Sons' sorrow

[O'Kelly Isley III]

1 hour ago, Eadie is God said:

What do you think the end game is for these people?

The most charitable interpretation of the end game was to create a housing development on the land to the North of the ground and the revenue generated would provide a financial return to the holding company, and also a return to the football club for the land they 'sold' to said holding company (see also above).

After a five minute Google search this looked frankly fantastic, but not in a good way, and so it has proved.  Unfortunately though some folk bought into the idea and that has proved unhelpful.

From what we can gather it's all now going Pete Tong.  We'll see, but after almost 152 years there's a number of committed people who won't allow DFC to go down on our watch, so I remain optimistic that better days lie ahead.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

I cannot for the life of me understand how this is legal. 

You and me both Moonster.

[sonsanorak]

Do you need planning permission or council approval to lay astro then rent it out every night?

Is it technically a change of use?

[Nowhereman]

2 hours ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

Under the Dumbarton Football Club entry on Companies House, charge SC00 9005 0012 is listed in favour of Pendragon Group Ltd, the subjects being the entire site at The Rock.  The pdf document list the DFC signatories as Directors Henning Kristoffersen and Neil Dermott.

And therein lies a key to what happened in April 2021.  There wasn't so much a buyout/takeover/purchase of DFC as a coup in which the club Board of the time had no direct knowledge never mind participation in the process.

A short time later the Trust requested a meeting with the BOD to discuss the matter and we were informed that by the time the football club Board learned of what had happened the situation was a 'fait accompli' (direct quote).

In fairness to the BOD we understand that strenuous efforts were made at that time to hold the principal actor in Cognitive to account but these came to very little.  As a result, the then Chairman, Finance Director and two Associate Directors resigned their positions.

In short, there appears to have been very little by way of involvement by the BOD as Cognitive arranged the pieces on the board to facilitate their gameplan, including the setting up of More Homes DFC Ltd as the vehicle for housebuilding, whilst leveraging DFC assets as collateral.

It’s difficult to tell because the plan on Companies House isn’t in colour but is the car park not excluded from the Pendragon security?

[Nowhereman]

And the More Homes DFC security in favour of Pendragon appears to be granted over the car park area. Which is odd because that means they must own the car park. Which they haven’t paid for

[BallochSonsFan]

A forensic accountant and a Philadelphia lawyer would struggle between them to unravel the mess that is Dumbarton FC's takeover by Cognitive Capital. There are names and dates in the public domain, on documents lodged with Companies House, that certainly hint at some of the things that have gone on. And you can guarantee that there will be far more buried away and hidden that people don't know.

By virtue of a series of less than transparent dealings, Cognitive

-  bought Brabco's majority shareholding

- almost immediately (seriously, check the dates on the documents and the dates certain people were appointed to the club board) granted security over some, or all, of the land currently used by the club to Pendragon

-  bought the development land from the club for a "mibbies some time in the future" price of £1.8million, that they have marginally more chance of paying off in chocolate coins rather than real money.

-  failed to secure planning permission and have entered into more than a bit of a panic.

We've spent the past 2+ years trying to establish some verifiable facts and evidence and to challenge the most concerning aspects of Cognitive's ownership of DFC. The only thing that any of us can say with 100% certainty is that the whole thing stinks worse than the Morrison's fish counter.