Speaking recently on The Transfer Window podcast, Duncan Castles and Ian McGarry discussed several topics of the summer transfer market and football in general, and, in particular, the latest on Newcastle United’s failed takeover bid.
The saga of Newcastle’s takeover, which BBC Sports editor Dan Roan described as “arguably the most controversial takeover deal in Premier League history”, appeared to be over back in July, when the consortium, made up of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund PIF, PCP Capital Partners and the Reuben Brothers, announced that they would be pulling out of the deal, due to the “unforeseeably prolonged process” of their bid.
However, since their withdrawal, the aftermath of the failed bid has continued to attract attention, with Mike Ashley and Newcastle United recently releasing a statement which said that he and the club did not feel that “Premier League chief executive Richard Masters and the Premier League have acted appropriately” in the league’s dealing with the takeover bid, and that the Premier League had rejected the bid based on the outcome of its Owners’ and Directors’ test.
In response, the Premier League denied that they rejected the deal, as well as stating that they had “repeatedly offered independent arbitration” as a way to progress the takeover deal, prior to the consortium pulling out.
Following this back and forth, Castles provided a different angle on the statements of Newcastle United and the Premier League, that of one of the proposed buyers of the club, PCP Capital Partners, as well as discussing what he thought Mike Ashley’s intentions were by releasing the statement.
He said (44:41): “[An] interesting element to this is that my information is that PCP were completely unaware that Mike Ashley was going to release that statement on Wednesday. They weren’t consulted on it, and it caught them by surprise.
“Which, I think, tells you, one: that there’s a degree of separation now, between PCP and this takeover process, which is probably not surprising, given the main backers, PIF, who were going to take 80% of the equity, had publicly declared themselves out of the process, something that’s extremely unusual for PIF to do. So, they’ve lost their major backers. It also tells you that Mike Ashley is signalling his unhappiness with the Premier League and signalling to other potential buyers that he’s still open to selling the club.”
Do you think Newcastle will be sold within the next year?
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TIF Thoughts…
From Castles’ comments, it is clear that at least some of the prospective buying party of Newcastle were unaware that Ashley and the club were going to make this statement, which, Castles continues to suggest, would seem as if the current Magpies owner is simply signalling that he is still open to selling the club, rather than hoping that PCP et al will re-submit a deal to buy Newcastle.