Everton offered funding to complete the new stadium

Everton have declined to comment.

Is that part of MSP?

I thought so?

My gut says I don't like this. Can't figure out why, just have alarm bells going off in my head. Something just doesn't seem right about this, and I'm almost sure this GDA Luma outfit assisted 777?

Seems we've gone from shaking hands with the devil to jumping in bed with him.

Didn't GDA Luma lend 777 a huge wedge of cash?

GDA might realize 777 is going down and they want to help the Club through until they find another buyer, in order to get their investment back?

I think if not 777 as owners, something will be put together to rescue the situation as it is.

If we can get to the new stadium still in the Prem. with 50,000 fans every home game, whats not to like for prospective owners.

We are in a lot of debt though and it depends what figure Moshiri wants for the club, he will have to settle for a sensible amount.

This description of GDA Luma is concerning (Buyouts magazine) :

'Dealmaking will aim to take control of, or significant influence over, companies undergoing distress. This will be done by acquiring over-collateralized debt at a discount to intrinsic value and below liquidation value'.

In other words, never let a good crisis go to waste.

Instead, no, he's loaded the club up with high-interest debt from shady firms each of whom will come knocking for their pound of flesh when any of the potential new owners are revealed, in fact, to be wearing the emperor's new clothes.

When someone comes forward and offers a loan amount, who is actually accepting the loan? Is it Moshiri, Chong or some other department within our football club?

Because if it's Moshiri, that beggars belief; if it's Chong, does he need the owner's consent? Whoever it is, it's just a hole that is being dug without any hope of us resurfacing, surely!

And loans are being accepted willy-nilly, albeit to keep EFC in existence, which in the end could well be the death of us.

Who ultimately at this point in time is in charge of my football club? An owner who's living in denial? Or any Tom, Dick or Harry who's offering to prop us up with loans?

I shout and scream and cheer at the men in the Blue football shirts playing for Everton on the tv screen, but who is actually playing for Everton off the pitch? Does anybody actually know?

I have loved my Everton since 1966 and will continue to do so till I'm under the sod, but I have never been more fearful for its future than I am now.

'The reports of a fresh £150 million loan from a distressed debt provider to complete the stadium. Any such loan would be to replace the existing facility provided by MSP. It would be (i) more expensive & (ii) provide no fresh capital to finish of the stadium build. None of which makes any sense.'

Most distressed equity firms, including Catalyst, are finding it impossible to raise funds for deals right now. Not de Alba. His reputation is such that when he rolled out his own firm last year, he did it with financial support from Boehly ($6b) and Claure ($2b, richest man in Bolivia), two brilliant, scandal-free and extremely rich young guys.

Boehly may be crap at buying players, but he is by every account an honest financier, and Claure helped Beckham launch Inter Miami into a US phenomenon. They both know football and real estate.

I do not have the business acumen to assess whether this deal would be a good thing, but I would be absolutely confident in its legitimacy. Nobody gets into deals like this out of anything but necessity, but if you have to -- and Moshiri clearly does -- you want to work with someone who is going to keep your venture alive, not steer it into the rocks and then profit off the wreckage. de Alba's record is that he is the former, not the latter.

Jamie #3-4, no, there were reports that 777 had turned to GDA Luma for help but I have seen zero confirmation that it was provided to them.

And I'm not sure our current mortgagees will be too wild about letting these Jonny-come-latelies go to the front of the queue.

It doesn't say, technically, that Boehly owns GDA Luma.

On their SEC filing, Part 7, GDA Luma answers this question:

"This part of Item 7 requires you to provide information about you and your related persons, including foreign affiliates. Your related persons are all of your advisory affiliates and any person that is under common control with you."

GDA checked (16) sponsor, general partner, managing member (or equivalent) of pooled investment vehicles

Legal Name of Related Person:

GDA LUMA SPECIAL OPPORTUNITIES GP, LLC

I think that's where Boehly has invested.

Providing "last mile" financing for an almost-completed but deeply-troubled venture this valuable could be really lucrative for an investor willing to gamble on it.

James #15, good digging and you are correct, according to news accounts of the founding of GDA Luma last year, which describe it as de Alba's firm, financially backed by Boehly and Claure.

I have no idea how such a conversion works, but maybe some of the wiser financial heads here could comment. Would conversion mean MSP's funds are no longer be available for stadium construction and therefore another loan is necessary to replace that cash?

Anybody?

The moment the roof falls in though, and Everton 'cease to be' — what price a Premier League stadium on the edge of the Mersey? I can't see Tranmere going above £50M and that'd be on the never-never.

;-))

I do wonder at the levels of debt we have and the ranking between the parties. Who sits most senior and who's the last man left at the other end. Also, any 'distressed' debt isn't cheap so how much exactly of our future forecast revenue is going to go on debt service? I can't imagine there'll be much, if anything, after covering wages and loan interest - probably already well into the red hence need to trim the wage bill and sell some players to trim the debt pile just to try and get nearer break even point.

Gonna be a long road to clear the debt and I can see the interest rates being paid being nearer 10%.

R&M, MSP, 777 just a few who already have £00ms of loans outstanding with the club. Never mind the £00ms quasi equity from Moshiri. Assuming the stadium is worth £1bn once finished (optimistic), we'll have near that amount in debt alone. The interest is going to be crippling.

At least there's movement on this whole saga and hopefully the 31st May deadline is hard meaning something will happen.

Obviously another question is how can GDA lend cash to Everton if one of their main backers owns Chelsea?

