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The £300 million funding question and the dangers of "doing an Arsenal" — New Spurs Stadium Deep Dive (Part 1)
[Part two of this series can be found here]
In a quiet moment over the Christmas break, and being a fun guy, I had time to sit down and go through some of the documents published as part of the planning review process for the new Spurs stadium.
Spurs, normally quite circumspect in how they go about their business, have been quite transparent in publicising information on the new stadium. But there is nothing like a public review process to impell companies to truly let the light in on their plans.
I've always been curious about how Spurs are going to actually fund such a massive project, and what repercussions this could have on the team we see once the stadium finally opens.
Among the documentation bundle available to the public was a Viability Report on the scheme.
This report was produced by accountancy firm KPMG for Haringey Council and the Greater London Authority. It does exactly what it says in the tin — assesses whether a planning applicant such as Spurs has a feasible plan to ensure their project is completed.
Having gone through it, it is fair to say this is an interesting document. As the report states, its primary source is information provided by the club.
The report highlights the huge financial challenge facing Spurs, and details the commercial assumptions that are underpinning the project. It also offers some hints about the long-term strategy that may be in play by ENIC.
In this post, I'm going to look at the key financial questions surrounding the stadium scheme. In part two, I'll look in detail at the most eye-grabbing part of the whole scheme — the NFL provisions.
1 Project Cost and risk
The Viability Report lays bare the immense cost of the project that Spurs have embarked upon. While Daniel Levy, at the recent fan forum, put the final stadium cost at £500 million, KPMG estimates the cost of the entire scheme at between £675 million and £750 million. This includes the development of the land at the south of site — where the apartment blocks, hotel, climbing wall and scuba tank (indeed) will be located.
Whichever way you shake it, this is a lot of money, particularly in comparison with other stadium projects. Per the report, the Stadium of Light cost just £15 million to construct, helped tremendously by the fact it is located in Sunderland and presumably built from cardboard. West Ham are chipping in a derisory £16 million of the £194 million cost of the Olympic Stadium refit. I've struggled to find an accurate figure for the Emirates Stadium — on Wikipedia, it cites both £390 million (the commonly held figure) and £440 million. Either way, the cost facing Spurs is significantly above any of this.
The report notes the relative decline in importance of the increased match-day revenues a new stadium would generate amid soaring TV income. "The financial benefits of a new stadium could be less than the merit payments attributed to finishing a few places higher (in the Premier League)," it states.
I'd add on that point though, TV rights may be soaring now, but there is no guarantee they will continue to do so — the Premier League deal is revisited every three years. A world-class stadium, so long as you can continue to fill it, offers secure long-term revenues.
But it just shows how the huge influx of TV money is transforming the environment. The TV income is so high it is seen to be creating an argument AGAINST expanding stadia, even as it provides the finance that should be enabling every club to build for the future like Spurs are doing.
2 The £300 million funding gap
A key area of consideration in the KPMG viability report is the "funding gap" — the difference between what Spurs have already invested and the commitments they have been able to secure, and what still needs to be found. The gap is considerable.
So far, Spurs have spent around £100 million — including in purchasing land. They have also found three banks willing to loan £350 million towards the project. This is no mean feat — the KPMG report notes there has been "little recent appetite to fund stadia projects" This loan is £90 million more than Arsenal secured, more than 10 years ago (more on them later).
This still leaves between £225 million and £300 million to find.
The report lists the potential funding options as public sector contribution, junior debt, equity investment, sales from the southern development, and advanced sales of naming rights and hospitality/season tickets.
I'll talk about equity investment shortly, but the report shows that Spurs are facing a delicate balancing act. For example, it states securitizing future naming rights and hospitality sales could restrict options when it comes to issuing new debt.
A key to this balancing act is the "bridge loan" that the three banks have offered. Essentially, the banks will advance Spurs £200 million of the £350 million total loan, enabling the club to push on with construction. Levy has spoken previously (I can't recall exactly when so I can't find the link) about the naming rights issue — how typically, agreements are reached once construction is well advanced. This removes the risk of a brand being associated with a heavily delayed project such as Wembley, for example.
The report also sets out the likely financing terms: the £350 million loan (including the bridge element), will be a five-year loan that will then be refinanced. This is important guidance for us fans — for five years money will be tight due to high interest payments, but then the burden should soften. This is similar to the Arsenal experience — after they refinanced they were able to push the boat out and make signings like Ozil and Sanchez (Arsenal now have both a massive cash balance and massive debt).
The report stated that the "bridge" loan could have been in place by the end of December 2015. I've seen no announcement of this by the club yet. Approval is still needed by the Mayor of London and Secretary of State before construction can advance at full speed, which should be a formality.
You can clearly see Levy's strategy in terms of ensuring a "train" of money rolling steadily onwards to ensure that adequate finance is in place through the phases of the project.
The £100 million that has already been spent (a proportion of which came from equity investment from ENIC, more later) has enabled Spurs to complete the first phase of the redevelopment (Lilywhite House), and reach the "shovel ready" stage on phase two, the stadium itself. (In fact, it is more advanced with some groundworks already done). The £200 million bridge loan will enable Spurs to go full-speed as soon as it gets the final of the many green lights required. This would include expensive items such as purchasing raw materials. The next £150 million of the loan will then be paid out in installments as the project moves towards completion.
Accepting the £500 million cost for the actual stadium build, with £100 million already spent and £350 million already committed, Spurs are getting there. It is funding the final phase, the southern development, that is more uncertain. However, by then the stadium will be up and running, a naming rights deal will have kicked in, and increased match-day revenues should be rolling in.
3 Lessons from Arsenal
The closest terms of reference for what Spurs are embarking upon comes from Arsenal, understandably. And Arsenal offer some valuable lessons, in particular in funding the project.
Arsenal pushed ahead with their stadium project without adequate funding in place (they had a loan of £260 million), forcing them to halt work at one stage when the money dried up. They were required to issue fresh debt and equity, securitize commercial revenues and curtail transfer activity at a greater level than initially planned, according to KPMG.
I suspect, the cash crunch also limited what work they did on the stadium, in particularly the finishing touches that can give it that unique feeling of "home". Subsequent to completion, The Emirates had to undergo an "Arsenalisation", which is a little embarrassing.
Money from the redevelopment of Highbury only started to roll in after the stadium was completed. This will be the same for Spurs, who will finish the stadium then work on the redevelopment of the south of the site. So, it must be noted, the stated idea of funding for the scheme potentially coming from this redevelopment appears optimistic.
Failure to have money in place when required would be doubly painful for Spurs as we are having to play away from White Hart Lane for one season during construction.
The deadlines appear quite tight for the magnitude of the project, and from what I am aware, Premier League rules dictate that you can only play in one "home" stadium per season. One year in Milton Keynes (we need to start accepting that Wembley isn't likely to happen as Chelsea have more money than us) will be bad, two will be very annoying for fans and cost the club millions in lost revenues.
4 Naming rights, and the assessment of a length of a piece of string
As stated, Spurs will need to find between £225 million and £300 million to complete the stadium scheme. The first priority in bridging the gap will be securing naming rights.
So how much can Spurs expect to receive from naming rights? There is a "how long is a piece of string" aspect to the question, as the report notes, but Spurs have put a clear figure on how much they think they can get from from naming rights and some other related commercial income streams: £30 million per year.
The report states: "Key drivers of commercial revenue growth in the new stadium are expected to be stadium and cornerstone naming rights, and income in respect of increased merchandising and conference events, which together will give annual incremental income of approximately £30 million per year."
Obviously, I can't divine how much of this £30 million would be naming rights, and how much conference or merchandising income. But is this even realistic?
Arsenal signed a £90 million, 15-year deal with Emirates, for both shirt sponsorship and naming rights, in 2004. Per The Guardian's Daniel Taylor, the naming rights were valued at just £2.4 million per year. In 2011, Manchester City signed an FFP-busting £400 million, 10-year deal with Etihad, again for both shirt and stadium rights. In recent naming rights deals in the US, MetLife paid $400 million (£275 million) over 25 years for rights to Meadowlands, home of both New York NFL franchises. Levi's paid $220 million over 11 years to sponsor the home of the San Francisco 49ers.
The KPMG report makes clear this £30 million figure is the club's, and it came from an external report. But the huge disparity between what Arsenal achieved in 2004 and Manchester City engineered in 2011 provides few clues, while the rights deal in the US may suggest what Spurs are after is optimistic.
One thing I would also note is that Spurs' shirt sponsorship with AIA runs until the end of the 2018/19 season, which may rule out a joint shirt and stadium sponsorship deal unless there is a break clause in the contract, or unless AIA is interested in a more comprehensive sponsorship.
The key in Spurs' negotiations once the club begins marketing the rights will be twofold: securing as big a deal as possible, obviously, but also ensuring that it is "frontloaded" to as great an extent as possible to ensure finance is in place through the later stages of construction.
Can Levy pull a rabbit out of the hat, and land a £225 million to £300 million naming rights deal to cover the gap? We'll see. But it appears likely that Spurs will need more funding to complete the scheme.
5 That £80 million profit
At this point, it should be noted that Spurs is a profitable club, stonkingly so in the last financial year. Per football finance blogger Swiss Ramble, Spurs booked a cool £80 million profit in the last set of accounts.
This figure was helped by the sale of Gareth Bale to Real Madrid, but Spurs reinvested much of that money in the transfer market.
I suspect, the accounts were polished shinier than the silverware at Buckingham Palace in the last financial year as Spurs knew that they would soon be securing financing for the stadium — the better shape the club is in, the lower the initial rate of interest on the £350 million loan. This financial year, the wage bill will have decreased with some big earners gone, and the wage bill should still be relatively low the following financial year when the new TV deal kicks in, due to the age profile of the squad. Depending on the degree of deferment of certain costs away from last year's accounts (for example you can do smart things with player amortisation, i.e how you write down the cost of purchasing a player), Spurs could still be quite stonkingly profitable in the next couple of seasons, too.
There is a big difference between flogging the crown jewels to fund a stadium, and reinvesting profits to build the club's future. In fact, Spurs have been doing this with little complaint for years — the club invested £45 million on the new training facility, for example.
Daniel Levy has been clear there will still be money available to strengthen the squad through construction, and he has no intention of selling any players. He appears to have an ally in Mauricio Pochettino, who doesn't like to spend unless necessary and is the Premier League's "Mr Youth Development".
It would appear that there may be profits from the club in the next couple of seasons that could be poured (almost literally) into building the new stadium.
6 Equity sale: ENIC's last resort
For what remains, the KPMG report gives some interesting detail on the final likely source of funding: an equity sale.
(As far as I'm aware, there is no public funding for the stadium itself, and KPMG doesn't give any further details on junior debt issuance).
Talks on an equity investment have already taken place, although the report notes that these are at an earlier stage than talks with banks over a loan. It continues: "The club have verbally indicated that they have received expressions of interest from credible counterparties, including entities with significant experience in financing similar sports stadia construction projects."
A while back, Spurs confirmed an approach from an investment company named Cain Hoy, a London-based outfit apparently focused on real estate that was set up by several executives of Guggenheim Partners, a major investment company. The approach was serious enough that Spurs were forced to open their books so Cain Hoy could conduct due diligence. Per @ztranche, a Spurs-supporting finance professional, things never went further. The club subsequently put about a figure of £1 billion needed to buy the club. As some noted at the time, this seemed extremely high.
