Venky’s v Indian Government (a) - 13/1/2025 - Re-Arranged Challenge Match

[bluebruce]

1 hour ago, pick32 said:

Still currently own us and I can’t see why people would wish financial ruin on them 

In the hope that financial ruin means they stop owning us.

It's a gamble, as to what comes next if that happens, but I can see why people want to take it. They've not covered us in glory, much the opposite. It would be very tough to find a buyer if they wanted even half the debt back, although financial ruin might force them to accept a lot less. Or make them more likely to insist on more, which could ultimately mean administration and points deductions (but still a fresh start).

But I doubt either the financial ruin or the sale will be happening. More likely we'll just continue to have strangled transfer budgets and continue to downgrade.

Edited September 6, 2023 by bluebruce

[Ossydave]

I find it alarming that on the image above its got 51 'likes' on that joke of a statement, I assume it's probably a lot more now.

We have a lot of fans that have been utterly brainwashed by this fucked up regime.

[Bethnal]

2 hours ago, MarkBRFC said:

 

 

 

Pre-empting any questions from the EFL about solvency?

Interesting that the parent company in the statement is VHPL, not VLL, who are the parent company at Companies House. VLL’s listed owners are Venkatesh and Balaji.

Strikes me that a lot of this is to do with motive. There is a motive for the investigation and it’s not the kind of thing you want someone to have a motive about, if it’s happening to you.

This is a proud family, we’re led to believe. I think a lot of wealthy people are prideful. Vainglorious at times.

It’s true that once you’re wealthy enough, the rules don’t apply like they used to and we can all think of many examples of that. But there’s always a bigger fish and if you piss that bigger fish off, new rules seem to apply to you. It’s very likely that pride puts you in such a position.

In the truest sense of the word, it’s the Raos’ pride that has got in the way of this football club and its fanbase over the past 12 years or so. It would be especially poetic, should an act of pride (buying the England international footballer from the telly’s mansion using company funds) manage to rid us of them.

[Crimpshrine]

43 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

Different company - the company that bought the training ground was Venkateshwara London Limited 

How many companies are there ? no wonder they are getting investigated.

It's like the Peoples Front of Judea

[NeilInBristol]

2 hours ago, DE. said:

Probably because they've hollowed out the club we support for the last decade plus.

Haha. So true 

1 hour ago, simongarnerisgod said:

because they`ve spent 13 years ruining blackburn rovers

Don't think it's worth replying to the genius asking such stupid questions. How can anyone who supports rovers think anything positive about venkys

[islander200]

I think what pick meant was this Is only good new if it forces them to sell the club which I agree with, if it just means they can't put as much money into the club and we have to cut costs further then this investigation is terrible for the club.

That's what I took from picks post anyway rather than he feels sorry for the owners 

 

[wilsdenrover]

40 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

How many companies are there ? no wonder they are getting investigated.

It's like the Peoples Front of Judea

It is 😁 - the club is owned by Venkys London Ltd…

Edited September 6, 2023 by wilsdenrover

[tomphil]

40 minutes ago, Crimpshrine said:

How many companies are there ? no wonder they are getting investigated.

It's like the Peoples Front of Judea

I was thinking this before it's all getting very complicated now on that front.

After years of clear 3rd party involvement finally went away (we assume) we just had VLL owning Rovers and being funded by VH group.

Now we have another in the mix owning the training ground and yet another registered over here just to own a property but set up as a business and also funded by VH group - or banks associated with them.

We keep getting told they own many many companies and yes they do but an almost equal number are dormant or liquidated or left to flounder.

It's the oldest big business trick in the book to keep moving money around to avoid certain things from ready eyes.  One slip is all it takes for the house of cards to come crashing down though.  These types never use their own wealth the use leverage and debt that gets serviced by ever increasing turnover and expansion.

Meanwhile they bleed out what they can where they can and use that for personal assets and cash.

[Mike E]

11 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

It is 😁 - the club is owned by Venkys London Ltd…

Is VLL not in turn owned by VOL?

[OldEwoodBlue]

I will reiterate that so far, owning Rovers has not cost Venkys a single rupee.

 

Overseas investments....

This is about Venkys Overseas which owns the house. Small change. Not even beer money.

Wait until the Venkys London web is pulled apart.

The house of cards is falling down.

[1864roverite]

3 hours ago, glen9mullan said:

Venkys overseas only relation to venkys London is the directors.

That being said, if they are looking at the overseas company, you can bet they are also looking at London too.

