Overseas Investor

[midfielder]

7, 000 @ $ 100.00 is $700, 000. 00 problem solved ...


HINT HINT CLUB

 

[midfielder]

Just sent this email

Attention : Peter Turnbull - Club Chairman


Peter

7, 000 gard core fans @ $ 100.00 is $700, 000. 00 problem solved..

Trust the community offer some shares in the club...

Offer 1 million in shares, within 2 months you will have it...



Regards

 

[nikko]

heard Istri Hotman Paris Hutapea is looking to buy the Mariners

 

[adz]

Some questions then:

1. If they sell shares (community ownership), where would that leave people who are members?
2. What benefit would selling shares rather than memberships have for
- a. the club
- b. the member
- c. the shareholder


I just don't understand what the "community ownership" thing means, and I don't think anyone really does, apart from it is the community and they own the club (??? vague!). I think they should be getting their memberships sorted out, and that is a model that's already in place.

Firstly, make them actually worth getting, and not just some season ticket with a card. People should not even question why they should become a member, just which level of membership they want!

They need to flog the shit out of memberships... I keep going back to compare with the AFL but it's really all I know to compare to, but my club (Melbourne) has one of the lowest member bases in the comp, and we are aiming for 40,000 this season. How many members does the Mariners have? Less than 5k?

I know the area isn't that heavily populated but they are doing f**k all to get people to join up. We should be able to scrape up 10k easily! There should be people all over the coast, at shopping centers, the races, the farmers markets, festivals, etc, etc, flogging memberships...

Anyway. That's my rant.

 

[kevrenor]

They need to flog the shit out of memberships... I keep going back to compare with the AFL but it's really all I know to compare to...

Chalk
_____
Cheese

AFL membership is ownership usually = equity
A-League membership is season ticket = cashflow

But I like your rants!

 

[adz]

Chalk
_____
Cheese

AFL membership is ownership usually = equity
A-League membership is season ticket = cashflow

But I like your rants!

Equity? What does that mean for the average punter? We get to vote on the board every year? Then what?
It's not like we have any say in day-to-day running of the club, what players/staff to hire and fire, what tactics to play on game day...

I guess I'm missing something... please explain!

 

[kevrenor]

Equity? What does that mean for the average punter? We get to vote on the board every year? Then what?
It's not like we have any say in day-to-day running of the club, what players/staff to hire and fire, what tactics to play on game day...
I guess I'm missing something... please explain!

I suppose my idea was a simple one - to continue to have a club!!!
.. and not fold or have a controlling interest sold off to an overseas buyer - appears to be FFAs concern (eg. Fury, Brisbane), more than short term cash-flow.

 

[adz]

I suppose my idea was a simple one - to continue to have a club!!!
.. and not fold or have a controlling interest sold off to an overseas buyer - appears to be FFAs concern (eg. Fury, Brisbane), more than short term cash-flow.

I'm a bit slow but I'm not sure how this explains why AFL and A-League memberships are chalk and cheese? What is it about AFL memberships that is so much better that they can get 40k+ to join where we can't even get 5k to an A-League club?

 

[Marquee]

I'm with Adz here, the club needs a long term income solution and a one off, community buy in is only a short term one. It may get us through the next season but what do we do after that? Shareholders usually expect a return on investment, not the other way around.

Increasing the memberships to 10k gives us the 500k each year and whoever else turns up on match day is a bonus. This situation makes me concerned about the past reports of how the club treated sponsors poorly. Could those sponsors be the difference between us surviving or folding? I think so.

In many ways, the potential overseas investment solves our problems and we would just have to be grateful to have a club. Unless we can find another 10k fans or a huge new sponsor, the future of the club is doubtful without investment.

 

[pjennings]

From the Terror

The Daily Telegraph understands the club will be advanced its next quarterly payment from the $1.4 million annual grant each club receives from FFA, although sources stressed the move was not unusual as clubs struggled to balance their cash flow.

Turnbull was adamant the search for new equity had borne fruit "which will quickly sort out any cash-flow problems there are".

"We have been in talks with new investors and I expect to conclude negotiations within 14 days," Turnbull said.

In 2009 Turnbull's wealth was estimated at $50 million, although much of that is tied up in property development.

