StAndrew7

No, it's not about selling shares here (for now, anyway; that may change based on what any investor decides to do with their final offer, if we ever get that far), it's about how much the investor puts in to the club to effectively dilute the value of the other group/individual shareholding. So for example, I've got my own, privately held ordinary shares right now; those are worth a (very small) share of the club. When an investor comes in, they will essentially purchase shares in the club that dilute mine down to a lower share than they currently represent; that, I assume, will also be the case with the Society shareholding.

The bid mentioned on Wednesday was one that was put to the club recently. Like I think since the Society has been in place but I'd need someone else to confirm that. I don't think a benefactor model works, personally. There needs to be a buy in to the club (literally, in shares) for me to prove someone is serious and has the long term interests of the club at the centre of any bid or investment and won't be looking for a return on their credit line, or any securities against the club's assets. If anything I'd be wanting more focus and attention on transformation within the structure of the business side of the club.

Wouldn't touch that personally. Transfer fees are a huge part of our ongoing business model. Also sounds an awful lot like the bid that was discussed quite a few years ago, which was mentioned on Wednesday.

I think you've hit the nail on the head there with everything you've said; the wording/phrasing of the WS poll/survey etc. will be key to understanding how any of the potential investment is to progress. That will take some time, so any potential investors will have to wait until the answers can be collated and confirmed by the WS Board to then be communicated to the MFC Board, which then informs any ongoing negotiations and discussions. Like I said earlier, the details will come to everyone who requires them to vote when a final proposal/position is reached, if at all. I also posted about this on P&B and @Jay confirmed that the WS Board have already met with the parties and have engaged in their own initial research into each, prior to any further development of bids of proposals. He's said, quite clearly, that the WS Board would not put any investment proposal to the membership that wasn't credible:

I think the WS has a 71 or 72% shareholding now, I think but yeah, I get you. Someone on the WS Board can confirm (@Jay or @Dee), but as far as I understand it in this instance, it doesn't translate like that. If the WS votes to say it doesn't want to dilute shares below the club being fan owned, that's it and that position will then be communicated by the WS Board to the MFC Board and subsequently to any potential investors that it's a line in the sand. If you're talking about voting on a potential investment bid, rather than a yay or nay on fan ownership percentages, that's different. The majority rules and the shares vote as a block, even if it's 51/49 in either direction, although that might be subject to the terms the WS was drawn up under in terms of turnout, percentages required and so on.

You wouldn't ever be asked to do that though, so not sure what the point you're making is? The question the WS will be consulting on shortly is if the membership is willing to give up fan ownership or not to any potential investor. If the answer is no, the WS Board will feed that back to the MFC Board, who will in turn tell investors that. If they're not interested, they'll then pull out. If they are, they'll come back with a new head of terms/initial agreement on it. If things progress on whatever terms the WS agree to for a continued/developing fan ownership model and we receive a formal offer for investment, everyone with a stake in the club - WS member or private shareholder - will receive the full details of the investment offer to then make a decision/vote yay or nay.

Based on the discussions last night I would say it absolutely was not news to him. The apology to him is, I assume, based on the fact it wasn't public knowledge and all that can (and has, I guess) come with that.

On your second point I believe this is an SPFL requirement now, following issues with other clubs (Derek Weir mentioned Livingston I think). It makes complete sense. Essentially, if the sums remain the same, the Society will need to have anywhere from £750k-£1m in the bank in October to fund the potential shortfalls. Obviously that will depend on any player sales and other income between now and then (e.g. selling Lennon Miller for David Turnbull type cash). The directors reported last night that we should have a surplus of £500k at the end of this reporting year, with the Society on target for around £750k. I'll leave the WS question for those more in the know ( @Jay ?), however I would imagine it would continue in its current form in some way, depending on the agreement with any investor. e.g. if there is a minority stake, the WS could have first refusal on investor's shares if they wish to sell etc. The other thing that's worth mentioning that I forgot to ask about, is if the 50% level is purely the Society's shares, or if private shares held by those such as myself are included in that. If that's the case, that would mean that the Society's share would be less than 50%.

I genuinely don't think it was deliberate. Are we really saying that our club and its management would willingly mislead its fans over a contract extension that was triggered 9 months ago? It's a real indication of the, maybe not quite rudderless, but perhaps drifting nature of the leadership right now. I think had any of the originally interviewed CEOs accepted the job, we (probably) wouldn't be in this situation. It's unfortunate that the potential for investment and everything that comes with that (e.g. bringing in their own CEO and other staff) has managed to align directly with the renewed interview process.

