I imagine it will be one of them debts that never get paid back.

The impact of accumulated losses are reflected in the last balance sheet published(as at 31 Oct 2010).The external debt at that time ie to banks and brewery etc was not too significant.However ,there was also £4.3m owed to Sporting Club St Helens on inter company account( is McManus controlling party of that organisation?).No doubt we have incurred further losses in the currrent trading period,so debt will have increased on the back of that ,unless there was an equity injection by the directors.

Debt (as in bank debt) won't have increased as a result of losses because McManus has stated we have no Bank debt; so ongoing losses will have been funded by directors' loans. Whilst still debt, these directors "loans" have been getting converted into shares for years now so are really equity in all but name.

If McManus is saying we are bank debt free now, it matters little what recent losses have been as they have obviously already been funded other than through "external" lending. Obviously the losses don't just jump up at a financial year end, they need to be funded as and when they arise (which I know is the point you were making).

Sporting Club St Helens is the holding company for the club and has no creditors. Zillions of people have shares in it (including me, my brothers and my dad!) but the McManus family has loads as do some other current directors. Basically, the debt due to that company can be ignored as the Holding company would never call it in, nor does it have any reason to as it has no creditors to pay.

The more I think about it the more I can see that's it's a nice way of telling Saints fans that they had to borrow another £6 million to complete the stadium.

Very clever.

And there was me thinking that they were saying that the directors had paid for the stadium rather than getting loans

.
Probably a nice little tax adjustment for somebody somewhere.

The more I think about it, the more I can see that rich Saints fans have paid for us to buy a brand new stadium, fit it out and wipe our Bank debts, whilst Wigan probably have bank debt and certainly rent a stadium from a football team after selling their famous old stadium to Tesco against their fans' will.

Rogues thats poor trolling even for you



now go and have another nice cup of tea , and relax , and let us watch our shiny new stadium in the evening sunshine.

Why do you care? How does it affect you? As far as I can see it doesn't and you're just very, very jealous. Mike Coleman is a Saints fan with very deep pockets and we are very lucky to have a fan like that. You're just jealous because it didn't turn out that way for the pies. You could always try being pleased that someone is prepared to put a large sum of money into your favourite sport...

Quite a few of the wigan fans have been honest enough to admit to being envious of a purpose built RL stadium, whilst the more bitter (i.e. Rogues) continue to try to pick holes in it and pretend that they love renting a soccer stadium.

It doesn't bother me at all. I was asking a sensible question and certainly one I would have asked at Wigan.

Do you believe that Coleman has given Saints that money? I don't know his personal finances but wouldn't imagine he got rich by giving his money away.
Do you think that investing in a RL stadium/ team is a good investment? If he is a billionaire then I suppose it's not a problem.

If I was investing that sort of money I would expect some return.

Every club would like to be in our position, but for now it's just us and wire. I'd love Wigan to have their own purpose built stadium, but for now that's a pipe dream.
Have I missed out any other clubs that wholly own their new stadia?

Clearly not, but he's a Saints supporter so probably views it more as charity than investment. Of course a RL club is not a good investment, that goes without saying, which is why it's great that we have fans funding the new stadium rather than a Bank.

You're not a Saints fan. Maybe the likes of McManus and Coleman measure their return not in terms of pounds and pence, but in terms of legacy and enjoyment?

Obviously they didn't get rich through giving money away, but nor did the "Secret Millionaires" get rich by giving away money to good causes. Not everything in life is a business decision.

Look at it from his point of view though. If you have £100 million would you not throw £6 mil at the club you've always supported?
£6 million to him is like £600 to most of us

Ok no finance expert but this is the way I see it.

The club took loans from shareholders to cover debt and stadium finance. These would be repayable at an agreed interest rate.

With the stadium realsied this debt is now being converted.

here is the key. Most of this debt was probably to a small group of shareholders with a large percentage of the shares.

So they have been able to pass probably with some board meeting the conversion of this debt or a portion of it into more shares.