Currently, ENIC's control of the club is very secure — per the last annual report, ENIC held over 182 million shares in the club, representing 85.46 percent of those in issue. I don't know who owns the other 14.5 percent — filings to Companies House simply state "other". Regulations mean any shareholdings over 3 percent must be disclosed. Per Tottenham Hotspur's annual reports, the last time someone blipped above this mark was in 2009, when Michael Ashcroft (Lord Ashcroft for those who follow British politics) upped his stake to about 4 percent. Polys Haji-ioannou (the older brother of the EasyJet fella Sir Stelios) previously owned just over 9 percent, through his HODRAM vehicle, but it would appear he sold down his stake at the same time that Alan Sugar sold his remaining stake to ENIC in 2007, as it is no longer disclosed as a substantial holding.
By the way, Daniel Levy and his family are "potential beneficiaries of a discretionary trust that ultimates owns 29.41 percent" of ENIC — I always think this is important to remember. He may drive us crazy at times, but he is a Spurs fan and has serious skin in the game.
I picked the brains of @ztranche on ENIC's strategy, and we held a similar hunch: ENIC view an equity sale, now, as a last resort.
Simply put, the value of Spurs should soar once the stadium is built. The club is making a huge, and risky, investment in a new stadium, dragging down its value. While debt will increase tremendously, revenues will soar once the stadium is built.
By extension, you can see why investors such as Cain Hoy may fancy taking a stake in Spurs now — hence a figure of £1 billion being bandied around to deter them.
The last time Spurs issued fresh equity, it was almost all bought by ENIC itself — this occurred in 2009 and enabled Spurs to press ahead with land purchases, I believe. Could this happen again? I don't know enough about Joe Lewis or his finances beyond what is in the public domain — but safe to say he has significant means. Forbes puts his net worth of $5.2 billion, and his Tavistock portfolio has a long list of assets. The idea that ENIC itself "buys" much of the new equity, essentially pumping money into the club, with a view that the value is going to soar, is far from outlandish.
I'd note, Spurs will be keen to avoid another lesson from Arsenal — warring factions of investors that create an atmosphere of stasis, or arguably worse, instability. So ENIC strengthening its control of Spurs isn't a bad thing, per se.
Judging by the amounts Spurs already have committed, the potential for naming rights and the profitability of the club, the amount of finance needing to be raised by ENIC may be fairly modest — by my fag-packet maths, it would more likely be in the tens of millions than the hundreds of millions. This is a relatively small amount in the grand scheme of things. Provided it has the funds, there seems little incentive for ENIC to dilute its shareholding of the club, and even reduce its control by, say, surrendering seats on the board.
To sum up, ENIC appear to have made major strides in ensuring sufficient money is in place to fund the Spurs stadium project. And it will be fascinating to watch their strategy in securing what else needs to be found.
Thanks for reading, please follow me on Twitter for more Spurs chat, my handle is @spurs_report. I'd welcome any feedback on this article.
NEXT: In part two, I'm going to look in detail at the most curious single aspect of the whole stadium scheme — the NFL connection.
This entry was posted in Deep DIve, Football Finance, New Stadium, Spurs & the NFL and tagged Daniel Levy, ENIC, New Stadium on January 11, 2016 by thespursreport.
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46 thoughts on "The £300 million funding question and the dangers of "doing an Arsenal" — New Spurs Stadium Deep Dive (Part 1)"
abc January 12, 2016 at 8:16 am
what a load of crap.
Funding gap?
How about we have the lowest net spend amongst established top flight clubs.
cado January 19, 2016 at 12:14 pm
did you even read the article?
hotspursam January 12, 2016 at 10:18 am
Quite an accurate account of the KPMG report, which backed up the Spurs funding report completed by Rothchilds. The report also concluded IIRC that the Southern Development would not retain sufficient residual value to pay for any affordable housing – as things stand.
thespursreport Post author January 12, 2016 at 10:21 am
Yeah, hard to figure quite what is going on with affordable housing, hope Spurs aren't being naughty, but you never know
No, I don't they are being naughty, they are being quite open about it and they have produced affordable housing in other areas of N Tottenham. Their figures have been backed up by two respected financial institutions in Rothchilds and latterly, KPMG, plus another independent consultant whose name I can't remember now.
The viability for affordable is to be revisited at some point, date yet to be agreed, but will be in the S106 agreement.. Planning permission isn't ratified until after S106 is signed. There is 3 months to do this otherwise they are called back to the Council. A date in March has been set aside for this contingency I believe. That's what the big last minute Hoo-ha was all about at the Planning Meeting.
Thanks for the information — really interesting
hotspursam January 12, 2016 at 1:08 pm
Oops sorry had a blonde moment there. The 3rd independent I referred to was for the H&S report of the Tottenham Experience and the listed buildings, and nothing to do with financial viability and affordable.
On that score, the estimated cost of the Southern Development is circa £366m, yet the residual land value on completion, on current figures is £267m, an expected loss of £100m, hence the non viability for affordable housing. This of course has nothing to do with commercial value etc, which is the part that will help pay for the cost/debt/loan in the building of the stadium.
On current figures, KPMG expect Spurs as developers to make a return of 1.5% on the scheme when fully completed, whereas, on most projects developers would expect 15% to 20% and certainly wouldn't go ahead with anything less than 10%.
The completion of the stadium is expected to increase land value and so that £100m deficient will be extinguished and if the rerun goes above 4.5% then affordable housing will come back into the equation.
It is the date/point at which this is to be re-calculated and final% mark, that is for agreement in the S106 and is of contention between Spurs and the Council atm.
I can't remember if the cost of the Tottenham Experience is included in the southern development or as part of the stadium build though. I believe the Health Centre is, but will stand corrected on that if otherwise.
thespursreport Post author January 12, 2016 at 1:23 pm
Thanks for that again — that is incredible detail. I'd not actually seen the £366 million figure — which report is it exactly?
I'll check thru for you when I have the time. It's in one of the viability reports IIRC
Cheers — appreciate a link, or pointer to where it is (unless i'm being an idiot and it's part of main bundle i linked to in piece)
Yes it is in there somewhere, takes a bit of delving though. I'll dig it out tonight or tomorrow when I'm at home
Hi again, try here:-
http://www.planningservices.haringey.gov.uk/portal/servlets/AttachmentShowServlet?ImageName=773887
Page 55 sections 9.1 and 9.2 including table 15 shows the negative value at minus £100m
Section 7 details the GDV of the completed scheme at £291,8m see section 7.47
Section 8 details the cost of build and charges at £335.53m. See page 54 section 8.22
Lots of pages of detail in there to get your teeth into. Was included in the main bundle of Docs submitted to planning as additional material.
Report by DS2 not Tothchilds as I thought earlier. Rothchilds is for financing.
Also got some of my other facts slightly incorrect from memory so I'll post up copies of two of my notes from the planning meeting I did for the Spurs List (out of 9) following this for your info.
Naj January 12, 2016 at 3:00 pm
The costs of development for the southern site are here:-
Thanks! Really helpful — will take a look at that in due course
Yes, that's the one
Planning Meeting – Note 1
I watched all 5 1/2 hrs of the Planning Sub- Committee meeting and will break my notes down into a series of posts.
Meeting started on time at 7pm, was due to finish at 10pm but didn't finish until 00:28 when the final vote was taken.
After the first few agenda items were completed, apologies, introductions etc a spanner was thrown into the works. Spurs had come up with a last minute submission which needed discussion with the planning officers in a separate room. Meeting was adjourned for 30mins.
Turns out this was about the viability of affordable housing. Spurs had only received the KPMG report the day before, and this concerned a viability review towards affordable housing re date and percentage trigger points.
There was some Argy Bargy about Spurs late submission when the subject came up in the meeting. Council nit happy with Spurs, Spurs not happy with Council etc. By it for tat exchanges.
In essence, KPMG agreed that currently there is no residual value in the southern development and so affordable housing isn't possible. However, it was agreed by them, as suggested by Spurs, that once the stadium is built land values may increase and so there may be scope for affordable housing then. KPMG recommended a trigger point of 20% increase in land value as a trigger point for which anything above that would be split 50/50 between Spurs and Council for the provision of affordable housing. This amount being estimated at £48.4mil on current valuation. They also recommended the review date for this is when the building of the stadium is complete. I.e. Not when it is first used.
Spurs response was a trigger point of 25% but they wanted a date of 31 Dec 18 or when the stadium is first opened, which ever is the earlier. They wanted this date for their protection. Their argument was that it isn't a matter of not wanting the viability review but a question of funding. The housing/flats are to act as an enabler towards the funding of the stadium build and in a planned phased project they needed to be able to protect their funding stream as the project progressed.
Don't ask me the ins and outs of this, it is very complicated and the Councillors weren't able to follow it all either. I'm not sure that Spurs agreed to the 20% figure or not during the discussion. In the end it was voted on to put the KPMG recommendation into the S106 agreement.
Planning permission is granted of course subject to both parties signing the section 106 agreement. A date of 18 Mar 16 was set for this. If not signed by then, permission is rescinded and they have to come back to the committee. This is usual.
Other quick points of note :-
Stadium capacity. 61,080
A figure of £600mil for the project was mentioned.
Spurs already using 400 White Hart Lane as a compound without planning permission, and asked to explain themselves. Confessed, bang to rights, planning officers knew but had to submit formal planning application at same time as the stadium application. Laughed it off.
Vote was 8-2 in favour
More tomorrow. Bed is calling me (all sorts of names).
thespursreport Post author January 12, 2016 at 10:29 pm
I'm finally getting round to reading these in detail. Pls drop me an email — address is spursreport@gmx.co.uk — i've had a load of responses on social media to the blog, but want to ask you a couple of things about the meeting last month specifically. Cheers!
After the early shenanigans the lead Planning officer made his presentation.
He stressed that the application is properly presented and meets in principle the conditions set out in The Haringey Plan, The London Plan, Communal Plans, and is appropriate and in line with policy for a growth area, as is High Rd West and Northumberland Park. The area is a dedicated growth area and been nominated for sport led regeneration and stadium area by the Council. He stressed there was nowhere else in the area where a sport stadium of equivalent size could be built.
Next up the Chair Lady went through the application subject by subject as listed in the Planners report 400+ pages, not line by line f course. Various graphics and charts were used but not seen from the static camera position. This took some while to complete.
However, as their Viability expert had to leave early (as meeting had been postponed for a week), this subject was raised out of turn at the beginning and opened to question from the council. I explained as best I could this subject in Note 1 last night. What I didn't mention is that developers would normally seek a return on profit of about 15% to 20% certainly no less than 10% for a scheme to be considered viable. Rothchilds (Spurs experts) and KPMG (Council's independent experts) both came to the same conclusion that Spurs Return to profit would only be approx 1.5% on value. Hence the lack of affordable housing. Lots of discussion took place mainly how this was all so very terrible and sought detailed reasons. Some said why didn't they have less expenditure on the stadium infrastructure and fittings so affordable housing could be included. They kept having to be reminded that the central reason for the project is the stadium, not housing, which is to act as an enabler for the stadium. The stadium needed to be iconic and just more than football to attract use for 365 days a year etc to act as catalyst for wider regeneration. An ordinary stadium just wouldn't do that. It needed to be first class in all respects. Which this design is.
Although Spurs (like everyone ) would seek a greater return, their object here is to build and operate a world class stadium that can also act for the greater good of the community. This stadium and project does that.
They then went through the review mechanism as reported earlier.
I was normal once – it was the worst 20mins of my life!
spursfaan January 13, 2016 at 5:47 am
When can I expect the second part of this article
thespursreport Post author January 13, 2016 at 8:00 am
Next week!
T (@micropop77) January 13, 2016 at 8:55 am
Interesting, but completely useless. He's comparing apples and oranges. He says Emirates cost 390-440 mill£ and ours, including the development to the south, between 675-750 mill£. In what value of the currency? There is a HUGE difference if the numbers for Emirates are in 2005 £ and ours i 2015 £,
and our total scheme is A LOT bigger than the Emirates, and will yield a lot more income from rent. So to compare these to projects is just not possible, or indeed relevant in any case.
Also the development to the south of the stadium is not key or necessary to the viability of the STADIUM. They are really two separate schemes, and the funding of them are not reliant upon each other.
Here is a relevant para from the DS2 report conclusion about the SDL being required to help pay the funding gap for the stadium. This also acknowledged in the KPMG report.
Both DS2 and KPMG used the Emirates as a comparison but more as a funding model and the figures quoted are also cited in the DS2 viability report.
