Dermot Desmond

What deficit are you talking about?

People constantly quote that Desmond has invested £70 - £80 million in Celtic.

Does anyone know in what form?

Lennoxtown was around £15million and I think that he basically paid for that. Where is the rest he has invested?

 

Someone will break it down through the years he has been with Celtic ,,Lennoxtown wasnt bought by DD ,he and the rest of the Celtic owners paid for it.

 

Fair enough, I thought he was the main provider of the funds for Lennoxtown.

When people make the point that he has invested £8million, it is nearly always suggested that he has got nothing back for this and he has put the money down the drain.

I would guess that if he has invested £80million, most of it will be held in shares, which although he would make a loss on, he could get a fair percentage of his money back.

Like I said earlier, I think he is OK, but when this £80million figure is mentioned, it is often referred to as if he has ploughed this money in, without the possibility of return, which I don't think is the case.

 

Lets get one thing straight here ,He is a businessman who happens to support Celtic ,he is here as a fan but he will want something in return ,people can say clubs are toys to these money men something to play with ,crap they want to earn out of it aswell .

 

Only Man City have the kind of owners that just throw there own money at the club without thought for recouping that money in some way or another.. most other clubs do have to be run as a business I would imagine.. I dont blame him for not throwing his billions at us I know I wouldn't. its his own personal fortune and the reason he has a personal fortune is because he doesnt like to through it away like confetti. I would probably do what he does and if the opportunity arises, fund the wages of a guy like robbie keane which is something we should probably be happy about rather than acting like spoilt weans..

 

OK, I think I have that straight now.

I not doubting that he wants something in return, that is why he hasn't just put £80million into the club, he has it in shares, which will get him a return, albeit, probably a diminished return from what he has invested.

All I'm pointing out is that his biggest supporters regularly mention this £80million although it is money spent that he will never get back, which isn't the case.

 

What a stupid thread.

This man along with McCann are the only reason we are still in business today. When McCann became chairman in 1994 Desmond gave him £4 million. In 1999 he put in £8 million of his own money. He brought Martin O'neill to the club, funded the deals for Bellamy and Keane out of his own pocket and provided the funds for lennoxtown by underwriting the share issue to the tune of £10 - 15 million to bring Tommy Burns dream to life. He has also lost a considerable amount of his fortune in the current economic climate.

His fortune is closer to £1 billion these days and he probably only has around £150 million in hard currency.

Also, why criticise Desmond? He is not even the richest shareholder at the club. It is Denis O'Brien so why not leave Desmond alone and be * grateful that you have a club to support thanks to him.

Rant over

 

agreed, Desmond gets a hrd time of it for nothing. Did he no put in £6million for Lennoxtown and the fans puts in £8million or so in a share issue? I could be wrong. Still a fantastic sum of money imo. Not to mention the fact he has refused every year to take his dividend.

 

People are only complaining like this because if they were in his shoes with that kind of personal wealth they would control it differently i.e trying to bring in far better players.

Yet here comes the paradox because people on here would do it differently than desmond means that none of us are likely to become as wealthy as Desmond because of our mindset. As people have stated he is a business man and it has made him rich. If he had our mindset he would not be the wealthy man he is today.

 

DD has been let down by previous managers imo , given our clubs current wage bill its clear he has invested more than enough to expect a lot better than has been delivered and that is down to bad management !! Only 2 teams can realisticly win the spl and he must be wondering like a lot of the fans are how the * has the team been such a shambles the last few years especially when we,ve been paying so much more than any other team wagewise , far to much money has been spunked on very very average players !!

 

Given what`s happened to other clubs like portsmouth who were running at an unsustainable level in terms of expenditure as they never had a reliable source of income to back it. We play in a league where financially it is not viable to buy top quality players, one the transfer fee`s and wages would run the club into the ground and you cannot expect Dermot Desmond or any other investor for that matter to bankroll such an idea.

Take David Murray as an example, he has invested a fortune in them and now is in financial trouble. Murray like desmond has other buisnesses and responsibilities to thousands of workers, he cannot afford to invest millions in one thing and neglect the other.

Celtic`s stable source of income comes from matchday income ( 3rd highest home attendances in Britain) and currently even this has fallen with attendances less than 2 years ago. If we moved to england and played at the same level as, arsenal man utd and liverpool we could see the same investment as these teams. One because we have a greater financial backing from tv and other sources, plus the attendances would be at a maximum thus allowing us to spend money on field ( 3 sources of stable income).

Personally I would rather have a team to support 10 years down the line rather than have unsustainable investment for short period of success. As much as it has been dissapointing over the last 2 years on the field, the prudent way Peter Lawell and the board has Celtic in a decent position financially.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This!

 

Mate, are you serious? You want the guy to put 30 million pounds of his own money into Celtic, for no return, just for the feeling that he's "part of this great club?"

Look around you at all the other guys who pump money into their favourite clubs and bankroll them. Are any of these clubs playing in the SPL? No, they're not - wonder why that is. Where are these clubs? Mostly in the English Premiership aren't they? That's a coincidence. All these wealthy business oligarchs from foreign countries ploughing money into their favourite clubs for the love of it, and their favourite clubs all just happen to be in the richest, best-connected league in the world. What's the odds against that then?

Even when billionnaires pump money into a club, you'll find it's very rarely their own money. It's largely money from the banks, and it leaves the club in debt at the end of the day. The Premiership clubs - despite (or because of) their wealthy "backers" - have debts totalling about 5 billion. That's billion.

