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Mike Ashley (former owner)

Disco

by Disco
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jdckelly

jdckelly

Posted
Posted

Aside from this being bollocks, theoretically investing in a premier league club now could be seen to be one of the safest bets going. The rest of the world is going to ruin, but Premier League revenues will continue to rise

with sports channels throughout the world bleeding customers atm and probably in real danger of going out of business and the global economy in ruins I doubt it will continue to rise and rise

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nufcjb

nufcjb

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Hey who knows. If this goes through, they might even sack Bruce and won't be anyone protesting against it. Great time to buy us tbh.

 

About the ground, I don't see anyone who would want to move the ground outside the city center. That is a major appeal of the club. Some mega rich people.would probably hire some top class architects and engineers to enlarge the ground and keep it in the city center.

 

Go back to the old Sir John plans. Develop the area. Investment would be what they would want to get into the bigger picture of purchasing us.

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Dokko

Dokko

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Does anyone ever actually bid for us? Poor old Mike just can’t catch a break with these buyers yet again.

 

I wouldn't take any notice of the above article and what he's written. He knew fuck all about this (again) and simply reported on another report. Today, when no one is at the club he's managed to somehow instantly get an exclusive insight in to what is happening with a secretive deal without leaving his bedroom.

 

I'm not saying there is a bid, but if there was Chief crayon supervisor would be the last to know.

 

He does have contacts within the club, but they are all at player and staff level. Nothing at any level of importance to the takeover but he'll get you some inside gossip on player relationships.

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geordie john

geordie john

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God I so desperately hope and pray that the stock market continues (for Fraser at least) to collapse and wipe out this disgusting piece of shit.

 

Ashley, may your shares plummet unto the ground and beyond. The cold wrath of god is upon you and thee shall die like the vermin you are.

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BirtleyMag

BirtleyMag

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Does anyone ever actually bid for us? Poor old Mike just can’t catch a break with these buyers yet again.

 

I wouldn't take any notice of the above article and what he's written. He knew f*** all about this (again) and simply reported on another report. Today, when no one is at the club he's managed to somehow instantly get an exclusive insight in to what is happening with a secretive deal without leaving his bedroom.

 

I'm not saying there is a bid, but if there was Chief crayon supervisor would be the last to know.

 

He does have contacts within the club, but they are all at player and staff level. Nothing at any level of importance to the takeover but he'll get you some inside gossip on player relationships.

 

Sounds about right tbf. I’d be giving Ryder too much credit if I believed he had all the juicy gossip about the takeover. :lol:

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Tsunami

Tsunami

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Bloke I know at the club says they’re being furloughed and that they’ve been told not to answer any questions about anything. He says he also got the impression that other things may be going on.

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TK-421

TK-421

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Bloke I know at the club says they’re being furloughed and that they’ve been told not to answer any questions about anything. He says he also got the impression that other things may be going on.

 

Aye, saw that in the papers today. All non-first team staff apparently, and they were emailed and told by Charnley.

 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/03/30/newcastle-become-first-premier-league-club-put-staff-furlough/

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Ryan

Ryan

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- A year in the making.

- Closer than ever.

- Signatures have not yet been put to any document that would transfer ownership. Great confidence that this may soon happen.

- Price might be less than £340m.

- If this was a normal business, insiders say transaction would've been completed weeks ago.

- COVID-19 unlikely to impact on situation. Saudi's interested in long term vision.

- Mishaps not expected but can't be ruled out with Ashley.

- Close enough to be considered a realistic proposition.

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Elbel1

Elbel1

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This has been a year in the making, even longer if we retreat to the winter of 2017-18 and Amanda Staveley’s first attempt to buy Newcastle United. While pandemic and economic turmoil does not appear fertile territory for a takeover, the Mike Ashley era at St James’ Park has never been closer to ending and rarely has it felt more appropriate that it should do so. In every respect, it has been a long time coming.

