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Chairman remains confident of investment
CHAIRMAN Lee Strafford is confident that Wednesday can deliver a long-term investment deal, though the club have had to drop their target deadline of March 31.
It remains business as usual at Hillsborough with the club going ahead with plans to add to changes already made by the new regime, regardless of when a deal for additional backing is clinched.
Strafford said: "We remain confident in our ability to deliver long-term direct investment.
"We may not have been able to reach agreement within our deadline but we are confident that the right investment will arrive in due course."
The dropping of the March 31 deadline came after former chairman Dave Allen made it public that he would not settle for less than payment in full of the 2 million owed to him by the club.
The Owls' bank, the Co-op, recently agreed in principle to write off a large part of the 21m it is owed.
It is also understood that though Allen declined a compromise, other main creditors Mick Wright, Keith Addy, Geoff Hulley, Bob Grierson and Ken Cooke were prepared to accept the same percentage cut as the bank.
The amount owed to the former chairman seems relatively small when compared to the multi-million-pound funding that the club have been trying to attract.
But it is believed that the bank, supportive of the club and major players in the affair as they are by far the biggest creditors, would not entertain a situation where another creditor was receiving 100 per cent repayment but the bank were getting less than that percentage.
It is also understood that a cut in repayment to loan-note holders would not have meant them simply losing money. The deal on offer also involved an opportunity for them to convert their debt into new shares, and if the club get to the Premier League then the new investors would buy those shares at a predetermined price.
The overall message from the club has been that the bid to bring in new investment is not dead, that there is merely a delay, and efforts are being made to find a solution that satisfies all parties.
Potential investors remain interested, and in the meantime Strafford says the Owls are already in a position to press ahead with various projects.
Stafford says that the club is now "very different" compared to mid-December when he and chief executive Nick Parker came on board.
The chairman said: "We are proud of the changes we have made and are excited about the future.
"The investment programme is needed to help the club build, not for its survival."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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