Town chief executive Derek Bowden has denied a claim that the club's value has dropped to only £4 million over the course of the last year.

Bowden told TWTD that the story in the wake of last week's AGM was incorrect and was based on an extrapolation of a reduction in the carrying value of the PLC, which owns 12.5% of the club, by £3,745,000 to £500,000.

The chief executive said: "It was a wrong assumption. What was assumed was that owning the value of 87.5% of something is exactly the same as the value of 12.5% of something. It clearly isn't because there is a huge premium with having control.

"The reason the PLC wrote down their 12.5% in an impairment review is that 12.5% of something couldn't possibly be worth pro rata 100% of something.

"The PLC previously owned 100% of the club, so when it owned 100% its ownership had a certain value. When it owns 12.5% of the club with someone else owning 87.5%, clearly it doesn't have the controlling interest any more.

"It was a piece of auditing advice from KPMG; that the ownership was impaired and should be written down.

"The trading price of the shares isn't affected because they're traded on a matched bargain basis anyway, so if someone wants to buy a share they'll pay whatever they wish to pay for it.

"It would be very hard to argue that the club is worth only £4 million. It was wrong maths."

Marcus Evans paid £12 million to take over the club a year ago and its value is unlikely to have changed significantly in the intervening year.

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