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https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...manov-13530163
Sadly he’ll only get tried in his absence
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https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...manov-13530163
Sadly he’ll only get tried in his absence
Stay safe sweet prince (to coin a phrase from kickback, used even as the yams teetered on the brink of liquidation).
Does he still have plenty of money in Russia?
Huge fine, borrow the cash and then owe it to himself.
‘he owns a bank’ was absolute nonsense-he was the largest shareholder with about 40%.
I knew he didn’t have much personal wealth when I seen him leave riccarton in a 2 year old Volkswagen phaeton. The Bentley of the Volkswagen range that depreciated quicker than it accelerated. Nae multi millionaire gets chauffeured in a phaeton.
What he did and the millions he squandered on the Jambos are as nothing compared to the £185 Lady Haig Poppy Fund was stiffed for.
Is it correct that wins funded by the proceeds of criminal activity are void? Seem to remember there was chat about this a while back.
Should be an interesting trial, the devil is in the detail and a clear account of how Hearts were funded during those years might educate a few Hearts fans, who are sure it was the big, bad global financial crisis what done it and that Vlad was a victim of circumstance.
My uncle was a shareholder. He went to the AGM and voted to increase the debt to £40 million as they were going for the champions league.
Told me proudly a couple of weeks later about increasing the debt and champions league blah blah blah. I asked him why they were increasing Hearts debt instead of spending Romanov’s own money. I used the example of abramovich who used to write a cheque to cover chelsea’s losses and leave them debt free but I was told I was a jealous hobo 😂😂😂
Romanov stands for everything that is financially corrupt.
He "Gangstered" it over The Jambos and bought them tainted silverware.
Let's not ever forget how the maroon masses lapped it up and turned a blind eye to the financial doctoring and seedy goings on within the Tynecastle corridors.
And let's also never forget that infamous statement on Sickback by one of their more demented followers: "Hibs are no longer our rivals!
The voices of dozens of shafted businesses and charities can still be heard above the roar of their "selective memories" hordes.
To this day the shame and stench of that era hangs over their Pink bus shelter.
Vlad shafted the jambos remember medals mackay and the yams welcoming him on TV wearing cossack hats comedy 🥇
I wonder if any of the Scottish Directors of the time could be held complicit in this? Hope so, but I suppose turning a blind eye isn't so much of an extraditable International crime.
Maybe Ewan Murray the Hearts journalist who still lists " . . . . . Vladimir Romanov's stewardship of Heart of Midlothian" as one of his areas of interest in the Guardian can be called as a witness after his amazing investigative journalist skills during that period revealed . . . . . . absolutely f&$k all.
Work with a Lithuanian girl whose Dad lost his job in Kaunas because of Romanov's swindling. Many there did and it's why they moved here as he couldn't support his family. He's really Russian though isn't he? Hopefully falls foul of Putin. But probably checks all the boxes for the bigger Vlad... Unhinged, dodgy and a crook.
Anyone ever connected with Hearts could claim Insanity or acting while the balance of their mind was disturbed.
No jury in the land could convict him.
Sorted. Off scot free.
Wonder if he'll call Lord Foulkesake as a character witness? He investigated Vlad before declaring him as the new Messiah.
The net deficiency of assets per BDO's Statement of Liabilities in Administration lodged at Companies House 2 December 2013 was £43,684,551, which will include losses brought forward accumulated under previous regimes. The revised list of known creditors was finally confirmed as being £33,920,645.30 on 29 November 2015. The revised total was caused by Heriot Watt University having amended their claim, presumably for the full term of the lease agreement rather than merely the arrears.
The debt for equity swaps should be taken together with the inter-company write offs characterised in the accounts in certain other years as "forgiveness of debt" by the parent entity, as both were mechanisms by which debt was transferred to the parent's balance sheet. Taken together, these total £40.7m, so it can be fairly stated that Hearts contributed £84m of losses to the group insolvency which precipitated their administration. This is approximately a quarter of the overall group debt for which Romanov is finally being prosecuted.