IIRC, Donna Cullen, at the planning meeting also said, during Q&A on affordable housing, that the SDL, is required for the financial experts viability of the stadium funding.
So, Spurs and two independent financial institutions do believe, to use your words, key to the financial viability of the stadium.
10.2 The Applicant is eager to bring forward the development of the SDL following construction of the stadium and associated works. The funding strategy for the stadium site is predicated on the basis of the SDL generating a receipt which will assist with an identified funding gap and this principle has been established by way of the extant consent and also as a robust viability methodology on other sites.
THFC_Dan January 15, 2016 at 2:03 pm
There are several points which need to be made:
1. It is widely recognised that Arsenal's Naming Rights deal with Emirates was so poorly negotiated that, as a result of discovering the extent to which the intangible asset had been undervalued, they sacked their Commercial MD, Keith Edelman. It is therefore highly disingenuous to reference such a deal either as a means of benchmarking or as a base to build assumptions or "lessons" from.
2. Both commissioned reports share a common source – the Club itself. The main issue which both reports talk to is the extent to which project viability is dependant on the inclusion/exclusion of social/affordable housing, as it is noted that none is scoped within NDP. It should be recognised that a view of viability can be influenced through the provision of financials that will buttress the Clubs' corresponding narrative.
3. It is not the case that the Club is obliged or conditioned to self-build Phase 3 of development. It is far more likely that the Club would, following a consented application, look to secure a deal with a developer; therein shifting the funding risk away from the core business. Therefore, whilst full consideration of cost might be given within a report, the clear options open to THFC shouldn't be omitted from consideration.
4. Interest in the Premier League has shown continual deal-on-deal growth, and there is simply no evidential foundation to any suggestion that such growth won't continue. Indeed, it is forecast that advances in technologies alongside cost economies will further enable more and more regions to receive Premier League content. Unlike NFL, the interest in football is global and the Premier League is keen to exploit that.
5. Finally, in your "part 2", I trust you will recognise the true weight of the NFL deal. This is a HIGHLY significant, ground-breaking deal as it enables both sports to firmly anchor and mutually benefit their interest in new terrorises. The deal will expose THFC, by way of association to New White Hart Lane, to a population of 300m; and, similarly, the NFL will likewise reap exposure to a further population of 65m.
I merit your research, but – in many parts – it is clear that you've missed or glossed over the nuances and context within which much of the details need to be considered.
Hopefully you'll do better in Part 2.
Thanks for the well-informed comments.
On Point 3, I'd be interested in learning more about this aspect.
On Point 1, it is widely known that the Emirates sponsorship is undervalued, but nonetheless, this is what they managed to get. My point was that past deals offer limited guidance on what Spurs may be able to get. On Point 4, I accept your criticism of how I phrased this part. As for Point 5, you'll have to wait and see.
I'd also add, the "hopefully you'll do better in part 2" is cheap.
This article has been well received, and where people have taken issue with any of my assertions, or raised questions over what has been omitted, it has generally been done in a constructive and polite manner. Attempting to patronize people in this way makes you look rather silly and undermines the serious points that you make. If it is an attempt to influence what I have to say on the NFL, or future articles, it is not the best way to go about it.
Drop me a line on spursreport@gmx.co.uk — i've some question to ask on phase 3, and it sounds like you are a man with answers.
Point 3 discusses Phase 3 options, and further to it:
In order to establish a comprehensive risk profile of a project, a condition of a viability report is that full consideration be given to a project in its entirety. From this, a view can be taken as to the higher level of credit exposure. However, in practice – and particularly so in mixed-use developments such as NDP – it is of little use, as you can de-risk projects by exploring interest from better-placed, often already interested partners.
Notwithstanding THFC choosing to self-build, the Club – following receipt of consent – is also at liberty to invite interest from property and hotel developers. It could then choose a multitude of options: off-plan transaction (100% de-risk) joint-venture/profit share (varied%) leasing options (Negotiated £) etc. It is worth noting that, whilst Tavistock has property interests, it is not in the residential unit arena and I see little appetite for that to change.
In respect of Point 1: if your point "…was that past deals offer limited guidance on what Spurs may be able to get", I am struggling as to why your Blog carries the alarming "…and the dangers of doing an arsenal…" headline? If, as it seems, you accept the comparison to be poor, then it is reasonable to ask: why make it? Other than the projects both being in North London, their scope, design, timing and funding mechanisms are materially different.
As you've asked for some elaboration, I think it's reasonable to assume that my posting has been constructive. I also think that it is constructive to point out how important it is that facts which you refer to – particularly when using them to support your opinion – are quoted within their context; and, moreover, that the same recognition is given to nuances, however subtle. This helps to avoid misinforming any readers with any false premises. No offence intended.
Genuinely looking forward to Part 2.
SamZ January 15, 2016 at 4:59 pm
Dan, I believe you are being overly harsh here. I'm unsure why you feel your 5 points need to be made, with the exception of your 3rd point. There are many permutations as to how the entire project reaches a permanent financing solution. It's a very fluid situation and the author does as good of a job as anyone pointing out various issues and concerns – some that naturally should have greater consideration versus others.
Points 4 and 5 you make don't make a lot of sense to me as you contradict yourself:
Firstly, "Unlike NFL, the interest in football is global and the Premier League is keen to exploit that." I believe you need to re-assess this comment. You then go on to espouse the significance of the NFL deal in your 5th point. " Finally, in your "part 2", I trust you will recognise the true weight of the NFL deal. This is a HIGHLY significant, ground-breaking deal …" Strange given you claim in your prior point that the NFL does not have global interest.
Although you may be right about the continued future financial success of the Premier League, to model a transformational project like this on yield-to-perfect assumptions is a recipe for potential financial disaster. It's a kin to saying that markets never drop and a silly way to forecast.
There is no contradiction with Point 4 & 5.
Again, this is about context.
Point 4: "Unlike NFL, the interest in football is global and the Premier League is keen to exploit that." This is within the context of an ascertain that the growth of the Premier League might slow or contract; and specially in reference to the value of its media rights. I referenced the NFL in order to illustrate the global reach of football, or "soccer", and the obvious TV yield as a result.
Point 5, you will follow, is manifestly important for the NFL as it would be the first real 'export' of the sport outside of the USA – and this is a commercial objective which the league has maintained for quite some time. In the same commercial context, there are mutual benefits for THFC to find itself associated with an NFL franchise as with it comes exposure to a 300m market.
NDP hasn't been modelled on 'perfect yield' – indeed, I think you will find that the business case is pessimistically influenced – evidence to which you see by how KPMG were informed as to the assumptions made. Further, less-than-optimistic budgeting figures are also available which illustrate that THFC assume 'moderate' success for its planning.
I recognise you say that you have concerns, but my primary concern is that facts are incorrectly presented or quoted without context. For what it is worth, I have no concerns whatsoever about this project and I am fully confident that it will be delivered in the equally successful manner which Hotspur Way has before it.
I am also confident that THFC will not build – at least not through its own means – Phase 3, therefore I view "the funding question" to be a false premise. Of course, in the fullness of time, we will all see what materialised, but don't be too concerned about whether THFC can afford to build Phase 3.
The DS2 conclusion in section 10.2 of their report (page 56 or 59 IIRC), stated that the funding strategy for the stadium site is predicated on the basis of the SDL generating a receipt which will assist with an identified funding gap…..
Donna Cullen also stated similar at the planning meeting. This was accepted by KPMG.
I doubt very much if any figures produced by Spurs would just be taken at their word by such professional bodies without being tested. Should you care to look at the DS2 report you will see they report on various methodologies that can be used to arrive at a conclusion.
They have also used numerous examples of developments near and further afield to a certain a current equivalent cost and value per Sq ft etc when coming to their independent conclusions and calculations.
One of the conclusions, by both, is that as a stand alone, the SDL is not viable and indeed as a project as a whole Spurs are only expecting a return of 1.5%. I suspect that no other developer would touch it on that basis. Indeed, various tried and tested scenarios were put forward to cover funding gap, but not for an independent developer for the SDL, especially one willing to include affordable housing and to use some of their commercial profit towards Spurs Stadium – see above.
Note, there is to be review of this re affordable housing, including value sometime on or after Spurs take occupancy of the Stadium. Club and Council are still in negotiation on this I understand.
The DS2 didn't just look at the Emeriates but also Stadium of Light, and the Etihad with a mention to the Olympic Stadium as examples to recent large stadium projects of cost, funding, type and quality of build. They also paid a mention to those of Southampton, Leicester, Swansea, Brighton and Cardiff, but mainly as a comparison to the size, scale, complexity and aspiration of the Spurs project. A conclusion arrived at is that most chairmen/Clubs prefer a piecemeal upgrade as most owners do not deem the increase of income streams to be sufficient for a new stadia increased capacity to be commercially viable on its own. Secondly with the cost well in excess of of £200m for a basic stadium alone plus land and land acquisition costs on top, to be prohibitive (as things stand – my words)
This article is a blog, nothing more nothing less and these are normally of about 250 to 300 words I am led to believe. The author I suspect is like me, a layman on these things, just a Spurs fan expressing a view on the club he follows. I doubt the blog was written as a professional article going into great detail or depth and up for professional scrutinity or ridicule. There are many scenarios that can be put forward and postulated upon with Mandy's ifs and buts of what may or may not happen in the future.
As for the NFL deal we know very little on this and can only guess how much this will financially benefit Spurs or even if it is tied into any naming rights and the like. I suspect that Levy has factored in this additional income stream into making this project long term viable. Greater exposure to the North American market (and beyond) could well be significant, but just how many Bengal fans (for example) will decide to become Spurs fans as opposed to R Madrid, or Chelsea maybe in addition to a local team is anyone's guess, so just highly significant remains to be seen.
I for one am not expecting anything other than a discussion paper in part 2, as if you take 100 blogs on the subject I suspect you will get 100 alternative speculative views, all of which can be pulled to pieces for missing points a, b, c or d and not putting enough emphasis on this that or the other.
The DS2 report is here:-
Just a view
Point 4, you contradict yourself with the use of, "Unlike the NFL…"
Both leagues are interested in global expansion and the NFL has been far more focused on global expansion of its respective league for a much longer time relative to the Prem.
Point 5, the NFL deal is massive for both parties, no question. I don't believe that was ever a doubt in the author's work. But from a pure initial cash flow (and ultimately EBITDA) perspective, the deal in and of itself is not a financial windfall, I appreciate the potential positive long-term effect of a deal with the NFL, but we are not going to be the only stadium in London to host the NFL. Personally, I doubt the probability of a permanent London team in the NFL. Purely opinion and we shall see. Even if a team comes to London, it'd difficult to assess what that means for our club.
In regards to modeling to yield-to-perfect, I did not claim that's been our practice here. I simply remarked on your comments in regards to financial growth prospects of the PL growing in perpetuity.
I actually have very few concerns in regards to the entire project. I've always contended that any funding gap will be manageable and at the end of the day ENIC will write whatever cheque is necessary. It's focus is to make sure the project is viable from a cash flow and debt service perspective, fits within the culture of club, while retaining 100% ownership and limiting any equity injections on its part.
There is a funding question here. The severity is debatable and no differently than a viability study identifying all issues, the author (in my opinion) has taken the same approach here. Some issues deserve greater concerns relative to others. .
Dan, maybe read this first for a better feel for my views on ENIC and the NDP:
http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com/2015/9/9/9269191/tottenham-hotspur-enic-daniel-levy-defense-business
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Subject: RE: How long does corn hang at $4 before it drops?
KS and NE in eastern 3rd N prices have increased over $20 per ac since I prepaid for anhydrous. I was strongly considering C on C but with the increase in nitrogen I've decided against it.


