by Ciggy » Tue Mar 11, 2008 1:13 am
As Liverpool's American owners struggle, Dubai's ruler hopes to field the team that will secure the Premier League club, says Louise Armitstead As Fernando Torres, the Spanish darling of Liverpool Football Club, scored his third goal at Anfield on Wednesday night, the Reds roared their approval. Dejected West Ham supporters endured the usual taunts but were also bemused by a new chant being sung by the 40,000 home fans: "Amanda for Anfield, Amanda for Anfield."
The night before Dubai International Capital (DIC), the investment arm of the Dubai ruling family, had officially offered to buy the world-famous club, and Amanda Staveley, a former girlfriend of Prince Andrew, was leading the bid.
The deal was far from signed - Liverpool's American owners, Kop Holdings, insisted they weren't sellers - and Staveley seemed an unlikely hero for Liverpool. But there was no doubt where the fans' support lay: after months of uncertainty about the financial stability of the club and its future under Kop, they waved banners ranging from "Yanks go home" to "We want one DIC not two".
Two hundred miles south in London, Staveley, who runs PCP Capital Partners, an advisory boutique, was juggling phone calls with Tom Hicks in Texas and George Gillett Jnr in Colorado. The American investors behind Kop, who bought Liverpool last year, had been offered a deal that valued both of their 50 per cent stakes in the club at about £500m.
Talking to The Sunday Telegraph in the middle of the drama, Staveley, who will become a director of Liverpool if the deal is successful, says: "Of course the negotiations are complicated - the investment is very important to Tom and George, as it is to us. But it means a great deal to have the fans' support. Liverpool has a huge following in Dubai and the Middle East."
On Friday evening Staveley had a breakthrough. Over the phone, Gillett agreed to sell his 50 per cent stake to DIC with an option for Hicks to buy 1 per cent of it. The plan is for the Merseyside club to be co-owned by Hicks and DIC.
Staveley says: "The legal documents have yet to be signed but we're really pleased. Of course we want to own Liverpool outright but this large stake is a great start."
It is the first Middle Eastern investment in a top English football club and it's not just Liverpool fans who are watching carefully.
Despite the raft of foreigners who have bought English football clubs, include Mohammed Fayed at Fulham and Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United, there is still debate as to whether they can be considered a serious financial investment or just trophy assets.
Meanwhile the fast-growing Gulf state has made no secret of its expansion plans in all areas of business - DIC, just one of the state's investment funds, has bought stakes in OMX, the Scandinavian bourse, EADS, the defence giant, and Sony.
Insiders say sport is an extension of the growth plans. With its other investments, DIC has sought growth for its cash but also expertise that it can import and replicate at home.
The bid for Liverpool is the first of several big acquisitions Dubai plans to make in European sporting ventures, both as an investment and to build a sporting legacy of its own.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, is no stranger to British sport. As the owner of the biggest stables in the UK, he has dominated horse racing and Newmarket in particular for years. Although the sheikh is said to be a follower of English football, the driving force behind Dubai's interest is DIC's Sameer Al Ansari, described by many as a "die-hard Red".
DIC first launched an attempt to buy Liverpool this time last year but lost out to Kop at the last minute. In the meantime, football - and in particular the Premier League - has become big business in the Middle East. Liverpool is an attractive target with a large international following but an as yet undeveloped new stadium.
In their second tilt at Liverpool, Dubai were determined not to lose again, but equally keen not to be seen to be overpaying. Dubai clearly has enough money to "do an Abramovich" and invest millions in the club. However, as in other areas, the investment vehicle wants to be seen as a considered private equity investor, not a wall of money.
Staveley, 34, is in charge of achieving the fine balance. She says: "This is a serious investment and we will not overpay. But it is also a long-term investment, not a private equity play that we want to sell in a few years' time at profit. We want to ensure the club thrives."
