Dubai International Capital have confirmed for the first time that they have been in discussions with Liverpool’s current owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett about a possible takeover. Until now we’ve had to rely on off-the-record admissions of interest and have not been able to read any direct quotes, but DIC chief executive Sameer al-Ansari has now admitted the interest.
He said: “It’s no secret that we have been in discussions with the current owners. It’s not easy because the owners are in dreamland about valuations at the moment.”
Al-Ansari was later pressed about his statement referring to both owners being in “dreamland” and explained that in fact one of the duo “had come out of dreamland” but declined to name which one. But dreamland or not, it’s known that Gillett wants out and Hicks is determined to stay. However the implication of al-Ansari’s words is that Hicks has named a price – just a rather large one.
Whether the valuations have been at “dreamland” level or not is a matter of opinion of course, and neither owner is obliged to sell purely because it’s the best offer on the table. Their decision has to be based on whether selling at the best available price is more profitable to them in the long run than holding on and waiting for possible future revenue increases to kick in.
Some reports claim DIC only want control of the club, requiring them to one way or another acquire part of Hicks’ share as well as all of Gillett’s, but Hicks also wants control of the club rather than be a minority partner to DIC.
Still begs the question:
What length of time does Hicks have to acquire Gillett’s shares, once he has declared he wants to sell?
Is it one month? In which case Hicks will struggle.
Or is it several? In which case Hicks will have more time to acquire the funds, which will be a disaster for the Club.
Even though a DIC buyout would be a leap of faith – to a certain extent – I just hope and pray that Hicks loses control of the club. If their record in horse-racing is anything at all to go by, they surely would be preferable owners to Hicks and Gillett. At least we wouldn’t be plunged into (potentially fatal) debt. And regardless of the eventual ownership, whereas I’ve always sympathised with Moores in that I do think he had the club’s interest at heart, I think both he and Parry, should be disassociated from the club. With all the time they had to ensure the safety of the club, they couldn’t have made a bigger mess of the task.
PS. Mr Boardman, your articles are the most insightful on LFC available on the web. Just thought you deserved the compliment.
If we ever knew…esoterical mess.
breaking news at Sky Sports
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_3237036,00.html
I agree RedBalls, the articles on this site are one of the few I take any notice of. Just read a `World Eclusive’ on the Dailypost. Hick and Gillett have until midnight to accept offer or DIC are waling away. Is that midnight GMT time or EST?
Here’s hoping for an end to the nightmare.
Finally, whilst I am a fan of Rafa, I believe that there needs to be a wide ranging clearout of the personnel at Anfield.
RedBalls. How much of a leap of faith. See this quote from Sameer Al Ansari after they missed out last time “It took me two weeks to get over that, but it didn’t dent my passion, I still went to every match when I was here.”
With such a keen fan at the helm I will sleep better than with the existing carpetbagger.
Interesting that Gillett could be the key actor in this at the moment.
Reports in the local media say they have until midnight to take the offer. So the question is will they? What do you all think?
For those of you who don’t know Dubai and it’s Sheikh, he’s obsessed with success, he’ll do ANYTHING, litterly to win and be different and be on the top. I lived here all my life, and the transaction from being a rather active city in the 90’s to a booming region known very much around is quite a story. The fact that the new areas in Dubai such as Dubai Marina, the Palm islands, The Dubai Land area are all developing as fast as you might imagine, blink and you’ll miss the new roads they’ve opened… I’ve lived all my life here, and still feel lost sometimes in all the new places litterly brought from no where around the city which is the fastest growing city in the world at the moment.
Now, I don’t wanna build your ambitions too much, the guy is ruthless, can be beneficial, but it will be amazing seenig if things went on from now on to be under DIC. Hicks have ALWAYS contradicted himself, saying something, then streight away doing the other… let’s hope he does the same again this time.
I believe the DIC bit has now run its course for at least the next year.
Hicks is not going accept. He does not need to right now. And with DIC out of the running he can pick Gillett’s stake up on the cheap.
And he needs only pay Gillett his requested profit (significantly less no doubt than the Arabs were going to cough up). Hicks will then simply take over Gillett’s share of the club debt and provide the necessary guarantees. A £20m transaction tops.
And when I say Hicks is taking the share of the debt. Well he knows he has it covered by lining up Agger, Gerrard, Torres, Masch and Reina for sale as required.
By announcing that Hicks is in dreamland DIC have simply confirmed that they know that their pitch is doomed.
Parry and Moores. What did you do?
This is where the brinkmanship begins.
Although it’s still not clear when Hicks would need to make an offer for Gillets shares or when DIC could acquire them without Hicks formal consent.
We are now about to witness how big business broker deals utilising all the campaign tools – financial, legal, PR and maybe even political tools – in their armoury.
Hoping for a win tomorrow and after the game a big noise against Hicks and Gillett to get the message across that they need to ‘Get out of our club’.
I find this deadline business hard to believe. This kind of melodramatic move would be more a Hicks tactic than DIC. They will resolutely and patiently pursue a target until it becomes available at a price they are prepared to pay. Any deadline here might apply to Hicks and his attempt to buy out Gillett. Such restrictive clauses in agreements often bear the caveat that consent “cannot be unreasonably withheld” so maybe Gillett can sell to anyone after Hicks has had a stipulated time to match a particular third party (DIC) bid. I hope so. Come on George do the right thing for the football club you are quids in whichever way it goes.