That's what both McMahon and Weir said; they want to avoid being a conveyor belt of managers and that they like the ethos that Kettlewell has and understand that he's still a young manager (I think someone pointed out earlier in the thread he's only 39) and is developing as he goes and learning his coaching style. They wanted stability and to give him the opportunity to build and develop a squad into a team he wants - he's spent the majority of his first two transfer windows fixing mistakes; both of his own (which he held his hands up about; some worked out, some didn't etc.) and of others. There was also a good bit of discussion in the gap we have between the first team and the age of some of our youth prospects. He was saying he made some big calls to let a lot of the older guys (18/19/20) go over the last year or so because he just didn't see them getting out onto the pitch; he pointed out he feels it's his responsibility to guys that age to be honest with them and let them know they're not going to make it whilst they still have time to get into FTE etc. to start away from football.

I think you've hit the nail there; it's just poor communication, which has become the (relative) standard over the last few years. Ever diminishing staff taking up dual roles means details like that, albeit in this case quite a big one, will be missed. From the discussions last night it was a hold up their hands moment and acknowledging it wasn't great and that it would be rectified.

I think this is the crux of it; as I said, I'm not a Society member currently but hold private shares. I'm now considering joining but would like to hear more about what the Society has planned to enhance its role within the club. Fan involvement, engagement and getting away from the general malaise around the club will be crucial to ensuring it works. Derek Weir raised a point re: Hearts. With their fan ownership model (20,000+(?!) members can't remember what he said) and their benefactor (I forget his name), they've invested £25million in their squad in the last 3 years. We are obviously never going to get a membership of that order - it does demonstrate the significance of the challenge that faces the club and the Society.

From the CEO, the investment, what?

That's exactly what Ketts alluded to last night; essentially that if he can continue to develop the other aspects like his physicality etc. we absolutely should be looking at that kind of progression and sale for him. His target is 15 goals this season, Ketts reckons if he can continue on the current path it could be more. I believe him.

Agreed, thought he came across really well and as turgid and as difficult as this season has been at times, you can clearly see from his responses to questions just how much he's working with the team to improve. His comment re: Bair was particularly interesting. Essentially saying that the level of one-to-one coaching, video analysis and other development opportunities he's had at Motherwell (as well as playing opportunities) are streaks ahead of what he had at St Johnstone.

There's a few details I think it's worth adding to this, particularly given some folks' concerns (on here and on P&B) re: asset stripping etc. The two bids that are furthest forward are: An American who "made his money in streaming" and now owns his own documentary company. His vision/strategy is to increase global exposure of the club and increase opportunities for further sponsorship, growing the fan-base and generating other revenue streams. An Aus/USA/Middle East group who are primarily looking to transform the recruitment side of the club and use more advanced data analytics, machine learning etc. to bring in players across the age-groups of the club to create a culture, style of playing etc. and sell them on for profit. Both parties have spoken with both the Club and Well Society Boards and at least one did it in person from what I picked up, although both may well have. Neither of the bids are philanthropic; they will be looking to make a return on their investment via their own business plans and strategy The investment will be made by buying shares, not in loans (like Hutchinson) or other guarantees that can be secured against the club; however these might be a special category of share that allows them to take some % of profits etc. (I missed the name of these) The share purchases will not be instant, nor will the investment be "transformational" straight away; one bid is proposing the WS go down to "around 50%" and another is wanting a controlling stake, but the % was not mentioned One of the groups would be looking to appoint their own CEO; "someone who played for Benfica and is running an Australian club" was mentioned (based on a quick Google, I believe that's this chap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaz_Patafta) Transfer fees recouped for players will remain within the club (I'm not sure how that will work with the second investor I mentioned; perhaps through their specific type of shares they'll be able to share profit rather than taking away directly from transfer fees) One of the reasons for the urgency/speed around this is that one of the parties wants to be involved in planning for next season; both are looking for exclusive negotiating positions There is still a long way to go with negotiations, analysis of club finances by parties, addition of potential clauses etc. still need to take place which will then result in a final offer The interested parties might come back based on the results of any vote of the WS membership and accept that a 51/49 split with WS retaining ownership could work for them and that would be part of their heads of terms/initial agreement with the club There is potential to negotiate with investors clauses etc. in the final proposal(s) that would allow the Well Society first refusal on any investor's shareholding, in the event they wish to sell their stake in the club so the club would return to being fan owned, should the Society have the necessary funds to purchase the shareholding Equally, a "No" from the WS re: the red line on majority fan ownership could will be enough for the two current front runners to back out In total there were 4/5 "serious" groups (of 8 who expressed interest) looking to invest in the club; I asked how those were progressing and the simple answer was "not as quickly as these two". At least on of the other parties are investing in other areas of sport (a golf team in LA was mentioned) and the board are trying to get to things developed without having to use a corporate finance consultant as far as possible. Another is an American who Derek Weir had spoken with, who was interested in developing an academy system in the US for developing players but not much more was said on that one. The Chairman did state last night that if this is something which does progress forward, he would absolutely propose bringing in experts in corporate finance to ensure nothing is missed in the minutiae that could come back to bite us. Also, we have interviewed 3 or 4 candidates for CEO by both Club and WS Boards. The issue we have is that with potential investment and at least one group looking to appoint their own, it's a difficult spot to be in. Normally this kind of appointment and negotiations for investment would, ideally, be years apart. So we run the risk of appointing a CEO who brings their own structures and ideas, to then potentially have them removed by any investor. The Well Society have asked for the opportunity to provide a strategy/plan that means they'll be more able to continue funding the club and any shortfalls and create a business / fundraising plan of their own for the club, along the lines of the investors. I also want to point out that Derek Weir stated that was his preferred option; that the Well Society is able to provide the funding required for the club to continue before difficult decisions (i.e. slashing playing budgets etc.) need to be made. Ultimately, the Society needs to be in a position in October to tell the accounts auditors that they have the funds available to support the club for 18 months; if not, that triggers a warning to the SPFL regarding our financial situation. Also, to be absolutely clear, the Board are in no way making recommendations to shareholders or the Society to go or not go for the investment from either party. That will be decided when bids are submitted and shareholders and WS members have their vote. They are exploring all their options to ensure the financial safeguarding of the club, which is their job as Directors. As I said above, that also includes the WS continuing in its current role and increasing its input to the club. Time, however, is of the essence. I would expect WS members to be polled/asked to vote in the coming days. Exactly how that will be put across is key and it'd be interesting to see what is sent out (I'm not a WS member, I have private shares in the club).

