Roman Abramovich Thread

[ZAPHOD2319 4,799]

My patience is running out with being Next Week FC. The new buyer needs to be named and we need to move on.

[milka 3,390]

 

[OhForAGreavsie 6,057]

On 21/04/2022 at 09:59, Superblue_1986 said:

For those superstitious type just to note that according to reports Boehly was at last nights game and has now been to oversee the home games against Arsenal and Madrid, the two biggest clusterfuck defensive performances I've seen for a long time.

Pagliuca has been to one game per reports which was the 6-0 win against Southampton.

I think if Boehly goes to West Ham too he wants to pray we actually win a game under his watchful eye, otherwise murmurs of a curse might start to escalate!

Nothing to do with these coincidences but I'm ok with both of these bids.

Curious that it's wall to wall Americans in the running to buy the club.

[Superblue 6,372]

27 minutes ago, OhForAGreavsie said:

Nothing to do with these coincidences but I'm ok with both of these bids.

Curious that it's wall to wall Americans in the running to buy the club.

My gut feeling for preference (and to be fair we're only given a limited sample of information regarding the bids) would be Boehly, then Pagliuca, then Broughton.

With regards to how valuable we appear to be for Americans - I can remember reading something early on in the process to suggest that the American line is that Chelsea at the price we are is a steal and with longer term in mind, could easily be 2 or 3x the price in another 10-15 years time. Boehly himself in an interview a few years ago mentioned football clubs aren't investments to return 30% each year but they're a stable asset to hold so I think he carries the same idea that if he can continue to grow the club and keep it challenging for trophies and amongst the top clubs in Europe then the club's value will grow in time.

 

[milka 3,390]

 

[Vesper 30,085]

7 hours ago, milka said:

 

Co-founders of Clearlake Capital Group, Behdad Eghbali and José E. Feliciano 

Founded in 2006, Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is an investment firm operating integrated businesses across private equity, credit and other related strategies.  With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with experienced management teams by providing patient, long term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.® The firm’s core target sectors are technology, industrials, and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $72 billion (£56 billion) of assets under management, and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 300 investments. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with affiliates in Dallas, TX, London, UK and Dublin, Ireland.

[Superblue 6,372]

24 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Co-founders of Clearlake Capital Group, Behdad Eghbali and José E. Feliciano 

Founded in 2006, Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. is an investment firm operating integrated businesses across private equity, credit and other related strategies.  With a sector-focused approach, the firm seeks to partner with experienced management teams by providing patient, long term capital to dynamic businesses that can benefit from Clearlake’s operational improvement approach, O.P.S.® The firm’s core target sectors are technology, industrials, and consumer. Clearlake currently has over $72 billion (£56 billion) of assets under management, and its senior investment principals have led or co-led over 300 investments. The firm is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA with affiliates in Dallas, TX, London, UK and Dublin, Ireland.

I think the key here is long term capital.

It's easy for people to look at a deal like this and think christ we're going to be majority owned by a private equity firm who are just going to want the club to churn out profits every year. 

But I think certainly in America, the Premier League is still seen as in its infancy of just where it can reach, certainly with its exposure within American shores and markets. And with Chelsea being in my opinion comfortably positioned amongst the top 4 or 5 teams in the league with regards to size, support and exposure I think all of the bidders see us as a long term investment which could be worth significantly more than now in 10-20 years time. 

It's easy for people to look at the amount that Roman has pumped into the club, but what's being forgotten is if he was selling the club outside of the current situation and sanctions, he's actually selling at a significant profit on his investments. 

I think for someone like Clearlake they're backing that Chelsea in years to come will be worth 2 - 3x on their investment and maybe in time they can divest their shareholding within the club. That's my take anyway, and the reason why I'm not too concerned with a situation like this. The more important factor on this bid will be Boehly having control.

[Vesper 30,085]

I finally figured out where the majority of the truly rich names actually linked with Chels came from (what sector) financials and fintech

(not big tech, not retail, not energy, not media, not big pharma, not insurance, not medical, not real estate, not telecoms, mot metals and mining (like Roman), not auto, not logistics, not food and bev, not even diversified)

Removing Warren Buffett (by far the top, but also almost 92, and has stated so many times he has zero interest in owning sports teams)

and two who just exploded in last several years due to crypto exchanges (Changpeng Zhao of the shady (and HUGE, world largest) exchange Binance). and Sam Bankman-Fried, of the FTX crypto exchange

(plus removing three other olds which means no Carl Icahn (86), Charles Schwab (85), and no Jim Simons (85).