"nobody puts money into a football club to make money" ???
OK sure, they're just philanthropists. Your outlook is appealing, I admit, but you can't draw real world conclusions from it, cos it has no basis at all in the real world.

 

It's made up of the ordinary shares, peference shares and convertable preference shares that he has bought in the club, without someone buying all those shares there would be no Celtic today? He also underwrote the share issue for Lennoxtown.

He put his money where his mouth was and invested, I don't see a big long queue of other investors lining up to give us their financial bancking.

I don't think anyone has every said he expects to get nothing in return, it's an investment of course he wants to make a return on it but if it was purely for investment purposes he would have pulled out long ago. People have said that he doesn't take his dividend, what actually happens is he's part of the dividend re-investment scheme so that the dividends are re-invested back into the club and he gets shares in return, he can still only do this while is shareholding remains under 30%.

If he makes a loss on his investment (which he's likely to do when he eventually sells) it's not exactly a great investment now is it? It means that all the years he's had money tied up in Celtic he couldn't use that money to make a profit elsewhere so you have to consider the opportunity cost of an investment as well as the actual monetary investment. DD knew his investment would likely make a loss, yet he still made that investment so again, to me that shows his commitment, but still you get a lot of Celtic fans basically demanding he gives us more of his hard earned cash, why should he?

 

he got keane in with his own money? funny that we got over 3m for skippy and more from others that went out in jan last year, so DD never paid for keane at all..... if anything if you want to believe the rumors people said it was down to denis o'brien who got keane in with his own money that he paid the 2m price for the loan and celtic paid his 65k a week wage, thats if you believe the rumors

so none of them paid for keane and the money we got for skippy, fox, robson and co paid for keane 5 month stint at parkhead

again a few people have said he has put in around 70m-80 of his own money and yet no-one can account for what it has been spent on?

i think some people would like him to put some more money into the club, well everyone would but is there not a loop hole where he can donate money with out having to buy shares?

 

what about the owners of man city and also roman at chelsea, they never got any loans from banks......

 

So let me see if I have the undertone of this thread correct. The main reason we have not been successful over the past few years is because of lack of quality players, which is down to MONEY and DD is getting the blame for this simply because he HAS money.

Is this the same DD who, if reports are anywhere near correct, bankrolled Robbie Keane's wages, or the lion's share on his own?
The same DD that has underwritten Lenoxtown?
The same DD that, as majority shareholder and Board Member, has sacked/paid off 1 Management Team this year and employed another?
The same DD that has sanctioned around 16 players coming into this Club over the last 12 months?
No, the reason we have not been successful over the past few years is because of what has happened on the field of play, whether it be @ Parkhead, Hampden or in Europe.

If you look at what has gone on in the EPL, Man Utd's current situation has been financed by debt - around £600 ml - and it is increasing each year. Chelsea's wages/purchases have been financed by Abramovich who has now said 'enough is enough'. Arsenal need to find £25ml per annum just to service the Interest on the debt/stadium. Man City's purchases have been financed by Middle Eastern Oil and are crazy, e.g. Joe Hart, 19, Goalkeeper out on loan last year and now on £70k per annum.
In Italy Inter Milan's finances/debt are mindboggling as are Real Madrid's in Spain.
So to DD I say this,
'Keep doing what you are doing. Thank you for putting your hands into your pockets and keeping this Club's head above water at a time when others are on bobbing about in rough seas. I hope you will be around for a long time to come.'

Oh and if you are interested in our financial situarion over the past few years and the effect of 'no European football' on us AND the financial situation of other Clubs like Inter, Blackburn Rovers etc, have a look at 'The Swiss Ramble' referred to in the Forum a few weeks ago. Brilliant and Eye Opening read.

 

ive been saying this for adges cant see him doing it he prob make whes 30 million in a month in intrest. ano its a lot of money to give away but if he is such \ celtic man then he whould not think twice ano if i was in his postion id happily hand over 50 million as long as it was spent on the right players

 

just wondering did DD come out and say he was the one who with his own money paid the 2m loan fee and the 65k a week wages for him for 5 months?

cause ive not seen it anywhere

also Abramovich has spent around 300m-400m probs more at chelsea and then this summer spent a bit again

also if he has so called paid for keane then why can't he do it again??? if not for keane then an other big player..... cause thats what people would be asking......

 

There were rumours that DD bankrolled the two Keane's deals, I don't think he did, certainly not the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Roy</st1lace></st1:City> one as it wasn't mentioned in the financial statements, I haven't read this years financials yet but I doubt it was mentioned in them about the financing of Robbie Keane's deal. Due to the rules around reporting related party transactions these deals if financed by a major shareholder would have to be disclosed in the financial statements, so I think it's fairly safe to put those rumours to bed.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
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However, they way our club has been ran financially enabled Celtic to be able to finance those deals so some credit for them should go to DD.<o></o>
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If you think he earns £30million per month in interest you'd be wide of the mark, if I had the time or inclination I could check the financial statements of his companies and check exactly, you see that's the thing with PLC's is that disclosure requirements means it really easy to get figures. <o></o>
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As I've already stated he doesn't have £2bn sitting in a bank account gathering interest, he has a portfolio of investments that generate a profit for him, these investments are fairly illiquid in this current financial environment so even if he wanted to sell them to get some cash to invest in the club he'd find it difficult.<o></o>

Why should he just hand over his money to us when he's already made a substantial investment in our club?