Perhaps on the odd occasion but that was the exception more than the rule for me,. 4-2-3-1 most games 4-5-1 at times that season too. Anyway, we won. Yaldi.

Recent memory for me would suggest we did when Higdon played with Law, Ojamaa, Humphrey and McFadden in behind him, with Lasley in the anchor role.

Tanner's out for the season, I'm afraid.

Not one gets pass marks today, I'm afraid. How Grimshaw stayed on the pitch for the whole match I'll never know.

Yeah they'll have to be, otherwise they'll be blocking an evacuation route from that end of the stand onto the pitch if anything happens.

How do you know we've left it late? The fact we've made 4 offers to him would suggest to me we've not left it late at all but have been working on it for some time now - I would imagine the negotiations have been going on since the summer. I agree with your other points and given the information coming from the AGM we've made him an offer that will pay him a similar amount of money to a player who has full international caps and has played a significantly larger number of first team games (I would imagine that might be Bigi?) - I'm not sure what else the club can do here, other than to provide Cadden and Campbell as the examples of how staying here can do you much more good than disappearing to Leeds, Burnley or Celtic...

Only stuff I would add are a couple of points: The nature of the success we had over the last year effectively means that we have no cash flow related worries for next 2 years; this isn't going to result in complacency and the club are looking at how best to continue to secure our financial position and budgeting "correctly" for low placed finishes in the league and so on, To confirm there's ball stopping nets being installed at the Cooper stand (I was nearer the front ) to protect the crowd during warm-ups (which should happen during the January break), Some of Robbo's comments (indirectly) about the squad/players hinted that he thinks there's a fair few freeloaders at the club who are only interested in picking up a wage - he also said that you'd be surprised at who there is interest in from a transfer out point of view, We continue to look after our injured players and make sure that we're keeping them engaged; Robbo is taking Carson and Tanner out for dinner this Thursday (I know that doesn't seem like much, but it's a nice insight into how the club operates) and Burrows stated the club's policy has and will continue to be that we will only ever release a player who can pass a medical - effectively in the same condition as they were when we signed them, He also recognised that we're really lacking in wide players and would look to rectify that; we have 3 or 4 targets but as above, we need to let players go before we bring anyone in, The Ravenscraig thing is an interesting one - Fir Park will become increasingly difficult (and expensive) to maintain and the new standards for public stadia coming in will result in several of the modifications (like the PA) being a necessity. I didn't hear a figure being banded about for the PA system other than 8 to 10 times the cost of the scoreboard - I don't know those costs off the top of my head so someone who does could work that one out. I'd meant to try and ask about the money we're putting into Project Brave; there's obviously been an increase in costs relating to being one of the 8 "elite" clubs as part of that - I do wonder if we're going to have to increase that money year on year to remain one of the 8? Although, I would imagine there's a significant case for the investment paying off in future revenue for the players we develop as a result of our involvement. It would be interesting to evaluate those total costs against those of a full time Colts team mentioned above.

He still can?

I'd be expecting them to at least match the £800k. Not sure they'd be willing to part with that much cash but you never know, I suppose. Would prefer to see him go south tbh.