This can be corroborated by adding up the net losses before debt restructuring and disposals of intangible assets (i.e. player sales) in the statutory accounts from 31 July 2006 to 30 June 2013, each of the full accounting periods during Romanov's tenure as a shadow director, which total £75.7m. There is a cumulative loss of £1.9m on intangibles in the same period.
Astonishing amounts. One could perhaps add their current accumulated spend of £18m of outside funds in the Budge era to get a figure of over £100m that they’ve had access to that their local rivals could never dream of matching.
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I wonder if the Lith. authorities have been able to dig up any of Ukio Bankas/UBIG 's incriminating paperwork.
I'm thinking of payments made to players ( Skachel for one ) not through the football club books. Or maybe payments routed to football officials ( no names needed )
He was known to have corrupted Lithuanian football, so why not here.
Surely someone still has the video (or a link ??) of the Muppets welcoming Vlad to the PBS - where one of them follows him around the pitch constantly bleating 'Vlad, Vlad, Vlad .......' as if he was desparate to offer Vlad his wife/daughters/granny for anything that Vlad wanted ??
Said this for a while and if these charges have any teeth, it'll be very interesting to see what Vlad will offer-up in an attempt to reduce his final sentence ??
[QUOTE=Deansy;5597130]Surely someone still has the video (or a link ??) of the Muppets welcoming Vlad to the PBS - where one of them follows him around the pitch constantly bleating 'Vlad, Vlad, Vlad .......' as if he was desparate to offer Vlad his wife/daughters/granny for anything that Vlad wanted ??
Said this for a while and if these charges have any teeth, it'll be very interesting to see what Vlad will offer-up in an attempt to reduce his final sentence ??[/QUet OTE]
No chance they'll ever get him out of Russia while Putin is in charge.
But, maybe he'll write a tell-all book, as a get it up yous to everyone, not just football, who shared his ill gotten wealth.
Still an awful lot of love for him on Kickback. Their enthusiasm for the cheating days is undiminished too. You can almost sense that a return to the ‘rollercoaster’ would be more than welcomed by many of our maroon pals. It’s almost like they have no morals. Who knew?
Of course there is, he made their greatest fantasy come true - he made them actually believe that they were a 'Big team' ! The fact that there was no foundation whatsoever for this belief is lost on them - it matters even less to the majority of them that they'll forever be known as 'Charity Thieves FC' !
It was the only time in their entire history where they voluntarily produced a list of people they owed money to, but decided not to pay, that uniquely included both the lady Haig Poppy Fund and the Macraes Battalion Trust at the same time.
Their very own list.
Heady days indeed, no wonder some of the gullible shameless idiots miss it.
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They have got a McRaes Battalion production on at the moment at Tynecastle apparently.
Wonder if any mention is being made of the unpaid debt to the Lady Haig Poppy Fund or the Macrae Battalion Trust?
Selective in their history I am afraid.
Pop down to Easter Road and find out about Hibs contribution to MacRaes Battalion.
Humbling and not paraded like a trophy but a true story of the ultimate sacrifice.
You do have to ask yourself, would you welcome a criminal gangster owner at Hibs who can provide you with a couple of Scottish cups and other victories if all it took was one year of pain in the Championship at the end? What would you remember? The 2 Scottish cups or the temporary blip of one year relegation?
Hibs have played it all by the book and we had to suffer 3 years out of the top league and many years of mediocrity. Maybe there's a naive culture difference between us and them whereby they use any means for success on and off the pitch. Hibs would never entertain the idea of vulgar long throws in to the box or a game plan totally dependent on launching balls up to big guys or aggressive play for a whole game. The thought of relying on external money over and above the normal income of a football club really isn't something we've ever done either. That's probably the big cultural difference in those years they have more success than us. Is it naive on our part?