I was hearing today that it's the stadium that is the reason people are trying to buy the club, which is the only thing I've heard that makes sense considering the present financial predicament of Everton.

I can understand the desire to complete the stadium, I get that, but by all accounts, Everton FC won't be getting the revenue from the 365-day activities, or have I got that wrong too?

Please let some form of miracle happen and we can return to normal and support the team we all love, with genuine hope for the future?

You know as much as any other poster on TW, which is probably the square root of fuck all. 😃😃😃

I'll trust Mike Gaynes on this. He seems to know a bit about hedge funds, asset strippers and loan sharks.

It would be far more advantageous to do an asset deal leaving the debts to the existing shareholders — 94.1% of which is Moshiri.

As 777 Partners are Ponzi glorified, they are interested in distressed sales and Moshiri sees that as the only way to get his money back even though it is just kicking the can down the road until 777 fold.

It is a mess and I am sure we all hope that an alternative deal is thrashed out with Moshiri and we can park these cowboys once and for all.

Concise, pertinent and straight to the point.

But moreover… the truth.

Actually Ted's post hit the nail on the head. This latest news, if it is from Everton, seems to give the impression that they know fuck-all either.

TY for that. It'll ease my mind a bit to know they've been above board and seemingly ethical.

Still smells a tiny bit to me. Foremost stench is the unbelievable amount of borrowing we're doing.

Fingers crossed, prayers upstairs.

Really Mike? Then how come no-one is blowing 777's meagre bid out of the water?

Honestly, I have no idea where you get your valuations from. It's not even remotely close even to Deloitte's rather optimistic projections.

If you were correct, we wouldn't be having vulture funds landing on us.

So I have decided I am going to let them get on with it, and focus on the football. Call it blind faith if you like, but I believe one way or another Everton Football Club will survive all that is being thrown at it.

It would be lovely to finish the season with a result in a fixture on which we have taken some hammerings over the years.

Your state is borrowing billions to bail out home insurers. Most of us have mortgages. For better or worse, this is how the world works.

There's one game to go. Man City best the Arsenal by 2 points. The 3rd-placed team is 9 points behind Man City, 7 behind the Arsenal.

The 4th team is 11 points below the 3rd and only the Top 7 have a positive goal difference, all of them scrambling for bog-standard rewards from the European Useless Twats Cup or whatever.

In short, at near 70, and after a Toffee-supporting profile of 60 years, I cannot see even a hint of success in our future for many many years to come.

There's only one four-letter word for Kenwright, and Moshiri. It begins with "c" and ends with "t", and no, it's not "cart"!

I expect you mean Cnut, King of England at one time. He thought he could do anything. Including telling the tide to stop coming in. He couldn't… and like Moshiri and Blue Bill, it turns out he was a cunt too.

I agree. Borrowing isn't terrible clearly if done properly.

My only retort / response:

2008: If you borrow too much, the castle built on sand crumbles.

I believe Florida currently enjoys a $10 Billion surplus, so to borrow against that isn't half shabby.

The country however? $35 Trillion deficit. Borrowing isn't the best idea in my opinion. We're writing hot checks and when the piper comes a-callin'?

I'd say Everton are in the "country" category and not the "Florida" category! We need to clear the debt for sure. Everton's financial stability is far more important than their on-field performances, relegation notwithstanding.

We, as fans are the ultimate ones to suffer, because we actually 'love the Club'. Kenwright and Moshiri (although proclaimed to by the former) see it as a commodity in which they can make a fast buck, sit in the best seats with lobster and champagne at half time.

As much as I love lobster or fillet steak and a pint of lager, I wouldn't swap places, because that would be a betrayal of my fellow Blues and go totally against my principles at the same time.

But what can we do? Truth is, apart from lobbying and protestation against the whole mess, sadly not a lot!

Laurie @35, it certainly must be an age thing, whereas the younger generation can be thousands in debt, never bat an eyelid and be able to sleep at night too!

I don't know the detail, but we've probably been mortgaged up to the hilt for decades, so it's almost nothing new. To coin a commonly used phrase on here, we didn't have a pot to piss in throughout much of the '90s and Moyes had to operate under difficult constraints. Paul the Esk would probably know more about that than me.

There are a few clubs not too far behind us. I think there are only a few clubs, maybe four or five that report no debt, but their owners have been allowed to pay theirs off.

Anyway, off to The Emirates we go. Well done, Evertonians. You have been the real ambassadors for Everton this season. Never giving in and never losing the belief that we could turn it around despite the turmoil and turbulence going on around us. Respect and take the bow. Every single one of you.

Would the increased revenue from new stadium's increased capacity (27%, around £6M pa?) be enough to pay the interest on all our loans or just those for the stadium build, or neither?

Canute (Cnut) wanted to show that he couldn't stop the tide in order to persuade his followers that he wasn't omnipotent.

Not sure what that means for our finances……

Following this, the attempted sale and the protracted mess it became, meant loans became a necessary evil, to enable the Club to continue financially, to enable things such as:

1) Paying the players and staff.

2) Continuing the stadium build.

The level of debt being north of £1B now, including Moshiri's £450M.

The numbers are that big, it seems likely only a huge money mammoth, like Newcastle Utd and Man City have backing them, is of best fit for us.

There were rumours of mega wealthy Qatari investors, fronted by Super Timmy Blue Kangaroo Cahill coming to the rescue! Come on Timmy, bring them on! Like a late match saver, rise like a Salmon at the back stick and ripple the net!

