MAKING A CASE TO BUY BLUES
As bidders line up, favourite Boehly has the cash and promises for fans
AT 5pm Eastern Standard Time in New York, Colin Neville, the head of sport at Raine Group, refreshed his emails on Friday and somewhere amongst his inbox was a proposal from the new owner of Chelsea. Neville is the man entrusted by Roman Abramovich to sell his most high-profile asset and 5pm New York time was the deadline for bids.
There has been a frenzy of speculation since Abramovich announced his intention to sell the club, intensifying when the Russian was sanctioned for his close links to Vladimir Putin.
Amidst the numerous tyre kickers and the occasional genuine billionaire, it’s been hard for fans to discern wheat from chaff. The best moment in the bidders’ beauty parade undoubtedly came from the Turkish businessman Mushin Bayrak, who having initially announced he would be flying the ‘Turkish flag in London soon’ then said he had the wrong email address and so had missed the deadline.
It’s the job of Yale-educated Neville to whittle down the list of wannabes this week to two or three serious contenders from in his office on East 55th Street, Manhattan.
Whilst Martin Broughton, the former British Airways and British American Tobacco chairman, has teamed up with Chelsea fan and World Athletics president Seb Coe to lead a bid that could win favour, they have yet to reveal who the financial backers are.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Josh Harris and David Blitzer, both of whom have an 18-per-cent stake in Crystal Palace and who are owners of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, are one of Broughton’s partners, which he says is a consortium made up of investors from four or five continents.
That said, if Harris and Blitzer are involved they will have to sell their stakes in Palace and, given the complexities of the process of bringing all those investors together and the need of the UK Government for a quick, clean sale before Chelsea run out if cash, two bids stand out as most likely to make the cut:
The Boehly Bid
TODD BOEHLY, who along with Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss and London property developer Jonathan Goldstein is emerging as the favourite to take over Chelsea, insists that he will put fans at the heart of the club and that he will emulate Liverpool’s use of data to enhance Chelsea’s transfer dealing.
Boehly’s team seems a long way down the track to reassuring the UK Government that they can do a quick, uncomplicated deal, which will appeal to fans.
Firstly, the finance isn’t in doubt: Boehly’s investment company Eldridge oversees $40billion of assets; Wyss is a medical device manufacturer worth $5bn in personal wealth; and they have enlisted Iran-born US citizen Behdad Eghbali at Clearlake Capital Group, which manages assets worth $60bn.
Secondly, they have been astute and quick to pander to the current political mood in the UK by including Daniel Finkelstein, Times Columnist and former advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron, alongside Barbara Charone, a legendary PR music executive who was behind the rise of Madonna among others.
Both are Chelsea season-ticket holders, Charone since the 1970s and Lord Finkelstein, ennobled in 2013, since 2002, though he too has been going to Chelsea since the 1970s. They will be non-executive directors on the board.
What will play particularly well with the UK Government is that Finkelstein sat on Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review and is expected to ensure that the bid ticks all the boxes recommended by her report.
Sources close to the bid say that they absolutely would never revive the European Super League proposals which they fully understand are an anathema to European fans.
They are expected to redevelop the stadium, though hope to do so gradually, ensuring that Chelsea don’t need to move away from Stamford Bridge for long periods, as would have been the case under Abramovich’s plan.
Boehly is likely to be the public face of the bid. He was part of the consortium that rescued the LA Dodgers baseball team from a financial crisis in 2012. He was instrumental in selling the LA Dodgers’ TV rights over 25 years for $8.3bn to Time Warner. That allowed his group to invest in the team, culminating in their 2020 World Series win, the Dodgers’ first for 32 years.
The Ricketts Family
THE Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, confirmed last week they would be bidding, and duly delivered what sources say was ‘a comprehensive offering’ shortly before 8pm UK time on Friday, more than an hour before deadline.
Tom Ricketts, 56, chairman of the Cubs, is fronting the bid, co-financed by Ken Griffin, 53, who runs a Chicago-based hedge fund and has a fortune of around £20bn.
It isn’t known precisely how much the Ricketts bid package is worth, but they are understood to be prepared to spend several billion pounds including the purchase of the club, and, over time, a £1bn+ redevelopment of Stamford Bridge.
‘Their bid didn’t merely include a figure (for the purchase price) but considerations of what will be required for on-field success, the (redevelopment) of the ground and the stadium experience for fans,’ said a source. ‘Ken Griffin is arguably the trump card, and the bid is fully financed. The money is there.’
The Ricketts family bought the Cubs in 2009 for £680m and, following a £760m renovation of the team’s Wrigley Field Stadium, it is now worth around £2.4bn. While some Cubs fans have complained the Ricketts haven’t consistently invested in the team, the Cubs won the World Series in 2016 under their stewardship, their first title in 108 years.
Tom Ricketts and his three siblings — Pete 57, Laura, 54, and Todd, 52 — together comprise the Cubs’ board of directors.
Their father, Joe, 80, who built the family fortune via his TD Ameritrade brokerage firm, brought shame upon the family in 2012 by referring in emails to Muslims as ‘the enemy’, adding Islam was ‘a cult and not a religion’.
His children distanced themselves from the comments at the time and have been building bridges with Chicago’s Muslim community ever since.
Abramovich had planning permission to redevelop Stamford Bridge from its current 41,837-seat arena into a state-of-the-art 60,000seat venue, although that permission expired in 2021.
‘The Ricketts bid have spoken to the architect who designed that, as well as to David Hickey, who was project director for the Stamford Bridge Redevelopment scheme,’ a source said. ‘They are absolutely on top of the detail, and to a greater extent than any other bidders, are fully cognisant of what’s required at the stadium.’