Liverpool FC Forum

by **TarnRed** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 7:47 am

Ciggy wrote:Our lawyers have the right name for this job dont they

Slaughter and May has won a key role advising Liverpool Football Club as co-owner Tom Hicks attempts to secure backing to refinance the club's £237m debt with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

Slaughters is advising the Liverpool FC board, fielding a team led by corporate partners Nigel Boardman and Mark Zerdin, alongside finance partner Stephen Powell.

http://www.legalweek.com/legal-w....ng+debt

Are these working with Ayres, Purslow & Broughton in advising them on blocking any refinancing attempt?. Or are they working with Twit & Tw@t?.

by **inglis5** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 8:59 am

Sent -

Dear Sirs

I'm in no doubt that you will have received many such e-mails this morning due to the meeting that took place yesterday at your NY office with Tom Hicks.

I would simply like to add my support to the request of - "NO FINANCE TO TOM HICKS".

Hicks has acted disgracefully in his 'custodian' role, he is a desperate man who belongs to a different era where making money through LBO was acceptable. Most importantly to you, he is a high risk. If you doubt this then please take 2 minutes to search for any of the following - "Tom Hicks Corinthians" / "Tom Hicks Texas Rangers Bankruptcy" / "Tom Hicks RBS". Any support offered by your prestigious company to his ailing regime will no doubt be met with a furious reaction (including mass boycotts) by all Liverpool fans worldwide.

Thank you for your time,

Inglis5
SOS Member

by **fivecups** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 9:24 am

Superb summary from Brian Phillips, on US site Slate.com:

For the past two years, the home crowd at Anfield, the larger and more reliably histrionic of Liverpool's two major soccer stadiums, has increasingly come to resemble a Tea Party rally from another dimension. Populist chants echo from the stands; angry signs bristle like javelins. But where the American resentment machine is fueled by anger at what's seen as European-style socialism, the Merseyside protesters are incensed by what's seen as American-style capitalism. "Yankee Liar$ Out," the placards blare. "Thanks But No Yanks." Liverpool Football Club, one of the most successful teams in English soccer history, is owned by a pair of American billionaires, and the fans absolutely hate their guts.

It's the same at Manchester United, Liverpool's fierce rival, who beat the Reds 3-2 in a chaotic game on Sunday. By a weird quirk of destiny, England's two greatest soccer clubs have both fallen under the control of American tycoons of a peculiar carpetbagging sort. These minor billionaires have gone to England like backward colonists, looking to reap the bounty of the Premier League's soaring global popularity by taking advantage of its lax financial regulations. The standoff between the clubs' owners and supporters hasn't merely led to innovations in signcraft. It has also thrown an unwitting light on some big differences in the way English fans and American fans view sports.

To line up the protagonists: On the Liverpool side, we have Tom Hicks, the anvil-headed Texas billionaire previously best known for signing Alex Rodriguez to his $252 million contract, and George Gillett, the pinch-mouthed Colorado billionaire who formerly owned the Montreal Canadiens. Hicks and Gillett joined portfolios to buy Liverpool in February of 2007, bringing along the delightful Tom Hicks Jr., who served under his father as a director of the club until a minor lapse of protocol—he responded to a critical e-mail from a fan by writing "blow me :censored:

face"—precipitated his tragic resignation earlier this year. On the Manchester United side, we have the Glazer family of Tampa, Fla. (and, by way of an afterthought, of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), who snapped the world's most valuable club off the vine in 2005. United has won three Premier League titles and one European Cup since the Glazers arrived. A lot of fans hate them anyway.

The problem, in a word, is debt. The sales of both Manchester United and Liverpool were structured as leveraged buyouts—the owners borrowed money to finance their purchases, then transferred the debt back onto the clubs. This means, first, that the fans, those obliging trickles of revenue, are effectively being made to buy soccer clubs for owners they despise. It also means the clubs are gushing out millions of dollars each month in interest payments, money that might otherwise be used to help them compete in the cash-maddened upper echelons of the Premier League.
Advertisement

