в июле SU будет переименована в "The Manchester United Supporters Trust"
полное письмо SU:
The SU Board and committee would like to apologise to members for the lack of regular communication over the last couple of weeks.
We hope to address this partly using a new email news list. Please subscribe to the list here to receive important news from SU (probably once a week after the initial period, your email address is never passed on to anyone else):
http://yahoogroups.com/group/su-news/
(If you don't have a Yahoo! ID you'll need to click on the Sign Up link to register).
We will be contacting you shortly with information about the following:
The Phoenix Fund - general info
Share Scheme share sales - cheques or proceeds into the Phoenix Fund Share Scheme share transfers Private Share sales - will you be putting proceeds into your Phoenix Fund account?
Membership Renewal - if your membership is due for renewal we'll be in touch soon Skills database - if you have skills which could be of use to SU we'll be asking for you to let us know Campaign volunteers - if you want to get more involved Regional Groups - we'll be working on building social and campaign groups on regional basis Social and fundraising events in your area Special events and exclusive offers for members Advertising - would you or your company be interested in ads (newsletter, mailshots or web) or sponsorship of SU/MUST or the Phoenix Fund? Please contact us immediately
Please make sure you are on the su-news email list so that you don't miss out on information.
As you will all understand, it has been a very hectic time for all the SU volunteers, processing huge amounts of mail, and making sure that members'
options for their shares in our share scheme were properly dealt with. A huge vote of thanks to everyone who helped out at the office and remotely and we are sorry if you tried to contact us but couldn't get through - our lines were swamped by the traffic. We are now sorting out the share transfers and cheque requests (see below) as well as processing annual renewals for almost 15,000 members (if your membership is due for renewal we will let you know shortly), plus putting together a quarterly newsletter, so we anticipate that in about two weeks time, SU will be operating 'normally' again.
At the end of July, we will have re-registered SU as an Industrial & Provident Society under the name "The Manchester United Supporters Trust"
or 'MUST', putting us firmly in the mutual movement as with all other football supporters' trusts. You will recall that members approved this step at the EGM held in March and we are going through the final registration process with the FSA. This will involve a formal public re- launch before the start of the new season, so that we will from that time on be known as MUST and with some new logos - including a Phoenix ▒brand'
logo which will be seen on our alternative merchandise. The Phoenix Fund will be the vehicle by which MUST and the fans will reclaim our club when the time comes. Read more about this in the newsletter article below.
Members will understand that as we will soon have no shares to unite around, this re-branding comes at an appropriate time although it has been long term term plan. You'll note that we've been using the name "The Manchester United Supporters' Trust" for several years and in particular it has appeared on our members' certificates for the last three years.
Our organisation will continue as before, there will be no significant changes to the way we operate, except that we are determined to become even more professional and effective than we have been up to now - and we hope that all our members will continue to be as committed and loyal in the future as they have been to date.
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Newsletter article from the SU Chair:
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They are saying it's all over, that we've lost. Give up and go home, you put up a great fight, but it's pointless going on.
They couldn't be more wrong.
SU has always been in for the long haul: when we started our share scheme 4 years ago, we knew it might take decades to acquire a significant stake in United. But despite having to campaign against predators almost continuously since we came into existence, we have built up over 32,000 members who have all bought shares and who all believe in the cause of independence, that our club should not be owned by a single person or company.
And as a result of our powerful fight, our success in showing the fans'
absolute opposition to a takeover, we have the best opportunity we will
ever have to acquire that ownership stake in our club.
How come we are so optimistic, at the moment when Glazer is about to take 100% control of our club? Well we know that the huge majority of United fans are either opposed to Glazer or deeply suspicious of him. And we are sure that he will confirm those suspicions by his purely profit-based actions.
And there are three other key reasons for our optimism:
First, Glazer has been forced into buying United with a gargantuan amount of debt, threatening our club with financial meltdown should he fail to service or repay it. SU has analysed the debt mountain with our advisers and our findings are summarised opposite. Whatever Glazer does with this debt, he cannot repay it and rebuild the team at the same time. And be sure that the banks will get their money back first.
Second, Glazer's business plan is by common consent aggressive and over- optimistic about how much revenue he can generate. He is projecting a near- doubling of operating profits in the two years 2006-8, from ё58m to ё107m.
No-one can see how he will do it. What we do know is that the price of everything to do with the club will rise year-on-year. Fans will not be able to afford to watch United and will exercise their consumer choice by not buying the club's (or the sponsors') products. It will not take many millions of lost revenue to cause Glazer to fail to reach his targets and for the banks to call in the loans and put the club back on the market.
And be very clear that it is Glazer who is gambling with our club, it is not SU or the fans that have put the club in danger.
And third, most important - we have to be there when the club comes up for sale. We have to be there with a serious fund, to buy back the shares that Glazer has ripped from us in his hostile takeover. The Phoenix Fund will be the launchpad for this - our members have already committed about ё2 million to the fund, with another ё15 million worth of private shares which we are asking them to pledge, at least in part. The same goes for the 41, 700 individual shareholders who will be receiving money from Glazer in the next weeks and months if they haven't already. And we will also be building the fund over the next 2-3 years with the support of the fans, through our fundraising activities and with help from institutions like Nomura and other wealthy investors who have pledged to contribute when the time comes.
This is not a pipedream - this is a real opportunity for those of us who want to keep the dream alive, the dream that we will one day have our shares back and own a real stake in our club. This is not a time for despair, despite what has happened. This is the time for all of us to work even harder with our fellow reds, with all the fans groups, to win this war and to make sure this never happens again.