The breaking news is that a billionaire has bought the shares of Sir John Hall - a 41.6% holding in Newcastle to launch a takeover bid.
Billionaire businessman Mike Ashley has bought into Newcastle United via St James’ Holdings Limited, a company set up to buy shares in the club.
The company has acquired 55,342,223 shares at 100p each from Wynyard (Guernsey) Limited, Cameron Hall Developments Limited - a 41.6% holding in Newcastle to launch a takeover bid.
Sir John Hall
Stock Exchange rules mean that the company now has to make a cash offer for the remaining shares, around 29.8% of which belong to chairman Freddy Shepherd.
Earlier this month, Mr Shepherd said:
“It’s a plc matter so I can’t say too much. But none of the talks have come to anything for one simple reason - I’m not selling.
“It’s an impossible club to buy. If the Halls don’t sell and I don’t sell, there’s no way anybody can buy this club. “
It’s now going to get very interesting to see if it is possible that Shepherd can hold out because 100p per share is a good price and what we had been told Shepherd would hold out for.
In our piece Monday “Are Newcastle a Take-Over Target” we had speculated that Newcastle were being lined up because the share price had increased by 30% in the last three months - which is usually indicative of some behind the scenes action going on.
We’ll bring you more on this - as it develops.
21 responses so far ↓
1 Kris // May 23, 2007 at 14:47
Let me get this stright, will this mean we will have te money spending power of the top 4 teams…?
2 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 14:47
i just had a quick read up on mike ashley and he seems quite a secretive bloke but is 1 of the richest men in england he owns nearly all small brand sports wear major tennis and hockey brands ha has stores world wide he also has shares in adidas.He seems to be a very clever buiseness man with massive profits now we have to sit and wait to see what he decides to do hopefully he might see it as his toy and pump the money or he might see it as a buisness opertunity to make massive profits only time will tell but least he is english and will hopefully understand the clubs plight for greatness and may want to be the man who takes us there !
3 Chris // May 23, 2007 at 14:47
Let me get this stright, will this mean we will have te money spending power of the top 4 teams…?
4 És // May 23, 2007 at 15:02
does it mean that we will get umbro sponsors? doest he have shears in umbro? I don’t want to have have umbro to sponsor our club….Adidas is the trademark to Newcastle!!!
5 Ed Harrison // May 23, 2007 at 15:05
reggie 22 - yes we looked for a photo of him - but they say he doesn’t have a recent photo? Seems strange.
6 Ed Harrison // May 23, 2007 at 15:07
At this point we should believe he’s in for all the good reasons I guess - and wants to make Newcastle successful (again) - that’s one way he can make lots of money - drive up the capital market value of the club.
We think Freddy will have tremendous pressure put on him to sell his shares - if he doesn’t sell he comes over as greedy - which he is - but he will not want it to look too obvious
7 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 15:20
on further research he seems a very casual bloke who is seperated and hopefully we become his project lol.yes he does own umbro,slazenger,kangol,millets,dunlop,donnay,lonsdale to name a few but also has shares in addidas aswell.he also owns 41% of JJB and shares in JD sports basically ever sport shop u walk in he owns .look him up on WIKIPEDIA there is quite a bit of info on him there .but the future starts to look more rossy i hope freddie does go without a fight but we should all thank him he has done so much for are club always backed with money but everyone has a time and maybe its his now so thank u and let someone else take us to the next stage
8 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 15:26
i did see a photo but cant remember the site but prob fake as the say he aint been caught for 20 years i do hope he addresses the fans though so everyone can say thankyou.
9 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 15:28
KRIS ill but this to u straight we have as much spending power as everyone except chelski it all depends how much he wants to put in now but yes is the answer !
10 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 15:34
just had a look he is worth more than randy learner (villa) eggy(west ham)and al feyad(fulham) put together ha ha ha ha happy days !!!!!!!!!
11 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 15:35
oh and twice as rich as malcom glazier (manu)
12 Ed Harrison // May 23, 2007 at 15:52
reggie22 - I’ve become an instant fan of Mike Ashley - unashamedly so.
13 És // May 23, 2007 at 17:12
what about the new stadium?
14 reggie22 // May 23, 2007 at 17:21
from what i can understand the board will still be in place and there is nothing to say he wont welcome the fact of more revenue from the hotels and extra seats and Freddie was never paying for it who knows the outside money everyone was talking about that is paying for it didn’t come from Ashley in the first place i know this is an assumption but stranger things have happened and maybe we should have opened are eyes then and thought hey whats going on here then ? !!!!!!!!!!!!
15 Ed Harrison // May 23, 2007 at 18:22
reggie22 - that’s certainly an interesting possibility.
16 Ed Harrison // May 23, 2007 at 20:43
Es - the new stadium should go ahead as planned - not sure it will be affected by this.
17 lee // May 23, 2007 at 20:57
One/two questions we can ask is what happens to Shepherd’s position if he refuses to sell? Do we then get a new chairman… if so, who? Mike Ashley?
18 SB // May 24, 2007 at 1:51
So Martins and Owen want to go? bye bye, farewell send us a postcard. We’re going to have the buying power of the top 2, living on Tyneside will become cool again (I guess, I moved out of the toon 10 years ago) We’ll be able to attract the best, plus mixture of Sams cunning we should be in fine fettle for the next couple of years, then year 3 we’ll be challenging for the title, once more.
Mike Ashleys Toon Army!!!!!
19 Ed Harrison // May 24, 2007 at 2:15
lee - he can legally hold out - but sure he will not - given everyone seems to want Ashley in. It will be a new era at Newcastle - guess Michael and Obafemi will want to stay. Also we have new drawing power for players now - but we need to do a better job than Chelsea -in keeping the tradition of the Toon. Alalrdyce may just be the perfect boss in this situation - given he doesn’t waste money and would never pay out 30M for a Shevchenko.
20 Major Newcastle News Stories - 24th May 2007 | Newcastle United Blog // May 24, 2007 at 13:02
[...] - as the news broke - we ran a number of reports on the deal - Billionaire Ashley In for Newcastle - plus we collected information (and a photograph of Mike himself) on Ashley titled Who Is [...]
21 James // May 24, 2007 at 23:05
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6685031.stm picture of the great man and profile. Im liking this guy more and more the more i read the more i like. Lets start with a defence hey mike.He also looks like a bit of a character and seems to be behind Big Sam
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