Stefan Borson drops £4bn takeover verdict after Tottenham owners make new move
Tottenham’s owners are currently standing firm on their stance over a full takeover of the club.
The discussion around majority owner ENIC’s appetite for a sale was triggered after it was confirmed Daniel Levy had left Tottenham last month.
It was revealed last year Levy was in talks about selling a stake in Tottenham at a valuation of £3.75billion, with the club being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale.
However, Tottenham have now ended their relationship with Rothschild after insisting the club is not for sale.
Former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson exclusively told Football Insider Spurs’ owners are being genuine about their takeover position.
Tottenham investor would need mega-money to agree deal
A US consortium led by tech entrepreneur Brooklyn Earick made an approach to buy Tottenham last month.
Tottenham responded to the takeover approach after releasing a statement insisting they had “unequivocally rejected” an informal expression of interest from Earick, who has now confirmed he will not be making a formal bid.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, Borson said: “There are not that many people in the world that can pay £3bn plus for a football club, and that’s why if you look at Brooklyn Earick’s proposed approach, it is a consortium.
“It seemed to have a lot of different people in there because realistically for somebody to pay £3-4bn for a football club, the overall wealth of somebody prepared to do that would probably be 20 times that amount because nobody’s going to put more than a 20th of their net wealth into a football club.”
ENIC owns an 86.91 per cent stake in Spurs, while Levy and members of his family hold a 29.88 per cent share in the British investment company, and Joe Lewis’ family trust own the remaining 70.12 per cent.
Tottenham owners are not bluffing about takeover stance
Tottenham’s owners value the club at more than £4bn following the latest takeover interest, but they appear to be unwilling to agree a full sale.
Borson said: “It’s not going to be easy to get that leveraged and to put a load of debt in there, especially given they’ve already got maybe £750million of debt already on the stadium, so it would have to be somebody extremely wealthy to do the whole thing.
“From the side of the Lewis family and ENIC, I wouldn’t read the Rothschild situation as a bluff. It seems to me that that is a genuine statement that they are not interested in selling right now.”
Tottenham have enjoyed a strong start to the new season under Thomas Frank, with his side sitting third in the Premier League table after seven games.
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