If numbers in sports can still stagger, there are staggering numbers on these clubs' balance sheets. Hicks and Gillett borrowed about $550 million to purchase Liverpool FC. At Manchester United, the Glazers borrowed more than $800 million, much of it from high-interest hedge funds. Liverpool has struggled to make its payments—the economic crisis hit both the club's and the owners' finances—and the Royal Bank of Scotland moved its share of the loans to the bad debts division earlier this year. After being rebuked by everyone from bank executives to the former owner of the club to Parliament, Hicks and Gillett have moved to find a new buyer, but so far no one's biting. Hicks is now pursuing a deal that would give him at least two more years at the club, and see the triumphant return of Tom Hicks Jr. The Glazers have held on more doggedly in Manchester, but United has seen its interest burden swell to $500 million—and the club's total debt has geysered into 10 figures. The angry fans' view of this American financial sorcery is neatly expressed by the billboards that a Liverpool supporters' group hung around the city: "Debt, Lies, Cowboys: Not Welcome Here."

It's hard to imagine that kind of thing happening here: American fans protest losers, not financial mismanagement. In the United States, we've accepted that teams are businesses, even if we don't always like it. We see owners as profiteers whose interests we hope will align with ours. When the Pittsburgh Pirates had their books forcibly opened last month, fans weren't upset to learn that the team turned a profit. Rather, they were outraged that Pirates ownership pocketed money while fielding a losing ballclub. The prevailing philosophy: Line your pockets all you want, just score some damn runs.

n Europe, by contrast—and especially in England, where the league system goes hundreds of teams deep and every dell and hamlet has its own club—teams are seen as something much closer to community institutions. Spiritually if not practically, every English club is the publicly owned Green Bay Packers. Owners are expected to act as responsible stewards of teams that really belong to the fans. The word franchise, relatively innocuous in American sports, is hotly offensive in England. Other American Premier League owners have adopted the English model and found favor with their supporters. Randy Lerner has generally won praise for his term at Aston Villa, and Stan Kroenke, the largest shareholder at Arsenal, is at least preferred to the predatory Uzbek oligarch Alisher Usmanov. But it's not a stretch to say that the Liverpool and United owners' chip-raking behavior—six separate members of the Glazer family have taken out more than $30 million in personal loans and fees from Manchester United, while almost doubling ticket prices—represents the American model at an advanced stage of development.

When the Glazers bought Manchester United, the nature of the deal was public knowledge, and they were loathed before the ink on the contracts was dry. Hicks and Gillett were more wickedly canny at Liverpool. They entered from stage left declaiming promises—that they would build a new stadium, that there would be no debt—then draped themselves in red cloth and went to games. By the time the facts were known, the deal had already gone through. They pantomimed sympathy for the English view of soccer clubs, waxing in the epic mode about tradition and loyalty. "We believe that as custodians of this wonderful, storied club we have a duty of care to the tradition and legacies of Liverpool," Hicks cooed. Then they shifted into American high gear. "Liverpool will be the most profitable investment I've ever made," that careful custodian of tradition later crowed in the Wall Street Journal.

The irony here is that the American-style rapaciousness of Hicks and co. would be more strictly regulated in the United States. The top American sports leagues operate as monopoly cartels, and the conduct of teams as businesses is thus subject to more internal oversight. The NFL, the NBA, and MLB all limit the amount of debt teams can carry. Revenue-sharing agreements and salary caps exist not only to ensure competitive parity, but also to guarantee some degree of financial stability. (All of that didn't stop Tom Hicks from driving the Texas Rangers into bankruptcy, of course.) In England, partly because teams are so tied to their localities, there's less top-level oversight. Clubs are allowed to act largely as they please, which opens a dangerous gulf between what fans expect owners to do (keep ticket prices down while safeguarding the club's viability) and what owners are allowed to do (pillage, strip-mine, rob trains). To be sustainable, this culture requires a sort of gentleman's agreement between owner and supporters, one that might work well enough when the owner is a product of the community, but that falls apart completely when Tom Hicks canters in with his six-shooter and squirts tobacco juice all over your club's native honor.

