DIC have pulled out

[Shaggy]

For ****s sake!!

[AFII]

There is a good article by Bascombe in the echo and the last 2 paragraphys of page 3 is why I don't believe him

It’s a bit like being told to open the door to an honoured guest after initially being urged to hide behind the couch if the bogeyman came knocking.

Whatever way you dress it up, signing an exclusivity agreement with a rival was hardly a ringing endorsement of the man who may now be entrusted with safeguarding the future of Liverpool Football Club.

[desertscouser]

There is a good article by Bascombe in the echo and the last 2 paragraphys of page 3 is why I don't believe him

Same here. I think he's full of ****.

[steveheighwayrobbery]

I think a company board need a 66% majority for a takeover to be accepted but I'm not sure.

Nah mate all board decisions are by simple majority

[Red Chilli]

well, that IS interesting

[GordonGecko]

Who Bascombe or Parry?

Anyway, it seems it's going to be GG* now


* not Gordon Gecko the wurzle.

Don't rule me out.

[Red Chilli]

Don't rule me out.

Good old GG

[Pacman]

Don't rule me out.

[disco]

Don't rule me out.

Shall we offer £5,001 per share?

I'll pop down to the bank at lunch and get a £150m loan from HSBC

[Flake]

Gillett: the perfect choice for Reds or best a club can get?


Local businessman Steve Morgan, currently away working for charity in Uganda, would certainly reconsider his options at the right price, while Irishman John Miskelly would reignite his £220m bid without the process of due diligence, such is his love for the club.


Miskelly would pay £4,000 a share, which is eclipsed by the whopping £5,000 on offer from Gillett. Will Gillett revise his offer now the Arab competition has gone?

.

I think this is more Bascombe nailing his own colours to the mast...

[Flake]

Shall we offer £5,001 per share?

I'll pop down to the bank at lunch and get a £150m loan from HSBC

Well when the question was asked yesterday, 'what's stopping a fans consortium' the only real response would have been ' a leader'...

perhaps you are that man Disco.

[cadmium]

have a read of http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=afd13746-ed42-4ed3-b2b8-4be7c6777312&k=53414

Habs' Gillett unchecked near Liverpool goal

DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette


Thursday, February 01, 2007



CREDIT: PHIL NOBLE, AP
Liverpool players celebrate after winning the Champions League trophy in 2005. The team has won a record 18 English First Division titles, seven FA Cups and five European championships.


It's not uncommon to see Canadiens forward Alex Kovalev, a native of Russia, and a few other European-born teammates warming up before a home game by booting a soccer ball outside their Bell Centre dressing room.

Soon, the man who signs paycheques for Kovalev and his pals might be giving them Liverpool soccer jerseys for their games. Because heaven knows a professional athlete pays for nothing.

Canadiens majority owner George N. Gillett Jr. is back in the race to win control of the historic English soccer club, and if he looks over either shoulder this morning, he will not see anyone else on the track.

Yesterday, Dubai International Capital withdrew its billion-

dollar offer for Liverpool, the Premier League's most successful club, when the team's board of directors decided it needed more time to study a bid from Gillett.

DIC head Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, also the ruler of Dubai, is said to be a very unhappy man.

So fill up your car. Now.

DIC, the investment arm of the Dubai government, had proposed an offer of 450 million pounds ($1.04 billion Canadian), a majority control purchase from shareholders worth $347 million, assumption of $185 million in debt and massive financing of a new 60,000-seat stadium.

In a statement, DIC chief executive Sameer Al Ansari said that Gillett is offering $11,600 per share (roughly $1,100 more per unit than DIC), which would bring the franchise value to about $393 million, or $32.4 million more than DIC's bid.

DIC, Al Ansari said, "won't overpay for assets."

BBC reports that Gillett's offer would be worth roughly $203.4 million to Liverpool chairperson David Moores, or about $18.5 million more than that of DIC.

(Say this very quietly around the Canadiens' Tomas Plekanec, the team's most productive forward in January, who's earning $450,000 U.S. this season.)

