Dubai International to make bid for Liverpool FC

[baz87]

http://sport.independent.co.uk/footb...cle3362226.ece

Deal in doubt according to this article and Mascerano's agent says that he's probably off to Italy next season as we haven't made an offer for him.

Im pretty confident that if Rafa stays then he'll stay too. Even if the yanks are still here and give Rafa no cash then he'd sell to fund his transfer.

[Joe King]

http://sport.independent.co.uk/footb...cle3362226.ece

Deal in doubt according to this article and Mascerano's agent says that he's probably off to Italy next season as we haven't made an offer for him.

Newspapers speculating the stuff this thread has been mentioning for the past couple of days.

Agent's make a lot of noise. They are trying to hold Liverpool at ransom.

[sinbad]

Americans' refinancing of Liverpool in jeopardy

By Ian Herbert and Nick Harris
Published: 23 January 2008

Attempts by Liverpool's American owners to secure their position at the club appeared to be back in the balance last night, with suggestions that their refinancing plans have hit a snag and that their representative at Anfield is ready to return permanently to the US.

The refinancing of loans taken out by Tom Hicks and George Gillett to buy the club had appeared to be well on course 48 hours ago but anxiety created by Monday's London Stock Exchange crash, with knock-on effects in the US, has contributed to new levels of uncertainty and two independent sources have now also suggested that Foster Gillett, George Gillett's son and a crucial link between the Anfield hierarchy and the owners, might be ready to leave Liverpool.

Gillett's wife, Lauren, is thought to be unsettled on Merseyside and, though the couple have bought a house in Liverpool and are in the process of furnishing it, both sources suggest Gillett is prepared to leave.

Sources in Liverpool were unable to confirm that suggestion last night and Mr Gillett is currently away in the US, but his permanent absence would deprive the owners of the one individual whom the Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez, has found he can work with in recent months. His departure might not have any effect on the refinancing but it might alter the willingness of his father, the American partner who is less committed to the refinancing, to persevere.

The £350m refinancing of the club's debts would strengthen the position of Hicks and Gillett, who find themselves with just two weeks left before an initial loan must be repaid. In the vacuum created by the uncertainty, the Arab Investment Group Dubai International Capital has been circling in the hope of buying out the Americans.

The picture surrounding the refinancing deal is by no means clear. Some London sources suggested that the deal would be completed by the end of the week, with possibly a day or two's slippage, and said there was no hitch. The word from Dallas, where Hicks is based, was also that the refinancing was going ahead.

But others indicated that while Mr Hicks is able to put up the money – reportedly £20m – that Royal Bank of Scotland has asked for, Mr Gillett may not. If so, the prevailing economic climate, with RBS shares taking a major hit on Monday, will not help the American position.

There were suggestions last week that the refinancing was reaching the "fine print", leading many to expect it to have concluded by now.

As the issue dragged on, there was more evidence that the lack of ready cash might affect the playing side. Benitez's frustrations at Anfield have stemmed from the Americans' insistence that he proceed with the players he already has rather than ask for money for more.

The club's unwillingness to secure Javier Mascherano on a permanent basis led the player's agent, Walter Tamer, to say on a radio programme in Argentina yesterday that "Liverpool have not made any offer at all to buy Mascherano and it's likely he will go to Italy next season".

Benitez's position was stabilised after the return to Merseyside of Foster Gillett, whose office at Melwood adjoins the Spaniard's. Benitez has said repeatedly that he values his presence and Hicks, in his controversial "Jürgen Klinsmann" statement last week, after it emerged that the owners had sounded out the former Germany manager about taking charge at Anfield, cited weekly Monday meetings between Benitez, Gillett and the Liverpool chief executive, Rick Parry, as an example of the club's new-found stability.

The animosity towards the Americans felt by Liverpool fans, who characterise them as piling debt on to the club like the Glazers have at Manchester United, will certainly make life uncomfortable for Gillett in Liverpool from now on.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/footb...cle3362226.ece

[ForeverRed]

To sum it up, their first loan to buy the club in the first place was against ther assets in the US, because of the situation in the US and Canadian stock markets at the moment, this places them in a bad position...the downturn in the stock markets has really affected RBS a lot and they will most certainly be tightning up on any big loans that are going out over the coming weeks, this will make it far harder for gillette and hicks to secure a new loan. The original loan used to purchase our club, expires in around 14 days....so it's inevitable that either a refinanced package will be announced or the offer on the table from DIC will be confirmed and accepted very soon.