The 300 million is the hole in Ukio Bankas's balance sheet made good by depositors in the bank and the Lihuanian tax payer. Nearly a quarter down to Hearts - 30 million debt and 40 million written off or converted to worthless equity by Romanov. None of which he ever paid back to UB through his UBIG investment vehicle.
I wouldn't call it naivety. I'd like to think that we're naturally more idealistic and have a strong moral centre. I don't want a gangster owner - or a rich sheikh or an oligarch billionaire involved with the club. I'd rather suffer the periods of mediocrity than sell out to cheating.
For me, those who look back fondly on the Romanov era are complicit in the fraud - much like buying knock off gear down the pub or buying clothes in shops that, deep down, you know were made in a third world sweat shop. EVERYONE knew Romanov was a criminal - particularly towards the end. Very few Hearts fans ever spoke out against him.
It's not naive. I think there's a deliberate desire to steer away from the vlad type gangster who was welcomed at the pre administration wongadome.
They are happy to play Russian roulette with their club and it's reputation.
I'm just staggered at how little success that huge sum of money in Scottish football terms actually bought them. Definitely not worth the stigma they're left with.
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An Anti-Romanov jambo pal of mine had the theory that he stymied progress in Europe as the finances would come under more rigourous scrutiny from UEFA than from the SFA i.e. UEFA would actually do some scrutinising. He did pull the rug from under them at various times.
I'd doubt that tbh.
IMO, the Romanov model was all about throwing money at Hearts to get European exposure, and build the UKIOS brand on the back of that.
It was a model that almost worked, had it not been for those pesky kids at Celtic, and the Docksiders at the Unbeatable Derby [emoji38]
As far as keeping on the right side of UEFA goes, the various DfE swaps would have helped in that regard.
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No, Heriot Watt's initial claim was for £140,653.48 and is included in list of known creditors lodged at Companies House on 15th August 2013 which totalled £28,424,336. This was increased to a claim for £5,125,528.00 in the revised list totalling £33,920,645.30 posted on 2nd December 2013. It accounts for 90% of the uplift. I am speculating that the difference is between arrears at the point of administration and the legal liability to pay rent for the the whole term of the lease which would have been over a number of years.
The difference between the known creditors of £33m and the £43m total deficiency in shareholders funds will include brought forward accumulated losses in prior years, offset by the value of assets.
The yams weren’t happy to play Russian roulette with their club, it was their only option or they would’ve been at murrayfield with tynecastle being houses.
Romanov tried to buy a couple of clubs before the desperados but he was tuned down. I’m sure Dunfermline were approached by Romanov. The only club who were desperate enough were hearts.
Every Jambo I know turns a blind eye to the debt, corruption and cheating that took place during the Robinson/Romanov era.
What must never be forgotten is that they went nearly 30 years without a trophy then 3 appeared in 15 years. Robinson bought Hearts from Mercer for £3,000,000.00 Their debt huge debt started to accumulate before they won the Scottish Cup in 1998. George Foulkes then went begging to all dubious oligarchs to flog Hearts. The Hearts debt garnered by Robinson amounted to £18,000,000 when Romanov took over. Hearts debt reached £30,000,000.00 in 2008 when Romanov conducted a share for capital exercise which ‘hid’ £10,000,000.00 he did this again at a later date. Who were Hearts bankers at this time.....Romanov’s (Ukio Bankas).....no responsible or legitimate bank would ever have approved this. So Hearts ‘real’ debt may have amounted to £50,000,000.
My initial point is that they won 3 Scottish Cups during this period of financial malpractice. Would they have won these 3 cups without this debt......NO CHANCE....NEVER!
This is a club that cheated to win their last 3 major trophies. This together with the poppy issue and the huge debt write off make Hearts tarnished forever.
You are correct I meant that they had no option to support him and celebrate it as a victory as if it wasn’t for him they’d be ****ed. Romanov was their last option and whilst every other club in Scotland could see he was a crook at best, the yams had to hail him as a saviour and visionary!
It is amazing how they celebrate Romanov only adding a couple of million to their debt.