That would be amazing. We can dream, sometimes dreams come true don't they. Do they? UTFT.

Our best chance would be the Ukraine War ends and Usmanov comes back into the picture. Not much chance of that happening.

Also, he couldn't really be arsed, could he? It was Arsenal he wanted – we were just off the bs knot a resentment. A bit like pulling a bird to fuck the ex off.

But, in reality, things continue the same. He just tells us anything to get us out of the room and, once we have left, we are forgotten about and nothing changes as he continues on his merry way with absurd mis-management and decisions.

This has been the case from the start. The real estate dockland development seems to be the only objective.

What happens if Everton FC Co Ltd goes into administration — does Everton Stadium Development Co Ltd go into administration as well?

So, we must have solvency in amongst the doom and gloom of forever borrowing, whilst changing ownership, but as others say, the debt will be around the club's neck until such time that we rein in the borrowing and pay down the debt, but at what price?

Seems like there is the possibility that Everton Stadium Development Ltd can stay out of administration even if Everton FC Ltd goes into Administration in certain circumstances.

This could result in Administration being a long way off and a continuing saga of hand to mouth, Independent Commission's and threadbare Everton, with the Premier League powerless.

Actually Evertonians you thought you were supporting a Football Club and watch football , but that has been extended to a introduction to International finance and the murkiest part of it.

We will be subscribing to the FT website and referred to at Capital Hill hearings at this rate .

He also slated the Glazers, saying people shouldn't be able to use football to take money out of a club. He didn't say who he was talking to regarding new owners but I think it wouldn't be 777.

If Mike G was correct about the market value of the new stadium being worth north of £1.5B, then we do not have a major problem. However, I am not as remotely as bullish as he about its value. Right now, I'd suggest it is less than a third of that.

In fact, I would say currently the club is technically insolvent; moreover, it cannot service its day-to-day obligations from its cashflow, hence the need for 'vulture funds', which is why administration looms as a possibility.

Someone asked if the extra stadium revenue would service the debt accrued in building it, that increased revenue placed at £6-7M. That comes nowhere close; however, even I think that is a lowball estimate for additional revenue, and much below Deloitte's ~£35M extra.

But even the latter won't service the £900M plus of total cost unless you can find someone to lend on such a risk basis for around 3%. Moreover, Deloitte's projection looks very aggressive to me. I get that we will get extra hospitality income over and above the capacity increase, but their figure almost triples our stadium income. Seems very optimistic.

My own view is that, through a combination of bad timing, bad luck, and atrocious financing planning, we have a white elephant on our hands and it will require some or all of the current investors led by Moshiri to take a massive haircut to make us stable again.

Taking on more debt at even less advantageous terms does not seem like anything to be pleased about currently.

Haircuts all round and hopefully one of the investors (probably MSP) who's happy to convert debt into equity with the rest of the debt being re-structured to more favourable terms. What we cannot do is keep bleeding cash because the interest payments (agreed mainly by Kenwright to his pals?) are so staggeringly high.

Or those who take our places.

Man Utd & Chelsea are both in debt of over £1 billion but apparently the repayments are not affecting the P&S rules. The money both clubs have spent in the past is beyond anything our club has done, but we get points deduction.

Perhaps that's because it's not really a question!

The accounts of the Stadium Development Co show that at 30 June 2023 the company had total creditors of £539,081,867 of which £105,820,455 were stated as 'other loans' and £422,724,202 to the parent company, which is basically Moshiri through Blue Heaven Holdings.

The other issue which devalues the ground is that Everton do not own the land on which it is built, Bramley-Moore Dock is leasehold, rumoured to be 99 years with Peel Holdings as the freeholder.

Re Bramley-Moore Dock, I think it was reported at the time to be a 199-year lease.

I could be wrong but I thought the original plan in 2017 was that the Council would have a 199-year lease and grant Everton a 40-year lease.

Obviously the Council funding never happened and the terms were renegotiated.

I've been looking for the original stories we carried:

Everton agree deal to purchase Waterfront Site once funding is in place

First Step made on long and winding road to Bramley-Moore

But you're right, these were mired in council involvement, which Moshiri bizarrely eschewed. Where would we be now if he had only kept the council onside?

This is the one I was looking for:

Everton have deal in place for Bramley-Moore Dock

But that talks about a 200-year lease for the lenders, through an SPV, and 40 years for Everton, which seems ridiculously short.

Was there ever an SPV? Everton must have negotiated a leasehold direct with Peel Holdings, but I can't find that.

Looking a bit further, I found this:

Everton technically didn't purchase the land for their new stadium. They signed a 200-year lease agreement with Peel Holdings, the landowners. There's a nuance here though:

A separate entity will hold the head lease for 200 years. Everton will have a sub-lease for the stadium itself, but for a period of 40 years.

Doesn't make any sense to me.

Everton Stadium Developments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Everton Stadium Development Holding Company, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Everton Football Club which in turn is owned 94.1% by Blue Horizon Investments which is registered in the Isle of Man and is wholly owned by Moshiri.

There does not seem to be any specific SPV. There is an uplift in Tangible Fixed Assets during the year to 30 June 2021 of zero to £20M. But as with all things Everton, the whole thing is subject to guesswork, supposition, innuendo and rumour.

In this scenario, the SPV could be an entertainments company, sporting company etc etc. so the lease could be with that entity for 200 years to guarantee the stadium will be used for certain ventures, with Everton having the first 40.

Hopefully there are clauses or terms that allow Everton to negotiate an extension?

