The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[Richard E]

Somebody really needs to tell Everton that no one is buying football clubs anymore.

[OzVilla]

Evertons investment is particularly galling. Lerner has had 2 years of openly trying to sell - seriously is there nothing this guy gets right. I envisage him sitting the wrong way around on the toilet!

As for Hollis, just look at his background and read his quotes. We're about to be cut to the bone - although if that means relegation clauses means most the first team squad fucks off that's one cut I'd support.

[Locko]

Lerner's incompetence will reap its just rewards when we drop. He can forget about selling for £200m or £150m - Morgan can't even get £40m for Wolves and has dropped the price to £30m. On the downside it means we're probably stuck with Lerner for even longer

This is why relegation is such a frightening concept. It's taken a decade of bungled decision making to arrive at this point. The consistent feature of Lerner's tenure is his unfailing ability to fuck up. I do not expect him to wise up in the championship. We can expect more crap decisions, half arsed appointments in all positions at the club and general muddled thinking from the top. We're stuck with the twat indefinitely when we go down because I can't for a second see him dropping his asking price

Except we're not because he's appointed someone to do it all for him so he doesn't need to wise up, he needs Hollis to prove to be competent and regardless of anything being said in anger right now there is nothing to suggest he won't be (there's also nothing to suggest he will be but I refuse to take that to mean he's a guaranteed failure as so many seem to have done).

Hollis a man with no experience in  football whatsoever, a man so imbued with enthusiasm for the project, it took several months of persuasion to get him on board; he's good with spreadsheets apparently from his time with KPMG. We've hired a plumber to change an alternator.
His apparent denial of sufficient funds in January window to the manager suggests his employed with a clear agenda, cut costs. He bears all the  hallmarks of being another shite Lerner appointment. I've no confidence in him to arrest the slide, let alone instigate a turnaround in fortunes

Good of you to give him a chance to do anything before you decide he's a waste of space.

Perhaps if there had been a modicum of support for the manager last month I'd consider him less of a waste of space and resources.

The axeman cometh...

[David_Nab]

Evertons investment is particularly galling. Lerner has had 2 years of openly trying to sell - seriously is there nothing this guy gets right. I envisage him sitting the wrong way around on the toilet!

As for Hollis, just look at his background and read his quotes. We're about to be cut to the bone - although if that means relegation clauses means most the first team squad fucks off that's one cut I'd support.

Everton have been after investment for about a decade ..

What makes is galling is
1)We have better facilities ground etc than Everton but this new backer will allow them ability to get a loan to rebuild Goodision so they will over take us not just on the pitch but in infrastructure too
2)The investor came from Arsenal , you would of think Fox would have known about him and clearly was in no positon to entice him to Villa

Be interesting to see the latest financial results to see exactly how what the situation is ...

Clearly I'm biased but Villa with our history .fanbase stadium at a price of well south of 150 mil has got to interest someone with us in championship.

[Hillbilly]

The Guardian is quoting £200 million for just under half of Everton.

[mattjpa]

Everton deal is sickening. It's not even the wealth of the owner, the tv money now means that clubs can be almost self sustaining if ran properly. This guy has money as well as football knowledge, good luck to them

[Phil from the upper holte]

Everton fan on facebook was saying he's chuffed at keeping kenwright as he's an everton man, Wonder how many of us would be saying the same. I remember going to goodison and the camera panned on him and everyone started to Boo.

[PaulWinch again]

Well short of the club folding our situation is about as desperate as it gets. We have a terrible squad, who aren't even trying now, we are cutting costs even further after years of penny pinching. We have have a manager who's clearly leaving in the summer. The owner just couldn't care a less. We don't appear to have any sort of footballing strategy and there is no apparent hope of new ownership on the horizon. It's utterly depressing.

[Dante Lavelli]

Somebody really needs to tell Everton that no one is buying football clubs anymore.

Why do people keep saying this, have I missed a Fox quote or something?

[dave shelley]

The Guardian is quoting £200 million for just under half of Everton.

You could buy the whole of the city of Liverpool for a quarter of that.

[ChicagoLion]

The Guardian is quoting £200 million for just under half of Everton.

Which is complete bollox.
Everton is not worth £400 million.

[Villa in Denmark]

The Guardian is quoting £200 million for just under half of Everton.

Which is complete bollox.
Everton is not worth £400 million.

He's sold his stake in Arsenal, which he has to if he want's to buy into Everton,  and received £200M for it. That's different to paying £200M for 49.9% of Everton

We went through this when those 2 Americans were reportedly buying them for £200M.

If you accept £200M for the club as whole, to do anything with it you've got to do something with the ground.

They've got planning permission for a new ground, contingent on them paying for various community infrastructure projects in the area, the sum total of which is around £300M, so now you're upto £500M, assuming they can deliver 2 building projects on time and budget.

