Tottenham Hotspur have ended their relationship with Rothschild & Co, as the Premier League club say they do not need the multinational merchant bank’s financial advice because they are not for sale.
Former Spurs chairman Daniel Levy appointed Rothschild to help find potential external investment in April 2024 and it was still advising Spurs when they were forced to issue a London Stock Exchange statement on September 8 to confirm they had rejected two expressions of interest from Amanda Staveley’s PCP International Finance and Firehawk Holdings.
In that statement, the club’s board and majority shareholder ENIC said Spurs were “not for sale and ENIC has no intention to accept any such offer to acquire its interest in the club”.
However, last week, when Spurs had to issue another statement to say they had “unequivocally rejected” a third informal expression of interest from a group led by American crypto investor Brooklyn Earick, Rothschild was no longer listed as an advisor.
When asked by The Athletic if this meant Rothschild had been sacked, a club spokesperson said: “We’re grateful for the support of Rothschild in recent years.
“However, given the club is not for sale, we mutually agreed there is no longer a role for them and have mutually ended the mandate.”
The spokesperson added that British law firm Dickson Minto will continue to provide independent advice while the club is the subject of takeover speculation, which has stepped up since Levy was sacked on September 4. That ended almost a quarter of a century in charge at the north London club, a tenure that started when ENIC became Spurs’ majority owner in 2001. The British investment firm had bought its first shares in in the club in 1991, before steadily increasing its stake over the next decade.
Founded by British businessman Joe Lewis, ENIC now owns almost 87 per cent of Tottenham’s shares. ENIC itself is controlled by the Lewis and Levy family trusts, with the former controlling just over 70 per cent of the business and the latter owning the rest. This means that the Levy family trust owns about 26 per cent of Spurs.
Under Levy, Spurs built a state-of-the-art stadium and training ground, gained a reputation for being a well-run business and consistently qualified for Europe. But they also hired and fired managers regularly, sold their best players and did not win many trophies.
What does this mean for Spurs?
Rumours about a potential takeover at Spurs have regularly surfaced for several years, with the club repeatedly denying it was on the market, but three approaches for the club have reached the public domain in the last month. This is partly because of the uncertainty caused by Levy’s exit and the fact that Lewis, 88, has kept a low profile since pleading guilty to multiple counts of insider trading in the U.S. in early 2024, but it is also because Spurs are still subject to the UK’s Takeover Code.
Tottenham became the first sports team in the world to be floated on a stock market in 1983, spending the next 18 years on the London Stock Exchange. They then moved to the smaller Alternative Investment Market between 2001 and January 2012, when they were de-listed and taken private.
However, 13 per cent of the shares are still held by approximately 30,000 small shareholders, and it is still possible to trade those shares in auctions held every other month by Asset Match, an online platform. The next auction closes on November 27.
To protect the interests of these small shareholders, any takeover at Spurs will have to follow the same rules as a publicly-listed company, with transparent bids and clear deadlines. This is why Staveley’s PCP had to admit that it did not intend to launch a formal bid for the club and can now not come back to the negotiating table for six months. And Earick, a former DJ and ex-NASA employee, now has until October 24 to announce a firm intention to bid or his group will also have to step back.
Since emerging as a potential bidder, the 41-year-old American has put several posts on social media to counter Spurs’ claim that his interest was unsolicited, as he was given a full tour of the club’s facilities in early August.
However, where his money comes from remains unclear beyond media references to a 12-strong group of American sports investors who are willing to pay £3.3billion for the club, with a further £1.2billion available to upgrade the playing squad. In March, an Earick-led bid to buy Maserati’s Formula E team collapsed at the 11th hour despite him announcing himself as “chairman and CEO” on social media a month earlier.
With Spurs not being advised by a major bank, it is hard to dispute their owners’ claims that they are not for sale. But many sports industry insiders remain convinced that the Lewis family will, at the very least, eventually explore their options, with the advice of at least one multinational financial advisory group.
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