In this context, seems an SPV was to be set up as a vehicle to sit between Everton and Liverpool City Council when generous loans to fund the construction of the new Everton Stadium were on offer.

Since Moshiri turned down the very generous council loans and said he would fund the new stadium himself, am I right in thinking that the SPV was not needed or never happened?

Or is it possible that Everton FC set up a subsidiary company to act as SVP? I'm not sure why one would be needed but there was an additional EFC subsidiary set up in this timeframe. It shows up at Companies House if you get the name right.

Farhad doesn't appear to have got many things right since he acquired Everton but I genuinely believe we have been cursed since Bill Kenwright played his way into our club.

Manchester City seemed to be cursed in a similar way by Peter Swales, so hopefully now someone will start looking down on Everton in a similar way once our new owners finally rid us of the worst era in Everton's entire history.

Don't forget the scandal that hit LCC shortly after that was being discussed. Corruption and malpractice alleged and Commissioners going in there. Still in there now, I think. People were arrested but not charged. But still a lot of issues apparently.

It could be the Club was tipped off about that, and decided to give that, and the sabre rattling by the local opposition parties, the swerve.

I will also be amazed if those Tories haven't been grabbing a bit of land for their own bent associates, knowing full well that Liverpool is ready to take off.

It's just the timeline is interesting.

But to start digging holes without the full cash investment sorted isn't considered the ideal way to go about it.

Having said that, Usmanov was probably the agreed funding source at that point, naming rights and all, but Ukraine did for that too.

Although one of our several PSR hearings found that the naming rights agreement was never signed, didn't it?

Talking of timelines, Chris, I can't believe Bill Kenwright hasn't been taken down from his perch above the ticket office on Goodison Road, but I don't believe anyone inside the club is brave enough to volunteer. Maybe it's a job for the church because it never even ripped when it was found soaking wet in the canal.

I don't know if the lease is at a peppercorn rent or a monetary one.

It amazes me that Everton had to pay anything when you consider that this stadium is going to kickstart so many different projects over the next quarter of a century.

Peel paid £57 million in total for the land they
bought. I guess they made a big fat profit on the Bramley-Moore Dock site.

It was probably the deal with Everton that enabled the
main acquisition.

Sam #65, as I expressed at #13 above, I would consider GDA Luma to be a "wholesome" investor -- an expert on distressed situations backed by a boatload of untainted money.

Again, I have no idea of the value of the stadium or whether this would be a good deal for Everton.

Some time later, he apparently sold a 49% stake in Peel Ports for approx £70 million.

I am happy to be corrected but that was the scuttlebutt at the time.

It seems that there is a common factor with Moshiri. Or at least one.

With 777, he doesn’t seem to have done his homework. All this coming to light now, event after event, problem after problem, red flag after red flag. None of this in new, it’s been there all along to somebody, with a massive vested interest, like Moshiri, to discover with proper digging and due diligence. This he didn’t do.

Compare this with seemingly taking Kenwright and DBB at face value, without questioning it, or probing it properly.

Again there was enough information about the litany of problems, duplicity, asset stripping, Kirkby, Kings Dock. The state of the accounts. Philip Green. Bad faith etc. It was all there all along.

He didn’t do his homework properly, or wouldn’t have tolerated their continued presence. Taking over a new company with problems, the last thing you do is keep the management in place, in any case.

Kenwright had tame people all over the place, but due diligence is about more than asking Jim White, for example.

He’s either lazy, or gullible, or complacent. Or all of the.

Pope said that you can tell God’s view of wealth by the people he gives it to.

Smart? We are missing something in all this... it's like someone has a few of the jigsaw pieces in his pocket while we are all busy trying to see the picture.

… and she is spot on. Nobody on these threads really knows what’s going on behind the scenes. When you can’t trace owners of lenders hidden in faceless companies in the Bahamas and decisions are being made by Moshiri that don’t appear logical to the man in the street then it’s right that due diligence is undertaken to investigate further. You can’t just say that GD Luma and Gabriel de Alba are ‘wholesome investors’ and ‘backed by untainted money’. They/he may well be.

You are correct in saying that de Alba is involved with Catalyst Capital. So is the co-founder, Newton Glassman. Coincidentally, he’s been in the news again recently….

https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/mandel-muzzled-ex-of-business-titan-pleads-to-see-son-in-bahamas

Just google his name and ‘Black Cube’, check out the results of some of his ‘distressed lending’ and the methods, court cases and share price crashes! You couldn’t make it up, and all this is on Everton’s doorstep.

Oh, and he lives in Bahamas, coincidentally.

Hi, it was on another thread where you said the stadium would soon be worth double its build cost. I then asked why then is 777's meagre bid not being blown out of the water.

I've had a quick look trying to find the thread but can't. Maybe you can remember saying this, or maybe I am mistaken?

Troubled construction contractor Laing O Rourke is making another round of redundancies.

Sites across the Laing O’Rourke group are being served redundancy notices in company-wide cutbacks.

Financial analytics by Company Watch sounds a warning about the company’s financial safety, having recently downgraded Laing O’Rourke from 14 to just 4 in its H-Score system (out of 100). Company Watch says that any company with a score of 25 or less falls into its warning area and is at serious risk of distress. (Only Tilbury Douglas has a lower H-Score than Laing O'Rourke among the Top 100 construction contractors – just 2.)

https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/another-redundancy-round-sounds-alarm-at-laing-orourke#:~:text=Just%20eight%20weeks%20ago%20Laing,Christmas%20to%20swing%20the%20axe.

