[Florida]

We've got our administrators

https://www.accountancytoday.co.uk/2023 ... -holdings/

[Stevie J]

More here incl confirmation Hazelwood is one of the assets and offers are now open. https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/london ... 00850.html

Confirmed by some staff on LinkedIn but yesterday 120+ people were made immediately redundant by email. Imagine only a skeleton staff are left to help the administrators.

[Narbia]

Surely, Powerday as major creditor can get this (Hazelwood) in recompense for the massive outstanding loan?

Sell the P-shares (assuming still owned by LI holdings) and clear all debts from that? See below...

...

Edit: If I read that charge document correctly, then a company called Close Leasing Limited have first call on the P-Shares formerly owned by LIRFC. I.e. some sort of commercial loan to the club with the shares securing a surety (at least).

[M_W]

Suggestion in this that we stopped paying rent at Brentford in March too. I doubt we paid anyone anything other than wages (and even then probably not PAYE) recently, so may have stacked on the liabilities.

The buyout offers mentioned, seem to be pre covid.

https://www.rugbypass.com/news/london-i ... -buy-club/

[Narbia]

An interesting comment from the Leinster board :

Brentford had a funny way of wanting London Irish out of their stadium, if that's true, and I know for a fact it isn't because I am close enough to a board member at Brentford, why would they sign a long term lease agreement? Brentford will at some point drop out of the premier league and like every championship club they will need the income. It's again not simple or easy to find a stadium but it is possible.

We had a 25-year agreement at the Madejski Stadium. Can't see why we'd ever have gone for anything less with Brentford.

But if you don't pay your rent.......

Edit: Wed Jun 14, 2023 14:30
... having just skimmed some of these documents from Companies House, I'm not terribly confident of seeing Hazelwood emerge as a place for the amateurs to play.

[Stevie J]

Not sure how many pressed buy between the on sale date and being taken off but I did renew my season ticket at the end of April. As I bought on credit card I should be able to make a Section 75 claim and I’m currently going through that process.

If you want to make a claim I highly recommend you go email Resolve’s dedicated email address for London Irish and request that they will send you the Letter to Creditors. My credit card company are trying to claim right now I have not proven they can still fulfil the season ticket, but I should be able to get my money back even if it’s waiting until September.

The letter confirms, amongst other things, Powerday brought them in before around Christmas to assess options.

[Lazyboy346]

Not sure how many pressed buy between the on sale date and being taken off but I did renew my season ticket at the end of April. As I bought on credit card I should be able to make a Section 75 claim and I’m currently going through that process.

If you want to make a claim I highly recommend you go email Resolve’s dedicated email address for London Irish and request that they will send you the Letter to Creditors. My credit card company are trying to claim right now I have not proven they can still fulfil the season ticket, but I should be able to get my money back even if it’s waiting until September.

The letter confirms, amongst other things, Powerday brought them in before around Christmas to assess options.

What's the email address for this? I've probably missed it at some point but can't find it by searching.

[Stevie J]

@Lazyboy346 - anyone can email them via London-Irish@resolvegroupuk.com.

[Stevie J]

Follow Up to this above - my credit card company today upheld my claim and confirmed I would be being refunded.

So if you were like me then I highly recommend emailing Resolve and getting the Letter to Creditors to send for your own claim, whether for the full amount or if you paid by Debit Card upto £100 back.

[Lazyboy346]

Just posted on the Craic but if you paid by direct debit then you may be out of luck. There's a form to fill in to be an unsecured creditor which is going to take a while to complete with little hope of anything being returned.

[Narbia]

There's an objective appraisal of the state of PRL finances over on the Bath Rugby board. I think the guy who wrote it is an accountant. Here

Good to see someone come out with a set of figures and make some meaningful points (- too late for the 3 disappeared clubs of course).

[Florida]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... iership-2/

[M_W]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union ... iership-2/

Always likely to be our best hope from a pro rugby point of view. Still so many hurdles though. That structure needs to actually come into being, someone needs to actually want to buy and run the phoenix club/franchise, they need somewhere to train and play etc.

None of it insurmountable, but it's a real hill to climb.

[Florida]

All very true. I would imagine if this structure were signed off it would make finding a buyer a bit easier.

