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BBC headline: DIC to bid for whole club


Neil G
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This is quite alarming. Here's what Chris Bascombe wrote in the Echo the day after DIC pulled out in January:

 

 

"Liverpool insist the end of the DIC bid reflects a carefully considered reappraisal due to misgivings with the delay in completing the takeover.

 

The Anfield accounting department would appear to have more books than Central Library, such has been the time spent on due diligence.

 

Commitments which chairman David Moores desired were slow in coming.

 

Documents sent to Anfield increased rather than eased concerns. Leaks regarding the true intention of DIC raised alarms. When it was suggested DIC had a seven-year exit strategy, it was instantly denied, but the existence of the documents was damaging. The club, not DIC, would have been saddled with debts.

 

Six weeks on, DIC’s move was significantly different from what Liverpool expected. In fact, they made no bid, instead presenting an “expression of interest”.

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This is quite alarming. Here's what Chris Bascombe wrote in the Echo the day after DIC pulled out in January:

 

 

"Liverpool insist the end of the DIC bid reflects a carefully considered reappraisal due to misgivings with the delay in completing the takeover.

 

The Anfield accounting department would appear to have more books than Central Library, such has been the time spent on due diligence.

 

Commitments which chairman David Moores desired were slow in coming.

 

Documents sent to Anfield increased rather than eased concerns. Leaks regarding the true intention of DIC raised alarms. When it was suggested DIC had a seven-year exit strategy, it was instantly denied, but the existence of the documents was damaging. The club, not DIC, would have been saddled with debts.

 

Six weeks on, DIC’s move was significantly different from what Liverpool expected. In fact, they made no bid, instead presenting an “expression of interest”.

 

Well, Man Utd are saddled with debt.

 

But they are run competently and without interference. Hicks & Gillett are relative paupers who've nary a clue as to how they should run a football club. At least we *know* that DIC is sitting on an enormous pile of cash and essentially has the reputation of the UAE as a serious worldwide player at stake.

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The interest has now been seriously revived, but DIC is insistent it will not pay over the odds to buy the club, and until Gillett and Hicks agree to certain terms contained within the deal, an impasse has been reached.

 

DIC has put together a package of around £350m to put to Gillett and Hicks, which also includes taking on the debts incurred by the pair when they took control in March last year. .

 

updated

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From RAWK

 

Someone put this on the bbc lfc forums website, i hope it aint

True, anyone else hear of this at all?

 

 

Trashsport have just said on one of their news bulletins that there is a rumour doing the rounds that a press conference will be called over the weekend at Anfield for Monday @ 2.00pm by Hicks and Gillett.

 

It is thought that the Americans have had some good news today about the refinancing of their loan, and that it has been successful, and this will be announced at the press conference along with the new stadium plans.

 

The Americans also hope to appease fans by announcing that as part of the loan refinancing there will be £20 million available for team strengthening to go along with any money generated from player sales in the summer.

 

sorry if allready posted....

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The info from RAWK quote sounds entirely more plausible.

 

Just guesswork, but they probably believe when the stadium is built and generating profit they could sell for a lot more than 500 million.

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Best just to try and keep our heads as best we can until something firms up, reading things posted on this or that forum by someone who heard/read 'this or that' is a surefire way to wreck your head.

 

I also think it's like a game of poker at the moment, deep down the yanks may want nothing more than to pull out, but they can't show their hand and have to crack on that they're as commited as ever - and what's more the re-financing is just around the corner.

 

As things stand the arabs have made a £350m bid and the yanks won't accept due to a stumbling block, that's all we really 'know'.

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Have they made a genuine bid though?

 

A lot of this sounds like speculation planted to unsettle the Americans and plant a seed of doubt in their minds while they were sorting out the refinance. Hicks said recently that the deal is almost done, and it now probably is.

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Guest PaddyBerger15
Are the DIC terms they wont accept that they have to take Parry with them? Or maybe ground related?

 

Its the clause that 'Parry must be have a job in the Hicks Enterprises North American Operations company as telephonist/receptionist' after the deal goes through that is the stumbling block currently.

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I don't believe that DIC would have informed anyone what price they were prepared to offer - even off the record. That is not the way this type of business is done and there is no advantage to DIC in so doing and considerable disadvantage. I also think the price of 500 is unrealistic..

 

I have just noticed that the BBC has changed their story. They now say DIC has prepared a bid of 350 NOT 500.

 

350 makes more sense to me although I still don't believe they have tipped off any journalists off the record. If the BBC has a source it may be someone who knows about the bid but is not part of DIC.

 

350 allows them to start negotiating. It might end up as a higher bid, though.

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This is quite alarming. Here's what Chris Bascombe wrote in the Echo the day after DIC pulled out in January:

 

 

"Liverpool insist the end of the DIC bid reflects a carefully considered reappraisal due to misgivings with the delay in completing the takeover.

 

The Anfield accounting department would appear to have more books than Central Library, such has been the time spent on due diligence.

 

Commitments which chairman David Moores desired were slow in coming.

 

Documents sent to Anfield increased rather than eased concerns. Leaks regarding the true intention of DIC raised alarms. When it was suggested DIC had a seven-year exit strategy, it was instantly denied, but the existence of the documents was damaging. The club, not DIC, would have been saddled with debts.

 

Six weeks on, DIC’s move was significantly different from what Liverpool expected. In fact, they made no bid, instead presenting an “expression of interest”.

 

Not really as that would be the case with pretty much whoever bought us. The main differences are that DIC wont lie and say that this wont happen, also they will get very good rates of interest compared to G and H.

