Fale close to buying Warriors
Richard Fale has agreed to a conditional price for the Warriors and could take ownership of the club by next Friday.
In a revealing interview with Glen Larmer on Trackside Radio on Tuesday morning, Fale, the Hawaiian based businessman, said he had agreed a price with current Warriors owner Eric Watson, subject to the numbers stacking up.
Fale said he and his team would be crunching those figures over the next few days, and by Friday will know if he’s going ahead with the purchase. If the answer’s yes, he will sign the documents the following Friday.
‘‘We’re really close,’’ Fale told Trackside Radio.
‘‘We’re here with boots on the ground to do a verification of all the numbers and verify everything we’ve been communicating about, which we’ve occurred primarily over the telephone and email.
‘‘We’ve brought our mergers and acquisition specialist over from New York City and he’s going to take a blowtorch and sledgehammer to everything, to make sure everything’s panning out the way we think it is and then we’ll take it forward from there.’’
Fale said he was ‘‘very confident’’ that he’d soon own the Warriors
‘‘Everything we’ve come across so far has given us that indication, so everything’s looking really good,’’ he said.
It has been reported that the price of the Warriors would be around $24 million and that doesn’t appear to be an issue for Fale and his consortium.
‘‘It’s contingent on all of the work we’re going to be doing here on the ground,’’ he said.
‘‘Once that’s completed we’ll have that all set in stone.
‘‘The extent to how these numbers speak to us over the next few days are going to be absolutely critical,’’ he added.
‘‘Everything we’ve looked at so far indicates we’re in a great spot. But we could find something out today or tomorrow.’’
Although Fale had previously raised the possibility of bringing in Craig Bellamy as coach, he said he‘d like to stick with the current coaching regime, to see if the hard work over the offseason turns around the club’s fortunes.
‘‘We don’t pretend to be subject matter experts in the game of rugby league itself,’’ Fale said.
‘‘So we’re going to essentially allow the seeds that have been planted to bear fruit.
‘‘It was a fantastic game last week (against the Rabbitohs, winning 32-20) and I’m looking forward to seeing what the performance is going to be like this Saturday.
‘‘Our primary focus of subject matter is the front office and commercial segment of the organisation.
‘‘It seems like they’ve started off on the right foot and you’ve got to give these guys a chance to deliver on all of their hard work.’’