Billion Dollar Baby

[RedStar]

New reports surfacing that a Middle East consortium is looming to buy into the club and FSG have valued us at $1bn

[article]
£1BILLION price tag on club as leading financier begins takeover talks
The Reds are wanted by top investor Amanda Staveley, who watched the 1-1 draw at Newcastle from the stands last week

BY JOHN RICHARDSON

• 22:30, 7 OCT 2017UPDATED23:21, 7 OCT 2017

Liverpool’s American owners have slapped a stunning £1billion price tag on the club after preliminary buy-out talks.

Sunday Mirror Sport can reveal that leading financier Amanda Staveley, who has strong links to billionaires in the Middle East, made initial soundings about the club’s availability on Sunday.


Staveley, who runs PCP Capital Partners, a fund with global assets of more than £28billion.

She was at the 1-1 draw between Newcastle and Liverpool on a fact-finding mission - and has made previous attempts to acquire the Mersey giants.

Amanda Staveley watched on from the stands last weekend(Image: Newcastle Chronicle)

Liverpool could be sold in the near future(Image: Getty Images Europe)
The 44-year-old was involved with Dubai investors in takeover attempts in 2007 which were ultimately aborted, and last year her firm made a joint offer for a share of the club with Chinese company Everbright Limited – but it was rejected by the Reds’ current owners, the Fenway Sports Group.

John Henry could sell Liverpool if the price is right(Image: James Maloney/Liverpool Echo)
Staveley was instrumental in Sheikh Mansour’s purchase of Manchester City in 2008 and knows that Liverpool is on the radar of the Middle East billionaires anxious to invest in a leading English club.

But Fenway, who bought the club seven years ago for £300m, are looking for a major return on their investment and will only sell for the right price.
[/article]

There have been plenty of rumoured buyouts in the past but most have been pure speculation. That said I always felt selling the club on for a massive profit was the end game for FSG and that they never really intended to fund the club to the point of making us a force again.

How would people feel about a Middle East takeover, have we reached the point where if you can't beat em join an, or is there still hope that we can do it the 'right way' and get back to the top without the financial doping of a billionaire investment?

 

[darkstarexodus]

Fuck i hope so. The game is fucked already. Let's not be last at the trough.

 

[RedStar]

It does seem patience with FSG has all but evaporated. They saved us from the brink and built a new stand but 1 League Cup in 7 years is a pretty poor return. It's always felt a bit like they've just kept the lights on while their asset was appreciating in value waiting for the right time to cash out.

 

[Frogfish]

No money no honey .. it's where the game is at now I'm afraid. There is no such thing as 'doing it the right way' because as soon as you build a successful team it will be stripped bare of its top assets by the monied clubs (see Leicester).

 

[RedStar]

I must admit I'd given up any hope of a team without massive financial investment winning the title before Leicester did it. It's clearly not sustainable long term and it may be another couple of decades before it happens again but they've proven it can happen. That leaves us with a pretty stark choice. Bite the bullet and join the likes of City and Chelsea or squeeze every drop out of what's available and hope to strike gold once every generation or so.

I sometimes think we have an image of the club that doesn't exist in the real world anymore it's just in the collective concious of Liverpool fans. There's a generation of Liverpool fans in theirs 30s who have no memory of us as a title winning team.

 

[FoxForceFive]

Well a one billion pound price tag will make damn sure this doesn't happen, that's the value recently attached to Utd under similar circumstances, if you were an investor with no attachment, who would you buy?

 

[RedStar]

Well a one billion pound price tag will make damn sure this doesn't happen, that's the value recently attached to Utd under similar circumstances, if you were an investor with no attachment, who would you buy?

Utd are valued at $3.6bn according to their latest figures

 

[FoxForceFive]

Yeah, but the club has a huge debt & the glazers are in debt of about a billion too, so the price it'll sell for is much less. Or something, I wasn't really paying attention as it was a shitty throwaway article about potential buyout, but I'm pretty sure it said the glazers had made it known a billion was the magic number.

 

[The Nomad]

I assumed she was there as a proxy for a potential suitor for Newcastle. Oops

 

[Red Bird]

This Amanda Staveley has been hanging around Liverpool for about a decade and, once on a while, a story about a consortium-- a bit like FSG, then-- starts circulating.

 

[reuque]

That this story is originating from The Mirror gives enough reason to doubt the credibility of this at the moment. Really want it to happen though coz we're pretty shite like at bargain-hunting.

 

[Dreambeliever]

Buy buy buy

 

[Red Bird]

That this story is originating from The Mirror gives enough reason to doubt the credibility of this at the moment. Really want it to happen though coz we're pretty shite like at bargain-hunting.

That in the main is club level incompetence rather than at dysfunction at the top. Oxlade-Chamberlain, for example. Or Lovren.

 

[mark1975]

It does seem patience with FSG has all but evaporated. They saved us from the brink and built a new stand but 1 League Cup in 7 years is a pretty poor return. It's always felt a bit like they've just kept the lights on while their asset was appreciating in value waiting for the right time to cash out.

