Moving swiftly on from the announcement just over 48 hours ago, Liverpool have begun to send out official recommendations to club shareholders to accept the cash offer of £5,000 per share by George Gillett Jnr and Tom Hicks.
Liverpool shares have fluctuated quite widely in value in recent years. Several people we know actually purchased their shares for around £5,000 in private sales, but many will have paid around £2,000 – £3,000.
The deal ensures that the entire share capital of Liverpool is valued at £174.1 million, and the debt of £44.8 million will be cleared. As a result Tom Hicks and George Gillett will be splitting the cost of £218.9 million from their personal wealth. This will be paid from the new company running Liverpool – the ‘Kop Football Limited’ company.
All of the previous Liverpool FC directors, including Chairman David Moores have already accepted the sale of their shares (totalling 18,187 share or 52.2% of the total) for just under £91 million.
ITV have also agreed to sell their shares (a total of 3,482 or 10% of all shares).
Here comes the Shareholder sweetener!
All shareholders currently have favourable ticketing arrangements whereby they are guaranteed a season ticket, match tickets etc. Shareholders who accept the deal will be given ‘lifetime priority ticketing rights’ – giving them the first nod for Liverpool tickets in the future.
Finally, and interesting to note, the Kop Football Limited company was set up on 18th December 2006. Only a couple of weeks after Liverpool had granted DIC exclusivity to look at Liverpool books….