According to a post on Sky Blues Talk forum, Clerk to the Trustees of the Higgs Charity Peter Knatchbull Hugessen, has said that SISU did not take up the chance of renegotIating the rent for the Ricoh Arena when they took over the club.
The post reads as follows:
"I know that it must be difficult to disentangle everything that is being said and written. There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions and if there is one thing that is healthy it is debate and argument. What is lacking a lot of the time are facts.
I cannot for all the old, but obvious reasons, of commercial confidentiality and so on go into everything and thus I know that this posting will anger those people who want more information than I can give.
But I will list some things that could go into the discussions as facts.
CCFC holds the player registrations and the Football League share. All its other assets have had a charge put on them by ARVO. ARVO is owned by Sisu. They cannot do anything with the player registrations. If CCFC goes into liquidation the League take the player registrations and the League share and the Club ceases to be in the League. All the other assets would be taken from one Sisu company and transferred into another Sisu company.
The rental agreement between ACL and CCFC was entered into freely by both parties. The Chairman of the football club and another of the CCFC Directors were both Directors of ACL. They signed on both sides of the agreement. Before Sisu bought the Club from Robinson and his other shareholders under pressure from the Co-Op Bank, they had full view of all CCFC’s contracts and obligations. They took them on when they took over the Club. They did not try to re-negotiate anything.
Before issuing the Statutory Demand the Board of ACL made one last attempt to get Fisher and Sisu to talk about paying rent. An offer was made by ACL and we are informed was accepted by two of CCFC’s three directors but it was still rejected by CCFC.
Match day revenues: CCFC have all the revenues except the revenue from the kiosks on the concourse. The £10,000 Fisher talks about includes paying Compass for the food and drink that the Club sell to the Corporates. The boardroom £600 bar bill comes out of the £10,000.
Put things in perspective, it costs £800 per day to heat the pitch. That heating is on 7 days a week at the moment, £5,600. That has to come out of the £10,000. Fisher claims that he is being overcharged, an easy thing to say but actually untrue.
CCFC could move to another place. It would have to meet the League standards and comply with all the safety regulations: that would mean a ground share and that means with a similarly sized club. This is well nigh impossible because both clubs, under both codes’ rules would have to have priority over the other in fixtures. That is just the first hurdle. The second is that CCFC have a contract with ACL. If that is not honoured and the rent paid, whether they are there or not, CCFC would end up in liquidation and be thrown out of the League and have the player registrations taken away. Fisher knows this. I just ask why he set up such a storm of discussion and fear? I have my own answer to this question."
More on this: http://www.skybluestalk.co.uk/threads/23337-Some-answers-to-some-of-the-many-questions