Liverpool receive takeover bids
Liverpool Football Club are reported to be considering several offers for a takeover of the English Premier League outfit. It has been reported by BBC Sport that up to six bids are believed to have been received by the club and these will be considered in the coming days by chairman Martin Broughton and investment bank Barclays Capital. A preferred bidder is likely to be chosen by the end of the week.
One of the offers has been submitted by Chinese businessman Kenneth Huang, head of the Hong Kong-based investment company QSL Sports Ltd. Former Wall Street broker Huang has been in talks with representatives from the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) over the purchase of the club, which has been up for sale since April. He is said to value Liverpool at around £350m.
Main creditor
The bank is the main creditor of the club and is owed around £237m by Liverpool and its co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. RBS has revealed that Huang is prepared to clear Liverpool’s debt to the bank as well as provide manager Roy Hodgson with a transfer budget to recruit new players. One sticking point with Huang’s offer may be with the timeframe he has imposed on any deal – he wants to buy the club within the next two weeks to allow Hodgson time to add to the Reds’ squad before the transfer window closes at the end of the month.
Huang’s company is involved with various other sporting teams, including the Major League Baseball team New York Yankees as well as the National Basketball Association’s Cleveland Cavaliers. He was offered the chance to buy Liverpool in 2008, but believed the then value of £650m to be too costly and not worth investing in.
Hicks and Gillett purchased the club in 2007. The deal estimated the value of the club to be £218.9m, of which £44.8m was owed to creditors. The move, however, is not one that has gone well for the owners or the fans.
The co-owners have struggled to get along with each other and early on in their ownership of the club, Gillett had said the partnership was "unworkable". Gillett had planned to sell his share of the club on in 2008 to a Dubai investment group, but Hicks blocked the sale. A move by the group to purchase the club outright for £500m was also knocked back as Hicks declared he would make his own takeover bid.
In recent months, however, the co-owners have appeared to resolve their differences as they prepared to place the club up for sale. But while they look to be getting along with each other, the Reds’ fans have not warmed to them at all.
Protest against owners
Many supporters’ groups had expressed their dismay at the increasing the debt the club was taking on after Hicks and Gillett took over the club. Plans for a new stadium to replace Anfield had been shelved following a combination of the global recession and what fans perceived to be bad management at the club. In October 2009, hundreds of fans took part in a protest against the American pair while the relationship between the board and fans further disintegrated when Hicks’ son had a row with a supporter who claimed the younger Hicks had sent him abusive emails.
Should Huang or any of the other bidders be successful in their bid for the club, not only will they have to repair the fractious relationship with the fans but also tend to the club’s messy finances. In May, accountants revealed that Liverpool were £350m in the black with losses of £55m. Its auditor KPMG said at the time that “This fact indicates the existence of a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt upon (Liverpool's) ability to continue as a going concern.”
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