On the face of it, a report this morning suggesting that Daniel Kretinsky’s position as largest shareholder and de facto Chairman of the board at West Ham United might be about to change seems a little far fetched.
The claim is that Amanda Stanley and Husband Ghoudoussi’s PCP Capital Partners seek an equal shareholding in West Ham alongside Kretinsky – and that is what is holding up the Sporting Director appointment.
The report made by greenstreethammers.com, claims an insider has spilt the beans on the delay in appointing former Newcastle man Steve Nickson as Sporting Director, claiming that Nickson wants to come on board only if Staveley and her Husband’s business are equal shareholders with the Czech Sphinx.
New report claims Staveley’s PCP capital wants equal ownership alongside Kretinsky – and THAT is what is holding up the appointment of a Sporting Director
Whether this is taking two plus two and making twenty three – who can say – but their report is adamant:
“Staveley’s ask of equal equity stalls buyout of Sullivan and sporting director appointment”
Runs their heading, confirming that: “As talks with the Amanda Staveley led consortium heat up, West Ham’s move to hire Steve Nickson as their sporting director have cooled as he waits for the board room to take shape.”
The detail is fleshed out behind their principal claim accordingly:
“According to a club source, GSH has been told that Staveley would only be interested in coming into West Ham if she had an equal stake along with Daniel Křetínský, who just recently became the majority shareholder at West Ham and is now perceived as leading the charge to remove David Sullivan completely from the team.
In order to do that, Křetínský would need to orchestrate a buyout of Sullivan’s shares himself or allow Staveley and her partner/husband Mehrdad Ghodoussi, as well as their firm PCP Capital, to come in and become an equal stakeholder.
“What Mr. Křetínský doesn’t want is a bidding war to begin for [Sullivan’s] shares,” the source said. “He welcomed the idea of having Staveley as a partner in the club and on the board, but the eagerness to have equal equity has caused him to pause.”
Curiouser and curiouser. It would certainly explain the ‘delay’ in appointing Nickson whilst the ‘talks’ continue. However this ‘pause’ – real or not – is currently holding up the operational side of West Ham’s rebuild in the midst of a crucial transfer window with several huge transfer deals in need of urgent attention.
Whilst instinct may be to rubbish the likelihood of Staveley’s company miraculously popping up as equal partners with billionaire Kretinsky, GSH’s report does merit consideration.
Either way, the Irons need a resolution as far as the Sporting Director situation is concerned pretty much immediately – even if the behind the scenes horse trading for David Sullivan’s shares takes weeks or more likely months to conclude.
Sounds like a totally made up story to me Martin, neither Stavely nor Kretinsky can just acquire the shares, they have to purchase them from Sullivan and then only if he is ready to relinquish his percentage
It sounds plausible to be honest am surprised it is equal and she doesn’t want a majority shareholding, equally surprised that wouldn’t suit DK, given his majority at Sparta.
Sorry, but this story is a joke (not you for reporting it Martin). Staveley and her husband do not have the wealth to do what is suggested here. When they became minority shareholders at Newcastle the stake was funded by another of the owners and each time more capital was raised their holding got diluted as they couldn’t afford to invest. PCP acts in these deals as a broker for third parties rather than an actual owner.
Not a financier but I hope none of this happens. Also do not want 2 partners puling in opposite directions for influence.
Much prefer Kretinsky alone with Vanessa Gold, then acquiring more shares as was mentioned in a previous C&H article ‘Behind the scenes boardroom battle’, see quote below.
I do not understand the mechanics, but now have Gold family involvement, Kretinsky knowledge, finances & experience and now need to build from ground up including Academy. Not throw cash at it & become another mega buck football club with no character or notion of its origins. Be it Stavely, or whoever she would sell to quick enough without a care for the club.
Quote:
“The easiest way for Kretinsky to get full control of the football club would be for him to buy out the Gold family shareholding in full. That would take him to about 52%. At that point he would be in control of the club, there would be no decisions that could be really blocked.
Most importantly if he wanted to put money into the club, not to buy shares from another shareholder, but to actually improve the finances of the club, he could do so [at that point] and that would dilute David Sullivan’s shareholding over time.”
When looking at Amanda Staveley’s reported interest in West Ham, it is worth remembering how the Newcastle United takeover story originally unfolded.