Remarkably, FFA sources said the Mariners' commercial income remained in the top quarter of A-League clubs. However, all had taken a hit from the global financial crisis.

Turnbull was also adamant that funding for the club's redevelopment project, including a centre of excellence and commercial buildings at Tuggerah, was locked in - including $10 million from the Federal Government.

"Building tenders closed on that last week and we are in the process of awarding those now," he said.

"The funding for that is not in doubt. On the football side, things are tight across the A-League. But we stand apart because we have a rock solid business plan."

Captain Alex Wilkinson left for China on Wednesday night to undergo a medical with a view to signing a six-month deal with Jiangsu Shuntian. The move would take $100,000 off the Mariners' wage bill over that period.


http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/soccer/coast-cash-crisis-hit-on-big-day/story-e6frey4r-1226023519785

 

[Blair]

That's interesting

 

[universalmind]

From the Terror

The Daily Telegraph understands the club will be advanced its next quarterly payment from the $1.4 million annual grant each club receives from FFA, although sources stressed the move was not unusual as clubs struggled to balance their cash flow.

Turnbull was adamant the search for new equity had borne fruit "which will quickly sort out any cash-flow problems there are".

"We have been in talks with new investors and I expect to conclude negotiations within 14 days," Turnbull said.

In 2009 Turnbull's wealth was estimated at $50 million, although much of that is tied up in property development.

Remarkably, FFA sources said the Mariners' commercial income remained in the top quarter of A-League clubs. However, all had taken a hit from the global financial crisis.

Turnbull was also adamant that funding for the club's redevelopment project, including a centre of excellence and commercial buildings at Tuggerah, was locked in - including $10 million from the Federal Government.

"Building tenders closed on that last week and we are in the process of awarding those now," he said.

"The funding for that is not in doubt. On the football side, things are tight across the A-League. But we stand apart because we have a rock solid business plan."

Captain Alex Wilkinson left for China on Wednesday night to undergo a medical with a view to signing a six-month deal with Jiangsu Shuntian. The move would take $100,000 off the Mariners' wage bill over that period.


http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sport/soccer/coast-cash-crisis-hit-on-big-day/story-e6frey4r-1226023519785

This explains why Mrdja, Porter, Lewis et. al. all flew Virginblue. My inquistive mind wondered why they would be flying on another airline, other than one of the leagues sponsors. Please, please can we sort these issues out soon. I'm willing to put money forward.

 

[Marquee]

"We have been in talks with new investors and I expect to conclude negotiations within 14 days," Turnbull said.

Takeover in 14 days?

 

[scottmac]

Takeover in 14 days?

I don't think its a takeover. I think you'll find that the investor will buy a minority share somewhere between 30 - 49% and the club will remain in the hands of Turnbull and Co. This is more than likely what Turnball is trying to negotiate. It will all depend on what the investor wants from the deal and wether the FFA come in and f**k it up.

 

[midfielder]

Some questions then:

1. If they sell shares (community ownership), where would that leave people who are members?
2. What benefit would selling shares rather than memberships have for
- a. the club
- b. the member
- c. the shareholder


I just don't understand what the "community ownership" thing means, and I don't think anyone really does, apart from it is the community and they own the club (??? vague!). I think they should be getting their memberships sorted out, and that is a model that's already in place.

Firstly, make them actually worth getting, and not just some season ticket with a card. People should not even question why they should become a member, just which level of membership they want!

They need to flog the shit out of memberships... I keep going back to compare with the AFL but it's really all I know to compare to, but my club (Melbourne) has one of the lowest member bases in the comp, and we are aiming for 40,000 this season. How many members does the Mariners have? Less than 5k?

I know the area isn't that heavily populated but they are doing f**k all to get people to join up. We should be able to scrape up 10k easily! There should be people all over the coast, at shopping centers, the races, the farmers markets, festivals, etc, etc, flogging memberships...

Anyway. That's my rant.

People become both members and shareholders...

We still buy our season tickets as normal.... only those people who want to buy shares in the Business of CCM need pay the $ 100.00 ...

However hiven the football community and others that may be interested raising a million dollars to me would seem an easier way than trying to get some guy with heaps of coin who starts to run things almost certainly a different way...

