According to members on the other forum news due in October

I make up sh*t. I know nothing. Anyway, to your points - the latter. You attribute far too much intelligence to Nick Higgs.

Even Crazy Steve Hamer thought that was a stupid idea and over-turned the ban. Higgs, a Gashead, hopelessly out of his depth.
Wael, a Jordanian, hopelessly out of his depth.

from a similar source....

BREAKING:

Bristol Rovers have been warned by HMRC that sending in their financial accounts late will incur a £100 fine, wiping out their complete new player budget for 2019/20 season.

It's not strictly true to say we're owned by a bank when we're in fact owned by Dwane Sports who's 4 main shareholders are shareholders of the bank, the bank don't actually own us nor have a charge on the Mem, we've really no idea where the finance is coming from, it could be from their own personal wealth, the AJIB, or a completely difference source. 

Dwane Sports is a vehicle of AJIB. We are de facto owned by a bank.

I think the shareholders of DS are 4 individuals.  If those individuals are majority shareholders in AJIB I think that construction is true

But I'm not sure that the are the majority shareholders.  Also, I suspect that the goals of DS (be bankers, make money) might be different from those of DS (provide WAQ with a path through football, make money if possible)

I just posted this on Gaschat and thought it may be of interest on here. It was in response to a post putting forward the view that Rovers finances were not in bad shape and I wanted to illustrate that, by any normal standards, they are in a terrible shape. But there is a joker in the pack which is the value of the Mem and this is something I'm not too well versed in (especially values in Bristol) so a possible reason for recent comments by knowall is that he knows of a deal which values the land at far in excess of what we have been led to believe.




"When I read the report about the Professor of Football Finance my first thoughts were that he had been asked for a comment and he gave a quick off the cuff answer without going into the accounts for detail. It is true that at June 30th 2017 Dwane Sports were owed £8.6 million but former shareholders were also owed nearly £1 million at that date and by the time the accounts were published, and the comments made, the company had probably lost another 2 million. So with debts amounting to nearly £12 million that £15 million credit facility was not looking quite so comfortable and the Professor should have spotted this. More concerning was that there was no revelation in the accounts as to how the losses were going to be addressed and financial stability restored which should have set alarm bells ringing with a competent analyst. And it is tempting fate to imply "the Al-Qadi's have plenty of money they will keep funding the football club come what may" even if that were true.

The whole family's dividend income from their 29% share in AJIB is about £4 million before tax and the dividend income from their 27% share in the Four Seasons Hotel company (METICO) is about £370 000 before tax. How can they possibly continue to fund Rovers' losses of about £2 million per year ?

But here is my take on what could be knowall's reason for optimism.

When the 2018 accounts are published the Dwane Sports loan may well be up to about £12 million against the official Mem valuation shown in the accounts of £11 million. It is generally agreed that the £11 million valuation is conservative and the Sainsburys £29 million valuation unrealistic. But what if the £29 million, or even more, was not unrealistic and the true value of the land in the eyes of a particular type of developer was far in excess of what we imagine ? What if such a developer was in touch with members or former members of the Presidents Club and was so keen to get his hands on that land that if a deal could be done he would help with the construction of a new stadium for Rovers ? It may not be a huge stadium and the issue of funding the football club in future would still have to be addressed but it would give us a new start and our fate would once again be back in the hands of long standing Gasheads. This would IMO be positive but it is not what some were hoping for which may explain why knowall said "most Gasheads would like it".

Pure speculation on my part but if this scenario did exist one can imagine some serious issues between the potential buyers and Dwane Sports. Would they demand an unacceptable level of profit on the land they were so astute in buying at a knock down price in 2016 ? And would Wael put a spanner in the works by insisting on remaining as a part owner so that he could continue with his football fantasies ?"

All great, except;

The Civil Service club sale was reported as being agreed at £25m.

People don't just agree this sort of thing on a whim, you know how it works, they take advice, the agent acting for the vendor won't expose himself to the risk of underselling the asset.

That number of £25m, whilst unconfirmed, kept coming around from different sources, so, what's troubling me is, why would anybody pay more for a smaller piece of land that is more challenging to develop?

Can anybody point to anything that Knowall has ever got right? 

Forget Sainsbury's number, it wasn't real, was it?

That seems like a decent shout to me