Everton or bust?

777's loans to the club, made to cover working capital and ongoing stadium costs, have since ballooned to almost £200M, loading more debt onto an already debt-ridden club. Josimar has been told that it is A-CAP which is continuing to provide this money.

The document explains that A-CAP's “support” of the Everton acquisition will “materially increase” the overall value of the 777 Football Group's multi-club portfolio, and allow it to “raise capital […] and sell equity, creating liquidity.” It estimates that owning Everton would justify a higher overall enterprise value for all 777's clubs, generating at least 3.2 times more revenue for the group. This, it is hoped, would attract new investors and “increase the execution certainty” of an attempt to raise capital on their behalf by broker Tifosy, which has so far proved unsuccessful.The document says they expected “the floor” for a “debt raise including Everton” to be €300M.

It is unlikely that this money would be used for new signings as billed, as the document also states that the 777 Football Group “is expected to have €240-300M of working capital needed to reach stabilization across all clubs.” This is the paradox at the heart of the matter: Everton are in such need of working capital that they require regular loans from an entity which is in dire need of working capital itself.

It sounds like a total Hail Mary, where 777 gamble on exorbitant loan commitments to fund the "final piece in the jigsaw" – their hope is that a Premier League team will boost the overall value of their multi club model, and lead them to unlock future investment. That is speculative, and clearly not worth the risk for us.

Either way, it seems abundantly clear now what the aims of 777 Partners are, what the potential benefit is, and the downside risks. We're now able to rule out that Usmanov & Moshiri are lurking in the shadows just trying to find another vehicle to launder their money and front the completion of their long term strategy.

What I don't understand, however, is this part:

Everton already has other lenders to repay. US investment group MSP, who were initially Moshiri's preferred choice to buy the club, have £137M invested into the Everton Stadium Development Company.

My recollection was that the deal with MSP broke down because Rights and Media Funding vetoed it, and they were Kenwright's means to keep hold of the trainset. With Kenwright no longer with us, why is Moshiri so desperate that he's treating 777 as the only game in town?

Fingers crossed that:

- MSP or equivalent are ready to pounce
- Moshiri recalibrates his expected haircut
- The Premier League quickly gets behind a competent alternative

Of course there are other people waiting in the wings, and they might even be very professional people if they have managed to stay out of the news surrounding the circus that is Everton FC.

Unless you have names and concrete proof, you are guessing.

We will soon find out. I have actually just heard some good news about this today, but I have no proof and, even if I did, I am not the type of person who would be trying to show I have any either!

I've always said there is a little twist if my information is correct, and although nobody can predict what any new owners will bring, I think it's not very hard to predict that the only people who would want 777 Partners are the most desperate amongst us.

Desperate people do desperate things, and because of the way Everton Football Club has been run since – the self-proclaimed, through his nepotistic friends in the media, who proclaimed him to be the greatest Evertonian alive (what an insult that is to at least a couple of thousand Toffees). The only thing that makes me desperate is that we don't fall into this same trap again.

What a trap it was, the man who only had the club's best interests at heart, was prepared to send us to Donkey Fucken Derby. 🤮

I for one hope that you are right but I still wonder why Rights & Media Funding blocked MSP but are apparently willing to support 777 Partners.

Something is not right but you could say that repeatedly for Everton since the smoke and mirrors man was able to take control of the club without putting a penny of his own money up.

I think I've met at least that many Everton fans and not one of them would allow another fan to call him the greatest Evertonian, they just loved Everton, end of story, but the late chairman — well we all heard him!!

We all know and agree on how badly we have been mismanaged over decades to get to the situation we are in.

But with the stadium on the horizon, there is hope for the future.

Whoever comes in, and someone will, let them take us forward. It feels like a consortium at the moment.

I presume, to get that ‘payoff', you need grateful fans so the imperative must be to get their portfolio of teams to be successful. Whether their master plan is feasible or fanciful is another matter.

The real question for me is can the Premier League's ‘fit and proper ownership' and ‘profitability and sustainability' rules protect a club from being used and abused or not? If not, then the Premier League bosses are what is not ‘fit and proper'.

"I still wonder why Rights & Media Funding blocked MSP but are apparently willing to support 777 Partners."

Just guessing but could it have been that MSP could have held preferential repayment status of their loans whereas 777 are below both RMF and MSP in the payoff queue.

Vasco de Gama, Genoa... Everton, we're another bigger layer in their pyramid.

The only person this benefits will be Moshiri.

In terms of new owners, I've not backed 777 Partners from the start but, if they fail their acceptance test, then Moshiri, must have to find a new buyer or partner for Everton?

The road has been tough for decades now, and hopefully a new chapter will start soon in the life of Everton FC, with escape from purgatory.

UTFTs!

There don't seem to have been any significant cash injections or structural improvements. They seem to have just left them to it.

If buying Everton is simply to raise their profile and to attract capital investment, that is a very risky scenario that will surely end in tears all round.

Even at 12.75% it's a staggering amount of interest. We'd need to be playing Champions League football every season.

We really need and deserve a break.

"There don't seem to have been any significant cash injections or structural improvements. They seem to have just left them to it."

And I think that's been 777's aim all along, and what we need for our club, to be self-sufficient and look after ourselves.

Look at what happened last time we had a billionaire throwing money at us.

The second part is that we simply could not have chosen a worse time to embark on such a project, with our main backer sidelined by a war, supply-chain issues, and the pandemic escalating costs disastrously, and a sharp change in the previous 'easy money' interest environment.

God only know what a business plan would look like now. Apparently Deloitte reckon it will increase our match-day revenue from £20M to £55M. Given the fairly modest capacity increase, where does that come from?

Has anyone even done an analysis to see whether the Evertonian public could possibly sustain the huge increase in the cost of seeing a game that is implied in that number? Is not the revenue increase also going to be accompanied by increased costs, so the net revenue is lower than this? Is there really a massive market in Liverpool and the North West for huge events to add revenue, that is not already served by other venues?

You want to see how some other big stadiums were funded? Tottenham did theirs on finance as low as 2%. Arsenal made a killing on the Highbury real estate (but also had years of austerity, selling their best players). West Ham and Man City basically screwed a fantastic deal out of the taxpayer. The Etihad is an arrangement we would kill for.

And us? Well, ask yourself, what would Everton do...?

It wasn't the money that was the problem – it was the way it was wasted by the idiots in charge. Moshiri's big mistake was leaving Kenwright and Co in charge and not sorting out the financial and business issues.

There is still a lot needs sorting. The ground is full every game, but we are losing £20M a month. The new ground will help somewhat but is not the answer to every problem. We are still signing poor players imo.

Look on the bright side: 777 Partners will be rejected by the Premier League and there are other players in the game to buy Everton and they will take over when 777 Partners are pushed away.

I don't know how the financial side of the business will be sorted but the new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock is just part of the whole scene right along Regent Road there. Business people know Everton FC will be part of the success down there once this mess created by the Premier League is sorted out. That starts with getting at least 6 points back this week and the second charge being wiped out because it was the same charge as the first one which our barrister has sorted out.

That's what I'm believing until it turns out different, always look on the bright side!!