So it's fallen to the fans to protest, which they've done using imagery that's sometimes nationalistic, sometimes class-based, and sometimes a combination of the two. Liverpool supporters have adopted a quasi-revolutionary style, burning American flags and waving Communist-style red banners. At Manchester United, unhappy fans have taken to wearing green and gold, the colors of United's 19th-century progenitor Newton Heath, a club founded by railway workers. Against Liverpool on Sunday, United fans staged "Old Shirts Day," wearing club gear that was manufactured before the Glazers took over. They've also made "Love United, Hate Glazer" into an inescapable populist refrain, stickered on countless street signs and graffittied on numberless walls. (The walls of the club's English CEO, whose home was vandalized in 2008, got a simpler slogan: "Judas.") Where the green-and-gold protesters haven't succeeded is in convincing their fellow fans to stop buying tickets.

This, then, is the state of the Premier League at the moment. As the world's only ubiquitous sports league, it's attracted owners from across the globe, some profiteering capitalists, some idle oligarchs, some the royal family of Abu Dhabi. But as an outgrowth of the intensely local English league system, it relies on a core of fans many of whom resent seeing their clubs become playthings of global commerce. The Premier League is in a painful state of transition between two ways of thinking about sports, and as such it's both exploitative and ripe for exploitation. Paradoxically, the only thing that will keep the league from becoming more "American" is American-esque regulation, and until that arrives, its teams will go on being vulnerable to Glazers and Gilletts. America can provide the cowboys, but the Premier League is the real Wild West.

by **Roger Red Hat** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 12:50 pm

and that is the summary?

good read all the same.

by **woof woof !** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 1:23 pm

Tom Hicks, the anvil-headed Texas billionaire and George Gillett, the pinch-mouthed Colorado billionaire

Anvil and Pinch :laugh:

by **laza** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 2:02 pm

Brilliant article that 5Cups, thanks for putting it up

by **zarababe** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 6:12 pm

Sent email to all as liste by Ciggs:

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am e-mailing you as a concerned Liverpool supporter about the plight of one of this countries greatest sporting institutions, integral to the heritage of football in this country and world-wide. You know, as I and many millions of Liverpool supporters do, that Liverpool Football Club holds a unique place in the hearts and minds of many who love the game of football and indeed sport. The current owners see Liverpool FC as an opportunity to 'make money' without the sweat and toil that goes with owning such a prized asset.

Broken promises of investment and lies have dogged the ownership of Tom Hicks and Gerogre Gillette. Today Hicks may well be knocking on your door to refianace a loan taken against the club with the promise of repayment aligned to future earnings etc and burden this great institution with greater debt - I implore you to not open your doors to him or his associates.

Liverpool City council may well withdraw planning permission for a new stadium, to remove these unsavioury characters. The survival and integrity of the club is at the heart of the City which is prepared to act at Local Government level

With greatness comes great responsibility - Liverpool FC deserves to be respected and the best for the future of the club must be acheieved, the current Board are trying to stop this great insitituion being laden with untenable levels of debt.. don't let them fail please, use your power to act responsibly and do not deal with Hicks or Gillette - you will be doing tthe worldwide community of Liverpool FC the greatest of service - and your support will never be forgotten !

Thank you

Regards

Zara Choudhary

Liverpool FC my heart my soul "

by **Scottbot** » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:29 pm

Isent this template along to all those listed below, unfortunately it got kicked back from 6 or 7 of them but most got through. Am guessing they have some sort of spam filter set up for mails sent to multiple addresses.

PLEASE EVERYONE DO YOUR BIT AND GET SENDING THESE EMAILS. SO LONG AS WE ARE ONE STEP AHEAD OF THIS W>>>>N>>>K>>>>ER WE'VE GOT A CHANCE OF GEETING OUR CLUB BACK.

As the photos hit the Twitter many Reds started emailing JP Morgan & Deutsche Bank the form letter bellow. We are not to take any chances should they offer Hicks a refinance package.

TO :’jamie.dimon@jpmchase.com’; ‘charlie.scharf@chase.com’; ‘gordon.smith@chase.com’; ‘marc.x.sheinbaum@jpmchase.com’; ‘david.b.lowman@jpmchase.com’;

CC: ‘autobahn.fi@db.com’; ‘autobahn.insight@db.com’; ‘aesales.emea@db.com’; ‘autobahn.fx@db.com’; ‘autobahn.fo@db.com’; ‘autobahn.support@db.com’; ‘ari.cohen@db.com’; ‘lem.brewster@db.com’; ‘mayura.hooper@db.com’; ‘renee.calabro@db.com’; ‘scott.helfman@db.com’; ‘john-t.gallagher@db.com’; ‘ted.meyer@db.com’;

Dear Sirs,

If your company agrees a £280million refinancing deal with Tom Hicks to retain his share in Liverpool Football Club, then the only return that you will see on your investment is bad publicity and a severe backlash from Liverpool supporters worldwide.