 

Until now, The Athletic has refrained from written comment on Staveley’s re-emergence as a co-bidder for Newcastle, which was initially reported by the Wall Street Journal in late January. This was not a reflection on the validity of the story, but more a response to the timing. Leaks rarely help and this one certainly didn’t, serving to hoist the drawbridge on discussions and temporarily raising suspicion on both sides.

 

There is chronic takeover fatigue among Newcastle supporters, understandable given that rumours typically emerge close to the transfer window or season-ticket deadline. So many false dawns have broken over Tyneside over the last decade and more. Our policy has been to withhold fuel from the fire until substantive progress has been made and then to offer as much detail as possible.

 

Are we at that stage? Well… almost. But the point has been reached when not writing becomes less helpful than writing. One of the most interesting aspects about The Telegraph’s report that the Premier League has been notified about Staveley’s intention to buy Newcastle (which took place last week) is the outpouring of disbelief and conspiracy theories on social media about Ashley’s desire to deflect bad publicity.

 

So here is context, a bit of it general, some more specific. The biggest of big pictures is that signatures — electronic, presumably, in this era of self-isolation — have not yet been put to the document which, subject to regulatory approval, would transfer Newcastle’s ownership. But rarely, if ever, has there been greater confidence from a number of sources that the printer ink will finally flow.

 

Is cynicism natural? Yes. But this is categorically not an invention of Ashley’s spin doctors — desperate to bury his public apology last week for trying to keep his Sports Direct retail shops open during the coronavirus shutdown — or Newcastle’s failure to offer financial relief to struggling season-ticket holders. Both of those things were something else entirely. It was further weary evidence of why the club needs to reset.

 

It is only when an agreement is formalised and submitted that the Premier League will begin its background checks on Staveley and her group, which also features the Reuben Brothers — one of Britain’s wealthiest families, worth £16.6 billion according to the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List — and, most noteworthy, Saudi Arabia’s investment arm. In turn, they have been informed that the owners’ and directors’ test, which investigates proof of funding and suitability of prospective club custodians, will take up to four weeks to complete.

 

If and when that process begins, there would be no grand announcement, or daily statements about plans and procedure. Until Premier League approval is granted, no significant decisions can be put into effect and so there is little reason to pre-empt them — although with the consent of both sides, preparations for the handover can begin. This may be even more important during a lockdown, when travel and movement are so difficult.

 

In public, there would be a form of limbo, although that will not be a new sensation for anybody. Just as it always has been, the official line from the Premier League is “no comment”. The club, which today placed its non-first-team staff on furlough, never offers the media or their fans guidance on matters like this — including over Rafa Benitez’s future last summer — beyond saying that it is business as usual.

 

This is not a back-of-a-cigarette-packet operation, however. It was last spring that Staveley began the process of assembling this consortium to purchase Newcastle, a painstaking challenge that would have seen others off. Her determination was all the more admirable after the first attempt to pull off a deal (in January 2018) ended in a source close to Ashley telling Sky Sports News that negotiations had proved “exhausting, frustrating and a complete waste of time”.

 

Staveley and her PCP Capital Partners firm were stung by that. In an interview with The Times that month, she detailed the three bids she had made for Newcastle. “This is something we’ve been working really hard on,” she said. “It’s not something we’ve just thrown together. I’m putting a lot of my own capital into this and investors, who come from around the world, include sovereign wealth funds.” Was she a time-waster? “Absurd,” she said. “It’s hurtful.”

 

The Reubens, who were involved back then, are again prominent, and, like PCP, will take a 10 per cent stake in the club if the deal is waved through by the authorities. The rest — 80 per cent — would be controlled by the Public Investment Fund (PIF) of Saudi Arabia, a prospect that offers excitement as well as dilemmas. Middle East involvement has revolutionised Manchester City, but there will also be concerns over human-rights violations and “sportswashing”.

