CC, Slaughters win lead roles on Arsenal bid
Clifford Chance and Slaughter and May have secured the leading roles on the latest international takeover of a Premier League football club following US businessman Stan Kroenke’s £731m offer for Arsenal.
Arsenal turned to Slaughters as its longstanding corporate adviser. Corporate partner and head of sport Andrew Jolly led the transaction alongside relationship partner Nigel Boardman.
Jolly said: “We have always enjoyed working with Arsenal and have respected the history and traditions of the club, and we hope that continues. I’ve met Stan a few times and it’s always been a positive relationship.”
Kroenke and his Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE) company turned to Clifford Chance, with corporate partner Tim Lewis leading the team. Finance partners Karen Hodson (London) and Jason Young (New York) advised on the deal’s financing.
Lewis’ relationship with Kroenke dates back to his time at former firm Macfarlanes. He advised the US businessman on his first investment in Arsenal, when Kroenke bought 9.9 per cent of its shares in 2007.
Lewis commented: “It’s a fantastic project to be involved in and he’s been a terrific client.”
There were also roles on the transaction for Herbert Smith corporate partner Malcolm Lombers, acting for Kroenke’s financial adviser Deutsche Bank, and White & Case banking partner Jake Mincemoyer, acting for Deutsche Bank as lender.
The recommended mandatory bid was launched following Kroenke’s purchase of a combined 33 per cent stake from Arsenal directors Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith. He now owns almost 63 per cent of the club, with the majority of the remaining shares in the hands of Russian businessman Alisher Usmanov.
Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 11-Apr-2011 2:46 pm
How sad Arsenal a great football institution flogged off to foreign money grubbers, and the FA and our MPs stand idle while football fans who built these clubs (50% Premier now in o/seas hands) are further exploited. You know whats next Arsenal v Real Madrid in Dubai and then scuttle off with the lolly. Why else would all these non-football owners be interested borrowing money (at the exploited Clubs expense) if it were not for daylight robbery eventually. Its the same greedy motivation that created the bank crisis. Football fans should unite (Yes I,d shake hands with Spurs fans on this) and start a boycott.
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PtW | 12-Apr-2011 9:34 am
Couldn't agree more. Swap your Arsenal season ticket for one at Wasps, London Irish or Saracens.
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Jimmy Hill | 13-Apr-2011 9:54 am
Agree in general, though in this instance it looks like Kroenke won't actually be borrowing much for the takeover.
The wider point is one about the game selling its soul 20 years ago when the premier league/champions league were born. The foreign ownership issue is merely a direct result of the fact that the clubs stopped thinking of themselves as focal points for the community and began thinking they were businesses (although no one within them had a clue how to run a business - bit like law firms!).
I'd disagree about swapping the Emirates for Wasps. If you still love football, just move to Germany and watch a league were they realise that without fans' active involvement there's no difference between going to a game or going to the movies.
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Anonymous | 13-Apr-2011 2:49 pm
All the bleating and moaning from fans about the game selling out is laughable.
It's just globalisation. Everyone else has got used to it, so why can't the luddites of the football world?
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Fancydan | 13-Apr-2011 3:12 pm
Football long ago lost out to the carpet-baggers. For Arsenal to claim that the new owner will be a custodian is patently ludicrous. The winners in the current free-for-all are the players, Sky, global plastic 'fans', the prawn sandwich brigade and the manufacturers of badly sculpted statues of dead pop stars.
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Sceptick Thistle | 13-Apr-2011 3:53 pm
"All the bleating and moaning from fans about the game selling out is laughable.
It's just globalisation. Everyone else has got used to it, so why can't the luddites of the football world?"
Tell the Germans that. Consistently the most successful national team in world football over the past 60 years, with one of the most competitive leagues, and Schalke 04 dismantling the Italian champs with ease.
All against a backdrop where financial controls are tight, tickets cost a tenner and fifty thousand watch mid-table clubs.
And none of them are owned by human rights abusers or rigged auction winners.
Seems to me those particular Luddites have it the right way round.
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Paulo Wanchope | 13-Apr-2011 4:03 pm
Sceptick seems to have it about right. Germans - notorious luddites, right? Always have been...
The only thing Germany has sacrificed is a little bit of purchasing power for their clubs (at the 'expense' of having a far far better supply of young players for the national team). But all that means is you haven't got three guaranteed CL quarter-finalists every year, which is fine given that 99% of fans care a lot more about their domestic leagues than they do about a European competition devalued by the eternal repetition of the contenders
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PtL | 13-Apr-2011 4:25 pm
"All the bleating and moaning from fans"...you probably eat at McDonalds as well.
To underline the points about German football: few of the national team play abroad; Bayern Munich (a team I love to hate) is the most solvent major club in Europe and they can still afford to pay Robben and Ribery; you can drink beer in the stadium; there are still terraces (inc. one holding 25,000 in Dortmund); there is much more variety at the top of the table (not just a "Big Four") and a club like Erzgebirge Aue (pop. 17,500) has a good chance of getting into the Bundesliga this year.
It also has the world's coolest club in St. Pauli where the fans recently held a mass protest on the terraces about misogynistic behaviour in one of the executive boxes. Unfortunately they're going to get relegated... but the fans would rather have that than give up the founding principles of the club.
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Anonymous | 13-Apr-2011 4:37 pm
As an Arsenal fan living outside the UK my conserns are not nationalisitc or legal; Football is entertainment and, for any fan, a commitment to winning. If Stan brings back the days of "Boring Boring Arsenal" albeit with a cabinet full of (new) silverware then good luck to him.
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