Daniel Levy - Former Chairman

[MartyFunkhouser]

Has it been confirmed that Levy sold most of his shares to the crypto bros?

Na

 

[SirPercyHotspur]

Has it been confirmed that Levy sold most of his shares to the crypto bros?

Even if he did which he hasn't what difference would it make, he couldn't hold on to his job holding just under 30% of the shares because he was ousted by the desicion of the majority owners who decided his time was over, the Lewis's would still be in total control even if someone acquires 25% of ENIC shares.

 

[elltrev]

Why stop there? Why not include every club that has spent any money at all? That would skew the answer even further in your favour.

Levy had more than 20 years to close the gap. How many years would you have given him before it became unreasonable to use Arsenal and Liverpool as examples of clubs that started with a significant head start? I'm going to include both because they're examples of clubs that have outperformed us without being financially doped.

Whether Levy did better than most other chairmen over the course of his tenure is beside the point (and, for the record, I don't agree that he did). The reality is that we've been in decline, by and large, for the past seven years. He doesn't get a lifetime pass because he performed well during the early and middle stages of his tenure.

I think we’re talking at cross purposes. My summary of Levy would be:

- In his tenure as a whole, we are the only club to have closed the financial gap with the ‘big 5’
- In his tenure as a whole, we are also the club who’s come closest to closing that gap from a footballing perspective too - Leicester being the only possible other argument
- He deserves a lot of credit for that from Spurs fans
- More recently we’ve gone backwards, especially in the last 1-2 seasons. It’s time for someone new to see if they can build on Levy’s platform, and do what no club has managed to do without a sugar daddy - completely close the footballing gap with the big 5

 

[Muttley]

Has it been confirmed that Levy sold most of his shares to the crypto bros?

Actually, I had to dig deeper as google's new AI model was saying that it was in the Levy family trust and ESC had taken the 24.99% share including a press release. Levy's side has said nothing but the Lewis's seem to be denying it through a second press release.

Doesn't really change my argument above so much though. We had the poorer 30% owner managing the 100% for a long time. Now we have the 70% owner calling the shots and driving the invest to grow strategy. The only bit that is different is when the Lewis's put more in the pot then the Levy trust will have to match a 30% proportion to keep the same share. Otherwise it will reduce down slightly.

Either way, we have a different commercial leader calling the shots. I still don't think the investments we are making now in players would have happened on Levy's watch.

 

[RunTMC]

Yeah that’s it for me. Once the stadium was opened there is actually zero reason why we couldn’t be doing what Arsenal and Liverpool have done.

I remember reading an article a while back about Arsenal post their stadium opening as I wanted to know what to expect with us. They ran a long period of constrained and controlled spending.

Weirdly 7 years after the opening Ivan Gazidis proudly declared that their period of austerity was over. Mirroring our 7 years since the opening before splashing the cash. Except theirs wasn’t really over. I was pretty surprised to learn that between 2011-2017 they had averaged £30m net spend per year. Even as late as 2019 they spent £70m on 5 players. So basically 13 years after opening their stadium they were still behaving Levy-esq.

Either way I do agree overall with your point. We should have started spending sooner after the stadium opening because we had been controlling our spending years beforehand.

 

[Lemonade Money]

I remember reading an article a while back about Arsenal post their stadium opening as I wanted to know what to expect with us. They ran a long period of constrained and controlled spending.

Weirdly 7 years after the opening Ivan Gazidis proudly declared that their period of austerity was over. Mirroring our 7 years since the opening before splashing the cash. Except theirs wasn’t really over. I was pretty surprised to learn that between 2011-2017 they had averaged £30m net spend per year. Even as late as 2019 they spent £70m on 5 players. So basically 13 years after opening their stadium they were still behaving Levy-esq.

Either way I do agree overall with your point. We should have started spending sooner after the stadium opening because we had been controlling our spending years beforehand.

Covid?

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Why stop there? Why not include every club that has spent any money at all? That would skew the answer even further in your favour.

Levy had more than 20 years to close the gap. How many years would you have given him before it became unreasonable to use Arsenal and Liverpool as examples of clubs that started with a significant head start?

