The story I heard was that the club couldnt borrow money but the pension fund could.
I think the point was more Bonsor actually putting money in for a change.
But he’s not paying in the traditional sense of the word, cos he’s paying £100k to improve the stadium, but the rent is going up £40k (or whatever), so he’s paying to increase the value of (or maintain the value of) an asset.
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That’s not enough. Especially not when there is still wee everywhere.
I don’t give a ■■■■ whether he’s doing it in the traditional sense or not.
You may well be right, but I assumed that the club borrowed the money from Suffolk Life, using the pension fund as collateral, with the borrowings shown on the accounts as “Directors’ Loans”, since the loans would have been guaranteed against the directors’ pensions. This would be analogous to someone with a mortgage going to his building society and asking for a further loan in order to build an extension. It is logical to go to your building society first since that already has an interest in the property.
I have no way of knowing whether that is correct, but it seemed the most likely scenario to me. In my possible version of events as the “Directors’ Loans” are repaid the money goes back to Suffolk Life. This way Bonser did not have to draw any money from his pension in order to lend money to the club to pay for improvements, or to cover shortfalls. It has been pointed out that taking money from a pension fund makes it liable to tax, and maybe at a high rate of tax, so it seems more likely that the pension pot would have been untouched, but used to back up loans.
Thanks Bernie I wasn’t aware 
You may well be right, however, my recollection of when this subject has been talked about by Gamble and Mole is that they have intimated that the Pension Fund paid for the work. It’s still ambiguous, as paid for could be either route (directly, or indirectly via a Directors Loan account).
Either way, JWB isn’t paying for these improvements in the altruistic sense of the word. He’s a cold hearted landlord.
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This is where it gets very complicated.
The pension fund owns it as an asset. Paying for improvements/maintenance could be seen as necessary to increase/maintain it’s value and thus not attract taxation in the same way drawing down cash would.
That is a good point. I suppose I have always assumed that Bonser would not want to touch the capital in his SIPP and would have preferred to borrow against the value of his pension (with the Bescot Stadium being by far the biggest item) rather than reduce it by removing cash. Most cash in pension funds is tied up in long term investments such as bonds. As I have said I have no way of knowing if my assumption was correct, and you could well be right.
What I do know is that whenever Mole and Gamble talk about the landlord as being Suffolk Life, they are being rather misleading, since they don’t want to admit that the rent goes to benefit Bonser. Perhaps if Bonser really had dipped into his personal pension in order to improve Bescot then they would have said so, instead they have always said that Suffolk Life helped them out.
The very issue of his exit strategy and demanding he attends a public meeting to discuss this, and to also explain how he intends to resolve the issue of the freehold, where at the top of the list of questions, Issa handed over at Monday’s wpm mate, We gave a timescale of three weeks to be issued with a written response, containing detailed answers to every question furnished
Dan mole stated he would respond to each one as requested, and would put the one demanding bonser publicly adresses fans in relation to exit plan, freehold, immediate plan of action, statement of intent amongst other things, direct to bonser to answer
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I couldn’t care less what the fine print around the rent/pension is if I’m honest. The bottom line is the club is in dire need of investment, almost from top to bottom.
If that is at Jeff Bonser’s personal cost I can’t say I’m upset about it. He’s made more than enough in return. And even if he hadn’t it’s the cost of letting your business go to ruin.
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A Coventry fan I have spoken to on holiday says that they are now paying wasps £200 000 a year to play at the ricoh!
Given the historic wranglings between the interested parties - I find that figure (£200k PA) very hard to believe (but I can’t disprove it!)