There were a few dissenting voices on JKB in the very early days. The poster Roald Jensen identified him straightaway as dodgy
and unwelcome. I think he and other doubters just got worn out with getting shouted down every time they queried the submariner's motives, and eventually stopped posting in that vein (or at all).
Converting debt to equity is a fairly common practice among companies. Indeed, banks often encourage it as it shows commitment on the part of the owners or lenders to the future of the company.
Rangers, for example, have just done exactly that.
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The other thing that sticks in my craw is the complete failure of the MSM to even try to investigate what was going on at Tynecastle when it was obvious to just about everyone else that something was just not right.
I mean, numerous winding-up petitions to the Court of Session by HMRC (settled at the door of the Court), players and staff wages going unpaid, countless cases brought in Edinburgh Sheriff Court by unpaid creditors (usually SMEs who needed the money), the Heriot-Watt rent unpaid, Council Tax unpaid for months on end, Police bill unpaid, not to mention (plausible) allegations of embezzlement from Bosnian steel workers' pension fund.
All pointing to something being very seriously wrong and whiffing to high heaven. And yet, complete silence from the MSM. Probably didn't want to be barred from a free booze-up in hospitality after games at Tynie.
The other thing that sticks in my craw is the complete failure of the MSM to even try to investigate what was going on at Tynecastle when it was obvious to just about everyone else that something was just not right.
I mean, numerous winding-up petitions to the Court of Session by HMRC (settled at the door of the Court), players and staff wages going unpaid, countless cases brought in Edinburgh Sheriff Court by unpaid creditors (usually SMEs who needed the money), the Heriot-Watt rent unpaid, Council Tax unpaid for months on end, Police bill unpaid, not to mentions (plausible) allegations of embezzlement from Bosnian steel workers' pension fund.
All pointing to something being very seriously wrong and whiffing to high heaven. And yet, complete silence from the MSM. Probably didn't want to be barred from a free booze-up in hospitality after games at Tynie.
Debt forgiveness, write offs of intergroup debt and swaps of worthless equity for irrecoverable debt may be common mechanisms for bolstering corporate balance sheets, but the £7.9m adjustment in the year to 31 July 2010 and the £18.8m in the 11 month period to 30 June 2011 are plainly window dressing. They both bring the bottom line to a break even position after the ruinous figures for 2009 where they made an £8.6m net loss on an £8.3m turnover attracted too much attention. The 2009 figures include £10.5m on wages, 127% of turnover.
Similarly, the 2008 write off of £12m masked a £13.4m loss on a £9.2m turnover, with £11.3m spent on wages in that year, 123% of turnover having posted a whopping £12.4m loss in July 2007.
One can speculate as to the reasons for the window dressing, but I'm not sure the "model" has anything to do with football at all.
Bolstering the Balance Sheet was exactly why they did it, to settle the nerves of non-group creditors and, arguably, to ward off any UEFA action. At the time, without hindsight, it seemed a sensible thing to do. Without that, I'd suggest that admin would have arrived much sooner.
With the benefit of hindsight, of course, it made little difference to the fate of non-group creditors. Indeed, for many, it probably increased their loss.
:agree:
They won two Scottish Cups, qualified for the CL and regularly beat us in the league. Their punishment was a brief relegation and a complete wipe of their debt - within three years of administration they qualified for Europe again and haven't been out of the top six since they were promoted.
Was their punishment lenient to the extreme and should they have been taken to task much earlier for their consistent financial doping and generally making a mockery of fairness and transparency in Scottish football? Absolutely. Do they care? Absolutely not. Would we take that if it meant exactly the same reward and "punishment"? Absolutely.
It's an interesting point, I suppose its how anyone looking in might see the bumping of the number and type of creditors they did bump, especially in light of their carefree spending and claims before it went pop and their shameless hijacking of particular creditors like the Battalion trust and the Poppy fund subsequently. The fact it did happen leaves a smell behind that they are pretty keen to avoid.
