David Stonehouse resigns!!

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NEWCASTLE UNITED PLC ("NEWCASTLE" OR THE "COMPANY"): BOARD CHANGES The Board of Newcastle announces that David Stonehouse has resigned as Chief Executive of the Company. He is leaving the Company for personal reasons.

Further the Board announces that Russell Cushing, currently Director of Football Administration and Company Secretary, has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer of the Newcastle United Football Company Limited, and Ken Slater, currently Financial Controller, has been appointed as Finance Director of the Football Company. Both these Board appointments will take effect immediately.

The Board is also pleased to announce the appointment of Carole Beverley as Director of Commercial Affairs for Newcastle United Football Company Limited.

John Fender, Chairman of Newcastle United PLC commented: - "David's input has taken us forward during his time as Chief Executive. We respect his decision and wish him well in the future."

Commenting on these changes, Freddy Shepherd, Executive Director of Newcastle United PLC and Chairman of Newcastle United Football Club Limited, said:

"We are sad to see David leaving the Company, and are grateful for his contribution over the last 14 months. He has been a great asset to Newcastle United, and will be missed. Russell Cushing and Ken Slater have been with the Company for 30 and 29 years respectively, and the Board has every confidence in their ability to take on day-to-day responsibility for running the business."

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Answers

Missed opportunity to bring in some new blood? While the level of experience of the two new people is admirable, I can't help thinking we have missed the opportunity to inject some better business thinking into the club.

Shepherd no doubt doens't want any new blood.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


As usual, i'm suspicious....is it personal reasons just so he can get a pay off I wonder.....Howay Clarky, give him a ring and ask him ;))

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Disagreements with Shepherd because Shepherd wants to spend £40 million on new players!!!!

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

he's seen the season ticket renewal box and has started running...

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Swift - got to say, that was my first thought.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


I posted several weeks ago on what Stonehouse does and no one could answer in any meaningful way. I understand that he wanted to implement Cadbury commiteee recommendations on corporate governance and Shepherd/Hall stamped all over them as its their "lifestyle business".... the season ticket returns to date did not inspire him with confidence and Freddy was setting him up as the fall guy. The sooner this dog is off the stock exchange the better.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

I find David Stonehouse's resignation sad and deeply disturbing, but not entirely surprising.

The management structure at NUFC plc is anachronistic, bordering on bizarre, and as a professional manager I feel quite sure that David's job will have been virtually impossible.
The reality is that David's job as Chief Executive, and FS's role as Chairman of the Football Club subsidiary of the plc, will have overlapped to a significant degree, and because of this accountability will have been difficult to non-existent. I feel quite sure that the job must have been incredibly frustrating.

My personal exposure to David was limited to the official web-site issue, but even on something that should have been as straightforward as that I got a sense of David's frustration with 'the establishment'. If that frustration was extended to a myriad of other matters, I can fully understand why he ultimately would feel the need to resign.

IMHO opinion the loss of arguably our only management professional is a genuine loss to NUFC, and in that regard highly regrettable.

While it may have gone off too late, I've e-mailed David passing on my best wishes, and suggesting he might like to join us on here and keep in touch with informed opinion - and indeed ill- informed opinion - on all matters relating to the Club we all love, but despair over.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


He was the bloke that phoned me up when I had problems last year regarding season ticket applications. He spoke for about half an hour and I got the impresion that he wasn't in full agreement with the the rest of the board.He didn't think much of Rogan Taylors appointment at the time . He came over as "one of us", a supporter who sat in the leazers end rather than in the executive seats.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

As long as the Halls and Shepherd control this club, no one worth his salt is ever going to hired, or if hired, allowed to do the job of CEO. Possibly because his first action would be to evict them for any executive duties. As for the combined experience of those involved in the reshuffle -- they have experienced the same thing over and over again - FAILURE!

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Exactly right Floridian and that is why the share price is as low as it is, no one trusts the executives.

The Hall's and Shepherd should take the club private again if they want to run it in this shamateurish way but I can't see it... they have cash in the bank and to them thats all that counts... they have really ripped off the shareholder fans...

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001



For the three seasons 97/98 thro 99/00 7 quoted football clubs paid dividends to their shareholders.

Man U paid out nearly £14m, NUFC paid nearly £9m, Villa paid £3m and Sunderland were the only other to pay more than a million. For us this does not include the near £1.5m shown in the half year payment this April. Man U have City investors who demand divvies. Villa and Newcastle are owned by individuals/families. The dividend paid earlier this year was roughly 1p per share. There are 145 million shares, of which Hall and Shepherd own roughly 60% or 85 million. This means as well as their salaries the Halls and Shepherds took £850k out of the club this year so far.

To finance this dividend pay out the directors of the club made an operating profit of £5000, that is five thousand pounds. This is better than the year before when they made a loss of £15.5m but paid out dividends of £3.8m.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


There is an interesting "Sources and Uses" spreadsheet covering the period 1990 to 2000 regarding the Hall/Shepherd monies in and out of NUFC and the net gain is something like £120M.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

How much is NUFC worth today if you just at the stocks?

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

145 million shares at 35p each = £50.75m

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Well, think I have to save a little bit more then...

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001


if you've got 35p it'll be a start

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2001

Even at the low prices of the shares at the moment, Hall and Shepherd's investment is worth £31M or so. A dividend of £850,000 might seem a lot of money, but they'd get a better rate of return from a bog-standard deposit account. Of course they'd find it difficult to off-load their shares and maintain the current price, but just trying to show that their involvement with the club can't be entirely based on greed.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

I think their paper holding of £31m comes from a huge growth in their initial investment. We probably wouldn't have survived without that investment.

The continued dividend payment against a background of poor corporate performance is not acceptable. This is regardless of footballing success.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001


It may be that a decision to develop the land adjacent to SJP has been made after Mr Stonehouse quashed the rumours last week.

What no academy?

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001


I think we can safely say that Stonehouse and Shepherd have disagreed on something. Could it be that Shepherd has had enough and wants to make further investments into the team etc whereas Stonehouse represents the safe side of the team?

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Or maybe the other way around DeB...lets hope not.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

I think you may have a good point there DeB - something I had also been pondering.
Stonehouse and Fender have been saying very much the same things regarding the need for fiscal prudence given the Club's current financial situation - although this is entirely at odds with what DH recently said, and divergent with Shepherd's position.
David Stonehouse is an accountant by profession, and his position as a Director would be made totally untenable if the Club's major shareholders were intending to spend/invest beyond what he felt was workable and sensible. In such a situation I feel he would be compelled to resign rather than be proven guilty by association if the Company got into serious financial difficulties.
I have an inkling that something like this is probably what has caused David's untimely resignation. If so, then it is quite possible that a significant investment in players at this juncture may very well be the last roll of the dice for NUFC.
There's a cheering thought.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

unless a very rich american is on the horizon...

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

seriously, if they don't invest in the team (well) then the financial consequences could be scary. If we don't fill the stadium then the bond won't get paid for will it?
dougal...

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

Then the consequences for the bondholders would be scary - it wouldn't bring the club down in itself. Might make it a bit difficult for us to borrow again though.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 2001

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