You plough £200 million into something which you in turn into share equity and its value don't increase,   then its got to be worth a second look by those investigating.

Regardless of Rovers statement, we have already seen the ripple effect at rovers during the last two months, with also cut backs and lack of investment into the squad.

Doing some research on Zedra, also throws up a worrying similarity in terms of where they do business and office from those darkest days. (Also paper trail of money which PhilipL presented to the Premier League)

The newly listed company which replaces the old one too, also list the uk bases director as the person of responsibility.

its too early to see where the investigation is going, though I'd imagine the properties seized will be temporary until they pay some sort of fine, which will be a fraction of the money in question.

I'd be interested where they transferred the initial funds from given Venkys India is a listed company with shareholders?

If this cash has dropped out of there and not personal wealth, I imagine this could be a massive problem, especially with their share prices also on a massive decline and sales being down by 60% I think I read somewhere.

.

If any office in the UK was linked SFO would have raided it before property in India was seized to link and lion for corroboration of evidence such as bank accounts, documents and other lines of enquiry. They haven’t done so and that says to me it’s an Indian investigation only.

The statement from Rovers is poor

[wilsdenrover]

7 minutes ago, Mike E said:

Is VLL not in turn owned by VOL?

No, see below confirmation statement for VLL:

[rovers11]

Venky's have a £7m house which they never use seized. I don't think they're going to lose any sleep over that one. Much ado about nothing.

Generally, the Indian government making it harder for overseas investment is very bad news for us. It doesn't force them to sell and it means they have the perfect excuse not to put money into the club. It's a winner all round for them. 

Sadly I don't think they will ever sell the club. I suspect the plan is to pass it down through the generations. 

[glen9mullan]

23 minutes ago, 1864roverite said:

If any office in the UK was linked SFO would have raided it before property in India was seized to link and lion for corroboration of evidence such as bank accounts, documents and other lines of enquiry. They haven’t done so and that says to me it’s an Indian investigation only.

The statement from Rovers is poor

Venkys overseas has been registered in UK for 12 years, the same as Venkys London.

So my point is, if they are looking at one, they will be looking at the other.

No one is suggesting a UK investigation 

[wilsdenrover]

2 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

Venky's have a £7m house which they never use seized. I don't think they're going to lose any sleep over that one. Much ado about nothing.

Generally, the Indian government making it harder for overseas investment is very bad news for us. It doesn't force them to sell and it means they have the perfect excuse not to put money into the club. It's a winner all round for them. 

Sadly I don't think they will ever sell the club. I suspect the plan is to pass it down through the generations. 

They’ve seized Indian property - not the UK house.

[glen9mullan]

Just now, rovers11 said:

Venky's have a £7m house which they never use seized. I don't think they're going to lose any sleep over that one. Much ado about nothing.

Generally, the Indian government making it harder for overseas investment is very bad news for us. It doesn't force them to sell and it means they have the perfect excuse not to put money into the club. It's a winner all round for them. 

Sadly I don't think they will ever sell the club. I suspect the plan is to pass it down through the generations. 

Quite the contrary, their wealth is land and property and if it can be confiscated so easily they won't be sleeping easily.

As i mentioned earlier, Venkys is a listed company with shareholders, and shares open to everyone.

Swiping 7 million of company funds for their own use if that turns out to be the case will have ramifications on their business.

Their share price is plummeting, their sales have dropped off the map.

Saving face in their own Country, is very much different to sticking two fingers up to us in Blackburn

[OldEwoodBlue]

2 minutes ago, wilsdenrover said:

They’ve seized Indian property - not the UK 

9 mud huts in Pune.

They will be in jail soon enough.

[Andy]

5 minutes ago, rovers11 said:

Venky's have a £7m house which they never use seized. I don't think they're going to lose any sleep over that one. Much ado about nothing.

Generally, the Indian government making it harder for overseas investment is very bad news for us. It doesn't force them to sell and it means they have the perfect excuse not to put money into the club. It's a winner all round for them. 

Sadly I don't think they will ever sell the club. I suspect the plan is to pass it down through the generations. 

This is my opinion also.

The Gov't restrictions seems to be a perfect reason for Venky's to say 'you need to be less reliant on our funding moving forward'.

So it leaves us in a bit of limbo; they stick around, but we never quite have enough funds to do anything other than tread water.

[OldEwoodBlue]

Thinking the world revolves around Rovers and thinking the Earth is flat are about the same thing.

Crooks love money and don't give a fuck about Rovers or anything else.

