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Legal team told Christmas cancelled as need to work on completing sale of Newcastle United according to Friday report

5 years ago
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Is Mike Ashley close to selling Newcastle United?

Well whatever the truth of that, we are certainly seeing an acceleration in terms of exclusives in the media, claiming to know what is happening.

Friday morning has already seen The Sun run an exclusive reporting/claiming that after three months of trying, Peter Kenyon is still £100m short of buying the club.

However, that has now been followed by more positive claims in another exclusive this Friday morning from The Daily Star.

They say that their information is that a deal could be imminent to being completed in the new year, with sources said to have told them that the legal team working on Peter Kenyon’s behalf, have had their holidays cancelled over the festive period.

Obviously the fact that the newspaper has actually named the law firm involved appears to give the report more credibility than most, which tend to be big on headlines but short on detail.

Walker Morris is a commercial law firm based in Leeds and no reason to doubt the report’s claims that they are working for Peter Kenyon.

Though it remains to be seen whether this all equates to a sale of the club, as some of the other claims in the report don’t exactly help…

Daily Star: (This ‘exclusive’ is also being ran under the Express banner by the same author, both newspapers (as well as the likes of The Mirror, Sunday People, Chronicle etc) are all owned by the same company, Reach, which used to be called Trinity Mirror)

‘Newcastle takeover EXCLUSIVE: Mike Ashley close to £300m New Year sale to Peter Kenyon

MIKE ASHLEY is increasingly confident that a £300m deal to sell Newcastle will be finalised in the New Year.

A consortium fronted by former Chelsea and Manchester United chief executive Peter Kenyon are close to agreeing a price for the club.

And crucially, Starsport can reveal that the legal team at law firm Walker Morris, who are working on the sale with Kenyon, have been told that all Christmas leave has been cancelled.

And the buyers too are keen to get their feet under the table as soon as possible.

Kenyon’s consortium includes Rockefeller Capital Movement, based in New York and while other parties remain in the background, they are the main group with the financial muscle to invest heavily into to the club.

The US firm has more than £18bn of assets and regards Premier League football – and particularly sleeping giant Newcastle, with 50,000 plus crowds for every home game – as a risk-free investment.

Twelve months ago, a takeover bid led by Amanda Staveley was dismissed out of hand by Ashley but for the past two months, there has been regular contact between his people and Kenyon.’

A bit unfortunate that they get the name of Rockefeller Capital Management (not Movement) wrong but far more worrying than that, is the fact there is a complete misunderstanding of what exactly the role of Rockefeller Capital Management would be, if indeed they did help Peter Kenyon to put a successful bid together to buy Newcastle United.

This is from the Rockefeller Capital Management website under ‘Who we are’:

‘Rockefeller Capital Management has approximately $18.6 billion in assets under advisement for individuals and families, family offices, nonprofit organizations, foundations, endowments, and global institutions.

As of September 30, 2018. This number includes net assets under management of approximately $13.3 billion plus approximately $5.3 billion in advisory assets. Advised assets represent non-managed assets that receive services, such as consulting for open architecture programs or other non-managed investment assignments.’

The Star talking of Rockefeller Capital Management having ‘more than £18bn of assets’ is simply not the case, it is their clients who have that £18bn of assets and Rockefeller advise them regarding those assets, earning fees and commission for doing so.

So if they did help Peter Kenyon put together investors and a successful bid for Newcastle United, they would earn a commission for doing so.

If there is a buyer for Newcastle United it won’t be Rockefeller Capital Management, it would instead be clients of theirs.

We went through all of this a year ago, Amanda Staveley was never going to be the one putting the money up to buy Newcastle United, if it had happened it would have been investor(s) putting the money up and Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners getting a commission for helping to do it.

A bit like Rockefeller Capital Management advising clients on managing $18.6bn of assets, Amanda Staveley/PCP Capital Partners is a financial advisory firm, which is said to have access to a £28bn fund of investors’ money.

As in Amanda Staveley would/will put investment opportunities in front of clients she works on behalf of, then they decide to whether to invest.

Of course, the only media report Newcastle fans want to see is one where Mike Ashley is handing the keys to St James Park over to new owners.

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