Blonde and bubbly, Staveley is an unlikely front for an Arab bid, but she has earned the trust of the sheikh and his family. She started mixing with the powerful Middle Eastern families while running Stocks, a restaurant she set up after studying languages at Cambridge, which became a hit with the high-rolling racehorse owners in Newmarket.
In the 1990s, she branched into finance, trading stocks and investing in start-ups. She also founded Q.ton, the conference centre and restaurant business based at Cambridge Science Park. When she sold half the business to EuroTelecom and then raised £17m by floating it on the stock market in April 2000, her reputation soared.
But it wasn't all easy. Just 11 months after flotation, EuroTelecom slid into administration. Then allegations of irregular share dealings followed, although Staveley herself was never suspected of any wrongdoing. She was badly battered by the storm and had to rebuild her career. Nonetheless, Staveley remained close to the sheikh and his advisers and it was to her that DIC turned when it was thwarted by Kop's swoop on Liverpool last year.
"We started the day after DIC lost Liverpool," Staveley says. "At that stage we just wanted to know what had gone wrong."
Over the spring and summer, Staveley pored over the figures but it wasn't until late summer that the idea of bidding again for the club surfaced.
The trigger was the suggestion in the market that the US owners might need additional cash. As part of the deal with the Moores family, who had sold the club because they couldn't afford to build the desired new stadium, Kop had given assurances that they would not saddle the club with debt. Instead Hicks and Gillett put in equity - thought to be about £7m each - and took out a loan of £300m secured against their sporting assets in North America that would have to be renegotiated in a year.
However, within months this cash was already stretched, eaten away by architect fees for the new stadium, the acquisition of star players Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel, the interest on the loans and bank fees.
Insiders say the financial pressure strained the relationship of Hicks and Gillett who, by the autumn, were preparing to renegotiate their loan with Royal Bank of Scotland.
In October, Staveley who had been watching from the sidelines, picked up the phone and asked for a meeting. Coincidentally, Hicks was part of a shooting party in Yorkshire close to where Staveley had been brought up. She travelled up to see him and explained that DIC was interested in Liverpool again.
A few weeks later Hicks wrote to DIC offering it a 15 per cent stake for £150m, valuing the club at £1bn. Staveley refused, claiming the valuations were too high.
Hicks and Gillett pressed ahead with their refinancing. Under the new deal, Kop planned to take on another £50m debt, placing £105m on to the balance sheet of the club and £245m on their own books. But observers quickly worked out that, due to a complicated structure, the club was in fact liable for the whole £350m - and for the £28m in interest payments each year. When fans reacted angrily to the plans, DIC again came back to the Americans and argued that the refinancing should be dropped and takeover talks between the parties restarted.
But Hicks and Gillett decided the risk was too great. Their loan agreement, which would take months to iron out, would expire in February 2008. Instead they secured refinancing, which enabled the club to announce that it plans to move from Anfield to a new 71,000-capacity stadium in Stanley Park. Out of the £350m loan, £60m was set aside for start-up costs for the new stadium. Even with this new financing, which would need to be renegotiated in 16 months, the Americans realised that Liverpool would need extra cash.
Liverpool's projected profits for 2008 is just £30m, most of which would be eaten up by interest payments, leaving little spare to build the new stadium.
After more talks, 12 days ago Staveley put in an official bid for the club which included buying Liverpool's debt plus £60m in cash for both equity stakes. As an added sweetener Staveley included a facility whereby both Americans would benefit from a rise in the value of the club worth up to £20m each.
At the end of last week, Gillett agreed. But it wasn't enough to persuade Hicks whose Liverpool investment is an integral part of his portfolio of sport investments. If the deal is signed Hicks will be the majority co-owner with 51 per cent of the club. But since they have the financial firepower, the club needs it is unlikely to be long before the DIC tries to score again.
There is no-one anywhere in the world at any stage who is any bigger or any better than this football club.
Kenny Dalglish 1/2/2011
REST IN PEACE PHIL, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.