The Dundee United Thread 22/23

[CaspianChris]

Some more transfer talk for now Utd and Dundee both after Luke McGowan of Ayr

 

[Granny Danger]

Everything that is happening is reaffirming my views and beliefs about Ogren’s involvement.  It is the price we are paying for someone with no connection to the club pulling us out of the shit after the Thompson family’s ownership.

There is nothing we can do other than to hope a wealthy Arab with more money than sense comes along and rescues us.  I’d put the chances of that happening as slim to none.

 

[Twinkle]

42 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

There is nothing we can do other than to hope a wealthy Arab with more money than sense comes along and rescues us.  I’d put the chances of that happening as slim to none.

 

I fit the bill

 

Arab

More money than sense

Wealthy....erm define wealthy

[Granny Danger]

16 minutes ago, Twinkle said:

I fit the bill

 

Arab

More money than sense

Wealthy....erm define wealthy

Someone with £5m who is willing to lose it all or £100m who can afford to lose £5m.

BTW it is possible to have only 50 pence and still have more money than sense.

[ArabianKnight]

McInnes. 

It's gonna be McInnes. 

[mishtergrolsch]

16 minutes ago, ArabianKnight said:

McInnes. 

It's gonna be McInnes. 

It'll not be McInnes. Doubt he'd work to the master plan as he'd want to do things his own way.

I wouldnt say no to him though, if he was allowed to do what he wanted.

But he won't.

[Pull My Strings]

4 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Everything that is happening is reaffirming my views and beliefs about Ogren’s involvement.  It is the price we are paying for someone with no connection to the club pulling us out of the shit after the Thompson family’s ownership.

There is nothing we can do other than to hope a wealthy Arab with more money than sense comes along and rescues us.  I’d put the chances of that happening as slim to none.

 

It's called confirmation bias. It's a well-recognised phenomenon. 

[Granny Danger]

4 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

It's called confirmation bias. It's a well-recognised phenomenon. 

It’s called Granny being right again.  It’s a well recognised phenomenon.

[CaspianChris]

36 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

It’s called Granny being right again.  It’s a well recognised phenomenon.

Granny being right well thats a shock

Edited May 29, 2021 by CaspianChris

[Pull My Strings]

16 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

It’s called Granny being right again.  It’s a well recognised phenomenon.

There it is again.

[Steven W]

16 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

Everything that is happening is reaffirming my views and beliefs about Ogren’s involvement.  It is the price we are paying for someone with no connection to the club pulling us out of the shit after the Thompson family’s ownership.

There is nothing we can do other than to hope a wealthy Arab with more money than sense comes along and rescues us.  I’d put the chances of that happening as slim to none.

 

Or become self sustaining and live within our means?

[Granny Danger]

36 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Or become self sustaining and live within our means?

That would certainly be the ideal scenario.  I think it is feasible for a club of our size to do that so long as we are realistic about our expectations.  That would include not splashing out money trying to achieve the unachievable, accepting that we are a selling club, and settling for mid table and the occasional decent cup run.

However I think all that would be far more realistic if we were debt free and don’t see a path to that at present.

[Pull My Strings]

3 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

That would certainly be the ideal scenario.  I think it is feasible for a club of our size to do that so long as we are realistic about our expectations.  That would include not splashing out money trying to achieve the unachievable, accepting that we are a selling club, and settling for mid table and the occasional decent cup run.

However I think all that would be far more realistic if we were debt free and don’t see a path to that at present.

Genuine question, but does any of us actually know the extent of the company's indebtedness? I'm obviously conscious that the company have suffered probably three years of very heavy losses but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is debt. The funding for those losses, as I understand it, has come from Ogren. It's his company and any debt from that funding is essentially him lending money to himself. As far as I am aware there is no external debt. It's obviously disappointing for Ogren that he's had to spend all this money but it's not like there's a commercial lender standing with its hand-out demanding repayment in the short term. If Ogren is willing to treat the outlay as a capital investment and wait for a return in the longer term then there's no obvious reason why the club can't go forward with essentially a clean slate. 

The counter position, I presume, is that Ogren's scunnered with the level of his initial outlay and now wants to cut his losses and run. That might be the case but I don't think I've seen any evidence to suggest that is what he wants to do.

I may have missed something here but I think that's the position.

[Derry Alli]

18 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

I'm obviously conscious that the company have suffered probably three years of very heavy losses but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is debt. The funding for those losses, as I understand it, has come from Ogren. It's his company and any debt from that funding is essentially him lending money to himself.

Any rumours I've seen/heard (mostly FED boys) is that the losses are in the name of the club, not Ogren. He is (again, rumoured) able to walk away with only his initial outlay as a loss. 

[Pull My Strings]

1 minute ago, Mr. Alli said:

Any rumours I've seen/heard (mostly FED boys) is that the losses are in the name of the club, not Ogren. He is (again, rumoured) able to walk away with only his initial outlay as a loss. 

No rumours required, the company have definitely lost money. A lot of money. The question is where that money came from. Given that there are no charges registered against the company the only logical explanation is that the funds have come from a shareholder , i.e. Ogren personally. Who else is going to stump up several million pounds without taking a security? It's his company, so he owes that money to himself.

Your second sentence suggests that your "FED boy" sources don't really understand what's going on, or you've misunderstood what you were told. 

 

 

[Derry Alli]

6 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

Your second sentence suggests that your "FED boy" sources don't really understand what's going on, or you've misunderstood what you were told. 

Most likely the latter as he's spot on 90% of the time. 

