one final cash injection

Plymouth Argyle: Owner Simon Hallett pledges one final cash injection

Plymouth Argyle owner Simon Hallett says he will give one last "substantial amount" of money to the club to see it through the Covid-19 pandemic.

But the United States-based businessman says he will not give any more money to the League Two Pilgrims in future.

Hallett first joined the board in 2016 and has invested more than £6m since.

"The cash that I am putting in this time will, however, be the last such injection from me," he said in a statement on the club website.

"We are already thinking about further ways to reduce our cost base to overcome the short-term difficulties, and, once this crisis is over, we will need to be more reliant on the investments we've already made to generate the resources needed to achieve our longer-term goals.

"This cash will be used to protect Argyle from some of the bad financial outcomes that we think may happen in the absence of financial support for EFL clubs from some other party."

Having initially invested £500,000 and taken on £650,000 of debt when he first joined the board in May 2016, Hallett has since written off a £4m loan and put in £1.5m to help complete work on Home Park's new Mayflower Stand in November last year.

The lifelong Argyle supporter says it is impossible to have a business plan as the club do not know what league they will play in next season or when crowds will be allowed back.

The English Football League postponed all games in mid-March and there are still questions on the financial future of clubs if supporters are not allowed into games due to social distancing measures.

League Two sides have indicated their intention to end the season immediately. The Pilgrims are set to be promoted to League One after finishing in third on average points per game, the EFL's preferred method of deciding promotion.

'Tough times ahead'
Plymouth have yet to release their retained list, but will do so 'shortly'.

But Hallett said any new deals for players will be affected by their new financial reality.

"Players must accept that tough times are ahead," he added.

"Argyle has honoured all of its contracts and will continue to do so, but new contracts will look different from those in the past and will provide for as many different scenarios over the next year as possible.

"It would be irresponsible and threaten the survival of the club if we were to promise to make payments to players (or anyone else) over a period when we simply do not know when you, our fans, can buy the tickets, the pasties, the drinks, the programmes, and the replica shirts that help to provide the money for those payments.

"The club's management and staff must continue to make sure that every penny is always spent wisely in ways that help to protect us from financial disaster and secure our continued existence - not only as an aspirational football club, but also an asset for the community.

"This injection is not for spending on items that would be nice to have in different circumstances. We must adapt to the world we are in, not be driven by the world for which we hope. We are all in this crisis together, and our spending must reflect that."

This is the statement on the [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] website-

Hello, everyone.

I hope you are all staying safe, and at the very least sticking to the government guidelines to help control the further spread of this awful virus.

By all accounts, the South West has been relatively lightly affected, at least so far. That must, in part, be thanks to people like you who have acted sensibly in the face of the risks.


We must remember, though, that everything is relative, and we know that many of the Green Army and their families have suffered greatly from the effects of this pandemic. To those hit hard by the virus, Jane and I, along with everyone else at the club, offer our heartfelt condolences.

Argyle, I am glad to say, has been offering more than words alone. We acted quickly to hand over our newly-renovated Mayflower Grandstand to the NHS, and, while most of our staff are furloughed, several have volunteered to help our Community Trust in their efforts to reach out to those of our supporters we fear are the most vulnerable, or in need of help.

Our Community Trust has been very active, helping to encourage people to keep fit during lockdown with online classes, and has joined forces with Plymouth City Council to offer its resources to the Good Neighbour Scheme. In the local business community, we continue to pay our small creditors promptly, and are grateful to some of our larger creditors for their forbearance in making payment terms easier for the club.

Many of our staff have been furloughed, but those that remain have been working hard to make sure that we stay in communication with our fans and are prepared for when football can return. Last week, we were able to reopen our online store, with deliveries being prepared by staff back from furlough, who are, of course, observing the social distancing rules. We are very grateful for everything they are doing.

We are doing what we can while there is no football being played, but the lack of revenues from playing matches in front of their fans threatens the financial stability of all football clubs. Argyle is no exception. When I wrote to you in April, I said that we are relatively well-positioned to withstand the rising financial stress that is inevitable when there are costs that continue every day and few revenues coming in - but that we are not invincible. If football itself is threatened, then so are we.

Someone asked a week ago what our business plan looked like. I replied that it is impossible to have anything close to a meaningful business plan when there are so many uncertainties about the next few months, let alone the next few years. We do not even know what division we will be playing in, let alone when we can start selling tickets again!