Bloody Hell we pick ‘em don’t we.

They've only lost £288 million in a year, that's less than us!!

It appears from that report that most of the job cuts are at their pre-cast yard. Our orders should be OK at the advanced stages of BMD, as long as we keep payment up.

The other side as I see it, there would be 'some' redundancies anyway, as the majority of the heavy construction has been completed at BMD. Again on the evidence, via Mr Drone and and mini-docs, it appears to be the case.

Obviously there are still a lot of areas that require completion, but it would appear more on the cosmetic side than heavy building work. It is certainly a Magnus Opus, so all credit to Dan Meis for his designs.

I just hope the remainder of the outstanding finishes goes smoothly. The last projected time scale for total completion was December of this year to allow that, then tests etc and preparation for the 'move' in season 2025/26.

Just hope and pray, like we all do, this Financial mess gets cleared up and a responsible owner with an interest in Everton (not financial interest) gets in place.

It's dated January and work on the stadium has continued.

A lot of businesses are doing similar at present. Many in my sector are making "efficiencies" in the UK and outsourcing to places like India.

Work on the stadium is still going ahead.

I think that it is unlikely that, if a 200-year lease was available, that it was not taken up. The price paid was more than the value of a 40-year lease. The Bramley-Moore Dock site has areas available beyond the extent of the Everton Stadium development.

I looked at the Liver building purchase in 2017. At the time Moshiri let it be known that he was partly involved. The property is registered at Land Registry as belonging to a Guernsey registered company incorporated by Corestate Capital (owner of extensive UK Property interests) which is registered in Luxemburg. The Financial Times uncovered that the actual owners of the Liver Building as Rising Waves Ltd (incorporated in the British Virgin Islands by Moshiri) 49.9%, Corestate Capital 35% and a Group of Foreign Investors 15.1%.

Everton FC Co Ltd took up a lease in 2017 (normally 25 years) for 14% of it's office space at over £29 per ft². In 2019, the Liver Building was put up sale for £90M having been bought for £45M. This was at the time of the Usmanov sanctions threat. It was removed from sale in 2022.

There is currently 70,500 ft² for rent and extensive renovation taking place to update. The investment is losing money during an office-space market crash. Corestate Capital are now said to own the building but, when it was put up for sale, Moshiri publicly said he was thinking of buying out Corestate Capital of 51%, though they own 35% and still do.

I can't see the purchase of the Bramley-Moore Dock site from Peel Land & Property by Everton FC Co Ltd being straight forward.

I still am of the opinion that it is likely, if Everton FC Co Ltd go into administration, that Everton Stadium Development Company will not go into administration. This would push administration way down the road.

I thought the whole point of getting a new stadium was so that we could get extra revenue, nobody mentioned that we were going to have a billion pound loan round our necks for the next thousand years.

And all for what, an extra ten thousand seats? Marvellous.

If something is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, who would want to buy the Everton Stadium, unless Marine or Tranmere suddenly find a few hundred million down the back of the sofa, or unless Man Utd or Liverpool fancy relocating?

I do believe the stadium will generate a lot of income as a 365-day business. People can visit restaurants and bars in addition to stadium hire for pop concerts and many other attractions.

Transport links will presumably be in place then, otherwise why will people be attracted away from the City bars and restaurants?

Link

Exactly. There are several interesting articles online about a number of abandoned stadiums built for the Brazilian World Cup. Fine stadiums but local teams couldn't afford the upkeep and well what other tenants would they get?

I found that comment, it's on this thread, comment 16, which I responded to at 36.

I appreciate you are reporting the estimates of others, and I'd be fascinated to know who is coming up with such very fancy valuations, but you were also using it in support of us being good for another sizeable chunk of debt because of its asset value, and I seriously question that. The immense risk that we currently present will be well and truly priced into the interest charged on any loan.

GDP is a distressed equity fund, as you say, or vulture fund as I call them. If we had a stadium asset worth well in excess of £1B, we would not need to be dealing with vulture funds. And we'd have bids in that blow 777 out of the water. I wish you were correct but I don't believe you are.

Interesting post. As ever, all the facts elude us but it would make a big difference to the value of EFC if the club has development rights beyond the stadium. Any idea or speculation on what they might be worth, if anything?

I also assume GP has some development potential but I don't recall ever seeing any plans for this and how much, if anything, would accrue to the club.

These, if they exist, are additional assets that shift the dial a bit on calculations of worth, but I suspect they don't shift the dial anywhere near enough.

I still find it staggering Moshiri did not put in place long term funding when the chance was there in the ultra low interest environment. Spurs played a blinder with that. I guess he just wanted to own all the toys and when Usmanov was put out the picture, learned that he couldn't.

I honestly fear for the future, whoever takes control of the club is going to be saddled with so much debt that they will be hard pressed to field a decent team next season.
Maybe, who knows, I'm being over dramatic but theres every likelihood that some, maybe 3 or more of our best players will be sold to sevice our debts and the chances are will be replaced with inferior ones.

The new stadium is great, but it will be worth so much more if we are still in the Premiership.

I don't think Everton FC Ltd have through Everton Stadium.Development Ltd any connection with other than the existing site being worked on.There is additional land to this, but it maybe under the SPV that Michael refers to under the 200 year lease for the entire site.Of course this is speculation with the limited facts available, since the deal done between Peel Land and Property and Moshiri&Co will always be confidential, unless it become part of a gal process.Giving the Liver Building example it shows what can be involved with these parties, in what on the surface appeared a straight forward transaction.

