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Shepherd plans Toon takeover


Scottish Mag
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Under-fire Newcastle United chairman Freddy Shepherd wants to end the 15-year reign of the Hall family with a buy-out of the £90 million club.

 

Shepherd has faced bitter calls for his resignation from Toon fans angry at the club’s slump to the foot of the Premiership.

 

But, far from relinquishing power, Shepherd wants to take over the majority shareholding of Sir John Hall and his son, Douglas, and assume sole control of the club.

 

With the club likely to be valued at £90m, he would have to pay around £37m for Sir John’s 29 per cent share-holding and his son’s 12 per cent.

 

Shepherd already owns 28 per cent and if he does cut a deal with the Halls he will have to make an identical offer to all remaining shareholders, as it would take him over the 30 per cent threshold set by Stock Exchange rules.

 

He then intends to remove Newcastle from their Stock Exchange listing, following the examples of Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United, Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, and Randy Lerner at Aston Villa.

 

But Shepherd is likely to face competition.

 

The mysterious Jersey-based company, The Belgravia Group, have been in talks with the club.

 

Any buy-out would end the 15-year association with the club by Sir John Hall, who finally gained control of Newcastle after a bitter boardroom battle. Sir John set about revitalising the ailing club, bringing in Kevin Keegan as manager. Keegan achieved promotion to the Premiership and famously almost won the title in 1996, before being overhauled by Manchester United.

 

But the news that Shepherd wants to stay at St James’ Park for the long haul will dismay those angry Newcastle fans who demonstrated against him following last weekend’s home defeat against Sheffield United.

 

Shepherd, however, has often had to leave the big decisions to the Halls and, while they have been spending more time overseas, he has been left in a firefighting role.

 

Now he has decided that if he is going to take the flak for poor results and bad transfer buys, he should be in control.

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Where exactly would Fred find close to £65m? (The amount actually required, but oddly not disclosed by the article- if Shep bought out the Halls he would have to have the funds to make an offer for 100% ownership).

 

Shepherd Offshore is profitable, but modestly so in light of such figures.

 

He has built his shareholding on the strength of the club's dividends and the readiness to sell of institutional investors such as Legal & General (who at one stage owned 9.9%).

 

Pinch of salt time.

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He'll probably take out an outrageous loan and rack the club in debt ala Malcolm Glazer with ManUre.

 

We don't have the revenue streams to support the interest in the way Man Utd can.

 

He'd need a partner- someone who wouldn't want the cash coming back straight away.

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He'll probably take out an outrageous loan and rack the club in debt ala Malcolm Glazer with ManUre.

 

We don't have the revenue streams to support the interest in the way Man Utd can.

 

He'd need a partner- someone who wouldn't want the cash coming back straight away.

 

 

Exactly Matthew, and thats where his "plan" falls down. He neother has the money to purchase the club nor the ability to get a loan for that sort of money.

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He'll probably take out an outrageous loan and rack the club in debt ala Malcolm Glazer with ManUre.

 

We don't have the revenue streams to support the interest in the way Man Utd can.

 

He'd need a partner- someone who wouldn't want the cash coming back straight away.

 

 

Exactly Matthew, and thats where his "plan" falls down. He neother has the money to purchase the club nor the ability to get a loan for that sort of money.

 

I hope you're right, Ocean Finance Stadium anyone ;)

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I have a feeling that FFS won't impress the Bwankers who will be lending most of the cash

 

they would be lookin for someone to turn the club round - not more of the same - the increase in shareprice is becuase people think things might change - not stay the same

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The words 'ah, fuck' come to mind.

 

As does this smiley. ;)

 

If I win the £120mill on the Euro Millions i'd quite happily buy up 29.9% of the club just so that fat twat couldn't get his hands on it.

 

Did it roll over again? I hope it did cos I forgot to buy a ticket.

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The words 'ah, fuck' come to mind.

 

As does this smiley. ;)

 

If I win the £120mill on the Euro Millions i'd quite happily buy up 29.9% of the club just so that fat twat couldn't get his hands on it.

 

Did it roll over again? I hope it did cos I forgot to buy a ticket.

 

Aye, it did.

 

I didn't buy one last week so i'm definetly putting in this week.

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...e#StartComments

 

Well someones happy...

 

5th best team in the history of the premiership etc etc I will be delighted when Dad finally takes over the club and we continue our dream of a Geordie run club.

 

- Leazes Mag, Newcastle

 

:lol:

 

I really can't decide whether that is him or someone on a wind up ;)

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