Owners want at least $5.33bn for Liverpool Football Club
Liverpool’s owners will listen to offers of more than £3bn ($5.33bn) for the Premier League club, US banking sources say.
Liverpool’s owners will listen to offers of more than £3bn ($5.33bn) for the Premier League club, US banking sources have told The Times.
On Monday (Tuesday AEST) a statement from Fenway Sports Group (FSG) said that “under the right terms and conditions” it would “consider new shareholders”. The statement added that “FSG remains fully committed to the success of Liverpool, both on and off the pitch”, with insiders stressing that there were no immediate plans to sell.
But a sales brochure was circulated to potentially interested parties last month and the message being communicated is that the exercise is not limited to raising further investment, but could extend to selling the club in its entirety at the right price. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are assisting with the process and both US banks declined to comment on Wednesday.
However, sources have said they are inviting bidders, while parties who were involved in trying to buy Chelsea said it was their understanding that Liverpool was for sale. “We are being guided that any offer has to be more than £3bn,” said one senior figure from a consortium that tabled an offer for Chelsea.
Liverpool were valued at £3.89bn by Forbes in May but that was before Roman Abramovich sold Chelsea to a consortium led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital for £2.5bn, with a guarantee of a further £1.75bn investment in the club. Anything more than £3bn would represent a good deal for FSG, who paid £300m for the Merseyside club in October 2010.
While offers are likely to come from the Far East and Middle East for a club boasting a global fan base of more than 100 million, financial experts think that another American owner is the most likely outcome.
The four shortlisted bidders for Chelsea all had US links, and the banking community anticipates a strong American interest in Liverpool. The group that was led by the former British Airways chairman Sir Martin Broughton had strong links to the Merseyside club.
In 2010 Broughton was brought in as chairman at Anfield and, with the assistance of Michael Klein, a US-based investment banker, brokered the sale of the club to FSG, which is led by John W. Henry. Also backing Broughton’s Chelsea consortium were Evolution Media Capital and Creative Artists Agency. The latter already has a significant footing in English football through its talent-management business.
It is understood that the Ricketts family, who own the Chicago Cubs baseball team and expressed an interest in Tottenham Hotspur before bidding for Chelsea, have no plans to make an offer for Liverpool. With Chelsea, the sale process involved opening bids and improved bids, with the New York bank Raine selecting four preferred bidders before accepting the offer tabled by Boehly and Clearlake. The Liverpool takeover is likely to follow a similar path.
THE TIMES
Germany’s new leader must stand up to Putin
If the chancellor and western allies are to keep Ukraine safe, decades of submissiveness have to go.
First openly gay imam is shot dead
The Muslim leader was shot and killed when his car was ambushed by masked gunmen in South Africa where he had established a mosque for the LGBT community.