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Bid Update


div

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Just published this for the 10000Hours team on their website;

We have had an incredible weekend that has seen St.Mirren supporters from all over the world signing up to join our fans bid to buy the majority shareholding of St.Mirren Football club.

The commitment of the fans has been there for all to see, and we thank each and every single person and organisation who has signed up to date for their overwhelming support.

There is however more hard work to be done, we are not there yet.

Whilst the individual pledges have exceeded expectations the other two membership categories are still short of the targets we set, and with this shortfall we cannot currently fulfil the “agreement in principle” deal to purchase the shareholding for £1.5m.

Over the weekend a number of enquiries were made regarding the 87 Club etc and these are being followed up right now but we do need more.

We are thankful to the selling consortium who have agreed to extend our offer period to this Thursday (June 21st) to allow us to follow up these enquiries and also to look for yet more support.

We greatly appreciate their patience and understanding.

A lot can still happen over the coming few days. This time last week we had 50% of what was needed in individual member subscriptions and today we are now very proud to have financial support nearing 140% of that original target !

We are currently custodians of your money but also of your overwhelming desire to have St Mirren FC Community Owned and Fan Governed and we will do our very best to put the best possible deal on the table on Thursday.

We WILL bid on Thursday and we will only bid what we can comfortably afford to pay back.

The Scottish Football landscape the Club operates in is changing rapidly at the moment and we are keeping a close eye on events as they unfold. Decisions taken elsewhere can have an obvious impact on the turnover of St.Mirren Football Club but that in itself does not prevent us from putting forward a formal bid albeit this will almost certainly have to be made with certain conditions attached.

So the message today is to keep the faith in the bid, and keep spreading the word, especially to local businesses or individuals that you think would be in a position to support us via an 87Club membership.

Similarly we want to keep pushing on with our individual pledges, every new block of 25 sign ups contributes the same financial benefit to the bid as an 87Club membership so the message is realy more of the same, we need as many Saints fans on board as possible

Thank you for your continued support.

Source; http://www.10000hours.org/news/173-bid-update

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Slightly disappointing we haven't got there yet with the corporate and 87 club. Another deadline, another extension, but lets hope the board see the strength of fans backing it and accept the offer 10000 hours puts in.

It is yet another deadline come and gone, and that is frustrating for everyone, but it was felt better to ask for a few more days especially with momentum very much on our side, rather than submit a bid today that came up short.

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Still no clarity on how short the other types of membership are?

It is difficult to nail down as emails are pinging back and forth and phone calls are taking place all the time as people invariably want to know more detail before they will commit to a large lump sum payment.

Also as the number of individuals subscribing continues to grow so the targets on the other categories starts to come down.

The problem there is that the two categories we are short in are the ones generating the additional lump sum payment we need to make on day one (the BII loan being the other), whilst the individual subs are monthly income so it's a case of how best we monetise the extra direct debits we have coming in without having to take out more loans which nobody wants to do.

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It is difficult to nail down as emails are pinging back and forth and phone calls are taking place all the time as people invariably want to know more detail before they will commit to a large lump sum payment.

Also as the number of individuals subscribing continues to grow so the targets on the other categories starts to come down.

The problem there is that the two categories we are short in are the ones generating the additional lump sum payment we need to make on day one (the BII loan being the other), whilst the individual subs are monthly income so it's a case of how best we monetise the extra direct debits we have coming in without having to take out more loans which nobody wants to do.

Could not have said it better.

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It is difficult to nail down as emails are pinging back and forth and phone calls are taking place all the time as people invariably want to know more detail before they will commit to a large lump sum payment.

Also as the number of individuals subscribing continues to grow so the targets on the other categories starts to come down.

The problem there is that the two categories we are short in are the ones generating the additional lump sum payment we need to make on day one (the BII loan being the other), whilst the individual subs are monthly income so it's a case of how best we monetise the extra direct debits we have coming in without having to take out more loans which nobody wants to do.

ok, That pretty much answers the question I just asked on the "Ask 10000hrs" thread.

Can we not have updated membership numbers or monetary amounts from the 87 club and 1877 club? This was very encouraging for the individual membership and the sign up rate will be slower and easier to handle and would at least give us fans some confidence that things are progressing before Thursday.

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Thanks for that Div and 10000Hours I know its a moving target and that different scenarios may come into play. I just would like to know If I can order the big tent and the champagne (celebrate)clap.gif or the Chocolate and vodka (commiserate) thumbdown.gif.

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Thanks for that Div and 10000Hours I know its a moving target and that different scenarios may come into play. I just would like to know If I can order the big tent and the champagne (celebrate)clap.gif or the Chocolate and vodka (commiserate) thumbdown.gif.

Well a bid will be submitted on Thursday now at whatever level we can afford and staging the payments in whatever way fits with the subscription levels we have in each category.

