Dear Trust Member

The board of the East Fife Supporters’ Trust (The Trust) has confirmed it is working towards an offer to buy East Fife FC from the club’s major shareholders.

This follows direct contact with the club’s major shareholders by the board of The Trust to express concerns about the club’s position following the recent resignation of the East Fife FC’s chairman, Mr Lee Murray. As a result of that contact, the major shareholders indicated they would be interested in receiving an offer for their holdings from The Trust.

After the recent resignation of Lee Murray as Chairman of the club we established contact with the club’s majority shareholders to express our concerns. They indicated they would be interested in receiving a bid for their holdings from The Trust and we are now working with Supporters Direct Scotland to develop a plan to make that happen.

The Trust see this situation as an opportunity, finally, for our club to be owned by our supporters. Clearly it will require great commitment from our supporters both financially and in other ways for our efforts to succeed. Obviously much work has to be done and it will not be possible to provide updates on every detail of the negotiation but we will aim to keep everyone advised as far as we can.

Supporters Direct Scotland has already advised several other clubs on supporter buyouts including Hearts, Dunfermline and Stirling Albion. Supporters Direct Scotland has committed its full support and is currently advising on the creation of a financial package and business plan required to facilitate the purchase.

A public meeting of supporters is planned for Saturday 30th August following the club’s home match against East Stirling.

We look forward to having everyone’s support.

Very good news. Thanks for the update Eugene.

Pipe dream

For pipe dreams go to agenda. Let's be positive about this potential new future

Brilliant news will be at the meeting

Thanks for update Eugene . It great news that the trust is off the mark so quickly. May need to revise my opinion of lack of transparency and need of a shake-up! Look forward to positive result, a lot of hard work to come.

Let's all pull together and posters not waste effort in adverse comments, think positive.

Will there be a buffet?

Great news !! A ray of hope out of all the doom and gloom of last week

If you are willing to wait for half an hour in a queue the folk fae the pie stall will be serving up delicious cold pies at the end of the meeting.

Lets hope us supporters stay together and follow the same commitment to run a club like east fife and have a future in scottish fitbaw. I like to see the last of Twigg/Johnstone and co to have anything to do with the club we love.
Its now up to us to make this happen and buy the club and buy into it, lets stay together and support the club which is east fife football club.

So lets all don't do walking away and support the club.

Make no mistake about it this is a one-off opportunity so we HAVE to make this work. If the fans dont buy into the idea then there is no white knight waiting in the wings to ride to our rescue.
If this fails then the club will remain as is! There are other developments not least the 3G pitch that will go & be gone forever if it doesnt happen now!
PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE support this or we will forever remain in the dark ages.
This model of fan ownership has worked for dozens of clubs throughout Britain, lets make our's the latest & best.
This is not the time for petty squables, if we dont like the folk running the Trust that is immaterial, they may not & probably will not be the ones that end up running the club, WE the fans will!
There will be mistakes made but they will be made with the best of intentions but the only way to influence any decisions is get involved but more importantly support it the best way we can.
Some of us might not be able to contribute much financially but we can by promoting it to everyone we know & by turning up at meetings & fundraisers.

if we do go ahead and buy the club, us supporters will need agreement from other supporters on decisions for the best of club to make a success and keep everyone happy as we have supporters sometimes who appear on here moaning at club prices, not going back to bayview etc...meetings should be held every month of every season to make the right decision for the club thats the way forward and if supporters cant make the meeting and have ideas they should e-mail the trust people or club.
like trustee the snowman said this is a one-off opportunity and i hope we become another club that the fans run like Stirling Albion are and we are going places making the club better than at the moment we are at stand still. Lets make it happen i say

Brilliant news. A good start would be for all those who pledged to the crowdfunding to withdraw and pledge it to the trust for this fund.

We need to see how much of the fund raising goes to Rankine's pocket and how much goes to developing the club.

I stated elsewhere that I believe only a nominal amount should go to Rankine - the rest will be needed to operate a club in the form of working capital.

I also don't like the idea of paying in installments - what if there is a default. A nominal upfront payment and he's gone.

Finally a little bit of light in a very dark tunnel. I look forward to attending meeting after Shire game. I hope we can get a great turnout for this meeting and I'm sure we will.

Can I ask why the majority shareholders are willing to sell to trust but not Lee Murray and co? Slightly confused by whole situation to be honest.

Can someone from the trust clarify exactly what they are attempting to purchase from the current major shareholder. Is it football club name, stand and ground i.e. everything as we are at the moment or is it parts off where we rent the ground?

Thanks

I have nothing but the utmost respect for the members of the Trust board & would them to take over the running of the club but they all work full time so how can they possibly do it with everyone's help? That's why WE the supporters have to help in whatever way WE can. That's the point I was trying to make

The Trust will be purchasing a 52% stake in the club. The surrounding land and the ground would also be in any deal.

The purchase will made and be run by our \'offishal\' name which is East Fife Supporters\' Society Ltd.

This is our constituted name and, at least I think, it\'s a great name as it doesn\'t seem to lend to only the Trust. It looks, as we will be doing, to incorporate every section of the East Fife Family. Like never before, each individual supporter has a role they can play. It could be from attending a game, to painting a wall to donating their hard earned cash.

