LOWE AND WILDE GONE.....and its no April Fool!!

Echo website...

Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde leave Southampton as administration looms
8:55am Thursday 2nd April 2009

By Gareth Lewis »

TODAY accountants will formally take over the running of Saints’ parent company Southampton Leisure Holdings.

The Daily Echo understands that, from 10am, administrators from accountants Begbies Traynor will be in official control of the stock market listed company that controls the football club.

Shortly afterwards Saints chairman Michael Wilde, chief executive Rupert Lowe and director Andrew Cowen will formally resign from the boardrooms of both SLH and the football club and walk away from the business they have invested millions in.

Financial director David Jones is, again, set to be the only survivor, after surviving a succession of previous culls of executives at St Mary’s.

Administrators are thought to want to appoint a new director to the football board with no previous connection to the club to help with its day to day running.

It marks an ignominious end to the second chapter of both Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde’s management of the club, with its shares suspended on the AIM junior stock exchange and its immediate future in doubt.

It also signals the start of a 24-day countdown to stop the weight of debt, which has now climbed above £30m, crushing the club into oblivion before the end of the season.

There are just 24 days to go before the club’s final home game against Burnley, on April 25, which is the last of three remaining home games, each of which is a crucial opportunity to fill Saints’ empty coffers.

Even if sell-out crowds return to roar their support from the terraces at St Mary’s, if the club hasn’t found a buyer by the end of the season, it could disappear completely.

After the Daily Echo revealed the shock collapse of the company’s precarious financial situation yesterday, wealthy Saints fans were immediately offering cash to help it stay afloat.

But the sums they are able to offer are likely to be dwarfed by the debt mountain that sees the money owed to Norwich Union on the £34m stadium standing at £24m, while the company owes more than £4m to Barclays Bank and has an array of other minor creditors.

Michael Wilde blames Southampton's administration on Barclays Bank
9:14am Thursday 2nd April 2009
Exclusive By Adam Leitch »

MICHAEL WILDE has laid a large part of the blame for Southampton Leisure Holdings PLC falling into administration at the door of the club’s bankers Barclays.

The former football board chairman was today standing down as administrators took over the running of the PLC after the business could no longer be classed as a going concern.

The Daily Echo understands that Saints had breached the overdraft limit agreed with Barclays of £4m – but by not much more than £110,000.

Being unable to pay their bills is the fault of the bank is it? Pitiful. Not their inability to clear the overdraft nor their wasting of so much money.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

SFC Forever wrote:Being unable to pay their bills is the fault of the bank is it? Pitiful. Not their inability to clear the overdraft nor their wasting of so much money.

GOOD RIDDANCE.

That odious pair of wriggling worms*, Lowe and Wilde, are blaming everybody but themselves for Saints' demise. I hate the pair of them. 'Not going to do a Leeds', eh, Rupes? You bloody imbecile. That's EXACTLY what's happened thanks to your cack-handed, arrogant mismanagement.


* With apologies to all worms, nematodes and endo-parasites everywhere.

Nice PU. One good thing is the fact we won't have to see them again.