Uzbek-born Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov wants to increase his stake in Arsenal football club by gathering more shares, according to several reports.
He has written to some Arsenal shareholders in a fresh bid to take his stake at the club over the 30% mark and is ready to offer up to £14,000 per share.
Most shareholders would have sold it by now and wouldn’t be happy with the £14,000 price tag. However, they may be tempted to sell if the bid is raised to £17,000, but we will have to wait and see if Usmanov is willing to do this. Even if the price is raised, he can only obtain a maximum of 60-100 shares.
One problem that Usmanov may face is that a certain section of shares are in family trusts and personally, I don’t see them being sold – can they be sold? I don’t know.
Usmanov’s Red & White holdings currently hold 29.35% of the north London club, but would require more than 30% in order to trigger a possible takeover bid.
Arsenal’s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke (KSE), holds a massive 66.7%, but it is rumoured that Red & White had a gentleman’s agreement with KSE that they won’t launch a takeover bid.
However, Would KSE sell if things changed?
Kroenke in his one and only interview stated that he had been looking at the north London club for a long time before investing and was passionate about it, but at the end of the day, Kroenke is a businessman.
Agreements & deals are set for renewal at the end of the 2013/14 season and if the board manage to acquire huge sponsorship deals etc, then the value of the club would splurge up.
Would KSE be tempted to sell at that particular time? Who knows…
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