Liverpool Takeover Thread

[Alpherah]

Without the interest payments, LFC makes profit about £57m a year thanks to Ayre's work over the last 3 years.
Even if the new owners creamed off £10m every year for themselves, we'l be in a much much better state.
Thats the key really, we dont need a sugar-daddy because, like united et al, we do make a lot of money. Just need someone to buy the club with their own money so we can put it to good use.
-edit-
Okay, we dont make "City/Chelsea" kinda of cash alone, but no real liverpool fan ever wanted to be the next City imo.

 

[Tombstone]

I'll wait and see over the next few years, been too many false dawns so I want to see concrete (literally) proof of forward progress not hyperbole and fancy "aims".

Wonder what their thoughts are on staff, I remember reading an article not too long ago which said that 2 of the prospective buyers had already said they wanted a different manager, wonder if these guys were one of them.

 

[Alpherah]

Apparently they announced through US media that they wish to assess everything before making any changes at board or managerial level (other then themselves joining the board, obviously, and Mr Broughton will step down once the process is complete, so they need a new Chief Exec )
-edit-
Apparently they are open to selling a small percent (~5%) to fan ownership too, which is great really. Gives us a say, not a big say, but a say non the less.

 

[Tombstone]

Apparently they are open to selling a small percent (~5%) to fan ownership too, which is great really. Gives us a say, not a big say, but a say non the less.

Good !! My say would be to go back to the Green and White quarters away strip from the 1995-96 season..loved that strip, something a little different

 

[dannyjo22]

Without the interest payments, LFC makes profit about £57m a year thanks to Ayre's work over the last 3 years.
Even if the new owners creamed off £10m every year for themselves, we'l be in a much much better state..

Its still a crap business to invest in then. Especially when the outlay is thought to be £300 million in the first place. You really think someone invests 300 million to just take back 10 million per year, especially when you want a new ground as well.

I honestly don't know why anyone rich would bother buying a football club with the way things are these days in the premiership. The only way to make profit on that 300 million would be to make them champions and increase the worth to re-sell. That won't happen though in todays market.

Give it 12 months and there will be more of those naff videos doing the rounds wanting them 'out of our club'.

 

[Weebull]

There have been suggestions that if Tom Hicks and George Gillett block a £300million takeover for the club by New England Sports Ventures, owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, then their holding company would be put into administration by the Royal Bank of Scotland over their unpaid £280million debts.

That would not lead to an automatic points deduction for the Reds however - the Premier League have clarified the rules regarding parent companies so that if the club itself is a fully solvent entity - as Liverpool is - then the penalty clause should not apply.

A Premier League source told Press Association Sport: "The aim of the regulations is primarily to capture clubs who have gone into insolvency. This is manifestly not the case with Liverpool Football Club."

Via The Guardian

Good news for Liverpool I guess, though I wonder whether clarifying the rules so will make it open to fudging by clubs that actually are spending outside of their means.

 

[K1LLSW1TCH]

So what are the chances of Hicks & Gillett being ousted if legal procedures are taken forward?

 

[Alpherah]

Fairly high. Similar situation to Hicks old US team. but that dragged on for nearly 2 years

 

[shine]

So what are the chances of Hicks & Gillett being ousted if legal procedures are taken forward?

Its not clear cut. G & H are the owners - they own the club. The board have recommended a sale of the club but the owners do not believe they are getting value for money.

Under normal circumstances the shareholders can block a takeover but in this case its not clear if the owners are able to say no because of their situation with their finances.

This will take a while to resolve.

 

[BaZ87]

Know next to nothing about NESV or anybody involved so don't really know what to think. I'd be tempted to say that they can't be any worse than the 2 cowboy's we've currently got but then again I didn't think we could have been run poorer than we were under Moores and Parry.

I'd imagine I'll have plenty of time to find out about them while all this legal stuff is going on.

Via The Guardian

Good news for Liverpool I guess, though I wonder whether clarifying the rules so will make it open to fudging by clubs that actually are spending outside of their means.

It depends whether common sense is used, so yea, I'd imagine it will be opening to fudging

It's nothing new though; the other year West Ham were taken over by an Icelandic (?) Bank, when it's parent company went bust.

 

[Alpherah]

Some members of the NSEV include a guy worth approx ~£200 million (Not a lot) who made his money in farming.
Another guy is worth about £2billion, and made his wealth selling Oil found in the middle east. He often advertises his company with blimps above the red socks stadium.

-edit-
Nothing to see here. Damn typo

 

[BaZ87]

Another guy is worth about £200 billion

Typo? There is no single person on this planet worth anything close to £200bn.

edit: Broughton on SSN now making it perfectly clear that a written condition of him taking the job was that only he could make changes to the board. Lets hope there's no legal loop whole to get around it.

And he's confirmed the takeover fee to be £300m.

 

[Alpherah]

Typo? There is no single person on this planet worth anything close to £200bn.

Yeah, sorry meant 2 lol

MB on SSN Now, saying part of him agreeing to join, and part of the deal of the last refinance, was that only he (MB) can add or remove people from the board.
Seems HnG are screwed.

 

[BaZ87]

Broughton says he hopes to get a 'declarity judgement from the court' on the legal challenge within a week.

edit: Here's a link to an interview Broughton gave to the official site:

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/broughton-takeover-q-a

 

[antijoke]

Stick it to 'em MB.

 

[xxalxx]

Sounds like MB holds all the cards ...

Can the owners block the sale of LFC to New England Sports Ventures?

Well, we have to win the court case. So effectively yes, if they win the court case they can block the sale. But then we may have one or two other thoughts in mind as well.

I can only presume if H&G win the case, the bank will seize ownership of the club. Sounds like H&G have to sell, or risk losing everything.

 

[jakeke]

This is all very public, it's strange to see. Don't usually see all the dirty laundry being aired so publically

 

[Stretch]

"This was frankly their last chance to leave Liverpool with their heads high and they have chosen to go this route.

"It is a difficult issue. Part of me taking on the role - and I was appointed by Tom and George - was that they gave a written undertaking that only I could change the board, they wrote that into the articles of the two companies Kop Football and Kop Holdings.

"They also gave a written undertaking to RBS that they would not frustrate any reasonable sale and this is frankly a flagrant abuse of those two written undertakings."

Sounds like it’s all but done and the legal challenge is merely an act of desperation from H&G.

I can't see any way back for them now. If they win the legal case they still have to pay the debt. If they find finance elsewhere (which is extremely unlikely because it would be huge risk to any lender) they'll have to work with a team who clearly doesn’t want to work with them. They will face a massive fans backlash and they have no money to invest to dig them out of the hole. I really can't understand why they're bothering.

 

[Mr_White]

Sounds like it’s all but done and the legal challenge is merely an act of desperation from H&G.

Indeed.

I'm optimistic that the worst they can do is just delay the whole thing by a couple of weeks, everything we know of points to them not having much of a hand to play in legal proceedings.

 

[Infam0us]

Read the news this morning on LFC Website, hopefully it'll be all sorted by next week