Newcastle United dismiss £300m bid for club by Amanda Staveley's company as 'unacceptable'
Mike Ashley has put Newcastle up for sale but the businesswoman's bid is thought to be well short of his £380m asking price
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Your support makes all the difference.Newcastle United have responded to claims that a bid has been tabled by Amanda Staveley to take over the club by calling the offer unacceptable.
Speculation on Monday night surrounded an alleged offer of around £300m by Staveley’s company, PCP Capital Partners, that was said to have been made at the end of last week.
Sources close to her have told the Independent that the offer has been made to MASH holdings, the ultimate holding company, and that they are now waiting for a response.
But they also stressed that the process has still to develop to the key stage of exclusivity being granted to PCP Capital Partners. There was also uncertainty about where the funding to buy a Premier League football club is exactly coming from. It is thought that it will be Staveley and Far East investors, should the offer be real and should the bid progress.
The alleged bid caused uproar in Tyneside, where the clamour for a new owner is huge.
‘The ball is in Newcastle United’s court,’ the Independent was told.
Newcastle responded tersely by saying, ‘reports of £300m are inaccurate'. It is thought the offer tabled by Staveley falls way short of not only the £380m asking price of Mike Ashley, the club’s owner, but also the £300m that has been claimed.
Ashley bought Newcastle in 2007 from the Hall and Shepherd families. He paid £133m and invested further to clear debt and mortgage repayments and has had to deal with the financial cost of twice seeing the club relegated. It is thought he has spent around £250m on purchase and dealing with debt.
It has been said that he was willing to drop an initial valuation of £400m to £380m and his desire to sell, as it has been previously, is real, and he is ready to walk away from the club after ten tumultuous years.
However, he is expected to hold firm on the price and that suggests there is still a lot of work to be done for Staveley to become the new owner of Newcastle United.
In the statement that followed the latest attempt to sell the club, the lawyer representing Newcastle United spoke of a desire to have the sale concluded by Christmas.
Those close to Staveley insist a four-week timescale from now is problematic because a further period of more intense diligence needs to be done, after a price is agreed and after there is an agreement for exclusivity.
There was no suggestion on Monday night that either element has been met.
Sources close to Staveley insist the NDA they signed has not been broken because they say they did not leak the alleged takeover bid. They believe the takeover has a ‘reasonable chance’ of happening, but the unacceptably low offer that has been tabled is unlikely to impress Ashley.
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