SD on Radio Newcastle on Thursday evening



isn’t it a bit odd / unusual in your opinion that

a) they’d invest in the owners, and not because they see a takeover / further investment in the club a real possibility

b) they’d accept payment of the loan and just walk away despite spending a fortune and a lot of time looking at a deal and even reportedly attending a board meeting

just all seems a bit strange to me

Very. That's one of the reasons I'm confused.
 
That is the same as being an owner though. In the end they absorb all of the risk if they do this. It begins to creep on their time, they're still the public face of the club, they're still involved way more than they would be as investors who can have input whenever they like, but also don't have to make fundamental decisions or spend time evaluating performance within the business on a regular basis.

Believe me, as an owner who does that, I know that my investors have it better than me :D They reap all of the benefits and never have to worry about person X leaving or whether to hire person Y. As I say, just because they're rich, doesn't make them immune from bad decisions (see also: Short, E) and they will be conscious of the amount of specialised knowledge needed (and possibly multiple layers) that would fall to them.

Basically, some investors don't want to own things. They're not playthings to them, they're wise investments that yield rewards and yes, have some fun moments that give you good milestones and good stuff like that. Just how it is.

I get what you are saying but would counter that it is possible to be a 'hands off' owner. If i said to the man in the street, "do you know who joe lewis is?", i would guess around 95% of the time the man would reply "no". I doubt he has very much, if any, involvement in the day to day running of his club and gets very little publicity from his role as owner. His club happens to be very successful and very well run. He has an excellent business man in the form of Daniel Levy to take care of everything.
My guess, and of course its a guess is that they ended up quite a bit apart valuation wise and in the not too distant future won't do again.

Hope you are right!
 
He basically said they invested in him and the senior management of the club. They won't buy the club without him.
Its one thing to come out and say FPP is definitely not going to buy us.

Its another completely to say they are investing in him not the club.

If their forensic analysis of the club's finances, management structure and overall performance came back with that conclusion I'd be absolutely amazed.
 
Very. That's one of the reasons I'm confused.

You don't see investment in management as a key part of deals?

I agree they will likely be disappointed, but it depends whether they were attached to the club or Donald. My guys wouldn't have invested in my company without me, that's pretty much par for the course that if you're hands off, you invest in both the company and it's key personnel.
 
How many times has he had to restate, or provide a new explanation for something he's already covered, or just obfuscate and hope to distract us from objective reality?

I don't know how anyone can trust him at this stage.

The only logical conclusion we can draw from this recent interview is that he's made a mess of things, is in over his head, and is trying to get out while preserving his reputation.

I'm sorry but I'm not daft enough to fall for "I'm actually doing a great job, despite all the evidence, but I have to go because you mugs can't see how great I am."

He's a disingenuous bellend.
 
You don't see investment in management as a key part of deals?

I agree they will likely be disappointed, but it depends whether they were attached to the club or Donald. My guys wouldn't have invested in my company without me, that's pretty much par for the course that if you're hands off, you invest in both the company and it's key personnel.

did you start your company up or have a long term history with the organisation?
Or had your organisation been going for well over 100 years and you had only been involved in it for approx 12-18 months?
 
You don't see investment in management as a key part of deals?

I agree they will likely be disappointed, but it depends whether they were attached to the club or Donald. My guys wouldn't have invested in my company without me, that's pretty much par for the course that if you're hands off, you invest in both the company and it's key personnel.

Aye it was probably the amazing job he did on a shoestring at Eastleigh. Come off it man.

He must have got references from the same people who gave Parky his.
 
You don't see investment in management as a key part of deals?

I agree they will likely be disappointed, but it depends whether they were attached to the club or Donald. My guys wouldn't have invested in my company without me, that's pretty much par for the course that if you're hands off, you invest in both the company and it's key personnel.
Investment in management only works if that management has direction, integrity and generates success for their investors.

If you're saying you're doing as well as Stewart in those areas then god help you.
 
It is, GOM is correct.

Of that:

£5m was paid up front by Donald as a deposit.

£25m to SBC was paid in August of 2018 (or by that date, I believe it was spread over two financial years just to complicate matters) from parachute payments

and around £6-7m was paid to Ellis Short in April 2019 via a loan that was advancing parachute payments.

Assuming the latter hasn't been paid back (which we haven't heard and it's a source of great interest to me), effectively £32m was used of the club's money to fund the deal and he should owe it back.
So if your analysis is correct he actually only used 8 million of his own money to buy Sunderland.