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For rent at 54,000 THB/month, this 3 bed, 2 bath condo unit with balcony comes fully furnished and boasts 215 sqm of living space, minutes to BTS station "Childom" and Pathum Wan's many luxury shopping centers such as Central World and Isetan.
This corner unit sits on a high floor of a 21-story building from 199 offering nice city views. East and South facing.
The building amenities include elevator, parking, 24-hour security, CCTV, swimming pool, sauna and gym.


text:
Jamie Lidell
Multiply [Warp, 2005] A-
Multiply [Warp, 2005]
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Unfortunately, Lenovo didn't break down how many of each smartphone Motorola sold last quarter. Of course, the majority of the smartphones were either the Moto X or Moto G. Given the low price point, we'd assume the majority of the sales were of the Moto G, which starts at just $179.99 without a two-year contract. The company's partnership with Google for the Nexus 6 also presumably accounted for a portion of those 10 million devices.
The two newly acquired businesses are achieving great momentum in their first quarter of integration. They are definitely becoming our growth engines. Motorola is already a global strength: for the first time it sold more than 10 million units in the quarter and it is now re-entering the China market.
In terms of earnings, Lenovo's Mobile Business Group, of which Motorola is a part, posted a $89 million loss. Lenovo overall posted a $253 million net income for the quarter. Lenovo says that it expects Motorola to become profitable in the next four to six quarters and notes that the company's reentrance to China will help tremendously with its performance.


