The New Raith Rovers Thread

[renton]

11 minutes ago, Against The Machine said:

We'll definitely need more details, but shivers are already running down my spine. 

At this stage, all I'm interested in is motive. What does a deeply opaque Hong-Kong/Seychelles based investment group want with a Championship football club? 

There's a YouTube interview with the founder, Peter Chun, who's mentioned in the BBC article, and he's talking about how Silverbear Capital are working with billions etc etc. If you take him at face value, the football club doesn't even have enough assets to make it worth their while asset-stripping. So is it just a passion project for him? If so, why? 

f**k all regulation regarding ownership? Relatively low starting money required vs. Even English tier 5? Not enough fans to stop you doing whatever the hell you like?

We're fucked either way. What is the Trust position on this? Do they have any inclination to try and do a fan buy out? If they did and succeeded we'd likely settle down into the Nether regions of Scottish football. If this goes ahead we likely implode 6 months or 5 years down the line and start looking forward to our derbies with Cowdenbeath in the EoSL.

[MazzyStar]

Silverbear Capital Inc made contact with Sim through representatives based in Switzerland about six weeks ago.

[Raith Against The Machine]

1 minute ago, renton said:

f**k all regulation regarding ownership? Relatively low starting money required vs. Even English tier 5? Not enough fans to stop you doing whatever the hell you like?

We're fucked either way. What is the Trust position on this? Do they have any inclination to try and do a fan buy out? If they did and succeeded we'd likely settle down into the Nether regions of Scottish football. If this goes ahead we likely implode 6 months or 5 years down the line and start looking forward to our derbies with Cowdenbeath in the EoSL.

There's low starting cost v the English fifth tier, but there's also absolutely no pay off. At least in England you can spend a fortune knowing that if you make it to the Premier League one day you'll basically get it all back again. There's no prospect of that up here. 

Scottish football clubs aren't difficult to buy. Anyone with access to a million quid could have a Championship club inside two years, if not immediately. 

As I alluded to before, I can't even read a negative motive into this. It just flat out doesn't make sense. There's no reason - good or bad - for a hitherto unrelated business from Hong Kong to want to buy Raith Rovers. 

[Frank conner]

7 minutes ago, Offshore Rover said:

Let’s face it, we knew sim was going to sell at some point as he’s not exactly a young gun nowadays. But I wonder if him coming out publicly about wanting sell us a bit of a “f*** you” to the supporters. He’s never been the most popular of people with his outbursts in interviews and statements, even more so this year in January … So this makes me think he’s went ‘ah well, you don’t like me? Fine, take your club and shove it’. Toys out the pram vibes. 
 

Anyway, I’m all for a new owner. I’d rather an investor than fan owned at this point in time. In the future maybe fan owned is the best but for now it will give us all something to look forward/worry/talk about. 

Would folk be happy if he sold the club without telling anyone? If Newcastle fans don't care about journalists being dismembered then why should we worry about these guys.

[johnnydun]

7 minutes ago, Raithie said:

Foreign investment in Scottish football is always a worry for me. Keen to know his motives and why us? 

Rovers are a medium sized Scottish club, and wouldn't look out of place in the prem. I would imagine that, with the right investment,  Scottish football would be one of the easiest leagues to reach a European competition, says me eh!

Scottish football itself needs to change though to make steady profit. Market itself better, maybe they are thinking they can increase the exposure in China, like Nelms is trying in the US.

[Enigma]

13 minutes ago, renton said:

We're fucked either way.

Pretty much. Throughout my time supporting the rovers we’ve spent our time yo-yoing between Championship and League One, we’ve on the spiral back down again, make no mistake. I’m at the point where I’m ready to take the chance with Mr Burns’ mystery box. Fan ownership would just see the most well-kent in charge (not the most able) and the dead wood behind the scenes would remain. The club run by committee type stuff at the likes of Stirling Albion doesn’t enthuse me one bit. As you say, in that scenario we can look forward to being reunited with Cowdenbeath.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Enigma

[grumswall]

I do hope sim is true to his word in that he wouldn't hand the club over to just anyone as he said in a k107 interview iirc. If these people do have the best interests of the club at heart then I'm all for it. I think as a fan base we deserve a bit of good fortune considering all the shit we've endured over the past 2 decades. 