I was starting to feel this way, but we kept Coutinho, we've built a new stand and we spent big and were willing to spend more in the Summer. The bigger issue is the idiotic tendency to get it expensively wrong at least once during each Summer window and to completely fail to address priority issues. I don't know how much of the footballing decisions we can blame on them, we didn't need to spend £40m on AOC, but the money was there regardless, how we spent it is down to the manager and his staff. And it's those decisions that then have a knock on effect on whether we're successful or not.

 

[My_Blood_Bleeds_Red]

£40m on AOC.

Not too long ago, Arsenal offered an extra £1 for Suarez.

Football is not the same anymore. I hate it, and hate us.

 

[Buddha]

Not too long ago, Arsenal offered an extra £1 for Suarez.

fuck, that's depressing.

 

[Peatcheo]

Surely a 1 billion price tag is just chest beating from FSG.

 

[manwithnoname]

Surely a 1 billion price tag is just chest beating from FSG.

Maybe, I don't think anyone knows anything.

It would be nice to have owners from an oil-rich country who simply wanted to pump hundreds of millions into LFC in order to buy success and have it reflect well on their stupid country and culture, while greedy mercenaries from around the world pretend they've always supported us, and are very interested in our "project"

And while that actually sounds fucking horrible, it's the only way we're ever going to compete with the likes of City, Chelsea, PSG et al.

 

[Glen C]

Maybe, I don't think anyone knows anything.

It would be nice to have owners from an oil-rich country who simply wanted to pump hundreds of millions into LFC in order to buy success and have it reflect well on their stupid country and culture, while greedy mercenaries from around the world pretend they've always supported us, and are very interested in our "project"

And while that actually sounds fucking horrible, it's the only way we're ever going to compete with the likes of City, Chelsea, PSG et al.

Doesn't sound horrible in the slightest. I'd have Kim Jong as our owner if it meant we won the league.

 

[manwithnoname]

Doesn't sound horrible in the slightest. I'd have Kim Jong as our owner if it meant we won the league.

Well, you know what I mean. It's not ideal, is what I meant.

Although knowing our luck, we'd get some oil-rich owners who actually "expect the club to be run prudently as a viable business", want to have an input into the playing side, and give the manager's job to someone who used to coach Al-Shababi FC.

 

[refugee]

I assumed she was there as a proxy for a potential suitor for Newcastle. Oops

I also thought that. Strange that the story took around a week to come out after the match, given that the sky (or whatever channel I watched the game) commentators pointed her out during the match.

 

[manwithnoname]

I also thought that. Strange that the story took around a week to come out after the match, given that the sky (or whatever channel I watched the game) commentators pointed her out during the match.

I don't think anyone knows exactly why she was there, given the speculation is still rife that it could have been either Liverpool or Newcastle.

Or neither.

 

[Silver Sean]

I will always be thankful to FSG for stopping us doing a Leeds. If they sell now they will sell a club that is financially secure, with investment throughout every area of the club: Anfield, the new training ground, better commercially, and a much-sought-after coach etc.
Football is fucked anyway so we might as well embrace the filthy oil money. Bottom line is if you can offer top players top money like Chavs, Citeh, Scum you are more likely to win stuff. And I'd quite like to win stuff.
Liverpool's name + huge wedges of cash would see us at the very top tier for years to come.

 

[localny]

One Billion is kind of low by current valuations though no? Although FSG would make off like Bandits.

I'd hate to be owned by some Middle East Mogul. .

 

[Judge Jules]

I'm not too struck on the prospect myself, but I'd take that in preference to seeing last season's top three pull further away from us and the rest.

 

[reuque]

Well, you know what I mean. It's not ideal, is what I meant.

Although knowing our luck, we'd get some oil-rich owners who actually "expect the club to be run prudently as a viable business", want to have an input into the playing side, and give the manager's job to someone who used to coach Al-Shababi FC.

There are grounds for optimism though seeing parallels between Al-Shababi FC and Liverpool in recent years and the voice of reason at https://tomkinstimes.com/ think so too.

 

[darkstarexodus]

Red Sox are eliminated from the baseball playoffs. Owners might pay attention to us now. Need to have the summer transfer window moved to mid-October for next season and we might sign a few more players.

 

[Windom Earle]

I don't think anyone knows exactly why she was there, given the speculation is still rife that it could have been either Liverpool or Newcastle.

Or neither.

Saw it reported elsewhere that she was at the game as a guest of Kenny, not that that clears things up much more.

 

[King Binny]

Red Sox are eliminated from the baseball playoffs. Owners might pay attention to us now. Need to have the summer transfer window moved to mid-October for next season and we might sign a few more players.

[article]The Red Sox fired manager John Farrell on Wednesday, another quick exit from the postseason leading to his demise.

The Sox were 93-69 this season, winning the American League East behind a powerful pitching staff. But for the second year in a row, they were eliminated in the Division Series, this time in four games by the Houston Astros.

Farrell, 55, had another season on his contract but will instead be replaced. The next Red Sox manager will be the third in a span of only eight seasons.[/article]

Don't follow baseball personally. Is this a 'norm'?

 

[FoxForceFive]

American sports teams all have fucking ludicrous names. Sox, astros, steelers, jets.

They're like names kids give to their gangs. Or hippies give their pets.