Supporters’Trust to sell part of shareholding
SWANSEA City Supporters’ Trust members have voted in favour of accepting an offer from the club’s American owners to purchase part of their shareholding, writes ANDREW GWILYM.
The trust currently own a 21.1 per cent stake in Swansea City, the proposal from Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien would potentially see that halved in the coming years.
Negotiations over a potential deal had taken place as long ago as last autumn but were put on hold due to the club’s struggle against relegation from the Premier League.
However, once safety was secured, discussions were picked up towards the end of last season.
The Trust have held two consultation meetings for members to ask any questions over the deal and initiated a ballot to decide on how best for the fans’ group to move forward.
The Trust board had recommended that members vote in favour of the sale, with chairman Phil Sumbler describing it as the “biggest decision” they had ever faced.
Options on the ballot were whether to accept the offer and proceed with the sale or not; if members voted for the latter they could advance to an additional question asking whether they would want to take legal action against the Americans regarding the manner of their takeover last summer, or retain the current status quo.
Some 927 members voted in total, with 684 voting in favour of the sale, 231 against and 12 being declared void by an independent scrutineer.
That means just shy of 75 per cent of respondents – the trust has a total membership of around 1,800 – voted in favour.
The offer is for Levien and Kaplan to immediately buy five per cent of the total club shareholding from the trust’s stake – some 47,500 shares – at the same rate as that received by the selling shareholders during their takeover last summer.
Furthermore, if the club were to retain Premier League status, the Americans would acquire an additional 0.5 per cent of the club from the trust every year over a five-year period.
Plus, there would be an option to potentially buy another three per cent from the trust’s stake at some point in the next two-and-a-half years.
If all those eventualities were to fall into place, the Trust would be left with a stake in Swansea City of just over 10.5 per cent.
If the deal goes through, the threat of legal action over the takeover, which the Trust have consistently and strongly alleged they were left out of in contravention of the club’s shareholders’ agreement, will be dropped.
While the vote has passed, discussions are understood to still be continuing over the finer points of the share offer, but the trust board now have a mandate to press on with completing the deal.
A Swansea City Supporters’ Trust statement read: “The closing date for the receipt of votes in the member consultation on a potential sale of trust shares in Swansea City was on Tuesday, August 15, and a majority of trust members who took part have voted in favour of option one – to accept the offer for a part sale of shares.”