[Ludo*1]

32 minutes ago, Against The Machine said:

We'll definitely need more details, but shivers are already running down my spine. 

At this stage, all I'm interested in is motive. What does a deeply opaque Hong-Kong/Seychelles based investment group want with a Championship football club? 

There's a YouTube interview with the founder, Peter Chun, who's mentioned in the BBC article, and he's talking about how Silverbear Capital are working with billions etc etc. If you take him at face value, the football club doesn't even have enough assets to make it worth their while asset-stripping. So is it just a passion project for him? If so, why? 

We have similar with our American owners. They are Texan billionaires and really have no reason to bother with us but a decade in they've been the best owners in my lifetime. Plenty of mistakes have been made and John Nelms, the guy they have installed as their day to day guy makes some absolutely horrendous decisions but overall they've provided stability.

As for what's in it for them, well, they've viewed it as an easy way to get into European and UK business. With the new stadium project, they are trying to embed themselves within the city with a whole range of different business ventures but mainly property. Finally, Nelms even is part of one of the more successful Scottish IPA brewing companies. A relatively small Scottish football club is viewed as easy access to the UK market and a bit of fun at the same time.

Alternatively, as Dundee also know only too often, these guys could be complete fraudsters and ruin you quicker than you thought possible. And even though we've been stable for a decade, we still can't rule that out with our American owners!

Either or.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Ludo*1

[renton]

 

4 minutes ago, Frank conner said:

Would folk be happy if he sold the club without telling anyone? If Newcastle fans don't care about journalists being dismembered then why should we worry about these guys.

1. Not sure being more decent than your average Newcastle fan is the moral low bar we should be trying to vault over, even if we have failed as a club to reach even those heights in recent times.

2. From a purely selfish perspective, if these guys were mass murderers that'd have less of an impact on Raith so long as they were solvent mass murderers and this lot could well be total shysters.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

I suppose buying us, turning us into a money making operation in the league above (stick with me here)  then selling us again at a profit would interest a few folk. 

[TxRover]

3 minutes ago, Against The Machine said:

There's low starting cost v the English fifth tier, but there's also absolutely no pay off. At least in England you can spend a fortune knowing that if you make it to the Premier League one day you'll basically get it all back again. There's no prospect of that up here. 

Scottish football clubs aren't difficult to buy. Anyone with access to a million quid could have a Championship club inside two years, if not immediately. 

As I alluded to before, I can't even read a negative motive into this. It just flat out doesn't make sense. There's no reason - good or bad - for a hitherto unrelated business from Hong Kong to want to buy Raith Rovers. 

That’s a pretty good summary of the WTF side of the equation. It would seem more likely they either represent someone trying to enter sports ownership/management or, just perhaps, someone inside Chinese football who may be trying to acquire a series teams across leagues to improve recruitment. It’s just post World Cup, and once again there was no representation from the world’s most populous (for now) country. There is a policy, at the National level, within China that is encouraging development of Chinese football talent, and a goal of World Cup participation, if not domination.

Other thought, after checking out the people at Silverbear, these two jumped out:

“DOUGLAS WIESENTHAL
Partner – Sports Investment Banking 

Mr. Wiesenthal is a US trained attorney (J.D. Emory Law School 1980) with an MBA from the IESE Business School in Barcelona, Spain (1988). He has been working in professional sports in Spain since 1988.

A serial entrepreneur, he has successfully started three sports businesses, representing professional golfers, professional handball players and professional football players.

Prior to the FIFA ban in 2015, Mr. Wiesenthal was also active in third party player investment, working with football players and clubs both in Europe and in South America.

Starting with an initial investment of $500,000 in 2006, by 2012, he and his partner, Alberto Argibay, generated more than $14,000,000 in revenue from player sales.

 

ANDRÉ GIELING
Partner – Sports Investment Banking 

Mr. Gieling, 52 years old and living in Holland and Spain, is an ex football player of Ajax Amsterdam. He was playing there for seven years and was considered to be one of the biggest talents of Holland that time.

After six knee-operations (five at only one knee), his agent (the famous Cor Coster, father in law of superstar Johan Cruijff) became his companion.

