If both Radio City (who have Lorraine Rogers on their Board) and the Daily Post are reporting it then there must be at least something in this!

It's unclear yet how much they would invest and where we would stand with the Peter Johnson debt etc but it sounds quite interesting.

After the last investment deal with the Americans went t*ts up, I'm sure Lorraine and the Board are being careful on this one.

Any thoughts?



The Wing Wizard - Hero!!!

Deadly Submarine

RAPPERS - Avoid having to say 'know what I'm sayin' all the time by actually speaking clearly in the first place.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2008:04:29:06:57:56 by Deadly Submarine.

Yeah,keep the Yanks out!!It sounds promising,i don't think we need too much money to invest in the squad to go up next season,& maybe it would give us some money to persuade Davo to stay,although i would rather have players who want to play for us & not the money.I don't think LR would leak this information if they weren't in advanced talks,so i guess it's just watch this space

Not pleased. It's an investment company with no affiliation to our club or indeed to English Football. They will be buying a club for an investment. If they buy (or invest in) the club then it could cost between £5 million and £8 million. It will take some serious success from the club on and off the field to get some yeild from their investment. Therefore, I think that if they do come in, it will be with a serious buy out of the club and they will proceed to asset strip. I am not saying they will take the goods and run but I think, along the line, they will leave the club without some of its assets.

have to say that at this early stage I’m on the fence with regard to this in terms of my opinion.

The concerns James raises above are real and worthy of mention but at the moment, without further details we really don’t know if this could be the answer to our prayers or the start of even further future difficulties in the future.

When reading any sort of news of potential investment, it’s easy to automatically assume big sums invested in the squad etc and high future prospects for the Club but for me even the steadying of the Club financially will suit me for the time being and if that is what these investors intend then I’m all for it.

If they are in for other reasons I would be dead against it after what happened with Wrexham and more recently Rotherham Utd.

Having said all the above, I do fully trust Johnson and Lorraine to make sure they keep the Club in good hands despite the slip-up last year with the Mirablis Venture (another reason why we need to be cautious about this latest news).

I still maintain that my beloved Rovers wouldn’t be the same to me if it was a money pumping Club with huge investments like we see in the Premiership (and I’m not suggesting that is what will happen by any means) and I probably sound very negative in saying that but if this venture helps the Club become more stable then it’s something to shout about for sure.

We need to proceed with caution though in my opinion.



The Wing Wizard - Hero!!!

Deadly Submarine

RAPPERS - Avoid having to say 'know what I'm sayin' all the time by actually speaking clearly in the first place.

You know, as much as I agree with what James says, in fact, I totally agree with it and have reservations about this story, should it happen, myself, I am prepared to completely trust Johnson and Rogers in this. They are going to be looking to get what is best for the club, and if they think the offer is bad for us, E.G.) Vaughen, they'll tell them where to stick their bid.

nowadays invest is the only real way to progress, so i'd be very appy with this take over

Why havent the people of Oldham, who have emmigrated over here done what theyre supposed to do and blow up the place?

If they just buy a stake in the club and invest some money then surely that can only be good.

If they completely take over then who knows. However I would also trust Rogers in this - although I doubt anything will come of it!

Mikey

I am the same, great post Sub above. Say this investment went ahead. With new oweners, does anybody think we would put our ticket prices up?


McMullen™®

Over 66% Of Teenagers Support Either Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool Or Arsenal Put This On Your Page If Your Part Of That 34% Who Is A Proper Football Fan!

I guess that would depend Liam on what there intentions are and stuff.



The Wing Wizard - Hero!!!

Deadly Submarine

RAPPERS - Avoid having to say 'know what I'm sayin' all the time by actually speaking clearly in the first place.

from what i hear they tried to buy swindle last season. maybe LR should be chatting to them to see why this failed to come off. The only reason i could see in them wanting to buy us is to nmake money, maybe from our land, but i'm prepared to hear them out before i write anything off.