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text:
Nicki D.
Nicki D. is an Emmy-nominated entertainment host based in Music City. After graduating college, the Nashville-native launched her own web series called NickiDtv, which eventually led to several opportunities and hands-on experience at a variety of media outlets including the leading country music news site Taste of Country, Great American Country, Mix 92.9 FM, ZUUS Country, Nashville entertainment blog FOCUS on the 615, and more. Known for her quirky and creative approach to journalism, she welcomes artists to The Red Towel, her version of The Red Carpet! In addition to hosting, Nicki D. has experience in writing, producing, editing, and radio operations. When she is not making videos or penning articles, you can find her cooking healthy goodies in the kitchen (like protein pancakes), dancing like a goofball, or getting "right and tight" at the gym!
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text:
Bahasa, Politik, Sedjarah
"Public Intellectual or A Tribute to Books" by Benedict Anderson
Pengantar: Tulisan Oom Ben ini asal usulnja adalah pidatonja do'i di depan konperensi internasional di Manila menjambut 10 tahun program beasiswa Asia Tenggara jang dikeluwarin sama Nippon Foundation. Udah gitu ini tulisan nongol di Bangkok Post, edisi 28 Djuni 2010, sajangnja tjuman sebagian. Selidik punja selidik ternjata koran ibukota Thailand itu njalinja kagak tjukup gedhé. Maklum Oom Ben ada kritik pedes pulitiknja Thailand. Doi lumajan sewot wektu tahu bahwa Bangkok Post ndak punja njali untuk nongolin ini artikel setjara kumplit. Atas permintaanku dia kirim versi komplit artikel ini lantaran banjak orang pengin batja setjara lengkap.
Benedict R. O'G. Anderson [1936-2015]
Over the past few weeks, I have had the enjoyable experience of reading through most of the annual volumes issued by the Nippon Foundation. Most of the contributions are eye-opening, not merely for their quality, but also for their comparative reach, and the doors that they open to various networks of people concerned about the adequacy of a long list of state policies. Nonetheless, as a whole, they arouse certain anxieties in my mind, possibly because I spent many academic years as a so-called political scientist.
The past decade, say 1998 to 2008, has seen many rapid changes not only on the countries covered by the Foundation's initiative, but in the globe as a whole. It has ended with the most colossal, and global, economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and followed the regional financial crisis of 1997-1998. Politically speaking the decade started with an admirable outburst of reformist politics, but has ended depressingly with the entrenchment of oligarchies in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia. In all these places, the level of economic inequality has rapidly increased, human rights have been constantly abused, the degradation of the environment remorselessly continues, and state control of the mass media has become more formidable.
What struck me on reading many of the papers in the Foundation's volumes was the relative invisibility of all this turmoil. One could use as an example Thailand, now in the grip of a long-term political crisis, of which the signs were already visible at the start of the new century. But the Thailand papers barely mention Thaksin Shinawatra, the problems of the monarchy, or the bitter insurrection in the Muslim, Malay speaking, Far South. There is no warning in them of the coming Red Shirt movement we read about every day in the newspapers. One could read most of the papers on the Philippines without getting any idea of the disastrous presidency of Gloria Arroyo-Macapagal — and so on. Why should this be so?
One could start with the long-term decline of the traditional public intellectual, whose primary readership or audience was the public at large. In the 1960s and 1970s the most influential public intellectual in the Philippines was certainly Renato Constantino, who wrote many historical studies with a strong left-nationalist character, and who was bitterly hostile to what he called the persisting 'colonial mentality' among his fellow citizens. He was not alone. For example, the Protestant American William Henry Scott also wrote influential books about the early history of the Philippines, and about the abused pagan minorities in the Luzon Cordillera. Neither of them was an academic or a professional journalist.
Today almost no such commanding people exist.
In Thailand, Sulak Sivaraksa has for decades been his country's most powerful social-political critic, and has repeatedly been accused of insulting the monarchy. He has no academic appointment, and is not a journalist. But he is now in his 70s, and has no obvious successor. Malaysia has one such person, who is still quite young, the satirist, editor, outstanding filmmaker, and essayist Amir Muhammad. Again, not an academic, journalist, or civil servant. But he too is rather alone.
You will have noticed that I emphasize particularly the absence of academic occupations. This point leads me to the first of two profound changes making the survival of public intellectuals difficult: it is professionalization of universities, following the example of America, which in turn borrowed heavily from 19th Century Germany. (The contrast is plain with the Enlightment of the 18th century, whose brilliant leaders cannot be described in disciplinary terms). This professionalization was originally built on the powerful institution of the disciplines, in other words the fragmentation of knowledge and study according to the logic of the division of labour.
In itself, this trend discouraged historians from getting interested in anthropology and economists from studying sociology. But it also meant that success in scholarly life was largely determined by senior figures in each discipline. In addition professionalization encouraged the development of technical jargons understandable only by people in the same academic disciplines. More and more, academics wrote for each other, submitted draft articles to 'professional journals,' and sent book manuscripts to university presses. Writing book for the 'public' came to be regarded as necessarily superficial and unscientific. Unsurprisingly, the price paid for this attitude has ben disastrously bad prose.
Nonetheless America was in some ways unique. First of all, it had no national-level state-owned universities, unlike almost every other country in the world. Most of the top universities were private. Second, the country developed thousands of universities in response to the popular demand, at a time when university degrees were thought of as requirements for well-paying jobs within and without the universities themselves. Third, the country has a long tradition of hostility to university intellectuals in general, meaning that only a small minority of professors had any powerful connections to the political elite or the mass media.
Yet the American example was very powerful from the 1950s onwards, given the country's hegemonic global position during and after the Cold War. Tens of thousands of youngsters from most parts of the so-called Free World were invited to come to America to get advanced degrees, and were amply funded by private foundations and state agencies. On their return home, they were supposed to follow their teachers' example and reinvent university life, often with substantial American financial and political support. But this task was carried out only in part, given the character of the societies from which the youngsters had come.
In Southeast Asia, for example, the top universities are mostly owned by the state, and their staffs are these civil servants of one sort or another. There is a long tradition of respect for learning, based on both pre-colonial and colonial-era social orders. This respect for learning is fortified by the strong connection to the state. Professors have access to the political elite and the mass media in a way almost unthinkable in the USA. On the other hand their high social status has usually not been paralleled by comparable financial awards.
In the USA, professors are very highly paid, many senior professors earning over 100,000 dollars every year.
Students are often neglected or ignored, or treated in the bureaucratic manner. A good many academics prefer not to teach at all, but sit in research institutes, which are rarely very productive. This is why so many of the best students are largely autodidacts and despise their nominal teachers.
Under such circumstances many academics pragmatically align themselves with the political elites. They often compete fiercely for grants made available by agencies in the rich countries, who have their own agendas. This tendency has its downside alongside its benefits. I well remember a wonderfully dedicated woman who, many years ago, handled the Toyota Foundation's grants to Southeast Asian academics. She said she was really shocked to notice that Filipino academics attending Foundation-sponsored conferences, not only expected all their expenses to be paid, but even demanded cash payments for their contributions. These cash payments were typically used for shopping expensively during conferences. She was really upset, fearing that this mercenary trend would soon spread elsewhere (she was right).
Moonlighting for the mass media has its own problems. Television slots pay well, but usually no one is given more than five minutes, which is not enough to explain anything important. Writing columns at least encourages academics to write for a wide general public, but serious intellectual cannot turn out weekly columns without endlessly repeating themselves, chatting about themselves, and obeying the instructions of the editors and owners of newspapers. They become employees – of the state, of the foreign foundations, or newspaper moguls, and TV managers. Small wonder that they have little time to do real research, write significant books, or seriously challenge anything. They are also peculiarly isolated.
Let me give you one striking example. A couple of years ago, I gave a lecture at a top Bangkok university for about 200 professors and students. In the course of this talk, I spoke at some length about the first genuine genius Thailand has produced since the 1960s – the great filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who won two top prizes at Cannes within the space of three years, and in 2010 won the most prestigious award in the international film world — Cannes' Palme d'Or. At the end of my talk, I asked those who had ever heard of Apichatpong to lift their hands. About ten hands were raised, all by students. How many had seen any of his films? About six, again all students. I suddenly realized the isolation (ignorance too) of the professors, who only watch Hollywood films, and have no interest in Thai film-makers: They have no degrees! They didn't go to the schools we attended! They don't know anyone important in the government!
There are thus almost no bridges between professors and film-makers, novelists, painters, and so on. No wonder that film-makers and novelists usually have a very low opinion of professors. Only unprofessional students are connected to the two worlds. All of this suggests some of the reasons why one is unlikely to find public intellectuals in universities, though there are always important exceptions. Professionalization, civil service status, closeness to the ruling elite, low incomes, Philistinism, contempt for students — all play their parts.