It will be down to the selling consortium whether it is acceptable to them or not I guess !

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Have to be honest, with the momentum the bid has built up if the selling consortium were to reject the bid they could have a seriously unhappy fanbase on its hands.

Its easy for me to say as I am not trying to sell my shares (and fair play to the consortium as they have been extremely patient so far) but if the consortium really want to sell to the right bid and get the right people involved, surely it doesnt get any better than the fans taking over the club.

I would be extremely disapointed in the consortium if the bid doesnt go through at this stage, this may be unfair but i think a lot of people that have bought into this will feel the same

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A bit disappointing but not at all unexpected. It was always a big ask.

As SS has asked above, and I've asked previously (as, no doubt, have others), I think some sense of how realistic the chances are that the bid will succeed would be helpful, though I also appreciate that speculation about this might not be.

I note the observations surrounding the constantly changing football landscape at present, and would imagine that this has more bearing on potential commercial members than on individual St Mirren fans whose support might be considered as a constant to a great extent.

I'm sure the 10000Hours guys are working tirelessly on this. If there is anything the rest of us can do to assist in that final push, please let us know.

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Have to be honest, with the momentum the bid has built up if the selling consortium were to reject the bid they could have a seriously unhappy fanbase on its hands.

Its easy for me to say as I am not trying to sell my shares (and fair play to the consortium as they have been extremely patient so far) but if the consortium really want to sell to the right bid and get the right people involved, surely it doesnt get any better than the fans taking over the club.

I would be extremely disapointed in the consortium if the bid doesnt go through at this stage, this may be unfair but i think a lot of people that have bought into this will feel the same

Agreed.

I emailed Mr Gilmour last week suggesting that how he (on behalf of the BoD) votes in the newco situation could constitute his enduring legacy as the steward of SMFC. While I still subscribe to that to an extent, it is becoming increasingly apparent the consortium's ultimate response to the CiC bid will be of greater importance in the medium to long term.

Edited by Drew
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I believe there was an initial payment of £900k being made to the consortium. £500k of which was being paid through the Bii loan backed by £7500 worth of individual's monthly subscriptions.

Now that we're sitting at £10400 per month is there scope to increase the loan amount from Bii proportionately and on the same terms? This could provide an extra £200k towards the £900k lump sum.

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In fairness to the corporate sector up till Wednesday / Thursday of last week it looked as though the fans weren't backing the bid in the required numbers.

I've said it a number of times already though it would help if there were potential case studies or at least examples built up around the community membership and the value of being involved with the football club so that businessmen can see where there is an advantage in being involved. I don't know how many St Mirren supporter owned businesses there are out there with £25k just flushing around waiting to be spent, so I would imagine there would need to be something that makes cold hard business sense to local businessmen who are Rangers or Celtic supporters.

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A bit disappointing but not at all unexpected. It was always a big ask.

As SS has asked above, and I've asked previously (as, no doubt, have others), I think some sense of how realistic the chances are that the bid will succeed would be helpful, though I also appreciate that speculation about this might not be.

I note the observations surrounding the constantly changing football landscape at present, and would imagine that this has more bearing on potential commercial members than on individual St Mirren fans whose support might be considered as a constant to a great extent.

I'm sure the 10000Hours guys are working tirelessly on this. If there is anything the rest of us can do to assist in that final push, please let us know.

I think the main thing for everyone to do is to stay positive, and to keep spreading the message.

The total of £10.5k pledged so far is magnificent but it has come from just 900 individuals, so there are still thousands of St.Mirren fans who either don't know enough (or anything) about it, or who remain unconvinced or who can't afford to get involved.

So if everyone just keeps spreading the word, and of course talks to any local businesses they know who might be up for joining the 87club then that's about all anyone can ask at this stage.

Times are very hard, and it's big ask for anyone to spend more money than they already do on a football club, and that goes for all levels of the membership.

At the end of the day we can bid only what we can afford. I'd hope it will be enough to seal the deal, as at the end of the day this bid still reflects the least risk to the football club !

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It is yet another deadline come and gone, and that is frustrating for everyone, but it was felt better to ask for a few more days especially with momentum very much on our side, rather than submit a bid today that came up short.

For sure it was a better call, not criticising, just disappointing we aren't there yet.

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For sure it was a better call, not criticising, just disappointing we aren't there yet.

You and me both sir. Fingers crossed we can get an acceptable offer in on Thursday. I'd much rather it didn't drag on any further though, we need clarity and if we can move quickly I don't see why the members couldn't be directing the vote the club makes on newco on 4th July.

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Definitely....I thought we actually had longer to get the bid in. Thursday being an extension is not good news.

Original deadline we were working to was 15th June. Selling consortium were expecting our bid today.

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