The fact the expectation is to have closed the gap on those clubs, considering the head start they had from the 90s shows he did a good job

 

[metalgear]

I think we’re talking at cross purposes. My summary of Levy would be:

- In his tenure as a whole, we are the only club to have closed the financial gap with the ‘big 5’
- In his tenure as a whole, we are also the club who’s come closest to closing that gap from a footballing perspective too - Leicester being the only possible other argument
- He deserves a lot of credit for that from Spurs fans
- More recently we’ve gone backwards, especially in the last 1-2 seasons. It’s time for someone new to see if they can build on Levy’s platform, and do what no club has managed to do without a sugar daddy - completely close the footballing gap with the big 5

agree.

i get the austerity measures right up to the end of covid. but when it was over and was all the major property development build, we should have increased transfer spending. my beef with levy is that he is also owner and has profited his equity from millions to more than a billion, and didn't think to "give back:" by injecting funds. Well whatever the situation its Vinai who deserves the credit now.

the other way of looking at it is comparing against arsenal and how they improved in the footballing stuff slowly and steadily. levy completely failed that task for years, and had the cheek to be the highest paying CEO in the epl.

yes he deserves credit for the new stadium and non-football revenues, HOWEVER he was a total flop at football side of things which is MORE important in a football club. the victors write the history and levy deserves whatever is written by them because he didn't do the basic which is safeguard the spurs brand as a champions league challenging club for fans and sponsors.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

agree.

i get the austerity measures right up to the end of covid. but when it was over and was all the major property development build, we should have increased transfer spending. my beef with levy is that he is also owner and has profited his equity from millions to more than a billion, and didn't think to "give back:" by injecting funds. Well whatever the situation its Vinai who deserves the credit now.

the other way of looking at it is comparing against arsenal and how they improved in the footballing stuff slowly and steadily. levy completely failed that task for years, and had the cheek to be the highest paying CEO in the epl.

We did increase spending though no? We went from people complaining about net spend, to then complaining when we had 250m-300m spend that it wasn't wages etc. But ultimately things happened at the club with a reason, first we spun players for profit to get bodies in which was a success, then we built the stadium, then we increased spend, all whilst our footballing prospects increased. It most definitely plateaued and Levy made mistakes 100%, him leaving was also likely the right time but the increase in spending is because the owners have decided to spend the money that is theirs and in which they are responsible for aka the accounting, they could have tapped Levy on the shoulder 4/5 years ago and done that, but they didn't. I don't buy the "he is gone so the coffers have opened"

As for him injecting money, he was never cash rich, his wealth came in the shares of the company and club he managed to increase the value of, so not sure where that cash would have come from, unless he sold his shares, weakened his business side and flittered away the money, but none of us in any right mind on here would have done the same

 

[Jurgen the German]

The fact the expectation is to have closed the gap on those clubs, considering the head start they had from the 90s shows he did a good job

Not saying he (Levy) didn’t. I was merely responding to the original question, which was slanted in a way that was in his favour, excluding Arsenal and Liverpool from the conversation.

 

[Muttley]

We did increase spending though no? We went from people complaining about net spend, to then complaining when we had 250m-300m spend that it wasn't wages etc. But ultimately things happened at the club with a reason, first we spun players for profit to get bodies in which was a success, then we built the stadium, then we increased spend, all whilst our footballing prospects increased. It most definitely plateaued and Levy made mistakes 100%, him leaving was also likely the right time but the increase in spending is because the owners have decided to spend the money that is theirs and in which they are responsible for aka the accounting, they could have tapped Levy on the shoulder 4/5 years ago and done that, but they didn't. I don't buy the "he is gone so the coffers have opened"

As for him injecting money, he was never cash rich, his wealth came in the shares of the company and club he managed to increase the value of, so not sure where that cash would have come from, unless he sold his shares, weakened his business side and flittered away the money, but none of us in any right mind on here would have done the same

I look at this a couple of ways. If we had an independent Chairman / CEO then they may have encouraged all the owners to invest more into the club. If the 30% stakeholder refused then they might have encouraged the 70% stakeholder to still invest and rebalanced it to a 75/25% model. That would have been a very hard board room conversation to be fair.

