Nothing dramatic will happen at Arsenal till 2009
By Myles Palmer
In Wednesday's Daily Mail, columnist Charlie Sale's headline was Arsenal man plays the long game
Sale wrote :
Those who have worked with Danny Fiszman, the Arsenal director who holds the pivotal 24.1 per cent shareholding, are convinced that the Geneva-based tax exile will eventually be a seller when the price is right. But Fiszman is prepared to play the long game and will hold out until he can maximise his stake, which could net him as much as £11,000-a-share.
That scenario makes sense. This Arsenal board are old men who have run the club well since 1986, allowing David Dein to work his socks off but never allowing him to be chairman.
Since the board are all in their sixties and seventies they know they will not be around forever. And it may be in Arsenal's long term interests for them NOT to sell to one billionaire. It might be better to have a balanced ownership structure, as they have now, to prevent rash decisions being made.
There are 150 corporate boxes at Arsenal, and the Diamond Club for those who can afford luxury, and on match days there are billionaires watching the game. One of them might buy the club in 2009. But, realistically, I don't see how anything dramatic can happen before 2009. In the last quarter of that year Arsenal will make £150 million net profit from the sale of the Highbury Square flats.
In the short term, Arsene Wenger signs his new contract, the AGM will be an hour of gentlemanly boasting about a business which is generating even more cash than the board expected, and the usual hurrahs for the prudent Professor, whose young team might be unbeaten in late October. And if they've lost a couple of games, so what ? All teams lose a couple of games. Chelsea lost to Aston Villa last week, Manchester United lost to Man City.
The key players now are Wenger, Danny Fiszman and Stan Kroenke.
Neither Fiszman nor Kroenke has 30% and that is important because at 30% ownership a shareholder has to make a mandatory bid for all the shares in issue. The other shareholders can decline that offer.
At 50.1% an owner has majority control. At 75% an owner has ultimate control and can propose and pass resolutions on his own, and at 90% the minority shareholders can be compulsorily bought out. They can dissent but their shares will effectively be worthless unless of course the new owner extends his offer to them, as happened with Malcolm Glazer at Manchester United
At 98% an owner can de-list the company, as Roman Abramovich did at Chelsea. He took the club off the stock market and treated it as a private company.
Amazingly, we read in The Sun on that a friend of Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith said she won't sell her shares. She's very proud of her association with Arsenal and has no intention of selling the family's stake in this historic club. But hang on a minute. Is this the way such information should be released? This girl married into football's aristocracy and the family is worth £80 million. If Lady Nina has something to say, surely she should speak to the BBC ?
Last Thursday David Dein sold his shares to Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov for £75 million, a deal he could not turn down.
And now Gooners are wondering about the relationship between Dein and Wenger, who have been close friends for decades but who are now singing from different hymn sheets. Dein contradicts Wenger and Wenger contradicts Dein.
Dein says Arsenal need major investment to compete, while Wenger says they don't need outside investment and a sustainable model is far better in the long term. His first six results, in four Premiership games and two Champions League qualifiers, back up what the manager says and what he has always said over the last four years as the Emirates Stadium was being built.
At the moment, Wenger, Fabregas and the team are proving Dein wrong. The manager is about to sign a new three-year contract at £4 million a year. The team is not playing and there is nothing much to talk about. On Monday 125 shares were sold. On Tuesday three shares were sold. On Wednesday, four shares were sold at £8,000 each. So a few investors are selling because they don't think the price will rocket any time soon.
I've said all along that Arsenal FC could be sold for £1 billion. If Danny Fiszman gets his £11,000 a share then his 15,000 shares are worth £165 million.There are 62,219 shares in Arsenal and if the shares are £11,000 each in 2009 then the club would be worth £684 million, not counting the debts and the sale of the flats, and anything else that happens between now and 2009. So the club could be sold for almost £1 billion. Mr Usmanov is probably right to say that Arsenal is under-valued. When he sells in two years time, he will accept a tidy profit.
Sep 6, 2007
