New takeover talk sounds way off line

A non-West Ham fan glorying in the name of Secret Agent ITK on Twitter has scuttled out of the shadows to post a supposed West Ham takeover update on social media.

The latest claims appear to be a tad far fetched and without substance.

The self-styled Secret Agent claims a price for West Ham has been agreed in principle with an unnamed American consortium and a takeover would be finalised before the year-end.

He also conveniently suggested that the lack of transfer activity to reduce running costs was designed to increase the valuation of the club and bizarrely claimed that David Gold personally paid for the Vladimir Coufal out of his own pocket. That’s certainly not true!

It’s interesting too that he waited until the window closed before pointing out the lack of spending which could have caused embarrassment in different circumstances!

It’s a reworking of the Guardian story of a couple of weeks ago when it was revealed that a third offer may be on the way from America with fixtures at that time looking tough and unlikely to harness any points!

David Sullivan’s media pal – Jim White speaking on Talksport this morning – also rubbished takeover talk saying that no-one has provided proof of funds to date.

And a  corporate lawyer previously speaking to Claret and Hugh explained initial approaches are usually made by corporate financiers to sound out shareholders.

When solicitors get involved they often put a non-disclosure agreement in place at this point, so details shouldn’t be revealed in the public domain after that point.

He said that it’s highly likely that ‘feeler’ offers will have been put out, in an effort to gauge what figures the club would accept.

It also would only be sent to major shareholder and not all shareholders at this point adding that a West Ham takeover would be a long was a long way off.

On that basis, we should probably take all the West Ham takeover with a large pinch of salt.