steelboy

There's no aspect of Hibs' business - crowds, turnover, player sales, commercial - which is 6x ours.

An important post on P&B by Vietnam91 demonstrating how McMahon and Barmack have deliberately undervalued the club. First thing to ascertain, who derived this EV figure, you, McMahon or someone else? The Enterprise Value (EV) Formula = Market Cap + Total Debt (short and long term) − Cash & cash equivalents (liquid assets) The debt figure used should be net, not the gross, whoever did this sum did not include the liquid assets of the club (£3.59m). Our figures in reality are: £1.94m (short term) + £1.54m (long term) = £3.48m total debt minus £3.59m total assets (bank and debtors) = net debt of -£11k By not using the net debt figure they were able to undervalue the club by close to £4 million. This can't be put to a vote now and McMahon should be out on his arse.

McMahon explicitly said that they weren't taking land vaules into account with the valuation.

Barmack can say whatever he wants now but if he genuinely believed that a deal which would see the Well Society give up at least £2.8m in assets and gain nothing in return wasn't going to receive huge push back then he has very bad judgement. He was asked on P&B if he would accept a similar proposal for the company he owns..... And no reply was given for obvious reasons. That's a deal for mugs like us, not people like him.

It's good to see that people are taking a strong stand against the Well Society going below 51% but there's a lot more wrong with this proposal than just that. Any deal where the Well Society pays to have it's shareholding devalued has to be rejected and we need a proper valuation of the club. Anyone who values us at only 18% of the value of Hibs has an ulterior motive.

They didn't say alternative proposal. They said a new business plan for the society.

There's still absolutely zero in there about what he intends to actually bring to the club. Edit - Just looked over at P&B and there are actually people thanking him for posting like he's some sort of superior being. Fucking hell.

Aye but that money seems to be earmarked for Barmack's pet projects like AI and global marketing which are unlikely to work out. The money won't go to our core operations. Barmack's production company's Twitter account only has 25 followers, he talks a good game but has absolutely nothing to back it up.

Why do we need year on year investment? The aim should be to run the club at a small profit to build reserves.

Let's be honest. The massive under valuation of the club by McMahon is to ensure that Barmack can't take a loss on his investment. If in 6 years time he has control of the club for under £2m he will be well in the black as the asset will be worth far more than that.

I think we all have to acknowledge the possibility that external investment where the investor is happy to take a loss if things don't work out might not be something that's out there. The status quo isn't so bad but the video from McMahon and Weir planted a seed that something needs to happen in the minds of quite a lot of people who want a fairy godmother to come in and make us a successful football team. Focusing on our core business should be enough to keep us in the top division, challenge for the Top 6 and hopefully do better in the cups. Long term stability is the goal.

I don't think Budge has put much of her own money in. Most of it comes from a finance guy called James Anderson who has invested a hell of a lot more than Barmack is proposing and actually supports fan ownership. "Sitting near McKinlay at the top table during the AGM was Anderson, Hearts' principal benefactor and a non-executive director. Benefactors combined have donated more than £25m to the Edinburgh club since 2017, and Anderson is responsible for the greatest chunk of that. McKinlay divulged that there is a contract in place with the Edinburgh businessman going forward. "We have a contractual commitment from him. I can’t go into the details of that for obvious reasons," he remarked. "James is very much committed to the longer term of Hearts. I think he said in an interview recently that he wants to see stability. He does not want to see managers changing every six months, or every three months or whatever. We have seen that at some other clubs."

We have less financial security under Barmack's plan. Firstly because the ideas he has about AI and global brand marketing are going to be expensive and use up not only the money he's putting in but also the Well Society's money. Secondly because in 6 years time we would have no protections over our assets and he could sell us to anyone or asset strip himself.

The Well Society are the actual owners there's nothing defacto about it.

When people say 'move forward' what exactly does that mean? It's all about winning football games and the ownership model has very little to do with that unless we get a real investor in who will double the playing budget. That's not going to happen and the offer we have isn't going to change anything you see on the park on a Saturday but makes us far less secure long term.

I've heard if we get relegated under fan ownership we'll have to wear green.

The fans have upset McMahon and Weir so much that they changed our colours on the fly.

To me saying the Society should give up fan ownership and hand over all financial assets to the club is effectively the same as killing off the Society. I knew that's what McMahon and Dickie were aiming for so no surprises there. Feely and Downie going along with it after being involved for so long is a very strange one. Changing from volunteering your time towards making fan ownership work to trying to end fan ownership is a complete reversal which needs some explaining.

It will be interesting to see if Dickie and Downie are willing to come out and explain why they think Barmack's offer is beneficial for Society members.

No I mean that a lot of the private shares were issued decades ago and between people dying, moving away or other reasons not every share is actively owned by someone the club can contact.

What's worth remembering about the 49% figure is that some of the clubs shares are effectively 'lost' so it's not possible for the entire 51% of non Barmack shareholders to come together to vote against him.

https://x.com/GavinMcCafferty/status/1800426228651844045?t=80n4AfcJpDyFrmSl3TFQVA&s=19 Some good points from Gavin McCafferty. The possibility of a divided fanbase is the biggest danger to the long term prospects of the club.

Anyone who believes that there is an untapped revenue stream out there which only Erik Barmack knows about and it's is going to give only us a significant long term boost is a complete mug. We are growing our turnover year on year and the focus should always be on improving our core football business. That's where improvements need to be made, talking about AI and celebrities is smoke and mirrors to draw in easily impressed morons. The deal only offers short term protection so in 2030 we would be in a position where all the assets can be sold by Barmack and the Society will have given up it's entire bank balance and won't be able to offer any protection to the club. It would be utter madness to go down this path. We only need to look at the ways that Mike Ashley crippled Rangers by using his control over the club to sign them up to deals that were suicidal for them but very lucrative for companies controlled by him. This deal means could Barmack could put in a small amount of money and on day one sign us to expensive and long term Artificial Intelligence and marketing contracts. There are lots of ways to take money out a football club.

The two co-chairmen of the Well Society are in favour of the deal and they have the mandate from the previous vote so it obviously preceeded. If the Society board was 9-0 against it we probably wouldn't be having a vote but 6-3 means it has to be entertained. Anyone who votes for this is off their head, the club valued at £4 million quid is ridiculous.

If that's as constructive as he can manage then it's a bad sign. He's said nothing about exactly what he's planning to do with the club when he gets control and is trying to set it up as 50+1 German style set up when it's nothing like that.