As widely suggested, Amanda Staveley didn’t remain silent for long following the closing of the ranks amongst existing shareholders at West Ham United. Right about now the money should be changing hands as Sullivan, Kretinsky and the other shareholders divide up the lion’s share of the Gold family’s 25% holding in West Ham shares, leaving the Czech billionaire the with the largest holding but still without a majority share.
Staveley’s statement this morning confirms indeed that her bid was for a full takeover, rather than just ownership of Vanessa Gold’s portion:
“For transparency our original offer was for both David Sullivan’s 38.8% stake and Vanessa Gold’s 25% stake in the club”.
David Sullivan has increased his West Ham shareholding: Staveley has served notice she won’t be waiting around forever should he be planning to sell
Whilst thwarted, Staveley admits her interest remains, although other opportunities may yet appeal. There was a thinly-veiled threat in her closing remarks, meaning that if Sullivan has ambitions to sell his increased shareholding, the offer most likely won’t be around forever:
“We will continue to follow this process closely. Our ambitions for the club remain and we would be open to the opportunity to work constructively with the existing shareholders in the future subject to us not taking up other opportunities that have been presented our consortium.. over the past week“
Clearly there’s both an appeal to Kretinsky and a threat to Sullivan: Whether the former Hammers Chairman will now decide at 78 years old that the time has come to cash in his shares at a Premier League price, who can tell.
Unlikely that there’ll be others queueing up to throw this kind of cash around this season.
Genuine question, can anyone clarify what happens if Staveley buys West Ham and we win promotion back to the Prem?
Am I wrong in thinking her consortium owns 85% of NUFC and they can’t own two clubs in the same league, surely?
The trend is toward the city selling the stadium and the existing shareholders can get probably the optimum uplift if they sell to her soon. Clearly, Kretinsky is not keen on competing – he’d buy a chunk of Sullivan and end the argument otherwise – so I suspect he will also come around to selling.
The best path for the new owner surely has to be a new stadium and investment in the club. Even with London property prices, doing a “Boleyn” and redeveloping seems less profitable than running a successful football club on the site. Also it’s extremely unlikely that the Assembly will sanction any change of use for the land once it’s rid of the upkeep.
We just need to show a bit of leg by getting promoted and having a decent cup run.
Fingers crossed that the eventual owner, whoever they are, is doesn’t lose sight of the fans’ connection to the club and treats it with due respect. If they don’t, ROI will be a loooong time coming.
Staveley is no longer involved in Newcastle and the consortium is made up of different people – apart from the Ruben Bros who are minor shareholders at Newcastle. They would have no doubt wanted to sell theirholding to the Saudi’s
I don’t think that either Kritenski or Staveley are in this for football reasons and the desire to own West Ham United Football Club…. This is all about the potential of the real estate opportunities around the stadium which are worth far more than the club. Sadly, the interests of the club will always come second and once they’ve made their billions they’ll be off without a second glance! Sceptical yes – but probably true. Another case of very greedy snouts in the big trough. Mr Cearns, Ron, John, Bobby and Billy will be turning in their graves!!! I will always support and love West Ham, I’ve been a fan since the early 70’s been through all the ups and downs but the club has mostly (the fans won’t ever let it die completely) lost it’s soul and is now very much just a commercial entity rather than a caring football community.
They have failed and most people will view the statement as confirmation if this while attempting to save face. Staveley’s consortium will move on with many other potential targets/opportunities – Southampton and Charlton are opportunities for takeover, maybe even Rangers plus an opportunity to buy into Everton has been mooted.
Yes exactly MB, the statement is Staveley signing off.
For Staveley and her consortium, there’s got to be other deals to do and bigger fish to fry.
Its a shame the takeover of our club didnt come to fruit i dont think DK will take the club to the dizzy hieghts that AS and her group.would take our great club too all we can do now is to see if DK will match the ambition that AS would have taken our club too if the takeover had hapened
The most interesting line to me is….. “we would be open to the opportunity to work constructively with the existing shareholders in the future”
Kretinsky 51% (5% off Sullivan shared with his Czech pal)
Staveley 35% — the rest of Sullivan
The rest — 14%
Future
Sullivan gone forever
Kretinsky finances West Ham Football club
Staveley finances London Stadium area development
Ratepayers dont lose money every year
Shareholders make a packet
Fans get the football club and stadium we deserve
….. as the saying goes …. Everyone’s a Winner
I still believe the best solution would be her and Kretinsky in partnership, DK is hands off because he has many irons in the fire (pun intended) and his CEO has done a decent job but by his own admission struggled with that amount of work and we saw that in the targets mostly arrived late in the window.
Staveley makes things happen even if that’s Golds shares eventually being sold, we need someone like that to set a fire under the backsides of the ditherers and to buy the players we need not second or third choice options.
The main reason a lot of those arrived late is down to Gold having her head turned by Staveley’s offer. She made her offer to Gold knowing full well it would stop Kretinsky investing the funds to cover exixting debts. That offer and Gold accepting it made sure we had to sell more players to cover debt and generate a smal transfer kitty. So in essence between the pair of them they ruined our transfer window and any plans that had been made. Both were more interested in the financial return than the club. Nis Koppen did an excellent job with what he had to wok with, and hopefulyy going forward neither Gold or Staveley are involved in our club in the future.
Gosh, a man accused, allegedly, of abuse against women not wanting to sell his shares to a powerful woman 🤔
I have one ask.
If Kretinsky wants full control, run this club like you mean it. Real estate, profit opportunities, blah, blah, blah. Make the club central to all of it.
If not, move aside. Staveley take note of the above (because of course these two incredibly wealthy people will listen to me 😂)
The issue is as I’ve stated since day 1.
1) Are West Ham really valued at 600m in todays market, No
2) If a new owner took over the Club, Stadium and existing land would the West Ham shares be still valued at 600m, Very Very Unlikely could be valued at double that.
3) Did Staveley’s consortium realise that so over valued the club to get existing shareholders to sell, Probably.
4) Did DK, DS & TS plus all the other smaller shareholders also know the potential value of their shares, You have to assume as buisness people they would be pretty stupid if they didn’t.
5) Could AS still get a share holding in West Ham, Possibly but I would expert it might well cost her a lot more than the 600m valuation she’s placed on the club at the moment.
6) So if the existing shareholders bail on this offer would they ever get an offer like this again, I’d suggest do they have to, they don’t have to buy the club they already own it, but if they can get their hands on the stadium and land, having first refusal, then all they need to do is sell off plots of the land to developers who’d likely be crawling all over it and they would probably make more money than they are being offered now plus still have shares to sell if they wished to.