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globeandmail.com: Gillett, Hicks marriage set to end in sale of Liverpool's beloved club

 

Gillett, Hicks marriage set to end in sale of Liverpool's beloved club

 

STEPHEN BRUNT

 

sbrunt@globeandmail.com

 

January 19, 2008

 

Suffice it to say, there is trouble in paradise.

 

The partnership between George Gillett and Tom Hicks, the Americans who own the Liverpool soccer club, is in severe distress.

 

It's a safe bet the team's immediate future might involve one of them, or the other - or it might involve neither. But it almost certainly won't involve both.

 

When they purchased the club a little less than a year ago, Gillett and Hicks had to know they were in for a bumpy ride. Other outsiders had already made their way along that perilous path - most notably the reviled Glazer family with Manchester United and Russian zillionaire Roman Abramovich with Chelsea, who at least bought love by winning silverware - but still there remains that tinge of suspicion bordering on xenophobia any time outsiders grab a piece of England's national game.

 

Liverpool, with its glorious history and with its distinct local culture, would arguably present an even greater challenge than the other clubs. From the outset, the battle for scouser acceptance was an uphill battle, with the local press jumping on any suggestion the Americans didn't fully comprehend the game or its idiosyncratic business and didn't share the supporters' undying passion.

 

Gillett at least understood that kind of dynamic, having gone through much the same thing when he bought the Montreal Canadiens. He managed to defuse most of the resistance there by hiring good, unimpeachable people to run the team and by approaching the whole cultural issue from a posture of humility.

 

With Liverpool, his son, Foster, moved to the city full-time to help run the team, just as he had previously moved to Montreal, and though George Gillett quickly stopped talking to the local press, he stayed visible among the fans, employing his considerable charm toward convincing the supporter base that his heart was in the right place.

 

For Hicks, though, who owns the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball and the Dallas Stars of the NHL, this was all new territory, and he stepped into trouble again and again. Much of the most recent media firestorm in Britain, including the admission the owners had dallied with Jurgen Klinsmann (who subsequently accepted the job of managing Bayern Munich beginning next season) while Rafael Benitez was still under contract as the Liverpool manager, can be laid at Hicks's feet.

 

That clash in styles - as much as the oft-reported question of the club's refinancing in order to underwrite the construction of a new, much larger stadium to replace the fabled Anfield - seems to be at the heart of the current ownership crisis.

 

It is highly likely that by next week it will be announced the owners' refinancing plan has been completed - a tricky proposition in these times of tight credit - allowing Liverpool both to turn sod for the new stadium this coming summer, with opening scheduled for 2011, and to be active participants in the transfer market going forward. The extra seats and extra revenue possibilities of the new Anfield will allow whoever owns the team to proceed from a position of strength in the ultracompetitive upper echelon of the English Premier League.

 

But just who is that going to be?

 

It's an open question right now. Hicks and Gillett are equal partners. The first option will be for one to buy the other out - whether Hicks's heart is still in the game is difficult to judge, but Gillett at very least seems interested in continuing his association with soccer, either at Liverpool or elsewhere, where he might invest the proceeds of a buyout.

 

If either is seeking a new partner, there are a plenty of available candidates waiting in the wings, including Dubai Investment Capital, which was beaten to the punch by the Americans last year. Similarly, if both Hicks's and Gillett's share goes on the open market, there would be no shortage of interested buyers, and the Americans could be expected to claim a healthy return on their initial investment.

 

But the sense is that Gillett, if he has his druthers, would prefer to hang in - and if it's in a buyout scenario, almost certainly with a new partner.

 

That might not be the perfect ending for the hardcore Liverpool loyalists, who no doubt dream of having one of their own sitting in the front row of the directors' box, someone who has lived and breathed the team and the city his or her entire life.

 

But assuming that that's a fantasy now, that the choice is between one American, another American, and the investment arm of an oil-rich Arab emirate, it shouldn't really be so tough.

 

A hockey fan in Montreal could tell them they could do much worse.

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Is there is a better example of a sleeping giant than us?

 

We have a fucking huge following around the globe.

 

Have we ever taken advantage of it? Did we capitalise on Istanbul? Fuck no!!!

 

I'm sure DIC are fully aware of this.

 

If you go to any sport shop outside of the UK, good luck finding a reds shirt. Manc, Madrid, AC Milan shirts etc plastered everywhere.

 

It's about fuckin time we get dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century in terms of the way we our club is run and off the pitch.

 

We've always been run like a family club. We've had no fuckin balls. We've been like a clueless indecisive couple "you do it my dear", "no you do it my dear".

 

First thing on the agenda is to get that useless cunt Parry out of our club!!! :telloff:

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Is there is a better example of a sleeping giant than us?

 

We have a fucking huge following around the globe.

 

Have we ever taken advantage of it? Did we capitalise on Istanbul? Fuck no!!!

 

I'm sure DIC are fully aware of this.

 

If you go to any sport shop outside of the UK, good luck finding a reds shirt. Manc, Madrid, AC Milan shirts etc plastered everywhere.

 

It's about fuckin time we get dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century in terms of the way we our club is run and off the pitch.

 

We've always been run like a family club. We've had no fuckin balls. We've been like a sweet couple "you do it my dear", "no you do it my dear".

 

First thing on the agenda is to get that useless cunt Parry out of our club!!! :telloff:

 

All excellent points. We are light years behind Manchester United commercially & are too soft around the negotiating table when it comes to sponsorship deals. How embarassing was the whole re-negotiated Carlsberg deal which is worth less than a mediocre club like Spurs' deal with Mansion House. We need to make radical changes to the way our club is run.

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