To take them from where they are now to genuine CL contenders without pulling, what I assume is a one off for Leicester, you're probably looking at throwing £50M per year at it for 3 or 4 years to get to where you're a regular contender.  Of course if you're lucky you qualify in year 1 or 2 and make it to the group stages, where after you've got more finance behind it and you're being taken more seriously by players.

The big hole in the plot is the £300M on the ground, which is why there's been no takers up to now.  Alternatively they're going to try and "do an Arsenal" and build the team at Goodison then hope they can finance the new ground afterwards.

[Villa in Denmark]

Found the original posts if anyone's interested.

Can't believe that it was before Christmas.  Time flies when you're bored shitless.

Well having read the report in The Telegraph my initial thoughts are.

1. Everton will initially be a money pit to anyone coming in. Over and above any squad development, they've still got to find £4-500M for a new ground to allow for better commercial income and bring the ground into the 21st century.

2. The senior partner in that takeover partnership is "only" worth $750M. If his partner is worth the same, they've got to be looking at financing at least part of the takeover unless they're not going to go for the new stadium option, which will keep them locked into their current cycle plus whatever top up money that they care to put in.

3. More likely to be a partial buy in that values Everton at £200M.

If one of the Investors is worth £440millio I don't see why they need to raise much if any finance.
I don't think a New Stadium will be anything like £400 m unlesss they get the Brazilians in or the guys that built WEmbley.
 Liverpool Ground share option is on the agenda.
This deal is a long way from closed.

Most of the articles I've seen around their new stadium proposals have said "in excess of £300M". As I've never seen a build of that nature come in on time and budget £400M didn't seem too outlandish.
I thought the ground share idea had been ditched ages ago which is why Liverpool have cracked on with the planning applications for redeveloping Anfield and are currently building a new main stand above and behind the existing stand.

If both parties are of equal worth that would give them a combined wealth of in round numbers £900M. That in itself us a bit of an assumption as I've only seen the one guy mentioned when it comes to money.

If they've got to fork out £200M to buy Everton, plus for the sake of avoiding argument £300M to build the new stadium, that's over half of their combined net worth sunk into a venture that tends to be a money pit. If they're then going to go off looking for players to "take them to the next level" they better be prepared to throw another £50-100M at it over the following 2-3 years and you're well over 60% of their net worth.
I can't see anyone signing up for that, and that's before you get into their net worth does not necessarily mean liquid assets that could be used to fund such a purchase.
It could and probably would include property investments, share portfolios and fixed term bonds none of which could be easily cashed in unless a significant proportion of the share portfolios were self managed and not part of a managed fund.

That's why I talked about financing it.

The only other way that the figures stack up is if they get Liverpool City Council to at least part fund the new ground as a regeneration project, something they refused to countenance as irresponsible given the current economic climate for local authorities as recently as the end of last month.

VID
I think you have some good points there. I thought the new stadium plan had got into planning problems again, have they actually started construction?
The Fenway Guys know these people so it would make sense if they could do a ground share.
It is very difficult to get an understanding of people's wealth over here. You are right that Goodison is the Albatross which is why no deal has ever been done in the past.
Not sure what the opportunities to make money out of Goodison to offset the costs of New Stadium Development. Not sure how much substance there is behind this but if Villa was a solid Prem team (as solid as Everton appear to be) there is no doubt we would be a better investment opportunity.

Chicago.

The numbers from the wealth are based on they've only quoted one guy's value and the press, being the press, will always go for the most spectacular "look at the size of that" kind of reporting, so best case for Everton is the other partner is of roughly equivalent net worth.

Here's the latest on the "New Goodison" project that I could find where the figures in excess of £300M are mentioned. Granted that's not all new ground but includes financing for redevelopment in the surrounding areas as a condition of planning approval - there's also a snippet about the final negotiations with Liverpool before they won planning permission.

Prep work for the redevelopment of the main stand at Anfield started before the end of last season.

Pictures from the summer if anyone's interested - Liverpool Echo website.

[steffo]

http://www.efcsa.org/everton-shares/

If I am reading that right there are 35000 shares in Everton and he has virtually half. Considering a report that they were selling at about £1350 in 2014. Say he paid a premium of £2000 each that's only £35 million. The profit he has made from Arsenal could make Everton a strong force.

[Villa in Denmark]

If I'd got to guess, I'd say the valuation would be £100-120M, based on the figures you see bandied about for the likes of West Ham, Spurs and Newcastle, plus the increase in value due to the increase in TV payments.  That would give a share price of £2850-3400

That figure of £1350 per share is for private, low volume (<10 shares) trades, where presumably the seller is the lead party looking for a buyer.

We don't know who he's bought from, presumably not Kenwright (or at least not all of them), but he'll definitely have had to pay a significant premium to purchase from existing minority shareholders who have them for sentimental value rather than cash value.