Stefan Borson drops Crystal Palace takeover claim after £230m reveal
Crystal Palace are being valued too high after a £230million bid has reportedly been made for John Textor’s shares at Selhurst Park.
That is the view of finance expert Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider it doesn’t make sense for anyone to pay that price for the American businessman’s 45 per cent stake.
Textor had instructed merchant bank Raine Group to identify interested parties for his Palace shares as he looked to secure a takeover at Everton, but that deal has since fallen through.
The Daily Mail reported on 31 October Sportsbank is understood to have made a bid in the region of £230million for Textor’s shares in the south London club.
The investment group is made up of a collection of investors from North America, Canada, Europe and the Gulf.
The offer values Palace at around £500million.
Crystal Palace valuation is too high after John Textor update
“I think it’s a particularly high valuation given the minority position,” Borson told Football Insider.
“I think if you were to come along and say here’s a London football club that’s for sale for £500million for somebody that wants to get into Premier League football, you can potentially redevelop the stadium, it’s got a fantastic academy, a south London talent pool for young players, which has been successful, there’s a story you could tell for why Crystal Palace makes sense to be a £500million club.
“I’m not sure you can structure a rationale for why you would buy a minority stake of 45 per cent at nearly half of that. That doesn’t make sense to me at all.
“Palace are a club with a very low level of matchday revenue, small stadium, approximately the same sort of level as Brentford from a matchday perspective.
“They clearly benefit from the Premier League money. They did £140million in 2022-23. We don’t have 2023-24 yet, but it would’ve been broadly similar, and their commercial is less than £30million.
“It’s a company with a revenue of about £180million in a good year. It’s hard to see how that’s worth £500million to me as a basis for a minority investment.
“But Textor’s investment level for the last slice that he bought was quite high as well, so he’s not taking a massive profit.
“I think he bought at a revenue multiple of 3.2 when he bought his latest slug in 2021.
“That implied a valuation of nearly £500million, so he’s not taking a huge uplift on what his last piece was bought for.
“But I do think it’s quite a lot of money to value Palace at.”
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