West Ham investor Daniel Kretinsky on brink of £3.6bn that will see him spend much more time in London
Today at 03:20 PM
The protests against ticket price hikes and the phasing out of concessions this season have seen calls for new ownership at West Ham grow even louder.
The relationship between supporters and investors at the London Stadium has been at best turbulent and at worse toxic over the last decade or so.
Many fans believe that promises made upon moving to the former Olympic venue in E20 have been broken, with a perception that West Ham are increasingly commercially orientated.
Matters have not been helped by performances on the pitch this season. West Ham’s results have improved in recent weeks, but the jury is still out on Julen Lopetegui on the terraces.
If there is to be a revolution in the way things are done at the historic club in East London, it is not entirely clear what it animating force will be.
Why? Because West Ham have an unconventional and somewhat opaque ownership structure wherein no one shareholder has majority control of the club.
David Sullivan is the single largest shareholder with just under 39 per cent of the club’s equity.
Next is the 25 per cent stake owned by a group of companies previously held by the late David Gold, with his daughter Vanessa Gold now the main beneficiary of his estate.
Daniel Kretinsky’s 1902 Holdings owns 27 per cent, but Kretinsky himself commands a smaller stake of around 14 per cent, with several other shareholders in his group making up the rest.
Tripp Smith also owns a stake of around eight per cent, while two other investors in Daniel Harris and Terrence Brown make up the remaining one per cent.
When Kretinsky first bought into the club in 2021, it was widely presumed that he would one day take full control. Indeed, he has the option to do so at a set price thanks to a put-and-call agreement.
However, that has not yet materialised.
But the man they call the ‘Czech Sphinx’ might become a more conspicuous presence at the London Stadium in the coming weeks and months after what has happened in the last 24 hours.
Daniel Kretinsky to take over Royal Mail imminently
For months now, Kretinsky’s has been focused not on West Ham but another British institution: the Royal Mail.
He has been fighting to become the first person to take the postal service into entirely private ownership.
Kretinsky had a £3.6bn takeover bid accepted earlier this year but has faced pushback from unions and the world of politics.
However, as relayed by the BBC, Kretinsky may now be just days away from finally being handed the keys having made a number of concessions relating to the structure and terms of the deal.
Kretinsky’s latest takeover: What does it mean for West Ham?
The Royal Mail’s headquarters is just a few miles away from West Ham in EC1, meaning the Czech billionaire will likely be in proximity with the Irons far more regularly.
Currently, the 49-year-old is more regularly seen at his other football investment, Sparta Prague, where he has recently committed to building a new stadium.
Geography matters within football finance and indeed nearly every industry, and Kretinsky’s new venture in the UK will have an impact on West Ham.
Sometimes a minority investment is called the ‘most expensive season ticket in football’ because of the relative lack of power it gets you in a club’s corporate structure.
But one of the reasons that this model still appeals to investors is because of football’s cultural and political influence. Basically, it gets you into rooms you couldn’t access before.
Who knows, maybe Kretinsky’s investment in West Ham was exactly that – a ploy to forge political alliances that planted his flag on British soil. At the very least, it has been a happy by-product for him.
