HSL - Q & A's

[Criswell]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I cannot believe these questions are being asked again they have been answered so many times. STF is making nothing out of this his shareholding is being diluted and all the money goes to the club

I see Sir Tom's wealth is quoted in today's Sunday Times Rich List as being worth £126 million. No point being made here, just saying like.

[1875STEVE]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Question and Answers

We are delighted to report a very positive response to recent initiatives and it is pleasing to note that more and more supporters are choosing to support our Management Team.
Over the coming months we will be making every effort to get as much additional funds to the Club to help bring in more players. We are also closing in on our target of £1.25m and many supporters want to have their names on our Founders Board and our official strip. With this in mind we thought it would be helpful to be available to answer as many questions as we can to help supporters decide if they want to help. We will kick things off with a couple of questions :
Q1. You seem to have had a few technical issues with your web site, are these all now sorted ?
Answer - Yes we have had a number of issues with our web site and needless to say we have had very serious words with the Company who developed this. In particular the password reset function and the contact us button have not worked but we understand that these issues are now fixed. We still have one or two minor things that we are working on to make Supporters lives easier.
Q2. How do I find out if I am already a full Member or how much I have contributed to date ?
Answer - via our web site go to the Menu page and click on “log in”. Use the email that you used when you joined and then enter your password. If you have lost the email that we sent to you please use the reset password function and follow things from there.

Over to you......

HSL

Closing on £1.25m?? That's good news, must have been some decent uptake recently, it was around 800k ish only a few months back.

[DaveF]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Closing on £1.25m?? That's good news, must have been some decent uptake recently, it was around 800k ish only a few months back.

I think the closing in comment is maybe a projection based on current levels rather than it being imminent as I asked about totals a while back.

I'll let HSL confirm though.

[Bangkok Hibby]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

A nice sentiment.
It might be worth a word to the admins to request that your thread is kept to Q&A.
It’s a good initiative and it would be a shame if opinion rather than fact come into it and clouded the content. There’s plenty of other threads for folks to air their viewpoint.

Totally agree, a good idea for a thread restricted to those who'd like clarification on certain things and ONLY official answers from HSL. Not sure that's doable on a public forum though?

[OfficialHSL]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

1) How much money does STF make from each share purchased by HSL?

2) What is HSL for (e.g. is it just to raise funds, is it fan ownership, securing the club, signing players etc)?

3) How much of the donations do Hibs get?

4) What is the benefit of having an HSL presence on the board?

5) If fan ownership is a goal, what does that mean in practical terms?

6) People draw comparisons with Foundation of Hearts, we all know that that worked because they had to save their club, so comparisons might not work - is there anything that you can learn from St Mirren or Motherwell's schemes?

7) Why should people donate to HSL?

8) Does HSL dilute STF's and Petrie's shareholding?

9) What do you get if you're a member?

10) What is the difference between an HSL membership and buying shares direct?

MattyF

1. No. The shares being bought by HSL are new shares issued by the Club rather than being bought from existing shareholders.
2. The principal purpose of HSL is to raise new funds for our Club. More particularly to put that money directly to our Manager to spend on new players and improve our prospects of success on the park.A by product of this however is that we receive shares in our Club and therefore become part owners.
3. Nearly 100% of the donations to HSL goes to the Club. A very small amount is spent on admin.
4. As with most other Clubs in Scotland our biggest challenge is finance. We want to significantly increase this source of additional funding to the Club it it will help if we all work closely together with this common objective.
5. Our goal is to achieve a meaningful stake in the Club. This is 25.1% and equates to £1.25m. At this point ordinary supporters will be in a position to protect the Club from situations such as Mercer or Duff/Gray.
6. Direct comparisons aren’t easy because as you say each set of circumstances are different. However, the issues in front of the Clubs that you mention are similar I.e. lack of money. Unfortunately Scottish football does not attract the kind of commercial funding as England and so we are left to our own devices. A significant source of funding is therefore the ordinary fans. While money can not guarantee success it does help in the long run. Hearts and Aberdeen fans are donating huge sums of money to their Clubs because they want to be better than us.
7. See above. If you want to help Paul and Robbie improve the product on the park, donate to HSL.
8. Yes. HFC’s shareholding is now down to about 62% from a previous 98%
9. Ownership. When you are a fully paid Member you are a joint, and equal owner of HSL along with your fellow Members. HSL as an entity now owns almost 20% of the Club.
10. Both ownership methods have full legal status.
As this is an HSL thread we make no apologies for expressing our preference for providing additional financial support via HSL. We have many Members of HSL who could have bought significant shareholdings in the Club but they chose not to as the felt it was inappropriate in the context of fan ownership. The principal of one Member one vote was paramount. This means that whether you are paying £100pm to HSL or £7.73pm , all our voices are equal.