Goodison has existing plans in the pipeline for it's development called the Goodison Legacy Project, which is a mixed use development and basically start from a cleared site.

It's likewise not my own opinion that the stadium is "good for another sizeable chunk of debt because of its asset value"... it's the opinion of very smart people who want to make money and believe Everton and BMD are a good way to do that.

Of course you are correct that some distressed equity entities are vultures that swoop in to finish off and pick the bones of failed enterprises. Others, however, make their money by putting failing operations back into viability and sharing in the returns.

I believe GDA Luma will be the latter, based on de Alba's career. In saving Cirque de Soleil, he and Catalyst preserved a Canadian cultural icon that was a source of great national pride, but also had the potential to generate tremendous profits once they could return to performing post-pandemic. That is exactly what has happened. This account of de Alba's takeover and the results appeared in the Montreal Gazette 17 months ago:

https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/cirque-du-soleil-rebounds-after-pandemic-bankruptcy-protection

I believe de Alba views Everton as a similar cultural icon with a similar potential for recovery. You always need something to build on. Cirque had its history. Everton has BMD. In my opinion de Alba would not be using backing from established football owners like Boehly and Claure to "vultch" Everton and profit off the bones, but to rescue it and profit off the recovery.

Again, I do not have the knowledge to offer an opinion on whether this will be a good deal for Everton. I do believe, however, that we really don't have much choice. Failure to complete the stadium would be a catastrophe that Everton could not survive.

As to your remark at #110, I stopped being "staggered" by Moshiri's stupidity the day he hired Rafa.

https://ffj-online.org/2018/04/11/newton-glassmans-legacy-of-ashes/

What's important to note, however, is that this is not on "Everton's doorstep"... de Alba would be doing this stadium deal through his own company and using money from Boehly and Claure -- both of whom have the cleanest of reputations -- and not from Catalyst.

It's also worth noting that de Alba currently chairs three companies as a result of Catalyst takeovers. Cirque du Soleil has been a spectacular recovery success. Gateway Casinos was also until it was devastated by a ransomware attack a year ago. Last I read the company was seeking buyers at a $2 billion valuation, a very nice payoff. And Frontera Energy, a small oil company, has survived bankruptcy under de Alba. None of his operations have been liquidated or sold off in pieces.

You can read more about him -- he's also a well-known human rights activist -- at https://rfkhumanrights.org/person/gabriel-de-alba/

A Belgian court ordered forfeiture of all 777's assets in that country, which includes all shares in the club. The ruling was won by the company that owns Standard's stadium.

The collapse is accelerating.

I said yesterday that, I’ve heard our alleged white elephant, is actually going to be our saving grace, So - Get out of the new world if you can’t lend your hand - for the times they are a-changin!

I wish Everton would have put a retractable roof on the stadium and wonder if something could be done about this in the future? Especially if they can do something with the grass, or maybe just replicate what Madrid are doing, and save the concerts for the month of June?

Paul Gregg, made a lot of sense the other day when he said it should be getting used for concerts, before there has even been a football game, in our new stadium, if we don’t intend to play any games at Bramley Moore, until next July/August.

I think all of us are able to make a critical judgment based on the admitted fairly bare facts in front of us.

The stadium cost now appears to be approaching £900M, if not actually the magic £1 Billion. That can only be funded from incremental revenues. The cost of the financing will depend on risk appetite and I very much doubt anyone is putting forward funds at less than 8% (we pretty much know/believe R&MF are getting 10% secured against TV revenue amongst other items.) That gives you a total financing cost of £72-100M per annum.

Deloitte claim we will see matchday revenues increase from under £20M to £55M, which gives us net around £35M, or less than half the financing cost, possibly a lot less than half.

Bear in mind also Deloitte appear to have been assisting 777 with funding, so maybe we need to take that £55M figure with a degree of jaundice. It sure seems improbable to me unless our fans are about to drop massive dollar on hospitality.

Hence me concluding the stadium's current worth is more like £500M and maybe a lot less. It would be great if these people with smart money would appear to finance us, at a suitably low rate that recognises the low risk. But they all are very quiet for now.

This latest crew will not be funding us for 5% or anything like. They typical distressed bond is generally 10% points above the 'risk free asset' return (eg, a Treasury Bond). So right now, about 14.4%. Let's just say I am nothing like as optimistic as you, I think we are very close to the edge, but I hope you are proved right.

Rights & Media Funding must have had a field day investing in Everton and will probably be sick when Everton are sold and the gravy train suddenly draws to a halt.

The £900M (or more) is my guesstimate but I no more have the accurate figures than anyone else. It's based on some posts from The Esk and may be wrong. But I don't think so.

I wasn't counting in interest payments. True they have to be paid while we get no operating benefit, but I think the build cost alone is likely £900M. Our timing was awful. We could not have done this project at a worse time from almost every perspective.

If R&MF are truly getting 10% and this hasn't increased in the light of the end of the ultra-low interest environment, perhaps we are not getting such a terrible deal. I wouldn't lend to Everton right now at 10% and I suspect the other loans we face will be at rather higher rates.

It might if those TV revenue returns were not already needed to fund our operating costs, and even then at a loss, nor that at least one other party already has primary security over that income stream.

As for concert returns, then I guess you could argue they are linked to future stadium revenue but I am very curious as to who has actually assessed the market available for this. How many concerts in the NW take place annually attracting 40,000 plus fans and what share would we get, given there is no shortage of other venues?

