Tottenham's official stance on £3.75bn takeover amid new Amanda Staveley twist
Yesterday at 01:45 PM
Former Newcastle United supremo Amanda Staveley is on the lookout for a new investment and has just received clarification about the sale status of Tottenham.
Staveley, the public face of the Saudi PIF-led consortium that bought Newcastle in October 2021, was ousted at St James’ Park earlier this summer.
It has since emerged that she has raised £500m through various investors and is keen on Tottenham, who went public with their hunt for fresh investment in April.
Writing in the preamble to a set of Spurs accounts which saw the club post record revenues of £550m, Spurs chairman and co-owner Daniel Levy said the club was looking to strengthen its capital base.
Various reports have suggested that ENIC and Levy value Spurs at £3.75bn, which would be an all-time high for a football club takeover and one of the most expensive acquisitions in the history of sport.
Several groups and individuals have been linked with the North London club besides Staveley, such as the American private equity firm MSP Sports Capital and Formula 1 overseers Liberty Media.
However, Staveley’s name has made the most headlines in recent months.
And recent developments have confirmed something which has been suspected for some time about the situation at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Daniel Levy clarifies investment plans
Until recently, Levy’s language about the type of investment that Spurs have enlisted the Rothschild bank to court has been deliberately vague.
That left the door open to suggestions that a full takeover was not out of the question, as unlikely as that may be.
However, the 62-year-old has now put those rumours to bed once and for all.
Speaking at a recent fan forum as quoted by the Evening Standard, Levy said:
“We announced with our last results that we believe this club needs a bigger capital base because we’ve got a lot of exciting projects on the horizon and we want to make further investment in the teams.
“Some form of minority investment is what we’re looking for. We’ve got nothing to announce at the moment but we are in the market.”
That approach would suit Staveley and her co-investors, who it appears have raised enough capital for a significant minority stake but nowhere near enough for a controlling one.
In the latest news on that front, Staveley and her partner and co-investor Mehrdad Ghodoussi were pictured in attendance at Spurs’ 3-1 over Brentford on Saturday.
That in an of itself is not unusual. Staveley has been spotted at several London Premier League games since she left Newcastle and has historically attended matches elsewhere too.
But Tottenham fans keen to see things shaken up behind the scenes will likely hope that her presence in N17 is a good omen.
What will Spurs look like after a minority takeover?
Levy has now said on more than one occasion that investment is being sought to improve the club’s capital position.
However, the current ownership would be under no obligation to funnel the proceeds from any sale back into the club in any way.
It appears that ENIC and Levy are looking to realise at least some of the value of their initial investment, which has already multiplied by perhaps an order of 50.
Speaking to TBR Football previously, football finance expert Kieran Maguire forecasted that Levy is almost guaranteed to remain at Spurs whatever the outcome.
The hope for Spurs fans is that at least some of the cash would be repurposed for recruitment and retention.
But Levy’s masterplan appears to be to build a huge new hotel at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and it seems likely that at least some of the capital will go towards that.