Just nice to have a slither of hope

[Stevie J]

So whats going on, since the press haven't been bothered to follow this up? I've been looking around and sadly with little local press following Irish (unlike Worcester) we've had so little to go on. So here is a small attempt to put something out there:

2nd June : Petition to wind-up London Irish made by HMRC https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/4393174

7th June: Resolve appointed as Administrators https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/4375645

19th July: Original date for hearing for winding up of the holding company, the ground at the High Court. As of that day we were scheduled (on the lists) for a hearing (link is via Web Archive) from 11.30am.http://web.archive.org/web/202307191201 ... cause-list

So what happened next in the words of QoS, was the hearing held? Did the hearing get postponed or cancelled due to Administration? Other than one person on a Facebook Group claiming they had setup companies and made an offer I've not seen a single update.

FYI the three companies setup by one Conor Murphy on Companies House:

• London Irish Rugby Club Limited (https://find-and-update.company-informa ... y/14935173)
• London Irish RFC Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-informa ... y/14935114)
• London Irish Forever Ltd (https://find-and-update.company-informa ... y/14909392)

[M_W]

Everything about that Conor Murphy guy (Linkedin/Company listings/company websites for Leinster Oil etc) screams fantasist to me.

May just be me being a cynic though

Story has been totally abandoned by the press though. I just hope there is someone serious trying to get something of some description off the ground on the rugby side.

[GC89]

Seems to be what those that know of him are saying too.

Would be nice to have something tangible on the process.

[Stevie J]

Apparently John Pye auctions https://www.johnpye.co.uk/ will be auctioning off London Irish merchandise as part of the insolvency soon. Not sure when, but a friend of the family who's used them before told me so I'm assuming it was on some newsletter recently.

So if you want a cheap item from whatever was left in stock at the shop, you may wish to sign-up for the website.

[Stevie J]

Two updates in short order.

One, the auction of remaining merchandise is now live. You can view this via https://www.johnpyeauctions.co.uk/Even ... 4wLjAuMA..

Two, is the Administrators site has been updated with their Proposals. Someone who is more savvy in financial matters will likely be able to pick up on more, but here’s what stood out to me at this time of night;

• Amounts owed includes Sport England - £12.1m, Close - £5.2m and HMRC - I make it £1.3m in tax give or take across the companies. Close is the company who loaned us money at Christmas against our P Shares.
• Back in May and June 2022, Powerday provided £1.5m in unsecured loans. When a buyer wasn’t found by end of 2022, Close made a loan at Christmas based of future revenue from P Shares. That is where I guess the rumours of Christmas going to the wall comes from. Powerday paid a further £1.1m to cover the March, April and May payroll.
• The report states we were relegated to the Championship, and then to be relegated again when we couldn’t play in this upcoming Championship season. I’m not sure I’ve heard that before.
• Hazelwood has been evaluated for sale. Powerday have provided additional funding shared with Hazelwood’s operating company of about £70k. This I think is to cover losses.
• There is interest in Hazelwood from various parties, including those wishing to reestablish the club, parties trying to develop other sports there and of course property developers.
• They have been several parties interested in buying the clubs assets, that is the name, brand, IP and any remaining fixed assets. They may have to pay rugby creditors. No details as yet.
• Brentford are mentioned as a debtor owing £707k, presumably this is share of matchday revenues and such. I haven’t seen however, how much we owe them in rent but I haven’t checked out the appendices. EDIT: Here it is, we owed them £789k. So thats the rent outstanding.

[M_W]

Cheers, that's all pretty interesting. I guess we'll have to wait and see whether any of the interested parties are actually viable.

Hazelwood is a long shot, but it would be good to have someone serious acquiring the brand, IP etc.

[SimonG]

Hopefully property developers would not get permission to build on Hazelwood but bearing in mind local planning decisions can very easily be overturned by government and we have a government where you can get a peerage for a few quid (or for polishing a turd) who knows?

[Narbia]

If anyone isn’t signed up to the admin site, I can share the PDF.

@Stevie J Hi. Not registered myself with the administrators, but would be keen to have a look at the report you mention.

Any format that is convenient, or even PM on here.

[Stevie J]

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