Thursday, September 15, 2016

McCrory Joins Board Of Solihull Moors


Jed McCrory has joined the board of Solihull Moors who play in the National League.

“It’s always nice to be involved with a local club, and, with the strong community links that Solihull Moors has developed within the town," said McCrory on his appointment.

It's understood that McCrory has joined the company that rruns the football club but not the company that owns the ground. 

Both companies are CICs (Community Interest Companies). One company rents the ground to the other. That way if the football company should go bust, the ground is not lost.

McCrory became known to Hereford supporters when BN revealed that he had met former chairman David Keyte in March 2014.

Later it was revealed that McCrory along with Keyte had met Geoff Hughes from Herefordshire Council on February 24th 2014.

For reference here's an article published by BN on March 19th 2014

It's understood that one of the two possible investors in Hereford United that have talked to chairman David Keyte is a consortium headed by Jed McCrory who has been involved with Swindon Town.
It's not known whether talks are continuing but it is known that McCrory has been in Hereford in the last week.
BN was told of his interest over two weeks ago and posted a 'speculative' article mentioning McCrory on March 3rd.
The following morning BN was contacted by someone close to the club and asked to take the article down. BN refused citing the view that taking the article down would provoke more not less interest in what had been written.
This week another person close to the club asked BN how they had heard about McCrory's interest. Suffice it to say it appears that the name was talked about in the VP club after the home game against Wrexham.
Another name is that of Jed McCrory formerly chairman of Swindon and before that 'owner' of Banbury Town. 43 year old McCrory recently tried to buy into Kidderminster Town but failed.

McCrory was chairman of Swindon Town until he sold his stake to Lee Power. The Evesham based businessman led a consortium, Seebeck 87, which purchased 99% of Swindon from BetFair co-founder Andrew Black just over twelve months ago. However Power bought some of McCrory's shares last April and the remainder in December.
 
Whilst buying Swindon, McCrory was also talking to Cheltenham according to the Bath Chronicle.
 
"We did have an approach from the consortium who are now at Swindon, but we weren't convinced and you have to be very careful. You have to be very thorough with your due diligence and the fact they wanted to become the controlling stake holders was a problem," said chairman Paul Baker.

Not long after McCrory met Kidderminster chairman, at the time, Mark Serrell. However, later, the board of directors at Aggborough turned down McCrory despite his claim to be have access to £5m of funds possibly from a company called iQuest Capital Ltd who are based in Cheshire.

"The board did meet with Jed and he put his proposal to us which we decided to decline," said Ken Rae the new Kidderminster chairman.
McCrory has also looked at a takeover of Barnsley.
 
In late January it was suggested by the Barnsley Chronicle that a deal to buy the club for £5M could be 'just days away'. But it didn't happen.
Owner Patrick Cryne later said he would only sell to someone who he believed would build the club in the future.