Having a clear business plan is therefore currently impossible, but what we can do is be thoughtful about possible outcomes and do our best to keep as many options open as we can, while protecting against the worst that may happen to our finances.

Our goal has been sustainability, and we were well on our way to achieving that goal of having our revenues equal our costs. At the moment, we have very little income, and no immediate prospect of having much more until we start playing again in front of the Green Army.

My role since becoming Argyle’s owner has been to provide the money to invest in our future. The longer this virus goes on, the more obvious it is that I have to do more to protect that long-term future. The best way to do that, while keeping options open, is to put cash in the bank.

I will therefore be injecting yet another substantial amount into the club in the next few weeks. This cash will be used to protect Argyle from some of the bad financial outcomes that we think may happen in the absence of financial support for EFL clubs from some other party.

The cash that I am putting in this time will, however, be the last such injection from me. We are already thinking about further ways to reduce our cost base to overcome the short-term difficulties, and, once this crisis is over, we will need to be more reliant on the investments we’ve already made to generate the resources needed to achieve our longer-term goals. Those investments include not just the visible - the Mayflower, for example - but also the less visible. In the last two years we have changed personnel throughout the club, improving capabilities, but increasing costs.

Everyone in the Argyle family has a part to play. I have described mine.

Players must accept that tough times are ahead. Argyle has honoured all of its contracts and will continue to do so, but new contracts will look different from those in the past and will provide for as many different scenarios over the next year as possible.

It would be irresponsible and threaten the survival of the club if we were to promise to make payments to players (or anyone else) over a period when we simply do not know when you, our fans, can buy the tickets, the pasties, the drinks, the programmes, and the replica shirts that help to provide the money for those payments.

While there has been so much uncertainty, we have been reluctant to publish a retained list of out-of-contract playing staff to whom we would like to offer new contracts, but we will be doing so shortly. We owe it to our playing staff to give them some certainty in a world where so much is uncertain.

The club’s management and staff must continue to make sure that every penny is always spent wisely in ways that help to protect us from financial disaster and secure our continued existence – not only as an aspirational football club, but also an asset for the community. This injection is not for spending on items that would be nice to have in different circumstances. We must adapt to the world we are in, not be driven by the world for which we hope. We are all in this crisis together, and our spending must reflect that.

Your role as fans is to support the club where you can – by making direct donations, buying stuff from the club shop (online only at the moment, of course, but what a response to the new kit!), waiving season ticket refunds, if you are able to do so, and so on. I realise that times are tough for almost everybody. Do what you can, but we will also understand if you can do no more than you already have.

What everyone can do to help, though, is be patient. Our short-term goal is survival, and we are better placed than most to withstand this crisis. But that also means that we will not be doing some of the things that you may ask for. Again, we are protecting our resources to improve the probability of our survival. That will determine our priorities.

This is a global tragedy that has already caused a global depression. It will change the future of the world in ways that are as yet unknown. Like all fans, I hope that football survives, and believe that it will. If it does, Argyle will thrive.

We need to make sure that we are still around to enjoy those times. That means generating the financial strength that we need and, of course, staying healthy. Staying healthy means being careful about our financial resources, and, of course, staying safe.

Thank you, as ever, for your support.

Simon.

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You’ve got to hand it to SH he’s put his money where his mouth is, fair does and understandable that enough’s enough

nice one Simon.

Thank you Simon for all you have done for the club during these times.

Fair to say this reads as a transparent statement - in contrast to the murky bilge from the previous regime. At least as supporters we know where the future of PAFC stands for the time being.

I still think that with Hallets business model league 1 will be as far as we go under his stewardship. Maybe well get lucky and land a couple of the better players but well never match the investment that other owners are willing to spend on squads. Personally I think in a year or two Argyle should be very attractive to someone with the money to make a push on an equal footing to these around us.

Earwegoagain wrote:

I still think that with Hallets business model league 1 will be as far as we go under his stewardship. Maybe well get lucky and land a couple of the better players but well never match the investment that other owners are willing to spend on squads. Personally I think in a year or two Argyle should be very attractive to someone with the money to make a push on an equal footing to these around us.

if it is then im sure he unlike Stapleton will accept that fate and sell the club. I agree in a year or two it will be very appealing and that is what i think simon is trying to do make us look like a professional football club with great facililites on and off the pitch football and corporate. The sooner we start generating income revenues bar simon and the fans the better.

Tin hat on.

