Bury

Bury in liquidation danger as owner Dale fails to pay any money to creditors

• Dale must pay at least £2m or Bury could be liquidated
• Owner says he intends to settle debts and save club

Bury’s owner, Steve Dale, has failed to provide any of the money he pledged last summer towards paying the club’s debts via a company voluntary arrangement (CVA), creditors have been informed. Dale has until 11 February to pay at least £2m which is owing, otherwise the CVA will be scrapped and the 135-year-old club, which was expelled by the EFL in August, looks likely to be liquidated.

A consortium of local businessmen, so far not named publicly, is reported to have been negotiating with Dale to buy the club with its debts to pay, in the hope that Bury may be able to start again in the National League next season. A group of supporters has also made strong progress with forming a phoenix club, Bury AFC, and applied to join the North West Counties League, should efforts to keep the current club out of liquidation fail.

A major difficulty for the salvage plans is the £3.8m mortgage over Gigg Lane held by a company, Capital Bridging Finance Solutions, which could repossess the ground.

The accountants supervising the CVA, Inquesta, have told creditors that Dale has missed the maximum six-month deadline to provide the money, and has been given 21 days to do so or the CVA will be ended. That would mean the debts – approximately £1m owing to “football creditors” including former players who won promotion for Bury last season, and £4m owed to HMRC and “non-football creditors” – would become immediately due, and creditors could petition for the club to be wound up.

“The terms of the CVA were that funds should be introduced within a maximum period of six months,” Inquesta said in the letter to creditors. “This came to an end on 18 January 2020. Due to no funds being received, we have issued a notice of breach to the director, giving 21 days for the funds to be introduced. Should the breach not be remedied within the defined timescale, the supervisor will review the position and will terminate the agreement.”

Dale took over Bury for £1 from Stewart Day in December 2018, but never satisfied the EFL that he had the money required to run it. The team managed by Ryan Lowe won promotion to League One but the players revealed in May that they had done so despite having not been paid for three months.

In an effort to save the club from administration or liquidation, Dale secured agreement for the CVA to come into effect on 18 July, which meant he had until 18 January to provide the money. Players and football creditors were then owed £950,622, which needs to be paid in full if Bury are to survive as a club in a new league next season. HMRC were owed £1m, £2.4m was owing to a long list of creditors including £115,000 to Bury council and £149,000 to Trafford council, and supporters had paid £245,626 to buy season tickets for a year in which the club has played no football.

Dale was listed in the CVA as having £3.6m owed to him, which was understood to have been originally loaned to the club by Day. In July a company, RCR Ltd, owned by the partner of Dale’s daughter, bought for £70,000 a £7.1m debt Bury owed to Day’s property company, Mederco, which had collapsed into administration. RCR wielded that £7.1m in the creditors’ vote to approve the CVA.

Dale had committed to providing the money to pay off the creditors, with the proposal by Inquesta stating: “Mr Dale has confirmed that he will personally guarantee that sufficient funds will be introduced.”

Inquesta confirmed to the Guardian that the “notice of breach” was sent to Dale last week. Dale confirmed that, but said the CVA was being changed because of the financial impact of the club’s expulsion, and he still intends to settle the club’s debts.

“I am in no talks at this current time with ‘another’ consortium,” Dale said, “just finalising saving the club through the CVA and applying to play football next season.”