But one cannot blame universities without considering the environment in which they exist. Here I come to the second major change affecting the survival of the public intellectual. This can be described as the changing culture of national elites and the ways in which they make use of the power of the state. The first thing to notice is the gathering trend for these elites to send their children to so-called international primary and secondary schools in their own countries, then send them overseas for various tertiary degrees, mainly to the US and the UK, as well as France, Japan, Australia, Singapore and so on. This outlook obviously implies indifference to, if not contempt for, the countries' own educational institutions. For this reason, elites have few qualms about massive political interference in university life. In the end, only degrees from foreign universities have any real prestige.
This situation is the opposite of the what occurred in the early days of independence when everyone was proud of their schools, and teachers were still generally respected. What do the children of the elites study, if they study at all? You can be sure the degrees will be mainly professional-commercial: business management, marketing, economics, engineering, IT, etc., not history, literature, anthropology or psychology. These disciplines are often seen 'useless,' and irrelevant for 'our children,' who are to take their parents place eventually in political systems in which nepotism is more and more shamelessly promoted.
Anecdote: When I last spoke with Amir Muhammad, he told me that his little publishing firm had just printed a collection of short stories by gay and lesbian writers. Knowing the harsh legal penalties for 'abnormal' sexual relations in Malaysia, I asked him if he was afraid of repression. "Not at all," he said, laughing,
Emblematic in another way, is what happened in the long dictatorship of Suharto. In 1978 there was a nationwide rebellion of university students against the regime, which was quickly crushed. The intellectual leaders were mainly youngsters connected with the prestigious Technical Institute of Bandung. But during the 1998 rebellion against Suharto, twenty years later, this institute was impotent, and did nothing. Why? The reason is simple.
The dictator knew these people were no threat to him. They no longer had a political or moral base in Indonesian society. The students who took their place came from 'second class' universities, often religiously oriented, and private.
The state is a somewhat different story. When I applied for a research visa in 1961, I had to wait nine months before it was granted. The main reason was bureaucratic laziness, but there was also the understandable fear that foreign researchers, especially from the US, could be secret agents of the CIA. Under Suharto, a favourite of the US, changes occurred which made the situation worse.
The ambition of the regime was to exercise full control over all foreign students, banning them from studying anything deemed 'sensitive.' The control was exercised by the state intelligence, using as a mask the once open minded LIPI, the Indonesian Institute for the Sciences, a bureaucratic arm of the state manned by reliable researchers who rarely taught students and had little contact with them. This management technique spread to Malaysia and Thailand, and to a lesser extent the Philippines.
Most of these foreign students were financed either by private foundations or by foreign governments. These institutions —American, Japanese, Dutch, British, French, Canadian, etc. — had long term goals in mind, and dozens or even hundreds of students depending on their financial support. Foreign governments, with multiple interests in say Indonesia or Malaysia, had to think carefully about not upsetting the host government. Private foundations faced the same problem, how to encourage good research while not offending or upsetting the state apparatus. If they were too bold, they could be banned, their projects blocked, their relations with foreign affairs ministries, ministries of education, and above all intelligence apparatuses, very tricky. Under such pressures, it is quite understandable that these agencies and foundations felt forced to be very careful and conservative. You can thus easily see why their well-meaning programs rarely favoured public intellectuals, but rather emphasized technocratic or small-scale projects unlikely to create problems — not only for themselves but also for the youngsters that they sponsored and financed.
Within, or closely allied with the state, are some very powerful veto groups, which should also be noted. Let me give you an example from each of the SE Asia countries involved with the Nippon Foundation's gallant program. In Indonesia, the most important veto-groups are the military and Muslim politicians.
Most of the best stuff available comes from the world of the NGOS — Amnesty International, Indonesia Watch, as well as small local NGOs, but the work is not systematic and usually focussed on the abuse of human rights at various levels and in various localities. But studying the military's vast empire of businesses, legitimate and illegitimate, is more or less a no-no. You might think that people might be interested in studying the odd situation where the country is nominally 90% Muslim, but the combined votes for the various Muslim parties over the past ten years has never reached half this number. Or: why is it that while the influence of Islam has been visibly increasing over the past decade, the prestige of Muslim politicians has reached an all-time low? Silence.
In the Philippines the most powerful veto-group is the Catholic Church, which has always successfully blocked any enlightened law on divorce, leading to countless marital separations, which severely damage women and children. It has also largely blocked the widespread distribution of birth-control mechanisms, which not only leads to uncontrollable population growth in an already poverty-stricken country and to massive emigration, but also impedes the struggle against AIDS. The total assets and the internal budgets of the hierarchy are usually well kept secrets. I can't think of a single book that systematically investigates Church interests, policies, and their social and economic consequences.
In Malaysia, the crucial veto-group is the ingrown UMNO oligarchy, which has held unbroken power for more than half a century. Over the years it has made regular use of the draconic ISA 'security' laws, inherited from late British colonialism, but further developed, to suppress rebels, critics and dissenters. All ostensibly to preserve social peace, national unity, and warm inter-ethnic relations. It is true that UMNO today is in decline thanks to deep and widespread social changes, mediocre and corrupt leadership, and simply boredom. It is also true that there are energetic environmental NGOs, NGOs working against racial discrimination especially of the miserable majority of Indians — and so on. But a frontal assault against the corruption, incompetence, hypocrisy, discriminatory attitudes etc. of he UMNO elite itself: Not yet, though scholars are getting bolder little by little.
Finally Thailand. Here the dominant veto-group is that which surrounds the monarchy, protected until very recently by the harsh laws on lèse-majesté. The only good, serious book on the monarchy is Paul Handley's The King Who Never Smiles. Handley is a former Bangkok-based journalist, who is now barred from the country. When news got out that Yale University Press was going to publish his book, the court veto-group made every effort to force Yale's to cancel its plan — to no avail. Handley's book was prohibited in Thailand. Needless to say, it was quietly translated into Thai and circulates on the Internet one jump ahead of the state's electronic censorship agencies.
Benedict Anderson [1936-2015]
Another small but telling example is the National Museum's elaborate and nicely framed narrative history of Thailand from its misty origins 800 years ago up to the present. The truly strange thing is that this panoramic exhibition gives a name to only four or so people, all of them 'Great' monarchs. Not a single writer, general, doctor, poet, scientist, monk, judge, philosopher, philanthropist or painter, let alone a woman is mentioned. (Such an exhibit would be unthinkable in ex-colonial Indonesia, the Philippines, or even Malaysia.) The same kind of suppression, even if more sophisticated in form, can be seen in Thailand's academic disciplines such as art history, history, national literature, political science, ethnology and so on. Naturally there are some free spirits about, including some professors old enough to be retired. But the general picture is far from exhilarating.
The general point is that such powerful veto-groups are so strong that they cannot be discussed openly as veto-groups. Nobody says in public 'I can't write honestly about the Catholic Church,' 'It is impossible to investigate the Indonesian military's business interests,' and 'We cannot publicly criticize the Thai monarchy.' It is true that on the Internet people can and do go after the veto-groups, but they usually write anonymously, for fear of imprisonment, physical violence, or social ostracism. But the world history of the public intellectual is generally a history of courageous challenging of existing institutions and veto groups, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Having made my argument — certainly made as a provocation— that the professionalization and commercialization of universities, the growing power of state bureaucracies and censorship agencies, as well as oligarchic trends in nation-state leadership, the space for public intellectuals is, at least today, quite limited. But let me conclude with a few words about books and why for the public intellectual they continue to be so important.
Newspapers with their columns are necessarily ephemeral, consumed by the next day's output. Television can have its vivid moments, but no one watches last year's programs. Films can be great, but typically they are watched only once or twice, except by specialists.
One can still read Lady Murasaki's great novel with pleasure and instruction, like the works of José Rizal, Milton, Pramoedya, Hafiz, Voltaire, and so forth. They allow space for everything that is complicated and complex. They are read privately in a person's mind. And they have no specified-in-advance readers; anyone can learn from them.
It is here that I would like to say that the development of networks, as promoted by the Nippon Foundation, while highly commendable and valuable, still means friendly communication between like-minded people who think about a familiar cluster of social and political problems, and try at times to find peaceful solutions to these problems. But politics is always based on conflict, not friendliness, and it cannot be wished away. The public intellectual recognizes this reality and therefore tries to speak to the whole public, which includes the intellectual's enemies, visible and shadowy. Three hundred and fifty years ago, the great public intellectual Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote that 'Man is Born Free, but is Everywhere in Chains.' This famous sentence was intended for both the oppressed and their oppressors: encouragement for the defiance of the former and a warning to the latter. People like Rousseau seem to come out of nowhere, but are also products of the stresses and conflicts of their times. I am afraid that I am sceptical that any 'program,' no matter how well intended, can really produce public intellectuals.
8 Mei 2017 8 Mei 2017 gatholotjoBen Anderson, Benedict Anderson, Books, Dictator, Suharto, Tribute to Books
Sebelumnya Pos sebelumnya: "Digulung dan disingkirkan: bagaimana seorang pelukis keradjaan berachir di gudang istana het Loo" oleh Lizzy van Leeuwen
Berikut Pos berikutnya: "Ketjelakaan dalem sedjarah sastra kita" oleh Joss Wibisono