Sorry but I struggle to accept the "isn't he wonderful, bailing out our club" love in

The reality is that SH is an investor who owns a business called Plymouth Argyle. The supporters do not own this business or have any influence in how it is run.

He runs the business, decides policy, budgets etc. and if he has to put money in to support his business, that is as it should be. If in future, the business makes a profit or is sold, that money will, quite rightly go to SH, none of that gain will go to us, the customers.


In a way, it's a wonderful trick, telling the customers that it's "their" business and getting them to be grateful that the owner is making up his losses.

I understand what you are saying above, but what's the alternative to Argyle being owned by private investors ? Either it wouldn't exist at all or it would be owned by fans. And clubs owned by fans are usually prety sh1te to be honest.

To be fair, I don't think Simon Hallet has done much wrong since he took over. He has paid off Brent and then ploughed in more cash than anyone in the club's history (as far as I know). I don't think he sees Argyle as a money making exercise. In fact, it's probably a good way to lose lots of money. So fair play to him. I think he's a genuine bloke who actually supports the club.

It's the tone of the "I'll make one more cash injection" press release that gets me. A business he runs has made a loss meaning he has to put money in. Fine, happens to lots of businesses all the time. But the way it's presented (and the way lots of fans take it) make him seem like some Messiah like saviour of "our" Club, when he's just a businessman covering the losses caused by his inability to get a very well supported club running at a profit.

If St Austell Brewery lost money and the owners said "Don't worry, we will put some money in" would everyone say how grateful they are? No!


Edited to add.

Instead of making out it's a magnamanous gesture, he should be saying that as the business owner, it's up to him to sort it out and get it running at a profit!

Grovehill wrote:

Tin hat on.

Sorry but I struggle to accept the "isn't he wonderful, bailing out our club" love in

The reality is that SH is an investor who owns a business called Plymouth Argyle. The supporters do not own this business or have any influence in how it is run.

He runs the business, decides policy, budgets etc. and if he has to put money in to support his business, that is as it should be. If in future, the business makes a profit or is sold, that money will, quite rightly go to SH, none of that gain will go to us, the customers.


In a way, it's a wonderful trick, telling the customers that it's "their" business and getting them to be grateful that the owner is making up his losses.

 

again for the 7th time he isnt a billionaiire and doesnt have a bottomless pit to keep injecting these big sums in this succession.

Grovehill wrote:

It's the tone of the "I'll make one more cash injection" press release that gets me. A business he runs has made a loss meaning he has to put money in. Fine, happens to lots of businesses all the time. But the way it's presented (and the way lots of fans take it) make him seem like some Messiah like saviour of "our" Club, when he's just a businessman covering the losses caused by his inability to get a very well supported club running at a profit.

If St Austell Brewery lost money and the owners said "Don't worry, we will put some money in" would everyone say how grateful they are? No!


Edited to add.

Instead of making out it's a magnamanous gesture, he should be saying that as the business owner, it's up to him to sort it out and get it running at a profit!

I totally agree.

However

Where were you when Brent was absolutely taking the piss whilst 'the ever so grateful' on PASOTI were thanking him for making them suck his dick?

Straight to the point Punchdrunk!

I have to agree with what you ask. Maybe he was one of the 'so grateful.'

mandela wrote:

I understand what you are saying above, but what's the alternative to Argyle being owned by private investors ?  Either it wouldn't exist at all or it would be owned by fans. And clubs owned by fans are usually prety sh1te to be honest.

To be fair, I don't think Simon Hallet has done much wrong since he took over.  He has paid off Brent and then ploughed in more cash than anyone in the club's history (as far as I know).  I don't think he sees Argyle as a money making exercise.  In fact, it's probably a good way to lose lots of money.  So fair play to him. I think he's a genuine bloke who actually supports the club.

That’s about the size of it.

Grovehill wrote:

It's the tone of the "I'll make one more cash injection" press release that gets me. A business he runs has made a loss meaning he has to put money in. Fine, happens to lots of businesses all the time. But the way it's presented (and the way lots of fans take it) make him seem like some Messiah like saviour of "our" Club, when he's just a businessman covering the losses caused by his inability to get a very well supported club running at a profit.

If St Austell Brewery lost money and the owners said "Don't worry, we will put some money in" would everyone say how grateful they are? No!


Edited to add.

Instead of making out it's a magnamanous gesture, he should be saying that as the business owner, it's up to him to sort it out and get it running at a profit!

