Wasps 22 Discussion Threads

[django68] 15/11/2022 15:53

I assume many of you have seen reporter Simon Gilbert's comment on the FB page. He will be covering recent developments on the BBC tomorrow and is looking for bondholders to share views with him. There are a few members on this forum that seem well informed/knowledgeable on this matter - please respond to him asap (he's left his email and phone number in that post) . Good press coverage showing how retail bondholders are potentially being crammed down will be key to improve our situation. I'm new to this forum but key points I've read so far: bondholders feeling rather helpless given a seemingly passive security trustee coupled with a complete breakdown of communication channels from trustee to bondholders because investment platforms (and these should be be named) are either not plugged into Euroclear/Clearstream (where trustee is pushing information to bondholders) and/or not relaying this info to their customers and therefore preventing bondholders to form a significantly large enough group to sway things their way

[kb68] 15/11/2022 12:35

How or who do I contact as a bond holder of 25000 units?

[mills8] 15/11/2022 08:28

What is anything will happen with the P shares?

[mills8] 15/11/2022 08:14

Is it certain that the proceeds will be divided equally between all creditors, I ask because of the wording in the notice to bondholders, which states:

As if they were not subject to security (does this imply that the security will still be considered? If not, why use the words 'as if')

It then continues with:

Subject to the proceeds after applicable costs being applied towards repayment of the liabilities which are secured on those assets, according to the particular priority ranking (is this not stating that the bond holders will have priority?)

[1bondinvestor] 14/11/2022 22:07

If the property is sold contingent on the court giving consent to set aside the legal charge, the proceeds would be divided between all creditors, not just the bondholders. We would be very fortunate indeed to receive as much as 45p in the £ quoted in one of the posts. We need to do everything possible to help those organising the response guided by a competent legal team. The costs are not insignificant. I urge you to contribute to the crowd funding site if you have not already done so. If you know of any holders who haven't revealed their investment we urgently need them to identify themselves.

As matters stand the buyer of the property is looking at a profit of £30m or more funded by the losses sustained by bondholders.

[fastcat99] 14/11/2022 18:26

This crowdfunding link really should work ! Please repost asap if it doesn't!
hxxps://www.crowdjustice.com/case/wasps-bondholders-court-hearin/
(NB "the 29 days to go" announcement is NOT relevant to this exercise; we want to raise money NOW)

IF you are someone already known to the organisers and participating in our internal pledging system, you should already have received emails from Val yesterday (at 20:11 and 21:28 precisely, in my case!) and today 14:07, 'so you know what to do'; if there's a problem, please reply by that route, using heading "Crowdfunding - personal issue"

IF you are NOT in that category, contributions are still VERY welcome! As a rule of thumb, offering funding at 0.75% of your nominal holding will align your contribution with our internal pledges, but of course ANY support is extremely helpful. You will not be counted (statistically) in the number of those Bondholders being represented in legal proceedings, but even this can be resolved if you are also prepared to send us proof of your holding and email address. That final step is equivalent to registering on our email lists via Trustee authentification; less private, but much quicker.

[btlnewbie] 14/11/2022 17:35

New here, but I'm a small bondholder and have supported legal rep at Court.
1 The offer is for £15.8m, not £17m. The other £1.2m has gone to fund ongoing trading costs pending the deal.
2 The £15.8m is for 'all the assets' of Arena Coventry Limited (“ACL), Arena Coventry (2006) Limited (“ACL2006̶1;) and IEC Experience Limited (“IEC”). I've seen no carve-up of how much relates to the asset charged by the bond, and how much to other assets.
3 The admnistrators are relying on Insolvency Act 1986 Sch B s71 to sell the charged asset, and the judge will have to judge what the assets would be worth under this deal or on a slow sale through liquidation.
4 I've not seen the lease but we seem to be accepting that the lease is worthless on liquidation - is that so?

[grahamg8] 14/11/2022 17:24

One wonders whether the bond holders should offer £1 to buy the assets and leave the charge and bond in place with extended terms. Effectively we would be paying £35m for the £35m we already own. Then put a manager in to run the Arena business while a proper sale process is conducted.

[django68] 14/11/2022 15:53

Re. threads below indicating that the trustee has received an offer. Does anyone know if this is part of an organised auction process(ie has the trustee hired a financial adviser to manage this and hopefully maximise potential proceeds)..or is this just an unsolicited lowball offer which precedes a more 'serious' sales process?

ps: thank you to the activists on this thread who are pushing things with the trustee and obtaining legal help (btw legal crowdfunding site doesn't seem open yet). I'm a newcomer to this thread and just contacted the trustee to register my ownership

[pusb] 14/11/2022 14:50

Just had another look at the prospectus. “ The Trustee also holds the benefit of the security on trust for and on behalf of itself, the paying agents under the Bonds, the Account Bank and the Bondholders. These obligations are enforceable by the Trustee only, not the Bondholders themselves.”

Taken literally, would that mean that we have no right to direct representation in court?

[cardsurfer] 14/11/2022 11:21

Trustee advises £15.8m offer plus £1.2m advance funding for 'exclusivity' in place - total £17m. I'm not sure what other expenses will need to also be deducted first, but I expect the administrators will submit a very hefty charge for their services. I suspect payback in the pound anywhere between 30-40%. I hope the court will kick this out on Thursday (and I'm contributing to the fighting fund being raised for getting a solicitor to represent bondholders), but tbh I'm not feeling very hopeful that the court will stop this legalised theft. Logic/fairness simply does not play a part in these affairs..

