Tottenham have been for sale for a long time – far longer than since last April, when Daniel Levy first announced he was seeking external investment in the club.
Privately, ENIC have said for years that they would consider selling a portion of their stakes at the right price. No wonder, really, when so much of their wealth is wrapped up in Tottenham.
In a tale as old as time, Daniel Levy’s asking price for Spurs is said to be a sticking point. But there has been genuine interest in the North Londoners, some of it public, some of it under wraps.
Via her PCP Capital Partners investment group, former Newcastle United director Amanda Staveley was said to be exploring a £500m minority stake in the club. It has been almost a year since that story first broke, however, and there has been little in the way of updates since.
Earlier, the private equity firm MSP Sports Capital was linked. They conducted due diligence on Spurs with a view to a full takeover, but nothing materialised. Similarly, another U.S. investment firm, Liberty Media, has also been loosely linked. Again, though, no dice.
Crystal Palace shareholder David Blitzer is another name mentioned in football finance circles, though he would need to first divest his stake in the Premier League club he already co-owns. But given that John Textor will soon be out the way, the prolific sports investor may now be in no hurry to leave Selhurst Park.
One name that has never gone away is Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), the sovereign wealth-backed fund fronted by Paris Saint-Germain and beIN Sports supremo Nasser Al-Khelaiffi.
Al-Khelaifi has met with Levy for investment talks a few years ago, though both parties have always denied the substance of the meeting. If they were ever to pitch up in North London, it would be an extraordinarily complex deal because of their involvement with PSG.
And as a new development highlights, another layer could complicate the would-be investment.
Could QSI’s interest in Tottenham be a conflict of interest at Premier League level?
In Ligue 1, Al-Khelaifi is the dominant presence at shareholder meetings because of both his link with PSG and his position as the president of one of the league’s biggest broadcasters, beIN.
In fact, in the absence of DAZN, who recently cancelled their partnership with Ligue 1, beIN are the league’s only domestic broadcaster.
BeIN are also a major partner of the Premier League and recently struck a new £550m deal to air the competition in the Middle East and North Africa.
If QSI took over Spurs or bought into the club on a minority basis, could their links to the broadcaster be considered a conflict of interest? Probably not – but the government blocked BSkyB’s proposed takeover of Manchester United in 1998 because the Sky Sports connection was deemed too deep. In the modern era, Aston Villa are co-owned by the private equity firm Atairos, who are funded by Comcast, who own Sky.
“We’ve got the same situation with PSG,” says University of Liverpool football finance lecturer Kieran Maguire, speaking exclusively to TRB Football.
“With the broadening of portfolio interests we’re seeing today, and with sport – football in particular – now viewed as part of the entertainment industry, it makes sense that whoever is broadcasting that entertainment would want a closer relationship with it. You can see the logic from BeIN’s point of view: having both a content producer (the club) and a content distributor (the broadcaster) under the same umbrella.”
When will the Spurs takeover or minority investment actually happen?
As well as the price issue, there are several factors said to be holding up the potential sale of Tottenham – some of them coming from the buy side, others from the sell side.
Among those is the fact that the lenders that supplied Spurs with the loans for their new stadium have change-of-control clauses that would allow them to renegotiate at a higher rate if there is a takeover. For Spurs, that would likely mean paying much higher interest, as Levy secured such a sweet deal the first time around. Simply put, the deal might be too good to walk away from.
On the flip side, several sets of talks are said to have collapsed over confusion over who would actually run the club after the deal is complete.
Multiple reports have suggested that Levy would demand a management contract to continue acting as chairman in the event of a full or partial sale. So what is in it exactly for a new partner, especially if it is a minority deal with limited control?
The club also has 30,000 minority shareholders who may need to be bought out in the event of a full takeover. If QSI are interested, it seems likely they would want 100 per cent control.
So, there are myriad factors that suggest that a deal is not close.
Even when a suitable partner is found, the machinations of the deal itself will likely take several months to play out, with both in-house and external checks demanding a lot of time.