Its happening!!! The takeover!!!

Quoted from psgmariner

I don’t think you can saving us from admin was a huge mistake. Admin isn’t a silver bullet and it means a lot of people you owe money to don’t get paid. I’m glad we’ve never gone down that route.

But our debt was mainly with the taxman and a bank loan if I recollect correctly? I do not think we were owing hundreds of thousands to small local businesses.

Not that I am saying we should just have gone down the admin route, at the time it was not foreseen that it could actually be a huge advantage (Leicester, Rotherham, Bournemouth etc.).

Makes you wonder that if Fenty could do it all again (with the advantage of hindsight) if he would have let us enter admin (for the previous regimes not so thrifty spending) and therefore would not have had to loan the club his own personnel wealth.

Quoted from barralad

If I could make a contribution to the debate from a historical perspective.

When the shares gift to the Trust was made it meant that JF didn't hold the majority of the shares. This meant in theory at least that the person with the ability to finance a club that was in non-league and in choppy waters financially could be out voted on any issue which presented itself.

You may or may not agree with the stance but JF decided at the time that he didn't want to commit further money to the club in the situation where he couldn't have a deciding say in what that money was used for.

Hilariously he hasn’t actually committed further money to the club since then has he? Over the last 8 years his net input has been negative.

Then you have to consider the way he did. If I remember correctly he basically threatened the club and said if he didn’t get them then we’d be forced to sell Hearn, our best player. Not remotely dictatorial there. Not to mention the fact that the whole situation had been manufactured by his slyness. He no longer had a majority because Mike Parker had bought £250K worth of shares to increase the club’s budget with the understanding it would be matched by Fenty. But Fenty promptly loaned the club that money meaning Parker was suddenly the majority shareholder and was now in a position where he’d have to either lose some shares or potentially buy out a lot of the rest as he had over 50%.

Parker promptly dumped some of his shares as he didn’t want this to happen and wanted nothing else to do with the club. So Fenty’s Machiavellian, underhand scheming removed the only other person in two decades who had the means and inclination to help fund the club. THEN promptly acquired a lot of those shares for nothing by threatening to effectively pull the plug if he didn’t get his own way. But yeah apart from that and all the things KingstonMariner mentioned in his excellent post, he’s done pretty well hasn’t he?

Quoted from barralad

If I could make a contribution to the debate from a historical perspective.

When the shares gift to the Trust was made it meant that JF didn't hold the majority of the shares. This meant in theory at least that the person with the ability to finance a club that was in non-league and in choppy waters financially could be out voted on any issue which presented itself.

You may or may not agree with the stance but JF decided at the time that he didn't want to commit further money to the club in the situation where he couldn't have a deciding say in what that money was used for.

Directors loans in 2011 stood at 2.23 million and in May 2018 stood at 1.8 million.

As a matter of interest what do we actually want J.S.F. to do.  I don't know because I don't know all the facts. I do know most of the things he has done wrong or done right but what do we want him to do . He wants out-do we want him to just walk without finding somebody else to invest. O.K. he could write off his loans but is there anybody on the horizon to invest the millions we would need ?

It's like saying 'besides that Mrs Lincoln ,did you enjoy the play?'

Quoted from barralad

If I could make a contribution to the debate from a historical perspective.

When the shares gift to the Trust was made it meant that JF didn't hold the majority of the shares. This meant in theory at least that the person with the ability to finance a club that was in non-league and in choppy waters financially could be out voted on any issue which presented itself.

You may or may not agree with the stance but JF decided at the time that he didn't want to commit further money to the club in the situation where he couldn't have a deciding say in what that money was used for.

He saw the Trust coming. They should have called his bluff. They seemed to have tunnel vision that JF was the only person in the whole wide world allowed to be in charge.

The thing is the club is unlikely to be worth what was put in almost 2 decades ago because the product has been devalued to such an extent (basically an established championship side freshly in league one to an esestablished bottom half league 2/top half conference team).

To progress we require those in charge to accept that those monies have been lost, or at very least the opportunity to recoup those monies largely lost through their own decision making. Unfortunately I do not see that happening any time soon and therefore we are stuck in this endless limbo without even the remotest prospect of progression.