 

[nikko]

This explains why Mrdja, Porter, Lewis et. al. all flew Virginblue. My inquistive mind wondered why they would be flying on another airline, other than one of the leagues sponsors. Please, please can we sort these issues out soon. I'm willing to put money forward.

Gorman says get your cheque book out champ

 

[curious]

Equity? What does that mean for the average punter? We get to vote on the board every year? Then what?
It's not like we have any say in day-to-day running of the club, what players/staff to hire and fire, what tactics to play on game day...

I guess I'm missing something... please explain!

For a not for profit, community organisation, think your local region sporting club, all the way up to state league clubs. All financial members are represented by a committee elected by the members, to represent the members in the administration and management of the club. The committee is answerable primarily to the members and the governing body of the sport. If the members aren't happy with the results, they get to elect someone they think can do better, or stand themselves for a position if they wish. That's how you get a say in the club's day to day operations you mentioned. All income and profit is reinvested in the club.

Income is primarily from business and corporate sponsorship with secondary income from memberships. There is also some tax advantages, but an accountant (any?) would need to clarify what they are, and the ability to obtain community assistance grants not available to private enterprise.

The term 'community ownership' or 'community club' has been blurred and somewhat hijacked through lack of information in aleague circles. There's no ownership, literally just financial members assisting a community service, a sporting club. A simplistic analogy might be likening it to the community services provided by the elected officials of a local council representing it's financial members, the voting rate payers.

AFL and most NRL clubs use the same basic principles, but obviously on a much larger scale. 'Not for profit' remains, as do elected officials representing financial members and member voting rights on major club issues. They have the advantage of generational roots as community organisations and have grown the support community clubs are reliant on to succeed. Starting from scratch like an aleague club would need to do, would require a lot of crawling before they can walk. (as opposed to the instant pudding approach with the privately owned franchise model the ffa decided to use to walk before they crawled)

The model suggested by Fury appeared close to a community club, with renewable financial memberships allowing similar voting rights to elect board members, but I don't know if it also excluded ownership by private investors or much of the detail. It was also priced ridiculously at $1,100 annually for private and 11,000 annually for business for a 3 year period, after which they had to renew their purchase. It looked like an attempt to have membership sales become the primary source of income and in my opinion, was falsely marketed to the public as buying shares in the club.

It cannot be shares if you are forced to repurchase/renew those shares, it's renewable financial membership only and in Fury's case, an extremely expensive one. And alternatively, if the club was to sell legitimate shares, the buyer owns those shares, doesn't need to repurchase the same share/s (like fury required) to retain ownership and can sell those shares at any stage. The club would then still have actual private ownership among it's public shareholders in a fashion similar to a publicly listed company and definitely not recognised as a community club.

The Brisbane Broncos trade as a publicly listed company with a major shareholding of 60 odd % owned by a Newslimited company.

 

[scottmac]

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/sports/bakrie-clan-in-talks-to-buy-a-stake-in-belgian-top-flight-club/429860

Iman Arif said on Thursday that while the Bakries had their sights on a Belgian team, he denied a media report stating they were keen to purchase a club in Australia’s top-flight A-League.


On Thursday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Aburizal Bakrie, chairman of the Golkar Party, was interested in buying Australian side Central Coast Mariners.

Iman said that Aburizal’s intention was “to begin a cooperation with the club.”

“We just want to set up a program where we can exchange players with Australian clubs in order to boost player development,” he said.

Iman said the aim of the Bakries’ involvement in overseas leagues was not primarily to make money.

“We want to give Indonesian players a chance to play in the best leagues, such as England and maybe Belgium. We want to help football development in the country,” said Iman, who also acts as the deputy chairman for technical affairs at the Indonesian Football Association’s (PSSI) National Team Body (BTN).

 

[universalmind]

For a not for profit, community organisation, think your local region sporting club, all the way up to state league clubs. All financial members are represented by a committee elected by the members, to represent the members in the administration and management of the club. The committee is answerable primarily to the members and the governing body of the sport. If the members aren't happy with the results, they get to elect someone they think can do better, or stand themselves for a position if they wish. That's how you get a say in the club's day to day operations you mentioned. All income and profit is reinvested in the club.

Income is primarily from business and corporate sponsorship with secondary income from memberships. There is also some tax advantages, but an accountant (any?) would need to clarify what they are, and the ability to obtain community assistance grants not available to private enterprise.