[chaddyrovers]

Just reading the thread for the first time and I don't anything about tax laws or investigations happening, etc so can't comment on this. 

11 hours ago, JoeH said:

Cost the Turkish consortium £30m to buy Hull City. Rovers would be closer to 10x that cost unless the debt to the owners is wiped away. The issue isn't them potentially leaving, it's whether or not the club can get the assets such as the STC/JTC back/included in a sale and whether the debt to the owners is wiped away.

But a multi-year commitment to a £5m sponsorship suggests the owners aren't going anywhere.

I have said in the past that any new owner would need to pay £60 million pounds in the first year of owning Rovers. £25m for buying the club, £20m for buying the STC back and then £15m to cover the losses in the first year, then within the first 12 months appoint a new CEO Deputy CEO, new commercial and marketing leader to improve the commercial operation and increase revenue by millions. It would take 6 to 12 months to appoint them and implant this sort of commercial operation   

11 hours ago, JHRover said:

If every outgoing owner sought to recover their losses or 'debt' then no football club would ever change hands, as it would always be too expensive. If you look at what the Allam's wrote off to get rid of Hull, what Fayed wrote off to get rid of Fulham, Abramovich at Chelsea.

Those are Venkys' losses over 10 years and their tab to pick up. Why should the club or new owners have to pay them back for losses from 8,9,10 years ago?

I agree they would have to right off the debt. 

10 hours ago, 1864roverite said:

Maybe the right time for a potential buyer to take the club off their hands at a very reasonable price especially if the debt to   V’s is wiped

Hopeful so. The bigger question is who would be interest in buying Rovers and and what experience have they got in running Sports/football team? 

[rovers11]

3 minutes ago, glen9mullan said:

Quite the contrary, their wealth is land and property and if it can be confiscated so easily they won't be sleeping easily.

As i mentioned earlier, Venkys is a listed company with shareholders, and shares open to everyone.

Swiping 7 million of company funds for their own use if that turns out to be the case will have ramifications on their business.

Their share price is plummeting, their sales have dropped off the map.

Saving face in their own Country, is very much different to sticking two fingers up to us in Blackburn

You know a lot more about this than I do so I take your word for it.

I guess all us fans really care about from this situation is:

1. Will it mean they will sell the club?

2. Will it result in reduced funding from the owners and us needing to be more self sufficient?

The answer to 1 is a firm no imo. The answer to 2 is most certainly yes in the short term and possibly in the longer term too.

All in all, I don't see any of this being positive for us. 

[rovers11]

5 minutes ago, Andy said:

This is my opinion also.

The Gov't restrictions seems to be a perfect reason for Venky's to say 'you need to be less reliant on our funding moving forward'.

So it leaves us in a bit of limbo; they stick around, but we never quite have enough funds to do anything other than tread water.

I completely agree. This will be the situation we'll be in and is exactly where we've been this summer. 

[jim mk2]

4 minutes ago, glen9mullan said:

Quite the contrary, their wealth is land and property and if it can be confiscated so easily they won't be sleeping easily.

As i mentioned earlier, Venkys is a listed company with shareholders, and shares open to everyone.

Swiping 7 million of company funds for their own use if that turns out to be the case will have ramifications on their business.

Their share price is plummeting, their sales have dropped off the map.

Saving face in their own Country, is very much different to sticking two fingers up to us in Blackburn

 

Are India's shareholder laws and rights as robust as the UK's?

To me, this news potentially leaves us in the worst of all worlds: they have another excuse to limit or withdraw funding for Rovers yet they're not impacted financially enough for them to have to to offload the club in a fire sale

We're still stuck in their bottom drawer, maybe useful at some point in the future yet actually forgotten and unwanted

 

 

[glen9mullan]

They set up a new Venkys overseas in Jersey in January this year (smells of trying to cover their tracks tbh).

I would have a guess that they knew then that their local chickens were coming home to roost, 

Approving the rovers budget 3 and half months later, also suggest they thought they were cleverer.

Investigations take months, sometimes years.

It does feel rather nice tbh, that the money they didn't spend in August has been reclaimed by others in India.

I hope their empire comes tumbling down.

We are 148 years old, good times, bad times and rough times. However there will always be someone else to step in, once these shysters piss off

[Gav]

Anything that damages them is fine by me, the harm they've done to this town and club is immeasurable.

I don't want to sound like a scratched record, but I'd take administration today, only then will this grand old club start to recover from the nightmare that has been the last 12yrs.

Venkys out.

🤞🤞🤞