HSL

[NAE NOOKIE]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I see Sir Tom's wealth is quoted in today's Sunday Times Rich List as being worth £126 million. No point being made here, just saying like.

That's a bit of a shocker then, coz I recall a few years back reading that he was worth 400 million. How do you become a millionaire? Start off as a billionaire and buy a football club

[matty_f]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

MattyF

1. No. The shares being bought by HSL are new shares issued by the Club rather than being bought from existing shareholders.
2. The principal purpose of HSL is to raise new funds for our Club. More particularly to put that money directly to our Manager to spend on new players and improve our prospects of success on the park.A by product of this however is that we receive shares in our Club and therefore become part owners.
3. Nearly 100% of the donations to HSL goes to the Club. A very small amount is spent on admin.
4. As with most other Clubs in Scotland our biggest challenge is finance. We want to significantly increase this source of additional funding to the Club it it will help if we all work closely together with this common objective.
5. Our goal is to achieve a meaningful stake in the Club. This is 25.1% and equates to £1.25m. At this point ordinary supporters will be in a position to protect the Club from situations such as Mercer or Duff/Gray.
6. Direct comparisons aren’t easy because as you say each set of circumstances are different. However, the issues in front of the Clubs that you mention are similar I.e. lack of money. Unfortunately Scottish football does not attract the kind of commercial funding as England and so we are left to our own devices. A significant source of funding is therefore the ordinary fans. While money can not guarantee success it does help in the long run. Hearts and Aberdeen fans are donating huge sums of money to their Clubs because they want to be better than us.
7. See above. If you want to help Paul and Robbie improve the product on the park, donate to HSL.
8. Yes. HFC’s shareholding is now down to about 62% from a previous 98%
9. Ownership. When you are a fully paid Member you are a joint, and equal owner of HSL along with your fellow Members. HSL as an entity now owns almost 20% of the Club.
10. Both ownership methods have full legal status.
As this is an HSL thread we make no apologies for expressing our preference for providing additional financial support via HSL. We have many Members of HSL who could have bought significant shareholdings in the Club but they chose not to as the felt it was inappropriate in the context of fan ownership. The principal of one Member one vote was paramount. This means that whether you are paying £100pm to HSL or £7.73pm , all our voices are equal.


HSL

Thanks

[Criswell]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

That's a bit of a shocker then, coz I recall a few years back reading that he was worth 400 million. How do you become a millionaire? Start off as a billionaire and buy a football club

Tom Farmer was never a billionaire, nor was he ever worth £400 million. The Kwik-Fix business was sold for about a billion pounds but he only benefited personally for about £75 million, one assumes the value of his equity in the company.

[McD]

Hi HSL,

I’ve been pondering the recent political situations we’ve witnessed/been part of in recent years, which got me thinking about how Hibs and HSL could work, so I have a couple of questions:

- when HSL reach 25.1%, and have a permanent seat on the board, will the nominated board member be obligated/bound to vote on board matters as the HSL membership indicate? And if so, will there be regular votes/polls for the membership?

- as the brexit referendum has shown, a tiny majority in a vote/poll can cause a real split amongst people. Considering this, will there be a minimum criteria for votes to meet in order to guide the HSL board member, for example, at least 60% of members vote to fill in the corners in order for the board member to vote this way in a board decision? (I’m not suggesting a poll of the membership for every board decision btw)


apologies for bringing politics in to this, and it’s not aimed with any slant, I’m genuinely curious, and I think it’s important that whomever is nominated and steps onto the board on behalf of HSL membership is supported fully in making it a productive working situation. We’ve seen the criticism that the fans reps concept has attracted, this person will have a fair bit of clout behind them in terms of voting weight, and as such needs to be given the best support from those they represent.

