If it all kicks off again on the takeover front over the next few weeks, there is one little sentence that old Ferret reckins is worth keeping handy somewhere.
Stick it on your bedside table; slap a Post-It note on the fridge door.
It's that statement the club issued in the midst of Round Two of Cullum-gate this summer; the one that valued the Canaries at �56 mill.
Keep that figure in your head. That was their opening demand. You want the club – and you want to pump �20 million into Glenn's transfer coffers – right, this is what you're going to have to pay… �56 million.
It's a starting position. Let's be honest; it's like selling your house, you start high and work your way down…
The key bit is where the club got the other �36 million from; how they broke that down.
Right, Cullum says he wants to give Roeder �20 million to spend; for that he wants 'control of the club'. The rest broke down as follows…
“The figure includes �16 million to buy up shares at the current issue price of �30 each, �16 million to pay off the club's bank debt, which would be called in if a takeover went through, and �4 million to repay loans from directors.”
Now, that's where the hard bargaining will have to be done. In amongst that little lot.
The moveable objects are the price that Delia and Michael would take for their shares; Cullum's offer is currently, er, nothing. Their current demand is �30.
So, can the 'King Of Deals' be persuaded to meet them half-way? The �4 million repayment of loans to other directors is probably an easy one; no-one would like to be 'outed' as the man – or woman – to block a billionaire's path to owning Norwich City Football Club.
The one to keep your eye on is that �16 million to pay off the club's bank debt – 'which would be called in if the takeover went through…'
That's worth remembering. In normal times, there's a deal there – particularly for a man with �1.2 bill up his sleeve.
But as far as the banks are concerned – be it the lads with the overdraft or AXA with the rump of that 2003 �15 million securitisation deal, these aren't normal times.
These are up-the-proverbial-creek-without-a-paddle times. And if someone is contractually-bound to pay you up on a change of ownership, you take that money and run. Run right out of football and don't look back.
And that's where Mr Cullum may yet have to re-do his back-of-fag packet sums. Cos if Delia and Michael are going to play hard to get when it comes to giving away their controlling interest in their football club for nothing, you can bet your bottom dollar that AXA aren't going to play it easy either.
They have a ticket out of the game. And in all likelihood, they'll look to cash that ticket in.
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