Moores, who owns 51.6 per cent of Liverpool, and team chief executive Rick Parry were Gillett's guests at a Nov. 4 Bell Centre game between the Canadiens and the Edmonton Oilers.

Gillett, a young boy in a 68-year-old's body, has steadfastly refused any comment on his interest in the soccer club, from the time hints of it surfaced in late October through yesterday.

Canadiens players said at practice yesterday they knew nothing of the situation, though head coach Guy Carbonneau joked, "Maybe (Gillett) will invite us to England to see a few games."

Nor was Liverpool tipping its hand. In a statement, it said: "The process of seeking new owners for the club is still under way and a decision on the future will be taken in the next few days."

So, like a boxer coming up off the canvas with a late flurry, it seems that Gillett is about to score a remarkable victory over a heavily favoured opponent in a battle for a soccer team that, like the Canadiens, is as much a brand as a sports franchise.

He has conducted due diligence, that is, a formal study of Liverpool's financial records, and now can formally make his offer to the board. Unless a suitor jumps out of the closet, the team soon should be his.

Gillett would become the third U.S. owner of an English Premier League club, joining two National Football League team owners - Malcolm Glazer, head of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, controls Manchester United, and the Cleveland Browns' Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa last September.

This would be a glorious addition to the trophy case at Gillett's home in Vail, Colo., Liverpool joining the storied Canadiens, the National Hockey League's most successful club with 24 Stanley Cups won during the team's 98-year history.

Liverpool, founded in 1892, has won a record 18 English First Division titles, seven FA Cups and five European championships.

But many Liverpool supporters are colder than their morning toast to the idea of Gillett's ownership.

And doesn't that sound familiar on this side of the pond, where Montreal hockey fans impaled themselves on their Sher-Woods when Gillett bought 80.1 per cent of the Canadiens from Molson in October 2001 - despite the fact that no Quebec or Canadian investor mounted a serious bid.

The fear was that Gillett was going to strip the Canadiens for parts, move them or run them for a loss to write off his other myriad business expenses.

Or, worst of all, ignore them.

In fact, he has embraced the team and held it like the public trust that it is, and he has displayed a profound caring for it and the people he employs.

Gillett's $275-million purchase proved a bargain of stunning proportion. The buy included the team and the Molson (now Bell) Centre, which cost $265 million to build. The Gillett Entertainment Group has since turned the venue into a cash cow with concerts, ice shows and circuses. The Canadiens, without their arena, are valued at more than $270 million.

Gillett has been a minority owner of the NFL's Miami Dolphins and head of basketball's Harlem Globetrotters, a vagabond troop of athletic entertainers whose global appeal is challenged, in some parts, by the Canadiens.

There's no reason to believe he would be chasing a legendary soccer team simply to add one more toy to his collection.

Nevertheless, Gillett is scaring the wits out of Liverpool supporters. So here, then, is a little something to fuel their paranoia about big, bad George:

In 1971, his Globetrotters had a 2,495-game winning streak snapped under his ownership, New Jersey Reds playing coach Red Klotz lobbing a two-hand set shot from midcourt at the buzzer that accidentally fell to beat the 'Trotters 100-99.

"I can still hear Red sobbing on the phone," Gillett told me a few years ago. "Red later said that fans looked at his team like they'd killed Santa Claus."

But ever the promoter, Gillett turned the disaster into gold.

"We had a press conference in our next city and got more publicity out of that loss than any of our wins," he recounted.

The Globetrotters won their next 8,829 in a row. Liverpool should be so lucky, with or without Gillett at their helm.

[Red Chilli]

Well when the question was asked yesterday, 'what's stopping a fans consortium' the only real response would have been ' a leader'...

perhaps you are that man Disco.

The wurzle led consortium, fronted by Gecko and financed by Disco

[Guest]

I think this is more Bascombe nailing his own colours to the mast...

[desertscouser]

The wurzle led consortium, fronted by Gecko and financed by Disco

God forbid