Ipswich Town's creditors this morning overwhelmingly accepted the proposed Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) at a series of meetings in the Galleria at Portman Road. 98.2% of creditors by value agreed to go along with the plan put together by the club along with administrators Deloitte and Touche.
The first of the meetings saw Nick Dargan of Deloitte and Touche put the proposals to the creditors and at the second the creditors voted, the CVA receiving more than the 75% by value required for it's acceptance. At the third meeting the administrator gave a presentation to the club's shareholders, who also voted overwhelmingly in favour of the plan.
The process for Town coming out of administration will progress with the administrator sending a report on the meeting to the court today. There is a 28 day period when any dissatisfied creditors can make an appeal against the vote, however this is considered unlikely to occur, and in any case would probably fail.
At the end of the 28 days Nick Dargan will go to court to have the administration order discharged as it will have achieved its purpose; the approval of the CVA.
This could mean the club are out of administration as soon as May 30th, however with a Football League board meeting on June 4th, this looks a more likely date for control of the club to return to the board.
At the Football League board meeting the League will return Town's ‘share' and the club's transfer embargo will be lifted. It is understood that the Football League will seek to monitor the transfer activities of clubs in Town's position.
The club will look to refinance during the summer via season tickets sales, a debenture scheme and a loan stock through which the directors will invest £400,000 into the club. A share issue with voting rights equal to the existing shares is expected later in the year, although perhaps not as soon as the late summer date previously pencilled in.
It is also likely that more players will depart, although by no means a mass exodus which would leave only a handful of youngsters left at Joe Royle's disposal next season.
Despite anger from many unsecured creditors since the club went into administration, there was little choice for them but to accept the CVA. The other alternative would have been a sale of the old company's assets to a new company in which case they would have received nothing.
Under the CVA proposal unsecured creditors will receive at least 5p in the pound and possibly up to 20p in the pound if Town are promoted to the Premiership during the four-year period of the CVA. Preferential creditors will receive 50p in the pound and perhaps their full debt if the club regain their top division status.
Town went into administration on February 10th and along with Deloitte and Touche met with many of the larger creditors including bondholder Norwich Union, Barclays Bank, the Bank of Scotland and the Inland Revenue. Once agreement had been reached with these parties the acceptance of the CVA proposal was a foregone conclusion.