text:
<?php

namespace NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Controller;

use Symfony\Bundle\FrameworkBundle\Controller\Controller;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Response;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Route;
use Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Method;
use Symfony\Component\HttpFoundation\Request;
use NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Form\StartOrderFromBasketType;

class BasketController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * This gets the number of items that are in the user's current basket.  It will
     * also create a new ongoing empty basket if the user doesn't have one.
     *
     * Called from layout.html.twig::NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket:getBasketCount
     */
    public function getBasketCountAction()
    {
        $currentUser = $this->getUser();
        if ($currentUser instanceof \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\User) {
            $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
            $basket = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket')
                         ->findByUserOngoing($currentUser->getUserId());
            // If the user doesn't have an ongoing basket, make it.
            if (!$basket) {
                $basket = $this->_newBasket($em);
            }
            $basket->expireItems($em);
            $itemCount = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:BasketItem')
                            ->getItemCountByBasket($basket, $em);
            $description = $itemCount == 1 ? 'item' : 'items';
        } else {
            $itemCount  = 0;
            $description= 'items';
        }

        if ($itemCount) {
            $link = $this->generateUrl('user_my_basket');
            return new Response(''.$itemCount.' '.$description.'');
        } else {
            return new Response('0 items');
        }
    }

    /**
     * Generate a user's shopping cart.
     *
     * @Route("/my_basket", name="user_my_basket")
     * @Method({"GET"})
     */
    public function showBasketAction()
    {
        $em = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $basket = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket')
                     ->findByUserOngoing($this->getUser()->getUserId());
        $firstOrder = $this->getUser()->getInvoices()->count() == 0;

        if (!$basket) {
            $basket     = $this->_newBasket($em);
            $basketItems= array();
        } else {
            $basketItems= $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:BasketItem')
                             ->findByBasket($basket, $em);
        }
        $firstOrderDiscount = $firstOrder ? $basket->getBasketItemTotal() * .2 : 0;

        // See if this basket has an order
        $order = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Order')
                    ->findUnpaidByBasket($basket->getBasketId());

        /**
         * Show the beginning of the order stuff
         */
        if (!$order) {
            $basketOrder = new \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\Order();
            $formAction = 'start_order';
        } else {
            $basketOrder = $order;
            $formAction  = 'enter_shipping';
            $formAction = 'start_order';
        }

        // New form
        $basketStartOrderForm = $this->createForm(new StartOrderFromBasketType(),
                                                    $basketOrder,
                                                    array('method' => 'POST',
                                                          'action' => $this->generateUrl($formAction)));
        $request = $this->getRequest();
        if ($request->isXmlHttpRequest()){
            return $this->render('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket:showUserBasketAjax.html.twig',
            					 array('basketItems'        => $basketItems,
            						   'user'               => $this->getUser(),
            						   'firstOrderDiscount' => $firstOrderDiscount,
            						   'startOrder'         => $basketStartOrderForm->createView()));
        } else {
            return $this->render('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket:showUserBasket.html.twig',
            					 array('basketItems'        => $basketItems,
            						   'user'               => $this->getUser(),
            						   'firstOrderDiscount' => $firstOrderDiscount,
            						   'startOrder'         => $basketStartOrderForm->createView()));
        }
    }

    /**
     * If a user doesn't have an ongoing basket, we have to make one.
     *
     * @param   $em     EntityManager
     * @return  NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket
     */
    private function _newBasket($em)
    {
        $newBasket = new \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\Basket();
        $newBasket->setUser($this->getUser());
        $em->persist($newBasket);
        $em->flush();
        return $newBasket;
    }

    /**
     * Add an item to the shopping cart.
     *
     * @Route("/add_item_to_basket/{productId}", name="add_item_to_basket", requirements={"productId" = "\d+"})
     * @Method({"GET"})
     */
    public function addToBasketAction($productId, Request $request)
    {
        $em         = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $currentUser= $this->getUser();
        $product    = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Product')
                         ->find($productId);
        $basket     = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket')
                         ->findByUserOngoing($currentUser->getUserId());
        if (!$basket) {
            $basket = $this->_newBasket($em);
        }
        $basket->expireItems($em);

        /**
         * See if there's a favorite record for this item for this user.
         */
        try {
            $lovedProduct = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:UserLovedProduct')
                               ->findByUserAndProduct($this->getUser()->getUserId(), $product->getProductId());
            $lovedProduct->setIsDeleted(0)
                         ->setLoveType(\NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\UserLovedProduct::LOVE_TYPE_BASKET);
        } catch (\Doctrine\ORM\NoResultException $e) {
            $nowTime      = new \DateTime();
            $lovedProduct = new \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\UserLovedProduct();
            $lovedProduct->setUserId($this->getUser()->getUserId())
                         ->setProductId($product->getProductId())
                         ->setDateLoved($nowTime)
                         ->setLoveType(\NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\UserLovedProduct::LOVE_TYPE_BASKET)
                         ->setUser($this->getUser())
                         ->setProduct($product)
                         ->setIsDeleted(0);
            $em->persist($lovedProduct);
        }
        $em->flush();

        /**
         * In a futre universe, this should all be transactional and, if successful, it should
         * also notify a Java queue that there is an item pending expiration.
         */
        $basketItem = new \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\BasketItem();
        $basketItem->setBasket($basket);
        $basketItem->setProduct($product);
        $basketItem->setBasketItemPrice($product->getProductPrice());
        $basketItem->setBasketItemDiscount(0);
        $basketItem->setBasketItemStatus(\NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\BasketItem::VALID);
        $em->persist($basketItem);

        /**
         * Before saving this item to a user's cart, verify it's not currently active in any
         * other user's carts.
         *
         * This should be moved in to an event listener in Doctrine 2.4.  Currently on 2.3
         */
        if ($product->getProductAvailability() != \NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\Product::SALE) {
            return new Response("Product can not be reserved.");
        } else {
            $basket->setBasketDateUpdate(new \DateTime("now"));
            $product->setProductAvailability(\NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\Product::RESERVED);
            $em->flush();
        }

		if ($request->isXmlHttpRequest()){
			$response = new Response(json_encode(array('productId' => $productId)));
			$response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/json');
			return $response;
		} else {
			return $this->redirect($request->headers->get('referer'));
		}
    }

    /**
     * Remove an item from an active shopping cart.
     *
     * @Route("/remove_item_from_basket/{productId}", name="remove_item_from_basket", requirements={"productId" = "\d+"})
     * @Method({"GET"})
     */
    public function removeFromBasketAction($productId, Request $request)
    {
        $currentUser= $this->getUser();
        $em         = $this->getDoctrine()->getManager();
        $basket     = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:Basket')
                         ->findByUserOngoing($currentUser->getUserId());
        $basketItem = $em->getRepository('NiftyThriftyShopBundle:BasketItem')
                         ->findByBasketAndProduct($em, $basket, $productId);