I think if you were looking at a club in the lower leagues to build up and invest in, we would be quite an interesting proposition. We are right outside the current capital of culture (Liverpool) which also has a great footballing tradition, both Liverpool and Everton have a lot of fans from Birkenhead and other areas on merseyside as well as a very large following in North Wales which is where I am, an investment group would be looking at these fans thinking that these fans would consider supporting Tranmere if we were more successful. There is a massive potential fan base for a club like ours, the area is a footballing area as opposed to say, Wigan which is a Rugby league town. Although Tranmere are essentially a town club rather than a big city club we have cities around us, as I also mentioned earlier there are a lot of people in North Wales that support teams they can't go and watch because tickets aren't easily available eg Liverpool, Man United etc, we also managed to get over 30,000 fans to the Worthington Cup Final in 2000 and we probably could have got more if there had been more tickets - as far as I am aware, we sold our allocation. I will risk sticking my neck out here but I would hazard a guess and say that if we were in the Premiership and had the relevant facilities, we would sell more tickets for our home games than teams including Wigan, Bolton, Fulham, Reading - not such a big deal as they are lower end Premiership teams but they can't all be relegated meaning one of them will receive another 50 million next season just for being in the Premiership - that will obviously be the thinking behind an investment group buying a team like Tranmere as with a bit of investment, it would not be an impossible target for us to reach the Premiership within 5 years. As has also been mentioned though, the club has valuable assets which could be used to make a tidy profit for an investment group, however, I don't think it would be In Peter Johnsons best interests to sell the club to an investment group that wanted to asset strip as if Peter Johnson wanted maximum possible revenue for himself, he would asset strip himself. This is something that has already been going on to some extent over the last 10 years, maybe asset strip is the wrong phrase but he has certainly used the club as damage limitation to protect his own investment, it's not like all the money from player sales etc has gone back into the club, he has taken what he has needed to keep his interests fruitful and continue to pay dividends for him. I don't begrudge this as he has saved the club but I think he owes the fans to make sure the club does not fall into the wrong hands.

I dont think that PJ owes the fans anythink. I think it is his duty to make sure the club falls into the right hands. As for why PJ wouldn't asset strip himself, it would take him time to come into the club and be hands-on to do the task. Lorraine has got other more lucrative jobs on now so she wouldn't some in and do the job so it seems as though they are distancing themselves from the club. I think the security of the land against PJ's loan is an interesting one and one which wil ensure the safety of the club's future. I dont tink it is an act to secure what the club owes PJ but to secure the club. It has meant that we cannot go and secure another loan which we can't afford against the land. I dont know how he would go about relinquishing the land though if we were bought out.

With regards to us being in a footballing hot-bed. I think it is a good point and something which we could tap into, but, it could be a largely closed market. You could argue the toss and say that because there are so many good teams in the area, we will remain frozen out until we get somewhere special.

I see how the investment could be worth it but £8million is a big innitial price to pay for the return, knowing that there would have to be significantly more investment made to even get anywhere near the stage where they would be seeing some return. Bare in mind how much money would need to be spent in th Championship to get to the Premiership and then how much of the £42 Million T.V payments would have to be spent in the Premiership to remain there. It would be a very long winded investment and I would preffer to put it in a 5 year ISA and be guarenteed some return with less hastle.

Good luck to you - they tried taking us over last season and it was a disaster.

They're really bad businessman, they keep things secret, unless your board keep you informed you won't know anything about it.

As I said, best of luck to you.

Quote:

swindon_lad
Good luck to you - they tried taking us over last season and it was a disaster.
They're really bad businessman, they keep things secret, unless your board keep you informed you won't know anything about it.

As I said, best of luck to you.

I wanna back up this comment if they are the same people that got involved with Swindon BEWARE, they came in as investors looking to buy the club, but were actually a group of Portuguese agents who promptly signed 3 useless players on long expensive contracts and then within three months pulled out of purchasing the club. Don't even entertain the ideas of these people they are not what they seem!!

As i said in an earlier post, i think LR if she's half the women i think she is, should be getting intouch with swindle, and i'd be very surprised if she already hasn't...

nice one for the warning.

It doesn't sound good but like I also said I just the judgement of Lorraine and Johnson on this!



The Wing Wizard - Hero!!!

Deadly Submarine

RAPPERS - Avoid having to say 'know what I'm sayin' all the time by actually speaking clearly in the first place.

Quote:

SuperWhiteSoldier
As i said in an earlier post, i think LR if she's half the women i think she is, should be getting intouch with swindle, and i'd be very surprised if she already hasn't...
nice one for the warning.

Won't be much good contacting Swindon now - Andrew Fitton brought us late December so old owners have left since then.

Try popping over to a few forums (TrustSTFC and Redarmy best bets) dedicated to Swindon and register, post a thread asking about it. You'll be able to get full explanations about it all there.