Arsenal Action

[Gaffer]

LONDON - RED and White Holdings Limited have increased their shareholding in Arsenal to over 25 per cent, a statement released to the London Stock Exchange said on Monday.

The company, whose chairman is David Dein, the former Arsenal vice-chairman, is owned by Russian metals billionaire Alisher Usmanov and his business associate Farhad Moshiri, a London-based investor.

Their new purchase still left Red and White some five percent short of the minimium 30 per cent stake that would require them to launch a formal takeover bid under Stock Exchange rules.

In its statement, Red and White said the increase in their shareholding was 'in line with Red and White's previously stated intention to secure a significant shareholding in Arsenal and ensure that its position is protected'.

The statement added: 'We are pleased to have now secured over a quarter of the shares of Arsenal.

'We are committed long-term investors and supporters of the club and are comfortable that we are now in a protected position.

'We also welcome the strengthening of the squad and look forward to a successful conclusion to the season.' -- AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2B ... 39349.html

[stevedon]

I think Dein's intentions are clear....it's probably just a matter of time. Not qualifying for the CL adds extra pressure for change.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-488317/New-lock-agreement-Arsenal-shareholders-freeze-Usmanov.html

[Attila]

David Dein has been proven 100% right

He said that Arsenal would fall behind without money and mayor investment!

Bring him back ASAP

[Jason Goldstein]

Ivan Gazidis hiring three executives for Arsenal team.


It's happening at last !

Its taken 100 years but it's happening now.

It's happening nine years into the 21st century.

REALISE THIS : The history of Arsenal is the history of an executive vacuum.

It was a gentleman's club run by two Secretaries, Bob Wall and Ken Friar.

The directors lacked ambition but enjoyed the perks.

They ran it for the fans but very rarely signed star players .

Hill-Wood inherited his season ticket and a stagnating club jogged along until David Dein arrived to move Arsenal forward after 1983.

Then the board basked in the glory George Graham and Arsene Wenger brought to the club from 1987 to 2004.

When Danny Fiszman sacked Dein, then Keith Edelman, there was no CEO for eight months.

It was ridiculous, as I often said on ANR.

They had nobody to drive the business because Danny is better at sacking people than he is at hiring them.

When Ivan Gazidis arrived in January, he made a difference, signing Arshavin, a superstar to excite the fans and the boxes and make people renew.

Gazidis is a football guy, fan-friendly, a bridge-builder, a team player, a seeker of concensus, a listener who is responsive to what people want to do

For three years AFC had behaved as if it was still at little old Highbury.

I was tearing my hair out and screaming obscenities and saying, "Jesus Christ! They need an executive chairman who is a charmer who can travel the world and make deals, AND a chief executive. There is so much work to be done ! One man can't do it all !"

Ivan Gazidis has changed that by his ad in The Sunday Times.

He wants a business lawyer, an HR director, and a "talented business executive, perhaps with the strategy consultancy, legal, accountancy or economics background" and "experience gained in professional services, private equity and/or a corporate environment."

The year 2009 is notable for two signings : Gazidis and Arshavin.

Everything else is forgettable, minor, irrelevant.

Thank you, Stan Kroenke !
http://www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/inde ... eturnid=42

[stevedon]

Very interesting, and well said.

[Roger Milla]

Official announcements were made to the PLUS market towards the close of business today (Friday 1 May 2009) that Stan Kroenke has acquired a further 4,839 Arsenal Holdings shares to take his total stake in the club’s holding company to 17,613 shares, or 28.3% of the total 62,217 issued.

The shares have been bought from the “Carr family” including long-standing director Richard Carr, a member of the Bracewell-Smith family which has been represented on the Arsenal board for three generations. Richard Carr was recently demoted from the board of the holding company to the board of the football club, a wholly owned subsidiary. The assumption is that the remaining shares were purchased from Lady Sarah Phipps-Bagge, another Bracewell-Smith family member.

It is difficult at this stage to know exactly where this continuing saga will end. What we do know for certain is that Stan Kroenke and Danny Fiszman now own 44.4% of the club’s shares between them, adding Fiszman’s remaining 16.1% stake (10,025 shares) to Silent Stan’s enhanced holding. This effectively gives them control of the club and the board of directors. All the other directors have either very small or no shareholding.

The remaining large shareholders are Alisher Usmanov’s Red & White Holdings on 15,555 shares (25%) and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith (who is a family member by marriage, ownership of her Arsenal Holdings shares having been transferred to her from her ailing husband) on 9,893 (15.9%). These holdings amount to 85.3%, the remainder are in the hands of smaller shareholders such as the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust.

When considering any publicly quoted business (or some of the bigger private businesses for that matter) it’s important to distinguish ownership from control. Whilst the Kroenke/Fiszman shareholding works together it effectively controls the club, despite falling short of an absolute majority of the shares.

My working assumption is that Kroenke has bought the Carr shares on credit, as he did with the Fiszman shares he bought a while back. At the prices quoted he will have agreed to pay something north of £90 million for his enhanced stake from Fiszman and the Carrs.

Seasoned observers I’ve spoken to see no reason why Kroenke would take his holding over 30%. This would trigger an automatic mandatory bid for the remaining 55.6% of the shares in issue. The price he’d have to offer would be £10,500 a share or more than £362 million. Why would he do that? He has control already. He’s already lashed out or committed himself to around £165 million, including the Arsenal Holdings shares he bought from ITV plc along with its 50% stake in Arsenal Broadband Ltd, the shares he picked up on the PLUS market, and his purchases from Fiszman and the Carr family.

The big “loser” in all this is Lady Nina. She’s got her nose pressed against the glass looking in. The huge holding she controls doesn’t even get her a cup of tea and a smile anymore. Likewise, Alisher Usmanov is a loser. He had had his trousers well and truly pulled down by the recession, the collapse of the Rouble and weak demand and huge debt in his main businesses of mining and steel, two areas you do NOT want to be in a recession.

There is I suppose the possibility that Red & White Holdings could “go nuclear” and make a claim to the City Takeover Panel that Danny Fiszman and Stan Kroenke are a “concert party”, that is working together and that their holding should be considered together. This could force Kroenke and Fiszman into making a mandatory bid. I doubt they will do this however. Usmanov has his own blues with his businesses in Russia. I shouldn’t think he wants to fight a two-front war at the moment.

That’s it for now. Nice timing chaps. Not. Just before our single biggest game since the 2006 Champions League Final. Thanks for that. Couldn’t you at least have waited until after Tuesday? Better still until the end of the season? We DON’T need the distraction at the moment. And, NO, you can’t have my share – at any price.
http://www.arsenaltrust.org/join.php

[Simplesimon]

Hey in no fuckin way should this be detrimental to our playin staff...... these boys need to focus not on who is paying their wages but what they are playin for which is ARSENAL FC end of. At the end of the day i support ARSENAL FC for better or worse.
My Mrs not got that sorta devotion LOL