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Saudi Sportswashing Machine for Sale.....

Patinkle Cisse!

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Well Staveley hasn't taken being called a time-waster happily and has given a interview with The Times.

From the report: Amanda Staveley: my Saudi Sportswashing Machine bid still on table

Staveley and her firm, PCP Capital Partners, have made three offers to purchase Ashley’s controlling interest in Saudi Sportswashing Machine, the last of which was made on November 17. She had heard nothing from Ashley since mid-December, until an anonymous source, apparently sanctioned by the Sports Direct owner, told Sky Sports that the process had proved, “exhausting, frustrating and a complete waste of time”.

The source’s allegation that “there is no deal on the table or even under discussion with Amanda Staveley and PCP,” has left the 44-year-old, who manages investment funds worth in the region of £30 billion, perturbed. “I’m very much still interested in buying Saudi Sportswashing Machine,” she says. “And our bid remains on the table.”

While Staveley’s most recent bid of £250m was significantly below Ashley’s £350m asking price, she was committed to investing a further £200m on new players and updating Saudi Sportswashing Machine’s training ground and academy. “This is an investment, but it has to be a long-term investment,” Staveley said. “Saudi Sportswashing Machine would be run as a business, but we want it to be a successful, thriving business that is an absolutely integral part of the city.”

In each of Staveley’s bids was a stipulation that Rafa Benítez must remain as manager and agree to a new contract. “Rafa is doing an incredible job,” Staveley said. “We want Rafa to be part of this project.”
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From the interview: Amanda Staveley: I want to buy Saudi Sportswashing Machine – it’s hurtful and absurd to call us time-wasters.

PCP’s three bids


  • £300m, first bid, November 2: £200m on completion. £50m July 1 2018, £50m July 1 2019 — neither paid in the event of relegation. Benítez to stay as manager. Penalty clauses in the event of HMRC fine.
  • £350m, second bid, November 10: £150m on completion. £50m January 1 2020 £50m January 1 2021 £50m January 1 2022 £50m in the event of qualifying for the Champions League. Benítez to stay as manager. Penalty clauses in the event of relegation and HMRC fine.
  • £250m, third bid, November 17: £250m payable in full. Benítez to stay as manager. No clauses

Her first bid was for £300 million, £200 million up front, the rest payable in two chunks. The second, made on Friday, November 10, was for £350 million, payable in instalments, as the sportswear retailer had encouraged. There would be £150 million on completion followed by £50 million every year after that, with the final tranche dependent on achievement, such as reaching the Champions League. For both were penalty clauses, in the event of demotion or Saudi Sportswashing Machine being stung by HMRC’s tax investigation into the club.

There was a third offer on November 17. “Dear Mike,” it began. In this one, £250 million would be paid in full, no caveats, no conditions, no clauses. This was substantially below Ashley’s £350 million valuation, aside from one sense; Staveley is committed to investing another £200 million, at least £100 million on new players across the first two transfer windows and the same again on improving a tired training ground and ineffective academy.

In the middle of December, Staveley was told that “another bidder” had emerged, prepared, according to Ashley’s people, to pay £350 million. Fine, PCP said, but come back to us if you want to re-engage. Since then, they have heard nothing. Not a single thing. Which, again, hardly fits with the Ashley-sanctioned notion of “exhaustive” discussions. “Where are the other bidders?” Staveley says. “It’s been for sale for three months.”
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So there are essentially two offers, one matching Ashley's price but in instalments and with conditions (one onerous), another an unconditional lump sum but for less. Who thinks "another bidder" was a bluff?
 
David Conn has a slightly less positive view of Staveley's involvement: Amanda Staveley: the unusual case of Saudi Sportswashing Machine’s would-be-owner.

The businesswoman is said to have £28bn under management but her UK company has no assets or employees.