The old Coster and Gieling have worked for 15 years together in the world of football transfers. Gieling is now 32 years in this business, made more than 200 deals and transferred some of the biggest names.

In all the years Gieling (and his worldwide network) have made some clubs very rich. Many times they brought very cheap or free players to clubs in Europe. Later the players were sold for huge amounts of money.

Gieling thinks and knows that it’s very lucrative to be the owner of one or more club(s). The relatively cheap players will be scouted by the network, be trained and managed through the best specialists he knows and transferred through the same network of (old) players and coaches.”

 

[Enigma]

2 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

I suppose buying us, turning us into a money making operation in the league above (stick with me here)  then selling us again at a profit would interest a few folk. 

Yeah there are clearly reasons why people without any emotive connection to the club might chose to buy us, for one we’ll be cheap, but the German owners down the A92 seem to have some sort of plan in terms of building an academy in an area poorly served by the SFA performance school programme presumably with the aim of creating a production line of young players they can then sell on. Whether it work or not…

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

19 minutes ago, Against The Machine said:

Scottish football clubs aren't difficult to buy. Anyone with access to a million quid could have a Championship club inside two years, if not immediately. 

If you f**k it up, you could be a Championship club and end up in the 1st Division.

Heil, Heil, the Pars are here.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1 hour ago, lellywong said:

Sim looking to sell club to Hong Kong investor according to BBC Sports website.  Exciting/worrying news

Nothing bad has ever come out of China.

 

*cough, cough.

[Michael W]

PE outfits exist to generate returns for themselves whilst stripping assets lest their investment fails. And if losses are incurred they will slash budgets in a jiffy. Really, a shady PE outfit is about as bad as it gets tbh. Why are they interested in a failing, lower league Scottish football side that can barely sustain itself? 

I can't help but think they are looking at acquiring an asset on the cheap, which just so happens to have a football club attached to it. We are unfortunately ripe for shysters wanting to run some speculative venture. 

And to cap it all off, that c**t Gordon Smith has been "advising" them. 

This seems...worrying. 

[TxRover]

4 minutes ago, Michael W said:

PE outfits exist to generate returns for themselves whilst stripping assets lest their investment fails. And if losses are incurred they will slash budgets in a jiffy. Really, a shady PE outfit is about as bad as it gets tbh. Why are they interested in a failing, lower league Scottish football side that can barely sustain itself? 

I can't help but think they are looking at acquiring an asset on the cheap, which just so happens to have a football club attached to it. We are unfortunately ripe for shysters wanting to run some speculative venture. 

And to cap it all off, that c**t Gordon Smith has been "advising" them. 

This seems...worrying. 

Except for the fact our assets are already more stripped than celebrities in Ibiza.

[raith1974]

Im not going to say too much until we get some more details. I'm always sceptical firstly if it will actually happen and secondly what their motives are for the club. I look along the road at Dunfermline and remain sceptical about their German investors. On the face of it they appear genuinely interested in a youth programme but is that to their benefit or the club. 

Only time will tell if this goes through to see if it moves the club forward or puts us out of business. As someone has said though it doesn't take much to get into the top league and stay there. Look at Ross County and QP who may go up this season.

[TxRover]

5 minutes ago, raith1974 said:

Im not going to say too much until we get some more details. I'm always sceptical firstly if it will actually happen and secondly what their motives are for the club. I look along the road at Dunfermline and remain sceptical about their German investors. On the face of it they appear genuinely interested in a youth programme but is that to their benefit or the club. 

Only time will tell if this goes through to see if it moves the club forward or puts us out of business. As someone has said though it doesn't take much to get into the top league and stay there. Look at Ross County and QP who may go up this season.

The plus side to a youth development program is it inherently advantages the team running the program, as well as the investor. You get young talent to play, and help develop, that you might not get otherwise. Granted, that talent will be sold on, but for effective investment, your club must be successful to put those lads in the right window for viewing, and you hold the talent for a season or two to maximize value developed.

[Michael W]

23 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Except for the fact our assets are already more stripped than celebrities in Ibiza.

The real value of the stadium is not what it is built on it. 

[Beachbum]

Would these Hong Kong chaps still be interested if it was only the club up for grabs and not the club plus Starks?