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Finance Expert: £200m sticking point emerges in Everton investment talks
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at Everton
Dan Plumley has insisted that there are some “major sticking points” behind Everton after investment from MSP Sports Capital failed to progress.
The Athletic reported on 23 August that the main stumbling block behind the collapse in talks was due to opposition from existing lenders, Rights and Media Funding Ltd.
It is said that the club has a loan facility of up to £200million, with that debt secured “via four charges on club assets”, something that led to this big blow.
“What we’re led to believe from what we’ve seen is that they were granted access to the data behind it,” he exclusively told Goodison News.
“That means you have all access to the finances, so you can see where the liabilities are, we’re led to believe that they didn’t want to take on the overall debt of the club, which I think on the balance sheet sits at £140million.
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“That’ll be wrapped up in part of this and then obviously, you will want to look into not only the figures, but the overall terms of the deal with each individual or company you owe money to, and that Rights and Media loan has always been in the background as one of those which people were unsure why it was signed and what the terms were.
“These third-party lenders have been quite rife in football, but have set quite aggressive terms of repayment and clauses that can hold some of these clubs to ransom.
“If that’s come to light now and it seems to be that is one of the major sticking points from investment walking away, again, from a business decision, they are well within their rights to do that because you don’t want to be taking on that liability if you think the terms aren’t favourable.
“It can be, in this instance, I know we’re only talking about one particular loan, but the value of that loan is £150million pushing £200million so that is quite a big sticking point in negotiations.
“For the club, it’s a big blow.”
In other Everton news, new Bramley Moore Dock concerns could lead to added costs for the Toffees