Following last week’s Q&A with Dan Altman, we sent some follow up questions courtesy of Trust members to find out more behind the share purchase and any plans from now on.
1. Now that you have a significant percentage of club shares, can we expect to see further acquisitions from you?
Our investment group could only buy shares at a price that fairly represented the value of the club. We preferred to buy the unissued shares, so that our funds would go directly towards helping the club succeed. Existing owners including Andrew Kelly offered us shares at valuations close to our own, but the board has not done the same with the unissued shares.
2. Is your long-term goal to secure a controlling interest in the club?
We began with that goal, because we believed that we needed full control of the sporting side of the club to ensure that our tools and ideas would be implemented.
3. Are you aiming for a seat on the board?
We think the current board has been very generous with its time and has split up responsibilities in a way that plays to its members’ strengths. If the board would like us to offer our expertise in this way, then we will certainly consider joining.
4. How do you see your role in the club if you are unable to add to your current shareholding?
As supporters!
5. Would you be looking at other clubs to invest in if you cannot increase your shareholding at Rochdale?
We wouldn’t consider holding a simultaneous investment in any club that competed directly with Rochdale.
6. Have you done any preliminary costings of the proposals in your statement?
According to our due diligence, the upfront costs of our proposed investments would come to between £3 and £4 million. We also expected that some of the investments, particularly the new commercial staff to report to David Bottomley, would eventually pay for themselves.
7. Where will the balance of funding for those proposals come from?
At the time of our offer, we had already received sufficient commitments from our investors to fund the upfront costs in full.
8. If it’s through loans how will those investors see a ‘return’?
Again, the funds for our investment would have come from our investors exclusively in the form of equity.
9. Against what would any loans to the Club be secured?
In the event that we made zero-interest loans to the club, the loans would not have had any collateral.
10. Are we going to see you and your business partner Emre Marcelli back at the Crown Oil Arena when live football resumes?
We definitely hope so! We truly enjoyed our visits.
11. How do you see the tensions between a ‘Sporting Director’ and a ‘Manager’ at any club you were involved in being resolved?
Things have changed a lot in the past couple of decades. Most top-tier clubs now carry both of these roles without any significant conflict. We think Rochdale can, too.
Finally, we’d be more than happy to join the Supporters’ Trust once membership is open again.
Thanks to those who sent in the questions and to Dan Altman for taking the time to answer them.