As a club it means the finances of the club dont have to pay off the loans. The loans are now shares that are repayable only on sale of shares. For which the club has no responsibility to buy. Shares can go up or down in value so the shares may make a profit or a loss.

Shares also produce an income from profit. However Saints never turns a profit. But with the new stadium there is every possibility that for a change a profit maybe made and so shareholders get paid a dividend.

With loans being converted to shares this means that current shareholders now have a smaller percentage of the club. Most will not be concerned as they never had a dividend before and just bought shares to help the club.

ie 100 shareholders get more of the profit than 200 share holders. As the profit is split more ways.
So in answer to rouges the only impact will be felt by current shareholders as the profit will be split more ways. But they wont feel that effect with the club having not turned a profit for years.

That was the point I made, if he is that rich then it isn't a problem to him. The more people we can get to invest in the game the better, but the terms need to be right.

One of the problems that occurred at Wigan was that at least one of the directors decided to "call in" his loan.

Depends on the terms of the loan. I very much doubt that Mac, with his undoubted business acumen, would agree to a clause to allow the loans to be 'called in' to the financial detriment of the club.

It's certainly favourable to being indebted to a faceless plc.

It's wholly good news, we've a lot to be extremely happy with as Saints fans - how many other clubs could go through such a significant transition in terms of playing staff (losing iconic players like Long, Martyn, Scully, Joynt, Newlove, Cunningham et al), securing our very own state of the art stadium and remaining a top force throughout it all.

Sir Eammon McManus, we salute you.

Great news.......................

Roll on February

The more you look at this deal the better it is. Shareholders have obviously looked at the profitablility of Saints going forward and decided they can get a good enough return through profit to relinquish the interest on any loan.

As for the bond and private debt scheme no one will know the terms of this other than the parties involvedcould be a loan at zero percent repayable over two hundred years could be at wonga.com rates. Either way I think the rater will be lower than what a bank could offer or they woulfd have just got it from a bank secured against the stadium.

Being totally honest if i ever won a considerable amount of money or was a self made millionaire, being a Saints fan i would donate a fair chunk of it to the club and expect nothing in return.....maybe a box or complimentary half time pie. Does anyone think this is the case with the shareholders?.....(The money side of it rather than the pie bit)

Just been reading up on Mr Coleman,like Mr McManus was born in StHelens and they both have more far eastern links than Jills chippy.One interview was titled 'The billion dollar interview',nice

Its entirely possible that it could be the case. But the whole point of the new stadium is to turn some kind of profit.

St Helens and Warrington have to be congratulated that they do own their own stadium and credit to St Helens that it is the better stadium, at first I had doubts about the 18.000 size, I felt 20,000 would have been better, but on reflection on the past few seasons it is better to have a stadium that is running to close capacity at the majority of games than such as The Giants in such a large football stadium looking more than half empty all the time.

Interesting over Mr Coleman, good on him, but when people are protesting outside St Paul's in London about the way money is made in financial circles we all soon are willing to close our eyes when we benefit.

Our owner in London has made his money in the oil markets, not a favourite industry with costs of petrol we pay, but the personal money he has pumped in is amazing and it even more next season. Currently we are looking at a 15,000 new stadium which is perhaps like Salford but like Warrington can be developed and extended as needed/

If I was a Wigan supporter I would be very disappointed now such a leading club and not owning their own stadium, many in London like being at The Stoop, but sadly the marriage has not worked and the sooner we leave the better and one day join St Helens and Warrington as stadium owners.

This is great news it basically gives the club a datum to become a profitable club from now onwards.
The two significant items in the statement! Is that we have No bank debt and No directors loans meaning no significant liabilities as we start the new season in the new ground.
The new business model must be very attractive to sponsors, lets hope the fans turn up in excess of 12000 to back up our directors financial commitments.

How did the Wigan Chairman tell the fans he had just paid back £2 million to DW (I think it was). How does that £2 million show up on Wigans finances.