News from the AGMUpdated: December 20th, 2006
I’ll start with the story that overshadowed the whole affair - John Wardle’s announcement that “talks are at a very early stage” with a potential investor.
Here are the most likely suspects:
John Caudwell / John Caudwell’s son: Caudwell is the founder of Phones4U and worth around £1.2billion (details). The connection to City is through the club’s lawyers Eversheds, and more specifically Eversheds’ Daniel Hall (son of TV celebrity Stuart). Hall has worked closely with the Caudwell Group and according to a thread at Mancityfans last month, has been brought in by City to find investors.
Pini Zahavi: The “super agent” who brought Tevez and Mascherano to West Ham is currently trying to raise up to £100 million to buy a team “at the bottom end of the Premiership or at the top of the Championship”, according to yesterday’s Daily Telegraph (link).
Phillip Green: Billionaire owner of British Home Stores. No idea where this rumour comes from.
But the timing of the announcement struck many as suspicious. With City’s shares suspended just minutes before the start of the AGM there was no doubt what the media would be focusing on afterwards.
Normally any serious talk of a takeover sends the share price through the roof, but the fact that City shares rose just 2p to 24.5p yesterday (details) suggests any takeover is a long way off. The currently share price values City at £12.17million, suspiciously low for a club supposedly lined up for a £70million takeover.
The group who are organising the new MCFC Supporters Trust arrived armed with questions about the club’s finances, but were met with well-rehearsed answers that gave no new information.
Chief executive ‘Red Al’ Mackintosh was asked some probing question about the wage bill and season ticket sales, but replied with evasion and waffle.
So we’re just left with the vague prospect of being at the “very early stages” of a takeover. Mankind is in the “very early stages” of sending a spaceship to other galaxies, but you suspect we’ll reach Cygnus Alpha before we get a straight answer out of this board.
~ There’s an excellent thread at Wookie’s Lair about the takeover talk, which includes information about stock market rules.
Tough love
This is a great line from City fan Dave Lees in McVittee’s True Blue Stories section:
“It’s quite simple son, you’re a City fan - you have a home. You mention George Best again and you’re out.” Loving words indeed. I was six at the time, so my mind was made up.
I haven’t had time to read through all of them but John Parker’s highlights as a City fan is worth a read. Full archive here.
I also came across a great folk song about City at Mancityfans. It’s called Eighty years of football at Maine Road by a guy called Colin Rudd, and in my humble opinion, it’s pretty damned good. You can see the clip at YouTube here. Rudd also sings a touching tribute to Marc-Vivien Foe which is well worth a listen.
~ If you haven’t already seen it, there’s a gallery of historic Maine Road images on this site, which you can see by clicking here