[Revo]

Americans' refinancing of Liverpool in jeopardy

By Ian Herbert and Nick Harris
Published: 23 January 2008

Attempts by Liverpool's American owners to secure their position at the club appeared to be back in the balance last night, with suggestions that their refinancing plans have hit a snag and that their representative at Anfield is ready to return permanently to the US.

The refinancing of loans taken out by Tom Hicks and George Gillett to buy the club had appeared to be well on course 48 hours ago but anxiety created by Monday's London Stock Exchange crash, with knock-on effects in the US, has contributed to new levels of uncertainty and two independent sources have now also suggested that Foster Gillett, George Gillett's son and a crucial link between the Anfield hierarchy and the owners, might be ready to leave Liverpool.

Gillett's wife, Lauren, is thought to be unsettled on Merseyside and, though the couple have bought a house in Liverpool and are in the process of furnishing it, both sources suggest Gillett is prepared to leave.

Sources in Liverpool were unable to confirm that suggestion last night and Mr Gillett is currently away in the US, but his permanent absence would deprive the owners of the one individual whom the Liverpool manager, Rafael Benitez, has found he can work with in recent months. His departure might not have any effect on the refinancing but it might alter the willingness of his father, the American partner who is less committed to the refinancing, to persevere.

The £350m refinancing of the club's debts would strengthen the position of Hicks and Gillett, who find themselves with just two weeks left before an initial loan must be repaid. In the vacuum created by the uncertainty, the Arab Investment Group Dubai International Capital has been circling in the hope of buying out the Americans.

The picture surrounding the refinancing deal is by no means clear. Some London sources suggested that the deal would be completed by the end of the week, with possibly a day or two's slippage, and said there was no hitch. The word from Dallas, where Hicks is based, was also that the refinancing was going ahead.

But others indicated that while Mr Hicks is able to put up the money – reportedly £20m – that Royal Bank of Scotland has asked for, Mr Gillett may not. If so, the prevailing economic climate, with RBS shares taking a major hit on Monday, will not help the American position.

There were suggestions last week that the refinancing was reaching the "fine print", leading many to expect it to have concluded by now.

As the issue dragged on, there was more evidence that the lack of ready cash might affect the playing side. Benitez's frustrations at Anfield have stemmed from the Americans' insistence that he proceed with the players he already has rather than ask for money for more.

The club's unwillingness to secure Javier Mascherano on a permanent basis led the player's agent, Walter Tamer, to say on a radio programme in Argentina yesterday that "Liverpool have not made any offer at all to buy Mascherano and it's likely he will go to Italy next season".

Benitez's position was stabilised after the return to Merseyside of Foster Gillett, whose office at Melwood adjoins the Spaniard's. Benitez has said repeatedly that he values his presence and Hicks, in his controversial "Jürgen Klinsmann" statement last week, after it emerged that the owners had sounded out the former Germany manager about taking charge at Anfield, cited weekly Monday meetings between Benitez, Gillett and the Liverpool chief executive, Rick Parry, as an example of the club's new-found stability.

The animosity towards the Americans felt by Liverpool fans, who characterise them as piling debt on to the club like the Glazers have at Manchester United, will certainly make life uncomfortable for Gillett in Liverpool from now on.

http://sport.independent.co.uk/footb...cle3362226.ece

she is pregnant and have had their house broken into twice in the last month. followed by death threats. any wonder they want to leave the area

[redwill74]

Who knows what to believe but this article is not good reading



Prospectors for gold leave Liverpool with mountain of debt

Liverpool fans were too late to protest against their profit-driven owners cashing in on the club's value
David Conn
January 23, 2008 1:04 AM

A couple of years into the Premier League's brave new billionaire owners adventure and we have now seen the most surreal protest movement ever: Liverpool fans so rooted in tradition that their rallying call is Reclaim The Kop, chanting for their club to be taken over by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, dynastic ruler of Dubai.

Yet while the Anfield mood was summarised gruffly by some on the great former terrace this week as: "Get the Yanks out, get the Arabs in," Liverpool's current owners and their proposed bankers are adamant they are not departing the gold rush just yet.

Sources close to the refinancing which Tom Hicks and George Gillett have been negotiating with Royal Bank of Scotland and the US bank Wachovia insisted yesterday that the £350m loan remains on track and they expect to complete it by the end of this week. Similar deadlines have been cited and missed before but Hicks has persistently said, despite the fan protests and re-emergence of Dubai International Capital as a potential buyer, that he has no intention of selling the club. The figures, from Liverpool's present and future earnings, are said to have been inspected and, from the banks' point of view, show that Liverpool will be good for repayment of the hefty interest on that new loan.

