The money is there to buy football clubs, but valuations will have to be more realistic. That is the view of Keith Harris, the executive chairman of investment bank Seymour Pierce. In the case of Liverpool, this means that the owners will have to slash 20 per cent from the asking price if they want to sell the club. Last year they failed to achieve a sale with an asking price of £500m.
The money is there to buy football clubs, but valuations will have to be more realistic. That is the view of Keith Harris, the executive chairman of investment bank Seymour Pierce. In the case of Liverpool, this means that the owners will have to slash 20 per cent from the asking price if they want to sell the club. Last year they failed to achieve a sale with an asking price of £500m. Mr Harris said that the days of the leveraged deals that allowed Malcolm Glazer to buy champions Manchester United by piling his purchasing debt back on the club and the high-risk strategy of the Liverpool owners is probably over. Harris said, ‘Banks are either incapable or unwilling to lend money on a leveraged basis. Instead we are now looking at institutions, corporations or individuals who have disposal cash. There is a cocktail of potential owners – a sheikh, an industrialist, a financier, every kind of buyer.’ In the case of Liverpool signs of an end to the credit crisis may give the club’s owners a breathing space by successfully renegotiating their £350m debt which is due for payment in July to Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia.
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