I realize that I probably have no room to talk considering everything [gestures vaguely] that’s going on in my country at the moment, but sometimes you read a news story and think that there’s no way anything could possibly be more British than what I’ve just read. The Guardian is reporting that Andrew Ashcroft, the son of Lord Ashcroft, has purchased a stake in Tottenham Hotspur worth as much as £100m, which could mean a further cash injection into the club after Daniel Levy’s departure. Or it might not! We’ll get to that.
Andrew Ashcroft, a businessman and son of Lord Michael Ashcroft, purchased 8,023,942 shares of Tottenham Hotspur. I’m just a simple country Tottenham blogger but that seems like a lot of shares to me. At first blush this would seem to run counter to the Lewis Kids’ strong exhortations that the club is not for sale.
So what’s going on with Lordlet Andrew? Well, we’re not sure. Here’s the relevant paragraph from the article.
Lord Ashcroft is a long-standing Tottenham shareholder who at one stage owned around 4% of the club. It was unclear last night whether Ashcroft has sold his existing shares to his son, Andrew, or if the family have almost doubled their stake by buying from minority shareholders, who until last week owned 13.42% of the club between them.
Oh, okay. So either Lord Ashcroft sold his stake in the club to the Young Lordling, or Andrew just siphoned up a bunch of shares from various people with even smaller numbers of shares, consolidating ownership slightly more than it was before. Either way Lord Ashcroft’s shares have almost certainly gone up in value since he bought them so one would assume there will at least be some capital coming into the club. Is it £100m? Who’s to say?
There are apparently rules about business dealings in the UK that say family members investing in the same club may need to disclose whether they are working together or not. So far, we simply don’t know if Daddy Warbucks is working with Annie or not, and the club isn’t talking.
Andrew Ashcroft was based in Belize, where he owns a hotel and his father has substantial business interests, until 2021 when his then partner Jasmine Hartin was charged with manslaughter after accidentally shooting a police officer. Hartin was spared prison after pleading guilty, but Ashcroft obtained custody of their two children and moved to the Turks and Caicos Islands to launch a new business venture.
It sure is interesting when we get a little peek behind the curtain at some of the figures that are rich enough to afford to purchase shares of a major English football club, isn’t it? Look, I’m not a business guy and don’t pretend to be one so this story is just a bit baffling to me on all fronts