(only 4, counting Buffett, are over 80, are at 10 billion usd plus, and made the vast majority of their fortunes from finance and fintech, and only Buffett and Jim Simons are very high on the list, but how long is an 85, 87, 92 year old going to own us? how much longer term vision will they have as a sole or principal owner?)

look at he top richest financial and fintech billionaires

in order of wealth and this is global)

almost all below had been linked to us (or would have been in the now dead Kellner's case)

Stephen Schwarzman (Blackstone founder, and he is soon 76, but was mentioned, and he did move from NYC to London a few years back, that said, he is bad news, lots of dirty biz, and the next two mentioned may well soon pass him in wealth)

Ken Griffin (Citadel hedge fund, he was the reason the Ricketts bid collapsed, he looked at the nunbers and said nope, I am out, so we dodged a huge bullet)

Daniel Gilbert (Rocket/Quicken loans and some hedge funds, was part of the Ricketts bid)

Guillaume Pousaz ( the young Swiss bloke I mentioned I so wished would join with Boehly and Wyss (also Swiss), the only one who made this list via fintech, not investing, so perhaps I should not even have listed him

Ray Dalio (Bridgewater, the worlds largest hedge fund was mentioned a few times, another true pirate)

Abigail Johnson (Fidelity investments, is the heir to Charles, her father, who founded it, saw an ESPN show a while back where she said she might be interested, but later said nope)

Thomas Peterffy (was deffo mention as being interested, including in interview, he is 78 in September, Hungarian born yank)

Steve Cohen  (just bought the NY Mets in late 2020, was deffo talked about, a truly evil hedge funder, was fined almost 2 BILLION for illegal trading and fraud)

 

below are 20 billion usd down to 10 billion usd

.
David Tepper (deffo was mentioned, owns NFL team Carolina Panthers)

Renata Kellnerova (richest Czech, the widow of Petr Kellner, who died a year ago at 56 in a helicopter crash, and deffo would have been looking at us)

Michael Platt (BlueCrest Capital, he is the highest in the UK for financiers) was linked multiple times, not sure how I feel on him, he is more than a little dodgy, BUT has an ego, so likely would have dumped a lot of cash into us, he has exploded in wealth lately)

Jeff Yass (Susquehanna, another hedge fund pirate, Griffin was trying to get him in, got Gilbert instead)

Chase Coleman, III. (Tiger Global who were partially backing the Nick Candy bid)

Leon Black (Apollo Global founder where Josh Harris (the Coe/Broughton bid) works at, David Blitzer is with Schwartzman's (top of list) Blackstone)

 

so you see almost all the remotely younger financial 'top of the food chain' sharks and pirates,

(minus the 2 crypto exchange blokes, and I might add, NONE of the actually crypto non exchange people are remotely near 10 billion usd in net worth, it is only the exchange founders who are truly in the global ultra wealthy, £5 billion and up)

were linked to us at one time, NO other areas of wealth had anything like that percentage of linkage at the top

it really makes me feel like we were being looked as as an investment vehicle first, and a football club second

 

I would have liked to see Guillaume Pousaz get involved (with Boehly and Wyss)

perhaps Michael Platt, the lone Brit on the list (not that he is a 35, 40, 50 billion usd plus difference make level, but 16 billion usd is still nothing to sneeze at, and like I said he has that ego to be top) (he would have been good with Coe/Broughton)

and I really think for sure Petr Kellner (who was friends with Roman) the Czech would have been in the mix has he not died in that crash a year ago

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Vesper

[Blue Armour 4,436]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10746905/Chelsea-takeover-held-potential-Stamford-Bridge-renovations.html

 

REVEALED: Chelsea sale is being delayed due to concerns over renovations needed at Stamford Bridge - and ANOTHER stage of the bidding process is set to be introduced, with one interested group set to be eliminated from the race this week

 

Bidders for the club are struggling to make the maths work on bids of around £2.5billion because of a potential requirement to renovate the home ground — as opposed to moving elsewhere.

It has also emerged that another stage in the bidding process has been introduced, with one of the three interested parties to be eliminated this week. It was originally thought a preferred bidder would be chosen from the three remaining consortia.

Without moving the stadium, the sums don't work,' a source said. 'They're private equity guys and want to make a profit in the long term. No matter how glamorous the trophies are, the sums don't work without moving the stadium if the deal is for £2.5bn.'