As you are aware, Hicks is trying to refinance his debt to the Royal Bank of Scotland before October 6th so that he can continue his disastrous ownership of Liverpool Football Club.

You are facing an energized, well-informed mass of Liverpool fans from around the world. We are tapped into a constant stream of information on the ownership situation. Every day, dozens of web forums buzz with the latest news. Protest marches, newspaper ads, boycotts and billboards are organized. Every move Hicks makes is scrutinized. And every associate of his is warned.

Refinancing is our nightmare scenario. Anybody who helps Tom Hicks refinance will become our primary target. Just ask the Blackstone Group / GSO Capital Partners who received approximately 7,000 emails in the space of a few days from disgruntled Liverpool fans following refinancing talks with Hicks. They soon saw sense and ended negotiations with Hicks after Liverpool supporters bombarded them with emails and phone calls.

The Sun Newspaper is another organisation who have felt the wrath of Liverpool fans following their disgraceful coverage of the Hillsborough Disaster in 1989. The boycott of the newspaper by Liverpool fans is said to have cost News International an estimated £10 million a year.

If you join Tom Hicks in raping and pillaging Liverpool Football Club, then you will be making a very powerful enemy.

You have been warned.

by **Boocity** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 7:25 am

This is on the BBC website.

Liverpool will not go bust, says Christian Purslow

Many Liverpool fans want to see the back of the club's current owners

By Dan Roan
BBC sports news correspondent

Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow has dismissed fears the club could go bust and insists there are still several interested parties considering a purchase.

He also warned co-owner Tom Hicks that the board will oppose any attempt to use the club's assets to help him refinance his loans in a bid to stay in control at Anfield.

Hicks and fellow American George Gillett owe £237m to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) - and this loan is up for repayment or renegotiation in mid-October.

Answering questions on Liverpool's official website in an attempt to allay fans' concerns, Purslow reassured supporters there was no risk of the club going into administration, despite its huge debts, when RBS call in the Americans' loans next month.

"Liverpool Football Club is not going bust," he said.

"Liverpool Football Club is a very healthy business. We have cash, we are solvent, we have banking facilities which last beyond the end of next season and we are heavily scrutinised by the Premier League.

Any incurrence of indebtedness by Liverpool Football Club needs full board approval

Liverpool MD Christian Purslow
"To achieve our Uefa licence we went through that process and they were very happy with what they saw - so I cannot conceive of a situation where Liverpool Football Club could go into administration.

"We have an extremely healthy business with record revenues and we are highly profitable. The issue today is that too much of that profit is being used to service loans put into place when the club was bought. We are dealing with that issue.

"When we sell the business that debt will be reduced or go away, which will make us the most profitable club in the Premier League."

In May, Liverpool's parent company posted a loss of £54.9m for the year ending July 2009 as debt interest payments and severance costs hit hard.

Liverpool have been up for sale since April, but Purslow said talks were still ongoing over a possible takeover of the club, and that selling to the right people was the priority.

"There are a small number of potentially interested parties working seriously and privately - doing what is called due diligence - looking at the business in detail from a financial and legal standpoint.

Dallas-born Hicks has co-owned Liverpool FC since 207
"My hope is that one of those parties steps forward with a proposal to buy the club which is attractive to the board and which would be good for the club.

"Do I know whether any of those parties are going to get over the finishing line? No. Can I make someone write a cheque? No.

"My job is to present the club to possible investors in the best possible light because I passionately believe it's a fantastic opportunity for investment and new ownership."

Hicks informed Liverpool's board last week that he was talking to investment group Blackstone about raising the funds required to restructure his loans and buy out fellow co-owner Gillett before a mid-October refinancing deadline with RBS.

