily her) chose to have at the time she took each one. The brutal realisations she must have gone through in the last month or so culminating in the rumoured firing of Kentaro must mean she is now regretting ever having allowed her brothers so much leaway on this project.

The catalogue of errors is so huge than any rational person would take any half-decent offer and get out now.

[Teacup]

I wonder what Kean thinks now after he said we had a healthy budget after the season and now we don't?

If they have had a bid from an outside source for the club they are not going to spend money until that situation has come to a close.

Venky's appear to have changed who they are aiming for in this window, however that will not last the entire window.

If they had just started to get ready to sign players like Cisse/Piatti and then they had a bid for the club... Obviously if they think this bid may be an option they want to take, they will cease trying to sign players who are going to cost lots of money upfront. They will instead target free or out of contract players who are asking for a very small signing on fee, hence why we haven't really signed anyone yet and even so-called done deals are not done.

Ultimately until this situation with the bid/buyout has come to a close nothing major is going to happen. Venky's obviously want to sell, it is the only explanation for the complete turn around in the transfer market. However, if they do not sell the funds will become available again before the end of the window.

The question is, did this bid come out of the blue or did Venky's know about this bidder before? Due to what happened with players they were interested in like Cisse, the cost almost doubling and the players becoming too much for our budget. Did Venky's realise the dream they sold to the fans is something they cannot afford to do and the best alternative is to sell up and move on as soon as possible.

I don't even know if this bid is for real, but if it is, the above scenario makes the most sense to me.