Finance Expert shares West Brom loans verdict after takeover news
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive West Brom columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns...
Dan Plumley has insisted that the repayment of loans at West Brom will be the topic of negotiations in any potential takeover of the club.
The Daily Mail reported on 25 July that Fred Chesnais is in talks over a £60million purchase of the club and its assets, including the ground and training facilities.
iNews recently shared that there are £12million of loans unpaid at the club, with Plumley sharing that the repayment of those after any takeover would likely be included in negotiations with Guochuan Lai.
“It’s always a negotiation,” he exclusively told West Brom News.
“I think from the due diligence perspective, what you would expect a good ownership to do that’s coming in and looking to buy the whole club, you would want to be looking at the debt attached to that club and where it sits, you should be budgeting for that.
“You have to factor that into your calculations linked to your total price of the club, so whatever the club is plus all the other debt collateral attached to it.
“Then, it becomes a negotiation and you might not go in and play your hand on that by saying that’s the value, because it has all the debt loaded in.
“You’re probably going to start a little lower and there’s probably going to be a conversation about that particular part of the debt and that’s where it often gets really complicated and where it often tends to get held up as it comes down to those details.
“The responsibility should probably sit with the person who owes the money, but it’s never as simple as that.”
In other West Brom news, Plumley has also predicted that a change of ownership is needed at The Hawthorns