Printer-friendly pageWednesday, July 18, 2007
The logic of this rash prediction is:
A takeover has already happened at St Marys and almost no one has noticed. The executive directors – the directors who work full-time at the club, are paid a salary and have no or a very few shares have taken control by being in the majority of the board of the parent company.
This is pretty much unheard of and, under any other scenario, is a move designed to terminate your career with utmost prejudice.
Why? Because the non-executives – those directors who either have significant ownership or specialist skills or contacts, have other jobs or careers or are not financially reliant on the club for their income – will, in time, call an extraordinary general meeting and get the executives replaced.
And getting a new job as an executive at a football club when you have moved against the owners of the old club you worked for is, well, at best, not easy!
But if you were the executives, fed up with the non-existent investment from your existing owners – the “new regime” have not invested one penny of their own money in financing the club – and you saw an outside investor whose interest in the club was being blocked by the existing non-executives perhaps you would organise a move to take over temporary power why you negotiated with the new investor and cleared the way to make the deal happen.
Add to that Michael Wilde spending Thursday and Friday at the club – yes, the same Michael Wilde who is persona non-gratia at the ground – and showing two Americans around on Friday and you have a mix.
Given the financial difficulties and the loss of appetite of the new regime, the stated intention of two senior executives to leave if they were paid enough, the incredible foreign investment into our game and you have a heady mix.
But as a public company and given the current board room mess you also have a situation that has to be sorted out very soon indeed. Check the share price – it has increased in July and is less than 10% of its 27th April peak of 64p when the club had to announce the interest of former Microsoft owner Paul Allen.
So what next. It is being leaked from senior sources, I believe they are connected to the Lowe camp, that a short list of three potential bidders has been drawn up and now detailed discussions will take place. Paul Allen is not one so if he is really interested he has to move quickly and at a price that scares the opposition away.
I expect things to move very quickly. Remember that as a public company Southampton Leisure Holdings will have to notify the stock exchange if any discussions get serious.
One final thought: the team need a good start to the season to convince any new owners that investing funds in the mid-season transfer window to give us a shout at promotion is worthwhile.