I think Levy wanted to move in the other direction. I'm not sure how he may have eventually achieved it but I bet he would have loved to be a 51% owner of Spurs if not more. So he probably didn't want Lewis/Tavistock investing where he couldn't contribute pro-rata. Therefore, Levy did the amazing things he did and just went down the organic growth model. The problem is that model eventually hit it's own ceiling. You can squeeze a little more out of sponsors and leverage the stadium a little more than he did. What you can't really control is all those broadcasting revenues that are negotiated centrally. Then if you're making bad football operational decisions like Levy did then eventually you fall on your sword.

I think this plays into the dilemmas of being a chairman/CEO and being a minority shareholder. Of course, none of us really have a clue whether this new model will be any better. It's definitely more fun for fans though (in this phase).

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I look at this a couple of ways. If we had an independent Chairman / CEO then they may have encouraged all the owners to invest more into the club. If the 30% stakeholder refused then they might have encouraged the 70% stakeholder to still invest and rebalanced it to a 75/25% model. That would have been a very hard board room conversation to be fair.

I think Levy wanted to move in the other direction. I'm not sure how he may have eventually achieved it but I bet he would have loved to be a 51% owner of Spurs if not more. So he probably didn't want Lewis/Tavistock investing where he couldn't contribute pro-rata. Therefore, Levy did the amazing things he did and just went down the organic growth model. The problem is that model eventually hit it's own ceiling. You can squeeze a little more out of sponsors and leverage the stadium a little more than he did. What you can't really control is all those broadcasting revenues that are negotiated centrally. Then if you're making bad football operational decisions like Levy did then eventually you fall on your sword.

I think this plays into the dilemmas of being a chairman/CEO and being a minority shareholder. Of course, none of us really have a clue whether this new model will be any better. It's definitely more fun for fans though (in this phase).

Minority???

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Minority???

Less than 51%

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Less than 51%

Still a major share holder

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

Still a major share holder

Yeh, but definition of a minority holder is anyone under 51%, so its factually correct

 

[Muttley]

Minority???

I'm sure you know what I meant. I suppose technically it depends whether you're on an Ordinary Resolution (Simply Majority) model or whether you're on a Special Resolutions (Supermajority) model. Even then, that thickens the plot as in the case where Levy had the power of veto on the majority then that could be a reason to change the model. Normally you'd still lose to a 70% or 75% vote on the latter anyway.

I think it was more the case that the 70% stakeholder trusted Levy with the keys to the kingdom. Then that changed eventually.

 

[MartyFunkhouser]

I'm sure you know what I meant. I suppose technically it depends whether you're on an Ordinary Resolution (Simply Majority) model or whether you're on a Special Resolutions (Supermajority) model. Even then, that thickens the plot as in the case where Levy had the power of veto on the majority then that could be a reason to change the model. Normally you'd still lose to a 70% or 75% vote on the latter anyway.

I think it was more the case that the 70% stakeholder trusted Levy with the keys to the kingdom. Then that changed eventually.

Proof being that they had the power needed to remove him

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I'm sure you know what I meant. I suppose technically it depends whether you're on an Ordinary Resolution (Simply Majority) model or whether you're on a Special Resolutions (Supermajority) model. Even then, that thickens the plot as in the case where Levy had the power of veto on the majority then that could be a reason to change the model. Normally you'd still lose to a 70% or 75% vote on the latter anyway.

I think it was more the case that the 70% stakeholder trusted Levy with the keys to the kingdom. Then that changed eventually.

I know what you mean, of course
But it’s not a real reflection on his stake

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Yeh, but definition of a minority holder is anyone under 51%, so its factually correct

It is
But it was a pedantic answer

 

[metalgear]

As for him injecting money, he was never cash rich, his wealth came in the shares of the company and club he managed to increase the value of, so not sure where that cash would have come from, unless he sold his shares, weakened his business side and flittered away the money, but none of us in any right mind on here would have done the same

you know how he took loans for thfc using the club as collateral? the 30 year loans at low rates? Well he could have done the same with his equity - pledged sufficient shares against a personal loan.

after the stadium was built and everything settled, thfc valued themselves at 4bn so Levy's 25% was 1bn. easily he could take a loan for say 50m and the lewis trust match with 150m to maintain the original proportions.