The term 'community ownership' or 'community club' has been blurred and somewhat hijacked through lack of information in aleague circles. There's no ownership, literally just financial members assisting a community service, a sporting club. A simplistic analogy might be likening it to the community services provided by the elected officials of a local council representing it's financial members, the voting rate payers.

AFL and most NRL clubs use the same basic principles, but obviously on a much larger scale. 'Not for profit' remains, as do elected officials representing financial members and member voting rights on major club issues. They have the advantage of generational roots as community organisations and have grown the support community clubs are reliant on to succeed. Starting from scratch like an aleague club would need to do, would require a lot of crawling before they can walk. (as opposed to the instant pudding approach with the privately owned franchise model the ffa decided to use to walk before they crawled)

The model suggested by Fury appeared close to a community club, with renewable financial memberships allowing similar voting rights to elect board members, but I don't know if it also excluded ownership by private investors or much of the detail. It was also priced ridiculously at $1,100 annually for private and 11,000 annually for business for a 3 year period, after which they had to renew their purchase. It looked like an attempt to have membership sales become the primary source of income and in my opinion, was falsely marketed to the public as buying shares in the club.

It cannot be shares if you are forced to repurchase/renew those shares, it's renewable financial membership only and in Fury's case, an extremely expensive one. And alternatively, if the club was to sell legitimate shares, the buyer owns those shares, doesn't need to repurchase the same share/s (like fury required) to retain ownership and can sell those shares at any stage. The club would then still have actual private ownership among it's public shareholders in a fashion similar to a publicly listed company and definitely not recognised as a community club.

The Brisbane Broncos trade as a publicly listed company with a major shareholding of 60 odd % owned by a Newslimited company.

Income from businesses and sponsorships is still taxable. However income from members is exempt/non-assessable under the principle of mutuality. FYI- this is why you sign a form if you're not a member at a not-for profit club upon entry, so they can apportion revenue from bars etc as taxable.

You can still have "share capital" that is effectively bought back - redeemable preference share. However these in substance are debt instruments. But that is besides the point. I'm not sure what the model propsed with the Fury was, however you seemed more informed than me.

 

[adz]

curious! Thanks for that, I was beginning to think everyone was in love with this "community ownership" thing but nobody actually knew what it meant. Looks like the word "ownership" has people confused then.

You have described the only (main) difference I can see between an AFL club and the Mariners, the company structure and member elected committee. To spell that out for myself, a member will:

AFL:
Pay money
Get membership package - game tickets, merchandise, etc
Vote on a committee/board

CCM:
Pay money
Get membership package - game tickets, merchandise, etc


At the end of the day, for your average member it might as well be the same thing. The coach picks the lineup, the players kick the ball around, and every now and then we vote on a handful of committee members to represent the thousands of members.

So.. IMO the reason you get 40k+ members in an AFL club and less than 5k in an A-League club is not voting rights. I'm sure there aren't thousands of people on the coast going "I would love to join the Mariners, but since I can't vote or run for committee I don't think I will".

Two things need to happen: PROMOTION and better benefits. I've already crapped on about promotion, but the benefits could also be brought up to scratch. It seems like it's up to the supporter groups to organise things that the club should be doing, which I thought was okay in season 1, but 6 seasons in they should have their shit together a bit more.

This is something I was thinking about last night too:

Income is primarily from business and corporate sponsorship with secondary income from memberships.

It seems like the Mariners want to concentrate on the "big fish" to put in lots of money, McDonalds, Primo, Random Indonesian Guy, etc, instead of the smaller fish, Central Coast businesses, and members.

I think they should be going after BOTH. Get the big investors in with their big wads of cash, but you also need to keep the community happy. I've heard of local businesses being p.ssed off by the Mariners because they basically pay their money and get ignored ( ?? hearsay! ), and I'm not sure what the member numbers are but I'm sure they have been dropping off too. Get members, get the community back, and the crowds will come in on game day. I'm sure having a full stadium every week will help attract the big $$ from bigger companies too, but at the moment it just looks like Amateur Hour with a two thirds empty stadium.

Hopefully if we see a big cash injection we can start getting a bit more professional when it comes to this side of it, because on the park and COE = brilliant, memberships and sponsorships not so much.