So, why does a billionaire need a fixer to buy the Toon?
MOhAmmED Bin Salman has a 134metre yacht, named Serene, that he purchased from Russian tycoon Yur i Shefler for £440million.
On it, he displays the masterpiece Salvator mundi, painted by Leonardo da Vinci circa 1500 and sold by Christie’s in New York for £350m in 2017. One presumes he didn’t require Amanda Staveley’s help with either of those acquisitions.
That is what does not add up about the proposed Newcastle takeover. Where the fixer comes in, and why it is again being talked about in newspapers before the deal is done.
Either of those sums, the money for the yacht, or the money for the painting — it means Saviour of the World, although Tyneside loves a messiah, too — would successfully buy Newcastle. meaning if Bin Salman turned up with a cheque for the right amount, the club could be his this morning.
So why does he need to go through anybody; certainly Staveley, who was considered to have tried the patience of mike Ashley the last time there was takeover talk.
It might suit the Saudis to put a British face on their takeover, given that recent unpleasantness at the embassy, and a woman, too, given the global view of gender politics in the region, but even so, considering whose money is behind this, why would the new owners let a minority stakeholder steer their ship?
And why have the deal hingeing on Staveley’s involvement, given her history with Ashley?
‘A complete waste of time,’ was the description of the negotiations with Staveley’s consortium on a previous occasion, so it seems bizarre that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund involve a person who previously rubbed the seller up the wrong way.
Ashley is famously volatile and impulsive in business, a man who did not even conduct due diligence checks on Newcastle before buying the club. One imagines in any business deals he needs to be handled quite carefully, like dynamite.
So why would Bin Salman, a man whose wealth could get the deal done independently in an afternoon, require a fixer?
Fixers fix. They are pathsmoothers, individuals who can open doors otherwise closed and bring together parties who might still be circling, defensive and suspicious.
Yet there is no reason why Bin Salman and Ashley could not get along just fine, as appears to have been the case across recent months. Indeed, it was Staveley’s last negotiation that did not end happily.
Why then would Bin Salman want her involved in this one, and why would he want her to have 10 per cent of the club as suggested? Saudi Arabia does not need partners, nor does it need to insert third parties into its financial affairs.
Yet they seem to have a growing number of consortium allies over Newcastle. The Wall Street
Journal, who broke the story of this latest takeover attempt, later amended their exclusive to include David and Simon Reuben, private equity investors worth an estimated £16billion.
They were also said to be part of the last Staveley bid, a goldplated guarantee that took something of a hit when the Reubens issued a statement saying it was ‘ pretty emphatic’ that they would not be investing.
Yet here they are again, with Staveley, and buying Newcastle, but as minor investors this time. Again the involvement of a conduit is puzzling. The Reuben brothers could buy Newcastle outright in one telephone call to Ashley if they wanted his football club, without needing anyone to pave the way.
Equally, very rich business people do not tend to want smaller players, potential rivals or sources of dissent diluting the decision-making process.
Stan Kroenke left Alisher Usmanov utterly powerless at Arsenal. Roman Abramovich has never taken the collegiate approach at Chelsea. Why would
Bin Salman want the reuben brothers in his business, or vice versa? And why would either hand Staveley 10 per cent of the club and even a minor say? As a reward for bringing the news that newcastle was on the market? That has been common knowledge for a decade now.
Still, there is increasing optimism that a deal can be completed, perhaps as early as this week — although it seems strange that, with so much money to invest, there was no urgency around the transfer window — and maybe this time Staveley’s consortium has the money.
So far, however, the most logical take on any newcastle takeover comes not from the suitors, but from Ashley.
‘The reality with these deals is that once it gets out, if it’s not done, it’s probably not going to get done,’ he said in the summer. ‘The day someone buys newcastle, it will happen like manchester City. By the time the media find out, it’s already complete.
‘The last bid, the one from the uAe, he’s a prince and he’s got £38billion or £100bn, all these numbers — well, why would you even care what you’re paying? What difference would £ 10m either way make?
‘You would want speed, you would want certainty, you would want the keys and to get on with it.’
And that makes sense. Why a man worth £300bn needs his hand held to complete a £350m transaction — that doesn’t. no doubt we’ll find out soon enough.