They will probably knock the price down. Everyone's talking about it, it's just no one's talking about in the public domain,' the source said

Observers close to the situation said they expected Boston Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca's bid to be eliminated this week, as it is not offering anything new. The proposals from Sir Martin Broughton and Todd Boehly, the LA Dodgers-part owner, will then likely progress.

Broughton's group, which is backed by American financiers Josh Harris and David Blitzer, are seemingly making the right moves, bringing Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams on board.

But concerns have arisen over the Boehly bid bringing in former chancellor George Osborne, a noted Chelsea fan. Given that current chancellor Rishi Sunak is understood to be playing a key role in determining the winning bid, the inclusion of Osborne is looking wrong-headed, according to close observers. 

'How will Rishi Sunak, who's making the decision, feel about the inclusion of the ex-chancellor? It doesn't look good compared to the alternative, a diverse ownership group with the great and the good of Britain on board,' said a source.

Even if one of the groups is successful, Roman Abramovich may yet decide not to sell to a bidder from the US or the UK.

 

 

 

 

Could be just tabloid journalism from the Mail (who are probably just clamoring for a British owner), but interesting if true. 

Especially the last part. Probably just nonsense. Hard to imagine they would let the bidding process come this far only to eliminate all the bidders 

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Blue Armour

[Superblue 6,372]

4 minutes ago, Vesper said:

were linked to us at one time, NO other areas of wealth had anything like that percentage of linkage at the top

it really makes me feel like we were being looked as as an investment vehicle first, and a football club second

Boehly gave an insight into the view from an American sports investor on football and in particular the Premier League a few years back and I would assume the others feel the same.

A football club is not something that is going to give you 30% returns each year, but it's a solid and safe investment in the long term.

I've mentioned already that I think the view from America is the Premier League is still very much a growing market, especially in their country.

And I think in particular with Chelsea, there are definitely opportunities to push and drive revenues perhaps more than other clubs. For starters the stadium size. I think the Americans are also very much in their element with marketing, self promotion, etc and will look to push those markets, again especially in American markets.

One big thing to note is the key drivers of these bids (Boehly, Harris/Blitzer/Broughton, Pagliuca/Tanenbaum) all have experience running and dealing with sports teams. That gives me far more confidence that despite some of the investors, private equity vehicles, etc helping to finance the bid, the people who appear to be those in control of the running of the club will have the football club first and foremost at mind. The capital make up of these bids - yeah they will see Chelsea as an investment vehicle. It's just something we're going to have to accept but keeping that investment valuable for a sports team does mean it needs to remain competitive and successful. 

[Vesper 30,085]

20 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10746905/Chelsea-takeover-held-potential-Stamford-Bridge-renovations.html

 

REVEALED: Chelsea sale is being delayed due to concerns over renovations needed at Stamford Bridge - and ANOTHER stage of the bidding process is set to be introduced, with one interested group set to be eliminated from the race this week

 

Bidders for the club are struggling to make the maths work on bids of around £2.5billion because of a potential requirement to renovate the home ground — as opposed to moving elsewhere.

It has also emerged that another stage in the bidding process has been introduced, with one of the three interested parties to be eliminated this week. It was originally thought a preferred bidder would be chosen from the three remaining consortia.

Without moving the stadium, the sums don't work,' a source said. 'They're private equity guys and want to make a profit in the long term. No matter how glamorous the trophies are, the sums don't work without moving the stadium if the deal is for £2.5bn.'

They will probably knock the price down. Everyone's talking about it, it's just no one's talking about in the public domain,' the source said

Observers close to the situation said they expected Boston Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca's bid to be eliminated this week, as it is not offering anything new. The proposals from Sir Martin Broughton and Todd Boehly, the LA Dodgers-part owner, will then likely progress.

Broughton's group, which is backed by American financiers Josh Harris and David Blitzer, are seemingly making the right moves, bringing Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams on board.

But concerns have arisen over the Boehly bid bringing in former chancellor George Osborne, a noted Chelsea fan. Given that current chancellor Rishi Sunak is understood to be playing a key role in determining the winning bid, the inclusion of Osborne is looking wrong-headed, according to close observers. 

'How will Rishi Sunak, who's making the decision, feel about the inclusion of the ex-chancellor? It doesn't look good compared to the alternative, a diverse ownership group with the great and the good of Britain on board,' said a source.

Even if one of the groups is successful, Roman Abramovich may yet decide not to sell to a bidder from the US or the UK.

 

 

 

 

Could be just tabloid journalism from the Mail, but interesting if true. 

Especially the last part. What happens then??