[Granny Danger]

51 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

Genuine question, but does any of us actually know the extent of the company's indebtedness? I'm obviously conscious that the company have suffered probably three years of very heavy losses but that doesn't necessarily mean that there is debt. The funding for those losses, as I understand it, has come from Ogren. It's his company and any debt from that funding is essentially him lending money to himself. As far as I am aware there is no external debt. It's obviously disappointing for Ogren that he's had to spend all this money but it's not like there's a commercial lender standing with its hand-out demanding repayment in the short term. If Ogren is willing to treat the outlay as a capital investment and wait for a return in the longer term then there's no obvious reason why the club can't go forward with essentially a clean slate. 

The counter position, I presume, is that Ogren's scunnered with the level of his initial outlay and now wants to cut his losses and run. That might be the case but I don't think I've seen any evidence to suggest that is what he wants to do.

I may have missed something here but I think that's the position.

Where to start?  I’m sure I do not need to explain company accounts to you, you obviously understand them.

The most recent lodged accounts are to June 2019 (which suggests there are accounts overdue, but that is a different matter) and show the company being over £2.2m in the red.  I think it’s unlikely that we have made a profit in that time so are likely to be further in the red.  Even if all the club’s debt is due to Ogren, and even if he’s the majority shareholder, that should still be a cause for concern, more so if there’s no obvious pathway to profitability.

At the risk of repeating myself, self sustainability is a laudable goal and definitely one we should be pursuing but it’s a difficult task.  If a situation exists, or even arises in the future, where we have to service that debt then self sustainability would become far more difficult.

I do not claim to know Ogren’s mindset or plans but I have concerns, that I expressed from his initial involvement, about why he bought into the club and what he thought the potential upside is.  If he’s in it for the long term that is great but I see only three scenarios over the next few years:

1  we become self sustainable by making profits or limiting ourselves to small profits or losses.

2 we begin to make sizeable profits that allows Ogren to begin to pay himself back the money he has put in.

3 we continue to make small/medium/large losses.

Personally I think 1 is a possible scenario and about the most we can realistically hope for and I also think 3 is far more likely than 2.

 

 

[Pull My Strings]

5 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Where to start?  I’m sure I do not need to explain company accounts to you, you obviously understand them.

The most recent lodged accounts are to June 2019 (which suggests there are accounts overdue, but that is a different matter) and show the company being over £2.2m in the red.  I think it’s unlikely that we have made a profit in that time so are likely to be further in the red.  Even if all the club’s debt is due to Ogren, and even if he’s the majority shareholder, that should still be a cause for concern, more so if there’s no obvious pathway to profitability.

At the risk of repeating myself, self sustainability is a laudable goal and definitely one we should be pursuing but it’s a difficult task.  If a situation exists, or even arises in the future, where we have to service that debt then self sustainability would become far more difficult.

I do not claim to know Ogren’s mindset or plans but I have concerns, that I expressed from his initial involvement, about why he bought into the club and what he thought the potential upside is.  If he’s in it for the long term that is great but I see only three scenarios over the next few years:

1  we become self sustainable by making profits or limiting ourselves to small profits or losses.

2 we begin to make sizeable profits that allows Ogren to begin to pay himself back the money he has put in.

3 we continue to make small/medium/large losses.

Personally I think 1 is a possible scenario and about the most we can realistically hope for and I also think 3 is far more likely than 2.

 

 

I don't disagree that we've made substantial losses, nor that we have debt. I'm simply drawing the distinction between external debt and shareholder/director loans. The first is an ongoing drag on the business, the second is clearly worse for the shareholder concerned but does not necessarily impact on the future performance of the business. In other words, this might be considered to be Ogren's problem rather than a problem for the football club. 

Also worth considering the exceptional nature of a lot of the losses. The period of the losses includes time in the Championship with very poor TV revenues and a season in the Premier League without fans. The losses include the purchase of heritable property, a heavy turnover of players to get out of the Championship and substantial investment in infrastructure. Assuming fans are allowed back into grounds next season then I think it's reasonable to assume that income will rise sharply and, if we're going to making only minimal outlays on players, then costs are likely to also fall.

Just a counterpoint to the more negative interpretations of the position. 

[Granny Danger]

3 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

I don't disagree that we've made substantial losses, nor that we have debt. I'm simply drawing the distinction between external debt and shareholder/director loans. The first is an ongoing drag on the business, the second is clearly worse for the shareholder concerned but does not necessarily impact on the future performance of the business. In other words, this might be considered to be Ogren's problem rather than a problem for the football club. 

Also worth considering the exceptional nature of a lot of the losses. The period of the losses includes time in the Championship with very poor TV revenues and a season in the Premier League without fans. The losses include the purchase of heritable property, a heavy turnover of players to get out of the Championship and substantial investment in infrastructure. Assuming fans are allowed back into grounds next season then I think it's reasonable to assume that income will rise sharply and, if we're going to making only minimal outlays on players, then costs are likely to also fall.

Just a counterpoint to the more negative interpretations of the position. 

I’m not trying to be negative, just realistic.  The circumstances during the period of loss may have been exceptional but there are clubs in the top flight of Scottish football, including our own, who have made significant losses in far less exceptional circumstances.

I know that there is only limited financial information available, and that is historical.  However given what we know, and what we can take an educated guess at, if you were Mark Ogren would you try to minimise your losses (maybe by selling Benji and Shanks) and walk away or would you hold out and try to turn it around?

[Pull My Strings]

I agree.

Ediit: ... with the analysis and with the premise of the question, I mean. I don't know which way he'll go but I think he's probably got a better chance of getting his money back by holding his nerve than by cashing in on the couple of saleable assets currently in the first team and running. 

Edited May 30, 2021 by Pull My Strings