Mill House Development

[popgoestheweasal.]

Planning meeting today.

[testing times]

Has anyone any more information on this?

[not4me]

It seems that at the meeting/presentation last night councillors have asked for more financial details and some sort of guarantees about the timetable for the development to go ahead. Looks like this will delay things while people get the information together.

[marky]

Wonder what this was all about. The company in question is IOR less than two years ago. If this had gone through, would a company be allowed to own two clubs?
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11719_6409314,00.html

[no6bus]

no mention of IOR which is not a norwegian company. but lets not let facts get in the way of scaremongering 
Hartlepool United Football Club's ultimate parent company is Independent Oilfield Rentals IOR Limited, a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. The shareholders with a 10% or more interest in Independent Oilfield Rentals IOR Limited are K J Hodcroft (46%) and B G Larsen (10%).

[marky]

Is this Norwegian enough for you?

Ifølge Sky Sports er tidligere Hartlepool-manager og sportsdirektør, Chris  Turner, involvert i forhandlingene.
Turner har tette bånd til bergenseren Berge Gerdt Larsen, som via seskapet IOR  (Independent Oilfield Rentals) har vært inne på eiersiden av League  One-klubben Hartlepool  i flere år. Larsen er også styreleder i DNO.
I 2007 meldte Daily  Mail at Larsen var i samtaler med Sheffield Wednesday om et oppkjøp.  Avtalen ble ikke noe av den gangen.
Den 26. august i år skrev The  Sheffield Star at Larsen kunne komme til å legge inn bud for å kjøpe  Sheffield Wednesday.

Which translates as:
"According to Sky Sports, a former Hartlepool manager and sports director, Chris Turner, is involved in the negotiations.  Turner has close ties to bergensian Berge Gerdt Larsen, via his company IOR (Independent Oilfield Rentals) which has been in the ownership of the League One club Hartlepool for several years. Lar**n is also Chairman of DNO.  In 2007 the Daily Mail reported that Larsen was in talks with Sheffield Wednesday on an acquisition but no agreement was made at the time.  On 26 August 2010,The Sheffield Star wrote that Larsen might have to bid to buy Sheffield Wednesday."

So that's two goes they have had at taking over Wednesday so far. Still, don't let simpe facts get in the way of your fanaticism. Perhaps you could answer the question now; can a company or a person own two football clubs at the same time? If so, if either of these deals had gone through where would that have left Pools exactly?

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/fans-163-10m-sheffield-wednesday-takeover-bid-read-the-full-interview-1-1834183
http://www.tv2.no/sport/fotball/england/norsk-oljeselskap-vil-kjoepe-sheffield-wednesday-3303135.html

[Stevef]

The short answer is NO.
http://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-law/dual-ownership-of-football-clubs.htm

[no6bus]

marky you really need to actually read the piece.
Turner has close ties to bergensian Berge Gerdt Larsen, via his company IOR (Independent Oilfield Rentals)
factually incorrect, larsen owns 10% of the shares in IOR it is not his company he is a minority shareholder.
Larsen is also Chairman of DNO.
DNO are a shirt sponsor at pools.
so to answer your question if larsen bought sheff weds it would not affect pools other than probably losing a shirt sponsor.
so not so much a fanatic more of a pedant.

[marky]

too pedantic, I think. so much so that you can't see the Norwegian Spruce for the trees.....or maybe you can but just can't accept it.

[no6bus]

so the british virgin isles are in norway in your world, thats fine i just hope you dont work in the travel industry.

i accept you are struggling to grasp that IOR and ken hodcroft did not bid for sheff wednesday, but a chap called Berge Larsen who has 10% of the shares in IOR decided that he wanted to own a football club like his mate ken does, thanks to him knowing chris turner through pools when chris tells him sheff wed are up for sale he shows an interest but when he finds the actual scale of their debt he doesnt bother.

now that wasnt too difficult to understand now was it?

[steveL]

I wouldn't labour the point, No6. Alliance-Boots is registered at a P.O. Box in a Swiss Village; Lloyds Bank (73% owned by the British taxpayer) is registered in the Caymen Islands etc. If all the companies registered in the Virgin Islands actually had their head offices there the islands would probably sink under the weight.
Does it really matter whether IOR is a Norwegian company or not? The question was, what impact would there have been on Pools had the Wednesday aquisition gone ahead and I think it's a valid one.
I know you have suggested that it was only Larsen involved but there's nothing in those links to suggest he wasn't acting for IOR. Can you say with certainty that he wasn't?

I'm only saying that it would be in everyone's interest to know one way or the other because it would be relevant to the present situation and the more information people have the better surely?

Incidentally, the feed back HTH is getting from the presentation is that:

• The Council isn't keen on proceeding without some sort of guarantees of a time frame and that the development would actually go ahead
• People weren't particular impressed with the Gus Robinson guy because he seemed unprepared
• The Plan consisted of several impressive artistic impressions but little else.
• The cost of removing the covenants on the land around the football ground would be significant.
• Although talks about transferring the land, either for free or purchase, may produce a committment to do so there was no interest in actually transferring ownership of the land until building work had actually started.
• The impression given was that there was no idea how the plan would be paid for and that there seemed to be a suggestion that HBC itself should borrow the money. As a result, HBC has asked for more detail on how the scheme would be financed

Not my opinion, just what we're hearing from a few people who were present.

[no6bus]

obviously not being involved with the bid i can only read information in the public domain.
now to get to the point of the bid, if it was IOR who were interested in taking over sheff wed i would presume that IOR would be the main focus in the article, and if that was the case surely it would have been Ken Hodcroft who was mentioned, after all he is the biggest shareholder rather than L A R S E N who only has a 10% holding and why would DNO be the company in the article.
the takeover did not happen, how is this pertinent to a redevelopment of the mill house area?.

and to put the norwegian point to bed ,so to speak.
IOR's head office is in aberdeen.
hopefully this will clarify wether or not IOR is norwegian.
Business career

After university, Hodcroft moved to the US for two years and worked for the oil company Phillips Petroleum in Louisiana, Texas, and Bartlesville, Oklahoma. While at Bartlesville he played football for Tulsa Roughnecks and was offered a contract there. However, he rejected it in favour of a career in the oil business.

Shortly afterwards, Hodcroft moved to Norway to continue working for Phillips Petroleum. After 7 years he moved to Aberdeen, Scotland. It was there where he decided to form the oil company IOR after seeing a gap in the market. IOR was based in Aberdeen and is still successfully running today.

[steveL]

All very interesting but not especially relevant.

I see a possible scenario as this. Someone with a lot of money fancies owning a Championship League football club. Pools are a possibility, but it will take time, require a promotion and there are doubts if Hartlepool could financially support through gate receipts a football club in that league. A quicker solution, would be to buy a club who are already in the Champions League in a major city with a population of 555,000 people - over 5 times that of Hartlepool.

[craig finton]

You can't really blame the council for being cautious on this one. Over the years they have been sold some pups from developers who have promised all sorts of things but then found some reason for those things not to happen - just look at the Marina.
When the Wilkies bought the Odeon it was going to be turned into an entertainment complex which is how they managed to get planning permission against the ewishes of local residents but instead it became just another drinking place with a late license.
Fool me once, shame on you - Fool me twice, shame on me.

[no6bus]

totally understand wanting more information, but is it a case of gauging peoples interest before spending too much money and then being knocked back because a party of councillors want to play grown up politics, and given the parties record of fiascos (last years budget springs to mind) i can understand gus robinsons being cautious as well