I have mates who support St.Mirren, Celtc, Aberdeen and Raith Rovers, they are keen to remind them.
For me personally the scale of their last phoenix like rise under Romanov and the subsequent splat was spectacular both in terms of the sheer amount their owner misappropriated and blew on them and of course the victims themselves that there is a stigma, there's no doubt they are positioning themselves to pretend none of this happened, that will work if everyone else wants to go along with it.
I agree about the way they seem to be spinning the story, particularly with compliant media but the facts are the facts and it doesn't take too much effort to remind them as well as spread the message now and again.
Usually done when companies are in trouble and can't service debt or pay it back. Their equity turned out to be worthless. Debt to equity is normally a red warning light a company is in trouble. In any bankruptcy equity is ranked below debt in terms of paying creditors off.
Up to a point, CWG, but I'm not sure I would characterise a balance sheet (2011) which still has net current liabilities of £28.5m, a net deficiency of shareholders funds of £13.92m and negative P&L reserves of £45.83m, even after £18.8m of debt having been restructured, as "bolstered". Not sufficiently, in any case.
Their accounts disclose net current liabilities in each and every year, £24.61m on average and varying between £13.5m and £42.41m, during the Romanov era (2005-2013). Any end user of the accounts viewing them with anything other than deep concern and scepticism, well, caveat lector. They were technically insolvent throughout, it was the eventual drying up of cash inflow from the equally insolvent parent that prompted administration. They were running on fumes for the last two years.
My immediate impression at the time (2011 specifically) was that it was window dressing so that the media, who evidently have difficulty understanding accounts, would say, "look, Hearts made a profit". (£511k. Their actual net loss that year was £8.3m on a turnover of £6.9m)
So many great contributions here. I am retiring in 2019 an worked in global finance for 25 years. I will write a book on my experiences but a longer article on how Hearts spent millions of other peoples money. Have got lots of good references already but more great data here. Had articles published in Herald and Financial Times so will target them first. I live in a very remote developing country so should be safe from the Jambo death threats.
So with all your expertise in Global Finance, you must know that everything that goes on within the banking world is not disclosed, especially to employees!
Much as it was cringe worthy at the time, if players knew they were not getting paid, they would have gone straight to the players union and the SFA to be released from their contracts!
If someone is supposed to own part of a bank and is prepared to help bankroll a team, not many clubs in Scotland could afford to turn it down!
My problem with the whole thing is "Due Diligence" was this done in a proper manner, I'm still not sure about the same has been done for King at Rangers????
Did Alexi Salmondski allegedly have a wee word in the ear of the Lithuanian leader in the last days before Hearts were saved ?
Yes and Hearts were desperate - Murrayfield loomed with the sale of Tynie. It would not have taken much digging around to find out Romanov's true business record and his history with sports clubs. The fans, board and media choose to ignore it even when Ukio Bankas was initially in trouble despite information being widely available from new channels such as Bloomberg and Reuters. It was fairly simple to work out the UBIG- Ukio Bankas link for his bogus investment schemes.
It’s a noble cause SingHibs and we should all encourage you in your endeavours, not just Hibs fans but also anyone in Scottish football with an interest in openness and fair play. Best of luck with the project.
If it would be possible to make a personal request, I would love it if someone took on the task of providing some clarity and insight in to the current financing of HMFC and in particular how much of a gap there is between our own inflows and the money that is being thrown at the HMFC project. Most of this thread has been focussing on the Vlad period, but I think someone needs to delve deeper in to the current stream of cash that has been flooding into project HMFC since their admin period.
By my calculations there has been some £18m of other people’s money flow into the project (over and above the normal day to day income one might expect from a football club).
There’s no suggestion of financial impropriety from me, but £18m of outside cash is a lot of cash to be injected in to a club where large parts of it are anonymous and lacking in public disclosure with the only parts that might be repayable in the future are a small bank loan and perhaps the initial Budge purchase cost (which I doubt will ever be paid back to Budge).
