Club Invites Offers For Investment
As communicated in the recent Chairman’s Christmas Message, the club continues to operate in very difficult financial circumstances, and without one-off events such as player sales, cup runs, or other windfalls, is likely to make a loss in the region of £1.2m in the financial year to June 2023.
To raise some of the required capital to face these challenges, shareholders authorised in November 2022 to permit the Board of Directors to issue up to another 450,000 shares in the club to be sold at not less than £2.35 a share. This increased the club’s total shares to 1,350,000, with 899,899 allocated at the time of the share issue. If the full allocation is sold, this would raise £1.06m. This followed a previous share issue in October 2021, that raised around £0.8m.
Supporters have purchased around 5% of the new shares at the present time, and the club of course welcomes these purchases. However, the overall uptake has been low. The Board of Directors is now looking outside of the existing shareholder and fanbase for an investor/s to acquire the remaining unsold shares. As such, the club invites any parties (including existing shareholders, supporters, etc) to express their interest at the earliest opportunity. This can be done in the first instance via email to shares@rochdaleafc.co.uk.
Chairman Simon Gauge added: “It has become essential that we look for outside investment. Anybody putting in this level of investment may want to take a controlling stake in the club at some stage in the future and the board are open to exploring how to facilitate this, providing the investor guarantees the future sustainability of the club. Significant due diligence will be undertaken as part of this process, both internally, and via all relevant EFL processes.”