This is an interesting question. I wanted to read the Deloitte report in detail to see if they had evaluated this, but it escaped my attempts at Google.

My analysis is of the armchair variety so shoot me down if I'm off. I think we had £110 million in TV revenue from 2021-22.

Then there is potential to host Rugby League and even NFL in an iconic stadium.

Also boxing. As much as we are a football city, boxing is also a big part of our sporting heritage.

The new stadium will have so much potential for Everton.

I do believe that the stadium, like Everton itself, may be valued at higher than what the balance sheet indicates based on potential future revenue stream, but I have no idea what those numbers would look like.

I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I've said several times that I have no idea whether this is even a decent deal for Everton. My only optimism is my belief that the opportunists stepping in over the wreckage of 777 aren't hyenas pursuing a dying beast to drag it down and pick over the bones. I believe they're pursuing the potential of a recovery that could help them make a lot of money.

That's realism, not optimism.

They are not in excess of the R&MF loan, at least not an annualised basis but for sure they are in excess of servicing the loan. However we need all those TV revenues to fund our costs. We lose money even without the stadium spend, so the interest payments don't help in that respect.

Mike G

Then let's be optimists. Why not? It might make me feel a bit better.

Make of that what you will.

RMF loan is more than the value of the TV revenues.

RMF loan is secured against the TV revenues.

The TV revenues are used to fund our running costs.

It doesn't sound like a very good way to do business if the 'asset' that the loan is secured against is worth less than the loan and that 'asset' depreciates in value each month.

P.S. where do you get a build cost of £900 million for the stadium?

The new stadium will maybe have so much potential for its owner/s, but very little for the football club we've shown life-long dedication toward.

That's the crock of shit deliberately poured on us all by Kenwright in his decades-long self-serving ineptitude (to put it mildly), now carrying on in the mind of the wildly imaginative accountancy genius that made Kenwright but destroyed my club for what remains of my 69-year life.

"Bitter"? You bet, but way way deeper than the atrocity that Heysel inflicted on us all.

I can't forgive them for that. They've airbrushed it from their history. Mention it in conversation and you are a bitter blue.

I was about 13 and excited about Everton being in Europe's top competition.

It is coming up to that time of year. My middle brother is worse than me. He'll be all over social media remembering the 39.

I get your point. Of course the owners will benefit, but so ultimately will the club with additional revenue streams. Meanwhile, with the seeming collapse of 777 Partners, who will own Everton and how deep are Moshiri's pockets?

Notwithstanding understandable non-disclosure agreements, if something is going on in the background, we get the usual lack of communication and are left like mushrooms in the dark.

We're being loaned further money to complete the stadium but who is paying for the re-purposing of GoodisonPark? Or is that parked for the time being?

What are the plans for transportation to the ground? Is a car park planned? Who pays for the construction? I know it's a relatively short walk from the city centre but given the ageing nature of the support, shouldn't car parking and bus transportation have been announced by now, given that various packages are being marketed? A mile walk there and back is a long way with a dodgy knee!

On an accounting front, let's say the stadium construction costs £1B of which, say, £600M is bricks and mortar and £400M is labour. How much gets capitalised and how much gets written down as non-capital expenditure? What is the asset worth on conclusion?

40th anniversary of Heysel next year. I bet the media will have loads planned to mark that!

You and therefore probably me are perhaps making the R&MF facility sound worse than it really is.

It is essentially a revolving facility that you might describe as the company credit card. While the amount of credit, I gather over £200M, is indeed greater than the annual TV monies, that is only 1 year's worth of money. It is for example less than 2 years' worth of TV money. Or, to put it another way, the interest payments are less than 20% of the income.

I'm not saying it's a great position to be in, but it is not abnormal and I think you will find some clubs, like Barca and Real Madrid, have leveraged their TV money to a much larger extent (which probably explains their interest in the European Super League model). Of course, with relegation, the model comes tumbling down rather quickly.

As for the stadium cost, the club itself was, I recall, citing stadium costs of in excess of £800M in the recent Premier League commission submissions, up from the original £500M.

It's possible I am being excessively pessimistic in saying £900M, but I thought the 777 injection, on top of MSP's commitment (plus the sizeable initial Moshiri investment) was going to be enough to cover this, but now it seems like we need another £150M, and although we are loss-making which needs month-to-month funding, I imagine most of that is needed to totally complete and fit out the stadium.

Either way, it has become, in my humble opinion, an albatross around our neck that, with the very high financing costs likely imposed on it, risks dragging us under. Maybe when it opens, there will be a queue of people wanting to hold concerts, conferences, sporting events etc that will bring in massive revenue but I am a pessimist by nature and I've not seen a credible plan for that which takes into account market demand and competition in the region. It seems more like that Costner film, build it and they will come...

On the stadium cost front, I hadn't seen anything that suggests that the fixed price contract of Laing O'Rourke has been increased beyond the original contract value. Words from Moshiri that it was costing £760 million may be overall investment, and increased numbers beyond that may include interest.

But being in the construction game, I'm more interested in the actual money paid to Laing O'Rourke for the physical works.

I bow to your expertise on construction but given the £500M was agreed very many years ago, it would astonish me if there hasn't been movement upwards to a very significant degree, given the massive inflation in your industry these past few years.

It is also possible that the £500M was for the basic build but costs for fitting things out etc were always going to be additional? It's possible interest payments are included in the figures I've seen, but I doubt it.