Although negotiations with GSO, Blackstone's debt restructuring arm, came to nothing, Hicks is reported to have since held meetings with investment giants Deutsche Bank in New York.

However, Purslow stressed no new refinancing would be allowed which secured fresh funding against the club's assets.

"That would require board approval and the other members of the board have made it clear that's not what we want to see happen. It's very unlikely," insisted Purslow.

by **Anfield rapper** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 12:12 pm

The price to the club of getting rid of the two :censored:

may be a 9 point deduction.

Why RBS looks set to own Liverpool FC
Robert Peston | 08:43 UK time, Thursday, 23 September 2010

For those interested in owning Liverpool FC, the important calculation is this one: do they want to pay a premium and buy the club and business now, for something between £420m and £600m, or do they want to wait until it is in the hands of its banks, in the hope of securing Liverpool for more-or-less the £280m value of its bank debt (which includes £40m of penalty fees)?

Many would say that harsh commercial logic dictates only one answer.

With the 15 October deadline looming for Royal Bank of Scotland, Liverpool's main creditor, to decide whether to take control of the club, most bidders would surely prefer to wait for the fire sale.

Which is why it looks increasingly likely that Liverpool will - before too long - be the property of Royal Bank of Scotland and the US bank Wachovia (which provided around 25% of the bank debt).

There remain big imponderables, however.

One is whether Royal Bank of Scotland can take control without the business falling into administration - which would lead to a nine-point deduction for Liverpool to its Premier League tally (and, right now, would leave it with an interesting minus four points, which is a bit surreal).

As I understand it, lawyers are beavering away on behalf of RBS to investigate whether the bank can take control while avoiding administration.

Also, for the avoidance of doubt, RBS wants to own Liverpool like Superman craves kryptonite. If, in mid-October, RBS does end up formally in charge, its plan would be pass the club on to a new owner as quickly as humanly possible.

Finally, here's where those figures of £420m to £600m come from for the price tag if you want to buy Liverpool before the fire sale:
• £600m is what the two US owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett would like for the bank debt and their equity. It would value their equity at more than £300m, providing them with a handsome profit.
• £420m would recoup for Hicks and Gillett the £140m odd they've put into Liverpool's holding company, Kop Holdings, via their Cayman Islands vehicle. It would, in essence, give them their money back without a profit.

There may be some Liverpool supporters who feel it is worth paying Messrs Hicks and Gillett somewhere between £140m and £320m to spare Liverpool FC the humiliation of falling into the clutches of its banks - although the evidence of the fans' blogs and websites appears to be that most supporters would in fact rather stick pins in their eyes before handing a profit to the US duo.

I doubt, however, that any of those supporters have a spare £500m lying about that they don't need right now. Which is why it's a pretty fair bet that RBS will end up owning Liverpool (for a bit).

by **Igor Zidane** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 3:19 pm

Now, more than ever, our Football Club needs us. It needs you to stand up and be counted. To tell Tom Hicks and George Gillett that enough is enough. To tell the watching world, the banks and the finance houses that we won't stand idly by as our Football Club is run into the ground. To tell them that if the situation worsens, our protests will escalate.

This weekend, we intend to make our feelings known. We want you to be a part of that. At our EGM (http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/Spi ... -2010.html), we will be talking about our plans for supporter ownership and future protests. We want you to be a part of that. We want as many members as possible to be there to suggest ideas and determine the future.

Following on from the EGM, we intend to protest during and after the Sunderland game. Using songs, banners and flags, we urge all those in attendance to make sure the people who have got us into this mess get the message, loudly and clearly, that they aren't welcome. People say we need to get behind the team, and worry about the affect that protesting has on the players performance. The time for that worry has passed. It is time to get behind our campaign to save our Club. Without the Club we have no team. It's not the protests that are having an effect on performance but the ownerships situation, the lack of investment and the crippling repayments. Even the manager and the players have called for new owners to enable the Club to move forward.

After the match, we ask that you remain in the ground and continue your protests. We ask that you gather at the front of each stand and remain in the ground protesting until we are satisfied our message has been heard.

We urge all those who have banners, or flags to bring them along. We know there are other groups planning to produce banners and we would urge everyone to work together to give out the strongest message yet to those responsible for the demise of our Club. It is our responsibility as supporters to invoke change. We have to do all we can.