Geez you don’t half talk some bollocks. In a comparatively short time, Hallett has put in millions more of his own cash than any other owner in our history, and it’s a reasonable bet he won’t ever get a return on that. Those are hard facts.

And your attempted comparison analogy of a brewery with a football club that has tens of thousands fans (lapsed or otherwise) with a lifelong emotional attachment, is properly dimwitted.

Erald comment today



 Zak Brown  @zakbrownz






[ltr]James Brent did great for us in difficult time’s, But Simon Hallet is just incredible! How did we get this lucky as a club!! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
  [/ltr]

Punchdrunk wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

It's the tone of the "I'll make one more cash injection" press release that gets me. A business he runs has made a loss meaning he has to put money in. Fine, happens to lots of businesses all the time. But the way it's presented (and the way lots of fans take it) make him seem like some Messiah like saviour of "our" Club, when he's just a businessman covering the losses caused by his inability to get a very well supported club running at a profit.

If St Austell Brewery lost money and the owners said "Don't worry, we will put some money in" would everyone say how grateful they are? No!


Edited to add.

Instead of making out it's a magnamanous gesture, he should be saying that as the business owner, it's up to him to sort it out and get it running at a profit!

I totally agree.

However

Where were you when Brent was absolutely taking the piss whilst 'the ever so grateful' on PASOTI were thanking him for making them suck his dick?

Getting threats about my job and being banned from Pasoti-all because I questioned why Webb & Newell backed Brent's takeover

akagreengull wrote:

Erald comment today



 Zak Brown  @zakbrownz







[ltr]James Brent did great for us in difficult time’s, But Simon Hallet is just incredible! How did we get this lucky as a club!! [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.] [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
  [/ltr]

brent did absolutely nothing for this club and history not written by his fan club will attest to this. He came here to make money on the carpark redevelopment and nothing more it can be argued that he succeeded with that in terms of the profit made whe n simon bought it back.

Yep we know that, but the reason for posting this comment is to illustrate that there are plenty of the eternally grateful who mistakingly compare the shyster to SH in the same vein.

akagreengull wrote:

Yep we know that, but the reason for posting this comment is to illustrate that there are plenty of the eternally grateful who mistakingly compare the shyster to SH in the same vein.

I can't see anybody casting Hallett in the same vein as Brent but on the other hand there is no way any owner should hold the position and just have his arse licked. Evereybody is now sounding like the farm dwellers were when Brent first rocked up and it's quite fookin naeseous. I personally think he's a very good owner and is miles apart in his motives from the asset stripper Brent but fans are quite within their rights to ask questions or even be wary of him. My main concern is that Hallett has plans to become a nice sustainable club at "our level" and migrate between leagues one and two for the next ten years. We are quite obviously at the start of a new debt free era with new facilities but after a couple of years Hallett will have to either put in more funds to make a push up a level to become a sustainable CCC or look to sell to someone who is.

Grovehill wrote:

Punchdrunk wrote:

Grovehill wrote:

It's the tone of the "I'll make one more cash injection" press release that gets me. A business he runs has made a loss meaning he has to put money in. Fine, happens to lots of businesses all the time. But the way it's presented (and the way lots of fans take it) make him seem like some Messiah like saviour of "our" Club, when he's just a businessman covering the losses caused by his inability to get a very well supported club running at a profit.

If St Austell Brewery lost money and the owners said "Don't worry, we will put some money in" would everyone say how grateful they are? No!


Edited to add.

Instead of making out it's a magnamanous gesture, he should be saying that as the business owner, it's up to him to sort it out and get it running at a profit!

I totally agree.

However

Where were you when Brent was absolutely taking the piss whilst 'the ever so grateful' on PASOTI were thanking him for making them suck his dick?

Getting threats about my job and being banned from Pasoti-all because I questioned why Webb & Newell backed Brent's takeover

To be fair to Grovey he did speak out against Brent on the non free speech forum and got the full Nipple Nool treatment, i know because i got banned at the same time.

Hallet puts money into the club, Jimmy the Green made money out of the club big difference.
Nows the time for Brent to put some of the money he made out of the club back in now the clubs struggling , how about it Green Jimmy ?

Absolutely no chance of that Suffs!

sufferedsince 68 wrote:

Hallet puts money into the club, Jimmy the Green made money out of the club big difference.
Nows the time for Brent to put some of the money he made out of the club back in now the clubs struggling , how about it Green Jimmy ?

he cant do that he has ponies to buy his daughter