Should Fosun sell?

[Elephant Pyjamas]

He's saying there isn't currently a buyer engaged with Fosun - I think.

 

[Johnny75]

He's saying there isn't currently a buyer engaged with Fosun - I think.

He doesn't know that either.

No-one does.

 

[Alan]

I cannot imagine Fosun selling the club and it not coming with a violent curl of the monkey's paw.

 

[Mel Evo]

The Accountant makes complete sense to me. Having been dragged into the muck and bullets of PE for far too long personally it looks highly likely it’s overdue to move us on. In my opinion we badly need one of their ‘fireside chats’ to come to fruition and hope like hec we get a good new owner and not the entirely plausible scenario where things get worse. Despite all the mistakes and issues they have grown the business significantly and that, really basically, makes a sale conceivable. In my (partial, of course) experience there often is a buyer, however unlikely it might seem, if the business has grown. Oh, also, the buyer can be remarkably blasé about all sorts of aspects of the DD if they have a driver to acquire, so logic around the finances can be hanged. People on this forum will be way more knowledgeable of and interested in the detail and pitfalls of an investment than the folks whose cash it is, crazy as that might seem.

 

[The Accountant]

Option 2 doesn't work for them in a logical sense though. As a PL club we are probably worth circa £250m - Newcastle went for £305m so adjusted for club size / not owning the stadium site, as a Championship club probably around half that - Leeds went for £170m. Asset stripping isn't going to fill that delta and every season in the Championship sees that value drop. A run of the mill Championship club takes us back down to the £45m they bought us for as they have added little infrastructure wise to increase that

Option 2 is obviously not the preferred one, but being in the Championship does not necessarily make a sale more difficult because less people are going to expect a buyer to pay a fee that may or may not be unrealistic right now.

Worst case scenario, Wolves becomes a ghost club like Swansea.

I worked with Trevor Birch when he was appointed CEO there. The owners didn't want to sell without getting their money back, and they also didn't want to invest anything at all. Birch said like it was: "between July 31 2017 and July 31 2018, we had a total turnover of £125m. By 2022, the turnover needs to be - and will be - £17m".

Instructions were clear: sell everything possible to sell (we we're lucky because manager Graham Potter had done a great job with some of the young players in the club), downsize the academy, only bring in players on loan or for free. Keep sustainable until a fluke promotion to the PL or some unlikely bidder showing up.

Their American owners still had to put in a little bit of money, despite being very reluctant to do so, in order to keep the club running. They're probably still doing that, But unlike in the Premier League, where only Brighton & Hove Albion is profitable and most clubs make severe losses, the amounts are not eye-watering. You can be a (nearly) ghost ship in the Championship and if you're very good at cutting costs, you can profit from the first year of parachute payments.

There is a bit of speculation from my part in these posts, but I can repeat what I know for certain: Fosun does not want to run a football club. They don't have the money, the expertise or the support from their lenders. They want to get out, but they don't want to sell it cheaply because there's a lot of people in China watching them and expecting them to sell their properties and assets at good value. And currently there's not much interest.

Another thing I know is that they've realised that the Wolves brand is a lot more valuable than sporting success. You could have eleven Joacim Bjorcklund and the club would still be worth £100-200m. Obviously this won't happen as they don't want the spotlight, which would be the case if Wolves ended up at the bottom of the league with no points. But the days were Fosun cared about what happened on the pitch, and the quality of the squad, are over.

 

[Tyrannosaurus Dan]

Well, that hasn’t cheered me up

 

[Templeton Peck]

So they tried to do it on the cheap with Lage and it failed. Panicked, spent a load on J Lop and lied to get him to come and protect the investment. With survival achieved this summer feels like a reset of the low spend strategy which you obviously can't do with someone like Lop. Enter Mr Gary O'Neil.

This strategy must have implications for their relationship with Mendes then surely? Unlikely to spend 35m on unknown strikers anytime soon. Or care about luring good players who otherwise wouldn't be interested. Maybe Doc is the last favour.

 

[Tredman]

Mendes has clearly moved his focus to Saudi. I doubt he gives a shit about Fosun anymore. Wouldn’t at all be surprised to see that percentage of Gestifute owned by Guo sold back to Mendes too.

 

[Kenny]

Mendes has clearly moved his focus to Saudi. I doubt he gives a shit about Fosun anymore. Wouldn’t at all be surprised to see that percentage of Gestifute owned by Guo sold back to Mendes too.

Any sense and Guo will be increasing it. Can get his £50m+ profit from there instead

 

[Wolf Hunting]

What would be the feeling if suddenly the unmistakable silhouette of a Sheik rose over the horizon, with a camel loaded down with sacks of gold coins...?

 

[Tredman]

An icky feeling of mild racism?

 

[Tony Towner]

An icky feeling of mild racism?

Stop virtue signalling, we all know you'd be on Sky Sports News with a tea towel on your head