 

all this is why I desperately wanted one the truly giant (100 billion+ usd) players to just bigfoot everyone else 

none of these would give a fuck about dropping an extra billion or so on top to sort the Bridge

Elon Musk
Jeff Bezos
Bernard Arnault (only non yank)
Bill Gates
Larry Page (Google)
Sergey Brin (Google)
Larry Ellison
Steve Ballmer

OR

the only crazy rich royal family left who is not into football ownership

(and they are MASSIVE, only 2nd to the Saudis in wealth, they are worth around £400 billion or so atm, above the Qataris and the UAE (no one else is close to those 4 unless you count the Vatican, lolol) and they have the 2nd cleanest (not great but hey it's the despotic ME) human rights record in the ME, after the not so rich Omanis)

the Kuwaitis

to buy us

 

 

Edited April 24, 2022 by Vesper

[Superblue 6,372]

10 minutes ago, Blue Armour said:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10746905/Chelsea-takeover-held-potential-Stamford-Bridge-renovations.html

 

REVEALED: Chelsea sale is being delayed due to concerns over renovations needed at Stamford Bridge - and ANOTHER stage of the bidding process is set to be introduced, with one interested group set to be eliminated from the race this week

 

Bidders for the club are struggling to make the maths work on bids of around £2.5billion because of a potential requirement to renovate the home ground — as opposed to moving elsewhere.

It has also emerged that another stage in the bidding process has been introduced, with one of the three interested parties to be eliminated this week. It was originally thought a preferred bidder would be chosen from the three remaining consortia.

Without moving the stadium, the sums don't work,' a source said. 'They're private equity guys and want to make a profit in the long term. No matter how glamorous the trophies are, the sums don't work without moving the stadium if the deal is for £2.5bn.'

They will probably knock the price down. Everyone's talking about it, it's just no one's talking about in the public domain,' the source said

Observers close to the situation said they expected Boston Celtics owner Steve Pagliuca's bid to be eliminated this week, as it is not offering anything new. The proposals from Sir Martin Broughton and Todd Boehly, the LA Dodgers-part owner, will then likely progress.

Broughton's group, which is backed by American financiers Josh Harris and David Blitzer, are seemingly making the right moves, bringing Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams on board.

But concerns have arisen over the Boehly bid bringing in former chancellor George Osborne, a noted Chelsea fan. Given that current chancellor Rishi Sunak is understood to be playing a key role in determining the winning bid, the inclusion of Osborne is looking wrong-headed, according to close observers. 

'How will Rishi Sunak, who's making the decision, feel about the inclusion of the ex-chancellor? It doesn't look good compared to the alternative, a diverse ownership group with the great and the good of Britain on board,' said a source.

Even if one of the groups is successful, Roman Abramovich may yet decide not to sell to a bidder from the US or the UK.

 

 

 

 

Could be just tabloid journalism from the Mail (who are probably just clamoring for a British owner), but interesting if true. 

Especially the last part. Probably just nonsense. Hard to imagine they would let the bidding process come this far only to eliminate all the bidders 

 

 

I struggle to see how the bids will start to suddenly reduce downwards. In particular Boehly looked at buying Chelsea a few years back so will have done a lot of due diligence beyond the last few weeks, and Broughton is a lifelong Chelsea fan. I would expect both to already know the complications and complexities surrounding Stamford Bridge. Similarly if either bid had the idea of simply moving the club to a new site then again I'm sure in both instances they were well aware of the CPO.

Ironically though both of these bids seem to suggest that their preference is to renovate the stadium stand by stand (not sure with the Pagliuca bid) and if there are ways and means of doing this then I would expect this to actually be a far cheaper and cost effective solution to either rebuilding at the Bridge or buying and building on a new site. The key here will be if this is possible. A couple of things I've read and heard is that Goldstein in the Boehly bid could be critical here and could well be the ace up his sleeve as he has far more influence, contacts and expertise within the construction and property industries than the other bids.

Regarding the bit about George Osbourne/Rishi Sunak I struggle to believe this, simply because the Government seem to have gone to lengths to distance themselves from the process and don't want to be held accountable for any of it. I think any of the 3 bids will be accepted by the Government without a hitch so long as it's proven the money isn't being backhanded to Roman and is instead going into a frozen account or whatever.

And I'm in no way against the Broughton bid but it appears to be American financed like the others. What's this "great and good of Britain" rubbish? Or is this the British media slant on it because media darlings like Seb Coe and Lewis Hamilton are named within the bid?!