Liverpool fans should perhaps have been a little more questioning 11 months ago when Hicks and Gillett gazumped DIC to buy the prize club, then talked seductively about upholding Liverpool's "cherished traditions" and "enhancing its reputation." There was remarkably little Scouse scepticism then about the men wearing scarves; the pair were presented as billionaires who would take Liverpool into their new stadium, girdled by all the banqueting required to finance competing with Manchester United, Arsenal and Roman Abramovich.

The fact that Hicks and Gillett had not spent one cent of their own money buying the club, but had borrowed fully £298m to do so, was there in the black and white of their official offer document, but few pointed it out as the men were embraced.

The document itemised how the loan was split: £174.1m to buy the club itself, at £5,000 per share - top dollar - which meant David Moores, for selling his 51.5% shareholding, was paid almost £90m. A further £11m was borrowed to pay banks and other advisers their fees. The loan also absorbed Liverpool's own debt, then £44.8m. The rest, £70m, was borrowed to keep the stadium project alive and "provide working capital".

That means money for the club to spend, so last summer, when Hicks and Gillett were again praised for "putting their hands in their pockets" to back Rafael Benítez with £26.5m to buy Fernando Torres and £11.5m for Ryan Babel, that was, in fact, also borrowed money. Interest was payable at 1.5% above banks' standard rate, which has been over 5%, and the £185m to buy the club and pay the fees is formally repayable by February 5, a week on Tuesday.

Hence the moves to replace the 12-month £298m with a new loan, of up to £350m, with interest and additional money for the stadium. Arguments began within Anfield about whether Hicks and Gillett were about to "do a Glazer" and load that debt, their own, on to the club itself. In their offer document, Hicks and Gillett said they had personally guaranteed the loan, and payment of the interest "will not depend to any significant extent on the business of Liverpool."

But then, in an interview with Lawrence Donegan for this newspaper last May, Hicks said for the first time that the pair would indeed use the profits made by the club itself - from the fans, essentially - to pay their interest.

"Hopefully the club will have extra cash flow so they can pay us a dividend to do that," Hicks said. "If they don't, then it will come from our pockets. But the club will have to have profits sufficient to pay those dividends."

As negotiations began with Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia, Gillett and Hicks are understood to have intended the full new £350m loan, to fall on the club. The chief executive, Rick Parry, and Moores, the former majority shareholder, argued vehemently that it should not.

Hicks and Gillett are understood to have agreed with that finally, and the proposed new deal will see the cost of buying the club and the fees, £185m, secured on the holding company. Called Kop Investment, with a nod to the tradition Hicks has so lauded, the company is registered in the US State of Delaware, and owns the great football club via another Kop company, registered in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands.

The banks sent accountants in to inspect Liverpool's projected future earnings from tickets at 45,362 capacity Anfield, from the Premier League's bulging TV deal which so attracted Hicks in the first place, Champions League revenue, sponsorship and merchandising - and the banks are understood to have been satisfied the club will make enough to service a £350m loan. So despite the furore inflamed by Hicks' glaring admission that he and Gillett talked to Jürgen Klinsmann about the not-vacant manager's job, and DIC's interest in taking the club over, the banks and Hicks are maintaining that the refinancing will happen.

Gillett and Hicks are believed to have committed to putting in around £40m cash between them - their first actual spending on buying Liverpool - and providing substantial personal guarantees to secure the lending. But the fact that the £185m will be secured on their Kop group does not mean the club itself will not pay the interest. It could still be required to pay a dividend out of its profits as Manchester United are to the Glazers' holding company to service £525m of debt taken on to buy the club.

Hicks is, as he has stressed, a businessman, and it has seemed inconceivable that he would willingly sell now to DIC without a huge profit, which the Sheikh's private equity investment corporation is not prepared to pay. If the refinancing does go through, Liverpool will walk on, to a further £400m it will cost to build the dream new home on Stanley Park. A large proportion of that, possibly £300m, will need to be borrowed, secured on naming rights, sponsorship, Emirates-style entertaining and keenly judged ticket price increases, added to the £350m already loaned. That all adds up to a lot of debt, to finance an ambitious future.

Everton, meanwhile, are planning their move to a new stadium in Kirkby part-financed by Tesco, a cut-price deal which was backed by a majority of fans, but about which nobody seems overjoyed. Liverpool City Council would like all this instability to open up renewed discussions about a shared stadium, for which the costs could be divided up, but in bloody-minded L4, that remains way out of the question.

Such are football's mad loyalties in the 21st century, with Liverpool fans calling on Dubai International Capital, about whose plans little is known, to buy their club, but who would not countenance sharing a ground with their grand old neighbours from across the park.