 

It has taken months for PIF to commit, but that commitment is now viewed as total, which partially explains the timing. To the question of why anybody would seek to make a multi-million pound acquisition during a public health crisis when the markets are reeling, the answer is that this is not a short-term proposition. They are not buying Newcastle to sell it, but to invest and grow. It is for 10 years’ time, not just now.

 

If you can afford to look at the world like that, then COVID-19 is not such an overwhelming proposition, even if the effects may stretch for months. There is also a thought that Ashley may now be more receptive to selling given the damage done to his firm’s share price, as well as the harm he has suffered to his reputation over recent days. It is said that the price is now considerably less than the £340 million first reported.

 

Ashley has always been described as a difficult seller — and many supporters would replace the word “difficult” with “unwilling”. That is a reflection on a cry-wolf owner who has repeatedly apologised for his mistakes, then repeatedly made new ones. He has officially put the club up for sale on three occasions — September 2008, June 2009 and most recently October 2017 — and twice taken it off the market.

 

Yet perhaps there has been a shift. Perhaps it has taken a while for Ashley to accept that this is for real. He has always been an instinct businessman — buying Newcastle without completing due diligence, spooking Sports Direct investors by taking scattergun positions in other companies — and this has been a laborious enterprise. He does not like information leaking out and he recoils from formality.

 

If this was a normal business, insiders say, a transaction would have been completed weeks ago, but this is an abnormal situation at an abnormal moment. On Staveley’s side, there are three principals, who must each agree any changes to terms and contracts, then put them to their own lawyers. That would be arduous enough with things like due diligence and business plans, but unknowns, such as HMRC’s investigation into Newcastle, multiply the problem.

 

Resolving those issues has taken a lot of time and much hard work, but there are no longer doubts about Ashley’s motivation. There is cordiality on both sides of the negotiating table and mishaps are not anticipated, albeit with the obvious caveat about Ashley’s unpredictability. And what about those “no bid” stories? A matter of semantics; you can make formal bids or you can talk and build your way to an agreement.

 

Those talks have been led by Justin Barnes, Ashley’s lieutenant, and Chris Mort, a lawyer at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and a former chairman of Newcastle who is again acting for Staveley, just as he was three years ago. If this is wasting time, then it is also wasting bucket loads of money, which is just one part that has never made sense. PR stunts are not this convoluted or expensive.

 

None of which is to say that a takeover will happen, but there is momentum behind it and a desire to get it done. It is close; close enough to accept as a realistic proposition, if not yet enough for the hashtag #cans to be trending on Twitter (it would be a source of widespread regret if the coronavirus denies the city a celebratory party). Newcastle have ambled down this path before and found their way blocked, but there is substance to this and it merits recording.

 

As to what it might mean for Newcastle? Maybe it is too soon for that, beyond saying that Staveley, her husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi, Jamie Reuben (the son of David and the nephew of Simon) and Yasir Al-Rumayyan (the governor of PIF) would sit on the club’s board, while others have been approached about potential roles within the footballing operation. With so much uncertain, not least how or if the remainder of the season will play out and what, if anything, it might mean for Financial Fair Play, a lot is on hold.

 

Yet Staveley has already hinted in broad brush terms about the kind of club Newcastle may become and how the city may evolve around it: the Reubens have property in the region and the Saudis are receptive to wider investment. “Newcastle has a proper history and a real magic,” she said in her Times interview (a declaration of interest; the interview was with me). “That passion of the fans is vitally important when you’re looking at a club, because you know that you’re a custodian.

 

“I’m also a passionate believer in investment in the north east, because I know it’s tough. A lot of great things are happening in the city — we’ve got friends, like the Reubens, who have invested there — and it’s a real special place, with it’s own identity. It is absolutely unique. This is an investment, but it has to be a long-term investment. Newcastle would be run as a business, but we want it to be a successful, thriving business that is an absolutely integral part of the city.”

 

That concept, that dream, is still intact.

 

 

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