Official source confirms what Amanda Staveley did just hours after £500m Tottenham update
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Amanda Staveley was reportedly close to bankruptcy earlier this year but is still being linked with taking a minority stake in Tottenham.
A former model turned football deal broker for some of the most powerful investors in the Middle East and the private equity sector, Staveley has had what looks like a poor year on paper.
She lost a legal battle with Greek shipping magnate Victor Restiss over an unpaid debt earlier this year, which reliable outlets said had left her on the verge of insolvency.
A few months later, she was effectively ousted from her position as a director at Newcastle, the club for whom she helped engineer the Saudi Public Investment Fund-led takeover in October 2021.
In another PR blow, reports this week have relayed WhatsApp messages from Staveley at the time of the takeover that appear to show personal involvement from Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman.
Staveley, who was a minority shareholder in Newcastle alongside her husband and business partner Mehrdad Ghodoussi, was hurt by her removal from the board St James’ Park.
She had formed a self-proclaimed affinity with Newcastle fans and had become a symbol of the club’s transformation in the post-Mike Ashley era.
But she has now turned her attention to North London, where she reportedly plans to invest £500m in Tottenham via a consortium of investors from the Middle East.
Speaking exclusively to TBR Football earlier this week, football finance industry insider Kieran Maguire forecasted that Staveley would borrow from the consortium to finance a minority stake in Spurs.
Now, resurfaced information sourced from official documents may signal how Staveley plans to structure the investment she is targeting in N17.
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Amanda Staveley files official paperwork
For eagle-eyed supporters searching for deep behind-the-scenes information about their club, the UK business register Companies House is a treasure trove.
Recently, Companies House filings have revealed that two of Staveley’s companies have gone into liquidation. She later told Bloomberg that this was because of an imminent hike in capital gains tax.
Incidentally, Kieran Maguire has also told TBR that the broader economic landscape and changes in the new Labour government’s first budget are unlikely to affect Staveley’s plans at Tottenham.
And thanks to some digging from Greg Cordell, a football finance professional and author of Vanity, Sanity and Reality newsletter, it can be revealed that Staveley has set up two new businesses.
Companies House filings dated 27 August show that Staveley has incorporated both PCP Endeavour Ltd
and PCP Capital Partners UK Ltd in a development that went totally unnoticed by the media.
Significantly, Bloomberg’s original report named PCP Capital Partners as the vehicle through which Staveley wanted to launch a new football investment project.
A company with a slightly different name was Staveley and Ghodoussi’s holding company for their stake in Newcastle too, although that specific business was one of the pair liquidated recently.
The filing came a few hours after The Sun reported that Staveley was looking at a minority stake up to 25 per cent, which is a greater chunk than many within the industry had been expecting.
As it happens, there were a number of factual inaccuracies in that piece relating to Premier League regulations and Staveley’s status as a Newcastle shareholder.
But it did kickstart a media frenzy, and the timing may well not have been coincidental.
Sheikh Jassim, Qatar, F1 big wigs: Who has been linked with investing in Tottenham?
Daniel Levy values Spurs at £3.75bn, which would be a world record for a football club.
Even with a minority stake of that appraisal being sought, it does limit the pool of investors who are capable of funding a deal.
Previously, the likes of Sheikh Jassim have been linked with Spurs – albeit somewhat tenuously. You may remember the Qatari investment banker from the Man United takeover saga.
TBR understands that there is also private equity interest in Spurs.
Qatar Sports Investment, the sovereign wealth fund that own Paris Saint-Germain, have been linked with Spurs in the past, and its president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is a known ally of Daniel Levy.
However, the geopolitical shrapnel that would cause, as well as issues in terms of UEFA’s conflict of interest rules, makes that deal unlikely.
The agency founded by billionaire rapper Jay-Z, Roc Nation, have held an interest in Tottenham too.
But a recent media appearance from Roc Nation president Michael Yormark appears to suggest that his sights are currently set elsewhere.