The protests and our plans for action are now part of a planned and sustained campaign. We gave the owners, the Board and the finance men some space to bring about new investment and new owners. Nothing has happened so we now plan to carry on protesting with action escalating until a resolution is reached. The ongoing soap opera within our Football Club must come to an end. It is now our duty as Liverpool supporters to bring it to an end. Saturday is another step towards the aims we are striving to achieve. Tom Hicks and George Gillett out of OUR club!

Spirit Of Shankly

http://www.spiritofshankly.com/news/Direct-Action-_-Saturday.html

by **Reg** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 4:23 pm

Igor, SOS need to get the support of the stewards otherwise those banners and flags wont even get into the stadium.

The club has to support freedom of speech and freedom to peacefully protest.

Are SOS onto this with Purslow after all in principle it achieves two mutal aims.

by **mramo** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 9:22 pm

Can you imagine being owned by RBS, then the owners will also have the unfortunate embarrassement of having Standard Chartered advertised on our shirts. Then a potential cancellation of our sponsors due to conflict of rivalry & interest.

by **Ciggy** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 10:25 pm

HA HA

Tom Hicks desire to hold on to Liverpool FC causes protesters to blow up the internet

Posted at 2:31 PM on Thu., Sep. 23, 2010 | Permalink | Yahoo! Buzz
Evan Grant / Blogger Bio | E-mail | News tips

SAN FRANCISCO - Just landed in the City by the Bay and all I want to do is enjoy a lunch of scalding hot, intestine-disintegrating Hunan food, but that's got to wait. Liverpool Football Club fans have taken to the internet and reached out to the movers and shakers of the media world (you know, 60 Minutes, Bill O'Reilly, Shawn Hannity, me, among others) to ask for our help in getting rid of Tom Hicks. You remember, Hicks, right? Big guy. Owned the Rangers once. Well, last week he made it public that despite having to sell off the Rangers and the NHL's Stars, he was determined to hold on to Liverpool. He is seeking a new refinancing plan that will allow him to do just that.

The proletariat of Liverpool's fans has taken to a mass emailing asking to make sure Wall Street doesn't loan him the money to keep his bid afloat. I could respond to those fans that, hey, he's not the Rangers fans' issue anymore. But that would be mean and uncaring and, you know me, I'm good-natured, caring individual.

So, here's the full letter with a few editors responses in parentheses:

Dear USA Media Executive/Outlet
We gave you THE BEATLES (Yes, but you also gave us Flock of Seagulls) and this is how you repay us?

What happened to the "Special Relationship" between the US and the UK? (I believe it got all goofy when Simon Cowell came over).

Are you aware of how Tom Hicks is driving our beloved Liverpool Football
Club into the ground?

How would you like it if a British "businessman" came over to the USA and
Destroyed the New York Yankees. Or the LA Lakers. Or the Washington
Redskins? (Speaking for Chuck Greenberg, Mark Cuban and Jerry Jones, I think they would all be OK with that. Actually might like it quite a bit. Can you work on that?)

Well, we are living Wayne Huizenga and the Florida Marlins all over again!
Please Google "Tom Hicks + Liverpool" to see what an embarrassment he is
To the USA. (A story about your email campaign was the first thing that came up. Imagine that)

We would be grateful if you could help us by reporting our story in order
That me might persuade Wall Street NOT to lend him the money he is currently
trying to raise, (we're busy trying to get Wall Street to loan us money, but that's not going real well. Also it would be swell if Wall Street could raise the stock price of old A.H. Belo) to drive our football team into even more debt and despair. Sorry about the mass email approach but we have tried everything else, and we feel like we are at the end of the road.

Thanks in anticipation

Fans of Liverpool Football Club.

OK, well there it is. Your campaign has seen the light of day. Speaking for the greater Ranger community, good luck. We understand your feelings. Now, could you do me a small favor and take me off the mailing list.

by **roysreds** » Thu Sep 23, 2010 10:27 pm

thanks 5cups

really good article

Liverpool FC Forum

TAKEOVER COMPLETE - H & G Finally Jibbed!

Who is online