In the early stages of that saga, the name most heavily connected with Newcastle was Staveley herself, through PCP Capital Partners. To many supporters and observers at the time, it looked as though she was the principal bidder. She was the public-facing figure, the one being spoken about in the press, and the one most clearly linked with trying to put a deal together.
But as the process developed, the real financial structure became much clearer.
The eventual Newcastle takeover was not simply an Amanda Staveley purchase. It became a Saudi Public Investment Fund-led acquisition, with the Reuben family also involved. Staveley and PCP Capital Partners ended up with a minority stake, while the serious financial weight sat elsewhere.
That matters when looking at any possible West Ham interest.
Staveley’s history suggests she is not usually the billionaire owner in the traditional sense. She is more often the broker, facilitator and public face who connects capital with opportunity. That was true in her Middle Eastern investment work, and it was broadly how the Newcastle deal developed too.
So, when her name is linked with West Ham, the question should not simply be: “Can Amanda Staveley afford to buy a meaningful stake in the club?”
The more important question is: “Whose money might she be bringing with her?”
That is especially relevant if any move for West Ham is being viewed as opportunistic, with the club’s share value potentially affected by relegation concerns or uncertainty around the current ownership structure.
Newcastle provides the obvious precedent. At first, Staveley was the name most clearly attached to the deal. Only later did the true scale and identity of the financial backing become fully apparent. If a similar pattern is emerging around West Ham, supporters would be wise to look beyond the headline name and ask who may ultimately be standing behind PCP Capital.
This on Wiki makes me wonder, could he be the real money? “Staveley was involved in extended negotiations by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Dubai International Capital to buy a 49 per cent stake in Liverpool, although the deal, which would have given Staveley a place on the club’s board, eventually foundered.”
Dubai International Capital was the international investment arm of Dubai Holding, the wider group associated with Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai. It was previously linked with a proposed Liverpool takeover in the mid-2000s, showing that Dubai-linked capital has already looked seriously at Premier League ownership before. Whether DIC itself would be the relevant vehicle today is less clear, as Dubai Holding’s current investment activity appears to sit more broadly under Dubai Holding Investments. But historically, DIC is exactly the type of structure through which Dubai-linked money has pursued major overseas assets, including football clubs.
He didn’t get that club, and showed also showed the willingness to buy a stake rather than outright ownership. Who knows eh? Interesting none-the-less and she had been sniffing around long before relegation, so having been relegated could simply have been her opportunity to pick up the phone and say ‘now you can get that London based club called West Ham at a reduced cost!’
please no
Sorry, I wrote ‘then acquiring more shares’ but I should have written: then diluting DS share value, WITHOUT acquiring new shares – no idea of the mechanics of it, but it was 1st mentioned by expert Christian Purslow etc. and he has often seen this approach used in a type of acquisition (I suppose).
The inactivity is reminiscent of Sullivan. It’s obviously not straightforward and the World Cup makes transfer progress more difficult but I was really hoping we’d get away from last minute panics.
This is a big test of Kretinsky to make everything come together and deal with the urgent priorities urgently.
The Wikipedia article makes fairly clear what many of us suspect Staveley’s role to be:
“In 2008, the Financial Times described her firm, PCP Capital Partners, as really amounting to Staveley and her legal partner, Craig Eadie, and explained that, although based in Mayfair, London, the company acts ‘via offshore private equity affiliates’ as a vehicle for the investment of Middle Eastern money, with Staveley acting as an adviser on those deals.”
After the failure of a previous investment known as Q.ton, Staveley moved to Dubai, where she built connections centred on Abu Dhabi, while also extending more broadly across the Middle East.
At the end of 2008, as Barclays sought to recapitalise following the financial crisis, the bank raised money privately through Middle Eastern investment rather than accepting a British government bail-out. Staveley reportedly earned a £30 million fee for her role in that transaction. In 2010, The Daily Telegraph reported that Sheikh Mansour’s disposal of his stake in Barclays had made him a profit of around £2.25 billion.
With that in mind, the obvious question is this: who does she have lined up to buy those shares from PCP Capital?
I find it hard to believe that Staveley’s own relatively modest personal wealth would be enough to back what looks like an opportunistic bid for a club whose share price may have been depressed by relegation concerns. So, if PCP Capital is involved, I would be very interested to know whose money is ultimately standing behind it.