Reds in the red

£298m Borrowed by the US businessmen George Gillett and Tom Hicks to buy Liverpool last year

£89.6m Paid out of that sum to David Moores for his 51.5% shareholding

£350m Due to be borrowed to refinance that loan

7% Approximate interest payable on the original loan

£300m Projected further loan to build Liverpool's new stadium

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/01/23/prospectors_for_gold_leave_liv.html

[loco_law]

Cheers for that. Breaks it all down very well.



Regardless of how it makes me feel.

[carlton]

More from the Guardian. Looks like we're stuck with them.

Owners set to strengthen grip on Liverpool as deal stays alive


David Conn
Wednesday January 23, 2008
The Guardian

George Gillet, Rick Parry and Tom Hicks
George Gillett and Tom Hicks are close to securing a £350m refinancing deal for Liverpool. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff / Action Images.


Tom Hicks and George Gillett's hold on Liverpool appeared to be strengthening last night despite supporters' protests and rumours that the American owners' refinancing deal had stalled. Sources close to the negotiations for a £350m loan Hicks and Gillett are seeking from the Royal Bank of Scotland and the US Bank Wachovia insisted yesterday that the deal is due to be signed this week, with Hicks hoping to announce its completion tomorrow.

Article continues
Stories circulated yesterday that following Monday's stock market crash RBS had asked Hicks and Gillett to increase the amount in guarantees they are personally giving to support the new borrowing, and that the new demands were causing them problems.

However, sources at both Liverpool and in the City maintained that those details have already been agreed, and that arrangements are holding firm despite the turmoil of the last fortnight. Hicks and Gillett are indeed understood to have increased their guarantees in recent weeks from £30m each to around £55m.

The pair borrowed the £185m to buy Liverpool last February and were lent a further £113m by the Royal Bank of Scotland for 12 months, to absorb the club's debts, sign players and finance initial work on the club's new stadium. They are seeking to refinance that total loan of £298m, and with interest and further work required on the stadium the new loan is understood to amount to around £350m.

The two co-owners are understood to have agreed to contribute £40m in cash between them, as well as the personal guarantees and letters of credit.

At Anfield, fans have turned against Hicks and Gillett following Hicks's admission that they talked to Jürgen Klinsmann about the manager's job should their relationship with Rafael Benítez collapse.

Dubai International Capital, the private equity group largely investing the fortune of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the hereditary ruler of Dubai, then re-emerged as a potential buyer for the club, but have been adamant they will not hand a huge profit to Hicks and Gillett.

There has been speculation that the pair have fallen out and Gillett might combine with DIC to buy out Hicks, but Hicks himself has insisted all along that he sees Liverpool as a long-term investment, and that he has no intention of selling now.

[Guest]

It will only give them breathing space. I don't expect them to be there in the long term anyway.

[Sarb]

A big thank you to Mr Moores and Mr Parry. ****ed up big time this time, could be the ending of the club. Should never have expected less with them to numpties at the Club.

Couldn't give a flying **** if Moores is a Liverpool man. He's ****ing useless

[Jimthered]

A big thank you to Mr Moores and Mr Parry. ****ed up big time this time, could be the ending of the club. Should never have expected less with them to numpties at the Club.

Couldn't give a flying **** if Moores is a Liverpool man. He's ****ing useless

Wouldnt be so hard on Moores , he is a red through and through, and compared to some other chairmen ...

Parry, in my opinion, seriously doubt he will be around much longer.

[Sarb]

Apologies if my reaction was a bit OTT. But I fear for the future of LFC if these debts are taken on. £40m a year loan repayments, no stadium and not a great merchandising set-up...only one part is going to suffer and that's the team. I feel a definite Leeds situation coming on if DIC don't come in

Rash, Tom any more developments?

[BrandonKop]

From 40 M debt to 350 M debt, well done.

[redhorizon]

why isnt G and H looking to sell up? I mean they're at a club where they're loathed. The club requires huge financial capital at crippling rates. Most of those here seem to think that the interest alone will be £50m per year. Is it really possible that paying that interest we will be left with any money to spend on the team? G and H have a possibility of earning £70m from this deal, they accept this and walk away, or offer to sell the majority holdings.

[JCase]

why isnt G and H looking to sell up? I mean they're at a club where they're loathed. The club requires huge financial capital at crippling rates. Most of those here seem to think that the interest alone will be £50m per year. Is it really possible that paying that interest we will be left with any money to spend on the team? G and H have a possibility of earning £70m from this deal, they accept this and walk away, or offer to sell the majority holdings.

They probably figure that they would make a shed lot more once the stadium is complete. feck, wish they just sell up and go NOW.