        // If there's a basket item, Delete it from the basket.
        if ($basketItem) {
            $basketItem->getProduct()->setProductAvailability(\NiftyThrifty\ShopBundle\Entity\Product::SALE);
            $em->remove($basketItem);
            $basket->setBasketDateUpdate(new \DateTime("now"));
            $em->flush();
        }
		if ($request->isXmlHttpRequest()){
			$response = new Response(json_encode(array('basketItem' => $basketItem)));
			$response->headers->set('Content-Type', 'application/json');
			return $response;
		} else {
			return $this->redirect($request->headers->get('referer'));
		}
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Kalank Box Office Day 1 Morning Occupancy: Biggest Of The Year; Beats Total Dhamaal & Kesari!
Given the holiday of Mahavir Jayanti, there will be a huge boost during the evening and night shows.
Kalank Box Office Day 1 Morning Occupancy: One of the grandest and anticipated releases of 2019, Kalank has arrived in cinemas today and is living up to its hype. The movie is an eternal tale of love during the Indian Pre-Independence era with big guns- Sanjay Dutt, Madhuri Dixit-Nene, Varun Dhawan, Alia Bhatt, Aditya Roy Kapur and Sonakshi Sinha, captivating the canvas.
Talking about its start at the box office, Kalank has enjoyed a terrific occupancy of 42-45% in the morning shows across the country. Given the holiday of Mahavir Jayanti, there will be a huge boost during the evening and night shows. One also awaits the first reviews of the audience, which will play a crucial role in deciding the overall occupancy for the day.
Kalank is on the similar or greater lines than Gully Boy, which opened with 40-45% occupancy in morning shows. Mentioning the other best performers of 2019, Total Dhamaal opened with 30-35% occupancy in morning shows and Akshay Kumar's Kesari garnered 20-25% response in morning shows.
Whether it is Varun Dhawan, Sidharth Malhotra, Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh, Alia Bhatt manages to look perfect with all the actors she has been paired with on-screen.
Kalank Box Office: With The Widest Release Of 2019 Surpassing Akshay Kumar's Kesari, All Set For A Roaring Start!
Emraan Hashmi Roped In For Hindi Remake Of Malayalam Horror Film Ezra!
In her latest film Kalank, Alia has shared screen space with Varun and Aditya Roy Kapur.
"When it comes to 'Kalank', since all of us played very complex characters, we were engrossed in our own journeys and at the same time were supportive of each other," added the actress, who said she has no hangover of the success scored by her last release Gully Boy.
Aditya Roy Kapur
Kalank Box Office
Kalank Box Office Day 1 Morning Occupancy
Morning Occupancy
Total Dhamaal
madhuri dixit nene
Amitabh Bachchan's Granddaughter Navya Naveli Nanda & Siddhant Chaturvedi Are Dating? Deepika Padukone Helps Fan Connect The Dots!
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RRR's Jr NTR & Ram Charan Decode Why South Fans Are More Loyal Than Bollywood Fans, SS Rajamouli Adds Too
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1) Maximise the Routes to You. We realise this sounds like something out of cheesy, self-help book. But fear not, this advice is straight forward and grounded. If you want people to find your accounts, you need to provide them with as many avenues as possible. As well as just engaging with people on social media, promote links to your accounts wherever and whenever you can. Whether that's adding linked-icons on your website; including 'signature-links' in your emails; writing guest-blogs with links to your accounts; or even adding your account names to offline materials like business cards and letter-heads. You never know where your next top-follower will come from.
2) Play with Yourself. We won't even go into what this advice sounds like. We mean that you should toy with your profiles until you find the best results. Whether that's mixing-up your images or changing-up your bio. It could well be that your tagline doesn't express your USP as well as you think it does. Sometimes a tiny tweak can have profound effects.
3) Update your Plan. If you've been following our advice, by this stage you should be a lot more knowledgeable than you were when you made your social media plan. That means it's time to reassess and re-plan. Are your goals the same as they were? Are you getting as many followers as you had hoped? Are your platforms taking you where you want to go? If not, why not? Now is your chance to work out what is and isn't working. Adapt and update your plan to ensure your upward trajectory continues.
4) Know your Audience. Having a vague idea of the sorts of followers you wanted was okay when you were starting out. But after you've been around for a while, you're going to have to get more in-depth. Build 'persona-profiles' by analysing the traits of your target audience. Start by looking at the broad demographics you wish to target; there may be more than one. Identify the needs and interests of these groups. Then, develop behaviour-based profiles to acquire these followers. This may all seem a little cold and calculated, but it's for good reason that political campaigns are piling millions into compiling voter-profiles. We live in an age of exponential data-growth, and if you want to flourish, you're probably going to have to start taking advantage of that. For more information on building 'persona-profiles', read this.
5) Understand your Algorithms. Facebook, like most multi-media platforms, prioritises images over text, videos over images, and live-streaming over everything else. At the time of writing, including images can increase your engagement by 39% on Facebook, 98% on LinkedIn, and 200% on Twitter. The thought of live-streaming might send shivers down some people's spines, but the ability to connect in real-time has a considerably increased engagement rate, studies show that people spend 3x longer watching live videos than pre-recordings. Take advantage of this emerging trend and speak directly to your followers! But algorithms go beyond content-type, listen to this podcast by Buffer to discover more.
6) Tool-Up. Social media management tools are an essential arrow in the quiver of a successful influencer, from simple, free-to-use tools like Twitonomy, to advanced tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and more. The software might look daunting at first, but most are surprisingly user-friendly. Without paid-advertising, most platforms will only provide you with limited analytics. To truly track campaigns, followers, efficacies, and inefficacies, you need more information. Any tool worth it's merit will provide you with a wealth of useful information to help you optimise your growth.
7) Don't be a Content-Snob. This isn't to say you shouldn't be posting anything other than top-quality content, you should. But ensure that you're not only promoting your own content. It's a real turn-off for followers. Imagine going on a date and your companion only ever spoke about their own achievements – the principle is the same. Many businesses follow the 70-20-10 rule. This rule states that 70% of your posts should be aimed at adding value to your brand, 20% should be sharing other people's content, and only 10% should be sharing your own content and promoting your business. That's only one-in-ten posts. And who says modesty is dead?
8) Vampiric Content. In a similar vein, when you do create your content, why not be a little sneaky? Say you're planning to create a piece of content about indie-gaming. Why not modify your premise to "The Top 10 Indie Gamers" and include links to their accounts. Once it's posted, tag them in it or write to them, people love to self-promote and you've given them an excellent way to do that. Once they share your content, you've been given a free introduction to their community. On a similar note, if we were to write an article about building an online following, we might include links to popular, well-read (and may I say excellent) sites like Business Insider ; all in the hopes that they'd share our content across their well-read social media platforms. Theoretically speaking, of course.
9) The Power of an Image. A picture paints a thousand words. The right meme paints a million. Stock images have become the laughing stock of many a subreddit. If you're using them non-ironically, then you may not be promoting the edgy persona that you think you are. Studies have shown that the most well-received images are often ones that give a behind-the-scenes look. By posting this sort of imagery, you not only offer followers something unique, but you humanize your brand. Other types of successful images include photos of customers/partners, photos of events, photo-quotes, and infographics.
10) Optimize yourself. We're back to sounding like we're in a self-help book here, but this piece of advice is vital. You want your accounts and content to show up when people use search engines, this means stealing the tricks of SEO (search-engine-optimisation). While the practices are very similar, SMO (social media optimization) is now its own industry. We highly recommend putting the time into understanding SMO. From hashtags to bios, from post-length to keywords. SEO/SMO will show you that the language you intuitively use to express your content, may not align with the way people search for it. Most of the tools we mentioned earlier will offer you SMM options to ensure your content is hitting the mark.


text:
Sharing Scouting's Great Story
Our Report to the Nation delegates have just returned after sharing great news of Scouting's accomplishments over the past year with leaders in Washington, D.C. Report to the Nation is a presentation of who we are and what we do as a community – from the organization as a whole down to each individual unit. Each of us owns a little piece of it.
This year's Report to the Nation tells a strong story of how we are continually updating our programs to meet the needs of today's kids — from the healthy-living initiative to an increased emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math in our existing programs. This is a particularly important story to tell because it not only shares the accomplishments of the past year, but shares with our nation's leaders how we are adapting to connect with a new generation of kids while continuing to focus on the fundamental values of Scouting — things like character, leadership and service.
The story we have to tell is impactful:
During 2014, Scouts across America recorded 14,356,107 — yes, more than 14 million — hours of service to their communities across the nation, valued at more than $323 million in communities across the country.
Since joining the Messengers of Peace global initiative designed to inspire young people in more than 220 countries to work toward peace – the BSA has joined Scouts worldwide to contribute more than 600 million hours of community service.
Also last year, our Eagle Scout projects provided more than $183 million in service to communities across the nation, nearly 52,000 Scouts earning the Eagle rank in 2014.
In addition to making a huge contribution to their communities in 2014, our Scouts also took some time to enjoy the outdoors, logging 6,027,435 camping nights during the year – finding those character-building moments that can only be experienced through Scouting.
Nearly 1.1 million Scouts attended our high-adventure camps along with thousands of our day and summer camps.
Presenting the report to Speaker of the House John Boehner and other leaders was an impressive group of Scouts, including Stephen Buttolph, Eagle Scout (Rumney, NH); Alex Call, Eagle Scout and National Order of the Arrow Chief (Corpus Christi, TX); Mason Hakes, Cub Scout (Corning, NY); Lucas Hines, Star Scout (Columbia, MD); Jillian Infusino, Venturer and National Venturing Vice President (Whittier, CA); Jonathan Johnson, Life Scout (Atlanta, GA); Peter Schmidt, Eagle and Quartermaster, National Sea Scout Boatswain (Springfield, IL); Kenneth Shinozuka, Eagle Scout (New York, NY); Dallin Stevens, Eagle Scout (Sacramento, CA), Sebastian Zuleta, Eagle Scout (Central Falls, RI).
The Delegation had a full week of visits to Congress, Goddard Space Center, the U.S. Naval Academy, the Pentagon, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
But this report does not live in Washington, D.C. alone. As I said before, each of us in the Scouting family owns a little piece of it – and thus, it is a story that should be shared. Even more than the impressive and noteworthy contributions Scouts are making to their communities; it is an introduction to those who may not be familiar with Scouting about the life-changing experiences kids can get that they can't find elsewhere – and a reminder to parents that Scouting shapes the children of today as we have for more than a century.
Thus, I urge you to share our wonderful story – to introduce your community to Scouting, showcase the contributions we're making today and the impact we will continue to make on America's youth tomorrow.
Yours in Scouting,