One one hand he said he had to provide the EFL with proof of funds of 52 million then why did he use 32 million of the club's own money for the purchase

Parachute payments were put on place to protect clubs from financial Armageddon on relagation from the Premier League given the loss of TV revenue not for some chancer to fund a club purchase.

Had that money still been within the club we would not have slashed costs to the bone ,destroyed the Acadamy and still had leaders like Cattermole either on the pitch or at the club given we still have to pay his contract and Oviedo to a lesser extent.

This is what is unforgiveable.

I think another poster pointed out that Stewart Donald's father was a factor in his previous business career and I recall his original investment vehicle Cornfield involved his Mother in a significant capacity.

He comes across in interviews as incoherent and incompetent, without any obvious preparation or authority and begs the question has he been successful in his own right or ridden on the coat tails of his parents.

The involvement and sudden dissapearing act of Methven also is great cause for concern
 
While he's on about "they're investing in me", did he not make a comment whilst the takeover/ investment speculation was going on regarding how he wasn't sure if the people coming in would want him and Methven? Could have sworn he did. If he did then that's yet another inconsistency, if they're investing in the management team surely there'd never have been a question of him not being wanted?
 
Its one thing to come out and say FPP is definitely not going to buy us.

Its another completely to say they are investing in him not the club.

If their forensic analysis of the club's finances, management structure and overall performance came back with that conclusion I'd be absolutely amazed.
Didn't he say recently they definitely WERE going to buy us? As in, either it all went well under him or else he said they'd use the loan as a buying mechanism for us if stewie couldn't get us performing?
Or did I dream that??:lol:
 
Didn't he say recently they definitely WERE going to buy us? As in, either it all went well under him or else he said they'd use the loan as a buying mechanism for us if stewie couldn't get us performing?
Or did I dream that??:lol:

He recently said that if he couldn’t repay the loan then the supporters would get what they want because the Americans would take over. Tonight he said the supporters didn’t want the Americans involved and they didn’t want to take over.

Quite frankly, the bloke hasn’t got a clue what he’s saying. I may get a libel warning for that but it’s hard to draw any other conclusion based upon what he actually comes out with.
 
I asked the question of @Grumpy Old Man because of late all his responses seem to be firmly on defense of Stewart Donald.

I have owned and run my own businesses all my life so have a basic understanding of accounts but nothing like the depth of knowledge of Grumpy.

I'm retired now and have been beholding to Grumpy in the past for his detailed explanations, but recently his posts appear to me to be biased towards Donald.

When he states Madrox is Madrox and not Sunderland in the full knowledge that Madrox is sole owner of Sunderland, I consider that to be less than clear to forum members who are otherwise not aware of the company structure.

When Grumpy defended Donald's valuation of Sunderland by Donald as greater than the sum of the parts and drew Comparison with the value of Marks and Spenser book value bring considerably less than its stock market value he omitted to highlight that M and S declared substantial profits compared to the financial basket case that is Sunderland.

I raised the question of his relationship with Donald as if they were on friendly terms it would be natural to develop a bias in Donald's favour.

Grumpy clarified this and other posters suggested that he was on better terms with Methven.

Grumpy himself admitted he needed more clarity in his explanation.

thanks for the detailed background to your point. Apologies, In hindsight I was to quick to put you into the pot of single minded people Negatively categorising anyone who has an objective view on anything SD has said.
Clearly you were looking for how SD had personally influenced his view and this made for an interesting reply.
Question for everyone: is there anyway back for donald? He says the amercians will leave with him, what if parky gets this squad going and gets us climbing the league again? The amercians dont want to run the club but would fans be happy with donald running in on their behalf if we got promoted?

People would have said there was no way back for Bob Murray when he stepped down as chairman but was still owner all those years ago. But he bounced back employed Reid and built the SOL etc
 
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I haven't got a scooby. None of it makes any sense on the face of it. The Americans are behaving exactly as you'd expect someone interested, but maybe not right now, would behave. They've loaded everything massively in their favour. But Donald says it's not a prelude to them taking control.

It can still make sense when you consider Donald gibbers on in any direction to make himself look as good as possible.
If they are interested and he said as much the pressure would increase on him to leave massively, not in his best interest.
 
the Key thing is and I’ve seen @Grumpy Old Man mention it a few times over the last few days is the idea of ‘scaling down’ the club. That’s what they want. The money men don’t care. We want SAFC to win the prem. the vultures want the £££££.

we look at the table, they look at the balance.

When those in power look at the latter the only way is backwards
 

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