It's a bit like a sprinter with tunnel vision. Stats don't matter, history don't matter, economics don't matter, just the concept of basic financial prudence is applied and we are expected to discount all other factors when we evaluate how successfully we are run.

I see intervening because people were being too negative about Fenty has had the desired effect.

textbook JSF

Write off his 'loans' and accept he put his hard-earned into the Club he supports like all us supporters do with several thousand pounds and more over the years instead over holding a millstone round the Clubs neck and potentially putting off investors who would love to take the Club forward with a positive vision but are most likely put off by the requirement to stick a million or 2 or 3 in Fenty's back pocket.

You know like real supporter Chairmen do like Accrington Stanley's and others - they accept likely not going to make money back with a lower league club and GIFT it out of a labour of love.

I know I'd happily chuck 2 million out of my 19 million to save GTFC but people say it's easy to spend other people's money. I genuinely would though, to see Town successful would bring me more happiness in life than wealth alone... And I'd still be pretty wealthy anyway!

Could have have had that 2 million back in interest by now presuming vast swathes of the rest not squandered or made money work for you elsewhere through property investment or whatever. Once you've got money, it's easy to make money.

But hey, stop spending other people's money Rik.

We could have had a new owner in Mike Parker if Fenty wanted out but he had to be all 'my precious' - so buyers are there. Or were.

If I was him I'd take a look in the mirror and say you know what, this Shutes guy has got a great vision for the Club and area, I'd like my money back but I'm clearly holding the Club back now, just imagine how fantastic things could be. I'm going to release the shackles and watch the Club blossom, oh what joy that will bring me, the supporters and the area as a whole.

Much more than the material emptiness of two million pounds. Heck I've hot a few million anyway, what difference does it make.

But no it's all ego butt hurt not wanting to face facts and an insistence to keep us blackmailed and held back, locked in a perennial Groundhog day just to squeeze back 2 of his 19 million.

When the day of judgement comes and he looks back on his life will that 2 million pounds presuming he gets it have given him as much happiness as a free and thriving Club he could have heroically saved and passed on to welcoming investors with open arms than gradually riding off into the sunset if he wanted?

I'd take 15 million and the feelgood factor over 19 any day.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

And it doesn't matter a fig if he's in the board room or not because by dint of his loans he controls the club anyway.

He didn't pay for those £250,000(?) worth of shares. But more the fool the Trust and the membership for voting to give him them.  It could be paraphrased as 'if you don't give me what I want, I'm going to take my bat and ball home'. The fools gave in to him. My mother should have spoken to them before they made that decision. She knew how to manage naughty children.

He effectively begged for control of the club. He didn't have to. He did it to protect his loans (fair enough you might say). He did things his way. He called the shots. He didn't want to share his toys. He managed to lose two previous investors in the club, at a time when we needed the money the most. He fell out with the ambulance brigade. Under his watch relations with the police are at their lowest ebb. We get fined by the football authorities for 'tapping up' another club's managers. We get fined by the FA for lack of control over public safety in the stadium. He makes decisions on the club's behalf on motions tabled at meetings abroad, and doesn't think he should consult his fellow board members, consequently losing the club thousands in lost gate receipts each game. He thinks people poorer than him are not as important (he does have a car that cost £80,000 which someone scratched, not something that cost only £1800 which obviously wouldn't matter as much if it got scratched). He connived in the hijacking of a local journalist at a public meeting that said journalist had agreed to chair. He suggested that those people who worked for the radio doing all the technical stuff that enabled the meeting to be broadcast, could stick around doing it for a bit of unpaid overtime if he bought them a drink. He says a manager resigned because of the fans, when the manager concerned says it was because he wasn't given what he was promised. He invites people to call him but then tells them not to speak to him when they ask questions he doesn't like. He contacts the operator of a message board to pull posts he doesn't like.

It's amazing why no one gives him any slack eh. It's all someone else's fault of course.

Shut this farce of a thread down and just leave this as a sticky at the top of it.  Superbly summed up.