Archer To Sell V8SC Back To The Teams???

[GTRMagic]

Interesting article in AA this week by Mr Fogarty, suggesting that a small gathering of team owners have apparently been forming unlikely coalitions in order to get a bid up to buy V8SC back from Archer Capital.

Mr Fogarty suggests in the article that Mr Cochrane is included in just such a syndicate, to lead the sport back from what the teams have been described in the article as being as a period of wrong decisions and an income-free zone.

To me, the article isnt on the front page of AA, or referenced there.. which suggests that perhaps it is more fanciful than grounded in executable potential.. and that the article is combined with a spiel about how the existing V8SC team directors are shopping Mr Warburton's name around as a way forward for the leadership of the series as kind of burying it with the other story...

But it does beg the question...

Is this thing actually possible?

Is the relationship with Archer in such a state that they want to eject them from the ivory tower and bring back the old guard?



The teams are well known to bleat and moan almost every week that they have no budgets to go racing, and here is something that would likely cost them, should they choose to participate, somewhere around $6.5m per REC in order for Archer Capital to get its buy price back...



Of interest in yesterday's Financial Review was a 2 page article around one of Archer Capital's sale attempts of IT company MYOB, and how their deal with Sage in the UK apparently fell over at the 11th hour. The article explains that Archer is apparently taking Sage to court over the inability to consummate what they considered a done deal... claiming damages equivalent to at least the difference between the price from Sage, and the (much lower) price they got from Bain Capital for that business.

This suggests perhaps that a buy-back price from Archer may be north of the $180m they are reported to have paid for their share of V8SC.. especially if you take into account any lost income from the couple of years these blokes and blokettes have been inc harge

...which theoretically increases the share price per REC holder...



Which in any terms is a shedload of dollars...

Presumably the teams and their consortium would they would still need to take on a commercial funding partner, like an Archer but without the operational control/majority ownership, to execute such a bold plan.

There has been some noise around this possibility for more than a little while, suggesting that Ms Klimenko-Saunders has been included in just such a scenario as arguably being capable of sourcing at least some of the funds required to take V8SC back to the racers. Most of such chat was put in the pile of "wouldn't it be good if..." and wasnt given much credence.

Maybe it should now...

Presuming any of this actually happened