Prudency vital while investor at Rochdale
ROCHDALE AFC chairman Simon Gauge issued a New Year message to supporters as the club welcomed in 2024 this week.
The club’s top brass has made it clear on a number of occasions that investment is crucial and Mr Gauge said despite plenty of interest, as yet firm investment had yet to be secured.
That means continuing to cut the cloth accordingly, though the chairman said there was plenty to be positive about. He wrote:
I hope that you all had a fabulous Christmas and are looking forward to this evening’s New Year celebrations and our trip to AFC Fylde on New Year’s Day.
It has been an extremely busy time of year, both on and off the pitch.
We held our AGM on the 22nd of December. It is always good to get together with our shareholders, and as well as completing the formal requirements of the evening, it was also a timely opportunity to address questions from the floor. In my view, this was hugely beneficial for both the shareholders and directors alike.
We spoke a lot on the evening about the need for investment into the club.
We were clear at the start of the season that we needed to sell the available shares in the club to fulfil our financial obligations for 2023/24, and be in no doubt that the situation has not changed.
Whilst we have come close to securing deals with several potential investors, as of yet, we have not managed to get anything over the line.
There are difficulties in attracting investment, not least because of the complicated share structure, but these issues can and must be overcome.
There are many advantages to investing in Rochdale
AFC over other clubs. Primarily, it is a great club with great people in and around it.
We are a well-established club with over 100 years of history.
We own our ground with plenty of development potential around it, and from an investment perspective, it offers exceptional potential to significantly increase the club’s value and make a return in the future.
If you add all of this to our location near to Manchester, the exciting developments happening in Rochdale, such as the Northern Gateway development, and the fact that there is a population in the borough of around 225,000 people, it is not hard to find the potential of the club.
There will be a suitable investor out there somewhere for us, and we will continue looking hard to find them.
In the meantime, as a club, we need to do all we can to keep going.
That means continuing to be very prudent in what we spend and trying to raise some much-needed cash.
There are ways in which everybody can contribute to this.
At the AGM, shareholders requested that shares were made available for purchase. As an immediate response, the Board has agreed to make 50,000 shares of the unallocated 366,000 shares available for purchase at the agreed minimum share price of £2.35.
Applications should be made to shares@rochdaleafc.co.uk.
The remainder will be