Possible areas for investigation might include:
- Why are the various donations being received by HMFC being made under a cloak of anonymity and without any transparency?
- Is it normal in the football world for injected funds to be made with no disclosure as to their source?
- Why did HMFC feel the need to employ a VAT specialist on their board when no other club in Scotland does this? One might wonder if there are some VAT implications on the receipt of FoH donations or if it is acceptable for an organisation to receive a substantial part of it’s income devoid of any VAT effect?
- Why was there no clarity behind the sponsorship deal apart from “We got a stack of cash from someone who wants us to put Save the Children on our shirts”? Is this another matter where the VAT specialist Director was called upon to use his expertise?
- What might be the breakdown of the monthly payments made to FoH? Is there any clarity or is it all anonymous donations?
- For an approximate income of £1.5m p.a., one does wonder if it’s 8000 fans paying £15 a month or 7999 fans paying £5 a month and one massive £80k payment a month from one of the anonymous sources? Do all these donations come from individual supporters or is there a route within FoH for connected parties to make donations to the club anonymously?
One may sound like a jealous paranoid Hobo but there are a lot of murky areas in the current financing of HMFC which will probably have serious implications in the future in terms of what they can spend on their team versus what other teams in Scotland can spend (outwith the old firm). It would be somewhat frustrating to find after watching them lift another trophy that a lot of their income was derived from dubious sources, not that I’m suggesting this is the case.
I’m sure there’s an explanation for everything but certainly think it worthy of an investigation rather than a blind acceptance and a begrudging applause from fans of other teams.
Land and property is one of the easiest things to sell in Edinburgh. Cala offered £20 million for tynecastle a few years before administration. It is not too far fetched too think the administrators or powers that be could be easily have achieved £10-£15 million to repay their creditors quite easily.
I want to know why a paltry £3 million was accepted from Budge and I think their would be a decent story in the reasons why.
Even at £15m, only the secured creditor would have been paid. The remainder would get nothing.
Remember, too, that it wasn't Hearts' administrator's call to accept the Budge offer, which of course was the only credible one. That was down to the administrators of UKIO Bankas. Their choice was basically, "take £3m now, or perhaps a larger sum at some indefinable time in the future".
Perhaps in the Borders or any other part of Scotland, but in Edinburgh you could safely assume that without planning a sale could be been achieved relatively quickly.
If Cala had offered £20 million-minus demolition costs, a few years back, it is safe to assume even £10 million could be been achieved in a short space of time.
I genuinely think salmond’s intervention helped.
If budge’s offer was £3 million and that helped ordinary creditors then I would imagine that a condition of sale could’ve been included where as part of the sale price, £7 million could’ve been paid to the secured creditors and £3 million to unsecured.
Either way both creditors would’ve achieved a better return.
If tynecastle would’ve been in lochgelly-no offence to people from lochgelly, I could understand the administrators of UBIG accepting a paltry offer but not in Edinburgh. I accept Gorgie is no Leith in terms of facilities and attractiveness but it would still generate a healthy return for creditors upon a sale .
The ordinary creditors were getting nothing at 3m, 10m or even 15m. That first 15m was always going to be for the secured creditors, no matter what an offer might be conditional on. The administrator's hands were tied on that by the law.
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Wasn’t there some pish being spun about the PBS land being unsuitable for housing due to proximity to chemicals. Some kind of smoke & mirrors anyway my memory ain’t the best.
Allegedly he did, took a very keen role in the months leading up to the “administration event” and it would be very interesting to know how he managed to convince the Liths to accept such a paltry sum for tiny castle and the team/name when Robinson was keen to sell for circa £30 million (pre Vlad) and move to Murrayfield!!??
Will all be revealed at some stage in the future, who knows but AS was certainly involved in the “convincing” creditors to accept and move on (yes the Administrator pulled a rabbit out the hat but did AS as FM put it there or bed it in?). Rangers were liquidated and hertz financial position was far worse, which led to them entering the Scottish leagues at the bottom league (for professional teams).