Football finance expert Kieran Maguire has shed some light onto the latest reported financial move from Liverpool’s American-based owners, Fenway Sports Group (FSG).
This comes after Maguire recently made an appearance on The Price of Football Podcast where he spoke about the latest news from the financial side of football.
After it was recently reported by the Financial Times (via Eurosport) that Liverpool owner John Henry is thinking about putting FSG’s shares onto the public stock market, Maguire shared some details on the matter.
He said: “What they’re trying to do now is that the aim is to float the club on some form of US stock exchange at a valuation of around about £8 billion. So what will happen is that the existing shareholders could become very wealthy on the back of this.
“In theory, fans of Liverpool could buy shares in the club, although all you’re doing is really getting a piece of paper. The downside of floating on a stock exchange is that you become the puppet of the market [and] the focus will be on financial issues, rather than sporting issues.”
What’s the background behind Liverpool’s FSG?
The American company, who were then known as New England Sports Ventures at the time, completed its takeover of Liverpool back in 2010 in a deal worth a reported fee of £300 million after former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett removed the temporary restraining order to try and block the deal (per BBC Sport).
Since FSG took over the club, Liverpool have gone on to become Premier League champions for the first time in 30 years and also secured their sixth Champions League title in the club’s history.
Are you concerned by this potential move from FSG?
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TIF Thoughts…
If the owners do decide to put their company onto the stock market, it’ll be interesting to see if anything will happen that could impact Liverpool in the long term.
However, given the club’s recent success on the pitch, the Liverpool fans will no doubt be hoping that this success continues for as long as possible.