With Cornwall For Cornwall
Gans Kernow Rag Kernow
With Cornwall For Cornwall
Gans Kernow Rag Kernow
All the Latest News & Fixtures...
So, I’m pleased to say we are within touching distance of getting a fabulous new stadium for Cornwall actually off the ground.
We have spent the last week finalising the legals (for the transfer to the Pirates of the land destined for the Stadium),between ourselves and the College, with the Council and of course with INOX.
I see no valid outstanding reason in the way for the Council to pass the land to the Cornish Pirates within the next week or so – certainly by months end.
At a board meeting on Thursday our directors voted unanimously to accept the terms of the transfer documents when they become available in the final format.
I have had to agree certain conditions related to the operation of the stadium to include the financial security of the council funding (which will also apply to the government funding) but as this is taxpayer money we have no problem with this issue. Once signed off, we’ll have lift off for fundraising efforts, which are already in the pipeline.
We have been working on building an iconic stadium for the people of Cornwall, not just a ground with a large stand and a ground capacity for 6000 spectators. We want the stadium to be a showpiece sports Arena in the future, a Must Visit place for visitors to Cornwall and Cornish folk alike. This will take a lot more funding than the phase 1 cost of £14 million, which is basically in place and includes outstanding money from the government. Once the land is in our possession government should be forthcoming with their contribution.
We have all but finalised the documents to launch the planned Crowdfunding where we hope to raise a considerable sum of money towards squad funding, training facility improvements, as well as, hopefully, funding for downstream facilities at the stadium.
Obviously, the business plan in place confirms a decent surplus on the operation of hospitality, events and conferencing related to phase 1. These numbers will be shared in the Crowdfunding issue.
However, plans are in hand for facilities within the stadium that enhances this profitability. Then, a fine balance has to be found on whether surplus funds go towards the squad and / or towards dividends for shareholders and/or repayment of loans taken to develop facilities.
Turning to the Crowdfunding offer, this will involve the opportunity for subscribers to purchase as little as £10 of shares (a floor subscription of £10 in total) up to millions of pounds (All are one pound shares).
Class A shareholders, with a minimum purchase of £2000, will have voting rights, whereas subscription for < 2000 shares will receive non – voting class B shares. The offer will be open privately to our existing Class A shareholders to start with, followed ten days or so later, by the more than > 3000 people who pledged assistance during the very successful launch of the HOPE video last year.**
It will then be thrown open to the general public. This Crowdfunding final valuation will provide us with a firm idea and visibility on how we fund the terrific downstream project envisaged post phase 1.
Furthermore, I’ve already started on a presentation for possible HNWI (High Net Worth Individuals) to target funding for Phase 2. We have to decide on whether we look for new shareholders only; for debt (bond) holders; bank funding or a combination of all three.
We are actively talking to a number of possible investors at the current time and will be meeting with them to present our ideas and investment opportunities.
As far as these proposed Phase 2 developments are concerned, we also have to decide whether we just lease the ground for facilities (e.g.an hotel) or build and run the facilities ourselves, which would stay within our balance sheet (ownership) per se and produce much better returns overall.
All very exciting which is keeping all of us and our cohorts, legals et al, very busy.
The title of the presentation to HNWI is going to be:-
If you are interested in a large share purchase please send a confidential email to the Pirates Financial Director
([email protected]) and providing a brief description of yourself,
Keep the faith,
RGRE ( Dicky Evans)
** If you’ve read this far and would like to get in on the crowdfunding offer when it’s launched to the 3500 + people already signed up , you can join them.