Thanks in advance

[OfficialHSL]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Hi HSL,

I’ve been pondering the recent political situations we’ve witnessed/been part of in recent years, which got me thinking about how Hibs and HSL could work, so I have a couple of questions:

- when HSL reach 25.1%, and have a permanent seat on the board, will the nominated board member be obligated/bound to vote on board matters as the HSL membership indicate? And if so, will there be regular votes/polls for the membership?

- as the brexit referendum has shown, a tiny majority in a vote/poll can cause a real split amongst people. Considering this, will there be a minimum criteria for votes to meet in order to guide the HSL board member, for example, at least 60% of members vote to fill in the corners in order for the board member to vote this way in a board decision? (I’m not suggesting a poll of the membership for every board decision btw)


apologies for bringing politics in to this, and it’s not aimed with any slant, I’m genuinely curious, and I think it’s important that whomever is nominated and steps onto the board on behalf of HSL membership is supported fully in making it a productive working situation. We’ve seen the criticism that the fans reps concept has attracted, this person will have a fair bit of clout behind them in terms of voting weight, and as such needs to be given the best support from those they represent.

Thanks in advance

McD
Thank you for your question. You will appreciate we are going into new territory but we will do our best to answer :

- the main purpose of non executive Directors is to assist the Executive Team in whatever way they can so we would anticipate taking a steer from that Team at the time. Given that most of the work of the Board is dealing with routine work we would not anticipate regular polls. Do remember we are simply taking an ownership stake, we are not here to run the Club

- as previously advised we would intend to operate on a simple majority basis. Clearly if this proved to be problematic our Members May wish to review this. The reality is that we simply don’t anticipate have many votes. If a future Board felt that ER Stadium would be perfect for luxury flats and this proposal was put to shareholders in such a scenario we would take instructions from our Members. One would not imagine too much of a split in our vote.
We hope this helps.

HSL

[matty_f]

Do HSL make payments to the club monthly?

How much is currently being contributed?

Based on average donations, what difference would an extra 1000 contributers make to the club?

[OfficialHSL]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Do HSL make payments to the club monthly?

How much is currently being contributed?

Based on average donations, what difference would an extra 1000 contributers make to the club?

Matty F
Yes, we pass money to the Club more or less every month.

They amount can vary between £16k to £20k

Our average donation is £14pm so an extra 1000 supporters helping would add £14,000 per month. That would be another good player for our Manager.
We keep saying and will keep repeating, our competitors across the City are contributing so much money not because of a few paying large amounts but because of so many ordinary supporters paying a small amount.
Please join HSL if you can and help us to get us back into Europe.

HSL

[Power]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Matty F
Yes, we pass money to the Club more or less every month.

They amount can vary between £16k to £20k

Our average donation is £14pm so an extra 1000 supporters helping would add £14,000 per month. That would be another good player for our Manager.
We keep saying and will keep repeating, our competitors across the City are contributing so much money not because of a few paying large amounts but because of so many ordinary supporters paying a small amount.
Please join HSL if you can and help us to get us back into Europe.

HSL

That’s good detail (Good question Matty). I’d encourage this kind of insight to drive more engagement.

Keep up the good work.

[matty_f]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

That’s good detail (Good question Matty). I’d encourage this kind of insight to drive more engagement.

Keep up the good work.

I know it's relative, but £14/month isn't a huge amount to commit to.

I would think having that sort of money coming in regularly would/could make a huge difference to the team.

[Power]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I know it's relative, but £14/month isn't a huge amount to commit to.

I would think having that sort of money coming in regularly would/could make a huge difference to the team.

Absolutely and that’s the kind of difference, with facts, I would be shouting about.

[DaveF]

Can this be stuck so it's always visible please?

[OfficialHSL]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I know it's relative, but £14/month isn't a huge amount to commit to.

I would think having that sort of money coming in regularly would/could make a huge difference to the team.

MattyF
Correct, it is this regular amount coming in that can make a difference.
For some even £14 may be a bridge too far so please note you can join for as little as £7.73 per month.
The really great thing about HSL is that while we have some Members paying £120 per month we are all equal.
If you are already a Member please help by calling a fellow Hibee and spread the word.
HSL