One thing for sure is that you will hearing a lot from us. We can\'t do this alone.
We look forward to seeing you all on 30th August.

Football without fans is nothing.

Why change the name,The Trust is the Trust,Is this the end of the Trust. Don't like it changing.

Why change the name,The Trust is the Trust,Is this the end of the Trust. Don't like it changing.

Why change the name,The Trust is the Trust,Is this the end of the Trust. Don't like it changing. 8

Why change the name,The Trust is the Trust,Is this the end of the Trust. Don't like it changing. 8

Think the man from del monte says nay.... and thrice nay !! Ooh er missus

Stupid spam numbers

Yeah. I'll remove them for tomorrow. Should be ok now.

Now here is a novel idea, someone has shares to sell, you pay them all the money they want as a non refundable deposit, then there is then no money left over. The working capital is what you have left over from advertising, entry to the football, corporate etc.(that is what you call income) then you pay all the staff, players, VAT, all the incidental bills, not forgetting electric, water, diesel, fertilizer and bonuses to players etc (that is what you call expenditure). If there is anything left over you might subsidise a bus or two and what is left after that is what you use to pay up the rest of the money he/she wants for the next 12 years, if not he / she keeps what has already been paid but if all the money does get paid you get share certificates. Simples!!!!! Don’t think it will catch on though.

Assuming that the price is this crazy 400k then there are a couple of problems with that idea.

1) club doesn't make a profit so won't be able to make the annual payments. Any ongoing payment comes straight out the playing budget. Could the club survive for 15 years at the bottom of the 4th division or in the lowland league.

2) Will supporters donate money to pay 400k for something that is worth far less than that? I won't.

There is also the further problem of paying the debt inherited from the existing owners.


How about instead we wait.

Let the owners deal with the debt that accumulated on their watch ...... If they can't / won't deal with that debt then they have to write off their investment.

Clear majority shareholders want out and not prepared to inject capital into the business.Surely ripe for a discounted sale subject to a detailed analysis of the current state of the club's balance sheet and forward projections.Only then will it be wise for any party to submit an informed bid. I hope this can happen within a relatively short time frame.Good luck to any potential buyer who can analyse the financial complexities, salvage the club and avoid a melt down situation.

What? You want people to stop asking questions and raising issues? Are you mad? It is very difficult to ask too many questions right now. All scenarios must be considered if we are to go into this with any chance of success.
It is all very well to say shut up and leave it to the trust committee, but what if they get it wrong? Why should I put my money into someone else's bad idea?

It is quite important to separate out the legal entities here

East fife football club is operated by east fife football club limited - this entity generates revenue, pays costs and is owned by lots of shareholders but the twigg rankine shareholding is biggest at 52%.

The supporters trust is a shareholder of the same company and wants to increase it's holding by purchasing shares from TR.

The idea seems to be that the supporters trust raises money and uses this to buy shares

In return for presumably a five figure deposit TR gives the trust voting control of the shares.

In return the trust agrees over a period, say 10 or 15 years to pay £X per year to TR to buy the shares held. If the trust fails to pay this money in any given year the deal is off and TR have received funds towards a share purchase that then doesn't happen

Win win for TR, not a good deal for the prospective purchasers. It's like taking a mortgage on a house, paying it for years and then because you miss a payment it gets repossessed with no recompense .

In the meantime the football club is presumably not allowed to attract investment by a new share issue as this would potentially dilute the TR shareholding below 50%.

Without the ability to attract new investment into the football club ( rather than Neil rankines bank account) the football club could go under in the meantime in which case the fundraising is for nothing. The other risk is that by the time control is achieved and handed over the I club by this time has nosedived into the south of Scotland league or whatever and what you then have is a shell of what was once a proud senior football club.

Sorry if this is deemed as negative, but I suspect anyone who has a bit of knowledge on here will recognise this as the real situation we are facing.

Absolutely 100% correct. Trust committee, please cut out and keep. Your current takeover strategy is not going to work. Please think again before trying to sell this to supporters.

Dragon

Just because we don't like the mechanics of the deal being proposed ( btw ask the people invołved and they won't dispute the reality of my post) doesn't mean we don't support the idea of fan ownership

However, if a deal is a bad deal then you don't do it. Our club is on a downward spiral and this is not going to be arrested by fundraising efforts all going into paying off twigg / rankine.

What is the solution ? Tough question, it may be that ultimately we need to decline further ( administration) for a true fan funded takeover to happen

Nothing is easy but channelling any monies available to TR is not a solution by any means.

Dragon you are missing the point. The trust should be the way ahead but it has to be the right deal if it is to be successful. We will only get one chance at this.
Agreeing to buy the club at the wrong price would end in disaster. The terms that have been mentioned on this forum already has some fans saying "i am not going to give money to this buyout bid because I do not believe it stands a chance of working even if it is accepted."
It is not about personalities, it is about getting it right.

WONT HAPPEN

It will happen,if the fans back it.

We WILL do this. Waiting for administration is not a option. We need people with the best interests of East Fife FC to be in control of the club. Please be there on Saturday and listen to what the working group are proposing.

Hear, hear. To coin a phrase often used on this site -

POST OF THE WEEK!