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.
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.