If we truly only spent £500M on the whole thing and if (and it's a bit late now) we had got in place financing at the sort of Spurs level when you could have done a few years back, we would have a very viable business. But I don't think we did. I still think we have an entity that cost at least £800M, probably more and with interest from our various lenders (and assuming Moshiri gets zero), that is likely in the region of £50-60M per year.

As for R&MF, I guess they likely see their investment as a little less secure than they hoped but I gather they do also have a floating charge over other assets. In any case, I've never figured out where their money comes from and whether that influences things.

All of the NFL games in England have been played in London and the NFL strategy seems to be to play in more countries. If they did decide to stage a game in the North of England then the Manchester clubs would have a clear advantage.

Maybe an occasional music concert could be arranged at the new stadium but the income is unlikely to have much impact on the overall finances.

I do believe that the stadium will be an asset for the City of Liverpool. They ought to be interested in seeing it through to completion.

Watching the boxing tonight. Now that would be good for the new Everton Stadium.

And we've got the Euros to look forward to.

And unless the client changes their quality requirements for fittings and fixtures etc. then they would still be included in the original price.

Example, the job I'm currently on was a 3-year construction schedule, and it's now 3 years behind schedule. The contractor is not going to get paid IDR 1 more due to materials inflation over those 3 years even though some delays were Owner delay events.

I'm not sure we will ever get to the bottom of this, given the usual scarcity of facts, but I have found the source for the £800m plus claim, it was the club's own admission to the EPL commission in February, as below:

"Para 5, section iii.

“There was uncontested evidence that the new stadium posed an inevitable strain on the finances of the club which has to date committed over £800m to the project.”

If we are to assume that the club has accurately assessed their own costs, then it is still unclear whether that sum includes interest payments to date, which would lower the sum, but not by anything close to £300m.

Moreover, I note the 'to date' reference in the submission, in other words to February of this year. There is an implication more might be expected which might in turn explain why this extra £150M from GDA Luma is required, some of it presumably against the stadium, possibly most of it.

This is where I am getting my £900M guesstimate from, albeit you may well be right, it may not comprise only the pure build cost of the stadium. For example, perhaps it also includes land lease costs, planning, architects etc.

Either way, it is an almighty sum of money to commit for what, at face value, seems rather modest revenue increases.

I'm just a construction guy so have an interest only in the pure construction costs although I'm aware that the other costs exist. Unless I get into the project development side of the business (not going to happen although my last two jobs have been client side), I'll still focus on what I know for now.

As for the return in value, I was always an advocate of Tom Hughes's redevelopment of Goodison Park. Costs would have been a lot less for the same increase in capacity and it preserves our historical home. But looking at the pictures of the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock – it looks magnificent and is a worthy successor of The Grand Old Lady.

Whether that’s in regularly selling our best players, watching years of survival-mode football, missing out on young talent through to hiking up the costs of the match going experience via tickets, merchandise, food and drink.

Of course, these concerts we hear about could prove to be a vital source of ancillary income. Early bookings include Dire Straits, Moody Blues, The Fall, Madness and The Grateful Dead.

Regards my redevelpment plans presented for the KEIOC campaign. Most of those ideas and drawings are over 25 years old now. They represent just one scheme taken from a small series of concepts I created in the mid- to late-90s.

I chose that particular one at the time, because I still had most of the drawings and write-up, and we needed to present something to the fanbase quickly, given that the Destination Kirkby ballot was imminent. It was also mid-range in terms of expenditure of the concepts I produced. With little or no concern for external aesthetics etc.

I followed it up a few years later with a slightly broader study to include some of the cheaper options, after I found a few cross-sections and sketches. I had a 3-D CAD render done of one of those to show it, with a corner tower development by a local architect, to represent an enabling scheme at the Park End.

For both this and the earlier KEIOC plans, the onus was always on a tight budget. Basically to illustrate the cost savings of redevelopment – not to mention the hidden or often forgotten value of preservation of history, heritage and tradition etc. Obviously, these all long-predate Moshiri.

Suffice to say, if the same money-no-object approach was applied to Goodison Park as has been bestowed on the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock, then Goodison Park could be a smaller British equivalent of the new Bernabeu, with moving pitch, closing roof, 100+ boxes and 60k+ capacity.

So, that would probably be a fairer comparison with the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock than the more modest options I posted several years ago. In fact, the actual design I submitted for my final year project was for a stadium meeting those ambitious criteria. All built within the stadium estate's current footprint, with a slight pitch-orientation change and just a few metres incursion onto Bullens Road itself, the ragged remains of the model of which still exist in my garage.

Of course, there could've been multiple options in between, for fractions of the current new stadium's outlay. The fact that none of those ideas have been fully explored tells us more about the decision-making process, those undertaking them, and our current lamentable position than the relative merits of the new stadium.

Scant regard was given to redevelopment of Goodison and once we had found the billionaire Bill was looking for, it was his vehicle to the bank.

But we will never know now, to be honest the way these clowns have destroyed the club from the inside out, gives me no confidence they would have made the old lady fit for the next 100 years... Kirkby would have been erected in L4.
What might have been?

Unfortunately, the same decision-makers were still in place and the same lies carried over, the references to redevelopment in the planning docs being token at best.

Most turned a blind eye to this and the complete lack of a financial plan. Mainly because of the owner's wealth and the eye-catching stadium design at Bramley-Moore Dock.

Now we're seeing the result of the staggering lack of financial awareness, scrutiny and genuine comparison of the options.