Staveley’s reputation derives principally from two deals she was involved in with the same investor, Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, both completed in quick succession almost 10 years ago. She is said by sources close to her to have £28bn under management – an extraordinary sum – including wealthy investors in the Middle East, Far East and the US, and countries’ sovereign wealth funds. It has been suggested that Saudi Sportswashing Machine may be too small a deal for such investors and that Staveley might pay for the club mostly out of her own wealth.

Given this portrayal, it is striking that PCP Capital Partners LLP, Staveley’s UK-registered company, has no assets or employees. It qualifies for official Companies House filings as a “micro entity”, having had no income in the year to 31 March 2017, and debts of £3.6m. The accounts for the year to 31 March 2009, covering the period of the two deals with Mansour, are barely more substantial.

The assumption has always been that Staveley must have a very substantial operation in Dubai or elsewhere, although there are no other public filings of financial information. Sources close to her have said she does have operations in other countries but is not required to publish accounts there.

Staveley did not do standard financial training; she is described as self-taught in corporate finance, after meeting wealthy men from the Gulf when she ran a restaurant near Newmarket, where their racehorses ran. She did play a role in Mansour’s acquisition of Emirates Marketing Project, working with his advisers and connecting them with the seller, the former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
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There is also some seemingly dodgy stuff about her and a deal involving Barclays bank. It has some parallels with a famous football manager and his sense of entitlement over a horse.
 
Meh, I'd never trust any of these types further than I could spit, but if Ashley is holding any cards, let him play them. I don't think I'd be in any hurry to dance to his tune either. I'd probably say to myself, "Let's see where we are in May."
 
Seems a very big focus on HMRC fines too.
Which could suggest something deeper? Something's that might lead to issues with the footballing authorities?
 
Seems The Times is backing Staveley over Ashley, with this series of articles. Here is the latest from George Caulkin, their Saudi Sportswashing Machine correspondent and (I think) a fan : Is Amanda Staveley genuine? I can only judge Mike Ashley — and he’s wasted 11 years.

... A time-waster? You might argue that Ashley has wasted the past 11 years. Two relegations? Yet another skirmish with it now? A horrific record in the cups? The renaming of the ground, the employment of Joe Kinnear, the abysmal treatment of legends and good men such as Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton? A club that makes less money, commercially, than a decade ago? All that time. All that waste.

Exhausting and frustrating? Like the last three transfer windows? Like Rafa Benítez warning that Saudi Sportswashing Machine would be in trouble if they did not strengthen last summer and Saudi Sportswashing Machine not strengthening and then being in trouble? Frustrating like their inability to put two good decisions together?

Frustrating like the knowledge that Benítez arrived speaking about Saudi Sportswashing Machine in terms of history, stature and potential, since when he has repeatedly been confronted by the smallness of their behaviour. It feels like an endless list: Jonás Gutiérrez, HMRC, Wonga, written warnings to managers for talking about transfers, the truncation of ambition, the 52,000 souls who troop to matches with their yearning deadened, hope flickering only because of Benítez.

I do not know Amanda Staveley, but I’ve met her and I’ve talked to her and that’s better than nothing. I don’t know Mike Ashley, either, and the only way I’ve got in front of him was by buying shares in Sports Direct (with my money, not the paper’s), and asking questions at an AGM, one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. I cannot judge Staveley, but I will judge Ashley and I do. Ask yourself the question: do you get the feel that he’s really genuine?
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that stat on MOTD that Saudi Sportswashing Machine's biggest transfer signing is still Michael Owen says it all.
 
SteveAWOL said:
:oops:

http://www.football365.com/news/the-transfer-record-progression-of-every-premier-league-club

Saudi Sportswashing Machine

Warren Barton – £4m (June 1995)

Les Ferdinand – £6m (July 1995)

Faustino Asprilla – £6.7m (February 1996)

Alan Shearer – £15m (July 1996)

Michael Owen – £16m (August 2005)

The only other club to not set a record transfer fee within the last 4 years is ARSEnal.
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Over 12 years since they last spent anything on a player, despite charity from the likes of us and Pool with Sissoko and Carrol.
 
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