With the £350 million ticking timebomb of debt that Liverpool FC hold approaching it’s summer repayment date, the pressure on Tom Hicks and George Gillett to sort out the finances of the club are under immense pressure.
The £350 Million is effectively a loan taken out by the owners to cover the purchase of the club, enabling them to avoid dipping in to their own wealth to purchase the club outright.
However, it seems highly unlikely that another institution will be happy with to loan the duo this amount and the two options facing the owners are to sell the club, or to finally fund the club purchase themselves.
George Gillett in particular has looked the most likely to walk away from Anfield out of the pair, but according to a report in the Daily Post, he could be willing to even dispense with his stake in his much-loved Montreal Canadiens ice-hockey franchise.
North-American based BMO Capital Markets have been hired to take stock of Gillett’s assets, and is considering anything from a restructuring of his interests to a sell-off.
The Canadiens team-president Pierre Boivin said:
“The process has been started but we’re only at the beginning.
“We’re not hiding it; we’re going through a very difficult economic period.
“Banks are reticent to finance even very good projects. We see it in real estate.
“These (BMO) advisers will make sure to maximise the company’s assets and re-orient if needed the Gillett family’s financial strategies.”
The Montreal Canadiens could be worth around £250 million, but with debts – surprise, surprise – of around £180 million, even the sale would only give Gillett around £70 million – not even enough to fund his 50% purchase of the reds.
Speaking last night Jay McKenna, of fan group Spirit of Shankly, said:
“If they are having to sell stakes in other sports franchises, as they call them, it shows that they have not got the financial clout that they claimed they had.”
Too true.
Sorry Simon Borg I agree with Dave B you must be one of the few that likes the Yanks. They have cost the club far to much and not just talking about the money. Bring back the Kuwaits with the dosh. Good month so far put the icing on the cake ie see the yanks sell up.
No Simon Borg your nuts! They should have given Rafa his new contract straight away rather than letting it drag on and on for months, them and Rick Parry have made a complete farse of everything they’ve done since they bought the club. It now looks as though Agger is going to leave aswell. I hope he does sell his stake in Liverpool rather than that ice hockey team because as far as I can see he’s the idiot of the two, at least Hicks talks to the media to explain things. Losing one of them at least can only be a good thing.
i think most banks are putting the squeeze on the top feeders to get there hands on cash. then they will have so much power. the banks have there own sets of problems. just a case of the donimoes are affecting big time sports now. everything is fair game now. hope liverpool can survive or will they in turn to bankruptcy
Give these two a break! They are doing there best to give us a new stadium they gave Rafa a fat new contract to keep the best Manager in the world with us.Not only I hear thy backed him with over 100Million. Backed Benitez in signing Torres Skyrtel Agger Reina Mascherano and so on. Your all bloody nuts! These two are going to land us the TITLE!