Sports and Leisure

Case Study: Wrexham Supporters Trust

Pete Jones and Dave Jones from Wrexham Supporters Trust were the guest speakers at the fifth workshop on community shares. The Wrexham Supporters Trust is a democratic organisation and the supporters now own Wrexham football club. Pete gave an insight into the history of the Football Club while Dave explained why and how their community shares offer was successful.

Dave said “Different offers around clubs have had different purposes. FC United of Manchester have ran a share offer to raise a staggering £1.8m raising funds towards the building of a new stadium. As they have been able to raise so much, it has opened the opportunity to grants from other bodies.

Portsmouth Supporters Trust raised over £2m in Community Shares to buy a majority shareholding in the private company that now owns the football club.

Both these offers had specific purposes and their share offers were time bound. Our model was different in that we had no asset or club to purchase but our aim was to raise capital to offset against losses. First Share Offer of its kind in the footballing world so no template to follow. We opted to run an open (non-time bound) offer.”  The Wrexham Supporters Trust raised around £150,000 in shares to date.

To download Dave’s presentation, click Wrexham Community Shares Offer

Resources

Produced by Supporters Direct in partnership with the Community Shares Unit : www.supporters-direct.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Community_Shares_Guidance_web_pomp.pdf

Animation – explains what community shares are in the context of sports clubs in 2 minutes:http://clubdevelopment.coop/homepage/about-us/research/community-shares/

Further information on Wrexham Community Shares Offer: http://wst.org.uk/www3/