[pusb] 14/11/2022 11:15

I’m not sure where you get “a gain in excess of £30m at bondholders expense” from. The offer is £18m less than owed to bondholders, the last valuation did not take account of dilapidations and loss of a tenant. There are are still proceeds from sale of Wasps Holdings and the P shares to come. Taking this into account, repayment at 85p in the pound is possible.

I said that liquidation would follow the failure of the application to court, and that is a definite forfeiture event. Challengeable - yes, but at a cost, followed by more expense if the challenge is successful. We should be careful what we wish for.

[django68] 14/11/2022 11:09

Thanks for posting. I'm seeing this thread for the first time. I find it incredible that that the administrators and/or security trustees are not seeking to obtain the details of bondholders publicly (eg by asking for this on the wasps bonds website?) so that the bondholders can be offered a vote on important matters? Aren't they legally required do use their best efforts do do this?

[1bondinvestor] 14/11/2022 10:39

The trustee today confirmed that the offer for the property is £15.8m + £1.2m non- refundable exclusivity fee. It is on the basis of setting aside the legal charge so that the proceeds would be shared by ALL creditors. The price compares with the last known valuation of £51.4m in March 2021. It is stated that if the terms are not agreed the company holding the long lease will be put into liquidation which would trigger a forfeiture, ie, reversion back to Coventry City Council. Looks like the buyer is looking at a gain in excess of £30m at bondholders' expense. Legal advice has been obtained & some of us will be represented in court this coming Thursday at the hearing. We need to do more to (i) attract support from bondholders who have not come forward & (ii) subsidise legal costs by a donation to the crowd funding website. The site will be up & running shortly @

hxxps://www.crowdjustice.com/case/wasps-bondholders-court-hearin/dashboard1

[bondholder] 14/11/2022 09:54

15.8 million offer45p in pound for holders

[11madmax] 13/11/2022 20:27

Push agree 100%. Hopefully as part of the fallout from this fiasco will be that the FCA tighten the rules/law around trustees and protections for retail bond investors. Investments (like this one!) can go wrong, fair enough, but the fact bondholders are scrambling to crowdfund legal representation at the High Court with less than a weeks notice to prevent a stitch up is shocking. I too will steer well clear in future.

[pusb] 13/11/2022 17:45

I had to look tendentious up, not a word I use often or would apply to what my thoughts, expressed in my post, are. The arena sale is not the only source of funds and until we get more details we won’t know what the overall position is. I thought more details were to be provided yesterday (Friday) - hopefully know more early next week.

There should be lessons learnt from this whole fiasco - security is not necessarily secure, brokers suffer from extreme lethargy and Trustees don’t act in good faith for those whose interests they are supposed to protect. I certainly won’t be investing in this sort of scheme in the future.

[barondene] 13/11/2022 17:40

Your legal team might ask if anyone at Coventry City Council has been involved in the Receivers negotiations and / or have they given any undertakings or similar

The Leader of the Council has said they have specifically stated no bail out assistance will be provided. They also deny any involvement in discussions concerning any proposals.

However the CEO of the Council has stated "the Council" have had involvement with WASPS on refinance and development etc

The Receivers should be challenged as to who they have been dealing with and what authority have they seen that person can so Act

All matters pertaining to the Lease (for example ) should receive Council approval

[fastcat99] 13/11/2022 17:32

What’s the difference between a fire sale and a secret bid (with an implicit, but still UNSPOKEN, “take it or leave it” kicker !) ?!
My instincts are that, if Mr Ashley really wants the Stadium (and that will surely be determined by issues not immediately germane to the Bond), his first bid will not be the last.
And at least one other bid has already been received (NEC), so why use tendentious language?

[pusb] 13/11/2022 17:07

Liquidation may result in a transparent sale, but probably at a lower price as it will then be a “fire sale”.

[dandigirl] 13/11/2022 12:08

The application to the Court by unidentified lawyers is an attempt to set aside our security to sell it to an unknown buyer at an unknown price [but insufficient to repay bondholders in full] with, so far, no attempt at justification whatsoever.

I want to say that I would be amazed if the judge doesn't throw it out but having seen so many barmy decisions by the courts in recent years nothing would surprise me.

If the unnamed buyer wants to repay bondholders in full, great. If not, I do hope he/she/they depart the scene, quickly.

Personally, I would prefer a sale which is fully transparent rather than this back room blag which most/many bondholders will not even be aware of.

[pusb] 12/11/2022 22:41

I expect that Ashley will withdraw his offer if ACL’s administrators don’t get the order they are seeking next week, followed by ACL liquidation.

[fastcat99] 12/11/2022 18:33

CesareBorgia What the internet tells you is legally correct - just about "possible" as WF is an empty shell dependent on moneyflows from elsewhere in the Wasps Group (the other public parts of which will all be fully under Administration after Thursday's High Court)
Whether WF can REMAIN outside administration when it (surely) defaults on the 12 November 2022 Coupon, will depend on a mixture of insolvency law, the actions of the Trustee and the (still secret) terms of the offer by the Preferred Bidder for the ACL companies.

[cesareborgia] 12/11/2022 16:24

Has this been just another series of diversions. If you ask the questions on the internet is Wasps Finance plc in administration the answer you will get is that Wasps Holdings Ltd is in administration but Wasps Finance plc which was the issuer of the bond is not.
Can anybody help me out here?

[fastcat99] 12/11/2022 11:48

@L25
I think your interpretation of Interactive Investor's "thought process" is very plausible; now you can demonstrate that apparently they have actively misled you, and others, Customer Service complaint(s) might well be appropriate!
- a few months ago, I did this with another platform re my Wasps holding and their announcements: I did get paid a "good dinner's worth" compensation,
- I'm not sure any real lesson has been learned by the exercise, but one can only try...